Corruption and Sponsorship Building Brand Equity

Question: 1. Discuss how Aakers' work on branding and brand equity can be applied to creation of the Flying Pig brand.2. Discuss how the new breed of marathon runners influenced the positioning of the Flying Pig Marathon. 3. Why did the name Flying Pig have special meaning to the people of Cincinnati? 4. Discuss two of the ways the race organizers generated awareness and support from the local community. 5. Discuss how Stacy Montagner conducted marketing research when she was designing the marks and logos for the Flying Pig Marathon. Answer: 1: A brand is a name that identifies the firms or companys goods and services as well as differentiates the same from that of others. Brand equity is created and developed with the successful brand name of the company. According to the work of Aakers, brand equity is considered as intangible assets that have a link with the brand name that represents the loyalty, awareness and quality of the products of the organization. It is very important to identify and select the brand name for the trading of the goods and services since it defines the characteristics of the products along with other features. In view of this, the owners and management need to assess the product and service quality in creating the brand name and brand equity of the Flying Pig brand. As there are many known and reliable brands in the sports industry, the owners have to be very careful while creating the unique brand name that eventually creates brand equity (Olberding and Jisha 2005). 2: The primary purpose of the Flying Pig Marathon is to expand the marathon races by involving new runners. Hence, the organizers and the management worked hard to create a unique brand name that appeals to the young and new runners and participate in the event. The organizers maintained the marathon race to be a fun and interesting rather than just a competitive sports event. According to the organizers, the brand name should have been creative and unique so that it attracts the participants. The name Flying Pig touched the unique heritage of Cincinnatis as well as indicates fun and playful element. It was presumed that the name Flying Pig would even attract female runners, non- runners, children and even older group (Olberding and Jisha 2005). 3: As organizers were conducting, brainstorming sessions to get an exclusive name for the marathon event so that more and more participants could join. Initially the race organizers thought of fixing the name of the race as Cincinnati Marathon but on different suggestions, Flying Pig sounded more attractive and unique. It was said that the people of Cincinnati were mesmerized with the pigs since long time and the place was considered one of the dominant centre of meatpacking. In the present times, one of the points on Ohio River faces a statue that includes soaring winged pigs that expresses the angelic spirits of all the pigs that were destroyed and were the elementary units of Cincinnatis success. The statue has been the focal point for several controversies at the public park hence, the organizers have settled down with the name of Flying Pig (Olberding and Jisha 2005). 4: In order to generate awareness and support the marathon race event the owners and management wanted to include local celebrities, politicians and other leaders of the community. Since the event was organized for the first time in the city of Cincinnati, the organizers wanted to take the support of popular faces in the event to make it successful. Another way the organizers opted for developing awareness and support from the local community was by involving the local media and by launching a debut item Flying Pig squeeze toy. There plan was distributing the promotional item to the participants throughout the country during the beginning of the race event. The toy was considered to be one of the most fascinating items among the people. Apart from that, participation of local celebrities and leaders as a popular figure was also a means of spreading attraction to get more runners (Olberding and Jisha 2005). 5: Stacy Montagner was given the responsibility for marketing as well as for the development of logos, slogans and images of the marathon race event. Montagner started with the marketing research to evaluate the popularity of the marathon event among the people that had increased brilliantly in the United States. Thereafter, she analyzed the ratio of participated women runners and their winning ratio. Stacy Montagner also focused and suggested to supply a good quality goodie bag for the participants to attract them. In addition, Montagner used other non- runners to get the help in designing the logos of marathon race that was kept in a tradition way. The traditional image of the athletics were adopted by Montagner and carried out to get the actual reactions from the local people at restaurants and bars. This strategy would help to develop the new and unique brand of the marathon race event. In view of this, organizers decided to settle on the two logos that were non- athletic and featur ed the images of winged pig cartoon like characters for the appearance on posters, websites, medals and T-shirts (Olberding and Jisha 2005). Reference List: Olberding, D.J. and Jisha J. 2005. The Flying Pig: Building brand equity in a major urban marathon. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 14, pp. 191-196.