What is Brand Reinforcement and Brand Revitalization?
Before we discuss brand reinforcement and brand revitalization, we need to talk a little about brand equity. Knowledge of brand equity would help our understanding of brand reinforcement and revitalization, so let’s get into it.
According to Wikipedia, brand equity is the social value of a well-known brand. To explain further, this is when customers trust your brand because it is more popular, leading them to trust your brand over the lesser-known brands. As a result, you can generate more income just from brand recognition.
Now to Brand reinforcement, it is the creation of more brand awareness, among both existing customers and new ones. This process ensures that brand equity does not reduce over an extended period. Almost every brand that has survived decades have always made it a priority to reinforce their brand’s equity.
For Brand Revitalization, this is a strategy utilized to improve products and services to meet the demands and changes of the market. This is usually adopted when the product has reached a stage of maturity in its growth life cycle and the profits from it are falling.
Brand Reinforcement Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages
1) Enhances Profitability:
As the number of loyal customers increases, it’s safe to say that revenue will also increase. Having a proper brand reinforcement strategy can create a set of customers that will consistently buy whatever it is you’re selling.
2) Strategy:
Having a brand reinforcement strategy helps you prepare and avoid times when your product would go through a decline. This helps the brand stay proactive and also creates a contingency when there is a decline.
3) Improves Brand Equity:
Brand reinforcement ensures that brand equity isn’t lost or depreciates over time. It improves it and allows for newer customers.
4) Competition:
In competitive markets, brand reinforcement can go a long way in ensuring you maintain a lead amongst your competitors.
Disadvantages
Brand reinforcement has no disadvantage. It is simply a strategy designed to keep the brand’s public image which is nothing but beneficial to every aspect of the brand. But undertaking a process like brand reinforcement will have its difficult points and tasks that might have consequences if not properly done or handled.
1) Cost:
For a company to embark on a brand reinforcement process, it has to prepare itself financially. While it isn’t always cost-intensive, it is serious enough to warrant attention to ensure that it is done right and that cost was managed in any way possible.
2) Change:
A lot of people are not open to change as we all know, so it won’t be a surprise when some people are skeptical about the new process. These people may include some employees, some customers, even investors. Going ahead with the plans can lead to the loss of some of these customers and investors and that is never a good thing.
3) Confusion:
In the process of Brand reinforcement, there might be some changes to some physical representation of the brand. As a result, there would be confusion depending on how much change is made. For a while at least, some people may mistake your product for that of a new company.
Similarities Between Brand Reinforcement and Brand Revitalization
While they are not the same, they both have similarities. These similarities are highlighted below.
- They are both utilize marketing strategies:
Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization both make use of marketing strategies like adverts, improving logos and other physical representation of the brand, etc.
- Both are required to grow customers:
While brand reinforcement is there to grow the customers of an already existing and thriving brand, brand revitalization aims to grow that of a product that is not making enough profits. In summary, both are there to help the growth of customers.
- Brand Equity:
Brand equity is very important to both as it helps both of them achieve their aims. This is because brand equity helps in keeping customers and making new ones.
- Competition:
They are both strategies to keep up or get ahead of the competition. With the help of either of the two, the brand can stay competitive.
- Innovation:
Both of these strategies promote innovation as they require the brand to do something different. They both push the company to either venture into something different or better their current products and services.
Differences
Asides from the fact that Brand reinforcement is employed in a bid to improve a thriving product or brand and Brand revitalization to salvage a product that is in a decline in terms of products, there aren’t many differences between the two.
There are some subtle differences like how Brand reinforcement can be another form of expansion for the company.
Examples of Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization
Here we are going to discuss some real-life examples of Brand reinforcement and revitalization.
1) Marlboro:
Now the best-selling cigarette brand in the world, Marlboro was once almost bankrupt. In the 1950s, which included their low ad spends due to advertising limits in those times and the public’s growing health concern. Their sales began to drop quickly and something had to be done, especially to help build their brand equity to last decades to come.
As a result of the government restricting cigarette adverts, they decided to sponsor some other brands that could have fewer restrictions. This helped solve their advertising issues a bit, but that was not enough. A decision was then made to move their distribution to nightclubs. This helped take their product directly to their target customers.
To solve the issue of the growing health concerns, Marlboro created electronically heated cigarettes for smokers with health concerns. This created a new set of customers and expanded association.
Finally, they allowed their name to be used by a clothing brand, a move that helped grow both the cloth and cigarette brands.
These deliberate and well-thought-out plans have fortified Marlboro’s brand equity and have ensured high product sales.
2) Apple
Every new iOS update or release of a new product is a reinforcement strategy to ensure their customers always know that they are committed to delivering top-quality products. This helps them constantly stay ahead of their competition and also ensure that customers old, new, and even people who don’t buy their products know of their latest products.
Many established brands and companies take Apple’s approach to brand reinforcement. Depending on their product or service, either a new set of adverts or fresh packaging for the products.
Others explore a process known as Brand extension. This is another strategic process used especially for new products.
Brand Extension
Brand extension is the usage of a brand’s established name for new products. Sometimes the new products might not be related to the old-established ones. But the brand extension is more about leveraging the brand equity of an already established product or brand name. This eases the lunch of a new product and also reduces the cost in some scenarios.
The importance of brand extension is appreciated when the new product is about to be launched in a highly competitive market environment. The brand equity already accumulated would help it compete fairly as a result provide customers.
Beyond helping the new product, when done properly, the brand extension can help the company amass more customers for the old brand as new users want to explore more products. Ultimately, this improves the brand image in general thereby increasing its brand equity.
Some examples would include Apple, the technology company. Asides from their flagship tabs, mobile phones, and laptops, they are also involved in smart watches. Something similar is also happening at Ferrari as they now have theme parks where you can test their products without buying them.
Conclusion
Brand reinforcement and revitalization are both very key for the sake of branding and can be used for more than just improving brand equity and increasing customers. They can both be used as processes for repositioning the company, mergers, and other business projects. It is very important as a brand to have plans for Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization.
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