The effect of external brand perceptions on employer branding - is TomTom a "problem brand"

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The Effect of External Brand

Perceptions on Employer Branding –

Is TomTom a “Problem Brand”?

Author: Catalina Cantolla Student ID: 11195053

Supervisor: Edward Huizenga Email: cantolla.catalina@gmail.com Date of Submission:September 29, 2018

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ABSTRACT

Attracting talent is becoming more and more difficult for companies to do, especially in the tech industry, where the competition amongst companies is extremely high. Therefore, it is crucial for these companies to have a strong employer brand, in order to make the potential employee fall in love with the firm. But in the face of organizational restructuring, how can we know if the employer branding efforts are resonating with the target audience? This company project examines the effect that external brand perceptions can have on employer branding efforts at TomTom, a Dutch company trying to reposition itself as a software technology company, after becoming famous for the Personal Navigation Device. By taking free-form associations from participants and applying them to Keller’s CBBE model, the results of the study confirm the hypothesis that TomTom is indeed a problem brand, specifically trapped in a no longer relevant brand image. Managerial recommendations to once again align the brand identity with the brand image are made; focusing on events presence, influencer marketing and partnerships; and limitations and further research areas are discussed.

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INTRODUCTION

In this day and age, with digitization, remote work and artificial intelligence being part of our daily lives, top talent in the work force have more choices than ever when it comes to choosing an employer. It is no longer enough for a firm to offer competitive pay – companies must now work harder than they have in the past to attract this talent, build relationships with them, and gain their loyalty to keep them. To stand out in this competitive environment, companies need to breed desire for their work culture, building employer brands that the talent they wish to attract will instantly fall in love with. According to Universum’s 2018 research publication, “World’s Most Attractive Employers”, which “surveys over 1 million career seekers globally.” (Universum, 2018), work-life balance is the main focus for students seeking careers. It also found that innovation, and purpose-driven impact are high priorities in a work-place. Business students, named the number one employer as Google, number two Goldman Sachs and number three EY, while Engineering/IT students named number one as Google, number two as Microsoft, and number three as Apple. A key finding of this study being that work environment is key, and that training and development is more important for potential employees than higher future earnings. (Universum, 2018)

At TomTom, a global software technology company, a recent restructuring of the Marketing team has left the Employer Brand team disassembled. This, coupled with a change in focus from consumer products to software technology, has created a disconnect between the external brand perceptions and the employer branding messaging. Analyzing the effect that external perceptions of the brand have on employer branding at TomTom, will help inform other firms facing similar issues.

We know from existing scholarship that there is an inherent difference between “employer brand” and “employer branding”. Ambler and Barrow define employer brand as the “package of functional, economic and psychological benefits provided by employment, and identified with the employing company.” (Ambler and Barrow, 1996, p. 8). Backhaus and Tikoo expand on that definition by adding that “the employment brand highlights the unique aspects of the firm’s employment offerings or environment [ . . . ] and is a concept

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of the firm that differentiates it from its competitors [ . . . ] by attracting, motivating, and retaining the firm’s current and potential employees.” (Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004, p. 502). On the other hand, employer branding is defined as “the process of building an identifiable and unique employer identity’ and ‘the promotion of a unique and attractive image” (Back- haus 2004, p. 117; Backhaus and Tikoo 2004, p. 502). This distinction is important as it is the external brand associations which contribute to the building of the brand identity, bringing us closer to examining the effect of external brand perceptions, to employer branding.

In this thesis, Keller’s Customer-Based Brand Equity model (Keller, 2013) is used to classify the associations that external people make with TomTom. This study gathers empirical information through surveys in which individuals are asked to write down free associations with the brand and rate them in terms of strength, uniqueness and direction (positive/negative). This data is gathered in the setting of the city of Amsterdam, not including TomTom employees, in order to uncover more about what impact these perceptions have on employer branding, and how to manage the disconnect between these two.

As a result of this study we learn more about the impact that external perception can have on employer branding efforts. This is extremely important because when it comes to branding, firms don’t often realize that even though they might be making changes inside the organization, these are not always reflected on the outside. When they are not, external people will have incoherent perceptions of the brand, and the brand will run the risk of becoming a “problem brand”. The implications for TomTom specifically of becoming a problem brand are that the efforts being made in repositioning the firm as a software technology company will not be translated into their efforts into building employer branding, as the external perceptions that people hold of an outdated brand will be too large to overcome. The hypothesis that is held in this project is that because of the brand image that external people have of the brand, TomTom is a “prison brand”, trapped in an image which is very hard to change. With the results of the study, the hypothesis is accepted or rejected, and recommendations are made regarding how to not be a “problem

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brand”, so that external perceptions can change and not have an impact on the employer branding efforts that TomTom will make with its new brand rollout strategy.

Therefore, this thesis explores how external associations and perceptions can impact employer branding efforts at a firm. To do so, it proceeds with a literature review which summarizes existing literature and focuses on the relevant literature related to building brand equity through employer branding. Thereafter, it delves into Keller’s Customer-Based Brand Equity model and how it can be applied to the data gathered from the surveys conducted to non-TomTom employees. This is followed by the results of the survey and the analysis of current associations – answering the question: Is TomTom a problem brand? Finally, this thesis concludes with the implications and managerial recommendations made to the firm in order to align the external perceptions with the employer branding efforts. Conclusions and limitations of the study are discussed and further directions for this line of research are suggested.

COMPANY BACKGROUND & SITUATION

A Dutch company born in 1991, “TomTom created the easy-to-use navigation device, one of the most influential inventions of all time. Since then, [they] have grown from a start-up, into a global technology company. [They] design and develop innovative navigation products, software and services, that power hundreds of millions of applications across the globe. This includes industry-leading location-based and mapmaking technologies, embedded automotive navigation solutions; portable navigation devices and apps, and the most advanced telematics fleet management and connected car services. [… ]Headquartered in Amsterdam with offices in 37 countries, [they] offer advanced digital maps that cover 142 countries and 33 territories, and our hyper-detailed and real-time TomTom Traffic information service reaches more than five billion people in 69 countries.” (TomTom Corporate, 2018)

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With the joining of a new CMO, Robert Bohemen, in October 2017, the TomTom marketing department went from being embedded into each business unit, to becoming one centralized marketing department. What this meant was that the four BUs, Automotive, Consumer, Enterprise, and HR, no longer had their own small marketing department, but would now have to work with the centralized marketing team in TomTom’s HQ, Amsterdam.

Specifically, for HR, and more importantly the Employer Brand team, this meant that the team was disassembled, with its members placed in different teams within the marketing department, right as the company attempted to reposition itself from being a consumer-based company, to a technology software company specializing in mobility.

The problem? Since 1991 TomTom has been known and recognized for their Personal Navigation Devices. With the target hiring audience now changing to developers and engineers, the potential employees do not see TomTom as a key tech player, and are unaware of the job opportunities in the tech field that TomTom offers. Even though Employer Brand efforts are being made by the marketing team, it is unclear whether these efforts are effective, or whether the brand image first needs to change in order for the potential employees to be able to receive the message effectively.

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LITERATURE REVIEW

EMPLOYER BRANDING

The term Employer Brand was first used in the early 1990’s and was coined in the 1996 paper by Tim Ambler and Simon Barrow, “The Employer Brand”, published in the Journal of Brand Management. This was the first paper which aimed to bring the application of brand management techniques to human resource management. In this paper, the authors pose that for a firm, people are the most important resource and the brand is the most important asset. Therefore, it is only natural that these two (people and brand) have mutually reinforcing goals, as when you have the best people, you have the best company, which people talk very well about publicly, which makes the best applicants come to your company, which turn into the best people, and so on.

It can be said that the concept Employer Brand (EB) in a way stems from relationship marketing, since relationship marketing can be defined as “attracting, maintaining, and – in multi-service organizations – enhancing customer relationships.” (Berry, 1983). This aims at long-term value creation and customer satisfaction, and moves away from the prior focus of marketing initiatives which was driven by short-term immediate sales. This value creation and customer satisfaction focus leans towards building brand equity, which is much closer to what Employer Branding aims at.

BRAND EQUITY

Brand Equity is a concept which became popular in the late 80’s and early 90’s with Leuthesser in 1988 and Aaker and Biel in 1992. The way that Keller defines it in his 1993 paper, “Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Managing Customer-Based Brand Equity” is the following: “[…] Brand equity is defined in terms of the marketing effects uniquely attributable to the brand-for example, when certain outcomes result from the marketing of a product or service because of its brand name that would not occur if the same product or service did not have that name.” (Keller, 1993, pg. 1). This view puts the cause of the equity of the brand in the hands of marketing efforts, whereas customer-based brand

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equity, which is what this study will use to assess external brand perceptions, relies on the associations that individual customers have towards that brand.

As Keller defines it, “Customer-based brand equity is […] the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand. That is, customer-based brand equity involves consumers' reactions to an element of the marketing mix for the brand in comparison with their reactions to the same marketing mix element attributed to a fictitiously named or unnamed version of the product or service. Customer-based brand equity occurs when the consumer is familiar with the brand and holds some favorable, strong, and unique brand associations in memory.” (Keller, 1993, pg.3) The basic idea is that the associations that the customer makes when made to think of a particular brand, and the web of associations that are made after that, are positive, or favorable to the brand, they are strong, and they are unique, or not inherent to the industry. For example, for the brand Pepsi, the association “soda” is not unique, as it is inherent to the category of the brand: soft drinks.

For customer-based brand equity to be strong, both brand awareness and brand image must be strong in the customer’s mind. Brand awareness is simply if the brand comes to the consumer’s mind and if so, how easily it comes to mind from memory. As Keller puts it, “[…] brand name awareness relates to the likelihood that a brand name will come to mind and the ease with which it does so. Brand awareness consists of brand recognition and brand recall performance. Brand recognition relates to consumers' ability to confirm prior exposure to the brand when given the brand as a cue. In other words, brand recognition requires that consumers correctly discriminate the brand as having been seen or heard previously. Brand recall relates to consumers' ability to retrieve the brand when given the product category, the needs fulfilled by the category, or some other type of probe as a cue. In other words, brand recall requires that consumers correctly generate the brand from memory.” (Keller, 1993, pg. 4) Brand image, on the other hand, are the formed perceptions that the consumer has in their mind which reflect the associations they have made with that brand. It is the strength, direction, and uniqueness of those associations that determine how the brand image is viewed and ultimately the overall perception of that brand in the consumer’s eyes.

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EMPLOYER BRAND EQUITY

Ambler and Barrow define Employer Brand as “the package of functional, economic, and psychological benefits provided by employment, and identified with the employing company.” (Ambler and Barrow, 1996, pg. 3) Although it can be similar to corporate culture and identity, internal marketing, and corporate reputation, it has differentiators which can be easily identified by employees. According to the authors, Employer Branding can be measured in terms of Employer Branding Equity and can be positioned in the same way that a product brand can. “Employer Branding equity is therefore the intangible asset in the minds of existing and potential employees that has been built up by good marketing and HR practices. It can be measured, just as any other brand equity can, and valued. The sale of a company involves the transfer of employee brand equity which may be raised or diminished by that sale similarly to the consequences of the sale of a product brand.”(Ambler and Barrow, 1996, pg. 4)

They also pose that similar to what Gardner and Levy (1995) say regarding a brand having a personality, Employer Brand also has a personality. The brand personality comes from “the body of associations it has built up and acquired as a public object over a period of time. […] The net result is a public image, a character or personality that may be more important for the over-all status (and sales) of the brand than many technical facts about the product.” (Gardner and Levy, 1995, pg. 4) According to Ambler and Barrow, “the Employer Brand also has a personality, and may be positioned in much the same way as a product brand.” (Ambler and Barrow, 1996, pg. 3) This means that we can think about the Employer Brand as not just having Employer Brand Equity, but having Employer Brand Customer-Based Equity. Which is why we can make the jump and connection from linking external brand attitudes and associations, to how the employer brand is perceived.

EMPLOYER BRANDING VALUE CHAIN

The literature following the initial Employer Brand research stemmed various Employer Brand concepts used in different fields and various terms used to mean different, and sometimes conflicting, ideas. A good resource to use to attempt and resolve

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this issue is the 2018 paper by Theurer et al, published in the International Journal of Management Reviews, titled “Employer Branding: A Brand Equity-based Literature Review and Research Agenda”. This paper reviews 187 articles that deal with Employer Branding as a main theme and separates them into three EB dimensions and branding strategies: conceptual, employer branding dimensions, and employer brand activities and strategies.

The authors identify that the key issues in Employer Branding literature are that there has been little differentiation made between employer brand (as the identifier), and the process of employer branding (as a means to build/modify brand equity), and that terms are usually inconsistently applied and defined. As a solution, the authors come up with an employer branding value chain, which delineates four stages:

STAGE ONE

The first stage is comprised of all the efforts the firm makes to build and/or modify the brand equity. If we take the widely known case of Google, for example, these efforts would take shape as all the extra benefits that the company offers, such as in-office gym, or the restaurant facilities, or the allotted time to work on personal projects. That leads us to the second stage, which is heavily influenced by the development and investment that the employer puts in the first stage.

STAGE TWO

The second stage is all about how the employees and applicants (possible future employees) feel and think about the employer. If stage one has been done properly by the employer, then both the employees and the applicants should have developed positive affect towards the employer. In case of the employees, as it was mentioned in

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the first paragraph, they will speak well of the firm and through word of mouth (aided by social media) will spread the word that that employer is good, which lead to an increase in applicants. The opposite effect is also possible where the efforts made are not enough or are negative and influence both the employees and the possible applicants. The case can also be that the appropriate efforts are being made but are not being communicated – whether that be by the employees or by the firm itself. Then applicants are not aware of the employer branding efforts being made.

STAGE THREE

So why would firms want to do this in the first place? It all comes down to building equity. Stage three is essentially what the company gets. This can be done in a few ways, for example they can gain competitive advantage because of the new talent they have acquired which will result in increasing of the firm’s performance. Stage three is very dependent on stage two creating positive affect in the employees and the possible applicants.

STAGE FOUR

Finally, stage four is all about how you measure the results of stage three. Whether that be through shareholder value or financial market performance of the firm. This model in literature is highly relevant to this thesis because it allows us to position and place the analysis in one of these stages and better understand that effect of one stage on another.

What is researched is not focused in stage 1, what companies do, but purely focused on stage 2, what applicants think. As the associations that external people make with the brand are measured, it is discovered whether the efforts being made by the employer in stage one are paying off and how. Essentially, what is studied is the effect that external brand associations have on employer branding.

PROBLEM BRANDS

In their 2003 book “Een Nijlpaar Onder Het Tapijt”, Frank Haveman and Jorge Labadie explore what they refer to as the “dark side” of brands (Haveman, 2003). Their publication poses that brand research usually looks at the positive effect of brands and

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building brand equity, so they are taking a look at some brands not usually discussed, which they label “problem brands”. In a 2018 Branding class lecture at UvA, Jorge Labadie describes problem brands as “brands that have negative associations and/or lack crucial ones.” (Labadie, 2018). Their research is based on Keller’s CBBE Pyramid, taking as their base the associations that Keller says must be strong, unique, and positive in order to build brand equity, as described above. Haveman and Labadie look at what happens when those associations are not positive, or not unique and strong (crucial). In their research they define twelve types of problem brands, described in English by Labadie in 2018 as:

1. “Dusty brands (lack off dynamism): Nova (TV program)

2. Out of Touch brands (don’t fit into the ‘zeitgeist’): Old Spice, Oldsmobile

3. Undifferentiated brands (brands without differentiation): FBTO, OHRA (insurance) 4. Suspicious brands (suspected off bad product quality): Yugo, Ikea and Saab 5. Left Brain brands (you buy only for rational reasons): Many private labels

6. Taboo brands (you like, but do not dare to show to others): Skala (rental of electronics), Lonsdale

7. Kelvin brands (vague, without clear associations): Vivazzi, Kelme

8. Donut brands (without an identity that radiate emptiness): Yorin (TV Network) 9. Fragmented brands (incoherent associations): Dommelsch (beer)

10. Prison brands (trapped in an image and very difficult to reposition): Joop Doderer / Swiebertje (a former TV star in NL)

11. Scandal brands (have been damaged by scandals): Ahold, Enron

12. Autonomous brands (strongly suggest ‘something wrong or untrue’): Mitsubishi GDI (is not a diesel)” (Labadie, 2018, pg. 2)

From what is mentioned in the introduction, this project poses as a hypothesis, that TomTom can be classified as a problem brand, because of its lack of crucial associations in regards to the current brand positioning, but more specifically, that it can be classified as a “prison brand”, as it is trapped in the image of the Personal Navigation Device and its brand image as a consumer-focused brand. This hypothesis is either accepted or rejected based on the results presented in the project.

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FRAMEWORK EXPLANATION & APPLICATION

THE CBBE PYRAMID

From the literature review above, it is evident that this thesis focuses on the disciplines of Employer Brand, but also on Brand Equity, and more specifically Customer-Based Brand Equity. The Customer-Customer-Based Brand Equity model was developed by Kevin Lane Keller in 1993, who was a marketing professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. The CBBE model was not published in an academic paper, but in his own textbook, “Strategic Brand Management”.

The model is made out into a pyramid, which holds the six brand-building-blocks required to build a strong brand.

Figure 1: Customer-Based Brand Equity Pyramid.

From "Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity" by Kevin Lane Keller. © Pearson Education Limited 2013.

The idea is that you can only achieve brand resonance, the top of the pyramid and most important of the blocks, if you have achieved the other five building blocks.

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The focus within this framework is measuring the 2nd step: Creating Brand Meaning through associations that are strong, unique, and positive. The associations that twenty-five people have when thinking about the TomTom brand are measured in terms of strength, uniqueness and direction. They are analyzed in terms of the most common, core attributes, and sorted on the Customer-Based Brand Equity Pyramid to assess what side and what level these associations lay on, whether they are mainly positive or negative, whether they are mainly unique or not, and whether they are strong or weak. The results confirm or reject the hypothesis regarding whether TomTom is a problem brand, and whether the Employer Branding efforts being made by TomTom are paying off, and how the external view that people may have of the brand can affect the Employer Brand.

BRAND SALIENCE

Brand Salience is the bottom and base of the pyramid, which acts as the support and building block upon which the other five blocks stand. “Brand salience relates to aspects of the awareness of the brand, e.g., how often and easily is the brand evoked under various situations or circumstances. To what extent is the brand top-of-mind and easily recalled or recognized? What types of cues or reminders are necessary? How pervasive is this brand awareness?” (Keller, 2007, pg. 58) Salience also refers to the brand identity. This boils down to how a customer sees the brand, but more importantly, the way in which they tell it apart from another brand. For TomTom, it would be what makes them different from the brand HERE and how their customers tell them apart, whether it be the logo, the colors they use, etc. As this block is about creating awareness of the brand, the firm itself must be involved in getting this message out.

Awareness has two different pieces to it: breadth and depth. Awareness depth is how easily customers remember or recognize the brand in question. So, for example, if they see the TomTom logo, whether they would recognize the brand easily. Awareness breadth, on the other hand, refers to the “range of purchase and consumption situations where the brand comes to mind.” (Keller, 2007, pg. 58) An example of this would be if a

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developer needs a Map API, whether they would think of TomTom as the go-to brand for this product.

BRAND PERFORMANCE

The second layer of blocks in the CBBE Pyramid includes brand performance, which contributes to the meaning of a brand. “Although a myriad of different types of brand associations are possible, brand meaning broadly can be distinguished in terms of more functional, performance-related considerations versus more abstract, imagery-related considerations.” (Keller, 2007, pg. 59) When we talk about brand performance, we refer to how well the product of the brand does what it is supposed to. In terms of TomTom, it’s fairly simple: does the Map API work in the developer’s application as it should?

There are five key aspects to consider for performance: 1. Traits and components of the product

2. How much they can trust the product, its endurance and convenience 3. Service effectiveness, efficiency and empathy

4. Style and design 5. Price

It is according to these five aspects that customers think about the product, and therefore brand, performance (Keller, 2007).

BRAND IMAGERY

“Brand imagery deals with the extrinsic properties of the product or service, including the ways in which the brand attempts to meet customers’ more psychological or social needs. Brand imagery is how people think about a brand abstractly rather than what they think the brand actually does.” (Keller, 2007, pg. 60) Although abstract thoughts related to brand imagery can be vast and ample, they can be divided into four general categories:

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1. User Profiles: this refers to who the customer thinks is the user of the brand, whether this is accurate, or an ideal user.

2. Purchase and Usage Situations: this refers to when and where the customer thinks the brand could be bought, and for what it is used.

3. Personality: this refers to the type of personality the customer thinks of the brand as having. Generally, there are five types of brand personality:

• Sincerity • Excitement • Competence • Sophistication • Ruggedness

A brand such as hiking shoes would be considered rugged, for example, where a high-end beauty brand would be considered to have a sophisticated personality.

4. History, Heritage and Experiences: this refers to the personal or public associations that a customer might make to the brand which are rooted in historic events or personal experiences (Keller, 2007).

Brand Imagery is the most important block for this paper, as it is here where we touch upon the associations that customers make with the brand. Associations are the words that come to mind when the customer thinks of the brand, and can be assessed on three dimensions:

1. “Strength – How strongly is the brand identified with a brand association? 2. Favorability – How important or valuable is the brand association to customers? 3. Uniqueness – How distinctively is the brand identified with the brand

association?”

In order to build brand equity, the associations that come to the mind of the customer must be strong, favorable and unique (Keller, 2007).

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CONSUMER JUDGEMENTS

Consumer judgements and consumer feelings are the blocks in the third layer of the CBBE pyramid. These two blocks refer to how the consumer responds to the brand. “Brand responses refer to how customers respond to the brand and all its marketing activity and other sources of information, i.e., what customers think or feel about the brand. Brand responses can be distinguished according to brand judgments and brand feelings, i.e., in terms of whether they arise more from the “head” or from the “heart.”” (Keller, 2007, pg. 60). When it comes to judgements, it’s about the personal opinions of the customer and the assessments that he makes about the brand. In general, these judgements can be divided into four categories:

1. Quality: perceived capacity of the brand. According to Keller the most important customer judgement.

2. Credibility: whether the brand is seen as being believable to the customer, based on three points:

• Expertise

• Trustworthiness • Likeability

3. Consideration: whether the customer actually considers buying or using the brand when they are in that purchase situation.

4. Superiority: whether the customer considers the brand better than other brands. (Keller, 2007)

CONSUMER FEELINGS

“Brand feelings are customers’ emotional responses and reactions with respect to the brand. Brand feelings also relate to the social currency evoked by the brand. What feelings are evoked by the marketing program for the brand or by other means? How does the brand affect customers’ feelings about themselves and their relationship with others?” (Keller, 2007, pg. 61).

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Generally speaking, we can categorize a customer’s feelings towards the brand in six different ways:

1. Warmth: this feeling category refers to how much tranquility and serenity the brand produces in the customer.

2. Fun: this feeling category is about whether the customer feels entertained, gets a lighthearted or lively feeling from the brand.

3. Excitement: This category incorporates thrilling feelings and concerns when the brand makes the consumer have a special experience and feel cool.

4. Security: This feeling arises when the customer feels no concerns with the brand, but rather feels safety and comfort.

5. Social Approval: This category is all about the reactions that the consumer is getting from others, and the positive feelings that they might get from the reactions people have as a result of using the brand.

6. Self-Respect: Finally, self-respect comes from a feeling of realization and achievement that the customer can get from the brand which makes them feel good about themselves. (Keller, 2007)

No matter what the feeling or the judgement is that the consumer is making, what matters in this layer of the pyramid is how positive these judgements and feelings are. This is what makes consumer behavior change (in favor of the brand).

BRAND RESONANCE

The top layer of the pyramid, which every brand wishes to achieve to have strong brand equity, is resonance. Brand resonance refers to the relationship that exists between the brand and the customer. This relationship is based on how identified the customer personally feels with the brand, how much they “love” the brand. The parameters for brand resonance can be divided into the following four:

1. Behavior Loyalty: This speaks to the amount of repeat purchases of the brand product that the customer does.

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2. Attitudinal Attachment: While the customer might make many purchases, it might be solely out of obligation due to need. Attitudinal attachment takes this to the next level as it is about the personal engagement and love that the customer has for a brand.

3. Sense of Community: This level takes it one step further in which the customer feels very identified with the brand, to the extent of feeling very close to other brand users, and/or brand representatives or employees.

4. Active Engagement: This is the final step of brand resonance and it refers to the active effort that a customer could make outside of buying and using the product to feel closer to the brand. This could include being part of a fan group. The customer then becomes more of a brand ambassador, and inadvertently intensifies other people’s connection to the brand. (Keller, 2007).

Figure 2: Subdimensions of Brand-Building Blocks.

From "Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity" by Kevin Lane Keller. © Pearson Education Limited 2013.

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Figure two summarizes the different stages explained above, the sub-dimensions of the six brand blocks, laid out on the CBBE pyramid according to which level they belong to.

Keller’s CBBE Model is extremely useful when it comes to understanding how customers think of a brand, how they relate to it, and the image that they have in their minds of the brand. For this project, it will prove very necessary as it allows us to easily classify the different associations made by external people to the brand. However, this model over-simplifies possible associations, as classifying brand perceptions can be very subjective, and something that one person views as a judgement, can be defined by another person as a feeling. Keller’s CBBE model also puts loyalty, attachment and brand love as the highest block, one that every brand should strive to achieve to create resonance and brand equity, but it does not take into account that there are certain brands and certain product categories that do not need this kind of engagement and to whom this aspiration is irrelevant, such as very functional products that people need and will buy anyway.

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METHODOLOGY AND PROCESS

In order to find out what the external associations to the TomTom brand are, and the effect that is having on Employer Branding efforts, it is necessary to begin by interviewing people. A survey is conducted on 25 subjects, all external to TomTom (not employees), in which they are asked to list the first words that come to mind when they think of TomTom. They are asked to list a minimum of five and a maximum of ten associations. They are then also asked to rate whether these associations are strong or weak, whether they are positive or negative, and whether they are unique to the brand. People are not prompted to have definitions of these measures, as they should catalog them themselves without influence from the interviewer. All of the associations are then pooled into categories and paired down to core associations. These core associations are analyzed according to strength and valence and placed on the CBBE pyramid. Then an assessment is done regarding whether this brand falls into one of twelve “problem brands”, how that might be affecting employer branding efforts, and what the suggested managerial recommendations are.

This methodology comes from two literature places. Firstly, reference must be made to Gerald Zaltman, who coined the Metaphor Elicitation Technique in the early 1990’s and went on to write “How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market” in which he writes about implicit association techniques – central to the way associations are used in this project. (Zaltman, 2003) As Greenwald puts it, “Implicit attitudes are manifest as actions or judgments that are under the control of automatically activated evaluation, without the performer's awareness of that causation (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995, pp. 6-8).'” (Greenwald, 1998, p.1464) meaning that when the participants are asked for associations, these should reflect the way the person feels and thinks about the brand, without being interfered with, as these associations are automatic. The IAT, or Implicit Association Test, however, bases itself on pairs of associations, whereas in this study, free association is used. The free association technique is taken from how Haveman and Labadie conduct their research, as they use free association with over 100 participants in order to measure core band associations.

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RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

After collecting the raw data of 25 participants’ associations to TomTom through surveys and interviews, the sorted data is grouped into similar associations to make data analysis more effective. From the 25 participants, 124 associations are collected – an average of 6.2 associations per participant, an expected average as they are instructed to give a minimum of five associations and a maximum of 10 associations. The 124 associations are grouped for analysis: for example, the associations “map”, “maps” and “mapping” all became one category – maps. Associations like “navigation device”, “PND” and “personal navigation” all became one category – PND. The grouped data brings down the 124 associations to 57 unique associations. All raw data and grouped data can be found in the appendix for further reference. A word map is created to represent the 57 unique associations, with each word’s size representing the amount of times it is mentioned by participants. The result can be seen below.

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CORE ASSOCIATIONS

All of the associations are then counted, in order to determine which associations are the most prevalent and reoccurring. The top eight associations with the highest count are considered to be the core associations to the brand TomTom, as they represent almost half of all the associations made.

Figure 4: TomTom brand associations by frequency.

The number one core association, which is mentioned 15 times by 25 participants, is “GPS”. Although the Global Positioning System is actually owned by the United States government, it is associated to the TomTom brand simply due to the fact that TomTom became famous because of their GPS navigation device, otherwise known as Personal Navigation Device, or PND (the 5th_{core association). Whether the word “GPS” is correctly}

associated to TomTom is not the question here, but rather the fact that the PND is what TomTom became famous for in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, but not in any way their main business focus today.

Out of the eight core associations, there are many which do not reflect TomTom’s main business focus today. “PND”, Personal Navigation Device, can be grouped in the same category as the GPS – both consumer electronic products which brought the brand to have high success in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. Of course, the eighth core association is a great example of this, as people highly associate the brand with the decade of the 90’s, which is when the company began.

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Another core association that doesn’t accurately reflect the internal brand change in focus from consumer products to software technology, is the fourth core association: sports watch. In 2011, TomTom partnered with Nike to create their first sport watch, and later went on to create five of its own watches. In 2015, they created their first action camera. However, in 2017 TomTom began a “restructuring process that involve[d] shifting the company’s focus to its mapping and navigation business.” (Venture Beat, 2017) TomTom went on to lay off 136 employees, all in the consumer, and more specifically, sports business unit. Since then, TomTom has been putting all efforts into focusing on mapping and navigation, and positioning itself as a technology software company.

The four core associations that are in line with this are: maps, cars, driving and roads. However, it is uncertain if these core associations can be seen as secondary to GPS and PND, as these are all words that can relate to the placement or the action that is done by the personal navigation device. It contains a map, it is placed in your car, you use it while driving, and it tells you what roads to use. Be as this may, the case can be made that this is not considered harmful in any way to the brand, as these four core associations that have been identified are also highly related to the Maps APIs (Application Programming Interface) TomTom has been focused on highlighting in the Enterprise business unit, and the TomTom HD Maps they have been positioning as crucial in the future of autonomous driving, in their Automotive business unit.

This being said, it is highly problematic that GPS, PND, 1990 and Sports Watch are mentioned 32 times out of the 60 mentions of the 8 core associations, as it makes up more than 50% of them, and these are not representative of the current business model or employer branding message that TomTom is trying to put out.

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ASSOCIATIONS & KELLER’S CBBE PYRAMID

Once it’s determined what the core associations are, what they mean and what they are associated to, the second step of the process can be initiated, which is placing them on Keller’s Customer Base Brand Equity pyramid to determine how these are contributing to TomTom’s brand equity and dive into which building blocks they are mostly located in.

Figure 5: TomTom brand associations on Keller’s CBBE Pyramid.

SALIENCE

Four core associations are placed in the lowest block of the pyramid; the base, which corresponds to salience:

• PND • Maps • GPS

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As established earlier, salience refers to category identification – whether the brand is recognized in the category of its products, and how it is differentiated from others. It also touches upon how aware consumers are of the brand. The problem here is that while it is true that these four core associations are product categories, none of them are representative of what category TomTom wants to be seen in today, which is software development or technology. Maps is a bit closer to the current business model and employer branding message, but we can still argue that it is possible that it appears there as it relates to GPS and PND, and not on its own.

PERFORMANCE

After salience, the majority of the remaining associations are located in the performance building block of the pyramid. As mentioned earlier, brand performance is about the functional considerations of the brand, which means essentially how well it meets the functional needs that the customer has for purchasing that product. The following core associations are placed in this block:

• Cars • Roads • Driving

These core associations are all referring to performance of a product, possibly a Personal Navigation Device, or a Map. In the case that they are indeed referring to Maps, then that would be positive in the sense that it is much more in line with the current strategy and message the brand wants to deliver. This being said, it is concerning that the majority of the associations are located in the salience and performance blocks of the pyramid, as they only refer to concrete elements, brand identity and meaning, but have not touched upon the customer’s feelings or relationship towards the brand – indicating that associations are somewhat superficial.

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IMAGERY

The remaining core association is placed in the imagery building block: • 1990

Imagery refers to the abstract ways in which a consumer thinks about the brand, as opposed to the concrete things that the product actually does. This association refers to a year or decade, which indicates that the imagery that comes to mind when TomTom comes up is outdated or old. This is clearly connected to the GPS/PND, as this is the decade when TomTom started in their first line of business. Again, it is concerning that this is the only core association in imagery, and that it is negative, and connected to a product and business model that the company is actively moving away from.

JUDGEMENTS, FEELINGS & RESONANCE

It becomes evident after mapping the core associations on the pyramid, that there are no associations pertaining to the top two levels of the pyramid, in which the building blocks judgements, feelings and resonance are located. Judgements are about the personal opinions of the customer and the evaluations that he makes towards the brand – whether he trusts it, considers it interesting or fun, whether he thinks the brand is better than other brands. Feelings, on the other hand, refer to the emotional response of the customer towards the brand, and how those feelings affect their feelings about themselves or their relationships to others. Finally, resonance, the last block of the pyramid, is about how identified the consumer feels with the brand, how loyal they are, whether they find a sense of community in it.

Without any associations on any of these three levels, it becomes evident that there is not a strong connection to the brand from the consumer’s side. It is highly recognizable and people associate it to what its core business was for many years, but there are no indications of a relationship with the brand that goes beyond something functional or practical. This, of course, has a great impact on the employer brand message that TomTom is trying to put out, as it doesn’t match what people think and feel towards the brand currently.

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STRENGTH ANALYSIS The next step in analyzing the full set of associations available from the results is to look at the strength of associations. According to Keller, in order to build brand equity, looking for strong, positive and unique associations to the brand is

crucial. As is evident from the figure below, there is a majority of strong

associations (58%), but the negative associations (42%) are still significantly large. The issue that can be seen here, is that the majority of the associations, the core associations, are mostly pertaining to a view of TomTom which is not modern and not in line with how they want to position themselves as a brand. As these associations are mostly strong, it makes them harder to change, and to bring in line with the brand as a software technology company.

UNIQUENESS ANALYSIS Next, the uniqueness of each of these associations is analyzed. The majority of the associations collected are unique (52.5%), with 47.5% of them being not unique. As mentioned above, for the associations to contribute to building brand equity, they must be strong, positive and unique.

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In terms of uniqueness, in this case it is mainly cut 50/50, so it is not possible to say that they are unique. An explanation for this could be that since the core associations were mostly related to GPS, and PNDs, these are not unique anymore as there are many competitors who do the same thing and create extremely similar GPS devices, making TomTom ones not special in the eyes of the consumer. Perhaps the uniqueness of the associations would be much greater if the core associations of the brand had reflected the brand as a technology and software development company.

DIRECTION ANALYSIS

Finally, the direction of the associations made must be looked at. Direction refers to the valence of the associations made: whether they are primarily positive or primarily negative. The reason this is extremely important is because if you have associations that are

strong and unique, but they

are negative, then you are achieving the opposite of the goal, as you are destroying brand equity. In this case, the associations are mostly positive (53%). This is not an incredibly high percentage of positive associations, but at least it can safely be said that it is above half. The problem here is that the core associations are mostly associated with consumer products which the brand does not want to associate their core business with anymore, meaning that associations that are positive in the consumers’ mind must be changed, and this might prove difficult to do.

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EMPLOYER BRANDING MESSAGE

Currently, TomTom’s goal is to position itself as the number one technology employer in three key markets: Netherlands (concentrated in Amsterdam and Eindhoven), Poland (concentrated in Lodz, Poznan, and Warsaw), and India (concentrated in Pune). In order to do this, TomTom must transition from communicating externally and being seen as a consumer company, to communicating and being seen as a software development company. In order to do this, it is extremely important to highlight the technologies the company is focusing on, alongside the perks, and benefits that come with working at TomTom. What is missing, however, is building a relationship with consumers and potential employees – which is evidently not the case as can be seen from the results of the core association mapping on the CBBE pyramid.

EXTERNAL VIEW & PROBLEM BRAND

It is evident from the result of the association analysis that the external view of the brand is not in line with the employer branding message or internal positioning of TomTom. Externally, the brand continues to be seen as a primarily consumer electronics company, focusing still on personal navigation devices. It is due to the fact that TomTom became both successful and famous in the late 90’s/early 2000’s with the TomTom PND, that people continue to only associate the brand to that product. Then, in 2013 the brand decided to pursue sports products, a venture which they quickly realized did not work as a way to reinvent themselves. Now, they are repositioning the brand as a software development company, focusing on HD Maps and APIs. As a result, this has left the consumer with a confused external view of the brand. None of these attempts have been yet strong enough to counter the deep-rooted idea that TomTom only does PNDs.

As established in the literature review, according to Jorge Labadie (2018) there are 12 types of problem brands:

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“Problem Brands are brands that have negative associations and/or lack crucial ones. 1. Dusty brands (lack off dynamism): Nova (TV program)

2. Out of Touch brands (don’t fit into the ‘zeitgeist’): Old Spice, Oldsmobile

3. Undifferentiated brands (brands without differentiation): FBTO, OHRA (insurance) 4. Suspicious brands (suspected off bad product quality): Yugo, Ikea and Saab 5. Left Brain brands (you buy only for rational reasons): Many private labels

6. Taboo brands (you like, but do not dare to show to others): Skala (rental of electronics), Lonsdale

7. Kelvin brands (vague, without clear associations): Vivazzi, Kelme

8. Donut brands (without an identity that radiate emptiness): Yorin (TV Network) 9. Fragmented brands (incoherent associations): Dommelsch (beer)

10. Prison brands (trapped in an image and very difficult to reposition): Joop Doderer / Swiebertje (a former TV star in NL)

11. Scandal brands (have been damaged by scandals): Ahold, Enron

12. Autonomous brands (strongly suggest ‘something wrong or untrue’): Mitsubishi GDI (is not a diesel)” (Labadie, 2018)

From everything that has been mentioned before in the core associations analysis, it can be said that TomTom can be classified as a problem brand, thus accepting the hypothesis posed in the introduction. Labadie (2018) states that if a brand lacks crucial associations, then it could be considered a problem brand. In the case of TomTom, it can be established that since the associations could only be placed on the bottom two levels of the CBBE pyramid, that there are crucial associations lacking from the top of the pyramid, as it is at those levels where the relationship with the consumer is formed, and his or her feelings and emotions are tapped into.

Looking at the twelve different types of problem brands that Labadie suggests, the case can be made that the one that the TomTom brand most fits in is number ten: Prison brands, thus accepting the hypothesis, due to the fact that the core brand associations that came from the results show that the brand image is tied to a consumer-based focus and specifically, the PND. A prison brand is one that is “trapped in an image and very difficult to reposition” (Labadie, 2018, p.2.). In the case of TomTom, as the brand became

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very famous in the early 2000’s due to its personal navigation device, to the point that people use the brand name to refer to the device, it has been extremely difficult for the brand to be able to step into different markets and products. The brand image is tied to the PND, and the majority of people automatically make the association to it, even though that is no longer TomTom’s main focus. In the conclusion, managerial recommendations for addressing this issue are discussed as a way to bridge the gap between the current brand positioning and the external brand image, as is shown in the figure below.

Figure 9: Brand Gaps: Identity, Positioning and Image. From: Jorge Labadie lecture at UvA, 2018

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IMPLICATIONS & MANAGERIAL RECCOMENDATIONS

TomTom has a very strong history, as they were the inventors of the Personal Navigation Device and made their fame and built their equity on this. However, with new technology PND and consumer products in general have fallen, yet TomTom in the consumer’s mind remains the same. TomTom is known for making Navigation Devices, and even today, when they are strong in mapping, mobility, coding, developing, and contributing to autonomous driving, the general audience is unaware of this and still largely associates them with PNDs.

As can be extrapolated from the results of this project, the general audience is not aware of the shift in focus that TomTom has made from a business to consumer (B2C) focused company, to a business to business (B2B) focused company. This informs that the employer branding efforts being made are not making a difference in the way that the brand is externally perceived, as TomTom is still considered to be a consumer electronics company and not a software technology company specializing in mobility.

These results and findings are used to give three managerial recommendations, in the hope that the implementation of these will take TomTom away from being seen as a “prison brand”, in which they are trapped in the image of consumer electronics, particularly the Personal Navigation Device, and will allow the employer brand efforts that are being made to make a difference, and for the brand image to be aligned with the brand identity and positioning.

1. Events Presence

TomTom is regularly present at different events around the world. In the past, most of these have been consumer-focused; such as IFA, one of the biggest consumer electronics show in the year. In order to reposition the brand, the first managerial recommendation made is to gradually diminish presence at consumer events and increase presence at events which focus

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on software technology, such as TechCrunch Disrupt. Doing so will allow for exposure of the brand to the Employer Brand target audience: developers and engineers. It will also allow for TomTom to be seen as a key-player in the industry, as it will be seen next to competitors in the field. Also, the target audience will be able to experience the technology first-hand instead of being told, which strengthens the employer branding message they later see.

2. Influencers and Ambassadors

In order to change the brand image that people currently hold of TomTom, and to have the employer brand key audience be aware of the fact that TomTom is a key player and employer in the tech industry, one tactic that a manager might choose to pursue is influencer marketing and an ambassador program. This could be done firstly by contacting developers and engineers in Amsterdam (TomTom HQ) to use TomTom technology in their apps to then blog about it or use social media. This way they would become brand advocates through paid influencer campaigns. The same could be done with ambassador programs which take TomTom engineers and developers to talk to other developers about the technology. The reasoning behind this is that the best way to convince people that a brand is great is not by that brand telling them, but by other users and consumers sharing their experiences.

3. Partnerships

Partnerships are a strategy that TomTom has always had, but in this case, it would require some tweaking to be in line with the brand image TomTom wants to achieve and to strengthen the Employer Branding message that they are putting out. Partnerships that should be highlighted are the ones with big tech players, such as the existing ones with Uber and Microsoft

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Azure, as these are companies with great employer branding, which developers and engineers want to work with. By highlighting these partnerships, the firm can convey the message that it too is a player of this caliber, helping to strengthen the positioning as a leading software technology player, and gaining the necessary exposure to change the brand image.

Through choosing the right events to participate in, while limiting and eventually abolishing the participation in consumer electronics events, focusing on influencer marketing and ambassador programs for the employer branding target audience, and highlighting and expanding relevant partnerships, TomTom will hopefully be able to change the brand perception that is unearth in the result of this study. By doing this, it will no longer be a problem brand, as the brand identity, brand positioning, and brand image will be aligned.

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CONCLUSION, LIMITATIONS & FURTHER RESEARCH

CONCLUSION

After interviewing 25 external people to TomTom in order to measure their brand associations, the results show a clear gap between the brand identity and positioning (who they are and how they want to be seen), and the brand image (how they are actually seen). TomTom has been repositioning itself in the past year from a consumer electronics company, to a software technology company, specializing in mobility. The results show that this change in identity and positioning however, has not been yet received by the public, as it is still highly associated with the product that brought the brand to fame in its beginnings; the Personal Navigation Device.

The brand associations are analyzed using Keller’s CBBE Pyramid, in order to determine whether the external view of the brand was having an effect on the brands’ Employer Brand message and how it is being received by the target audience. The hypothesis, which stated that TomTom is a “problem brand”, more specifically a “prison brand” which is trapped in an image, made in the introduction of the project, is accepted after analysis of the associations is done in terms of strength, direction, and uniqueness, as well as on the CBBE Pyramid.

From this conclusion, three managerial recommendations are given in order to strengthen the Employer Branding message and align the brand image (how external people see the brand) to the new brand identity that TomTom has assumed in the last year.

LIMITATIONS

Although this project has allowed for conclusions to be reached, it is far from perfect. The first limitation to this study is the sample size. Although 25 participants allow to get an idea of what the external brand associations to TomTom are, ideally the sample size would have been at least 100 people. These people would have been chosen randomly and would be more representative of the Amsterdam population. The study would have then been replicated globally, as TomTom is a global brand with over 52

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offices in 30 countries, and brand perceptions may differ significantly depending on which country is surveyed and studied. The results of all countries would have then been averaged, grouped by subject, and then given the same analysis treatment they were given in this study. Also, SPSS could be used in order to determine if there is a relationship between certain categories of association, their strength and their valence.

In order to make this study more robust, a longitudinal approach would be taken. This would give the results of the interviews more validity. Then, when the managerial recommendations were implemented, repeating the association interview with the same participants would allow the determination of whether the conclusions were correct, and the implementation of those recommendations was actually successful in bringing change in the associations. This could be repeated several times over the next years to observe the gradual change in the associations (if there is change) and to assess whether the brand image does in fact align more closely to the brand identity and positioning that TomTom has chosen.

From the other hand, it would also be very beneficial to have a comparison done with other brands in the industry. By understanding what the external associations and brand image of competitor brands are, it would give a better idea of where TomTom is located in the industry landscape in terms of brand image. With the longitudinal study a map of how TomTom’s brand image transforms and how the company moves within the industry over time could be done.

Internal associations of the brand, meaning having TomTom employees also surveyed and their associations studied, would help to make a clear distinction between the brand identity (how employees view the brand) and the brand image (how external people to the brand view it). By doing this it would help establish a full and more extensive idea of employer branding, as it not only concerns external potential employees, but also deals with talent retention, for which brand identity is very important. Finally, when speaking about limitations to the study the bias that exists when relying on self-report for studies must be considered. Whether the subject is being honest, and actually writing down the first words that come to mind when they think of the brand is an issue, as there is no way to know whether this is the case or not.

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FURTHER RESEARCH

The subjects of Employer Branding and Brand Image leave a lot of room for further research, if they are looked at together, in the way they interact within a firm and how they influence each other. This study shows that the way a brand is perceived and the image that people external to the company may have of it, does have an effect on the employer branding message, but it does not explore exactly how and to what extent it affects the effectivity of the message on the target audience and how it affects the validity of the message being portrayed. Another area for further research post-study is to look into how Employer Branding efforts contribute or deteriorate brand equity. Given that Keller poses the idea of customer-based brand equity, is it possible to have employee-based brand equity? Or in that line of thought, is it possible that brand equity can be affected by potential employees?

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APPENDIX 1: Raw Associations

TOMTOM ASSOCIATIONS

Participant Association Strength Direction Uniqueness

1 PND strong positive no

1 90s strong negative no

1 Dutch strong positive yes

1 SatNav weak positive no

1 GPS strong positive no

1 Map strong positive yes

2 Mapping strong positive yes

2 GPS device strong positive yes

2 Garmin weak negative no

2 Sport weak negative no

2 Watches weak negative no

3 Sport Watch weak negative no

3 GPS strong negative no

3 Map strong positive yes

3 Amsterdam weak positive yes

3 Dutch strong positive yes

3 Bankrupt strong negative yes

3 old-fashioned strong negative yes

4 maps strong positive no

4 navigation weak positive yes

4 PND strong positive yes

4 GPS strong positive no

4 Uber map weak positive yes

4 cars weak positive no

5 motorcycle weak negative yes

5 cars strong positive yes

5 maps strong positive yes

5 navigation device strong positive yes

5 sport watch weak negative no

5 watches weak negative no

5 scooter weak negative no

5 GPS strong negative no

6 technology weak positive yes

The effect of external brand perceptions on employer branding - is TomTom a "problem brand"