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.

Touchpoints & brands universe

"Branding gurus today urge companies to forge all-encompassing brand identities so that consumers experience the magic of the brand at every corporate touchpoint" 

Why Do Brand Cause Trouble? A Dialectical Theory of Consumer Culture Branding, Douglas B. Holt 

Thus, building the consumer experience around brand touchpoints creates a brand-focused customer relationship. Actually every touchpoint is important, as it is associated in consumers’ mind with the brand identity, which contributes to the consumers’ experience of a brand.

Heineken and 1664 try to build a strong distinctive universe for their brand trough different touch points like packaging, channel, service, advertising, website…

Both of them want to be perceived as a premium beer in the French market but they have designed their own universe by creating their branding strategies on their own values. They offer different beer experience to the consumers.

Innovation and design, freshness, modernity and universality characterize Heineken, which highlights its brand strategy more on the design of the product than the taste. Actually, the shape of the Heineken green bottle with its red star is easily recognizable by everyone.

1664 wants to be perceived as more elegant, authentic and traditional, to be a beer more reserved to connoisseurs. The brand has based its image on tradition and the authenticity of the product labelling it as “made in France”, and highlights its strategy more on the taste of the product.

Today, Heineken is perceived as trendy and very dynamic, whereas 1664 is considered as elegant and traditional. And to match their promises to their consumers, both of them have adapted their strategy to their different touchpoints.

First, the packaging can be considered as the first touchpoint with their consumer. The two brands have designed their packaging, which are adapted to their values.

The brand 1664 has made a partnership with the famous fashion designer Christian Lacroix, who has imagined six unpublished visuals for the 1664 cans and the bottles’ packaging. Those visuals illustrate how the aperitif “à la française” is elegant and sophisticated.

Heineken has a partnership with the designer Ora-ito since 2002, who has created a new bottle design especially for nightclubs. In 2002 he won the “Oscar for the best packaging” for his aluminium Heineken bottle. He has imagined a premium and minimalist design for new aluminium packaging collections in limited editions: “Pacco”,   ‘I-pure”, “Ikonik”, “Night Instant” (a packaging which in dark night), “Green Line” and “Pure Edition”. This partnership has benn a turning point for Heineken who asserts its interest in design.

Since September 2012, the music band Metronomy has teamed up with Heineken on a special version of the brand’s aluminium beer bottle. Again, the brand promotes its festive and trendy image.

The Metronomy collection is exclusively released at the concept store Colette in Paris, where you can buy the bottle alone or you can purchase a special collector’s box. Thus, Heineken adapts its branding strategy to its distribution strategy. Being exclusively available in a concept store show how much Heineken wants to consolidate its brand image to be perceived as trendy and even a bit selective. During four years, Heineken had its own beer concept store “Culture bière” in the Champs Elysées, which was a real showcase for the brand. Even if Heineken is obviously available in all   supermarkets and hypermarkets, when new collections in limited edition are launched, they are only available in city markets like Monoprix, Monop’ or Daily Monop, which are only in big cities and mainly in Paris. Those choices  (including the limited editions for nightclubs) allow the brand to reach better their urban and trendy target.

1664 has also adapted its distribution strategy for the coherence of the brand image. For example, the Christian Lacroix collection is available in supermarkets and hypermarkets but the special collector’s box is exclusively distributed in city markets like Monoprix to reach active and urban consumers. Obviously the brand does not aim to be perceived as trendy as Heineken is.

The print advertisements of the two brands also convey their values, especially 1664 which current campaign is a declination of landscapes from typical French regions. This campaign fits very well with their motto “Le goût à la française”. The last Heineken campaign still keeps its traditional green tone to keep its strong visual identity, and also its humour. The motto “Open your world” is consistent with its global strategy: being the universal reference beer brand.

The brands offer the same consumer experience whatever the touchpoint is. For instance, their Facebook pages provide consistent contents. Heineken posts a lot of information about its partnership with Metronomy and cocktail recipes to convey with its trendy and festive brand image.1664 promotes a region every week and recipes (using beer as an ingredient) from the Chef Thomas Clouet to strengthen the authenticity and the elegance of the brand image.

Both of the brands have built a very recognizable image and universe, but Heineken has definitely a stronger identity since the brand is working on the same perceived values for a long time. Over the years its brand image has evolved but it is still the same.

Marketing Strategies

Product:

On the one hand, the taste of Heineken never changes ; it has a mildly bitter taste, fresh fruity aroma, a bight color and clarity that are obtained using only the purest water, hops and barley malt.

On the other hand, 1664 has golden hues and delicate bitterness that come from selecting the best hops (the Strisselspalt). Strisselspalt is also named the "caviar of hops" for its low bitterness and aromatic qualities. Its specific soil and culture technique requirements make it rare and quite unique to the Alsace Region.

The two brands in France are available in three different containers:

- Cans

- Bottle

DraughtKeg: an interesting fact about it: it is a 5lt keg that has the entire tapping system built into it. The keg is portable disposable, 100% recyclable and manufactured in lightweight steel. Heineken first introduced it in France in 2005.

Source: Carrefour Ooshop

Styling and Packaging:

Styling and packaging are critical and very important for Heineken. They also emphasize this by telling the following in their annual report of 2007:

“Packaging is an element in Heineken’s marketing and innovation strategy. New pack types create new consumption moments, build excitement arounf our brands, improve margins and volumes.” (Heineken, 2008).

In this way, Heineken moves beyond from selling just beer to selling experiences by augmenting its product.

The design of its bottle is really significant for Heineken. The latter first started in 2004 when it introduced the Paco bottle that was made by striking green aluminum to reinforce the brand’s premium positioning. With the Paco bottle, Heineken was the first beer brand to win Frontier’s Star Product of the year award in 2005.

“Heineken has succeeded in creating a new high value brand without cannibalizing from existing sales. The product placement and prices are well adjusted to the travel retail environment. Paco created a premium in a category that has never been perceived as premium” (Pittilla, 2005). Since then, they understood the benefits of offering a nice design to their consumers with high-end material beer packaging. Each year they organize a crowd sourced contest to design their new bottle that release before summer. Everyone can participate and create the packaging he wants.

Creativity is part of 1664’s DNA: It is expressed in its communication and also in its design through partnerships to reinvent brand elements (bottles, glasses etc.).

Since 2003, Kronenbourg 1664 has shown an interest in design by creating a draught fount that won the Janus prize awarded by the French Institute of Design, for its modernity and aestheticism.

From 2004 to 2006 the brand partnered with the designer Philippe Starck, who reinvented 1664’s accessories in his own way.

 In 2011, Mr. Christian Lacroix joined Kronenbourg 1664, creating a collection of visuals inspired by the roots and the values of the brand.

In 2012, for the 2nd year running, Mr. Christian Lacroix joined the Kronenbourg 1664 brand and invited the customers to share a moment of “French Art of Pleasure”.

Creativity, passion for work, authenticity and modernity are values shared by both Mr. Christian Lacroix and the 1664 brand, which stimulated and keep stimulating this creative association.

Price:

Please, note that the prices below represent those found in Carrefour.

Source: Carrefour Ooshop

1664 has prices that appear to be higher than Heineken, which is in relation with its brand-image, as the company wants to be seen as a Premium Beer with high quality products.

Distribution:

As we said previously in our part about the beer market in France, the main current fact is that French consumers drink less and less beer, but they drink better. Indeed they leave beers of thirst for premium beers. 

That is why Heineken and 1664 were supposed to adapt their distribution strategies to consumers behaviours to create more value towards their brands, and both of them did. But not as the same level.

Because Heineken is targeting high-end consumers, it has worked hard to share its brand values and has played out well in the retail environment. Obviously Heineken and 1664's products are available in larger retailers and also in city markets since Heineken targets trendy consumers and 1664 urban ones. 

Heineken tries to launch its new and special products in selective and adapted distribution channels. For instance, in September 2012, we discovered the Heineken by Metronomy Limited Edition bottle, a new collaboration that included design and music. These bottles are available exclusively in city markets, but Heineken has also launched a special box that was exclusively released at the concept store Colette in Paris. 

Another good example is the new Heineken "STR" bottle (to prononce "star"), which was launched in October 2012, exclusively available in selective night clubs.

Heineken has adapted its distribution strategy to its brand identity and brand image: being a premium beer, which is innovative and trendy.

1664 has also worked to highlight its products that are also premium beers. To bring back to the beer its former glory, 1664 launched the collection "1664 by Starck" in collaboration with the famous designer Philippe Starck in 2004. Only a few products were exclusively in  high end establishments but most of them were available in larger retailers.

For the fisrt time, 1664 has collaborated with the famous French fashion designer Christian Lacroix since 2011. Since then, he designed a range of "stunning and eye-catching graphics" using the numbers "1-6-6-4‟ and the Parisian setting, for a limited edition series of beer can (500ml) and the pint bottle (330ml).

But 1664 has not really adapted its distribution strategy for its Christian Lacroix limited edition since customers could buy it in larger retailers and city markets. 


Promotion:

One of the most important components for beer promotion used to be the advertisement and the sponsorship. On this post we will only focus on the sponsorship strategy of Heineken and 1664 and we will come back later on the advertisement.

So far, Heineken and 1664 have focused on funding for sports, music and fashion – area to serve the need of entertainment and relaxation for everyone.

In the one hand Heineken has many sponsorship programs in France, and of course in the world. The main one and the most famous is "The Heineken Cup" (known as the H Cup in France due to restrictions on alcohol sponsorship). It is one of the two annual rugby union competitions organized by European Rugby Cup involving leading club, regional and provincial teams from the six countries in Europe whose national teams compete in the Six Nations Championship: England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. It became, year after year, one of the biggest competitions of rugby in Europe, thanks to Heineken! It really follows its brand-image associated with sports, events and a little bit manly.

Source: Heineken.fr

Its last event of sponsorship in music was in partnership with the well-know band: "Metronomy". Heineken asked them to create a new and visual design for their bottle and cans. This was a main event in France, the brand communicated a lot on it, mainly through social media, and ended by exposing it in the shop "Chez Colette", in Paris. Then, it was sold in every supermarket. Thanks to its engagement in music, Heineken is really often participating to major Festivals in France (Solidays etc.)

Like Heineken, 1664 was following its brand-image through sponsorship, as it communicated with the idea of “French Way Of Life”, “French Taste”. It kept that idea and created events in partnership with fashion creators. It chose to work with Mr Christian Lacroix who designed new bottles and other products and who transmitted the idea of a French, premium and fashion beer.

Source: brasseries-kronenbourg.com

Also, because "France" is often related to "food", it asked to the Chef Thomas Clouet to invent 18 recipes. The latter totally reinvented the “apero” by creating special appetizer that everyone could cook by drinking a 1664. He explained the ingredients to use and how to cook them. But what it was the most striking was, that each recipe could be done by many people to keep the idea of "sharing a moment with friends". In that case, the main idea shared by the customers was: sharing a moment with friends, eating French appetizers taught by a French Chef, by drinking, of course, a 1664.

Source: sunrize.com