Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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company’s PR people reminding them of the need for a capital ‘‘P,’’ if indeed it was one of
their products.
Those with the heavy responsibility of creating a brand have a myriad of issues to consider.
For instance, does color matter? Is blue soothing? Is green ‘‘green’’? Does red really
stimulate the appetite? Kit-Kat evidently thinks it works for chocolate bars. Once a color –
and indeed font and design – has been chosen, consistency matters. One example is the
characteristic brown of United Parcel Service and the familiar badge with the UPS lettering.
The company went so far as registering its shade of brown as a trademark to prevent market
confusion if other organizations used it on vans or clothing. Trademarking a color? Now isn’t
that taking brand protection to extremes?
Judith Lynne Zaichkowsky, Professor of Marketing and Communications at Copenhagen
Business School, says: ‘‘A brand that wants to be perceived as innovative would never use
grey and orange to identify itself. These colors are mundane and cheap.’’ She says color
should be congruent throughout all the identity and marketing mix variables: ‘‘Color
combinations are superior to single colors for brand identification. No more than three
colors, and two dominant colors are best, otherwise no distinction is created. Furthermore,
the protection of color combinations in the courtroom is much easer than protection of a
single color.’’ She also says that a brand that wants to be perceived as reliable may write
their brand name in a bold box-like font rather than a flowing italic script. ‘‘The bold would
convey strength, whereas the flowing script may convey lightness. The vision is the abstract
part and the identity elements are the concrete parts that are used to tell the consumer what
the brand means.’’
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and discovered the word was slang for ‘‘small male genitals.’’ And when General Motors
introduced the Vauxhall Nova into South America, apparently not realizing that ‘‘no va’’ is
Spanish for ‘‘no go.’’
Comment
This review is based on ‘‘Global brands in the United States: how consumer ethnicity
mediates the global brand effect’’, by Claudiu V. Dimofte, Johny K. Johansson and Richard
Keywords: P. Bagozzi, ‘‘How do they really help? An empirical study of the role of different information
Advertising, sources in building brand trust’’, by Wang Xingyuan, Fuan Li and Yu Wei, and ‘‘Strategies for
Attitudes, distinctive brands’’, by Judith Lynne Zaichkowsky. Claudiu V. Dimofte et al. attempt to
Brand equity, identify whether the affective and cognitive associations with global brands are the same
Brand identity, across different ethnic consumer groups in the USA. Wang Xingyuan et al, examine how user
Brand image, experience influences brand trust, while Judith Lynn Zaichkowsky discusses what brand
Logos managers need to know if the strategic management of brands is to be successful.
References
Dimofte, C.V., Johansson, J.K. and Bagozzi, R.P. (2010), ‘‘Global brands in the United States: how
consumer ethnicity mediates the global brand effect’’, Journal of International Marketing, Vol. 18 No. 3,
pp. 81-105, ISSN 1069-031X.
Xingyuan, W., Li, F. and Wei, Y. (2010), ‘‘How do they really help? An empirical study of the role of
different information sources in building brand trust’’, Journal of Global Marketing, Vol. 23 No. 3,
pp. 243-52, ISSN 0891-1762.
Zaichowsky, J.L. (2010), ‘‘Strategies for distinctive brands’’, The Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 17
No. 8, pp. 548-60, ISSN 1350-231X.
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