|
One of the insights
we have discovered from the ACNielsen | Winning Brands normative
database of over 2,400 brands is that strong brands (ie brands
with equity scores of more than 5.0*) maintain about 55% of
consumers as their current, most-often-purchased brand. However,
they can also command a higher percentage (62%) of consumers
as their favourite brand and 57% would recommend the brand
to someone else. This suggests that consumers have a certain
degree of emotional attachment to strong brands.
Building a distinctive brand identity and personality that
connects with consumers is therefore essential to achieving
strong brand equity. And what’s more important is that
building a solid brand identity requires a strategy that is
executed consistently over time.
What happens if a brand does not maintain a consistent strategy?
This is best illustrated with an actual case study. A client
conducted a TV campaign and the main focus of the campaign
was on the benefits and enjoyment of using the product. The
campaign had the desired effect of increasing the brand’s
advertising awareness. Subsequently, the client switched to
another TVC. The new campaign’s emphasis was on the
company where its theme and message was about the company.
This new campaign was less effective in terms of ad awareness
(See Chart 1) and as a result of the new TVC, consumers’
perception of the brand had also changed. The brand is less
perceived on the key attributes (See Chart 2). Consequently,
this affected the brand’s equity, which had weakened
as a result of the inconsistency of the brand’s communication
campaign (See Chart 3).
This example serves to demonstrate that building strong brands
requires a consistent brand strategy and all marketing programmes
have the potential to either strengthen or weaken a brand’s
equity.
*Brand equity score is calculated based on consumers’
response to: 1) favourite brand, 2) brand would recommend
and 3) willingness to pay higher prices. The maximum score
is 10.
|
