Business Research Method

1.0 INTRODUCTION

This research report is on marketing management, building a strong brand for Royal Castle Limited. In the modern business world an organisation’s brand image can be as important as the goods and services it produces. According to the Entrepreneur (2014), branding is the marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products. A strong brand image is a powerful asset, a former recognised and trusted brand identity makes people confident that the organisation is dependable. This is why successful businesses should work hard at building their brand and present it in a clear and consistent way.

1.1 RATIONALE

In today's society there are many challenges in creating a strong brand, such as rapid technological development, greater customer empowerment, increase in competitors and development in the business market. Marketers should adopt multiple perspectives to properly manage brands and maximise their value. This research is a necessity in having a successful organisation. This research intention is that this will assist the organisation in gaining competitive advantage, it will also allow them to receive greater supplier and partner support and command higher profit margins making them able to support new products and services.

1.2 RESEARCH AIM

To show how a relevant, powerful brand that would have a connection both visually and emotionally with their consumers and would bring the organisation above their competitors resulting in an increase in their market shares.

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTION

How can building a strong brand assist the organisation in enhancing their business, taking it beyond the local market?

1.4 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

To critically analyse the current branding of the organisation.

To identify the key concepts of building brand equity.

To identify the importance of brand loyalty.

2.0 LITERATURE REVIW

A literature review is an evaluative report of information found in the literature related to your selected area of study stated by CQ University Library (2014).Looking out into the world today, it’s easy to see why brands are more important now than at anytime in the past hundred years. Brands are psychology and science brought together as a promise mark as opposed to a trademark. Products have life cycles and brands outlive products. Brands convey a uniform quality, creditability and experience.

2.1 BRAND EQUITY

According to Kotler and Keller (2006), brand equity is the added value endowed to products and services. This value maybe reflected in how consumers think, feel and act with respect to the brand as well as the prices, market share and profitability that the brand commands for the firm.

FIGURE:1 KELLER’S BRAND EQUITY MODEL

Source: Keller (2013)

Keller’s Brand Equity Model pyramid (see Figure 1) is to strengthen an organisation’s customer perception of their brand. The four steps of the pyramid represent four fundamental questions that customers will ask often about an organisation’s brand. The four steps contain six building blocks that must be in place for an organisation to reach the top of the pyramid and to develop a successful brand.

Building a strong brand, according to the customer based brand equity model, can be thought of in terms of a sequential series of steps, where each step is contingent upon successfully achieving the previous step. All steps involve accomplishing certain objectives with customers both existing and potential customers. The first step is to ensure identification of the brand with customers and an association of the brand in customers’ minds with a specific product class or customer need. The second step is to firmly establish the totality of brand meaning in the minds of customers by strategically linking a host of tangible and intangible brand associations. The third step is to elicit the proper customer responses to this brand identity and brand meaning. The fourth and final step is to convert brand response to create an intense, active loyalty relationship between customers and the brand.

2.2 BRAND LOYALTY

Another new concept that was explored by Cunningham (1956) was brand loyalty, the concept evoked much debate and became one of the biggest controversies of that time. In that time, companies had already invested large amounts in branding, the problem was scarce empirical evidence that the efforts had any effect. Hence, even though the idea of brand loyalty had already been introduced, there was an uncertainty whether it was something worth striving for. Through his research, Cunningham revealed that household loyalty was strong and consumers were brand loyal in more than 90% of the times while purchasing household goods.

Brand loyalty can play a central role in branding. It is, however, a somewhat controversial concept due to its restrictions. That is, brand loyalty should only be a company’s goal with a reservation, it needs to be profitable to have loyal customers. Most companies could attain loyal customers by introducing a good product or service, sell it underpriced, and market it heavily. In this scenario, the company would get loyal customers, but with no profit. Therefore, companies trying to attain loyal customers must also consider a second variable, profitability. This being so, there is a connection between loyalty and brand equity. Aaker and Joachimsthaler (2000), established that brand loyalty is closely related to brand equity, and hence, if a company possesses a large number of loyal customers, the company has high consumer based brand equity.

2.2.1 BRAND AWARENESS

Brand awareness refers to the ability of a potential consumer to recall and recognise the brand, linking the brand with its corresponding product class, Aaker (1991). To know about the product and to be aware of that is important for the potential consumers so that it could be one of the purchasing choices to them. This is