Brands and Advertising

3 KEY CONCEPTS
1 Effective positioning requires selecting the optimum benefit and correct benefit
focus.
2 Benefit selection should be based upon importance to the target audience,
perceived ability to deliver, and doing so uniquely or better than competitors.
3 Brand awareness will be either recognition or recall based, depending upon
how the brand decision is made.
4 Involvement in purchase decisions is a function of risk, defined in either fiscal or
psychological terms.
5 Brand purchase decisions will be driven by either negative motives, where a
problem is to be solved or avoided, or positive motives, where a reward is
sought from the product.
6 Both involvement and motivation are critical to communication strategy for
building brand attitude.
STRATEGIC BRAND MANAGEMENT

Introduction

The original meaning of the word 'brand' seems to derive from an Old Norse word brandr,
which meant 'to burn' (Interbrand Group, 1992). Yet in the etymology of the word, this
idea of branding as a 'permanent mark deliberately made with a hot iron' now takes second
place to 'goods of particular name or trade mark' (NSOED, 1990). But does this really
describe what is understood as a brand? The American Marketing Association describes a
brand as a 'name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them intended to
identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and differentiate them from
those of competitors'. The AMA definition concerns the reason for a brand: to enable a
person to identify one alternative from a competitor. All this is true, but a brand must be
a label in the true sense of that word: something 'attached to an object to give information
about it' (NSOED, 1990).The information about a brand in very large measure comes from
its marketing communication, and it could be argued that without advertising there would
be no brands.
Beforegoing on, it is important to understand just exactly what we mean by 'advertising'.
When we refer to advertising we are talking broadly about any marketing communication
that is meant to reinforce brand awareness and build positive brand attitude, regardless of
the way that message may be delivered. It is a strategic consideration. This means anything
from store atmosphere, packaging, endorsements, and product placements to messages in
more traditional mass media such as television, radio, posters, magazines and newspapers
can be advertising. This is what isoften referred to today as 'contact points' (Donaghey and
Williamson, 2003).
In this chapter we will be considering the critical role that advertising-like messages play
in strategic brand management, and how to develop effective brand positionings for
marketing communication, and strategies for building brand awareness and positive
brand attitude.

The nature of brands and advertising

When people think of brands, they usually think of products they buy: Coke, Cadbury,
Ford, Hoover, Persil, Mars. But just about anything can be 'branded' as we have already
seen. Products, services, corporations, retail stores, cities, organizations, even individ-
uals can be seen as 'brands'. Remember, a brand name is meant to embody information
about something, information that represents a n added value, differentiating it in a
marked way from alternatives. A brand name is meant to trigger in memory positive asso-
ciations with that brand. Politicians, hospitals, entertainers, football clubs, corpor-
ations, they all want their name, their brand, to mean something very specifically to their
market. It is how they wish t o be seen, and how they wish to be distinguished from
competitive alternatives.
 BRANDS AND ADVERTISING

Coca-Cola and the Dynamic Ribbon are registered trademarks of the Coca-Cola Company

Positioning
Why do some people shop at 'better' stores when they can buy identical (brand name)
products for much less at a discount store? Clearly, price is not the most important
consideration in their shopping decisions. They are looking for something else, but how do
they know where to find it? They rely upon their knowledge or experience of different retail
stores to direct them to stores where they expect to find what they want. This image or
understanding of the store in their mind is cued by or communicated by the store name,
the brand. In marketing a retail store, one may want people to feel it always offers the lowest
price, or the widest variety of merchandise, or the most enjoyable shopping experience.
This is known as positioning, and it is the critical first step in developing advertising for
establishing a brand.

Brand attitude
The idea of a brand as a label is really the key. A brand provides information, and that kind of
information comes from marketingcommunication. Thinkabout a brand you know. What
comes to mind when you think about it? No doubt a great deal more than the fact that it is
a particular type of product. Perhaps you were thinking about how much you like it, that it
STRATEGIC BRAND M A N A G E M E N T

is well-known, or that it is 'one of the best'. All these thoughts reflect something that is
called brand attitude. A brand name represents everything you know about a particular
product and what it means to you. It provides a convenient summary of your feelings,
knowledge and experience with the brand. It means you do not need to spend a great deal
of time 'researching' a product each time you are considering a purchase. Your evaluation
of the product is immediately reconstructed from memory, cued by the brand name. In
many ways, building and ensuring a continuing positive brand attitude is what strategic
brand management is all about, and this is largely accomplished with advertising.
The effect of a positive brand attitude leads to brand equity. Brand equity, as already
discussed in Chapter 5, represents an added value to a product in the consumer's mind,
enhancing the overall value of that product well beyond its merely functional purpose. In
trying to understand what the relationship between a brand and advertising is all about, it
will pay to briefly consider brand equity again now. Think about chocolate for a minute.
Basically, chocolate is chocolate. Or is it? Are some brands better than others? Why? What
about washing powder? They all get the job done, and use the same basic ingredients. Or do
you think some do a better job than others? What about toothpaste, or vodka, or under-
wear? Where do the differences among brands in these product categories come from? How
much of the difference is 'real' versus perceived? Why do you prefer one brand over
another, especially if, when looked at with a coldly objective eye, there is very little, if any,
actual difference in the products?
This underscores that to a large extent a brand is not a tangible thing at all, but rather the
sum of what someone knows, thinks, and feels about a particular product. In a very real
sense, brands only exist in the minds of consumers, but that does not make them any less
real. It is the job of a brand manager to effectively manage how consumers see their brand
versus competitive alternatives, and they do this with advertising.

Positioning brands in communication

The idea of 'brand positioning' can mean many things. It could refer to where a brand is
seen in a category relative to its competitors; it could refer to the benefits or 'images' associ-
ated with a brand. Kotler has defined it in terms of enabling a brand to occupy a 'distinct
and valued place' in the mind of the target consumer (Kotler, 2003).All these meanings are
important and must be considered when thinking about how to specifically position a
brand when talking about it in advertising and other marketing communication. This is
usually summarized in a positioning statement that addresses the benefits a brand offers a
specific target audience in order to satisfy a particular need.
Before looking at how to develop an effective positioning statement, we need to under-
stand two basic types of positioning: central vs, differentiated positioning. A centrallypos-
itioned brand must deliver all the main benefits generally associated with the product
category. This means that a centrally positioned brand may be described as the 'best brand
in the category' and it would be believable because people see it as offering all the main
benefits they are looking for in that type of product. Centrally positioned brands are gener-
ally category leaders, and they do not need to continually list their benefits. For example,
 BRANDS A N D ADVERTISING

a category leader might simply position itself as 'the best'. Of course, people must believe
this. A central positioning can also work if a brand is seen as doing as good a job as the
category leader, especially if it is lower priced.
All other brands should adopt a differential positioning, where one looks for an important
benefit that consumers believe the brand offers, and does a better job than other brands.
This is where the correct positioning strategy is so important, and that will be addressed in
the rest of this section.
Brand positioning may be thought of as a 'supercommunication' effect that tells
the potential customer what the brand is, who it is for, and what it offers. This reflects
the relationship between brand positioning and the two core communication effects of
brand awareness and brand attitude. Brand awareness and brand attitude will be
discussed later in the chapter. Strong brand awareness (for almost any brand) must be
generated and sustained with marketing communication. It is marketing communication,
and advertising in particular, that builds and maintains brand salience. It is not
enough for a brand to be recognized. If it is to be successful, a brand must occupy a 'salient'
position within the target audience's consideration set. In fact, the strength of a brand's
salience is one indicator of the brand's equity. (A useful measure of this is t h e ratio of
top-of-mind recall to total recall among competitive brands in a category, as discussed
in Chapter 6.)
In Chapter 6, we raised some key questions about measuringbrand attitude: Who exactly
is the target audience? 1s everyone looking for the same thing, or the same things all the
time? What is important, and to whom? How are brands seen t o deliver o n t h e things
important to the target audience? As we said then, answers to these questions are critical if
marketing communication is to positively affect brand attitude, and they are part of devel-
oping an effective positioning strategy.
Obviously, a brand must also be linked to the correct target audience, which means that
the target audience for the brand should immediately understand that the advertising is
talking to them. But as Percy and Elliott (2005) have pointed out, the key is understanding
brand awareness and brand attitude. The link between a brand and category need, what
people are looking for, is what brand awareness is all about. A brand must be positioned in
its marketing communication in such a way that when the need for such a product occurs,
that brand comes to mind. Then, the brand must be linked to a benefit that provides a
motivating reason to consider it (the global benefit of 'best' in the case of a centrally posi-
tioned brand). It is this link between the brand and benefit that lies at the root of building
positive brand attitude, which in its turn builds positive brand equity.
Benefits play a central role in effective positioning for marketing communication. But as
already suggested, benefits are related to brand attitude, and brand attitude is what drives
purchase motive. 'I love Cadbury' is an attitude about Cadbury that connects the brand in
the consumer's mind with a likely reason to buy: sensory gratification. Where does this
brand attitude come from? It is the result of one or more beliefs about the specific benefits
Cadbury is seen to offer. Effective communication strategy requires a n understanding of
what that belief structure is, and how it builds brand attitude. One might think of this as an
overall summary judgment about a brand, and it follows the most widely used model of
attitude, the expectancy-value model (introduced in Chapter 6).
STRATEGIC BRAND MANAGEMENT

Within the overall positioning that results from this understanding of how benefits and
their importance build brand attitude, the manager must determine what the benefit
emphasis and focus should be, which we take up in a later section. But, it is important first
to remember that purchase motive is really the underlying basis of why a benefit is seen as
important. Purchase motives are the fundamental 'energizers' of buyer behaviour. As a
result, an effective positioning must reflect the correct motive, the oneassociated with why
consumers in the category are really buyingparticular brands.
It is also important to distinguish between motives that drive product category
decisions rather than brand decisions. People may buy lower calorie foods because they
are watching their weight (a negative motive), but buy particular brands for more taste-
related reasons (a positive motive). This is an absolutely critical distinction. Benefits like
low in calories or fat relate to negative motives like problem-solution or problem-avoid-
ance, and are unlikely to drive specific brand purchases. Someone may be looking for a
lower calorie product, but probably not at the expense of taste. The reason this is such an
important point is that positive motives suggest marketing communication where the
execution itself actually becomes the product benefit, as we shall see in the section o n
brand attitude strategies later in this chapter. When dealing with positive motives a truly
unique execution is required where the brand owns the 'feeling' created by the advertising
for the brand. Advertising can't prove a brand is more stylish or popular, but it can make
people believe it is.

Benefit selection

The benefits a brand emphasizes in marketing communication should be selected

according to three major considerations: importance, delivery, and uniqueness (Percy and
Elliott, 2005). Importance refers to the relevance of the benefit to the underlying
motivation. A benefit assumes importance only if it is instrumental in helping meet the
consumer's purchase motivation. Delivery refers to a brand's perceived ability to provide
the benefit. Uniqueness refers to a brand's perceived ability to deliver on the benefit
relatively better than other brands. As Boulding etal. (1994) have pointed out, this unique-
ness must be seen in the message about the benefit. What one is looking for are one or two
benefits, relevant t o the underlying motive, that can produce a perceived difference
between alternative brands. These benefits should then be emphasized in a brand's
marketing communication.
A note in passing. We are talking about perceiveddelivery and uniqueness. Just because a
brand may not now be thought to provide benefits that could optimize purchase against
important motives does not mean this perception cannot be created (unless, of course, it
stretches the consumer's understanding of the brand, which is one reason it is necessary to
fully understand current brand equity).
How can this idea of importance, delivery, and uniqueness be used to actually come up
with the best benefits to use in a brand's positioning? One arrives at an optimum benefit
selection by utilizing the assumptions of the expectancy-value model of attitude (Fishbein
and Ajzen, 1975).The model assumes that a person's attitude toward something (Ab)is the
sum of everything they know about it (bJ weighted by how important each of those things
 BRANDS A N D ADVERTISING

are to them (ai).The connection with the three benefit selection considerations is implied
by the a, and b, components of the model. The importance of a benefit in brand selection is
represented by ai, and the belief that a particular brand can deliver the benefit is
represented by bi. Applying the model to the importance and delivery of brand benefits in
effect computes an approximation of brand attitude (Ab).
In Chapter 6 we presented an example of how the expectancy-value model can be used in
understanding and measuring brand equity. Perhaps another example here will help us see
this more clearly in terms of positioning. Suppose you were looking t o buy a new car,
perhaps after receiving a promotion with a big increase in salary. Some of the things you
might be considering in making a choice are: safety, value, mileage, power, stylishness,
exciting envy. Obviously, this does not represent everything you might consider, but it will
serve for our example. In order to determine what your attitude might be toward different
automobiles you are considering, following the expectancy-value model, one would need
to know how important each of these considerations is to you, and whether or not you feel
a particular automobile delivers that benefit.
Look at Table 11.1. Here is a hypothetical example of how the market might see Volvo vs.
BMW in terms of the six potential benefits we are considering. The importance weights
represent how important the market considers each characteristic when making a new car
choice: if it is considered essential, it is weighted a 3; a 1 if considered desirable, but not
essential; and if it is important, but not as important as the other characteristics, it receives
a weight of 0.(This is not an arbitrary weighting scheme, but reflects relative importance
weights as we discussed in Chapter 6.) The beliefs that Volvo or BMW deliver on the
potential benefits are represented as: definitely deliver rates a 3, does an okay job receives a
value of 1, and if it is not seen to deliver the benefit, a 0.

Table 11.1 Comparative expectancy-value model of attitude for Volvo vs. BMW

Importance Beliefs (bi)

weight
(ai) VO~VO BMW

Safe 3 3 1

Value 1 1 0

Mileage 0 1 0

Stylish 3 0 3

Powerful 1 1 1

Exciting envy 1 0 3

6
4, Z (a,)(b,)
I= 1
STRATEGIC BRAND MANAGEMENT

Reproduced with the kind permiss~onof BMW (UK) Ltd

Reproduced with the kind permisston of Volvo Car Corporation

 BRANDS AND ADVERTISING

Looking at the attitude scores, Volvo is an 11 and BMW a 16. So what do these scores
mean? According to the expectancy-value model, multiplying the importance weight
times the belief score for each potential benefit, and adding them up, provides a sense of
the relative strength of attitudes towards Volvo vs. BMW. What these scores tell us is that
people hold a more favourable attitude towards BMW than Volvo. Looking at why, the key
difference is on perceptions of 'style'.
The two most important benefits (remember this is only a hypothetical example) are
'safety' and 'style'. Volvo definitely delivers on safety, while BMW is seen as doing an okay
job. But in terms of 'style', BMW definitely delivers while Volvo doesn't at all. If you were
the brand manager for Volvo, what would you do? The best course would be to try and
change this perception. If people could be persuaded that Volvo did even an okay job in
terms of 'style', overall attitude would increase to a much more competitive level with
BMW (14 vs. BMW's 16 compared with the current 11 vs. 16).
This example should illustrate how the idea of finding important benefits, related to the
underlying motives driving choice, that the brand can deliver, is tied directly to people's
attitudes towards the brand. That is why this is so important to positioning. One is looking
for the one or two benefits most likely to positively affect brand attitude. The idea of
uniqueness is related to trying to come up with benefits that the brand can be seen as
delivering better than other brands. In this example, Volvo uniquely delivers 'safe' while
BMW uniquely delivers on 'style' and 'exciting envy'. Because Volvo's overall attitude is
lower than BMW's (again, in this example, not necessarily in the 'real world'), it must
position itself against BMW's strength in order to find parity because of the importance of
'style' to people, while maintaining its unique position in terms of 'safe'.
Finding the best benefits to emphasize in positioning a brand is critical to its success, and
using something like the expectancy-value model offers a powerful tool for identifying
such benefits in terms of the three important criteria: importance, delivery, uniqueness.
This can be done by doing research among the target audience to identify those things that
are important in making choices, and how competitive alternatives rate in terms of deliv-
ering on them. With the results of the research in hand, it will be possible to evaluate
potential benefits for emphasis in a brand's communication positioning in terms of:
building or reinforcing a unique position in terms of important benefits;
taking advantage of a competitor's weakness on an important benefit;
emphasizing important benefits the brand delivers better than its major competitors;
increasing the importance of a benefit the brand delivers better than its competitors
(if it is not already considered 'essential');
minimizing the importance of benefits the brand does not deliver as well as its
competitors.

Benefit focus
The overall positioning of a brand basically chooses a location for the brand in the
consumer's mind. The benefit selection analysis helps decide which benefit(s) to emphasize.
STRATEGIC BRAND MANAGEMENT

After that, the manager must decide what aspect of the benefit to concentrate on in the
execution of marketing communications.
Up to now the term 'benefit' has been used in a rather general way. We have considered a
benefit as any potential positive or negative reinforcer for a brand, in line with our
definition of brand attitude as representing the overall delivery on the underlying motiva-
tion. Since a 'reinforcer' is anything that tends to increase a response, benefits as we have
been talking about them underlie and help increase brand attitude. Now we will consider
benefits in more detail, distinguishing between attributes, benefits as subjective character-
istics, and as emotions (a distinction made by Percy and Elliott, 2005).
Thinking about the underlying motive as 'why the consumer wants a brand', benefits
may be expressed in terms of:

attributes, objective components of the product;

characteristics, the subjective claims made about the product; or
emotions, the feelings associated with the product.

A brand, for example, may offer attributes that the consumer may or may not think of as a
benefit. Subjective claims in their turn may have various emotional consequences or
antecedents, depending upon the underlying motive.
All marketing communication presents or implies a 'benefit' as either a n attribute,
subjective characteristic, or emotion as defined above. The key to effective communication
is using the appropriate benefit focus (Rossiter and Percy, 2000). At this point it must seem
that things are overly complicated, but this really is a powerful way of 'fine-tuning' a
positioning, and not nearly as confusing as it may appear.
Throughout this discussion of positioning mention has been made of the importance of
the underlying motives associated with why people make particular choices. A brand's
marketing communication, to be effective, must be consistent with this underlying
motive. This will be dealt with more in the next section when we look at brand attitude
strategies. But to understand the importance of getting the benefit focus right, it is
necessary to relate it to whether a decision is positively or negatively motivated. When
motives are positive, a brand's advertising and other marketing communication must
address the target audience's 'feelings' in some way: e.g. 'I want to feel sexy', or 'I want to
really impress her'. On the other hand, when motives are negative, information of some
kind must be offered in order to address a problem: e.g. 'How can I get these stains out?', or
'What's the best investment for retirement?'
A brand's positioning, as presented in its marketing communication, must reflect this
fundamental distinction between positive and negative motivations. The way this is done
is through the benefit focus. When the motive is positive, the benefit focus should bear the
emotional consequences of the benefit, and when the motive is negative, the benefit focus
should be directly on the benefit. How is this done?
When dealing with a positive motivation, the focus should be either on an emotional
benefit alone or o n the emotion that results from a subjective characteristic of the benefit.
Suppose you are a brand manager at Mars and you are trying to reposition Bounty bars. You
could focus entirely on an emotional benefit like 'Pure Pleasure', or use a subjective
 BRANDS A N D ADVERTISING

characteristic like 'Taste of the Tropics' to support an emotion, such as: 'With Bounty's taste
of the tropics you will experience pure pleasure.' We are not suggesting this would actually
be the creative used (we wisely leave that sort of thing to creative experts), but strategically
this line illustrates how for the positive motive driving candy bar brand choice
(sensory gratification) one can focus on either an emotional benefit alone or an emotional
benefit resulting from a subjective characteristic of a benefit.
On the other hand, when dealing with a negative motivation, the focus should generally
be on either an attribute of the brand supporting a subjective characteristics of the benefit,
or a negativeemotion that is resolved or eliminated because of a subjective characteristic of the
benefit. The brand manager for Anthisan Plus sting relief spray would be dealing with a -
negative problem-solution motive. One benefit focus option would be to utilize an attribute
of the product like 'anaesthetic' to support a subjective characteristic like 'fast relief': 'Our
anaesthetic action means fast relief.' Another option would be to resolve a negative emotion
such as annoyance at how long it takes for relief after applying most sting relief products with
the fast reliefof Anthisan Plus: 'No more annoying wait for relief from insect bites with the fast
relief of Anthisan Plus.' Again, these are strategic, not creative examples, but they should
illustrate how to focus on the benefit when dealing with negative motivations.
Which benefit focus to use within the options available for a positive or negative
motivation will depend upon the specific benefit structure involved, and what is known
about the strength of the various aspects of the potential benefit in positively effecting
brand choice. This, of course, is addressed during the benefit selection process.

Positioning statement

We have looked at the important relationship between the brand and why people need it,
the key to effective brand awareness. We have discussed the need to establish a link between
the brand and its benefit, providing a motivating reason to consider the brand. We have
seen how to optimize benefit selection by looking at its importance to the target audience,
how well the brand is seen to deliver benefit and where it can do it uniquely, and we have
learned how to focus on that benefit in the advertising. These steps are summarized in
Table 11.2. Now the manager is ready to write a positioning statement.
In its simplest form, a positioning statement follows a format similar to: -is the brand
for (target audience) that satisfies (category need) by offering (benefit). This may be refined
somewhat as follows:
For the target audience, the brand
1. satisfies why people need it
2. by providing a motivating reason to consider it,
3. emphasizingin its advertising an optimum benefit
4. with a focus consistent with the motivation driving behaviour in the category.

Returning to the hypothetical example for repositioning Volvo discussed earlier, a

positioning statement might read as follows: 'For people looking for a n upmarket
STRATEGIC BRAND MANAGEMENT

Table 11.2 Steps for positioning a brand in marketing communications

Step 1: Relate the brand to category need for effective brand awareness

Step 2: Relate the brand to an overall benefit to build positive brand attitude

Step 3: Select a specific benefit in terms of its importance, delivery, and

uniqueness

Step 4: Correctly focus upon the benefit relative to the appropriate motivation
driving behaviour in the category

automobile, Volvo provides a sense of pride in ownership and its advertising should
emphasize 'style' as a subjective characteristic benefit supporting a n emotion benefit
focus.' A more detailed discussion of the positioning statement may be found in Rossiter
and Bellman (2005).
Now it is time to look at how to develop the best communication strategy to deliver
a brand's positioning.

Brand communication strategy

We have seen how a brand is a 'label' for something that helps someone identify a
particular product, and is associated in memory with what is known and felt about it.
That knowledge and those feelings help define a brand's 'equity', which is built and nur-
tured by how it is presented in marketing communication, how it ispositioned. We have also
seen that how a brand is positioned in its advertising and other marketing communication
relates directly to the two universal communication objectives, brand awareness and
brand attitude.
Positioning establishes the link in the consumer's mind between the brand and category
need, why you want the product. When a need for the product occurs, the managers want
their brand to come to mind. This is what brand awareness is all about. But how can a
company ensure it is their brand that comes to mind and not a competitor's? Positioning
also establishes the link in memory between a brand and what it offers, its benefit(s). But
how can this be done? Answering these two questions is what brand communication
strategy is all about.