Brand Management for Premium Brands

...

[pic 4]

The main attributes of the framework that lead to premium brand are as follows:

- Pride of Ownership

- Willingness to Pay

- Social Prominence

- Brand Equity

- Brand Jealousy

- Brand Love

- Social Anxiety

- Self-expression

- Network Embeddedness

4.1 Brand Pride/ Pride of Ownership

Brand pride can be defined as feelings of satisfaction and joy that is felt on one’s achievements or by possessing something that is valued for its uniqueness.[5] Going further, Alain Decrop, Christian Debraix (2010)[6] classify brand pride into four dimensions – (Introspective, Vicarious, Contagious, and Conspicuous) and develop antecedents and consequences for each type of pride.

The following are the various attributes that lead to pride of ownership

- Social Prominence

- Brand Equity

4.2 Social Prominence

When the brand satisfies the self-expressive needs and also has network embeddedness, it is said to promote social prominence. The group of self-expression satisfied individuals formed due to the network embeddedness develops into a social community. Certain individuals take leadership position in this community. Over time they identify more with the brand and reach a point where they develop a feeling of “My Brand or Our Brand” towards the brand. When this happens they overtly begin to proclaim and preach the brand. They become unpaid evangelists of the brand. This is defined as social prominence.

4.3 Self Expression

Self-expression refers to the process by which individuals use brands as a means to convey either their own identity or an ideal identity which they aspire[7].For example a person who gets admission into IIM Bangalore may replace his old phone with an Apple iPhone to express his/her new identity of belonging to an elite class of students.

Self-expression includes snob value, self-concept, brand tourism, self-identity etc.

4.3.1 Self Concept

Two buying patterns - [8]Bandwagon & Snobbish could be attributed to the conspicuous consumption of premium good or service which in turn will inherently lead to pride of owning such a product or using such a service. Leibenstein (1950, p. 189) goes on to describe bandwagon effect as 'The extent of increase in a commodity demand can be due to the fact that others are ending up consuming the same commodity' while snob effect can be described as 'The extent of decrease in a commodity demand is because of the fact that others have also started using the same commodity'.

Now the self-concept model, a conceptual one shows which one of these two patterns is prominent for a person based on individual differences as it ends up playing a pivotal role in formulating consumer choices. (1) Relational traits also called an inter-dependent self-concept is said to drive a bandwagon buying pattern for personalities who want to assimilate themselves into the group of their choice (2) Dissociative traits also called as an independent self-concept is said to drive a snobbish buying pattern for personalities who want to contrast themselves because of their constant thirst for uniqueness.

In short, considering the self-concept as the antecedent, relational trait leads to Consumer Susceptibility to Normative Influence (CSNI) while dissociative trait leads to Consumer Need for Uniqueness (CNFU). Now that CSNI and CNFU are acting as mediating agents, bandwagon and snob consumption patterns are arrived at respectively. As a result, both these patterns end up in making the end-user achieve a pride in owning the product or in using the service.

As an example, a Hero-Honda bike user, under Normative Influence would want to join the Harley-Davidson club to assimilate themselves into the group and achieve pride in owning the new bike thereby exhibiting the relational trait. On the other hand, another Hero-Honda bike user, under the thirst to differentiate himself/herself would want to join the Harley-Davidson club thereby exhibiting the dissociative trait. Both examples serve anecdotes for inter-dependent and independent self-concepts respectively and also exhibit bandwagon and snob consumption pattern respectively.

4.3.2 Brand Tourism

One more reason as to when consumers or core-users of a brand feel a pride of ownership is when non-core users of the brand end up advocating the brand in a positive way. Here we would like to draw an analogy between brands and countries. The differential response that citizens give to immigrants and tourists is a widely known phenomenon. Likewise, we group non-core brand users into two buckets- brand immigrants and brand tourists and the assumption being that both groups have access to the overall brand community.

Brand immigrants are those who after accessing non-core branded products stake a claim to be part of the core-user group of the brand while brand tourists, on the other hand, do not want to stake a claim in terms of membership of the core user group[9]. Naturally, core users of the brand are hostile towards brand immigrants but they are seen to be welcoming towards brand tourists. Just like the presence of tourists in their native country boosts the pride of native citizens and provides a reinforcing feeling, core members of a brand feel a heightened state of pride when brand tourists become fans of the brand that they use, thereby leaving behind a positive feeling towards their brand. Thus here, pride is acting as a mediating entity from the brand tourist to the overall image of the brand.

As an example, we are considering IIM Bangalore (IIMB) as a brand and regular PGP students as core users of the brand IIMB. Students taking up the PGPEM program are considered to be brand immigrants as they like to stake a claim on the brand IIMB while exchange students who come to the campus for a term are considered as brand tourists as they do not want a share of the IIMB brand pie. Naturally, the core users, i.e., the PGP students have a natural liking towards the brand tourists and feel a heightened sense of pride when exchange students