1. Ashesi University COURSE TITLE : STRATEGIC BRAND MANAGEMENT
SEMESTER : SECOND, 2011/2012
MODULE 4: Choosing Brand Elements to Build Brand Equity
Lecturer: Ebow Spio

2. Learning Outcomes
Explain how marketers choose brand elements to build brand equity
Identify the general criteria for choosing brand elements
Consider specific tactical issues associated with different types of brand elements
Discuss how to choose the best elements to build brand equity

3. Building Customer-Based Brand Equity
Brand knowledge structures depend on:
The initial choices for the brand elements
The supporting marketing program and the manner by which the brand is integrated into it
Other associations indirectly transferred to the brand by linking it to some other entities
Brand Elements, sometimes called brand identities, are those trademarks devices hat serve to identify and differentiate the brand. The main ones are brand names, logos, symbols, characters, spokespeople, slogans jingles, packages and signage.
The CBBE model suggests that marketers should choose brand elements to enhance brand awareness, facilitate the formation of strong, favourable and unique brand associations; or elicit positive judgments and feelings. 19

4. Criteria for Choosing Brand Elements
Memorability
Meaningfulness
Likability
Transferability
Adaptability
Protectability
Marketer’s offensive strategy
and build brand equity
Defensive role for leveraging
and maintaining brand equity

5. Memorability
Brand elements should inherently be memorable and attention-getting, and therefore facilitate recall or recognition.

6. Meaningfulness
Brand elements may take on all kinds of meaning, with either descriptive or persuasive content.
Two particularly important criteria
General information about the nature of the product category
Specific information about particular attributes and benefits of the brand
The first dimension is an important determinant of brand awareness and salience; the second, of brand image and positioning.

7. Likability
Do customers find the brand element aesthetically appealing?
Descriptive and persuasive elements reduce the burden on marketing communications to build awareness.

8. Transferability
How useful is the brand element for line or category extensions?
To what extent does the brand element add to brand equity across geographic boundaries and market segments?

9. Adaptability
The more adaptable and flexible the brand element, the easier it is to update it to changes in consumer values and opinions.
For example, logos and characters can be given a new look or a new design to make them appear more modern and relevant.

10. Protectability Marketers should:
Choose brand elements that can be legally protected internationally.
Formally register chosen brand elements with the appropriate legal bodies.
Vigorously defend trademarks from unauthorized competitive infringement.

11. Tactics for Brand Elements
A variety of brand elements can be chosen that inherently enhance brand awareness or facilitate the formation of strong, favorable, and unique brand associations.
Brand names
URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) also referred to as domain names; means specific locations on the Web.
Logos and symbols
Characters
Slogans
Packaging 20

12. Brand Names
Like any brand element, brand names must be chosen with the six general criteria of memorability, meaningfulness, likability, transferability, adaptability, and protectability in mind.
The Brand name 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. Brand names can be extremely effective shorthand means of communication.

13. Brand Naming Guidelines
Brand awareness 
Simplicity and ease of pronunciation and spelling
Familiarity and meaningfulness
Differentiated, distinctive, and uniqueness to improve recognition.
Brand associations
The explicit and implicit meanings consumers extract from it are important. In particular, the brand name can reinforce an important attribute or benefit association that makes up its product positioning.
Select a name for a new product is certainly an art and a science. Brand elements that are highly descriptive of the product category or its attribute and benefits can be quite restrictive. Brand names that reinforce the initial positioning of a brand may take it harder to link new associations to the brand if it later has to be repositioned.

14. Brand Naming Guidelines
Selecting a brand name is crucial part of the brand the marketing planning process:
Desirable Qualities for a brand name
Suggest something about product benefits e.g. Kleenex (tissue paper)
Easy to pronounce, recognize or remember e.g. Dove (soap), Yale (security products), Shell
The brand name should be distinctive e.g. Virgin, Kodak
It should translate easily (and meaningfully) into foreign languages
It should be capable of registration and legal protection e.g. Miller Brewery Company not allowed to use “Lite” exclusively for its low-calorie beer
Evoke positive associations e.g. Pepsi Max, Lexus
Use of numerals or alphanumerics when emphasizing technology e.g. Audi A 4, Airbus 380 etc.

15. Brand Naming Procedures
Define objectives : Based on six criteria especially ideal meaning the brand should convey.
Generate names : Sources could include managers, employees, customers, agencies etc.
Screen initial candidates against objectives and criteria articulated earlier.
Study candidate names : Legal research etc.
Research the final candidates : To confirm memorability and meaningfulness of the remaining names.
Select the final name : maximizes firm’s branding and marketing objectives and register it.

16. URLs
URLs (uniform resource locators) specify locations of pages on the web and are also commonly referred to as domain names.
A company can either sue the current owner of the URL for copyright infringement, buy the name from the current owner, or register all conceivable variations of its brand as domain names ahead of time.

17. Logos and Symbols
Play a critical role in building brand equity and especially brand awareness
Logos range from corporate names or trademarks (word marks with text only) written in a distinctive form, to entirely abstract designs that may be completely unrelated to the word mark, corporate name, or corporate activities
Word marks with no accompanying logo separate from the name include Coca Cola , Kit Kat. Examples of abstract logos include the Rolex crown, Nike swoosh and Olympic rings. The non word logos are also known as symbols. Some logos are literal representation of the brand name, enhancing meaning or awareness e.g. Apple logo, Beacon Books logo.
Logos and symbols are often easily recognized and can be a valuable way to identify product, although consumers may recognize them but unable to link them to any specific product or brand.
Versatile i.e. transfer across cultures and product categories.
Can be adapted to achieve a contemporary feel. E.g Shell logo

18. Characters
A special type of brand symbol—one that takes on human or real-life characteristics
The Budweiser frogs, Pillsbury’s Jolly Green Giant and Geico Gecko
Benefits
Attention getting and quite useful for creating awareness because they are colour and rich in imagery
Break through clutter and communicate product benefits
Valuable licensing properties e.g. Disney’s micky mouse

19. Slogans
Slogans are short phrases that communicate descriptive or persuasive information about the brand. E.g. “Just do it” “ The Best a Man can get” “ A Diamond is forever”
Slogans are powerful branding devices because, like brand names, they are an extremely efficient, shorthand means to build brand equity
They appear in advertising but can play a important role on packaging and other aspects of the marketing programme.

20. Classic Slogans “Melts in your mouth, not in your hands” (M&M’s)
“Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t” (Almond Joy/Mounds)
“Where’s the beef?” (Wendy’s)
“A mind is a terrible thing to waste” (United Negro College Fund)
“Can you hear me now?” (Verizon)
Source: Monty Phan, “Celebrating Their Sweet Success,” Newsday, 21 September 2004, A43.

21. Jingles
Jingles are musical messages written around the brand. Typically composed by professional songwriters, they often have enough catchy hooks and choruses to become almost permanently registered in the minds of listeners—sometimes whether they want them to or not!
Jingles are perhaps most valuable in enhancing brand awareness.

22. Packaging Packaging is the activities of designing and
producing containers and wrappers for aproduct
From the perspective of both the firm and consumers, packaging must achieve a number of objectives:
Identify the brand
Convey descriptive and persuasive information
Facilitate product transportation and protection
Assist at-home storage
Aid product consumption

23. Packaging Can Influence Purchase at the Point of Purchase
Packaging can create strong appeal on the store shelf and stand out from the clutter, critical when you realize that the average supermarket shopper can be exposed to 20,000 or more products in a shopping visit that may last less than 30 minutes
Packaging is sometimes called the “ the last 5 seconds of marketing” as well as “permanent media”

24. Packaging Can Influence Taste
Our sense of taste and touch is very suggestible, and what we see on a package can lead us to taste what we think we are going to taste.

25. Packaging Can Influence Value
Long after we have bought a product, a package can still lead us to believe we bought it because it was a good value.

26. Packaging Can Influence Consumption
Studies of 48 different types of foods and personal care products have shown that people pour and consume between 18% and 32% more of a product as the size of the container doubles.
Valerie Folkes, Ingrid Martin and Kamal Gupta,
“When to Say When: Effects of Supply on Usage,”
Journal of Consumer Research, 20 December 1993,

27. Packaging Can Influence How a Person Uses a Product
One strategy to increase use of mature products has been to encourage people to use the brand in new situations, like soup for breakfast, or new uses, like baking soda as a refrigerator deodorizer.
An analysis of 26 products and 402 consumers showed that twice as many people learned about the new use from the package than from television ads.

28. Guidelines for Creating High –Impact Packaging
Know your consumer
Take the big-picture approach
Understand that package aesthetics and functional are both critical
Know your distribution channels
Educate management

29. Putting It All Together
The entire set of brand elements makes up the brand identity, the contribution of all brand elements to awareness and image.
The cohesiveness of the brand identity depends on the extent to which the brand elements are consistent.

30. Key Points
A brand’s identity is created through the choice of a name, URL, logo, symbol, slogan, package, jingle, and character.
Brand elements should be memorable, meaningful, transferable, adaptable and protectable.
The brand-building potential of brand elements can be gauged by asking consumers what they would think about the product if they knew only its name, logo, and other identity characteristics.
All the brand elements for a particular brand create the brand identity, which conveys the contribution of these elements to image and awareness.

31. Tutorials
Have students make a list of brand slogans, analyze what each communicates, and explain why the parent firm would select it.
Ask students to develop a brand name, logo and symbol, slogan, package and, if appropriate, character for a new product. Discuss how the elements would change if the target market changed. Candidates might include a men’s fragrance, a laundry detergent, and a sparkling fruit drink. (Can be related to Branding Brief 4-1: Branding a New Soft Drink.)
Tell students to pick two brands from the same product category and compare their brand elements in terms of their memorability, protectability, adaptability, meaningfulness, and transferability.
Bring in or have students bring in competing brands so that their packages can be compared. Discuss the reasons for the similarities and differences between them, as well as the pros and cons of each.