Brand Identity

Dr Thomas Varghese
Business Standard

Ace Indian Cricketer Rahul Dravid is set to become the brand ambassador for a new
avtaar of the Bank of Baroda (BoB).

Even as the bank expands its presence-both nationally and in the overseas markets, on
Monday it will shed its original log of a hand and a wheel of industry and agriculture
within a circle and adopt a new logo - the Baroda Sun.

The traditional blue letters of Bank of Baroda on a yellow background is to be replaced

by a more vibrant orange colour. The new logo, with two `B' letters overlapping each
other spring out from the rays of sun at the lower left corner and the logo will have a halo
effect representing the sun.

Since its inception in 1908 in Gujarat, the bank has the logo of an industrial and
agriculture wheel with Sanskrit letters - `Akshayam te Bhavishyati' (the future is secure).
A hand overlapping a wheel was also part of the original logo. Now, on the threshold of
adopting new international standards, BoB clearly intends to project itself as a modern
and technologically savvy bank.

The new logo and the signing of Rahul Dravid as brand ambassador is also a clear
indication that the bank is trying to address the needs of the younger generation.
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 Baroda Sun
Agriculture
Radiates Hope & Energy
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 Brand Identity

Brand identity is a unique set of the brand

associations that the brand strategist
aspires to create or maintain .

These associations represent what the brand

stands for and imply a promise to customers
from organizational members.

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 Brand Identity

– It is different from brand image :

How customers and others perceive the brand.
Which is on the receiver's side

– Brand identity is on the sender’s side :

The purpose is to specify the brand’s meaning,
aim and self image

– As such Identity precedes image : Before

projecting an image we must know exactly
what to project
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 Aspects of Brand

• BRAND IMAGE
How the brand is now perceived

• BRAND IDENTITY
How Strategists want the brand to be perceived

• BRAND POSITION
The part of the brand identity and value
proposition to be actively communicated to a
target audience.

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 AAKER’S FRAMEWORK
• He defined Brand Identity as sum of the brand
expressed as a product, organization, person
and symbol.
1. Brand as a product: deals with the acceptance of
the brand as a product itself
2. Brand as an organization: emphasizes that a
brand is successful among other things because of the
organizational values it holds.
3. Brand as person: deals with the question “ What
happens to this brand when it becomes a person ? “
4. Brand as Symbol: deals with heritage and what
the brands stand for.
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 Brand Identity Prism
According to J. Kapferer (1986), brand identity could
be defined by answering the following questions:
• What is the aim and individual vision of a brand?

• What makes a brand distinguished?

• How satisfaction could be achieved?
• What is brand's equity?
• What are brand competence, validity & legitimacy?

• What are the features of its recognition?

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Kapferer’s Brand Identity Prism

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 A Brand has a Physique

First of all brand contains an external specificity that

is physical appearance, which is the core of brand
and its value added. This determines a traditional
brand management due to orientation to “know how”,
classical positioning, selecting a principal good or
brand features and the benefit.

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A Brand has a Physique

The first step building up a brand is the definition of

physical factors, identifying what it is, what it does
and how does it look like. Physical appearance is
closely connected with a brand prototype, revealing
the quality of a brand (for example Coca-Cola
bottles or tins of Coca-Cola)

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 A Brand has a Personality
• Brand personality are those traits of human
personality that can be attributed to brands.
This is the personality facet of the Sender.

• The easy way to build a personality is to use a

spokesman, a star or an animal (Energizer Bunny)

• Deals with the question “What happens to this

brand when it becomes a person ? “
• It should not be confused with the customer reflected image, which is a
picture of the ideal receiver

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 A Brand is a Culture

Culture plays the essential role in brand

differentiation as it indicated what moral
values are embodied in goods and services.
This feature helps identifying the strongest
brands because sources, basic ideals and a
set of values are revealed.

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 A Brand is a Culture
– Every product is the outcome of a culture, its
concrete representation and its support.
– Symbolizes the organization, its country-of-
origin and the values it stands for
- A brand has its own culture and origin.
Both influence & are parts of strong brands.
- Khadi

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 'The Best or Nothing.'

people matter more than process 17

 A Brand is a Relationship
Brands are often the object of transactions
between people, of exchanges. This is critical
for services and for retailers.

Relationship is the hand-shake between the

consumer and the organization.
• Nike – provocation : “Just Do It”
• Apple – friendliness
• IBM- order setting, systematic approach
• Saffola- Care for Health
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 A Brand is a Customer Reflection

Is the consumer’s perception of what the brand stands for.

Reflection :If asked for views on car brands consumers identify
them on the perceived client type: for young people, for family
fathers, for show offs…out of the communication history and
most representative products brands build an image of the buyer
or user they seem to target.
However the reflection and the target (potential purchasers or
users) are different:
• Customer should be reflected as he /she wishes to be seen as a
result of using the brand e.g. in ready to wear the obsession of
looking younger & smarter concerns reflection
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 A Brand is a Self-image

• If reflection is the target’s outward mirror (they are), self image

is the target’s own internal mirror (I am, I feel)
• I buy it, because I am like that…
• A user of SURF is telling herself that she is conscious of not just
price but value as well
• The internal mirror, inner reward
• Is what the consumer thinks of himself

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 Brand is to be Evaluated

Physical Facet talks about

• What the product is,
• What it does,
• How does it add value to customers,
• How does it fill up the gap in the market

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 Brand is to be evaluated
• Brand personality is measured using those traits/
features of consumer personality that are directly
related to brands.
• Brand personality is closely linked with self image
and image of the consumer. Questions to be asked are:
1) What are the features of consumer personality?
2) What are the features of brand if it was a person? This
depends on the functional aspect of the product and the gap
it would fill.

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 Brand is to be evaluated

• Brand Culture
It talks about the culture of the brand. The values and the
principles will follow from the culture and it is these values
which will bind the customers.
HSBC's "The World's local bank".
Questions which need to be asked:-
1) Is the brand's culture global?
2) What are the values for which the brand stands for?
3) How would customers take the values of such a brand?

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 Brand is to be evaluated
Brand Relationships: Every brand has to maintain healthy
relationships with customers. All marketing collaterals are
intended to do just that. Therefore to gauge the identity, this
has to feature:

1) How would Sales describe the relationship attributes for

their customer management process?
2) How would Customer support describe their approach to
increasing customer satisfaction?
3) How does the brand want to be seen by customers in
marketing communication?
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 Brand is to be evaluated
Customer Reflection: Every product is designed to satisfy
some need of the intended customer base. A consumer has to
be reflected in a way, which would show how he or she could
image himself consuming a particular good.

For example, in India anyone consuming Pepsi Cola would

imagine himself to be young and Thums up (another cola
drink from Coke stable) to be adventurous. For this aspect,
questions are to be put to customer experience team about
‘What would the users imagine while using the product’?

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 Brand is to be evaluated

• Customer Self Image:

Consumers get attracted to those brands in which

they see their own traits, for example, a man
who is interested in sports will use Nike.

This goes hand in hand with brand personality.

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 Internal Branding

• Employees must Believe in the Brand

• Communicate Brand Values Internally

• Must deliver Brand Promises to Customers

• Using Employees in Ads : Tata, Google

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 Brand Enhancers
• Process Reengineering, Quality Improvement
• Internal Learning Process
• Continuous Improvement, Kaizen
• Total Quality Management
• Customer Relationship Management
• Six Sigma
• Supply Chain Management
• Environment Friendly Products & Processes

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Six Sigma

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