The brand is always the hero in Coca-Cola advertising. As a result, managers are able to make decisions regarding the brand with confidence. But in , when Bic tried the same strategy with perfumes in the United States and Europe, the effort bombed. What went wrong? The marketers knew that customers understood the message they were sending with their earlier products. By contrast, Gillette has been careful not to fall into the Bic trap. While all of its products benefit from a similarly extensive distribution system, it is very protective of the name carried by its razors, blades, and associated toiletries.
Brand equity must be carefully constructed. A firm foundation for brand equity requires that consumers have the proper depth and breadth of awareness and strong, favorable, and unique associations with the brand in their memory. Too often, managers want to take shortcuts and bypass more basic branding considerations—such as achieving the necessary level of brand awareness—in favor of concentrating on flashier aspects of brand building related to image.
A good example of lack of support comes from the oil and gas industry in the s. In the late s, consumers had an extremely positive image of Shell Oil and, according to market research, saw clear differences between that brand and its major competitors. In the early s, however, for a variety of reasons, Shell cut back considerably on its advertising and marketing.
Shell has yet to regain the ground it lost. The brand no longer enjoys the same special status in the eyes of consumers, who now view it as similar to other oil companies. Another example is Coors Brewing. Perhaps not surprisingly, sales of Coors beer dropped by half between and Finally in , Coors began to address the problem, launching a campaign to prop up sales that returned to its original focus.
Marketers at Coors admit that they did not consistently give the brand the attention it needed. Strong brands generally make good and frequent use of in-depth brand audits and ongoing brand-tracking studies.
A brand audit is an exercise designed to assess the health of a given brand. Brand audits are particularly useful when they are scheduled on a periodic basis. Tracking studies can build on brand audits by employing quantitative measures to provide current information about how a brand is performing for any given dimension. Whereas brand audits measure where the brand has been, tracking studies measure where the brand is now and whether marketing programs are having their intended effects.
The strongest brands, however, are also supported by formal brand-equity-management systems. It also summarizes the activities that make up brand audits, brand tracking, and other brand research; specifies the outcomes expected of them; and includes the latest findings gathered from such research. These managers also assemble the results of their various tracking surveys and other relevant measures into a brand equity report, which is distributed to management on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis.
The brand equity report not only describes what is happening within a brand but also why. Even a market leader can benefit by carefully monitoring its brand, as Disney aptly demonstrates. In the late s, Disney became concerned that some of its characters among them Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck were being used inappropriately and becoming overexposed.
To determine the severity of the problem, Disney undertook an extensive brand audit. First, as part of the brand inventory, managers compiled a list of all available Disney products manufactured by the company and licensed and all third-party promotions complete with point-of-purchase displays and relevant merchandising in stores worldwide.
At the same time, as part of a brand exploratory, Disney launched its first major consumer research study to investigate how consumers felt about the Disney brand. The results of the brand inventory were a revelation to senior managers.
The Disney characters were on so many products and marketed in so many ways that it was difficult to understand how or why many of the decisions had been made in the first place.
The consumer study only reinforced their concerns. The study indicated that people lumped all the product endorsements together. Disney was Disney to consumers, whether they saw the characters in films, or heard them in recordings, or associated them with theme parks or products. Disney characters were used in a promotion of Johnson Wax, for instance, a product that would seemingly leverage almost nothing of value from the Disney name.
Consumers were even upset when Disney characters were linked to well-regarded premium brands like Tide laundry detergent.
In that case, consumers felt the characters added little value to the product. Worse yet, they were annoyed that the characters involved children in a purchasing decision that they otherwise would probably have ignored. If consumers reacted so negatively to associating Disney with a strong brand like Tide, imagine how they reacted when they saw the hundreds of other Disney-licensed products and joint promotions.
Consumers reported that they resented all the endorsements because they felt they had a special, personal relationship with the characters and with Disney that should not be handled so carelessly. As a result of the brand inventory and exploratory, Disney moved quickly to establish a brand equity team to better manage the brand franchise and more selectively evaluate licensing and other third-party promotional opportunities.
One of the mandates of this team was to ensure that a consistent image for Disney—reinforcing its key association with fun family entertainment—was conveyed by all third-party products and services. Building a strong brand involves maximizing all ten characteristics.
And that is, clearly, a worthy goal. But in practice, it is tremendously difficult because in many cases when a company focuses on improving one, others may suffer. Consider a premium brand facing a new market entrant with comparable features at a lower price. Lowering prices might successfully block the new entrant from gaining market share in the short term. But what effect would that have in the long term? Will it create the impression that the brand is no longer top of the line or that the innovation is no longer solid?
The price change may in fact attract customers from a different market segment to try the brand, producing a short-term blip in sales. But will those customers be the true target?
The trick is to get a handle on how a brand performs on all ten attributes and then to evaluate any move from all possible perspectives. How will this new product line affect the brand hierarchy in our portfolio? In the mids, the company put together a comprehensive brand-equity-measurement system. The youth market was going for a much baggier look; competitors were rushing in to fill the gap.
Its market share in the jeans category plummeted in the latter half of the s. The result? Negative examples and cautionary words abound, of course. But it is important to recognize that in strong brands the top ten traits have a positive, synergistic effect on one another; excelling at one characteristic makes it easier to excel at another. That, in turn, might lead to a more appropriate value-pricing strategy. Ultimately, the power of a brand lies in the minds of consumers or customers, in what they have experienced and learned about the brand over time.
Consumer knowledge is really at the heart of brand equity. This realization has important managerial implications. In an abstract sense, brand equity provides marketers with a strategic bridge from their past to their future. That is, all the dollars spent each year on marketing can be thought of not so much as expenses but as investments—investments in what consumers know, feel, recall, believe, and think about the brand.
And that knowledge dictates appropriate and inappropriate future directions for the brand—for it is consumers who will decide, based on their beliefs and attitudes about a given brand, where they think that brand should go and grant permission or not to any marketing tactic or program.
Ultimately, the value to marketers of brand equity as a concept depends on how they use it. Brand equity can help marketers focus, giving them a way to interpret their past marketing performance and design their future marketing programs.
Everything the company does can help enhance or detract from brand equity. Marketers who build strong brands have embraced the concept and use it to its fullest to clarify, implement, and communicate their marketing strategy. You have 1 free article s left this month. You are reading your last free article for this month. Welcome to our business professional look guide for the modern man. The business professional look is easy to define. Unlike smart casual or business casual , the professional business style for men has a clear set of rules and principles.
The secret to a successful office wardrobe for men is in the details. The fit of your shirt. The finishing and details of your shoes. Your business professional attire starts with a suit, a shirt, a tie and a pair of dress shoes. Once you have the foundations taken care of, you can start to work with accessories to complete your look: a belt, a dressy watch and cufflinks.
Our style experts have handpicked specific recommendations to help you achieve the look. A business suit is a set of garments made from the same cloth. A two-piece suit consists of at least a jacket and trousers. A three-piece suit includes a waistcoat underneath the jacket. A three-piece suit is now mostly reserved for weddings or very formal occasions.
Every grown-up man needs at least one suit in its wardrobe. If you expect to wear a business suit every day for work, you should buy two or three more of different colours. For your first suit, start with a plain dark navy colour with no pattern.
Navy is the most flexible colour that can easily be combined with different shirts and ties. Your second suit should be dark charcoal or even black.
Next on the list are your business shirts. Stick to the timeless classics when selecting your shirt. Begin with a few simple white collared shirts.
When selecting your business shirts, make sure that they look good when fully buttoned-up. You want the collar to have some substance and structure to perfectly frame your tie see next section. A tie is your chance to express emotions and personality through your business professional attire.
Tie colours, in a particular context, can express your political views, for example. In the office, a set of different ties will also help you change your overall look while wearing the same suit and shirt.
A navy suit with a white shirt and a navy tie will look very different than the same suit and shirt with a bright orange tie. Tighten it up until it does. Crew necks, V-necks, and cardigans in neutral colors all work, and they can be paired with dresses, skirts, or pants. Find understated options in modern shapes at Vince , Everlane , and Aritzia. Sheer stockings. For less expensive options, try Hue or Talbots. Comfortable loafers or flats. A dedicated commuting flat extends the life of your heels, and it looks better than sneakers.
If your employee handbook tells you to dress business casual, congratulations! So think about how you want to be perceived by the people around you, and dress accordingly.
Business casual means different things in different workplaces, though. A great black or navy blazer. Wear it with black pants, a dress, or a skirt when you need to look dressy, or throw it over nice jeans and a blouse on more casual days. Button-down shirts and blouses. Dressy pants. So, no linen or lycra. Find trousers at Everlane , Aritzia , and Topshop. Find grown-up slim cut or wide-leg pants at Eileen Fisher. A pair of grown-up jeans. Clean, simple dresses.
Unlike in the corporate world, colors and patterns are usually fine. Cool flats or ankle boots. Knit shirts and tank top s. A pair of heels. Working in a creative space often means having work clothes and weekend clothes that blend together. One way to do that is by starting with a foundation of business-casual pieces, and then finding ways to loosen them up a little bit. Like this:. Find fun third pieces.
Think long vests that can be belted over pants or a dress, or blazers that go beyond the basic navy or black. Crew blazer that I wear over sleeveless dresses.
0コメント