Brand resonance: Keller's model

What is brand resonance?

Resonance refers to the relationship that a brand builds with its customers, and how the customers identify it. 

In Strategic Brand Management: Building, measuring, and managing brand equity Keller outlines the four main steps to build a brand as strong as possible: 
1) Establishing the brand identity to create brand awareness
2) Creating the right brand meaning through brand associations
3) Extracting positive and accessible brand responses
4) Building a strong loyal relationship with customers

Keller involves six brand-building blocks to achieve these four steps into the CBBE (Customer Based Brand Equity) pyramid model: brand salience, brand performance, brand imagery, brand judgements,  brand feelings and brand resonance, which is the most valuable brand-building block. Actually brand resonance occurs when all the other brand-building blocks are established.

 
The two brands want to position their product as premium larger beers, Heineken as the universal premium beer and 1664 as the traditional French beer. Both of them have built a consistent brand identity, but Heineken's identity is definitely stronger than 1664's. Indeed, Heineken's target can clearly understand the values it wants to convey, that the image of the brand perceived by the customers is consistent with the way Heineken wants to be perceived. 1664 has also premium value but it doesn't play well enough with its strategies, especially with its retail strategy. 1664 should have more agressive marketing and communication strategy to increase consumers' brand awareness. Being more consistent would make its values easier to understand. 

1664 & Heineken SWOT

Advertising strategies

Heineken: "The Switch"

 

 Source: Youtube

Source: Heineken.fr

1664: "In love with French art" 

Source: Youtube

Source: brasseries-kronembourg.fr

Both brands have different advertising strategies, they have their own story to tell,  which gives them a strong brand image and allows consumers to distinguish them well from one another.

In our opinion, their advertising strategies are well done because they have coherent color and symbolic choices according to their positioning and target, they are easy to read and understand for customers and are attractive as well as easy to remember.

Value drivers

Value drivers of the beer market:

• The taste: sweetness or bitterness
• The color
• The amount of foam
• The universe around the beer: answer to a belonging need

As we can see both brands offer two different experiences and brand associations that can work as stimulies such as the colors chosen for the brand identity, for instance, which allows consumers to choose wittingly and in order to belong to a group. It plays on emotions with sensory and affective experiences and leads to particularly strong brands.

Media strategy: Youtube

No Youtube channel, no ads on it... Strictly nothing...












Subscribers: +12 000

Views: +41 000 000

Purpose: Heineken uses its channel as many other brands to communicate through it, posting its last ads or its last events videos. It is a good way of creating, here again, a community (12 000 subscribers) but also to increase the odds to get viral.
They divided their channel by the activities they were involved in:
-James Bond: last ad made after the release of Skyfall.

+11 000 000 views.

- Serenade: They created an application/game on facebook where you can send a special video to your (future) date:

+19 000 views.

-Legends: they hide different cameras in hotel rooms where people were supposed to sleep before going to the stadium for the UEFA, and, when they get in their room, they discover a nice surprise...

+600 000 views.

N.B.: No information about the marketing budget of 1664 or Heineken...

Here again we can see that Heineken understood the role of social media in order to increase its brand-image but also its brand-awareness. It succeeded in reaching more than 12 000 subscribers on its channel, and more than 41 000 000 views on its different videos! Nowadays it becomes more and more important for brands to have a real social media strategy. Indeed they have to integrate it to their communication plan. 
Heineken got the point for a long time, but it seems that 1664 is far behind... That is too bad for 1664 as they could do some nice viral videos, or simply ads through Youtube and playing on their French way of life. But either they don't want to, or they don't find it necessary. But the point is: Y generation will comment, share, like videos made by companies as Heineken, because they are fun, young and they represent what customers want to see. And they are right, they increased their targeted audience through social media and rebuilt the way of communicating! We still have to mention that Heineken and 1664 don't have the budget, as Heineken is a worldwide brand and 1664 is more a national one... It must be granted they don't have the same budget and, 1664 can't afford, as Heineken did an apparition on the last James Bond that costed 45 millions (source: http://brandsandfilms.com/2012/11/product-placement-in-pictures-skyfall/ ) ; but 1664 still can create a Youtube channel, post its ads on it and then why not creates ads dedicated to it? It could go viral, get a better brand-image and increase its sales...

Social Media Comparison

Kapferer's brand identity prism

What is brand identity?

In Brand Asset Management, Scott Davis explains that "brand identity helps to define how the company plans to leverage its brand in order to reach its corporate vision, uphold its corporate values and achieve its corporate mission". Thus, brand identity is how the company wants its brand to be perceived.

The conception of "brand identity" was mentioned for the first time in Europe by J. Kapferer in 1986. According to him, brand identity allows the brand to express its particular vision and aim, why it is different and recognizable from others, its values, its legitimacy. Through brand identity, the brand can, more than everything, convey to possible and current customers what need it fullfils. J. Kapferer has based his brand identity on six dimensions, which are organized into a prism: physique, relationship, reflection, personality, culture and self-image.

Heineken identity prism

1664 identity prism

Both of them want to be perceived as a premium larger beer on the market and play out well on quality. But Heineken has a stronger brand identity, which leads customers to recognize easily the brand among others. Thus the consistence of the brand allows itself to express its values: customers clearly understand the message Heineken conveys, which is: sharing a Heineken beer with your friends is cool and trendy. 1664 wants to be perceived as the sophisticated and traditional French beer, but the brand steps aside Heineken since it didn't have as strong brand identity as Heineken had. 1664's values are not always understood by customers, who can feel a bit confused.