A: According to the classical marketing theory, brand is not only the name and quality of enterprise products, but also the function and service level of products, which is the key to maintaining the reputation of operators and expanding product awareness. Therefore, enterprises will involve the use of brands in marketing activities. Enterprises, especially manufacturing enterprises, must constantly develop new products and push them to the market due to the pressure of market competition and changes in consumer demand, or the industrial revolution brought about by productivity. Just as a newborn baby needs to be brought up with a name, enterprises also need to name and brand their new products, which we call "brand operation". So how to use the brand scientifically and what brand strategy to use under what circumstances, so that it can better serve the overall development of enterprises? According to my own market experience, I summed up nine strategies for using brands, namely: 1. Unified brand extension strategy; Second, multi-product and multi-brand strategy; Third, the strategy of one product and many cards; Fourth, sub-brand strategy; Fifth, classify and unify brand strategy; Sixth, brand strategy; Seven, joint brand strategy; Eight, localization brand strategy; Nine, no brand strategy. Below we will discuss which strategy to use one by one according to the "Nine Strategies of Brand Operation": 1. Unified brand extension strategy The so-called unified brand extension strategy refers to that after the original brand of an enterprise succeeds in a certain market and is recognized by consumers, all new products developed by the enterprise enter new markets or old products enter new markets. (as shown in figure 1, Kelon) In this way, all products of the enterprise are exported under a unified brand. For example, Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo has been extended to the girls' market by using its own characteristics of "gentle and delicate, no harm to hair quality and repeated washing". It just fits the psychological needs of girls who wash their hair every day and are afraid of hurting their hair. For example, Changhong, a well-known domestic household appliance enterprise, made a staged success by using Changhong brand to enter the air-conditioning market after its success in the color TV market. The advantage of unified brand extension strategy is that it saves huge market development expenses for enterprises. Because the existing brands are highly recognized by consumers, consumers are more likely to accept the extension of the original brand name after the launch of new products or after entering new industries, thus saving the advertising expenses needed for marketing "raising awareness". The disadvantage of brand extension strategy is that the effect of brand extension strategy is not obvious if the original brand awareness of enterprises is low or the reputation of consumers is poor. At the same time, if an enterprise has a wide product line and many product categories, and one of its products fails to develop the market, it will easily have a negative effect on the unified brand, thus hurting other product lines. Therefore, when considering the brand extension strategy, enterprises should implement it under the conditions that the existing brands have high visibility and reputation, and the new market is highly correlated with the original market. Second, multi-product and multi-brand strategy The so-called multi-product and multi-brand strategy refers to the strategy of naming and promoting new products developed by enterprises or new products entering the market separately. (See Figure 2) P&G is a typical multi-product and multi-brand strategy, and all products in all industries of P&G are named separately. For example, P&G shampoo brands include Head & Shoulders, Rejoice, Pan Ting and Sassoon. The brands of washing powder are Tide and Bilang. (See Figure 2) There are three advantages of the multi-product and multi-brand strategy: First, the new brand can give consumers a brand-new feeling when the original brand is not well-known or has a poor reputation or "to see the sun, for all his glory is buried in the coming night". Second, when there are too many market segments in a certain field and the "connotation" of the original brand of the enterprise is not suitable for unlimited extension, the new brand can occupy more market segments; Third, even if a single brand market fails, it will not affect other brands; The disadvantage of multi-product and multi-brand is that the market development cost is high, which is not conducive to the formation of a unified brand image in the minds of consumers. Unless the new market is profitable, it can completely offset the cost of market development. Therefore, the implementation of independent brand strategy should be carried out in the case of many industry segments, rich profits and no continuation of the original brand positioning and attributes of enterprises; Three, one product multi-brand strategy One product multi-brand strategy refers to a product of an enterprise using two or more brands. In the fierce and relatively stable market competition, enterprises are reluctant to use it for new technology development in order to crack down on competitors and intervene in new market segments. This practice is widely used in the home appliance industry. For example, Kelon Group's Rong Sheng brand direct-cooling drawer refrigerator was modified and replaced with a new baby-friendly brand refrigerator, which directly intervened in the low-end market and cracked down on competitors. The advantage of having multiple brands for a product is that the cost of new product technology development can be omitted, and new market segments can be involved at low cost, without affecting the positioning of the original brands (impression in consumers' minds). Even if the new brand fails, other brands can operate normally. The disadvantages of one product and many brands are the same as the brand strategy of "one product and one brand", and because it is "changing the soup without changing the medicine", the product structure has not changed qualitatively. If it is applied to new brands, it may not be attractive to consumers. Therefore, if enterprises implement the strategy of one product and multiple brands, it is best to be in a market with mature technology and fierce competition, and the positioning of new brands and old brands must be different. Four. Sub-brand strategy The so-called sub-brand strategy refers to the re-branding of newly developed products by enterprises. However, because the new brand and the original brand are in the same product line, the recognition of the original brand is high, so the new brand is put on the market as a sub-brand under the original brand and exported at the same time. For example, the refrigerator brand and the "elite family" refrigerator sub-brand, the refrigerator brand and the "classic family" refrigerator sub-brand, and the refrigerator industrial park _ Ji _ Province North _ Trickle Play Frequency Tough _ Pen _ Both _ _ _ The advantage of the sub-brand strategy lies in the combination of the advantages of the unified brand strategy and the personalized brand strategy, so now more and more people adopt this method. There are three disadvantages of sub-brand strategy: First, sub-brands generally appear at the same time as the main brand, so the brand output name may be longer, and consumers may remember it as the main brand, and their awareness of sub-brands is not high. Second, many sub-brands are products of stage promotion, so the advertising expenses of enterprises cannot be concentrated on sub-brands. Once the product line is eliminated, the sub-brand can also die. Third, if the sub-brand is too successful, once it suddenly rises and falls, it will definitely hurt the main brand. Therefore, enterprises should highly recognize the main brand when implementing the sub-brand strategy, and the sub-brand should be subordinate to the main brand and promoted in the market. V. Classified and unified brand strategy The so-called classified and unified brand strategy refers to that although the market share of various products operated by enterprises is relatively stable, when the product categories are quite different or cross-industry, and the original brand positioning and attributes are not suitable for extension, enterprises often divide the products they operate into several categories according to categories and attributes, and then label them with several unified brands. Suppose a company has four production lines, but according to the product lines, there are mainly industries such as "Snow Dragon" refrigerator, "Longfei" real estate and "Doctor Mei" cosmetics (see Figure 4). Because there are great differences between industries, no brand should be extended to other industries. The advantage of unified brand strategy is to avoid the ambiguity of brand attributes and concepts caused by broadband product lines, and the shortcomings of too many brands and the inability to integrate marketing and communication expenses caused by the strategy of one product and one brand. The classified unified brand strategy has no obvious disadvantages, but compared with the unified brand strategy, if the target market profit is low and the marketing cost of the enterprise is high, the classified unified brand strategy will slightly disperse the marketing communication cost and cannot achieve the integration effect. Therefore, if enterprises want to implement the strategy of unified brand classification, they should consider the fields with large industry differences, and the existing brands should not be extended. (Figure 4: XX Company's product line) VI. OEM Strategy The so-called OEM strategy is to brand the products produced by one enterprise with the products of other enterprises. OEM strategy is essentially a kind of resource integration and complementary advantages. For example, Nike, the first brand in the sporting goods industry, all products are OEM products, and Nike is only responsible for marketing. Gome, the national home appliance chain, also OEM Gome small household appliances. Hisense, a giant in the domestic appliance industry, originally had no refrigerator products. Hisense used its brand advantage to extend to the refrigerator industry, but the investment in refrigerator production line is tens of millions, and the cost is too high to make a profit in the short term. Therefore, Hisense Group purchases from Kelon and other professional manufacturers according to the market conditions, and is uniformly named as "Hisense". The biggest advantage of OEM strategy is that OEM enterprises (purchasers) save the cost of manufacturing and technology research and development. For the OEM (buyer), the cost of marketing, communication, transportation and storage is saved. It should be a win-win result. The disadvantage of OEM strategy is that OEM parties are generally competitors. If the same product appears in the same channel, the two sides will inevitably have competition. Therefore, it is best for both parties to implement the OEM strategy to avoid appearing in the same channel, and at the same time, the brand positioning of both parties should also avoid the same consumption level, so that both parties may reduce the possibility of direct conflict. Seven. Co-brand strategy Co-brand strategy generally refers to a temporary brand export strategy adopted by two different enterprises for brand strategy (the market awareness of new brands is not as good as that of old brands, although the old brands have a certain awareness, they tend to be aging) due to strategic grouping, mergers and acquisitions, holding and other reasons; For example, when TCL color TV, a domestic appliance giant, just entered a market in Henan Province, it merged the Meiluo brand of a factory in Henan Province. Because Merlot has a good reputation there, the brand name (transitional brand) re-exported after the merger is TCL- Merlot. The advantage of joint brand strategy is that it can not only maintain the high market awareness of the original brand, but also avoid the reality that the new brand is little known. Keep the brand's external output temporarily balanced. At the same time, it reduces the resource investment and risk brought by re-branding to a certain extent. The disadvantage of joint brand strategy is that the brand name output is too long, the brand personality and brand strategy need to be repositioned, and the acquired brand only borrows half an empty shell temporarily. At the same time, the joint brand will eventually transition to a new brand dominated by the acquirer. Therefore, enterprises should pay attention to the situation when implementing joint brand strategy, and use one of the joint brands as a new brand at the right time; Eight. Localization brand strategy Localization brand strategy refers to the behavior of an enterprise under the pressure of local environment (such as registered trademark, the existing brand is not suitable for local culture, such as Cantonese "nine" is homophonic with "dog", Islam worships pigs as gods, etc.) when opening up new regional markets or international markets. For example, Tongrentang, the first brand of Chinese medicine, has been registered in many countries, so Tongrentang Pharmaceutical must have a new name if it wants to enter overseas markets. Coca-Cola entered the China market. In order to adapt to the culture of China, it also adopted a very China name "Coca-Cola" and used the original English trademark. The insiders believe that the Chinese translation of Coca-Cola's name is excellent in sound, form and meaning, which has made great contributions to Coca-Cola's development of China market. The advantage of localized brand strategy is that the new brand name can be integrated into local culture, so it is easily accepted by local consumers. The disadvantage is that it sometimes gives up the appeal of the original brand and reshapes a new brand. Therefore, as an unconventional means, localized brand strategy should not be widely adopted unless faced with irresistible factors such as large cultural differences. The best way is "international brand, localized communication". Nine, no brand strategy No brand strategy means that enterprises do not use any brand name for their products. Dupont, which we are familiar with, is an example. Dupont has always been the owner of high technology in the field of energy and chemical industry, and also the raw material supplier of well-known brands such as Coca-Cola and Adidas. Dupont company hides the enterprise name in these raw materials, and has no trade name. The main advantage of non-brand strategy is that it can reduce management costs. The disadvantage is that it is not known to consumers, and the channel resistance is large when promoting products, and the cost of channel public relations may be high. Therefore, products without brand strategy mainly exist in some raw material production enterprises or small commodity production enterprises with simple production technology, and consumers pay more attention to quality rather than brand when buying.