BRAND MANAGEMENT OF ELECTRONIC MASS-MEDIA IN REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
Abstract: This work talks about the brand management in the media market of the Republic of Uzbekistan. The author has chosen as the object of study leading websites of the country, such as “Daryo.uz” and “Anhor.uz”. Also in the paper based on the views of market participants identified the main problem faced by the media in brand management.
Key words: Brand, brand management, mass-media, electronic mass media
Introduction
Development of the market forces companies to find different ways of management in order to increase the number of consumers. For many companies one of the main ways which allow distinguishing their company is a brand. Working on the good brand, managing brand`s popularity is essential part of managing process. Mass-media market is a unique market. It differs from othermarkets. Ifmany market participants which producea product orproviding a service justaims tosella product or service, mass-media market participants workingon twoclients at the same time. On the one hand they also try to sell their products - newspapers, magazines, TV-Shows to viewers, readers and listeners, but on the other hand they also try to attractadvertisers. Accordingly, in order to attract more consumers and advertisers need to stand out from the other. As a result, if the media will be able to build a strong brand and can control and manage this brand it is much easier to succeed.
The basis elements and importance of brand management.
The key to market success in any type of business is its effective marketing activities, which include processes of identify customer needs, product development; determine its price, establishing a system of marketing and sales promotion. As long as marketing is focused on meeting the needs of consumers, the marketing activities always begin with a comprehensive study of the market. Market research studies the behavior of consumers, their tastes and needs, consumer preferences. Since the late 1950`s. system of marketing tools, a certain structure which achieves the goal and solutions marketing objectives in the target market, defined as the marketing mix. At the end of the 1970`s. marketing tools have been combined by Jerome Barney (1991) in four groups, and the system was called "the concept of 4P" - from the initial letters of the English name of each element, namely: product, place, promotion, and price.
It is clear that the different nature of the products, the changing role of the service component in various products, intangibility of services extent influence the choice of marketing tools, principles of forming product and pricing policy, as well as methods for their promotion.
Modern marketing activities cannot be imagined without the branding. Nowadays, there is no clear definition of the term. In fact it is refers to the process of building, development and brand management. Some marketing specialists consider branding as science, art, and activities to create a long-term preferences of consumers goods. The most successful situation is when consumer starts to perceive the brand as a separate product category (Kotler, 2014). Dictionary of Business and Management defines brand as: "name, sign or symbol used to identify the products of the seller and to differentiate from the competition".
David Aaker (2007), who formulated the basic theory of branding, defines brand as "a set of feelings" and defines it as: "a set of attributes associated with the brand name and symbol that strengthen (or weaken) the value of the product or service offered under the symbol". All this definition explains each brand in its own precise and versatile, but the most successful and concise, we believe the following: "Brand - a bouquet of perceptions in the mind of the consumer".
In practice, people often confuse two similar concepts - brand and trademark. In fact, brand - is not only a trade mark consisting of the name (brand-name), graphic (logo) and the sound character of the company or product. The concept of brand is broader because it additionally includes: the product or service with all its set of characteristics, expectations, functional and emotional associations (brand attributes); visual image of the brand generated by advertising (brand-image); the level of brand awareness, the strength of the brand (brand power); perception of the brand's commitment to his customer (brand loyalty) and other (Kotler, 2014).
Brand - imperceptible difficult formalizable set of product features: its name, packaging, pricing, history, reputation and the method of advertising. The brand is also defined as the values and philosophy of the brand, which exist in the consumer mind; it’s not only a picture or image (Berrou, 2007). Brand performs the following functions: economic; information; protection (protection against unfair competition).
When it comes to mass-media, we can note that their main component is reputation (Ann, Bagiyev, Tarasevich, 2005) and reputation risks are on the first level. Functions of reputation overlap with functions that plays brand (Grigoryev, 2006):
- Information (confirmed information about the object);
- Protection (protects the good reputation of bad facts, that is, the error does not affect the overall picture of the object if it has a good reputation);
- Economic (for the firm strengthens name, respectively profitable).
That is why the reputation of the mass-media should be considered as part of the brand.
About the mass-media market of Uzbekistan.
The Republic of Uzbekistan is situated in the central part of the Central Asia; According to statistics (National Statistic Committee of Uzbekistan, 2013) the territory of the country is 447.4 sq.km, while population of the country is nearly 30 million people. The country can be described as symbioses of the ancient and modern culture, in other words there is modern and new capital Tashkent and at the same time historical and antique Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva cities.
Economy of the country started new era after 1991 when Uzbekistan became independent. Before that times country was a member of the former Soviet Union and was like many other members of the union supplier of raw materials for the giant economy of the former USSR.
Mass-media market of the country as young as the country itself. At the first years of independence the number of players in the market was low. According to information of Press and information agency of Uzbekistan (2014) the total number ofparticipants in 1991 was around 395. Most of the players during that years belonged to newspaper and magazines sector of mass-media. In the beginning of 90`s the proportion of newspapers and magazines in total market was approximately 96-97%. There were some national TV-channels and radio stations.The main reason for such low rate of television and radio stations was the fact that Uzbekistan for many years was a member of the USSR.The majority of sound and picture media were on the territory of the central cities of Russia. As a result, after the collapse of the Union became part of the Russian Federation.
Great work which has been done in Uzbekistan became the basis of the development of the media market. As a result, by the beginning of the new century, the number of media doubled, and by the end of the first decade of the 21st century the figures reached the point more than 1,200 mass-media. The market dynamic can be seen in the chart 1. As can be seen the biggest share of the market belongs to printed press such as newspapers and magazines, however in the recent years their growth is not as it was in the 90s.
Since the middle of 2000`s the market got a new players - the electronic media. Huge development of the internet has led to a sharp increase in electronic media. Some printed press started to organize their electronic versions, while some reformatted their strategy and went totally to network. In 2008, the number of electronic media was about 80 at the end of 2013 their number reached the point 216, which is approximately 3 times more than in 2008.
Methodology.
In order to determine the most popular participants of electronic mass-media market and how brand of electronic media resources affects the willingness of advertisers we organized the survey. Participants of the survey were representatives of several companies of Uzbekistan. Importantly, the survey participants are active advertisers in the market of electronic media resources. Survey participants responded to the following questions:
1. Information about the existence of the resource.
To determine the best-known Internet edition, in the first question, participants assessed the publications in the range of 1-5. Where:
1 - "I heard about this publication for the first time", 2 - "I know about the existence of the resource", 3 - "I am visiting this website as a consumer", 4 -"I am cooperate with the publication as an advertiser", 5 -" I am consumer and advertiser".
2. The level of substitutability
We asked participants to rate substitutability edition. The grading scale was from 1 to 5. 1- Low substitutability, i.e. if resource refuses to cooperate finding something equal edition will be difficult. 5 - The highest substitutability, i.e. if resource refuses to cooperate finding something equal edition will be easy.
To identify the main problems in the brand management of main resources interviews with representatives of major publications have been organized.
3. Recognition and attitude of the brand.
After identifying several leaders among the mass-media, respondents answered a set of questions:
-Reputation of the brand fits our company;
-Media is a respected among readers;
-Media is a respected among the competitors;
-Reliable partner;
Again, each section was evaluated on a scale from 1 to 5. Where 1 the lowest rate, 5 the highest.
World trend
The most important component of brand management in the media is to build a reputation in the media, especially in the Internet. This mechanism is the key for periodicals and news portals, because main part of the audience of such publications is currently "online". As known the era of transferring mass-media online started a few years ago, one of the symbol of this is the American magazine Time, which completely stopped production of the printed version and gone online. Online subscription, restricting access to the content was characteristic of analytical publications, editions with unique content. Examples of this are the publication of the newspaper Herald Tribune, Guardian, New York Times, analyzes RBC and others.
A brief history of electronic media in Uzbekistan.
With development of information technologies in the country, electronic resources and web projects that have positioned themselves as the media appeared and gradually began to develop. Internet journalism in Uzbekistan was formed spontaneously, often by people who have no relationship to traditional media, which, of course, can be considered as positive moment of formation of this trend. Experience of the first web-publications showed that the Internet can create successful media projects. Since the discovery of the first information sites in Uzbekistan many resources left the web space, but there are those who continue to operate successfully. According to statistics, which was provided by the Press and Information Agency of Uzbekistan (2014), currently there are more than 250 electronic media.
Information about the existence of the resource.
In order to identify the main of them during research we organized the survey among the main companies who are active participants in the market. According to survey, we found that the most recognizable brand among the electronic media in Uzbekistan are resources "Daryo.Uz", "Gazeta.Uz" and "Anhor.Uz" As a result their average rate higher than 4, which means that all respondents are aware of the resources they are active readers of this resources and even some of them run adverts (Chart 2).
The level of substitutability
The second indicator that has been studied had to answer the question about -substitutability of the brand. It should be noted that all publications were rated more than 3, which gives us reason to think that as a result of big competition in this market, the advertiser still can always find an alternative resource. However, "Daryo.Uz", "Gazeta.Uz" and "Anhor.Uz" is the resources which can be harder to substitute (Chart 3). And if we remember that the level of popularity of these electronic media is higher than level of others, we can conclude that these publications are the main participants of the market of electronic media.
Just some words about leaders…
Gazeta.uz
Internet edition "Gazeta.uz" exists since August 2008. We can say that this resource was among the first players in the market, which was to cover the principal and significant events and began to operate as an electronic media resource. The publication seeks to cover all the major events in the life of the country. Among the priorities can be noted, the news of politics, society, economy, culture and sports.
Anhor.uz
The activities of the web portal «Anhor.uz» officially began in April 2014. The target audience of the resource is the adults, educated people with higher education who are interested in local and global social and political events. Site has its own authors, journalists and popular bloggers. The highlight of columnists and opinion polls publications is the most interesting aspect of the resource for visitors. As with any edition of the web resource devoted importance of economic strategy, so much attention has been paid to the department of marketing and advertising. Six months since the foundation became self-sustaining.
Dayro.uz
The activities of the web portal "Daryo.Uz" officially began in 2013. The target audience of the resource is the young and middle-aged people in Uzbekistan and abroad. The main content is local and international events, news from the world of movies, music, cars and sports, as well as an overview of technological innovations.
Recognition and attitude of the brand.
We asked respondents to evaluate these three media-resources. Summing up the results we have obtained the following conclusions. All three editions are reliable partner according to view of advertisers, they got 18 points out of 20. Better reputation among competitors has Anhor.uz and "Gazeta.Uz", while all three resources have good level of respect among readers (consumers). The reputation of the brand is higher for "Gazeta.Uz", which is likely because of long presence in the market.
In order to determine basic methods of brand management by the participants of the market among the electronic media. We organized interview and meetings with represents of «Anhor.uz» and «Dayro.uz». During interviews we asked them to share with their views on brand management of their media resources.
Anhor.uz: Brand management is necessary for the recognition, promotion, to attract readers and advertisers which effect to increasing of profit. At the same time in our market process of brand management is more chaotic and unplanned. The main tool for our company for brand management is social networks.
Dayro.uz: We organize the process of brand management of our brand thought our product which is news. Rapid and high-quality material, promotes awareness of our brand.
Secondly we interested on their opinion about main difficulties which arise during their work.
Both participants were similar in their opinion that the media need to manage the brand, while, according to them, there are some problems that interfere to resources to develop. It is the shortage of qualified personnel, the low degree of payback, financial instability and unstable advertising market.
During the study of the issue we have addressed a question to the well-known scientist in the field of brands, to Mark Tungate in order to know his opinion on the following issue –“Media market of post-Soviet countries (such as Uzbekistan) for many years lagged behind the US and European media market. What do you think is it possible to appear some media from post-Soviet countries which can compete with famous brands?”
Mark answered as a follow; “It's a difficult question because many of these markets are still perceived as only partly free. There is also the problem that most media in this region is published in local language. For years, Hollywood and pop music were the twin vectors of English, which spread around the world to become a global language. So media companies with an English language bias inevitably found it easier to expand internationally. But there are alternative examples, such as Bertelsmann in Germany (owner of Penguin Random House) and Modern Times Group in Sweden (which published Metro newspaper around the world). When a company finds the right formula, anything could happen”.
Conclusion.
Based on the above information, we can draw the following conclusions:
-Given that the internet users of the country are mostly the younger generation, electronic mass-media market of Uzbekistan has huge potential;
-During the last 7 years the number of electronic media resources tripled;
-The main players on the electronic media market is “Daryo.uz” “Anhor.uz” and “Gazeta.uz”;