留学生paper：品牌构建研究

1.研究主题—Working Title:

 “为什么不是最好的一个:突出最有效的、创造持久品牌知名度的品牌营销。”

 2.摘要—Abstract:

品牌已经存在了很长一段时间，从把时代艺术家的签名作为品牌到全球的商业都在不断树立品牌价值观。品牌第一次出现是在欧洲，中世纪行会的要求是把商标贴在产品上，用来拥护他们自己产品的品牌以及避免他们的消者买到质量低劣产品。

现今的品牌在每个人的生活中扮演着重要的角色，最重要的是，它加强了商业的财务价值(科特勒&凯勒,2006)。虽然品牌已经存在了几个世纪(威利,1992)，但品牌知名度是品牌的一个方面，其本身已经被一些学者探讨。公司在营销和加强品牌知名度上花了费数上亿美元，实际上是让消费者知道他们的产品或服务(品牌知名度)，，这似乎是理所当然的。因此，企业的投资在多大程度上是找出方法让人们认识他们的品牌(品牌认知度)，反过来消费者会很容易记住这些品牌。

品牌是由各种营销活动建立的，构建品牌是一个长期精心设计和慢慢形成的过程。像可口可乐这类公司没有在一夜之间或几年之间获得价值673.9亿美元(2004年品牌价值)。公司执行各种营销活动，以增加他们的品牌资产，公司举办的活动，如电视广告、报纸广告、出版物、新闻稿、社会事业营销支持、网上俱乐部、消费者社区、贸易展览、赞助、体育和事件营销等。此外，还有其他形式的活动，如口碑宣传、社交活动等，这些活动可以在品牌知名度扮演不同的角色。这种现象旨在明白哪一个最重要的，哪一个最新颖。

1.研究主题—Working Title:

"Why not the best one: Distinguishing the most effective brand marketing which will create long lasting brand awareness."

2. 摘要—Abstract:

Branding has come a long way, from the era of Artist signing their works as branding to the world where every business stands with its brand which is constantly valued. It was in Europe when branding first came in existence. Medieval guilds' requirement was the first form of putting trademark on product and protecting themselves and their consumer from the inferior quality.

Branding today plays significant role in every one s' life. Most importantly, it strengthens the financial value of any business (Kotler & Keller, 2006). Although branding has been around for centuries (Wiley, 1992), brand awareness is an aspect of brand which on its own has been explored rarely by few scholars. It is an area which somewhat seems to be taken for granted. Companies spend billions over marketing and strengthening their brand which is actually making their consumers aware of their product or services (brand awareness). Therefore, it is quite vague that to what extent companies are investing on finding out ways to make people recognise their brand (brand recognition) which in turn leads to easy brand recall by their consumers.

Brands are built by various marketing activities. Brand building is a long term process carefully designed and nurtured. A company like Coca-Cola did not earn the value worth $67.39 Billion (2004 Brand Value) over night or over period of few years. Companies perform various marketing activity in order to increase their brand equity. Activities such as television, newspaper advertisement, company publications, press releases, social causes marketing, endorsements, online, clubs, consumer communities, trade shows, sponsorships, sports and events marketing etc. In addition, other form of activities such as word of mouth publicity, social networking activity etc, can play different roles in brand awareness. The phenomenon is to understand which one plays the most important and which one does the least.

This is where my research attempts to put some light in understanding this phenomenon. My research will try to highlight the relationship between brand marketing activities and brand awareness. I have decided to list down two consumer products from the similar product category. I will explore different brand marketing activities used by them by doing secondary research from company official sites and various internet sources. On the other hand, I'll accumulate primary data from participants with the help of quantitative research concerning the level of their awareness about the selected brands and how such brand awareness influence their purchase of such product.

3.研究的问题— Research Question:

My research questions are as followings. (There are high possibilities omitting as well as adding some more questions covering more areas as the research process undertakes.)

What brand marketing activities have been most successful in creating long lasting brand awareness?

What do consumers recall at first when they hear about a particular brand?

How brand awareness ensure product purchase?

What types of brand marketing are being done by high end brands which are not being done by low end brands and how does that affect consumer brand awareness?

How do consumers perceive and evaluate brand by their brand marketing activities?

What helps consumer to retain brand awareness for a long time?

4.研究理论基础— Research Rationale:

I am from the country (Nepal) where there is not even a single brand that has been marketed outside the border. In other words, there is not even one which has stepped into the international market, not even to the neighbouring countries. In my case, I got the first opportunity to work in the international market for a British multinational firm operating in Gulf countries (mainly in U.A.E) in the year 2000. That is when I got exposed to number of strong international brands: Coca-Cola (although there is Coca-Cola locally manufactured in Nepal), McDonalds, Microsoft, Disney, Nokia, Toyota, etc. It is not the case that I had not see or used products of Nokia, Microsoft or Toyota back in my country. I had been their customer, but had never realised the impact or the significance of these brands. The true meaning or reason of each of those brands existence. More importantly, we (people in Nepal) use almost all imported international products, however without knowing much about the time and effort invested by the company to create 'the Brand'. Since then I have always been fascinated by knowing how some of these companies have been building and managing their brands and in ways those brands play roles in everyone's life.

During my MBA in Northampton University, I got an opportunity to utilise various resources in finding out many literature on Branding, amongst I personally found 'Brand Awareness' the right one for me to research on. Taking an example of any general drink purchase, the knowledge of a brand that consumer have in mind, such as its taste, sugar content, caffeine content, or even some favourable images from its TV commercial or past experience with such product could in great extent influence ones buying decision (Esch, et. al., 2006). I would like to explore this concept of brand knowledge: Brand Awareness affecting buying decision in greater depth with the selected sample products.

5.研究目的— Research Purpose:

The main purpose of doing this research is to probe the level of brand knowledge required for a final buying decision. With the help of this research I will come to a conclusion about understanding the right integration of brand marketing activities which will lead to brand awareness as well as brand image of a product essential for ones buying decision.

I will explore the relationship between the degrees of brand marketing activities undertaken by an organisation and the level of brand awareness one has which eventually influence his buying decision of that particular brand. I will examine what, when and how or in other word, by what mean of brand marketing activity, did they get introduced and obtained as well as retained the knowledge of selected brand. With the help of these findings, I will then cross check with the effectiveness of brand marketing activities of selected brand.

Company (large or small) and their marketing managers when marketing their brand to a certain target audiences, might find this research helpful in creating right combination of factors such as brand marketing activities with addition information of product-related (product specification) or non-product related attributes (price, packaging, etc.), brand functional, experiential or symbolic benefits etc.

Additionally, when marketing their brand this research should come handy to inter-relate what marketing activities (promotion, TV commercial, endorsement etc.) might generate high possibilities of brand awareness and brand recognition and recall: ability to retrieve the brand when required for making buying decision (Keller, 1993) for a specific target audience, which eventually lead to final buying decision of a product.

6. 文献综述—Literature Review

6.1.映射相关文献— Mapping Relevant Literature

There are mainly three areas which are primarily discussed as a relevant literature. Those areas are: Branding, Brand marketing, and Brand Awareness. Below diagram shows the area of literature covered.

6.2.文献综述— Literature Review

According to Kotler (1991); various brand identities such as a name, term, sign, symbol or design, or combination of them identify product or services of one seller and differentiate them from those of other competitors. Combination of these brand identities or the totality is called "the brand" (Keller, 1993). The brand helps consumers to simplify decision making and reduce risk even though they are amidst of complex, time-starved, rushed and complicated life style (Jacoby, et. al. 1971).

In a simple term, brand serves many important functions. It could simply be a promise of certain level, reducing risk and engendering trust to the customer or and it could be determining the effectiveness of various marketing activities, such as advertisement and promotions. Most important of all, brands in financial term are assets. Assets that is valued in monetary term (Keller & Lehmann, 2006). Hence creating strong brand result in higher revenue both in short as well as long run (Aaker, 1991, 1996; Kapferer, 2004; Keller, 2003).

Brand awareness simply means how easy it is to remember brand. It refers to the strength of the memory nodes that are capable of recognizing and recalling brands (Keller, 1993). The most common way of measuring brand awareness is by brand recall. According to Keller (1993), without brand awareness, brand image cannot exist. This can be expressed as when one has strong establishment of brand in his/her memory, it will be easier to attach associations to brands. Such association will then firmly remain in ones memory. According to Kapferer (2004), there is a significant correlation between brand awareness and many important image dimensions.

Professor Peter Doyle wrote: "In today's network organizations the old idea that marketing managers determine the brand and the marketing mix is hopelessly dated. ..." Thus measuring marketing is a sensitive issue. It is the end-user (consumer) s' knowledge of brand that measures what was promised and what has been delivered (Richard, I., 1998). Research conducted by a major internet service have revealed that return on investment is potentially higher in marketing activities like word-of-mouth, TV adverts, email marketing, subscriber education that investing in software, personalization technology etc (Wise & Sirohi, 2006). Amongst all which one could be most effect, I shall attempt to distinguish through my research.

7. 角色理论—Role of Theory

My main purpose after identifying all the relative literature will be to develop a comprehensive framework to examine the relationship between various marketing strategies related to brand marketing and the right impact or result of such activities over the consumers. I shall distinguish with the help of my findings how businesses obtain return on their investment by reaching right targeted group and building their brand awareness which lead to the final purchase of their brand product.

8.方法论和方法— Methodology and Method

8.1方法论—Methodology

As a research methodology I will adopt Quantitative research. Since, I will be trying to collect data (trends, attitudes, opinions, etc.) of a population by interpreting a sample of that population. In more detail, I will be conducting survey research method (Babbie, 1990) with non-probability convenience sample where I intend to study samples by using questionnaires for data collection.

I believe that approach of survey research strategy will be most appropriate to my research because I will attempt to conduct my research with an intention of generalizing from sample to a population. For this I will carefully develop my questionnaire, test it with few of my friends and make the necessary changes because without doing so, I will not be able to collect proper information. I will conduct research on approximately 200 participants of the age group from 18 to 32. This is because 18 to 35 aged groups will be right fit as a primary target customers sample for majority of the companies, their product and services. For example, drink products, technological gadgets etc. Furthermore, I will conduct my research over a period of four months particularly on the different brand marketing activities, brand awareness and its relation to final purchase.

8.2 分析层次—Level of Analysis:

My analysis will be focused on how a company markets its brand which is then interpreted by consumers. How this interpretation lead to brand awareness and finally how brand awareness influence individuals buying decisions. Within this circle, my research will examine areas of brand marketing that are most effective in resulting retention of strong brand awareness.

8.3方法— Method

8.3.1 数据收集—Data collection:

I will collect two different sets of data. First one will be from the consumer end and the second will be from the selected brand company's end. I will collect primary data through a quantitative approach from the consumers and secondary data about the branding strategy of the selected brand through online materials and company publications.

I will design a questionnaire and circulate across the aged group from 18 to 35 who consume the selected brand. I will carefully ensure that the participant fulfils two criteria before participating in my research. One she/he is between 18 to 35 years old and two, s/he consumes the selected brand product. Many of these individuals are likely to be university (across UK) students out of which small number portion may be international students. Irrespective of different nationality, this survey will examine the response of those who pass two mentioned criteria. In other words, those who have had some brand awareness which had led them to become its consumer at certain point of time.

8.3.2 数据分析—Data Analysis

I will analyse data through qualitative method. This is because I will be seeking to collecting large number of individuals' answer based on their own knowledge (use of product, past experience, etc.) of the selected brand. I will try not to be bias while analysing data and will draw conclusion only on the ground of collected information.

8.4可信度和效度— Reliability and Validity

8.4.1.可信度— Reliability

When research is conducted data collected or the source (in the case of secondary data) from where the data is being collected must be reliable and authorised respectively (Saunders, 1997). While doing my research, I will ensure that the participants are willing to take part, and make a sincere contribution to my research. I will try to reduce the possibilities of my participants losing interest while doing the questionnaire by designing questions in an appropriate way. I may have to take into consideration that during my research period, the universities will be closed for summer therefore I may not have the variety of same age group or category of participants in one platform. However, I may get the necessary data by involving my customers (store where I do my part time job) by requesting them to take part in my research. I will also ensure that all my findings will be reliable for studies in the future.

8.4.2.效度— Validity

My main concern for my research is the degree of sincerity a participant will demonstrate during his/her participation. I will have no power, what so ever, to control the quality of information if the respondent is not sincere. However, I will try to avoid such wastage by ensuring the level of willingness of an individual to participate in my research. In addition, I shall also make sure that data collected are properly interpreted and high level of trustworthiness is maintained.

8.5.道德问题— Ethical Issues

In order to conduct my research, I will have to acquire consent from the prospective participant. In most cases research will be carried out according to the participants' convenience. I will also guarantee all the participants their anonymity which in turn will demonstrate my concern towards them and help them to be very honest with their set of response.

9.讨论— Discussion:

My research will mainly focus on the area of Brand knowledge, particularly brand awareness, and how one acquires and retains brand knowledge. My finding should compare the most effective mean through which one grasps and retains brand awareness which then turn into brand knowledge and draw the level of brand knowledge essential to influence buying decision.

10.临时工作安排— Provisional work schedule:

The due date for my dissertation as agreed with my supervisor is September 25th 2009 (week 39). Below shown is the Gantt chart that illustrates my dissertation schedule.