ASSESSING THE BRAND EQUITY LEVEL OF THE COMPANY'S PRODUCT

ASSESSING THE BRAND EQUITY LEVEL OF THE COMPANY'S PRODUCT

INTRODUCTION

Brand is the name given by the company to its product to differentiate its product from other company's products in the minds of the customers.

Brand may be a word, sentence, song, symbol, etc.

Branding is like naming a child of the family ( Some families have name also ). Family could be compared to the company. The goodwill of the family depends on the child's performance in the society. Similarly the goodwill of the company depends on the branded product's performance in the market and vice versa.

Companies believe that both are inter dependent. If any one of the two fails the other is affected and vice versa

Branding is the process of naming a product of the company and developing the Brand is popularizing the Brand for its positive effect ultimately to en cash the goodwill built

Without branding a product it is impossible for any company to grow independently ( without the support of the Parent company which gives job order ). The scope for any company to grow depends on 1) identifying the opportunity 2) resource mobilization and utilisation as planned 3) implementation of well planned marketing strategy and 4) ensure growth of goodwill particularly in the minds of the consumers / end users

Brand of a product acts as a powerful sales representative of the company. It indirectly communicates to the consumer on quality of the product, benefits that could be achieved by using the product, its availability, etc.

The companies selling Branded products ensures that their brand satisfies both the parameters ( ie ) quality and quantity standards expectations of the customers. The Brand launched is developed through Advertisements, Celebrities, etc

Growing companies believe in Brand Building

They believe not only in brand building of the product but also in image building of the company. The image building of the company is done through Public relation activities, Publicity, etc.

Hence Marketing Manager of any company will be interested in not only building the Brand of the product of the company but more on Image Building of the company. They are interested in creating perception in the minds of the people as any product which is launched by the company will be of a good quality product, priced reasonably and will be available through out the year everywhere. Thus company goodwill plays a very important role in selling the product along with the marketing strategies being adopted by the company.

The people who consumes the product are the consumers and the people who consumes a particular Brand of a product are the customers. Through Brand Building activity the company will put in all its efforts to convert consumers into customers of its Brand

The author in this article discusses on the appropriate strategy for implementation of the planned Branding methods and

CREATING THE BRAND INVOLVES TWO STAGES

1) Branding and Introduction of Brand ( naming / launching / etc )
2) Building the Brand ( Developing the Equity of the Brand in the market)

Only after finalizing the proposed strategy of Building the Brand ( the second stage ) the planning of first stage starts

FOR BUILDING THE BRAND FOLLOWING STEPS ARE FOLLOWED BY THE MANAGERS

1) Create Awareness about the Brand
2) Create Interest on the Brand
3) Create Desire on the Brand
4) Ensure Action of purchase of Brand

MANAGEMENT FUNCTION IN BRANDING AND BRAND BUILDING

The Brand Manager of the company does all the managerial function of Planning, Organising and Controlling in executing the activity of Brand Building

The managerial function of Planning is ( resource availability assessment, strategy decision, guidelines, etc ) the staring point of the Brand Building activity

The function of Organising is (implementation of the Plan using the operational strategy,
Organization structure, etc )

The function of Monitoring is ( assessing the Brand Equity, arriving at the appropriate strategy towards development, etc )

BRAND EQUITY

During the process of Brand Building the company simultaneously conducts research study to find out the Brand Equity of the company in the market which enables the company to know where the company's Brand stands in the total market. Based on the findings the company decides the strategy to be adopted to maintain and develop the Brand in the market.

Finding the effectiveness of the Brand Building Program by calculating Brand Equity for the Brand

As we know Brand Equity is the favorable attitude towards the brand of the targeted customers

The Brand Equity could be measured in the following manner

1) How many of the consumers are aware of the Brand?
2) How many of the consumers tried the Brand and accept the Brand as a need satisfying Product?
3) How many of the consumers who have accepted the Brand as a need satisfying product prefer company's Brand to other Brands available in the market ?
4) How many consumers who prefer the Brand have become loyal to the Brand ( ie ) have become customers ?
5) How many loyal customers are obsessed towards the Brand? ( ie )the customer may stop using the product if the Brand is not available in the market.

All the above levels contribute towards the favorableness

RESEARCH STUDY TO FIND OUT BRAND EQUITY

The company can perform the following research exercise to find out the Brand Equity of its Brand

First a consumer survey has to be conducted with the consumers to find out the Brand Equity of the company's Brand

Survey conducted with the consumers can only provide accurate results than conducting the same survey with the marketing middlemen, experts and others. This Brand Equity survey is more appropriate to do with the consumers / end users.

The survey is illustrated with an example, assumed Soft Drink company, ( 'X' Brand )

The survey method is explained in the following paragraphs

Say 100 consumers of Soft Drinks are to be contacted with a well structured questionnaire to find out Awareness level, Acceptance level, Loyalty level and Obsession level of the Brand

Let us assume that out of the total 100 respondents contacted 80 of them are Aware of the'X' Soft Drink in the first stage

Out of the 80 respondents 60 of them tried and Accepted the 'X' Soft Drink as the need satisfying product in the second stage

Out of the 60 respondents 50 of them Prefer the "X" Soft Drink against other Brands
in the third stage

Out of the 50 respondents 40 of them are Loyal to that particular "X" Soft Drink in the fourth stage

Out of the 40 respondents 30 of them are Obsessed towards the "X" Soft Drink

Weights / Points are given for each level and the total points obtained for each level is found out.

POINTS ASSUMED ARE GIVEN BELOW

Awareness level - 0.25 points, Acceptance level - 0.50 points, Preference level -0.60 points, Loyalty level - 0.75 points, Obsession level - 1.00 points

Table given

Level Number weightage points maximum total
Of customers points obtained total possible

Awareness 80 0.25 20.00 25.00
Acceptance 60 0.50 30.00 50.00
Preference 50 0.60 30.00 60.00
Loyalty 40 0.75 30.00 75.00
Obsession 30 1.00 30.00 100.00

TOTAL 140.00 310.00

Brand Equity of the Soft Drink " X " is 140 / 310 = 47%

Higher the points obtained by the Brand will show higher Brand Equity of the Brand

Thus from knowing the Brand Equity level the Manager can know the effectiveness of the strategy that he has adopted in creating and building the Brand Image

The above mentioned research analysis will help the company in finding out the stages in which the company has to concentrate to work towards converting all the consumers into obsession customers of its Brand

CONCLUSION

The Brand Equity is considered as an intangible asset / goodwill asset of the company. In the same way the Company Image Equity could also be found out. In the SWOT analysis study of the company it can also incorporate the finings on Brand Equity and Image Equity to facilitate the stake holders to know where their company is heading towards the Mission statement