What are the Characteristics of Beiersdorf’s brand portfolio The WritePass Journal

What are the Characteristics of Beiersdorf’s brand portfolio References What are the Characteristics of Beiersdorf’s brand portfolio IntroductionThe Brand Relationship SpectrumMarket DevelopmentProduct DevelopmentDiversificationRoles of Nivea as an umbrella brandEnhancing the Value PropositionGeneration of Communication EfficienciesProvision of credibilityVisibilityThe critical factors that Beiersdorf utilised to successfully extend the Nivea brandReferencesRelated Introduction As seen in the Beiersdorf’s Brand-Product Matrix, Beiersdorf’s brand portfolio contains eight brands namely: Labello, Nivea, 8X4, La Prairie, Juvena, Eucerin, Hansaplast/Elastoplast, and Florena. Amongst these brands, the most prominent is the Nivea brand, which the company uses as the umbrella brand for broad skin care and personal care. Most brands have sub-brands. They include Nivea, La Prairie, Eucerin, Hansaplast, and Florena). The other remaining brands have no sub-brands. Nivea, being the umbrella brand and the most dominant brand, has fifteen sub-brands with each sub-brand extensively extended so as to meet the specific needs of the customers based on gender, age groups, and functional benefits. The sub-brands are: Nivea Cream, Nivea Visage, Nivea Beaute, Nivea Hair Care, Nivea Body, Nivea Soft, Nivea Hand, Nivea Sun, Nivea Deodorant, Nivea Intimate Care, Nivea Baby, Nivea Lip Care, Nivea Bath Care, Nivea for Men, and Nivea Visage Vital. Ucerin, as a brand, also has several sub-brands. They include Face Care, Hair Care, Deodorant, Body Care, Lip Care, Hand Care, Foot Care, Sun Care, and Anti Age. Hansaplast’s sub-brands are: Plaster, Wound Care, Foot Care, Scar Reducer, Sport, Insect Bites, and Pain Relief. The sub-brands within Florena are: Face Care, Body Care, Hair Care, Skin and Hand Cream, and Florena for Men. La Prairie has only three sub-brands, which are: Skin Care Treatments, Fragrances, and Color. 8X4 is known for the Deo Sprays and Roll-ons, Labello for the Lip Care, and Juvena for skin care. If we keenly consider the above brands, we realize that similar sub-brands are offered. Nivea and Ucerin offer almost similar products. This is a very important strategy in market coverage. Here, the company widens its target group as it targets different consumers, market segments, and channel distributors. In so doing, the company maximizes its coverage for both the available customers and the potential customers. This ensures that none of the customers is ignored. The company has also achieved in maximization of overlap. This ensures that there is reduced or no competition among the brands themselves. Beiersdorf’s brand portfolio characteristics come with various benefits. First, the risks are lowered. The company operates within a wider market range as it maximizes the coverage on customers. The umbrella brand Nivea has good image that makes the sub-brands to enjoy benefits of reduced risks. In case of a contamination or loss of image in one brand, the other brands do not suffer. Even if a product within the umbrella brand fails to meet the expectations of the customers, the other products do not suffer from the same. This is because; the company has committed itself in improving the brand image and has succeeded in attracting customers’ confidents in the products. Beiersdorf Company also enjoys great economies of scale. Due to the existence of the parent brands, the costs incurred in production, research and development, distribution, market research, etc are greatly reduced. With this portfolio, the focus on the segmentation strategies is also enhanced. Over the years, Beiersdorf Company has been seen as the market specialist. Its products have globally emerged as market leaders. The extension strategies at Beiersdorf Company are Line extensions, and Category extension. Line extension has been used in the introduction of new products so as to target the potential customers and market segments in the same product class. In such a case, the parent brand is made use of. Category extension has also helped the company to conquer different product categories. As a result of the extensions, the company has enjoyed various benefits, among which are: good image creation, risk reduction, great efficiencies in packaging, labelling, production, and marketing. Also, there are high chances of gaining distribution, as the cost of introductory and marketing are greatly lowered. The costs of developing new brands are also eliminated. At the same time, consumers are assured of varieties of products. 1. David A. Aaker and Erich Joachimsthaler said, â€Å"The challenge is to create a brand team where all the sub brands and brands fit in and productive† in The Brand Relationship Spectrum. Discuss the Beiersdorf’s Brand architecture strategies on the basis of brand relationship spectrum. The business environments today have radically changed the roles of brand managers as they are faced with global changes, channel dynamics and market fragmentations. The high costs in creation of new brands put a lot of pressure on the brand assets. Due to these complexities and pressures, the brand managers are faced with several challenges that call for proper understanding of both the relationships and structures. â€Å"Brand architecture† gives the ultimate solution. According to Aaker and Joachimsthaler (2000), brand architecture is defined as the organizing structure of the brand portfolio where the brand roles and the nature of brand relationships are defined. Well-defined brand architecture can minimise wastage, confusion, and market weakness; as it promotes synergy, leverage, clarity, and opportunities. The Brand Relationship Spectrum On the basis of brand relationship spectrum, Beiersdorf has adopted the â€Å"Branded House Strategy†. Here, Nivea is the umbrella brand. Nivea provides the global umbrella under which a wide product line operates. The products include Nivea Body Care, Nivea Face Care, Nivea Hand Care, Nivea Men’s Care, Nivea Sun Care, Nivea Bath Care, Nivea Lip Care, and Nivea Deodorants. With this kind of brand architecture strategy, there is a lot of clarity, synergy, and leverage. Beiersdorf enjoys maximum clarity, as the customers know exactly what is offered. From a branding perspective, it is very easy to understand the brand since all the products within the brand communicate the same message. This enhances clarity as compared to several individual brands where each brand has its own associations. Customers easily know, understand, and recall the brand. Communication partners and the employees also benefit greatly from the clarity and the focus on a single dominant brand. As compared to other strategies, the question of brand priorities or the need to protect the brand does not arise. In addition, Beiersdorf enjoys maximization of synergy. Participation in one product market, say, Nivea Face Care, creates associations and visibility which helps other products like Nivea Body Care, Nivea Men’s Care, among others. Innovations and improvements in quality of one product enhance the brand in other products as well. Furthermore, an exposure of the brand in one product creates visibility, which enhances the brand awareness in all the other products. In most contexts, there is a lot of input and efforts in umbrella brand Nivea so as to build its overall image. This strategy provides room for more cost effective means in launching of new products and brand extensions. When a new product is to be introduced into the market, the promotional costs are greatly lowered. Due to the existence of the same brand name, new products always have increased chances of customer acceptance since they carry the same brand name. Building of the new product awareness from scratch is totally eliminated. In terms of brand promotion, Beiersdorf enjoys economies of scale. The resources are channelled more effectively due to the fact that only one brand is promoted. One of the disadvantages of this strategy is the possibility of brand dilution. If not properly monitored, there can be dilution of the umbrella brand Nivea when product proliferation occurs. All products may not have the same positioning theme. Any deviation from the umbrella brand’s positioning will result into the dilution of the main positioning theme of the entire branded house. The company may also be forced to forgo a lot of market opportunities when the opportunities fail to fit into the positioning of the parent’s brand. If one brand fails, there can be adverse negative impacts on the entire branded house due to the fact that all the products carry same brand name. Any controversy that involves a single product can adversely affect the other remaining products. With the branded house strategy in a large market share, it becomes extremely difficult to maintain the quality position or the good image of the umbrella brand. The ability of the company to target specific groups is also limited as compromises are always required. The brand name adds value to the new products due to its value position, the credibility, and the communication efficiencies resulting into cost advantages. Beiersdorf’s master brand always makes the products more appealing to the customers, thereby making the brand equity to be leveraged in the new context. Nivea offers great visibility to its new products. At the same time, there are great reductions in the costs of promotions and advertisements, packaging and displays, and brochures, as the prior brand building efforts are adopted and used directly. Beiersdorf’s Nivea brand has excelled in meeting the varied needs of the customers due to its relevance. The position of the brand is high and proper, with the high products’ value forming the basis of pricing. Nivea brand equity is strong as a result of the perfect marketing strategies, which include advertisements and promotions. Due to its excellent products, we deduce that the company properly understands the needs of the consumers as it monitors its sources of brand equity. 2. Though all the brands in Beiersdorf’s portfolio were carried as independent identities, all these brands were further extended rigorously across various product categories.† [Section: â€Å"Evolution of Beiersdorf AG’s Brand Portfolio†, para 11 of the case study]. How did Beiersdorf employ its brands as strategic growth vehicles? The Ansoff Growth matrix    Market penetration Beiersdorf Company always concentrates in selling its existing products into the existing markets. In so doing, the company has managed to achieve the following: There has been an increase in the market share of the company’s products. Considering the Nivea brand as an umbrella, the company has very competitive strategies in pricing, and marketing (including sales promotion and advertisements). Other brands like Ucerin, Hansaplast, Florena, and La Prairie have also managed to maintain the market share. There has been security in dominance of the growth markets – the strong image, which the Nivea umbrella brand has created in the market, has resulted in the security in the dominance of the growth market. Even though the company faces stiff competition from other larger companies in the region, it has managed to thrive as a result of the great image of its Nivea brand. The company maximizes on the increased usage of its products by the existing customers. Nivea brand products have always made the market to be unattractive for its competitors. This is as a result of the great satisfaction that customers derive from the Nivea products. These products are always associated with quality and reliability. This is an image that always appeals to the customers. Also, the company heavily invests in market research and innovations, as it releases into the market the tailor-made products. The company’s management team is highly competent. The brand managers always understand the customer needs. They always try to maintain the relevance of the products through constant inspections. The company understands that Nivea brand forms its bulk for sales. It therefore tries by all the possible means to ensure that the brand remains relevant, as its quality remains high. Market Development This is the strategy applied when the company wishes to sell its existing products into new markets. Beiersdorf Company has greatly achieved in applying the market development strategy, especially for its Nivea brand. The company continuously exploits the potential geographical markets. The great expansion of Nivea into the global market attests to this. The company’s products have been the market leaders in various countries including China, Russia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Saudi Arabia, Bulgaria, Romania, Ireland, Guatemala, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Portugal, France, UK, and USA, among others. The company achieves this by:   Creating new distribution channels, which ensure that the product is made available in the desired geographical location. The company has opened up various stores in various parts of the world. Product exportation In the absence of Beiersdorf’s products in an area identified as a potential market, the company always resort to exportation of the products to that specific location. The company has in most cases used the pricing policy so as to attract the potential customers. This has greatly helped in the creation of the market segments. Finally, the company concentrates on its good image as it uses unique packaging to uphold its perceived quality and value. The consistency in the packaging style greatly helps in maintaining customers’ view on the quality of the product. Product Development This is the growth strategy where firms aim at introducing new products into the existing markets. This is the strategy, which Beiersdorf Company has greatly succeeded in applying. Since the establishment of Nivea as a broad skin care and personal care brand, various products have been introduced into the market. This has been greatly accelerated by the great quality and satisfaction, which is associated with the Nivea brand. In introducing new products under the existing brand name Nivea, the company always enjoys economies of scale, as there are great reductions in costs. The new product also enjoys great acceptance and positive perception in terms of quality and service. The new products that are developed always appeal to the market. Diversification This growth strategy involves the introduction of new products into new markets. This strategy is very risky and companies always avoid it. Beiersdorf Company is not left behind. In this case, the company moves into a market, which it has no experience about. Just incase the company is compelled to use this strategy; then, it must assess the risks and have a clear idea of the possible gains. 3. Kevin Lane Keller said, â€Å"Building a strong brand involves maximizing all then characteristics† in The Brand Report Card. Evaluate the success of Nivea brand as a true global brand using the ten parameters given in the article quoted. Keller (2000) gives ten parameters saying that a successful brand is one that excels at delivering the benefits customers truly desire. This first parameter is quite evident in the case of Nivea brand. A range of products offered under the umbrella brand Nivea completely satisfies the varied needs of the customers. The Nivea For Men face care highly meets the demands of its consumers. In 2006, it emerged as the best product in Chinese men face care market. The key drivers include NIVEA SUN, NIVEA FOR MEN, NIVEA deodorant, and NIVEA body. NIVEA FOR MEN has been the market leader in various parts of the world including Russia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Saudi Arabia. Nivea Deo has been the market leader in Croatia, Romania, and Thailand. NIVEA SUN has likewise been the leading brand in Norway. In the men’s shaving products category, Nivea products have always been in the lead in Germany. These products include the creams, the gels, and the foams; which highly satisfy customers’ demands. The rapid growth in the Nivea brand is an indication of customers’ satisfaction with the brand’s products. In 2003, NIVEA SUN emerged as the market leader in Italy where it continues to extend the lead to date. This also confirms the great satisfaction, which the consumers derive from the Nivea products. The introduction of NIVEA VISAGE YOUNG into the young market segment in 2003 has created a very big impact. Greatest successes of Nivea brand in the year 2003included the outstanding performance of Nivea Lip Care, which took the market lead in UK. NIVEA FOR MEN also became the leader in the after-shave and the facial market in Poland and United States. NIVEA VISAGE has always been the strongest brand on face care market in various parts of the world including Bulgaria, Romania, Ireland, and Guatemala. Other Nivea products that have registered impressive market leads due to great customer satisfactions includes the Nivea Hands which took the lead in Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, and Portugal in the year 2004. NIVEA FOR MEN came into the records as the first brand in Asia to launch complete whitening range for men. In every subsequent launch of Nivea’s products, there is a great advancement in the skin care item. The Active Firming, which is the most advanced men’s skin care item, was launched in 2005 in France and UK, before it captured the entire world market. For a new Nivea product to be introduced, the customer needs must first be considered. This is why all the new products perform extremely well in the market. They completely satisfy the needs of the customers. The Nivea men’s products are tailored especially to the needs of men’s skin. In the second parameter Keller (2000) says that the brand should stay relevant. Strongest brands have their brand equity tied to the quality of the product or the service. In the above discussion, we have seen that Nivea upholds quality as customers derive great satisfaction from the various Nivea products. It goes without saying; therefore, that Nivea brand has remained relevant in the market. Other intangible factors considered in brand relevance include user imagery or the type of person using the brand. In most cases, all the users drive great satisfaction from Nivea products, a key indicator of the brand’s relevance. Another factor is the usage imagery or the situation in which the brand is used. Nivea brand has proved to be relevant in all the situations. Nivea has maintained its good image, which represents quality, sincerity and competence. Nivea brand has managed to stay on the leading edge without losing site of its core strengths. The third parameter, is that the pricing strategy should be based on consumers’ perceptions of value. It is always difficult to achieve a perfect balance of product quality and cost, as the producer would always aim at maximizing the profit while the customer aims at lowering the expenditure. However, at Beiersdorf, managers try to understand the relationship between the product quality and price. This is very important to the company since, if the company continues with the production of high quality products and charges low prices on the products, it risks running at a loss. At the same time, if the company charges higher prices which do not match the quality of the product, then, it risks losing customers. The fact that Nivea brand continues to generate profit to the company and at the same time remains the market leader; is a perfect indication that the product quality and the price are greatly linked. The image which Nivea brand displays automatically improves the value of the brand. Nivea brand, being a world leader in customer satisfaction, has a great value. With the improvement in the quality/value of the Nivea products, there has been a remarkable link with the pricing. The quality of the product and the price are always directly proportional. The fourth parameter is the brand position. A well-positioned brand always attracts attention of the customers. Even in the peak of competition, such brands keeps up with the competitors by creating both points of parity and points of difference, which helps in acquiring advantages over the competitors. Nivea’s product quality and superiority has made it extend its global market lead beyond what the competitors can achieve. Considering Consistency in the brand as the fifth parameter, In order to maintain a strong brand, there must be a balance between the continuity in marketing activities and the necessary changes that are needed so that the brand remains relevant. The brand must maintain its image, and the marketing strategies must not confuse customers either through sending conflicting messages or otherwise. Since the introduction of Nivea’s first advertisement in 1912, titled â€Å"With the likeness of a Lady,† Nivea has not had any conflicting or misleading advert. As per another parameter Nivea brand portfolio and hierarchy always makes sense. Nivea is the umbrella brand under which several product operations take place. The sub-brands under the umbrella Nivea brand in most cases target different market segments. With the common brand name Nivea, there is maximum market coverage thus contributing to equity of the portfolio. In addition, the brand makes good use of a full range of marketing activities in building the brand equity as dictated by the seventh parameter. The company spends heavily in promoting the brand and at the same time concentrates on the brand quality. This has helped in building the brand equity. Nivea brand managers always understand the importance of the brand to customers. This is why there is a lot of innovation and constant introduction of new products, which satisfies the customers’ desires. Before an introduction of a new product, an extensive market research is carried out which reveals to the brand managers the exact desires of the customers. The company then embarks on production of a product, which is in line with the customers’ needs. The company heavily invests in the Nivea brand through extensive research, innovations, marketing and promotions. The quality and image of the brand has not changed. Due to the overdependence of the company on Nivea brand, brand audits are always carried out at depth. This is done to ensure that the quality and relevance of the brand remains intact, as any slight change may lead the company into great losses. Nivea brand is successful according to the ten parameters. 4. Discuss the role of Nivea as an umbrella brand. Identify the critical factors that Beiersdorf utilised to successfully extend the Nivea brand. Roles of Nivea as an umbrella brand The main role of Nivea as an umbrella brand is the addition of value to the products operating under it. It also contributes toward the addition of value to the new products that are introduced into the market, and operating under the umbrella brand Nivea. It achieves this through: addition of links which contribute to value positions; provision of credibility; sharing the visibility; and generation of communication efficiencies. By so doing, Nivea brand facilitates new product acceptance. These roles are discussed hereunder. Enhancing the Value Proposition Over the years, Nivea brand has built a great image that is appealing to the customers. The quality, consistency, and customer satisfaction of Nivea brand has stood the test of time. Because of this, new products introduced under the umbrella Nivea brand are highly accepted by the customers. In so doing, Nivea brand improves the image of the new product, and at the same time reduces the risks that may be perceived by the customers. The probability of the new product in gaining distribution and trial is also increased greatly. Generation of Communication Efficiencies The introduction of a new product calls for the creation of distinct packaging, promotions and advertisements. This is costly considering both the time and the economic aspect. However, with Nivea as the umbrella brand, there is great reduction in packaging and advertisements costs. This greatly reduces the cost of introducing a new product and the follow-up programs in marketing. This results into great enjoyment of the economies of scale. The synergy also tends to be high. In general, an umbrella brand is very important as it completely eliminates the costs in developing a new brand and the associated risks. At the same time, it enhances great efficiencies in marketing (advertisement and promotional) expenditures. It also allows for efficiencies in packaging and labeling. Provision of credibility After enhancing the value preposition, Nivea brand creates credibility in the products that operate under the umbrella brand. Customers will always consider the new product as reliable. At the same time, customer risks are eliminated. This great credibility is as a result of the Nivea products, which have maintained their credibility over the years. Customers do not worry about the new product as there is always a preformed opinion on the new product which is created by the umbrella brand. Visibility The umbrella brand Nivea provides great product visibility for the new products introduced under the brand name. Visibility makes it possible for a new product to, not only gets an offering considered, but also implies positive organizational and production attributes. Other than the aforementioned roles, Nivea brand enhances the perception of Beiersdorf company image as it improves its strength, uniqueness, and favourability. To customers, the umbrella brand conveys the deep company meaning and at the same time assures the customers of variety of quality products. The brand increases the market coverage as it also gives room for subsequent extensions. The critical factors that Beiersdorf utilised to successfully extend the Nivea brand Beiersdorf Company actively engages in evaluation of the customers’ desires before it can introduce any new product into the market. The company spends on extensive market research, innovation, and application of technology in creation of the new product. This is the main reason why the Nivea brand has a great image and the associated customer satisfaction. Nivea products are tailored according to customers’ desires. This is the main reason for its extension. Nivea brand is well positioned and always attracts the customers. Due to Nivea’s product quality and superiority, it always conquers the market. This has favoured the brand in terms of competition from other companies. Beiersdorf Company employs a unique packaging for Nivea products that is highly attractive. This brings clarity in the brand and minimises the chances of brand confusion. Beiersdorf Company has also invested greatly towards extension of the brand. The company extensively advertise its Nivea brand also participate in other marketing strategies so as to maximize the awareness on its umbrella brand. The end result is the increase in sales. This directly creates extension. The company has enjoyed great and consistent marketing strategies over the years. The great improvement in value of the Nivea brand is another strategy for its extension. The overall image of Nivea brand depicts quality and competence. Customers always look for quality so that they can derive maximum satisfaction from the product. The prices of Nivea products are average considering the product qualities. Customers would always find it very economical in using the Nivea products. The competence of the management team at Beiersdorf Company plays a very important role in Nivea brand extension. The brand managers always know and deeply understand the importance of the brand to the customers. This puts the customers at a very high position of enjoying great satisfaction from Nivea products. Nivea brand has always remained consistent in quality and price. Due to this consistency, the company finds it very easy to extend the product. With the good brand image that already exists, it is very easy to develop a new product, as the costs are greatly lowered. 5.   Kevin Lane Kellar and Sanjay Sood said, â€Å"Brand extensions, however, can be a double-edged sword†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..† in Brand Equity Dilution. Discuss the challenges in extending the Nivea Brand. On the basis of the study of Kellar and Sood (2003), brand extensions in the Nivea brand has come with a series of challenges. When a brand extension fails to be successful, there is great damage posed to the umbrella brand. This can result into great loses if the extension is not prorely monitored. Brand extensions therefore pose great risks of brand equity dilution. The continuous extension into sub-brands for Nivea greatly weakened the Nivea’s strong brand image. Because of the great image of the umbrella brand Nivea, there was a high customer acceptance to its sub-brands. As the extension continued, there was the dilution of the brand image as a result of the presence of Nivea brand across almost all the heterogenous products. Beiersdorf company was faced with major challenge in launching Nivea into new areas due to the brand equity dilution. This created a lot of dificulties in ensuring the maintenance of loyalty to the brand core values. A case of inconsistency can be depicted in the Nivea brand extension. Some of the Nivea products gave customers an experience which is not consistent with the expectations of the umbrella brand. This changed the customers’ impressions about the entire brand leading to equity dilution. For instance, the expansion of Nivea Hair Care into colorants diluted the brand equity. Also, the Nivea’s brand philosophy, which was strongly based on gentle skin care, could not allow for the use of chemical treatments in the product. Also evident was the presence of Nivea in contrasting product categories. The two products which greatly fell under this situation were the NIVEA VISAGE and NIVEA VITAL VISAGE. These sub-brands were posed with greater challenges in trying to preserve their respective product identities. However, Nivea’s strong image has played a very important role. Its strength dictates that for there to be a noticeable brand dilution, there must be a very strong experience which is unambiguous and easily identified. Most of the negative effects of brand extension for the Nivea parent brand have weak expoerience and mostly ambiguous thus are ignored. Another factor that has saved Beiersdorf Company from brand equity dilution is the diagnosticity. Customers’ evaluations of the extension products bear little influence to the parent brand, as the extensions of the Nivea brand are not indicative of the quality of the parent brand. Some of the unsuccessful failures can be linked to lack of adequate awareness among customers. Due to the fact that consumers might not have heard the extension product or service, the parent brand survives. It is also evident that the brand extension has greatly improved the sales and at the same time reinforced customers’ knowledge abou t the parent brand Nivea. This is why there has been a remarkable increase in sales of the Nivea products as the products conquer the global market. 6. â€Å"Beiersdorf’s success in establishing Nivea as a broad skin care and personal care brand presented the company with a new set of issues and challenges.† [Section: â€Å"Nivea a Flagship Brand†, para 23 of the case study]. Identify the challenges Beiersdorf would face in Umbrella branding its flagship brand. Beiersdorf Company has been majorly known for its great Nivea brand. The brand formed over 70% of the company’s consumer segment’s sales. Nivea has emerged as the Beiersdorf’s giant in terms of sales, products, and geographical reach. The growth of Nivea brand from 1990 to 2006 is remarkable. The capitalization on the Nivea brand included the launching of a series of Nivea brand extensions globally. The rapid growth in Nivea’s portfolio from six sub-brands in 1993to fifteen sub-brands in 2006 is an enough evidence of the company’s capitalization on Nivea brand. Establishing Nivea as a broad skin care and personal care brand faced the Beiersdorf Company with a set of challenges. The company over-relied on the umbrella brand Nivea that exposed it to major risks. Any loss of consumer confidence in the flagship Nivea brand would make the company more vulnerable due to the fact that Nivea formed the bulk of the company’s sales. Even though the company capitalized on the growth of the flagship Nivea brand, this one-sided capitalization of growth could not be a successful strategy in the long run. In turn, the over-dependence on the Nivea brand was highly accelerated. This overdependence also exposed the company to some risks. Even though the company experienced smooth growth, there was a slow decrease in the growth rate as illustrated in the IBS research by Sonpal, Dadhwal, and Catterjee (Annexure VIII, p 21). The continued brand extensions placed the parent brand at a great risk as it could lose its great image. The unsuccessful brand extensions could also dilute the Nivea brand equity. This would put the company at great disadvantages with its competitors like the PG and the L’Oreal, which offered a wider range of brands within the same region. If by any chance, a brand extension fails to meet the varied demands of the customers, the umbrella brand suffers greatly. If the company greatly relied on the umbrella brand, various risks emerge. The company can experience great losses as a result of the overdependence. With continued extension into sub-brands, the strong image of the parent brand stands higher chances of being weakened. Nivea also experienced the same scenario. Because Nivea had built a strong image, its sub-brands were highly accepted into the markets. However, increased extension polluted the market with Nivea products. This led to the dilution of the Nivea brand image and also affected the ability of the company to launch new products under the same umbrella brand as a result of equity dilution. Be that as it may, Nivea brand has successfully established itself as a successful skin care brand in the market. This made the company to leverage its strong brand equity. The company then focused on developing the core business areas. Regardless of the company’s financial strength, it limited the number of its brands as it maximized the concentration on research and development. Since then, the company has managed to have independent sets of brands that are strategically positioned in terms of the functional benefits. The great focus on innovation practiced by Beiersdorf Company resulted into improved product lines. This has accelerated the growth of the company even in saturated markets. This is also the main reason why Nivea brand has a strong image to the customers. The launch of three Nivea products; Nivea for men, Nivea Sun, and Nivea Deodorant helped the company in reviving the market. The use of an umbrella brand has made the company to lay more emphasis on the marketing and promotion strategies. Without the proper promotion and marketing of the parent brand Nivea, the company may experience a decrease in sales. This is very dangerous due to the overreliance of the company on Nevia brand. There is great application of technology and innovation in Nevia products so as to boost the brand name and at the same time increase the sales. The company has been constantly engaging in extensive advertisements since 1912. Also, Beiersdorf Company has been very keen on the advertisements so as to avoid chances of both conflicting and misinforming statements. Indeed, the company has been presented with a new set of issues and challenges resulting from its success in establishing Nivea as a broad skin care and personal care brand. References Aaker, D. and Joachimsthaler, E. (2000) ‘The Brand Relationship Spectrum: THE KEY TO THE BRAND ARCHITECTURE CHALLENGE’, CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW, 42(4). Dadhwal, V., and Chatterjee, C. (2009). Beiersdorf AG’s Brand Architecture Strategies: Challenges in Nurturing an Umbrella Brand Nivea. IBS Research Center. Keller, K. (2000) ‘THE BRAND REPORT CARD’, HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW, pp. 147-156. Keller, K. and Sood, S. (2003) ‘Brand Equity Dilution: Brands may be less vulnerable to the Vagaries of extension than is commonly feared’, MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW.

The Modern Essay by Virginia Woolf

The Modern Essay by Virginia Woolf Widely considered one of the finest essayists of the 20th century, Virginia Woolf composed this essay as a review of Ernest Rhyss five-volume anthology of Modern English Essays: 1870-1920 (J.M. Dent, 1922). The review originally appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, November 30, 1922, and Woolf included a slightly revised version in her first collection of essays, The Common Reader (1925). In her brief preface to the collection, Woolf distinguished the common reader (a phrase borrowed from Samuel Johnson) from the critic and scholar: He is worse educated, and nature has not gifted him so generously. He reads for his own pleasure rather than to impart knowledge or correct the opinions of others. Above all, he is guided by an instinct to create for himself, out of whatever odds and ends he can come by, some kind of wholea portrait of a man, a sketch of an age, a theory of the art of writing. Here, assuming the guise of the common reader, she offers a few . . . ideas and opinions about the nature of the English essay. Compare Woolfs thoughts on essay writing with those expressed by Maurice Hewlett in The Maypole and the Column and by Charles S. Brooks in The Writing of Essays. The Modern Essay by Virginia Woolf As Mr. Rhys truly says, it is unnecessary to go profoundly into the history and origin of the essaywhether it derives from Socrates or Siranney the Persiansince, like all living things, its present is more important than its past. Moreover, the family is widely spread; and while some of its representatives have risen in the world and wear their coronets with the best, others pick up a precarious living in the gutter near Fleet Street. The form, too, admits variety. The essay can be short or long, serious or trifling, about God and Spinoza, or about turtles and Cheapside. But as we turn over the pages of these five little volumes, containing essays written between 1870 and 1920, certain principles appear to control the chaos, and we detect in the short period under review something like the progress of history. Of all forms of literature, however, the essay is the one which least calls for the use of long words. The principle which controls it is simply that it should give pleasure; the desire which impels us when we take it from the shelf is simply to receive pleasure. Everything in an essay must be subdued to that end. It should lay us under a spell with its first word, and we should only wake, refreshed, with its last. In the interval we may pass through the most various experiences of amusement, surprise, interest, indignation; we may soar to the heights of fantasy with Lamb or plunge to the depths of wisdom with Bacon, but we must never be roused. The essay must lap us about and draw its curtain across the world. So great a feat is seldom accomplished, though the fault may well be as much on the readers side as on the writers. Habit and lethargy have dulled his palate. A novel has a story, a poem rhyme; but what art can the essayist use in these short lengths of prose to sting us wide awake and fix us in a trance which is not sleep but rather an intensification of lifea basking, with every faculty alert, in the sun of pleasure? He must knowthat is the first essentialhow to write. His learning may be as profound as Mark Pattisons, but in an essay, it must be so fused by the magic of writing that not a fact juts out, not a dogma tears the surface of the texture. Macaulay in one way, Froude in another, did this superbly over and over again. They have blown more knowledge into us in the course of one essay than the innumerable chapters of a hundred textbooks. But when Mark Pattison has to tell us, in the space of thirty-five little pages, about Montaigne, we feel that he had not previously assimi lated M. Grà ¼n. M. Grà ¼n was a gentleman who once wrote a bad book. M. Grà ¼n and his book should have been embalmed for our perpetual delight in amber. But the process is fatiguing; it requires more time and perhaps more temper than Pattison had at his command. He served M. Grà ¼n up raw, and he remains a crude berry among the cooked meats, upon which our teeth must grate forever. Something of the sort applies to Matthew Arnold and a certain translator of Spinoza. Literal truth-telling and finding fault with a culprit for his good are out of place in an essay, where everything should be for our good and rather for eternity than for the March number of the Fortnightly Review. But if the voice of the scold should never be heard in this narrow plot, there is another voice which is as a plague of locuststhe voice of a man stumbling drowsily among loose words, clutching aimlessly at vague ideas, the voice, for example, of Mr. Hutton in the following passage: Add to this that his married life was brief, only seven years and a half, being unexpectedly cut short, and that his passionate reverence for his wifes memory and geniusin his own words, a religionwas one which, as he must have been perfectly sensible, he could not make to appear otherwise than extravagant, not to say an hallucination, in the eyes of the rest of mankind, and yet that he was possessed by an irresistible yearning to attempt to embody it in all the tender and enthusiastic hyperbole of which it is so pathetic to find a man who gained his fame by his dry-light a master, and it is impossible not to feel that the human incidents in Mr. Mills career are very sad. A book could take that blow, but it sinks an essay. A biography in two volumes is indeed the proper depository, for there, where the licence is so much wider, and hints and glimpses of outside things make part of the feast (we refer to the old type of Victorian volume), these yawns and stretches hardly matter, and have indeed some positive value of their own. But that value, which is contributed by the reader, perhaps illicitly, in his desire to get as much into the book from all possible sources as he can, must be ruled out here. There is no room for the impurities of literature in an essay. Somehow or other, by dint of labor or bounty of nature, or both combined, the essay must be purepure like water or pure like wine, but pure from dullness, deadness, and deposits of extraneous matter. Of all writers in the first volume, Walter Pater best achieves this arduous task, because before setting out to write his essay (Notes on Leonardo da Vinci) he has somehow contrived to get his material fused. He is a learned man, but it is not knowledge of Leonardo that remains with us, but a vision, such as we get in a good novel where everything contributes to bring the writers conception as a whole before us. Only here, in the essay, where the bounds are so strict and facts have to be used in their nakedness, the true writer like Walter Pater makes these limitations yield their own quality. Truth will give it authority; from its narrow limits he will get shape and intensity; and then there is no more fitting place for some of those ornaments which the old writers loved and we, by calling them ornaments, presumably despise. Nowadays nobody would have the courage to embark on the once famous description of Leonardos lady who has learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants; and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary . . . The passage is too thumb-marked to slip naturally into the context. But when we come unexpectedly upon the smiling of women and the motion of great waters, or upon full of the refinement of the dead, in sad, earth-coloured raiment, set with pale stones, we suddenly remember that we have ears and we have eyes and that the English language fills a long array of stout volumes with innumerable words, many of which are of more than one syllable. The only living Englishman who ever looks into these volumes is, of course, a gentleman of Polish extraction. But doubtless our abstention saves us much gush, much rhetoric, much high-stepping and cloud-prancing, and for the sake of the prevailing sobriety and hard-headedness, we should be willing to barter the splendor of  Sir Thomas Browne  and the vigor of  Swift. Yet, if the essay admits more properly than biography or fiction of sudden boldness and metaphor, and can be polished till every atom of its surface shines, there are dangers in that too. We are soon in sight of ornament. Soon the current, which is the life-blood of literature, runs slow; and instead of sparkling and flashing or moving with a quieter impulse which has a deeper excitement, words coagulate together in frozen sprays which, like the grapes on a Christmas-tree, glitter for a single night, but are dusty and garnish the day after. The temptation to decorate is great where the theme may be of the slightest. What is there to interest another in the fact that one has enjoyed a walking tour, or has amused oneself by rambling down Cheapside and looking at the turtles in Mr. Sweetings shop window?  Stevenson  and  Samuel Butler  chose very different methods of exciting our interest in these domestic themes. Stevenson, of course, trimmed and polished and set out his matter in the traditional eighteenth-century form. It is admirably done, but we cannot help feeling anxious, as the essay proceeds, lest the material may give out under the craftsmans fingers. The ingot is so small, the manipulation so incessant. And perhaps that is why the  peroration To sit still and contemplateto remember the faces of women without desire, to be pleased by the great deeds of men without envy, to be everything and everywhere in sympathy and yet content to remain where and what you are has the sort of insubstantiality which suggests that by the time he got to the end he had left himself nothing solid to work with. Butler adopted the very opposite method. Think your own thoughts, he seems to say, and speak them as plainly as you can. These turtles in the shop window which appear to leak out of their shells through heads and feet suggest a fatal faithfulness to a fixed idea. And so, striding unconcernedly from one idea to the next, we traverse a large stretch of ground; observe that a wound in the solicitor is a very serious thing; that Mary Queen of Scots wears surgical boots and is subject to fits near the Horse Shoe in Tottenham Court Road; take it for granted that no one really cares about Aeschylus; and so, with many amusing anecdotes and some profound reflections, reach the peroration, which is that, as he had been told not to see more in Cheapside than he could get into twelve pages of the  Universal Review, he had better stop. And yet obviously Butler is at least as careful of our pleasure as Stevenson, and to write like oneself and call it not writing is a much harder exercise in style than to write like Addison and call it writing well. But, however much they differ individually, the Victorian essayists yet had something in common. They wrote at greater length than is now usual, and they wrote for a public which had not only time to sit down to its magazine seriously, but a high, if peculiarly Victorian, standard of culture by which to judge it. It was worth while to speak out upon serious matters in an essay; and there was nothing absurd in writing as well as one possibly could when, in a month or two, the same public which had welcomed the essay in a magazine would carefully read it once more in a book. But a change came from a small audience of cultivated people to a larger audience of people who were not quite so cultivated. The change was not altogether for the worse. In volume iii. we find Mr. Birrell and  Mr. Beerbohm. It might even be said that there was a reversion to the classic  type and that the essay by losing its size and something of its sonority was approaching more nearly the essay of Addison and Lamb. At any rate, there is a great gulf between Mr. Birrell on  Carlyle  and the essay which one may suppose that Carlyle would have written upon Mr. Birrell. There is little similarity between  A Cloud of Pinafores, by Max Beerbohm, and  A Cynics Apology, by Leslie Stephen. But the essay is alive; there is no reason to despair. As the conditions change so the  essayist, most sensitive of all plants to public opinion, adapts himself, and if he is good makes the best of the change, and if he is bad the worst. Mr. Birrell is certainly good; and so we find that, though he has dropped a considerable amount of weight, his attack is much more direct and his movement more supple. But what did Mr. Beerbohm give to the essay and what did he take from it? That is a much more complicated question, for here we have an essayist who has concentrated on the work and  is, without doubt, the prince of his profession. What Mr. Beerbohm gave was, of course, himself. This presence, which has haunted the essay fitfully from the time of Montaigne, had been in exile since the death of  Charles Lamb. Matthew Arnold was never to his readers Matt, nor Walter Pater affectionately abbreviated in a thousand homes to Wat. They gave us much, but that they did not give. Thus,  sometime  in the nineties, it must have surprised readers accustomed to exhortation, information, and denunciation to find themselves familiarly addressed by a voice which seemed to belong to a man no larger than themselves. He was affected by private joys and  sorrows and had no gospel to preach and no learning to impart. He was himself, simply and directly, and himself he has remained. Once again we have an essayist capable of using the essayists most proper but most dangerous and delicate tool. He has brought personality into literature, not unconsciously and impurely, but so consciously and purely that we do not know whether t here is any relation between Max the essayist and Mr. Beerbohm the man. We only know that the spirit of personality permeates every word that he writes. The triumph is the triumph of  style. For it is only by knowing how to write that you can make use in literature of  yourself; that self which, while it is essential to literature, is also its most dangerous antagonist. Never to be yourself and yet alwaysthat is the problem. Some of the essayists in Mr. Rhys collection, to be frank, have not altogether succeeded in solving it. We are nauseated by the sight of trivial personalities decomposing in the eternity of print. As talk, no doubt, it was charming, and  certainly, the writer is a good fellow to meet over a bottle of beer. But literature is stern; it is no use being charming,  virtuous or even learned and brilliant into the bargain, unless, she seems to reiterate, you  fulfill  her first conditionto know how to write. This art is possessed to perfection by Mr. Beerbohm. But he has not searched the dictionary for polysyllables. He has not  molded  firm periods or seduced our ears with intricate cadences and strange melodies. Some of his companionsHenley and Stevenson, for exampleare momentarily more impressive. But  A Cloud of Pinafores  has in it that indescribable inequality, stir, and final expressiveness which belong to life and to life alone. You have not finished with it because you have read it, any more than friendship is ended because it is time to part. Life wells up and alters and adds. Even things in a book-case change if they are alive; we find ourselves wanting to meet them again; we find them altered. So we look back upon essay after essay by Mr. Beerbohm, knowing that, come September or May, we shall sit down with them and talk. Yet it is true that the essayist is the most sensitive of all writers to public opinion. The drawing-room is the place where a great deal of reading is done nowadays, and the essays of Mr. Beerbohm lie, with an exquisite appreciation of all that the position exacts, upon the drawing-room table. There is no  gin  about; no strong tobacco; no puns, drunkenness, or insanity. Ladies and gentlemen talk together, and some things, of course, are not said. But if it would be foolish to attempt to confine Mr. Beerbohm to one room, it would be still more foolish, unhappily, to make him, the artist, the man who gives us only his best, the representative of our age. There are no essays by Mr. Beerbohm in the fourth or fifth volumes of the present collection. His age seems already a little distant, and the drawing-room table, as it recedes, begins to look rather like an altar where, once upon a time, people deposited offeringsfruit from their own orchards, gifts carved with their own hands. Now once more the conditions have changed. The public needs essays as much as ever, and perhaps even more. The demand for the light middle not exceeding fifteen hundred words, or in special cases seventeen hundred and fifty, much exceeds the supply. Where Lamb wrote one essay and Max perhaps writes two,  Mr. Belloc  at a rough computation produces three hundred and sixty-five. They are very short, it is true. Yet with what dexterity the practised ess ayist will utilise his spacebeginning as close to the top of the sheet as possible, judging precisely how far to go, when to turn, and how, without sacrificing a  hairs breadth  of paper, to wheel about and alight accurately upon the last word his editor allows! As a feat of  skill, it is well worth watching. But the personality upon which Mr. Belloc, like Mr. Beerbohm, depends suffers in the process. It comes to  us, not with the natural richness of the speaking voice, but strained and thin and full of mannerisms and affectations, like the voice of a man shouting through a megaphone to a crowd on a windy day. Little friends, my readers, he says in the essay called An Unknown Country, and he goes on to tell us how There was a shepherd the other day at Findon Fair who had come from the east by Lewes with sheep, and who had in his eyes that reminiscence of horizons which makes the eyes of shepherds and of mountaineers different from the eyes of other men. . . . I went with him to hear what he had to say, for shepherds talk quite differently from other men. Happily, this shepherd had little to say, even under the stimulus of the inevitable mug of beer, about the Unknown Country, for the only remark that he did make proves him either a minor poet, unfit for the care of  sheep or Mr. Belloc himself masquerading with a fountain pen. That is the penalty which the habitual essayist must now be prepared to face. He must masquerade. He cannot afford the time either to be himself or to be other people. He must skim the surface of thought and dilute the strength of personality. He must give us a worn weekly halfpenny instead of a solid sovereign once a year. But it is not Mr. Belloc only who has suffered from the prevailing conditions. The essays which bring the collection to the year 1920 may not be the best of their authors work, but, if we except writers like Mr. Conrad and Mr. Hudson, who have strayed into essay writing accidentally, and concentrate upon those who write essays habitually, we shall find them a good deal affected by the change in their circumstances. To write weekly, to write daily, to write shortly, to write for busy people catching trains in the morning or for tired people coming home in the evening, is a  heartbreaking  task for men who know good writing from bad. They do it, but instinctively draw out of harms way anything precious that might be damaged by contact with the public, or anything sharp that might irritate its skin. And so, if one reads Mr. Lucas, Mr. Lynd, or Mr. Squire in the bulk, one feels that a common  grayness  silvers everything. They are as far removed from the extravagant beauty of Wal ter Pater as they are from the intemperate  candor  of Leslie Stephen. Beauty and courage are dangerous spirits to bottle in a column and a half; and thought, like a brown paper parcel in a waistcoat pocket, has a way of spoiling the symmetry of an article. It is a kind, tired, apathetic world for which they write, and the marvel is that they never cease to attempt, at least, to write well. But there is no need to pity Mr. Clutton Brock for this change in the essayists conditions. He has clearly made the best of his circumstances and not the worst. One hesitates even to say that he has had to make any conscious effort in the matter, so  naturally, has he effected the transition from the private essayist to the public, from the drawing-room to the Albert Hall. Paradoxically enough, the shrinkage in size has brought about a corresponding expansion of individuality. We have no longer the I of Max and of Lamb, but the we of public bodies and other sublime personages. It is we who go to hear the Magic Flute; we who ought to profit by it; we, in some mysterious way, who, in our corporate capacity, once upon a time actually wrote it. For music and literature and art must submit to the same  generalization  or they will not carry to the farthest recesses of the Albert Hall. That the voice of Mr. Clutton Brock, so sincere and so disinterested, carries such a distance and r eaches so many without pandering to the weakness of the mass or its passions must be a matter of legitimate satisfaction to us all. But while we are gratified, I, that unruly partner in the human fellowship, is reduced to despair. I must always think things for himself, and feel things for himself. To share them in a diluted form with the majority of well-educated and well-intentioned men and women is  for him sheer agony; and while the rest of us listen intently and profit profoundly, I slips off to the woods and the fields and rejoices in a single blade of grass or a solitary potato. In the fifth volume of modern essays, it seems, we have got some way from pleasure and the art of writing. But in justice to the essayists of  1920  we must be sure that we are not praising the famous because they have been praised already and the dead because we shall never meet them wearing spats in Piccadilly. We must know what we mean when we say that they can write and give us pleasure. We must compare them; we must bring out the quality. We must point to this and say it is good because it is exact, truthful, and imaginative: Nay, retire men cannot when they would; neither will they, when it were Reason; but are impatient of Privateness, even in age and sickness, which require the shadow: like old Townsmen: that will still be sitting at their street door, though therby they offer Age to Scorn . . . and to this, and say it is bad because it is loose, plausible, and commonplace: With courteous and precise cynicism on his lips, he thought of quiet virginal chambers, of waters singing under the moon, of terraces where taintless music sobbed into the open night, of pure maternal mistresses with protecting arms and vigilant eyes, of fields slumbering in the sunlight, of leagues of ocean heaving under warm tremulous heavens, of hot ports, gorgeous and perfumed. . . . It goes on, but already we are bemused with sound and neither feel nor hear. The comparison makes us suspect that the art of writing has for backbone some fierce attachment to an idea. It is on the back of an idea, something believed in with conviction or seen with precision and thus compelling words to its shape, that the diverse company which includes Lamb and  Bacon, and Mr. Beerbohm and Hudson, and Vernon Lee and Mr. Conrad, and Leslie Stephen and Butler and Walter Pater reaches the farther shore. Very various talents have helped or hindered the passage of the idea into words. Some scrape through painfully; others fly with every wind  favouring. But Mr. Belloc and  Mr. Lucas  and Mr. Squire are not fiercely attached to anything in itself. They share the contemporary dilemmathat lack of an obstinate conviction which lifts ephemeral sounds through the misty sphere of anybodys language to the land where there is a perpetual marriage, a perpetual union. Vague as all definitio ns are, a good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in, not out. Originally published in 1925 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,  The Common Reader  is currently available from Mariner Books (2002) in the U.S. and from Vintage (2003) in the U.K.