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.