Brand

Management

Chapter 2. Customer-based brand equity & brand

positioning
Objective
s
1. Define customer-based brand equity
2. Outline the sources and outcomes of CBBE
3. Identify the four components of brand positioning
4. Describe the guidelines in developing a good brand positioning
5. Explain brand mantra and how it should be developed
 Customer-based brand equity

• Approaches brand equity from the perspective of the

consumer
• Stresses that the power of a brand lies in what resides in
the minds and hearts of customers
• Differential effect that brand knowledge has on
consumer response to the marketing of that brand

Marketing
advantages
of strong
brands
Korea Brand Power Index(K-BPI) by Korea Management Association Consultants Inc.

K-BPI Model Measurements

K-BPI
Imag
e
Brand Awareness Brand Loyalty
• Top of Mind Brand • Image Purchas
Brand recall Purchase e
in
• •

• Brand intention intentio

market n
recognition • Preference
Preferenc
e

Overview of K-BPI
Brand Brand Loyalty
Awareness
• Top of Mind • Image • X1 = Top of Mind
• Brand recall • Purchase • X2 = Brand recall (unaided awareness)
= unaided awareness intention • X3 = Brand recognition (aided awareness)
• Brand recognition • Preference • X4 = Brand loyalty
= aided awareness
 Associative Network Memory Model

• It views memory as a network of nodes and connecting links

• Nodes : stored information or concepts
• Links : the strength of association between the nodes
•

Brand image
Perceptions about a
brand, as reflected by
the brand associations
held in consumer
memory
fruit
s Secondary association

Brand awareness
Related to the strength of the
brand node in memory
 Source of Brand equity

• Consumers' ability to retrieve the brand from memory

brand recall when given the product category, the needs fulfilled
by the category, or a purchase or usage situation as a
Brand cue
Awareness • Generally difficult than brand recognition
• Consumers’ ability to confirm prior exposure to the
brand when given the brand as a cue
brand
• Impulsive purchase
recognition

• The more deeply a consumer thinks about the

product information and relates it to existing
Strength of brand brand knowledge, the stronger the resulting brand
association association will be
• Personal relevance and the consistency
Brand Image • when the brand possess relevant attributes
Favorability of and benefits that satisfy their needs and wants
brand association
• Differentiate from competitors
Uniqueness of
• Sustainable competitive advantage that gives
brand association consumers a compelling reason to buy
Krishnan(1996), Characteristics
of memory associations: A
consumer-based brand equity
perspective, International Journal
of Research in Marketing
Brand Awareness

Advantages of Brand
Awareness
• Learning advantages
• Consideration advantages : Raising brand awareness increases likelihood
that the brand will be a member of the consideration set, the handful of
brands that receive serious consideration for purchase.
• Choice advantages: It can affect choices among brands in the consideration
set, even if there are essentially no other associations to those brands.
* elaboration likelihood model :
A theory of persuasion that suggests that there are two different ways people can be
persuaded of
something, depending on how invested they are in a topic.
 Brand Awareness – Brand recognition & Brand recall

Brand recognition Brand recall

• Impulsive buying • category needs-> brand recall

• Brand recognition -> triggers the category • Most of time it entails verbal process
need •

• establish and fortify the association

• describe the needs about the product between the needs for the product
category in commercial category & the brand by putting the
• Visual and/or auditory appeal brand name in the advert copy
: expose package or brand logo more than
2sec

• Place the product at eye level

•

•
 Brand Image

Strength of brand association

• Determined by the numbers and thickness of the links
• Personal relevance and the consistency is important
• a) exposing at the point of purchase b) consistency c) elaborated effort matters to make
the link ticker

Favorability of brand association

• Is higher when a brand possesses relevant attributes and benefits that satisfy consumer
needs & want
• Consumers tend to make an integrated evaluation with a series of brand associations.
• Brand manager needs to put as many favorable & positive associations as possible in
consumers.
Uniqueness of brand association
• “Unique selling proposition” of the product
• Provides brands with sustainable competitive advantage
• Still need the general, similar benefits that competing brands in the same product
category also have. (insight from Categorization theory)
•

•
Brand Image
 Brand Positioning

• 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.
• 1) who the target consumer is 2) who the main competitors are 3) how the brand
is similar (and different) to these competitors

Market • Divides the market into distinct groups of homogeneous consumers who
segmentation have similar needs and behavior, and who thus require similar marketing
mixes.
Consumer
• Segmentation Bases B2B
segmentatio segmentatio
n bases n bases
 Brand Positioning – Target market

Benefit • The sensory segment : Seeking flavor and product appreance

Bases Sought • The sociable : Seeking brightness of teeth
• The worries : Seeking decay prevention
• The independent segment : Seeking low price

Most of brands emphasize multiple performance

benefits

Criteria

• Identifiability: Can we easily identify the segment?

• Size: Is there adequate sales potential in the segment?
• Accessibility: Are specialized distribution outlets and communication media
available to reach the segment?
• Responsiveness: How favorably will the segment respond to a tailored
marketing program?
 Nature of competition

• Indirect competition:
Not to define competition too narrowly
Competition often occurs at the benefit level rather than the attribute level
• Multiple frames reference
: It’s common for a brand to identify more than one frame of reference.

✓ Quick-serve restaurants (McDonald's & Dunkin Donuts)

✓ Supermarket brands (Maxim, Nescafe)
✓ Local cafes
 PoP & PoD

Points-of-Difference associations
• Attributes or benefits that consumers strongly associate with a brand, positively
evaluate, and believe that they could not find to the same extent with a
competitive brand
• Functional, performance-related vs. abstract, imagery-related considerations
• PoDs may rely on performance attributes or benefits as well as imagery associations.
• These benefits often have important underlying proof points or reasons to believe.

Points-of-Parity associations
• PoPs are not necessarily unique to the brand but may in fact be shared with
✓
other brands.
Category point-of-parity : represent necessary-but not necessarily sufficient-conditions for brand
choice.
✓ Competitive point-of-parity : are those associations designed to negate competitors' PoD.
✓ Correlational point-of-parity : are those potentially negative associations that arise from the
existence of
other, more positive associations for the brand.
PoP & PoD
PoP & PoD

Examples on Negatively Correlated Attributes and Benefits

Low price vs. high quality

Taste vs. low calories

Nutritious Vs. good tasting

Efficacious vs. mild

Powerful vs. safe

Strong vs. refined

Ubiquitous vs. exclusive

Varied vs. simple

Positioning Guidelines

Defini
ng and
Comm
unicati
Choosi
ngngthe
Compe
Points-
titive
of-
Frame
Differe
ofnce
Refere
nce

Establi
shing
Points-
of-
Parity
and
Points-
of-
Differe
 Positioning Guidelines - 1. Defining & communicating the competitive frame of reference

• Not to define competition too narrowly

• Determine category membership
• To inform consumers of a brand’s category membership

Communicating category benefits

• To reassure consumers that a brand will deliver on the fundamental reason for
using a category, marketers frequently use benefits to announce category
membership

Exemplars
• Well-known, noteworthy brands in a category to be used as exemplars to specify
a brand’s category membership. Ex) pork was “the Other White Meat” by The
national Pork Board

Product descriptor
• The product descriptor that follows the brand name is often a very compact
means of conveying category origin.
Positioning Guidelines - 1. Defining & communicating the competitive frame of reference

Although carrots were a primary ingredient, V8 splash

deliberately avoided invoking the vegetable in the brand
name, given its sometimes negative connotations.
 Positioning Guidelines - 2. Choosing PoD

• The brand association must be seen as desirable, deliverable, and differentiating.

• Desirability is determined from the consumer’s point of view, deliverability is based on
a company’s inherent capabilities, and differentiation is determined relative to the
competitors.
• These 3 considerations for developing an optimal positioning align with the 3
perspectives on which any brand must be evaluated, namely the consumer, the
company, and the competition.
desirability ✓ Target consumers must find PoD personally relevant and
important.

✓ The deliverability of an attribute or benefit brand association

deliverabili depends on both a company’s actual ability to make the product or
ty service(feasibility) as well as their effectiveness in convincing
consumers of their ability to do so (communication).

differentiatio ✓ Target consumers must find the PoD distinctive and superior.
n
Positioning Guidelines - 3. Establishing PoP & PoD

• The key to branding success is to establish both PoPs and PoDs.

• One challenges in positioning is the inverse relationships that may exist in the
minds of many consumers. – Consumer typically want to maximize both the
negatively correlated attributes and benefits.

Separate the attributes • Launch 2 different marketing campaigns, each devoted to a

different brand attribute or benefit
• The downsides are – expensive, 2 strong campaigns have to be
developed.
Leverage equity • Brands can link themselves to any kind of entity that possesses
of another entity the right kind of equity.
• Cost and risk exist.

• Address the negative relationship btw attributes and

Redefine the relationship
benefits is in fact positive.
• Difficult to achieve
Positioning Guidelines - 3. Establishing PoP & PoD
 Positioning Guidelines - 4. Straddle Positions & 5. Updating positioning overtime

Straddle Positions

• Straddle two frames of reference with one set of PoPs and PoDs
• BMW : positioned as being the only automobile that offered both luxury and
performance.
Luxury car: PoD(Performance), PoP(luxurious)
Performance car: PoD (luxurious), PoP(performance)

Updating positioning overtime

• Positioning should be fundamentally changed very infrequently and only when

circumstances significantly reduce the effectiveness of existing PoPs and PoDs.
•
 Defining A Brand Mantra

• A short, three-to five- word phrase that captures the irrefutable essence of
spirit of the brand postioning
• Similar to brand essence or core brand promise
• Its purpose is to ensure that all employess and external marketing partnes
understand what the brand most fundamentally is to represent to consumers
so thay can adjust their actions accordingly
• It helps the brand present a consistent image
Designing A Brand Mantra

Brand Function Descriptive Emotional

Modifier Modifier
Performance Athletic Authentic
Entertainment Family Fun

The nature of the product or It further clarifies its How exactly does the
service or the type of nature. brand provide benefits
experiences or benefits the Combined, the brand and in what ways?
brand provides. function term and
descriptive modifier help
delineate the brand
boundaries.
Implementing A Brand Mantra

• It should be developed at the same time as the brand positioning.

• Marketers can often summarize the brand positioning in a few sentences or
a short paragraph that suggests the ideal core brand associations consumers
should hold.
• Based on these core brand associations, a brainstorming session can
attempt to ✓identify PoDs, PoPs, and different brand mantra candidates
• Considerations ✓ Communicate
✓ Simplify
✓ Inspire