Brand purpose is to increase shareholders’ wealth and making profit. Considering the organizations economic environment changes and the fall of the most markets, the paper is focused on the general forces impeding the brand development and on finding some tools to strengthen the brands.marketing strategy; brand’s vision; brand management

Doval, E

Doval, O

English

Research Papers in Economics

  1 
Tools to keep brands on the market*  
 
Elena DOVAL
1 and Oriana DOVAL
2
 
Spiru Haret University Bucharest  
 
Abstract   
 
Brand purpose  is to  increase shareholders’  wealth  and making profit.  Considering the organizations 
economic environment changes and the fall of the most markets, the paper is focused on the general 
forces impeding the brand development and on finding some tools to strengthen the brands. 
 
JEL Classification: M31, M19 
 
Keywords: marketing strategy, brand’s vision, brand management 
 
 
1. Introduction 
 
Developing a brand is maybe the most important issue of a company’s strategy and the most difficult 
step within a marketing plan process, but it worth because it causes to any businesses the biggest 
challenge and it creates the company identity.  
 
The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines a brand as a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, 
or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers 
and to differentiate them from those of other sellers.  “Brands are about trust. Have I mentioned that 
before? Let me mention it again. Brands equal trust. Brands are promises, a guarantee of expectation 
fulfilled. Consumers instantly recognize a host of significances in any given brand. They buy into them 
as they do into their own beliefs. At least, that's what happens when you can align your needs with the 
signals the brand sends you. That’s the challenge for brand-builders” [6]. 
 
A good brand will achieve if it includes at least the following attributes:  
•  Delivers the message clearly;  
•  Confirms the credibility; 
•  Connects the target prospects emotionally;  
•  Motivates the buyer;  
•  Concretes user loyalty. 
 
“To succeed in branding you must understand the needs and wants of your customers and prospects. 
You do this by integrating your brand strategies through your company at every point of public contact. 
Your brand resides within the hearts and minds of customers, clients, and prospects. It is the sum total 
of their experiences and perceptions, some of which you can influence, and some that you cannot. A 
strong brand is invaluable as the battle for customers intensifies day by day. It's important to spend 
time investing in researching, defining, and building your brand. After your entire brand is the source of 
a promise to your consumer. It's a foundational piece in your marketing communication and one you 
do not want to be without” [5].  
 
The following seven factors continue to rule the day for building leading brands (insider):  
• Organization Support; 
• CEO leadership & support; 
 
 
* This paper has been published in the Proceedings of the 34th ARA Congress (American-Romanian Academy of Arts and 
Science, USA), Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, ISBN 978-2-553-01547-2, pp. 228-231. 
1,2 Spiru Haret University Bucharest, Faculty of Management, Brasov, 7 Turnului street, Romania, doval.elena@yahoo.com   2 
 
• Distinctive corporate culture that supports brand promise; 
• Ability to obtain support from a broad spectrum of employees; 
• Alignment of brand messages across functions. 
 
To succeed a brand needs a vision to give a sense of direction having in view three of the brand 
components: values, future environment and brand purpose [4]. 
 
2. Brand vision’s components 
 
Values 
Considering brands the values are the inherent beliefs about desirable types of behaviour or states of 
existence. In brand context values represents: 
•  Guiding principles for behaviours. In this respect the values help the staff to understand how 
should behave and help customers to better appreciate the brand promise. They also help the 
staff to reinforce the brand. 
•  Believes and the thinking of how the business will be conducted. They offer opportunities for 
brand differentiation and for attracting consumers and customers that will feel proud of using 
the brand. A set of brand values are usually based on priorities, such as: “we give top priorities 
to the interest of our staff; second priority to those of our customers; third to shareholders” [6]. 
This statement means: if the staff are committed to the values, their behaviour will delight the 
market and in long-term enhance wealth for shareholders. 
•  A way to enable organizations to stretch virgin brands into the market. 
 
Brand  value  plays  an  important  role  in  building  and  sustaining  brands  from  the  point  of  view  of 
customers/consumers, management and the organization’s staff. 
•  Customers/consumers:  they better appreciate the differences of the brand comparing with 
others. 
•  Management: for management the values means opportunities to motivate the staff and in 
matching activities to support the brand as communication, pricing, dealership and others. 
•  Organization’s staff: they appreciate their role to support brand. 
 
“Branding works because it gives the mind something to hang on to. Several aspects of cognitive 
behaviour explain why branding has become a key component of marketing strategy. In an uncertain 
world, we value consistency over quality, predictability over risk. Most of us are satisfied if we avoid 
making  a  bad  choice.  Branding  builds  confidence  that,  among  many  offerings  that  appear  “good 
enough”,  yours  will  meet  the  criteria  with  fewest  problems  and  greatest  satisfaction.  The  brand 
purveys a promise of reliability. It says, in effect, ‘We stand behind our product’.” [15]. A good example 
is Mercedes that offer 24 hours services, apart of the recognized reliability. 
 
The future environment 
The envisioned future is to stretch a vision about the future environment in which a brand will exist at 
least 10 years ahead and to consider the environment changes not the actual constraints. 
The future environment relates to the opportunity to identify future consumer needs to be satisfied. 
 
Brand purpose 
The purpose of a brand is not just to be profitable, that is a necessary condition for firm existence, but 
by making a positive contribution to improving people’s lives. 
The purpose of a brand has to inspire and guide the staff to the best satisfy the consumers and 
customers needs. It has to answer the question: how is the world going to be a better place as a 
consequence of the brand?   3 
The  purpose  of  a  brand  is  to  associate  the  brand,  product  or  service  to  an  emotional  payoff,  to 
enhance  a  positive  sense  of  self-esteem,  because  people  buy  benefits  rather  than  features  (for 
example IKEA, iPOD, Mercedes, Godiva, Tiffany, and so on). 
 
3. Forces impeding the brand development 
 
When  creating  a  brand  for  a  product  or  service  it  is  important  to  perform  a  careful  analysis  to 
determine principal barriers that may come in contact with. These barriers are also known as market 
conditions  that  can  keep  the  product  or  service  from  achieving  success.  For  example  they  could 
include the following [5]: 
•  Competition;  
•  Timing;  
•  Financing ; 
•  Location;  
•  Lack of Demand. 
 
Lake [5] stresses that in order to be prepared to face these obstacles or barriers it is important to be 
done a careful analysis of the product or service. This analyze will assist the marketers in answering 
the following questions: 
▪ Do you have a niche market?  
▪ What problem does your product or service solve or need?  
▪ How should you determine the price of your product or service?  
▪ Who are your potential customers and where can you find them?  
▪ Who are your biggest competitors?  
▪ What can you do better than them?  
▪ How should you advertise?  
▪ Where will you find your target market?  
▪ Will you use new media or traditional media? 
▪ Is a great demand for your product or service on the market?  
▪ Who are your competitors?  
▪ Who makes up your target market?  
▪ What are their statistics and economic position?  
▪ Where are they located?  
 
Some of the answers could be obtained by professional analyze and by viewing industry surveys and 
research documents.  
 
A  declining  market  in  a  financial  crisis  environment  creates  suspicions  and  the  trust  in  brands 
decrease. This feeling is much increased by confuses created by wrong messages that brands want to 
transmit, so that the clients/customers put themselves questions, like those suggested by Lindstrom 
[6]: 
      - What is this company really trying to say? 
      - Have I missed something here? 
And conclude with: "What a waste of time. I give up." 
 
In a declining market there are four forces that impede the brand development: staff, beneficiaries 
including  clients,  consumers  and  customers,  financing  and  management  (figure  1)  that  are 
characterized by the following mistakes: 
 
● Marketing staff: 
- Lack of creativity, of a dynamic mix of imagination and understanding of how the world might work. 
Marketing people spend 95 percent of their time on brand maintenance when the real opportunities lie 
in brand creation;   4 
- Lack of implication in brand values and essence; to keep the staff motivated with the brand values in 
maybe the most important target of any company. 
- Failure to create the brand emotional connection; 
- Confusion about brand architecture and naming. “Legal contracts need to use legal names, but other 
than that, brands and other outward facing entities need only to make sense to customers and, the 
simpler the architecture is, the more advantageous it tends to be”.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Figure 1 Forces impeding the brand development 
 
● Clients/consumers/customers (beneficiaries): 
    -  Missing  the  major  shift  in  the  way  customers  perceive  information  and  make  purchases. 
Consumers today are much more sophisticated in their buying processes than they were 10 years 
ago. 
 - Giving potential customers what the company wants not what they want; 
- Missing of updating and enhancements the beneficiaries needs. A powerful brand should never be 
abandoned. Successful companies update their brands, enhance their products and services, and 
create new interest through innovative marketing. For example, Microsoft and Google seem to present 
new products, offers, services and programs every week. 
-    Tolerance towards illegitimate products sold on the gray and black market as imitations.  
 
● Financing: 
        -  Wrong  balanced  budget  for  keeping  brand  alive  and  for  research  and  design.  A  reduced 
research budget forces executives to re-think their long term and tactical strategy and to prioritize 
initiatives in this downturn. The key is to prioritize and to “get the most from your reduced research 
budget” so the company will not fall behind in the next few years [2]. 
        - Much expense by using not experienced advertisers;  
        - A media vehicle paid up front; 
        - Ignoring the real cost of Web advertising. 
 
● Brand management: 
        - Hitting the wrong target with branding messages; 
        - Collateral damage of negative branding caused by not managing the use of certain exclusive 
messages to certain targets;  
       - Avoiding negative feedback on the results of a campaign; 
       - Communications are not directed at the ‘feelings’ level, and thus are not anchored as a core 
belief; 
       -  Lack of or wrong higher-level management oversight on firing mechanism of the marketing 
campaign, even the advertising budgets have been parcelled out to the product managers [11]; 
      - Near incapacity to conceive bold strategies and innovations. 
      - Abdicating decision-making responsibility. 
 
 
Staff 
Beneficiaries 
Financing  Management 
 
Brand   5 
The most difficult brands to be kept alive are the global brands. Global brands are brands that are 
recognized throughout much of the world (for example: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, IBM, Xerox, Kodak, 
Gillette, Avon, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Marlboro, Duracell, Caterpillar and others). 
Companies intending to create global brands need to do the following [3]. 
·         Identifying the relative attractiveness of each market for your brand. 
·         Conducting attitude and usage studies in each country in which you are considering entering. 
·         Identifying the sequence of brand launch by country/region of the world. 
·         Knowing the category and brand indices in each country in which your brand operates. 
·         Establishing a branding scorecard that can be applied country by country. 
·         Agreeing to which decisions are made centrally and which ones are made locally. 
·         Through research, understanding if there is any parts of the brand’s identity that won’t work in a 
given country or for a give language and considering the name itself, the symbols, the colours, the 
tagline, etc. 
 
To some small degree, with the pervasiveness of the Internet, all brands that are in cyberspace have 
the potential to become global brands; however being on the Internet does not guarantee top-of-mind 
awareness or distribution ease. A comprehensive, well-funded and well-executed global marketing 
plan is required for successful global brands. 
 
4. Tools to strengthen the brand 
 
A complete analysis offers brand management an appreciation of the core elements of the brand. 
“Decisions regarding brand extensions, harmonization, rejuvenation, portfolio rationalization, alliances 
and acquisitions depend on a thorough understanding of a brand and its environment” [14]. The entire 
process requires some specific tools that better fit the branding, such as: 
 
•  Providing  a  SWOT  analysis  based  on  marketing  profile  of  primary  products  and  services: 
brand  elements  and  marketing  strategies  (4P’s)  associated  with  each  product  or  service. 
These should be reviewed, catalogued and evaluated for consistency and impact: 
- Product strengths and weaknesses; 
- Pricing strategy and competitive position; 
- Distribution strategy; 
- Promotion strategy and spending relative to competitors; 
-  Brand  Elements  such  as  names,  logos,  symbols,  URL’s  or  trademarks,  Characters, 
“packages”, slogans, or other design elements (colours, sounds, etc.); 
- Brand personality, characteristics and attributes [12]; 
•  Forecasting and anticipating the STEEP (social, technological, economic, environmental and 
political) factors from the far environment of the organization; 
•  Using a Delphi method technique to reach out a consensus on the brand envisioned future; 
•  Using workshop sessions to producing insight about brand values [1]; 
•  Using the laddering technique [9], based on Gutman’s theory: “the attributes that exist in a 
product (the means) have consequences for the person and these reinforce that individual’s 
personal values (the ends)“ i.e. the process “attribute-consequence-value”; 
•  Using communication modes, such as: “having members of your team speak at Trade Shows, 
schedule lectures at professional group gatherings within your industry and write and publish 
articles in newspapers, magazines, or online media” [5]; 
•  Using the power of questionnaires and reported opinions by acquisition of summaries from 
external sources. “Such documents can lead managers along a particular line of thought” [10]. 
 
Any brand needs to be included into the company’s strategy, because it contributes to the company 
personality, image, core competencies and characteristics, builds credibility, gets more influence on 
your market, and motivates customers and clients to chose and purchase company’s products and   6 
services. In this respect the first action has to be the definition and design of the brand objectives in 
the context of the company’s strategy. 
 
5. Conclusion 
 
It is no doubt that brands already launched on the market need to be reinforced in a period of financial 
crisis and market declining. Some of the recommended actions that come out of the above analyze 
and could help the managers of any company are the followings: 
•  Defining and redefining the market target to strengthen the brand effectiveness because the 
power of a brand relies on the ability to focus. 
•  Performing a careful analysis to determine principal barriers that may come in contact with. 
These barriers are also known as market conditions that can keep the product or service from 
achieving success. 
•  Clear definition of the brand's audience and the objectives that the brand needs to achieve. 
•  Recreate  the  brand  by  planning  step-by-step  process.  This  process  needs  a  transitional 
change focusing on the brand, not the product and ensures that the loyal consumers are not 
lost in the process. 
•  Keeping informed on current market conditions and trends by subscribing to trade publications, 
news alerts, and electronic newsletters. 
•  Using  all  resources  to  analyze  the  market  to  discover  any  brand  barriers  might  come  up 
against. 
•  Developing a plan to move forward towards success in marketing the business.  
•  Refresh an old brand by brewing a modern experience that combines the power of history with 
the allure of contemporary design. 
•  Avoid mistakes regarding advertising that could compromise the products or services brands 
for ever; 
•  Measure the brand performance. 
 
To  increasing  the  shareholders  wealth  and  making  profit  is  taken  for  granted  essential  for  all 
managers.  Adopting  a  welcoming  attitude  is  appreciated  by  new  and  old  customers  alike  and 
contributes to building and rebuilding trust in brands. 
 
References 
 
[1] Collins, J. and Porras, J., Built to last, Century Business, London, 1996. 
[2] Daye, D.,  Seven Critical Factors Of Brand Strategy Success in Branding strategy insider, March 
02, 2010. http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/. 
[3] Daye, D., The Challenge and Opportunity of a Reduced Research Budget, in Branding strategy 
insider, Feb.11, 2010, http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/. 
[4] de Chernatony, L and McDonald, M., Creating powerful brands in consumer, service and industrial 
markets (2
nd edn), Oxford, Butteworth-Heinemann, 1998. 
[5] Lake, L., What is Branding and How Important is it to Your Marketing Strategy?, About.com, 2010. 
[6] Lindstrom, M., Five Steps to Online Trust for Your Brand, ClickZ, March 18, 2003. 
[7] Macrae, C., An invitation for MENET96 to contribute to the “brand learning organization”, Journal of 
Brand Management, Vol.3, No.4, 1996, pp.226-40. 
[8] Phillips, C., Branding From the Inside Out: How to Approach Brand Strategy, Brand Measurement 
and the Management of Brands as Assets, in Brand amplitude LLC, 2005, pp 2-3. 
[9] Reynolds, T and Gutman, J., Laddering theory, method, analysis and interpretation, Journal of 
Advertizing Research, Vol.28, February/March,  1988, pp.11-31.  
[10] Ritchie, J. Creating a value driven vision for a national treasure, Tourism marketing, Vol. 20, No.3, 
1999, pp.273-282. 
[11] Tillinghast, T.  Branding Gone Bad, ClickZ, August 24, 2001.   7 
[12] VanAuken, B., What Is A Global Brand? in Branding strategy insider, February 19, 2010,  
http://www. brandingstrategyinsider. com/. 
[13] VanAuken, B, Legal Influence And Marketing Decisions, February 2, 2010,  
http://www. brandingstrategyinsider. com/. 
[14] Van Gelder, S., Global brand strategy, Kogan Page, 2003, p.5. 
[15] White, S., Branding: Key Strategy in the Age of Parity, internet doc. 
 

An invitation for MENET96 to contribute to the “brand learning organization”,

Branding From the Inside Out: How to Approach Brand Strategy, Brand Measurement and the Management of Brands as Assets,

Branding Gone

Branding: Key Strategy in the Age of Parity, internet doc.

Built to last,

Creating a value driven vision for a national treasure,

Creating powerful brands in consumer, service and industrial markets (2 nd edn),

Tools to keep brands on the market

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