CHAPTER 2

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

*BRAND
There are many understandings about the term brand but simply put, a brand can be explained
as the combination of visible and intangible features to influence a specific group or create value
for said audience. Companies use branding attributes such as logos, marks, names or phrases to
make their products or services stand out from all others existing in the market.

A brand is a mixture of attributes, tangible and intangible that creates value and influence. “A
distinguishing symbol, mark, logo, name, word, sentence or a combination of these items that
companies use to distinguish their product from others in the market.”

*FEATURES OF A GOOD BRAND

A good brand name should have Fallowing characteristics

1.It should be unique /distinctive

2 .It should be extendable

3. lt sisould be easy to pronounce, identified and memorized

4. It should give an idea about product’s qualities and benefits

5. It should be easily converuble into foreign languages

6. It should be a capable of legal protection and registration

7. It should soggest product (service category)

8. It should indicate concrete qualities

9. It should not portray bad wrong meanings in others categories

*Definition

Lance Leuthesser (1995) writes that “… brand equity represents the value (to a consumer) of a
product, above that which would result for an otherwise identical product without the brand’s
name. In other words, brand equity represents the degree to which a brand’s name alone
contributes value to the offering (again, from the perspective of the consumer).”

The Marketing Science Institute (1988) defines brand equity as, “The set of associations and
hehaviors on the part of the brand’s customers, channel members, and parent corporations that
permit the brand to earn greater volume or greater margins than it could without the brand name
and that gives the brand a strong, sustainable, and differentiated advantage over competitors.”

Brand equity can be defined as three distinct elements:

The total value of a brand as a separable asset when it is sold or included on a balance sheet.
A measure of the strength of consumers’ attachment to a brand.
A description of the associations and beliefs the consumer has about the brand.

Of those three concepts, the first can be classified as “brand valuation,” the second “brand
loyalty,” and the third “brand description.” Brand loyalty will be a factor that affects the overall
brand salse, and brand description will usually affect or explain some of the brand loyalty.
Because of the importance of each of these elements of brand equity, they will each be briefly
explained.

Components Of Brand Equity

Increased market share is one result of customer brand loyalty and brand equity. There are four
components that provide these results:

 Brand Recognition – The brand is widely known and recognized, and consumers know
what it provides in relationship to the competition.

 Brand Experience Consumers have used and experienced the product enough to build
Expectation.

 Brand Preference The brand is preferred by consumers, and as a result, they become
returning Customers.

 Brand Loyalty The brand and the consumer have an emotional attachment, and the
consumer will go to any length to purchase it.

Sources of brand Equity

Brand equity is a value that a business holds or receives through Brand awareness, people’s
perception, competitor advantages, brand recognition & advocacy.

In simple terms, Brand equity means a company has successfully differentiated itself from other
products in the market through superior product quality, excellent customer service, or an
effective marketing campaign, some aspect of the business has garnered enough recognition and
respect from customers, so that they never bother about comparatively spending more on the
product/services.
Brand equity for a business has numerous benefits. Most common benefits that a Brand receives
is

 The financial benefit The Brand oquity allows a company to demand a premium price for
the product which in-turn increases their profit margins and cash flows. Eg. A coffee from
Surbucks is premium priced.

 The other major benefit is the decrease of sales and marketing cost for the company.

 The other indirect benefit is the product line extension, where a company can expand it’s
Products and services by piggybacking on the brand image Techniques.
Qualitative Research Techniques:

TECHNIQUES BRAND EQUITY

Qualitative research techniques

Qualitative research techniques are often employed to identify possible brand associations and
sources of brand equity Qualitative research techniques are relatively unstructured measurement
approaches whereby a range of possible consumer responses are permitted. Because of the
freedom afforded both researchers in their probes and consumers in their responses, qualitative
research can often be a useful “first step in exploring consumer brand and product perceptions.
Consider the following three qualitative research techniques that can be employed to identify
sources of brand equity.

1. Free Association
The simplest and often most powerful way to profile brand association involves from association
tacks whruby subjects are asked what comes to mind when they think of the heand without any
more specific probe or cue than perhaps the associated product category (eg., “What doos the
Bajaj tame man to you?” or “Tell me what comes to mind when you think of Bajaj Bikes.”).
Answers to these questions help marketers to clarify the range of possible muoctations and
assemble a brand profile.
2. Projective Techniques
Uncovering the sources of brand equity requires that consumers brand knowledge structures be
profiled as accurately and completely as possible. Projective techniques are diagnostic tools to
uncover the true opinions and feelings of consumers when they are unwilling or otherwise unable
to express themselves on these matters. The idea behind projective tecliniques is that consumers
are presented with an incomplete stimulus and asked to complete it or gives an amnobiguous
stimulus that may not make sense in and of itself and are asked to make sense of it. In doing so,
the argument is that sumers will reveal some of their true beliefs and feelings.

3. Brand Personality and Relationships

Another useful set of measures to assemble the brand profile is brand personality. Brand
personality is the human characteristics or traits that can be attributed to a brand. Brand
personality can be measured in different ways. Perhaps the simplest and most direct way is to
solicit open-ended responses to a probe such as: “If the brand were to come alive as a person,
what would it be like, what would it do, where would it live, what would it wear, who would it
talk to if it went to a party (and what would in talk about).” Other means are possible to capture
consumers’ point of view.

4.Experiential Methods
Fresh data can be gathered by directly observing relevant actors and settings. Consumers can he
unobtrusively observed as they shop or as they consume products to capture every nuance of
their behavior. Marketers such as Procter & Gamble seek consumers permission to spend time
with them in their homes to see how they actually use and experience products.

Quantitative Research Techniques

Although qualitative measures are useful to identify and characterize the range of possible
atecciations to a brand, a more quantitative portrait of the brand often Is also desirable to permit
more ounfident and defensible strategic and tactical recommendations. Whereas qualitative
researchtypically elicits some type of verbal responses from consumers, quantitative research
typically employs sarious types of scale questions so that numerical representations and
summaries can be made. Quantitanve measures are offen the primary ingredient in tracking
studies that monitor brand Lewledge structures of consumers over time.

1.Awareness
Brand awareness is related to the strength of the brand in memory, as reflected by consumers’
ability to dentify various brand elements (i.e., the brand name, logo, symbol, character,
packaging, and slogan) under different conditions. Brand awareness relates to the likelihood that
a brand will come to mind and the ease with which it does so given different type of cues.

2.Recognition
In the abstract, recognition processes require that consumers be able to discriminate a stimulus
word, object, image, etc. as something they have previously seen. Brand recognition relates to
consumers ability to identify the brand under a variety of circumstances and can involve
identification of any of the brand elements. The most basic type of recognition procedures gives
consumers a set of single items visually or orally and asks them if they thought that they had
previously seen or heard these items.

3.Recall
Brand recall relates to consumers’ ability to identify the brand under a variety of circumstances.
With brand recall, consumers must retrieve the actual brand element from memory when given
some related probe or cue. Thus, brand recall is a more demanding memory task than brand
recognition because consumers are not just given a brand element and asked to identify or
discriminate it as one they had or had not already seen. Different measures of brand recall are
possible depending on the type of cues provided to consumers.

4.Image
Brand awareness is an important first step in building brand equity, but usually not sufficient. For
most customers in most situations, other considerations, such as the meaning or image of the
brand, also come into play. One vitally important aspect of the brand is its image, as reflected by
the associations that consumers hold toward the brand. Brand associations come in many
different forms and can be classified along many different dimensions.
ELEMENTS
1.Awareness: Awareness of the brand name among target customers is the first step in the equity
building process Awareness essentially means that customers know about the existence of the
brand and can sho rocall what category the brand is in.

The lowest level of awareness is when the customer has to be reminded about the existence of
the brand name, and that it is being a part of a particular category. In aided recall, the customer
can mcognize the company’s brand from among a list of brands in the category.

Building awareness involves making the brand visible to the relevant target audience by surious
promotional methods such as publicity, sponsorships, events, advertising, instigating word-of-
mouth promotion, etc

2.Brand associations: Anything that is connected to the customer’s memory about the brand is
an association Catomers form associations on the basis of quality perceptions, their interactions
with employees and the organization, advertisements of the brand, price points at which the
brand is sold, productreptes that the bend is in, product displays in retail stores, publicity in
various malia, offerings of compensees, celebrity associations and biom what others tell them
about the brand.

Associations contribute to brand equity, as strong, positive asociations imduce brand purchases,
besides gonerating good word-of-mouth publicity, Such associatiom cart she help the company
in leveraging the brand, creste strong barriers to entry for competitors, give trade leverage to the
company and enable the company to achieve differential advantage.

3. Perceived quality: Perceived quality is also a brand association, though because of its
significance, it is accorded a distinct status while studying brand equity. Perceived quality is the
perception of the customer about the overall quality of a brand.
In assessing quality, the customer takes into consideration the performance of the brand on
parameters that are important to him, and makes a relative judgment about quality by assessing
ompetitor’s offerings as well.
Quality perceptions influence pricing decisions of companies. Better quality products can be
charged a price premium. Quality is one of the main reasons for consumer preference for a brand
in my product category. Thus, superior perceived quality can also be used to position the brand.

4. Brand loyalty: A customer is brand loyal when he purchases one brand from among a set of
alternatives ausistently over a period of time. In the traditional sense, brand loyalty was always
considered to be related to repetitive purchase behavior.
For some products such as purchasing a house or an automobile, repetitive purchase behavior
may not occur. In these situations, attitudinal brand loyalty, ve., consumer feelings about the
brand that was purchased, and their inclination to recommend the brand to others are measured.

Brand loyalty is usually rated as the most important indicator of brand equity because loyalty
Develops post purchase and indicates a consistent patronage by a customer over a long period of
time Whereas all other elements of brand equity may or may not translate into purchases. It also
acts as a potential barrier to entry for new players and gives time to the company to respond to
competitive threats.

5. Other proprietary brand assets: Proprietary assets include patents, trademarks and chaneel
sclationships. These assets are saluable as they prevent competitors from attacking the company
and prevent the erosion of compentive advantages and loyal customer base.
All activities of the firm determine brand equity. These activities may enhance or diminish the
und value. Activities that are synchronous with the overall vision for the brand enhance equity,
and any activity that goes against this overall vision reduces brand equity.
BRAND LOYALTY

 How to Increase Brand Lovalty?

In marketing, brand loyalty is the golden ring for which everyone strives. However, attaining and
holding onto the loyalty of consumers is very difficult, and only a few will succeed. Brand
loyalty sits at the end of the purchase funnel and that means you have to build awareness,
familiarity. Consideration and purchase intent first. Loyalty is an expression of preference and it
takes relevant brand and product differentiation to achieve this. It requires skill to understand
consumer needs and determination in precise communication that a product will deliver on those
needs.
Consumer in general want to bur loyal to a select group of brands because it saves them time and
simplifies there lives.

Advantages Of Building A Strong Brand Image

 The perception of a consumer towards a particular brand is in direct relation to the image
of the brand.

 Having a strong brand image directly impacts the consumer buying behaviour, and hence
premium brands as well as top brands have a set of building a strong and positive image
of the brand.

 A positive brand Image can make the decision process casier, thereby promoting a lot of
repet purchases as well as primary purchases.
 A promoting brand image conveys the success of the product and gives results with
increased sales and revenues.

 A positive brand image gives confidence to the customers as they feel that the brand it is
possible to build brand image with strong advertisements because of which increased
sales and revenues sincere and clear in its vision to create the best.