d
Any marketing actions a firm takes today can change consumer’s brand awareness or brand image and have an indirect effect on the success of future marketing activities. For example; the frequent use of temporary price decreases as sales promotions may create or strengthen a “discount” association to the bran, with potentially adverse implications on customer loyalty and responses to future price changes or non-price-oriente marketing communication efforts. Marketers must actively manage brand equity over time by reinforcing the brand meaning and, if necessary, by making adjustments to the marketing program to identify the new sources of brand equity.
Brand lifecycle: Brands are typically viewed as having a lifecycle. This is common but not inexorable.
The product life cycle does exist. All products (physical attributes) have an end. The typical pattern is: a birth and launch phase, a growth phase, a maturity phase and a decline.
*Brands that are attached to a single product, or even a single version of a product, are subject to the product life cycle.
-Brand fading can be due to its mismanagement, or consumer changes or competition changes.
-To prevent decline, brand managers can work on:
Preserving brand equity (MK mix choices). B. Developing brand equity (stretching the brand concept). C. Reviving Brand equity (building on the brand identity to update its positioning)
The decline of a brand, however, begins with a slide in the level of perceived difference between it and the competition and, in particular, with the opinion leaders of the product category. The esteem and the emotional ties are still alive and well, but the consumer realises that the quality gap has been bridged between the brand and its competition. He still likes it but may now become disloyal.
The benefit of this study is to underscore that the drop in differentiation signals the beginning of the decline, however strong the liking score may be.
Market transformations:
Most common sources of brand fading:
A.Marketing mix: Promotions:Incoherent, insufficient, repetitive). Product: reduced quality. Pricing: Discounts. Place: Misfit, disappearance
B.Brand Portfolio: daughter brands dilute parent brands.
C.Changes in consumer base: Change in taste and aspirations//Negative user image//Product category decline.
D.Competition: Low-cost substitutes// Product innovation.
To keep your brand strong: Pyramid: Brand reinforcement(top) – Brand development (middle) – Brand rejuvenation (bottom).
Brand reinforcement: Important considerations…
1.Permanent product innovations (prototype upgrades and line extensions) // 2.Denomination through distribution// 3.Renewed communication (communicate innovation, persuade relevant people) // 4.Pricing up or down to maintain distinction. // 5.Adjust portfolio/restructure.// 6.Protect sources of brand equity from competition and copying
Brand development/Stretch:Both Physical (form, design, experience…) and Intangibe (benefits, personality, values) // Core brand facets: Disruptive stretch & Peripheral brand facets: Incremental stretch
Brand rejuvenation:
The revitalisation of brands always starts with a major work of internal rejuvenation.
Revitalizations, revivals are based on an updating of the overall offer of the brand while staying true to part of its identity. Revival means aiming at a new growth market. The brand must find a new relevance and differentiation.
Redefining the brand essence:1.Revitalising through new uses. // 2.Revitalising through distribution change. //3. Revitalising through innovations. // 4.Revitalising through segmentation. //5. Revitalising by contact with opinion leaders. //6. Revitalising through 360 degrees communications. //7. Changing the business model.
“Recreating a consistent flow sales, putting the brand back to life” (kapferer 2012)
SLEEPING BEAUTIES: brands whose name still evokes resonance in our memory. There are good reasons for that. As assets, these brands are still endowed with brand awareness, attributes, beliefs. It is less costly to start from these premises than to restart from scratch.
“Brands that are no longer active on the market but which retain potential brand equity because of the brand’s heritage” (Dion and Mazzalovo 2016, p1)
REINTERPRETATION THE BRAND’S FEATURES:
Identify positive aesthetic and symbolic brand associations.
Product: design, technology and know-how.
History/heritage:
People: Founder, iconic clients, historic personalities.
Places: Original locations, town/country of origin.
Historical events
Competitors from the past that are now the market leaders.
IF RELATING THE BRAND TO ITS HERITAGE…
Identify the Arcadia, i.e. idealized collective memory past (Brown et al., 2003).
• Define the Allegory, i.e. the stories, narratives, and metaphors showing how the brand is symbolic of that past
• Authenticate the brand’s heritage, i.e. make sure the brand history and its rearticulation feel true/real (displaying collected evidence & approvals by publicly recognized cultural intermediaries)