Course Introduction

The power of brands has increased enormously in the past 25 years, Apple®, Google®, Microsoft®, Amazon® and Facebook® have combined annual revenues in excess of $800 billion and previously defunct brand names such as Blaupunkt® and Akai® have been revived – because brands sell products and services, to consumers and to businesses.

This Strategic Brand Management training course will provide you with the fundamental understanding of how to manage your brands strategically, as well as providing a useful set of tools and techniques to help you achieve your goals.

This Oxford Management Centre Strategic Brand Management training course will highlight:

• First principles of strategic brand management - what is a brand, brand management, types of branding
• Assessing and creating brand positioning and values - building a customer-based brand equity and getting the positioning right
• Planning and creating brand marketing initiatives - identifying the building blocks, designing marketing programs, leveraging marketing communications, leveraging the power of brand associations
• Monitoring and decoding brand performance - creating a process to assess performance, understanding customer perception and measuring performance in the marketplace
• Nurturing and maintaining equity - analyzing, formulating and executing brand strategies, introducing new products, extending the brand, naming new products in line with the brand, recognizing and exploiting new market segments, introducing new regional/continental markets and dealing with international considerations

Objectives

At the end of this training Course, you will learn to:

• Debate how brands are valuable assets and how careful management is essential in their creation and development
• Describe how to determine brand values and select appropriate market positions
• Discuss planning and creating marketing initiatives and hos this is best achieved
• Explain how brand performance can be managed and appropriate action taken
• Analyze how to develop brands through brand/category extensions and consider whether market diversification is appropriate

Training Methodology

This course will be highly interactive and feature expert lectures, discussions, case study analysis, financial analysis, brand design reviews, video presentations, quizzes, designing surveys, reviewing a brand architecture, creating a simulated brand extension and reviewing the balance of a simulated product portfolio.

Organisational Impact

Attending this Strategic Brand Management training course, the participants will return to their organizations with a broader understanding of how strategic brand management activities support business objectives, including:

• Adopting a structured approach to strategic brand management
• Creating and maintaining brand equity
• Selecting the right brand positions in the market
• Creating effective brand marketing campaigns
• Choosing viable channel and pricing strategies
• Analyzing brand associations and choosing internal/external strategies to exploit these

Personal Impact

This OXFORD training course will help the participants to strengthen their strategic brand management capabilities, including:

• Undertaking end to end strategic brand management
• Choosing strategies to create and name new brands
• Assessing where your brand(s) fit in the marketplace
• Selecting strategies to take your brand to market and defend its position
• Setting up direct and/or indirect channels to market, as appropriate
• Leveraging brand associations

Who Should Attend?

The training course will provide valuable benefits for a broad range of people who are involved in brand and marketing management, including (but not limited) to:

• Brand Managers
• Marketing Executives
• Product Managers
• Key Account Executives, Business Development Professionals, Sales Executives and Sales Managers
• Entrepreneurs
• Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) owners and Managers

Course Outline

DAY 1 

Introduction, Brand Position and Brand Values

• Definitions - brand, brand v product comparison brand architecture and examples
• Why do brands matter, what can be branded, Brand assets, brand strengths and brand values
• What is brand management, definition of brand equity, Providing a link from the past to the present and on to the future
• The crucial importance of building consumer knowledge/perception
• Creating brand equity through awareness, image and associations, how outstanding brands stand out
• Designing appropriate product category structures – using the CBS (Category Breakdown Structure)
• Key aspects of strong brands (performance, image, consumer judgments, consumer emotions, consumer rationale, brand significance, overall resonance with customer), the relationship between brand and customer equity

DAY 2 

Brand Equity and the Consumer 

• The essentials of brand positioning, developing a strong position, identifying core brand associations, auditing brands
• Selecting appropriate brand identities – six key factors to consider, gambits to make the brand identity memorable, protocols for naming brands
• Logos, symbols characters and slogans, don’t forget the packaging
• Using personalization techniques to connect with the consumer
• Developing an appropriate strategy for products, channel strategy, pricing strategy and value engineering
• Taking a joined-up approach to designing brand marketing programs, using personalization techniques to connect with the customer and developing an appropriate strategy for products
  

DAY 3 

Brand Marketing 

• Prospering in the New Media, advertising channels, promotional activities and media relations
• Sponsoring events and taking a joined-up approach to designing marketing communications
• Working with brand associations, the relationship between existing and new brand associations
• The relationship between brands and channels, geographic factors, brand alliances and co-branding
• The concept of ingredient branding
• Licensing
• A brand as an asset, developing brand financials, e.g. return on investment, future cash flows, net present value
• Establishing the brand value chain
  

DAY 4 

Brand Performance 

• Assessing brand performance
• External environment analysis
• Supporting brand audits with focused tracking surveys
• Using research to identify customer perception of brands, qualitative research methods, quantitative research methods
• Assessing customer attitudes to brands, brand based comparative methods and marketing based comparative methods, conjoint analysis – pros and cons
• Residual based methods and valuation-based methods
• Brand strategy, brand architecture and developing a hierarchy of brands
• Building brand equity
  

DAY 5 

Maintaining Brand Equity 

• Introducing new products to the brand, The pros and cons of brand extensions
• Considering potential customer perceptions of brand extensions, designing brand extensions
• Naming brand extensions for maximum impact
• Managing brands over an extended period of time
• Balancing the brand portfolio to reflect changing business strategy and environment, refreshing tired brands, developing acquisitions and divestments
• Introducing new market segments, introducing new regional/continental markets, international considerations, building global brand equity
• Prospering in the New Media, advertising channels, promotional activities, media relations, sponsoring events, designing marketing communications