How to Manage Brand to Preserve the Values?

  The durable values of brand amongst customers is the key to maintain a brand’s appeal and authenticity; otherwise, even an influential and hot brand might plummet to nothing but a least favorite one overnight due to increasing loss of support of customers and endorsers. The brand values, to be more clear, is the general perception of customers referring to the assessment of physical and readily identifiable features (i.e. the fast and standardized food of Macdonald’s), intangible and intrinsic values associated with brand name (i.e. high social status and eminence of Louis Vuitton), and the price or cost (the always price-low of commodity of Wal-Mart), of the brand. In order to maximize brand effect to seize and appeal more profits, brand managements must take good care of these three components above, then knowing better to refine its marketing operation to hold on to supporters’ loyalty to itself and attract more recommendation.

                                                    Figure 1.1 Three components of Brand Values 

  Mainstreaming a brand might be the ultimate stage where most of brand developments, if attempting to secure customers’ purchase and everlasting revenues, inevitably fall in to, but marketers must first understand the value system underlying this adoption and then fit the marketing program to these values. (Beverand and Ewing, 2005, p, 385)  In the case analysis of Dunlop Volley, it used to be the most striking Australian hippest teen shoes brand in late 20^th century. The approach of Dunlop of resisting alluring attempt to quickly capitalize on mass markets for bigger profits has assured it to preserve credibility and loyalty in customers, procrastinating the diffusion process into mass marketplace while also lengthening profitable period in its priamry niche market to enhance brand repositioning. Four key constituents are identified in case analysis to extend fashion cycle of brand values: rejection of hard sell, being authentic, targeting alternative distribution channels and the appropriate of timing getting into mainstream.

                                                     Figure 1.2 Dunlop Volley

  The strategy of marketers back then was to target the small audience with high ability of economic consumption and, for a period of time, they all stick to producing teen shoes and through brand communication to make it applied to teenagers’ subculture, which reflected on the product’s design and advertisements’ slogan. It is Dunlop’s customer-led view in marketing to make them get access to filter deeply into teenagers’ market segments before jumping into mainstream mass marketplace and selling out products and reaping profits, and yet usually the credibility and authenticity established in customers were squandered too.

  In December 2002, nevertheless, most of its early adopters gradually turned to prefer other shoes brands, such as Nike or Adidas, due to their growing and changes in preference, Dunlop had leveraged the opportunity to reposition the brand in the mainstream marketplace to cope with shakeout. It gradually put more emphasis on mass markets’ layout and catered to average taste of mass customers while, without giving up on certain small niche markets by customizing its product with particular use and utility. Investments in quality have helped improve perceptions of the brand, and support the positioning around value for the money and an active healthy lifestyle. As such, the Volley has achieved product parity with Nike and other big brands for all but a few extreme uses, such as professional marathons. (Beverland and Ewing, 2005, p, 386 )

  To sum up, rather than seeing a brand in short-term fad, the marketers should manage brand by interrogating brand values into customers’ life style as long as possible and provide chances to participate in developing new brand identity with creation of authenticity. Once customers’ feel exploited and perceive the brand diffusing into mainstream at speedy pace, it is likely of them to forsake the original preferred brand and go seek for another “authentic” one which matches their taste the best. Hence, it’s decisive to adopt a soft approach, according to Beverland and Ewing (2005), to view brand as “a two-way conversation rather than a top down communication exercise, and most significantly, help the brand reposition in market properly to innovate customers such as a desire for individuality, creative expression, identification among peers and a search for authenticity” (p. 391). The less commercial intent and more authentic compassion towards the communication recipients, the possible it is to strike a chord for customers’ sense of identification.

Key Word:

*Brand value

Reference:

Beverland, M., & Ewing, M. (2005). Slowing the adoption and diffusion process to enhance brand repositioning: The consumer driven repositioning of Dunlop Volley. Business Horizon, 48, 385-391.

First Teacher-Student Conference Reflection

I took the branding advertisement and discussion of authenticity as the title is not simply due to the business major background, but to my curiosity of such kind of business communication and the resulting effects within. Some peers suggest me show more elaboration of communication effects. Actually, they correlate and have to do with each recipient’s personal experience, current social culture and environment’s trend to impact the correctness of a certain message, instead of solely being manipulated through sender’s intention. Despite explaining how do the effect cause to people, in the following annotation, I ‘d like to dig into the reality of message that is desperately proved to be authentic by enterprises, which is a subjective production derived from the degree of mutual trust between customers and enterprises. The higher is the degree, the more possible it is to be authentic.

Both Angle and Angela left their comment about asking the social norm and current people’s perception of a brand, and yet I’ve already explained the overall definition of authenticity and the way branding advertisement affects our judgment in revised annotation 1. However, their responses conjure me an idea to provide respectively more details of enterprise-side cause to affect advertisement and individual-side cause to affect authenticity in annotation 2 and ensuing annotation 3.

 The authenticity, technically, is usually not hard-and-fast and we need to flesh those influential factors out to understand the crucial determinants. Little are we able to recoup the result by examining one side of authenticity; hence, first, we should realize why does enterprise communicate the message and what kind of effects it wishes to reach by such means. Second, we try to analyze customers’ decisive conditions, usually, of mental thinking and individual logic value, so that getting a detailed knowing about whether an enterprise should communicate authenticity and in what way they can make to relay correctly, earning admiration and trust at last. 

  This teacher-student conference offers me a great way of research for following writing part. I have to go through several valuable journals about communicative field to recognize more about their research methods or request summary, assisting my direction of research to be more precise and convincing in illustrating enterprise’s methods for proper communication to get authenticity met. The selection of journals is quite a challenge to me since I have to be aware of and ensure references’ research compatibility that could be applied to my research target; otherwise, I might be deviated from the track to make adverse effects crushing the whole research. Thus, I decide to start from viewing the journals concerning communication’s authenticity experiment and case study first to pave the way towards construction of enterprises’ communication behavior. 

How Do Customers Shape Authenticity in Consumption?

  The nature of authenticity in consumption has been contested between early and present researchers. Nevertheless, the common desire to search for authenticity in product and service that most customers share remains the same. The notion that assessments of authenticity in objects underpinned by consumer's goal is based on the concept that consumers actively seek for authenticity to find meaning in their lives, and in abreast with personal goals, preferred brands and experiences that reinforce their desired identity. Furthermore, there is widespread agreement that authenticity is a socially constructed interpretation of the essence of what is observed rather than properties inherent in an object (Beverland and Farrelly, 2010). Namely, the different interpretation by individuals come from personal goals, impacting which features of authenticity is significant and relevant to oneself.

  
  According to the series of quests conducted by Michael Beverland and Francis Farrelly, which interviews 21 informants from diverse background and shows them 100 pictures and brands with descriptive questions in hope of recording their viewpoints towards authenticity during articulation, the overall and organized responses of participants indicate that there are three primary and goal-inspired accounts, senses of being practical, morality and participating regarding individuals' subjectivity, influencing them processing images and messages. The individual expressions reflect more widely held social views or dominant myths, demonstrating informants’ desire to respond to dominant sociocultural norm; in other words, prevailing cultural influences give rise to the standards that are applied in the conferring authenticity to objects, brands, and experiences (Beverland and Farrelly, 2010).

 Ross, one of the informants in quest, considered McDonald's authentic despite the fact that this corporation has been infamous for raising debatable health issues and concerns. The reasons he thought of McDonald's as authentic are that the past experience of consumption allowed him to get same product, such as hamburger or milkshake, every time he ordered. No matter if it is likely for the product causing obesity, Ross felt confirmed to get a "real" product and treated same way each time he wanted. Thus, in this case,  the explanation of him holding authenticity towards McDonald's is contingent on his consumption judgement—McDonald’s may not be an authentic product when seeking something healthy, but it is if one desires fast food. The differences of the experimental results depend on personal experience, interest and value. Precisely speaking, these accounts are viewed as being representative of self-relevant conceptualizations of authenticity rather than as a by-product of personality traits. The consumers construct and shape personally useful notions of the authentic in their favorite and comfortable way.

  Back to 2013, to share my own aspect, Lego corporation was accused of fortifying racism of the Orient through its "Jabba's Palace set," part of Star Wars franchise. According to Turkish Cultural Community (TCC), which issued such statement of accusation, it claimed that "The terrorist Jabba the Hutt likes to smoke a hookah and have his victims killed… It is clear that the ugly figure of Jabba and the whole scene smacks of racial prejudice and vulgar insinuations against Asians and Orientals as people with deceitful and criminal personalities," as above as reasons for implying Lego's "inauthentic" fabrication and value of toys. I, whereas, personally don't feel this event would be unforgivable to bother myself judgement for admiration of Lego's bricks products, for I realize the cultural gap and collision easily comes under fire of debate once viewed through diverse lens of culture. What concerns me regarding the authenticity for Lego is its quality durability and entertainment usage instead of relevant morality. Due to past positive experience with Lego's products since childhood, my emphatic accounts which are being practical and participating gives rise to remaining positive authenticity for Lego, not impacted by possible racism offend.

  As a whole, it is inferred that authenticity is uncertain when standards to distinguish between genuineness and fake turn out to be not absolute but variable by individuals. The logic with this kind of thinking is that it counters presupposed universal standards. As the findings above clearly show, different personal goals and standards enable people to find authenticity in a range of objects, brands, and events that others may deem as fake (Beverland and Farrelly, 2010). With such discovery, we could also identify the consumer, instead of being passive information receiver, as an adept, creative, and capable producer of authenticity against a background of seemingly competing societal norms.

Keywords:
*Goal-inspired accounts
*Participating, being practical, morality

References:

Beverland, M., & Farrelly, F. (2010). The Quest for Authenticity in Consumption: Consumers’ Purposive Choice of Authentic Cues to Shape Experienced Outcomes. Chicago Journals,36(5), 838-856.

LaCapria, K. (2013, January 25). Lego Racism? Star Wars Set Said to Be Racially Offensive. Retrieved from http://www.inquisitr.com/494973/lego-racism-star-wars-set-said-to-be-racially-offensive/