Brands

The basics of Brand

• Brand is a way to make your products unique from everyone else's, and to make them more appealing to the public. You get to name your brand anything you like. (Brand names are subject to the same rules as company names - no real-world names, nothing offensive or inappropriate.)
• You can access information about your brands by going to your Office and clicking the button marked "My Brands."
• There are three different Brand Strategies that you can choose from. By default, every company starts out with the Individual Brand strategy. For more on this, see the strategies section below.
• Each brand has two components: Awareness and Reputation. These can be reset at any time.
• Although your brand name is the same everywhere, it will have separate Awareness and Reputation scores for each city.

Awareness

• The Awareness score measure's the answer to this question: When people think of a product, do they think of your brand? Naturally, customers must have heard of your brand. But just because they've heard of you doesn't mean they remember you when it's time to buy. A brand with a top Awareness score is one that customers will automatically think of when they go shopping.
• Awareness scores range from 0 to 500. Zero means nobody has heard of your brand, while 500 means you're at the front of everyone's mind.
• To increase Awareness, you must purchase Advertising.
  • When you purchase ads, you choose how effective you want the ads to be (how many points get boosted each day). Once per day, the ads will run and you will be charged automatically.
  • If you don't have enough cash when the ads run, or if you are away for more than 1 week without logging in, the ads will be cancelled.
  • Cost is based on your selections, the population of the city you're advertising in, the economic climate of that city, and the Brand Strategy you have selected (more on strategies below).
• Each night, your brand's awareness score will increase based on the ads you have purchased. Then it will decay (as the public forgets) by Score / 100, rounded up.

Awareness Score	Nightly Decay	Ads needed to maintain score	Minimum ads to increase score
0	0	0	1
1-100	-1	1	2
101-200	-2	2	3
201-300	-3	3	4
301-400	-4	4	5
401-499	-5	5	6
500	-5	5	maximum

• Advertising costs increase exponentially, so it may be wise to settle for a lower score that is less expensive to maintain.

Reputation

• The Reputation score answers this question: How do people feel about your brand? Over time, the public will develop an impression of your brand, either favorable or unfavorable.
• Reputation scores range from 0 to 500. A 500 score means the public uses your brand regularly and will seek it out.
• To increase your reputation, you must get your product into stores where people can buy it. People like being able to find your product and seeing it around, and dislike when something is unavailable or they never see anyone using it. The more your product is available, the faster its reputation will increase.
  • Every day, a brand's reputation increases by one point for each store that is selling it. Not just your stores - any store selling your brand will increase it's reputation.
  • Brand decreases a set number of points depending on your Brand Strategy. With Individual Brand, it loses 1 point a day. With Category Brand, reputation degrades 3 points a day. And Single Brand strategy will cost 10 points a day. More information on the different strategies is listed below.

Comparative Advertising

• Comparative Ads are a system for "borrowing" on someone else's reputation, by comparing your product to theirs. They are currently disabled pending a system update.

Brand Strategies

• Your Brand Strategy is the general approach you take to selecting brands for your different products. It determines whether different products have separate brands or share the same label.
• Every company starts out on the Individual Brand strategy. Eventually it may be wise to switch, but doing so will reset all of your brands.

Individual Brand

• With an Individual Brand strategy, each different product you use will have it's own brand.
Example: The real-world company Proctor & Gamble makes many consumer goods. But each product has its own name: When they make soap, the brand is Ivory Soap™. When they make perfume, the brand is Lacoste™. When they make a shampoo or body wash, it's Zest™. This way each brand seems unique even though the company is quite diverse.
• Each product will have a separate awareness and reputation scores. An increase or decrease in one will have no effect on any of the other brands.
• Individual brand is the cheapest when purchasing Advertising or Comparative Ads.
• Individual brand has the slowest Reputation decay, decreasing reputation only 1 point per day. Therefore you only need two stores selling a brand to start increasing its reputation.
• This strategy is the default for all companies. It is best for smaller companies, or anyone with few products in unrelated categories.

Category Brand

• With a Category Brand strategy, each category of products (Grocery, Clothing, Cars, etc) will have a brand, which all products in that category will share.
Example: The real-world company Fortune Brands has several different product lines. They sell Premium Spirits under the brand Dekuyper™. Different flavors of liquor are all labeled with the Dekuyper™ brand. They also make products for the Bath & Kitchen, and these are sold under the brand Moen™. And they make Sporting Goods products (primarily golf). For this, they have the brand Titleist™. This way a good brand for one product will make similar products look good, but still seem distinct from unrelated goods.
• All products in the same category will share the same awareness and reputation scores. An increase or decrease from one product's activity will affect the scores for all products in that category. But the brands for other categories will not be affected.
• Category brand Advertising and Comparative Advertising are more expensive than with Individual Brand, since different products mean more to say.
• Category brand has a moderate Reputation decay, decreasing three points per day. The public expects more when you sell more products. Therefore you need four stores selling a brand to increase its reputation.
• This strategy is best for focused companies with several products in the same category.

Single Brand

• With a Single Brand strategy, all products you make share the same brand..
Example: Samsung is one of the largest companies in the world. This South Korean conglomerate is in several diverse product lines. Yet everything is marketed under the Samsung name: cameras, televisions, chemicals, insurance, malls, etc. This strategy allows them to focus all of their efforts on one brand, so that everything they sell can help everything else.
• Every product you make will share the same awareness and reputation (separate for each city, of course). An increase or decrease from one product will affect all products.
• Single brand is the most expensive for purchasing Advertising or Comparative Ads.
• Single brand has the fastest Reputation decay, due to higher expectations. It decreases ten points a day. Therefore you need at least 11 stores selling your products to have a Reputation increase. Fortunately those stores can sell any product, since they all use the same brand.
• This strategy can backfire if you don't have enough stores, or become the target of comparative ads that drop your reputation. However, for a large business that covers many products, or switches products frequently, it is the most efficient strategy.