注:请不要用翻译软件译,一点也不准。
As the previous discussion points out, the complexity of both brand offerings and marketing communication options has significantly increased on recent years. A number of competitive challenges now exist for marketers. Some critics feel that the reaction by many marketers has been ineffective or, even worse, has further aggravated the problem. The remaining chapters present theories, models, and frameworks that accommodate and reflect these new developments in order to provide useful managerial guidelines and suggest promising new directions for future thought and research. In particular, a common denominator or unified conceptual framework based on the concept of brand equity is introduced as a tool to interpret the potential effects of various brand strategies.
One of the most popular and potentially important marketing concepts to arise in the 1980s was the concept of brand equity. The emergence of brand equity however, has meant both good news and bad news to marketers. The good news is that it has raised the importance of the brand on marketing strategy, which heretofore had been relatively neglected, and provided focus for managerial interest and research activity. The bad news is that the concept has been defined a number of different ways for a number of different purposes, resulting in some confusion and even frustration with the term. Through it all, no common viewpoint has emerged as to how brand equity should be conceptualized and measured.
Fundamentally, branding is about endowing products and services with the power of brand equity. Although a number of different specific views of brand equity may prevail, most observers are in agreement that brand equity should be defined in terms of marketing effects that are uniquely attributable to a brand. That is, brand equity relates to the fact that different outcomes result from the marketing of a product or service because of its brand than if that same product or service had not been identified by that brand. As a stark example of the transformational power of branding, consider the following.
Branding is all about creating differences. Most marketing observers also aggress with the following basic principles of branding and brand equity:
1. Differences in outcomes arise from the “added value” endowed to a product as a result of past marketing activity for the brand.
2. This value can be created for a brand in many different ways.
3. Brand equity provides a common denominator for interpreting marketing strategies and assessing the value of a brand.
4. There are many different ways in which the value of a brand can be manifested or exploited to benefit the firm (i.e., in terms of greater proceeds or lower costs or both).