Endorsed Branding

Abstract

A restaurant brand is more than a product with a catchy name and attractive packaging, although those are essential brand elements. A brand contains specific attributes and promises specific benefits to the customer. Brands are built based on quality products and services, flawless execution, and symbolic imagery. Firms can use any of three brand-management strategies—simple, monolithic, or endorsed. Many restaurant firms have developed strong simple or monolithic strategies. A chain that owns several apparently unrelated brands, as do Tricon or Darden, is using a simple strategy in which each brand stands or falls on its own merits without being helped or hurt by the company's other brands. McDonald's has used an effective monolithic strategy by prefacing product names with “Mc” to emphasize each new product's relationship to the brand name. Restaurant chains have yet to use the third strategy, in which one brand name connects several distinct but related products—an approach used effectively by lodging companies. Pizza Hut is approaching this strategy with its use of kiosks and delivery-carry out shops.