Branding Strategies Three Branding strategies for product and services are popular. The first two branding strategies represent two ends...
Branding Strategies
Three Branding strategies for product and services are popular.The first two branding strategies represent two ends of a brand relationship continuum. A sub-brand strategy falls somewhere between, depending on which component of the sub-brand receives more emphasis.
Individual or separate family brand names.
Consumer packaged-goods companies have a long tradition of branding different products by different names. General Mills largely uses individual brand names, such as Bisquick, Gold Medal flour, Nature Valley granola bars, Old El Paso Mexican foods, Progresso soup,Wheaties cereal, and Yoplait yogurt. If a company produces quite different products, one blanket name is often not desirable. Swift and Company developed separate family names for its hams (Premium) and fertilizers (Vigoro).
A major advantage of individual or separate family brand names is that if a product fails or appears to be of low quality, the company has not tied its reputation to it. Companies often use different brand names for different quality lines within the same product class. The use of individual or separate family brand names has been referred to as a “house of brands” strategy.
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Branding Strategies |
Corporate umbrella or company brand name.
Many firms, such as Heinz and GE, use their corporate brand as an umbrella brand across their entire range of products. Development costs are lower with umbrella names because there’s no need to run “name” research or spend heavily on advertising to create recognition. Campbell Soup introduces new soups under its brand name with extreme simplicity and achieves instant recognition. Sales of the new product are likely to be strong if the manufacturer’s name is good. Corporate-image associations of innovativeness, expertise, and trustworthiness have been shown to directly influence consumer evaluations. Finally, a corporate branding strategy can lead to greater intangible value for the firm. The use of an umbrella corporate or company brand name has been referred to as a “branded house” strategy.
Sub-brand name
Sub-brands combine two or more of the corporate brand, family brand, or individual product brand names. Kellogg employs a sub-brand or hybrid branding strategy by combining the corporate brand with individual product brands as with Kellogg’s Rice Krispies, Kellogg’s Raisin Bran, and Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.Many durable-goods makers such as Honda, Sony, and Hewlett-Packard use sub-brands for their products. The corporate or company name legitimizes, and the individual name individualizes, the new product.
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