Brand identity

Physique according to him is the basis of the brand. –E. G. the physique ofPhilips is “technology and reliability” while for the brand Tata it is “trust” Personality is same as Aaker, it answers the question “what happens to this brand when it becomes a person? ” Culture symbolizes the organization, its country-of-origin and the values it stands for. –E.

G. traditional brands like balsara, dabur and zandu. Relationship is the handshake between consumer and the organisation. –E. G. the relationship with “safola” is safety. •Reflection is the consumer’s perception for what the brands stands for.

E. G. coke’s image more attract youth. •Self-image is what the consumer think of himself. –E. G. benz Car owner think that since he has bought the car he is treating himself to one of the best car in the world.

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Let us understand the model in detail… What is a Brand? “ A Brand is a complex symbol. It is the intangible sum of a product’s attributes, its name, packaging and price, its history, reputation, and the way it’s advertised. A brand is also defined by consumer’s impression of people who use it, as well as their own experience ” - David OgilvyNow let us look at how Brand Experience is differentiated… Brand Experience are of two types – external, internal.

The External Brand Experience include:

• Name
• Logo
• Advertising
• Brand Identity
• Environments
• Products & Service

The Internal Brand Experience include:

• Business Process
• Customer Relations
• Brand Values
• Training
• Quality
• Staff Motivation
• Recruitment Policies
• Technology etc.

Now let us look at the Brand Identity Prism based on Kapferer model and the 6 key dimensions in it:

• Physical –Product features, symbols & attributes Personality –Character & attitude •Relationship –Beliefs & association •Culture –Set of Values
• Reflection –Customer’s view of the brand
• Self-Image –Internal mirror of customer as user of brand Let us now understand the prism with some examples… Two aspects of Brand Identity - Sender
• Physique - Kapferer means what the central purpose of the brand is (that is what the brand does)
• Personality - Kapferer means the soul of the brand - Receiver
• Reflection - Kapferer means how the individual in the targeted group identify himself as a person in relation to the brand

Self image - Kapferer means how the individual in the targeted group identify the brand in relation to himself.The Relationship is, according to Kapferer, externalizing the brand from the company outwards, and the culture is an aid for internalizing the brand in the organization and in to the conscious of the customer. The Culture is, according to Kapferer, the strongest dimension in the prism. It represents the difference between one brand and another.

Comparative analysis

Nike centred their brand equity model on the platforms, the endorsement focus strategy, creating a dominant media presence, development of Flagship stores, Nike Town and sub-branding The Adidas strategies were based on, endorsement focus strategy, advertising, sponsorship programs  focusing on major global events, sports associations, and teams, and sub-brands. To create brand awareness both companies have been using endorsement strategies in their brand-building programs. What differs is that Adidas focuses on sponsorship of teams and events e. . national teams and big sport events like the Olympic Games and different World Championship events. This will help them to create awareness with help from different types of media. In contrast Nike has their focus on individuals like M. Jordan and T. Woods and their success stories. About the second strategy, advertising… Nike’s advertising strategy was to create dominant presence in media. Nike created media presence in several trend setting United States cities.

TV ads linking Nike to a city were used, but real drivers were huge oversized billboards and murals on buildings that blanketed cities with messages featuring key Nike-sponsored athletes, not products.  Adidas took up the competition with Nike through raising their advertising budget to a level that made it possible to compete with Nike on the same conditions and the same strength as Nike did to capture the consumer interest. Adidas did not just spend more money; they made an impact with brilliant executions. They made TV and other advertising campaigns. The company communicate their heritage of innovation, technology and big success stories with personalities like Emil Zatopek, Mohammad Ali Adidas tried to spread meanings like “We know then- we know now” and “There is nothing between you and success, so exceed your own expectations and limitations” and “ Earn it”. The success was obvious and after hard work and striving toward a top position in the industry Adidas was back in business Nike’s third strategy was to develop, flag ship stores, Nike Town shops in bigger city’s, first national, and then abroad Nike was the first company to establish flagship stores and it turned out to be a sensation Adidas choice was to experiment with sport events, with which they made great success. Examples of that is the Adidas Streetball Challenge a local three-person team basketball tournament, this event started out as a trail in Berlin in the beginning of the 1990s as one time occasion. In the mid 1990s it had become a huge sport event with about 500. 000 participants all over the bigger cities in Europe. In the finals in Germany it attracted 3200 players and 40. 000 spectators. Adidas made hereby a brand-building success The Nike customer associated the Nike brand with words like sports, attitudes and life style. Reasons for that is one can relate to or identify one self to Nike’s marketing campaigns like “Just do it” and the companies front athletes like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods.

For Adidas one image study of consumers found the brand very trendy, modern and cool. The survey was made in late 1990s. All marketing actions that both companies are implementing will hopefully result in loyal customers Adidas introduced a sub-brand in 1990 to serve the high-end products for all categories of shoes and apparel.The “Equipment” sub-brand would represent the best, whatever the product was The low-end products, for the “normal consumer” still have a high technology and level of innovation because of their inheritance of the older innovations and technology from the Equipment line. This strategy made the Adidas brand take on a different meaning; it still meant participation, emotion and performance. This was a success strategy for Adidas so successful that Nike copied their idea and introduced their own line, the Alpha line, based on the same idea Nike advanced from $1 billion dollars in 1986 to $ 9. billion in 2002, Adidas advanced from $1. 7 billion in 1992 to $4. 8 billion in 1998. According to sales figures for the both companies, it seems that both Nike and Adidas companies have succeeded to create a brand loyal customer who perceives the Nike and Adidas products as top quality

Conclusion

Both Adidas and Nike have used the same theoretical systems to create their brand building programs The companies are benchmarking each other, using the techniques from each others successes, when Nike launched their sub-brand product Alpha line which was benchmarked on Adidas already launched sub-brand of the Equipment product line for the elite of sports men. We can find many similarities like endorsements strategies and the companies advertising strategies but what differs in the endorsement trategies is that Adidas focuses in sponsoring teams and global events, while Nike have their center of attention on stars in specific sport like basketball and Michael Jordan or in golf and Tiger Woods. About advertising both companies have about the same scale and scope of advertising but they try to communicate different messages. The messages from Adidas is; the only one you compete with is your self whereas Nike communicate a provocative, aggressive winner attitude which can be related to the American sports attitude “You don’t win silver, you lose gold”. As we can understand the two companies are aiming at nearly the same targeted customer group but with a slightly differentiation of attitude. Adidas stand for a competing and winning over your self-attitude, and Nike stands for a winning over everyone attitude. The differentiation is based on the differences in culture between the two companies and between Europe and USA. As an overall reflection one can see that Adidas had to overcome, that the both companies had the same target group. Adidas choose a brand-building strategy that built on the same theoretical criteria’s as Nike.

But they created a differentiation in identity of the brand (as seen comparing analysis in the Kapferer Prism Model above) compared to Nike. Adidas had the same strategy within creating equity value to their brand. They challenged Nike in endorsement strategy, and in advertising, but with a slight difference in communicated message, by doing it trough the same medias. To differentiate them self and make totally own awareness activities, events like Adidas Streetball Challenge was created. Events like those communicated the Adidas brand around the world. According to the results and positions the brand-building programs have given both Adidas and Nike in the sport industry, one can say that branding have been a totally determining factor. On top of that they made it so good that they are used as models in higher education. Brand Identity Prism is often used by marketers to gauge the identity for any brand. But before the application of any model, few obvious questions which come to our mind are:- What is it? When should it be used? How to use it? Now suppose if a product or a brand (taking the liberty of equating product with brand ) was a person, how would he look like? What traits would he have? Would he be warm, cold, aggressive, approachable or smart? Brand identity prism helps us provide answers to these questions. Ok so the next logical question is when to use it? I would say practically everywhere.

Understanding of the identity would help design your web presence better, would decide the positioning and have an effect on all marketing collaterals. The best way to understand the model is to call up a meeting of all department heads and ask questions, lot of questions. The model has 6 dimensions on which a brand is to be evaluated. Physical Facet talks about what the product is, what does it do, how does it add value to customers, how does it fill up the gap in the market. Brand personality is measured using those traits/features of consumer personality that are directly related to brands. Proper care should be taken not to confuse it with consumer's reflection. Brand personality is closely linked with self image and image of the consumer.

Questions to be asked are:

1. What are the features of consumer personality?
2. What are the features of brand if it was a person?

This depends on the functional aspect of the product and the gap it would fill. Brand Culture: As the name signifies, it talks about the culture of the brand. The values and the principles will follow from the culture and it is these values which will bind the customers. Remember HSBC's "The World's local bank".

Questions which need to be asked:

1. Is the brand's culture global?
2. What are the values for which the brand stands for?
3. How would customers take the values of such a brand?

Brand Relationships: No prizes for guessing what would this be about!Yes, after all every brand has to maintain healthy relationships with customers. All marketing collaterals are intended to do just that. Therefore to gauge the identity, this had to feature.

1. How would Sales describe the relationship attributes for their customer management process?
2. How would Customer support describe their approach to increasing customer satisfaction?
3. How does the brand want to be seen by customers in marketing communication?

Customer Reflection: Every product is designed to satisfy some need of the intended customer base. A consumer has to be reflected in a way, which would show how he or she could image himself consuming a particular good.For example, in India anyone consuming Pepsi Cola would imagine himself to be young and Thums up (another cola drink from Coke stable) to be adventurous. For this aspect, questions are to be put to customer experience team about What would the users imagine while using the product? Customer Self Image: Consumers get attracted to those brands in which they see their own traits, for example, a man who is muscular and strong would smoke Marlboro. This goes hand in hand with brand personality. Physical Facet, Brand Relationship and Customer reflection are externalization factors whereas the rest represents internalization. I know it is a bit tedious but am sure if applied correctly it can reap huge benefits for corporate.

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