Building Brand Loyalty

In today's Integrated Marketing Communications class, we discussed ethics and expectation management when dealing with clients. Additionally, we reviewed branding, brand loyalty, market positioning, principles of IMC, the four P's of marketing and the four key components of the final client branding plans (marketing, advertising, public relations and sales promotion). (BTW: these notes are already posted to student Blackboard accounts in a folder aptly titled "Class Notes.")

We also discussed how branding is far more than an advertising campaign or marketing slogan. Although branding is a complex process, the business of branding, is fairly simple:  to create and develop a SPECIFIC identity for a company, product, commodity, group or person.

It’s carefully designed to present qualities that its creators believe will be attractive to the public and it’s meant to be perpetuated for the long haul.  It creates an institution of sorts, so if you tamper too much with an established brand, the public will go nuts. Here are the cases I discussed and the links I promised to post:  Tropicana's sales plunge 20% after package re-design and Gap Logo Dead in One Week

Working in their (3) client teams, students were asked to go to their client's web page and/or review news articles about their client.

They were then asked to respond to a series of questions about their client (see below) From this first look, what are the strengths and weaknesses of your client’s brand?

What are the most compelling benefits of your client’s brand?

What are the emotions elicited by the brand?

What's a one-word encapsulation of the brand?

What is the brand’s importance to customers?

Working in your teams, go to the web page and/or news articles about your CLIENT. 

All teams need to answer each question posed and have their TEAM CAPTAINS e-mail me (mberry@ithaca.edu) with your team’s responses.

It would be great to have these before Friday’s class if teams can manage this. Do you think you're up to the challenge? The sooner I have the responses, the better.

If your team needs until Friday's class, just let me know.

Have a good evening,
Michelle