A Strategic Brand Management

A Strategic Brand Management According to the book Strategic Brand Management by Kevin Lane Keller (2008) , Identifying and creating brand positioning is the first and important stage of the strategic brand management process. Positioning effects on a founding benchmark and works toward building a strong brand by helping marketers to design, to implement, to solidify or to sustain brand associations. Aaker (1991 ) also supports the idea that the brand position can offer clear direction to a communication program implementation. To establish the position of a brand, the concept of it should be clearly defined. Criticism of the literature reveals numerous meanings and clarification of positioning. Sekhar, (1989) states that the concept of positioning developed from research on market segmentation and targeting. Kotler (2003, p. 308) defines brand positioning as â€Å"the act of designing the company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the target market. The end result of pos itioning is the successful creation of a customer-focused value proposition, a cogent reason why the target market should buy the product†. Arnott (1992, 1993) parallels the idea by stating that positioning is, correlated to the rivalry, management attempt to adjust the tangible features and the intangible views of a marketable contribution. Furthermore, Kapferer (2004, p. 99) emphasises on the distinctive characteristics that make a band different from its competitors and alluring to the public. In addition, Sengupta (2005) enhances the term of perception that indicate the core of the brand in terms of its functional and emotional benefit in the decision of customer. Also, it is shown as points in perceptual space and thought up a product class. In essence, Keller outlines the idea behind the concept of brand positioning that involves four aspects; target market identification, the nature of competitors, the ideal of points of parity, and the points of difference. Identifying target market is crucial part in establish a robust positioning because dissimilar segment may have diverse brand knowledge structure or perceive the same brand in different way vary by own attitudes, beliefs, and experience. The target customer can be classified as descriptive (customer-oriented), which associated to the kind of customer or behavioral (product-oriented), which related to how customers consider of or utilizes the brand or product. The behavioral side is more significant to comprehend brand position due to stronger strategic implication. Decided type of target can, then, implicitly sketches the nature of rivalry because businesses usually target that same segment in terms of category membership. Once the appropriate competitive frame of reference for positioning has been formed, the correct points of parity (POPs) and points of difference (PODs) are able to make. Point of parity (POPs) are characteristics or benefits that may mutual with other brands separated into two forms: category and competitive. Category point of parity is a standard association expected by customers to show the credibility of companies. Competitive Point of parity are associations designed to abolish rivalry Point of difference. It is used when firms want to break even the area that competitors are attempting to seek an advantage and achieve advantages in some other areas. To illustrate, to enter in the fast food industry, there are key elements that help customers to label a brand as a fast food restaurant such as quick service, good taste, and low prices. These are fundamental features and benefits of product category that it belongs to. Point of difference, on the other hand, comprises of strong, favorable and unique associations for a brand based on attribute or benefit association in the mind of customer. It is associations that customers believe that they couldn’t find in the competitive brand. It is considered by functional basis, performance-related consi deration and imagery related criterion, which are competitive strengths and insight about consumers’ motivations. Reeves and Ted Bates advertising agency (1950) also support the common concept of PODs in terms of unique selling proposition (USP) that promoting use to compel customers to buy product that competitors could not race. For instance, fast-food chain Subway uses the healthier benefit as PODs compared with other quick-serve restaurants that supported by less fat attribute. Nike, for another example, claim of superior performance in athletic shoes.

Green IT - hype or real chance for savings Article

Green IT - hype or real chance for savings - Article Example Global Warming is caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas and large scale deforestation. Burning of fossil fuels releases a large amount of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). These gases act as a thick blanket and absorb thermal radiations emitted by the earth’s surface, thereby resulting in the planet to warm up significantly. According to the reports of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global greenhouse gas emissions have grown with an increase in 70% between 1970 and 2004 The increase in temperature is a kind of anomaly in ecosystem and this anomaly will have severe consequences to follow. It will cause severe storms and droughts, glaciers to melt, rising seas, changes in weather pattern and spread of diseases. There will be an increase in the sea level and the low lying islands will left completely devastated. The inhabitants of the cities as well as other vegetation will see a dramatic increase in pests and other insects who will thrive due to an increased temperature, thus leading significantly to unexpected calamities. Loads of animal and plant species will be extinct and the habitat such as coral reefs and alpine meadows will be disheveled. Heat waves, due to global warming, have already caused a loss of 30,000 lives in Europe and 1500 deaths in India, in the year 2003. Therefore we come to a conclusion that change in temperature will have an unbearable impact not only on the human civilization but also on the entire race of different species existent across the globe. These days, most of the industries, including the IT industry is under the scanner of government in order to curb the emission of green house gases. You may be astonished as to how can an IT industry be a contributor in emission of greenhouse gases. The blame goes to the huge data centers and gigantic servers which are used to store the information in such industries. The