You are viewing Aaker on Brands blog posts tagged as “business” (4 total). You can also view all blog posts.

What is a Business Strategy?

A key ingredient to success is to have a clear, realizable, impactful business strategy. But what is a business strategy? I developed my view for part of my book, Strategic Market Management (updated edition coming soon), and I deduced that four dimensions define it. The first concerns where you should compete, and the remaining three concern how you should compete.

The first dimension concerns the product-market investment strategy, the scope of the business and the dynamics and resource priorities within that scope. Which products should be offered, and which segments should be targeted? Which should get aggressive investment to enter or grow, which should get minimal investment, and which should be milked, exited or avoided? Where should growth come from? Options include bringing existing products to new markets (market expansion), bringing new products…

September 5, 2012 • Permalink

The Power of the Shadow Endorser

There is often a business case to stretch a brand into an area that it just does not fit, even when shielded by a subbrand or as an endorser. The answer can be a shadow endorser.

BMW is a shadow endorser of the MINI Cooper. A shadow endorser brand is not connected visibly to the endorsed brand, but most consumers or potential customers know about the link or can be informed about it prior to purchase. It's in the shadows. The fact that the brands are not visibly linked makes a statement about each brand. It communicates that the organization realizes that the shadow-endorsed brand represents a totally different product and market segment than other offerings connected to the endorser.

A shadow endorser can protect the endorser brand while still providing the reassurance that an endorsement provides. Every buyer of a MINI Cooper knows that it is made by BMW and will have the same quality and innovation

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June 6, 2012 • Permalink

Building Brands — Six Principles Behind the BI Model

The brand identity (BI) model, sometimes called the Aaker model, was introduced in my book Building Strong Brands back in 1996 and was refined and elaborated four years later in my book Brand Leadership. Although there are many dozen competitive models, the BI model has a worthwhile market share - as reflected by the fact that some 170,000 copies of the two books have been sold.

But why? What are the differentiating beliefs or principles that the model is based on? Let me identify six.

1. A brand is more than a three word phrase.

In fact, a motivation for developing the BI model was the prevalence of advertising agency brand models that needed a single thought to guide an advertising campaign.

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February 29, 2012 • Permalink

Secrets of Social Media Revealed 50 years ago

Almost 50 years ago Ernest Dichter, the father of motivation research, did a large study of word of mouth persuasion that revealed secrets about how to use social media to build brands and businesses. The study was reported in a 1966 article in HBR.

A major Dichter finding that is still very relevant today was the identification of four motivations for a person to communicate about brands. The first (about 33% of the cases) motivation is product-involvement. The experience is so novel and pleasurable that it must be shared. The second (about 24%) is self-involvement. Sharing knowledge or opinions is a way to gain attention, show connoisseurship, feel like a pioneer, have inside information, seek confirmation of a person’s own judgment or assert superiority. The third (around 20%) is other-involvement.…

September 29, 2011 • Permalink