Alfredo Ceron
Leveraging Secondary Brand associations
In this chapter we learn about leveraging secondary Brand associations, which is an
indirect approach to building brand equity. There are seven ways that a company can leverage
secondary brand associations. They are: though Companies, Countries, Channels, Other brands,
Licensing, Spoke persons, Sponsorships, Third parties.
I will focus on the problems with leveraging secondary brand associations. One is that a
company may be linked to the category or industry they are in, and the industry may be viewed
negatively. In this case there may be little a company can do to make their image better in the
consumer’s eyes.
In using countries as leverages, one may encounter two problems. One is that a brand
may use the patriotic theme, the second is that having a global market, one may get confused on
a products country of origin.
When using channels of distribution, one may lose a certain retailer when a brand is
going to be sold at a retailer that is of less scale than the other.
When there is celebrity endorsements there are three potential problems: a celebrity may
endorse so many products that it may not be seen credible that that celebrity uses such product,
second is that the celebrity may not have a reasonable match with the product, third is that
celebrities can lose popularity and give negative connotation to the brand.
When reading this chapter of the book, I found it interesting that there are many ways to
give a brand more popularity with indirect ways. One thing that I did see is that when using
these tactics, one must be very careful because some things might be out of our control. For
example, if a celebrity is endorsing a particular brand and the celebrity loses popularity for any
reason, than the brand may be affected. Also, if you are using a certain channel of distribution,
and that channel is trouble for any reason, then the brands that are sold in that particular channel
may suffer.
I also think it is interesting to find out that there are many ways that a brand can gain
recognition or status without having to do much. For example if the particular brand wins an
award, then consumers may be more encouraged to purchase that particular brand based on other
peoples opinion. Or if a certain newspaper of magazines tests your product, and they review it, it
can effect on you brand.
Over all, I think this chapter is quite interesting because I am learning more about how
branding works other than just using the promotional mix tools.