Customer Based Brand Equity – Sources, Benefits and Measurement

Brand equity is defined and a comprehensive framework is described that incorporates recent theoretical advances and managerial practices in understanding and influencing consumer behavior. This framework identifies sources and outcomes of brand equity and permits tactical guidelines as to how to build, measure, and manage brand equity, as will be developed further in other sections of the article. Customer-Based Brand Equity Understanding the needs and wants of consumers and customers is at the heart of marketing. A brand equity framework should therefore recognize the importance of the customer in the creation and management of brand equity. Accordingly, customer-based brand equity is defined as the differential effect that brand knowledge has on consumer response to the marketing of that brand. A brand is said to have positive customer-based brand equity when customers react more favorably to a product and the way it is marketed when the brand is identified as compared Continue reading

The Standardized Advertising Approach

There are three basic schools of thought regarding advertising standardization. First one is standardization approach which assumes that due to faster communication there is a convergence of markets and that costumer are becoming increasingly similar. Second is an adaptation approach which point to cultural differences and conclude that advertising must be adapted and the last one compromise approach which recognizes local differences but also that some degree of advertising standardization is possible. Standardized Approach   Standardized or global advertising approach is practice of advertising the same brand or same product in the same way everywhere around the world. It looks for similarity across countries and segments to catch up a common thread to capitalize on adverting. That opinion shows that human needs and emotions are the same in everywhere. In addition this communication and transportation, technology, create a global market and desires of costumer around the world become homogenized. Global Continue reading

Strategic Business Decisions on Research and Development (R&D)

Industrial research can have one of two fundamental orientations. First orientation is the scientific research, which is concerned with generating new concepts that may or may not have product applications. The second orientation is the commercial development – which can take several forms, but is essentially product, as opposed to concept, oriented. Thus commercial development is a more pragmatic and market-centered form of R&D effort than scientific research. Research and Development strategy has four primary elements: R&D goals, extent of integration of the R&D function, amount of market coupling desired, and size of the budget. 1. Research and Development  Goals Goals are needed to specify the purpose of R&D is used as part of product or market development or market-penetration business-level strategies, the firm’s desired competitive position can largely determine the amount and type of R&D needed. More specifically R&D can have one of four basic purposes that normally would Continue reading

Why should a company try to price it’s public issue of shares as high as possible?

In fact, any company trying to price its public issue higher than its market price is being silly.   For that matter any company trying to price any of its products higher than the market price is being silly.   It should be obvious, that in such a case the investor (or the customer) will eject the offered share (or the product) outright, unless the higher price is qualitatively justified or he is ill informed.   True, there have been many instances following the free pricing policy where companies have priced their issues higher than the market price.   But these are errors of judgment, which a company soon comes to learn and learns to correct.   However, one important reason for the propensity of companies to price their shares unduly high may be attributed to their mistaken notion that the higher the price at which a company issues its Continue reading

Diffusion of Innovation Theory

Diffusion of innovation theory was developed in the early 1950s by Everett Rogers. It seeks to explain the spread of new ideas through individuals and members of a social system. This theory is still widely used now to spread innovations and ideas from the scientific world to the political sphere. According to Rogers, the diffusion of innovation is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system. To understand that definition you must first understand some key terms. Innovation is used more generally here to mean an item, thought, or process that is new. Good examples of innovation would be automobiles, brain surgery, and a new kind of running shoe. It is important to realize that something can be an innovation in one place and have already been accepted in another. The other key term in the definition is Continue reading

Income from Salary

DEFINITION According to [Sec 17 (1)] Salary includes                               (i)                         wages;                               (ii)                       any annuity or pension;                               (iii)                     any gratuity;                               (iv)                     any fees, commissions, perquisites or profits in lieu of or in addition to any salary or wages;                       Continue reading