Types of Brands
-one simple way of distinguishing them used to be whether they are offline or online
-more and more cross-over is blurring the line
-examples include yahoo, egghead.com, wingspanbank, Schwab, ragu
|
|
Established as traditional brand |
Established as online brand |
||
|
|
Branding online |
Branding and selling online |
Intermediary/vertical portal |
e-commerce |
|
B-2-C |
Ragu |
American airlines |
Monster.com |
CDNow |
|
B-2-B |
Boeing |
Cisco systems |
Yahoo |
Ventro |
How have the 2Is affected branding?
The 2I’s of internet-based communication help to establish and maintain brand meaning in several essential ways:
-message timing
-message frequency
-message content
What is brand equity?
-a set of assets (and liabilities) linked to a brand’s names and symbol that add to (or subtract from) the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or that firm’s customers
-brand equity is a combination of intermediate customer responses and both customers and firm benefits
-customer responses can take two broad forms: awareness and associations
-strength of associations (relevance and consistency)
-valence
-uniqueness (distinctiveness and memorability)
Measuring brand equity
-some online and offline examples of direct measures of brand equity:
-internet retailers with strong customer awareness Amazon.com and CDNOW) can charge prices that are 7-12% higher than those of lesser-known retailers
-all things held constant, a compact car would have approximately 5% more market value if it carried the Mitsubishi rather than the Dodge name
-Magne Supphellen recommends the following process for understanding a brand’s core equity
-Principle I: depth interviews
-Principle II: portfolio of techniques
-Principle III: research findings should be thoroughly validated
-techniques for measuring brand associations:
-thought listing
-visual techniques
-projective technique
-sentence completion
-depth interviews
-rating scales
Marketing programs to build brand equity
-pricing program
-product program
-distribution program
-promotional program
Seven-step branding process
1. clearly define the brand audience
2. understand the target customers
3. understand the competition
4. design compelling brand intent
5. identify key leverage points in customer experience
6. execute the branding strategy
7. establish feedback system