MODULE 2

BRANDING STRATEGIES

• Brand Strategy is a plan for the systematic development of a brand to enable it to meet its
agreed objectives.

• The strategy should be rooted in the brand’s vision and driven by the principles of
differentiation and sustained consumer appeal.

• The brand strategy should influence the total operation of a business to ensure consistent
brand behaviors and brand experiences.

• Brand behavior is how your brand interacts and reacts with real customers in the
real marketplace.

• Brand experience is the totality of all sensations, feelings, thoughts, and actions
evoked by a brand.

Here are different branding strategies:

1. Identity-Based Branding: Focuses on creating a unique identity for the brand.

2. Value-Based Branding: Emphasizes the values and benefits offered by the brand.

3. Emotional Branding: Connects with customers on an emotional level.

4. Experiential Branding: Creates immersive experiences for customers.

5. Storytelling Branding: Uses narratives to convey the brand's message.

6. Lifestyle Branding: Associates the brand with a particular lifestyle.

7. Corporate Branding: Focuses on building the company's overall brand.

8. Product Branding: Focuses on building individual product brands.

9. Service Branding: Focuses on building the brand around services.

10. Personal Branding: Focuses on building an individual's personal brand.

11. Co-Branding: Partners with other brands to create a new offering.

12. Rebranding: Updates or overhauls an existing brand.

13. Employer Branding: Focuses on building the company's employer brand.

 14. Digital Branding: Focuses on building the brand online.

15. Social Branding: Focuses on building the brand through social media.

16. Green Branding: Emphasizes eco-friendliness and sustainability.

17. Luxury Branding: Focuses on exclusivity and high-end quality.

18. Masstige Branding: Combines mass market appeal with prestige.

19. Neuromarketing Branding: Uses neuroscience to understand consumer behavior.

20. Purpose-Driven Branding: Focuses on the brand's purpose and mission.

BRAND NAME SELECTION

Brand name selection is the process of choosing a unique and memorable name for a
product, service, or company that accurately represents its identity, values, and mission. The goal
is to create a name that resonates with the target audience, differentiates the brand from
competitors, and builds brand recognition.

Key Characteristics/Qualities of a Good Brand Name

 It should suggest something about the product’s benefits and qualities e.g. Aquaguard,
Freshwrap foil and Vacuum Cleaner etc.
 It should be easy to pronounce, recognize and remember. Short names are helpful in this.
e.g. Tide, Fena, Maruti, Cake etc.
 It should be distinctive e.g. Kodak, Santro etc.
 It should translate easily into foreign languages.
 It should be capable of registration and legal protection, e.g. the name should be unique
as it can not be registered if it infringes on existing brand names.
 It should be adoptable to packaging/labelling needs.
 There should not be any undesirable imagery.
 It should not go out of date.
 It should be adaptable to any advertising medium.
 It should be capable of being pronounced in only one way.
 o For example General motor’s Nova car. The car was introduced in South
America. It seemed like a sensible decision because Nova is the Spanish word for
Star. However, Nova also sounds the same as the Spanish word for ‘no go’.
Consumers were not interested in a no go car, and sales didn’t pick up until
General Motors changed the name.

Criteria for choosing brand elements

There are 6 criteria for brand elements

• Memorable : A necessary condition for building brand equity is achieving a high
level of brand brand awareness

• Meaningful : General information about the function of the product or

service.Specific information about particular attributes and benefits of the
brand.Either descriptive or persuasive.

• Likable : Appealing (interesting). Likable visually or verbally or in other ways.

• Transferable : Extend to which this brand elements adds to the brand equity.
How useful for brand element for line or category extensions. Eg. Amazon
(massive south American river > appropriate for a variety of different types of
products

• Adaptable : Adaptability over time.Changes in consumer values and

opinions.Need to remain contemporary.Must be updated

• Protectable : Both in legal and competitive sense.

BRAND NAME SELECTION PROCESS

A typical brand name selection process includes the following steps :

 Firstly, the company identifies the objective or criteria for the brand name. Selecting a
brand name begins with a careful review of the product and its benefits, the target market
and proposed marketing strategies.
 Secondly, the company generates a list of potential brand names.
  Thirdly, screening is done to shortlist names that seem to be most appropriate for further
testing. Often the company assigns to a team the task of generating and screening
potential brand names. The team may include product managers and other company
marketing people, advertising agency people and outside brand name consultants.
 Fourthly, the company obtains consumer’s reaction to the screened brand names. It may
conduct surveys or focus group interviews to find out which names would best project the
desired product concept, and which are the most easily understood, remembered and
linked.
 Fifthly, the company conducts a search for the trademark to be sure that each of the
screened brand names can be registered and legally protected.
 Finally, the company selects one of the surviving names as the final name for the
product.

BRAND BUILDING TOOLS

• Brand building is the process of creating awareness and promoting the products or
services of a company through direct advertisement or through sponsoring.
• Brand building tools bring the brand closer to the consumers and provide value for them.
• A branding tool is a technique that helps you build and refine your firm’s reputation or
increase the visibility of that reputation. The best branding tools manage to do both at the
same time.

o Public relations and press releases

o Sponsorships
o Public facilities
o Social cause marketing
o Clubs and consumer communities
o Factory visits
o Trade shows
o Event marketing
o Founder’s or a celebrity personality
o Mobile phone marketing.
BRAND EXTENSION

Brand extension is a marketing strategy where a company expands its existing brand to
new products, services, or markets.

Types of Brand Extensions

1. Product Extension: Introducing new products under the same brand name.
2. Service Extension: Offering new services related to the existing product.
3. Geographic Extension: Expanding to new markets or regions.
4. Line Extension: Introducing new products within the same product category.
5. Brand Family Extension: Creating a sub-brand or variant.
Brand extension decision

• The existing brand is the parent brand and the new brand is the sub-brand.
• Any effort to use a successful brand name to launch product modifications or new
products
• A brand extension decision strategy is any effort to use a successful brand name to launch
product modifications or new products.
• A successful brand is like a powerhouse containing enough energy to illuminate distinct
territories. Such a brand name holds enormous appeal for consumers. It has stood the test
of time and competition.
• This is the driving force behind brand extension-the huge accumulation of consumer-
pulling power which can be harnessed beyond the brand’s traditional market boundaries
e.g. extension from Ivory soap, to Ivory shampoo, from Dettol antiseptic to Dettol soap,
from Pond’s Dream flower talc to Pond’s Dream flower soap and from North Star shoes
to North Star Apparel.
• The other driving force is the present day high cost of launching an altogether new brand.
With increasingly competitive markets and escalating media costs, it makes sound
financial and marketing sense to use the inner force of a respected brand for launching a
new brand.
• A brand extension, also, gives a new product instant recognition and fast appearance.
Line extension Vs. Brand extension
• Line extension refers only to additions to an existing product line of a company in a given
category i.e. ‘fill out’ the line.
• e.g. Marvel was an addition the Godrej toilet soap line which already included Cinthol
and Fresca.
• Wheel was a line extension to Hindustan Lever’s line of detergent bars which already had
Rin.

Criteria for Brand Extension

a) The category chosen for the brand extension must be seen as compatible with the
nature of the parent brand and the expertise it represents.
• There must be a fit.
• Management judgement acts as the first screen.
• Consumer survey can be used for further screening.

b) There should be consistency in the value perception of the brand in the new category
as compared to its parent brand.

• For example Dettol represents trusted, hygienic household and personal

care product.
• Using this brand name for a beauty cream would be entirely out of
character. That is not the distinguishing value of the brand name.

c) The extended brand must have some inherent quality perception which gives it an edge
in the new category.

• This might be the case if Dettol were to launch a shaving cream or

Complan a nourishing tasty biscuit for the school kids lunch box.
• Shaving does lead to nicks and cuts. Dettol antiseptic shaving cream
would approach the consumer with a built in edge.
• The Complan-aware mother asked to choose between established biscuits
brands and the new Complan biscuits, would probably perceive Complan
to have an edge in terms of greater nourishment.
FAMILY VS. INDIVIDUAL BRAND NAME

• Manufacturer’s, who brand their product, face several further choices. At least four brand
name strategies as follows can be distinguished:
a) Individual brand names for all the products are there. This policy is followed
by Hindustan Lever Limited as they have different brand names for different
products e.g. Lifebuoy, Lux, Rexona, Breeze, Liril and Pears.
b) Blanket Family name is there for all the products This policy is followed by
Bajaj and General Electric.
c) There are separate family names for all the products. This policy is followed by
Sears. For example Sears has brand name Kenmore for appliances, Kerrybrook
for women’s clothing and Homart for major home installations.
d) Company trade name is combined with individual product name. This policy is
followed by Priyagold e.g. Priyagold biscuits and Priyagold pickle etc.

Advantages of Individual and Family Brand Names

• Advantage of individual brand name strategy lies in the fact that the company does not tie
its reputation to the product’s acceptance. If the product fails, it does not compromise the
manufacturer’s name.
• Use of blanket family name for all the products helps in lowering the cost of introducing
the product as there is no need for ‘name’ research, or heavy advertising expenditure to
create brand-name recognition and preference. Furthermore, sales will be strong if the
manufacturer’s name is good.

MULTIPLE BRANDING
Multiple branding involves using multiple brands to target different market segments,
customer groups, or product categories.

Types of Multiple Branding

1. Umbrella Branding: Using a single brand name for multiple products/services.
2. Sub-Branding: Creating separate brands under an umbrella brand.
3. Multi-Brand Strategy: Using multiple, distinct brands.
 4. Brand Portfolio Management: Managing multiple brands within a portfolio.

PRIVATE VS. NATIONAL BRANDING

Private branding refers to the practice of creating and marketing products under a
retailer's own brand name, rather than a national brand name.

National branding refers to well-known brands that are widely recognized and available
across multiple distribution channels.

Advantages of private branding over national branding

a) Retail shelf space is scarce, and many manufacturers, especially the newer and smaller
ones, can not introduce products into distribution under their own name.
b) Middlemen take special care to maintain the quality of their brand, thus building
consumer confidence. Many shoppers know that the private-label brand is often
manufactured by one of the large manufacturers anyway.
c) Private brands are often priced lower than comparable national brands, thus appealing
to budget-conscious shopper, especially in times of inflation.
d) Middlemen give more prominent display to their own brands and make sure they are
better stocked. As a result, the former dominance of national brands is weakening.

Related extension and unrelated extension

Broadly speaking, there are three types of brand extensions:

• Product related extensions,
• Image-related extensions and
• Unrelated Extensions
Product-related extension is more popularly called ‘line extensions’. A line extension is
typically a product or flavour or fragrance variant. Examples of this are Nirma detergent powder
extending into cake and Frooti soft-drink extending into other variants besides the mango
flavour.
Image-related extensions are those where the brand extension bears some logical or
emotional relationship with the parent brand. Examples of this are Cinthol moving into talcs
from toilet soaps and Zodiac moving into belts from shirts. In both, the same consumer is
targeted demographically and psychographically.
 Unrelated extensions are those where the parent and the brand extensions have little in
common but for the brand name. A classic case of this is the brand name Godrej appearing on
soaps, safety locks, almirahs, typesetters, hair-dyes, refrigerators and other products.

BRAND HIERARCHY

A brand hierarchy is a means of summarizing the branding strategy by

displaying the number and nature of common and distinctive brand elements across the
firm’s products, revealing the explicit ordering of grand elements.
By capturing the potential band relationships among the different products sold by
the firm, a brand hierarchy is a useful means of graphically portraying a firm’s branding
strategy

Benefits of brand hierarchy

• It enhances the role in the perception of the product

• It helps to coordinate the development
• It helps in organizing strategic actions
• It helps in construction and projections for market
• It facilitates the alignment and positioning of elements.
• It helps to focus investments to strengthen the business
• It helps in understanding of the set and subset of the brand hierarchy
• It enables the diagnosis of the current brand of the company.