Are Brand Relationships Really

Like Human Ones?

Do brand relationships really adhere to the human pattern,
in which the best relationships are the most intimate,
emotional, and engaged ones?
Brands are relationships based not on emotions but on
satisfying transactions.
Success is based on utility and performance and the
meeting of expectations.

What do people really want from their bank?
What do people really want from their cable company?

Are they truly seeking an emotional connection, or are they
looking for a well and expertly managed transactional
relationship?
Consumer get delighted when a brand delivers more than
expected.
Do emotional connections lead consumers to buy brands,
or do successful transactional experiences help create an
emotional bond?
The advantages of optimizing the transactional experience
for both consumers and marketers are obvious:
To the consumer, a successful transaction is a promise
kept. Successful transactions are concrete, not ethereal or
hypothetical. They operate in the very emotional and
important dimension of delivering the value consumers
expect for their money.
For marketers, optimized transactional relationships help
melt away the anxiety that surrounds a purchase. In
addition, when a company consistently keeps its promises,
the consumer rewards it with loyalty, referral, and even
advocacy, effectively creating a consumer-brand
partnership.
When a brand unfailingly delivers on consumer
expectations, it positions itself to generate word-of-mouth
recommendations creating the spontaneous peer-to-
peer connections that increase intimacy, relevance, and
credibility.
So we come to the second part of this equation the
brand experience.
Focus on the Experience and Deliver
The degree to which the consumer's experience with a
brand matches or exceeds their expectation determines
customer loyalty and profitability.
Within most companies today, marketing communications
has little influence over the actual product or service
offering. In many cases, they are managed through
corporate operations, finance, and other departments that
do not even face the customer.
The result is, while advertising and other communications
can promise whatever they want, they lack the power to
deliver on their promises.
In a truly consumer-focused organization, marketing would
have the power to help align the service experience to
respond to customers' key demands.
We particularly need new tools help us see, understand,
and maximize the critical intersection where customers'
expectations and experiences meet.
We need to hear consumer expectations clearly and to see
with crystal clarity the experience we're actually delivering.
We need to be able to measure not only what consumers
expect in functional benefits, but also what they demand of
the experience.
Branding Strategies
PRODUCT BRANDING
This is of the type one-brand one product. In terms of customer
perception and information processing, the most effective way to
designate a product is to give it an exclusive name, which would not be
available to any other product.
In the product branding strategy the brand is promoted exclusively so
that it acquires its own identity and image. This way the brand is able to
acquire a distinct position in the customers mind.
P&G have been follower of the product branding strategy. P& G s into
baby care, beauty care, feminine care, health care, fabric care, home
care, food and beverages, etc. Its brands are stand alones; people dont
even know that they all share a common root in P&G.
Fabric Care: Tide Detergent
Hair Care: Head & Shoulders, Rejoice
Baby Care: Pampers
Another advantage is that with an identifiable brand uniquely positioned
and directed at a segment, the firm is able to cover an entire market
spectrum by making multiple brand entries.
The drawbacks of product brands are essentially cost based. Creating
individual brand is costly exercise.
LINE BRANDING
Line extensions occur when a company introduces
additional items in the same product category under the
same brand name such as new flavors, forms, colours,
pack size and so on.
E.g. Colgate has a whole range of dental care products.
Colgate Total, Colgate Gel, Colgate toothpowder, as well
as the various toothbrushes.
Line branding strategy illustrates how well cultivated brand
can be extended on to a host of related products under a
common concept. This strategy seeks to penetrate the
customer rather than penetrating the market.
BRAND EXTENSION
A company may decide to use an existing brand name to
launch a product in a new category either related or
unrelated.
Brand extensions, which are a popular means of
introducing new products to the marketplace, fall under the
One brand all products type of brand strategies.
E.g. Honda uses its company name to cover different
products viz. automobiles, motorcycle, lawnmovers etc.
The different types of brand extensions are:
Product form extension:
Product launched in a different form usually means line
extension rather than brand extension. For e.g. liquid milk
and dried milk may not be perceived as the product
category. Similarly chocolate bars and chocolate powder
belong to different product categories.
Companion Product:
Brand extension is in the form of companion
products is perhaps the most common. The idea
perhaps is to capitalize on product complementarily.
The consumer may view both products jointly and
hence, provide scope for launching brand extension.
E.g. Dove (Shampoo & conditioner)

Customer franchise:
A marketer may extend a product range in order to
meet the needs of a specific customer group. For
instance, a company may launch a variety of
products meant for e.g. nursery going school
children.
MULTIBRAND
Many brands achieve distinction in the form of a
unique attribute, benefit or feature, which gets
uniquely associated with the brand. In such
situations the company can work backwards to
launch different products, which essentially cash in
on this distinction.
For example, Parachute may have the expertise of
coconut nourishment in customers mind over time.
This would give the company Marico the opportunity
to launch a variety of products exploiting this
distinction.
UMBRELLA BRANDING
This again is of the type One brand all products. An
umbrella brand is a parent brand that appears on a number
of products that may each have separate brand images.
e.g. Videocons range of home appliances air
conditioners, refrigerators, televisions, washing machines,
etc.
Phillips also has a whole range of home appliances under
the brand name Phillips-the mixers, irons, televisions, etc.
Umbrella branding scored well on the dimension of
economics. Investing in a single brand is less costly than
trying to build a number of brands.
The brand bestows the new product advantages of brand
awareness, associations and instant goodwill.
The main danger associated with umbrella branding is that
since many products share the common name, a debacle
in one product category may influence the products
because of shared identity.
ENDORSEMENT BRANDING
Endorsement branding strategy is a modified version of
double branding. It makes the product brand name more
significant and corporate brand name is relegated to a
lesser status. It is only mentioned as an endorsement to
the product brand. By and large, the brand seeks to stand
on its own.
E.g. Kit Kat gives the signal that it belongs to Nestle
Dairy Milk conveys that it belongs to Cadburys.
Cinthols communication stresses that it is a Godrej
product.