Brand Evaluation - An Important Aspect of Brand Management

Companies, especially those that largely depend on brand recognition and customer loyalty, need to perform brand evaluation from time to time in order to assess the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns.

Brands are names, designs, terms or symbols that are considered as ownership labels. These allow consumers to distinguish a product or service from all the others. Marketing strategists use these labels to their advantage by successfully aiding consumers to come up with characteristics or qualities associated to the product or service that they are promoting. Because of this, brand names become the central element for all advertising efforts. The science of creating and managing these brand names is called brand management.

Given the importance of brand names in virtually all marketing campaigns, it is important for companies to handle the process of choosing and evaluating brand names carefully. Foremost, it should be possible to provide legal protection to a particular brand name so as to prevent competitors from capitalizing on them. It should likewise be easy to associate products or services to brand names so company image will be reinforced through these labels. In addition, names or words that are easy to remember, easy to pronounce and popular would make good brand names. A brand selection process typically involves numerous brand suggestions before a final brand name is decided. Other companies opt to conduct qualitative research and use chain associations in line with brand selection.

The concept of brand management hinges on the use of marketing techniques that would optimize brand recognition. These include activities designed to increase the perceived value of brand names to target customers. With efficient brand management, an increase in branch equity and branch franchise can be expected. Brand equity is commonly defined as an asset that is dependent on the mind associations of consumers. It can be measured through financial data, through brand extension and consumer-based attitudes. Brand equity can be measured financially by determining how much a customer is willing to pay for a particular product or service. It may also be measured through brand extension or the use of the same brand name for a product or service that can be classified in another category. Lastly, brand equity can be assessed based on the general attitude of consumers toward a particular brand name. As can be vouched by many companies, strong brand equity leads to a more stable income stream and increased cash flow. Once a brand has already gained widespread recognition, companies can benefit from reduced promotional costs and larger market shares.

Brand evaluation is crucial in effective brand management. This process enables marketers to obtain a more accurate idea about how powerful a brand name is. In turn, this will help marketers decide what their future marketing strategy would be. Some of the more common metrics used in measuring a brand are brand perception, brand financial value and brand performance. Metrics used for evaluation may differ from company to company but generally, these performance measures are mainly sensitive to consumer perception and consumer attitude.