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Keller’s Brand Resonance Pyramid, also known as the Customer-Based Brand Equity Model, is a pyramid that tells us how to understand our customers and implement strategies to build brand equity. By building a strong brand through customer satisfaction, companies know they can achieve significant returns on investment. Therefore, Keller’s Brand Resonance Pyramid benefits companies as it allows them to know what strategies to implement and the experiences to provide to their audience to achieve the most positive response.
The Brand Resonance Pyramid is built upon four fundamental questions typically asked by customers:
1. Salience: Who are you, Bliss?
“Founded in 1996, the original Bliss NYC ignited a modern spa and skin revolution with ingenious products, a super-positive, never-fussy vibe, and brownies.” Bliss launched an iconic relaunch in 2018, taking into consideration customer concerns and making the products easier to find and more affordable. The company also joined the clean beauty trend with all products being PETA-certified, cruelty-free, and blissfully-free from parabens, phthalates, SLS, SLES, and other harmful ingredients. The brand positions itself as young and modern, not only in its products but in the services offered by the Bliss Spa, which has attracted celebrity clientele such as Oprah Winfrey, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez, and Madonna. The bliss brand is easily recognizable amongst other products and can be found in over 2900 locations across the U.S., making its brand presence powerful. Bliss’ mantra is “The key to unlocking outer beauty is inner joy,” and so their brand strives to listen to their customers and deliver on-trend beauty needs that will appeal to them.
2. Performance/Imagery: What are you, Bliss?
Performance: Bliss products are renowned for being high quality, on-trend, clean, and easily accessible. They are known for providing leading-edge spa products that deliver transformational results at an accessible price.
Primary characteristics and secondary features: In all its marketing efforts, Bliss showcases the youth and playfulness of their brand. With their concise and modern slogan “#ThisIsBliss,” they focus their marketing around products that do what it is meant to while feeling and smelling amazing, which to customers is a breath of fresh air.
Brand reliability: Since Bliss’s relaunch, they have distributed their products to over 2,900 locations across the U.S. and their website. This has created a strong brand image for the company due to its strong presence.
Style and design: The products are marketed using humorous names and slogans such as “Stay-Cay Glow Mask,” “That’s Incredi-Peel” and “What A Melon Toner” and the packaging is playful and easily identifiable by the Blissgirl character which appears on the catalogs, products, and website dressed in her signature white towel. The design is trendy and allows it to appeal to a vast demographic.
Price: For the quality of ingredients used and the clean nature of the products, Bliss’s price remains in line and even below most of its skincare competitors. The brand is positioned as an entry-level luxury skincare brand, thus putting the price point in between luxury and drugstore skincare.
Imagery:
User profiles: Since the relaunch of Bliss in 2018, the targeting based on its marketing strategy seems to be a younger demographic or around 16-35 years. The aesthetic of its packaging and marketing gives off a very young and trendy vibe that connects with a younger demographic.
Purchase and usage situation: Bliss products can be found in the most popular stores such as Target, Ulta, CVS, Riley Rose, Urban Outfitters, and Walgreens. It is easily accessible so that persons can enjoy the feeling of having a spa day at home.
3. Judgments/Feelings: what do the customer think or feel about Bliss?
Persons who use bliss products are just getting into the habit of investing in skincare and who pride themselves on attaining luxury, high-quality beauty. This arouses a sense of confidence and achievement for them as they invest in their skin to achieve their skincare goals.
Brand judgments: Most Bliss customers see the brand as high quality and affordable prices. The brand is credible and is considered an entry-level luxury skincare product, and most buyers recognize the quality as the main ingredients of most of the Bliss products are found in luxury products that are three times the price.
Brand feelings: The positioning goals of Bliss are well defined; however, the packaging and placements can sometimes be misleading and lead customers to believe the products are of the ordinary drugstore quality. Though these products are utilized in the high-end Bliss Spas in the U.S., the products’ accessibility in stores such as Target and CVS gives the impression of lesser quality.
4. Brand Resonance: What about Bliss and the customer?
Many persons connect with the Bliss brand even if they do not purchase their products. Bliss maintains a strong social media presence of 324,000 followers on Instagram.
Behavioral loyalty: Bliss regularly has promotions on its products, mainly through its website, which encourages customers to always restock on products. Many customers are loyal to the brand because of the brand’s positioning and clean, high-quality beauty with proven results.
Attitudinal attachment: In 2018, Bliss did some self-reflection to improve their products and strategy, thus upgrading their cult favorites and introducing brand new, on-trend innovations with lower costs. They also fully embraced the clean beauty culture with nearly half their products being manufactured using solar power and a new modern and cohesive look, making it easier for the shopper to navigate.
Sense of community: With over 324,000 followers on Instagram and 89,557 followers on Facebook, Bliss remains active in their communications with their fan base, and fans are also allowed to share their experiences using the products and swap tips with each other on the Bliss Facebook page.
Active engagement: The brand has a high engagement on Instagram, where they regularly repost customer’s content and influencer content using the Bliss products and share helpful skincare tips. They also do regular question boxes on Instagram, where customers can engage with the brand and offer their comments and suggestions.
Keller’s Brand Resonance Pyramid tells the brand what stage it belongs to and what strategies can be implemented to improve it. This pyramid guides the brand on building brand equity and helping the brand move from one stage to the next. Looking at the model, building the brand identity is the first step that Bliss has accomplished. The company has to work to build its brand image continuously and move up the pyramid to develop resonance. All companies should work towards a common goal – Brand resonance and customer relationships.
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