1.2.3. Managing Brand Concepts

Efforts to enhance a brand’s equity and consumer loyalty are called brand-concept management, or «the planning, implementation, and control of a brand concept throughout the life of the brand». A brand concept, in other words, is the specific meaning that brand managers create and communicate to target market, which is accomplished by promoting a brand to appeal to any of three categories of basic consumer needs: functional, symbolic, or experiential.

Brand-concept management directed at functional needs attempts to provide solutions to consumers current consumption-related problems, potential problems, or conflicts by communicating that the brand possesses specific attributes or benefits capable of solving these problems. The advertisement for the Gillette Sensor Excel razor illustrates the functional appeal. The ad emphasizes that the Sensor accommodates a man’s need for close and comfortable shaves (the key functions) by virtue of its blade system and pivoting action that senses and adjusts to each face’s unique features. Appeals to functional needs are the most prevalent form of brand-concept management. In industrial selling, for example, salespeople typically appeal to their customers’ functional needs for higher-quality products, faster delivery time, or better service.

Whereas many brands are marketed based primarily on their functionality, others are marketed to satisfy psychological desires. Appeals to symbolic needs are those directed at consumers’ desire for self-enhancement, role position, group membership, affiliation, and belongingness. Brand-concept management directed at symbolic needs attempts to associate brand use with a desired group, role, or self-image. Marketers of personal beauty products, alcoholic beverages, and cigarettes frequently appeal to symbolic needs. Marlboro ads, for example, invariably, portray lone cowboy characters who symbolize the masculine and individualistic traits of Marlboro smokers.

The advertisement for Waterman pens also illustrates an appeal to symbolic needs. This ad does not tout the great writing instrumentality of Waterman pens or describe specific product attributes or other functional benefits; rather, it appeals to symbolic needs by directly associating itself with the McCooey family, an attractive and apparently successful group of young professionals. Five distinct Waterman pens are displayed juxtaposed against the photo of the five McCooey siblings. Minimal advertising copy simply claims that «while style is key, individuality is still everything». The message is subtle but clear: Owners of Waterman pens are stylish, discriminating, yet individualistic.

Consumers’ experiential needs represent their desires for products that provide sensory pleasure, variety, and cognitive stimulation. A product such as blue jeans satisfies consumers’ experiential needs inasmuch as jeans are extraordinarily rich in experiential significance. In fact, many people have vivid memories associated with wearing their favorite jeans.

Brand-concept management directed at experiential needs promotes brands as being out of the ordinary and high in sensory value (looking elegant, feeling wonderful, tasting or smelling great, sounding divine, and so on) or cognitive stimulation (exciting, challenging, mentally entertaining, and so on). Let us take the ad for Lenox china as an example. The only stated content in the ad is the familiar line «Lenox, Always Elegant». The ad appeals to readers’ desire to own beautiful objects that perfectly harmonize with the joy and spirit of the holiday season.

It is important to recognize that many brands offer a mixture of functional, symbolic, and experiential benefits. In the case of Waterman pens, for example, the brand offers excellent writing instrumentality (functional benefit) appeals to one’s desire to own objects that other successful people possess (symbolic benefit), and looks great and is comfortable to the hand (experiential benefit). However, the Waterman ad does not attempt to communicate all of these but rather appeals only to prospective consumers’ symbolic needs. Generally speaking, successful brand-concept management typically requires a communication strategy that appeals to a single type of consumer needs (functional, symbolic, or experiential) rather than attempting to be something for everyone – that is, a generic brand concept. A brand with multiple, or generic, concepts is difficult to manage because it

1) competes against more brands (those with purely functional, purely symbolic, purely experiential, and mixed concepts), and

2) may be difficult for consumers to identify its basic features and benefits.

It is the responsibility – and indeed the obligation – of brand managers to carefully supervise brands, adjusting their meanings when necessary (due to competitive challenges, changes in consumer preferences, and so on) and continuously striving to enhance their equity. The Global Focus section illustrates how the equity in Coca-Cola’s famous brand name enabled it to successfully penetrate what used to be the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, after the momentous collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

All aspects of a brand’s marketing mix (the product itself and its price, distribution, and promotion) contribute to brand-equity enhancement. However, here we will concentrate solely on the communications aspect of marketing.