In a fascinating and insightful examination of the phenomenon of brand equity, Aaker provides a clear and well-defined structure of the relationship between a brand and its symbol and slogan, as well as each of the five underlying assets, which will clarify for managers exactly how brand equity does contribute value.



The most important assets of any business are intangible: its company name, brands, symbols, and slogans, and their underlying associations, perceived quality, name awareness, customer base, and proprietary resources such as patents, trademarks, and channel relationships. These assets, which comprise brand equity, are a primary source of competitive advantage and future earnings, contends David Aaker, a national authority on branding. Yet, research shows that managers cannot identify with confidence their brand associations, levels of consumer awareness, or degree of customer loyalty. Moreover in the last decade, managers desperate for short-term financial results have often unwittingly damaged their brands through price promotions and unwise brand extensions, causing irreversible deterioration of the value of the brand name. Although several companies, such as Canada Dry and Colgate-Palmolive, have recently created an equity management position to be guardian of the value of brand names, far too few managers, Aaker concludes, really understand the concept of brand equity and how it must be implemented.



The author opens each chapter with a historical analysis of either the success or failure of a particular company's attempt at building brand equity: the fascinating Ivory soap story; the transformation of Datsun to Nissan; the decline of Schlitz beer; the making of the Ford Taurus; and others. Finally, citing examples from many other companies, Aaker shows how to avoid the temptation to place short-term performance before the health of the brand and, instead, to manage brands strategically by creating, developing, and exploiting each of the five assets in turn



Kevin Thomas

1311411

The Influence of External Constraints on Brand Choice: The Lone-Alternative Effect

-Rashi Glazer, Barbara E. Kahn, William L. Moore

This case talks about how external constraints influence brand choice, how it affect choice even if they are consistent with the choice set's natural structure, the number of options offered in the set matters a product is generally at an advantage if it is offered as a part of two options rather than as the only available option, it also affect brand-choice probabilities asymmetrically depending on the relative preferences of the brands that are paired together. Asymmetric effect, ASYM defined as the average difference between the probability of choosing the item from the most beneficial external pairing for each brand and the probability of choosing the item in the least beneficial external pairing for each brand. The more similar those brands are to one another, the more difficult the decision process, and, therefore, the more likely the decision maker is to use an environmentally driven heuristic in making a choice. The external constraint that we put on the choice set divides the brands into a pair of options and a lone alternative. ASYM is used as a measure of advantageous pairings that compares a brand's being paired with one competitor in one constraint and that same brand's being paired with another competitor in the other constrain. The more similar those brands are to each other in the product class, the stronger the overall benefits of strategic comparisons will be, or the stronger the asymmetric effect will be. The advantage of strategic external constraints increases as the unconstrained preference of the stronger similar brand increases relative to that of the weaker similar brand. We developed two measures of product class similarity. The first measure was the percentage of people who thought that the three brands were best organized as a bush. Few more tests were carried out for the research. the incorporation of the asymmetric effect into the augmented PRETREE model did not reduce the RMSE. This suggests that for choice sets with three options the most important augmentation of PRETREE is that of the lone-alternative effect. The main purpose of this study was to examine further how extrinsic constraints affect choice when consumers use hierarchical choice processes, we found that the asymmetric and lone-alternative effects were stronger when all the items within the set were perceived to be more similar to each other.

-Ayush Nakipuria

1311479

Positioning: The Battle of Minds

The first book to deal with the problems of communicating to a skeptical, media-blitzed public, Positioning describes a revolutionary approach to creating a "position" in a prospective customer's mind-one that reflects a company's own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of its competitors.

Writing in their trademark witty, fast-paced style, advertising gurus Ries and Trout explain how to make and position an industry leader so that its name and message pushes its way into the subconscious of the market and leaves its mark there. It also shows us how to not become a shadow in the dark of the established company. .

The other things it shows us are:

How to-

·         Use leading ad agency techniques to capture the biggest market share and become a household name

·         Use the position you have attained to your advantage.

·         Choose an apt name for the product.

·         Determine when-and why-less is more

·         Analyze recent trends that affect your positioning.

Ries and Trout provide many valuable case histories and penetrating analyses of some of the most phenomenal successes and failures in advertising history. Revised to reflect significant developments in the five years since its original publication, Positioning is required reading for anyone in business today.

Ries and Trout tell us that the strategies of the past are no longer responsive and that today the impact of advertising is to seriously overstate the potential effectiveness of the message. The only hope according to them is to be selective, to focus on narrow targets, to practice segmentation- In a word, “Positioning”. They say that advertising is a brutal business where you don’t get second chances to make first impressions. One mistake can prove to be extremely costly and to make it cost effective, you have to be along the same wavelength as the prospect. Positioning is based on a concept that communication can take place only at the right place at the right time.

Positioning has come to be when market place evolved from being in a product era (back in the 50’s) where the advertising focused more on product features and customer benefit. USP was the main mode. Then came the Image era where successful companies found that reputation or image were more important than focusing on product features. The soon evolved over time and came to be known as the positioning era. Ries and Trout tell us that the company needs to position itself in the prospects mind in order to be successful. Like a computer, you need to erase the old brand in the category in order to put a new brand into the minds of people.

To conclude, while positioning your brand, you must-

·         Understand the words. A word has no meaning until one uses it and fills it with meaning.

·         Understand the people. Words trigger meanings buried in the minds of the people.

·         You must be careful of change. The only permanent thing in our lives is change, but the more a thing changes, the more likely it is to remain the same.

·          Need vision.

·         Need Courage.

·         Need objectivity.

·         Need simplicity.

·         Need subtlety.

·         Need patients and

·         Need to be ‘they’ oriented.

Karan Gala
1311449

The Principles of Cultural Branding

The Principles of Cultural Branding

Cultural brand process is a time period which means a exotic process to strategy, told by theories of culture, society and politics .The aim of this method is to propel branding as a amazing and worth introduced framework for merging the “enormous picture” marketplace challenges that businesses face, exceptionally with admire to innovation. Essentially the most influential work in this field has been dominated by faculty in approach and innovation for a few many years now. In advertising manufacturer strategy has usually enthusiastic about the tactical disorders of day-to-day stewardship of ongoing corporations and on delivering path for leveraging the equities of un going businesses arguments that cultural branding adds a important strategic standpoint for the fundamental marketplace goals: developing new firms and resurrecting moribund once within the first chapter the gap between innovation approach stature is outlined.

Theories of innovation in the strategy literature have long been dominated by this worldview of engineers and economists-construct a better mousetrap and the world will take realize. This worldview leaves no room for branding. It assumes that the superior worth of the product or service speaks for itself after which branding methods within the straight forward manner traditionally famous by using economists as the product gathering a popularity over time. This sensible point of view without doubt had merit but on account that it's the handiest approach that teachers have approached innovation, the easier mousetraps technique has had the outcome of elapsing a very exclusive innovation worldview-champion a better ideology and the world will take become aware of as well. Cultural innovation has been not noted by way of the process and innovation literature regardless of its pivotal function in launching and re investigating corporations valued at billions goes on and on. Marlboro ,Coco-Cola ,Levi’s and so forth.KR

Crafting “the following huge company”- the innovation proposal that resonates powerfully with patrons that takes off to set up a moneymaking new business-is the holy gait of mangers and entrepreneurs intake. Technique specialists have constructed models to establish and make the most such  opportunities for a long time Cultural expressions consist of an ideology, which is “introduced to life” with the correct fantasy and cultural codes, so we want to evaluate how innovation works throughout these three core add-ons. Take into account Jack Daniel’ s Tennessee Whiskey. Whiskeys have both lengthy competed to champion the satisfactory cultural expression of one especially foremost construct—masculinity. Jack Daniel’s supplied an revolutionary cultural expression of masculinity, by using which Simply that the brand greatly surpassed its competitors terms of ideology, delusion, and cultural codes .

 An ideology is a point of view on one of these most important cultural constructs, which has come to be commonly shared and taken for granted ,naturalized by using a section of society as a “reality.”Ideologies profoundly shape our every day opinions and moves. We all maintain dear manyideologies, which permit us to perform constantly, coherently, and effortlessly in our social lives. Ideologies also serve as the basis of patron markets. Powerful manufacturers maintain Ideologies—a designated point Of View On a cultural construct that is crucial to the product. Jack Daniel’s endorsed the revival of frontier masculinity, a specified factor of view that incited American men to embody the country’s ancient tough plain-­‐spoken self-­‐reliant masculinity earlier than it became overrun with gentle, sedentary group men. But, ideologies are principles, now not expressions; and an ideology can be expressed in any quantity of approaches.

In the better mousetraps paradigm, aggressive pink oceans are understood as spaces the place there is a pleasant deal of overlapping performance throughout current choices and, as a result,little opportunity to innovate. Innovators need to look for blue oceans (or white spaces) that provide enormously multiplied price propositions for a brand, whether they are created via new technology or by mixing-­‐and-­‐matching price propositions throughout classes. Few firms—something the bodily product or provider they sell—fully grasp that their delivering is understood,skilled, and valued by  way of shoppers as a cultural expression.

Cultural blue oceans are basically one-of-a-kind. The engine of cultural innovation is historic alternate in society that is enormous enough to destabilize the category’s cultural orthodoxy, creating latent demand for new cultural expressions. Markets quite often preserve these orthodoxies for years at a time,every so often a decade or longer. However at some point, as historical past unfolds and social constructions shift, one or extra of these shifts will be disruptive, difficult the taken-­‐for-­‐granted cultural expressions supplied by using category incumbents, and developing emergent demand for new cultural The final stage of  cultural manufacturer technique includes designing a suggestion that responds to the ideological opportunity in a compelling and long-established manner, drawing upon suitable source substances. Executing the design requires that each important consumer-­‐facing detail of the company  deliver the cultural expression in an normal and artful method. This transformation of source fabric into design is the“creative” part of cultural innovation,but it is a inventive act that is some distance more directed.

Abhishek.M

1311443

Managing Brand Equity

By David A. Aaker

About the book

The most essential resources of any business are impalpable: its organization name, brands, images, and mottos, and their fundamental affiliations, saw quality, name mindfulness, client base, and exclusive assets, for example, licenses, trademarks, and channel connections. These advantages, which include brand value, are an essential wellspring of upper hand and future profit, battles David Aaker, a national power on marking. Yet, research demonstrates that supervisors can't relate to certainty their image affiliations, levels of shopper mindfulness, or level of client dedication. Additionally in the most recent decade, supervisors edgy for transient budgetary results have regularly unwittingly harmed their brands through value advancements and indiscreet brand expansions, creating irreversible decay of the estimation of the brand name. Albeit a few organizations, for example, Canada Dry and Colgate-Palmolive, have as of late made a value administration position to be gatekeeper of the estimation of brand names, very couple of chiefs, Aaker finishes up, truly comprehend the idea of brand value and how it must be executed.

In an intriguing and shrewd examination of the marvel of brand value, Aaker gives a reasonable and all around characterized structure of the relationship between a brand and its image and motto, and also each of the five basic resources, which will elucidate for administrators precisely how mark value does contribute esteem. The creator opens every section with an authentic examination of either the achievement or disappointment of a specific organization's endeavour at building brand value: the intriguing Ivory cleanser story; the change of Datsun to Nissan; the decay of Schlitz brew; the making of the Ford Taurus; and others. At last, referring to cases from numerous different organizations, Aaker demonstrates to dodge the allurement to place fleeting execution before the strength of the brand and, rather, to oversee marks deliberately by making, creating, and misusing each of the five advantages thus

Published by

Free Press on Dec 1, 2009

Gauthaam Anand

1311407

MANAGING BRAND EQUITY

The challenge for many brands is to develop credible and sensitive measures of brand strength that supplement financial measures with brand asset measures. When brand objectives and programs are guided by both types of measures, the incentive structure becomes more balanced, and it becomes more feasible to justify and defend brand-building activities. General progress in the measurement of brand equity will help managers develop valid instruments for individual brands.
It is paramount to determine a company's position immediately and proactively develop this into a personality; in an ever more crowded marketplace this will define the brand and allow it to stand out from its competitors, necessary for capturing market share in a modern world full of fickle consumers.
As companies or brands grow and become more established, the threat of losing those initial core values can begin to surface. It's easy for brand values to become diluted, and this creates a very real risk of losing loyal customers. It is therefore crucial to create an internal culture that reflects the brand positioning and can grow the equity of the brand, not devalue it.

There is evidence that loyalty levels for supermarket products have declined. Nielsen charted the market share for 50 selected major supermarket brands and found that it fell 7% from 1975 to 1987. 

Bikash kundalia
1311446

Strategic Brand Management by Jean- Noel Kapferer (TOPIC - LAUNCHING A NEW BRAND) 1311423

LAUNCHING A NEW BRAND

Launching a new brand in today’s times is a challenging prospect, but we should also keep in mind that all the major brands- Nike, Apple, Lacoste, L’Oreal, and Dash - were also new brands at some point of time. Over the years, and often by intuition, chance or accident and also by putting in immense hard work, they became major brands, leading brands and powerful brands!!

The best way for a new brand to succeed is to act like an old brand!

                                                                                    -S King (1973)

LAUNCHING A BRAND AND LAUNCHING A PRODUCT ARE NOT THE SAME

The confusion between product and brand is an enduring problem. Products, usually, get copied by other competitors and then get replaced by new, higher quality products which often benefit from the fame of the existing product name, but Brands are unique, they cannot be copied.

Brand launch

A successful launch requires that the new brand be treated as a real brand, right from the very start.

A few steps and points to kept in mind while launching a brand-

1. Know Your Market and Competition (Research)

It might be boring, but you simply have to do your research.

• ·         Identify your competition and their strengths as well as their weaknesses.

• ·         Find your own point of difference and USP, so that people have a reason to defect and come across to your brand.

• ·         Collect as much information as you can on the size of the market, the margins, the trends, and the problem areas etc and download the accounts of your competitors to see if they are actually making any money.

2. Have a Strong Brand Identity

Where does this start?

• ·         A good logo can make your brand instantly recognizable and the simpler the better – the Nike swoosh, the Facebook F, the McDonald’s M and the apple em… apple are all examples of great simplistic design that most 5 year olds will be able to point out.

• ·         Alternatively, some of the best and most recognized brands are just the name of the brand in a clear font – Google, eBay, Sony. Less is more; don’t clutter up your logo!

• ·         Once you have your logo, use it everywhere. Letterhead, website, social media profiles, business cards, emails, faxes (if anyone still sends them!) advertising. Get it out there and into people’s consciousness. There is one exception to this, which I will discuss later.

• ·         Another way of simple visual way of putting a strong identity on your brand is by developing a corporate colour scheme – i.e. Easyjet orange, Facebook blue etc.

• ·         Develop a strong vision and mission statement.

A bit of a fun before you read on… can you name the brand from the slogans below, I bet you can!

• Just Do It
• I’m loving it
• Melts in your mouth, not in your hands
• The best a man can get
• It’s the real thing

3. Network, Network, Network! (Gain Recognition)

A great man said network is always more important than net-worth.

Promotion is what a new brand needs. When launching a new brand you will need all the help you can get. 

 Influence existing contacts, ask them to help spread the word or promote your brand and seek out new contacts that can help you. The more you make it known and make people familiar with the brand, the better it will be in future.

Always have your business card to hand and do as many favours as you can for others – you scratch my back.

Not on LinkedIn? You better set up a profile then and get building your network!

4. Be Cool (Be Dynamic)

Well, these days it’s all about seen to be involving directly with your customers and the way to do this is, undoubtedly, social media.

Social media strategies is a subject for a whole different article, but suffice to say you need to have one and it doesn’t involve blasting as many status updates on Facebook as you can a day. That is a sure-fire way to get people to switch off from your brand!

When promoting your brand on social media, make sure you are offering something (preferably for nothing, like a giveaway) and not just blasting your brand in people’s faces. 

5. Invest In A Good Website (Go Online)

Today, the world survives on internet, the first thing anyone will do when they hear about your brand is look you up online, so make sure your website is clean, fast, easy to use and gives a strong impression of your brand and identity.

Your website is your shop window, so make sure it looks amazing and also user friendly.

6.  Learn To Trust Your Employees

This is one of the most important points which an entrepreneur has to keep in mind always.

No matter how hard you work, as your brand grows you will quickly find that you can’t do it all. We all have our skills and our weaknesses so, although you may see it as your baby, at some point you will have to trust others.

At the early stages you will probably be recruiting people directly, so trust them – after all you chose them for a reason! I’ll say it again – you can’t do it all.

Even if they make a mistake, forgive them and trust them.

7. You Will Make Mistakes

It is very natural to make lots of mistakes while building a brand but making mistakes and losing hope is not good. Rather, learn from them and make sure you never repeat them in future.

Remember also that most businesses make a loss in their first year and indeed many don’t break into profit until their third year. A good saying in business is that your first loss is your best loss.

8. Live and Love Your Brand

And the final point for launching a new brand is simply to love your brand and what you do. Your passion will shine through and rub off on your employees and your potential customers or clients.

If you don’t love it, it’s time to find another idea!

Tanveer Singh Bakshi

1311423

5 BBA- C