Multiculturalismo
C H A P T E R
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4
Branding, brand equity, and brand extensions
Woody G. Kim
Handbook of Hospitality Marketing Management
Introduction
Brand management is a topic of considerable interest for both academia and industry. Building and managing strong brands is considered to be one of the crucial tasks of brand managers for the success of any hospitality and tourism organization. Strong brands provide a series of benefits to service firms, such as greater customer loyalty and higher resiliency to endure crisis situations, higher profit margins, higher market value (O’Neil and Xiao, 2006), more favorable customer response to price change, and licensing and brand extension opportunities (Keller, 2001). Ries and Ries (1998, p. 2) argue that branding has possibly been one of the most critical marketing strategies that serve as ‘the glue that embraces the wide range of marketing functions collectively.’ In the past 20 years, the hotel industry has observed the proliferation of new brands. The rapid growth in hotel branding, totaling approximately 285 brands around the world in 2006, poses some problems to customers. Many hotel guests are confused with an explosion in the number of brands, and they may not be able to distinguish many similar brands offered by different hotel companies, in the same price range. According to Hotel & Motel Management magazine (2004), the total number of lodging brands in the extended-stay segment alone was over 25. For example, Residence Inn by Marriott was the front-runner in this segment, closely followed by Homewood Suites by Hilton, Extended StayAmerica, and Candlewood Suites by InterContinental. There are plenty of newly launched hotel brands such as Starwood’s ‘XYZ’, Choice Hotel’s chicCabmira Suites and InterContinetal’s Indigo (Weinstein, 2005). Starwood typically focuses on operating luxury brands, namely, St. Regis, the Luxury Collection, ‘W’ and upper upscale segments such as Sheraton and Westin. It developed
• • • •
4
Branding, brand equity, and brand extensions
Woody G. Kim
Handbook of Hospitality Marketing Management
Introduction
Brand management is a topic of considerable interest for both academia and industry. Building and managing strong brands is considered to be one of the crucial tasks of brand managers for the success of any hospitality and tourism organization. Strong brands provide a series of benefits to service firms, such as greater customer loyalty and higher resiliency to endure crisis situations, higher profit margins, higher market value (O’Neil and Xiao, 2006), more favorable customer response to price change, and licensing and brand extension opportunities (Keller, 2001). Ries and Ries (1998, p. 2) argue that branding has possibly been one of the most critical marketing strategies that serve as ‘the glue that embraces the wide range of marketing functions collectively.’ In the past 20 years, the hotel industry has observed the proliferation of new brands. The rapid growth in hotel branding, totaling approximately 285 brands around the world in 2006, poses some problems to customers. Many hotel guests are confused with an explosion in the number of brands, and they may not be able to distinguish many similar brands offered by different hotel companies, in the same price range. According to Hotel & Motel Management magazine (2004), the total number of lodging brands in the extended-stay segment alone was over 25. For example, Residence Inn by Marriott was the front-runner in this segment, closely followed by Homewood Suites by Hilton, Extended StayAmerica, and Candlewood Suites by InterContinental. There are plenty of newly launched hotel brands such as Starwood’s ‘XYZ’, Choice Hotel’s chicCabmira Suites and InterContinetal’s Indigo (Weinstein, 2005). Starwood typically focuses on operating luxury brands, namely, St. Regis, the Luxury Collection, ‘W’ and upper upscale segments such as Sheraton and Westin. It developed
References: Handbook of Hospitality Marketing Management Lippincott Mercer (2007)