Article source｜Maidi Brand Consulting Brand awareness theory is derived from advertising and communication science. It is naturally formed in the advertising circle, marketing circle and even the business world. It is widely circulated. Its core is "brand = popularity". It was once understood as brand is advertising and advertising is brand. Later, it was developed into "brand first principle". Its famous proposition is "if communication, brand, and advertising have 'first principle', it should be seen, and if there is 'second principle', it is repetition." The central idea of 's popularity strategy is "If you don't be seen, you don't exist", and the strategic intention is to seize communication and display resources and constantly appear in front of users. The basis is the multi-view effect (a kind of exposure effect) proposed by psychologist Zarongz. This theory firmly believes that repetition will make people feel intimate. The more times it appears, the more people naturally have a certain favorable impression of it. This theory later became an important reason to strive for more advertising budgets and serve as many advertisements as possible. It is true that popularity is the firmness of the brand in the minds of users and an important component of brand assets. When a user purchases a certain category, whether the brand can reproduce in the user's mind and generate the correct brand memories means whether the brand can be shortlisted for the user's choice list, which can affect the user's purchasing decisions to a certain extent. However, there is a lack of rigor in brand awareness, that is, the definition of popularity. Almost all brands in the consumer goods industry know: 1. Brand awareness has TOM (Top Of Mind for No Tip), UBA (Unaided BrandAwareness for No Tip), and ABA (Aided BrandAwareness for No Tip); 2. Brand awareness is based on the different survey sampling schemes, not only in different regions, channels, different city levels, and different user groups will present different values, but also online surveys or offline surveys, natural samples or random samples, whether to add quotas, whether to make an appointment, and whether to make an appointment. Then, the theory of brand awareness is not complete, and there are inevitably many limitations in applications, not only when applying product brands in the consumer goods industry, but also when applied in a broader field: ■ First, the limitations of conversion purchase: only stays at the level of users' awareness of the brand, such as "Why do I need it?" "Why do I believe it?" "Is there no better alternative?" "Why this price", "Why should I buy now" and many other problems can not only be solved by the high popularity of the brand on the user side. ■ Second, the limitation of forming preferences: cognition does not mean understanding, understanding does not mean love. Now is an era of overproducts and abundant brands. Everyone knows countless products and brands, but obviously they will not like everything they know. The so-called repetition can form preferences, which is a marketing imagination that cannot withstand the challenges of empirical empirical. ■ Third, the limitations of moving towards high-end: Every brand of has its own price boundaries. It is not easy to break the price boundaries and establish a new and higher-end price level. If you have to sacrifice the current sales volume of the price list, it will be even more worth the loss. This is also a realistic problem that popularity itself cannot solve. ■ Fourth, the limitations of extending new categories and new businesses: blindly uses the main brands with popularity to cross the new category, which seems to save the cost of new brands to build popularity. In fact, it may have gone astray at the beginning (Bawang Shampoo, launching Bawang Herbal Tea, a failure is an example), and it may also backfire against the original successful parent category. ■ Fifth, the limitations of distinguishing corporate brands and product brands: Under the guidance of this theory, the singleization of corporate brands and product brands is the best solution, because resources can concentrate on creating the popularity of a big brand, and then a series of difficult-to-solve dilemmas will naturally be born, such as business extension, brand risks during strategic transformation, and stakeholder level confusion of corporate and product cognitives. ■ Sixth, the applicability limitations in B2B, B2G, biomedicine, financial and real estate, etc. is visible. Visibility can be a necessary condition for a brand (no popularity, no brand is indeed), but not a sufficient condition (with popularity, not necessarily a brand). In short, the brand must be well-known, but it is far from enough to be well-known. "If you don't be seen, you don't exist", it is not so much a brand theory, but rather a wonderful copywriting. In fact, there is no situation where the popularity is 0 in reality. It is too much amplified by an over-magnification of a well-known element in the brand system, and to see it, you can think that you know a leopard, which is really a generalization. Readers really need to be keen on the essence and be cautious. Brand asset is a new modern brand concept that emerged in the 1980s. After the 1990s, Aaker (1991), Kapferer (1992), Keller (1993) and others gradually proposed and improved the concept of customer-based brand equity (Customer-Based-Brand-Equity). In the Chinese context, Brand Equity is usually referred to as "brand equity" (rather than brand equity). David A. Aaker is one of the most influential authoritative scholars in the field of brand and brand equity. He is currently the leader in the American brand industry and is hailed as the "original originator of brand equity" by Brand Weekly. In the brand asset theory, there are five aspects of the brand: ① Brand awareness ② Quality awareness ③ Brand loyalty ④ Brand Lenovo ⑤ Other proprietary assets (such as trademarks, patents, channel relationships, etc.) are connected to each other and can be regarded as assets. These assets provide value to users and enterprises in a variety of ways, ultimately increasing or decreasing the value of the products or services sold by the enterprise. Among them, , accompanied by the creation of the three major brand assets of brand awareness, quality recognition, and brand Lenovo , is a resultant brand asset, which can be reflected in brand loyalty and brand premium ability , thereby bringing rich profits to the company and gaining more market share. The brand was not built overnight, so in the subsequent brand asset theory war, brand assets are generally divided into two categories: shallow brand assets and deep brand assets . The former is a basic brand asset and the basis for brand success, which can be described as the primary stage; the latter is a strong brand and is an advanced stage, which can bring rich financial contributions to the company. ■ shallow brand equity: The most basic brand equity is popularity, and then quality recognition. These two brand assets are the primary stage of the brand, but they do not constitute a unique and effective competitive advantage (see the previous analysis of brand awareness). However, owning these two brand assets is indeed the basis and necessary condition for brand success. ■ Deep brand equity: includes brand loyalty and brand association. Brand association includes not limited to brand reputation and brand bargaining and premium capabilities, which bring differentiated competitive advantages to the brand. Combined with the user influence of brand loyalty, it can bring more market share and rich profits to the company (main financial contribution). From this we can see that international first-class brands are strong brands with high brand loyalty, distinctive brand associations and strong premium ability; in contrast, most Chinese brands are still in the early stage of shallow brand assets and need to create deep brand assets. The strategic idea of brand asset theory is to bring additional value to users that exceeds their functions, and only brands can generate such asset benefits. In the brand equity framework, brand is a user-centered concept. Without users, there will be no brand. Therefore, the definition of brand assets should be explained from the user's perspective. That is: whether users will have different reactions to a specific product or service when using or not using a certain brand. Therefore, the strategic intention of brand asset theory is to establish four core features: broad and high visibility in the hearts of users, good and consistent with expectations of product quality, strong and positive brand associations, and stable and loyal users. In practice, although the aforementioned long-term theories can be understood by professionals such as brand, advertising, marketing and consulting, it is difficult to tell corporate executives and leaders, especially corporate leaders who lack brand thinking. In fact, it is indeed difficult for them to become interested in new theories. So, the brand asset theory is processed and interpreted into a concise syllogism: ■ First of all, brand assets are invisible. ■ Secondly, brand assets are centered on the brand name. ■ Again, brand equity will affect user behavior including purchasing behavior and response to marketing activities. ■ Finally, brand assets are attached to users, not to products. The four syllogisms of show that brand assets are important assets of enterprises (subtext: brands are intangible assets, which can improve balance sheets, and CEOs should care about them); they are an effective means to save corporate market activities, and can promote brand value spillover, which can improve corporate product premiums, and are the magic weapon to gain market competitive advantages (subtext: brands can improve profit and loss statements and profit statements, and CEOs should care about them); they can also establish effective barriers to prevent competitors from entering. (Subtext: Brand assets can become part of corporate strategy, CEOs should care) In order to strengthen their influence on CEOs and other corporate executives, these four syllogisms have further evolved into four famous inferences (the subtext in brackets is the comments simulated by the author): 1. Brand assets change due to the market. (Subtext: Brand is strategic) 2. Brand assets have positive assets and negative assets. (Subtext: Brand is closely related to corporate financial performance) The maintenance or improvement of brand assets of 3 and requires the support of marketing promotion or marketing activities. (Subtext: Give money) 4 and brand assets will change due to the user's brand experience. (Subtext: Continuously giving money) Through subtext, we can find that the reason why brand assets have become an important modern brand concept and have been widely circulated in the Western management circle since the 1980s is because it combines brand and corporate management, becoming an intangible asset other than tangible assets that traditional management is good at, and has become a strategic area that companies have to pay attention to. In fact, brand assets are indeed an intangible asset beyond all tangible assets such as production and commodities. They are worth investing in enterprises and can obtain returns. Because from the perspective of financial management, brand assets are the additional benefits generated after branding goods or services. This additional benefit comes not only from users who purchase a certain brand of products, but also from investors interested in owning a branded company. The higher prices given by users and investors for this brand are the additional benefits of the company and the vital interests of business owners and corporate executives. Of course, the return on brand assets is prerequisite. must first go through the infrastructure construction period of the shallow brand assets stage, and then insist on investing in creating a collection of various elements such as high-quality brand awareness, quality awareness, brand association and brand loyalty. means that in order to make a brand a part of its assets, it is necessary to implement asset management of the brand and maintain and consolidate its value by continuously investing in it. Brand asset theory has a supreme historical position in the history of brand theory development. One sentence "brand assets are intangible assets" and the other sentences make the brand from being unknown in corporate management to a strategic field with financial value; the brand from being a communication intelligence affiliated to marketing within the company has become a strategic field that must be continuously built; the brand has become a strategic concern of the CEO and senior management. Brand asset theory has indeed allowed Western enterprises, especially the Fortune 500 companies, to open a market era for brand victory from the 1980s and 1990s, setting off a climax of paying attention to brands and building brands. In addition to learning its structure and profession, we also need to explore the superb communication skills that affect corporate management and entrepreneurs. 01 Brand awareness theory and its strategic thinking limitations
02 Brand asset theory and its strategic thinking application
