Bmw Branding

Coursework Title: Identify your favourite brand from any sector of your choice. What makes the brand successful? Use relevant theories (branding concept, brand equity and brand positioning) and examples to illustrate your answer. You need to integrate and critically evaluate these concepts in the context of your chosen brand.

“The Ultimate driving machine”, a simple, strong, distinctive and clear message that has been heard and recognized around the world for more than 30 years. This coursework will look into how a company can create, maintain, and most important, make its brand extremely successful. Theories will be used together with examples to illustrate the connection, the first one being brand awareness and the fact that you are probably aware of what brand this coursework will be covering.
The Bayerische Motoren Werke, also known as (BMW) is considered one of the world’s most successful automobile manufacturer, with three premium brands - BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce. The group was established in Munich on the year of 1916 as an aero-engine manufacturing company, and from the very start it was setting its high standards and innovation culture that is inherited in the company and lives up to this day. 1917, was the year the group produced its first 6-cylinder, 185hp engine, something that none of its competitors could match and it was the first time aluminium piston were used in a engine, setting a new benchmark in construction.
With the end of the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles, new laws were created in Germany for the aircraft industry and the company had to change its manufacturing process and reposition itself in the market it operated. Nevertheless, with its highly skillful team of engineers, and the technology it possessed the company focused on the production of automobiles and motorcycles instead. Soon after that, in 1923 the world 's first motorcycle with alloy cylinders was launched, and in 1928 BMW launched its first car.
BMW

Cited: by Chernatony, L 2009). BMW has used precisely this to build its personality. Its advertising campaigns have always been based and reflected on what the company stood for and as mentioned, the vision, mission and values statements of the group have enforced its personality. On the other hand some would say, a brand personality is the character of a brand described in terms of other entities, such as people or animals, Jobber (2010), and if that is the case, I would see BMW as a wealthy, very stylish , well educated and powerful person, that thinks highly of himself/herself and believes it deserves and need to have the best of what 's its available in terms of technology, comfort, performance and design and its age range would be between 30 to 45 years. The last of the elements is brand reflection, how the brand relates to one self-identity, or in what way the consumer sees and perceives himself as a result of buying the brand, as it being social related, self-image, accomplishment emotion or status and with a BMW vehicle I would say the consumer would perceived himself/herself very much with the imaginary person described above. Having built a strong position on the market, I will now go back on the idea of the marketing Mix to analyse the rest of its aspects. The first and most important is the product, as a brand will not succeed if its product fail to deliver the essential requirements, or if its faulty. In the case of BMW, it has made its product qualities the foundation for its success and differentiation, but how can a product be considerable of the highest quality? It can be based on reliability, BMW was recently named the most reliable automobile brand by the FN50 survey - one of the world 's largest reliability studies. The engineering efficiency, that has given BMW many award-winning engine performance, (Engine or the year in 2009,2011,2012,2013 - BMW GROUP) that also reflects on its handling excellence, powerful acceleration, lower fuel consumption and reduced exhaust emissions. The design of the vehicle, or as BMW believes, “We do more than just design automobiles. We awaken passion”, and to prove it, they have a list of awards, 20 on the last 3 years (bmw.com) and one of them being Louis Vuitton Concept Classic award in 2009. Perhaps it can also be the fact that today some technologies used in BMW vehicles were been used space shuttles 10 years ago, so its fair to say that, BMW products have been of exceptional quality and the foundation of its success. To complete the marketing mix, Place and Price needs to be established. How does price help in positioning and creating a positive brand Image? First due to the association of high quality and high prices, even if someone does not possess any knowledge about the products, its high prices will be associated with higher quality, and will strengthen its premium position. Associations with non-product related attributes can also happen such as status and self image and looking from the company perspective, its premium high prices have helped the company to achieve high profit margins, enabling the development and growth of the group. The last factor is the Place factor, or distribution element and it concerns how and where a company sells its products. BMW has its own flagships dealerships increasing the profit margins of every vehicle sold as it does not depend on independent dealers and it can display the latest and best models however and wherever suits them best. Expectations of its consumers are high for being a premium brand in every aspects and knowing that BMW also invested on the latest technologies and designs on its dealerships, one example being one in south Korea, where it was designed with state-of-the art solar panels and equipped with sustainable technologies reducing water consumption, energy consumption and carbon emissions, reflecting the group long term sustainability strategy. Building successful brands is a very complex and time consuming activity, it requires dedication, investments, and a lot of skills to say the least, as examples have shown. Some key factors have been identified as critical for brands to achieve that, Jobber (2010). The quality factor, the positioning or repositioning strategy, the long term perspective of the brand, being First as pioneering the market, Well Blended Communications with its consumers and Internal Marketing as of investment in staff training. After analyzing the company, the examples given, theories and elements I have come to my conclusion that BMW has exceptionally succeed in those fields, and thats the reason why it has such a strong positive Brand Equity. When those factors are placed together the user will react very differently to a BMW branded vehicle as if he would if the vehicle had a different brand. This is what makes a user loyal, insensible to price changes, the reason behind the high volume of sales and success of the brand. If BMW can keep developing and sustaining those factors, I can only see a future, full of innovations, successes and breakthroughs for the company, and who knows what the next “ultimate driving machine” can reveal!