The Marketing Book 5th Edition

Category

values to

compete

Brand values

to create a welcome

point of difference

386 The Marketing Book

provide the basis for brand differentiation. For
example, a different greeting is given by the
cabin crew of Virgin Atlantic compared with
British Airways, as the first brand relates to fun
and the second to being responsible.
Powerful brands are built on a low number
of values. One of the reasons for this is that staff
find it difficult to remember a large number of
values and become unsure about how they
should act in particular situations, thereby
leading to brand inconsistency. A low number
of values also makes it easier for customers to
recognize the unique benefits of the brand
(Miller, 1956). Alas, regardless of the number of
values, some managers espouse values yet act
in a contrary manner, reducing staff loyalty
(Martin, 1992). Surfacing differences between
espoused and enacted values can help ensure
greater consistency in brand delivery (Hatch
and Schultz, 2001).
As they make explicit their values, some
organizations don’t differentiate sufficiently
between category values and brand values, as
depicted in Figure 15.10.
In each market, a brand must have cate-
gory values as an ‘entry price’ to compete in
that market. To then attract, and repeatedly
serve customers, the brand must additionally

have unique brand values. This may be one of

the reasons as to why there are so few success-

ful financial services brands. An examination of

financial services advertisements shows many

firms majoring on generic category values, such

as reliability, security and performance, yet few

portray unique brand values.

There are a variety of ways to unearth

values. Laddering (Reynolds and Gutman,

1988) is one way and is based on the theory that

a brand’s attributes have consequences for a

person, which in turn reinforce their personal

values. It progresses through a facilitator

asking an employee to state a key attribute of

their firm’s brand and, by probing why this is

important, a value can be revealed. An alter-

native is the Mars group method (Collins and

Porras, 1996), in which exemplars among staff

work together in a group of five people on the

challenge of recreating the best of their organi-

zation on the planet Mars. By probing to

surface their individual beliefs, insights about

brand values are revealed.

Organizational culture

One of the components of a powerful vision is

the brand’s values, and these are recognized

as being part of the organization’s culture. A

clearly understood organizational culture pro-

vides a basis for differentiating a brand in a

way which is often welcomed by customers.

Earlier, it was clarified that a brand can be

considered as being a cluster of functional and

emotional values. With competitors being able

to emulate functional values, a more sustain-

able route to brand building is through emo-

tional values. In other words, it’s not so much

what the customer receives, but rather how

they receive it. When two organizations pro-

vide similar functional brand benefits, for

example Burger King and McDonald’s, the

discriminator that may influence customers is

the way the service is delivered. Organiza-

tional cultures are unique and provide a stim-

ulus for staff behaving in ways unique to the

organization.

Figure 15.10 The brand as an amalgam of
category values and its own unique values