Building Strong Brands - Couverture rigide

Aaker, David A.

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 002900151X ISBN 13 : 9780029001516

Editeur : Free Press, 1995

Synopsis

As industries turn increasingly hostile, it is clear that strong brand-building skills are needed to survive and prosper. In David Aaker's pathbreaking book, "Managing Brand Equity, " managers discovered the value of a brand as a strategic asset and a company's primary source of competitive advantage. Now, in this compelling new work, Aaker uses real brand-building cases from Saturn, General Electric, Kodak, Healthy Choice, McDonald's, and others to demonstrate how strong brands have been created and managed. A common pitfall of brand strategists is to focus on brand attributes. Aaker shows how to break out of the box by considering emotional and self-expressive benefits and by introducing the brand-as-person, brand-as-organization, and brand-as-symbol perspectives. The twin concepts of brand identity (the brand image that brand strategists aspire to create or maintain) and brand position (that part of the brand identity that is to be actively communicated) play a key role in managing the "out-of-the-box" brand. A second pitfall is to ignore the fact that individual brands are part of a larger system consisting of many intertwined and overlapping brands and subbrands. Aaker shows how to manage the "brand system" to achieve clarity and synergy, to adapt to a changing environment, and to leverage brand assets into new markets and products. Aaker also addresses practical management issues, introducing a set of brand equity measures, termed the brand equity ten, to help those who measure and track brand equity across products and markets. He presents and analyzes brand-nurturing organizational forms that are responsive to the challenges of coordinated brands acrossmarkets, products, roles, and contexts. Potentially destructive organizational pressures to change a brand's identity and position are also discussed. As executives in a wide range of industries seek to prevent their products and services from becoming commodities, they are recommitting themselves to brands as

A propos du livre

Extrait

Chapter 1: WHAT IS A STRONG BRAND?

What do you need to be the best?

Concentration. Discipline. A dream.

Florence Griffith Joyner, Olympic gold medalist

An orange...is an orange...is an orange. Unless, or course, that orange happens to be a Sunkist, a name eighty percent of consumers know and trust.

Russell L. Hanlin, CEO, Sunkist Growers

THE KODAK STORY

In the 1870s, a photographer's outfit included not only a large camera but also a sturdy tripod, glass plates, a big plate holder, a dark tent, a nitrate bath, and a water container. You did not bring just a camera to take a picture; you brought the whole lab.

All this was to change, thanks to George Eastman. Eastman founded a company that has had major worldwide influence almost since its inception. To initiate and maintain an organization with such clout, Eastman required a variety of resources, including the intelligence to develop new processes, a good business sense, and a willingness to take risks. But it is unlikely that Eastman's success could have been achieved without his strong brand: Kodak.

Kodak, with its block letters and bright yellow background, has been used for over a hundred years to crystallize and communicate the essence of Eastman's products and organization. The brand (and the company it represents) survives today primarily because of four factors: a commitment to quality, the generation of awareness, the fostering of loyalty, and -- most important -- the development of a strong and clear brand identity.

Eastman's commitment to quality was evident even in his first product introduction. In the late 1870s, he developed a patent for a "dry" plate that promised to greatly simplify the photographic process. The Eastman plates soon became known for superior results, particularly in weak light and with long exposures. A year after their introduction, however, trouble with a component caused some plates to lose sensitivity. Eastman's financially risky insistence on recalling the plates reflected his understanding that product quality was the fastest route to customer satisfaction. It also helped to initiate customer associations between the Kodak brand and quality, associations that persist today.

For Eastman's company, quality also meant ease of use. Over the years Kodak was associated repeatedly with photography products that produced reliable results without much effort on the consumer's part. In 1888, Eastman began marketing a camera that made photography accessible to all, not just to the committed artist. The camera, which sold for twenty-five dollars, had none of the laboratory accessories usually associated with photography of the day: The novice had only to "pull the cord, turn the key, and press the button." For another ten dollars the pictures would be developed and new film reloaded at a "modern," efficient facility in Rochester, New York.

One of Kodak's first ads, run in 1888, served to position the firm for the next century. It showed a picture of a hand holding a camera, with a headline written by Eastman: "You press the button, we do the rest" (see Figure 1-1). The camera delivered on the promise -- and many Kodak products since have carried on in its spirit. The folding Kodak, introduced in 1890, was easier to carry and preceded the Kodak Brownie, a simple camera launched at the turn of the century that became the company's staple product for almost eighty years. More recently, the tradition has continued with the Instamatic (an easy-to-load camera with flash cubes), introduced in 1963, and the disposable Kodak FunSaver (which is returned to photofinishers, who process the film and recycle the camera), introduced in 1988.

One by-product of such consistent long-term quality and innovation was increased awareness of the Kodak name. Promotions, advertising, and a ubiquitous logo also did their part to build awareness for Kodak. In 1897, Kodak sponsored an amateur photographic competition in which twenty-five thousand people participated. In 1904, the company sponsored the Traveling Grand Kodak Exhibition of forty-one photographs. In 1920, it found scenic spots along highways and erected small "Picture Ahead!" road signs to alert motorists. The result of such efforts plus ongoing advertising campaigns has been to increase consumers' familiarity with the Kodak name and its yellow signature logo. Few people can see the Kodak symbols without the positive feelings that accompany the familiar, and one of the first things that come to mind when the subject of cameras, film, or family photos is raised is the word Kodak.

Kodak's strong awareness and presence worldwide can also be attributed to an early decision to distribute its products outside the United States. Only five years after the Kodak camera was introduced in the United States, a sales office was opened in London, and it was quickly followed by offices throughout Europe. In 1930, Kodak had 75 percent of the world market for photographic equipment and about 90 percent of the profit. This dominance has decreased very little over the years.

Kodak has a set of associations that provides a distinct image and the basis for a loyal relationship. The strong Kodak identity, backed by decades of products and marketing, can be summed up with two words: simplicity (supported primarily by product features) and family (supported primarily by marketing communications and visual imagery).

Around the turn of the century, Kodak introduced two characters -- the Brownie boy and the Kodak girl -- to represent its products. They created not only a sense that the camera was easy to operate (because even a child could use it), but also an association with children and family. Kodak's early advertisements showed settings that could be easily recorded on film, especially family scenes with children, dogs, and friends (see the 1922 advertisement in Figure 1-2). During the Kodak hour heard on radio in the 1930s, listeners might hear family photo albums described. A 1967 award-winning Kodak commercial featured a couple in their sixties cleaning the attic. They find a carton of old snapshots showing them in their twenties and in the years that followed -- getting married, enjoying their honeymoon, having their first child, and attending the graduation of their son. The commercial ends with the woman, now a grandmother, running to grab an Instamatic to take a picture of her new grandchild.

Because of repeated marketing efforts like these -- supported by an unmatchable set of quality products -- consumers have come to view Kodak as a family friend who is always around to help enjoy the good times. This image has been a key factor in cementing customer loyalty for Kodak.

An indication of Kodak customer loyalty is the brand's resilience in the face of misfortune. For example, the Kodak Instant Camera (introduced in 1976 to compete with Polaroid) had captured one-third of the instant camera market after one year. However, the company was forced to discontinue the product in 1986 after a successful patent encroachment suit by Polaroid. Kodak's forced withdrawal of a product from a market it virtually owned is about as bad as it gets. Many brands would have been irrevocably tainted by such a calamity. The fact that Kodak survived this debacle is a tribute to its innate brand strength and to its handling of a painful situation. Every camera owner was invited to return their Kodak Instant Camera in exchange for either a Kodak Disk Camera and film, fifty dollars' worth of other Kodak products, or a share of Kodak stock. Kodak thus used the incident and the surrounding communication opportunities to reinforce Kodak associations and to support the Disk Camera.

Contexts change, though, even for Kodak. Its challenge for the next century is to stretch the Kodak brand name, known for traditional cameras and films, into the world of digital imagery, which is expected to become the company's prime business area. The Kodak name, with its tradition and connection with special times and family scenes, will need to adapt to an innovative, high-tech image to support products such as the Photo CD (which will store photographic images digitally and play them back on a computer) and the Copy Print (which will instantly provide large copies from a print without a negative). This need to adapt, faced by a host of strong brands in different markets, is discussed in detail in Chapter 7.

Another problem faced by Kodak is aggressive price competition in the film business, coming in part from private-label (or "retail") brands. One Kodak response has been to offer three versions of its film: Royal Gold, a premium film for special events; GoldPlus, the everyday Kodak film; and FunTime, a lower-priced, seasonal brand targeted at bargain shoppers. The efforts of Kodak and other firms to move brands both up and down to react to deteriorating markets will be covered in Chapter 9.

Today, several studies suggest that Kodak is one of the world's strongest brands. In the film category, where the bulk of Kodak's sales and profits reside, the brand enjoys both a U.S. market share of around 60 percent and a substantial price premium over Fuji, its principal rival. In addition, Kodak is aggressively expanding its presence in the worldwide market, in which it holds a 40 percent share.

The Kodak story shows how brand equity can be created and managed. This chapter provides an overview of brand equity and, in so doing, expands on the conceptualization that was first offered in my book Managing Brand Equity. Although the conceptualization is the same, new research, case studies, and perspectives have been added. Chapter 1 also sets the stage for the key points that will be made in this book about building strong brands. The chapter's final section includes some observations about why it is so difficult to build strong brands in today's dynamic, competitive marketplaces.

WHAT IS BRAND EQUITY?

Brand equity is a set of assets (and liabilities) linked to a brand's name and symbol that adds to (or subtracts from) the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or that firm's customers. The major asset categories are:

1. Brand name awareness

2. Brand loyalty

3. Perceived quality

4. Brand associations

Several aspects of the definition deserve elaboration. First, brand equity is a set of assets. Thus, the management of brand equity involves investment to create and enhance these assets. Figure 1-3, drawn from and discussed in Managing Brand Equity, provides a compact overview of how brand equity generates value. (Note that a fifth category of assets, other proprietary assets, is included for completeness in Figure 1-3. This category is meant to cover assets such as channel relationships and patents that are attached to the brand.)

f0 Second, each brand equity asset creates value in a variety of very different ways (seventeen are actually listed in the figure). In order to manage brand equity effectively and to make informed decisions about brand-building activities, it is important to be sensitive to the ways in which strong brands create value.

Third, brand equity creates value for the customer as well as the firm. The word customer refers to both end users and those at the infrastructure level. Thus, Hilton needs to be concerned with its image among not only consumers who travel, but also travel agents. And Coke's image among retailers -- particularly its perceived customer acceptance -- can be critical to market success.

Finally, for assets or liabilities to underlie brand equity, they must be linked to the name and symbol of the brand. If the brand's name or symbols should change, some or all of the assets or liabilities could be affected and even lost, although some might be shifted to the new name and symbol.

Several observations will be made below about each of the four principal brand asset categories that will serve to recap, extend, and update the extensive discussion that appeared in Managing Brand Equity. The intent is to provide an understanding about exactly how each category underlies brand equity.

BRAND AWARENESS

Awareness refers to the strength of a brand's presence in the consumer's mind. If consumers' minds were full of mental billboards -- each one depicting a single brand -- then a brand's awareness would be reflected in the size of its billboard. Awareness is measured according to the different ways in which consumers remember a brand, ranging from recognition (Have you been exposed to this brand before?) to recall (What brands of this product class can you recall?) to "top of mind" (the first brand recalled) to dominant (the only brand recalled). As psychologists and economists have long understood, however, recognition and recall are signals of much more than just remembering a brand.

THE BRAND AS A MENTAL BOX

A brand such as Mr. Goodwrench is much like a "box" in someone's head. As information about GM service programs is received, a person will file it away in the box labeled Mr. Goodwrench. After time passes, little in the box might be retrievable. The person knows, however, if it is heavy or light. He or she also knows in which room it is stored -- the room with the positive boxes (that is, objects that have earned positive feelings and attitudes) or the one with the negative boxes.

Brand Recognition: Familiarity and Liking

Recognition reflects familiarity gained from past exposure. Recognition does not necessarily involve remembering where the brand was encountered before, why it differs from other brands, or even what the brand's product class is. It is simply remembering that there was a past exposure to the brand.

Research in psychology has shown that recognition alone can result in more positive feelings toward nearly anything, whether it be music, people, words, or brands. Studies have demonstrated that, even with nonsense words (like "postryna" vs. "potastin" for example), consumers instinctively prefer an item they have previously seen to one that is new to them. Thus, when a brand choice is made -- even when the decision involves products like computers or advertising agencies -- the familiar brand will have an edge.

In a study that dramatically demonstrated the power of a recognized brand name, respondents were asked to taste each of three samples of peanut butter. One of these samples contained an unnamed superior (preferred in blind taste tests 70 percent of the time) peanut butter. Another contained an inferior (not preferred in taste tests) peanut butter labeled with a brand name known to the respondents but neither purchased nor used by them before. Remarkably, 73 percent of the respondents selected the brand-name (inferior) option as being the best-tasting peanut butter. Thus the fact that a name was recognized affected what should have been a very objective taste test, making the peanut butter with a known brand name seem to taste better.

Economists tell us that consumer affinity for the familiar brand is not just an instinctive response. When consumers see a brand and remember that they have seen it before (perhaps even several times), they realize that the company is spending money to support the brand. Since it is generally believed that companies will not spend money on bad products, consumers take their recognition as a "signal" that the brand is good. How a company can use such signaling to its advantage is illustrated by the "Intel Inside" program described in the boxed insert.

The familiarity factor can be especially important to the brand that has a familia...

Présentation de l'éditeur

In this compelling work, Aaker uses real brand-building cases from Saturn, General Electric, Kodak, Healthy Choice, McDonald's, and others to demonstrate how strong brands have been created and managed.

As industries turn increasingly hostile, it is clear that strong brand-building skills are needed to survive and prosper. In David Aaker's pathbreaking book, Managing Brand Equity, managers discovered the value of a brand as a strategic asset and a company's primary source of competitive advantage. Now, in this compelling new work, Aaker uses real brand-building cases from Saturn, General Electric, Kodak, Healthy Choice, McDonald's, and others to demonstrate how strong brands have been created and managed.

A common pitfall of brand strategists is to focus on brand attributes. Aaker shows how to break out of the box by considering emotional and self-expressive benefits and by introducing the brand-as-person, brand-as-organization, and brand-as-symbol perspectives. The twin concepts of brand identity (the brand image that brand strategists aspire to create or maintain) and brand position (that part of the brand identity that is to be actively communicated) play a key role in managing the "out-of-the-box" brand.

A second pitfall is to ignore the fact that individual brands are part of a larger system consisting of many intertwined and overlapping brands and subbrands. Aaker shows how to manage the "brand system" to achieve clarity and synergy, to adapt to a changing environment, and to leverage brand assets into new markets and products.

Aaker also addresses practical management issues, introducing a set of brand equity measures, termed the brand equity ten, to help those who measure and track brand equity across products and markets. He presents and analyzes brand-nurturing organizational forms that are responsive to the challenges of coordinated brands across markets, products, roles, and contexts. Potentially destructive organizational pressures to change a brand's identity and position are also discussed.

As executives in a wide range of industries seek to prevent their products and services from becoming commodities, they are recommitting themselves to brands as a foundation of business strategy. This new work will be essential reading for the battle-ready.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Free Press
• Date d'édition: 1995
• ISBN 10: 002900151X
• ISBN 13: 9780029001516
• Reliure: Relié
• Langue: anglais
• Nombre de pages: 400