2.       Understand the role of sub-brands and endorsed brands. A sub brand will allow some distance from a master brand, an endorsed brand more, and a new brand the most. How much distance is needed? Three questions are involved.

• Will existing brands enhance the offering?
• Will the offering enhance the brand?
• Is there a compelling reason to generate a new brand?

3.      Link brand portfolio strategy to business and brand strategy. The business strategy will indicate the product-market growth directions, the value proposition on which the firm will compete, and the assets that led to advantage. The brand strategy will include the brand identity and position of the brands in the portfolio, which will affect what roles they can and should play.

4.      Consider portfolio strategies. An assessment of the portfolio strategy with respective to the objectives of enhancing portfolio synergy, leverage and clarity and creating relevant, differentiated, energized brands should be done regularly. It can be accompanied by portfolio audit, which can generate portfolio options and issues.

5.      Relevance is key. A brand needs to gain and maintain relevance, or no amount of differentiation and loyalty will matter. Relevance means that the brand will be considered for a product category or sub category, and that the product category or sub category will be needed. If people want an SUV, it doesn’t matter if they believe you make the best minivan.

6.      Strategies of trend responders differ from trend drivers.

7.      Branded differentiators can create strong brand positions.

8.      Most brands could benefit from a branded energizer.

9.      External brands can be part of the portfolio and so managed. The use of a brand alliance can provide an expeditious and powerful response to an emerging market trend, allow the brand to stretch with less risk, and lead to the sharing of brand building investment. Brand alliance partners should have associations that enhance the partner’s brand and organizational capability.

10.  A brand alliance should have a long term perspective and supporting programs.

11.  Leverage strong brands. Extension opportunities should be sought for which the brand will fit and add value through its associations and customer base. The extension should also enhance the brand by providing visibility, associations, energy, access to growth arenas, and communication efficiencies.

12.  Develop platform brands. Rather than conducting ad hoc brand extensions, it is strategically better to develop brand platforms with a vision of the ultimate future of the brand, a set of associations that can travel, and a planned program of extensions.

13.  Leverage the portfolio into super premium arenas.

14.  Consider accessing value markets.

15.  Leverage the corporate brand.

16.  Actively manage the corporate brand.

17.  A new game may not be the answer.

18.  Focus brand building resources.

19.  Get rid of or dial down weak brands.

20.   Create clarity of offerings to both customers and employees.

Source: Aaker,David – Brand Portfolio Strategy

a)     Easy to use. The visitor should not get confused or frustrated. It should meet expectations with respect to the information it contains and the activities it supports.

b)    Deliver Value. It needs to offer value in terms of information, a transaction, entertainment, or a social experience. Without motivation to visit, bookmark and revisit, the site will not be worthwhile.

c)     Interactive, personalized, timely and involving.

2)    The website should reflect and support the brand. Maintain a balance between having a functional & simple website and one that is edgy and entertaining. The brand identity, not creative pressure, should be the driver. Core associations can be directly supported on the web. A website can also support associations that have a feeling or emotional component (Hallmark website). A brand’s symbols can sometimes be key drivers of the brand’s associations and the website should leverage and enhance those associations. Symbols such as the Pillsbury doughboy can similarly be leveraged to make the site more comfortable, interesting and tied to the brand.

a)     The look and the feel.  When a brand is conceptually and visually strong and the site is well done, the user should feel that he is in the brand’s world. The look and feel should be present in the colour, layout and personality.  

b)    Informing beyond the product/ service. A site can be authoritative source of information on a certain subject. A site providing authoritative information can build a brand in 3 ways.

i)       It can provide the brand with credibility, authenticity and authority that it would never be able to achieve directly.

ii)    Such assistance allows the brand to participate directly but unobtrusively in what may be a central part of a person’s lifestyle, making a potentially stronger brand.

iii)   The website allows the brand to communicate using a language and feel that can connect.

3)     Look for synergy with other communication programs.

4)   Provide a home for the loyalist. The website should be jome for the loyal group of people involved in activities related to the product class and with commitment to the brand. It should support and nurture this group and its relationship to the brand, rather than taking loyal customers for granted. Any brand with emotionally attached users should make sure its website recognizes and supports this group. The loyalist needs to know the brand heritage story. Knowing the roots of the brand can help create interest and a bond. Its heritage can turn a functional relationship into connection with depth and even emotion.   

5)     Differentiate with strong subbranded content. 

Source: Aaker, David – Brand Leadership

1. Have clear communication objectives for the brand. A sponsorship strategy should be responsive to the communications objectives of the brand. There are often 3 types of objectives: visibility/ awareness, association development and relationship development. Each of these could be an important driver of the sponsorship strategy.
2. Be proactive. Sponsorship selection needs to be managed proactively by developing a set of criteria for the ideal sponsorship, then listing possible choices that score well on these criteria. Being proactive increases the likelihood that the sponsorship will be original and break out of the clutter.
3. Look for an exceptional fit. An exceptional fit between the event and the brand is much better than a good fit, and a forced fit or lack of fit is a significant handicap.
4. Own sponsorship. The key task of a successful sponsorship is to connect the brand to the event associations, and this task beomes much easier and more cost effective when the brand is inseparable part of the event itself. Event ownership has several implications. Consider focusing on one or few events rather than forming a loose association with many. Go for long term relationships and contracts; beware of situations where, if it works out well, a competitor can move into your place. Consider a named sponsorship. Beware of sponsorship clutter. Consider the threat of ambush marketing, and have a plan to deal with it.
5. Look for publicity opportunities. These are a mark of most effective sponsorships. The rule of thumb is that the budgeted cost of an effective sponsorship should be 3 to 4 times the sponsorship cost per se; this added budget is needed to help connect the brand to the event and to fully exploit the event’s potential. 
6. Consider multiple sponsorship payoffs.
7. Actively manage the sponsorship. 

1. The event fails.
2. Bad associations emerge.
3. Good associations fail to emerge.
4. Loss of future rights.
5. Sponsor clutter.
6. Ambush Marketing.
7. Overpay for property rights.

Source: Aaker, David – Brand Leadership

1. Mobilizing the organization for brand building. Both the process and result of a brand building effort often have a key payoff internally to employees and other brand partners, as well as externally to customers. This phenomenon is particularly common in sponsorships. Employees and other brand partners can receive emotional benefits that result from pride in being associated with the sponsorships, as well as the link between the sponsorship and their own lifestyle and values. Getting employees to attend events can enhance these emotional benefits. A team sponsorship can be particularly successful at generating emotional benefits because there is an attachment to a goal and a winner, as well as an activity. An event sponsorship can also act as a catalyst to create a global brand building implementation process and team.
2. Providing an experience for customers. An event experience can provide a customer with a unique opportunity to develop a link to the brand and its organization. Simply providing customers with an event experience, especially when the event is prestigious, says a lot about the brand and the organization. Further, it represents a tangible and unique way to reward a key customer. Assuming that the event is sponsored over time, the reward can be provided year after year, giving the customer an incentive to nurture the relationship. In addition, the event provides a way to interact with key customers in a relaxed setting; access can be obtained that would not be possible without the event as a backdrop. Involving a customer in an event can also make that customer become a part of the same family or team as the brand. Especially when the experience is duplicated over several occasions, an intense level of loyalty can be created. 
3. Demonstrating New Products and Technology. The most powerful way to introduce a new product or technology is by publicity. If it is novel, interesting and important enough to receive press coverage, its brand building goals will be much more likely to be achieved. A sponsorship can be the necessary lever to elevate the news value of a product or technology so that press coverage results.  Even if press coverage is not forthcoming, the sponsorship can provide a context to make a demonstration more interesting and vivid. An event can also be used to showcase technology that represents a key association of an organizational brand. 
4. Creating brand exposure. A host of examples show that awareness increases substantially as the result of a sponsorship, especially when brands follow up the sponsored activity with other marketing activities
5. Develop Brand associations. 
6. Becoming part of an event/ customer bond – The Affiliation Effect.

Source: Aaker, David – Brand Leadership

1. The audit of identity supporting programs reviews the substance behind the brand identity aspirations.
2. Identity role models are actions and programs that communicate the brand.
3. The development of visual metaphors provides another way to make the identity more vivid.
4. Brand identity prioritization determines which dimension should be the focus of positioning and brand building efforts.

Identity supporting Program Audit

The identity needs to be true to the firm and have substance behind it; it should not be  simply an exercise in branding and advertising. Effectively communicating a clear, differentiated brand vision that resonates with customers is not enough. The organization needs to be willing to support the identity with substantial investment in real programs. Two types of programs and investments can support the brand:planned and existing. The first provides strategic imperatives, future programs that  must be developed in order to deliver the brand identity. Proof points that catalog existing programs, initiatives and assets which support the brand identity describe the second.

The strategic imperatives represent action steps that are needed to deliver substance behind the brand identity. These action steps are thus clearly a part of the brand building effort – in fact, efforts to revitalize or reposition the brand sometimes are best delayed so that they may be synchronized with the strategic initiatives.

While strategic imperatives are organizational initiatives requiring significant investment, proof points are already attached to the dimensions of the brand identity. Proof points are programs, initiatives and assets already in place that provide substance to the core identity and help communicate what it means. While strategic imperatives are few in number and often costly and risky, proof points can be numerous and operational. Proof points are a necessary foundation.

Identity Role Model Identification

Identifying role models can provide the meaning and emotion to help motivate and guide the brand building effort.

Internal role models are stories, programs, events or people that perfectly represent the brand identity. Out of 5 proof points supporting an identity, there might be one program that really reflects the identity best. Stories can communicate the identity and add elements of aspiration and emotion as well. Some of these actions can be legends that are part of the brand heritage. The emotion attached to stories is important, because those implementing the brand must know and care about what it stands for. In fact, stories not only represent the brand but also influence the culture.

People, such as a founder or a strong, visible CEO with a clear brand vision, can be powerful role models. The impact of the founders can be made more vivid if their picture is a brand symbol. Some founders, like Bill Gates and Richard Branson ( & Narayan Murthy), are not formally included in the brand’s symbol, but their faces are so familiar that the result is similar.

There are many ways to personalize the brand. The one person who represented everything you wanted to stand out for, could be used as a role model to guide. A brand can also be personified by a visible spokesperson who becomes closely connected to the brand over the years. Alternatively, employees can represent a brand. Identification of internal role model starts with what is visible. The candidates will usually be well known, especially to the veterans in the organization.

Although internal role models can be extremely powerful because they are already in the context of the brand, they are limited to what has been done within the organization. Other strong, well positioned brands from diverse industries can be role models and, as such, can be a powerful metaphor for your brand. The search for an external role model can be broad:

• What brands do you admire?
• Which comes closest to how you would like to be perceived?

With an external role model identified, the next step is to learn as much as possible:

• Why is it a good role model?
• How did it develop authenticity and credibility?
• What are its stories and internal models?
• Its proof points?
• What is its culture?
• Is there anything that can be learned or borrowed?

Another tack is to focus on one of your brand’s core identity elements, then identify a set of brands that also focus on a similar dimension.

It is helpful to identify not only external role models that are on target but also those that define the boundaries of the brand identity.

Visual Metaphor development

Core identities are defined verbally – i.e., a few words or phrases attempt to capture what the brand should stand for.  Following are some of findings of Zaltman (HBS):

• Most communication (70 to 90%) is non verbal. Visual imagery has been shown in a host of contexts to be much more powerful than verbal communication in affecting both perceptions and memory.
• Metaphors are basic to the representation of thought. metaphors are powerful communication tools.

So why not attempt to translate verbal core identities into visual metaphors? Suppose the core identity of a financial service firm is strength. potential visual metaphors could be a steel girder, a heavy weight boxer, an Egyptian pyramid or a fortress.

The first step is to identify visual metaphors that either represent the brand or the brand identity, or represent the opposite. Customers, for example, can be asked to suggest visual metaphors representing the core identity element. To obtain visual metaphors without involving the customers, you might examine the brands that have images close to the identity under study. What visual cues are associated with each of these brands? What colors, images, metaphors or feelings? Gold is a color that is associated with premium in most categories. To prune down a large number of visual metaphors to a manageable set, cluster them into groups. Representative elements from each group can be scaled as to how closely they represent the identity elements.

The next step is to analyze the images that you have gathered. The ultimate goal is not so much to identify a key metaphor but to learn what makes a metaphor right or wrong for the strategy and its communication.

Brand Identity Prioritization

As a multidimensional portrayal of the brand, the brand identity can be complex. A brand might have associations that reflect product attributes, personality dimensions, organizational associations, symbols and user images. The core identity plays a key role in providing focus to the brand identity, as does the brand essence – a word or phrase that represents much of what the brand stands for. Another approach to prioritization, however, which is almost always helpful, involves comparing the image to the identity and assessing the ability to leverage each dimension.

Source: Aaker, David A -  Brand Leadership

Source – Aaker, David A – Brand Leadership

1. To create a brand building organization.
2. To develop a comprehensive brand architecture that provides strategic direction.
3. To develop a brand strategy for the key brands that includes a motivating brand identity, as well as the position that differentiates the brand and resonates with customers.
4. To develop efficient and effective brand building programs together with a system to track the results.

The Organization Challenge

The first challenge is to create an organizational structure & process that will lead to strong brands. When the brand has multiple products, markets and/or countries, each with its own manager, the organizational process needs to provide a common set of inputs, outputs, and vocabulary that all will use. The communication system should allow for the sharing of insights, experience & brand building initiatives.

The Brand Architecture Challenge

Brand architecture involves identifying the brand and sub-brands that are to be supported, their respective roles, and critically, their relationship to each other. An effective, well conceived architecture will lead to clarity in customer offerings, real synergies in the brands and their communication programs, and an ability to leverage brand assets.

A key dimension in creating an effective brand architecture is deciding when to stretch an existing brand, when to employ a new brand, when to use an endorsed brand and when to use a sub-brand.

The role of each brand in the portfolio is a key element of brand architecture. Brands should not be managed as if they were silos, each one independent of the other.

The Brand identity & Position Challenge

Each actively managed brand needs a brand identity- a vision of how that brand should be perceived by its target audience. The brand position can help prioritize and focus the brand identity by setting forth the communication objectives: What message will best differentiate the brand and appeal to the target segmants.

The Brand building Program Challenge

Communication and other brand-building programs are needed to realize the brand identity. Brand building programs not only implement the brand identity but also help define it.

The key to most strong brands is brilliant execution that bursts out of the clutter; provides a boost to the brand, and creates a cumulative impact over time. The challenge is to be noticed, to be remembered, to change perceptions, to reinforce attitudes, and to create deep customer relationships.

Brilliant execution requires the right communication tools. These tools are often more than just advertising. The strong brands of tomorrow are going to understand and use interactive media, direct response, promotions and other devices that provide relationship building experiences.

Source: Aaker,David A – Brand Leadership

1. Brand building is not just advertising. In most cases, advertising plays an important role; however brand building efforts involve many other elements. These include sponsorships, endorsements, subbranded products, flagship stores, grass root events and so on.
2. Brand building involves innovation. It requires an organizational capability of assessing, evaluating and assimilating new ideas.
3. Excellence in execution creates huge payoffs. Several studies have shown that the quality of advertising is about 4 or 5 times more important than the amount spent.
4. Products are key to the brand. There has to be substance behind the brand. 
5. The brand is more than the products. A strong brand has personality, organizational associations, emotion and self expression. 
6. Know the brand identity. A clear brand identity must guide the development and execution of programs over time. 
7. The brand team should run the brand. 
8. Connet with customers on an emotional level. Find ways to connect to the customer beyond delivering functional benefits.
9. Use subbrands to tell a story and manage perceptions.

Source: Brand Leadership – David A Aaker & Erich Joachimsthaler

Countless strategy consulting firms, advertising agencies and market research companies nowadays offer their advice to companies on how to manage their brands. Most have developed their own brand management models. Broadly, we can say that the model belong to the following six categories.

1. Brand Strategy Models
2. Brand Valuation Models
3. Value congruency models
4. Quantitative Brand positioning models
5. Qualitative Brand positioning models
6. Brand communication models

1. Brand Strategy Models focus heavily on the brand management process within the company. Many also have brand portfolio & architecture management as one of their objectives. The models take a broad perspective and consider information on the consumer perception, the company and the market. Their form of data collection tends to be both, quantitative & qualitative.
2. Brand Value Models aim at valuating the brand. Similar to Brand strategy models, Brand value models take a broad perspective. The data collection tends to be mainly quantitative in nature.
3. Value Congruency Models emphasise on psychological relationships between the consumer and the brand. These models deal with identifying the values (of the consumers & the brands) and the value fit (congruency) between the target group and the brand. They focus exclusively on consumer perception. Their data collection is only quantitative.
4. The Quantitative Brand positioning models use quantitative consumer surveys. Their main foci are the analysis of the current and the optimal future brand positioning. They collect information on needs, values & behaviours of the consumers as well as on the brand image and the brand preferences which offer insights into the opportunities for alternative future brand positioning. Their data collection is almost exclusively quantitative.
5. Qualitative Brand positioning models also focuses on the consumers. They attempt to understand the preconscious and emotional attitudes of the consumers. Their most common objectives are brand positioning and visual brand identity. In their data collection, which is only qualitative they focus exclusively on consumer perception.
6. Brand communication models aim at a consistent communication strategy that distinctly sets the brand apart from competitors and strengthens the brand. The data used and the type of analysis are mainly qualitative in nature. These are generally offered by advertising agencies.