Marketers have long sought to understand and benefit from the nebulous process by which consumers characterise and differentiate brands. The overall value of such differentiation applied to the choice process has come to be known as Brand Equity. Whilst this is important from the perspective of brand positioning, it does not address the much more fundamental question of how effective that positioning is in bonding users to the brand. This paper addresses this problem in various ways: -It develops a measure of closeness between the user and the product based on the proportion of those who define it as their main brand and who also regard themselves as very discriminating in deciding which brand of the category that they choose. This is called Brand Bonding. - It analyses the level of Brand Bonding for seventy-one products and brands in nineteen fast moving consumer goods categories. - It verifies that users distinguish between objective and perceptual product differences in product choice and it demonstrates that the main way people differentiate between products is through subjective characteristics. - It enables understanding of the proportion of a brand's users who are truly brand loyal (bonded) and the proportion who are simply "me-too" users, selecting it merely because it is widely accepted and available. -It highlights the high proportion of un-bonded main brand users and shows how individual brands are weak or strong and in particular, an understanding of the fundamental weakness of House Brands.
The measurement of the "Brand Equity" is more and more requested by Manufacturers: how to evaluate at a fair price the "value" of a Brand? The present paper intends to focus on the consumer side only, the main idea being that the "value" of a Brand must be related to consumer behaviour, its financial aspect being only the result of such behaviour. Mr RA. Schmitz (Unilever USA) mentioned in a previous paper that the "Brand loyal" category of users represents the major part of the profit generated by a Brand: it means that the "value" of a Brand is in some way related to the old concept of "brand loyalty". However, brand loyalty as obtained from questionnaires administrated to consumers is mostly considered as an "attitude" rather than a "behaviour": this is not yet an operational concept, being able to provide some numerical "value" to a given Brand. The most important objective of this paper is to suggest a new way of measuring the "Brand loyalty" based on behaviour, then providing Manufacturers with a long term operational concept derived from scanning records : the main goal of the attitudinal part will then be to tell Manufacturer how this brand loyalty may be influenced by marketing actions.
This paper discusses the complex issue of price sensitivity analysis. The authors argue that the most effective method, currently available, of evaluating optimum pricing for established brands is conjoint analysis or trade off. The paper brings evidence to suggest this is not the case for new brands. However, the authors claim a critical area not accounted for in traditional conjoint analysis is that of interaction. Interaction is defined and a method that, in the opinion of the authors, is the most effective of measuring this factor is presented. Three case histories are analysed in detail dealing with product/price interaction, brand/price interaction and service/price interaction. Analysis of these cases includes discussion of the major corporate issue of brand equity.
The paper discusses the issues involved in creating and managing brands internationally. The growth of strong brands in their home market has historically been a long-term process which requires not only consistent, creative management, but also a favourable environment. The evidence is that most such brands can be internationalized, giving the benefits of lower costs, synergy and time saving. On the other hand, the differences in national market structures, stages of development, competition and product roles, mean that international brand potentials are circumscribed by factors outside the brand owner's control. This implies tight realism in objective setting aided by dispassionate market and competitor assessment. Further, the time scales needed to build an international brand heritage require a consistent vision of core brand values and the management commitment to follow that strategy, often at the expense of the short- term profit. Research must provide global brand owners with the tools to assess opportunity and accurately predict potential, and to monitor brand equity internationally. Increasingly, it will need to address future strategic issues, rather than simply tackle tactical problems.