Developing a promotion as a brand can provide a powerful tool for building additional brand awareness and positive associations. An excellent method to achieve this is through linking the promotion to the actual brand.
For example, consider a promotion to win a trip to Disney World for a product with no link to Disney World or travel. The contest participants will most likely forget except the actual product associated with the prize. Compare this with a company’s Brand promotion that builds directly on the associations of the product thus enhancing the power of the brand. A promotion such as this affects non- participants as well as those involved, creating a platform to be built on each year.
Building Brand Equity –
Brand = Product+/- Service+/- Adv.
Brand equity, also called an intangible asset, customer goodwill or unbridled loyalty and beliefs of customers, is gaining increasing importance all over the world and in the Indian boardrooms in particular. From the business and the marketing point of view Equity is the assured inflow of cash in the future based on the past investments made into the brands. Some time brands take decades to build up the image or the familiarity in the minds of the consumers. The formula Product + Services + communicate ion (advertising and all other promotional tools) = Brand has proved successful over the years.
Dominic Cadbury’s Views on Brand Life
According to the head of the world’s most brand rich company, in his own words “I think that the brands don’t have life cycle unless you choose to give them a life cycle. We look at our brands that are going to have a long term life, long-term growth. However, we recognize that when brands are not successful, and start to decline, if, after full support in the market place we don’t believe there is long term future for them, of course we are prepared to kill them off.”
Brands Built over a Period Brand building process takes place over time & is a continuous process. If the product idea has an intrinsic USP, establishing a brand is much easier.
Brand extensions help to reinforce or augment values of brand. Extensions could help to bring new value to a brand that can sustain it longer and give it a new lease of life. Extensions, properly managed, can play the role of an heir and get bequeathed the parent’s values, so that the brands continue to group. Lux, Surf, Rin and a host of other brands confirm this.
