Types of brands

Types of Brands

Differentiating features of brands

How purchased/used/experienced.

cg products are traditionally dependent on wide distribution networks. However, through the use of e-commerce many have started to sell direct to consumers.

Frequency of purchase/use/experience.

cg products are bought much more frequently, as the name suggests, than big ticket items.

Differentiating features of brands Amount of thought/research/comparison typically

undertaken prior to purchase/experience.

The consumer decision process will vary according to how much risk they perceive in buying a product or service – the risk will depend on price, quality variance, trust in the brand and other factors.

Degree of customization available.

The intangibility of services makes them much more suited to customization than cg products, which offer a wide variety but little customization.

All brands have one goal

– to enhance their perceived value.

Different types of brands Product Brands Service Brands

E-brands Media Brands

Not-for-profit Brands Nation Brands

Government Brands Global Brands

Organization Brands

Product brands: FMCGCharacteristics: Cost Inexpensive. Balance of product to service

Almost exclusively tangible product, although service component can be present (eg, customer-care lines).

How purchasedMainly through conventional fmcg distribution

networks – supermarkets, other shops, vending machines, relatively large volume outlets.

Product brands (FMCG: cont.) Frequency of purchase : Frequent. Degree of research/thought/search prior to

purchase

Typically none, the brand is part of the consumer repertoire, likely to be habitual.

Degree of customisation

Very little. Often wide range of variants but no real customisation for individual customers.

Product brands (Big Ticket Items)

Characteristics: Cost Expensive. Balance of product to service

Service is likely to take on a more important role, before, during and after purchase.

Product brands (Big Ticket Items) How purchased

Traditionally through specialised outlets(luxury = high status outlets) but increasingly more widely distributed. Frequency of purchase Infrequent.

Degree of research on purchase A great deal of thought, research and comparison

goes into the decision, although with luxury goods, investment is more

emotional than financial. Degree of customization Can be considerable.

Service brands Service brands are characterized by the need to

maintain a consistently high level o service delivery throughout hundreds, or even thousands of staff. Although a product component may be involved, it is essentially the service that is the brand.

These are more complex than product brands for two reasons:

because it is always harder to brand something you can’t touch

because they are delivered directly by employees.

Service BrandsCharacteristics: Intangibility

Service brands can seldom be tried out in advance, which requires the establishment of a greater degree of trust.

Inseparability of production and consumption

Services cannot generally be stockpiled in advance but are produced and consumed in real time.

Inconsistency

Since humans are usually instrumental in delivering services.

Different categories of service brands: Classic service brands eg, airlines, hotels, car rentals and banks. Pure service providers eg, member associations Professional Service Brands

eg, advisors of all kinds – accountancy, management consultancy. Agents eg, travel agents and estate agents.

(This category of a brand has become endangered by the rise of the Internet.)

Retail brands eg, supermarkets, fashion stores and restaurants. Retail Brands are complex and multifaceted. Consumers have a much more involved and interactive experience

with retail brands. The meanings of retail brands are more heavily derived from consumer’s direct experience rather than from

advertising.

Brands from other spheres E-brands

The Internet is a medium that presents new challenges for brand owners, but the underlying principles of branding are unchanged.

The Internet is developing a more direct style of relationships between customers and brand owners, and all those interactions

give an opportunity for strengthening the brand identity.

A distinction needs to be made between ‘e-tailers’,- e-brands’ primary activity is to deliver physical products like

Amazon.com- e-brands focus on delivering a service or experience, like GTA.com

In both cases, however, it is the intangibles, the brand values that will attract online customers.

Media brands

eg, newspapers, magazines, television channels. Not-for-profit organization brands

Non-profits are often at a disadvantage when it comes to branding.

they don’t have the deep pockets of corporations who can afford to hire brand specialists

they don’t have staff whose job it is to protect the integrity of the brand, and promote it at every turn.

But successful branding can have a great effect on raising awareness of the charity and its mission, and on fund-raising

Nation brands New ways of thinking lead to countries being positioned

as tourist destinations, enhancing status of goods and services produced, and aiding under-developed countries.

Government brands Governments and political parties often have strong

brands as they are centerd on passionately held core values, Branding is important in both securing votes and in international diplomacy.

Global brands Companies have been marketing their products and

brands in different countries for decades. However they were almost always marketed according to local conditions.

Features of Global Brands[Quelch, 1999]

Strong in home market – cash flow generated from domestic market enables the company to fund a global roll-out

At least minimum level of awareness, recognition and sales all over the world

The products meet the same human needs world-wide, even though the physical product may be adapted locally (eg, McDonald’s).

Consistent positioning Consumers value the provenance of the brand, its country of

origin, and even associate the country’s expertise with specific products (eg, German cars, American jeans).

Focus on a specific product category Use single corporate brand name.

Act local, think global

“While there are global brands that have aglobal presence, they don’t have global

consumers. The brand’s core values can beglobal, although the brand needs to have local

relevance. To bring it to life you need to beflexible and re-enact the brand as appropriate.

It is the think global, act local strategy.”

[Gavin Emsden, Nestle UK’s head of consumerinsight and planning for beverages]

The decision whether to standardize or localize?Several other factors may affect the decision:

>regulatory environments vary from country to country, especially in pharmaceuticals, financial services and utilities.

>the Internet allows adoption of a standardized global strategy without investing in distribution systems in each country.

>the threat of parallel imports from low-price to high-price countries.

Organization brands What is an organization brand?

It is neither a product/service nor a corporate brand, it is wider than both.

- It relates to all stakeholders and in many cases is rarely advertised.

The organization brand represents the impression that people inside and outside the organization have.