Brand Management

Introduction

If strong brands are among the company's most valuable assets, managing and developing them becomes of crucial importance for the long term profitability of a firm. Brands are special, they are managed by companies, but their positions will often reside in consumers' minds. This implies that a brand strategist has to combine deep customer insight with clear strategic vision. This course gives an introduction to both of these areas of skills.

Course content

1: Core brand issues

• Customer based brand equity, the brand value chain, the brand resonance model (CBBE pyramid), brand awareness and knowledge
• Brand positioning

2: Strategic brand management applications

• Developing consumer-brand relationships
• Strategies for leveraging secondary associations (co-branding, ingredient-branding, licensing, CoO)
• Building for growth: the brand and line extension strategies
• Developing a brand portfolio-strategy
• Corporate branding challenges

The first course segment "Core brand issues" is dedicated to generating customer insight, to understand the way customers perceive brands, store brand associations, and use brand knowledge when choosing among different brands. This serves as a ground for the following sections on establishing brand positions, giving the brand identity, and establishing a credible brand value proposition. Having completed this section, students should know the "nuts and bolts" of branding. This enables a shift to more strategic brand issues - the overall learning outcome is to develop skills with respect to managing brands strategically.