What is a brand?
A brand can have a corporations perspective and consumers perspective.
Corporations perspective: Brands as Valuable Resources
- A brand is a source of reputation/credibility and power, vis-à-vis competitors, which attract
consumers in a unique way and provides sustainable profit.
- Brand(s) are incredibly valuable resource(s) that need to be nourished and leveraged. They
are intangible assets.
- A Coca cola executive once stated:
o The reason Coca-Cola is so valuable is because of the ideas, perceptions, and
expectations about the brand that consumers over the world carry around in their
heads. So much so that if the company were to lose all its production-related assets
in a disaster, it would survive; but if all consumers were to have a sudden lapse of
memory and forget everything related to Coca-Cola, the company would go out of
business.
- If brands are key resources for companies, how can we assess value of recourses within the
company, including brands?
, Corporations perspective: Brands as Valuable Resources
- When analyzing brands form a company’s perspective, you should evaluate how strong a
brand is (using the 5 key questions in the RBV framework: imitable? Durable? Profitable?
Substitutable? Competitively superior?), and consider the role of other sources and
competitive forces within the industry.
BUT
- This economic and rational view of the firms towards brands, is in contract with the way
consumers see and perceive brands. Consumers are the ultimate users of brand values.
Understanding how they perceive, feel and think about brands is therefore at the core of any
brand management program:
o How do consumers relate to brands? How do they think or feel about them?
o What drives consumers’ preferences and positive attitudes towards a brand?
o How can companies influence consumers’ brand related intentions and behavior?