DEVELOPING BRAND EQUITY, POSITIONING, DR SOTIRIS T LALAOUNIS

PERSONALITY & VALUES

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Session Plan

• Explain the components of the Consumer-Based Brand Equity pyramid model.

• Discuss how the organisations can develop brand positioning and its contribution
to brand equity.
• Explore the concepts of brand personality and brand values and their role in
brand positioning.
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Module Overview
Developing Brand Equity, Positioning, Personality and Values
Identifying and Developing
Brand Plans
Strategic Brand Management Process

Creating Brand Identity: Brand Aesthetics and Symbolism

Brand Communications and the Attention Economy

Holistic Brand Experiences and Emotional Branding

Designing and Implementing
Brand Marketing Programmes Consumer Collectives, Brand Avoidance, and Political
Consumption

Brand Ethics, Social Responsibility, and Sustainable Consumption

Measuring and Interpreting

Brand Performance and Metrics
Brand Performance

Brand Growth:
Brand Architecture and Brand Extensions
Growing and Sustaining
Brand Equity
Brand Futures:
Technology and Innovation in Branding Strategies

(Lalaounis, 2020, based on Keller & Swaminathan, 2020)

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Question

What comes to your mind

when you think of BMW?
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Consumer-Based Brand Equity

STAGE 1 STAGE 2 STAGE 3 STAGE 4

Create brand meaning

Make consumers
in consumers’ minds Generate rational and
aware of the brand Transform consumer
by linking certain emotional consumer
and associate the responses to long-
brand properties with responses to brand
brand with a specific term loyalty
a range of tangible identity and brand
category or consumer relationships.
and intangible brand meaning.
need.
associations.

BRAND BRAND BRAND BRAND

IDENTITY MEANING RESPONSES RELATIONSHIPS

(Lalaounis, 2020, based on Keller, 2001)

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Consumer-Based Brand Equity

BRAND
RESONANCE

CONSUMER CONSUMER
JUDGMENTS FEELINGS

BRAND BRAND
PERFORMANCE IMAGERY
ASSOCIATIONS ASSOCIATIONS

BRAND
SALIENCE

(Lalaounis, 2020, based on Keller, 2001)

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Brand Salience
• Stage of brand development: develop brand identity.
• Brand recall (retrieve from memory) and brand recognition (recognise brand elements).
• Organisation needs to develop:

BRAND SALIENCE
DIMENSIONS

DEPTH OF BRAND AWARENESS BREADTH OF BRAND AWARENESS

Ease of recognition & recall Purchase Consideration
Strength & clarity of category Consumption consideration
membership
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Question

Name five
automobile brands…
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Brand Performance & Brand Imagery Associations
• Stage of brand development: create brand meaning.
• Need to create Point-of-Parity Associations and Point-of-Difference Associations.
• Brand performance associations: intrinsic properties of the brand (functional needs).
• Brand imagery associations: extrinsic properties of the brand (symbolic needs).
BRAND PERFORMANCE ASSOCIATIONS

Primary ingredients &

BRAND IMAGERY ASSOCIATIONS

Supplementary features
User profiles
Product reliability,
durability & serviceability
Purchase & usage situations
Service effectiveness,
efficiency & empathy
Brand personality & values

Style & design

History, heritage & experiences

Price

(Keller, 2001, 2003; Keller & Swaminathan, 2012)

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Brand Imagery Associations
Extrinsic Brand Properties
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Consumer Judgements & Consumer Feelings
• Stage of brand development: generate brand responses.
• Generate rational and emotional reactions from consumers.

Consumer Judgements
• Consumers’ evaluation of brand quality.
• How customers put together all the different performance and imagery associations.
• Brand attitudes: customer’s overall evaluations of a brand.
• Perceived quality of the brand in consumers’ minds.

Consumer Feelings
• Emotions generated by the brand.
• What feelings does the brand evoke?
• How does the brand affect customer’ feelings about themselves and their relationship with others?
• Organisation needs to develop positive inward and outward consumer feelings.

(Keller, 2001, 2003; Keller & Swaminathan, 2012)

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Consumer Feelings
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Brand Resonance

• Stage of brand development: develop brand

LEVELS OF BRAND RESONANCE

relationships.
ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT
• Organisation needs to develop and active loyalty
brand-consumer relationships. SENSE OF COMMUNITY

• The level of customer’s identification with the

ATTITUDINAL ATTACHMENT
brand.
• Characteristics of resonance: BEHAVIOURAL LOYALTY

• Intensity of the relationship.

• Depth of psychological bond customers have
with the brand.
(Keller, 2001, 2003; Keller & Swaminathan, 2012)
• Level of activity triggered by this loyalty.
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Brand Positioning

• The way the brand is “defined by consumers on important attributes, it is the place the product [or
service] occupies in the consumers’ minds relative to competing products” (Kotler et al., 1999).
• The complex set of perceptions, impressions & feelings that consumers hold for the product compared
with competition (Kotler et al., 1999).
• “...the act of designing the company’s offer and image so that it occupies a distinct and valued place
in the target customer’s minds” (Kotler & Keller, 2006).
• A distinct proposition in line with the brand’s values and the needs & desires of the customer.
• Plan marketing mixes to create these planned positions.
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Brand Positioning

SEGMENTATION Identify and describe market segments.

TARGETING Evaluate segments and decide which to go after.

POSITIONING Design a product / service to meet segment’s needs.

Develop and manage a marketing mix which creates a

MARKETING MIX
competitive advantage in the target market’s minds.

(based on Solomon et al., 2009, and Wilson & Gilligan, 1999)

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Brand Positioning
Questions

Preliminary Questions:
• Who is the target customer?
• Who are the main competitors?
• Targeting a specific segment often defines the nature of competition.
• Do not define competition too narrowly.
Important Questions:
• How the brand is similar to these competitors?
• How is the brand different from them?
• What are the ideal points-of-parity and ideal points-of-difference brand associations in comparison to
the competition?
(Keller, 2001, 2003; Keller & Swaminathan, 2012)
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Brand Positioning

Point-of-Parity Associations (POPs)

• Attributes shared with other brands in the same product category.

• Category POPs: create legitimacy for the brand.

• Competitive POPs: negate competitors’ PODs.

Point-of-Difference Associations (PODs)

• Attributes unique to the brand (can only be found in the brand).

• Functional PODs: performance-related considerations (leading to brand performance associations).

• Abstract PODs: imagery-related considerations (leading to brand imagery Associations).

(Keller, 2001, 2003; Keller & Swaminathan, 2012)

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Point-of-Parity Associations
Competitive

BRAND X POD 1

Brand Association 1 Brand Association 2

BRAND Y POP 1 POD 2

(Lalaounis, 2020)
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Coca-Cola: Competitive POPs
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Coke Zero

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srHDgimlgTQ)
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Brand Positioning

Point-of-Parity Associations (POPs)

• Attributes shared with other brands in the same product category.

• Category POPs: create legitimacy for the brand.

• Competitive POPs: negate competitors’ PODs.

Point-of-Difference Associations (PODs)

• Attributes unique to the brand (can only be found in the brand).

• Functional PODs: performance-related considerations (leading to brand performance associations).

• Abstract PODs: imagery-related considerations (leading to brand imagery Associations).

(Keller, 2001, 2003; Keller & Swaminathan, 2012)

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Brand Mantras
COMPONENTS OF BRAND MANTRA
“[Brand mantras are] short three-to-
five-word phrases that capture the Brand Functions:
This provides a description of the product or
irrefutable essence or spirit of the service and their benefits to consumers.
brand positioning” (Keller, 1999, p.
45).
Descriptive Modifier:
This further clarifies the nature of the brand
BRAND MANTRA: DISNEY functions.

EMOTIONAL MODIFIER BRAND FUNCTIONS

Magical family entertainment… Emotional Modifier:

This explains how the brand delivers these
brand functions (consumer benefits).
DESCRIPTIVE MODIFIER
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Brand Mantras
Considerations

• Effective when no other brand can singularly excel in all dimensions.

• Capture brand’s PODs & reinforce POPs.

• Communicate: should both define the category(ies) of business for the brand to set
boundaries and clarify its uniqueness.
• Simplify: should be memorable - short, crisp & vivid.

• Inspire: should stake out ground that is meaningful & relevant to employees - inform,
guide & inspire! - Internal Branding.

(Keller, 2001, 2003; Keller & Swaminathan, 2012)

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Brand Personality

• The “human characteristics or traits that can be attributed to a brand” (Keller et al., 2012).
• The personality of the brand matters just as with humans (Davis, 2009).
• Five dimensions of brand personality (Aaker, 1997):
Dimensions

Sincerity Excitement Competence Sophistication Ruggedness

Down-to-
Daring,
earth, Reliable,
Spirited, Upper-class, Outdoorsy,
Honest, Intelligent,
Imaginative, charming tough
Facets

Wholesome, Successful
Up-to-date
Cheerful
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Brand Personality
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Brand Values

• Consumers purchase brands whose personality and values correspond to their own.

• Brands speak to us and speak for us.

• Brands can help consumers achieve:

• Instrumental values (modes of behaviour)
• Terminal values (end-goals).

• Organisations need to develop two types of brand values:

• Cores values: enduring values.
• Peripheral values: revised and updated over time.

(Antonides & Fred Van Raaij, 1998; de Chernatony et al., 2004)

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Extra Materials & Reading
Extra Materials:
• Week 2 Extra Notes (Word document) [Available on ELE].

Core Reading:
• Chapter 2 in Lalaounis, S.T. (2020). Strategic Brand Management and Development: Creating and Marketing
Successful Brands. London: Routledge.

Supplementary Reading:
• Aaker, J. L. (1997). Dimensions of brand personality. Journal of Marketing Research, 34(3), 347-356. [Available on
ELE]
• Fournier, S. (1998). Consumers and their brands: Developing relationship theory in consumer research. Journal of
Consumer Research, 24(4), 343-373. [Available on ELE]
• Keller, K. L. (2001). Building customer-based brand equity: A blueprint for creating strong brands (pp. 3-27).
Cambridge: Marketing Science Institute. [Available on ELE]
• Keller, K. L. (2003). Brand synthesis: The multidimensionality of brand knowledge. Journal of Consumer Research,
29(4), 595-600. [Available on ELE]
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References
• Aaker, J. L. (1997). Dimensions of brand personality. Journal of Marketing Research, 34(3), 347-356.
• Antonides, G., & van Raaij, F. (1998), Consumer Behaviour: A European Perspective, Chichester: John Willey & Sons.
• Davis M., (2009), “The Fundamentals of Branding”, Lausanne: AVA Publishing SA.
• de Chernatony, L., Drury, S., & Segal‐Horn, S. (2004). Identifying and sustaining services brands' values. Journal of Marketing
Communications, 10(2), 73-93.
• Fournier, S. (1998). Consumers and their brands: Developing relationship theory in consumer research.  Journal of Consumer
Research, 24(4), 343-373.
• Keller, K. L. (2001). Building customer-based brand equity: A blueprint for creating strong brands (pp. 3-27). Cambridge: Marketing
Science Institute.
• Keller, K. L. (2003). Brand synthesis: The multidimensionality of brand knowledge. Journal of Consumer Research, 29(4), 595-600.
• Keller, K. L., & Swaminathan, V. (2020). Strategic brand management: Building, measuring, and managing brand equity. (5th edition).
London: Pearson Education.
• Kotler P., and Keller K.L., (2006), Marketing management, 12th edition, Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
• Kotler P., Armstrong G., Saunder J., and Wong V., (1999), Principles of marketing, 2nd edition, London: Prentice Hall Europe.
• Kotler, P., Armstrong, G., Wong, V, & Saunders, J. (2008). Principles of marketing. 5th European edition. London: Pearson.
• Lalaounis, S. T. (2020). Strategic brand management and development: Creating and marketing successful brands. London: Routledge.
• Solomon M. et al., (2009), “Marketing: Real people, real decisions”, 1st European edition, Essex: Financial Times Press.
• Wilson R.M. and Gilligan C., (1999), “Strategic marketing management: Planning, implementation and control”, 2nd edition, Oxford:
Butterworth-Heinemann.
DR SOTIRIS T LALAOUNIS