Ashesi University

COURSE TITLE : STRATEGIC BRAND MANAGEMENT

SEMESTER : SPRONG 2016MODULE 9: Designing and Implementing a

Branding Strategy I: Brand Architecture, Brand-Product Matrix, Brand Hierarchy

Lecturer: Ebow Spio

Learning Outcomes • Explain how to maximize brand equity across all the

different brands and products of the firm • Appreciate how a firm determines which brand

elements to choose to apply across the products it offers for sale (Branding Strategy or brand architecture)

• Explain brand terminologies and concepts such as brand architecture, brand-product matrix, brand portfolio, brand hierachy,

• Explain how cause marketing can build brand equity

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Branding strategy

• Branding strategy is critical because it is the means by which the firm can help consumers understand its products and services and organize them in their minds.

• Two important strategic tools: The brand-product matrix and the brand hierarchy help to characterize and formulate branding strategies by defining various relationships among brands and products.

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Branding Strategy or Brand Architecture

• The branding strategy for a firm reflects the number and nature of common or distinctive brand elements applied to the different products sold by the firm.

– Which brand elements can be applied to which products and the nature of new and existing brand elements to be applied to new products

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The role of Brand Architecture

• Clarify: brand awareness – Improve consumer understanding and

communicate similarity and differences between individual products

• Motivate: brand image – Maximize transfer of equity to/from the brand to

individual products to improve trial and repeat purchase

Developing Brand Architecture Strategy

3 Steps or Requirements

1.Defining the Potential of the brand in terms of its “market footprint”

2.Identifying the Product and Service Extensions that will allow the brand achieve that potential

3. Specifying the brand elements and positioning associated with the specific products and services for the brand

Developing Brand Architecture Strategy : Defining the Brand Potential

• 1. Brand Vision : Management’s view of the brand’s long term potential. It relates to the brand’s “higher order purpose” e.g. eliciting joy, enabling connections, evoking pride, inspiring exploration etc.

Crayola : Known for crayons. Now Crayola Chalk, Crayola Glitter Glue, Crayola Scissors hence Brand Meaning of “Colourful Arts and crafts for kids”

Brand Essence is to find “What if “ in each child”

“ We believe in unleashing, nurturing and celebrating the colourful originality in every child. We give kids an invitation that ignites, colours that inspire, and tools that transform original thoughts into visible form. We give colourful wings to the invisible that grow in the hearts of children. Because we believe that creatively alive kids grow into inspired adults.”

Developing Brand Architecture Strategy : Defining the Brand Potential2. Defining Brand Boundaries: Identifying the products or services the brand should offer, it should supply and the needs it should satisfy based on its brand vision and positioning.

3. Crafting the Brand Positioning: The unique and valuable place the brand seeks to occupy in the minds and hearts of consumers relative to its competitors.

Developing Brand Architecture Strategy : Identifying Brand Extension Opportunities

2. Identify new products and services to achieve that potential through a well-designed and implemented brand extension strategy.

Line Extension : New product introductions within existing category e.g. Close Up White

Category Extensions: New product introductions outside existing categories etc. Sunlight Dishwash, Dove Deodorant

Developing Brand Architecture Strategy : Branding New Products and Services

3. Branding New Products and Services•This involves deciding the specific brand elements to use for any particular new product or service associated with the brand.

•New products and services must be branded in a way to maximize the brand’s overall clarity and understanding to consumers and customers

N

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Brand-Product Matrix

• Must define:– Brand-Product relationships (rows)

• Line and category extensions

– Product-Brand relationships (columns)• Brand portfolio

1 2 3 4

A

B

C

Products

Brands

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Important Definitions

• Product line– A group pf products within a product category

that are closely related

• Product mix (product assortment)– The set of all product lines and items that a

particular seller makes available to buyers

• Brand mix (brand assortment)– The set of all brand lines that a particular seller

makes available to buyers

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Breadth of a Branding Strategy

• Breadth of product mix– Aggregate market factors– Category factors– Environmental factors

• Depth of product mix– Examining the percentage of sales and profits

contributed by each item in the product line – Deciding to increase the length of the product line

by adding new variants or items typically expands market coverage and therefore market share but also increases costs

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Depth of a Branding Strategy

• The number and nature of different brands marketed in the product class sold by a firm

• Referred to as brand portfolio• The reason is to pursue different market

segments, different channels of distribution, or different geographic boundaries

• Maximize market coverage and minimize brand overlap

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Ford Brand Portfolio

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Designing a Brand Portfolio

• Basic principles:– Maximize market coverage so that no potential

customers are being ignored– Minimize brand overlap so that brands aren’t

competing among themselves to gain the same customer’s approval

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Brand Roles in the Portfolio

• Flankers• Cash cows• Low-end entry-level• High-end prestige brands

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Brand Hierarchy

• A means of summarizing the branding strategy by displaying the number and nature of common and distinctive brand elements across the firm’s products, revealing the explicit ordering of brand elements

• A useful means of graphically portraying a firm’s branding strategy

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Brand Hierarchy Tree: Toyota

Toyota Corporation

Toyota(Trucks)

Toyota(SUV/vans)

LexusToyotaFinancialServices

Toyota(Cars)

Corolla PriusAvalon Celica ECHO MatrixMR2

SpyderCamry

CESLE

SELEXLE

Platinum EditionXLXLS

SESLE

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Brand Hierarchy Levels

Family Brand (Buick)

Corporate Brand (General Motors)

Modifier: Item or Model (Ultra)

Individual Brand (Park Avenue)

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Corporate Brand Equity

• Occurs when relevant constituents hold strong, favorable, and unique associations about the corporate brand in memory

• Encompasses a much wider range of associations than a product brand

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Umbrella or Family or Range Brands

• Brands applied across a range of product categories e.g. Sunlight, Dove, Nivea

• An efficient means to link common associations to multiple but distinct products

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Individual Brands

• Restricted to essentially one product category• There may be multiple product types offered

on the basis of different models, package sizes, flavors, etc.

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Modifiers

• Signals refinements or differences in the brand related to factors such as quality levels, attributes, functions, etc.

• Plays an important organizing role in communicating how different products within a category that share the same brand name are. E.g. Johnnie Walker Red Label, Black Label, Gold Label Scotch whiskey, Wrigley’s Spearmint, Doublemint, Juicy Fruit etc.

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Corporate Image Dimensions• Corporate product attributes, benefits or attitudes– Quality– Innovativeness

• People and relationships– Customer orientation

• Values and programs– Concern with the environment– Social responsibility

• Corporate credibility– Expertise– Trustworthiness– Likability

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Brand Hierarchy Decisions

• The number of levels of the hierarchy to use in general

• How brand elements from different levels of the hierarchy are combined, if at all, for any one particular product

• How any one brand element is linked, if at all, to multiple products

• Desired brand awareness and image at each level

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Number of Hierarchy Levels

• Principle of simplicity– Employ as few levels as possible

• Principle of clarity– Logic and relationship of all brand elements

employed must be obvious and transparent

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Levels of Awareness and Associations

• Principle of relevance– Create global associations that are relevant across

as many individual items as possible

• Principle of differentiation– Differentiate individual items and brands

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Linking Brands at Different Levels

• Principle of prominence– The relative prominence of brand elements affects

perceptions of product distance and the type of image created for new products

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Linking Brands Across Products

• Principle of commonality– The more common elements shared by products,

the stronger the linkages

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Brand Architecture Guidelines

• Adopt a strong customer focus• Avoid over-branding• Establish rules and conventions and be

disciplined• Create broad, robust brand platforms• Selectively employ sub-brands as means of

complementing and strengthening brands• Selectively extend brands to establish new

brand equity and enhance existing brand equity

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Corporate Brand Campaign

• Different objectives are possible:– Build awareness of the company and the nature of its

business– Create favorable attitudes and perceptions of company

credibility– Link beliefs that can be leveraged by product-specific

marketing– Make a favorable impression on the financial community– Motivate present employees and attract better recruits– Influence public opinion on issues

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Using Cause Marketing to Build Brand Equity

• The process of formulating and implementing marketing activities that are characterized by an offer from the firm to contribute a specified amount to a designated cause when customers engage in revenue-providing exchanges that satisfy organizational and individual objectives

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Advantages of Cause Marketing

• Building brand awareness• Enhancing brand image• Establishing brand credibility• Evoking brand feelings• Creating a sense of brand community• Eliciting brand engagement

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Green Marketing

• A special case of cause marketing that is particularly concerned with the environment

• Explosion of environmentally friendly products and marketing programs

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Crisis Marketing Guidelines

• The two keys to effectively managing a crisis are that the firm’s response should be swift and that it should be sincere.

Key Points 1. Branding strategy is important as a means of enabling

consumers to understand and connect with the brand, since it can help consumers organize a company’s products and services in their minds.

2. Designing a brand strategy involves decisions regarding the number of levels to use, how brand elements at different levels will be combined for a given product, and how brand elements will be linked to multiple products.

3. Each successive level in a brand hierarchy allows the firm to communicate additional, specific information about products.

4. In general, associations for a higher-level brand should be relevant to as many brands below it as possible, while brands at the same level should be as differentiated as possible.

Tutorial

1. Assign students the task of identifying pairs of competing brands with different branding strategies

2. Contrast the branding strategies and brand portfolios of market leaders in two different industries

Brand Architecture in Practice : The Case of Premium Foods

• Premium Foods : Produce maize products and other branded cereals for House of Grains to market. It is intended to

• Develop House of Grains into a food marketing outfit which provides Ghanaians with high quality and nutritious products from the finest grains.

• Products from House of Grains will be fortified with vitamins, minerals and other essential food nutrients to differentiate them from artisanal products.

Brand Architecture in Practice : The Case of Premium Foods

• The purpose of House of Grains is to promote the physical well being of Ghanaians.

• House of Grains will serve as a house of brands with several cereal products having their individual brand names.

• The focus will be on each individual brand, however, each brand will enjoy a shadow endorsement from the high quality credentials of House of Grains as each packaging will carry the House of Grains logo.

• The House of Grain logo will be synonymous with premium quality nutritious grains and products.

Brand Architecture in Practice : The Case of Premium Foods

• LOVIT – a maize brand is the first brand from the House of Grains stable. Each brand may have several products or variants with a descriptor to differentiate the variants from the other products or variants. Descriptor will convey an important attribute or quality cue.

• House of Grains is starting with maize products because maize products constitute by far the biggest size of the staple foods market in Ghana. Consumers of maize products span various socio economic groups, ethnic groups and ages.

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Brand Architecture in Practice : The Case of Premium Foods

House O’ Grains

Premium Foods

Modifier: Lovit Soft, Lovit Smoth

Individual Brands : Lovit, Mavlos

Brand Architecture in Practice : The Case of Premium Foods

Cereal Brand Descriptor Product Key Usage Maize LOVIT

Soft Maize Flour

- Tuo Zafi - Banku - Omo Tuo

Maize LOVIT

Smooth Maize Meal - Porridge

Sorghum/Millet Mavlos?

Brand Architecture in Practice : The Case of Premium Foods