Brand Management Report Samples

Introduction

The brand equity refers to the development of brand where consumer wills to pay additional amount compare to the generic equivalent. However, in order to create brand equity it is essential to create positive brand image. Organizations use various techniques of secondary brand association to develop brand equity. This report aims to analyze different techniques of secondary brand association that Coca Cola Company develops. The company markets and offers variety of beverages including 500 non alcoholic brands. In addition this report also provides recommendation to build strong brand equity.
The second portion of the report analyzes the reason of revitalizing. In addition, it discusses the effort that is made by company in order to revitalize the brand. MySpace has been chosen to analyze the situation. MySpace is a social media website. In 2008, it enjoyed the highest rating of the world in terms of visiting members. However, in the later years, its position and the brand equity was taken by Facebook due to which Myspace lost its visitors. Now, the website faces the need for revitalizing. Therefore, in order to revitalization, this report also gives suggestions to Myspace.

Question 1

Overview of Coca-Cola
The U.S. based company; Coca Cola was established in 1919. The product portfolio of the firm contains more than 500 nonalcoholic beverages brand that includes still and sparkling beverages. In the category of sparkling beverages, Coca-Cola offers Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola light and diet coke, Thums up, Sprite, Fanta and many other well-known brands. However, its still’s drinks includes juices, teas, water, enhances water, coffees etc. In addition, the Coca-Cola product portfolio consists of categories of energy drinks such as Real Gold. With its operations in more than 200 countries, it serves almost 2 billion people on daily basis globally. However, due to variety of products in beverage industry, the company faces fierce competition from all around the globe including some well-known brands such as Pepsi Co., Kraft Foods, and Nestle etc (Hoovers.com, 2015).

Secondary Brand Association

According to Uggla, (2004), secondary brand association refers to linking the brand to the firm’s another business due to which there can be significant impact on the formation of new brand association with businesses of the firm. However, it also affects the present association of the brand. There are many factors that have impact on brand equity such as brand meaning, brand image and brand awareness. The consumer tends to judge the value of brand by considering various brands element which associates with the product directly. But, in order to judge products, indirect or secondary association also takes into account. Coca-Cola has to face huge competition in the industry of beverages due to which it becomes vital to develop strong brand name. Therefore, in order to build secondary brand association, the company uses different efficient ways. Coca-Cola engages in various sponsorship activities. The company sponsors a show with the name Style to Rock, which motive is to discover creativity and give awareness of the fashion world. On the other hand, with the collaboration of National Heart and Blood Institutes, Coca-Cola also supports Heart Truth Campaign which helps the firm to improve its brand equity. Moreover, In order to boost the sales, the company has also signed various sponsorships program with different celebrities and people including Taylor Swift.
Researches show that image is highly determined by the specific country to which the product is associated by the customers. Coca-Cola is an American based Multination company due to which it has strong brand association. As a result, it allowed the firm to earn more revenues. The American market of beverages is considered to be the most leading market of the world for carbonated drinks. According to the survey, the country developed 57.5 out of 100 on the scale of reputation. Coca-Cola is the world’s best brand which allows consumer to have extensive knowledge of company and the brands. As a result, due to high awareness of the brand, the company is able to build trust and strong relationship with the customer. The accountability of environmental issues such as Diet Coke has allowed the firm to improve its brand image globally. As a result, consumer gets the positive attitude and perception of the company’s brand. Moreover, According to Lowe, (2013), in the award of UK packaging, due to plant of recycling plastic bottles, the company was also awarded with the Coveted Sustainable Pack prize.
It has been observed that extension of brand is the most rational decision when it comes to reduce the cost that company faces in product development. The Coca-Cola Company puts great emphasis on developing the extension of its existing products. One of the examples includes Diet Coke where the company has increased the market share by introducing almost six extensions without considerable advertisements. As a result, it helped the company in many areas such as customer perceived image, promotional activities, consumers’ consumption behavior and the distribution. Coca-Cola uses many other different techniques to build secondary brand association. It appointed Jean Paul, a well-known fashion designer which helped the firm to target many young consumers who associate the brand with style and fashion. In addition, using advanced technologies, on Facebook purchase of makeup tutorial offered the consumers with the coupons of its different products (Waltzer, 2012). Moreover, the company uses various channels to make sure the availability of its product. For example, Coca-Cola is offered in many restaurants such as Pizza hut, McDonalds etc which helps the firm to improve the consumers’ purchasing behavior and attitude towards the product (Leitch and Richardson, 2003).
Another efficient way is to make the contracts with famous brand under the license agreement. This way, the company uses the name and logos of many well-known organizations such as five-star hotel. Although, this process includes a significant fixed cost, but it can help Coca-Cola in long term to get the attention of many potential customers.

Recommended ways of Secondary Brand Association

The Coca-Cola Company, although, uses many efficient ways of making strong brand association but there are still many techniques which can further help the firm to improve brand equity. It has been observed that the consumers are emotionally attached with many celebrities where they even associate their judgment and feelings with them. Hence, they consume or use product by directly associating it with specific celebrities. Therefore, one way to attract the customer is through celebrity endorsement which can help firm to even change attitude and perception of the consumer towards the brand.
Employees are considered as the representative of the firm. Therefore, they come under the secondary brand association. It is necessary for the dealer and sales personnel of Coca-Cola to be aware of customers’ perception, religious values, traditions, cultures and brand image. This can help to show a positive impression of whole organization on customers. In addition, the behavior and dressing up in certain manner to grab the customer attention can build the image of the firm. However, the company can also use the features of one brand into any other brand. This sharing of two brand qualities in single brand can help Coca-cola to enhance the brand equity. Moreover, it can further assist the firm to minimize uncertainty and risk in the process of marketing development.

Question 2

Overview of Myspace
Myspace was launched by Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson as a social website in 2003. The purpose of company was to give platform to do live chatting, videos and music by simply creating profile. The company recorded outstanding growth in 2004. However, later on, it faced the highest period of success where it has more visitors than Google. But the launch of Facebook as a tough competitor in the same industry increased the competition for Myspace. The user started switching to Facebook and by 2008 Facebook took over the brand equity and position of Myspace due to which the company had to lay off more than 1000 employees (Lüsted, 2011).
In order to get its position back and increase revenues and number of visitor, the best option that company had was to revive its operations. According to Peterson, (2013), the company had only 25 million visitors which compare to Facebook were almost 86 million less. As a result, the company made strategies to revitalize its website by focusing on the community of music media. It improves the company performance and helped it to gain more than 1 million visitors by 2014.

Reasons for Revitalizing the Brand Equity

Transformation of global world has led the technological advancement in every area of life. Moreover, it has changed the techniques that are used to do the businesses. However, there are many firms who are failed to cope up with technological challenges which lead them to be failed in the industry. The process of getting failed and vanished from the market place refers to fading brand. In order to prevent fading, companies adapt revitalization. Revitalizing is the process of re-launching the company brand by reshaping the product and its structure completely such as name, colors, values, logo, culture, image etc. Researchers show that revitalizing has great impact on the customer perception of the brand image. It increases potential customers as well as improves the brand value, which helps firm to increase sales and build strong brand image. Myspace faces great competition due to which the company lost its visitors. There are many reasons which pushed company to follow the process of revitalization. First reason is the rationilazation which refers to decrease in profits due to losing users. The major problem that was faced by Myspace which effected its profit was the decline in potential visitors. In order to get over from this problem and improves revenues, revatilizing can be the most optimal solution for the company.
Another important reason is the relevancy of brand. Due to changing customer needs, it becomes essential for companies to update the brands. Myspace was failed to maintain the relevancy of its services, accessibility and convenience according to changing market conditions. Moreover, due to the globalization, there are number of social media websites which focuses to cater large target market by specifying and offering unique services. The presence of strong competitors in the industry including Facebook and Twitter makes the competition tough. In addition, it has been observed that in today’s world, in order to better compete, the technological advancement becomes necessary which is also the reason of firm’s success or failure. The business of Myspace included factors which need frequent innovation as well as the alteration in operation and the products such as hardware, software and internet. However, there were so significant technological advancement that was adapted by the company. Therefore, for the survival of the firm and meeting customer requirements, rebranding or revitalizing becomes crucial when firms turn into larger organizations.

Efforts to revitalize the brand equity

In order to improve brand equity and increase the potential customer, Myspace revalitized its brand and strategies. There were many initiatives that was taken by the firm. The step that was taken by the company included changing the style of brand name by making S of space in lower case which used to be capital. Hence, the new brand name has been converted into Myspace from MySpace. This revalitilization helped the firm to gain customer recognition of its brand. The company now aims to further generate new concepts and ideas to make it unique from the previous brand. Myspace has also changed its operations by focusing on music related activities and orientation (Kyles, 2014). Moreover, According to Swartz, (2015), Myspace also plans to work with celebrities including Angelina Jolie through the developmenet of their profiles with upgraded informations related to them.

Suggestion for brand revatilization

Myspace has many other options to revatilize its brand. In order to make the website attractive, it can adapt co-branding strategy through contractual agreement with well-known music firms such as Apples’ itunes. It can also offers the upcoming bands or individual talent to post their videos and music albums on website. This can help firm to improve its brand awareness as well as let the producer find fresh talent. Moreover, Myspace has to adapt new technologies for the advancement of website which can make the portal more attractive for the visitors. The company also has great opportunity to improve its brand name by focusing on expansion of music market.

Conclusion

After the analysis of Coca-Cola, it has been observed that the company uses efficient ways of making secondary brand association such as co-branding, sponsorship, country of origin and efficient distribution channels. However, there are still many ways to improve its brand assosiation. Coca-Cola can use celebrities endorsement to appeal the young consumers. In addition, the company’s employees can play vital role to change the customer’s behavior and perception regarding the products.
In the second part of this report, it is analyzed that there are many factors due to which Myspace uses the process of revatilization including sales decline, lack of technological advancement, fierce competition and losing the users to the competitors. However, the company has adapted various techniques to revatilizing its brand. Myspace has shifted its operation into music related website. It has also plan to work with celebrities profiles. However, the company can also contact famous music companies. Moreover, the fresh talent should be welcomed in order to increase the potential users.

Reference List

Hoovers.com, (2015). The Coca-Cola Company Names of Competitors. [Online] Available at: http://www.hoovers.com/company-information/cs/competition.The_Coca-Cola_Company.3f8a006eaf87d773.html [Accessed 5 Jan. 2015].
Kyles, Y. (2014). Surviving a Tangled Web: Myspace Is Looking To Shift the Balance Of Power In Music. [online] AllHipHop. Available at: http://allhiphop.com/2014/02/27/surviving-a-tangled-web-myspace-is-looking-to-shift-the-balance-of-power-in-music/ [Accessed 5 Jan. 2015].
Leitch, S. and Richardson, N. (2003). Corporate branding in the new economy. European Journal of Marketing, 37(7/8), pp.1065-1079.
Lowe, L. (2013). Coke’s Recyclable Plastic Bottle Wins Award (Infographic). [online] The Coca-Cola Company. Available at: http://www.coca-colacompany.com/coca-cola-unbottled/cokes-recyclable-plastic-bottle-wins-award-infographic [Accessed 5 Jan. 2015].
Lüsted, M. A. (2011). Social Networking: MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. ABDO.
Peterson, T. (2013). MySpace's Music-Centered Relaunch Turned Up Volume, But Is Anybody Listening?. [online] Adage.com. Available at: http://adage.com/article/special-report-music-and-marketing/myspace-relaunch-turned-volume-listening/244361/ [Accessed 5 Jan. 2015].
Swartz, J. (2015). Once-fading MySpace Focuses on Youthful Reincarnation. [online] MediaBuzz. Available at: http://mediabuzz.monster.com/news/articles/895-once-fading-myspace-focuses-on-youthful-reincarnation [Accessed 5 Jan. 2015].
Uggla, H. (2004). The brand association base: A conceptual model for strategically leveraging partner brand equity. Journal of Brand Management, 12(2), pp.105-123.
Waltzer, M. (2012). Diet Coke Sees Fashionable Benefit to Co-Branding. [online] Available at: http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2012/01/13/Diet-Coke-Benefit-Fashion-Campaign-011312.aspx [Accessed 5 Jan. 2015].