You are on page 1of 94

A Project Report On

BRANDING

Submitted to fulfillment partial requirement for Master of Business Administration(Batch 2009-2011)

Guide: Prof. Poonam Arora

Prepared by: Name: Chandra Mohan Singh Rana Registration No: Specialization: Marketing

Submitted To Institute Of Business Management & Research Near Asia School, Drive-in Road, Ahmedabad-380054

Centre for Participatory and Online Programmes Bharathiar University, Coimbatore-641 046, Tamilnadu

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this project work titled Market Research on Branding is a record of original work done by me under the guidance of Prof. Poonam Arora and this project work has not formed the basis for the award of any Degree/Diploma/Associate ship/Fellowship or similar title to any candidate of any University.

Dated:

Signature of the candidate Name: Chandra Mohan Singh Rana Registration No: Specialization: Marketing

Countersigned by:

Signature of the Guide:

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the project work entitled BRANDING submitted to Bharathiar University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Master of Business Administration in Marketing is a record of the original work done by Chandra Mohan Singh Rana under my supervision and guidance and this project work has not formed the basis for the award of any Degree/ Diploma/ Associate ship/Fellowship or similar title to any candidate of any University.

Date: Place: Ahmedabad

Signature of the Guide Name and Designation

Forwarded by

Prof. Poonam Arora

Dr. R. K.Balyan Director & dean IBMR Business School, Ahmedabad-380054

Submitted for University Examination held on...........

Internal Examiner

External Examiner

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It has been a great pleasure for me to work on this project. Our hard work never shines if we do not convey our heartfelt gratitude to those people from whom we have got encouragement during this project. considerable support and

We present our sincere thanks to Prof. Poonam Arora for giving us an opportunity to work on this project whereby we were given an exposure to study of Branding, which helped me to increase the span of my knowledge and developed my thinking on more practical lines.

On a personal note we would like to thank our family members for all their help and moral support they provided during our project. We are also thankful to all those friends and respondents who gave their valuable insights in making our project a successful one. We learnt a lot and this will help us out in the coming days.

We are also thankful to all those great minds who worked on the topics related to the title of this project. Their hard-work is very helpful to understand the typical variable worked in the Branding of a product. And, at last we only want to mention that we have searched for better ways to do the things and we hope for the best.

Chandra Mohan Rana

Dated:

BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE

Certified that this project report titled BRANDING is the bonafide work of Chandra Mohan Singh Rana who carried out the project work under my supervision.

SIGNATURE

SIGNATURE

HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT Prof. B.N. Mehta Academic Director IBMR Ahmedabad

FACULTY IN CHARGE Prof. Poonam Arora Faculty In charge IBMR Ahmedabad

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Brands are among a companys most valuable assets, and smart companies today realize that capitalizing on their brands is important. Doing so can help them achieve growth objectives more quickly and more profitably. To guide me through the process of research, I have reflected my logical and sequential research steps in a conceptual model of research. This conceptual model starts with studying of scient ific theories and concepts of branding to create a common understanding of corporate branding and all facets of branding in particular. I have added a survey with people and case studies to strengthen the literature study with real world

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
The term brand means different things to the different roles of buyer and seller, with buyers generally associating brand with a product or service, and merchants associating brand with identity. Brand can also identify the company behind the specific product -- that's not just a biscuit, that's Britannia biscuit. This use of brand puts a "face" behind the name, so to speak, even if the "face" is the result of advertising copy and television commercials. This use of brand also says nothing of quality, just the buyer's exposure to the brand's PR and media hype. For the typical merchant, branding is a way of taking everything that is good about the company -positive shopping experience,

professionalism, superior service, product knowledge, whatever the company decides is important for a customer to believe about the company -- and wrapping these characteristics into a package that can be evoked by the brand as signifier. The American Marketing Association defines a brand as A name, term, sign, symbol or design or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group and to differentiate them to those for competitors. A brand is thus a product or service thats adds a Dimension that differentiates it in some way from other products or services designed to satisfy the same need. These differences may be functional, rational, or tangible- relate to product performance of the brand. Branding has been around for centuries as a means to distinguish the goods of one producer to those of another. The earliest signs of branding can be traced to Europe where the medieval guilds required that craftsmen put trademarks on their product to protect themselves and producer against inferior quality substitutes. Also in fine arts branding began with artists signing their works.

Brands identify the source or maker of the product and allow consumers-either individual or organizations- to assign responsibility to a particular manufacturer or distributor. Consumers may evaluate the identical product differently depending how it is branded. Consumers lean about the brand with its past experience and the marketing program. As consumers lives becomes more complicated, time starved the ability of brand to simplify decision making is invaluable. Brands also perform valuable functions for the firm. First they simplify the product handling and tracing. Brands help to organize inventory and accounting records. The brand name can be protected registered trademarks. The intellectual property rights ensure that the firm can safely invest in the brand and can reap the benefits over a long period of time.

Brands can signal a certain level of quality so that satisfied buyers can easily choose the product again. Brand loyalty provides predictability and security of demand for the firm and creates barriers to entry that makes it difficult for other firms to enter the market. This brand loyalty can translate into willingness to pay higher price. In this sense branding can be seen as powerful means to secure a competitive advantage. Brands represent enormously valuable pieces of legal property that can influence consumers behavior. Strong brand results in better earnings and profit performance for firms, which in turn, creates greater value for shareholders.

How do you BRAND a product? Although firms provide the impetus to brand creation through marketing programs and other activities, ultimately a brand is something that resides in the mind of the consumers. A brand is a perpetual identity that is rooted in reality but reflects the perceptions and perhaps even the ultimate choice of the consumers. Branding is endowing products and services with the power of brands. To brand a product, it is necessary to teach the consumers who the product-by giving a name. Branding involves creating mental structures and helping consumers organize their knowledge about products and services in a way that clarifies their decision making and in process provides value to the firm.

Branding can be applied virtually anywhere a consumer has a choice. It is possible to brand: y y y y y y A physical good (Nestle soup, Pantene shampoo or Maruti Swift), A service (Kingfisher Airlines, TATA AIG medical insurance), A store (Big Bazaar, BATA stores), A place (The state of Kerala, Pushkar Mela), A person (Shahrukh Khan, Sachin Tendulkar), An organization (UNICEF or BCCI),

Brand is the proprietary visual, emotional, rational, and cultural image that you associate with the company or a product. When you think of Volvo, you think of safety. When you think of Nike, you think of Michael Jordon or Just Do It. When you think of IBM, you think of Big Blue. The fact that you remember the brand name and have positive associations with that brand makes your product selection easier and enhances the value and satisfaction you get from product.

While Brand X cola or even Pepsi-Cola may win blind taste tests over Coca-Cola, the fact is that more people buy Coke than any other Cola. The fond memories of childhood and refreshment that people have when they drink Coke is often more important than a little bit better cola taste. It I this emotional relationship with brands that make them so powerful.

Purpose of Branding

The purpose of branding is to create a powerful and lasting emotional connection with customers and other audiences. A brand is a set of elements or brand assets that in combination create a unique, memorable, unmistakable, and valuable relationship between an organization and its customers. The brand is carried by a set of compelling visual, written and vocal tools to represent the business plan and intentions of an organization.

Branding is the voice and image that represents your business plan to the outside world. What your company, products and services stand for should all be captured in your branding strategy, and represented consistently throughout all your brand assets and in your daily marketing activities

The brand image that carries this emotional connection consists of the many manageable elements of branding system, including both visual image assets and language assets. The process of managing the brand to the business plan is important not only in big change situation where the brand redefinition is required, but also in the management of routine marketing variables and tactics. This does not have to be a ground-up situation where there are wholesale changes to the business. Rather it is more common that specific changes to the changes to the business plan are incremental and the work of the brand strategist and designer is to interpret these changes and revise the branding strategy and resulting brand assets and define their use in the full range of marketing variables.

Brand Identity

Brand Identity includes brand names, logos, positioning, brand associations, and brand personality, brand toons etc. A good brand name gives a good first impression and evokes positive associations with the brand. A positioning statement tells what business the company is in, what benefits it provides and why it is better than the completion? Brand personality adds emotion, culture and myth to brand identity by the use of a famous spokesperson (Bill Cosby-Jello), a character (Pink Panther), an animal (the Merrill lynch bull) etc.

Brand associations are the attributes that costumer thinks of when they hear or see the brand name. McDonalds television are a series of one brand association after another, starting in yellow arches in the low right corner of the screen and following with associations of Big Mac, Ronald MacDonald, kids, happy meal, food quality etc. The first step in creating a brand for your company is branding workshop. How do we determine our Brand Identity? Brand has been called the most powerful idea in commercial world, yet few companies create a brand identity. Do you want your companys brand identity created for you by competitors and unhappy customers? Of course not. Our advice to executives is to research their customers and find the top ranked reasons that the customers buy their product rather than their competitors. Then, pound that message in every ad, in every news release, in communications with employees and in every sales call or media interview. By continuous repetition of messages customer will think of your product and then buy it.

Tools for Building Brand Identity


Brand builders use a set of tools to strengthen and project the brand image; Strong brands typically exhibit an owned word, a slogan, a color, a symbol, and set of stories.
Owned Word

Company V o l vo BMW Mercedes Fe der a l E xp r e s s App le Lot us Ko d a k

W o rd S a f e t y Dr iv ing p e r fo r m a n c e E n g i n e e r i n g O ve r n i g ht Grap h ic s S p r e a d s h e e t s F ilm

A strong brand name should trigger another word, a favorable one. Here is

the list of brands that own a word.

Slogan
Many companies successfully added a slogan or tagline to their brand name which is repeated in every ad they use. Here are some wellknown brands slogans, which people on the street may easily recall or recognize:

COMPANY British Airways Ford LIC

SLOGAN The worlds favorite airline Quality is our number one job Jeevan ke saath bhi jeevan ke baad bhi

Colors It helps for a company or a brand to use a consistent set of color to and in the brand recognition. Caterpillar paints all its construction equipments yellow. Yellow is the color of Kodak film. IBM uses blue in its publications, and IBM is called Big Blues.

Symbols and Logos Companies would be wise to adapt a symbol or logo to use in their communications. Many companies hire a well-known spokesperson, hoping that his or her quality transfer to the brand. Nike uses Michael Jordon who has worldwide recognition and likableness, to advertise its shoes. Sporting goods manufacturers sign contracts with top athletes to serve as their symbols, even naming the product after them.

Cartoons and Animations A less expensive approach is to develop a character, animated, to etch the brands image into customers mind. The advertising agency Leo Burnett has successfully created a number of memorable animated characters. Here are some well known brand cartoons which people may recognize:

Company

Cartoon Animation

ICICI Prudential Amul Butter McDonalds Pillsbury 7 Up

Chintamani UtterlyButterlyGirl Ronald Doughboy Fido Dido

Objects Still another approach is to choose an object to represent a company or brand. The travelers insurance company uses an umbrella, suggesting that buying insurance is equivalent to having an umbrella available when it rains. The prudential insurance company features the rock of Gibraltar, suggesting that buying an insurance is equivalent to owing a peace of rock which is of course, solid ad dependable. Companies have developed many logos or abstracts, which are easily remembered

by people. Even the way the brand name is written makes a brand recognizable and memorable. Brand Effectiveness With an increase in global competition, branding has become a source of competitive advantage. In rapidly evolving market for consumer, and industrial products and services, the source of next generation competency will be branding. In this briefing we demonstrate how to calculate the brand strength, the price premium associated with the products categories, and type of customers attracted to the Premium Products. Marketers who match their brand with customers needs will have a sustainable competitive advantage.

Measuring Brand Effectiveness There are many metrics to measure the potential of and actual effectiveness of brands. The simplest way is to apply the concept of what we call the 4 Ds of Branding; differentiation, distinctiveness, defendable, digit-able.

Distinctiveness: your brand should be distinct when compared to your competitors and to all spoken and visual communications to which your target audiences will be exposed. The more unique and distinct your communications, the wider the filed of effective competitive strength it will have. There are simple means to apply to test the distinctiveness of your brand.

Differentiation: the brand strategy and brand assets must set youre offering apart and clearly articulate the specific positioning intent of your offering.

Defendable: you will be investing in creating your brand assets and in all cases your brand must have proprietary strength to keep others from using close approximations. This applies to your trade names and other proprietary words as well as to your logos, symbols and other visual assets.

Digit-able: in most businesses there is strong and growing element of electronic communications and commerce that dictate all brand assets be leveraged effectively in tactile and electronics form. This goes for all brand assets.

Much of the brand managers work is to build a brand image. But its job doesnt stop there. The brand manager needs to make sure that brand experience matches the brand image. Much can go wrong. A fine brand of canned soup described in a full page color ad may be found in dented and dusty condition in the bottom shelf of a supermarket. The ad describing a gracious hotel chain is belied by the behavior of a surly concierge.

Building brand therefore calls for more than brand image building. It calls for managing every brand contact that customer might have with brand. Since all the employees, distributors and dealers can affect brand experience.

Brand and Reputation A brand exists in the mind, or not at all. The mind it exists in may be that of a customer, a potential customer, an interested observer, a disinterested observer... or almost anybody.

Awareness of a brand may be irrelevant to any purchasing decision that an individual may make. People are aware of the Mercedes car brand, but cannot envisage any circumstance under which they would (could!) buy a Mercedes. They are aware of Marlboro (and scores of other cigarette brands) but as a non-smoker they will never convert their awareness into purchase. Male with no children are not targeted by Pampers or Huggies but still are aware of the brands.

People wear many hats. But are or not a potential customer. People may be an employee, an investor, a citizen, a husband and so on. They hate McDonalds hamburgers but might love their stock market record and therefore be a potential customer for their stock. They will never buy a Boeing 777 but might be impressed by the aircraft and favor an airline that flies them. They have no idea what an Intel chip is, but might be persuaded that it is a good thing to have in my PC and therefore buy a computer from a company that uses them.

Brand Aware argues that there is no difference between "Brand" and "Reputation". Some conventional wisdoms state that customers buy brands, but that investors buy reputations. Those potential employees join companies because of their reputation, that the media and other "stakeholders" judge a company on its reputation in some way as a distinct concept from its brand. This part argues that such distinctions

are fallacious for all companies, but especially for single brand companies such as a McDonalds, a Coca-Cola, a Compaq or a Shell. These companies reputations are part and parcel of their brand. Their brands are their reputation.

The Brand To any individual a brand (in his mind) is a complex combination of experiences, beliefs, perceptions and associations that have grown up over time. For example Coca-Cola is a company brand, a product brand, a service brand and a brand with a long history. It is a brand which may represent (to any one individual) diversity, internationality, technical excellence, financial strength etc. etc. It may also mean insensitivity, environmental pollution, abuse of power and other negative perceptions.

Perceiving the brand: An individual builds up his perceptions of a brand via a wide range of communications channels. They are as follows:

Experience: The most powerful influence is experiential. This is when the individual actually has a "Brand experience". The most obvious are: -

 He visits a McDonalds restaurant or a Shell petrol station.  He buys a Coca-Cola branded product or service.  He views a Coca-Cola bottler's facility.  He visits a corporate website.  He attends an interview at the company.

 He contacts the company office for information.  He meets an employee of the company.  He buys a share in the company, etc.

Advertising: Over time an individual who lives in a country in which the company/brand is active, or travels to one on business or vacation, will be exposed to their advertising. This advertising may be in a wide range of media:

 TV commercials for products and services  Recruitment ads inviting employment applications  "Corporate" TV commercials promoting the company's "reputation"  Web based advertising  An ad for the companys branded products or services in a wide variety of print media.  Billboards on highways  Radio  Point of sale etc. y Media reports and stories: Individuals will be exposed to a wide variety of reports about companies in the media (print and broadcast) where the editorial content is only partly influence able by the company (in some cases) or not at all (in most cases). These stories will come from a variety of primary and secondary sources:  Press releases  Press conferences  Reporting of "events"  Investigative journalism  Stories passed to the media by third parties (Non governmental organizations etc.)

Professional/business interest: For some individuals to interface professionally, or from a specific business need, with famous companies (or to observe them) is part of their job. They will usually procure their information from a variety of sources and via a variety of channels of communication. These individuals have a special interest in the companies and they include: -

 Financial analysts and journalists with an interest in share performance  Existing or potential suppliers of products and services  Existing or potential industrial/commercial customers 1.7 Building the Brand The art of marketing is largely art of brand building. When something is not a brand, it will probably be viewed as a commodity. Then price is the thing that counts. When price is the only thing that counts then the low cost producer wins. But just having a brand is not enough. What does the brand name mean? What associations, performances and expectations does it evoke? What degree of preferences does it create?

Choosing a Brand Name A brand name first must be chosen then its various meanings and promises must be built up through brand identity work. In choosing a brand name, it must be consistent with the value positioning of the brand. In naming a product or service the company may face many possibilities: it could choose name of the person (Honda, Calvin Klein), location (American airlines), quality (Safety stores, Healthy choice), or an artificial name (Exxon, Kodak). Among the desirable qualities of a brand name. Some are: y y It should suggest something about the product benefits. It should suggest product qualities such action or color

It should be easy to pronounce, recognize and remember; short names help a lot to recognize the product to the customers.

y y

It should be distinctive. It should not carry poor meanings in other countries and languages etc.

Building Positive Associations The best known brand names carry associations. For example, here is a list of words that people say they associate with McDonalds: y y y y y y Kids Fun Happy Meal Ronald Mc. Donald Quality Toys In trying to build a rich set of positive associations for a brand, the brand builder should consider five dimensions that can communicate meaning:

Attributes: A strong brand should trigger in buyers mind certain attributes. Thus a Mercedes automobile attributes a picture of wellengineered car that is durable, rugged and expensive. If a car brand does not trigger any attribute, then it would be a weak brand.

Benefits: A strong brand should suggest benefits, not just features. Thus Mercedes triggers the idea of well performing car that is enjoyable to drive and prestigious to own.

Company Values: A strong brand should connote values that the company holds. Thus Mercedes is proud of its engineers and engineering innovations and is very organized and efficient in its operations. The fact that it is a German company adds more pictures in the mind of the buyers about the character and the culture of the brand.

Personality: A strong brand should exhibit some personality traits. Thus if Mercedes were a person we would think of someone who is middle age, serious, well-organized and somewhat authoritarian. If Mercedes were an animal we might think of lion or its implied personality.

Users: A strong brand should suggest the type of people who buy the brand. Thus we would expect Mercedes to draw buyers who are older, affluent and professional.

In summary, brands when their very name connotes positive attributes, benefits, company values, personality and users in the buyers mind. The brand builders job is to create a brand identity that builds on those dimensions.

Choosing Brand Elements Brand elements are those trademarks devices that serve to identify and differentiate the brand. Most strong brands employ multiple brand elements. Nike has distinctive swoosh logo, the empowering Just

Do It slogan and the mythological Nike name based on the winged goddess of victory.

Brand element can be chosen to build as much as brand equity as possible. The test of the brand building ability of these elements is what consumers think or feel about the product if they only knew about the brand element. A brand element provides positive contribution to brand equity.

Brand Element Choice Criteria There are six criteria in choosing brand element. The first three can be characterized by brand building in terms of how brand equity can be build through judicious choice of brand element. The latter three are more defensive and are concerned with how the brand equity contained in the brand element can be leveraged and preserved in the face of various opportunities and constraints.

Memorable: How easily is the brand element recalled? How easily recognized? Is this true at both purchase and consumption? Short brand name like tide, Nike can help.

Meaningful: To what extent is brand element credible and suggestive of the corresponding category? Does it suggest something about a product ingredient or a type of person who might use the brand?

Likeability: How aesthetically appealing does consumers find the brand element? Is it inherently likeable visually, verbally, and in other

ways? Concrete brand names such as Wheel, Sunsilk etc evoke much imagery.

Transferable: Can a brand element be used to introduce new products in the same or different categories? To what extent does the brand element add to brand equity across geographic boundaries and market segments?

Adaptable: How adaptable and updatable is the brand element? Betty corker received 8 makeovers through the years-although she is 75 yrs old, she doesnt look a day over 35.

Protectable: How legally protectable is the brand element? How competitively protectable? Can it be easily copied? It is important that names that become synonymous with product categories such as Kleenex, Xerox, Jell-O, etc retain their trademarks rights and not become generic.

Brand elements can play a number of roles. If consumers do not examine much information in making their product decisions, brand elements should be easily recognized and recalled and inherently descriptive and persuasive. Memorable or meaningful brand elements can reduce the burden on marketing communications to build awareness and link brand associations. The different associations that arise from likeability and appeal of the brand elements may also play a critical role in the equity of brand.

What is Brand Equity?

There is no universally accepted definition of brand equity. The term means different things for different companies and products. However, there are several common characteristics of the many definitions that are used today. From the following examples it is clear that brand equity is multi-dimensional. There are several stakeholders concerned with brand equity, including the firm, the consumer, the channel, and some would even argue the financial markets. But ultimately, it is the consumer that is the most critical component in defining brand equity. Some researchers in the field of marketing have defined brand equity as follows:

Lance Leuthesser, et al (1995) writes that " brand equity represents the value (to a consumer) of a product, above that which would result for an otherwise identical product without the brand's name. In other words, brand equity represents the degree to which a brand's name alone contributes value to the offering (again, from the perspective of the consumer)."

The Marketing Science Institute (1988) defines brand equity as, "The set of associations and behaviors on the part of the brand's customers, channel members, and parent corporations that permit the brand to earn greater volume or greater margins than it could without the brand name and that gives the brand a strong, sustainable, and differentiated advantage over competitors."

Brand equity can be defined as three distinct elements:


y The total value of a brand as a separable asset -- when it is sold or included on a balance sheet. y y A measure of the strength of consumers' attachment to a brand. A description of the associations and beliefs the consumer has about the brand.

Of those three concepts, the first can be classified as "brand valuation," the second "brand loyalty," and the third "brand description." Brand loyalty will be a factor that affects the overall brand value, and brand description will usually affect or explain some of the brand loyalty. Because of the importance of each of these elements of brand equity, they will each be briefly explained.

Brand Equity as Brand Value.


Brand value involves actually placing a dollar or rupee value on a brand name. The reasons for doing this are usually to set a price when the brand is sold and also to include the brand as an intangible asset on a balance sheet (a practice which is not used in some countries). While there are many methods for making this measurement, some of which will be described shortly, it is important to note that there is a significant difference between an "objective" valuation created for balance sheet purposes, and the actual price that a brand may get when sold?

A brand is likely to have a much greater value to one purchaser than another depending on the synergy that exists. For acquisitions, the value of a brand to a certain purchaser is often estimated through scenario planning. This involves determining what future cash flows the company could achieve if it owned and took advantage of the brand.

What this means is that there is no such thing as an absolute value for a brand, and brand value needs to be considered as only one component of the overall equity of a brand.

Brand Equity as Brand Loyalty Loyalty is a core dimension of brand equity and is a way to gauge the strength of a brand. It represents a barrier to entry, a basis for a price premium, and time to respond to competitive innovations. The variety of measures used for brand loyalty usually is a combination of one or more of the following:

Price/demand measures--focus on a brand's ability to command a higher price or make consumers less sensitive to price increases than price increases for competing brands.

Behavioral measures--focus on consumers' behavior.

Attitudinal measures--focus on general evaluative measures such as 'liking' or 'disliking.'

Awareness measures--focus on identifying a brand as being associated with a product category.

Brand Loyalty and Equity refer to the notion that some brands are "stronger" or better than others.

An example of this sort of belief is:


If the businesses were split up, I would take the brands, trademarks and goodwill, and you could have all the bricks and mortar - and I would fare better than you. The optimism for the concept can be stated on the fact that when one would say as a predictor of future financial performance, brand equity, if reported, would be valuable for capital marketers and shareholders. Brand equity has the potential to become the set of measures of business performance that matter most. The motivation for brand equity comes from the observation that many marketing efforts "realize" benefits; such as sales or profit and these are accounted for in the firms profit and loss figures. However, there is the possibility that management might choose between taking realized benefits and "storing" them future. One of the most common times this argument is used is when discussing the role of advertising versus sales promotion. You could spend lots of money on advertising, see no immediate effects, but you could save your job by saying that you had "built the brand". At least one advertising agency offers to partner companies in this sort of activity.

So marketing strategies could be putting money into (or out of) the brand equity bank account. But the question is as always how do we know? That is are we actually building the brand with all our advertising (or other brand building 4 ps decisions e.g., limited / premium distribution rights, high price, fancy packing, after sales service, extended warranties).So, hopefully you have got the idea theories about brand loyalty and equity are used to represent aspects of brand strength.

This "strength" can take a number of forms, e.g., consumers predominantly buying your brand, which might be represented by a high share of category requirements, or high proportion of sole-buyers.

Consumers saying good things about your brand, e.g., having a positive brand Attitude, it might be the ability to charge a price premium. It might be the ability to not be substituted when out of stock. Future strength might be in terms of some sort of long-term competitive advantage or the ability to sustain brand extensions.

One of the things is that as with many concepts in marketing, is that there are many different definitions and viewpoints on what exactly brand equity is and how to measure it. So that is a problem. We need to be clear just what people mean when they talk about brand equity or brand loyalty, or building brands.

Brand loyalty / Equity advocates


One of the ruses used by proponents of brand equity or loyalty is to claim that these measures do not capture all the important aspects of brands strength. But this is an evasion. We want to be able to detect that our efforts are doing something to the brand, and so we need to know ways that this might show up in.

Brand Equity as Brand Description


Brand description, the final component of brand equity, concerns the actual attributes of the brand. These attributes or associations are major creators of brand loyalty. A wide variety of techniques exist for matching consumer associations with perceptions of a brand. These techniques can be both qualitative and quantitative. They work by getting the respondent to link each brand with pictures or words. These attributes then can be measured with multi-dimensional scaling to position the attributes relative to one another.

Qualitative Measures of Brand Equity

The Brand Equity Ten are ten sets of measures grouped into five categories, which attempt to gauge the strength of a brand. The first four categories represent customer perceptions of the brand along the four dimensions of brand equity- loyalty, perceived quality, associations and awareness. The fifth includes two sets of market behavior measures.

y Loyalty
Price Premium: A basic indicator of loyalty is the amount a customer will pay for a product in comparison to other comparable products. A price premium can be determined by simply asking consumers how much more they would be willing to pay for the brand.

Customer Satisfaction: A direct measure of customer satisfaction can be applied to existing customers. The focus can be the last use experience or simply the use experience from the customer's view.

y Perceived Quality and Leadership Measures


Perceived Quality is one of the key dimensions of brand equity and has been shown to be associated with price premiums, price elasticities, brand usage and stock return. It can be calculated by asking consumers to directly compare similar brands.

Leadership/Popularity has three dimensions. First, if enough consumers are buying into the brand concept it must have merit. Second, leadership often taps innovation within a product class. Third, leadership taps the dynamics of consumer acceptance. Namely, people are uneasy swimming against the tide are a likely to buy a popular product. This can be measured by asking consumers about the product's leadership position, its popularity and its innovative qualities.

y Associations/ Differentiation Measures


Perceived Value: This dimension simply involves determining whether the product provides good value for the money and whether there are reasons to buy this brand over competitive brands. Brand Personality: This element is based on the brand-as-person perspective. For some brands, the brand personality can provide links to the brands emotional and self-expressive benefits. Organizational Associations: This dimension considers the type of organization that lies behind the brand.

y Awareness Measures
Brand awareness reflects the salience of the product in the consumer's mind and involves various levels including recognition, recall, brand dominance, and brand knowledge and brand opinion.

y Market Behavior Measures


Market Share: The performance of a brand as measured by market share often provides a valid and dynamic reflection of the brand's standing with customers. Price and Distribution indices: Market share can prove deceptive when it increases as a result of reduced prices or promotions. Calculating market price and distribution coverage can provide or more accurate picture of the product's true strength. Relative market price can be calculated by dividing the average price at which the product was sold during the month by the average price at which all the brands were sold.

Managing Brand Equity Consistency is the key to successfully building and managing brand equity. Having a long-term outlook and projecting a consistent image of your brand to the customer will maximize the results of building brand equity. It is critical for managers to realize that brand equity can have positive as well as negative effects on a product or company. In the end, it is the customer that truly defines what brand equity means. If management feels it is necessary to change the direction of a brand or change a product it must be careful not to change too quickly. There are many examples of companies that have changed a product or brand too much or too quickly. On these occasions, consumers met changes with adverse reactions. The most famous example is Coca-Cola. They changed the formula of their flagship product Coke, and consumers reacted so poorly to the new product that the old formula was reintroduced and the new formula eventually was discontinued. The consumer through the product experiences brand equity. The product has certain attributes or characteristics that deliver the equity to the consumer. If any of these attributes are changed or eliminated, the equity delivered to the consumer is also changed. Managing brand equity is a continual process with long-term implications. Unfortunately, many brand managers are forced to focus on short-term goals such as market share and profits. Many programs that are implemented to boost short-term sales or market share may be detrimental to the long-term viability of the brand. For example, Proctor & Gamble has started to test market a program to move away from using coupons to a system of every day low prices. This is, in part, because consumers may become loyal to the coupon or promotion and not to the product itself. Constant promotional programs erode margins and eventually brand loyalty. Ultimately, brand equity is damaged.

In 1988, Graham Phillips, Chairman of Ogilvy and Mather Worldwide, said, "I doubt that many would welcome a commodity marketplace in which one competed solely on price, promotion and trade deals, all of which can be easily duplicated by competition. This would lead to ever decreasing profits, decay, and eventual bankruptcy. About the only aspect of the marketing mix that cannot be duplicated is a strong brand image." This quote clearly demonstrates the importance of managing brand equity. In many categories, brand equity is the only point of differentiation between products.

Many people may think that building and maintaining brand equity is solely the responsibility of brand managers, but it is actually a crossfunctional team effort. Financial managers are important because they can fully analyze the costs of maintaining and building brand equity. For example, launching a new brand is extremely consuming in terms of money and time. It may be more cost effective to extend a current brand than introduce a new brand. Marketing research is critical for many obvious reasons. It develops most, if not all, of the research and data that companies will use for deciding strategic issues. Marketing research can also help determine how brand equity is actually measured. Once a definition of brand equity is established, the responsibility of tracking

The World Strongest Brand Share 10 Attributes


y y y y y y y The brand excels at delivering the benefits consumers truly desire. The brand stays relevant. The pricing strategy is based on consumer perceptions of value. The brand is properly positioned. The brand is consistent. The brand portfolio and hierarchy makes sense. The brand makes use of and co-ordinates a full repertoire of marketing activities to build equity. y y y The brand is given proper, sustained support. The brands manager understands what the brand means to customers. The company monitors source of brand equity.

Branding benefits buyers as well as sellers in the following manner

To Buyer: y y y y Help buyers identify the product that they like/dislike. Identify marketer Helps reduce the time needed for purchase. Helps buyers evaluate quality of products especially if unable to judge products characteristics. y y Helps reduce buyers perceived risk of purchase. Buyer may derive a psychological reward from owning the brand, i.e., Rolex or Mercedes.

To Seller: y y y Differentiate product offering from competitors Helps segment market by creating tailored images, i.e., Contact lenses Brand identifies the companies products making repeat purchases easier for customers. y y Reduce price comparisons Brand helps firm introduce a new product that carries the name of one or more of its existing products...half as much as using a new brand, lower co. designs, advertising and promotional costs. Example, BPL telephones. y y y
y

Easier cooperation with intermediaries with well known brands Facilitates promotional efforts. Helps foster brand loyalty helping to stabilize market share. Firms may be able to charge a premium for the brand.

TOON BRANDING

Toon Branding Looks like the ad industry cant have enough of animation. Digital characters are fast stepping into the realm of corporate brands. Hutchs Boy-Girl duo, the claymation Chintamani of ICICI, The toons in All Out Mosquito repellent ad, as well as the classic Asian paints ex-mascot Gattoo, the Amul girl, the Handiplast Boy, Fido-Dido of 7Up etc are some of the examples of the toons used for marketing the product. Most advisers are using animation for top of the mind recall says McCann Ericksons Prasoon Joshi. McCanns new commercial for Coca-Colas vanilla variant has the model blowing animated, heartshaped kisses for the audience. Toon illustrations create excitement, and also serve as a memory hook to pick a particular brand from clutter. Kelloggs animated kid and bear are intertwined in peoples minds. Nike also used swoosh logo sign to bring immediate recall value, while the Claymation characters Of Amaron, an O&M creative, pick on sleeping politicians to get their value across. O&Ms Piyush Pandey says his firm encourages the idea of breaking form. Creative people have to look at different ways to get message across, and if that means exploring other forms of art, then why not?

HLLs Annapoorna uses Flintstone like characters to drive its USP. Industry officials say animation could be used as creative idea to express a particular value, or it could be a sacrosanct image, almost becoming part of the logo of the brand like A-I am Maharaja or Amul Girl. As mnemonics flow thick and fast characters get established in the consumers mind. However at times they are given a hasty burial. Asian Paints Gattoo was the rage, but the kid was killed after he was linked to child labour. First it was retro advertising, and then there was the trend of using real kids. The ad worlds latest obsession is with animation. Be it Bollywood actress Mallika Sherawat asking Fido to make her more curvy or Aishwarya Rai diving into the sea with a Frisbee or, for that matter, an animated poodle talking to Rani Mukherjee and her gang of friends in the Fanta commercial- theyve all got the cool punch with animation. With a string of animated commercials such as Pepsodent (Bhoot Police). ICICI Prudentials Chintamani and Anand Rathi Securities happening in the past few months, companies across sectors are more willing than ever before to use animation in their ad films. The number of animation ad films produced per year in the past five years has increased at least eight times and feature films like Hum Tum (had cartoons of Saif Ali Khan And Rani Mukherjee coming in between the film)are backing the overall trend around animation.

We used to do three animation ad films a year five years ago, now its two every month, says, E.Suresh. Creative director. Famous House of Animation, a division of Famous Studios.

Animation is no kid stuff anymore. One sees a fair number of youth and adult targeted content happening in the form of animation in films and TV shows these days, says Rahul Welde, general manager, media. Hindustan Unilever Limited. Mr.Welde claims to have used animation where it could add to the creative quotient of the commercial which give something unexpected to the audience. Gross thinks at time look cute in animation rather than the real thing, say in case of a fat man, the Chintamani ad was initially a radio jingle. With Claymation (clay + animation), it broke the clutter and became likeable in a very non-financial advertising style, says Abhishekh Bhatia, director marketing, Prudential Assurance, Malaysia, who was then involved in launching the campaign from ICICI Prudential. The contribution to the sales of pension schemes of the group rose 30% after the campaign. The popularity of cartoons among youngsters- a gradual transformation over the past few years- Kill Bill, Lion King, Shrek, Run Lola Run, all of which have cutting edge animation. Moreover, most of the global award winning campaigns have used animation extensively, be it Euro RSCGs Waterboy, Grrr Honda, Unileaf Tea or Levis Mr.Lova Lova. However a real character interacting with an animated character is not a novelty. It is a style and a lot of people are catching on it but this is not the end of it, points Ashish Chakravarty, head creative, Contract Advertising. There are other viewpoints too. Its a nice way of doing a boring script. But there are scripts that needs animation to prove the point as in the case of Oye Bubbly (Pepsi Commercial) last year, says Anuja Chauhan, VP and Senior Creative Director at JWT.

Besides the advantage of visual appeal, many complex issues, such as stunts, can be done away with, with the use of animation- for instance the stunt in the Lux Commercial couldnt be done so perfectly by the real character (here Aishwarya Rai) vis--vis the animated character. Animation ad also helps keep costs down. Industry sources say a simple animation ad is less expensive than an ad with decent production quality that costs around Rs. 70-80 Lakh. Animated ones cost around Rs. 30-40lakh on an average.

However, what creative directors hate about animation is the fact that it takes a lot more time For A Fido itself, we need to work for three weeks to get it absolutely right, says Chauhan of JWT

SAMPLE OF QUESTIONNAIRE
SPECIAL FOCUS ON TOON BRANDING Q1. Indentify the following toon mascots and their products or either of the one:

____________________________________________

___________________________________________

____________________________________________

____________________________________________

_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________
1 page of questionnaire
st

Q2. Can you recognize a product on the basis of its brand mascot alone? Always Sometime Often Very Rare

Q3. Do you relate any product with toons? Always Sometime Often Very Rare

Q4. Do you think nowadays brand mascots are losing importance to brand personality? Yes No Dont Know

Q5. Which is your most memorable toon mascot? Amul Butter Girl Fido Dido Chintamani (ICICI) Any other __________________

Q6. Why do you think this brand mascot is the most memorable one? A6. _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________

2nd page of questionnaire Q7. If you are to launch a new product will you depend on a brand personality of a toon mascot to build the brand image of your product? Give reasons? A7. _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________

Q8. Toon Mascot is mare popular in the rural or urban areas? Give reasons? A8. _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ Q9. What features do you think a toon mascot should possess so as to remember over a long period of time? Cute Happy Face Suitable to the product Innovative Entertaining Any other _____________________ Q10. Would you like if toon mascots are also advertised through clothing, accessories, bags etc? Yes No Depends on the mascot Dont know

NAME: AGE: PROFESSION:

_____________________________ _____________________________ _____________________________

St a t i s ti c a l D a t a
Q1. Identi fy the fo llow ing toon ma scot s and thei r products or either of the one?

1 6

No. of toons correctly identified


5 20 4 25 3 15 2 0 1 0

No. of 40 respondents (out of 100)


% 40%

20%

25%

15%

I n t e r p re t a t i o n : O u t o f t h e 1 0 0 r e s p o nd e nt 4 0 w e r e a b l e t o i d e nt i f y a l l t he p r o d u c t s c o r r e c t l y o n t he ba s i s of it s toon ma s c o t a lo ne w hic h co me s up to

4 0 % . W he r e a s o n l y 1 5 % i. e . o n l y 1 5 p e r s o ns w e r e no t a b l e t o id e nt i f y a l l t he p r o d u c t s c o r r e c t l y. T h e mo s t i d e nt i f i e d ma sco t is 7up Fido -D ido whereas

mo n s t e r . c o m w a s t he l e a s t p o p u la r o n e .

Toons identified

6 toons 5 toons 4 toons 3 toons 2 toons 1 toon

Q2. Can you recognize a product on the basis of its brand mascot a lone?

Recognition of product on basis of brand mascot Always Sometime 55 Often 35 Very Rare 0

No. of 10 respondents (out of 100) % 10%

55%

35%

Interp retation: Of the 100 respondents 55 said, that they were sometimes able to recognize the product on the basis of Brand Mascot alone whi ch comes to around 55% of the total sample size. Whereas only 10% were always able to recogni ze the product on the basis of its brand mas cot.

Recognition of product

always sometimes often very rare

Q3. Do you relate any product with toons?

Ability of relating products with toons Always Sometime 40 Often 46 Very Rare 6

No. of respondents (out of 100) % 8%

40%

46%

6%

I n t e r p re t a t i o n : O u t o f 1 0 0 r e s p o nd e nt s 4 6 p e o p l e o ft e n r e l a t e d t he p r o d u c t s w it h t he i r t o o n m a s c o t s w h i c h c o me u p t o a r o u nd 4 6 % . W h e r e a s o n l y 6 % o f t he r e s p o nd e nt s t o o ns . ve r y rarely re lat e d t he products w it h

Ability to relate product with toon

always sometime often very rare

Q 4 . D o y o u t h i n k n o w a d a y s B ra n d M a s c o t s a r e l o s i n g i m p o rt a n c e t o B ra n d P e r s o n a l i t y ?

Brand Mascots are losing importance to Brand Personality Yes No 51 Don t No 15

No. of 34 respondents (out of 100) % 34%

51%

15%

I n t e r p re t a t i o n : 5 1 % o f t he t o t a l p e o p l e s u r ve ye d ha d t he o p i n io n t ha t Brand Mascots are no t lo s i n g

i m p o r t a n c e t o B r a nd P e r s o na l it y w he r e a s 1 5 % h a d no o p i n io n r e g a r d i n g t h e s a m e .
Q5. Which i s you r mo st memo rab le toon ma scot?

Most Memorable Toon Mascot Amul Butter Fido Dido Girl Chintamani Any Other

No. of 84 respondents (out of 100) % 84%

14

14%

2%

I n t e r p re t a t i o n : o n t h e ba s i s o f t he s u r v e y c o nd u c t e d 8 4 % o f t he r e s p o n d e nt s o p t e d fo r A m u l B u t t e r G ir l a s t he i r m o s t m e m o r a b l e t o o n m a s c o t fo l l o w e d b y F i d o D i d o a n d C h i nt a m a n i w i t h 1 4 % a n d 2 % r e s p e c t i v e l y

Most memorable toon Mascot

amul butter girl fido Dido chintamani any other

Q 6 . W h y d o y o u t h i n k t h i s B ra n d M a s c o t i s m o s t m e m o ra b l e o n e ?

Reason for Amul Butter Girl being most memorable Long Lasting Cute/ Happy 14 Good Animation 12 Attention Seeking 20 Innovative

No. of 34 respondents (out of 100) % 34%

20

14%

12%

20%

20%

I n t e r p re t a t i o n : Ac c o r d i n g t o t he s u r v e y c o nd u c t e d A m u l B u t t e r G ir l i s t he m o s t m e mo r a b l e t o o n m a s c o t b e c a u s e it ha s b e e n i n t h e m a r k e t s i n c e a ve r y lo n g t i m e a nd a l s o it i s v e r y a t t e nt io n s e e k i n g b e c a u s e i t i s a l w a ys r e l a t e d t o t he c u r r e nt a f f a i r s .

Reasons to like toon barnading

long lasting cute/happy good animation attention seeking innovative

Q 7 . I f y o u a re t o l a u n c h a n e w p r o d u c t w i l l y o u depend on a b rand p ersona lity o r a toon ma scot to b u i l d t h e b ra n d i m a g e o f y o u r p r o d u c t ?

Dependence for the launch of new product Toon Mascot Brand Personality 25 Both Some Other Depends On Method product 10 25

No. of 34 respondents (out of 100) % 34%

25%

6%

10%

25%

Interp retation: 34. 28% of the total population surveyed opted to depend on a toon mascot for the launch of their new product 5.71% thoug ht of using both the toon mascot and personality for the l aunch of their product.

35 28 21 14 7 0 Toon Mascot Brand Personality Both Some Other Method Depends On product

Q8. Toon Mascot is mo re popular in Rural or Urban areas?

Popularity (X-axis)

Urban No. of 13 respondents (out of 35) Y-axis

Rural 10

Both 3

37.14%

28.57%

8.57%

Interp retation: 37.14% of the total population surveyed suggested that toon mascots are more popular in the urban areas due to high literacy rate whereas 28.57% had the opinion of the toon being more popular in the rural areas because they identify the product on the basis of toons.

35

28

21

14 7

0 Urban Rural Both

Q9. What features do you think a toon mascot should possess so a s to be remembered over along period of time?

Features of toon mascot to make him memorable (X-axis)

Cute

Happy Face

Suitable product 25

to Innovative

Entertaining

No. of 11 respondents (out of 35) Y-axis

15

17

19

31.43%

42.86%

71.43%

48.51%

54.29%

Interp retation: 71.43% thought that the toon mascot should possess the features which are suitable to the product followed by the toon being entertaining and innovative.

35 28 21 14 7 0 Cute Happy Face Suitable to product Innovative Entertaining

Q10. Would you like if the toon mascots are also advertised through clothing, accessories, bags etc?

10

Promotion of Toon mascots through clothing, accessories, bags, etc (X-axis)

Yes

No

Depends On Don t Know Mascot 20 1

No. of 13 respondents (out of 35) Y-axis

37.14%

2.86%

57.14%

2.86%

Interp retation: 57.14% of the total population surveyed suggested that the above mentioned promotion strategy should be used depending upon the mascot whereas 37.14% would really like the promotion of toon mascot through clothing , accessories, bags etc.

35 28 21 14 7 0 Yes No Depends On Mascot Don t Know

1.4 Theore tica l Data


From the survey conducted the following findings can be concluded:

Out of the 35 respondent 15 were able to identify all the products correctly on the basis of its toon mascot al one which comes up to 42. 86% hence it can be concluded that toon mascots have almost been successful in their purpose of Brand recall , which means that more interesting toon advertisements, more brand recall.

Out of the 35 respondents 20 said, that they were sometimes able to recogni ze the product on the basis of Brand Mascot al one which comes to around 57. 14% of the total sample size. Whereas only 8.57% were always able to recognize the product on the basis of its brand mascot

Out of 35 respondents 16 people often related the products with their toon mascots which come up to around 45.7%. Whereas only 5.71% of the

respondents very rarely related the products with toons. So if more companies opt for this strategy then the relati on of the toons and products will definitely i ncrease, impressing the viewers.

51.43% of the total people surveyed had the opinion that Brand Mascots are not l osing importance to Brand Personality whereas 14.29% had no opinion regarding the same. Brand mascot has i ts own identi ty and will definitely be more appealing to the advertising and promotion audience as it is a very innovative concept of

On the basis of the survey conducted 85.71% of the respondents opted for Amul Butter Girl as their most memorable toon mascot followed by Fido-Dido and Chi ntamani with 14. 29%and 2.86% respectively

According to the survey conducted Amul Butter Girl is the m ost memorable toon mascot because it has been in the market since a very long time and also it is very attention seeking because it is always related to the current affairs

34.28% of the total populati on surveyed opted to depend on a toon mascot for the launch of their new product 5. 71% thought of usi ng both the toon mascot and personality for the launch of thei r product. Thus it can be concluded people would really appreciate if companies use toons for promoting their products.

37.14% of the total population surveyed suggested that toon mascots are more popular in the urban areas due to high literacy rate whereas 28.57% had the opini on of the toon being more popular in the rural areas because they identify the product on the basis of toons. So companies operating in the

rural areas can use more of toons to make their brand easily recog nized and popular amongst the rural masses.

71.43% thought that the toon mascot should possess the features which are suitable to the product followed by the toon being entertaining and

innovative.

57.14% of the total population surveyed suggested that promotion of the toon mascots through clothes, accessories and bags depends completely on the suitability of the toon that means that i f the company usi ng a toon mascot is thinking of using such promotional channels should design the toon in a manner that will be sui table and liked by the targe ted audience

4. PERSO NAL REVIEW

4.1 Why it s Branding?


As a teenager I am very much fond of clothes, accessories, bags, foot wears, mobile phones but only Branded . In real sense I am a Branded Baby . it gives me great pleasure buying favorite things from a branded company so that it represents quality, costliness, worthiness for the money that spend for it.

Like me other people are also crazy about the brands of the products that they purchase. People nowadays have very good knowledge about brands that are available for a particular product and also for different types of product. They gather enough information about different brands that are available for the product that they are willing to buy. This is relevant for the purchase of durable goods like mobile phone, television sets, washing machines etc.

But in case of FMCG products, once the brand or the company gives good quality product the customers become loyal to that brand and make it a point to spread positive word of mouth about the particular brand s product. In this sector some brands are so highly successful their brand name is the first to hit the customer s mind while the purchase of that product. Some examples for the same context are:

PRODUCT Coconut Oil Detergents Toothpaste Pencil Photocopy Book

BRAND NAME Parachute Ariel Colgate Nataraj Xerox Navneet

Not only FMCGs nowadays companies of other products have also made a mark on the minds of people and are able to share the same priority for the purchase. Brands and Branded products are mainly popular in amongst the age group of 16-30 yrs. And some examples of such brands are:

PRODUCT Jeans (Denim) Shoes Glares Make-up equipments Watches

BRAND NAME Spykar Jeans Adidas Fast Track Lakme Fast Track or Titan

Brand popularity is applicable not only for products but also for services and entertainment

Entertainment: By Entertainment I mean to say that people are now so much influenced by the brand that they also want to spend their leisure time under a Branded Roof . If a family is about to go for shopping definitely they would visit a renowned branded mall Shopper s Stop, Center One, R-Mall, Orbit Mall, Big Bazaar and many others which have created a good brand image. If friends are planning to go out for a movie, they would go to Multiplexes and Cine Plazas which also provides them with the facility of shopping and also cafeterias where they have a good time with their friends.

Services: Services have also become branded and popular amongst masses. Anything that girl needs to do to enhance her beauty she will first rush to branded outlets of the companies like Lakme, L Oreal etc. For fitness purposes people prefer popular fitness centers like Talwarkars, Gold s Gym etc. People also avail banking services from market leaders like ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank etc. Availing of transport services also happens through branded providers like Raj Travels and Tourism, Jet Airways.

As being a management student it was a wonderful opportunity for me to work and research on a topic which interests me a lot. While working on this project I gained immense knowledge about branding which plays a very important role in the commercial world and also forms the base for commercial successes.

4.2 Difficulties faced


Working on this project was very much enriching, knowledgeable and tiring experience. Enriching and knowledgeable, because it gave me a lot of knowledge relating to how to go about with branding of a product. Not only about how to create a brand name for a product but it also taught me that once created a brand name how to maintain and continue with the quality and consistency of the product.

Experience of working on this project was a tiring one because, although Branding and Toon Branding are not new concepts, then too not many people or even students are not aware of it. They needed an explanation about what is toon branding and even searching information about different aspects of branding needed hard work.

As the project consists of special focus on Toon Branding I have also included case study on Amul Butter Girl which is a successful story for Toon Branding. As important decisions like whether to go for toon branding or not? are taken by the top management therefore I required an appointment with the

personnel of the firm who had enough knowledge about this topic, but I was not successful in doing so. The reasons behind the same are:

y y

Location difficulties The firm is so innovative in its concept of toon branding that the management definitely had no time for the appointment.

In spite of all these difficulties I was very successful in getting all the information about Amul Butter Girl because of excellent website designed by Amul. Lastly I want to thank my guide, other professors and friends who helped and encouraged me to work on this project.

4.3 Suggestions

While working on the project I have gained almost complete knowledge about branding therefore I would always support branding and even suggest the companies to opt for it. Because it is a process through which the product will be able to find a place in the minds of the people within this competitive world and also gain the loyalty of the customer if the product spells quality.

But the company should make a very correct and appropriate decision so as to how branding is to be done i.e. the process of branding. The firm should use a brand personality, brand mascot or a toon mascot for the promotion of the brand. The choice of different elements used to create a brand identity such as color, owned name, slogans, and symbols etc. should be done correctly so that there are no misconceptions in the minds of the consumers to understand the use and capability of the product.

It is definitely a good idea if the firm is opting for toon branding because that is the latest advertising mantra used by many companies but it should be only used if it suits the requirement of product

advertisements. Toon branding is no doubt a good way to create a brand image, it makes the boring script interesting but care has to be taken by the firm that the designing of the toon is to be done in a manner that not only the toon mascot is memorable or the toon advertisement is remembered but also the sales of the product increases, which means that the toon mascot utilized should also represent the utility, quality, and need of the product to the customer.

A good example in this context would The Amul Butter Girl (Amul Butter), and also Chintamani (ICICI). All the hoardings of Amul Butter Girl are so innovative and animated in such a manner that it makes the people aware of the current happenings in the world of politics, film industry, and other industrial sectors and together spreads a message to use Amul butter in all situations of life. Whereas in case of Chintamani, it is mainly used to promote the investment plans of ICICI so all the advertisements aims at increasing the importance of investments in the life of individuals and finally it leads to No Chinta Only Money .

Not only advertisements toon mascots can also be promoted through prints on accessories, clothing bags etc, but here again the company will face limitations because it purely depends upon the designing of the toon mascot that whether it will be accepted or liked on these things.

For example: Fido Dido (7UP) which is promoted through these methods is already a great success. Teenagers and specially children like the images of Fido Dido on their T-Shirts, bags etc because the positioning of this toon mascot has been done as a Cool Guy , Always up to some Mischief , Liked by girls and the list follows. Fido Dido is all about fun. But Chintamani will not be able to share the same popularity as Fido Dido because it is not used in all the Ads of the firm and also the positioning of the toon matters in this case.

CONCLUSION
The study done so far in the context of a brand and the special focus on toon branding leads to many important conclusions. In order to facilitate proper comprehension of the same, I illustrate the points as follows:

The Law of Contraction: A brand becomes stronger when its focus is narrowed. This does not imply carrying a limited product line, but rather limiting and focusing a brand on only one type of core product, which in Titan's case happens to be watches. Titan, though possessed of a wide product line, has stuck to its focus.

The Law of Advertising: Once born, a brand needs to actively advertise in order to stay healthy and maintain market share. If done right, advertising is more of an investment than an expense.

The Law of the Word: Any brand worth it's salt should strive to "own" a word or words in the mind of the consumer. Examples of such brands are Volvo, who own the word "safety", Mercedes, who own the word "prestige" and Coca-Cola, who own the word "cola". Titan, at least when viewed in the context of the Indian watch market, seems to own the word "quality".

The Law of Quality: Though quality is essential to the survival and growth of any brand, the fact remains that brands are not built by quality alone. As mentioned previously Titan more or less owns the word "quality" in the minds of the consumers, thereby implying that it is perceived as a quality product. Thus, it's actual quality, as well as it's perception of being a quality product combine to work towards building the strength of the Titan brand.

The Law of the Name: In the long run, a brand is nothing more than a name. The difference between products is thus not so much between the products, as it is between their names, or perceptions of the names.

The Law of the Company: Brands are brands, and companies are companies. There is a difference. Titan is owned by the Tata Group, who though highly regarded in Indian industry are associated more with heavy industries such as steel and truck building, than with watch making.

The Law of Siblings: There is always a time and a place to launch a second brand, but when this is done it should be ensured that both brands have separate and distinct identities. Each brand should be kept unique and special. When Titan decided to diversify into the jewellery segment, they did not call their new brand 'Titan Jewellery', in spite of the high standing of the Titan name in the minds of the Indian consumers. To do so would be to undermine the power of the Titan brand, which is that of being watch experts ? Hence, the jewellery was called Tanishq.

The Law of Shape: A brand's logotype should be well designed, in order to fit the eyes. Visual symbols (again with the possible exceptions of Nike's "swoosh" or Mercedes' 3-pointed star) are highly overrated. The meaning lies in the words, not the symbol. The Titan logo, though well recognizable is

always accompanied by the words "TITAN" in a clear, crisp typeface-denoting power (through the use of capital letters) and class at the same time.

The Law of Colour: A brand should use a colour and typeface that is the opposite of its major competitor. For example, while Coca-Cola stands for red and appears in running handwriting, Pepsi stands for blue and appears in capital, modern looking letters. Therefore, in order to effectively build brand equity, the following factors should also be kept in mind:

Define the core brand's position and value clearly: A product should be properly positioned and its value (which includes price, quality and image) should be properly defined. As mentioned in the section regarding the law of the word, the two words most highly identified with Titan are quality" and "Indian". These should thus be emphasized upon. This is exactly what Titan has done, positioning it's watches as high quality, Indian made watches, and emphasizing upon it's value for money as well as it's classy image.

Don't neglect Public Relations: Public Relations, or PR, are vital to the success and survival of any brand. Unfortunately, its value as a brand building tool has more often than not, been undervalued. Newsletters, event and entertainment sponsorships, and other forms of PR help to define the personality of a company or brand, positioning it as a good corporate citizen, and someone nice to do business with. In keeping with India's obsession with cricket, Titan has often sponsored cricket tournaments, including the now legendary 1997 Titan Cup. Titan also sponsors a number of popular television programmes, a prime example of which is Star World's "The Practice".

Realize that promotions can be tricky:

Promotions ought to be used to create recognition and build brand loyalty. Needless and irrelevant contests tend to shift the customer's attention from the product being promoted to the prize being offered (be it a trip to the US or a new car). A better (and far less expensive) way to promote a brand would be to allow it to be used by other companies in their promotional offers. Titan is currently being offered by both Outlook magazine and WelcomAward (the privileged customer programme of the WelcomGroup chain of hotels) in their various promotional offers. The most sensible and effective forms of promotions are measures such as establishing a privileged customer club offering customer points redeemable for discounts and rebates. Titan has their own privileged customer club, Titan Signet, which has an impressive 1.6 Lakh members.

Always remember the USP:

A USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is not only what gives the customer a reason to buy the brand, but is also what helps him distinguish the brand from its competitors. Titan's USP is two fold, and can perhaps best be described in six words. "An Indian company offering international quality". This works for Titan in two ways. First of all, it's emphasis on 'international quality' successfully negates it's major Indian competitor, HMT, who is still perceived as a company offering solid and reliable, yet singularly unstylish and staid looking watches. Secondly, with the plethora of foreign brands available in the country today, Titan emphasis on being Indian enables it to effectively meet their threat. Interestingly, while Titan has never actively promoted the fact that it's parent company is the Tata Group, at the same time it has never really done much to hide the fact. Thus while capitalizing on the Tata name; it has built its own identity as an Indian brand offering high quality watches at prices significantly below those of comparable foreign brands.

If you can't be first, be better: Being the first entrant in any category earns pioneer status for a brand and gives it the advantage of being the probable market leader. Such was the case with HMT. However with it's emphasis on it's USP and aggressive advertising, Titan convinced the market that it produced the better product and thus destroyed HMT's near monopoly of the Indian watch market.

Expand sensibly: Extensions should always be logical and market driven and not mere "product explosions". As the market environment changes with the addition of say, greater competition, or changing customer wants and perceptions, brand extension should be undertaken. It should not, however be undertaken arbitrarily. When Titan entered the market in 1987, its main competitor was HMT, a company offering reliable and economically priced watches. Titan thus started out being a company offering a wide variety of models, most of which were priced economically, with the added USP of being a more stylish alternative to HMT. As times changed, however, so did Titan. With the growing entry of foreign brands into the market, Titan continued to introduce sub brand after sub brand to meet every new challenge. With the entry of the "high performance" sports watch brands in the form of Tag Hauer, Omega and Breitling, Titan introduced it's own line of chronographs priced significantly lower than the competition at a mere Rs 5000-6000. Similarly, to counter the entry of foreign, youth oriented "style" brands such as Esprit and Swatch, Titan introduced the 'Fastrack' sub brand, again priced extremely competitively.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books:

y -

Marketing Management: By Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Killer

y -

Brand Building: By Philip Kotler

Branding Management: By Philip Kotler Branding: By Philip Kotler Websites:

y y y y

www.google.com www.yahoo. com www.wikipedia.com www.amul.com

k
Amul Hits of 1995 96

On the introduction of the show Amul surbhi

Name Game

Waste Bengal

Amul Hits of 1996 - 97

On the infighting within the Congress government during the general election

On the large number of Lok Sabha candidates from the film industry

When Atal Behari Vajpayee became Prime Minister

Amul Hits of 1997 - 98

When Bihar Chief Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav was involved in the Fodder Scandal

On Laloo Prasad Yadav's refusal to vacate the Chief Minister's seat.

AMUL's salute to India on Independence Day.

Amul Hits of 1998 99

On the popular Oskar award winning film - `TITANIC'

On the famous song aati kya khandala from the movie ghulam.

On Women Bus Conductors

Amul Hits of 1999 2000

Based on the Starr report on Bill Clinton.

On winning the Gold for Hockey in the Asian Games.

Haul of 10 wickets by kumble

Amul Hits of 2000 - 2001

Match fixing charges against South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje" - April 2000

"India's population touches one billion" - May 2000

"On the first anniversary of the Kargil issue".

Amul Hits of 2001 2002

"On the recent Mumbai Stock Exchange scam involving top brokers" - April 2001.

Protest over the proposed flyover in Mumbai by renowned singer and prominent citizens - April 2001

On launch of the Hindi film `LAGAAN' - June 2001

Amul Hits of 2003 2004

Two Bollywood stars engage in threatening telephonic calls - the episode then going to media April 2003

Pun on Bollywood highly popular horror film - June 2003

Controversy on the findings by NGO - "The Centre for Science and Environment" that leading las and carbonated soft drinks contain dangerously high level of pesticide residues which are likely to be hazardous for health - August 2003.

Amul Hits of 2004 2005

On Dr. Manmohan Singh being elected Prime Minister of India - May'04

Model turned Actress Preeti Jain's allegation against noted film director Madhur Bhandarkar having sexually exploited her on the pretext of arranging roles in films - July'04

Launch of 'ZOOM' India's first glamour and lifestyle family entertainment television channel September'04

Amul Hits of 2005 - 2006

On the Maharashtra Government's decision to close down dance bars all over the state barring Mumbai - April'05

On Mallika Sherawat's first international film 'The Myth' with Jackie Chan - May'05

On Greg Chappell of Australia being appointed new coach of the Indian Cricket Team May'05

Amul Hits of 2006 - 2007

Protests against the proposed flyover on Peddar Road in Mumbai - April '06

Controversy on increasing height of Sardar Saravor Dam (Narmada Dam) on Narmada River in Gujarat - April '06

On French Captain Zinedine Zidane shown red card sending him off for vicious headbutting Italian defender in the chest during the World Cup Football Final - July '06

On hysteria amongst people at the seafront in Mahim - Central Mumbai to drink sea water which reportedly turned sweet - August '06

Australian cricketers unpleasant behavior of push and shove towards BCCI President Mr. Sharad

Pawar at ICC Champions Trophy prize distribution ceremony at Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai, India - November '06

Indian Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty winner of British reality television show Big Brother February 2007

Amul Hits of 2007 2008

On Bollywood superstars Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan's son Abhishek's wedding with Aishwarya at their residence Prateeksha in Mumbai - April 2007.

On Super Jumbo A380 Airbus double-decker the world's largest civilian passenger aircraft in India for first time - May' 07.

Richard Gere Hollywood actor and Shilpa Shetty Bollywood actress in a controversial incident in public at an AIDS function in India - May, 2007.

Bollywood romantic comedy film CHEENI KUM (A Sugar Free Romance) in which superstar Amitabh Bachchan shares time with little girl his neighbor, suffering from leukemia, wise beyond her years - June '07.

India's Taj Mahal a masterpiece of architecture of 17th Century in the worldwide race for inclusion in the new Seven Wonders of the World. It was built by Mughal Emperor Shah JAhan as a symbol of enduring love for his wife Mumtaz on the outskirt of Agra - July '07.

Police in Mumbai, India conduct breathalyzer or conventional tests on motorists at night to crackdown on drunken driving to avoid road accidents - July '07.

CHAKDE! INDIA, the Bollywood movie with focus on women's hockey featuring star-actor Shah

Rukh Khan playing coach of the Indian Women's Hockey Team to bring fame to India - August '07.

Bollywood actress and dancing queen Madhuri Dixit in the movie "Aaja Nachle" (Let's Dance) in which music and dance being the essence of the movie - November '07.

Team India celebrate after winning the inaugural ICC WORLD TWENTY 20, SOUTH AFRICA 2007 cricket World Cup in Johannesburg - September' 07.

.
Upcoming releases in November 2007 of two Bollywood movies SAAWARIYA innocent, pure love story and Om Shanti Om a love story October 2007.

You might also like