appunti di marketing

Brand Management

A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that allows us to identify one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers, this definition is taken from the American Marketing Association. A brand is basically something that allows us to perceive products as different from one another on the basis of who the producer is. The main goal of brands is to create differences among products of the same product category, we perceive differences due to brands.

More and more in the last years companies are relying on emotional branding as opposed to rational branding. Emotional branding can be defined as the building of brand image and brand loyalty based on emotions. If you think about Nike's commercials you can see specific emotions that they are willing to trigger in customers such as anxiety before competitions, the pride of overcoming limits etc. Rational branding builds the brand's image on the basis of rational considerations.

riconosciamo il logo di Nike o il nome Coca-Cola. Questo ci permette di identificare rapidamente il prodotto o il servizio associato al marchio. Inoltre, c'è anche un componente valutativo del marchio. Questo significa che il marchio ha un valore intrinseco che viene valutato dai consumatori. Ad esempio, un marchio di lusso come Gucci potrebbe essere valutato come di alta qualità e di prestigio, mentre un marchio economico potrebbe essere valutato come di bassa qualità. Infine, c'è anche un componente di fiducia nel marchio. I consumatori tendono a fidarsi di marchi che hanno una buona reputazione e che hanno dimostrato nel tempo di essere affidabili. Ad esempio, se abbiamo avuto esperienze positive con un marchio come Amazon, saremo più propensi a fidarci di esso e ad acquistare i suoi prodotti. In sintesi, il marchio è un insieme di segni con significati associati che vengono rafforzati attraverso l'esperienza del consumatore nel tempo. Il suo valore deriva dalla sua utilità nel processo di valutazione, scelta e consumo da parte del consumatore. La sua struttura è definita da componenti come l'identificazione, la valutazione e la fiducia, che devono essere gestiti attentamente dalle aziende per sviluppare il valore del marchio.

Would recognize a familiar face by walking down the street and running into them. The cognitive function leads to brand awareness, the customer becomes aware of a specific brand. The second component is the evaluation component which has to do with the meanings we associate to a specific brand. We see the apple with a bite and we immediately recognize it as the logo of the Apple brand and then there is the evaluation component which has to do with only elements that in our mind we associate with the Apple brand, great design, elegance, innovation, California and other factors which provide meaning to a brand and have important emotional functions. The emotional function is related to the meanings we attach to a specific brand. The third component is trust, given by the experience with that brand. If we use the brand overtime, we know it better and better and this creates a predictive function (we know a brand and we can predict how we will feel with the next product we will buy from that brand).

and the third outcome which is brand loyalty. Brands are crucial both for the customers and for the company. For the customers, brands are useful for many benefits: they simplify the decision process, since you already know the brand; identify the origin of a product/service, we know exactly that the product comes from a specific producer, counterfeited products are a risk because they betray the certainty that the product of a specific brand comes from a certain producer; reduce risks in consumption and purchasing because they increase the predictability. There are also benefits for the company, brands simplify the management of the good/service; protect the firm (from a legal perspective), from imitations; ensure competitive advantage when successful, think about Coca-Cola brand. If we take a consumer centric approach, we can define brand value as the difference that brands create in the customer's answers, the knowledge that a certain product belongs to a certain brand creates some perceptions.preferences, behaviors that produce differences in customer's answers. For example, looking at a simple bag and a Gucci bag, the consumer will be automatically drawn to the Gucci bag and be influenced by the brand as a perception of more value. Remember also the blind test Coca-Cola vs Pepsi, when customers don't know what they are tasting the majority prefers Pepsi but when you tell them the majority will prefer Coca-Cola. The buyer decision progress starts with the recognition of a need, then you start the information search for alternatives which will be evaluated, then the purchase will be made and you will be happy or unhappy. If you are loyal to a brand and happy with it, you can skip both the information search and the evaluation of alternatives, so from a cognitive point of view brands greatly simplify our purchasing decisions. Brand value is the result of decisions that concern the construction of initial brand elements, the creation of secondary associations and the marketing.activity which deals with all marketing variables (product features, pricing, distribution channels, communication). The brand elements are the brand name (simple, possibly short, pleasant sounding), symbols (Twitter's bird, Ferrari's horse), distinctive design (the picturing), slogan, wording and lettering, jingle. All together they constitute the brand's identification and all elements that we will learn to recognize over time. In order to create brand awareness (cognitive outcome, I become aware of this brand and recognize it when I walk down the street) many elements are needed: ease of recognition, ease of representation of the brand elements (you could ask a sample of participants to draw a logo and see how easily they are able to reproduce it; recall depth, the probability of remembering a brand as the first brand that comes to mind when I think about a specific product category. For example, for smartphones the first brand that comes up to the mind is Samsung. The last

The measure of recall width is related to the range of purchase and consumption situations in which the brand is recalled. The more well-established a brand is, the higher the possible range of situations in which it will come to mind. For example, Coca-Cola is popular because there are many situations in which we think about it, such as when we are at the beach or at the movies.

Brand image, on the other hand, is related to the emotional component of how we perceive a brand. It is about whether we like a brand or not and if we feel emotionally attached to it. The fact that Coca-Cola is well known contributes to its brand awareness, but different people may have different opinions about its brand image. We can build a positive brand image by associating the brand with specific attributes, whether they are product-related (concrete or abstract) or non-product-related. For example, Evian builds its brand image by associating itself with luxury restaurants and food. A brand can also be associated with the image of a specific user. Apple has based its brand image on this concept.

brand image promoting the idea that the Apple user is anticomformist, original, thinks outside the box etc. If you buy Apple you are different from the rest. All these attributes create the image of benefits that the specific brand can convey to the user which can be functional, economic, psychological.

Secondary associations are those not related to the product itself but any other element: geographic area, the made-in effect (Italy is famous in the world for some specific factors like food, wine and fashion, so all the italian brands abroad tend to be associated with Italy and since Italy is famous they benefit from the association to their country of origin); other brands (co-branding); other complementary products (merchandising); testimonials (George Clooney is associated with Nespresso); events.

Brand loyalty is created by being customer centered and provide transactional equity, every transaction with the customer must be inspired by a fair treatment of the customer; through absence of any

opportunistic behavior to create relational equity, if companies show opportunism they destroy loyalty, the customer must perceive that the firm will not betray his trust; through goals and values convergence, the more you feel that a specific brand is aligned with your values the more serial equity will be created and brand loyalty is increased. A very important tool used by brands is the creation of brand communities, communities of users and consumers who are particularly loyal to a certain brand and are willing to share their experiences and evaluations and specific rituals, stories and traditions that are associated with that specific brand. An example can be the Harley Davidson brand community, these motorcycles are not very efficient from a strictly technical point of view, Japanese and German motorcycles are much better, but Harley Davidson motorcycles are associated with a specific set of values and lifestyle, the owners do not own them because of the technical features but because of

what they represent. The company created a community of users through the website where you have to subscribe if you are an owner of their motorcycle in order to benefit of discounts, ways to book hotels, special warranties, access to merchandise. The community is maintained because the members also periodically meet and have their rituals.

Companies manage the value of brand by strengthening the value and periodically revitalizing the brand, restyling the brand to make its value increase. This can be done in many ways. Piaggio revitalized its brand by issuing a model that recalls the style of the famous Vespa of the 50's. So one way to revitalize a brand is issuing a new model with a vintage look that connects the brand value with specific associations of the period in which that brand was in its golden years.

Most companies of large dimensions manage more than one brand, so in these cases we talk about brand architecture development, we have a master brand and then we can have other sub

brands depending on how many decisions of line extensions or category extensions the company makes. Brand extensions happen every time an established brand is used to commercialize a new product and that can happen within the same product category or a new one. The new product category can be associated or not to the original one, the more distance there is the riskier the association becomes, you risk damaging your brand image because it becomes inconsistent. Examples are the Ferrari brand commercializing a luxury line of clothing, Bulgari goes from high jewelries to perfumes, watches, fashion accessories etc. This operation might be detrimental to the image of the brand since clothes and cars are very different product categories. We talk about an architecture because there is a master brand, then sub-brands and under each sub brand there are product brands depending on how articulate it is. Normally sub-brands are launched to address different segments of the market. A very famous example ofIl brand architecture è Armani: Armani è il marchio principale, Giorgio.