Brand Management Strategies - Umbrella Brands
Umbrella Brands
The 1980s witnessed a revolution in the understanding of the working of the brands. Marketers depict brands as a reflection of customers’ own personalities, so that they can relate to their products well. In fact the distinguishing aspect of the modern marketing has been its focus upon the creation of differentiated brands and using them as weapons for launching multi-level attacks on competition. Market research has been used to help identify and develop bases of brand differentiation. A brand identifies a product and its sources, but it does even more. Along came brand extension. Today brand extension strategies are widely employed because of beliefs that they build and communicate strong brand positioning, enhance awareness and increase profitability.
Brands are often extended beyond their original categories to include new product categories. Research has proved that the success of brand extension depends on the transfer of parent brand awareness and associations to the extension. The transfer of these quality perceptions is the key in umbrella branding. An umbrella brand is a brand that covers diverse kinds of products which are more or less related. It applies also to any company that is identified only by its brand and history. It is contrasted with individual branding in which each product in a portfolio is given a unique identity and brand name.
Mr. K.R.Senthilvelkumar, a professor at Jansons School of Business offers the most pragmatic of reasons behind an umbrella brand strategy, “with scarce financial resources, firms cannot afford to allocate huge budgets for building and maintaining several brands”.
Nowadays consumers have become quite unpredictable in their newspaper-reading or TV-viewing habits, it is very difficult to assure the reach of messages to the target audiences. The advertiser has to use many broadcast and print media with high frequency to create the desired effect for every brand, which ultimately puts huge burden on
The 1980s witnessed a revolution in the understanding of the working of the brands. Marketers depict brands as a reflection of customers’ own personalities, so that they can relate to their products well. In fact the distinguishing aspect of the modern marketing has been its focus upon the creation of differentiated brands and using them as weapons for launching multi-level attacks on competition. Market research has been used to help identify and develop bases of brand differentiation. A brand identifies a product and its sources, but it does even more. Along came brand extension. Today brand extension strategies are widely employed because of beliefs that they build and communicate strong brand positioning, enhance awareness and increase profitability.
Brands are often extended beyond their original categories to include new product categories. Research has proved that the success of brand extension depends on the transfer of parent brand awareness and associations to the extension. The transfer of these quality perceptions is the key in umbrella branding. An umbrella brand is a brand that covers diverse kinds of products which are more or less related. It applies also to any company that is identified only by its brand and history. It is contrasted with individual branding in which each product in a portfolio is given a unique identity and brand name.
Mr. K.R.Senthilvelkumar, a professor at Jansons School of Business offers the most pragmatic of reasons behind an umbrella brand strategy, “with scarce financial resources, firms cannot afford to allocate huge budgets for building and maintaining several brands”.
Nowadays consumers have become quite unpredictable in their newspaper-reading or TV-viewing habits, it is very difficult to assure the reach of messages to the target audiences. The advertiser has to use many broadcast and print media with high frequency to create the desired effect for every brand, which ultimately puts huge burden on