The END ...

Dear readership,

It’s time to say goodbye. After all, all good things come to an end.

This brand audit was a challenge for us and sometimes, like our favorite superheroes, we had to face difficulties as Marvel and DC Comics are very diversified brands and some of our tools were unadapted to such giants (for example the Lovemarker model).
But it was a real pleasure to undertake this brand audit. We much enjoyed it and we truly hope you did too! If there is one thing to be said, it would probably be “Let the competition carry on”.

Marvel is for sure one step ahead but DC Comics has a sword!

The brand inventory part revealed very interesting information about both brands and allowed all of us to see a distinction. To sum up, we have been through the study/analysis of their brands elements, of their current marketing, communication, distribution and pricing programs, of their branding strategies (extensions, sub-brands, etc.), of their branding portfolio: architecture & archetypes, of competition and of their brand positioning notably via Keller and Jobber models.

As for the brand exploratory part, we got juicy details and in-depth insights. Besides, we would like to thank each person who agreed to share his or her opinions, feelings, beliefs. You were great! In retrospect, we have been through the study/analysis of their brand positioning from customers perception via Keller method, of their brand awareness and brand image (Lovemarker test, brand associations game, brand awareness survey), of customer knowledge via a perceptual map, of brand experience via the brand experience scale model and of the customer-based brand equity (CBBE) via the brand resonance model of Keller by identifying the sources of brand equity and by giving recommendations to grow it.

 It is not a farewell, we would be back for new adventures, because as we promised you, we are the Skema BS Justice League, here to serve and protect you!

Yours sincerely,

Bat Laurie-Anne, Super Morgane, Wonder Elsa and Cat Julia

Customer-Based Brand Equity models of our two competitors

Good evening all, 

This is our last article... We really hope you enjoyed the journey so far!

Thanks to the previous analyses we undertook in this blog about Marvel and DC Comics' target market, segmentation, positioning, brand knowledge and so on, we can now build both brands’ resonance pyramids refering to Keller 's theory.

Concerning the salience (the bottom of the CBBE pyramid), even if they are both historical brands, Marvel 's brand awareness (unaided and aided) is much better than DC Comics'. Marvel has a strong depth unlike DC Comics. The main explicative reason is that every time a consumer goes to see a movie at the cinema or purchases comics, the brand is visible. People know that it is Avengers by Marvel, while DC Comics never sufficiently/clearly highlights that Batman or Superman belong to them.
In term of breadth, this is the same problem for the two brands. It is quite weak. For instance, consumers go to the cinema because they want to be entertained. They can go there for a special movie they want to watch but they are not specifically paying attention to the companies holding the subbrands, except for demanding people. Marvel and DC Comics do not come to customers' mind very often and in many situations.

Our two competitors are both rational (performance + judgments) and emotional (imagery + feelings) but few things differienciate them from one to another.  Regarding the performance dimension of the pyramid, DC Comics for example offers competitive prices. On the other side, Marvel is mainly focusing on team stories that consumers definitely enjoy and is making movies very often, which is also highly appreciated.
Those brands inspire nostalgia and excitment to customers. Moreover, their movies allow the public to feel many emotions such as sadness, happiness, humor, surprise...

Even if Marvel and DC Comics aren't lovemarks (theory of Kevin Roberts), they have a strong community and a fan database who is aware of every newness regarding movies, comics, products, co-branding actions and so on and this community is relatively well engaged and reactive in the social networks. Their main weakness lie in the brand awareness again as consumers do not always know well or know at all the wide range of products they propose and that we have chosen to study.

What about some recommendations to grow Marvel and DC Comics' brand equity?

Regarding DC Comics, and as said before, there is a real lack of brand awareness. Such as Marvel, DC Comics should use more its logo in all its activities and make it more visible in order to help customers understand what it is standing for and so that they can automatically associate it to the firm.

A good way for both brands to raise the knowledge of their products in customers' minds and to make people love them even more, could be the sellings of products in small places, as in pop-up stores, in cinemas when a Marvel or a DC Comics movie is in theater.

DC Comics Customer-Based Brand Equity model

Marvel Customer-Based Brand Equity model

You may wonder whether Marvel and DC Comics' positioning are perceived by the customers as they want to, in other words if the desired positioning matches or not with the perceived positioning?
Well, not exactly! One thing is really obvious: the target is not perceived the way Marvel and DC Comics desire to. In fact, according to the people we interviewed, both brands are targeting men from 20 to 30 years old, which is not the reality.

Marvel’s target market for comics is younger (13-23 years old) and DC Comics’ target market for comics is quite large (from 13 to 35 years old). And the target is wider regarding movies for both. But they are not targeting men only so there is a significant difference of positioning between the perceived one and the desired one from the companies. A good way to avoid it is to increase and promote the number of stories with women superheroes and to go deeper in the romance because adventure and action movies are not really appealling to housewives for example.

Yours faithfully,

By Super Morgane

My sources are in this blog.

What experiences do Marvel and DC Comics provide to customers ?

Hey all !

We're back again with more knowledge...and fun !
Today, we're going to be talking about brand experience... But what is it ?

Brand experience is conceptualized as sensations, feelings, cognitions and behavioural responses.
We can distinguish several experience dimensions as Josko, Brakus, Schmitt, Zarantonello highlighted it:

• Sensory
• Affective 
• Behavioural 
• Intellectual 

The brand experience scale is divided into these four different categories.

The first one is sensory; both Marvel and DC Comics provide a sensorial experience. Indeed, thanks to the different products such as video games and comic books, there is a tactile experience. People reading the comic books and playing video games use their hands to either hold the book or the gamepad. Moreover, both Marvel and DC Comics provide a visual experience, for example when one goes to see a Spiderman or a Superman movie, as well as read a comic book or play a videogame. 
If you look deeper and think about the cobranding DC Comics did with Oasis recently, you can add the taste and the sense of smell to the sensory experience. People are drinking Oasis while seeing DC Comics heros on the can.

Concerning emotions and affective, both brands provide emotions to the customers. When going to the movies, people are confronted to images that will induce emotions such as surprise, happiness, sadness, and anger …

Therefore, once you come out of the cinema after watching a movie either from Marvel (for example Spiderman) or DC Comics (Batman), you will experience certain behaviours. Indeed, children will want to buy a Spiderman or a Batman suit and walk about “POW”ing and “BAM”ing in the streets; adults will feel excited and most people usually make big movements, feel very powerful (at least a couple of minutes after coming out of the movies). There is a very specific sign most people do after watching a Spiderman movie, which is the hand sign to throw spider web like Spiderman does. Moreover, videogames tend to change user’s behaviour; on the short term, they will be more hyperactive, will scream or get annoyed at their screen…

Last but not least, intellectual experience is another dimension of the brand experience scale; people will become customers of several brands that have a partnership with Marvel or DC Comics. In the fashion business, Marvel and DC Comics influence brands (Marvel x Vans or DC Comics x Berluti). It also influences children, who will discover these brands, their superheroes, and will still be watching movies or loving Marvel and DC Comics even when they grow up, as adults. Moreover, it teaches younger children about good and evil, about heroes and villains.

To find more information about the Brand Experience Scale, please find the links below which have helped me to make this analysis !

> Developement of the brand experience scale, BH Schmitt, JJ Brakus (Advances in customer research, 2007, acrwebsite.org)
> Using the brand experience scale to profile consumers and predict consumer behaviour, L Zarantonello, BH Schmitt (Journal of Brand Management, 2010, palgrave-journals.com)
> Experiential Marketing: How to get consumers to sense, feel, think, act, relate. BH Schmitt, 1999

> http://editioncollector.fr/films/des-canettes-collector-oasis-super-heros.htlm

Thank you for reading guys !

By Cat Julia

Marvel and DC Comics vs The Villains: part II

Hi everyone !

Ready for a brand new adventure with us ? Alright, let’s go !

In the previous articles, we studied both competitors and consumers perception.  

Today we chose to resume those data through a perceptual mapping to help you to understand Marvel and DC Comics position in the marketplace toward competition.

To build this tool, we had to use attributes that are important and relevant to consumers. We decided to build this map following two axes :

·      The product range lenght, ie. if the brand is essentially focused on comic books or if it is diversified with other products such as movies, DVDs, collectible figures, clothing, partnerships…

·      The awareness level, meaning the brand awareness and recognizable characters

Here is the result of this perceptual mapping :

As you can see, brands are clearly divided in two categories :

•         Marvel an DC Comics, which both benefit from a high awareness and a very large product range

•         The other competitors: Dark Horse Comics, Image Comics and IDW which are located on the opposite side of the mapping, with a narrower product range and a lower awareness among consumers

Of course, the perceptual mapping would look different if we had chosen other axes. But in any case, Marvel and DC Comics would still stand far from competition no matters the criterions (innovative vs. conservative, high vs. low interaction with fan community, young vs. older consumer target…) and the two leader brands are still very close one to the other.

By Bat Laurie-Anne

Sources :

Marvel logo : comicsbeat.com

DC Comics logo : fr.wikipedia.org

Dark Horse Comics logo : en.wikipedia.org

Image Comics logo : hollywoodreporter.com

IDW logo : mdcu-comics.fr

Consumers perception analysis

Hey guys, brand new article! Hope you will love it!

There are two types of customer-based brand equity: brand awareness and brand image, both belong to the very key concept of brand knowledge. A positive customer-based brand equity depends on how consumers perceive the brand. What we can all agree on is that customers will be favorable to a brand if they are for instance more or less not that sensitive to price changes, if they are willing to spend time looking across stores to buy it and on top of that if they are loyal.

As part of a brand exploratory perspective, we went on the field in Paris-La Défense, and asked random people what they thought about Marvel and DC Comics in terms of brand awareness and brand image.

You may say to yourself “What’s the point of all this?”, well let us tell you why! 

For a brand, improving its brand awareness is vital. In fact, the higher the better: customers will place the brand in their consideration set that would impact their purchase choices. Similarly, a brand must be an undefeatable actor in terms of brand image to beat competition through strong, favorable and unique brand associations as Keller underlined it; this can be undertaken via attributes, benefits and attitudes/emotions. Having a solid brand identity is not enough, what matters is how the customer will perceive it.

I/ BRAND AWARENESS

Firstly, to measure Marvel and DC Comics’ brand awareness, composed of brand recall and brand recognition, we chose to ask the following questions to a sample of 10 heterogeneous people:

1) What brands in the category of comics/movies featuring superheroes do you know?

The first cited response echoes to a top of mind awareness, i.e. the highest level of brand awareness (brand recall).

The other spontaneously cited responses lie in spontaneous awareness (brand recall).

If people were unable to answer, we guided them through a second question.

Results:

Marvel wins the competition as the brand was the first cited response for 70% of the people we interviewed, so it benefits from a top of mind awareness.

Nonetheless, DC Comics benefits from a spontaneous awareness for 30% of the sample.

The results to this question were quite interesting as many people quoted DC Comics superheroes (Batman, Superman, Captain America) but could not tell us what was the brand behind them.

2) Do you know Marvel? Do you know DC Comics?

This question deals with assisted awareness (brand recognition).

If people replied “yes”, we then moved to a third and final question.

Results:

Marvel benefits from a higher assisted awareness than DC Comics as 100% of the people interviewed replied they know Marvel, and only 60% of them answered they know DC Comics. Furthermore, two respondents said that they knew DC Comics but could not tell who were the superheroes of the brand.

However, these results must be nuanced as our sample was limited and it is quite unlikely that a brand has 100% assisted awareness.

3) What products of Marvel/ DC Comics do you know?

If people were able to cite the majority of the products of the brand, we call it qualified awareness (brand recall).

Results:

Respondents answered to this question in two different ways: half of the people interviewed cited the brands products and others cited the superheroes attributed to each brand.

For those who cited the brand products, all of them told us Marvel was doing comics, movies, video games, toys, action figures and clothing. They answered the same for DC Comics, except 2 people among 5 who had no idea of which products DC Comics is producing. We noticed that comics and movies were always the first products cited, which shows a qualified awareness of the two brands.

For those who cited the superheroes, some of the respondents mix Marvel and DC Comics superheroes such as Superman, Green Lantern, Captain America and Wonderwoman.

To conclude, the answers to this questionnaire underlie the fact that Marvel benefits from a higher brand awareness than DC Comics: 70% top of mind awareness versus 30% for DC Comics, 100% assisted awareness versus 60% for DC Comics and a higher qualified awareness too.

As its brand recognition is weak, DC Comics should increase the familiarity of its products through repeat exposures in the eyes of customers. More, to reinforce its brand recall, DC Comics should work on more powerful associations and signals.

II/ THE LOVEMARKER MODEL

Secondly, to assess their brand image, we used on one hand the Lovemarker model of Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi (even tough we remain conscious that it does not perfectly fit to our audited brands) and on the other hand the process of brand associations.

Magic mirror on the wall, who is the Lovemark one of all?

We chose to interview a heterogeneous sample. We interviewed Hermine, 27, law student, Laetitia, 20, nurse’s aide, Jennifer, 25, law student, Solène, 20, nurse’s aide, Deborah, 26, student, Fabrice, 37, bank employee, Ismael, 29, auditor, Etienne, 36, real estate agent, Pascal, 33, middle-office controller, and Tom, 35, publisher.

The respondent must score at least 25 Respect points, otherwise the brand can’t even be a Lovemark.

Unfortunately and surprisingly, among 10 respondents, none attributed 25 Respect points to the two brands, meaning that we couldn’t go any further into the Lovemarker model. But, we were curious and still evaluated the sample’s opinion about Mystery, Sensuality and Intimacy (the three characteristics measuring emotional heat of a brand). Of course, neither Marvel nor DC Comics were assigned as Lovemarks…

Why? Either because the studied sample is restricted or more likely because Marvel and DC Comics are not sufficiently rooted in customers’mind.

Despite Marvel’s leadership, both brands encounter notoriety problems and have to increase their presence in the international market.

Still, we can draw the conclusion that for 8 respondents, Marvel got higher Respect points than DC. Plus, we noticed that according to Jennifer’s results, Marvel and DC Comics got equal scores. For Tom, DC Comics scored lower than Marvel. Both results are quite attention-grabbing considering customers are more aware and crazy about Marvel. But after all, that is just a trend.

III/  BRAND ASSOCIATIONS GAME

Let’s now move forward and pay a close look at the game of brand associations. You might want to have a look at their reactions and responses like if you were there, isn’t it?  

Annnnnnd ACTION!

And you, did you know all those Marvel and DC Comics superheroes?

In any case, brand associations game we made raised several points:

Among the 10 people we interviewed, no one recognized DC Comics logo. However, Jason made an interesting remark: after consideration, he recognized the logo, but he told us that it was not obvious for him, even though he is a great comic reader since his childhood. But he precisely remembered the old one which was red and white.

Then, Stephanie did not know the name of Green Lantern, but she thought it was a Marvel character. So there is still this problem of confusion between Marvel and DC Comics superheroes.

Four of our respondents did not know the name of The Thing, but they knew it was a character from Fantastic Four. It means that many people are able to make the link between the comic/movie and the character.

We will conclude by a point-scoring: we showed 8 pictures of each brand to the respondents. Marvel obtained 52 good answers versus 42 for DC Comics. The leader is still the same, but DC Comics does not lag behind as its superheroes benefits from a good awareness.

Let’s end up with a word cloud, resuming what we’ve studied previously:

By Wonder Elsa and Bat Laurie-Anne

Sources:

http://saatchi.com/en-us/purpose/lovemarks/

http://www.lovemarks.com/index.php?pageID=20031

http://www.wordle.net

The begining of a new chapter…brands positioning analysis

Hello everyone !

In the previous articles, Super Morgane and Wonder Elsa used their extraordinary powers to tell you more about strenghts and weaknesses, POPs and PODs, brand mantra and brand anatomy of Marvel and DC Comics.

Today we are going to tackle the second step of this brand audit : the exploratory part. This will help us to understand what consumers think and feel about the brands and if it matches with the supporting marketing program.

Reeeaaady for this new trip ? Let’s go !

To have a better idea of how consumers perceive Marvel and DC Comics, we conducted an online questionnaire among 19 respondents, male and female, from 22 to 29 years old.

A minority of them (16%) are regular comics readers, but they all know Marvel and DC Comics through movies, as they have seen the early productions from both brands :

Regarding the comics target, 84% of our respondents think it is composed of men from 20 to 30 years old for Marvel.

DC Comics books target is approximately the same, as 89% of the repondents answered it is composed of men and 74% of them think that they are from 20 to 30 years old.

To summarize, Marvel’s target market according to business segment is younger (13-23 years old) than the target percieved by consumers.

As DC Comics’ target market according to business segment is quite large (from 13 to 35 years old), it is harder to compare the results with the answers to our questionnaire.

Regarding the movies target, Marvel’s results are exactly the same as for the comics target (84% of people interviewed think it is composed of men from 20 to 30 years old).

For DC Comics, the results are almost the same to as 89% of them think it is composed of men and 79% of them think they are from 20 to 30 years old.

So, in the mind of consumers, the movies target is quite narrow, while for both brands, the movies are a way to attract a larger public than comic books.

Now, let’s have a look to the brands values :

In order to study consumers reactions and to see if they differentiate Marvel to DC Comics, I chose to mix the values of both brands and asked the respondents to choose the ones that best correspond to each brand.

Top 3 values for Marvel :

1-Entertainment

2-Family-friendly

3-Empowerment of all generations

Top 3 values for DC Comics :

1-Entertainment

2-Family-friendly

3-Quality

As you can see, the only thing that differenciates Marvel from DC Comics in consumers' mind is that they allow quality to DC Comics. We have to notice that the quality value is meant to be one of Marvel’s core values.

About the brands POPs and PODs, we wanted to study which elements really differienciate the two brands according to consumers. Respondents had the choice to pick up one or several answers to this question.

The two most recurrent answers show that the team stories are a key differenciation element for 42% of consumers, but also that 42% of them cannot differentiate the two brands. For these, maybe the result can be explained by the fact that the people interviewed are not hard fans of Marvel and DC Comics universes.

Regarding the brand mantra for both brands, it appears that employees describe Marvel as a"fun", "creative"and "friendly"work environment. About DC Comics, as the company belongs to Warner Bros, they tend to have the same brand mantra, which is described as "collegial" and "familial"; employees describe Warner Bros as their "home".

To sum up, consumers have difficulties to make the difference between Marvel and DC Comics.

They allow them almost the same target, which is pretty narrow, especially for movies (we would have expected they choose a large target for movies which are really popular). As a paradox, one of Marvel values according to them is « empowerement of all generations ». Plus, the « quality » value given to DC Comics is a really positive advantage that haven’t been raised before. Finally, team stories produced by Marvel proved their efficiency as they are the most important point of differenciation to the consumers.

By Bat Laurie-Anne

Sources :

http://www.google.com/forms/about/
http://www.indeed.com/cmp/Marvel-Entertainment/reviews
http://www.warnerbroscareers.com/professionals/