MKT 427:CHAPTER: 4

CHOOSING BRAND ELEMENTS TO BUILD BRAND EQUITY

Criteria for choosing brand elements:

Memorability: names, symbols, logos, semantic content, visual

properties, more attention getting
easy to remember
eg: Blue Rhino (propane gas cylinder), reinforcing it
with a powder-blue mascot with distinctive yellow
flame.
Meaningfulness
General and Specific information
:
"The world's local bank"

Likeability:

eg: PepsiCo introduced their new Code Red soft drink.

Transferability:

both product category and geographic sense.

eg: Amazon connotes a massive South American river
whereas ToysRUs obviously does not permit the same
flexibility.

Adaptability:

eg: New look of logos and characters to make them

appear modern and relevant.
Legally protected on an international basis and
Formally register and Vigorously defend
trademarks from unauthorized competitive
violation
eg: Early entry of Molson Ice (ice beer category)
quickly lost standpoint when Miller Ice (later became
Bud Ice) was introduced.

Protectability:

SEE PAGE 181 The Branding Mishaps

Options and tactics for brand elements:
Brand names: It is a fundamentally important choice because it often
captures the central theme or key associations of a product in a very
compact and economical fashion.
Naming guidelines:

Descriptive

Singapore Airlines
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Suggestive

marchFIRST, Agilent Technologies.

Compounds

redhat(software company)

Classical

Meritor(meaning from merit, a children school)

Arbitrary

Apple

Fanciful

Avanade ( software and security through net support)

Brand awareness:
Brand names are chosen that are:
Simple and easy
Familiar and
Different
Distinctive and
to pronounce or
meaningful
unusual
spell
Aim toothpaste
Coca cola became cokes
Consumers may take away different perceptions of the brand if ambiguous
pronunciation of its name results in different meanings.
Although Honda wanted to mean, Honda Precis precise and accurate but
for pronunciation
PREE-sus-economy car
PRAY-see-sports car
PRAY-sus-family car

Brand name may use alliteration

Repetition of consonant

Coleco GAME SELLER

Familiar and meaningful

ColorStay lipsticks

High imagery

Ocean

Low imagery

Memory

Suggesting product or service category

Juicy Juice

Distinctive

Apple

Unusual Combination of real words

Toys R us

Completely made up words

Xerox, Exxon

Brand associations:
Eg: Close-Up toothpaste.
Naming procedures:
Define the branding objectives
Generating as many names and concepts
Screening based on the branding objectives
considerations

and

marketing

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 Collecting more extensive information on each of the final 5 to 10 or

so names.
Consumer research for memorability and meaningfulness
Choose the name that maximizes the firms branding and marketing
objectives and then formally register the name.
Compaq because it is suggested a small computer.
APPLE power book. Failed for different name in 1989.
SEE PAGE 188

URLs
YAHOO, Stanford University Theis Project, Father Called Little Yahoo
SEE: suggestion of URL at page 198
Logos and symbols:
Logos means to indicate origin, ownership or association. Logos range
from corporate names or trademark written in a distinctive form to
entirely abstract designs that may completely unrelated to the work
mark, corporate name or corporate activites
Strong word marks.
Eg: Coca-Cola, Dunhill, Kit-Kat.
Non-word mark logos (symbols)
Eg: Mercedes star,Nike swoosh
Benefits
Easily recognize and can be valuable way to identify the product
Its versatility
Abstract logos offer when the full brand name difficult to use
Achieve a more contemporary look.
SEE page 179 Figure 4.7

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Characters
Its play a central role in ad campaign and package design

Benefit :
Often colorful and rich in imagery
Tend to be attention getting
Creating brand awareness
Communicate a key product benefit
Can enhance likeability and
Help to create perception of the brand as fun and interesting
Cautions: Brand character can be so attention getting and well liked
that they dominate other brand element and actually dampen brand
awareness
Eveready
When Ralston Purina introduced its drumming pink bunny that kept
goingand going and going. In ads for the Eveready Energizer battery,
many consumers were captivated by the character that they paid little
attention to the name of advertised brand. As a result they often mistakenly
believed that the ad was for Evereadys chief competitor Duracell.
Eveready had to add the pink bunny to its packages, promotions and other
marketing communications to create stronger brand links.
Slogans is communicate descriptive or persuasive information about
the brand
Slogans are powerful branding devices because like brand names,
they are in extremely efficient, shorthand means to build brand equity
Benefit:
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 Build brand awareness by playing off the brand name The Citi
Never Sleeps
More explicit by making strong links between the bran and the
corresponding brand equity. Its not TV. Its HBO and Gillettes
The Best a Man Can Get
Designing Slogans:
Some of the most powerful slogans contribute to brand equity in multiple
ways.
LikeBoost is the Secret of our Energy or Dar ke Age jeet Nahi
Mountain Dew
UPDATING Slogans:
7 UP
MAKE 7 UP YOURS
FEELS SO GOOD COMING DOWN
DONT YOU FEEL GOOD ABOUT 7 UP?
CRISP, AND CLEAN AND NO CAFFEINE
UNCOLA, FREEDOM OF CHOICE

HSBC
"Your Future Is Our
Future(1993)"
"The world's local bank(2002)"
"HongkongBank and You, The
Winning Team(1987)"

Slogans are perhaps the easiest brand element to change over time;
marketers have more flexibility in managing them. In changing slogans,
however, they must do the following:
Recognize the contribution of slogan
Decide the equity enhancement
Retain the current if working desired or update
Jingles
Jingles can be thought of as extended musical slogans and in that scene
can be classified as a brand element.
RC Cola with tomar jonno morte pari
Desh Desh Banglalink Desh
A well known jingle can serve as an advertising foundation for years. The
familiar Give Me a Break jingle for Kit Kat candy bars has been sung in
ads since 1988and has helped make the brand the sixth best selling
chocolate candy bars in the United States.
Packaging is the activities of designing and producing containers or
wrappers for a product..Packaging must achieve a number of
objective:
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Identify the brand

Convey descriptive and persuasive information
Facilitate product transportation and protection
Assist at home storage
Aid product consumption
Benefit:
Strongest associations consumers have with a brand inspired by the
look of its packaging.
To build or reinforce valuable brand associations.
Packaging changes can have immediate impact on sales.
Appeal to new market segment

Packaging innovations have resulted in packages being

Resealable
Tamperproof
More convenient to use
(e.g. easy to hold, easy to open or squeezable)
Packaging changes can have immediate impact on sales.
Sales of the health candy bar increased 25 percent after its wrapper was
redone.
Packaging at the point of purchase
One survey of 200 TV commercials in 10 mass-market product categories
indicated that the package was featured on average in roughly 12 seconds
of a 30 second spot.
Packaging Innovations
Packaging innovation such as the 2 liter jug bottle and the 12-pack carton
helped soft drink makers experience steady 5 percent to 7 percent growth
in the 1980. With the rate of growth of the soft drink industry slowing
down to 2 percent to 3 percent in the 1990, soft drinks maker sought new
packaging innovations to fuel additional growth.
As a result Pepsi-cola introduced the 24-pack cube, 12 resalable bottles, 8
ounce Pepsi mini cans and the wide mouth, 1 liter big Slam bottle.
Package design
Legend has it that the color of the famous Campbells soup can had its
origin in one executive at the company liking the look of the red and white
uniforms of Cornell Universitys football team.
For example bigger and brighter packages are not always better when
competitors packages are factor in.
One leading design executive outlined the following brand color
palate.
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Red

Folgers coffee, Colgate toothpaste

Orange

Tide laundry detergent

Yellow

Kodak film, Cheerios cereal, Lipton Tea

Green

Del Monte canned vegetables, Green Giant frozen

vegetables
IBM computers, Windex cleaner, and Pepsi-cola soft drinks.

Blue

Packaging changes

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