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Unit 9: Service Product and Operation
9.3.2 Brand Name Policies and Decisions Notes
There are three levels of branding policies for service firms:
Corporate/company branding: The service firms name is promoted and built, followed by the
individual product names. But more often than not, the corporate name is stressed for legitimacy.
Example: State Bank is the only brand name that customers know and recall about the
financial institution, although they might be considering their Teacher Plus Home Loan Scheme.
All products are subservient or insignificant to it.
The Sahara group is the prominent brand, with other products and business line taking a secondary
cue: Sahara Air (airline), Sahara Manoranjan (TV channel), Sahara Finance, etc.
Family branding: A very strong brand name either of the firm or one product is built and then
multiple brands ride along with it. The benefits are simply, instant recognition and low cost in
development. There can be blanket family brands one brand name for all offers as well as
separate family names for all offers under similar product lines.
Example: The Star TV Group has a bouquet of channels with the family branding of
Star: Star News, Star Plus, Star Sports, Star Movies, Star World, Star Gold, etc.
Individual Brands: Each product of the firm has a unique and distinctive brand name and there
could be multiple products in a product line.
Example: In addition to watch retailing The World of Titan, Tatas ventured into the
highly successful jewellery retailing Tanishq.
9.3.3 Brand Development for Existing Service Products
There are many ways in which existing service products can be developed:
Brand Extension: An existing brand can be used as the vehicle for introducing new or modified
products. It can work even for corporate branding.
Example: HDFC, HDFC Bank, HDFC Standard Life Insurance Company, HDFC Chubb
General Insurance Company, HDFC Mutual Funds, HDFC Securities, etc.
Multi-branding: In a fragmented market, a service marketer can introduce multiple brands to
sweep as much of market share as possible. If not, then business would have gone to competing
brands anyway.
Example: Five star hotels like Oberois and Taj have launched three star hotel chains to
cater to the growing middle segment. Internationally, Marriott launched its budget hotels brand
Fairfield Inns while Ramada hotels used Roadway for similar purpose.
Retailers have used multi-branding to widen their customer base.
Example: Shoppers Stop acquired book retailer Crossword while Pantaloons has Food
Bazaar and Big Bazaar.
Cannibalization: This retrograde development takes place when due to multi-branding; one
brand eats into the current and potential market of another of the same service firm.
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