Summary: Building Strong Brands

Review and Analysis of Aaker's Book

BusinessNews Publishing

• Publisher: Must Read Summaries
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9782806238559
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Consumer Behaviour
• Index: Business

The must-read summary of David Aaker's book: `Building Strong Brands: How the Best Brand Managers Build Brand Equity`.

This summary of the ideas from David Aaker's book `Build Strong Brands` shows that a strong brand creates customer interest and loyalty, and can be an organization’s most valuable strategic asset. In fact, brand equity is historical – the current brand image is derived from actions previously taken. Therefore, the process of adding value to a brand so that it has greater equity in the future is termed a brand identity program. Through the integration of additional product attributes, organizational attributes, personality characteristics and visual imagery, including symbols, the brand identity program adds value to the brand in the future. In essence this summary highlights that a strong brand is the strategic asset which holds the key to the long-term performance of any organization; any initiative focused on building the value of the brand is integral to the long-term viability of the organization itself. 

Added-value of this summary: 
• Save time 
• Understand the key concepts 
• Increase your business knowledge

To learn more, read `Building Strong Brands` and discover a useful book to develop successful organizations. 

Summary of Building Strong Brands (David Aaker)

Rule #1

Have an identity for each brand -- different and distinctive from its equity.

Main Idea

Brand equity (or image) is historical -- how a product or service is currently perceived in the marketplace. It is derived from:

1. Awareness of the brand.
2. Loyalty to the brand by existing customers.
3. Perceived quality of the brand.
4. Associations with other valued brands.
5. Competitive advantages.

Brand identity, by contrast, is aspirational -- how the owner would like that brand to be perceived in the future, in terms of:

1. Product attributes.
2. Organizational attributes.
3. Personality.
4. Visual imagery.

Supporting Ideas

Brand equity is the total added value derived from five distinct factors, each of which drives the brand’s value proposition:

The value of a brand is a flow-on effect from its basic value proposition. For any product or service, a value proposition will have five key elements:

1. Awareness -- The familiarity and mental image of that brand already existing in the mind of the consumer as a result of past experience.
2. Loyalty -- The likelihood a consumer will buy in the future because of favorable experience in the past.
3. Quality -- The perception of the consumer that products or services using that brand will perform better and deliver a better user experience than others.
4. Associations -- The other brands consumers consider to be in the same peer group, or influential users consumers would like to emulate.
5. Competitive Advantages -- Any proprietary benefits the brand can deliver uniquely within that field.

In the modern business environment, building brand equity is a challenge. In addition to the usual marketplace pressures of a large number of competitors, brand building often faces barriers and biases within the organization -- not the least of which will be competition for the allocation of resources to brand building activities.

The payoff, however, can be substantial as a brand can significantly impact on the organization’s value.

To take a brand from where it is today to where it should be in the future, a brand identity system is required.

Brand identity seeks to move or expand the value proposition for each product in four different perspectives:

Each of these perspectives clarify, enrich and differentiate a brand. The perspectives are:

1. Product attributes -- The broad product class (computers, motor vehicles, etc.), function benefits delivered, perceptions of quality or value, specific uses (niche segments of the larger market), associations with specific groups of users, links to a country or region.
2. Organizational attributes -- Innovation, a bias towards quality over value, environmental awareness or other areas of consumer concern, a track record of trustworthy dealings.
3. Personality -- The introduction of human-like traits like casual or corporate, creative or logical, urban or rugged outdoors, cutting edge or conservative. These traits will communicate product attributes and encourage relationships to grow between the brand and consumers.
4. Visual imagery -- Symbols that reinforce what the brand stands for with just a glance. Often incorporates the heritage of the brand or visual metaphors linked to product benefits or attributes.

Key Thoughts

“When consumers see a brand and remember that they have seen it before (perhaps even several times), they realize that the company is spending money to support the brand. Since it is generally believed that companies will not spend money on bad products, consumers take their recognition as a “signal” that the brand is good.”

– David Aaker

“The brand builder who attempts to develop a strong brand is like a golfer playing on a course with heavy roughs, deep sandtraps, sharp doglegs and vast water barriers. It is difficult to score well in such conditions. The brand builder can be inhibited by substantial pressures and barriers, both internal and external.”

– David Aaker

“What do you need to be the best? Concentration. Discipline. A dream.”

– Florence Griffith Joyner, Olympic gold medalist

“Customers must recognize that you stand for something.”

– Howard Schultz, Starbucks

“An orange ...is an orange ... is an orange. Unless, of course, that orange happens to be a Sunkist, a name 80-p...