Brandingwatching
Lifting the lid on branding
Giles Lury
Blackhall Publishing
2027 Hyperion Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90027
First published 1998
Second edition 2001
Brand Theory
Giles Lury
Blackhall Publishing
2027 Hyperion Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90027
First published 1998
Second edition 2001
Brand Theory
If a brand's values and personality are a summation and a reflection of it's physical and it's physical and its physiological attributes then brand positioning is how a brand is located in its marketplace and placed relative to it's competitors. It is what a brand offers the target consumer and what differentiates that offer from the competition.There are, therefore, four key elements to any brand positioning.
- The target customer
- The market in which brand competes
- The offer it makes
- The elements that make that offer unique
Growth
Brands are big business and the aim of most businesses is to make money, as much as possible. Therefore most businesses what their brands to grow as this will mean more sales, more turnover and more profit.
Me-Too Brands
As the name suggests a 'me-too' brand is a brand created to follow and mimic another brand. it imitates the original in terms of functionality and indeed also often copies it in terms of its positioning, brand-name and even graphic design.
In these cases the 'me-too' products will normally be sold under the umbrella of an existing brand. Perhaps the most obvious and the most prevalent example of this type of 'me-too-ing' occurs in many food and drink markets. The major companies who are producing these 'me-too' products are the big retail brands - Sainsbury's, Tesco, ASDA and Safeway.
These retailers watch and monitor the performance of new brands as they enter the market and if the brand is successful they will approach other manufacturers to produce a version of that brand for them to be sold under their own brand name.
Given that these 'me-toos' are not designed to be brands they have to find an edge, a point of difference against the original brand if they are too succeed. They have to do something to make themselves attractive to us, the consumers. Often this point will be a lower price.
The retail brands haven't had the cost of all the initial explanatory research and development and don't usually have the cost of advertising their version of a brand so they can afford to charge less. From the consumer's point of views this can be good news, we can get a good quality version of the product we want for less money and as we have seen in an earlier chapter we are increasingly happy to take this option.
The competition between the traditional manufacturer brand and the lower priced, 'me-too' products sold under a retailer's branding is one of the most important issues in the evolution of modern branding. The battle between brands' and retailers' own label products probably occupies more space in marketing media than any other subject.
- Line extension
The brand can offer new version of itself within its existing market e.g new flavours or variants
Whilst organic growth essentially comes from selling more and more of the same branded product, growth through line extension comes from selling more and more of similar products.
A line extension is defined as being a variant of the same basic product. It might be a new flavour or a new size. The reason for producing them, however, is the same, more varieties for more growth. Growth that comes via those same basic means of either encouraging people to buy your brand or the same people to buy it more often or just more of it.
- Growth through brand Extension
The brand can use it's franchise- the well of goodwill based on the perceptions held by it customers- as a springboard to launch a new product, bearing its name into a new category or market.
Me-Too Brands
Consumers
In todays increasingly market- led society it is often said 'the consumer is king' and while we consume products, it is brands we buy.
Every day of our lives each and every one of us chooses and uses brands. every house doesn't have one, every house contains hundreds of them...We literally make thousands of brand decisions every week.
An increasing number of observers believe that as more and more of the traditional social and cultural barriers break down it will be our role as consumers that will define who we are.
Supermarket Brands
Many leading brands are anything from 25% to 100% more expensive than a retailers own brand equivalent or an alternative named, but unknown product. However, many of us still persist in buying the branded offer. We happily pay a significant price premium, time after time after time.
Test Blind Named
Brand A 49% 33%
What is a Brand?
Philip Kotler in his definitive marketing textbook, Managing Markets: Planning, Analysis and Control, defines a brand as follows:
Brand Personalities
Brands have personalities; they have and represent certain values. Brands not only meet our physical needs, they can address out emotional needs too. They make a statement about the type of person you are or would like to be.
Brand Perception
So it is clear that brands are much more than names. They are more than physical entities: much of what we see and value in them exists in our minds and not in the products themselves. It is our perceptions – our beliefs and out feelings- about a brand that are most important.
Brand Quality
The reliability and consistency of product quality was a persistent problem for consumers in the 19th century. Branding was a means by which this problem was addressed and resolved.
It is clear that branding was not just a wheeze. It provided reassuring guarantee of predictability and consistency for the consumer. It wasn’t possible for that customer to get the equivalent guarantee that it would be the same when they went back to buy it again.
Brands, with their superior packaging and their promise of consistent high standards, could offer a persuasive alternative – an easily recognizable and reassuring guarantee of quality.
In todays increasingly market- led society it is often said 'the consumer is king' and while we consume products, it is brands we buy.
Every day of our lives each and every one of us chooses and uses brands. every house doesn't have one, every house contains hundreds of them...We literally make thousands of brand decisions every week.
An increasing number of observers believe that as more and more of the traditional social and cultural barriers break down it will be our role as consumers that will define who we are.
Supermarket Brands
Having said that brands are well respected and trusted, it is equally true that brands no longer have it all their own way. One of the most significant developments in consumer marketing of the last 20 years has been the growth of retailers’ own label brands. Nowadays, in the most grocery markets, 25% or more of the sales are to the retailers’ own label equivalents.
Britain leads the way in this own label phenomenon. According to the research agency, A C Nielsen, who monitor grocery sales across Europe, own label’s share of the value of grocery sales in 1993 was 27% in Britain, 25% in Switzerland and 24% in Germany. Figures for the southern European countries where the retailers are much less developed are much lower - only 7.7% in Italy and 8.1% in Spain.
Sir Michael Perry. ex-Chairman of Unilever, described this transformation in a speech to the Advertising Association in 1994
Britain leads the way in this own label phenomenon. According to the research agency, A C Nielsen, who monitor grocery sales across Europe, own label’s share of the value of grocery sales in 1993 was 27% in Britain, 25% in Switzerland and 24% in Germany. Figures for the southern European countries where the retailers are much less developed are much lower - only 7.7% in Italy and 8.1% in Spain.
We no longer associate all supermarkets with the volume discounter’s philosophy of “pile ‘em high and sell ‘em cheap”. That is just one positioning. And the retailer that invented it no longer claims it.
Stores like Sainsbury, Tesco and Safeway have established their own reputation as guarantors of freshness and quality - and far more than that. For enhancing enjoyment of shopping; for broadening the minds and experiences of their customers and for catering successfully to all incomes, classes and tastes. They have established powerful brand identities of their own which command consumer respect. This formidable achievement has inevitably changed the competitive context for the manufactures’ brands in those stores. Consistency of quality is no longer enough. Its the minimum price of entry - but it’s no guarantee you’ll even get on the shelf.
Test Blind Named
Brand A 49% 33%
Brand B 51% 67%
What is a Brand?
Philip Kotler in his definitive marketing textbook, Managing Markets: Planning, Analysis and Control, defines a brand as follows:
“A name, term, symbol or design, or a combination of them which is intended to signify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and the differentiate them from those competitors.”Sir Michael Perry, a former Chairman of Unilever, the company that owns brand such as Persil, Birds Eye, PG Tips and Calvin Klein said recently:
“In the modern world, brands are a key part of how individuals define themselves and their relationships with one another…More and more we are simply consumers…We are what we wear what we eat, what we drive.”
Brand Personalities
Brands have personalities; they have and represent certain values. Brands not only meet our physical needs, they can address out emotional needs too. They make a statement about the type of person you are or would like to be.
Brand Perception
So it is clear that brands are much more than names. They are more than physical entities: much of what we see and value in them exists in our minds and not in the products themselves. It is our perceptions – our beliefs and out feelings- about a brand that are most important.
Brand Quality
The reliability and consistency of product quality was a persistent problem for consumers in the 19th century. Branding was a means by which this problem was addressed and resolved.
It is clear that branding was not just a wheeze. It provided reassuring guarantee of predictability and consistency for the consumer. It wasn’t possible for that customer to get the equivalent guarantee that it would be the same when they went back to buy it again.
Brands, with their superior packaging and their promise of consistent high standards, could offer a persuasive alternative – an easily recognizable and reassuring guarantee of quality.
So if the quality of retailers’ own brands is now often as good if not better than the manufacturers’ brand, as the result of numerous surveys show, why do we still persist in buying manufacturer’s brands?
The answer lies in the fact that the quality of a brand only related to its ability to physically do something for us. Philip Kotler, in Marketing Management: Planning, Analysis and Control, defines quality thus:
The answer lies in the fact that the quality of a brand only related to its ability to physically do something for us. Philip Kotler, in Marketing Management: Planning, Analysis and Control, defines quality thus:
Quality stands for the rated ability of the brand to perform its functions. Quality is a summary term for the products durability, reliability, precision, ease of repair and other valued attributes. Some of these attributes can be measured objectively.In other words quality relates to the functional benefit that a product offers. However (as seen in chapter 1) we, the consumer, often respond to our own perceptions of quality, not a true measure of quality. Which in turn highlights the real reason why brands still have appeal for us.
