What is Branding? Basics & Concepts of Brand Management

In Brand management, terms like brand, brand values, brand image, brand identify, brand position, brand equity, brand performance, may seem related, they have distinct meanings in brand management although they may be interconnected.

For example, a brand has an identity, which contributes to its image, position, and equity. The values of a brand guide its behavior, and performance reflects how well it lives up to its promises.

Once a student grasps the basics/essentials of Brand Management, they should be able to: Analyse the nature and meaning of brand management, compare and contrast theories on how customers develop relationships with brands and how companies develop effective brand strategies, evaluate measures of brand equity and brand management systems, analyse the relative effectiveness of a range of communications tools in communicating the brand essence and values to diverse audiences, evaluate the role of integrated communications in building strong brands and brand relationships, develop an effective brand strategy, prepare an integrated marketing communications plan, work effectively on a team based project, demonstrate ability to examine their understanding of the learning they have gained and how this learning has helped build both cognitive and behavioural skills.

Luxury Brand management focuses on using management practices in businesses that deal in premium products and services. A luxury brand manager’s primary role is to understand the history of a brand and build it further, keeping client demand and preferences in mind. These managers are also required to keep the brand value and image intact globally.

Want to make a Strategic Brand Plan for a brand (corporate, product, service)? Here are a few suggestions across different sectors:

Technology: Apple
Explore the evolution of Apple’s brand strategy, focusing on innovation, design, and customer experience.

Automotive: Tesla
Analyze Tesla’s approach to branding, sustainable practices, and its impact on the electric vehicle market.

Fast Fashion: Zara
Investigate how Zara has positioned itself as a fast fashion leader and its unique supply chain model.

Beverages: Starbucks
Examine Starbucks’ global brand strategy, including its emphasis on the third-place experience and social responsibility.

Sportswear: Nike
Explore Nike’s iconic branding, its endorsement strategies, and the impact of its marketing campaigns.

E-commerce: Amazon
Investigate how Amazon has built a global brand and its diversification into various business segments.

Health and Wellness: Fitbit
Analyze Fitbit’s brand strategy in the wearable fitness technology market.

Luxury: Chanel
Examine how Chanel maintains exclusivity and allure in the luxury fashion and beauty industry.

Automobile: BMW
Explore BMW’s brand strategy, focusing on its emphasis on driving experience, luxury, and innovation.

Hospitality: Airbnb
Investigate how Airbnb has disrupted the hospitality industry and built a unique brand identity.

Academic questions, assignments, projects on Brand Management

Management/MBA Questions, case studies, assignments on brand management

Question: Make a Strategic Brand Plan for a brand.

1. Introduce the brand. Highlight the brand (corporate, product or service), vision/mission statement, brand values, brand identity, and goals. Give evidence from the digital media.

2. Brief brand audit, including brand performance analysis (e.g., brand image and other customer-based brand equity elements) in comparison to the brand identity, positioning, aims and goals. Compare performance with key competitors. You may conduct limited online and offline exploratory research to support your analysis. Focus on critical analysis of the available information. 3. Summarise the main issues affecting brand performance from the analysis above.

4. Reconsiderations of strategic brand direction: Decide whether to maintain or change current brand direction, in terms of: Brand identity, mission and goals; Reposition statement: Mission, values, goals; Illustrate the reconsidered strategic brand position in relation to main competitors with perception map- if necessary.

5. Brand architecture (if applicable). Marketing mix, including substantial plans for digital media tools, such influencers, social media presence, online advertising, managing brand narrative through storytelling, improving online and offline brand touch points, etc (Required). Budgetary considerations. Note that detailed budgets not required- only indications of scope and limitations of finances for the envisage implementation of the strategic brand plan.

Question: Select any two of the following three: Narendra Modi / Rahul Gandhi / Arvind Kejriwal. Discuss and analyze how these personalities do as brands when we compare on the four critical elements of a brand.

Q. Select one brand, from either a service or product sector. For the chosen organisations, you are required to write a brand plan for that organisation, using the SOSTAC framework.
You may feel that the brand needs improving, repositioning, reinforcing, or that there is something different that needs to be done to the brand; your analysis will demonstrate the issues. You are also required to provide a two-page creative brief so that your creative agency can develop your message and communication.

Q1. RedPly (name changed) is a leading Indian plywood manufacturer. Along with plywood it also manufactures and markets allied products for furniture making including laminates, veneer, doors etc. though Plywood remains its largest revenue contributor. RedPly prides itself w.r.t its product quality and remains committed to providing the highest quality to its consumers. Over the years it has installed latest machines and equipment for high-class manufacturing, though it leads to escalation in production cost. RedPly’s closest competitor is OrangePly (name changed), with unbranded players being the most significant competition. OrangePly competes through flexible retailer terms and smart marketing and communication strategy while unbranded players offer 30-40% lower price. Plywood retailers and carpenters are the key influencer to customer’s decision. While customers (Home-owners) show a preference for RedPly, retailers try to convert them to brands offering higher retailer margins. Carpenters demand higher price for using branded plywood and assure home-owner about the quality of the ISI-marked products or unbranded products.Due to above factors RedPly is consistently losing market share and is facing price-pressures. Plywood market is dominated by the unbranded segment (~60%) with branded players (RedPly, OrangePly, others) forming the remaining.

Critically analyze the RedPly’s market situation to identify its business challenges. What is/are the possible outcomes if RedPly does not respond to these challenges? Suggest the strategic options available to it. What are the pro and cons of each strategic option?

Q2. Nitin bhai is feeling perturbed. His company Velvet Paints has recently acquired a Kerala based paints company Trichy Paints a year ago but he has been unable to merge the two brands till today.Velvet Paints’ primarily market is in the decorative paints segment. It is known for its quality and innovative products but has limited brand appeal specially in southern market. Trichy Paints has a broader product range across Decorative as well as Wood finish segments. Kerala is Trichy paints key market though it has limited presence in other Southern markets (Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Telengana etc.). Nitin Bhai would like to do away with Trichy Paints as a brand and would only like to use the acquisition for expansion of production facility, personnel and distribution network. Multiple brands require separate marketing & advertising expenditure. Nitin Bhai has ambitious plans for Velvet Paints and plans to make substantial expenditure on the marketing & promotion to be able to take-on established large players. Being a mid-sized company, Velvel Paints has limited resources and multiple brands require separate marketing spend thus increasing the budget required. The key conflict here is regarding the Wood finish brand of Trichy Paints, Woodshine. Velvet Paints has no comparative product and Woodshine is a leader in its segment. Tampering with the brand may lead to market dilution. To resolve the conflict, Nitin Bhai hires a Hyderabad based market research firm Marquee. The market research firm held discussions with the Trichy Paints management, trade partners (retailers, distributors, wood-painters) and consumers. Below were the key findings shared by the Marquee team. • Wooden furniture polish is a niche segment with Woodshine being the leading brand • Woodshine has a very strong brand recall and brand connect • Consumers are dependent on the wood-painters for the brand-selection and are often unaware of the product being used though customers want the best quality for their furniture with low sensitivity to price • Wood-painters have limited education and have strong association of Woodshine with existing name and logo

How would you explain the situation and brand challenges Velvet Paints is facing? What will be your advise to Nitin Bhai in regards to brand portfolio restructuring? What should he do with Woodshine?

Q3. Happy SPA has recently undertaken significant advertisement spend to boost its membership. It published full-page and half-page ads in leading newspapers (Sample Ads in Appendix 1 and 2). It expected ~30-40% jump in its membership but the response to the campaign has been disastrous. There have been less than 100 query calls with some Ads resulting in no query calls. This has led to serious deliberations within the management. Happy SPA had started with the philosophy of providing value-based-pricing and professional servicing. In the over a decade of its existence it grew to 25 branches across 5 cities in North and West India. In the last couple of years its membership had begun to stagnate. It had aimed to grow to 100+ branches in the next 3 years through franchisee model. For franchisee led growth it was important for Happy SPA to boost revenue, something it has struggled with. A new strategy was formulated to boost footfalls and it was decided to target stress-based issues through SPA therapies. Stress has popularly been identified as the primary source of health-issue in the modern day life. Management believed that by linking its therapies to stress-ailment it will be able to increase relevance of its packages. Along with standard SPA therapies Happy SPA came up with stress and stress-linked ailments (fatigue, poor-sleep, back-ache etc.) specific therapies. As part II of the growth strategy, it made significant expenditure in advertisement and expected it to drive growth and its expansion plans. But the poor response to its campaign had put brakes onto its plans and brought it back to the thinking room.

a. Conduct a survey (sample size 5-8 people) exploring linkage between stress-ailments and SPA. Present the survey-questionnaire and the findings.
b. What do you think of the Happy SPA’s new growth strategy and advertisements? What could be the reason for its lack of response? Analyse it according to the survey-findings.

Question:
1. Choose a major consumer brand (the choice is yours)
2. Drawing on your own research from secondary sources, write up an account of the brand’s evolution over its lifetime to the present day.
3. Analyse the brand’s positioning and strategy using relevant frameworks e.g. Keller’s 6 brand elements.
4. Describe the environmental factors that in your opinion present the most pressing challenges to the brand over the coming.
5. Using Kotler and Sarkar’s framework, outline a programme for brand activism through which the brand might assert an overriding moral, environmental and/or social purpose.
6. Explain how this brand purpose might benefit the brand in the long term.

Question: Select an existing luxury brand or create a hypothetical one, dissect the brand further with previously learnt models. Go through every aspect to answer why the brand fits in the luxury department. Divide the assignment into different phases, while analysing the brand’s values and ethics. Take a deep dive into the brand’s world, to understand the market and consumer psychology while giving valuable recommendations. After completing the analysis, end by creating a social media campaign, keeping all the brand points in mind.

CONTENTS

PHASE 1 • About • BCC Model • SWOT Analysis • Brand Archtype • Dissection • Consumer Psychology

PHASE 2 • Branding • Online and Offline Plans

PHASE 3 • Campaign • Outcome • Reflection • Bibliography

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