Brand Management for Role of Brand Prominence - myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about theBrand Management for Role of Brand Prominence. Answer: Introduction: Most of the branding experts suggest the marketers prominently showcase the brand logos on the products. This is because, it has been assumed that customers buy the products for prestige and if the brands are showcased on the products, then it attracts the customers at large extent. However, this perception or assumption may not be true because there are people who prefer quality over prestige and they do not want to show off with the brand logos. Various studies have been conducted on this topic so that the marketers get the clear idea about the importance of brand logos and the views of the customers towards loud marketing of the products. The showcasing of the brand logos on the products is called as brand prominence. Various researchers have researched about the importance of brand prominence and its impact on the buying decision of the customers. Most of the brands launch the products with hidden brand logos but the features of those brands automatically recognized by the regula r customers of the brand and this helps in analyzing the loyalty of the customers. Brand prominence is the very important aspect of brand management. This is because the understanding the brand prominence is helps the companies to understand the perception of the market towards the brands. One of the articles has been analyzed to understand the concept of brand prominence and the associated aspects. Major focus of the article: The article, Signaling Status with luxury Goods: The role of Brand Prominence has been chosen for this assignment because it defines that luxury brands charge in access for quieter items with discrete appeal. The author of this article that is Young Jee Han is the student of marketing and another author Joseph C. Nunes is the professor of marketing. They recommend classifications that dispense customers to one of four groups as per their requirement for status. The purpose behind taking this article for critical analysis is to make better understanding about the Brand Prominence (Hung, eta l., 2011). This article elaborates that there are two kinds of customers that is Wealthy customers low in need for status and wealthy customer high in need for status. The first category groups wanted to connect with their own kind and they prefer to pay high for those brands only for which they are more aware about. Another kind of consumers uses goods of luxury to signal to the less prosperous. T he main focus of author of this article is on taxonomy that divides customers to one of four groups based on two characteristics that is wealth and need for status. Firstly, the consumer is divided into that category in which they are recognized as well to do. As per Allen and Dimock (2007), that the view of Americans to their country as being divided into two forms: the haves and the have-nots. It has been analyzed that the person whose income is higher keeps purchasing luxury goods. Thus, the concerned of luxury goods manufacturer is to how preference can be differentiated among those who have more (Stokburger-Sauer and Teichmann, 2013). There are major 3 words that highlighted in the article Status, Signaling and Branding. This research is based on the brand prominence of the brands like LV, Gucci, Mercedes etc. about what they offers to the market, the further research can be made on tracking down the sales of thee brand products so that the reasons behind the purchase of these brands can be determined. The emotional aspect of the people can also be analyzed in future research by taking the findings of this research into consideration. Why this article has been selected: This article has been selected to conduct the overall research because it is the article that involves qualitative as well as quantitative methods of research. Studying this article has provided the overall information about the various aspects of the topic. It has been analyzed that four studies has been used in this research article that helps the readers to understand the topic in depth. This article has grabbed the attention because of its language. The language that has been used in the article is very easy and understandable. The author has clearly describes all the key terms very well theoretically and practically by conducting regression analysis so that the reader who does not have any knowledge about the topic can also understand the same. The bifurcation of the topics and the analysis has been conducted in a very understandable manner. The most important thing that grabs the attention is the categorization of the customers on the basis of their choice and the status, this distinction has clearly describe what the author is trying to portray or describe about brand prominence and status. Summary of the article: The article, Signaling Status with luxury Goods: The role of Brand Prominence focuses on finding out the types of customers who prefers the loud marking and the one who prefers the quiet markings. As per this article, the preference of the customers also shows the social status of the person (Cheah, et al 2015). Four of the customers groups are analyzed on different basis. All these four groups of people or the consumers are named as patricians, parvenus, poseurs and proletarians. It has been analyzed that patricians are the people who are very wealthy in nature and have low needs to buy the products for prestige and also keen to be associated with the other patricians. The other category of consumers is parvenus who craves for status and prestige and associate themselves with the people who have similar branded things that they have and dissociate them from the people who cant afford the same. The next group of people is poseurs, these are the people who cannot afford to buy luxury items but they try to associate with the people who have the status (Keller, 2017). The last one is the proletarians. They are the people who cannot afford to buy the products for status neither they want to do it. Study 1 of the article is about the relationship between brand prominence and price. The research has been done on three products such as handbags, luxury cars and shoes. The observation of the research on handbags suggests that more expensive handbags are quieter and less expensive products are louder in brand identification. This suggests that brand prominence and price have inverse relationship with each other. As far as the second study is considered, it has been analyzed that the research has been conducted on the relationship of brand prominence and counterfeit goods. Counterfeit goods are the goods that allow the consumers to unbundle the status and quality of the luxury goods by paying less money for that. The category or the group of consumers that falls under th is are the poseurs, this is because they are the one who cannot afford to buy the products but wants to be associated with the prestigious and luxury products. It has been analyzed from the research that the counterfeit that was selected to be copied in the section of handbags is the one preferred by poseurs. This is because the poseurs are the people who believe in buying what the parvenus buy to showcase their status (Dubois and Duquesne, 1993). Next study is about recognizing subtle brand cues. The discussion in the research depicts that the people who fall under the category of patricians can recognize the brand without any display of the brand but the people who fall under the category of non-patricians cannot do it. This suggests that the patricians have more knowledge about the brand and does not have any interest in the markings of the brand (Kim and Ko, 2012). On the other hand the non- patricians people try to look for the products that show the markings of the brand. It h as been expected that the non- patricians people feels that the bags with markings are expensive in nature then the bags with no markings of the brands. The research suggests that the non- patricians people have changed their rankings of the bags shown to them when the brands of the bags were revealed and patricians does not require the brand name to take decisions over the price of the brand as they have better knowledge of the brand and the quality. They can easily recognize the bags by subtle designs and different features (Dubois and Duquesne, 1993). The last study in this article is about the associative/dissociative motives and brand prominence. This study has initially made some of the prediction that was later on tested to identify the results (Wilcox, Kim and Sen, 2009). The first prediction that has been made is that patricians are the people who prefer quiet brands and parvenus and poseurs prefers to but the brands or the bags which are loud (Fionda and Moore, 2009). To t est this prediction, the logit regression has been used with various respondents. It has been found from the results or the analysis that the group that is least likely to buy the loud brags is patricians. Proletarians are indifferent between loud and quite goods and the other two groups prefer to purchase more than 50% of the goods in loud sector (Trstenjak and Dobovek, 2013). Background readings: As discussed, brand prominence is the central theme of this article. It is defined as the extent to which the product is showcasing the marking of the brand on it. These marking attract the attention of the observer. Some of the luxury brands try not to showcase their brand name on the upper side of the products (Van Reijmersdal, Rozendaal and Buijzen, 2012). This is because it does not look descent for the customers who are used to of these brands. But, the customers who want to buy these brands just because they have to be associated with those high class people; they try to look for the brands or the products that showcase the markings. This is called the brand prominence where the brand name is clearly visible and the products are easily recognized by all. This can be done by two ways. Either manufacturer can produce it by loud marking or either by quiet markings. Loud markings mean the products of the brand have the name of the brand all over. This means that all the people whet her know about the products or not can recognize that products and its brand. Quite markings mean the products that are produced and sold have hidden markings of the brands (Han, Nunes and Drze, 2010). These products can be recognized only by the people or the regular consumers of the brand because they can recognize the products and the brand just buy seeing it and by other features of the products as they have the knowledge about the quality and the features that brand are associated with (Glazer and Moynihan, 1963). Today, customers are exposed to making marketing tactics and advertise by the marketers of the brands. As more and more number of companies is present with then products that are very homogenous in nature, thus the competition between the brands has been raised. Many other researches have also been made in context of this topic. Eva A. van Reijmersdal, Esther Rozendaal Moniek Buijzen has conducted the research on Brand Prominence with consideration of the children as the respondents. The products that have been used for research are Advergames (Ceci and Papierno, 2005). This research suggests that there are some external influences as well that affect the buying decision of the people and make them fall in one of the categories. The thinking of the people along with the thinking and influence of the peers in case of children is a great and major factor that can modify their purchasing decision. As far as the part of counterfeit products is considered it has been analyzed that many people prefer to by the counterfeit products or brands. Marketing techniques or the marketing tactics of the consumers is the factors that affect and influence the people or the customers and their purchase decisions of the brands (Milanovic, 2011). Other researches have also conducted researches in order to analyze the factors that can affect the purchase of the luxury brands by the people. It is suggested that some of the social factors, perception and vanity affect the buying decision of the customers. Grohs, Wagner and Vsetecka (2004) conducted one of the studies on roles of gender in brand prominence. Despite the fact that functional value and sales of the branded products is very less than the sales of non-branded products but still some of the prestige and premium price value in market is maintained by the luxury branded products. When the gender part is taken; the analysis suggests that the price of female luxury brands is much higher than the price of the male luxury brands. Studies have been conducted in concern to this topic to analyze the positive attitude of the people towards buying the luxury brands (Han, Nunes and Drze, 2008). It has been analyzed from the research that females have more positive attitude towards buying the luxury brands products then the attitude of males. This is because for females, the luxury brands provide more value and prestige as compare to the male luxury brands. As far as the influencing factors are con sidered, it has been analyzed that women are more influenced by the other peoples thinking about what they are buying as compared to men. To conclude this, it can be suggested that women and men have different types of behavior when they take decisions of shopping from luxury brands. Women show more positivity and men are not so much concerned about the brands (Whan Park, etal. 2010). This is the reason why marketers of most of the companies try to target the women as compared to men. Strengths of the article: In terms of strengths of this research or the paper is considered, the major part of research that needs to be appreciated is the research section. The use of regression process to conduct the research is very appropriate as per the objectives of the research (Perez, Castao and Quintanilla, 2010). There are 4 studies that have been conducted in this paper and thus provide information about various aspects of the topic that is brand prominence. It has been analyzed that this research has given the information about the four aspects of the topic. The first aspect was related to the price and brand prominence, the second aspect was related to the counterfeit goods, the third research was related to the subtle cues and last one was related to association and dissociation motives of the customers. The differentiation of the customers and their categorization is also the attempt of the author to make the things very clear. It has been analyzed that the overall article is very well written and the data is analyzed with appropriate methods of regression. Limitations: Although the article has many positive aspects, it has been analyzed that there are some limitation of this article. It has been analyzed that in the research of counterfeit products, the most of the respondents were Asian and thus the results of the research is not implemented on all the consumers. It has been identified that selecting the respondents from different cultural background can help in determining the impact of culture of the buying habits of the people as well. Secondly, it has been analyzed that the research that has been made in this paper is based on the brands like Gucci, LV etc. are offering to the customers and not on the sakes of those companies (Phau and Teah, 2009). Future research on this topic can consider the sales of these brands. In the need of this research, it has been analyzed that what are the preferences of the different types of groups of people in making their buying decision but the emotional side of the decisions which can be considered in the fut ure research (Gistri, Romani, Pace, Gabrielli and Grappi, 2009). Research findings of the article and its importance to marketing industry: The findings of this research can be implemented by the marketers in many ways. The findings suggests that even if the brands are not showcasing their logos or practicing quitter marketing but they have to set some special and subtle cues that helps the customers to identify the brands. These special sings are called as griffes. The marketers can also educate their target customers regarding these griffe so that these customers can recognize their preferable brands. References: Allen, J., D. Michael, D., 2007, A Nation of Haves and Have-Nots? 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