 Hi, welcome, my name is Dr. Marcy Stone and this is Unit 4 on Brand Strategy of your strategic marketing course. Here is the course layout and Unit 4 is on Brand Strategy. Here are the Unit 4 learning outcomes. So explain the role of brands in creating value for businesses and consumers to find brand equity and the related brand asset evaluator and acre models. Explain the concept of brand equity, brand recognition and brand loyalty. Evaluate strategies to build a brand, including positioning and differentiation. Compare brand management strategies through the product lifecycle of introduction, growth, maturity and decline. Relate four strategies to managing the brand reputation, including through media platforms. Why are learning outcomes important? Every learning outcome ties back to your course material and your content. This includes assessments and also test preparation. Here are your Unit 4 overview topics. So we're going to talk about creating value for consumers, brand equity, brand recognition and brand loyalty, strategies to build a brand management strategies and strategies to manage brand reputation. This is the vocabulary for this unit, which we will discuss in this presentation. In marketing, it's important to understand the idea of how to create value for customers and then have the ability to apply that directly to a marketing strategy. So this will create value for the business and the consumer. Creating value may be done in a few different ways. When marketing communication is appropriately created, a brand communicates trust and that they can expect a dependable product. Value can be created by removing barriers, making a customer's life easier or helping to reduce frustration or fear. All of these may create value for a consumer. When a brand is profitable, a brand creates values for shareholders, employees and consumers. And this may also increase their overall reputation in the industry. This is important for repeat business so consumers can support the brand by demonstrating how important the product could be for the consumer value can be created. So this is an important concept to understand in marketing because it not only helps to create value for the consumer but for the brand's overall reputation. Okay, so this slide shows a little bit about brand messaging and then marketing alignment. When we look at things like on the left there, it talks about timeframe. On the right, it kind of your tools and artifacts needed. As we're looking at this from the bottom up, it's important to look at your campaign specific messaging that you might have in your communication strategy. And you wanna make sure that it's aligned with any annual goals or at least quarterly goals that might reflect any evolving priorities. And then also you're looking at your campaign, what tactics are you gonna be using? What kind of messaging? What are your proof points? All of that would be go into your campaign specific marketing. Then we move up to marketing specific positioning and messaging strategy. So this might be refreshed every 12 to 24 months depending on your market dynamics. And then you're looking at things like your target segments, your marketing specific positioning, any key marketing messages would be included in that. And then there at the top, we have your brand strategy. So highly consistent from year to year with periodic refinements. And then on the tools and artifacts side, you're looking at your value proposition core value statement, your mission statement, the voice of the brand, any personality that might be associated with that brand, any brand positioning and then taglines. When a consumer is aware of a brand, then brand equity has been created. And this leads to consumer loyalty. This concept is great for repeating purchases and will help to build the brand. It's important in marketing to assess brand loyalty and ensure that consumers are aware of your brand. Brand equity, brand recognition and brand loyalty are all related and can build on each other. So for example, when a customer is aware of a brand that creates brand equity, repeat purchases from a consumer will create brand loyalty. Brand recognition occurs when the consumer is aware of the brand or brand related products. The consumer may be aware of other brands, but should be able to distinctly recognize products that belong to the brand for brand recognition to occur. Brand loyalty occurs when the consumer returns to buy products from the brand after an initial purchase. Businesses may create loyalty-based applications and reward programs that allow consumers to return and then they're rewarded for their loyalty. So there are a few models that can help to assess brand awareness and loyalty. First, we have the agar model, which states the awareness of the brand, the loyalty of the consumer and apparent quality are business assets that allow a company to increase their value. And then the brand asset evaluator is a way to measure brand value and the brand's ability to make consumers happy and satisfied. When the brand uses appropriate marketing to promote products, the brand may create value and loyalty with consumers. But I think probably the most common thing that we see with this is really loyalty apps. You can go in, you can order your drink or food or whatever it is, go in and pick it up quickly and then you're also gaining rewards points. So there's more of a loyalty base there because they know that after a few purchases, they're going to get something for free. So that's probably the biggest way to see how brands build their equity, recognition and loyalty. As a marketer, it's important to understand how to build a brand as it relates to creating your marketing strategy. So there's a few ways that a brand can be built and these might include considering the voice and tone of the brand, company core values or brand values and how the brand is positioned. So building a brand creates value for the business and the consumer. The idea of a brand positioning is how the brand is presented to the customer through marketing and this may assist in helping the customer feel more connected to the brand and their products. So this is a marketing strategy to help build the brand's identity. A marketer may want to differentiate a product or brand from others on the market and this is another strategy that can help to build the brand's identity. So product differentiation may occur when marketing focuses on why this product is different from others on the market. So this may be done by focusing on product qualities, features or benefits. Managing a brand appropriately may improve brand recognition, increase sales and meet organizational goals. Understanding brand management strategies is important so you can build brand equity and consumer loyalty. So one strategy would be to follow and document the product lifecycle for each product of a brand. The product lifecycle stages include product development, market introduction, growth, maturity and decline. When a brand is managed appropriately there's no reason why it cannot have a sustainable growth. For example, Nike has been around for several decades and is clearly in the maturity stage of their product lifecycle. Most brands that have been around for that length of time do not usually stay in the maturity phase but Nike's ability to stay relevant has sustained them through a much longer maturity period. So the entire lifecycle process includes the amount of time the product exists. By understanding each of these, the product lifecycle stages and where the product is in these stages, a marketer can better focus on a strategic plan. It is important that marketing considers brand management strategies that will continue to build a product through the entire product lifecycle. These strategies will continue and adjust as the product moves through each stage of the lifecycle. Okay, so for instance, if you see that little curve that's in the kind of background of this slide, it shows you how a product might move through each of these product lifecycle stages. So first you have your introduction. So this is more on you start out with kind of low sales, there might be high costs for customer. You might include financial losses in here. You may have competitors, you may not in this stage. Then you slowly build up into your growth stage. So you're increasing your sales, your cost per customer might fall a little bit, profits will rise, you're increasing the number of customers who are buying your products. You may have at this stage more competition. Then you hit that maturity level, which I was just talking about Nike and how they've extended their maturity level by decades. So you may look at peak sales, you may look at cost per customer. It may be at the lowest at this point, your profits are high, you may be selling to a mass market and you may have a stable number of competitors. And then you move into decline. So the decline lifecycle. And then this might be falling. Usually your first indication is that your sales are falling, your cost per customer is low, your profits start to fall, your customer base kind of contracts a little bit, and then the number of competitors also fall right around the same time. So this just gives you an idea of how a company might move through these. Some companies may move through the entire process in five years. Some companies may take Nike as a great example because it may be decades before they come. And for all we know, they could be around 30 years from now, 40 years from now, 100 years from now. It just depends on how long they can stretch out that maturity level. How competitive are they in the marketplace and are they really good at almost redefining themselves a little bit? It's been interesting to actually watch Nike as they've moved through these stages. Okay, brand reputation is important for a variety of reasons. Brand reputation is the public perception of the brand and it's important to monitor on a consistent basis in order to keep the reputation high. When a brand has a good reputation, customer loyalty can be easier to build. Brand reputation may be built by using open and honest communication with consumers, carefully listening to consumer feedback and immediately acting on any issues that may arise. So by engaging with customers through social media and managing social media pages, a brand can keep an eye on their reputation and maintain it through responding to consumers and accepting consistent feedback. Engaging with customers might include answering questions, creating videos that demonstrate how to use or show features of a product or running contests. Consumers love to engage with brands that they're loyal to and social media platforms are a great way to demonstrate that interaction. Social media has made it possible for companies of any size to immediately connect with and engage with their customers. It's important that marketing take advantage of social media and also manage their reputation through those websites. Okay, in conclusion, so these again are the unit four learning outcomes and the things that we've covered today. So we looked at creating value for businesses and consumers. We looked at defining brand equity and we talked about the different ways that you may be able to measure that. We explained the concepts of brand equity, brand recognition and brand loyalty. We looked at building a brand and then looking at positioning what that is and then how to differentiate your product from others. We also compared brand management strategies and looked at the product lifecycle. And then we related four strategies to maintaining brand reputation, including through media platforms. Okay, what's next? Unit five, the last unit covers marketing communications. My name is Dr. Marcy Stone and I just wanted to say thanks for listening.