PBL session 1

How to understand brand management and the roles of the brand manager, the employees and external consultants?

1) What is brand management?

Of course it isn't the best source in the world, but for general definitions I always turn to Wikipedia. According to Wikipedia, brand management is:

"Brand management is the analysis and planning on how that brand is perceived in the market. Developing a good relationship with the target market is essential for brand management. Tangible elements of brand management include the product itself (look, price, packaging...). The intangible elements are the experience that the customer has had with the brand and also the relationship that they have with that brand. A brand manager should oversee all of these things."

When scrolling through different websites, I've found similar definitions:

• Businessdictionary: the process of maintaining, improving and upholding a brand so that the name is associated with positive results... Brand management focuses directly on the brand and how it can remain favourable to customers. Proper brand management can result in higher sales.
• Investopedia: a function of marketing that uses techniques to increase the perceived value of a product line or brand over time. Effective brand management enables the price of products to go up and builds loyal customers through positive brand associations and images of a strong awareness of the brand. 
• Management Study Guide: developing a promise, making that promise and maintaining it. Defining the brand, positioning it and deliver it. It's the art of creating a sustainable brand. Branding makes customers committed to your brand, it differentiates you from the competitors and gives quality to your business. It includes managing tangible and intangible characteristics of your brand. 

The first year of my studies I had a Marketing & Research course, which mentioned the basics of brand management and the link with brand equity. Brand equity is the value of a brand. A brand is not just a name, but it's a feeling. It's about what the brand means to the customer. A way to measure it, is to see how much more people want to pay because of the brand. 

Having a strong brand equity gives you lot's of benefits:

• Brand loyalty
• More distribution opportunities
• Better ROI
• You can make more 'mistakes'

David Aaker (Building strong brands, 1996) described brand equity as follows:

"A set of assets 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 mayor asset categories are:

1. Brand name awareness
2. Brand loyalty
3. Perceived quality
4. Brand associations"

So, in general, you can see the following factors return in every definition:

• A function of marketing
• Use of tangible (look, price...) and intangible techniques (relationship, customer service...)
• Purpose: create and maintain a brand of great quality with a positive perception from the target market
• Advantages of good brand management: committed customers, differentiation from the competition, brand loyalty, higher prices

2) What are the brand manager's tasks and responsibilities? 

I consulted a couple of websites (some of them in Dutch - Beroepengids, Workable, Marketing Schools) and concluded the following tasks and responsibilities:

• Introducing a new product/brand on the market
• Creates a better market position for the company or the product
• Take brand ownership and provide the vision, mission, goals and strategies to match up to
• Translate brand strategies into brand plans, brand positioning and go-to-market strategies. Create objectives for yourself and the team.
• Anticipate bottlenecks
• Brainstorm new and innovative growth strategies
• Measure and report performance of all marketing campaigns, and assess against goals (ROI and KPIs)
• Leads a team of professionals from diverse disciplines (communication managers, product developers, financial workers...). He therefore organises meetings and unites everyones goals. 
• Coordinates the workflow 
• Final say in the project 
• Always oversees the current image of the brand and maintains it in all the aspects (tangible and intangible)
• Creates a plan to achieve goals such as: product launch, boosting sales, generating profit...
• Conducts and/or analyses market research (about customers, about brand positioning...)
• Is sensible to the customer needs
• Report findings to other workers, for example Marketing Manager

My cousin works at Delonghi for two Brand Managers. She told me briefly what their tasks are about:

At Delonghi, we have 3 brand managers. One for Delonghi, one for Braun and one for Kenwood, so they can really specialise one specific brand. Twice a year, they make a forecast of the expenses they want to make and they of course have to stick to that  given budget. Tasks are for example: choosing which magazine they want to be in, control the written text, choosing sponsors, bloggers and influencers, organising events (for example: Bake Off Belgium) and a lot of administrative and practical tasks (keeping the website up to date, sending invoices...).

I also looked into some job offers in Belgium (Stepstone) and they practically all confirmed the above.

3) What are the steps in the brand definition process?

According to my course in Belgium (Marketing and Research - based on a book of Kotler), the following terms have to be decided:

1. Brand personality
2. Brand positioning
3. Brand name
4. Decisions on extensions

During my research I found a lot of blogs which all had their own steps. I compared a few (Freshsparks,  Tungsten, Gistbrands, Inc, Entrepreneur) and I like the first one between brackets, because it related the most to what I'd learned in school. It was also written in an easy-to-read form and had clear examples:

1. Determine your brand's target audience: who are you trying to reach? Detail your ideal client.
2. Define a branding mission statement: what is the purpose of your existence? It has to be reflected into anything you do, but it is not necessarily a slogan.
3. Research competition: analyse your competitors and their missions
4. Outline the key qualities and benefits your brand offers: what do you offer that other brands don't? (= USP)
5. Create a brand logo and tagline: invest time and money in it
6. Choose you tone of voice: how do you communicate?
7. Build a brand message and elevator pitch: tell shortly and simple who you are
8. Integrate your brand in every aspect of you business: tangible and intangible
9. Stay true to your brand: consistency is the key
10. Be your brand's biggest advocate

Aaker's book (Building strong brands) actually summarises these steps into bigger ones. Building a strong brand is about the following steps:

1. Brand identity: how would you like to be perceived?
2. Managing brand identity: develop a brand position (what you're going to communicate) and execution programme
3. Create a brand system: an intertwined and overlapping construction of brands and sub-brands
4. Brand equity measurement: managers need to know this
5. Brand nurturing organisational forms: a changing world needs new approaches

4) How does the brand manager work in cooperation with the company management, the employees and external consultants? (what are their roles?)

This comes back to question 2. I also consulted my cousins opinion on this one, applied the same books and websites as in the second question and consulted a couple of new sites (Hierarchy structure, Upfront Analytics). I summarise my findings as follows:

• A Brand Manager generally leads a team, organises project groups and watches over the work of others
• The Brand Manager keeps in contact with external consultants, like distributers, suppliers etc.
• The Brand Manager reports his findings to the upper hierarchic figures, like the General Manager for example

According to my cousin, the Brand Marketeer falls under the Marketing Department. In Delonghi, the hierarchy is as follows:

5) Analyse the brand management of a chosen company

I've done a similar task for the Marketing and Research course I had in Belgium. I investigated the brand Pink Lady (a red apple). I'll briefly go over the topics I investigated:

                    

Brand value

• Personal advantages Pink Lady brings: co-creation (f.e. shopping bag), advise from professional people (f.e. recipes), personal stories (f.e. it's the only apple you ate when you were little), sharing the same vision (f.e. concern about the planet)
• Emphasis on functional or emotional benefits? The emphasis is on the emotional part (elegance, sensuality and pleasure)

Micro environment

• Brand vision: retain the natural environmental balance
• Brand mission: bring quality food that is in line with the customer's expectations

Meso environment

• Relationship towards clients: Pink Lady sells to distributers and farmers, so they don't have a personal or direct contact with the client. They do try to involve you online, by joining the Pink Lady club.
• Competitors: direct (other apple brands or supermarket brands like Golden, Granny Smith, Jonagold...) & indirect (other fruit, healthy cookies, smoothies, fruit juice)

Macro environment

I did a DESTEP and SWOT analysis for the brand, but this might bring us too far for this particular question.

Product

• Core benefit: what do you buy? Pink Lady emphasis the emotional benefit of sensuality, elegance and joy.
• Actual product: the product characteristics (what you can see, feel, taste, hear...) - Pink Lady is a red apple with a pink blush, it has joyful and sweet packagings, the typo is elegant...
• Augmented product: extra services for the customers - Pink Lady doesn't really provide this, but the company could for example organise a workshop to cook with the apples.

Positioning: Pink Lady focuses on the product advantages (emotional) - less on the product characteristics and values. 

Line extension: PinKids (smaller apple for the kids)

Price

• Price elasticity: quite elastic (a lot of competition, so they're not able to really higher their prices)
• One of the more expensive apples: means quality in people's heads

Distribution

• Intensive distribution (selling in big and middle supermarkets)
• It's a fast moving consumer good, not geographically attached and there is a lot of competition