Objective of the Course :

There is always creativity and originality component involved with marketing and branding, of
course, is the highest manifestation of that creativity. Therefore questions frequently peep in
our mind what is brand about, what does it do for the organization, how to build strong brands,
how to measure them, and how to manage them effectively. Brand is one of the company’s
most valuable assets which develop over time and it afterwards it turns into the company’s
invaluable intangible assets; creating and nurturing a strong brand poses considerable
challenges. Therefore this course has been designed to provide a deep look into how to create
profitable brand strategies by building, measuring, and managing brand equity – the central
idea of branding for the learners and the practitioners. The purpose of this course is to provide
the learners a comprehensive and up-to-date treatment of the subjects of brands, brand equity,
and strategic brand management – the design and implementation of marketing programs and
activity to build, measure, and manage brand equity.

Detailed Course Outlines

1. Brands and Brand Management: What is brand? Why do brands matter? Can
anything be branded? What are the strongest brands? Branding challenges and
opportunities; The brand equity concept; Strategic brand management process.

2. Customer-Based Brand Equity and Brand Positioning: Customer-based brand

equity; Making a strong brand knowledge; Sources of brand equity; Identifying and
establishing brand positioning; Positioning guidelines; Defining a brand mantra

3. Brand Resonance and the Brand Value Chain: Building a strong brand : The four
step of brand building; The brand value chain.

4. Choosing Brand Elements to Build Brand Equity : Criteria for choosing brand
elements; Options and tactics for brand elements.

5. Designing Marketing Programs to Build Brand Equity : Integrating marketing;

Product strategy; Pricing strategy; Channel strategy.

6. Integrating Marketing Communications to Build Brand Equity : The new media

environment; Four major marketing communication options; Brand amplifiers;
Developing integrated marketing communication programs.
7. Leveraging Secondary Brand Associations to Build Brand Equity : Conceptualizing
the leveraging process; Company; Co-branding; Licensing; Celebrity endorsement;
Sporting, cultural, or other events; Third- party sources.
 8. Developing a Brand Equity Measurement and Management System : The new
accountability; Conducting brand audits; Designing brand tracking studies;
Establishing a brand equity management system.

9. Measuring Sources of Brand Equity : Capturing Customer Mind-Set: Qualitative

research techniques; Quantitative research techniques; Comprehensive models of
consumer-based brand equity.

10. Designing and Implementing Brand Architecture Strategies : Developing a brand

architecture strategy; Brand portfolio; Brand hierarchies; Corporate branding; Brand
architecture guidelines.

Course Implementation Strategy :

Class lectures, providing lecture notes, arranging discussion session, group discussions,
arranging individual and group presentations, preparation of term papers, arranging occasional
seminars (if possible), holding routine examinations including class tests and quizzes etc.

Evaluation Criteria: attached with the prospectus.

TEXT BOOK

Kevin Lane Keller, Strategic Brand Management – Building , Measuring, and Managing
Brand Equity, 4th Edition 2015, Pearson Education Limited, UK.

REFERENCE BOOKS:

Harsh V. Verma, Brand Management, 4th Edition 2009, Excel Books (pvt.) Ltd., New Delhi,
India

Andy Kantor, Marketing and Brand Management, 6th Edition 2011, New Age Publishing Co.
(Pvt.) Ltd. New Delhi, India.

Jean – Noel Kapferer, Strategic Brand Management, 2nd Edition 2008, Kogan Page India
Private Limited, New delhi, India.

PRODUCT BRAND DECISIONS

Brand may be defined as a name, term, sign, symbol, design or a combination of these
intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers to differentiate them
from those of competitors. Brand gives the product a separate identity signifying price, quality,
buyer's status and add value to the product. Say, Otobi is viewed to be a house of quality office
furniture supplier. Branding is so powerful of today's marketing that hardly anything goes
unbranded -- be it salt (Molla), or fruit (Sunkist orange, Dole Pineapple). Or perfume
(Armany).

From buyers point of view, brand name helps them to identify their desired products easily and
quickly from among a group of products without much time and effort. Brand assures them
about the quality, features, and benefit of the product which facilitate smooth shopping .From
sellers point of view, brand name becomes the basis of easy selling. The seller's brand name
and trademark provide legal protection for unique product features that otherwise might be
copied by the competitors. Furthermore, brand name helps a seller to segment markets.

BRANDING DECISIONS : SOME RELATED TERMS

A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of these, that identifies the
maker or seller of a product or service

A brand name is the portion of a brand that can be expressed verbally, including letters,
words, or number

A brand mark is the portion of a brand that cannot be expressed verbally, such as graphic,
design, or symbol or other elements of brand.

A brand equity is the value – a brand adds to a product. In other words, a brand equity is the
added value endowed to product or services.

A trade mark is a legal, exclusive right to use a brand name or other identifying mark. In
other words, a trade mark includes those words, symbols, or marks that are legally registered
for use by a single company.

Branding means the use of a name, term, symbol, or design, or a combination of these to
identify a product. In other words, branding refers to the decisions about company’s product
names, brand marks, and trademarks.

BRANDING DECISIONS : BRAND EQUITY

Brand Equity : Brands vary in the amount of power and value they have in the marketplace.
Certainly a powerful brand has high brand equity. It implies the value of a brand based on the
extent to which it has brand loyalty, name awareness, perceived quality, brand associations,
and other assets such as patents, trademarks, and channel relationships. A brand with strong
brand equity is a very valuable asset for the firm. One estimate says that the brand equity of
Microsoft is almost $61 billion, Coca-Cola $67 billion, IBM $54 billion.. Therefore the other
world's top brands include superpowers such as General Electric, Intel, Nokia, Disney,
Marlboro, Sony, Mercedes-Benz, McDonald's. .

 A powerful brand enjoys a high level of consumer brand awareness and loyalty. A
company has more leverage in bargaining with resellers because the consumers expect
stores to carry the brand.

 Because the brand name carries high credibility, the company can more easily launch
line and brand extensions.

 A powerful offers the company some defense against fierce price competition.

BRANDING DECISIONS AREAS

Branding poses challenging decisions to the marketer. Therefore, company needs careful
decisions to take. Branding decisions include four areas to look. They are--

1) Brand Name Selection Decision: A good name signifies greatly to the success of a
product. Finding the best brand name is a difficult task. It begins with a careful review of
the product and its benefits, the target market , and proposed marketing strategies. Essential
qualities of a good brand name include :

 it should suggest something about the product's benefits and qualities;

 it should be easy to pronounce, recognize, and remember for easy and smooth buying
and selling;

 the brand name should be distinctive;

 the name should deserve to be translated easily into foreign languages;

 it should be capable of registration and legal protection .

Once chosen the brand name must be protected. Companies try to build a brand name that will
eventually become identified with product category -- Levi's, Fiberglass, Scotch Tape, for
example. Many originally protected brand names -- cellophane, aspirin, nylon, kerosene, yo-yo
escalator, are now ''generic'' names that any company can use.

2) Brand Sponsor Decision: A manufacturer has four sponsorship options before him. They
are :
  Manufacturer's brand -- when the producer or manufacturer sells his products under
his own brand names .IBM computers, for example.

 Private brand -- when the resellers- retailers, wholesalers, distributors create their
own brand name for the product to resale .

 Licensed brand -- when a company licenses names or symbols previously created by

other manufacturers, names of a well known celebrities, characters from popular
movies or books for a fee. Pierre Cardin, Gucci, Calvin Klein , for example, for
apparels and fashion goods of their initial innovators.

 Co-branding -- the practice of using the established brand names of two different
companies on the same product. Mattel teamed with Coca-Cola to market Soda
Fountain Sweetheart Barbie. In most co-branding situations, one company licenses
another company's well-known brand to use in combination with its own.

3) Brand name Form Decision : A good brand name plays a vital role for the successful
positioning in the marketplace. But finding a good brand name for a company’s offers is a
tuff job for a marketer. Thus selecting a good brand name requires a careful review of the
target market and proposed marketing strategy therein. In the brand name decision phase,
the company can go for the following four strategy :

 Individual brand name – individual brand name is a branding strategy of using a

different brand name for each product. P & G for example, uses different brand names
for its different lines of products; Tide for detergent, Crest for toothpaste, Pampers for
baby care products.

 Blanket or Family brand name – a family brand name is one in which the company
tends to use only one brand name for all products it produces and sells in the market.
GE, in US market, RFL, in Bangladesh uses this strategy to sell all their products in
their respective markets.

 Separate family brand name – a brand decision in which a company tends to use
separate brand names for each individual product line the company deals in the market.
Square group for their food products uses RUCHI as its brand name, RADHUNI for
spice line, MERIL for personal care lines. Nestle is another example to use this strategy
for its different product lines.

 Corporate brand name – a brand decision in which the company uses its company
name or trade name with all its products it deals in the market. Kelloggs, for example
uses this strategy to sell all its products in the market – Kellogg’s Corn Flakes,
Kellogg’s Rice Kris pies, Kellogg’s Rasin Bran etc.

4) Brand Strategy Decision : A company has four choices when it comes to brand strategy.
They are :
  Line extensions : using a successful brand name to introduce additional items in a
given product category under the same brand name , such as new flavors, forms, colors,
added ingredients or package sizes. Coca-Cola , for example, in the form of diet,
regular, caffeine, caffeine-free, cherry coke.

 Brand extensions : using a successful brand name to launch a new or modified product
in a new category . Honda, for example, uses its company name to cover different
products of automobiles, motorcycles marine engines.

 Multi-brands : using the new brand names introduced in the same product category in
the different market segments with different marketing appeal. P & G , for example,
dominates its laundry detergent market with TIDE in the U. S. A. while with ARIEL in
the Europe. Seiko-- for higher priced watches ( Seiko Lasalle), for low priced watches
(Seiko Pulsar).

 New brands : using new brand names in a new product category for which none of the
company's current brand names are appropriate. Matsushita of Japan uses separate
names for its different families of products -- Technics, Panasonic, National. A
company might believe that the power of its existing brand name is waning and a new
name is needed or the company may obtain new brands in new categories through
acquisitions, then new brand strategy can serve well.

POSITIONING THE PRODUCT/BRAND IN THE MARKET

A product's position is the way the product is defined by consumers on important attributes --
the place the product occupies in consumers' mind relative to competing products. Once a
company has decided the segments of market it will enter, it must decide its position to occupy
in those segments. Thus, in the automobile market, Toyota is positioned on economy,
Mercedes and Cadillac on luxury, BMW on performance, and Volvo on safety. Consumers
cannot reevaluate products every time they make a purchase decision. To simplify the buying
decision process, consumers organize products into categories -- they "position" products,
services and companies in their minds. Therefore, a product's position is the complex set of
perceptions, impressions, and feeling that consumers hold for the product compared with
competing products. Consumers position products with or without the help of marketers. But
marketers must leave their products' positions to chance. They must plan to position their
products in the market and design marketing mix accordingly.

PRODUCT /BRAND POSITIONING STRATEGIES

Marketers can follow several positioning strategies. They are as follows :

1) Product Attributes : Products can be positioned on the basis of their attributes. Honda
Civic advertises its low price; BMW promotes performance.

2) Product Benefits : Products can be positioned on the needs they fill or the benefits they
offer. In the toothpaste market, Crest stresses on to reduce cavities; Aim on to taste good.

3) Usage Occasions : Products can be positioned according to usage occasions. Coca - Cola
is positioned as a refreshing beverage in the summer season; but as a companion of
amusement in other season of the year.

4) Classes of Users : Another approach to position products is the classes of users of the
product. Johnson & Johnson positioned its products in the baby care market; Levi's as the
men's wear market.

5) Against a Competitor : A product can also be positioned directly against a competitor.

For example, in its ads Citibank VISA compares itself directly with AmEx, saying "You'd
better take your VISA card, because they don't take AmEx". In its famous “We‘re number
two, so we try harder” campaign, Avis successfully positioned itself against the larger
Hertz.

6) Away from Competitors : A product may also be positioned away from competitors. For
many years, 7-Up has positioned itself as the "un-cola", the fresh and thirst-quenching
alternative to Coke and Pepsi.

7) Product Class : A product can be positioned in the market on the basis of product class.
Camay hand soap is positioned with bath oils rather than with soap; some margarines are
positioned against butter, others against cooking oils. Camay hand soap is positioned with
bath oils rather than with soap.
8) Cultural Symbols : A product can be positioned in the market based on the cultural
symbols as suggested by Aaker and Mayers. Here a product is designed to present a
specific culture. Customers can attach to that culture. For example – Barmise Lungi,
Monipuri Chador, Santipuri Dhuti, Sylon tea, China silk etc.

CHOOSING A POSITIONING STRATEGY /./././././.

Choosing a positioning strategy calls for a three-step task or process. 1) identifying a set of
possible competitive advantages on which to build a position, 2) selecting the right competitive
advantages, and 3) effectively communicating and delivering the chosen position to the market.

1) Identifying Possible Competitive Advantages :

Consumers choose products and services that give them the greatest value. Thus, the key to
winning and keeping customers is to understand their needs and buying process better than
competitors do and to deliver more value. A company needs searching for competitive
advantage -- an advantage over competitors gained by offering consumers greater value, either
through lower prices or by providing more benefits that justify higher prices. If a company
positions its product as offering the best quality and service, it must then deliver the promised
quality and service. Therefore, positioning begins with actually differentiating the company's
marketing offer so that it will give consumers more value than competitors' offers do. An alert
company can find ways to differentiate itself at every point it comes contact with customers. A
company can differentiate its offer from those of its competitors along the lines of
product, service, people, channel and image.

a) Product Differentiation : Products can be differentiated from those of the competitors

from many angels. It can offer a variety of optional features not provided by the
competitors (Volvo provides new and better safety features). It can differentiate its
products on performance (P & G formulates Liquid Tide to get clothes cleaner). Style and
design can also be important differentiating factors (Jaguar automobiles are positioned as
unique looking). Again, a company can differentiate its products on such attributes as
consistency, durability, reliability or reparability.

b) Services Differentiation : A company can differentiate its offers from those of the
competitors on the basis of services that accompany the product. Some companies gain
competitive advantage through speedy, convenient, and careful delivery. Installation
can differentiate one company from another as can repair and maintenance services. Other
companies can differentiate their products providing customer training services or
consulting services -- data, information systems, and advising services that buyers need.

c) People Differentiation : A company can gain a strong competitive advantage through

hiring and training better people than their competitors do. Singapore Airlines enjoys an
 excellent reputation largely because of the grace of its flight attendants. McDonald's
people are courteous, IBM people are professional and knowledgeable, Disney people
are friendly and upbeat. People differentiation requires that a company select its
customer-contact people carefully and train them well.

d) Channel Differentiation : Companies can achieve competitive advantage through the way
they design their distribution channels' coverage, expertise, and performance. Company's
distribution system should be based on superior channel development as done by
Caterpillar in construction-equipment industry. Their dealers are found in more locations
than competitors' dealers, they are typically better trained and perform more reliably than
their competitors do. Avon in cosmetics has distinguished itself by developing and
managing high-quality direct marketing channels.

e) Image Differentiation : Even when competing offers look the same, buyers may perceive
a difference based on company or brand images. Thus, companies work to establish images
that differentiate them from competitors. A company or brand image should convey the
product's distinctive benefits and positioning. Developing a strong and distinctive image
calls for creativity and hard work. A cannot plant an image in the public's mind overnight
using only a few ads. If IBM means quality, this image must be supported by everything
the company says and does.

 Symbols can provide strong company or brand recognition and image differentiation.
Company's design signs and logos provide instant recognition such as McDonald's golden
arches.

 A company can build a brand image with a famous person as Nike did with its Air Jordan
basketball shoes.

 Some companies have differentiated themselves with use of colors such as IBM(blue) or
Kodak(red and yellow).

 The chosen symbols must be communicated through advertising that conveys the company
or brand's personality. The ads try to do something distinctive about the company or brand.

2) Selecting the Right Competitive Advantages :

Once the company has identified several possible areas of competitive advantages, now it must
choose the ones on which it will build its positioning strategy. It must decide how many
differences to promote and which ones to promote for final action.

a) How Many Differences to Promote : The number of differences of a company's offer

depends on the decision of the company depending on the situation. A company may think
that it should aggressively promote only one benefit to the target market. Each brand
should pick an attribute and tout itself as "number one" on that attribute. Because buyers
 tend to remember "number one" better. Some of the "number one" positions are "best
quality" "lowest price" "best service" "best value" "latest technology". Thus, Crest
toothpaste consistently promotes its anti-cavity protection, and Volvo promotes safety. In
an over communicated society this can work well.

But if two or more firms claim to be the best on the same attribute, marketers can stress more
than one differentiating factor. Lever Brothers introduced the first "3-in-1" bar soap - Lever
2000- offering cleansing, deodorizing, and moisturizing benefits. Many buyers want all three
and it can convince the buyers that one brand can deliver all three benefits they seek.

Here a company should be careful about committing three major positioning errors.

 Under-positioning : failing to ever really position the company at all. Some companies
discover that buyers have only a vague idea of the company or that they do not really
know anything special about it.

 Over - positioning : giving buyers too narrow a picture of the company. A consumer
may think that the company makes only fine soap costing $100 and above per piece;
which is actually starting from $10 per piece.

 Confused positioning : leaving buyers with a confused image of the company. The
number of ads containing separate themes run by a company can leave the consumers
confused and they can not venture to go to purchase its products finding no specific
positioning mark of the company offers.

b) Which Differences to Promote : Not all brand differences are worthwhile, not every
difference makes a good differentiator. Each difference has the potential to create company
cost as well as customer benefits. So, the company must carefully select the ways in which
it will distinguish itself from competitors. A difference is worth establishing to the extent
that it satisfies the following criteria :

 Important : the difference delivers a highly valued benefit to target buyers.

 Distinctive : competitors do not offer the difference, or the company can offer it in a
more distinctive way.

 Superior : the difference is superior to other ways that customers might obtain the
same benefit.

 Communicable : the difference is communicable and visible to buyers.

 Preemptive : competitors cannot easily copy the difference.

 Affordable : buyers can afford to pay for the difference.

 Profitable : the company can introduce the difference profitably.

A company must test the differences of offers against these criteria to accompany with the
offers.

3) Communicating and Delivering the Chosen Position :

Once the company has chosen a position, it must take strong steps to deliver and communicate
the desired position to target consumers. All the company's marketing mix efforts must support
the positioning strategy. If the company decides to build a position on better quality and
service, it must first deliver that position. Designing the marketing mix -- product, place, price
and promotion essentially involves working out the tactical details of the positioning strategy.
A form that seizes on a "high-quality position" knows that it must produce high-quality
products, charge a high price, distribute through high-quality dealers, and advertise in high-
quality media. It must hire and train more service people to deliver high-quality customer
services. This is the only way to build a consistent and believable high-quality, high-service
position.