Managing Three Brands
When you start the business, you will be responsible for three brands:
All three brands are closely intertwined through Brand Linkage. Whether one brand experiences a positive or negative change, it will have a filter down effect on the other two. Let's look at them in detail: Personal Brand:This is who you are and what you represent. Many brands have a spokesperson who has a strong personal brand that epitomises their business. Examples include: Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg. Most public personalities like actors, singers, politicians, entrepreneurs and models represent their personal brand. Many personalities may be so closely linked to their personal brands that they 'own' a single word associated to their brand. Examples include Cher, Bono, Uma, Spielberg, Lucas, Trump and Branson. Once you are the brand leader, you have massive leverage especially when promoting the business and product brand. Business Brand: Businesses have their corporate personas too. Although a business entity may be intangible and exist on paper, consumers, competitiors and industry watchers will ascribe attributes to the entity. If sufficiently influential or huge, the business brand may become a verb, such as:
Business brands can create immense loyalty. For example, consumers might be clamoring to buy the next Nvidia graphics card, or a Louis Vuitton handbag, on the strength of the business brand, even before the product has been released. Many business brands have a monetary worth, sometimes in the billions of dollars. They are also affected by news and other developments, which increase or decrease their brand value. A company's value on the stock market is also linked to their perceived brand value. Product Brand: product brands tie in with the products themselves. An otherwise average company might release a stellar product which helps establish their business brand. Likewise, a stellar business brand which launches a mediocre product will find a negative impact on their business brand. Product brands include the Apple iPod, Sony Trinitron display technology and MacDonald's Fish-O-Fillet. Product brand market leaders may dominate the market to the extent that their business or product name becomes the category name. For example, Sony's discman has become the category name for what is known as the portable CD player market, while the Rollerblade business brand has become the category name for in-line skates. In the business world, dominating a category will give you many advantages. Personality-Product Brand Linkage To illustrate the linkage between the three brands. Celebrity endorsements work on the principle of brand linkage (in theory anyway). When a celebrity endorses a product, the positive feelings that a person feels towards the celebrity are supposed to translate into the product too. However, for this to work effectively, the duration has to be long-term (for example, Michael Jordan and Air Jordan Nike shoes), rather than for a single season or campaign. Also, people are likely to remember any bad news associated with the celebrity and the product they endorsed. For example, Michael Jackson has been in the media lately, associated with negative publicity. However, most will remember that he has promoted a certain cola soft drink in the past. Brand Linkage can have both positive and negative effects.
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