 As-Salamu Alaikum Khawatin O Hazrat, I welcome you to lecture number 39 of Brand Management, MKT 624 at the Virtual University of Pakistan. I just finished talking about the phase of pricing in the previous lecture and the pricing being to the last phase of the strategic brand management process. The discussion on all the phases that are involved within the process comes to an end. The meaning to be started with the discussion on the brand's positioning and from there we got on to developing the brand's picture which comprises of the brand's associations and the contract and so on and so forth and then moved on to the brand extensions and the different portfolios forming with the complete brand architecture. And from there we moved on to developing the right most for the channels for distributing your brands. The discussion on the channels of our distribution paved the way to developing the right most communication strategies. And from communication strategies the discussion went on to the pricing phase which like I said is the final phase within the strategic management process relating brand management. Now what we are going to discuss from today onwards is not going to be the process itself rather that we are going to talk about things which related to execution and the planning side of the brand management. In order to make sure that the execution of all the strategies which you so good painstakingly are going to put in place to be successful in the marketplace you've got to make sure that the discipline of execution takes precedence over anything else and your brand becomes a success in the market meaning the movement of the brand in relation to the customer's preferences and in relation to the customer's loyalty toward it has got to stay intact. And we all know that the sense that the marketplace is a very dynamic place and that the brand movement is subject to so many different upheavals that we've got to make sure that all the changes that are taking place in the market are known to us so that we can take the corrective action the moment those changes take place. Changes could be for the better and changes could be for the worse. So the question that comes to the mind is after putting so many strategies in place starting with positioning and right up to the pricing we are now done with all the planning of the process that we had at our hand and executing it is the next challenge we are now in the process of executing it sales are taking place in the market these strategies are being translated into tactics we are seeing results day in and day out we should not be sitting idle of course we are taking care of day to day management but then at the same time we've got to make sure by certain means that the performance of the brand which we have developed so painstakingly has got to be measured so in other words what we are managing has got to be measurable and measuring the performance of a brand is going to be the topic of discussion in today's lecture how do we measure the performance we have so many different means at our disposal and all those means that I would again say are very strategic in nature and all the elements and factors that I am going to talk about are no longer unfamiliar to you because we have learnt all those and they are the basic preliminary nature therefore it only is a question of developing or understanding how to put all those elements and factors together in order to see that whatever we planned is being implemented in the right most fashion meaning in the most effective way and for the meaning giving us the required level of sales which is the name of the game because without registering the requisite level of sales we cannot say that the brand is performing well so the sales being one of the measures we definitely are going to talk about so many other measures which are involved in seeing how a brand is moving because the objective remains like I pointed out in the beginning to bring about corrective actions in your technical moves to the while you implement your strategies such the measures that we undertake really allow us to look into the different areas in a very insightful and analytical way one of the things you know it really allows us to do is to look into the overall strategic of the brand movement in light of the overall strategy that we profit if the brand is moving in the right direction in its macro manifestations then we can say that all is well that is one thing these measures allow us to look into the other area these measures really allow us to look into is the brand's positioning if there are any changes desired in brand's positioning it is because of these measures that we undertake from time to time that we can bring about those changes to correct brand's positioning these measures could also allow us to look into the overall need for the resources that we need to execute all the strategies no question that we carried out analysis of the whole situation to the while we were going through the planning process and we did come up with an exhaustive to the list of all the resources that we needed to implement all the strategies but then given the dynamism of the market you never know when a change takes place and you really have to reconsider the quality of resources that you need to execute in an effective way for your strategies another area in which we really can look into very analytically because of the support from the performance for the measures for the mechanism is the area of communication whether we really can bring about changes and improvements in our communication executions whether if not the strategy itself whether the strategies like I keep pointing out whether not changed every now and then it is the tactical execution which is subject to changes from time to time another area which is affected by these sort of the performance measures is the area of the pricing that we really can get very incisive insights into the right level of the pricing points that we must achieve based on the different pricing models that we discussed we can make the changes in the pricing mechanism or the pricing level so that we can generate the right levels of revenues and margins and profitability and so on and so forth performance measures could also allow us to identify areas of growth within the category and across categories in order for us to go into the brand stretch and the brand extension it is because of such measures that we really can lay our hands on what to do in relation to extending the range in terms of ingredients with different formats sizes or whatever all those areas that we have been talking about and that we are familiar with the question here is if we have the accounting measures already in place in shape of the revenues profitability with the different margins and the returns on sales and the returns on investment why the major performance because these financial measures do give us a lot of insight into what is happening within the company we have the results so why have the more measures well the answer lies in the following under the surface of the financial results and different kinds of statistical figures are certain strategic factors which cause certain changes in brand movement as the time passes by what are those strategic factors we are going to look into so in other words if the financial results are the final figures which let us look into the performance of the company these strategic factors are the ones which really cause those results so in other words there is a cause and effect relationship between these factors and the financial results that we gain at the end of any given period meaning at the end of the month quarter year and the brand plan period we have to look at this cause and effect relationship in a very critical way there are different models put forth by theorists in terms of these factors but what I can talk about is the summarized form of those factors on which most of the theorists agree that those are the factors causing changes and affecting the relationship between those particular factors and the financial results so therefore for the while we look forward to achieving certain financial results before we get those we have to look into the factors in order to make sure that whatever is happening is happening in just about the right most way so in other words these factors allow us to preempt certain things which if take place will lead to results which will not be very highly positive so these factors are of the four in number starting with differentiation getting on to relevance to esteem and to knowledge according to the theorists a brand develops itself in a sequential way going through these four strategic factors and any changes which are caused within these factors are the ones which will affect the financial performance so we have got to know how these factors work and on that basis we have got to know how to measure these so that we can ensure that the performance that we are going to get is going to be in line with the objectives that we envisaged let us take a look at the illustration of these sequential steps and we can see for ourselves that the differentiation sits right on top this comes first because without the ambitious level of differentiation we just cannot make up a brand powerful we cannot go for a premium price and therefore the level of differentiation is the bottom line characteristic of any brand that is wanting to achieve power in the marketplace and a brand which is going to be effective and a brand whose performance is going to be in line with the stated objectives as you can see from the illustration the second factor is relevance next on the model it means that a brand must have clear meaning for its users unless it is relevant for the target market the level of differentiation is no good for the target market I will explain this concept with the help of an example you will agree with me that the professional cameras although they are being very highly differentiated are no good for the market of those users who want to use cameras for everyday occasions and by the same token sports cars although are very highly differentiated are no good for those who want to use cars for everyday use so this is what really is meant by relevance a brand has got to be relevant to the target market and the moment it starts assuming proportions and features which do not really have an appeal for the target market it is no longer relevant in order for a brand to be successful and effective and powerful it has to be highly differentiated and also it has to have high level of relevance and the theorists are of the view that any of the brand managers must strive for these characteristics to be in place for the brand they are handling and they go on to say that differentiation multiplied by relevance is what is called brand strength this takes us on to factor number three which is esteem esteem is related with the way customers perceive quality the rise and decline in popularity of a brand is directly related with esteem if you have loyal customers they are bound to hold your brand in high esteem and if customers are disgruntled because of certain problems with the brand they are not going to hold the brand in high esteem they will hold it in low esteem that takes us on to the fourth factor which is knowledge according to theorists knowledge relates to the brand's positioning now what this really means is that your customers do not only have to be aware of the existence of your brand they must fully understand what the brand stands for they must be fully aware of the brand picture the promises the brand carries and they must be also very satisfied that the set of promises which the brand carries with itself is being delivered when customers could have that kind of feeling which can be summarized like the following if customers are fully satisfied with what the brand carries they are fully knowledgeable about the brand and they fully understand the positioning of the brand and that really is the the last and very important factor which really testifies that the existence of the brand is pretty much owned by the loyal customers because they fully understand what the brand is all about so it is much more than a simple recall or simple awareness about the brand the complete knowledge on part of your customers is something which creates brand loyal customers and which wins over new customers and retains the customers over a longer period of time I will explain what I have talked about with the help of another graphic illustration that as you can see from this illustration the four factors that I just talked about meaning differentiation, relevance, esteem and knowledge could be divided into two different groups and these groups are called two different constructs construct number one is differentiation times relevance and strength like I told you earlier construct number two is esteem multiplied by knowledge equaling stature so this means if a brand has a high level of esteem and you multiply that esteem with a high level of knowledge on part of your customers the stature of your brand is very high in the eyes of the market if a brand has the two constructs through itself in a healthy way then it has strength and it has high stature and these are the two strategic assets which really drive a brand's growth these four factors which I just talked about consist of so many different variants so we can put it like this if we have two different constructs one relating brand's strength and the other relating brand's stature these two constructs are divided into four different dimensions start with brand differentiation on to relevance and on to esteem and knowledge then these four dimensions could be further subdivided into different variants and it is the study of those variants which we are going to undertake in order to use those very variants as the tools for the performance of your brand so in other words if something goes wrong with the level of differentiation or the customers start perceiving your brand as no longer being as differentiated as it used to be and only because of the fact that the competitors can have come out with products which are much highly differentiated then it is going to be this the very performance measure meaning a performance measure along the dimension of differentiation which is going to allow you to bring about the corrective action so that you can bring that about and correct the situation so that you can be back on track to achieve the results as envisaged or maybe you can improve on the results which you had set forth as your objectives this is the one explanation of why could we use the different variants of the dimensions that form two different constructs with the help of another graphic illustration I am going to talk about all these variants which in other words are the performance tools at our disposal to measure our brand or brand's performance let's take a look at those before I start talking about different tools in their individual form and capacity let me explain all over again these tools are going to be used with the help of research models you have got to carry out market research and it doesn't really call for very complex models all it calls for is consistency on your part for the meaning you have got to carry this out for the once in a while maybe once a year so that you stick it on the track and know the kind of changes that are taking place these subtle changes which really have the potential to bring about huge changes in terms of your financial results so instead of waiting until you get the financial results and then looking back what really went wrong you would like to measure the performance of the brand with the help of these tools which will allow you to look into what really is it that you can do in order to assure a good future for your brand that is the basic objective the first performance measure that you are going to have at your disposal is about brand's awareness, recognition and recall and let me repeat that this is one of the variants of the mention of differentiation what is meant by recall, recognition and awareness is that your customers must be able to recall with your brand in a way that they really recognize it it is not simple awareness it is their impression it is a very distinct impression about the identity of your brand and that they should be able to recall that with the help of certain other characteristics that your brand carries so in other words this recall and recognition is similar to the recall and recognition which is generally used by agencies as a tool to measure the success level of their campaign but the difference lies in it being going a little further than that the way it really goes further than that is that it really serves as a very good tool to measure and then develop brand equity in the sense that it brings to you a host of information in relation to the brand awareness and recognition and that is the information that you really can use not only to be very satisfied and content about having a great level of awareness on your brand but rather being able to use that information for different variables of the marketing mix the information that you generate through the questionnaire or through the research model that really helps you in developing relationships of that level of awareness and recognition with your communication strategy for example that can also be used in relation to your pricing strategy and that also can be used in relation to your channel strategies so all these tools are going to offer you with certain results which are going to be multi-purpose while you carry out research you have to make sure that the questions are constructed in a way that the nature of response that you would like to have I'm not saying the response that you may like to have but you certainly would like to have a response which is very positive in relation to your brand but what is of importance is the nature of response has caught the lead for you to decide what is actually being felt and being considered by your respondents so while you carry out this research getting back to the first tool of awareness, recall and recognition you also have to make sure that you do talk about the symbols and imagery because in many cases you just cannot separate the brand name from the imagery and when you talk about in a direct or indirect way about the symbols and the images that you have as part of the brand identity people meaning the respondents can think of so many things and develop those with the images that they already have in their minds and may come up with the kind of response which may give you certain positive leads and you can then measure the level of actual awareness, recognition and recall in relation to your brand and then you can use that information to bring about and develop important relationships in terms of like I said earlier communication or channels or pricing strategy this is all about the first brand's measuring tool along the differentiation let us now get on to the second one which deals with brands persona recognition this measures the extent this measures the extent to which your brand is consistent with its persona you created your brand on the basis of certain characteristics and you thought the brand will develop certain associations when it is received by the customers so this measure really lets you look into what extent you have been successful in developing the right kinds of associations in the minds of your customers the benefits which you are delivering those benefits being perceived the way you thought would be perceived by your customers so that is the measure which lets you look into the consistencies which you have been or have not been able to develop in terms of the brand's personality it should be judged by the degree to which customers are perceived receiving the benefits so to say and the developing associations with the brand if the customers really have been able to develop a certain level of emotional associations then that is the ultimate success of the consistency of the personality which you created with the way it is being perceived by your customers in the marketplace you therefore again could have to a questionnaire which really evokes the correct answers in terms of the associations which you thought should be developed and should be evoked on part of the customers any variations which you detect that have to be taken care of to give you one example how to go about correcting the gaps while you undertake this performance by your tool if you intended to develop your brand's persona as being friendly and informal and the results of the market research show that the people are perceiving it very much contrary to what you had tried to create but you certainly have to take a corrective action you may have to do something with the imagery you may have to do something with the package and you may also have to do something with the overall communication campaign because your brand persona is not being considered the way that you had intended to create meaning friendly and informal but there may be people look upon that brand as being friendly and tight lipped so to say so therefore it is an opportunity for you to get the help of this performance tool to make things fall in place where you can bring about a corrective action the chances are if you had created the right persona then the persona which is being perceived by your customers that much off the mark that you have to bring about a complete change in your communication strategies these are the performance the measuring tools the point out through those subtle changes which have taken place and in response to those subtle changes you have to bring about certain adjustments within your tactical execution any radical change which you think you have to be brought about it has to be in response to a tremendous change in the market due to a great upheaval or something like that generally what I am saying is strategies which have been crafted very carefully after taking into consideration all the elements within the marketplace the chances are may not go that much wrong this takes us on to the third variant of the first dimension of differentiation and that is contract fulfillment we all know that the contract is a set of promises which the brand makes to its customers and when a brand makes a set of promises it doesn't say all that on the package it becomes automatic and we also know that the contract which a brand is supposed to be delivering is not a legal contract it basically is very emotional and it basically is very economic in nature your customers could have to generate your customers could have to generate an optimal level of economic benefit out of the product meaning your brand that to buy and you have got to make sure that the contract which you have created for that customer is fully delivered any breaches that may take place within different areas of the marketing mix they have to be corrected and you are going to find that out only with the help of the market research model which I am talking about again and again because that is the only way to find out what is really happening in the marketplace so that you can assure a good future for the brand back to breaches the breaches in the contract may take place in so many different forms and shapes but the quality of the breaches has taken place so the corrective action has to be taken somewhere along the manufacturing process the beauty of this research is that it really points out what really is wrong with the brand because it talks about the perceptions and also reactions of your respondents a breach may also take place because the brand is not being available if the availability of your brand is erratic to the meaning that you cannot serve your customers by making your brand available at the places of their preference then you have breached your contract because the perception on part of the customers is that it is not available everywhere despite the fact that you may think otherwise so this is a breach which has taken place and again the beauty of this performance measure is that it pinpoints and identifies the areas where you are going wrong and where you really can take the corrective action and if that action is taken you can assure your brand future if you are in a position to fulfill your brand contract say 100% then you are creating a lot of trust on part of the customers and it is that trust which really creates the brand loyal customers and brand loyal customers and a lot of referral power it is because of that loyalty that the brand attracts many more customers to itself and the process goes on and on you must have heard about strong brands well it sells so much because it has a lot of loyalty and that is what really is meant by loyalty so we have completed our discussion on the three basic variants in the shape of awareness, recognition and recall performance measure and brand persona measure and the brand contract measure if we are in a position to develop the right marketing research models which can help us evoke the correct responses which we really need to have to make the right decisions about the technical changes that are desired to assure the desired level of financial results then we are going to be successful and effective in undertaking such tools let us now get on to the second dimension the process, the dimension of relevance this dimension is divided into six different variants the first one being market share market share is a performance measuring tool which is undertaken by most of the companies all over the world I mean there is hardly any company in which that does not know the share of its market that it has to itself within the category it operates within it really lets you develop a picture of the number of customers that you may have or the level of the usage which defines the size of your market that will be your competition and we all know that it is because of the market share that we define to the various levels of the dominance in terms of the one being the leader the other being number two, number three, number four and so on and so forth this is an important measure and this is not a difficult measure it does not really require an extensive marketing research tool this is something in which you can develop internally and this is something which you also can develop with the help of an agency which specializes in sizing up the different companies by way of their shares of their respective markets the choice is yours but what it really means is it is going to be a change in the market share which is going to the pin point the performance which you are showing with the company and which you are measuring by using the market share as a tool the second variant is the purchase frequency this measure lets you have the number of times your customers could buy your product according to the one particular period meaning one particular buying cycle you are the best judge about the general frequency relating to your brand purchase and you know what the brand criteria is and as part of that criteria what is the frequency on part of most of the customers of your sales staff also and your other members of the channel but you have to have some the market research model which really lets you have this information and which really can let you develop a picture about the frequency and it may also fall under what you call usage test that is a test which is carried out by way of a model which asks very pertinent questions in relation to the frequency so you have got to make sure that the responses which you get are evoked in just about the most practical way the objective here is for you to look into how can I increase the usage on part of the customers and how can I increase the number of times they buy my brand these are the insights which you will get only if you get the right responses and if you can really measure the performance of the brand by knowing the actual frequency the third variant is about the customer satisfaction this performance may be very straight forward and it provides the rating on the degree of satisfaction in relation to your brand it also shows you how much willing your customers are to stick to your brand and you can then work out things like the lifetime value of your customers because you can identify and work out how many of them are loyal and how many of them can or will refer your brand to others it all depends on the research model which you have carried out to evoke the right kinds of responses in relation to all these factors or findings which I am talking about so the beauty I would say all over again of these performance measures is that you should develop your questionnaire or the market research model in a way that it must evoke the right most responses to which it must allow you to make the right most decisions for the changes if those are desired and I can say it with a lot of confidence that with the understanding that you have had so far about the basic strategic framework relating to the brand management process you should be in a position to develop a research model which will let you measure the performance of your brand on satisfaction of customers it shouldn't be difficult even if you are not doing it yourself you should be in a position to make very important inputs to letting it develop by somebody else the other variant of this dimension is the brand driven penetration you will recall that we talked so much about the brand, the extensions and the line extensions well one of the basic objectives is to get more and more into the categories if not within the same category but also into other categories with the help of a brand which is familiar and which is very well known it is now the stage that you have to test all that whether the decision which you took in terms of the brand extension or line extension whether it was viable or not so this performance measure lets you test whether penetration in relation to extendability of the brand whether it was okay or not okay again you have to come up with the kind of questions which let you gauge whether you should get into any further extensions or not the results may show that the customers are not going to buy any further variations of the brand under the same name because it is now getting very close to the stage where it will snap it will break the rubber effect you will recall so with the help of this performance tool whether you can confirm whether the extendability is viable or not in other words it lets you gauge how much rational you have been in devising your product strategies you wanted to gain penetration of the market with the help of an extension and that extension was based on fulfillment of a certain need which you thought was very explicitly defined if you defined it very rightly then the rationale behind that was very logical and it was worth the weight it carried and this is something which you can test with this performance measure as to what extent you really have been right in creating your product or creating your different brands under the same brand name or within the same line so this performance tool is very interesting and analytical in terms of engaging your product strategies this brings us to the next variant the quality perception and I think I should not really be talking too much about this tool because this is self-explanatory but you have to test quality perception on part of your customers with the help of research model in order to make sure that your quality is being perceived the way that you created it and what you are out to determine is whether you really are number one in the market in terms of your quality or somewhere down the line is your quality really very good or is it really shoddy because it can be bad and that is what you have to get a workout we all start with the premise and the intention the quality which we are going to produce and we have produced is second to none but then you see it is the judgment of the users meaning the customers which is going to lay the foundation for this for the performance and we have got to be able to know where we really stand we are either we are number one two three on the list you also like to measure how much consistent you have been in terms of quality because the consistency and dependability in terms of your brand's performance is on top of the list of the drivers for loyalty you recall from the previous lecture so therefore it takes on an added significance and you have got to develop a research model which will lead to the right most responses so the challenge whatever major you have at your disposal is going to be the research design to which you are going to use in order to carry out your research so that you can generate accurate responses for you to make the right most decisions another variant of this dimension is brand driven customer acquisition and customer loss you may also call it lost and found during the process of the brand management and selling for that matter you gain new customers and you also lose customers let us talk about those customers that we have gained we have gained customers as a hypothetical situation this year in comparison with the last we had the failures of sales we had the consumption patterns we were trying to determine how many new customers could have come into the life of your brand that it may not be as difficult as it may look or as it may sound to begin with suppose you are into selling consumer durables and you are selling the televisions refrigerators or kitchen appliances it should not be difficult at all to gauge the number of new customers that are part sets this year so you know how many more of them have come but the beauty of this the major lies engaging your branding strategies if those new customers could have come into the fold of your brand as a result of the branding strategies that you have in place then it is a very good measure to use that with the standpoint of engaging the branding strategies you do not always gain customers you also lose customers you have to develop the questionnaire in a way which elicits the responses to that effect also if you have talked with those customers who have decided not to buy your brand and go to some other brand whether you are selling durables or consumer consumables you have to find out the reasons why they did that and that really is going to give you a very good insight into your branding strategies and that is what this major is all about it is not just the numbers of the customers or the number of customers that you may have lost even under those circumstances when the net effect is a total gain you have not to be able to know how many of those are dissatisfied disgruntled and you in a way lost and how many you gained with this our discussion on the last variant of the second the dimension of brand equity or brand building the process comes to an end and I would say it again the reason we are talking about the dimensions of brand building or brand equity because on the one hand they build a brand on the other hand if something goes wrong with these very dimensions then they really negatively affect our strategies and therefore these very dimensions and their variants have got to be the ones that we must use as performance measures that is why we are talking about these in so much detail so much for the dimensions and the variants for today the time is coming to an end and I really look forward to talking with you in the next lecture in which I will wrap up this concept of performance measurement Thank you very much and Allah Hafiz