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THE PROCESS OF BRAND MANAGEMENT

Now that the essential characteristics of branding and the value a firm may garner from branding have been laid out, how does a media firm actually put these abstract concepts in action? How can we study the process and outcome of such practices to understand the dynamics of these concepts? This section discusses the various approaches of devel- oping and monitoring brands in a market context, including how a firm may attach meanings to brands, nurture the brands’ images, formulate a program to manage brands, and adapt its brand strategies to respond to changes.

Branding Through Associations

A firm can develop a brand’s identity through three basic procedures:
(a) the selection of a brand’s tangible elements such as its brand name, logo, packaging, and slogan; (b) the association of certain intangible, desirable qualities to the brand; and (c) the execution of a marketing program that presents to target consumers the brand elements and in- tended associations. Although the selected brand elements may di- rectly produce certain primary associations to the product (e.g., the explicit brand name Animal Planet quickly associates itself with the identity of the animal-related programming cable channel), a firm may also utilize the so-called secondary associations to transfer and thus leverage certain benefits from other entities of the brand, given an effective marketing communication program to deliver the association messages. In other words, the process of brand associations is funda- mental to a firm’s efforts to establish brand identities.
Direct, primary associations typically link a brand to product, pricing, distribution, or other marketing communications–related elements. In the context of media products, primary associations may take the forms of content approach (e.g., The Weather Channel), brand name (e.g., Netzero.com), logo (e.g., Disney), delivery system (e.g., DISH Network), and marketing communication campaigns (e.g., AOL—You’ve Got Mail). In addition to or in place of such direct associations based on “own” prod- uct-related elements, a firm may attempt to indirectly link its brand to certain entities with established equities. Keller (1998) suggested eight different means of secondary brand associations: companies (e.g., via
 
branding strategies), countries or other geographical areas (e.g., via iden- tification of product origin), channels of distribution (e.g., via channels strategy), other brands (e.g., via cobranding or ingredient branding), characters (e.g., via licensing), spokesperson (e.g., via endorsements), events (e.g., via sponsorship), and other third-party sources (e.g., via awards or reviews). For instance, all Pixar’s theatrical products are stra- tegically associated with the Pixar corporate name, the cable channel BBC America is linked to its product origin, celebrity casts or contributors (i.e., an ingredient in a content product) are often used to give a content prod- uct an identity (e.g., Bill O’Reilly of the Fox News Channel), and awards such as the Emmy’s are now being associated with HBO’s image of qual- ity original programming. Note that there are certain premises for the ef- fective transfer of equity through association with entities other than the product itself. First, the target consumers must have a certain degree of familiarity with or knowledge of the entity. It would be fruitless to asso- ciate a new children’s magazine with an educator that the target segment (children) has never heard of. Second, there must be some meaningful connection between the brand and the associated entity. The secondary association of a basketball player with a sports cable channel would make much more sense than with a business news channel. Finally, the associa- tions must be transferable in the context of the associated brand because certain meanings may not remain strong, favorable, and unique when supplanted from one entity to another. The corporate image of Disney may not be as effective when associated with broadband access services as with a children’s cable network.

Brand Management Programs
	
The formulation and implementation of brand elements, associations, and marketing communications strategies are an ongoing process that needs the commitment of institutional resources. Brand management also involves various marketing activities in a larger context. In fact, the traditional marketing mix of product, price, distribution, and promo- tion shapes the equity potential of a brand. Thus, marketing programs can be designed to build the desirable brand image. For example, product strategies directly impact brand identity development and the con- sumption experience, which also shape a brand’s image. Pricing and channel strategies again influence consumers’ perception of a brand’s quality and the associated status. Finally, marketing communications programs that utilize advertising, public relations, sales promotion, personal selling, and/or event sponsorship to communicate with target consumers provide the key to leverage both primary and secondary as- sociations for a brand.
In essence, brand management programs involve organizing, plan- ning, monitoring, and evaluating the tangible and intangible aspects of a brand. Specifically, brand managers create and communicate to the
 
target consumers about a brand, direct and structure the brand, man- age the brand organization, audit the strength of the brand, develop re- lationships with customers, configure brand portfolios and hierarchy, assess the financial value of the brand, and leverage the equity of estab- lished brands through brand extensions.
Unfortunately, in many media industries, brand management often materializes as tactical sales promotional programs. Chan-Olmsted and
Y. Kim (2002) found that most broadcast television managers consid- ered branding a promotional, tactical function (promoting a station and/or its news), rather than a strategic managerial process or asset management. The reason that media brand management is simplified as a tangible identity-building tactic may be attributed to the fact that the concept of media as brands was first introduced only in 1993 (Bender, 1993). In addition, there are some significant differences between branding conventional consumer goods and media products (McDowell, 2006). The first dissimilarity is related to the marketing ele- ment of pricing. Most media brands are not price sensitive because many of them are distributed via an advertising-based business model, wherein the only real “cost” is consumers’ time and attention. The pric- ing issue also means that the consumption process lacks risk. In other words, consumers are less likely to depend on familiar brands to reduce the risk of bad purchases, thus reducing the utility of media brands. An- other distinction is the accessibility of competing brands. For most con- sumer goods, brand trials require time and effort. On the contrary, consumers can sample competitive media brands easily, with a remote control in some cases. McDowell again suggested that the most signifi- cant disparities between consumer goods and media product branding perhaps lies in two characteristics of media brands: (a) essentially all benefits from media brands are intangible associations ranging from at- tributes to attitudinal evaluations and (b) media products are them- selves communication tools capable of self-branding.
The distinctions made thus far point to a few considerations when de- signing a brand management program for media products. First, pric- ing is not an important association entity for most media products. Second, the relevancy of channel strategies varies because of the diver- sity of media products. For most print media, distribution and access methods do not add value to a brand. For electronic media, packager (e.g., CBS or Lifetime) and retailer-exhibitor (e.g., Cox Cable or a local television station) brands might sometimes contribute to or inhibit the building of brand identities or even limit the access to certain brands. Note that the development of digital media distribution systems also in- creasingly enables a direct channel of content distribution to consum- ers, which may require adjustments in some existing branding strategies. Third, product strategies are the core of building media brands. Special attention should be directed to creating intangible pri- mary and secondary associations as well as designing coherent brand hierarchy and corporate portfolios that leverage the equity of successful
 
content brands (e.g., Time magazine brand). Finally, media firms should utilize their own marketing communications channels to efficiently carry out self-branding activities.

MEDIA BRAND RESEARCH

Although brand management has been a staple marketing concept in the consumer goods industries for a long time, it has become a term that media firms refer to only in recent years. It was argued that, as a newly introduced business concept (or a newly revised concept that ap- proaches existing marketing practices differently), the branding em- phasis in media industries is expected to be at the level of tactical application in its early stage (Gordon, 1991). That is, media firms would tend to invest their marketing energy and financial resources in more visible, tangible differentiation efforts such as logo designs and brand slogans, which are more comparable with their historical promotional practices but represent a more short-term design and control function than long-term strategic managerial commitment.
Although media firms have initially regarded branding activities as more tangible promotional tactics, they have in fact long practiced a con- cept relevant to branding—positioning. As Ries and Trout (1993, 1997) proposed in their popular positioning series, the objective of positioning was to place products, companies, services, or institutions in the minds of potential customers in a way that differentiated them from the clutter and confusion of the marketplace. Moving from advertising superlatives to marketing comparatives, positioning actually accented ideas that al- ready existed in the prospect’s mind because it is easier and more cost-ef- fective to promote product benefits consumers already believe and accept in a noisy, overcommunicating marketplace. In comparison, brand- ing—which involves multiple components such as brand awareness, brand association, brand position, brand assets, perceived quality, and the name, symbol, and slogan in which the brand is marketed—is closely related to but broader and more strategic in nature than positioning as it is historically defined. Specifically, positioning resembles two areas of branding discussed in brand-marketing literature, brand position and brand association, which refer to anything mentally linked to the brand that affects recall, establishes a point of differentiation, creates positive attitudes and feelings, and provides a reason to buy (Nykiel, 1997). As for differences, whereas the goal of branding is to eventually build brand eq- uity, positioning is relatively a more short-term strategic means to build differential competitive advantages. In addition, positioning focuses on what a marketer does to the “mind” of the prospect rather than to the product itself, which comes under the territory of branding. In reality, a packaged goods brand manager may restage a faltering brand by adding an ingredient or changing the package, while maintaining or refining the product’s position.
 
The early studies of media brands did not really investigate the char- acteristics of media brands but simply identified media as “brands” among other products. Owen (1993) noted that NBC was one of the top brands among adults. Based on Young & Rubicon’s brand equity study, Aaker (1996) showed that CNN ranked second and PBS ranked eighth in brand strength compared to all measured brands. Later on, media schol- ars began to contemplate the effects of strong brands on programming practices in electronic media industries. McDowell and Sutherland (2000) found that television program brand equity is revealed in the dif- ferential rating response of a program to its direct competitors and to its lead-in programming. Adopting a more macro approach, the next phase of media brand research turns to the strategic value of branding. Chan-Olmsted and Jung (2001) discussed how television networks use the Internet in order to strengthen their brand images. McGovern (2001) stressed the uniqueness of online branding with an information and logic emphasis. Chan-Olmsted and Y. Kim (2001, 2002) investi- gated the perceptions of branding among television station managers and later compared the PBS brand with cable brands. J. Kim, Sharma, and Setzekorn (2002) provided a conceptual framework for building brand equity on the Internet using a consumer-based model. There are also a growing number of studies exploring the applicability of brand extensions in programming and in the cable network market (Chang, 2005; Ha & Chan-Olmsted, 2001; Landers, 2004).

FINAL THOUGHTS

Brand management concepts provide a fertile ground for theory develop- ment in and analyses of media firms’ market practices. As competition heats up among media firms in an increasingly fragmented and converg- ing marketplace, the nourishing of brand equity, sensible extension of successful brands, and thoughtful management of brand portfolio pres- ent excellent strategic avenues for media firms to create competitive ad- vantages and eventually superior financial returns. Also considering the gradual changes in audience behaviors (e.g., time shifting, active, asynchronized, and multitasking media consumption) and access tech- nologies (e.g., wireless and digital access), media firms need a marketing system that enables them to connect with target consumers so to antici- pate perceptual and behavior changes continuously. However, the brand- ing of media products are challenging because of their diversity, intangibility, and sometimes individuality (e.g., individual programming products). Consequently, many brand constructs may need to be modi- fied conceptually for applications in media industries or measured cre- atively in empirical studies of media products. The development of a media product taxonomy in a brand context may be the first step of tack- ling these challenges. For instance, using a firm-based approach, an anal- ysis of typical marketing programs by types of media products would shed light in branding applicability by media characteristics. From the perspective of consumers, investigations of the brand knowledge struc- tures of different media products may provide more realistic parameters for selecting media brand elements and associations. In summary, while there is an urgency to practice branding in today’s media marketplace, there are also ample research opportunities to study the branding of me- dia products as a subfield of media management and economics.