Measuring and Interpreting Brand Performance - Assignment Example

Measuring & Interpreting Brand Performance Name Course Tutor Date Executive summary Building a powerful brand is the objective of most companies. Building an impressive brand with essential equity is deemed like giving the host likely possible gains to the organization. This comprises of higher client loyalty, reduced vulnerability to the competitive selling actions, and marketing disasters, greater margins alongside desired client feedback to price fluctuations, higher trade or intermediary association and support. It also entails raised marketing communication efficiencies, and legalizing and brand distribution opportunities. With this dedicated desire, in brand building the paper talks of factors making the brands successful in the market and methods of building top brands. The paper also gives an elaborate definition of brand salience and its relationship with the brand equity. The study also has some features of developing awareness for the brand for it to have a strong salient in t5he market and make every customer interested in purchasing the Kit Kat brand. The study lastly discusses on how different demographic factors can influence the distribution of brands in the market. This mainly focuses on how Kit Kat can penetrate into the market even when the demography has low-household income. Section 1: Brand performance 1. Mars Bars command the highest market share among its competitors having a sole loyalty of 22%, followed by Kit Kat with a sole loyalty of 8%. There is consistency in the way these brands have established themselves in the market. This is evident by their penetrating power with Mars Bar leading. This implies that Mars Bar brand has been in the market for along or it aggressively creates awareness for its products hence, leading ion the competition. The average purchasing frequency for Kit Kat and Mars Bars are the same while the features various slightly for these two brands. The other brands have low percentages as compared to the top two brands. The market penetrations for all brands are the determinants for the other attributes, and this shows how the brands salience has been developed. 2. In Repertoire Markets buyers usually purchase a number of various brands in a certain product classification (shuffle in a repertoire) and thus, collectively loyal. Individual loyalty rates in repertoire markets are considerably low (basic in the range of 5% when a time higher than the inter-purchase time for the classification is applied). Consequently, fast food and soft drinks are excellent examples of commodities classified in the repertoire market (Remaud & Lockshin, 2009). In Subscription Market, conclusive loyalty to the brand is the culture despite the several dealings made in the classification (i.e. it is not only when a unit time of purchasing is maintained). Purchasers in this market reliably subscribe to a certain giver for a prolonged period. Service industry like the insurance and mobile phone deals are examples of the commodities classified in the subscription market. Furthermore, subscription markets are usually predictable in purchase patterns their customer base is static or finite with a limited number of alternatives. While repertoire market their purchases are less predictable and not defined, customer base is fluid and infinite, comprising a number of different alternatives. On the other hand, prices in the subscription market are contracted long-term, and are price insensitive. In repertoire market prices and predetermined, set, and are price sensitive. There is several consumers’ traits generalization for fast moving consumer products markets, but rarely any for service market like insurance, banking, electricity, or mobile industry. Repertoire market clients portray polygamous loyalty and each brand meets a minimum share of its middle buyer’s group needs. Subscription market clients illustrate brand loyalty with every brand meeting an increased brand loyalty of its middle consumers’ group needs. Shockingly, the common Dirichlet model goes well for both markets, with quite varied qualities for its loyalty factors. This allows theory dependent hallmarks of subscription market mix rates. Hence, the disparities are not only new classification; it also deals mainly with theoretical differences (Remaud & Lockshin, 2009). Kit Kat is operating under subscription market because its market share is slightly lower than that of Mars Bar but higher than the other competitors are. This shows that a number of its customers have subscribed to the organization and hence enabling to maintain a substantially higher market share. In terms of sole loyalty, it has 8% implying that this value is higher than what is considered for the repertoire market, which lies at 5%. Although the average purchase for Kit Kat and Mars Bars are the same, there is a visible difference in category buying rate and share of category requirements. 3. Customer loyalty is building continuous ties with new and old customers. For companies to grow it needs to satisfy the needs of all its customers whether new or old. Therefore, the idea of the marketing director to increase loyalty of existing customers is not a serious idea, but that does not keep the company growing. The existing customers might be loyal to one product, which contribute to a small percentage to the total sales. It is necessary to ensure loyalty of all customers since each come with a different need; hence, contributing to the combined sales and thus increase in profits. The existing customers might also be purchasing product after an exceedingly long time. If we go by that, the company’s development rate will be slow. We need moving products, and this is achieved by having a wide range of customers (Vieceli & Alpert, 2002). Section 2: awareness & salience 4. Brand salience is the fame or degree of stimulation of a brand in memory (Alba & chattopadhyay, 1986). It is a functional definition of the brand salience, which refers to the simplicity of availability of the brand in the customer’s memory. The company’s brand is considered and observed when a client is in a purchasing mood to this level. Great brands have high-brand salience, while the weak brands on the other hand, and have little or none. This illustrates why top brands remain in the market for long while small brands remain docile and move slowly in the market. If no one thinks of a company’s brand at the time of purchasing, the product will soon be relegated to most unreachable corners of the shelves, thus, being overtaken by the regularly thought and purchased products. Fixed within the layout of the brand equity (Keller, 1993) is the idea of brand salience that Keller (2001, p.3) states that it is a feature of creating awareness of the brand such as how regular and accessible is the brand inducing on different conditions and situations? Keller (2001) suggests a design of clients depended on brand equity that brand salience is the pillar to brand equity, where a salient brand has depth as well as width of awareness. Brand salience varies from accessibility of product in thoughts as proved by (Posovac et. al., 1997), associative powers, summon up position, or state of the customer’s views. Other intellectuals speculated that brand salience not only entails signs but also conditions that they could act as signs to the clients. High salience or chief of thought awareness is essential for the brand to raise recovery chances of the product in customer selection. Clients apply the data highly salient to them when solving a challenge, for instance, making a buying decision. This is critical because customers use the basic available information in selection cases, because of the minimized information evaluating attempts needed on the side of the customer. Salience will also have influence on the customer’s judgment, as illustrated by different researches where customers make decisions depending on the information, which is salient to them at the situation of making the selection. To capture the attention of the customer at all the times, marketers need to develop on quality of execution memory. Brand salience is vital to marketers, but it is assumed in most cases. Marketers should ensure they build on brand favor, awareness, and is salient for the brand to be purchased. 5. In table 2, there is a smooth pattern for the brand salience moving slightly higher for all the companies on overall brand awareness with Nestle Gold being the least in terms of overall brand awareness. For all the companies, the trends are almost the same with slight variations brought about by the efforts made by the companies to be accessible in the market. In general, there is a zigzag pattern for each company, with top of mind awareness being the least salience. Kit Kat is operating on an average basis, satisfying its utmost expectation of being accessible in the market. The market director ensures that even thought it does not compete successfully with the Mars, Bar it remains at the top and maintains its position as the second best brand throughout its existence. This has also been achieved through promoting customer and brand loyalty. From the results, it is also evident that Kit Kat has increasingly penetrated into the market and able to give its consumers quality products. Romaniuk (2000) declared that different brands have different tastes and preference from one client to another. There are no two given brands with the same satisfaction to the customers. It is therefore, necessary to learn the customer’s perception concerning each brand and develop a feature that can be linked to it, which can help a consumer choose that product at any given store. This is the reason why it is essential to look at salience for brand users separately. Organizations give a significant amount of resources and trials to building brands, to benefit both the product as well as the company. Brand feature determination and follow up is a main research aspect of many organizations. Nevertheless, in spite of business market research institution arguments, there has been hardly proves relating customer views concerning a brand with the future purchasing traits. Separate consideration needs to be established so that these features can be looked into as well as finding the most salient way of reaching the customers (Romaniuk, 2000). 6. Brand salience is ensuring that the customer has in mind the product features at all the time especially during decision-making. It is all about what is admirable about the brand. Nevertheless, upon evaluation, a brand symbolizes other more elusive elements of the product. To build a brand salience, it is necessary to determine the general feelings and views on quality, lifestyle, image, and status. It develops in the thoughts of consumers and diagnoses the view that there is no commodity or service resembling what we give. The process of building brand salience starts with ensuring recognition of the brand with clients and relation of the brand in clients’ thoughts with a certain commodity group or customer want. This is followed by identifying the totality of brand implication in the minds of clients by tactically joining a host of physical and elusive brand links with certain features. Then obtain appropriate customer feedback to the brand establishment and brand implication. Finally, change and modify the feedback to generate a powerful, active loyalty association between clients and the brand (Mur taza, 2010). Marketing strategies needed for building brand salience include Quality: is an essential element of good-brand salience. The main gains are what the consumer anticipates. These should be presented well and reliably. Studies shows that improved quality brand salience get a higher market share and increased benefits, which are minor to competitors. Positioning: how the brand salience positioned itself in customers’ minds. Powerful salience has precise, distinct position in the market. Repositioning: happens when brand salience attempt to adjust its share position in relation to customer’s feelings. Communication: have a crucial role in building and enhancing significant brand salience. Permanent view: this result to another essential salient brand building. This is the urge to invest in brand over a long period. Investing in the client’s awareness, communicating the brand’s data, and developing consumer loyalty needs time. Internal marketing: employees are also customers of the products and they need to be given features of the products so that they can also purchase and use them. Brand salience will therefore be promoted at all levels. This is certainly crucial in the service business where section of brand quality is what the client gets (Vieceli & Alpert, 2002). Cues to be included for a chocolate brand advert include price, availability, quality, taste, benefits, image, health side effects, ingredients, preference, and social class to use the product. Section 3: demographics and segmentation 7. The customer profile of Kit Kat is different from that of other competitor brands. This is because from the analysis we realize that there are uniform trends with slight variations in the way demographics and segmentations are distributed. For Kit Kat looking at the relationship status, it has an average MAD of 2.1 while the highest, which is Twix, has an average MAD of 2.4. In total household income and gender, Kit Kat is rated second showing some differences in the way these brands are circulating in the market. The most influential demographic feature is the total household income, which affects the distribution of the brands mainly. 8. The implication of this is that Kit Kat is extensively struggling with its marketing strategies since for it to remain and be favorable in the market needs strong penetration. However, by the look of things, almost all the brand have the same strategies thus having slight variations in terms of demographic distribution. The Kit Kat marketing strategy is not strong enough to give it a competitive advantage hence, being overtaken by the Mars Bar in all areas. The profits that these brands bring to the company are limited and do not allow the company to expand as expected. It faces so many constraints such as low household income for its customers, poor social structures that do not support adequate market, and finally, the market segmentation and target market is not well established. References: Henning, J. (2010). Subscription vs. Repertoire Markets. Retrieved on May 19, 2011, from < http://blog.vovici.com/blog/bid/45708/Subscription-vs-Repertoire-Markets> Keller, K. (2001). Building customer-based brand equity: A blueprint for creating strong brands. Pp 1-38. Mur taza, H. (2010). Brand management. Retrieved on May 19, 2011, from < http://www.scribd.com/doc/3979762/Brand-Management> Remaud, H., and Lockshin, L. (2009) "Building brand salience for commodity-based wine regions,” International Journal of Wine Business Research, 21 (1), pp.79 – 92. Romaniuk, J. (2000). Tracking brand salience. Retrieved on May 19, 2011, from < http://www.bandt.com.au/news/tracking-brand-salience> Romaniuk, J. (2000). Visionary Marketing for the 21st Century: Facing the Challenge. Competitor Salience and Customer Switching. Pp.1068-1073. Vieceli, J., and Alpert, F. (2002). Redefining Brand Salience Using Memory Theory and Implications for Measurement. Conferences proceedings. Pp 2511-2520. Wong, H., and Merrilees, B. (2008).The performance benefits of being brand-orientated. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 17 (6), p372-383. Aaker, D., and Keller, K. (1993). 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