Case: 3 Marketing in the Digital Age Question 1: Based on the case, briefly summarize the initiatives of Reckitt Benckiser.

Answer 1: Reckitt Benckiser is a British multinational consumer goods company headquartered in Slough, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest producer of household cleaning products and a major producer of consumer healthcare and personal products. Its brands include Dettol (the world's largest-selling antiseptic), Strepsils (the world's largest-selling sore throat medicine), Veet (the world's largest-selling depilatory brand), Air Wick (the world's secondlargest-selling air freshener), Calgon, Clearasil, Cillit Bang, Durex and Vanish. It has operations in around 60 countries and its products are sold in over 180 countries
For brands that want to upgrade their platform to adapt and win in the Digital Age, it has to expand the traditional Vision- Mission -Positioning triangle that was created for the TV age. This leads to building a structure which will have a Core Engagement Idea that will be at the core of all communication, interaction and reputation creative elements and guidelines. It then leads to creative execution & guidelines per channel and key consumer clusters, to that all these elements can seamlessly be synchronized in time with consumer and market reality.

Advertising in the digital space is much more targeted to particular demographic groups at the time and place they are considering purchasing the product or service. RB has recognized the change in consumer behavior as a result of the evolution of digital platforms and this has led to them driving change towards a significant marketing investment in digital media. RB recognized the change in consumer behavior resulting from the evolution of digital platforms and invested approximately $US40m into digital media in the USA in 2010. RB synchronizes its digital media campaigns with mainstream television advertising campaigns. A key part of the digital media strategy is to enhance the television advertisements with a level of consumer engagement. RB established a reporting system that ensures that the business does not pay unless the advertisement is completely downloaded. This means RB pays only when the advertisement completely loads, rather than when it is requested from the server. Use of this technology

means RB has very precise data about when the impression is completed. Impression in online advertising simply means a single appearance of an advertisement on a web page, that is, when the advertisement loads onto a users screen. It has invested significant resources into developing the optimal approach towards online media and establishing global benchmarks for measuring the impact on sales and incremental audience reach of both TV and digital media campaigns. We can standardize their initiative in Australia mentioned in the case for a global scenario like followings:

First set the appropriate objectives and KPIs that digital can handle and boost within the global brand and marketing objectives and KPIs and creating the appropriate reporting tools to constantly optimize performance of RB's communication

Defining the Experience Platform, i.e. how RB wants consumers to react when interacting with the brand digital media

Defining the Brand Digital Footprint, i.e. the most relevant content approach by integrating the brand objectives and the existing sources of available Digital content and services of RB

Defining the Digital brand presence, i.e. what are the Digital point of contacts the brand can and should use, how they integrate in the global Digital eco-system and how they synergize together with clearly define roles and measurable KPIs of RB's Global Media Team

Question 2: Based on the case, what was the element that was chosen by Reckitt Benckiser to build customer based brand equity? According to you which selection criteria was given more importance to build customer based brand equity and why? Answer 2: Brand equity is essentially an expression of a brand's value or strength. Sometimes termed
brand resonance, brand power or some other euphemism, it can be gauged in financial terms as well as customer-based measures. Brand equity can be measured for product and service brands as well as corporate brands.

There are many elements to choose from when building CBBE, such as Brands Names, URLs, Logos and Symbols, Characters, etc. Based on the case, the element chosen by RB was URLs. URL simply means Universal Resource Locator. i.e. www.rb.com. But here in this case we saw an extensive or more developed form of building brand equity through URLs or Internet.

There are six criterions for choosing brand elements: Memorability, Meaningfulness, Likability, Transferability, Adaptability and Protectability. Out of these, the first three are to aid a marketer in building CBBE, and the latter three are for leveraging and maintaining CBBE. Hence, in order to build CBBE, RB had to make sure that the videos made for online advertising were:

Memorable the videos had to be memorable and a target audience will recall it later. Meaningful the contents of the videos had to be either descriptive or persuasive. They should incorporate both general information about the nature of the product category and specific information about particular attributes and benefits of the brand, and

Likable the customers should find the brand element aesthetically appealing. Adaptability - The more adaptable and flexible the brand element, the easier it is to update it to changes in consumer values and opinions.

I think the fourth criteria, adaptability, was given the most importance to by RB. Because in this case, we saw again and again how RB is continuously bringing the change to the game. Introduction to the digital media, then finding a way to measure their ROI and then comparing those results with

the traditional TV advertisement, all these were done in a disciplined manner by RBs Global Media Team.

Every marketing channel a business uses has the potential to encourage or destroy a brand relationship. Equally, every time a customer interacts with a business whether through traditional awareness advertising, the purchase process, customer service or post-purchase loyalty marketing activity there is a chance the customer will walk away or become your biggest advocate.

Digital, or more precisely the vast array of digital channels, is a fantastic environment for brand building. As both a sales and marketing channel, digital offers businesses the opportunity to meet the needs and expectations of customers throughout the buying cycle. Also, no other channel offers the level of potential for customer-business interactivity that digital does.