留学作业：什么是品牌资产营销

什么是品牌资产营销

品牌是当今市场的一个基本组成部分。我们可以看到，在任何地方，有名品牌和强大的品牌都成功地跨越了各种各样的产品类别（坎贝尔，2002）。其目的是识别某个销售者或群销售者的产品或服务，使美国市场营销协会区别竞争对手(坎贝尔,2002;杰文斯,2002;贝尔曼,2005)。 然而，对一个品牌客户的角度是不同的，一个制造商可能被定义为“他/她所有的总积累经验,并且与客户接触点的建立”（卡普费雷，2004，引用VEL et al.，2011）。消费者的知识和信任的概念是建立一个品牌的核心。

 

目前，品牌不仅仅是给一个品牌名称。品牌是企业和品牌版面，因此,它是任何组织的营销功能的一部分。 品牌是一个很有创意的过程,这是品牌先锋沃尔特·兰道说的，产品在工厂中进行,但品牌是在头脑中创造(VELetal.,2011)。 品牌,是市场细分和产品差异化战略的结果。每一个品牌都尝试在产品的范畴中识别自己，然后试着去控制它。 在当今世界，有各种各样的形状，大小，质地和其他差异化特征的基础上我们在口味和传统上的选择；这从我们所驾驶的车到我们所消费的食物表现明显。这些品牌是为了使消费者的脑海里出现价值,这取决于产品持有的个性。 每一个品牌都有自己鲜明的个性来吸引不同的消费者(Sheena and Naresh,2012)。

What Is Brand Equity 

 

Brand is a fundamental part of todays market place. Anywhere we look, there are brands and strong brands are the ones which successfully come across a wide variety of product categories (Campbell, 2002). It has been described as "a name, term, sign, symbol, or design which is intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of the competitors" by The American Marketing Association (Campbell, 2002; Jevons, 2005; Bellman, 2005). However, the customer point of view of a brand is different from that of a manufacturer and could be defined as "the total accumulation of all his/her experiences, and is built at all points of contact with the customer" (Kapferer, 2004, cited by Vel et al., 2011). The two concepts of consumer knowledge and trust are at the heart of building up a brand.

 

At present, branding is much more than just giving a brand name. A brand is rather the face of the company and branding is therefore, a part and parcel of marketing function of any organisation now. Branding is a very creative process and as said by Branding pioneer Walter Landor "products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind‟ (Vel et al., 2011). Brands, actually, are a result of the strategy of marketing segmentation and product differentiation. Every brand tries to identify itself completely with the category of the product and then tries to have a control over it. In the current world, there are brands of variety of shapes, sizes, texture and other differentiating features based on our choices, tastes and traditions; which is evident from the cars we drive to the food we consume. These brands are meant to arise interests in the minds of the consumers, depending on the personalities they hold. This is how every brand has its own distinct personality that appeals to different consumers in different ways (Sheena and Naresh, 2012).#p#分页标题#e#

 

Brands have many important functions and the most basic function being to "serve as markers for the offerings of a firm". Brands help consumers to simplify choice, assure a particular level of quality and also to create trust. Brands are built based on the product, its marketing activity and its consumer behaviour. Thus, brands reveal the total involvement of a customer with a product. It also has an important role to play in measuring the effectiveness of marketing efforts like advertising. Last but not least, brands are an asset to an organisation, in financial terms. Thus, brands has an effect at three primary levels of any organisation - customer market, product market and financial market. All these benefits together creates a value which is often called Brand Equity (Keller and Lehmann, 2006).

 

品牌资产是什么-What is Brand Equity?

 

Brand Equity is the main meter to judge the state of a brand's health (Sinha et. al., 2008). There are numerous definitions of Brand Equity. Sinha et. al. (2008) defines it "as a set of assets, namely brand associations, brand awareness, brand loyalty, perceived quality and organizational associations that add or subtract value from a product or service". Keller (1993) has however described brand equity "as the differential effects that brand knowledge has on consumer response to the marketing of that". So, a brand is perceived subjectively by a consumer and thus, brand equity, for a consumer, is the ability of it to influence his/her behaviour by arousing a particular set of reactions and responses (Vel et. al., 2011). Brand Equity is also defined as the "incremental contribution ($) per year obtained by the brand in comparison to the underlying product (or service) with no brand-building efforts". It is conceptualized to arise from three direct effects - (i) enhanced brand awareness, (ii) enhanced attribute perceptions, and (iii) enhanced non-attribute preference; along with which the indirect effects of the above three sources on the increased availability of the brand, are also taken into account (Srinivasan et. al., 2005).

 

品牌资产的重要性-Significance of Brand Equity

 

As discussed earlier, brands play a significant role in creating a competitive edge over competition and in fetching considerable financial values for the organisation (Wang, 2010). "Brand equity provides the leverage option for the organizations which helps in the overall improvement of the performance". The main elements of Brand Equity are the brand name awareness, level of brand loyalty among existing customer, the level of quality associated with the brand and other various brand associations (Korkofingas and Ang, 2011). Though the concept of brand is mostly product oriented, it also helps in creation of value among customers about the product. The brand value is calculated by adding the cost of brand creation with the associated replacement cost in launching of a fresh new brand (Balbanis and Diamantopoulus, 2011).#p#分页标题#e#

 

Torres and Tribo (2011) found out from their research that a firm's brand equity mostly depends on the level of customer satisfaction and also its shareholder value. So, a manager who is trying to increase Brand Equity of the firm, should consider both the factors. However, their research result had showed that though customer satisfaction has a direct and positive effect on Brand Equity of a firm, it has an indirect and negative impact on shareholder value, through reductions. This is where a marketing manager is required to step in and play a strategic role of satisfying consumers and at the same time counteracting the actions of unsatisfied shareholders.

 

Simulations of brand equity and shareholder value in terms of customer satisfaction.

 

Marketers need to have a clear understanding of the equity in their brands, in order to manage them properly. One of the most interesting subareas of this topic is, measurement and valuation of brand at different levels - customer, product and financial market, along with the relationship of customer equity to brand equity (Keller and Lehmann, 2006).

 

如何创建品牌资产-How is Brand Equity created?

 

Brand Equity arises from two major sources - brand awareness and brand knowledge. Customers, usually have a set of associations with a brand of what it means and what it delivers. These associations helps to establish a connection between the customer and the brand, and could include product attributes, brand personality, symbols, organisational associations, etc. Brand loyalty also affects the value of a brand, but it is more of a measure of brand equity than being a part of it. So, building of brand equity could be considered to be a two-fold process - 1. to develop brand awareness in the target market and 2. to develop a "strong, favourable and unique" position in the minds of the customer. The following model could be considered in order to build a strong brand and hence, brand equity (Campbell, 2002).

 

The right hand rise box lists the benefits of strong brands and that is what needs to be achieved through brand awareness and brand associations (Campbell, 2002). We could also consider the following model in order to build and sustain brands.

 

This model starts by developing a brand vision by the senior management team. "It is an iterative process that forces managers continually to reconsider ways in which they can creatively capitalise on ides developed at earlier stages in the process". This allows the managers to identify where their assumptions were inappropriate and help them to reformulate their ideas (Chernatony, 2001).

 

测量品牌资产-Measuring Brand Equity

 

Although brand is an intangible asset, it is very important to understand how Brand Equity is measures, along with how to build and manage it. Keller and Lehmann (2006) says, academics have taken three distinct perspectives into consideration for measuring brand equity:#p#分页标题#e#

 

Customer perspective - The value of a brand or its equity, is finally derived from the consumer's words and actions.

 

Company perspective - A strong brand serves many purposes to a company, making advertising and promotion more effective, helping secure distribution, insulating a product from competition, and facilitating growth and expansion into other product categories.

 

Financial perspective - A brand's financial worth is the price that it has in the financial market. Apparently, this price shows the expectation about the discounted value of future cash flows.

 

However, Christodoulides and Chertatony (2010) are of the view that, several measures should be combined together, instead to sticking to any one measure of evaluation. According to them, factors that needed to be considered are - brand vision, brand's contribution in overall product experience of the product, brand category, performance and emotional aspect of brand, etc. Their research also highlighted that Brand Equity can be measured both directly and indirectly. Direct methods involves studying different aspect like importance of the brand and its overall perceived value, whereas indirect methods involve measuring various demonstrable dimension of brand or through the help of price premiums. Price premium method comprises of calculating profit difference that arises from the sale of the branded product and a non-branded product." The research study conducted also suggests the use of neuroscience in determining the feelings of the brand customers which can be significant in measuring the effectiveness of the brands" (Christodoulides and Chertatony, 2010 cited by Cheng Lo, 2012).

 

为什么品牌需要时间管理-Why Brands need to be managed over time?

 

The major challenge faced while managing a brand is the numerous changes occurring in the market environment. The market environment is always evolving and significantly moving like changes in consumer behaviour, competitive strategies, government regulations, etc. Apart from these external factors, there are some internal factors as well, that could affect the brand; like the firm itself getting engaged in a variety of happenings, changing of strategic focus of the firm, etc. That is why, effective brand management is so much required to maintain or enhance brand equity, keeping pace with so many changing forces (Keller, 1999).

 

Plummer (1990, cited by Ewing et. al, 2009) said that "only…poorly managed brands have a finite life cycle…if a brand turns out to have a finite life cycle, it is not the brand that failed but the people who managed it", which means brands should be considered as immortal and only poor managing of a brand could result in it's death. However, Groucutt (2006) has proposed an alternative view and has said that though brand life expectancy can be increased in various ways like innovation and repositioning, organisation should be able to identify when the brand has actually reached an end of its life span. On the other hand, Wansink (1997, cited by Bellman, 2005) says that most marketers believe that brand follow a particular irreversible life cycle: "growth, maturation, decline and inevitable death" and so they neglect to cherish brands back into life, and instead focus on introduction of new brands. But Palmer (1999) claims that a brand could be successfully revitalised, by deeply focussing on target audience and some impactful promotional campaigns, along with improved physical characteristics, for e.g. - smart packaging.#p#分页标题#e#

 

Actually, effective brand management is a part of long-term marketing decisions. Any decision taken by a firm, as a part of its marketing program, could affect consumer knowledge of the brand, specially the brand awareness or image. Later, these changes in consumer knowledge would lead to changes in consumer behaviour, and thus affect the effectiveness of its future marketing activities. Therefore, before making any marketing decision, it is very important to consider the changes it could bring in brand awareness and image and its subsequent effect on the campaign. In fact, brand equity management is even more than taking a long-term perspective. "Brand equity must be actively managed over time by reinforcing the brand meaning and, if necessary, by revitalizing the brand" (Keller, 1999).

 

品牌强化和复兴是什么-What is Brand Reinforcement and Revitalisation?

 

Brand Reinforcement is all about maintaining brand equity; in other words, it is about making sure that the consumers do have the desired knowledge structures so that the brands continues having its necessary sources of brand equity. This could be done by marketing activities that would persistently carry the meaning of the brand, to the consumers - which could be in form of brand awareness and brand image. However, sometimes, even a well-designed reinforcement strategy fails for various reasons like emergence of new technology or competitors, change in customers' taste and preference, etc. In this situation, the brands need to revive their fortune by returning to their roots, in order to recapture the lost sources of equity. This is what is meant by Brand Revitalisation (Keller, 1999).

 

理解品牌强化的重要因素-Understanding the important considerations of Brand Reinforcement

 

According to Keller (1999), Brand Reinforcement involves the following :

 

Maintaining brand consistency

 

Protecting sources of brand equity

 

Fortifying vs. Leveraging

 

Fine-tuning Supporting Marketing Program

 

探索品牌振兴公司的范围-Exploring the range of Brand Revitalization to a company

 

It is very important for a company to know, what marketing or managerial actions possibly will revitalise the brand in the minds of the consumer (Andrews and Kim, 2007). The main key to revive a brand is to increase its differentiation, which could be achieved by asserting the "core relevance though incremental and continuous innovation". Another element that needs important consideration is the presence of brand's core image in the minds of consumer, in the revitalisation strategy. When a brand is revitalised, many people will recognise the brand but will however want to know what "new" in it. So, to support the revival, there must be well planned advertising and promotional campaigns. (Bellman, 2005).#p#分页标题#e#