Page 175 - DMGT510_SERVICES_MARKETING

Services Marketing

Notes
Example: Citibank had its own credit and debit cards. After it acquired Diners Club,
there was perceptive cannibalization.
Up-market Pantaloons would have had the effects of cannibalization after introducing discount
store chain Big Bazaar, especially if they were in the same mall premises as Phoenix High Street,
Lower Parel, Mumbai.
Co-branding: Different brands can be bundled together as a form of additional benefits and
promotions. Car dealers are co-branding their sales with consumer finance companies; similarly
housing finance companies are riding the waves with many housing developers.

Example: Credit card companies are being co-branded with global franchisers Visa or
Master card; they are also being tied to airlines’ frequent flyer programmes.

Co-branding helps service marketers enter segments not previously targeted by either of them.
Private and generic brands: Retailers and franchisees are bringing out their own brands, called
‘private label’ brands. These brands are giving distinctiveness to the retailers and the franchisees
and preventing customers from comparing the brands.

Example: Some retailers, like Tata Retail Enterprise’s (Trent’s) Westside, have made a
virtue of having only store brands. Internationally, Gap was a retailer in the sixties and the
seventies of only Levi’s denim wares. In the eighties it went into the development of its store
brands and now has only its own brand, Gap. Generic brands or simply no brands in services
existed in service repair of home appliances, assembly of computers and air conditioners, single
tutor coaching classes or single personnel counselling, etc.

Task Give examples of family branding and Co-Branding. Collect ads of the service
brands that have been successfully used corporate branding.

9.3.4 Service Brand Building

The following steps should help a marketer build service brands:

 The basic values of the service company should be clearly enunciated and then the corporate
brand can be developed. Thus the strong corporate brand name of SBI, ICICI bank or
HDFC ensures that the respective service products have images of quality and values –
only because the respective firms first clearly enunciated their basic values.
 While brand managers are responsible for the development of corporate and service
brand, in services everyone including the providers and the top company personnel should
live through and believe in the brand’s promise and proposition. Cynicism on the brand
will kill any development chance. This happened with all public sector undertaking brands,
especially airlines, banks and insurance. The managers and the providers were themselves
disparaging their own company offers and proposition.
 The company should clearly define the essence of the brand that is to be delivered during
service transaction. There should be the identified core services as well as the uniquely
differentiating supplementary services that are facilitating in nature. Thus, for a travel
agent, core services would constitute booking the ticket and getting the travel documents

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