Video conferencing from the US on `Building Strong Brands' at the CII Brand Summit '99, Aaker said that the Land Rover was a perfect example of how a brand leveraged adventure-seeking (functional benefit) and the feel young factor (self-expressive benefit) to build a strong brand.
Another Aaker tip: a brand can be stregthened by broadening the concept to identify it as a product, as an organisation, as a person and as a symbol. Ford, BMW and Harley Davidson each have identified their brand as an organisation while Nike, Shell are well known for their symbols, Aaker added. Outlining the new brand management model for `brand leadership', he said there were three elements which form the crux to building and managing a global brand:
Having a clear brand identityThe communication team leader's responsibility is primarily, co-ordination. He must solicit views, generate ideas, find areas of weakness, research consumers and retailers while ensuring that proper measures are adopted to remain connected to the consumer.
While managing global brands across countries would continue to be difficult, the implementation of a global brand management system would be of considerable use, Aaker said. The system would call for a global brand planning process such that the brand managers across the globe would have the same format to arrive at a concept, use the same inputs, and same vocabulary.
The organisation, he said, must also have a communication channel which will ensure that the best practises, success stories and failures in one market are made available in other markets too, in order to avoid duplication. The organisation should thus achieve excellence in communication and must initiate steps to counter the mindset that ``I'm different'', Aaker added.
This can be done by universally applying ideas that emnate in one particular market, and by having a strong brand manager. He pointed out the case of Pantene Shampoo's `For hair so healthy it shines' campaign which in fact, originated from Taiwan and later carried across the globe.
He also reiterated the need for a clear brand identity. What the brand stands for, its promises to customers and the association it aspires to have. To start with, the organisation should develop 10 to 12 concepts and shortlist them to three or four core identities and a few extended identities.
Mobil's core identity for example, Aaker said, were leadership, partnership and trust while Sony's core identity was digital (astonishing technology), dream (aspirational) and kids (fun, entertainment and reaching out to the kid in all of us). Sony, he said also had extended identities which include: quality, Japanese, global, local and respect for community and environment. The brand identity, to start with, has to be clearly articulated within the organisation, he added.
Aaker also pointed out the benefit of sub-brands and endorsed brands. And then of course, there is the handy tool called the `silver bullet': a sub-brand or brand that creates or changes the perception of the parent brand in your brand arsenal. The IBM Thinkpad for example, changed the perception of IBM as a hi-tech company.
Thus concluded Aaker: investment in a brand does pay. A survey done on 34 big corporations such as AT&T, Ford, Coke, and McDonald's compared the brand equity and return on investment, only to reveal that the brand equity has just about the same impact on stock return as ROI. Of course, they still have to figure which half of the investment in the brand is paying off.
The Aaker checklist
Does your company's product have: