Strategic Marketing: Planning and Control, Third Edition

consumer products where 3M is used as an endorsing brand name in

small print.

The Umbrella brand Scotch is used on most consumer products. This

includes the companies video tapes aimed at the consumer market where

the presence of a 3M connection is hard to identify. Initially 3M consumer

scouring pads were sold under the generic product name and the

204 Strategic Marketing: Planning and Control

Branding strategy Advantages Disadvantages

Corporate brand • The strength of the corporate brand • Any new product failure has the

is conveyed to all products potential to damage to the corporate

• Promotional costs are spread across brand
  all products • The positioning of the corporate brand
  constrains decisions on the quality
  and pricing for individual products

Multi-brand • Allows individual differentiation of brands • Each brand requires a separate

• Allows products to be occupy different promotional budget
  positions in the same market i.e. a • Market sectors have to contain enough
  premium and a discount brand from the potential to support more than one
  same parent company brand


• Current brands are insulated from any • Highly focused brands are hard to
  new product failures reposition once a market enters decline

Company and • Product can be supported by the reputation • A new product failure has the potential

individual brand of an existing corporate brand while at the to cause some damage the company

same time the individual characteristics of brand

the specific offering can be emphasised • The positioning of the company brand

constrains decisions on quality and

pricing of the individual product

Range brand • The strength of the brand is conveyed to • Any new product failure has the

all the products in the range potential to damage the range brand

• Promotional costs are spread across all • The positioning of the brand constrains
  the products in the range decisions on quality and pricing for
  individual products

Private brand • Demands little promotional spend by • Marketing decisions controlled by

producer distributors

• Producer can concentrate on gaining cost • Removes the producer from direct
  efficiency through volume production contact with the market

Generic brand • Little promotional budget, reduced • Competition becomes based mainly on

packaging costs price and service levels

Figure 9.13
Advantages and disadvantages of brand strategies (Source: Adapted from Brown and
MacDonald, 1994)