comprehensive project on brand

8/12/2019 Comprehensive Project on Brand

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BRAND IMAGE MEANING AND IMPORTANCE

Dissertation submitted

In Partial fulfillment for the

Post Graduate Diploma in International Business

By Under the Guidance of

Arun Kumar Ambati Prof : Amit KumarFT-IB-09-104,

PGD-IB(2009-2011).


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FINAL DISSERTATION DECLARATION FORM

I hereby declare that the Project work entitled BRAND IMAGE: MEANING ANDIMPORT N Esubmitted by me for the partial fulfilment of the Post GraduateDiploma in Management Program/PGDM-IBto Institute for Integrated Learningin Management Greater Noida is my original work and has not been submittedearlier either to IILM GSM or to any other Institution for the fulfilment of the

requirement for any course of study. I also declare that no chapter of this

manuscript in whole or in part is lifted and incorporated in this report from any

earlier / other work done by me or others.

Place : Greater Noida Name of Student : Arun Kumar AmbatiDate : 26thMarch 2012


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.Introduction2.Brand Image : meaning and importance2.1. Brand Image2.2. Importance of Brand Image

3.Research Methodology3.1. Introduction3.2. Statement of Problem3.3.

Variable of Study

3.4. Objective3.5. Design of Study3.6. Sampling Procedure

4. Data Analysis and Discussion4.1. Analysis Extrinsic Cues4.2. Analysis Intrinsic Cues

5.Findings & Suggestions5.1. Findings5.2. Suggestions5.3. Conclusions

6.Annexure7.Bibliography


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1. IntroductionDue to increasing variety of availability of brands, the importance of being seen has increased.Marketers use advertisements not only to communicate information about a product or the brand

to the consumers but also persuade them to make a purchase decision for the product. Thus it has

become very important to understand the consumer buying decisions before the purchase is

actually made. This helps to understand all that will influence a consumer to think of buying a

product.

Understanding what influences a consumer, brings us to understand the term Brand Salience.

This study was undertaken to investigate the consideration and choice of brands from a brand

salience perspective. It simply helps to understand why brands make it either big or small. It also

defines the advertisements cues for various brands in the telecom service industry. A brand is

considered to be salient when it enters the consideration set during a purchase decision by a

consumer. Thus through this study, we would understand various factors of advertising that

influence a brand or create an impact on a brand being salient and how to measure brand

salience.

The telecom industry has been chosen since it is one industry which heavily advertises. Also for

this study we have chosen only TV commercials and our respondents being the youth since

advertising cues impacts their buying decisions greatly. This study is used to identify the relative

importance of advertising cues and their impact on increasing the chances of a brand being more

salient.


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2. Brand Image- Meaning & Importance

2.1 BRAND IMAGE

Brand image means the image of a particular brand in market and in eyes of people. Brand image

decides the popularity of a brand in market. A brand having good brand image is considered

more popular than a brand with low image.

There are three components to a brand image : attributes, consequences and brand personality. It

is perhaps more inclusive to think of a brands image as encompassing all the associates that a

consumer has for that brand : all the thoughts, feelings and imagery-even colors, sounds and

smells - that are mentally liked to that brand in the consumers memory.

First comes the attributes, attributes means qualities or functions or advantages of a particular

brand. A brand is known by its attributes i.e. the qualities it offers. Attributes effect the brand

image i.e. a product or brand with lot of advantages in comparison to its nearest substitute is

considered more suitable. Thus it enhances the brand image. Then come

the consequences, consequences means the effect of the product. The product or brand which

gives ultimate good result is considered good brand. Thus, consequences also effect brand image.

Last component of brand image is brand personality. Brand personality includes associations

with particular characters, symbols, endorsers, life styles and types of users. Together, such

brand personality associations create a composite image of a brand. It gives the brand a sense of

human, it makes you feel a brand as a person. Thus it characterized it as adventurous, head

strong, undependable, excitable etc. Brand personality also anociate feelings with brand. Like

fun, excitement with Pepsi, taste, health with honey. Brand personality also creates an anociation

of that brand with certain important life values, such as exciting life, the search for self respect,

the need to be intellectual, the desire for self-expression etc. Finally what often matters more

than the specific personality attributed to brand is the question of whether a brand has any clear

personality at all. Thus, it could be said that the brand personality of a "brand as a person", is

used by various advertising agencies and marketing client companies.


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Thus, these are the 3 components of brand image. Brand image is a important tool for making

effective sales. Brand image builds the confidence in customers. A product which owns high

brand image is always at an advantage in comparison to products with low brand image. Thus,

brand image can be described as impression of brand in eyes of customers.

2.2 IMPORTANCE OF BRAND IMAGE

Branding is a very powerful component in business. The brand must have a logo to make

branding easier and more possible. The consumers decide if they will buy a product or use a

service based on how they view the brand. The brand itself tells us or let us imagine how good or

bad the product is even if we never tasted it before! All that brand promotion and advertising

really do tell us how great a brand can be (like Nike). Once a customer likes your brand he/she

will definitely come back for repeated services or products. The qualities of the product or

services are ensured through the customers minds from the brand image.

Brand is not only convenient for businesses for repeated customer purchase but also easier for

customers to filter out the countless generic items. Brand gives consumers the reason to buy it

and wastes less time for consumer to choose.

There are ways to improve a brand from advertising such as viral campaign (more trustworthy),

online ads, print ads and commercials. Another way is to improve your product or services that

will reinforce the brand. This is a good way to promote your brand by always being in the cuttingedge or customers first image.

Major Role of Advertising in Brand Image

In an increasingly competitive marketplace, greater emphasis is being placed on brand image

development as the basis for consumer discrimination. Advertising has a central role to play in

developing brand image, whether at the corporate, retail or product level. It informs consumers

of the functional capabilities of the brand while simultaneously imbuing the brand with symbolic

values and meanings relevant to the consumer. These two functions of advertising closely

parallel the informational and transformational schools of advertising effects and theories on the

central and peripheral routes to consumer persuasion. Such dichotomous approaches to

explanation are unlikely to represent the reality of consumer choice in that brand image is likely


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to be formed by the simultaneous absorption of advertising messages based on both the

functional and expressive capabilities of brands.

Hence this project focuses on the advertising attributes like message conveyed, jingle,

spokes person, graphics and theme showcased to build brand image.

3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 INTRODUCTION

The telecom industry is getting highly competitive and cost centric every day. The research is

designed to investigate the impact of various advertising cues through the various TV

commercials that are recently aired in the Telecom service industry by various Telecom Service

Providers. The study also analyses the intrinsic cues that would influence an individual to stick to

a particular brand. The present study is undertaken with 5 telecom service brands that are very

well known for their advertisementsAirtel, Idea, Vodafone, Aircel and Tata Docomo.

3.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

The various studies on Brand Image have concentrated on conceptualising the term and

conducting certain experiments that measure the influence of only one variable on brand image.

In India, there are every few studies conducted on Brand Image. Moreover, very few people

understand the term and its importance or influence. Through this research, the aim of the study

is to understand a set of variables that influence brand image in any one sector and measure the

brand image or the factors that partly influence a brand being salient for a set of brands in the

same sector.


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3.3 VARIABLES OF STUDY

The variables used in the study are:

Dependent Variable: Brand Image

Independent Variables:

A .External or Extrinsic Cues:

1. Message Conveyed

2. Celebrity Showcased

3. Theme / Story

4. Graphics / Effects

5. Jingle

B Internal or Intrinsic Cues:

1. Word of Mouth (from friends, relatives, etc.)

2. Experience

3. Belief

4. Loyalty

3.4 Objectives:

The main objective of the study is to present conclusion and necessary suggestionsregarding consumer awareness relating to Brand.

To know the importance of brand image To study the unique characteristics of Branding. To know the awareness level of customers through branding To collect the information and the consumers attitude towards a particular brand.


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3.5 DESIGN OF STUDY

Sources of Data

Data has been collected from various sources: there is a combination of both primary and

secondary data that has been used in this research.

Primary Data: The primary data has been collected by conducting interview with youth as the

respondents for measuring the impact of various advertising cues given by the telecom service

providers in the telecom service industry.. The data collected through this method was structured

and quantified enough to make projections in the study.

Secondary Data: Internet and textbooks related to advertising, advertising exposure and brand

salience and the telecom service players in the telecom service industry. Articles have been

sourced from magazines and journals dealing with brand image.

3.6 SAMPLING PROCEDURE

Since the project deals with the dependent variable being categorical or non metric, it becomes

very difficult to conduct the study. Random sampling has been used in this study to choose the

respondents. Random sampling or a random sample is one chosen by a method involving an

unpredictable component. Random sampling can also refer to taking a number of independent

observations from the same probability distribution, without involving any real population. Since

the population is huge and not very well defined, this sampling method was chosen. A sample

selected such that each element comes from the same population and the elements are selected

independently.

SAMPLE SIZE = 30


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4.DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

INTRODUCTION

The data was collected by using questionnaire method. The questionnaire was filled by

respondents who primarily watch telecom TV commercials. The place for data collection is

Delhi (NCR) and the youth were chosen as the primary respondents to fill this questionnaire.

Since the questionnaire has unaided and aided recall aspects, the survey was filled by personally

interacting with every respondent.

SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS

The sample of respondents selected was mainly the youth, who are considered to base their

decision of choosing a telecom service provider as a result of viewing various TV commercial

advertisements of each brand.

RESPONDENT PROFILE

Profiling of respondents is done on the basis of age and the telecom service provider they are

currently using. Also the year of experience with the current service provider has been an

important factor in creating the profile of the respondents.


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DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS OF RESPONDENTS

Analysis: The above graphs show the age profiling of the respondents. This is primarily

important because it defines the population who are impacted by TV commercials to make a

choice of their telecom service provider. Also they are the age group who pay attention to TV

commercials.

TELECOM SERVICE PROVIDERS CATEGORIZATION BASED ON USAGE OF

RESPONDENTS


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Analysis: From the graphs and data given above, we can conclude that currently the three major

players are Airtel, that is leading, then Vodafone and finally Tata Docomo. The respondents

majorly have subscribed to any of these three. Also the data above tells us the experience that the

respondents have had with the currently used Telecom service provider. Airtel and Vodafone

have had most of the customers as loyal ones since they have either 4 -6 years or 6& above years

of experience with the brand.

4.1 EXTRINSIC CUES

4.1.1 Brand : AIRTEL

Analysis: This data states all the responses for unaided recall based on 5 factors that are extrinsic

cues for the brand Aitrel. The advertisement chosen was Harek friend zaroorihotahai. Fromthe graphs, it is clearly evident that the respondents have a very strong memory with respect to

the message conveyed and the jingle. Also the theme and story is fairly remembered. Since this

advertisement does not have any celebrities, the recall on celebrity showcased does not play a

very important role. The graphics and effects are subdued by the recall of the jingle or message

conveyed.


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4.1.2 Brand : IDEA

Analysis: This table states all the responses for unaided recall based on 5 factors that are

extrinsic cues for the brand Idea. The advertisement chosen was AbhishekBachchan as a tree:

Use Mobile, Save paper Ad. From the graphs, it is clearly evident that the respondents have a

very strong memory with respect to the message conveyed and the celebrity showcases. It should

be noted that the celebrity showcased here had a strong impact that all the respondents have a

strong memory about the same. This may also be a result of consistency in the celebrity

showcased. The theme and graphics are moderately recalled. It is interesting to know that the

jingle is not very well remembered. Since, it is mainly music and hardly any words in the jingle,

many respondents confuse the jingle to other jingles or land up creating their own one.


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4.1.3 Brand: VODAFONE


extrinsic cues for the brand Vodafone. The advertisement chosen was Vodafone Dog Helping

the Girl in Baking: Happy to Help TV Advertisement. From the graphs, it is clearly evident that

the respondents have a vague memory of the overall advertisement. They are unsure of the

theme/story, if any celebrity has been showcased or graphics/ effects. Almost half the

respondents have no memory of the jingle. This is a result of a change in the jingle. Many people

remember the older version of the jingle. It sounds more familiar. In conclusion, the

advertisement has more of a vague memory.


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4.1.4 Brand: AIRCEL


extrinsic cues for the brand Aircel. The advertisement chosen was The New Aircel Pocket

Internet 3G ad (where Dhoniaskes out a girl in the other bus for a coffee). From the graphs, it is

clearly evident that the respondents have a very strong memory and high familiarity of the

celebrity showcased. More than half the respondents i.e. 53.3% have a strong memory of the

message conveyed and 60% of the respondents recall the theme and story. On the other hand, the

least recalled factor of the advertisement is the Jingle of Aircel. In conclusion, the respondents

have a fair enough idea of the entire advertisement.


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4.1.5 Brand : TATA DOCOMO


extrinsic cues for the brand Tata Docomo. The advertisement chosen was RanbirKapoor in a

stand up act(various product s and services of Tata Docomo have been shown). From th e

graphs, it is clearly evident that the respondents have high recall of the message conveyed. They

remember specific funny scripts of the series of advertisements. The respondents have a strong

memory of the celebrity showcased. Nearly 60% of them have a strong memory of the

theme/story and graphics/effects shown in the advertisement. Also interestingly, about 70% of

the respondents have a strong recall capability of the Jingle of Tata Docomo. Thus, the overall

recall capability of this advertisement is high. The impact of the advertising cues on the brand

being salient becomes quite significant.


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RECALL CAPABILITY OF THE 5 BRANDS ACROSS THE 5 EXTRINSIC CUES

Analysis: The above graph shows the unaided strong memory recall for all the 5 brands across

all the 5 extrinsic cues. Given below each factor has been individually looked into:

1. Message Conveyed:

From the graph it is clearly visible that there is a strong memory recall of the message conveyed

for the brands Idea that has around 26% respondents able to recall, followed by Airtel and Tata

Docomo which have a fairly around 20% recall and then Aircel and finally Vodafone.

2. Celebrity Showcased:Aircel and Idea have full 100% strong recall of the celebrity

showcased. This may be due to consistency shown in the showcasing of the same celebrity for a

long time. Then Tata Docomo also has a strong brand recall, with respect to the celebrity

showcased, and may be due to RanbirKapoor who is a very famous personality among the youth.Then Airtel has a recall of their celebrities. On this factor Vodafone ranks last. This is solely

because an advertisement other than the zoo zoo was asked to recall.

3. Theme/Story: Out of all the respondents with a strong recall of the theme/story, Airtel, Tata

Docomo, Aircel and Idea have almost similar recall of the story or theme of the advertisement.

But Vodafone ranks the least in the recall capability since the new ads with the pug back again


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either havent yet had enough amount of exposure or the story of the advertisement is not

appealing enough to recall.

4. Graphics / Effects: This is very similar to the readings for theme/story. Vodafone ranks the

least and the reasons for this have already been stated under the theme/story. Moreover most of

the telecom service provider ads do not have out of the way or extraordinary graphics to take

special notice about.

5. Jingle: This is a very important factor, since this may turn out to be a tune to hum and which

helps to link emotionally to an individual. Without any doubt, Airtel for their ad Harek friend

zarrorihotahai, has the highest recall in the minds of the consumers. Then comes the Tata

Docomo with a high recall of their jingle. Idea also has a fair amount of recall. Vodafone is

fighting between the positioning on the pug again and many respondents remember the older

jingle and not the extended version of the same. Lastly there are hardly any respondents who

recall the jingle of Aircel.

4.2 INTRINSIC CUES

4.2.1 BRAND OF TELECOM SERVICE PROVIDER RESPONDENTS WOULD LIKE TO

OWN

Analysis: The above pie chart shows the level of satisfaction a user derives from his or her

telecom service provider. Only 20% of the respondents had a desire to change their service

provider. The remaining 80% were very happy and satisfied with their service provider. Given

below is the details of the 20% of respondents who wish to change to another service provider

and the details about the same.


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Analysis: From the above graph, it is clearly visible that out of the 20% of the respondents , 50%

of them would like to shift to Airtel, around 33% to Vodafone and the rest 17% to Tata Docomo.

If verified with secondary data Airtel is one of the brand having the highest sales and Vodafone

ranks high on popularity due to their zoo zoo campaign. And now, Tata Docomo has started

emerging as a new player which has a high change on being chosen in the top three players of

the industry, though it does not rank in the top three players in terms of sales.

4.2.2 FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE CHOOSING A TELECOM SERVICE BRAND


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Analysis: The above graph and data show the internal factors that influence respondents to either

stick to the same service provider or to shift to another one. These focus on trying to understand

the customers experience or the reasons that lie on the customers end to go for a particular

brand to stick to one brand. Out of all the four factors, except belief the other three have a strong

influence on a consumer taking a decision. Beliefs have the least influence or maximum no

influence on a decision. Loyalty can be indifferent when a consumer has to use more than one

telecom service provider at the same time.


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8. The instrinsic cues measured stated that the customers experience, loyalty and to a certain

extent word of mouth and belief play an important role in shaping the choice of a consumer for a

telecom service provider.

5.2 SUGGESTIONS

1. To make a brand image salient it is not only necessary to work on the quantity of the memory

structures but also the quality of the memory structures. Thus, a company must not only focus on

increasing the advertising exposure of frequency of the advertisement, but also on the quality i.e,

cues of the advertisements that may help trigger choosing a brand.

2. A company must focus on defining and communicating different cues against a common

equity. It is essential that the companies do a consumer research to understand the most

important and relevant cues which link to the benefit of the company. Then, having defined

these, brands need to execute creatively against these cues to maximize the number of memory

structure associations.

3. Create and own distinctive executional memory structures This is another approach to

increase the quantity and quality of executional memory structures. They refer to the ad ons, like

in the study may be the jingle or the graphics. These executional memory structures help create a

platform that enables consumers to more easily remember the companys brand in buying

situations.

4. Showing Consistency in the Cues Helps Consumers Get More Familiar with the brand In the

study, it has been observed that 100% of the respondents are able to recall the celebrity

showcased with brands like Idea, since they have been using the same celebrity for their entire

campaign.

6. Point-of-sale advertisingMany firms spend so high on advertising only because they would

like to influence point of sale to influence the choice of the consumer in the buying situation.


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7. Focusing more on Visual SalienceIts more like seeing is believing, when a customer is able

to get a picture in their mind, they are more likely to remember that than words. Thus, the order

and speed with which brands are noticed provide a measure of their visual salience which in turn

influences the buying behaviour of a consumer.


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CONCLUSION

It can be concluded from the study that the basic underlying principle to make create an impact

on a brand image being more salient is through repetition. We have all had the experience of

being unable to rid our minds of a song we have heard a lot. The repetition of the song has

increased its salience; it has increased its probability of being in the conscious mind at any

moment. Repetition of an advertisement, especially a jingle, can have a similar effect.

Also we have studied that another way that influences what we think about and notice is through

cueing. Cues can be as simple as words or expressions such as those which come up naturally

in everyday conversation. When a brand is linked to them through repetition, they become cues

that help increase the salience of the brand.

An actor in a play takes his cue from a line or some other happening or event. The human mindtakes its cue from its intentions and its immediate environment. Such cues can influence what we

think about next. Thats how we go to sleep at night. We turn off the cues. We turn off the light

and the radio. We try to reduce distractions or cues so that things wont keep popping into our

minds.

One way ofcreating Brand image salience is by tying a brand to something that frequently recurs

in the ordinary environment. There are many common words, expressions, symbols or tunes that

can be developed by means of repetition into mnemonic devices that trigger recollection of the

brand.

Thus focusing on making the cues more prominent will have a huge impact in a brand image

being more salient.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

Following were the major limitations to the study conducted :

The study could only be conducted in Delhi(NCR) and data from other regions could not becollected in a short span of time There was a time constraint to the study Small sample size

may not be a good representative of the population

comprehensive project on brand

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