Strategic Brand Management

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C H A P T E R
Choosing brand elements to build brand
equity
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Preview

• Brand elements are those trademarkable devices
  that serve to identify and differentiate the
  brand.
• The brand elements are brand names, URLs, Logos,
  symbol, characters, spokespeople, slogans,
  jingles, packages, and signage.
• Brand elements can be chosen to enhance brand
  awareness facilitate the formation of strong,
  favorable, and unique brand associations or
  elicit positive brand judgments and feelings.

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Criteria for choosing brand elements (1)

• There are six criteria in choosing brand
  elements
• 1.Memorability
• A necessary condition for building brand equity
  is achieving a high level of brand
  awareness.Toward that goal, brand elements can be
  chosen that are inherently memorable and
  therefore facilitate recall or recognition in
  purchase or consumption settings.
• 2.Meaningfulness
• Besides choosing brand elements to build
  awareness, brand elements can also be chosen
  whose inherent meaning enhances the formation of
  brand associations.Brand elements may take all
  kind of meaning, varying in descriptive, as well
  as persuasive, content.

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Criteria for choosing brand elements (2)

• 3.Linkability
• The associations suggested by a brand element
  may not always be related to the product.Thus,
  brand elements can be chosen that are rich in
  visual and verbal imagery and inherently fun and
  interesting.
• Because consumers often do not examine much
  information in making product decisions, it is
  often desirable that brand elements be easily
  recognized and recalled and inherently
  descriptive and persuasive.

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Criteria for choosing brand elements (3)

• 4.Transferability
• ( in both a product category and geographic
  sense)
• First,How useful is the brand element for line
  or category extensions? In general, the less
  specific the name, the more easily it can be
  transferred across categories.
• Second,to what extend does the brand element add
  to brand equity across geographic boundaries and
  market segments? To a large extent this depends
  on the cultural content and linguistic qualities
  of the brand element.

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Criteria for choosing brand elements (4)

• 5.Adaptability
• Because of changes in consumer values and
  opinions, or simply because of a need to remain
  contemporary, brand elements often must be
  updated over time.
• 6.Protectability
• Choose brand elements that can be legally
  protected on an international basis.
• Formally register them with the appropriate legal
  bodies
• Vigorously defend trademarks from unauthorized
  competitive infringement.
• It is important to reduce the likelihood that
  competitors can imitate the brand by creating a
  derivative based on salient prefixes or suffixes
  of the name.

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Brand Names (1)

• Brand name is a fundamentally important choice
  because it often captures the central theme or
  key associations of a product in a very compact
  and economical fashion.Brand names can be an
  extremely effective shorthand means of
  communication.
• In general, it is believed that brand awareness
  is improved the extent to which brand names are
  chosen that are simple and easy to pronounce or
  spell familiar and meaningful and different
  distinctive, and unusual.

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Brand Names (2)

• To enhance brand recall, it is desirable for the
  brand name to be simple and easy to pronounce or
  spell.Short names often facilitate recall because
  they are easy to encode and store in memory.
• Easy of pronunciation is critical to obtain
  valuable repeated word-of-mouth exposure that
  helps to build strong memory links.
• Ideally, the brand name should have a clear,
  understandable, and unambiguous pronunciation and
  meaning.

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Brand Names (3)

• To enhance brand recall, it is desirable for the
  brand name to be simple and easy to pronounce or
  spell.Short names often facilitate recall because
  they are easy to encode and store in memory.
• Easy of pronunciation is critical to obtain
  valuable repeated word-of-mouth exposure that
  helps to build strong memory links.
• Ideally, the brand name should have a clear,
  understandable, and unambiguous pronunciation and
  meaning.

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Brand Names (4)

• To improve pronouncability and recallability,
  many marketers seek a desirable cadence and
  pleasant sound in their brand names.
• To enhance brand recall, brand name should be
  familiar and meaningful so that it is able to tap
  into existing knowledge structures.
• Hypothetical brand names showed that
  high-imagery brand names,(e.g.
  ocean,frog,plant) were significantly more
  memorable across a variety of recall and
  recognition measures than low-imagery
  words(e.g.truth,moment)

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Brand Names (4)

• The brand name may be chosen to reinforce an
  important attribute or benefit association that
  makes up its product positioning.
• A morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit having
  meaning.There are 6,000 morphemes in the English
  language.
• Compaq computers communication
• Nissans Sentra central sentry
• Alphanumeric brand names contain one or more
  numbers in either digit form(e.g.5) or written
  form (e.g. five)

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Naming criteria

• Descriptive describes function literally
• Suggestive suggestive of a benefit or function
• Compounds combination of two or more words
• Classical based on Latin, Greek, Sanskit
• Arbitrary real words with no obvious tie-in to
  company
• Fanciful coined words with no obvious meaning

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Naming Procedures

1. Define the branding objectives
2. Generate as many names and concepts as possible.
3. Screen based on the branding objectives and
   marketing considerations.(double meaning,
   unpronounceable,already in use, contradiction of
   the positioning)
4. Collect more extensive information of the final
   5-10 names.
5. Consumer testing
6. Formally register the name

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URLs (Uniform Resource Locators)

• Brand recall is critical for URLs .
• Number of registered domain names, 20 million
• Every three-letter combination was registered.
• 98 of the words in a typical English dictionary
  had been registered.
• The rate of URL registrations, 84,000 per day.

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Logos and Symbols

• Non-word mark logos called symbols.
• Word marks (e.g. Coca-Cola, Dunhill)
• Abstract logos (e.g. Mercedes star, Rolex crown)
• Because of their visual nature, logos and symbols
  are often easily recognized and can be a valuable
  way to identify products, although a key concern
  is how well they become linked in memory to the
  corresponding brand name and product to boost
  brand recall.
• Unlike brand names, logos can be easily changed
  over time to achieve a more contemporary look.

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Character

• Characters represent a special type of brand
  symbol-one that takes on human or real life
  characteristics.
• Brand characters can provide a number of brand
  equity benefits.Because they are often colorful
  and rich in imagery, they tend to be attention
  getting.Consequently,brand characters can be
  quite useful for creating brand awareness.
• Cautions,brand characters can be so attention
  getting and well linked that they dominate other
  brand elements and actually dampen brand
  awareness.

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Slogans

• Slogans are short phrases that communicate
  descriptive or persuasive information about the
  brand
• Slogans can function as usefulhooks or
  handles to help customers grasp the meaning of
  a brand in terms of what brand is and what makes
  it special.
• Slogans can help to reinforce the brand
  positioning and desired point of difference.
• Slogans often become closely tired to advertising
  campaigns and can be used as tag lines to
  summarize the descriptive and persuasive
  information conveyed in ads.

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Jingles

• Jingles are musical messages written around the
  brand.
• Jingles can communicate brand benefits, but they
  often convey product meaning in a nondirect and
  fairly abstract fashion given their musical
  foundation,related to feelings and personality.
• The jingle will repeat the brand name in clever
  and amusing ways that allow consumers multiple
  encoding opportunities.

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Packaging (1)

• Packaging involves the activities of designing
  and producing containers or wrappers for a
  product.
• Packaging must achieve the objectives
• Identify the brand
• Convey descriptive and persuasive information
• Facilitate product transportation and protection
• Assist at-home storage
• Aid product consumption

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Packaging (2)

• Level of package
• Primary package
• Secondary package
• Transportation package
• Main functions of package
• Protection 4.Convenience
• Handling 5.Attractiveness
• Identification 6.Suitable cost

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Packaging (3)

• Packaging materials
• Paper
• bag, folding boxboard carton, corrugated
  fiberboard box, fiber drum,
• Metal
• can, drum, collapsible tubes, aluminum foil
• Glass
• Plastic
• PE, PP, PS, PET, PVC
• Wood

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Packaging (4)

• Designing packaging process
• Analysis of the market
• Retail environment
• Products strengths and weakness
• Competitors strengths and weakness
• Packaging option
• Packaging positioning
• Copy strategy
• Package design brief
• Package test (functional, visual, dealer,
  consumer)
• Evaluation

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Packaging (5)

• Functionally, structural design is crucial.for
  example,packaging innovations with food products
  over the years have resulted in packages being
  resealable, tamperproof, and more convenient to
  use(e.g. easy to hold,easy to open, or
  squeezable)
• Structural packaging innovations can create a
  point of difference that permits a higher
  margin.New packages can also expand a market and
  capture new market segments.
• less cost-effective and last five seconds of
  marketing

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Packaging (6)

• Packaging color can affect consumers perceptions
  of the product itself.
• Packaging changed for a number of reasons
• Upgraded to signal a higher price
• Sell products through new or shifting
  distribution channels.
• When there is a significant product line
  expansion that would benefit from common look.
• Package redesign may also accompany a new product
  innovation to signal changes to consumers.
• If changed too significantly, consumers may not
  recognize the package when confronted with it in
  the store.

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Putting it all together

• Each of different brand elements can play a
  different role in building brand equity.
• Conceptually,it is necessary to mix and match
  these different brand elements to maximize brand
  equity.