Branding — Brand Equity and Brand Management

Marketing Area

Branding & Product

Explanation

Branding

What is a Brand?

A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of these, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors. It's the sum of perceptions, values, and associations in the consumer's mind.

Brand Equity (David Aaker's Model)

Brand equity is the added value a brand name gives to a product beyond the functional benefits provided. David Aaker's model identifies several components:

Brand Awareness: The strength of a brand's presence in the consumer's mind (recognition and recall).
Brand Associations: Anything linked in memory to a brand (e.g., product attributes, benefits, usage occasions, brand personality).
Perceived Quality: The customer's perception of the overall quality or superiority of a product or service relative to alternatives.
Brand Loyalty: The attachment that a customer has to a brand (e.g., repeat purchases, resistance to competitor offers).
Other Proprietary Assets: Brand-related patents, trademarks, and channel relationships that provide a competitive advantage.

Kevin Keller's CBBE Model

Kevin Keller's Customer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE) model focuses on building a strong brand through a sequence of steps that lead to customer resonance. The brand must be:

Known (Brand Salience/Awareness).
Meaning (Brand Performance and Imagery).
Responses (Brand Judgments and Feelings).
Relationships (Brand Resonance/Loyalty).

Brand Types

National/Manufacturer brands: Brands owned by the producers of the products (e.g., Coca-Cola, Samsung).
Private-label/Store brands: Brands created and owned by a reseller of a product or service (e.g., supermarket's own brand of groceries).
Generic brands: Products without brand names, typically sold at lower prices.

Brand Architecture

Brand architecture refers to how a company organizes and names its brands. Two common structures:

Branded House: All products and services are marketed under a single master brand (e.g., Google with Google Maps, Gmail, Google Search).
House of Brands: Each product or service operates as an independent brand with its own identity (e.g., Procter & Gamble with Tide, Pampers, Gillette).

Nepal Examples

Goldstar shoes: A well-known Nepali footwear brand.
CG (Chaudhary Group): A prominent Nepali conglomerate with diverse brands across various sectors.
Dabur Nepal: A strong brand in consumer healthcare and Ayurvedic products in Nepal.