Brand Management Article Review

Introduction: Review: Teresa da Silva Lopes & Mark Casson (Winter, 2007). Entrepreneurship and the Development of Global Brands: Business History Review 81 by The President and Fellows of Harvard College (Extract from page 651-680) World’s economy in early 1980s leaded to the merger wave in business industries. Only few independent brands have survived during that period. In the article, the authors addressed the question of why so few independent brands survived and they also aim to address about the contribution of entrepreneurs to the successful and growth of the companies.

The authors also of demonstrated some well-known brands and their related case of how did the change in ownership affect the brand name. Summary: Entrepreneurship and innovation is a competitive asset for each organization. In the past time, entrepreneur refers to the founder of the business, but the definition was expanded overtime. In the article, authors define entrepreneur as “someone who specializes in taking judgmental decisions about the coordination of scarce resources with an economic aim and under conditions of uncertainty. This means that the entrepreneur is not necessarily a capitalist or the founder of a business, but is someone who is not afraid of risk and who “gets things done” and has an economic aim. Because of the changing in business environment, today entrepreneur has more skills, business related knowledge and capabilities in expanding their brand into different geography or internationally or rejuvenate it in order to keep the popularity and still make a profit. Brand is a powerful strategic tool to distinguish company from its competitors, communicate to customer and attract customer loyalty.

A brand can have a rise, and then fall out of favor, to be out of date by the arrival of new brand. Trajectory of brands or the life of each brand is surely depends on the company’s performance and strategies they decide to take in action so as to create brand personalities for their products or services. Without careful management, brands can follow the general pattern of a product lifecycle: moving through introduction, growth, maturity, and decline stages in a relatively rapid fashion. Authors indicate that the change in brand ownership or management team may take into account when discussing about trajectory of brands.

Thus to keep the brand forever young is necessary mission that each company need to achieve. Some brands become successful immediately after introduced into the market and it remains successful until now under the single ownership and management team but some become successful after their previous ownership or management team was changed. Various strategies are suggested by the author as they are implemented by several successful brands such as the extension of an existing brand (Asahi Super Dry), or by the creation of a new brand, or by forging a compromise between the two (Nescafe).

The firm may also hire new managers and consultants in order to boost temporarily the creative resources at the firm’s disposal (as happened in the case of KitKat). Another strategy suggested is to change the firm’s recruitment policies and hiring new managers with stronger entrepreneurial capabilities to obtain a permanent solution. Furthermore, using merger and acquisition strategy to change the brand ownership enable some multi-firm brands especially the companies in food, drink, and cosmetics industries become successful and stay young.

Brand rejuvenation in the article refers to “tweaking the brand image to appeal to a new generation of consumers”. Rejuvenation of the brand should be take into action when customer in the market lose their concentration on the existing one or the traditional market for a brand may stagnate, unacceptable to an emerging market for the brand or there is an increase in demand for products or services, because in order to be well suited to the culture, demand, preference of different group of customer and to create availability of the products they want wherever they are.

Based on the study, the authors conclude that successful global brand usually originate in developed countries. It takes very long time to build their brand personalities and recognition. Strategies of brand extensions that we often see are merger and acquisition, franchising, licensing and some brands are trades as pieces of intellectual property. Critic Negative: Brand rejuvenation is a strategic tool for the company to recapture market share and to keep the brands up to date for consumers, but not all brand should be rejuvenated since due to two main reasons.

Firstly, some brand is very harmful to people health and society. For example, tobacco and alcohol products have many harmful effects are not limited to only health-related issues but as well as a whole society will suffer from its effects. Smoking cigarettes opens the possibility to the people that are around you to breathe second-hand smoke. This increases the risk of cancer in others around you. Also, smoke is bad for the environment and the ozone layer whereby people who drink and drive may cause many road accident and they tend to commit violence in the family more that people who do not.

Secondly, the negative point of brand rejuvenation is the decrease in physical communication due to the growth in technology related branding. In the past, people spend more time to talk to their friends, colleges and family but presently, digital form of communication decrease social interaction. Because the development of technology, many company try to rejuvenate their brand by introducing high- tech product to the market. Most people believe that technology such as cell phones and e-mail has made their lives easier. From e-mails, to Facebook, to television, people are becoming dependent on technology; we cannot live without our iPhones.

As a real example that happen to myself, sometimes I spend a whole day in bedroom just to tweet, facebook and surfing internet; I do not interact with people around at all within whole day. People are distancing themselves from life off- line. This create distant of people interaction from day to day. Positive: We totally agree with the authors who state that entrepreneurs contribute to the growth of a firm and brand succeeds and innovation, intelligence and skills are the required factors to build a successful brand. Brand building is an important issue in strategic marketing and driving force for shareholder’s value.

Good brand image and brand recognition in the market is what all entrepreneurs and managements intend to get. The growth and development of a firm mostly depends on the motivation and ambition of the owner itself. Among the important features of an entrepreneur that effects the firm growth involves general background of the owner involving age and education of the owner along with his growth motivation and management know how organizational practices on the behalf of entrepreneurs. Innovative idea and technological capabilities of entrepreneur also the contribution factors that each entrepreneur should care about.

We also agree with the authors that brand rejuvenation is a great tool to make more money. Brand rejuvenation is the effort to bring a brand which could not make money into the one that can generate money for company by using new positioning or communication strategy. Normally, companies decide to rejuvenate their brand in order to respond to internal and external changes. For example when new competitors come into the market, they may have taken over the category and the company is struggling to generate revenues from the current product, thus company need to rejuvenate their brand or new option has to be launched.

Another reason is when the existing product or service is in declining stage of product life cycle, it is an appropriate time to rejuvenate the brand in order to recapture the market share. Some other reason why company should rejuvenate their brand is to shed the negative image of the existing brand, to incorporate in new mission or develop a new brand when repositioning. Moreover, the target market for the brand has aged so the brand has to renew its positioning in the minds of the next generation of consumers. Because brand may no longer meet the consumers’ needs or desires, where in the consumer has shifted to a different platform.

Conclusion After reading and reviewing this article, we got more ideas on how branding is very important for each company in generate the profit in long term, how entrepreneur contribute to the firm growth and success. The authors provide enough reasons to support their article by indicated real example of some major brand how they are developed to become the global one. The authors indicate two main strategies for brand development which are entrepreneurship and brand rejuvenation. Brand rejuvenation can lead the company to capture market share as well as to compete in the market effectively in the long run.