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Understanding Brand Types
by David Hanson, Pres. H2M
Most people couldn't tell you succinctly what a brand is for a good
reason. A brand lives within a persons head on levels which transcend
the cognitive level of our thought processes. It is possible, however,
to categorize brands by their subjective appeal. To know what kind of
brand your company has, look at your customers. Look at their lifestyles,
likes, dislikes, the cars they drive, the houses they live in and the
hobbies they have. Then try to match them up with these basic categories
of criteria. Let's take a tour through the world of automobiles, as
these are the most easily observable brand types to pick out.
 Conformist
Brands
This is the brand for conservative lifestyles.
These brands attract people that either don’t want to stand out
in a crowd with loud colored clothing and yellow flashy cars or attach
no emotional or aspirational benefits to the products they use. Enter
the Chevy Lumina, the all-time conformist automobile
brand in the world. Conformist brands are ubiquitous and offer good
value and performance for their price/value. Most of us attach emotional
benefits to only certain areas of our consumption. For some it may be
a backyard swimming pool, but they'll drive an early model Ford sedan.
Others will value a luxury automobile and yet wear a $35 Timex watch.
 Non-Conformist
Brands
These are the brand for iconoclasts. They
represent a desire to stand out, but not necissarily on the platforms
of status and affluence. They represent an inner urge to
"be themselves" no matter what anyone else thinks. The Mini
Cooper is such a brand. These brands can be priced quite widely,
but generally hover below premium brands yet above or slightly above
conformist brands. People will pay more for a non-conformist brand if
the drive for personal differentiation is strong enough. The emotional
benefit delivered by the product satisfies the desire.
 Status/Aspirational
Brands
We’re all familiar with this type of brand. Jaguar. Lexus. Rolex.
These are the types of brands to which people attach self-esteem, self-worth
and personal identity. These brands are the premium brands and usually
command higher pricing far in excess of their actual utilitarian value.
These brands must also PERFORM as premium brands. Aspirational Brands
need emotional and cultural connections to retain their premium status.
If the culture’s dominating spirit changes, often these Aspirational
brands will suffer as well. Cadillac is a good example.
Once the premium Aspirational brand of the 1950’s. along came
the economic recessions of the late 60s and 70’s which almost
killed the oversized, stodgy and “establishment” brand.
It wasn’t until the mid 90’s that Cadillac redefined itself
with the baby boomers who had the money to spend to allow the brand
to become Aspirational again.  Today
the Escalade is one of the most obvious status symbols
of conspicuous consumption based on the attributes of an aspirational
positioning. Remember, however, the only reason gold is valuable is
because it is scarce. If everyone could find gold in their backyards,
it would have little value. Value is a relationship, not an absolute.
We recently read that GMC is coming out with a new 'affordable' Hummer.
An affordable Hummer is a brand contradiction. As soon as the Hummer
becomes more ubiquitous on our streets, the high-end Hummer purchaser
will flee the brand as they will gain no more emotional/aspirational
benefit from it.
 'Me
Too' Brands
These are the brands that are essentially
copycat brands of Status/Aspirational brands but come in with lower
prices and basically just don’t pull it quite off, but still manage
to give a goodly amount of status-seekers the ego identification they
seek, but with a lower price point. The Kia Sonata is
a good example. The Sonata features styling that is very forward-looking
and that mimics aspirational brand features such as the grill on a Chrysler
300 or Jaguar S-Type. These brands, however are lower priced and therefore
are available to a much larger market than the aspirational brands.
What happens eventually is that the emotional aspirational benefits
the cars convey to their owners erodes after the market becomes more
saturated with these vehicles. Price then becomes more of the dominant
purchasing decision.
 Badge
Brands
Some brands promise emotional benefits that revolve around self-presentation
and a person's relationship with others. Harley-Davidson is such a brand. Just
note the thousand of like-minded others who desire to be seen as strong, rebellious
and independent. They enjoy membership in the "club" of Harley owners..whether
it's an actual club like the HOG (Harley Owners Group) or simply a group of like-minded
friends. These Badge brands promote emotional benefits that reflect their role
in communicating with others.
Next time you go looking for products, whether
it's a car or a bottle of perfume, try to pick up which brand type you're
attracted to and what inner need it would fulfill.
Care to learn more about H2M's powerful system for
Brand Value creation? Click
here.
dave@h2m.biz
© 2003-2006 H2M Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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© 2003-2006 H2M Inc. All Rights Reserved
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