Unilever Corporate Branding Theory and Issues Review (Essay Sample)

UNILEVER CORPORATE BRANDING THEORY AND ISSUES
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Corporate Branding Theory and Issues
Executive Summary
As one of the most thriving and successful consumer goods and companies in the industry ever, it has remained a leading player in home, personal care besides the food markets. Much more, the group is known for its diversified portfolio of roughly four hundred different brands (Unilever Group 2006, p. 13). Unilever established a stronger relationship with some long chain supermarkets like Tesco, Carrefour and Wal-Mart, which have increased their customer affluence in more countries. Unilever has put much emphasis on the corporate branding theory and issues to ensure that the company gets deeper into the market. Unilever deals wholly in the consumer market; therefore, any variation in the customer preferences, besides a negative effect on the brand name of the Unilever, could have a very extensive effect on the products and the position of Unilever in the global consumer market position. Therefore, this paper seeks to explore on factors that are pertinent to the Unilever corporate branding theory and issues. The work seeks to develop corporate branding strategies for Unilever, giving detailed analysis on the Unilever’s corporate brand equity, corporate brand architecture, besides the challenges in Unilever’s corporate branding.
Literature Review
The Unilever Company needs to grow their market share in the world. This can be achieved through entering new markets and maintaining their existing markets. The strategy applied by the organization should be able to meet the needs of all stakeholders of the organization. The customers will expect the company to provide them with high quality products at affordable prices. The shareholders expect that they will receive high dividends from their invested amounts. The government expects to the Unilever Company to comply with the rules and regulations as well as pay taxes on their products. NGOs and the community expect them to produce goods using environmental friendly methods. These expectations will be attained through application of various strategies (Freathy, 2014).
The Unilever Company needs to advertise using various media platforms. The products may be advertised using print media which will showcase their new innovations in the new markets. This will help in creating a mental image in the minds of the consumers. Use of Radios and televisions to persuade the consumers to buy their brands will also be effective in penetrating the new markets.
Having penetrated the new markets, the Unilever Company will launch the brand with a purpose strategy. This will help them learn the needs of their customers and integrate them in their brands. The company will ensure that they are able to meet the customers' local needs. For example, in the hot Asian countries, the company will produce products that are able to solve the harsh weather conditions on their skins. This will enable them to satisfy the needs of the customers as well as increase their market share. Eventually, this will lead to high dividends distributed to the shareholders of the organization (Sadler, 2013).
From the Ansoff Growth matrix, the Unilever may employ the product development strategy. The Unilever Company needs to develop new hair products for the African market. Most of the African hair product consumers have kinky hair. This is different from the Caucasian hair, which is softer and requires mild hair products such as Sun silk brand of the Unilever. To develop a new product, the firm will require high financial investments, marketing of the prototypes, and a keen attention to the activities of the competitors. The marketing department will, therefore, need to work together with the research and development department so as to attain the right product for the kinky hair. The finance department will be provided with the required financial needs which they will fund. This budget will include the production needs, marketing and the branding needs.
Marketers will; thus, collect information from the market as they showcase the prototypes of the final product to their targeted customers. The information collected will be used to develop the products further to meet the needs of the consumers. This information will be shared with the production team who will carry out the actual production. The firm will, therefore, need to be careful that the information on the product development is not leaked to their competitors. A
proper branding and launching through the global brand strategy may be used to capture the customers’ attention. The global brand-let go global strategy will be used to launch the product. Customers will be persuaded to buy the new products, which will assure them of satisfaction for their hair. Given that this is a new product in a new market, the customers are not aware of this product; the firm will be required to create awareness on the product. This may be a proper strategy through persuasive advertising (Dirisu, et al. 2013 p. 258). The Unilever Company will need to place persuasive advertisements on various platforms.
Introduction
Branding is a marketing strategy used to differentiate a company and its product from its competitors. The concepts of branding aims at providing a unique name and image to the customers through constant campaigns aimed at attracting new and retaining loyal customers (De-Chernatony, 2013, p.70). Unilever developed some stronger relationship with some long chain supermarkets like Tesco, Carrefour and Wal-Mart, which have increased their customer affluence in more countries and this is typical step for developing the Company’s brand name. Unilever has put much emphasis on the corporate branding theory and issues to ensure that the company gets deeper into the market and develop their brand name worldwide. Unilever deals wholly in the consumer market; therefore, any variation in the customer preferences, besides a negative effect on the brand name of the Unilever, could have a very extensive effect on the products and the position of Unilever in the global consumer market position, thus, we can depict that the branding states the purpose of existence of a company as well as the future of the company. Managers inclusive of the Unilever’s management, have shown an increasing interest on the company brands because brands they are assets of an organization (Unilever, 2016, p.1). This paper analyses the branding strategies applied in the Unilever Company and the challenges the company goes through in their branding process.
Industry Analysis, Competences, And Capabilities
The industry analysis of Unilever Company will be done using the Michael Porter’s five forces model as illustrated below (Porter, 2010, p.18):


(Porter, 2010, 22)
The Threat from the Bargaining Power of Suppliers
The firm possesses thousands of suppliers all over the world (Doyle, 2011, p.256). Their suppliers have low bargaining power and hence not a threat to the management of the Unilever Company.
The Threat of Bargaining Power Of Buyers
The buyers base their strength on their unity in order to negotiate for better prices and good of better quality. Strength of the buyers is their wit, their ability to analyze what is good and bad, besides the existence of substitutes in the market. Buyers’ strengths are the greatest weaknesses of companies, Unilever inclusive (ConAgra Foods, Inc 2006 p. 12). However, it is worth noting that the Unilever Company sells their products across the globe to millions of customers. It is thus difficult for the customers to unite and exert any meaningful pressure on the management of the Unilever Company. However, the Unilever buyers are sensitive to price changes (Gabrielson, 2015, p.200). Any increase in price may lead to the buyers abandoning the products for their competitors. As an organization, Unilever has put much stress and emphasis to cater for the consumer preferences so as to ensure that the set objectives and goals are achieved.
The Threat Of Substitution
The Unilever homecare and personal care products are faced with the threat of being replaced with homemade soaps and beauty products. Health practitioners have been discrediting factory made soaps and beauty products alleging that they contain harmful chemicals (Gabrielson, 2015, p.199). They encourage people to use home-made soap or organic products. These would have an imperative impact on the Unilever Company. Unilever has to put emphasis in the reduction of any harmful chemical that the doctors are alleging to be in their products and ensure that they meet higher safety standards. This would help in improving the brand name of the organization and ensuring that the organization gets the best income ever from their sales. The best way again to ensure that company beats the competitors is through lowering their prices and using more innovations to Improve on the quality of the products sold by the company.
Threat from Rivalry
The proctor and gamble products, Reckitt Benckiser and Nestle S.A have been a major threat to the products of the Unilever Company. These companies produce home care, ice creams, chocolates and personal care products. They fight for increase of the market share with the Unilever Company (Gabrielson, 2015, p.200).
Threat Of New Entry
The unilever company is faced with global competition; various companies are inventing new products with the hope of joining this industry. The company; thus requires investing in innovation and skills so as to remain relevant in the industry (Jeyarathnam, 2015, p.15).
Unilever Competencies and Capabilities
They have developed their products to their current state where they have won their customers’ loyalty. The company o...