Brand strategies

Need for designing branding strategies Resources in the form of human effort, time, and money are required in abundance to build a brand from scratch. Once the brand is established and doing well, the companies realize that to stay competitive and to tap other opportunities in the market they need to come out with other products as well as to attract consumers. The new product can be branded under the existing brand or the organization can give an entirely new brand name to the same. The decisions pertaining to the same are strategic and have implications for the organization as a whole. Thus, over a period of time a company can have a number of brands in its basket of offering for consumers in the same or different product categories. This is called brand portfolio and includes all the brands and brand lines that a company has to offer to the market.

Product mix and Brand mix An organization’s product width includes all the different product lines it is offering to the market. The organization can come out with a number of related products (that form one product line) or a number of unrelated products (that form different product lines, i.e., the product mix). An organization’s product width denotes the number of product lines it has. In the product line it can have a single brand or a number of brands. All the brand lines that an organization has to offer are called the brand mix or brand assortment

Product mix width Product line - 1 Biscuits Product line - 2 Cakes Product line - 3 Dairy Delights Product line – 4 and so on Product mix width Tiger Good Day Bourbon Marie Gold Treat Milk Bikis Nutri Choice Time Pass Namkeen Little Hearts Nice Time Bar cakes Cup cakes Chunk Cakes Veg cakes Cheese Milk Dahi Actimind Ghee Butter Dairy Whitener Product line length

Product Line Depth – Britannia Tiger Biscuits Britannia Tiger Biscuits Banana Chocolate Butterscotch Elaichi Orange Pineapple Strawberry Chai Biskoot Brita Energy Pops Coconut Pops Rs 10Rs 4Rs 2 Similarly can be in different packagings

Defining branding strategy Branding strategy ‘reflects the number and nature of common and distinctive brand elements applied to the different products sold by the firm. In other words, branding strategy involves deciding which brand names, logos, symbols and so forth should be applied to which products and the nature of new and existing brand elements to be applied to new products’ (Keller, 2004)

Types of products that can be extended Products with function-oriented image Products with prestige-oriented image

Brand extension decision: An analysis A brand is an organizational asset built painstakingly over a period of time. This calls for a careful evaluation of the brand extension strategy and managers should take a call as to when to protect the brand name and when to exploit it. This requires a careful understanding of the various advantages and pitfalls associated with using an established brand name to launch a new product in the market.

Strategic advantages for the parent brand Enhance appeal for the parent brand Reinforce key associations Strengthen parent brand ‘memory structures’ and ‘facilitate retrieval processes’ Maximize comparative advantage Lead to fewer brands that need to be managed Increase advertising efficiencies Defend a brand Enhance the life cycle of the brand Help target a particular segment of customers

Potential pitfalls of brand extensions Failure of brand name to add value Negative association Problem of fit Cannibalization of parent brand’s sales Perception of poor quality Creation of undesirable associations Weakening of existing associations Dilution of the parent brand image resulting in confusion Reduced identification with any one category Effect of a brand crisis Foregoing opportunity to create a new brand Encounter retailer resistance

Launching a brand extension Brand to be extended by the organization For example Amul Definitions for each association* Butter Milk drinks Fresh milk Powdered milk Cheese Pizza Curd Ice-cream Sweets Related categories are identified for each definition* For example, cheese: processed cheese, cottage cheese, cheese spreads, mozzarella cheese etc. Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 Identify the associations with the brand name (example Amul – associated with quality milk products) Stage 5 Selecting the ‘candidate product’ Stage 6 Launching the brand extension