Module 6.2 Secondary Associations: Endorsers
Brand element is an essential aspect for launching and promotion worldwide through symbolic elements such as name, logo, tagline or personality leaves a powerful impression on the customer’s perception (Kladou et al., 2017). Secondary brand association with endorser attracts customers to buy the brand product. For example, association with Hollywood celebrity showcase its quality, popularity, awareness and credibility for being productive and demanding (Al-Towfiq Hasan and Hasan, 2019). Hence, this paper session aims to understand the importance of secondary brand associations of endorsers and impact on customers.
Brand Secondary Association
The brand could become famous and acknowledged by the customer when they are aware of it through some association, including endorsers (Parkin, 2018).The picture below represents various types of secondary associations a brand could make through people, places and things.
Similarly, Hugo Boss is a famous German Luxury fashion with 1,113 retail stores worldwide (Statista, 2019). It has implemented different endorsers as secondary associations for clothing and accessories brand, for example, sports athletes ‘Formulae E, football, golf, and sailing. Australian actor Chris Hemsworth was made the brand ambassador of Hugo Boss’s men wear in 2017 for tailored suits as well as British singer Liam Payne was also made a global brand ambassador in the year 2019 for Hugo Bodywear (Pyne, 2019; Johnson, 2019).
Source (Hugoboss.com, n.d.)
Source (Hugoboss.com, n.d.)
Source (Google images)
Challenges Associated with Brand Endorsers
- Higher Cost of Influencers: To introduce a celebrity or sportsperson challenge is to maintain their charges; for example, Beyoncé charged approximately 50 million dollars Pepsi (Casserly, 2012).
- Negative Image: After swimmer Michael Phelps smoked marijuana Kellogg expired his contract for brand promotion (Leetaru, 2019). Similarly, for criminal offence and violence charges singer Madonna and basketball player Kobe Bryant were dropped from Pepsi and Nutella brand, respectively (Stampler, 2012).
The criterion for Effective Brands Endorsement Strategies
Following steps must be followed to plan an effective endorsement strategy:
- The first step is to understand who is your audience and what do they like or dislike.
- The second step is the selection of appropriate celebrity or local influencers for a particular brand.
- The third step is positioning of endorsers for brand communication through a network of Internet, commercial space and events.
- The fourth and final step is to gauge whether customers like the brand or not.
Advantages and disadvantages of Celebrity Endorsements
However, every celebrity endorsement for a product has several benefits as well as limitations described in the following table.
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
| · Brand equity is offered due to the variety of range by Hugo Boss like a belt, fragrances, and bodywear (FrogDog Marketing, 2013). | · Celebrities overshadow Hugo Boss, for example, Hollywood actor will overpower the tailored suit concept (FrogDog Marketing, 2013). |
| · Hugo Boss offers credibility as consumer trust their favourite sports personalities. | · Endorsements are costly and charge a substantial lump sum money, for example, $50 million charged by Hollywood actor Chris Hemsworth. |
| · Hugo Boss has been standing out due to its unique men’s wear for sports personalities (FrogDog Marketing, 2013). | · Linking with celebrity makes Huge loss for company whenever their image changes with negative publicity. |
| · Consumer’s purchase intention for buying Men’s wear changes with a brand endorser. | · However, the consumer gets confused when more than one ambassador is presented for clothing and accessories in Hugo Boss. |
References
Al-Towfiq Hasan, A. and Hasan, M. (2019). Secondary Brand Association Influences on Brand Preference and Purchase Intention. Global Media Journal, [online] 17(32), pp.1-6. Available at: http://www.globalmediajournal.com [Accessed 14 Feb. 2020].
Casserly, M. (2012). Beyoncé’s $50 Million Pepsi Deal Takes Creative Cues From Jay Z. [online] Forbes.com. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/12/10/beyonce-knowles-50-million-pepsi-deal-takes-creative-cues-from-jay-z/#2c73a0a74346 [Accessed 18 Feb. 2020].
FrogDog Marketing. (2013). The Advantages and Disadvantages of Celebrity Endorsements. [online] Available at: https://www.frog-dog.com/the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-celebrity-endorsements/ [Accessed 14 Feb. 2020].
Hugoboss.com. (n.d.). BOSS Athletes and Ambassadors. [online] Available at: https://www.hugoboss.com/boss-men-athletes-ambassadors/#formula [Accessed 14 Feb. 2020].
Johnson, K. (2019). Chris Hemsworth films a commercial for Hugo Boss in New York. [online] Mail Online. Available at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-7765751/Chris-Hemsworth-films-commercial-Hugo-Boss-New-York.html [Accessed 14 Feb. 2020].
Kladou, S., Kavaratzis, M., Rigopoulou, I., and Salonika, E. (2017). The role of brand elements in destination branding. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, 6(4), pp.426-435.
Leetaru, L. (2019). When a Celebrity Endorser Brings Scandal to Your Doorstep. [online] Harvard Business Review. Available at: https://hbr.org/2019/05/when-scandal-engulfs-a-celebrity-endorser [Accessed 18 Feb. 2020].
Parkin, G. (2018). What is Leveraging Secondary Brand Association to Build Brand Equity?. [online] GoPromotional Marketing Blog. Available at: https://www.gopromotional.co.uk/blog/what-is-leveraging-secondary-brand-association-to-build-brand-equity/ [Accessed 14 Feb. 2020].
PR Couture | Hub for Fashion & Lifestyle PR Professionals. (2017). Welcome to our Celebrity Endorsement Series. [online] Available at: https://www.prcouture.com/2017/10/celebrity-endorsement-brand-deals-choosing-right-one/ [Accessed 14 Feb. 2020].
Pyne, I. (2019). Liam Payne named global brand ambassador for Hugo Boss. [online] South China Morning Post. Available at: https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/news-trends/article/3013354/liam-payne-named-global-brand-ambassador-hugo-boss [Accessed 14 Feb. 2020].
Stampler, L. (2012). The 13 Worst Celebrity Endorsement Fails. [online] Business Insider. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-13-worst-celebrity-endorsement-fails-2012-1?IR=T#kobe-bryant-nutella-mcdonalds-2004-8 [Accessed 18 Feb. 2020].
Statista. (2019). Several Hugo Boss stores worldwide 2009-2018 | Statista. [online] Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/294103/number-of-hugo-boss-stores-worldwide/ [Accessed 14 Feb. 2020].
Module 7.2 Interactive Brand Experiences
Brand experience is a process that positively influences customers when they interact with a brand. It can be defined as “feelings, cognitions and behavioural response evoked through a systematic approach in context with brand design and identity” (How Brands Are Built, 2019). Hence, the purpose of this paper is to understand what brand experience is and how interactive organizations make it. Furthermore, brand experience is focused on strategic experiential modules such as to sense, to feel, to think, to act, and to relate with a particular brand (Ding and Tseng, 2015). Therefore, brand experience creates an impression on the customer to buy a specific product.
TESCO
Similarly, Tesco has made a compelling brand experience for customers in the international market. It is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer that operates in more than 100 countries. According to research, Tesco has launched virtual grocery stores in the public area so that the customer could buy anything from mobile application Homeplus (Chue, 2018). Henceforth, brand experience based on digital platforms brought customers close to Tesco. Therefore, digital space was helpful for customers who cannot reach a grocery store close by online buying and delivery of products.
With the help of QR code, the product available at south Korean metro stations, people can order and place for grocery items (de Meurville, Pham and Trine, 2013). Hence, one brand experience was created through digital platforms and marketing rather than the traditional way by Tesco. The picture below explores how the QR code scanning process helps to select some items through the virtual store concept.
Conceptual Framework of Brand Experience
To create a useful brand experience Tesco needed offline and online antecedents so that effective results are obtained. On the other hand, after applying the brand experience strategy, positive consequences included customer satisfaction, brand loyalty, attitude, equity, and credibility.
Source (Khan and Rahman, 2015)
- Tesco applied event marketing by including customer engagement at metro stations.
- QR code worked as another vital tool for implementing and building rapid trust with customers.
- As a result, customers were satisfied with the concept of the virtual store, and they utilized the Homeplus app in past years.
Steps for making the brand experience better:
Customer Engagement strategies Source (Google Image)
The following steps should be followed by organizations to make their brand experience facility much better and unique. As virtual stores are a unique concept, many store markets could apply the same idea for reaching their customers effectively. Following steps will develop a strategy to implement brand experience and customer journey much better and engaging:
- Knowledge for Audiences with the help of the business analytics tools now offer customer’s preferences over a particular product (Sharma, 2018). Therefore, it is essential to understand what the audience wants. Hence, with virtual stores, customers could easily order requirements online without going to store visits.
- Set up a trust with the audience, for example, QR code detection. It shows that the virtual store is a reliable source, and people can make online buying or selling effectively.
- Create better relationships with customers through the chatbox and email interactions.
- Create content that is relatable to the customers, and they could immediately feel attached.
References
Chue, M. (2018). 5 Winning Customer Experience Examples to Inspire Your Brand’s Marketing Strategy. [online] Blog.digimind.com. Available at: https://blog.digimind.com/en/insight-driven-marketing/5-winning-customer-experience-examples-to-inspire-your-brands-marketing-strategy [Accessed 15 Feb. 2020].
de Meurville, M., Pham, K., and Trine, C. (2013). How Tesco virtually created a new market in a country’s lifestyle. [online] Business today.in. Available at: https://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/lbs-case-study/case-study-tesco-virtually-created-new-market-based-on-country-lifestyle/story/214998.html [Accessed 15 Feb. 2020].
Ding, C., and Tseng, T. (2015). On the relationships among brand experience, hedonic emotions, and brand equity. European Journal of Marketing, 49(7/8), pp.994-1015.
How Brands Are Built. (2019). Definition: What is brand experience? | How Brands Are Built. [online] Available at: https://howbrandsarebuilt.com/blog/2019/01/30/definition-what-is-brand-experience/ [Accessed 15 Feb. 2020].
Khan, I. and Rahman, Z. (2015). A review and future directions of brand experience research. International Strategic Management Review, 3(1-2), pp.1-14.
Shama, H. (2018). How to Create a Better Brand Experience: Move Beyond the Customer Journey. [online] Forbes.com. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/shamahyder/2018/07/06/how-to-create-a-better-brand-experience-move-beyond-the-customer-journey/#4158c41f7194 [Accessed 15 Feb. 2020].
Module 8.1 Brand Communities
A brand community is a community that represents a group of people who follows the same brand. Furthermore, for one-on-one interactions with customers, brand communities are an ultimate source. These communities not only attract individual customer; however, improves relationships with long term establishments (Hur, Ahn and Kim, 2011). Following diagram depicts the process for the online brand community so that valuable product is made. It includes impression management, social networking, community engagement, and brand use.
Online Brand Community Source (Google Image)
Several organizations have created an online brand community for engaging customers effectively. Starbucks is one of the biggest American coffee companies that has established the concept of coffeehouse since it’s inception. One of the brand community examples includes My Starbucks Idea, where customers are encouraged to share their suggestions for making the product better (Fournier, 2019). However, such a brand community for Starbucks has provided several benefits to them through online presence. The below diagram explores how customer’s ideas are implemented into Starbuck’s new product development. In the year 2013, 15,000 views were found on the company website, out of which 277 were implemented to make the product better (Digital.hbs.edu, 2016). The company offers a straightforward process to implement an online brand community process:
- The first customer picks one option out of three.
- The second customer makes suggestions and submits it on the platform.
- Now team members perform public votes and select unique ideas.
- They pass it to decision-makers so that the selection of best feedback could be applied for the product.
Source (Digital.hbs.edu, 2016)
Steps for Implementing Brand Community
Various steps are implemented to develop a community around the Starbucks brand.
- Brand Definition: The mission statement of the brand helps to understand what it is and how it is defined (Patel, 2019). Starbucks, as a coffee company, proposes the following mission for its customers.
“To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup, and one neighbourhood at a time.”
- Brand Connectivity: To connect with people or especially customers; a connectivity medium should be present (Patel, 2019). For example, a community platform could be online, offline, and digital space where reach is more as compared with traditional platforms. Starbucks has a broad audience due to popular among global stores; thus, the online platform is perfect.
Source (Fournier, 2019)
- Valuable membership for community: The Starbucks values customers as they implemented 277 ideas from My Starbucks Idea platform. Therefore, the members are considered an essential part of the brand community due to equal importance, and respect offers for constructive ideas.
- Build engagement with the community: Starbucks creates user profiles who take an active part in building ideas. Furthermore, the top 10 ideas are remarked on the community platform to promote engagement with customers.
References
Digital.hbs.edu. (2016). My Starbucks Idea: Crowdsourcing for Customer Satisfaction and Innovation – Digital Innovation and Transformation. [online] Available at: https://digital.hbs.edu/platform-digit/submission/my-starbucks-idea-crowdsourcing-for-customer-satisfaction-and-innovation/ [Accessed 15 Feb. 2020].
Fournier, A. (2019). My Starbucks Idea: an Open Innovation Case-Study | Braineet. [online] Braineet. Available at: https://www.braineet.com/blog/my-starbucks-idea-case-study/ [Accessed 15 Feb. 2020].
Hur, W., Ahn, K., and Kim, M. (2011). Building brand loyalty through managing brand community commitment. Management Decision, 49(7), pp.1194-1213.
Patel, S. (2019). Build a Brand Community In 5 Steps. [online] Keap.com. Available at: https://keap.com/business-success-blog/marketing/branding/5-steps-to-building-a-community-around-your-brand [Accessed 15 Feb. 2020].