REETA GUPTA
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SM Research Team

Sample this anecdote from the book, "the rise of PR and the fall of advertising" by Al and Laura Ries. Not long ago, four New York City nurses were killed when they drove off the top of a motel's five story parking garage. The story made all of the New York papers, including the front page of the New York Post. Sixteen hundred mourners attended the funeral and the newspaper headline said, "Angels take wing as 1600 say goodbye." If four advertising executives had died driving off the Brooklyn bridge, the media would have treated the story quite differently. "Hucksters go to hell in a Honda."
Nurses are nurses. Advertising executives are advertising executives. In a recent Gallup poll on the honesty and ethics of people in thirty two different professions, advertising and advertising practitioners ranked near the bottom, between insurance salesmen and car salesmen. If you don't believe what an insurance or car salesman tells you, why would you believe what you read in an advertisement?
If most of advertising is not believed, imagine how difficult it is to build and maintain brands!
BRAND BUILDING AND MAINTENANCE
Building and managing brand equity has become a priority for companies of all sizes, in all types of industries, in all types of markets. The reward of having strong brands translates into customer loyalty and profits.

At the basic level, a brand is made up of all the marketing elements that can be trademarked - logos, symbols, slogans, packaging, signage and so on

Creating a brand is again only half the task - sustaining and growing it is another thing altogether! Very few managers are able to step back and assess their brands particular strengths and weaknesses objectively. Most have a good sense of one or two areas in which their brand may excel or need help. But if pressed, many would find it difficult even to identify all of the factors that they should be considering. When you're immersed into the day-to-day management of the brand, it's not easy to keep in perspective all the parts that affect the whole.
Managers need a brand report card to grade the performance of the brand, recognise areas in which the brand is strong and learn more about how the brand is configured. The attributes that should form a part of the report card are enumerated below.

TEN CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WORLD'S STRONGEST BRANDS
1. The brand excels at delivering the benefits customers truly desire: Has the brand attempted to uncover unmet consumer needs and wants? By what methods? The brand should focus relentlessly on maximising the customer's product or service experiences. There should also be a system whereby the customer's comments reach the person who can affect the change.
Starbucks was a small-town coffee retailer in the early 80s. Then, while on vacation in Italy, Howard Schultz, the Chairman was inspired by the romance and the sense of community he felt in Italian coffee houses. "It seemed so obvious," Schultz says in the book 'Pour your heart into it. "Starbucks sold great coffee beans but we didn't serve coffee by the cup. We treated coffee as produce, something to be bagged and sent home along with the groceries. We stayed one big step away from the heart and soul of what coffee has meant through centuries." Subsequently, Starbucks began to focus its attempts on building a coffee-bar culture, opening coffee houses like those in Italy. The extreme vertical integration paid off." Starbucks has successfully delivered superior benefits to customers by appealing to all the five senses - the enticing aroma of the beans, the rich taste of the coffee, the product displays and attractive artwork adorning the walls, the contemporary music playing in the background and even the cosy, clean feel of the tables and chairs.
2. The brand stays relevant: In strong brands, brand equity is tied both to the actual quality of the product or service and to various intangible factors. Those intangibles include "user imagery" (the type of person who uses the brand); "usage imagery" (the type of situation in which the brand is used); the type of personality the brand portrays (sincere, exciting, competent, rugged); the feeling that the brand tries to elicit in customers (purposeful, warm); the type of relationship it seeks to build with its customers (committed, casual,
seasonal).
Gillette pours millions of dollars into R&D to ensure that its razor blades are as technologically advanced as possible, calling attention to major advances in sub-brands (Trac II, Atra, Sensor, Mach 3) and signalling minor improvements with modifiers (Atra Plus, Sensor Excel). 'Relevance' has a deeper, broader meaning in today's market. Increasingly, consumer's perceptions of a company as a whole and its role in society affect a brand's strength as well. In the Indian context, the Tata Group's commitment to social causes has created an indelible impression of a kind, concerned company. There is an feel-good factor associated with the brand.
3. The pricing strategy is based on consumer's perceptions of value. The right blend of product quality, design, features, costs and prices is very difficult to achieve, but well worth the effort. Many managers are woefully unaware of how price can and should relate to what customers think of a product, and therefore they charge too little or too much.
Horlicks has been one of the most admired brands in the country and also one of the most trusted. It accounts for 75 per cent of the total revenues of GSK India that amounts to about 800 crore. Gradual price hikes had become a regular feature of the brand, but in 2002, the price crossed the psychological 100-rupee barrier. The markets where the brand was really strong (the east and the south) being extremely price sensitive, showed a sharp reaction to the price hike. Horlicks is in a position where it cannot command its price despite a near monopoly. At above 100 rupees for a 500 gm pack, the pricing crossed the consumer's perception of value.
4. The brand is properly positioned: Brands that are well positioned occupy particular niches in the customer's minds. They are similar to, and different from, competing brands in certain reliably identifiable ways. The most successful brands in this regard keep up with competition by creating points of parity in those areas where competitors are trying to find an advantage while at the same time creating points of difference to achieve advantages over competitors in other areas.
Perfetti, a $1.3 billion giant internationally entered the Indian market with Alpenliebe. Today, the single brand is worth 160 crore in a 1200 crore sugar confectionary market. The positioning has been perfect, 'the family candy'. Advertisements have always featured the Indian joint family. Whether it is the poor old grandmother who has lost most of her senses but is quick to spot the Alpenliebe, or the naughty little boy of the house, the message has been clear. It has emerged as the single largest brand in the sugar confectionary market today.

Maintaining a strong brand means striking the right balance between continuity in marketing activities and the kind of change needed to stay relevant

5. The brand is consistent: Maintaining a strong brand means striking the right balance between continuity in marketing activities and the kind of change needed to stay relevant. The brand's image should never get muddled or lost by a cacophony of marketing efforts that confuse customers by sending conflicting messages.
Dettol fights the germs in every Indian household. It ensures that children don't fall ill and are able to record 100 per cent attendance in school. It kills germs accumulated in the market place, crowded public transport and playing in the dirty mud. Dettol has been consistent with its image and its product and has almost become a generic disinfectant!
6. The brand portfolio and hierarchy make sense: Most companies do not have only one brand. They create and maintain different brands for different market segments. Different brands within a company hold different powers. The corporate brand acts as an umbrella. Brands at each level of the hierarchy contribute to the overall equity of the portfolio through their individual ability to make consumers aware of the various products and foster favourable associations with them.
Eg: Hyundai Motors in India is a stellar example of this. They first introduced the Santro at the price of the Maruti. Promising greater fuel efficiency, they entrenched themselves into the minds and pockets of the price-conscious Indian consumer. Then they came up with the Accent, which was priced slightly above the Esteem, but with looks far superior and the guarantee of good performance already established by the Santro. Finally came the Sonata, modelled on the Jaguar and priced just right to justify the luxury tag. Hyundai Motors has created three different sub-brands, each with a distinct image and its own source of equity.
7. The brand makes use of and coordinates a full repertoire of marketing activities to build equity: At the basic level, a brand is made up of all the marketing elements that can be trademarked - logos, symbols, slogans, packaging, signage and so on. Strong brands mix and match these elements to perform a number of brand-related functions, such as enhancing or reinforcing consumer awareness of the brand or its image and helping to protect the brand competitively and legally.
Coca Cola makes excellent use of many kinds of marketing activities. These include media advertising, promotions and sponsorship. There is also direct response through the Coca Cola catalogue which sells licensed coke merchandise and interactive media, the company's website which offers among other things, games, a trading post for collectors of Coke memorabilia, and a virtual look at the world of Coca Cola museum in Atlanta. Through it all, the company reinforces its key values of 'originality', 'classic refreshment' and so on. The brand is always
the hero.
8. The brands managers understand what the brand means to consumers: Managers of strong brands appreciate the totality of their brand's image - all the different perceptions, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours customers associate with their brand, whether created intentionally by the company or not. As a result, managers are able to take decisions about their company with confidence.
In today's age of global brands, a brand's image may not be the same throughout the world. Honda means quality and reliability in the US, but in Japan, where quality is a given for most cars, Honda represents speed, youth and energy. Coke's 'paanch' campaign for the rural market with 'thanda' that signified a cold drink in rural lingo was clear winner because it understood what coke meant to its village customers.

Ultimately, the power of a brand lies in the minds of the customers, in what they have experienced and learnt about a brand over a period of time

9. The brand is given proper support, and that support is sustained over the long run: 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 favourable and unique associations with the brand in their memory.
In November 2002, all hope got extinguished at Real Value, the manufacturers of Ceasefire extinguishers. Asked to wind up by BIFR, a brand that had good recall, a catchy name and had become the tenth-fastest-growing brand in the country was no more! Surely, something has gone inexplicably wrong. The brand was launched with great fanfare, but the financial muscle to support it in the long run was simply
not there.
10. The company monitors sources of brand equity: 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. Typically, it consists of a detailed internal prescription of how exactly the brand has been marketed (brand inventory) and a thorough external investigation through focus groups and consumer research of what it could mean to consumers (brand exploratory).
In the late 1980s, Disney became concerned that some of its characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck were being used inappropriately and becoming overexposed. Disney launched its first major consumer research to investigate how consumers felt about the Disney brand. Disney characters were associated with Tide detergent, where the connection was absolutely missing! Same with the case of Johnson wax, diapers, cars and hamburgers! Consumers felt that not only did Disney add no value to the associated product; it also involved children in a decision that they would have otherwise ignored. Disney moved quickly to establish a brand equity team, to better manage the franchise and more selectively evaluate licensing and third party
promotions.

SUMMING IT UP
Ultimately, the power of a brand lies in the minds of the customers, in what they have experienced and learnt about a brand over a period of time. Consumer knowledge is really at the heart of brand equity.
In an abstract sense, brand equity provides marketers with a strategic bridge from their past to their future. That is, all the money 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. That knowledge dictates appropriate and inappropriate 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. If not properly designed and implemented, those expenditures may not be good investments!

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