Hello professor Alfred and everybody else that might run into this blog! My name is Sofia Queiroz and this is my brand journal where I am going to share my opinion about some issues that catches my attention and that were a topic for discussion in the Global Branding class or that have been spreading word of mouth. Hope you enjoy!
Protectability is one of the brand elements criteria and should be strongly taken into account in order for a company not having to face imitations and infringers.
Marketers should make sure that the brand elements can be legally protected internationally, they should also formally register the brand elements with the appropriate legal bodies and defend trademarks from unauthorized competitive infringements.
The examples that I found are related with the brand name. The brand name is the first brand element that allow consumers to identify a certain brand, so it should be and remain unique through time.
Examples of attempts to copy famous brand names: Häagen-Dazs
Prada:
Adidas:
In my opinion these attempts to imitate known and recognizable brands are not even close to successful. Although, even if consumers don´t confuse this brands with the originals, only the existence of these brands can damage the original brand reputation.
Slogans and Jingles are powerful branding devices because of its efficient ability of creating brand equity. Both brand elements are very valuable in enhancing brand awareness because of its "stickiness" in consumers mind. Jingles are musical messages written around the brand and often have catchy hooks and choruses to become almost registered in the head of listeners. Most of jingles are repeated constantly during the commercials and is this persistent characteristic that make them stick.
The jingles in the videos below are examples of jingles seen in class and have been in my mind until today! Alka-Seltzer:
Band Aids:
Slogans are phrases that communicate descriptive or persuasive information about the brand and usually reinforces one of the most valuable attributes of the products or one of the company core values. Emblematic slogans that are remembered around the world are also associated with emblematic brand. Slogans like the ones listed below are the world's most recognizable and come to my mind (and probably to everybody else's) when thinking of these subject: - "Just do it" by Nike - " The happiest place on earth" by Walt Disney - "Red Bull gives you wiiings" by Red Bull - " I'm lovin' it" by McDonald's - " Melts in your mouth, not in your hands" by M&M's
- " Open happiness" by Coca-Cola
Both slogans and jingles identify and differentiate the brand and help the brand to form strong, positive and unique associations. In order to achieve this purposes, like all the others brand elements, slogans and jingles need to be memorable, meaningful, likeable, transferable, adaptable and protectable.
The last dimension that companies desire to fulfill is the sense of loyalty, attachment, engagement and community from consumer side.
The sense of community is the feeling of belonging and association with other people associated with the brand. This loyal customers that are part of the brand's community do more than just repeated purchases, they have proud of the brand and are engaged and willing to invest time in brand activities beyond the purchase and consumption of products.
Two renowned brands that have been building strong communities are Harley-Davidson, which we studied in class, and RedBull.
In my opinion, Harley-Davidson has ardent consumers organized around the freedom lifestyle that the brand provides for them. These consumers are like a family and have similar characteristics that are related with the character of the brand. Harley-Davidson gives people a sense of connection through the close to the customer strategy that implements.
Harley-Davidson customers also have a responsibility towards the brand because the community is the entity who makes and guides the brand and is a strong part of the image and positioning of the brand.
Harley Davidson customers usually ride together and have frequent meetings to gather the community:
Red Bull community is built around the feelings of excitement and pushing the limits. Red Bull has been sponsoring a wide range of sport events and athletes that perform radical activities.
In my opinion, loyal customers of RedBull are not only fans of the drink but fans and aspirants to the lifestyle the company promotes.
Like Harley-Davidson, this brand has been creating a lot of events where the Red Bull community is gathered and where the customers can experience the feeling of danger and action.
One example of these events is the Red Bull flugtag where customers build their own flying machines and test them:
Both of the mentioned companies serve and understand the community members lifes and assigns to each consumer a valuable role in the brand.
The automobile brand Volkswagen is a remarkable example of brand positioning through advertising when it entered in the Indian market.
After facing a few problems with the Indian community that didn't see the brand as suitable enough, Volkswagen introduced a few changes.
The first step of the brand was to search for consumer insights. After gathering information about what these consumers value in a car, Volkswagen leveraged these insights and changed its image to an aspirational, innovative and reliable brand and offered products with high functionality and spacious places (which is very valued in India).
The advertising that is listed below shows how this brand adapted its campaign to be side by side with the new slogan for Volkswagen India: " A German engineering. Made for India".
The slogan position the brand in a clear way in the minds of customers and proves that Volkswagen is committed in reaching a position of superiority and giving customers reasons to have emotional attachment and reactions to the brand.
Dove is a brand that has been making some emblematic campaigns.
We talked a lot about this brand in class as a good brand mantra example, reinforcing in every action what the company really is about.
A brand mantra is an articulation of the heart and soul of the company, is composed by short phrases that captures the irrefutable essence or spirit of the brand positioning and the brand values.
I was confronted with an advertisement of Dove that really catches my attention because of its down to earth approach:
This advertising emphasizes the core value of Dove : The brand for real women.
The communication strategy that Dove uses to reach customers and catch their attention is linked with the brand social responsibility, more precisely the problem of low self-esteem triggered by the misleading advertisements that women are confronted with.
In my opinion the inspiring and emotional root of this advertisement allows consumers to build a loyalty attitude toward the brand because it is not about its product's benefits but about the message that is behind. It shows every women that they are more beautiful than how they see themselves.
As a good advertiser, Dove concentrates on one big genuine idea and establishes sharply who their target customer is and with this affects customers while building its own personality.
I thought that using the anniversary of one of the most recognizable and powerful brands in the world was a good starting point to introduce the context of line extensions...
Line Extensions occur when a company introduces additional items in the same product category under the same brand name such as new flavors, forms, colors, added ingredients, package sizes.
Coca-Cola has a lot of line extensions related with the packaging as a result of its special edition bottles.
On its 125th birthday, Coca-Cola sold one of this special editions in order to celebrate this date!
Also, other special editions can be mentioned like the brand's special package for the World Cup that was also sponsored by Coca-Cola.
By sponsoring events this brand can build more attached customers, making them feel that they belong to a community where Coca-Cola is present!
The case that I am going to talk about really surprised me and it's related with a brand that I am familiarized with.
Abercrombie has been making a lot of statements about who shouldn't be wearing their clothes.
In my opinion the brand should start focusing in giving reasons for customers to keep buying their clothes because each effort that the brand did to narrow its target segment and have the association that it considered adequate in consumers minds only damaged its image.
I am going to mention two examples of practises that the company did and that were questionable.
The first example was seen in class and consists in paying the Jersey Shore cast members not to wear Abercrombie and Fitch clothes.
Despite the fact that Jersey Shore is a show with a bad reputation and the brand didn't want to be associated with it, Abercrombie should rethink if this practise is going to be harm the brand instead if improving its image...
The second example is the fact that Abercrombie doesn't sell sizes for large women.
Mike Jeffries (CEO) admits that he doesn't want larger women shopping in his store, he wants thin and beautiful people like the employees that are called models.
Abercrombie and Fitch CEO actually stated: " We want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don't want to market to anyone other than that"!
Brand extensions should only be implemented if they don't confuse consumers. The main consideration that needs to be taken into account and that is the source of an appropriate extension is to identify if there is some basis of similarity between the proposed extension and parent brand.
Now, I would like to share with you two bad examples of brand extensions that attracted my attention.
The first example is the Bic underwear. In case you're wondering, yes, I am talking about the brand that usually sells disposable pens...
Under this brand name, women's disposable underwear and panties were sold.
Is true that no one can say that they didn't try to reach a point-of-parity: They are disposable! But still, consistency needs to be taken into account and Bic completely failed in this point.
As Al Ries said "Names have power, but only in the camp in which they have credentials, and when they lose focus, they also lose their power".
The second example that it is listed as one of the biggest failures in brand extensions is Zippo's women's fruity perfume.
Zippo has been known for years as the iconic cigarette lighter brand, and now tried to enter the perfume category.
The problem this brand faced was the association with the smell of lighter fluid and most women do not want to be associated with this smell. The perfume could be a decent-smelling perfume, but perception is everything!
The shoes with the shiny, red lacquered soles are known around the world. The French brand created by the designer Christian Louboutin has increased its brand knowledge because of the red color used in its shoes soles, aside with the high quality offered on its products.
I want to mention this example of a brand because, in my opinion, is an outstanding and memorable brand that stays in consumer mind for its elegance and uniqueness.
The red sole is a major asset for this company, creating several revenues each day. The reason for this to happen is because customers can easily detect the points-of-parity (with its competitors) and the points-of-difference. The point-of-parity is the luxury product that offers and the point-of-difference the very own red sole!
In order to analyse the consumer behavior towards this brand, I am going to build the customer-based brand equity pyramid:
As you can see described in the pyramid, Louboutin shoes are a symbol of luxury and social status and women want to have a pair only because they are Louboutin. As Christian Louboutin (designer) said: "If you can not walk in them , do not have to wear them either!"
As we discussed in class, one of the major challenges for marketers is to ensure that consumers have the right type of experiences with a product and develop marketing programs that ensure that the desired feelings and thoughts are linked to the brand. If a company is cached in the middle of a scandal the way how that brand is present in consumer mind is extremely damaged, especially if it harms consumers! This was exactly the case of the Nestlé indignity...
Nestlé ethical questionable decisions started when the company decided to switch its main baby milk demographic to poor mothers in developing countries. Nestlé saw an opportunity to exploit these people and was able to get across the false impression that its milk was better for babies than breast feeding. In these undeveloped countries, mothers made tremendous efforts to save money in order to feed their babys with what was known as "the best". The promotional campaigns of the brand were even supported by nurses of the countries where Nestlé were offering the products!
The practises of Nestlé contributed to the unnecessary death and suffering of infants around the world. Reasons like using contaminated water to mix with the formula in poor countries, the lack of understanding and ability to implement sanitation standards required and the usage of less Nestlé formula than required, which provided even less adequate nutrition, were in the center of the problem.
Nestlé suffered after it was proved their false accusations and a boycott campaign was heavily promoted in media and supported by famous people.
This video summarizes the problems that Nestlé caused:
