RETAIL BRANDING

We are living in the age of branding. Branding has developed from FMCGs to encompass services, non-profit organizations, and even places. Of all the market categories, retail offers the broadest canvas for any brand to show its true colors. From the understanding of a market that gives birth to a strategy, from the creation of environments, to the engagement of the people that bring the brand to life to the supply of product that puts the brand into the consumer’s hand; Retail really does have it all.

• So how do retail brands create their value?
• What lessons can we learn from the leaders?
• How should retailers create and manage strong brands?
• How can retailers change the world in which they operate?

All this while the retail arena has been a space – the place to sell products. Its part of the distribution mix and hence part of the place of the 4 “Ps” of marketing.

With the changing dynamics in the power of retail, branding the retail segment has become crucial to retail success.

But….

Does the traditional models of branding apply to retail? While branding, do we take retail in a “product” scense of in a “Place” sense?

Retailer brands are typically more multi-sensory in nature than product brands and can rely on rich consumer experiences to impact their equity. Retailers also create their brand images in different ways, e.g., by attaching unique associations to the quality of their service, their product assortment and merchandising, pricing and credit policy, etc.

Again how do we measure retail brand equity?

To measure retail brand equity, we need to rely on metrics. But, developing retail brand equity metrics is challenging for at least two reasons. First, consumer experiences form the building blocks of retail brand equity. There is considerable variation in these experiences among consumers, which makes it desirable to measure retail brand equity at the individual consumer level. A second challenge to measurement is that a retailer’s brand equity is dynamic and it accrues over time via consumer learning and decision making processes. Managers would like to not only measure current retail brand equity but also monitor the temporal evolution of their retail brand.

Following the American Marketing Association’s definition of a brand, a retail brand identifies the goods and services of a retailer and differentiates them from those of competitors. A retailer’s brand equity is exhibited in consumers responding more favorably to its marketing actions than they do to competing retailers

Hence the first step would be to understand all the attributes and variables that affect retail branding. Researchers have studied a multitude of retailer attributes that influence overall image, e.g., the variety and quality of products, services, and brands sold; the physical store appearance; the appearance, behavior and service quality of employees; the price levels, depth and frequency of promotions; and so on. I consider 5 categories that seem more important.

1.      Access

2.      In-store atmosphere

3.      Price & Promotion

4.      Cross-category product/service assortment

5.      Within-category brand/item assortment.

Consumer perceptions of these dimensions of retailer image can help develop strong and unique retail brand associations in the minds of consumers. They also influence the utilitarian and hedonic benefits that consumers feel they gain from retailer patronage and ultimately the price premium consumers will pay the extra effort they will be willing to expend in order to shop the retailer, and the share of trips, share of requirement, and loyalty that the retailer enjoys. By influencing consumer preferences and shopping behavior in these ways, retailers’ image becomes an important base for their retail brand equity (Ailawadi)