 اسلام علیکم خواتینہ حضرات، وصیم ایم ایساً ویلکم سیو، لیکٹر نمبر 40 of Brand Management MKT624 at the virtual University of Pakistan. We are covering the area of measuring the brand's performance. I started talking about this topic in the previous lecture and I'm going to pick up things where I left. You will recall that I emphasized on the need for having some strategic measures along with the financial measures which every company always has. And those measures are sales revenues returns on sales returns on investments and so on and so forth. And those are the numbers which really give you a very clear picture of where the company stands. But then at the same time we need to have certain measures which are the very strategic in nature. A strategic in the sense that those really stem from all those strategies and those factors which cause the financial results companies to achieve. So therefore there's a need for those strategic factors to be measured in order to make sure that they really supplement the results that we see in terms of financials. And also you will recall that I emphasized on the need for this kind of measurement because we like to preempt so many different factors that could have been negative and that may cause drastic changes in terms of the financial results. So in order to make sure that these strategies that we employed and that we are in the process of executing are just about the right strategies and the execution in particular is on the right path. And if there are any changes or corrective actions desired we take those immediately at the time they occur and make sure that the path toward achievement of the financial results is free of any troubles. I talked about four different factors or dimensions that have to be the basis of measuring the strategic changes and those are differentiation, the relevance, esteem and knowledge. And you will also recall that there are so many different variables or offshoot to all these four dimensions. Differentiation has like three, relevance has six and esteem and knowledge which I'm going to talk about also has a couple of variables to themselves. And this is not to say that the list is limited to the number that I'm talking about. The list is pretty long and there are no hard and fast rules as to which should be or must be the variables as the divisions and subdivisions of the basic four fundamental dimensions. We need to divide these dimensions into all those strategic factors which we think are responsible to drive the growth of our brand. And therefore those could be the same factors which also can cause some negative changes. And therefore any factors which are not going to be covered or which may pop into your mind as being a bit relevant. You also can add those to the list of the ones I'm talking about as long as you really can make sure that those factors, the ones made part of the research model are going to lead toward accurate responses which will further help you in enhancing your understanding of the whole strategic and execution process. Okay. So having already talked about the two major dimensions meaning differentiation and relevance. Let's now start talking about these factors on the esteem dimension. As the terminology or the word means we under this measure like to measure how many people are there or customers are there who are consistent in terms of buying our brand. And we like to make sure through this measure how consistent those customers are. The meaning do they really come back to the brand over and over again and buy it. How long they have been buying the brand. So once you have the positive findings about the consistency of your customers in terms of their buying behavior you really can make projections about the times to come. You know how satisfied those customers are because consistent customers are loyal customers and loyal customers are the ones who are going to stick to the brand and they are the ones who also are going to get into referrals and because of that the brand is going to gain new customers. So getting into projections for the future numbers also becomes easy with the help of this measure. Easy in the sense that you can work with the projections with a lot of confidence. One more thing this measure lets you look into is those customers who would have left the brand if you did not have the right branding strategies. What does that mean? Let me explain this with the help of an illustration. If your customers are responding to questions which relate to your communication strategies or relate your pricing strategies and the responses elicit things which really testify the accuracy of those strategies then you will know that this particular customer really stuck to the brand because of the communication that is taking place. So you will know that the communication which you kicked off is effective and you are talking about the right most elements of the brand character and the promise and the positioning in other words which you really want to create in the minds of the customers and as long as you get a testimony to that fact your strategy or your strategies are in place. You also can look into the pricing strategy with the sense of confidence if you think that many of your customers are responding very positively to the pricing strategy. If they approve of the price you again are very confident about whatever you have in place and that is going to give you further insights into what should happen in future times. You also can look into another area which is if customers are so consistent and they are sticking with your brand why is it that they are sticking with this brand like is it because of the pricing strategy is it because of the communication strategy or is it because of the product features meaning the benefits and if you think there are certain benefits which really are very compatible with the list of drivers for the loyalty factor then you can talk about those drivers and depending upon their importance like I said earlier you can design your questionnaire accordingly. If you think that the performance factor in terms of your product is right on top and it should be on top you should go out to test that and if the test is positive that is a testimony to the fact that the strategy is just about the right strategy. You can look into this fact from so many different angles just to make sure why is it that your customers are staying loyal to the brand and why they are sticking to the brand. Another thing you should look into another question that you should ask your respondents should be what competitive brands they considered before making the final decision of buying your brand yet another time because they are consistent because they are loyal so they are buying your brand again and again. So what is it that really makes your customers buy your brand in preference to the competition? What are the competitive brands because they considered before making the final decision of buying your brand so in other words what are the competitive brands because they in a way rejected and what are the factors which are so positive about your brand that really makes them buy it again and again so in other words not only that you really can't determine because all those factors are relating the benefits which your brand offers you also will know the competitive brands that entered the decision set of your customers and that I think is something very important to know because that way you really can determine how to gauge your brand in relation to competition and how your brand in other words stacks up against competition. All the questions that you ask your respondents are going to give you answers which will testify the accuracy of your strategies and in case the answers do not testify your strategies being right then of course there is a gap and it is because of that particular factor that you get into this kind of measurement just to make sure that everything that is taking place is taking place in the right most manner and fashion and if there are corrections or adjustments to be made you make those. Another variable on this dimension of the esteem is what you may call price premium the price premium being one of the strategic elements of the whole branding process also becomes an important variable which you have to measure and test so this measure lets you determine why your customers are willing to pay you a premium in comparison with other brands or other products not only why they are willing to pay premium it also lets you look into what should be the right premium in case you are not charging the right price you still have a chance to make adjustments and you can move the price upwards moving the price downwards generally is not a good decision but here we are talking basically in the context of price premium and the better margins by asking your customers right questions about the pricing strategy in particular you really can lead them to give you answers which are based on objectivity and honesty so that you really can gauge the efficacy of your pricing strategy you compare your brand against the competition and again you know can stack it up in relation to the pricing patterns in the market place and any adjustments which you think have got to be made should be made so this measurement lets you increase the price if you think and increase should come forward and it also lets you feel very confident if the price premium charged by you is just about the right premium and you maintain that price so the pricing being a very important strategic factor you've got to measure this and this measurement will lead towards some very convincing answers whether you have the right margins to yourselves or not and the name of the game is going to be margins because the margins are going to lead to net profitability and so on and so forth so the whole branding effort is the gear toward that and the pricing is one of the prime prime drivers of all those financial elements another variable on the dimension of esteem is the lifetime the value of your customers this sounds very interesting and this really is an interesting measure to what extent this really gives you the very incisive insights is something that remains to be seen but basically this measure deals with working out the lifetime the worth of your customers and how you work that out well it is based upon the loyalty and consistency of your customers in relation to their buying behavior what you do is you work with a certain body of your customers meaning in terms of number and you multiply that with the value of the brand or the price that you charge and then multiply that with the number of times which customers are going to buy that brand over and over again and come up with a certain value which you think is going to be the average value or an average value for an average customer in relation to purchase of your brand this is an interesting measure which it may give you the certain leads and certain insights into the branding process but this may not be as significant as the one I just talked about in relation to pricing let us now get on to the fourth dimension which deals with the knowledge and you are not to the loose side of the fact that the dimensions I am talking about today form the construct number two which is about the brand's stature I just finished talking about a steam and now I am getting on to the knowledge dimension and the very first variable of the knowledge dimension is about positioning positioning pops up every now and then and the fact is that the whole game of the branding is all about positioning and positioning being a function of the segmentation and the differentiation all the marketing strategies the drive out of the concept of the positioning or the positioning strategy and therefore it is of the utmost importance that we go for this measure whether the positioning that we have try to create for our customers in other words the position that we are wanting to occupy into the minds of our customers is it the one which is being perceived so by the customers meaning the message that we are conveying does that have similarities with the way they perceive it because if there are any gaps it means that the positioning of the brand is not 100% correct so in other words any communication that takes place from the company side and is intended for your customers or consumers it has to be on the same wavelength and there must not be any gaps if there are no gaps that really is a testimony to the fact that the communication is on the same wavelength the strategy is just about right and the message that you are delivering is being received exactly like that by your customers and therefore the strategy is working to leverage your brand another important factor which makes measuring this strategy the very important is the strategies of segmentation and differentiation and you will recall that the strategies of segmentation and differentiation have really come to life with the help of positioning so therefore it is of utmost importance that we measure our positioning strategy because that really is going to give us a lot of confidence into whatever we are doing to achieve all the strategic goals to what extent your customers really understand and then own it can be explained with the help of one example and let me give you this example for the sake of clarity the position has got to be so clear in the minds of the consumers that they should start owning it now when I say they should start owning it it doesn't really mean that your customers will tell you that this is the position that you created and we own it but notice that your customers will always think of your brand as the first brand which will come to their minds and they will not think of any other brand and even if they think of other brands which they may form part of their decision set like I referred to in the previous variable then at least you have the confidence that all those brands will reject it your positioning it happens to be so strong that the final decision was taken in favor of your brand back to the example you have the position of your brand from the taste and quality platform so in other words what you are communicating to your the target market is that the quality of your brand is the second to none and the taste is really very good meaning it's full of taste and naturally you would like your customers to perceive your brand in those terms now what happens if the customers start perceiving your brand as a brand which is very price friendly if there is a finding then there is something wrong with the way you are trying to position your brand maybe the platform of positioning is right position strategy is not right there has to be something which has generated this kind of a feeling in the minds of your consumers that they look upon your brand or whenever they think of your brand they think of your brand in terms of it being very price friendly now this is not the position you like to create in the minds of your consumers you never intended that your customers should ever think about the pricing because you have created for them something full of quality and full of taste which means it must demand a premium price and if the customers could have a position which is contrary to the concept of your positioning then it is going to be awfully difficult for you to dislodge that position from their minds because they have this perception that the price of this brand is never going to be out of their range of perception you have to control the damage then and there and they must make sure that you never run into that kind of a constraint it really is a constraint because you cannot go for the price increase in other words since the positioning has lot to do with communication and it comes to life only because of communication there has to be something wrong with the way you are communicating the brand's personality or the brand's promise with your customers and therefore whatever is required to take the corrective action you've got to take that and make sure that your positioning strategy is back on track and in case that there is no gap of their perception meaning customers' perception where the word was intended while we created the position then everything is fine and your positioning strategy stands testified that it is the right strategy there is a very strong relationship between quality of any brand and the price premium that you charge and therefore you've got to make sure positioning which is created from the standpoint of quality does get registered in the same way as it was intended and you gain the benefits of the price premiums and the margins and the better profitability not only that you gain the customers who become very consistent because of a very consistent positioning of the brand and because of the benefits that you're offering and also because of the fact that the benefits that you're offering you have positioned those so beautifully and you're communicating those to your customers so effectively the brand again and again so what here is the most important and fundamental factor is the way that you design your questionnaire you've got to ask the right questions to your customers so that you get the right most and the honest most answers in relation to your positioning that is the lesson here and it goes without saying that the complete understanding on the part of your customers is of the utmost importance and that is what you have to test and measure that they do have that level of understanding meaning complete the 100% understanding and they must own the position so that they become consistent and loyal customers and so that they get into referrals and bring more and more customers the last of the variable on the four dimensions or for that matter the second of the variable on the dimension of knowledge after positioning is the referral index this in itself can be a measure although I talked about the referrals a lot of times in relation to positioning and also in relation to customer loyalty test you can get into this measure independently of customer loyalty and positioning and then determine how many customers are there or what approximately is the size of the population of those customers who really voluntarily get into the exercise of referring your brands to potential customers now this is a function of consistency for the brand loyalty and good positioning and acceptance of price and the benefits that you're offering through differentiation and so on and so forth so when it comes to the designing the questionnaire in relation to referrals you've got to ask so many different questions but all those questions they've got to be very pertinent in this particular context any questions which you already have asked in relation to other variables may not be repeated and if there is a dire need to repeat any questions there has to be a strong logic and rationale for that the objective still remains that you are out there in the market to testify that all the strategic factors which are responsible for your brand growth and for your brands leveraging are fully in place and they are working very effectively in coordination with each other and in close relationship with each other so that you really can derive the optimal level of leveraging that basically is the lesson of measuring your brand before I and discussion on these variables let me tell you that the list of the variables could be very long and I did point out this factor at the start of my lecture the list has got to be in relation to your particular situation and circumstances and the list and that you have to measure your brand on all the variables that you can think of this is very important because you have to look at the resource constraint you do not have all the time in the world to get into an exercise which may take time at the cost of other strategic moves so therefore what is very important to remember in relation to these variables is you should pick up those variables maybe just four or maybe just six or at the most eight I would say which really can give you the insights with confidence that whatever you are doing is right and you are on the right path and if there are any corrections to be made those should be made in a well structured strategic way having talked about all that I would like now to summarize the benefits of these variables in relation to the dimensions from where they stem it is very important to go for these measures because whether you go for just about four measures or six measures or eight measures say the ones in a year it is very important to undertake these measures and you know the importance why let me talk about that also as part of the summary but what is very important to keep in mind is that in adversity you really start realizing that the importance of these strategic factors is of paramount importance now just look at this from the standpoint of not getting into this kind of exercise what happens is all of a sudden sales start slipping and your share of the market start eroding and you get into the kind of a situation which is a reflection of total desperation and all you do at that time is make some desperate decisions bring your brand back on track and it is at that moment that you start realizing the importance of measuring these strategic factors I wish I had undertaken certain strategic measures and if I had undertaken those measures I would have known what has gone wrong and what really has caused this negative situation to surface another set of circumstances under which the importance of the measurement makes itself felt is the situation which may not be the very adverse but which definitely is the one under which you find your brand not really fully exploiting its potential the meaning that you start realizing that the brand is moving alright but the brand is not really moving the way it should have still is a lot of spark and still is a lot of energy which still needs to be exploited in terms of the movement of this brand and you get into the measurements of all these factors not all these factors but whatever factors you think are very strategic in relation to your own situation meaning just about 4 or 5 or 6 of those and undertake a market research project and get into the exercise of finding out the right answers and once you have found the right answers you are all set to with hardness the potential of the brand you capitalize on the market situation and start making the good decisions to the meaning the right decisions and get back to the right path the marketing experts really emphasize on measuring these factors because they are very strongly of the view that it is not only the financial the measures which should tell the company about its performance these results have got to be supplemented with the measures which really cause those results in other words we have got to the cause and effect relationship that the relationship is in place and there is no short circuiting so to say and there is nothing which may undermine that relationship which is of so much importance benefits like I pointed out what really are the benefits of this approach with your brand's performance well the foremost benefit I would say is that you really can maintain your brand's position so much has been talked about the brand's positioning that I don't really think I really have to shed any more light on the concept but the factor means that with the help of the measuring this particular factor you really can maintain your position when you maintain your position you also know when is going to be the time when you are going to bring about certain changes in the position and what is it that you have to do in relation to all that the second benefit is that you really can preempt the most of the damages that might be in the offing and you can get into a damage control you can get into an exercise preempts that to the damage instead of getting into the damage control exercise the meaning once the damage has taken place that is not a good situation you would like to create a situation in which you are preempting that damage another benefit this approach offers you is that you really can consolidate and further solidify your brand's positioning because you know the benefits which really appeal to your customers and you know the communication which is in place responsible for communicating that position effectively into the minds of the customers and therefore you can further consolidate that position you are an expert by that point and you really can solidify it you really can as another benefit that is on the brand's picture so in other words you make sure that there is just no gap between the picture which you created in terms of the associations and the brand contract and the brand delivery and the perception on the image which is created in the marketplace meaning in the minds of the consumers again this is something which is very closely related to your positioning which is achieved it automatically means that the brand's picture is just about the right picture but in relation to the concepts that we have learned and in relation to these steps that we take one by one in order to build up the brand we have got to be clear about this factor also that this is a great benefit which lets you feel confident that the picture that you have about your brand is just about the right picture it also offers you the benefit of determining the impact of your strategies on retaining your customers now not only creating customers retaining customers and gaining more customers this basically relates the accuracy of all the strategies that you have in place so in other words also this relates to the positioning and that is why I started talking about the benefits starting with the factor of the positioning because if the positioning is right then the chances are all the strategies that you would have in place as part of the overall framework are the right strategies and the brand is going to create maintain and gain your customers and this is the profile which really lets you make your customers loyal towards your brand another benefit which is of high value is that you really can determine whether you should go for the brand extension or you shouldn't go for extensions the results that you generate the help of this research or these measurements really lets you look into the extendability so in other words you really can determine the point where you tell yourself this is the point beyond which I must not go in terms of extending the line because I already have created a lot of the brands meaning a lot of products with so many different kinds of benefits in terms of ingredients in terms of flavors in terms of tastes in terms of the different sizes so on and so forth that I do not really have to get into any more extensions and there also is a very strong possibility that a picture out of this research model may emerge leading you toward getting into more extensions and you may think to yourself that the potential of the brand in terms of extendability is not really fulfilled and therefore I have to look into extending the line or extending the brand into other categories meaning in other words that it lets you size up the level of power of your brand I mean you may find out that the brand happens to be so powerful in the eyes of the customers that there is no harm in getting into other categories and of course that is the decision to be taken by the top management but the fact remains that the measurement really lets you look into so many different important aspects which lay the foundation for the strategic decisions which the company is to make in order to stay a viable concern, a profitable concern it also lets you achieve an overall picture relating your returns meaning qualitative returns that you have gotten as a result of your investment into your brand and those qualitative returns are related to the confirmation of all the factors which I have talked about and all those factors which I have not talked about because during the course so far it lets you look into the brand's picture it lets you look into the brand's contract it lets you testify that the pricing is right or not right to what extent we have the margin for a price increase and it lets you to look into the effectiveness of the channels of distribution the communication strategies and so on and so forth it also lets you look into the organizational structure and that is something which I am going to talk about in the next lecture because you have to have an organization which is fully compatible with a brand based culture the meaning that you have to have the people and you have to have practices which are very much in line with what is required to build up your brand and to leverage your brand so therefore the measurements the lead to results which let you look into a host of qualitative factors which are all very strategic in nature and therefore allow you the benefit of making better decisions for leveraging of your brand with this benefit stand to the summarized let me now get on to the overall summary of the concept that I have discussed in the two lectures first of all I would say that the measuring performance of your brand is very important to make sure that you are managing your brand right in other words anything which is not measured you can say is not managed right still in other words even if you are getting your financial results positively it doesn't really mean that you really are managing the brand right in order to make sure that you really are managing it right you've got to get into the certain strategic measures and those measures relate the strategic factors which give rise to the financial results at the end of every given period measurement of the financial results comes at the end of every month or at the end of every quarter or a year but the measurement of these strategic factors may come once in a year but it has to supplement your financial results if these factors are responsible to cause the financial results then these factors could have to work in tandem with the financial results the cause and effect relationship which is defined by these coming together then we've got to make sure that we may maintain the balance between that cause and effect relationship and whatever causes the results is measured once in a while so that we know that we are making the right moves or we must know that we are to make certain corrections and certain adjustments and it is because of the timely action on the basis of the results from these measurements that you keep on posting good financial results this is the greatest lesson from these lectures or study of this particular topic this really makes you stay very alert and sensitive to bring about the tactical changes that are to be brought about in case of any gaps and any actions that require your attention a time may come in the life of a company when financial results may nosedive because of the lapses in your strategic execution so in other words these measures they let you stay very alert and they let you make sure that the strategies however the beautiful they may look that they must not be left a chance that is the main point to be remembered that strategies must not be left to any chances and the execution of those strategies has to be the very effective and the pre-planned and any corrective actions that may be required along the road can't be taken then and there so that you can control the implications of these strategies and implications of these strategies of the ones which you already have planned and which you envisage and therefore if you lose control of those implications it means the results which you are going to get at the end of the road or at the point of destination it may not be the ones that are required the destination can make change all of a sudden in other words and that is not something which you want and which you need that's the last thing for any professionals any managers the strategic implications of the whole the process of the measuring performance relate to the four different macro dimensions and those dimensions are the differentiation relevance esteem and knowledge never forget these four factors whenever you look upon your marketing strategies in relation to these four factors the chances are you will end up making in a good decisions and all the variables or the offshoot that we have discussed as measures are the divisions and subdivisions of these four macro strategic factors the divisions or the subdivisions if you like to go into subdivisions are also the very strategic nature and they happen to be the drivers for your strategies but then at the same time those are the ones which have to be measured in terms of your brand's performance because it is the measure of those factors or those variables which let you determine that you are on the right course if we are not we make adjustments and the process goes on so much for measuring your brand's performance and in the hope that the concept to all of us is very clear I would now like to move on to the next topic which is about the developing the brand based culture because in order to get the results and the leverage of your brand you have got to make sure that you have to have a compatible organization this organization is not very different from the traditional organization in terms of the human resource and other resources what is different is the culture that we have to develop in order to attain our results and when it comes to the developing the compatible culture I will refer to the importance of the cross cultural working within an organization the involvement of people from across the functional boundaries people from not only marketing people from production people from finance people from information technology so on and so forth it is going to be the combination of a cohesive effort which is going to make the whole look greater than the sum of its parts that basically is the message for the next lecture which I am going to deliver Allah Hafiz until that time and I look forward to seeing you in the next lecture