Brand Strategy for Managing and Building Brand Equity | Next Plc

TASK 1

Importance of branding as a marketing tool, analysing components that helps to have successful brand strategy, evaluating how brand is managed successfully over time using theories and models

Brand

This is referred as term, symbol, design, features, name, that assist in identifying goods and services from other competitors by seller. It is used by different departments such as advertising, marketing for recognition of organisation at marketplace.

Importance of Branding As a Marketing Tool

Branding requires sum of money which helps in providing benefits to business in proper manner. The importance of branding as marketing tool are described below:

Increased Revenues and Market Share- When firm perform extensive branding or marketing, then their market shares and revenues rises (WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF BRANDING IN MARKETING?, 2020). It is very important for respective organisation to promote their brand through marketing so that their profits and gains can be raised. This assist in entering of new geographical market, gaining new distribution opportunities and co-branding.

Assist Company Survive Temporary Crises- If organisation faces any issues related with product and service, then branding helps them to survive in competitive market for positive outcomes (Balmer, 2017). Next Plc is large brand which has also come across such issue so it has to take help of marketing department to survive during crises.

Expanding Organisation's Estimated Worth- The number of workers and physical resources does not contribute in rising market value of business. Here, brand equity plays an important role in expanding organisation's estimated worth. This is important for respective organisation to expand their brand which leads them to rise in business nets worth.

Increasing Employee Productivity- Next Plc is recognised organisation where people want to work for it. This lead organisation to open top talent and provides with skilful and qualified employees for company. As business possess best people for provided job then productivity level will rise in an effective and efficient manner.

Role of Marketing Department

Marketing department play effective roles as well as responsibilities to create brand equity in minds of consumers (Borkovsky and et. al., 2017). Brand equity has helped Next Plc to create values which are described below:

Awareness- Marketing department of Next Plc has to focus on creating awareness among users about goods as well as services in most appropriate way. They have to use different channels to promote products among users so that they will buy it.

Differentiation- This is also the role of marketing department to analyses market and accordingly make different products and services for their consumers in effectual way. The respective organisation has to take help from marketing department to make unique, creative and different products from their rivalry.

Value- The products made by Next Plc should carry some value as users are ready to pay high prices for different and values goods and services. It is the role of marketing department to guide organisation for creation of valued products.

Accessibility- It is essential for business to have stock of products so that whenever consumers ask for it they can easily provide them without waiting for further time period.

Brand Equity

It is referred as premium value which is made by company by selling products that is different from their competitors (Chatzipanagiotou, Veloutsou and Christodoulides, 2016). This is possible by organisation to create brand equity by doing it memorable, quality, recognisable, reliability and so on. Next Plc has grown and develop brand equity through following stages such as: defining how to be perceived, organising business based on promises, communicating promises and remaining consistent.

Next Plc has used different kinds of strategy in order to strengthen their brand equity, extension, reinforcement and revitalising. They are mentioned here:

Brand Equity Strategy

For brand equity, Next Plc has used Keller Customer Based Equity (CBBE) model which possess pyramid in shape that consists of four stages. They are described below:

Brand Identity- It is defined as first level which identify brand or who you are (What is customer-based brand equity? 2020). This is the way in which consumer look for brand and distinguish it from other brand. It reflects about images and words which is associated by buyer regarding particular brand. Brand identity is the customer awareness of brand.

Brand Meaning- This is defined as what are you which is classified into two segments such as brand performance and brand imagery. When consumers are aware then they can know more about product. It also answers reliability, look, style, customer experience, value, feature, durability and so on.

Brand Response- This is defined as third level which means feelings and judgements for brand. Here, one consumers may judge brand to be relevant and other may judge it to be irrelevant. The brand response depends upon consumer to consumer due to their feeling for it. It is important for Next Plc to build positive feeling towards their products and services in an effective and efficient manner.

Brand Resonance- This is defined as last level of model which means to build strong relationship with consumers regarding brand. This includes experience, product, customer value, services and so on. Respective organisation focus on building relationship with their users in most effective and efficient manner.

Brand Extension Strategy

It is defined as brand stretching in that business market their goods and services using same brand name in various product category (Chinomona, 2016). Next Plc has to use various strategy to strengthen extension of brand. They are described below:

Measure Brand Equity- It is defined as first level that helps in measuring brand equity by identifying possibility impacts in future time period. This has to be performed by respective organisation so that goal and objectives can be attained.

Measure Potential Risk- The respective organisation has to identify and measure positive and negative effects and do brand extension with calculated risk.

Leverage from business core competency- With such stage, organisation can easily get competitive advantages for their new goods and services by using skills. It assists market to create different products from their competitors and rise in efficiency.

Brand Reinforcement Strategy

This is the concept of maintaining equity of brand by keeping brand alive for both existing and new customers in an effective and efficient manner (Dean and et. al., 2016). The respective organisation has to reinforced their brand by introducing different and unique goods and satisfying requirements of users. Brand reinforcement strategy used by Next Plc are mentioned below:

Brand Awareness- For creating brand awareness among consumers, Next Plc has to use different channels such as social media, internet and other to do promotion of brand in mind of consumers. This plays an effective role in creating awareness among users regarding value of brand.

Brand Image- It means when brand is different from competitors and other brand. This assist in creation of favourable and unique image in customer's mind.

Brand revitalization Strategy

This is defined as strategy which should be adopt by organisation whenever their goods as well as services reach to highest peak or maturity stage or profits decline. This is method or way to bring good back to market through adding some new and different features in an effective and efficient manner. Next Plc has adopted following strategies for brand revitalization such as:

Rename brand- In this strategy, organisation change or rename their brand because the existing name has decline value from market. It is done whenever value is diminished then rename has to be performed.

Reaching Out to Community- The brand should be made for community to rise in sales and profit margins in appropriate manner. The main aim of organisation is to enhance their brand value and goodwill from market by reaching to large community.

TASK 2

Critically analyse brand portfolio management and brand portfolio management illustrating brand hierarchy of brand using appropriate theories, models and frameworks

Portfolio Management

This is considered as science and art to formulate decisions on basis of assets allocation for individuals & corporates, investment mix & policy, balancing asset against risk, matching investment to goal and many more (Du Preez, Bendixen and Abratt, 2017). Here, brand management is defined as marketing functions that focus on utilising strategies and techniques to rise in value of brand over product or time line.

Brand Portfolio Strategy

This is referred as umbrella in which overall or whole brand line are related with specified entity which focus on serving need and demand of market segments. Each and every single brand focus on performing their business functions and practices and different operative areas. This provide advantages with different brand which belongs to same portfolio because they utilise promotional practices and resources done by other brand which are belonging to same portfolio. This helps Next Plc in ascertaining optimal structure of brand to utilise their endorser brand, sub brands and many more. The respective organisation want to utilised their own trademarks to improve different images at marketplace as compared to competitors. For managing brand portfolio, different strategies are used by Next Plc which are described below:

Active portfolio management- It is defined as important strategy which is utilised with help of entities as well as manager who possess capacity to bear risk at marketplace (Dwivedi, Johnson and McDonald, 2015). With help of such strategy, business can get positive outcomes in effective and efficient manner. Such is utilised through renowned brands who possess more market share in business. This types of strategy requires more market research to get better returns. Respective organisation is using such strategy to beat competition and rise their market share. 

Passive portfolio strategy- It is defined as that strategy which is utilised by those business who are not interested to bear any type of risk but they want to improve as well as develop themselves in best manner (Edlinger, 2015). This is important for organisation to utilise those elements which facilitate them to get better returns. The respective strategy is not beneficial for Next Plc as they want to take risk and want to earn high profit margins. It has to take several risk in order to maintain brand value and goodwill of business in most effective manner.

Hierarchy Management of Brands

It is also called as brand architecture which states framework of brand into entities. This also focus on explaining about way or through which brand is associated with business or distinguishing from other. It is also regarded as collected process for development of brand with help of relation among option of brand. The brand portfolio model used by Next Plc are described below:

Branded Properties- It is defined as strategy or model where brand manager focus on utilising one brand out of whole products or categories (Godey and et. al., 2016). This provide help to overall brand and concentrate upon enhancement of profits margin and sales in an effective and efficient manner.

House of brand strategy- It is defined as strategy that describes those business plan which focus on promoting whole sub brands personally to improve their brand for each and every goods and services in an effective and efficient manner. The main focus is given to main or original brand. This type of strategy requires huge resources to develop different branding strategy for single sub brand. Respective organisation can adopt such strategy to promote their brand such as Lipsy, Next Distribution and so on. This assist in rising sales performance for overall brand.

 

TASK 3

Critically evaluate different techniques of brand extension and brand leverage to expand brand over time in both domestic and international market and evaluate collaborative partnership.

Brand Extension

It is known as brand marketing mark cuffing. This contributes to exploit success as well as brand image to raise and increase demand for both products and services in an efficient and productive manner. Having excellently-established brand name is very essential for companies so that consumers feel drawn to purchasing goods and services (Punjaisri and Wilson, 2017). In the aspect of effective brand extension, there are vital range of strategies that are implemented by above mentioned company Next Plc are as follows such as:

• Re-positioning same product in a different form – In this strategy, the corresponding company can do brand extension by re-positioning their product through different forms so that they can efficiently retain huge numbers of people. For instance, Cadbury company is re-positioning their products in accordance of any specific festival, targeted range of customers. As well as the above company can apply this approach in order to do branding of their products. It can be beneficial for them as under this, they will not require to produce any product as well as this will be cost effectively for them. One of the key benefit of this approach is that they will not need any specific plan to implement a well as customers will be aware from their product. Due to this, they will not need any expansion on the marketing.
• Re-positioning different product in the same form- In this strategy, their specific commodity must be repositioned in the same way by the corresponding organization. This is being considered as an effective way of doing branding at lower cost (Rutter, Roper and Lettice, 2016). This is so because in it companies do not require to do higher expense. Hence, the above mentioned company can do marketing of their different products without making any big changes in their strategies and policies. For instance, in the context of clothing sector there are a vital range of products for particular gender such as for male-female, traditional and western culture etc.
• New distributor, franchise or relationships- The above mentioned company is needed to find out new franchise in order to do expansion of brand effectively. It can be beneficial for them to discover a new market segment in which they can create new customer range. So overall, it can be an effective strategy for above company to do brand expansion.
• Brand name or design change- Another way for brand expansion is making a famous brand or by changing design. For implementation of this strategy, companies need huge amount of time period so that a brand image can be created in the external environment and among customers. Such as for above company, this strategy can successfully applied if they do effective marketing by expanding higher amount of cost.

Fit and Leverage Brand Extensions

Compatibility and leverage in brand extensions helps company to assess customer purchasing intent before making or preparing brand extension investments (Som and Blanckaert, 2015). Such a strategy helps give company a great advantage by having the same logo on different products in an effective and efficient way all and every year.

Brand collaboration and partnership:

In order to do effective brand collaboration and partnership, the above mentioned company have applied below mentioned way that are as follows:

• Marie Claire company has done partnership with above mentioned company with an objective of providing products and services on time. As well as for fulfilling the demand of customers by increasing level of supply.
• The above mentioned company has introduced a wide range of products about 100 regarding to beauty in different location with an aim of gaining positive outcome from customers.
• Along with Marie Claire company has promoted to beauty industry in order to become incomparable with different types of companies and customers.
• Collaboration created USP characteristics protected bespoken material via Marie Claire's Fabled editorial staff with knowledge in beauty world.

Global branding and positioning:

For global marketing and positioning, different channels are used by the corresponding organization to create effective understanding between many customers about goods and services. It is very essential provide consumers with strong-quality products and services so that they remain happy and satisfied with the brand and contribute to the correct development of a higher position in customers ' brains. Like in the above company, they can apply this alternative in order to do better branding across the nation. For this purpose, they are needed to do expense on marketing. This is too essential because promotion is the only way that can increase customer’s attention towards company (Zarantonello and Pauwels-Delassus, 2015).

So, these are the ways by which above mentioned company can do brand expansion in an effective way. Herein, this is important to know that implementation of these strategy should be in accordance of requirement. As well as they should make financial plan before applying any sort of strategy because it is one of the key aspect.

TASK 4

Critically evaluate techniques to measure brand value, brand awareness, market share, consumer attitudes and purchasing intent. Evaluate brand equity and audit and brand tracking techniques

The respective organisation is applying different brand measurement techniques to measure their brand awareness, market share, consumer attitudes and purchasing intent. They are mentioned here:

Brand Awareness

This is referred as method to create brand awareness among consumers in an effective and efficient manner by using several channels. The techniques include:

Survey- It is defined as easy as well as simple method for creation of brand awareness in consumer's mind (Griffiths and McLean, 2015). This technique is limited in sample size and possess qualitative in nature. The respective organisation is using such technique for awareness creation for goods and services. It also helps in taking business decisions by consumers regarding goods.

Search Engine Queries- In today's time, more number of people are addicted to search engine for finding any products or services. Such engine assists in providing full descriptions about good and create awareness among users. With such engine, business can maintain relationship among audience and information seeker.

Market Shared

It is defined as some percentage of business or total market sales which is gained by organisation during specified time period (Lee and Watkins, 2016). This is calculated with sales of business in given time period by dividing overall sales of firm in a year. Next Plc is using various techniques to manage and measure market share. They are described below:

Market Share Building- This technique is performed with assistance of innovation of new promotion, distribution, product and market segmentation. This assists in growing market value to enhance profit and sustainability of firm.

Market Share Maintenance- It is the responsibility of organisation to optimise resources in an effective manner to enhance success and growth at marketplace (Lin, 2015). This technique is challenging for each and every business as it is difficult for firm to maintain their market share. It is possible after cutting prices of share at organisation. Next Plc has adopted such strategies through doing product innovation, market fortification that helps in attainment of business goal and objectives in an effective and efficient manner.

Consumer Attitudes

This is defined as behavioural intentions, feelings and beliefs for objects as well as thing within brand store (Lucarelli and Hallin, 2015). As each and every people has different beliefs and attitudes for goods as well as services. It assist to influence consumers for buying products from market. Some of the techniques adopted by Next Plc in order to manage and measure customer attitudes are described below:

Customer Satisfaction- This is defined as strategy which assist in influencing customers for buying products and services in an effective and efficient manner. The respective organisation has to focus on rendering high quality goods as well as services to customers by satisfying them in most effective manner.

Non-Structured Methods- It is defined as system which is informal as well as unsystematic in nature. This method consists of some techniques to know about their customer attitudes in best manner. The adoption of such method leads to know more about users, their taste and likeness for products and services.

Structured Methods- This is referred as systematic as well as formal sequence method that is divided into disguised and non-disguised form. This method is used by respective organisation to determine their consumer's attitudes for products in appropriate way.

Purchasing Intent

This is defined as probability in which consumer focus on purchasing products and services. In order to evaluate this technique, marketer has to use predictive modelling to determine future outcomes which is based on historical data and statistics. It is also referred as willingness of users for buying good and services. The techniques used by Next Plc to measure as well as manage purchase intent are described below:

Offers- Next Plc has to focus on providing offers to their loyal and regular consumers along with maintaining quality of goods (Nyadzayo, Matanda and Ewing, 2015). This assist to rise in willingness of customers for buying of products as well as services. It also influence users and leads to rise in profits and gains.

Affordable price- The respective organisation has to focus on charging affordable prices for products so that users will purchase it (Paul, 2019). This is significant to offer high quality and premium value products to consumers.

Brand Tracking Techniques

This is defined as way which is based on continuous basis to measure health of brand in both aspects such as use of customers and what they think about it. The opinion of brand is categorised into brand warmth/love, attributes and brand momentum. This should be done on continuous basis by respective organisation in order to attain set goal and objectives in effective manner.

CONCLUSION

The above report summarised that organisation has to use several branding as a tool to rise their sales and profit margins in most effective way. Brand management is important for organisation to increase their value and goodwill at marketplace to attain desired outcomes. It is crucial to build as well as manage brand equity for success of organisation at business place. With change in time, brand need to be revitalised and reinforced through doing innovation. There are several hierarchy building and portfolio strategies which assist in earning profits. The brand extension has to be done for vanished brand from market. This is also essential to do collaboration and partnership with other brand at both domestic and international level for earning high gains and rise in sales. In order to measure brand awareness, purchasing intent, consumer attitudes and market shares, different strategies are used by business.

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