Brand Relationship Management

We will extend the definitions of relationship marketing by Gro–nroos (1990) and Shani and Chalasani (1992) to define Brand Relationship Management (BRM) as

An integrated effort to establish, maintain, and enhance relationships between a brand and its consumers, and to continuously strengthen these relationships through interactive, individualized and value-added contacts, and a mutual exchange and fulfillment of promises over a long period of time. This definition implies that BRM refers to all activities associated with both “relational exchanges,” and “transactional exchanges”. The effectiveness of Brand Relationship Management is consequently dependent upon customer data and the way in which it is gathered, managed and turned into actionable information.

BRM changes the Brand Management practice by turning the old transaction paradigm into a relational paradigm (see Figure 1.0). The execution of refined Brand Relationship Management requires –

• A deep understanding of customer expectations, attitude and behavior through a well organized and managed customer database.
• Innovative customer strategies, which are based on the results of thorough customer analysis and which, consequently, address the major issues pointed out by the analysis.