Brand equity is becoming a necessity within the modern day business climate, when economic agents compete not only for market shares, but also for the best employees, the best technologies or the best resources. In this setting, brand equity provides competitive advantages and points of differences and is essential.
The creation of brand equity varies across industries, across economic agents and it depends on various elements. In other words, there are no secret recipes to creating brand equity, but Yahoo! has to devise its own strategies based on its own specifics. Some of the features which can impact the brand equity strategy would include the size of the company and its resource availability, the marketing expertise it possesses, the features of the market it addresses or the nature of the items it sells.
In terms of the items commercialized, it could be argued that brand equity is created differently at the level of services and products. For products for instance, more emphasis would be placed on the technical functionalities of the items. In the case of services however, the functionality traits are more difficult to define and the emphasis of brand equity would be placed on emotions. Then, since services are immaterial, they are less trusted by the prospective customers. This means that brand equity in services is more focused on creating trust in the vendor, whereas in the case of products, it would be more focused on product promotions.
The construction of brand equity by Yahoo! is a highly challenging endeavor and the complexity is often due to the intangible nature of the services, which makes it more difficult for the audiences to envision them (the services), trust them and demand them. In this setting then, several Best Practice recommendations can be formulated to help the...
Two examples in this sense are revealed below:
Emphasis should be placed on promoting the service in a clear manner so that the audiences can envision it. Yahoo! should focus on the features of the service, on how it can be used and what specific customer needs it can satisfy. At this level, it is also recommended for the strategy to relate to the emotional dimension of the service, referring specifically to the feelings which would be created if the individual were to purchase / use the services of Yahoo!.
The second Best Practice recommendation is for the company to stimulate trust in the brand and the services it promotes. Such an effort would include testimonials from satisfied users of the services and other brand components, as well as commitment statements from representatives of the company.
All in all, the brand equity is gradually becoming one of the most important organizational assets and economic agents have to allocate more time and resources to developing and consolidating their brands. The underlying principle in their approach to brand equity should be that of strategic specialization and customization based on the organizational and market particularities.
