Part - I

Introduction

Think of brands and what comes to your mind are some of the world's greatest brands: Coca-Cola, GE, Disney, Ford, IBM, and Microsoft. All powerful, vibrant properties that command a premium price - primarily because these brands are recognized and aggressively managed as potent business tools.

A brand designates a product or service as being different from competitors' products and services by signaling certain key values specific to a particular brand. It is the associations which consumers make with the brand that establish an emotional and a rational 'pact' between the supplier and the consumer[5]. The real benefit of branding is often less in creating volume than in supporting the price that the purchaser is ready to pay. Their corporate leadership understands that a powerful corporate brand can weather crises more easily, slow market-share erosion and rally employees. Powerful brands influence customer preference, strengthen the bottom line and can even boost market valuation.

So what has gone wrong? - Overbranding

The boom years of 1990s saw the proliferation of products and brands. The companies spent vast sums of money in launching new brands, creating line-extensions, making acquisitions and mergers. In their bid to cater to the niche segments in the markets, the companies acquired rivals and adopted multi-branding strategies to attract new customers. However changing market dynamics have made it necessary for companies to look at its various brands from the perspective of the customer and develop strategic brand architecture i.e. the way these pieces are structured, managed and perceived in terms of how they are related to each other and add value to the organization. The loss making brands should be identified and important decisions regarding the selling, merging, milking or killing these loss-making or only marginally profitable brands should be taken.

Next

* Contributed by -
Kirti Sharma,
Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management.