Pat Freeland-Small
Projects I’ve worked on
Foster’s Lager Brand Advertising History
Foster's Lager Brand History
I had the pleasure of working on one of Australia’s most Iconic brands from the mid 1980’s commencing as CUB Australia’s Market Research Manager working right through to 2005 in my final role as the International Marketing Director for Fosters Group.
I developed this brand history reel to tell the Foster’s brand’s story through its advertising and promotion worldwide up to that period.
Enjoy a slice of Australian advertising history from one of our largest ever consumer brands.
From Victoria’s Favourite Beer in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the Fosters brand broke through the traditional parochial local state brand and brewer loyalties to become Australia’s Favourite Beer throughout the 1980s .
Similar brand success was also playing out in international markets, particularly in the UK, where Foster’s Draught was breaking through the UK tied-house distribution system and building its reputation as a refreshing lager with characteristic Australian style, replacing the flailing warm-ale UK pub culture.
Increasingly from the 1990s as Fosters continued to grow in international markets with its annual international brand sales growing to be in excess of the total beer brand sales of CUB in Australia, it increasingly become an enigma,- the Australian brand, famous all around the world - the brand that Australian beer drinkers were increasingly moving away from at home in Australia.
Watch the campaign progression of the domestic Australian advertising as it follows the brands dominance in Australia’s 80’s through to its falls from the 1990’s. It became imperative for CUB to mange the brands domestic decline and reputation at an important stage in it’s international market growth, including through the 2000 Olympics when the world’s eyes were focused on Australia and Fosters as the beer sponsor of the Sydney Olympics Games..
Getting to the Facts in Public Issues and Debate
As Vice Principle Marketing & Communications at the University of Melbourne Pat was instrumental in many projects that advanced the outreach of university academic “experts” in helping the public make sense of complicated issues in the public domain.
Two key projects:
1. Melbourne University’s TV Studio. The development of a TV studio at Melbourne University for daily outreach to enable academics to link to commercial news networks for interviews and dialogue on current social issues.
Click on the Image to view this document
2. The Conversation Media Group. Nurturing the development of The Conversation media platform, housing the developers within my media team and providing resources and commercial guidance in the development of the proposition for commercial development. Here’s the original commercial proposal which my team pulled together with the founding partners Andrew and Jack.
Consumer Psychology - Brand Development
InPsych 2017 | Vol 39 June | Issue 3
Consumer psychology and brand
Pat Freeland-Small MAPS FAMI, Head, Marketing, Communications - APS National Office
Brand is an intangible notion that exists within the minds of the consumers of products or the investors in a company’s stock, yet it is one of the most valuable assets a company owns. Indeed psychology, as the study of the mind and human behaviour, has an important role to play in helping companies to build their company value via their brands.
According to Interbrand, a consultancy agency that specialises in brand development, and the accountancy firms who specialise in brand valuations, a company’s brands represent on average about one-third of the value of their market capitalisation, i.e. their stock-market valuation.
Figure 1. Some of the 2016 Interbrand market leaders.
A scan of the top global brands in 20161 demonstrates the enormity of brand value. Figure 1 presents an example of brands ranked by Interbrand as being leaders for 2016.
Over my many years working in developing brands, I have applied a simple framework that I refer to as the ‘Five Cs’ of branding, to assist in brand stewardship, governance and development.
1. Consistency
The first ‘C’ is at the heart of branding. Consistency in the way a brand appears and acts to build familiarity and awareness. All importantly, it also generates ‘brand equity’, which makes brands memorable, easily recognisable and ‘superior’ in our minds in terms of quality and reliability.
Consistency is heightened when companies build an internal understanding of their brand. Companies that recognise the power and importance of their own people as major influencers of the market, tend to have the strongest brands. Great ‘brand companies’ have staff that evangelistically espouse, and live, the brand message in consistent and passionate ways. Psychologists are often employed to assist companies to articulate their brand, and to help their staff recognise the role they play in branding.
Apple, the world’s number one brand, is a prime example. Consider their service culture, their dedication to innovation, technological ease, design and individuality. The company’s values and personality are present from head office right through to the frontline staff in their retail stores.
The best-understood brands can often have their essence distilled down to a few simple words: “Oh what a feeling!” and “Enjoy” are just two examples of brands we all know well. Sentiments like these are what marketers refer to as ‘brand essence’. The framework in Figure 2 is often used by psychologists to workshop brands with companies, and to assist their staff to develop a consistent understanding of an organisation’s brand.
Other important areas for consistency are:
logo and visual representation.
the tone and voice of a brand – ensuring alignment with brand values and personality.
placement or environment – where a brand is found, for example, with the cheaper or expensive brands, or with the ‘in-crowd’.
Figure 2. A framework for brand development.
2. Continuity
Brands are built over time. Constant reinforcement of what we see builds familiarity and our contextual framework for brands.
The way brands talk to us, the people they use in their advertisements, the continued use of the same sponsor and being repeatedly found in the same places all contribute toward building brand equity.
To ensure continuity, brands shouldn’t chop and change their advertising approach, and should stick to promotions that complement their brands over medium to long-term periods.
Reinforcement theory, and models of learning and behaviour are applicable to the development of brands and continuous modes of advertising and promotion.
3. Communication
Figure 3. Brand-building pyramid.
Effective communication requires an understanding of the target audience. Target audiences are not only the purchasers of our brand, but also the myriad of people who may influence that purchase. Market research and data intelligence
increasingly gathered through website, digital data analytics and customer relationship marketing is used to segment and facilitate cost-effective messaging and targeting of key audiences.
Psychologists’ use of skilled statistical analysis can bring valuable insight to companies looking to segment their markets and make sense of consumer behaviour.
Psychologists also conduct in-depth and group interviews with target audiences to help advertisers hone their communications messages, to find new product opportunities to satisfy unmet consumer needs, and to test various market propositions.
In communicating any product or service, it is important to recognise that consumers respond in both rational and emotional ways in their purchase decisions. The brand-building pyramid (see Figure 3) details some of the stimulus-response processes involved in purchase decisions and the significant role of emotional response to brand in product and service choice.
Carefully crafted film-based advertising is still the most efficient way to build an emotional brand connection, and to develop powerful brand equity. Social media and recommendations from key influencers are becoming increasingly important in driving initial brand consideration among consumer groups.
4. Cooperation
Distribution builds brands. Brands need to be seen. This is where cooperation comes into play. In building brands marketers need to secure distribution and promotional arrangements that develop visual presence and availability. Whether in a real or online world, where we see and find brands, and the environments in which they appear, heavily influences brand equity and salience.
5. Control
Just like any other asset a company owns, a brand needs to be controlled and protected. Best practice in stewardship, governance and development of brands is demonstrated by companies that have well-articulated brand guidelines which cover all aspects of brand including:
advertising
brand associations and non-associations
brand history
licensing
logos
media and public relations
merchandising
positioning
promotion
social media
In addition, market research programs need to be in place to monitor brand health and key brand equity measures.
Psychologists have a role to play in developing the key measures of brand equity and category drivers that can assist companies to measure their brand performance at a market level. Consumer awareness, brand image and brand consideration are all lead measures of a brand’s strength, and assist companies to make decisions on the advertising and promotion of their products and services.
Measuring success
Increasingly brand marketers utilise a single summary measure – the ‘Net Promoter Score’ as a summary statistic on brand health based upon recommendation to others.
The Net Promoter Score is calculated from an index ranging from -100 to 100 to measure the willingness of customers to recommend a company’s products or services to others. It is used as a proxy for gauging the consumer’s overall satisfaction with a company’s product or service and the customer’s loyalty to the brand.
Brand development is just one of the many areas where psychologists can add value in the commercial world and industry. Many of us working in the field are marketing heads of organisations, strategists for advertising agencies or organisational consultants.
APS Members who are particularly interested in exploring opportunities within the field of consumer psychology are urged to get involved with the APS Consumer Psychology Interest Group.
The author can be contacted at: pat@p5strategic.com.
Disclaimer: Published in InPsych on June 2017. The APS aims to ensure that information published in InPsych is current and accurate at the time of publication. Changes after publication may affect the accuracy of this information. Readers are responsible for ascertaining the currency and completeness of information they rely on, which is particularly important for government initiatives, legislation or best-practice principles which are open to amendment. The information provided in InPsych does not replace obtaining appropriate professional and/or legal advice.
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