This document discusses strategic implications of branding. It states that a brand draws strength from a company's resources and acts as a long-term vision with a core set of values and personality. Brands protect innovation through acting as a mental patent and rewarding risk-taking. They create cognitive filters and influence customer expectations, attitudes, and loyalty. Products act as levers for brand competitiveness and image directly impacts profitability. Successful brands deliver consistent messaging that builds a coherent image and positioning over time.

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Chapter 2:
STRATEGIC
implications of
branding

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Contents
What does Branding really mean?
Brand act as a genetic programme
The ‘Product and the ‘Brand’
Advertising products through the Brand Prism

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A BRAND IS A
LONG TERM VISION
A brand draws its strength from the company’s
financial and human means.
Brand vision
and purpose
Core brand
values
Brand personality codes
Semiotic Invariants
Strategic benefits and attributes
Physical signature: family resemblance
Typical brand actions

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The role of the brand name is precisely to
protect innovation; acts as a mental patent.
Brands protect innovators, granting them
momentary exclusiveness and rewarding them
for their risk-taking attitude.
Brands cannot, be reduced to a mere sign on a
product, a mere graphic cosmetic touch.
PERMANENTLY NUTURING THE DIFFERENCE

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BRANDS ACT AS A GENETIC
PROGRAMME
 Brands are built and exert a long term influence on customer’s memories, which
in turn influence their expectations, attitudes and degree.
 Brands create a cognitive filter; dissonant and typical aspects are declared
unrepresentative.
 Research on ‘Brand Identity’
To analyse the brand’s most typical production
To analyse the reception
 Customer loyalty is created by respecting the brand features. In order to build
this and capitalize on it, brands must be true to themselves.
This is called returned to the
BRAND DNA.

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RESPECT THE BRAND
 Brands become credible only through the persistence and repetition of
their value proposition.
 Each brand is free to choose its values and positioning, but once chosen
and advertised, they become the benchmark for customer satisfaction.
 The brand contract is economic, not legal. Brands differ in this way from
other signs of quality such as quality seals and certification.
 Both the brand’s slogan and signature are meant to embody the brand
contract.

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THE PRODUCT AND THE BRAND
 There would be no brand without a great product (or service),
in turn understanding is that product act as a prime lever of
brand competitiveness.
 Most brands are born out of a product or service innovation
which outperformed competitors.
 As the product name evolves into a brand, customers’ reasons
for purchase may still be the brand’s ‘Superior Performance
Image’.
 Brand image is directly linked to profitability.

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HALO EFFECT : KERNEL AND
PERIPHERAL VALUES
 A brand name can be influenced by the evocations and emotions it triggers in
the consumer’s mind.
 However, through time the brand will deliver consistent messages and
experiences that build a coherent brand image and positioning.
 Cognitive Psychology – The prototype is the instance that summarizes and
carries all the meaning of a concept.
 ‘Çues’ messages – (Products send messages to help consumers to figure out
what to buy and what to except after usage)
 Search Cues
 Experience Cues
 Credence Cues
 Measuring the brand’s own ‘pull power’, or its ability influence two types are
used;
 Brand Equity Monitor (BEM)
 Brand Image Studies

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HALO EFFECT : KERNEL AND
PERIPHERAL VALUES (Cont….)
 A brand is a system made up of kernel traits
and peripheral traits.
 Kernel traits are unconditional.
 To identify Kernel traits one should not use direct
questioning or the classical image
questionnaires.
 Peripheral traits are conditional.
 Peripheral traits may in the long term become
kernel traits. This allow an adaptation of the
brand to different segments.

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Every brand Needs a flagship product
Each product range thus must contain products
demonstrating the brand’s guiding value and obsession,
flagships for the brand’s meaning and purpose.
There are some products within a given line that do not
manage to clearly express the brand’s intent and
attributes. Eg: Television Industry
It is so important that each brand stays in focus and
progresses in its own direction to make original products
since it reveals the brand’s meaning and purpose.

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Advertising products through the
brand prism
Products are mute: The brand gives them meaning and
purpose.
A brand is both a prism and a magnifying glass through
which products can be decoded.
Brands can only develop through long term consistency,
which is both the source and reflection of its identity.
Brand is thus a prism helping us to decipher products – It
defines what and how much to expect from the products
bearing its name.
Once a brand has chosen a specific positioning or
meaning, it has to assume all of its implications and fulfill
its promises.

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Re-cap
What does Branding really mean?
Brand act as a genetic programme
The ‘Product and the ‘Brand’
Advertising products through the Brand Prism

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QUESTIONS?

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THANK YOU