International brand equity Essay

This case study is meant to provide a critical evaluation of this research paper on international brand equity in multinational project group. this study tries to find out the scientific quality in its approaches. This study looks into the matter whether, the methodologies used are fine enough to bring out accurate results on the research topic and compare it with the researches done by other researchers on similar topics. If the methodologies used are not appropriate to come out with the real scenario in brand equity cases, the study also provides alternative and appropriate methods that should be used for fulfilling the purpose of this research. Introduction This is a critical review of international brand equity. In this review mentioned about the a particular case study of branded liquor Chivas Regal. Chivas Regal is a premium Scotch whisky produced by Chivas Brothers. It was founded in 1801 in Aberdeen, Scotland. The Chivas brand’s home is Strathisla Distillery at Keith, Moray in Speyside, Scotland. Chivas Regal is one of the good selling premium whiskies in the world, available in more than 200 countries. It is the best selling premium Scotch whisky in Europe and Asia Pacific and is rated one of the world’s good powerful spirits brands. Chivas Regal is one of the best performing spirits brands globally, with sales having grown by 40% over the last four years. Brand equity is the value that built-up in a brand. It is measured based on how much a customer is aware of the brand and consumption of a particular brand. The value of a company’s brand equity can be calculated by comparing the expected future revenue from the branded product with the expected future revenue from an equivalent non-branded product. This calculation is at best an approximation. This value can comprise both tangible, functional attributes (e. g. TWICE the cleaning power or HALF the fat) and intangible, emotional attributes (e. g. The brand for people with style and good taste). Brand equity can be positive or negative. Positive brand equity is created by effective promotion and consistently meeting or exceeding customer thoughts. Negative brand equity is usually the result of bad management. The author only saying the positive side. Literature review The author presented international brand equity in a case study method in this method he mentioned meanings of brand equity and measures of brand equity. The author presented this paper with a solid evidence of reference and key words Board equity; Advertising; Globalization; Marketing research; Multinational companies. The Marketing Science Institute (MSI) state that brand equity can be viewed by customers†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦as both financial and as a set of favourable associations and behaviours† (MSI 1989). Aaker (1991) suggests that brand equity consists of brand associations (brand image), brand loyalty, brand awareness, perceived quality, and other brand assets. Aaker (1996)indicates that loyalty is one sufficient importance that other measures, such as perceived quality and associations, can often evaluated based on their ability to influence it. Keller (1993) describes the consumer’s memory as a function of a set of nodes and links of the various associations related to a brand. Perceived quality has been shown to be associated with price premiums, price elasticties, brand usage, and remarkably, stock return (Aaker 1996). Brand awareness reflects the salience of the brand in the customer mind (Faircloth, Capella & Alford 2001). Main argument The author is arguing about the effectiveness of advertising and meaning of brand equity and relationship between the brand proposition and product formulation. The other main arguments are shown below: †¢ Increased diagnostic potential. †¢ Guiding principles established. †¢ Holistic outlook of campaign effects on consumers. †¢ Creating better understanding of the nature of the consumer â€Å"take-out† from the advertising by using indirect techniques e. g. use of projective and enabling techniques. †¢ Knowledge of how consumers might relate to the brand. †¢ Opportunities to unravel complex responses or ambiguity in answers. This research paper is consumer based brand equity which means that Customer-based brand equity is defined as the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand in which brand knowledge is conceptualised, based on an associative network memory model in terms of two components, brand awareness and brand image (Keller 2003). Feldwick (1996) notes there are three meanings of brand equity: Brand value: in accounting terms the value of a brand as an asset that can be broken out on a balance sheet. Brand strength: a measure of the strength of a consumer’s attachment to a brand. Brand description: the set of specific attitudes a consumer has towards a brand. Ambler and Vakratsas (1998) have stated that no single set of measures of performance or â€Å"metrics† could apply to all firms and that in practice many such measures are related. They suggested some consumer brand equity metrics as: â€Å"Intermediate† (includes top-line sales, bottom line, awareness, knowledge, relevance, perceived quality etc. ); â€Å"Behaviour† (loyalty, share of category requirements, number of customers gained and lost, new leads, repurchase rates, direct marketing responses) and â€Å"Competitive† (share of market, share of voice, relative/actual/measured quality, relative satisfaction/intention to buy). Clearly, there can be many measures or combination of measures which marketers could decide to include. Indeed, Feldwick has argued that when assessing the health of a person there is no single â€Å"health† score but rather a set of measures which are used to qualitatively assess health. Taking this analogy further, we would argue that the measures that are relevant will depend on the circumstances of the person. For instance, their age (product life cycle? ), history and life expectations – what could be expected given the environment in which the person has lived (market history, conventions and forecasts) and most importantly their psychological well-being. In the latter case, one might examine the extent to which a person has a set of core values that are â€Å"healthy†. Are they consistent within themselves and with the communities in which the person lives and works? Is their expression optimal? The parallels with brand essence research and brand building are topics this paper will address in particular. The approach taken in this paper is that building brand equity in marketing rather than accounting terms is about strengthening a brand in the mind and heart of the consumer. To achieve this, marketing research can help define how this might be achieved, screen marketing programmes before they are implemented and then assess their effectiveness once executed. The concept of brand equity is not new. Certain global brands in the drinks market have, for long, been successful as â€Å"global entities† in their own right, projecting strong cultural identities or what they stand for, e. g. Coca Cola and Johnny Walker which had the slogan â€Å"born 1870 and still going strong†. The best known Seagram brands include Chivas Regal whisky, the Glenlivet malt whisky, Mumm champagne, Martell cognac and Sandeman port and sherry. Better known in the drinks industry for its production and marketing of distilled spirits, wines, coolers, beers, mixers and fruit juices in over 150 countries, Seagram also has investments in the music and entertainment industries. The example of Chivas Regal draws from previous discussion about market research (Nancarrow et al. , 1998). Chivas Regal is Seagram’s definitive luxury Scotch whisky from Strathisla, the oldest operating distillery in Scotland, founded in 1786. From its origins as a whisky consumed by members of the nobility and gentry in Scotland it is now sold across the world to â€Å"discriminating whisky drinkers†. According to Kapferer (1992), successful brand development should take account of the genetic blueprint and core values of a brand. However, brand building must also consider the more peripheral, often local, attributes of an international brand. Marketers can therefore seek to maximise the appeals of their brands through marketing communication methods in global markets, with these principles in mind. As a premium brand, Seagram’s Chivas Regal is advertised and promoted to be positioned as a luxury brand in the minds of consumers. The positioning and investment in consolidating this have been consistent across countries. The designs of local advertising campaigns in the past, therefore, had to meet specific global brand criteria to maintain consistency in terms of consumer perceptions. The core values of the brand should be fundamental to the creation of the blueprint for all marketing communications. However, while it is one thing to hold the view that core values should represent the essence of a truly global brand which could be â€Å"transported† across the world, it is possible that the search for common values may be misunderstood by local management as a search for the lowest common denominator, possibly leading to blandness of approach. At Seagram, global management avoided this by a process of full consultation with their regional and local markets management teams. It is also not always easy for organisations to ensure that their messages to consumers are interpreted by them in the ways in which such organisations had intended. For Seagram it was important to get it right and to deliver advertising messages as effectively as possible to consumers. The â€Å"consultation processes† with consumers in the pre-testing research on press advertising would minimise the risk of distortion as well as contribute up-to-date information about consumer needs and wants. The author used exploratory method with the use of qualitative research approach. Exploratory research is usually conducted to clarify and define the nature of a problem The author presented in a good way and he mentioned each and every corner of this research paper. He presented with good reference. The author mentioned qualitative techniques. But only the one defects is not a deep paper Author presented with the help of a table and a graph Discussion In this research paper author selected brand is not suitable for this research paper because liquor products are a different category. In my opinion liquor products are addicted products peoples are selecting only in the base of addiction not for branding sense. The author mentioned two type of testing part one is pre-testing and another one is post-testing it shows that communication effect and sales effect Conclusion In this research paper author presented in a different style and different type of approach. Any way this is a good research paper but little bit defects like the author concentrate only a particular brand. In my opinion this brand is not suitable for research of brand equity because alcohol is a product but peoples are buying to the addiction of alcohol. In this research author more concentrate about the technical part and research part. Reference http://www. emeraldinsight. com/Insight/ViewContentServlet? contentType=Article&Filename=Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Articles/0360160411. html (This review is based on this link) Blackston, T. (1992), â€Å"Observations: Building Brand Equity by Managing the Brand’s Relationships,† Journal of Advertising Research, (May):79-83. Feldwick, P. (1996) ‘What is Brand Equity anyway, and how do you measure it? ‘, MRS Conference, Birmingham International Convention Centre, March. Feldwick, P. (1999) ‘Brand research’, in C. Mcdonald and P. Vangelder (Eds. ) ESOMAR Handbook of Market and Opinion Research. Gordon, W. (1991) ‘Researching a brand’, in D. Cowley, Understanding Brands, Kogan Page. Nancarrow, C. , Wright, L. T. and Woolston, C. (1998) ‘Pre-testing international press advertising: the need for informed consensus on methodology’, Qualitative Market Research Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 25-8. De Ruyter, Ko. and Scholl, R. (1998) ‘Positioning qualitative market research: reflections from theory and practice’, Qualitative Market Research Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 7-14. Wright L. T. and Crimp, M. (2000) The Marketing Research Process, Prentice Hall, Fifth Edition. Blamires, C. (1999) ‘Pricing research’ in C. Mcdonald and P. Vangelder (Eds. ) ESOMAR Handbook of Market and Opinion Research. Axelrod, J. N. (1992) ‘The use of experimental design in monitoring brand equity’, Proceedings of the Seminar: The Challenge of Branding Today and in the Future, Brussels, ESOMAR Crimmins, J. C. 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