Place Order

BRAND MANAGEMENT

BRAND MANAGEMENT

BRAND MANAGEMENT

 

 

Introduction

Brand management is the method or the strategy that is used in companies that wishes to maintain their brand mainly through fulfilling and maintaining customer satisfaction as well as their expectation. The main reason for the strategy is to ensure the it stays competitive in the consumer market. This also allows brands to increase prices for their products and at the same time maintaining customer loyalty through creating strong awareness and positive image of that particular brand(Dhar,2007). The immediate aim of this article is to analyze a Singapore homegrown company in order to understand different elements of brand management.

Company’s background

The Singapore home grown company under consideration is Singtel which is the abbreviation for Singapore Telecommunications Limited. The company was founded about 135 years ago back in the 1870’s and has over 500 million customers and subscribers from its operations and regional customers (Temporal, 2010). Singtel is a business to customer kind of a business that provides internet services, mobile network services and the fixed line telephone services. Singtel has expanded its services outside the Singapore home community to other areas like Thailand, India, Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. In terms of market company capitalization, it has the largest scale in the Singapore market with the largest investment from the government of Singapore under the name Temasek Holdings. Being Asia’s leading telecommunications company, Singtel has a large commitment in the delivering of end to end solutions with wireless and internet platforms. These can only be achieved through a strong branding development and management in order to survive in this competitive sector.

Brand Development and Management

Singtel has plans in improving the territory by winning over the consumers, sustaining them and extending their services into new markets. Despite being a leading brand, it is facing competitions from companies such as the M1 company, Starhub company among others, therefore, it is required of Singtel to have a business strategy in order to maintain their brand remain the best. Also from the millions of users that it has, has challenges that it has to keep overcoming. For the company to be able to have a sound development strategy they should consider taking a look at the SWOT analysis method in order to come up with the right strategy.

 

The Marketing mix (7ps).

  1. Product

The product is all the services that Singtel offers. In order to ensure long product life, the services need careful consideration in their designs and features. Generally, Singtel should ensure that before introducing any new services in the name of their brand, a service blue print is done in order to answer questions such as, who will be the product aimed at? Which will be its ideal selling point? And also what added advantage will the product have over other similar competitors’ product? (Kapferer,2012). Singtel should only introduce product that answers all or some of the above questions in order to ensure continuous customer satisfaction and remaining competitive.

  1. Price

Service pricing is the difficult than pricing for other commodities. This is because you have to include each and every service cost and a profit mark up in order to get to your final servicing price. As a result, Singtel should ensure that when setting up their service price they should consider the competitors price so that they can ensure they are not setting the price either too high or very low. If some prices are regulated by the government they should adhere to it. They should maintain competitive prices and at the same time ensure the prices remain customer friendly.

  1. Place

Having great services is one thing but availing it to your service consumers is the second important thing a that service providers should always ensure. Service marketing entails that placing services near customers and in a place where there is ease of access is another differentiating factor(Kapferer,2008). Singtel in this case should ensure that all its branches where customers can get their services are in accessible places and ensure if their customers’ needs any customer care assistance they can easily get it.

  1. Promotion

Promotion has taken a critical position in today’s service marketing especially telco companies like Singtel promoting their brands rigorously. What is the need for that? Companies like Singtel faces a lot of competition in the service sector and therefore a lot of promotion is necessary for its survival. Singtel has unique promotions with differing promotions on their products where they get a certain tablet brand and they promote by lowering its price for a certain period. They may also determine to add another product that comes with buying the product. For example, Singtel do catch the eye of the customer by including a modem in the sales as the discount. Also they create Add-Ons on the internet that markets their products when browsers open certain webpages or websites that the company have promoted the product through (Chevalier and Mazzalovo 2012 p.69).

  1. People

People normally define a service. For example, if you are an engineering firm, your engineers define you. Similarly, those who work for Singtel define their services. Therefore, Singtel should ensure that its human resource possess the required interpersonal skills that are aimed at maximizing customer satisfaction. They should ensure their personnel are occasionally trained in order to keep up with the other personnel from other companies that provide similar services

  1. Processes

Service process is the criteria used by Singtel in delivering the service to their customers. Singtel should define and establish the service delivery process in their blueprint. A company could have excellent products but they may not know how to deliver it to their final customers. Singtel should therefore ensure on top of the great services they offer, offering it in a quick and quality way is the utmost important thing.

  1. Physical evidence

This last element in service marketing is a very crucial one since services are intangible, in nature creating a better customer experience through tangible elements should also be delivered with the service(Verma,2006). This is because physical evidence especially in service marketing is used as a differentiator. In that case, Singtel should adopt their unique style of physical entities like unique buildings, advertisement billboards and also their personnel could have a certain uniform uniquely designed to differentiate them from their competitors.

 

The Customer- Based Brand Equity (CBBE) model

This model is also known as the Keller’s brand equity model. According to this model there are four pillars that are essential in building a strong brand; identity meaning response and relationships. The idea behind this model involves changing the perception customers and shaping their preferences in order to be able to respond to their needs. Below is a figure that shows the CBBE model and the six four building blocks that can be attributed to a perfect brand development.

  1. Identity

Singtel should create an in depth brand awareness (salience) which is both easy to recognize as well as remember. In terms of recognition efforts such as sponsoring the national premier league are some of the important steps that will create more awareness about Singtel both in Singapore and outside. These activities should answer the question, ‘Who are you?’ to your customers. The second and most important thing at this stage Singtel should ensure is that their brand perception is correct at all stages of the service provision stages (Keller, 2003). This can be done by exploring if there are different segments in the market with different relationship with Singtel’s brand.

  1. Meaning

At this second step, Singtel should strive to continue identifying and communicating what the brand means to their customers by answering the question, ‘what are you’. The two main building blocks are performance and Imagery (Glynn and Woodside,2006). In terms of performance Singtel should improve on how well they meet their customers’ needs in order to maintain a strong brand equity. On the other hand, Singtel’s should enhance how they meet their service consumers’ needs on a social- psychological level.

  1. Response

This is the third level that customers express their feeling and judgement towards your brand. Judgement and feelings are the two main building blocks here. How do customers feel or think about Singtel? In order for Singtel to ensure their services evoke the right feeling and ensure they get the right judgement they should ensure they improve on their quality, credibility and consideration.

  1. Relationships

This is the most but it is the most desirable and the most difficult level to reach according to the CBBE model. This level is achieved when customers have a deep psychological connection(resonance) with your brand. Singtel should lay plans to ensure that they establish a strong psychological bond with their customers (Elliot and Percy,2007). This can be achieved by ensuring that there is behavioral loyalty in their customers, establishing an attitudinal attachment between the customers and their brand. The other way Singtel could create a strong resonance with its consumers is through allowing them to be actively with Singtel brands through joining clubs relating to Singtel and organizing events under the brand(Keller,2003).

 

Conclusion

In conclusion the Singtel’s company strategies in brand management and development have been explored and the areas that they can improve on to ensure that they continue being the brand number one in the Asian-pacific region.  The article has focused on threats and weaknesses on the brand. Most importantly Singtel should focus on expanding their brand through customer- based brand equity and through this, it means that more and more customers will use their services. Singtel should ensure that they maintain and Improve their relationship with their consumers by making sure that they offer quality services. Finally, they should look more into positioning themselves in a manner that they maintain loyalty among their partners, workers and their customers.

 

Reference list

AGGARWAL, S. (2008). Brand management: a theoretical and practical approach. New Delhi, Global India Publications.

CHEVALIER, M., & MAZZALOVO, G. (2012). Luxury brand management a world of privilege. Hoboken, John Wiley & Sons.

DHAR, M. (2007). Brand management 101: 101 lessons from real-world marketing. Singapore, Wiley (Asia).

ELLIOTT, R., & PERCY, L. (2007). Strategic brand management. Oxford [u.a.], Oxford Univ. Press.

GLYNN, M. S., & WOODSIDE, A. G. (2009). Business-to-business brand management: theory, research and executive case study exercises. Bingley, JAI Press.

KAPFERER, J.-N. (2008). Strategic brand management: creating and sustaining brand equity long term. London, Kogan Page.

KAPFERER, J.-N. (2012). The new strategic brand management: advanced insights and strategic thinking. London, Kogan Page.

Top of Form

KELLER, K. L. (2003). Strategic brand management: building, measuring, and managing brand equity. Upper Saddle River, Prentice Hall Ptr.

Bottom of Form

 

KOTLER, P., PFOERTSCH, W., & MICHI, I. (2006). B2B brand management. Berlin, Springer.

MKT09709 Brand Management Lecture Topic 10 Extending Brands

MKT09709 Brand Management Lecture Topic 11 Managing Brands: Geographic and Time Perspectives

MKT09709 Brand Management Lecture Topic 4 Marketing Mix Considerations

MKT09709 Brand Management Lecture Topic 5 Secondary Associations in Branding

MKT09709 Brand Management Lecture Topic 9 Branding Services

MKT09709 Brand Management Topic 1 Brands and Brand Management

MKT09709 Brand Management Topic 12 Strategic Marketing and Brand Management Processes

MKT09709 Brand Management Topic 2 Customer-Based Brand Equity

MKT09709 Brand Management Topic 6 Brand Equity Measurement and Management

TEMPORAL, P. (2010). Advanced brand management managing brands in a changing world. Singapore, John Wiley & Sons (Asia).

VERMA, H. V. (2006). Brand management: text and cases. New Delhi, Excel Books.