CHAPTER
TWO
REVIEW
OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1 INTRODUCTION
Today the primary
capital of many businesses is their brands. For decades the value of a company
was measured in terms of its real estate, then tangible assets, plants and
equipments. However it has recently been recognized that company’s real value
lies outside business itself - in the
minds of potential buyers or consumers.
“A brand is both, tangible and intangible, practical
and symbolic, visible and invisible under conditions that are economically
viable for the company” (Kapferer, 1986).
Brands are built up by persistent difference ever
the long run. They cannot be reduced just to a symbol on a product or a mere
graphic and cosmetic exercise. A brand is the signature on a constantly
renewed, creative process which yields various products. Products are
introduced, they live and disappear, but brands endure. The consistency of this
creative action is what gives a brand its meaning, its content, and its
characters’: creating a brand requires time and identity.
The American Marketing Association defines the term
‘Brand’ as “A name, term, symbol or design, or a combination of them, which is
intended to signify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and
to differentiate them from those of competitors.”
2.2. CONCEPTUAL REVIEW
Significant parameters
in brand building literature have experienced a dramatic shift in the last
decade. Branding and the role of brands, as traditionally understood, have been
subject to constant review and redefinition. A traditional definition of a typical
brand was: “the name, associated with one or more items in the product line,
which is used to identify the source of character of the item(s)” (Kotler,
2000). The American Marketing Association’s (AMA) definition of a brand is “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 to
differentiate them from those of competitors”. Within this view, whenever an
organization creates a new name, logo, or symbol for a new product, it has
created a brand, (Keller, 2003). He recognizes, however, that brands today are
much more than that. As can be seen, according to these definitions brands had
a simple and clear function as identifiers.
Within the traditional
branding model, the goal was to build a brand image, (Aaker and Joachimsthaler,
2000); a tactical element that drives short-term results. It is mentioned that
the brand is a sign–therefore external-whose function is to disclose the hidden
qualities of a product which are inaccessible to contact
(Kapferer, 1997). The brand served to identify a product and to distinguish it
from competition.
In the journey from
product-centric brands to customer-centric brands, many consumer companies have
locked in on a transitional concept – segment-specific brands. While brand Nike
focuses on physically active consumers, brand Disney focuses on parents with
small children. This is a significant step in the right direction and it
reflects growing awareness of the power of customers.
A brand differentiates
a product in several forms and it can be broadly divided into two categories-
The tangibles (rational), and the intangibles (emotional and symbolic). Either
way, while the product performs its basic functions, the brand contributes to
the differentiation of a product (Keller, 2003). These dimensions “distinguish
a brand from its unbranded commodity counterpart and gives it equity which is
the sum total of consumers’ perceptions and feelings about the product’s attributes
and how they perform, about the brand name and what it stands for, and about
the company associated with the brand” (Achenaum, 1993). A strong branding
provides consumers multiple access points towards the brand by attracting them
through both functional and emotional attributes (Keller, 2003). The tangible
dimensions that a brand creates are product innovations, high qualities, and/or
attractive prices etc. The intangible values of a brand will include those that
cannot be quantified. These intangibles go beyond the product level to become a
synaptic process in the brain. The attributes of a branded product add value
for consumers, the intermediaries, and the manufacturers.
Consumers will be able
to develop associations and assumptions through brand name, package, label etc.
A strong brand also offers a high brand
credibility: it becomes a signal of the product quality and performance. This
reduces the risks involved in the purchase including the
functional, physical, financial, social, psychological, and time risks (Swait
and Erdem, 2004 ; Keller, 2003). Consumers do not only benefit from the
functional values of a brand, they also benefit from the emotional aspects. A
strong brand mixes and blends the product performance and imagery to create a
rich, deep, and complementary set of consumer responses towards the brand
(Zamardino and Goodfellow, 2007).
2.3 EMPIRICAL REVIEW
Branding represents one
of the most fascinating phenomena of the business environment in the 21st
century (Olins 2000). Their importance is irrefutable. Branding in their
various guises is integral to our everyday existence (Sherry, 1995).
Corporations have only begun to realize the financial clout of an effective
brand in the last 10 years.
All efforts are now
being made to ensure that decisions inside of a corporation are created
synergistically and represent a clear message to customers
and prospects.
2.3.1
CORPORATE BRANDING
In an era when the
emphasis is moving from product branding to corporate branding (Balmer, 1995;
Mitchell, 1997), there is a need to better appreciate the management approach
for corporate branding as this needs managing differently from product
branding.
Corporate branding draws on the traditions of
product branding, in that it shares the same objective of creating
differentiation and preference. However, this activity is rendered more complex
by managers conducting these practices at the level of the organization, rather
than the individual product or service, and the requirement to manage
interactions with multiple stakeholder audiences. The audiences go beyond a
primary focus on customers to include all other stakeholders, the points of
contact with these stakeholders are more diverse, and stakeholder audiences'
discriminators are more complex, extending beyond products and services to
include intangibles such as people and policies. It is well supported; this
distinction between product and corporate brands by highlighting three cores,
distinguishing attributes (Ugbo, 1998):
Intangibility -
whilst a product or service is tangible, an organization is intangible to all
audiences except employees. An individual's perception of an organization
is therefore based upon his/her experiences of its communications, symbolism
and behavior (Birkigt, 1986) and from these signals an image is constructed.
Complexity -
with a product or service brand, continuity of experience is achievable. For a
corporate brand this is made harder by the variety of audiences and points
of contact, or interfaces.
Responsibility-A corporate
brand has a broader social responsibility or 'ethical imperative'.
Whilst these characteristics make the corporate
brand more difficult to model and manage, a number of authors have noted the
potential for harnessing this asset. The researchers assert that a strong and
favorable corporate brand offers an organization a number of distinct benefits
(Balmer, 1995). As well as being an important discriminator in increasingly
competitive markets, it creates consistency in consumer demand; offers added
value to products and services; contributes to a company's
financial margins; affords protection from competitors; attracts high quality
personnel to the organization. (Hatch and Schultz, 2001) support this view
claiming that corporate brands offer managers the potential to reduce costs,
give customers a sense of security, provide a corporate seal of approval for
products and create common ground inside organizations.
2.3.2. CUSTOMER CENTRIC BRANDING
Brand values must be
calculated on an individual customer basis, and segment-specific brands need to
be developed. There is a shift in focus from traditional product brand
organizations to customer-segment focused organizations. Brand experience is
finally the aggregate of consumer perceptions that come from interacting with a
brand.
A successful brand
experience is the process of exposing consumers to the various attributes
associated with a particular brand and creates an environment in which the
consumer will be surrounded by the positive elements attached to the brand. A
successful brand experience can operate on multiple levels, including adding a
new communication channel to reach the consumer, adding a service element to
the product that extends a stronger offer, and extending the brand across
seemingly unrelated products and services. The overall branding experience
represents a way to bring the consumer to the brand and establish a close
relationship.
As the organizations
think about how the customers’ experiences add up to create their overall brand
experience, it’s helpful to focus on the three most essential branding objectives
and the metrics that reveal how well an organization is meeting those
objectives:
1. Customer Acquisition:
with a goal of acquiring the right customers in a cost-effective way.
Three critical customer experiences in the acquisition process are awareness,
learning and persuasion.
2.
Customer Experience: Organizations
in their branding must focus on product “wow” in delivering a “wow” customer
experience that exceeds expectations.
3. Customer
Retention: Organizations in their branding must
focus on customer retention—retaining and nurturing loyal customers, and
turning them into advocates.
Evaluating these
essential business-building drivers within the customer experience framework
will help organizations focus on the most important levers for achieving branding
results.
Above all, building a
leading brand comes from the company genuinely caring for its customers, not
just because they are a source of business, but in recognition that a company
cannot survive and thrive without the customers it serves and the business
partners it works with. In today’s world, no company is an island and the
ecosystem around the company is both a source of what makes that company
different as well as a statement of its vision and beliefs. A brand may be an
emotional and intangible asset for many but it is one of the biggest assets a
company has.
2.4. THEORETICAL
FRAMEWORK
To the present date, no comprehensive theory for
user-generated content and its impact on branding exists. In this section,
theories and approaches will be described that were used on this research work.
Brand awareness influences consumer decision making
by affecting the strength of the brand associations in their mind, (Keller,
1993).
It is also pointed out that there are several
dimensions of brand awareness with brand associations (Pitta and Katsanis).
Researches indicated that brand associations of the
product can be stored in consumer’s minds after brand awareness of the product
is already in their memory.
2.4.1. BRAND ASSOCIATION
Brand association is anything that is linked in
memory to a brand (Aaker, 1991). The association reflects the fact that
products are used to express lifestyles whereas other associations reflect
social positions, and professional roles. Still others will reflect
associations involving product applications, types of people who might use the
product, stores that carry the product, or salespeople who handle the product
or even the country of origin. (Keller, 1998) defines brand
associations as informational nodes linked to the brand node in memory that
contains the meaning of the brand for consumers. These associations include
perceptions of brand quality and attitudes towards the brand. Keller and Aaker
both appear to hypothesize that consumer perception of a brand are
multi-dimensional, yet many of the dimensions they identify appear to be very
similar. The image that a good or a service has in the mind of the consumer-how
it is positioned is probably more important to its ultimate success than are
its actual characteristics.
According to (Aaker, 1991) there are at least nine
brand associations. The associations convey either the concept, or the meaning
of the product in terms of how it fulfills a customer’s need.
“A brand association is anything linked in
memory to a brand” (Aaker, 1996). Researches also suggested that brand
association can be divided into three major categories: attributes (including
product-related attributes and non-product-related attributes such as price,
brand personality, emotions and experience), benefits (what customers think the
product or service can do for them, including functional benefits, symbolic
benefits and experiential benefits) and attitudes (customers’ overall
evaluations of the brand) (Keller,1998). The most powerful brand associations
are those that deal with the intangible or abstract traits of a product. Brand
association can assist with spontaneous information recall (Van Osselaer and
Janiszewski, 2001) and this information can become the basis of differentiation
and extension (Aaker, 1996). Strong association can help strengthen brand and
equity. Similar to perceived quality, brand association can also increase
customer satisfaction with the customer experience (Aaker, 1991).
2.4.2 BRAND IDENTITY
A Brand identity
comprises a unique set of functional and mental associations the brand aspires
to create or maintain. These associations represent what the brand should
ideally stand for in the minds of customers, and imply a
potential promise to customers (Aaker, 1996 and Keller 1993). It is important
to keep in mind that the brand identity refers to the strategic goal for a
brand while the brand image is what currently resides in the minds of
consumers.
A corporate brand tries
to establish a coherent perception of the company for its different
stakeholders and reflects a good corporate reputation in the eyes of the
general public (Hatch and Schultz, 2003).
Nevertheless, the
single most important public of a corporate brand is its end consumers, who are
drowning in the overwhelming abundance of brands and brand communication.
Brand identity is a
unique set of brand associations implying a promise to customers and includes a
core and extended identity. Core identity is the central, timeless essence of
the brand that remains constant as the brand moves to new markets and new
products. Core identity broadly focuses on product attributes, service, user
profile, store ambience and product performance. Extended identity is woven
around brand identity elements organized into cohesive and meaningful groups
that provide brand texture and completeness, and focuses on brand personality,
relationship, and strong symbol association.
To be effective, a
brand identity needs to resonate with customers, differentiate the brand from
the competitors, and represent what the organization can and will do over time
(Aaker and Joachimsthaler, 2000).
When brand faces
aggressive competition in the marketplace, brand personality and reputation of
the brand help it distinguish from competing offerings. This can result in
gaining customer loyalty and achieve growth. A strong brand identity that is
well understood and experienced by the customer helps in developing trust
which, in turn, results in differentiating the brand from competition. A
company needs to establish a clear and consistent brand identity by linking
brand attributes with the way they are communicated which can be easily
understood by the customers. The brand can be viewed as a product, a
personality, a set of values, and a position it occupies in people's mind- Brand
Identity is everything the company wants the brand to be seen as.
2.4.4 SOURCES OF BRAND IDENTITY
Defining brand identity
and the limits of its strength and weakness, it is necessary to be aware of
identity sources. With the lapse of time, every brand can lose its independence
and meaning, as well as lose a certain level of freedom, as with the increase
of brand reliability, its elements acquire a particular form and define the
possible territory. The revelation of identity starts from typical goods or
services, confirming brand, symbol, logo, country of origin, advertising and
package.
(Kapferer, 2003)
singles out the following sources of identity: Good is the primary
source of identity. Brand reveals its plan and the uniqueness of its goods and
services. A genuine brand never remains just as a printed record on a good. A
brand transfers its equity into the process of production and distribution,
which constitutes the essence of service sales as well. Brand values need to be
embodied in a brand symbol. The representatives of cognitive psychology state
(Keenan, 1976; Lakof, 1987) that it is easier to define certain categories
indicating their typical features instead of exactly naming the attributes of a
good that require judicious parts of those categories. Every brand forces to
think spontaneously about particular goods more in comparison with another, as
well as about particular actions as a means of communication.
Prototype goods contain
various elements of brand identity. Some prototype goods are able or rendering
brand identity, regardless of the fact that brands, in essence, develop
identity; Values of brand identity transfer the essence of brand only then if
they exist within the essence of brand. Tangible and intangible realities go
one after another as values manage certainty and certainty manages these
values. For example, the identity of Benetton brand is constituted by
tolerance and friendship (Achrol and Kotler, 1999; Sawhney and Kotler, 2001;
Mitchell, 2001: McKenna, 2002; Urban, 2004).
Colors mean much more than the subject of
advertising. Colors not only determine appearance but make up an external brand
with its ideology, value set and brand culture. Colors do not play the role
only to distinguish the producer. Fraternity and cultural tolerance are the
values of the brand; Name is another source of brand identity as it is
one of the most powerful sources.
The majority of brand names seek to reflect features
that cannot be reflected or these attributes that are singled out. Other brands
exist ignoring their brand names; which is connected with the autonomy of
brands. The experience indicates that brands become autonomous (independent) when they render specific meaning different from the ones in
dictionaries to words. Mercedes was a Christian Spanish name that became
a symbol of Germany. Such ability is not just the attribute of a brand, but
this is a properly chosen noun.
A strong brand is capable of giving a new meaning to
words, changing the meaning in dictionaries. Name as well as identity must be
managed. Some names have a double meaning.
Personage is
another source. If brand is the capital of enterprises, so the emblem is
the righteousness of brand capital.
The emblem symbolizes
brand identity through visual image (Kapferer, 2003).
Brand includes relationship as brands frequently
take the most important place in the process of human transactions and
exchange. This is extremely reflected in the sphere of services and retail
companies. This feature emphasizes the way of behavior which is identified
significantly with a brand.
A lot of actions such
as the fact how brands influence and provide services in connection to their
consumers determine this feature.
2.4.5. BRAND IMAGE
In marketing literature
great attention is focused on brand image which is studied from two: company’s
and consumer’s perspectives. The approach of a company is directed towards
the improvement of marketing activity, connected with strategies of
positioning and retaining of a positive brand image. Consumer's approach is
based on consumer's attitude towards the interpretation of brand image and
brand equity. The importance of brand in the market is influenced by company's
ability to evaluate the fact how consumers interpret the image of brands and
company's ability to manage the strategy of brand positioning, adequately
revealing brand’s equity to a consumer (Kotler, 2001).
(Keller, 1993) defined brand image as “perceptions
about a brand as reflected by the brand association held in consumer memory”.
These associations refer to any brand aspect within the consumer’s memory
(Aaker, 1996). Basically, brand image describes the consumer’s thoughts and
feelings towards the brand (Roy and Banerjee, 2007). In other words, brand
image is the overall mental image that consumers have of a brand, and its
uniqueness in comparison to the other brands (Faircloth, 2005). Brand image comprises a consumer’s knowledge
and beliefs about the brand’s diverse products and its non-product attribute.
Brand image represents the personal symbolism that consumers associate with the
brand, which comprises of all the descriptive and evaluative brand-related
information (Iversen and Hem, 2008). When consumers have a favorable brand
image, the brand’s messages have a stronger influence in comparison to
competitor brand messages (Hsieh and Li, 2008). Therefore, brand image is an
important determinant of a buyer’s behavior (Burmann et al., 2008).
Brand image can
be defined as the reasoned or emotional perception a consumer attaches to
specific brands and is the first consumer brand perception that was
identified in marketing literature. Brand image consists of functional and
symbolic brand beliefs.
Brand image, is the
totality of consumer perceptions about the brand, or how they see it, which may
not coincide with the brand identity.
Companies have to work
hard on the consumer experience to make sure that what customers see and think
is what they want them to. A brand tries to establish a coherent perception of
the company for its different stakeholders and reflects a good corporate
reputation in the eyes of the general public (Hatch and Schultz, 2003).
Nevertheless, the
single most important public of a brand is its end consumers, who are drowning
in the overwhelming abundance of brands and brand communication. A favorable
brand image would have a positive influence on consumer behavior towards the
brand in terms of increasing loyalty, commanding a price premium and generating
positive word-of-mouth (Martenson, 2007).
2.4.6
BRIEF PROFILE OF DANGOTE CEMENT PLC
Dangote
Cement is Nigeria's largest cement manufacturer incorporated in 1992 and is
based in Lagos, Nigeria. The company's main activities are manufacturing,
preparation, import, packaging, and distribution of cement and related products
in Nigeria, West and Central Africa, and East and South Africa. The company has
projects and operations in Nigeria, Benin, Ghana and other African countries.
It operates the Obajana Cement Plant (OCP), the largest cement plant in
Sub-Saharan Africa.
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