Service Management and Marketing: Managing the Service Profit Logic, 4th Edition

CHAPTER 11MANAGING BRAND RELATIONSHIPS AND IMAGE

“If anyone can build a brand, it is the customer. Marketers cannot do that. They can only create favourable conditions for a brand image to develop in customers’ minds.”

INTRODUCTION

This chapter discusses two important concepts in marketing, brand and image. First, the nature of a branding process and a definition of a brand is analysed. Taking a relationship approach, brands are seen as brand relationships, which are affected by a number of brand contacts that occur during an ongoing relationship between a customer and a supplier or service provider. In the latter sections of the chapter the image concept is explored. The functions of image on a company are discussed, along with possible reasons for a bad image, and actions that should be taken to improve image are presented. After having read the chapter the reader should understand the importance of branding for service providers and the characteristics of creating service brands and brand relationships, as well as the role of image and how image can be improved in various situations.

WHAT IS A BRAND? A TRADITIONAL VIEW

The brand concept is well established in marketing. The first brands in a modern marketing sense were developed a century ago. However, during the second half of the 20th century brands and branding became central issues in marketing. Most discussions of brands are related to physical products, especially consumer packaged goods. Only during the last 30 years ...