Unit I: Branding

What you’ll learn to do: discuss the role of packaging in the brand-building process

Imagine yourself standing in the aisle of a grocery store, scanning the shelves and trying to decide which product brand to buy. What catches your eye? What makes you pick something and take a closer look? What influences your decision to drop it into your basket . . . or return it to the shelf?

This critical moment for brands and the purchasing process is often won or lost because of packaging. According to Marty Neumeier in his book The Brand Gap, “A retail package is the last and best chance to make a sale.”^[1]

In this section, we’ll explore how packaging can play a powerful role in shaping consumer perceptions of brands and influencing buying decisions.

Creating the Perfect Package

Product packaging is an underappreciated hero in the marketing world. Packaging is supremely functional: it protects the product. It contains the product. It displays the product. It promotes the product. Its design and labeling communicate about the product. And the package itself can even increase the product’s utility, making it better suited to however the customer wants to use it.

If packaging does all these things, why is it undervalued? As a marketing tool, packaging often feels low-tech and old-school in the information age. It’s just not as sexy as Web sites, events, or social media—and yet, it remains a staple of the purchasing environment.

With the increased emphasis on self-service marketing at supermarkets, drugstores, and even department stores, the role of packaging is significant. For example, in a typical supermarket a shopper passes about six hundred items per minute—or one item every tenth of a second. Thus, the only way to get some consumers to notice a product is by in-store displays, shelf hangers, tear-off coupon blocks, other point-of-purchase devices, or, last but not least, effective packages.^[2]

Packaging provides an opportunity for a product to jump out and differentiate itself on the crowded, viciously competitive shelves of supermarkets, drugstores, department stores, and other retailers. Every single customer who buys a product inevitably interacts with the packaging, which is what makes it such a potentially powerful touch point.

The Roles Packaging Can Play

---

COPYRIGHT

This courseware was assembled by Christopher VanOosterhout from a variety of resources copyrighted and openly licensed by multiple individuals and organizations.  See our Copyright and Attribution page for additional details.  For details about permission to use please contact me at c@vanosterhout.com with the phrase  Courseware Usage Inquiry.  If you believe that this courseware violates your copyright, please contact me at c@vanoosterhout.com with the phrase Copyright Inquiry in the subject.  Details about the collector of these resources and Licentia LLC can be found at www.vanoosterhout.com

Why analyze elements of a brand and explain how the brand-building process contributes to the success of products or services?

Pop Quiz!

Instructions: Grab a piece of paper and jot down answers to the following questions:

• What is your favorite brand of clothing?
  • Why is it your favorite?
  • List a word or phrase that describes how this brand makes you feel:
• What is your favorite brand of car?
  • Why is it your favorite?
  • List a word or phrase that describes how this brand makes you feel:
• What is your favorite place to stop for coffee, donuts, a bagel, or some other snack?
  • Why is it your favorite?
  • List a word or phrase that describes how this place (which is also a brand) makes you feel:

Set the paper aside for a moment and keep reading. We’ll come back to it.

The Power of Brand

Brands are images that exist in your mind–and in the minds of other consumers–about the things around you: products, services, places, companies, people, entertainment, and so on. In a modern world that offers many choices, brands help simplify the decisions you make about what to buy, where to go, and how to spend your time.

Brands are powerful. When you explain why a brand is your favorite, you probably identify some of the traits or features of its products or services that explain rationally what makes it better than others. But rational explanations are just part of the story. Strong brands are powerful because they also tap into emotions. They make you feel a certain way, and that feeling is hard for any other brand to replicate—let alone replace.

Brands can cause people to spend more money on a product than they would otherwise. Brands can create a sense of loyalty and even lock-in—that haloed point where a tribe of dedicated fans always chooses one company’s product or services over another.

So how do they do it? What’s happening in marketing departments to create these powerful, emotional assets called brands?

What Creates a Brand Experience?

Go back to your pop quiz responses. Pick one of your favorite brands and list 2–3 things the company behind the brand provides to help make that favorite brand so memorable or special for you. It could be any of the following things–or something else entirely:

• Brand name
• Product design
• The shopping experience
• The post-purchase experience
• People or communities associated with the brand
• Product packaging
• Advertising
• Social media activity
• Customer service
• Comfort, convenience, or ease-of-use
• Attitude or personality of the brand
• Special information, deals, or promotions targeted to you
• Membership or loyalty programs
• Pricing or value for the money
• Events or activities tied to the brand
• Something else?

Marketers use these tools and many others to create the total experience with a product, service, or company that turns it into an actual “brand.” In this module, you’ll learn how a brand starts and discover what it takes to coordinate all the different parts of the unique brand.

The Paradox of Brand

Although organizations take all kinds of measures to create and build brands, in fact, the brand isn’t just what the company says it is. In the end, the brand is what customers believe it is, as the following quote explains:

So what exactly is a brand?

A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or organization.

It’s a gut feeling because people are emotional, intuitive beings. It’s a person’s gut feeling because brands are defined by individuals, not companies, markets, or the public.

It’s not what YOU say it is.
It’s what THEY say it is.

—Marty Neumeier, author and branding consultant, Neutron LLC

Companies can do a lot to create and build brands, but the net impact and value is what happens inside the mind of the consumer. The supreme challenge of brand is to make your vision of your brand the same thing other people experience and believe about your brand.

Read on to learn more.

Learning Outcomes

• Describe the elements of brand and how brands add value to an organization’s products and services
• Define brand equity and its role in measuring brand strength
• Explain the how marketers use brand positioning to align marketing activities and build successful brands
• Explain the importance of name selection in the success of a brand
• Discuss the role of packaging in the brand-building process
• Explain key strategies for developing brands including brand ownership, brand and line extensions, co-branding and licensing

COPYRIGHT

This courseware was assembled by Christopher VanOosterhout from a variety of resources copyrighted and openly licensed by multiple individuals and organizations.  See our Copyright and Attribution page for additional details.  For details about permission to use please contact me at c@vanosterhout.com with the phrase  Courseware Usage Inquiry.  If you believe that this courseware violates your copyright, please contact me at c@vanoosterhout.com with the phrase Copyright Inquiry in the subject.  Details about the collector of these resources and Licentia LLC can be found at www.vanoosterhout.com

What you’ll learn to do: explain key strategies for developing brands including brand ownership, brand and line extensions, co-branding, and licensing

Up to this point, this module has explored the important ingredients of creating brands. But once you’ve combined the ingredients and you have a fledgling brand, then what?

You need a branding strategy.

Branding strategies are different approaches for expanding the reach of a brand, reinforcing its value, and finding advantageous ways to coexist with other brands. It’s a crowded marketplace for brands today, and in the future it will only grow more crowded. As you’ll discover, carefully selected and wisely executed branding strategies can multiply the benefits of the brands you build.

Managing Brands As Strategic Assets

As organizations establish and build strong brands, they can pursue a number of strategies to continue developing them and extending their value to stakeholders (customers, retailers, supply chain and distribution partners, and of course the organization itself).

Brand Ownership

Who “owns” the brand? The legal owner of a brand is generally the individual or entity in whose name the legal registration has been filed. Operationally speaking, brand ownership should be the responsibility of an organization’s management and employees. Brand ownership is about building and maintaining a brand that reflects your principles and values. Brand building is about effectively persuading customers to believe in and purchase your product or service. Iconic brands, such as Apple and Disney, often have a history of visionary leaders who champion the brand, evangelize about it, and build it into the organizational culture and operations.

When an organization truly owns its brand, its efforts are unified around a common symbol of the value it provides to customers. These organizations use their resources wisely to produce marketing that is targeted and effective because they have a sophisticated understanding of the marketplace; they know how their brand and offerings fit into it, which audiences they are targeting, and they have a strategy for successful growth. These advantages lead to disciplined and effective brand management, which enables these organizations to remain relevant in a rapidly changing and often saturated marketplace.

Branding Strategies

A branding strategy helps establish a product within the market and to build a brand that will grow and mature. Making smart branding decisions up front is crucial since a company may have to live with their decisions for a long time. The following are commonly used branding strategies:

“Branded House” Strategy

A “branded house” strategy (sometimes called a “house brand”) uses a a strong brand—typically the company name—as the identifying brand name for a range of products (for example, Mercedes Benz or Black & Decker) or a range of subsidiary brands (such as Cadbury Dairy Milk or Cadbury Fingers). Because the primary focus and investment is in a single, dominant “house” brand, this approach can be simpler and more cost effective in the long run when it is well aligned with broader corporate strategy.

“House of Brands” Strategy

With the “house of brands” strategy, a company invests in building out a variety of individual, product-level brands. Each of these brands has a separate name and may not be associated with the parent company name at all. These brands may even be in de facto competition with other brands from the same company. For example, Kool-Aid and Tang are two powdered beverage products, both owned by Kraft Foods. The “house of brands” strategy is well suited to companies that operate across many product categories at the same time. It allows greater flexibility to introduce a variety of different products, of differing quality, to be sold without confusing the consumer’s perception of what business the company is in or diluting brand perceptions about products that target different tiers or types of consumers within the same product category.

Competitive Multi-Brand Strategy

In a very saturated market, a supplier can deliberately launch totally new brands in apparent competition with its own existing strong brand (and often with identical product characteristics) to soak up some of the share of the market. The rationale is that having three out of twelve brands in such a market will give a greater overall share than having one out of ten. Procter & Gamble is a leading exponent of this philosophy, running as many as ten detergent brands in the U.S. market. In 2015, hotel giant Marriott International operated sixteen different hotel chains across different pricing tiers, including some chains that compete with one another directly. A sampling of these includes Fairfield Inn, Springhill Suites, Residence Inn, Courtyard, Marriott, JW Marriott, and The Ritz Carlton, among others.

Cannibalization is a particular problem with the multi-brands-strategy. As will be discussed further in the product marketing module, cannibalization occurs when the new brand takes business away from an established one, which the organization also owns. This may be acceptable (indeed expected) if there is a net gain overall.

Brand Families, or “Umbrella Branding”

Similar to a “branded house” strategy, a brand family uses a single brand name for multiple products. However, brand families–also called umbrella branding–may also be used in a “house of brands” strategy to extend the reach of some of the company’s brands. For instance, consumer products powerhouse Procter & Gamble manages many popular brands including Tide (laundry detergent), Pampers (disposable diapers), Ivory (soap), and Olay (skin care and beauty products) among many others. Each of these brands constitutes its own family, with multiple products carrying the same brand name.

Attitude Branding and Iconic Brands

Attitude branding is a strategy of representing the larger feeling that a brand comes to embody. The idea is that the brand’s feeling or “attitude” transcends the specific products being consumed. Examples of companies that use this approach effectively include:

• Nike: “Just do it”
• Apple: “Think different”
• Patagonia: “We’re in business to save the planet.”

Effective attitude branding can transform strong brands into iconic, “lifestyle” brands that contribute to the consumer’s self-expression and personal identity.

Component Branding

Some suppliers of important product or manufacturing components try to guarantee positions of preference by promoting these components as brands in their own right. For example, Intel created competitive advantage for itself in the PC market with the slogan (and famous sticker) “Intel Inside.”

Private-Label or Store Branding

Also called store branding, private-label branding has become increasingly popular. In cases where the retailer has a particularly strong identity, the private label may be able to compete against even the strongest brand leaders and may outperform those products that are not otherwise strongly branded. The northeastern U.S. grocery chain Wegman’s offers many grocery products that carry the Wegman’s brand name. Meanwhile national grocery chain Safeway offers several different private label “store” brands: Signature Select, O Organics, Signature Cafe, and Primo Taglio, among others.^[1]

“No-Brand” Branding

A number of companies successfully pursue “no-brand” strategies by creating packaging that imitates generic-brand simplicity. “No brand” branding can be considered a type of branding since the product is made conspicuous by the absence of a brand name. “Tapa Amarilla” or “Yellow Cap” in Venezuela during the 1980s is a prime example of no-brand strategy. It was recognized simply by the color of the cap of this cleaning products company.

Personal and Organizational Brands

Personal and organizational branding are strategies for developing a brand image and marketing engine around individual people or groups. Personal branding treats persons and their careers as products to be branded and sold to target audiences. Organizational branding promotes the mission, goals, and/or work of the group being branded. The music and entertainment industries provide many examples of personal and organizational branding. From Justin Bieber to George Clooney to Kim Kardashian, virtually any celebrity today is a personal brand. Likewise, bands, orchestras, and other artistic groups typically cultivate an organizational (or group) brand. Faith branding is a variant of this brand strategy, which treats religious figures and organizations as brands seeking to increase their following. Mission-driven organizations such the Girl Scouts of America, the Sierra Club, the National Rifle Association (among millions of others) pursue organizational branding to expand their membership, resources, and impact.

Crowd-Sourced Branding

Crowd-sourced branding is the phenomenon of brands being created “by the people” for the business, which is the opposite of how branding traditionally works (business create the brands). This method minimizes the risk of brand failure, since the people who might reject the brand are the ones involved in the branding process. The drawback is that the business cannot fully control these brands, because they are the product of crowd sourcing and, in effect, are owned by “the crowd.”

An interesting example of crowd-sourced branding is the Timbers Army, the independent fan organization of the Portland Timbers Major League Soccer (MLS) Team. The Timbers Army was created by fans, and it operates independently from the MLS team and the Portland Timbers management. Although the organizations coordinate in many areas, ultimately the fan organization gets to assert and control its own brand identity.

Place Branding and Nation Branding

The developing fields of place branding and nation branding work on the assumption that places compete with other places to win over people, investment, tourism, economic development, and other resources. With this in mind, public administrators, civic leaders, and business groups may team up to “brand” and promote their city, region, or nation among target audiences. Depending on the goals they are trying to achieve, targets for these marketing initiatives may be real-estate developers, employers and business investors, tourists and tour/travel operators, and so forth. While place branding may focus on any given geographic area or destination, nation branding aims to measure, build, and manage the reputation of countries.

The city-state Singapore is an early, successful example of nation branding. The Las Vegas “What Happens Here, Stays Here” campaign, shown in in the following video, is a well-known example of place branding.

Co-Branding

Co-branding is an arrangement in which two established brands collaborate to offer a single product or service that carries both brand names. In these relationships, generally both parties contribute something of value to the new offering that neither would have been able to achieve independently. Effective co-branding builds on the complementary strengths of the existing brands. It can also allow each brand an entry point into markets in which they would not otherwise be credible players.

The following are some examples of co-branded offerings:

• Delta Airlines and American Express offer an entire family of co-branded credit cards; other airlines offer similar co-branded cards that offer customer rewards in terms of frequent flyer points and special offers.
  

  Fiat 500 “Barbie”

• Home furnishings company Pottery Barn and the paint manufacturer Benjamin Moore co-brand seasonal color palettes for home interior paints
• Forever 21 worked with the USPS to create an exclusive line of clothing featuring USPS branding.
• Auto maker Fiat and toy maker Mattel teamed up to celebrate Barbie’s fiftieth anniversary with the nail-polish-pink Fiat 500 Barbie car.

Co-branding is a common brand-building strategy, but it can present difficulties. There is always risk around how well the market will receive new offerings, and sometimes, despite the best-laid plans, co-branded offerings fall flat. Also, these arrangements often involve complex legal agreements that are difficult to implement. Co-branding relationships may be unevenly matched, with the partners having different visions for their collaboration, placing different priority on the importance of the co-branded venture, or one partner holding significantly more power than the other in determining how they work together. Because co-branding impacts the existing brands, the partners may struggle with how to protect their current brands while introducing something new and possibly risky.

Brand Licensing

Brand licensing is the process of leasing or renting the right to use a brand in association with a product or set of products for a defined period and within a defined market, geography, or territory. Through a licensing agreement, a firm (licensor) provides some tangible or intangible asset to another firm (licensee) and grants that firm the right to use the licensor’s brand name and related brand assets in return for some payment. The licensee obtains a competitive advantage in this arrangement, while the licensor obtains inexpensive access to the market in question.

Licensing can be extremely lucrative for the owner of the brand, as other organizations pay for permission to produce products carrying a licensed name. The Walt Disney Company was an early pioneer in brand licensing, and it remains a leader in this area with its wildly popular entertainment and toy brands: Star Wars, Disney Princesses, Toy Story, Mickey Mouse, and so on. Toy manufacturers, for example, pay millions of dollars and vie for the rights to produce and sell products affiliated with these “super-brands.”

A licensing arrangement contains risk, in that if the licensing venture is very successful, the profit potential is limited by the terms of the licensing agreement. If the venture isn’t successful, the licensee loses a substantial investment, and the failure may reflect poorly on the original brand. Also, a licensor might be very controlling about how the licensed offering is designed, produced, distributed, marketed, or sold, making it difficult for the licensee to meet the expectations or requirements of the licensor. Conversely, a licensor might make a long-term commitment to a firm, and that firm could be less capable than expected, leading to a botched implementation of the licensing venture. Or, the licensee may be unwilling to invest in product quality, marketing, distribution, or other areas needed to be successful.

Franchising represents a very popular type of licensing arrangement for many consumer products firms. Holiday Inn, Hertz Car Rental, and McDonald’s have all expanded globally through franchising. In a franchise, the entity purchasing the franchise (the franchisee) typically pays an up-front fee plus a percentage of revenue in return for the right to use branded assets such as recognized brand name(s), proven products, building design and decor (as in a fast-food restaurant chain), business processes, and so forth.

Lines Extensions and Brand Extensions

Organizations use line extensions and brand extensions to leverage and increase brand equity.

A company creates a line extension when it introduces a new variety of offering within the same product category. To illustrate with the food industry, a company might add new flavors, package sizes, nutritional content, or products containing special additives in line extensions. Line extensions aim to provide more variety and hopefully capture more of the market within a given category. More than half of all new products introduced each year are line extensions. For example, M&M candy varieties such as peanut, pretzel, peanut butter, and dark chocolate are all line extensions of the M&M brand. Diet Coke™ is a line extension of the parent brand Coke ™. While the products have distinct differences, they are in the same product category.

A brand extension moves an existing brand name into a new product category, with a new or somehow modified product. In this scenario, a company uses the strength of an established product to launch a product in a different category, hoping the popularity of the original brand will increase receptivity of the new product. An example of a brand extension is the offering of Jell-O pudding pops in addition to the original product, Jell-O gelatin. This strategy increases awareness of the brand name and increases profitability from offerings in more than one product category.

Another form of brand extension is a licensed brand extension. In this scenario, the brand owner works with a partner (sometimes a competitor), who takes on the responsibility of manufacturing and selling the new products, generally paying a royalty every time a product is sold.

Line extensions and brand extensions are important tools for companies because they reduce financial risk associated with new-product development by leveraging the equity in the parent brand name to enhance consumers’ perceptions and receptivity towards new products. Due to the established success of the parent brand, consumers will have instant recognition of the product name and be more likely to try the new line extension.

Also, launching a new product is time-consuming, and it requires a generous budget to create awareness and promote a product’s benefits. As a result, promotional costs are much lower for a line extension than for a completely new product. More products expand the company’s shelf-space presence, too, thereby enhancing brand recognition. For example, consider Campbell’s Soups™: the strength of Campbell’s™ brand lowers costs of launching a new flavor of soup, such as Healthy Request Roasted Chicken with Country Vegetables Soup™, due to the established brand name and package design. Consumers who have enjoyed Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup™ are likely to try Campbell’s Healthy Request Roasted Chicken with Country Vegetables Soup™, even with minimal impact from advertisements and promotions.

Overall, the main benefits of a line extensions and brand extensions are the following:

• Expand company shelf-space presence
• Gain more potential customers
• Offer customers more variety
• Greater marketing efficiency
• Greater production efficiency
• Lower promotional costs
• Increased profits

Risks of Brand/Line Extension

While there can be significant benefits to brand-extension strategies, there can also be significant risks, resulting in a diluted or severely damaged brand image. Poor choices for brand extension may overextend the brand so that it no longer stands for something meaningful and valued by consumers. This phenomenon is called brand dilution. It causes the core brand to deteriorate, and it damages brand equity. According to research, there is a higher rate of brand extension failures than successes. Studies also suggest that when brand extensions fail, not only does the new product fail but the core brand’s image and equity also suffer. When products fail, negative associations and a poor communications strategy can harm the parent brand and even an entire brand family.

A common, visible example of brand dilution occurs when fashion and designer companies extend brands into fragrances, shoes, and accessories, furniture, hotels, vehicles, and beyond. Often the products being introduced are no different from the offerings already available in the market, with the exception of an added brand name (and probably a higher “designer” price tag). Brand dilution is almost guaranteed when consumers no longer see the branded product adding value. Brand dilution can also happen when the new products do not meet the standards consumers expect around quality, workmanship, price, design, or other differentiating features of the brand. An inferior brand extension leads to negative associations that reflect poorly on the original brand. Customers no longer trust the brand in all product categories, and they may be less willing to pay a price premium for it in the future.

Line extensions carry similar risks. If the new line extension fails to satisfy, consumers’ attitudes toward other products carrying the same brand name may be damaged. Additionally, there is potential for intra-firm competition between the parent product and the line extension or between two or more line extensions. The key to avoiding intra-firm competition is to clearly differentiate between products. Although similar, the products must be different enough that they will not compete with one another as much as they will with the brands of rival companies.

---

COPYRIGHT

This courseware was assembled by Christopher VanOosterhout from a variety of resources copyrighted and openly licensed by multiple individuals and organizations.  See our Copyright and Attribution page for additional details.  For details about permission to use please contact me at c@vanosterhout.com with the phrase  Courseware Usage Inquiry.  If you believe that this courseware violates your copyright, please contact me at c@vanoosterhout.com with the phrase Copyright Inquiry in the subject.  Details about the collector of these resources and Licentia LLC can be found at www.vanoosterhout.com

• Revision and adaptation. Provided by: Lumen Learning. License: CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Introduction to Brand Development Strategies. Provided by: Lumen Learning. License: CC BY: Attribution

• Branding. Authored by: Linda Williams and Lumen Learning. Located at: https://courses.candelalearning.com/masterybusiness2xngcxmasterfall2015/chapter/reading-branding-labeling-and-packaging/. License: CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Image: Steve Jobs. Authored by: Steve Jurvetson. Located at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#/media/File:Steve_Jobs_with_red_shawl_edit2.jpg. License: CC BY: Attribution
• Image: Outings Sierra Club GA. Provided by: Sierra Club GA. Located at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gasierraclub/23718280462/. License: CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial
• Fiat 500 Barbie. Authored by: Xavigivax. Located at: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_500_Barbie#/media/File:Fiat_Barbie_500.jpg. License: CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

• Image: Kool-Aid Man. Provided by: Kraft Foods. Located at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kool_Aid_Man.jpeg. License: All Rights Reserved. License Terms: Fair use under U.S. copyright law
• Timbers Army Crest. Provided by: Timbers Army. Located at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Timbers_Army_crest.png. License: All Rights Reserved. License Terms: Fair use under U.S. copyright law
• Image: Campbell’s Star Wars Soup. Provided by: Campbell’s Soup Company. License: All Rights Reserved. License Terms: Fair use under U.S. copyright law
• Screenshot Zippo Perfume. Provided by: Zippo Manufacturing Company. License: All Rights Reserved. License Terms: Fair use under U.S. copyright law
• What Happens Here, Stays Here – Sketchbook Commercial. Authored by: Visit Las Vegas. Located at: https://youtu.be/HsCJCsDd2IY. License: All Rights Reserved. License Terms: Standard YouTube license

• Intel Inside. Provided by: Wikipedia. Located at: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Intel_Inside_Logo.svg/1000px-Intel_Inside_Logo.svg.png. License: Public Domain: No Known Copyright

Investigating Brand Power

As noted earlier in this module, every year organizations conduct analyses and publish lists of the world’s top brands. Forbes publishes a list of the most valuable brands in terms of dollar value. Interbrand analyzed what Business Insider called the most powerful brands in terms of the companies’ “financial performance, their role in purchasing decisions, and their competitive strength.”^[1] The results are summarized in the following table:

Most Valuable Brands in 2019[2]	Most Powerful Brands in 2018[3]
1. Apple	1. Apple
2. Google	2. Google
3. Microsoft	3. Amazon
4. Amazon	4. Microsoft
5. Facebook	5. Coca-Cola
6. Coca-Cola	6. Samsung
7. Samsung	7. Toyota
8. Disney	8. Mercedes-Benz
9. Toyota	9. Facebook
10. McDonald’s	10. McDonald’s

Most of the brands on both lists are household names. Not surprising in our present information age, technology companies are heavily represented on both the most valuable brand list and the most powerful brand list.

All of these brands offer products and services that have created, shaped, or fundamentally redefined the categories in which they operate. What sets these companies apart from their competitors who didn’t make the list is how they have invested in brand building to support their broader corporate goals for growth and success.

---

COPYRIGHT

This courseware was assembled by Christopher VanOosterhout from a variety of resources copyrighted and openly licensed by multiple individuals and organizations.  See our Copyright and Attribution page for additional details.  For details about permission to use please contact me at c@vanosterhout.com with the phrase  Courseware Usage Inquiry.  If you believe that this courseware violates your copyright, please contact me at c@vanoosterhout.com with the phrase Copyright Inquiry in the subject.  Details about the collector of these resources and Licentia LLC can be found at www.vanoosterhout.com

• Putting It Together: Branding. Provided by: Lumen Learning. License: CC BY: Attribution

• LEGOLAND. Authored by: lisa-skorpion.  License: CC BY-ND: Attribution-NoDerivatives

• Screenshot LEGO Brand Framework. Provided by: Lego. License: All Rights Reserved. License Terms: Fair Use

What you’ll learn to do: explain the importance of name selection in the success of a brand

How important is naming in the success of a brand? Very important.

Consider the function of a brand name: It identifies a product, service, or company and differentiates it from competitors. But it does much more than that. It can generate attention or make something utterly forgettable. It can evoke positive or negative feelings and emotions. It can capture the imagination or drive someone to boredom. It can make a remarkable or unremarkable first impression.

Naming can be difficult in the crowded, increasingly global marketplace in which businesses operate today. As you understand the role of naming and the systematic process for selecting a new brand name, you can help lead your organization in making wise, informed choices about this essential element of branding.

The specific things you’ll learn in this section include:

• Discuss the connection between brand and name
• Outline key steps in the naming process

What’s in a (Brand) Name?

A brand identifies a company, product, or service as distinct from the competition. The brand is comprised of all the things that create this identity. A brand’s name is an essential part of the package. A brand name may be a product name (like Windows or Gmail), or it may be the name under which the entire organization operates (like Microsoft or Google). Because the name is so central to identity, naming a brand is an integral part of creating the brand’s reputation, development, and future success.

To some extent, a brand name amounts to whatever an organization makes of it: this is the genius of brand building and marketing strategy. Unlikely names have, on occasion, become powerhouse brands, and well-named brands have fizzled out. Naming is important because an ill-conceived or poorly chosen name can torpedo an organization’s chances. At the same time, a great name alone isn’t enough to guarantee success.

Naming a Brand

Selecting a brand name is one of the most important product decisions a seller makes. A brand name reflects the overall product image, positioning, and, ideally, its benefits. A successful brand name can enable a product to be meaningfully advertised and distinguished from competitors; tracked down by consumers; and given legal protection. At its best, a brand can provide a carryover effect when customers are able to associate quality products with an established brand name. Attention to naming also helps customers associate products within the same brand family. For example, Apple names its mobile products with a lowercase i—for example, iPad, iPod, iPhone. Starbucks names its coffee sizes in Italian.

Remember that legally protectable brand names are mandatory if an organization plans to produce mass advertising for their product or service. Once an organization starts using a new brand name, it may encounter other organizations’ claim to own the rights to that name and threaten legal action. To avoid the risks and potential expense associated with legal challenges to a brand name, it is important to use a thorough, systematic process for selecting a brand name.

Selecting a Naming Strategy

Before you start brainstorming new brand names and registering domain names, the company should evaluate which naming/branding policy to pursue for the new offering and choose one the following three viable options. This process helps determine whether you even need a new brand name.

• Strategy 1: Own Brand. A strict branding policy under which a company only produces products and services using its own brand. In this scenario, you need a new brand name.
• Strategy 2: Private-Label Brand. An exclusive distributor’s brand policy in which a producer does not have a brand of his own but agrees to sell his products only to a particular distributor and carry that distributor’s brand name (typically employed by private brands). In this scenario, the new offering will carry the distributor’s brand name, so you don’t need to create your own new brand.
• Strategy 3: Mixed Brand. A mixed-brand policy allows both own-branded and private-label versions of the offering. In this scenario, you need a new brand name for the own-branded product, and the distributor’s version of the product will carry the distributor’s brand name.

Steps to Develop a New Brand Name

Once you have confirmed that you need a new brand name, you should follow a systematic approach to developing and selecting one, as described below:

1. Define what you’re naming. Define the personality and distinctive attributes of the company or product to be named.
2. Check the landscape. Scan the competitive landscape to identify brand names already active in the category, in order to avoid selecting a name that would easily be confused with competitors.
3. Brainstorm ideas. Engage a naming team to brainstorm ideas and generate potential brand names. Due to the challenges of identifying a unique, protectable name in today’s global market, the naming team should include some members with prior naming experience. Often companies hire specialty naming firms to add creative power and expertise to the process. The team should generate lots of ideas, knowing that the vast majority will fall out during the screening process.
4. Screen and knock out problematic names. Screen favorite names to make sure they are available to use perceptually (no mind-share conflicts with other known brands), legally (no trademark conflicts) and linguistically (no problems in translation).
   1. Perceptual screening: Start the screening process with thorough Google searches on the names being considered in order to eliminate any that could easily be confused with established players in your product or service category, or a related category. If an established brand name is similar in terms of phonetics (sound), spelling, root word, or meaning, there is probably a conflict. Check with a trademark attorney if you have questions.
   2. Legal screening: The next screening process is to evaluate potential conflicts with registered trademarks that exist in the product or service categories in question. Each country has its own trademark registry, so this search must be performed in each country where you expect to do business using this brand name. While anyone can attempt this process, due to the legal complexities of global trademark law, it’s advisable to engage an experienced trademark attorney to review the names, conduct an authoritative search, and provide legal clearance for the short list of final names. To learn more about this process, check out the freely available U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) Trademark Electronic Search Service (TESS) trademark search tools.
   3. Linguistic screening: If you plan to use the brand name in different countries and languages, a linguistic screening is a must. Use a naming firm or a linguistic screening firm to screen your final, short-listed name candidates with native speakers from the countries where you plan to operate. The linguistic screening can help you avoid blunders like GM rushing to rename the Buick LaCrosse sedan in Canada when it learned that the word crosse means either rip-off or masturbation in Quebec French, depending on the context.^[1]
5. Check domain name and social media availability. If you want to operate a Web site or social media using your new brand name, you will need an Internet domain name for your Web site, as well as social media accounts. As you are refining your short list of cleared names, check on the availability of domain names and social media handles. If you’re lucky, a clear .com domain will be available to reserve or purchase at a reasonable price, and a clear Twitter name will also be available. Here are some tips for navigating this process:
   1. Use a reputable registry to check availability. When you’re checking on domain-name availability, don’t just google domain names at random. Instead, use a reputable domain-name registry like Godaddy.com or Register.com. When you use Google or other standard search engines, Internet bots track this activity to detect interest in unregistered domain names. Unscrupulous Internet profiteers buy up these domains and then offer them for resale at a significant markup. When you decide to reserve your domain names, be sure to use reputable registries in all the countries where you plan to operate.
   2. Look at variations of your chosen name(s). Consider reserving domain-name variations of your chosen brand name(s), either because the original names you want are not available, or because you may want to control close variations to avoid letting them fall into the hands of competitors or Internet profiteers. For example, if your chosen brand name is “Chumber,” you may find that chumber.com has been taken, but chumber.net, chumber.org, and chumbercompany.com are all available. Although you don’t need all of these, you might choose to register them so that no one else can “own” the names and make mischief for you. For social media account names, if your first choice isn’t available, explore variations—perhaps a shortened version of your desired name. Remember, for services such as Twitter, shorter names fit better into the limited length of social media posts.
   3. Check out your Internet “neighbors.” For any domain names that are not available according to a reputable domain-name registry, do google them to see where they take you. Some may be operated by other businesses, while others may be “parked” and inoperative. Before you settle on a final domain name for your brand, make sure you investigate where common misspellings of your name might take site visitors. For example, an education technology company seriously considered the brand name “OpenMind” and the domain openmind.com until a marketing team member discovered that a variant spelling, openminded.com, would take prospective site visitors to an adult entertainment Web site.
   4. Reserve domains in geographies where you plan to do business. Consider whether to reserve domain names using different extensions. In other words, not just yourbrand.com, but also other extensions including those in other countries where you plan to operate: yourbrand.mx for Mexico, yourbrand.cn for China, yourbrand.ca for Canada, and so forth. If you plan to do business in multiple countries, it is wise to reserve domain names in each of the countries that are strategically important to your company.
6. Customer-test your final short-listed names. It is always wise to conduct market research to test short-listed names among your target customers. This gives you insight into how they will hear, interpret, and think about the names you are considering. Customer testing can reveal nuances or connotations of a name that didn’t occur to the naming team earlier–for better or for worse. Customer testing results can also be a great tie-breaker if the naming team is split between finalists.
7. Make your final selection. Ultimately the naming team should select the name with the most potential for creating a strong, differentiated brand, combined with the least risk from a trademark ownership perspective.
8. Take steps to get trademark protection for your new brand.
   

   Official registered trademark symbol

   Once a final name is chosen, engage a trademark attorney to file a trademark or service mark registration for the new brand. Ask for legal counsel on where to register your marks based on where you plan to operate globally. While this step may seem expensive and time-consuming, it can protect you and diminish risk for the organization if your brand name is ever challenged legally. Down the road, it is easier to enter into licensing and other types of agreements if a brand name is registered. Licensing can be a lucrative strategy for strong brands.

---

COPYRIGHT

This courseware was assembled by Christopher VanOosterhout from a variety of resources copyrighted and openly licensed by multiple individuals and organizations.  See our Copyright and Attribution page for additional details.  For details about permission to use please contact me at c@vanosterhout.com with the phrase  Courseware Usage Inquiry.  If you believe that this courseware violates your copyright, please contact me at c@vanoosterhout.com with the phrase Copyright Inquiry in the subject.  Details about the collector of these resources and Licentia LLC can be found at www.vanoosterhout.com

What you’ll learn to do: explain how marketers use brand positioning to align marketing activities and build successful brands

It is clear that brands are valuable assets that benefit organizations and their customers. Building brand loyalty is an important goal for marketers. But what does it take to build a brand?

Brands are shaped by many different activities. As a marketer, you can control some of these activities, but not others. For instance, you can put together an amazing product design, a fabulous brand name, memorable packaging, irresistible marketing promotions, and delightful customer service—those are all things within your control. But you can’t control how customers actually react to and use the product, despite your best efforts to direct and influence them. You also can’t control what they write in online reviews.

In order to optimize the success of your brand, you should become very good at aligning all the activities you can control, so that the brand experience you provide is consistent for the customers you care about. Consistency and alignment are essential for building strong brands.

Brand positioning is an ideal tool for creating this alignment. It’s how you figure out what your brand really means to you. It’s the yardstick you use to figure out which messages and activities will communicate that brand most effectively. It provides the pattern for helping customers understand what to think about your brand and decide whether it matters to them and they can trust it.

In the end, brand positioning is the clearest path toward creating brand-loyal customers.

The specific things you’ll learn in this section include:

• Explain the concept of brand positioning
• Discuss techniques marketers use to achieve strong brand positioning and alignment:
  • Brand promise
  • Brand voice and personality
  • Brand positioning statement

Building Strong Brands: Consistency Matters

In order to make an impression in a market, brands need to stand for something. Inconsistent brands and messages fail to make a lasting impression because it is difficult for customers to trust them or register what these brands represent. On the other hand, when a brand is both consistent and relevant to customers, it builds recognition, credibility, trust, and ultimately loyalty. And loyalty, as you’ve learned, translates into sales.

Consistency is also important when it comes to differentiating a product. Brands simplify decisions for customers. When a brand consistently communicates how and why it is distinct from competitors, it reminds customers why they prefer this brand over others–and why they may be willing to pay more for it.

Finally, consistency is an imperative in the globalized economy in which virtually every business operates today. Brand-related messages and communications circulate around the world at astonishing speed: Just ask any company that has seen a major story break on social media. While it does make sense to target specific messages to different global markets according to consumer needs, those messages should all be aligned to a consistent, centralized brand identity. A brand manager–the marketer responsible for directing and managing brand strategy–must think of herself as an ambassador, advocating and communicating on behalf of that common brand in the various markets where the brand is represented.

Brand Positioning: A Tool for Achieving Consistency

The Brand Platform

As you learned in the previous module, product positioning is an important strategic tool that helps organizations focus their messages and marketing activities around a consistent, differentiating message aimed at a target segment. Brand positioning works on the same principle. The goal of brand positioning—like the positioning for any product or service—is to explain why that brand is different and better for its target customers, and why the differences matter.

At the same time, brands need a consistent, universal identity that is the same regardless of whom you communicate with. For this reason, brand positioning starts with defining precisely what the brand stands for. This is called the brand platform. The brand platform may include a variety of descriptive elements to paint a clear picture of what a brand represents. Some brand platform models are very complex, with ten or more inputs. Others are simpler and more streamlined.

The brand platform begins with the organization’s mission statement, since the ultimate purpose of a brand is to help the organization achieve its mission. It also incorporates the value proposition for whatever the brand promotes. Remember that brands may operate at the company level (needing a company-level value proposition) or at the product or service level (needing an offering-specific value proposition). In addition to the mission statement and value proposition, the basic elements of any brand platform are a brand promise, core values, a brand voice or personality, and a brand-positioning statement. These are discussed below.

The Brand Promise 

The brand promise is, in effect, the singular experience your brand promises to provide to your customers. It expresses what you want them to feel when they interact with your products and services. Year in, year out, the brand promise is what your customers count on and, ideally, it’s the reason they keep coming back to you. The brand promise should be unique and linked to your competitive advantage: something other brands do not and cannot deliver in the way you do. It describes the most salient benefits your brand provides, including benefits that create an emotional connection with customers.

The brand promise is important not only for customers, but also for employees and other internal audiences. It sets the tone for how the company operates and for the experience the brand provides to customers across all segments and all points of contact.

Finally, the brand promise should be simple and easily understood, so it’s easy to communicate and reinforce. Some marketers equate the marketing tagline, or advertising slogan, with the brand promise. While there are some exceptions, most brand-promise statements do not use the same marketing language that’s used in ad slogans. For instance, Nike’s “Just Do It” slogan works very well as part of an ad campaign, but it’s not very illuminating as a brand promise. Similarly, fast-food chain Taco Bell never intended its catchy “Make a Run for the Border” tagline to be interpreted as a brand promise. Also, taglines, which are part of marketing communications, may need to be updated more frequently than the brand promise. In contrast, the brand promise should be the global, enduring commitment you stand for over time.

The following are examples of effective brand promises:

• The Coca-Cola Company: to refresh the world in mind, body, and spirit, and inspire moments of optimism^[1]
• TOMS Shoes: Through your purchases, TOMS helps provide shoes, sight, water, safe birth and
  bullying prevention services to people in need. Learn more about what we give.^[2]
• Target: expect more, pay less^[3]

Core (Brand) Values

Core values are guiding principles for how an organization does business. These values express a perspective on the world, and they govern both internal conduct and external behavior. While the brand promise explains what consistent experience a brand will deliver, the core values describe how the company will behave as it delivers that experience.

Brand Voice and Personality

Just like people, strong brands have an outlook, tone, and personality that help reinforce the consistency of what and how brand gets communicated to customers, employees, and other stakeholders. The brand voice and personality are rooted in the brand promise and values, but they help flesh out the brand’s distinctive image and presence. A useful template for defining brand voice and personality is the “is/is never” template. Using this template, marketers define the voice and personality attributes of the brand, almost as if it were a person. For example:

• Brand X is strong, authentic, independent, resourceful, and classic.
• Brand X is never frivolous, trendy, or fake.

A well-defined brand voice is a window into the personality of the brand. Together, the brand voice and personality set the linguistic tone for all brand-related communications and promotions. They also guide the choice of visual design, logo, and the look and feel of the brand, ensuring that the overall visual representation is a good match for what the organization wants the brand to convey.

As a short exercise, take a moment and see if you can construct “is/is never” statements for a couple well-known brands. What are the brand voice and personality of, say, GAP clothing compared with another well-known clothing brand, such as Guess?

Brand-Positioning Statement

Brand positioning follows the same process for product and service positioning outlined in the positioning module: understanding market and competitive dynamics, confirming competitive advantages, defining the market niche and positioning strategy, and delivering on that strategy. Fortunately, the brand promise should provide strong guidance around the competitive advantages and market niche that should be represented in the positioning statement.

Brand managers may develop brand-positioning statements according to the same formula used for product positioning (discussed in the positioning module):

To [target audience], Brand X is the only [category or frame of reference] that [points of differentiation/benefits delivered] because [reasons to believe].^[5]

Note that the target audience for the brand-positioning statement should include all the audiences for the brand, not just the specific, narrowly defined target segment you’d expect in a product- or service-positioning statement. The brand needs to be relevant to every conceivable audience you are trying to reach (which may include multiple target segments). For that reason, the brand-positioning statement needs to be written in such a way that it has a broad enough appeal to speak to that “larger” audience.

As with a product- or service-positioning statement, the brand-positioning statement becomes a guiding document for decisions about the key messages the organization should communicate about the brand, as well as other marketing activities.

Aligning to Deliver the Brand 

It takes strong focus and hard work to get through the brand-positioning process and build a brand platform. But once this work is done, brand managers and marketers have a basis for deciding what they want to achieve with the brand. Next, the fun of brand building can begin.

Because brand encompasses much more than just marketing, it is important for the entire organization to understand the brand and each person’s role in delivering the brand promise to customers. Every employee in every department, from Accounting and Finance to Product Development and Technology (and everyone in between) plays a part. Organizations with great brands look for ways to educate all internal stakeholders about what the brand means and how it connects with their way of doing business. Company leaders provide incentives for employees to innovate and excel at delivering the brand effectively.

Of course, organizations also communicate about their brands to external audiences—to current and future customers, investors, thought leaders, and influencers, for instance. Brand is embedded in every strategy, tactic, and activity associated with a marketing mix for a given target segment. The brand platform is like a filter that lets through the kinds of communication that an organization needs to reach its audience, but it keeps out the distracting noise and chatter that might confuse or alienate that audience. The brand platform gives a brand coherence and helps the company stay on track.

Figure 1, below, illustrates the tools and artifacts marketers use to deliver strong alignment between brand, messaging, and other marketing activities. The brand strategy and positioning are very consistent from year to year, and they rely on the tools and artifacts we’ve discussed in this reading. Market-specific positioning and messaging are designed to reinforce the brand while promoting the organization’s products and services to target segments. The positioning tools and process discussed in the previous positioning module work at this level of marketing alignment. They remain relatively consistent, with marketers reviewing and refining positioning strategy every twelve to twenty-four months in alignment with company strategy, priorities, and performance.

At the bottom of the alignment pyramid are the day-to-day marketing activities associated with executing the marketing mix to reach target segments. These include marketing campaigns and the tactics, messaging, promotions, and other activities that accompany these campaigns. We’ll explore this dimension of marketing activity in much more detail when we turn to integrated marketing communications (IMC).

---

COPYRIGHT

This courseware was assembled by Christopher VanOosterhout from a variety of resources copyrighted and openly licensed by multiple individuals and organizations.  See our Copyright and Attribution page for additional details.  For details about permission to use please contact me at c@vanosterhout.com with the phrase  Courseware Usage Inquiry.  If you believe that this courseware violates your copyright, please contact me at c@vanoosterhout.com with the phrase Copyright Inquiry in the subject.  Details about the collector of these resources and Licentia LLC can be found at www.vanoosterhout.com

Brand equity is what exists in your mind (or doesn’t yet exist) to help you recognize these branded images and phrases. Brand equity is also the set of positive, negative, or neutral thoughts, beliefs, and emotions you associate with each of the brands. Brand equity can manifest itself in consumer recognition of logos or other visual elements, brand language associations, consumers’ perceptions of quality, and consumers’ perceptions of value or other brand attributes.

Brand Asset Valuator

Young & Rubicam (Y&R), a marketing communications agency, has developed the “brand asset valuator,” a tool used to diagnose the power and value of a brand. The agency uses this tool to survey and measure consumers’ perspectives along the following four dimensions:^[2]

1. Differentiation: the defining characteristics of the brand and its distinctiveness relative to competitors
2. Relevance: the appropriateness and connection of the brand to a given consumer
3. Esteem: consumers’ respect for and attraction to the brand
4. Knowledge: consumers’ awareness of the brand and understanding of what it represents

This approach is useful for gaining a detailed understanding of how target audiences perceive a brand, how well they understand it, and how relevant it is in their lives. Y&R uses this methodology to help organizations diagnose whether their brands are rising or fading relative to competitors and help them develop strategies and tactics to strengthen existing brands or freshen up/rebuild those that are waning.

There are several different categories of brands, sorted by their differentiation, relevance, esteem, and knowledge. Note that we’ll also discuss their their brand strength (which is their differentiation and relevance) and their brand stature (which is their esteem and knowledge).

• New/Fading Brands have low brand stature and low brand strength. They can be sorted into two categories:
  • Neu has medium differentiation, less relevance, less esteem, and low knowledge.
  • Unfocused has low-medium differentiation, low relevance, low esteem, and high-medium knowledge.
• Aspiring Brands have low brand stature and high brand strength. They have high differentiation, medium relevance, slightly less esteem, and slightly less knowledge.
• Power Brands have high brand stature and high brand strength. They can be sorted into two categories:
  • Leadership has high differentiation, high relevance, high esteem, and high knowledge.
  • Decline has low differentiation and high relevance, high esteem, and high knowledge.
• Eroding Brands have low brand stature and high brand strength. They have low differentiation, slightly higher relevance, slightly higher esteem, and medium knowledge.

Other Methods for Measuring Brand Equity

Brand equity can also be measured using other methods, such as the following:

• As a financial asset: Brand equity can be studied as a financial asset by making a calculation of a brand’s worth as an intangible asset. For example, a company can estimate brand value on the basis of projected profits discounted to a present value. In turn, the present value can be used to calculate the risk profile, market leadership, stability, and global reach. Forbes, Interbrand and other organizations conduct this type of valuation and publish annual lists of the most valuable global brands.
• As a price differential: The price of an equivalent well-known brand can be compared to that of competing, no-name, or private-label products. The value of this price differential can be calculated to estimate the brand’s price premium in terms of past, present, or future revenue.
• As consumer favorability and preference: Several brand-equity methodologies try to map the mind of the consumer to uncover associations with a given brand. For example, projective techniques can be used to identify tangible and intangible attributes, attitudes, and various perceptions about the brand. Under this approach, the brands with the highest levels of awareness and most favorable and unique associations are considered high-equity brands.
• As consumer perceptions: Another brand-equity measurement technique assesses which attributes are most important in influencing customer buying choices, and then measures how well various competitors perform against the most important attributes. This approach helps marketers better understand the customer decision-making process, how brands influence it, and which competitors “own” key attributes that drive customer decisions.

1. The situation in which a consumer generally buys the same manufacturer-originated product or service repeatedly over time rather than buying from multiple suppliers within the category (sales promotion definition)
2. The degree to which a consumer consistently purchases the same brand within a product class (consumer behavior definition)

Read the transcript for the video “Give and Take Rewards.”

---

COPYRIGHT

This courseware was assembled by Christopher VanOosterhout from a variety of resources copyrighted and openly licensed by multiple individuals and organizations.  See our Copyright and Attribution page for additional details.  For details about permission to use please contact me at c@vanosterhout.com with the phrase  Courseware Usage Inquiry.  If you believe that this courseware violates your copyright, please contact me at c@vanoosterhout.com with the phrase Copyright Inquiry in the subject.  Details about the collector of these resources and Licentia LLC can be found at www.vanoosterhout.com

What you’ll learn to do: describe the elements of brand and how brands add value to an organization’s products and services

If you walk through a parking lot at school, work, or the local mall, chances are good that you could identify all the car brands just by looking at hood emblems. When you spot someone with a “swoosh” on her T-shirt, you probably already know she’s wearing Nike-brand apparel without even asking. How is it possible to know so much just by looking at an image or a shape? The answer is branding!

These familiar symbols are the tangible marks of branding in our everyday lives. But brands are much more than just logos and names. Brands also encompass everything else that contributes to your perception of that brand and what it represents.

The specific things you’ll learn in this section include:

• Define brand
• Explain elements that contribute to a brand and the brand-building process
• Explain how brands contribute value to organizations and consumers
• Describe different types of brands

What Is a Brand?

As we start our exploration of brand and its role in marketing, take a few minutes to watch the following video about Coca-Cola, which is perhaps one of the most iconic brands of all time. As you watch this video, look and listen for the all the different elements that contribute to the thing we call a “brand.”

Read the transcript for this video about Coca-Cola.

COPYRIGHT

This courseware was assembled by Christopher VanOosterhout from a variety of resources copyrighted and openly licensed by multiple individuals and organizations.  See our Copyright and Attribution page for additional details.  For details about permission to use please contact me at c@vanosterhout.com with the phrase  Courseware Usage Inquiry.  If you believe that this courseware violates your copyright, please contact me at c@vanoosterhout.com with the phrase Copyright Inquiry in the subject.  Details about the collector of these resources and Licentia LLC can be found at www.vanoosterhout.com

Student Instructions: Complete the following information about the organization and products and/or services you will focus on as you develop a complete marketing plan throughout the course. You may need to do research to get answers to the questions below. The subject for this assignment should be the organization and products and/or services you identified for the Marketing Plan, Part 1 Assignment.

Marketing Information and Research

Research Question

Describe an important question you need to answer or a problem you are trying to solve in order to help the organization meet its goals and objectives.

Information Needed

Describe the information your organization needs to make effective decisions about how to answer this question or solve this problem.

Research Recommendations

What research do you recommend in order to provide the information you need? What research method(s) would you use to get the information you need? Will it involve secondary data and research? Primary research such as interviews, focus groups and surveys? Why do you recommend this research approach?
Customer Decision-Making Profile

Identifying the Customer and Problem

Describe a primary decision maker in your target segment: who they are, what they like, how they make buying decisions. Describe the primary problem(s) your organization, product or service will help them solve.

Factors Influencing Customer Decisions

Provide a brief profile of your target segment using at least three of the following categories:

• Geographic characteristics: e.g., location, region, population size or climate.
• Personal and demographic characteristics: e.g., age, gender, family size, family life stage, income, personality.
• Social and Psychological characteristics: e.g., culture, social class, lifestyle, motivation, attitudes, reference groups, beliefs.
• Situational characteristics: e.g., buying situation, level of involvement, market offerings, frequency of use, brand loyalty.
• B2B/organizational buying considerations: e.g., individual factors, organizational factors, business environment factors, types of complexity

Reaching the Customer

Based on this profile, identify 2-3 marketing strategies or tactics you believe would be effective at reaching this target segment, and briefly explain why they are a good fit.
Positioning and Differentiation

Positioning and differentiation explain what you want to be known for in the market, and how you are different from competitors. Respond to the following questions.

Competitive Advantages

List the competitive advantages of the product, service or organization you’re focusing on: the things that make it different from competitors in positive ways.

Market Niche and Positioning Strategy

Describe the market niche you want to fill, along with the positioning strategy you recommend using. Why do you think this is the right approach?

Positioning Statement

Develop a positioning statement using this formula: “To [target audience], [product/service/organization name] is the only [category or frame of reference] that [points of differentiation/benefits delivered] because [reasons to believe].

Repositioning Considerations

Do you recommend a repositioning that improves on what the organization has been using up to this point? Why or why not?

Branding

Brand Description

What is the “brand” you are trying to build? What do people think about this brand today, and how do they experience it?

Brand Promise

What is the brand promise for this brand? If one hasn’t been defined yet, create one. If you believe the brand promise needs improvement, please suggest how you would refine it. Why is your recommended brand promise a good fit?

Brand Voice and Personality

Describe your brand voice and personality using the is/is never template:

• [Brand] is:
• [Brand] is never:

Brand Positioning and Strategy

Make a recommendation about brand positioning and/or branding strategy to help build the brand and contribute to align it with what your target segment wants. How will this contribute to the success of your product, service or organization?

Sample Grading Rubric

COPYRIGHT

This courseware was assembled by Christopher VanOosterhout from a variety of resources copyrighted and openly licensed by multiple individuals and organizations.  See our Copyright and Attribution page for additional details.  For details about permission to use please contact me at c@vanosterhout.com with the phrase  Courseware Usage Inquiry.  If you believe that this courseware violates your copyright, please contact me at c@vanoosterhout.com with the phrase Copyright Inquiry in the subject.  Details about the collector of these resources and Licentia LLC can be found at www.vanoosterhout.com