The challenge  is to build a brand that is strong, unique and favourable – a brand that evokes positive, emotional feelings. A brand where customers react and experience positively to the brand’s product/services/ideas/people.

We need to create a brand that evokes the desired positive knowledge structures: thoughts, feelings, images, perceptions, attitudes.

But how do we build one?

Building a brand isn’t as easy as it sounds, but there is a marketing model providing guidance for brand building, called the customer-based brand equity model (CBBE model).

The basic premise of the CBBE model is that the power of a brand resides in the minds of its customers. The CBBE model acts as a branding ladder, or building blocks to guide a firm’s marketing programs.

Below is a diagram of the Customer-Based Brand Equity Model (CBBE model):

CBBE: Customer-Based Brand Equity Model

CBBE PYRAMID

Start from the base of the pyramid and work your way up, building the blocks of a strong brand.

Step 1: Salience - talks about Brand Awareness (depth and breadth)

Identity – Ensure customers can identify the brand and can associate the brand with a specific product class or need.

Depth of brand awareness: how likely the brand will spring to mind (recognition and recall) much the customer knows your brand when they see/hear about it

Breadth of brand awareness: when the customer thinks about your brand, and the range of purchase/usage situations in which the brand comes to mind.

Step 2a. Performance (2, 3, 3, 2, 1)

Meaning – Establish meaning to the brand so that when customers think of the brand, they strategically link both tangible and intangible brand associations with the brand.

Performance dimensions:

1a primary characteristics

1b secondary features

2a product reliability

2b durability

2c serviceability

3a service effectiveness

3b service efficiency

3c empathy

4a style

4b design

5 price

Step 2b. Imagery

User profiles, purchase and usage situations, personality and values, history, heritage and experiences.

- usually intangible aspects of the brand

- can be formed directly; via own experiences

- can be formed indirectly; via external marketing communications, advertising, word-of-mouth

4 Main Intangibles:

1. User profiles: person (demographic such as age, gender, race, income; psychographic such as careers, attitudes towards life, social issues) or organisations (size and type e.g. “caring”)

2. Purchase and usage situations: channel type (department store, online, boutique); location (inside or outside home), activity during usage (formal or informal, dine-in or takeaway)

3. Personality and values: brand acts like a person e.g. modern, sophisticated, angry like Hungry Jack’s angry Angus Burger. Consumers often choose brands that they perceive and aspire themselves to be like so the brand personality is consistent with their own self-concept; otherwise, consumers who are “self-monitors” will be sensitive to how others see them, so will more likely choose brands whose personalities fit the consumptiong situation.

4. History, heritage and experiences: brands may use associations to relate to consumers’ recollections of personal or shared experiences. Brands can become iconic by using these experiences to tap into consumers’ hopes and dreams. e.g. L’Oreal use spokespeople from all ages (20s, 30s, 40, 50s, 60s) for each of their products to tap into each market segment. By doing this, L’Oreal is combining the experience from women of all ages who can share together their knowledge and personal experience with the brand. Also, the history behind the company, and the endorsements that these spokepeople make create a sense of hope and dream that one day a consumer who uses L’Oreal can aim to be like these spokemodels and feel like they are “worth it”.

Step 3a. Judgment

Responses – Gauge customer responses to the brand identification and brand meaning.

Brand judgments are personal opinions and evaluations about the brand.

Judgment dimensions: quality, credibility, consideration, superiority

Step 3b. Feelings (strong and favourable)

Feelings dimensions: warmth, fun, excitement, security, social approval, self-respect

Step 4. Resonance (intense and active)

Relationships – Convert the brand response to create intense, active loyalty relationship between the customer and the brand.

Loyalty, Attachment, Community, Engagement

Brand equity is the consumers’ subjective and intangible assessments of the brand. Brand equity is beyond the objectively perceived value. The difference between branding and brand equity is that branding is the structural processes that make a brand, and brand equity is the value that one feels towards the brand.

3 Main Drivers of Brand Equity:

1. Brand Awareness (familarity, recognition and recall)
2. Brand Attitudes (unique feelings, can be positive or negative)
3. Brand Perception of Brand Ethics (is the brand ethical?)

Value Equity (objective)

Value equity is the opposite of brand equity. In other words, is it the objective assessment of the brand.

3 Main Drivers of Value Equity:

1. Quality of the Brand
2. Price of the Brand, product or service
3. Convenience

Relationship Equity

When a customer has relationship equity to a brand, they have a tendency to stick with the brand. It is beyond objective and subjective assessments of the brand.

4 Main Drivers of Relationship Equity:

1. Loyalty programs
2. Special recognition & treatment programs
3. Community and building programs
4. Knowledge-building programs

Customer-Based Brand Equity

Customer based brand equity (CBBE) is the differential effect, the customers’ brand knowledge and their responses to the brand’s marketing. A customer can have negative and positve CBBE towards a brand.

I will be posting another article on customer based brand equity at a later date.

Adult Freedom

In 2004, previous research conducted on people living in the U.S. on people’s thoughts on holidays showed that people needed a break, a holiday from their daily lives. Consumer wanted “adult freedom“. Previous research companies created a campaign entitled It’s Time For You to cater for consumers’ needs and wants, and to give them a location to visit for a well-deserved break.  Brand managers worked hard to develop a new campaign called What happens Here, Stays Here (abbreviated to WHHSH).

Las Vegas: Not just a gaming city

However, “adult freedom” required more than giving the consumer “a time” of freedom. It was much more.  The company wanted to change consumers’ perceptions and behaviours associated with vacation experiences. They needed to put Las Vegas back on the map, and give visitors permission to enjoy and indulge and encourage them to challenge themselves on the types of activities to do in the city of Las Vegas.

The aim was to have a campaign that was individualistic, challenging and implicitly permissive. Not to tell the complete story, but to imply it , allow viewers to inject own experiences and relate themselves with the brand.  The WHHSH campaign was deemed successful, but Las Vegas wanted to appeal to an even wider audience.

Lacking Knowledge

In order to appeal to a wider audience, research company Harris Interactive along with advertising, marketing, public relations and public affairs company R&R Partners and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA)  needed to understand the current WHHSH campaign as well as find ways to gauge target markets and find out their current perceptions of the Las Vegas brand.  Analysis of the WHHSH campaigns indicated that people lacked knowledge of Las Vegas’ products and services. Their awareness of the brands’ offerings (besides being the world’s best gaming destination) signified that these problems would be improved through implementation of a new strategy.

The new brand strategy was simply to: continue to reinforce the current WHHSH positioning and maintain the national brand image, whilst backfilling and linking Las Vegas’ offerings with their benefits to drive product knowledge to target markets.

Las Vegas owns some of the best chefs in the world

The New Strategy

• create familiarity and awareness for visitors to understand the brand’s benefits that are personally relevant and emotionally charged
• increase favourability, likelihood to visit and intent to return
• educate people about Las Vegas’ benefits (world renowned hotels, restaurants, wines) through “Vegas IQ”
• use Vegas IQ as a means to find out current consumer perceptions of Las Vegas brand. Factors included Brand Awareness, Brand Performance, Brand Quality and Brand Loyalty
• select geographical markets further away from Las Vegas where other cities lacked knowledge
• produce a  “Vegas Alibi” campaign to inform consumers about relevant Las Vegas products and services they can use as their alibi when they indulge in the many facets of ‘adult freedom’, continuing to tie in with the WHHSH positioning

Las Vegas used integrated marketing communications (IMC) campaigns via TV, print, radio, digital, PR, guerilla marketing techniques (unconventional marketing) to educate people about their relevant product offerings they can use as an alibi whilst staying at Las Vegas. Not only did Las Vegas’ expanded brand benefits communicated to the consumer, but it maintained and strengthened the WHHSH national image positioning and extended the original stagnant view of “adult freedom”. This strategy proved to be a massive success especially in 2005,  inviting in over 3.2% in demand growth, 3.3 million website hits and 1.8 million referrals, 42% word-of-mouth increase (Harris Interactive, 2007).

Las Vegas' ever-changing brand architecture

Future Destination

An increase of social media networking, complex  multi-generational attitudes and behaviours, and branding in movies such as 2008′s What Happens in Vegas (with Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz) will see the Las Vegas brand  potentially sky-rocket.

Products come in many tangible and intangible categories:

• PHYSICAL GOOD (e.g. car, watch, house)

• SERVICE (e.g. bank, hair salon, IT department)

• RETAIL OUTLET (e.g. Calvin Klein, MYER, Woolworths)

• PERSON (e.g. Barack Obama)

• PLACE (e.g. Las Vegas, Australia, North Pole)

• IDEAS (e.g. anti-smoking, climate change)

Product Levels

1. Core Benefits – needs and wants of consumption (e.g. water to quench thirst)

2. Generic Product – attributes and characteristics that allow the product to function (e.g. sufficient water for survival or comfort)

3. Expected Product – attributes and characteristics the consumer expects or agrees when purchasing (e.g. clean, clear and “nice-tasting” water based on geographical location and past experiences)

4. Augmented Product – additional benefits or services that distinguishes the product from competitors (e.g. light-weight packaging and credible brand)

5. Potential Product – Transformations the product may undergo in the future (e.g. corporate social responsibilities)

There are so many definitions of a brand. Here are some of many:

A brand is a promise

A brand is the emotional and psychological relationship you have with your customers

A brand is a name, symbol or logo

A brand must mean something to customers

A brand sells an experience and tries to fulfil a promise

In agreeance with the notion of promises, a brand is a promise, representing value to a customer. It is both tangible and intangible. It is not only a name, symbol or logo that sums up the different characteristics to identify products, services, people or ideas – but it is also a collection of perceptions in the mind of a consumer.

From a consumer perspective

A brand is a combination of unique, tangible and intangible components that differentiate a product, service, person or idea from another.  In addition, a brand delivers value to the customer.  The amount or type of value delivered is differentiated and perceived differently, as brands mean different things to different people.

From an organisational perspective

A brand offers legal protection for unique aspects of a firm and its products, services and employees. A brand not only identifies the firm however, but it also provides intellectual property rights, ensuring the company (including business partners) can safely invest in the brand and potentially reap financial, physical, social and functional rewards. If a brand is trusted in the marketplace, and is known for producing quality products or services, it is much more likely to gain and sustain a competitive advantage than other companies.

Example of a Brand

An example of a brand is L’Oréal.  L’Oréal is a corporate brand – a trusted, worldwide healthy and beauty company known for its vast strong, unique and favourable brand portfolio such as Garnier, Maybelline and L’Oréal Professionnel (professional hair care products).  It is suffice to say that L’Oréal’s reputation is second to none; its intellectual property rights are vast, which ensures that other businesses (e.g. groceries, pharmacies, hairsalons, agencies) can safely invest in the reputable brand given that its consumers hold the L’Oréal brand in high regard and remains profitable. There are, of course, consumers who will not use L’Oréal products for their own reasons. They may be influenced by opinion leaders, have had a poor past experience with the brand, or may perceive it to have high brand superiority (or alternatively cheap if produced for mass markets) and therefore will opt to negotiate with a competitor.  It is therefore L’Oréal’s mission to acquire these customers, reward loyal customers to continue to “aspire to beauty”.

Super Quick Summary of A Brand

Overall, a brand is a symbolic device that will aim to create awareness, reputation, prominence and reposition consumers’ perceptions and societal values. It provide a source of identification for its goods, services, people and ideas and provides both tangible and intangible value to consumers.

What is your definition of a brand? What does a brand mean to you?

"This groundbreaking film is a cinematic wonder, but its vivid world is nearly void of brands", says brandchannel. But brands aren't only symbols and logos. The image above already depicts many forms of branding that differentiates humans between avatars as well as social classes among avatars.