Workshop 4

Objective        

Analyze           the       strength           of        three    competing       brands determining their level ofremembrance,            Behavioral Brand Equity, Mental Brand  Equity,  and           the main associations in          the consumer’s            mind.  

           

Methodology  

1.         Choose            3          brands that      compete          among them    in         a          product            category.

The Chosen brands are Colgate, Oral-B and Fortident. They are brands that compete in the tooth paste category. 

2.         Apply  the       questionnaires of        behavioral       brand   equity  (MBE) and      mental brand equity (NERS) (attached         below) for the three brands.   

Brand equity (MBE)

Question	Colgate	Oral B	Fortident
I consider myself loyal to the brand x	4	1.58	1.29
The brand X would be my first option	4.14	1.26	1.35
If the brand x were not available in the store, I would not buy other brands	1.81	1.63	1.47
The quality of the brand x is extremely high	3.81	2.95	2.12
The pobability that the brand x is functional is very high	3.95	3.32	2.47
I can recognize the brand x among its competitors	4.62	3.16	2.53
I can easily recall in my mind some of the characteristics of the brand x	4.33	2.53	2
I can easily remember the symbol or logo of the brand x	4.43	3.79	2.35
I have difficulty picturing the brand x in my mind	4,1	4	3,65
Total	3,91	2,69	2,13

Mental brand equity (NERS)

Question	Colgate	Oral B	Fortident	Product Category
Desirable	3,95	2,85	2	3,46
Stimulating	3,27	2,6	1,83	2,67
Happy	3,59	2,55	2,28	3
Fresh	4,73	3,68	2,67	4,83
Pretty	3,5	2,95	2,17	2,5
Doubtful	1,14	1,63	2,33	1,75
Worrying	1,05	1,37	1,72	1,58
Irritating	1	1,26	1,56	1,5
Total	1,9813	1,2963	0,6675	1,4538

3.         Calculate         the       Top      of        Mind    and      Share   of        Mind    for       the       three    brands.           

The Top of Mind is the brand or a specific product that first came up to the consumers mind when talking about a specific category or industry.

On the other hand, the share of mind is the number of times a brand is named or remembered by the consumers when talking about an specific category or industry.

In order to establish the top of mind and the share of mind, we ask in the survey the following question: “List the first three brands that come to your mind when you think about toothpaste”.

The first brand consumer respond is selected as the top of mind of the category (over 20 answers), and the number of time the brand is named build the share of mind of the brand (over 60 possible answers).

Top of mind

COLGATE: 75% (15/20)

ORAL B: 15% (5/20)

FORTIDENT: 0% (0/20)

Share of mind

Colgate: 0.333 (20/60)

Oral B: 0.3 (18/60)

Fortident: 0.15 (9/60)

4.         Using   one      or         two      open    questions,        inquire about   the       most    available brand           associations in the minds of    the consumer’s            in your sample.

In order to know what kind of association have consumers mind we ask the next question for the toothpaste brand

"What comes first to your mind when you think about tooth paste X?"     (Over 20 answers)

                                                                                  

They answer

Colgate	# of response	Oral-B	# of response	Fortident	# of response
red	4	Good	2	cheap	4
cleaning	3	exclusive	1	saving	3
leader(#1)	5	expensive	3	village(pueblo)	3
bunny	1	blue	4	unknown quality	2
teeth	2	dentist	5	family	3
teaching kids how to brush their teeth	2	oral sex	3	Colgate triple action	1
Great quality	3	Whitening properties	2	Colombia	2
				blue	2
total	20		20		20

5.         Determine       what    types    of        learning           mechanisms    are       behind the       three    or         four            main    associations.   

COLGATE

Ø  Red: Salience association, the learning mechanism behind this association is classical conditioning because it requires repetition and proximity that is received from the advertisement of the brand in which red is the most prominent color most of the time.

Ø  Leader: Salience association, the learning mechanism behind this association is classical conditioning because it requires repetition and proximity perceived because this brand has the highest market participation and its better situated in the stands.

Ø  Cleaning: Favorable association, recognition heuristic is the learning mechanism behind this association because most of the people remember or recognize this brand over other, giving it a favorable review.

Ø  Great quality: Favorable association, recognition heuristic is the learning mechanism behind this association because most of the people remember or recognize this brand over other, giving it a favorable review.

ORAL B

•       Dentist: Salience association, classical conditioning is the learning mechanism in this association because this association is a result of watching the advertisement over and over again where most of the time dentists recommend and use this brand.

•       Blue: Salience association, the learning mechanism behind this association is classical conditioning, this happens because of the repetition of this color in the advertisement.

•       Expensive: Salience association, classical conditioning occurs in this association because people have experience with this product and recall its high Price.

FORTIDENT

• Economic: Salience association, classical conditioning participates in this association because clients recall the low price of the product due to the proximity they have with the product.
• Family: Salience association, classical conditioning affects this association because the repetition of the advertisement in the consumer makes them remember the family using the product.
• Saving: Favorable association, recognition heuristic happens in this trait because clients recognize the low prices this brand presents and it is a good trait because most people enjoy saving.

6.         Make   a          comparison     of        the       brands analyzing         remembrance, brand   equity, and      image.           

	Colgate	Oral-B	Fortident
Brand equity	As we can see in the results of both questionnaires, Colgate obtained the best averages, even getting a better average than the category in the NERS. Therefore, it is obvious that Colgate has the best brand equity in the Colombian toothpaste market. In fact, we can corroborate this by watching the TOM and SOM results, where this brand got the top of mind and the highest share of mind.	According to the total averages that Oral-B got in the surveys, it has the second brand equity among the three brands. Even more, we can predict that it has the second brand equity of the whole toothpaste market because it has the second share of mind and top of mind. Knowing this, and although Colgate is the clear leader, we can assume that Oral-B is doing pretty well, as it has a clear advantage over other brands different to Colgate.	Fortident has a clear low brand equity. The averages obtained in the questionnaires indicate that it has a low remembrance and a doubtful image. In general terms, consumers don’t tend to choose this brand when looking for a reliable toothpaste.
Remembrance	Colgate has the highest remembrance on consumers. As we saw in the MBE, consumers can remember the brand’s characteristics easily and make a whole picture of it in their minds.	According to the brand’s results in the MBE, consumers can picture Oral-B’s characteristics as a brand easily inside their minds. However, there’s some difficulty in remembering the characteristics of the toothpaste product, so we can’t talk of a full remembrance of this brand.	As we can see in the averages that Fortident obtained in the MBE, the remembrance of this brand is the lowest of the three brands chosen. Consumers present difficulties picturing the brand’s and the product’s characteristics in their minds.
Image	As we can see in the results of the NERS questionnaire, Colgate had a better average than the category. In general terms, Colgate is seen as the leader toothpaste in the market; this happens because its brand image reflects the best quality, freshness, and reliability. For the majority of people, Colgate has a fully favorable image.	The average that Oral-B obtained in the NERS survey was pretty close (but still below) to that of the category. Even though it has a quality and exclusiveness image, its acceptance in the market is still quite low compared to Colgate. As people tend to buy Colgate rather than other brands as Oral-B, the image of these other brands reflect some doubt. Therefore, we can say that the image of Oral-B is both favorable and unfavorable.	Fortident’s average in the NERS questionnaire was way below the average of the category. As we saw before, Fortident wasn’t the first choice of anyone because it has an image that reflects economy instead of high quality. These perceptions generate doubt and worry on the consumer, and therefore, create an unfavorable brand image.

Conclusions:

•The brand with the better brand image is most likely to be the brand with the better remembrance, with these two factors combined, Colgate is the undisputable leader in the toothpaste market.

•The importance of having salient and favorable associations aids the brands and makes it easier to think about, resulting in better and higher brand equity

•The brand with the better results both on the NERS and MBE was the only studied toothpaste which had a better score than the brand score, and it is the clear leader in today´s market

•The top of mind and share of mind showed the same results the rest of the questionaries showed, a clear leader.

•The leader, colgate, has very possitive associations, their logo and brand are known by most consumers, giving them a very importante advantage in comparison to the other two studied brands, which had a few negative associations.