Brand Management: Basic Concepts, Issues, and Strategies - Assessment Overview

Question 1: Branding, Brand Design, and Product Strategy Development in New Zealand Organizations

Demonstrate a critical understanding and application of the basic concepts of brand management 

The purpose of this assessment is to demonstrate understanding of the basic concepts and knowledge of brand management. It also incorporates how to identify and analyse brand issues in terms of brand design and product strategy development. 

This assessment relates to the following learning outcomes: 

LO1: Identify and analyse branding issues in terms of brand design and product strategy development  
 
LO2: Understand the concepts of brand equity and creating processes to avoid brand equity depreciation. 
 
LO3:Understand how a branding campaign interacts with other business functions to promote organisational effectiveness and economic resilience for design businesses. 

The following questions are based on scenarios from literature. Support your responses with examples and evidence from familiar New Zealand organizations. 

Consumers prefer brands that are familiar to them because they lack the motivation, capacity or opportunity to process product information. However, in the era of Facebook and YouTube, brand building had become a challenge due to information overload (Holt, 2016) 

a) Discuss the concept of branding, brand design and product strategy development with  reference to a New Zealand organisation.    

                                                              
b) Using examples from a New Zealand based organisation, discuss the major stages in product  strategy development.   

                                                                                   
c) Identify and critically analyse any two (2) branding issues in terms of brand design  and product strategy development       

Brand equity is often associated with brand loyalty, brand awareness, brand image and brand knowledge (McDonald, 2006). 

a) Discuss the concept of brand equity from the perspectives of brand loyalty, brand awareness, brand image and brand knowledge. Support your opinion with evidence and example from two well-known New Zealand based organisations.    

                                                     
b) Critically analyse at least five ways you could use to measure brand equity.   Support your opinion with evidence from reliable academic sources    

Question 2: Brand Equity Concepts, Measurement, and Depreciation Management in New Zealand Organizations

c) How would you manage brand depreciation? Discuss the strategies you would adopt to avoid brand equity depreciation, with examples and evidence from two well-known New  Zealand organisations.

Carefully read the case below on 100 % Pure New Zealand Branding Campaign. Drawing on your learning and relevant research through academic sources, answer the questions below. 

 
100 % Pure New Zealand Branding Campaign 

No one can remember exactly who coined the 100% Pure New Zealand tagline. It’s down to three advertising executives from M&C Saatchi, beavering away on the campaign pitch during a flight back from Australia. Sometimes it takes being 10,000 metres above the ground to discover gold. M&C Saatchi art director Alan Morden recalls the moment: “I think I wrote it on a piece of paper — I just got that feeling, this is the line.” Initially his line was “Pure New Zealand”, but Morden wasn’t entirely satisfied. “What gave it the magic was the addition of ‘100%’, even though ‘100% pure’ was almost a contradiction. ‘100%’ just reinforces it, really brings it to life.” 

Research showed that overseas travellers were looking first for landscape, and then for adventure, people and culture. Pastoral scenes — sheep grazing green hills — bored them; but when they visited New Zealand, they found the place exhilarating. From the research, an identikit image was built up of the ideal visitor who would gain most from what New Zealand had to offer. That person was type who liked to interact with people and their environment. They were knowledgeable, financially well-off and curious, and prepared to go off the beaten track. 

The research was handed to M&C Saatchi and to other agencies, along with a clear brief and a fiveweek deadline. M&C Saatchi pulled out all the stops and brainstormed ideas in a room where the walls were pasted with the publicity slogans of dozens of countries. Once the 100% Pure New Zealand tagline had been dreamed up, the final touch was to use New Zealand’s distinctive shape in place of the percentage sign. The beauty of it was that it didn’t need translation, Morden said. “We checked it out in Japan, America — they speak a different English there — but they all understood the meaning of 100% Pure New Zealand.” 

The same words could be printed in a German newspaper and the message was obvious, he said. 

“It’s a line that could be understood around the world and it reflected what New Zealand is about.” It was also a line that offered enormous and lasting creative opportunity. “The thing that actually makes this campaign such a powerful one is that it has a longevity about it,” said Tourism New Zealand (TN Z) chief executive George Hickton. “It provides leadership and direction for New Zealand tourism as a brand in the world.” 

a) Discuss the role and contribution of Tourism New Zealand in the overall economy of New  Zealand.  Support your discussion with evidence and examples from reliable sources   (20 marks) 

b)In your opinion how does the branding campaign of 100 % Pure New Zealand support Tourism New Zealand in promoting its efficiency and effectiveness?  Support your opinion with evidence from the given case and research from reliable academic sources  
(20marks)