Summary articles
International Brand Management
Article Page
Goldfarb (2001) 2
Keller (1993) 4
Keller (2016) 7
Tavassoli et al. (2014) 10
Sujan & Bettman (1989) 12
Thompson et al. (2006) 14
Krishnan (1996) 16
Christodoulides et al. (2015) 18
Gensler et al. (2013) 20
Hewett et al. (2016) 23
Batra et al. (2012) 26
Malär et al. (2011) 29
Simonin & Ruth (1998) 32
Muniz & O’Guinn (2001) 34
Bottomley & Holden (2001) 36
Shine et al. (2007) 37
Lei et al. (2008) 38
Keller (2014) 40
De Chernatony et al. (1995) 43
Monga & John (2007) 45
IKEA case 46
Radboud University Nijmegen
Master Business Administration – Marketing
2016-2017
,Goldfarb (2001) Lecture 1
Let there be sunlight! The rise of Lever Brothers and Sunlight soap.
This article is about a soap brand named ‘Sunlight’ that was founded by William Lever. In two years
(1885-1887) it became the greatest soap brand in the UK. This paper argues that Sunlight soap’s
growth was a result of careful management of the Sunlight brand.
History of the soap industry in Britain
In 17th and 18th century soap was produced at household level, if at all. In the early 19th century
technological developments allowed soap to be produced consistently on a large scale. Prior to
Lever’s arrival in 1885, soap was chiselled off large blocks and sold in grocery stores such as Lever’s
own father’s. In 1884 Lever decided to give the name Sunlight and register the trademark to the soap
that was sold in his father’s grocery store. This soap was still made by other manufacturers, but Lever
advertised that it sold only the best quality soap with this name on it. These were soaps based on
vegetable oil and must be wrapped individually so that it would not go rancid, prompting Lever to
put a brightly coloured Sunlight logo on each wrapper. This soap innovation became a huge success
and in time Lever opened its own soap factory, with a village around it named Port Sunlight were
workers were given nice, roomy homes, with clean streets and attentive doctors. In the period from
1906 to 1929 (when Lever Brothers merged with Margarine Unie from Holland to become Unilever)
was one of rapid expansion through the purchase of rival firms. Today Unilever is one of Britain’s and
Holland’s largest companies with revenues in excess of £29 per year.
Goldfarb states that Sunlight soap’s growth was a result of careful brand management.
Brand = a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them to identify the goods and
services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of the competition.
Brand management = involves coordinating a coherent brand image based on advertising,
distribution, and product quality in addition to ensuring awareness. The most influential thinkers on
this topic are David Aaker and Kevin Lane Keller.
Brand equity = a set of assets and liabilities linked to a brand, its name and symbol, that adds to or
subtracts from the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or to that firm’s customers. A
brand gives value through brand equity.
Asset categories by Aaker: brand awareness, brand loyalty, perceived quality, brand
associations.
Asset categories by Keller: brand awareness and brand image. Both are needed for a
successful brand.
Lever decided to brand Sunlight as an affordable, easy-to-use soap for the working class women of
Great Britain. The working class housewife had to be convinced that Sunlight soap was a necessity for
her home. She had to be convinced to buy soap through emphasis on hygiene (by door-to-door
salesmen and pamphlets such as “Sunlight soap and how to use it”) and the particular qualities of
Sunlight soap (“Heightens Housewife Happiness”, which meant less labour). Lever advertised
Sunlight heavily from the start, indicating that the work of washing will be so light that a girl of 12 or
13 can do a large wash without being tired. The consistency of the advertising message with
Sunlight’s distinct brand image made the success possible.
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,Steps in branding
Decide to brand.
Build brand equity: this requires careful brand management.
Choose name and overall image for the brand.
Keller: choose names that are simple, familiar, and distinctive. The image must reflect the
target market.
Advertise to increase brand awareness and brand image.
Successful brand management according to Keller and Aaker
Marketers should adopt a broad view of marketing decisions (Keller).
Marketers should define the knowledge structures that they would like to create in the
minds of consumers (Keller).
Marketers should take a long-term view of marketing decisions (Keller).
This can best be achieved when a single person is in charge of the business associated with
the brand (Aaker).
By 1888 Lever had built Sunlight into the largest selling soap in the UK through the use of careful
brand management. By that time Sunlight had to deal with imitators and did simple market research
about women’s opinions of various soaps. When raw materials prices reached an all-time high, Lever
took actions that hurt the image of Sunlight as a friend of housewives. In 1906 Lever tried to unify
the various British soap manufacturers in a soap trust to keep prices of raw materials low and prices
of soap high. This caused damage to Sunlight’s brand image.
Conclusion
Sunlight’s success was a result of careful brand management. William Lever was one of the founders
of this modern principle of brand management. Lever was ahead of his time in bringing the ideas
from Keller and Aaker to life long before either was born. He adopted a broad view of marketing
decisions, defined what he wanted his consumers to think of his brand, and was himself the single
person in charge of the brand. He is also the first man to understand that trade marking itself is not
sufficient for growth. Only through disciplined management did his trademark for Sunlight become a
brand.
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, Keller (1993) Lecture 2
Conceptualising, measuring, and managing customer-based brand equity.
Goal: to assist managers and researchers who are interested in strategic aspects of brand equity.
Specifically, brand equity is conceptualised from the perspective of the individual consumer and a
conceptual framework is provided of what consumers know about brands and what such knowledge
implies for marketing strategies.
Brand = a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or combination of them which is intended to identify
the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of
competitors.
Brand equity = the marketing effects uniquely attributable to the brand.
Customer-based brand equity = the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to
the marketing of the brand.
A brand is said to have positive customer-based brand equity when consumers react more favourably
to an element of the marketing mix for the brand then they do to the same marketing mix element
when it is attributed to a fictitiously named or unnamed version of the product or service. Negative
customer-based brand equity is the other way around. It occurs when the consumer is familiar with
the brand and holds some favourable, strong, and unique brand associations in memory.
Brand knowledge in the associative network memory model and consists of two components:
Brand awareness = relates to brand recall and recognition performance by customers. This is
related to the strength of the brand node.
- Brand recall = consumers’ ability to retrieve the brand when given the product category,
the needs fulfilled by the category, or some other type of probe as a cue.
- Brand recognition = requires that consumers correctly discriminate the brand as heaving
been seen or heard previously.
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