Apple

Marketing Management
Series of Essays

Brand Equity: Apple Inc.
How a firm can implements frontal and flank attack: Coca Cola

1.0 Introduction
Brand is a name or symbol used to identify the source of a product.   When developing a new product, branding is an important decision. The brand can add significant value when it is well recognized and has positive associations in the mind of the consumer. This concept is referred to as brand equity

2.0 What is Brand Equity?
The goal of the brand leadership paradigm is to create strong brands. Brand equity was defined as the brand assets or liabilities linked to a brand’s name and symbol that add to (or subtract from) a product or service. Brand equity is an intangible asset that depends on associations made by the consumer. There are at least three perspectives from which to view brand equity:

a) Financial
One way to measure brand equity is to determine the price premium that a brand command over a generic product. For example, if consumers are willing to pay RM200 more for a branded television over the same unbranded television, this premium provides important information about the value of the brand. However, expenses such as promotional costs must be taken into account when using this method to measure brand equity.

b) Brand extensions
A successful brand can be used as a platform to launch related products. The benefits of brand extensions are the leveraging of existing brand awareness thus reducing advertising expenditures, and a lower risk from the perspective of the consumer. Furthermore, appropriate brand extensions can enhance the core brand. However, the value of brand extensions is more difficult to quantify than are direct financial measures of brand equity.

c) Consumer-based
Strong brand equity provides facilitates a more predictable income stream, increases cash flow by increasing market share, reducing   promotional costs, and allowing premium pricing. Knowing what the brand means to... [continues]

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