Bentley Suite
St. Regis is a luxury hotel with many of its branches situated all over the world. The hotel offers four-star services and is considered as one of the most prolific luxury hotel brands worldwide. Conversely, Bentley is a motor manufacturing company that deals in a sector of luxury vehicles. Besides, t he Bentley brand is known for its handcrafted luxury motorcars. St. Regis hotel in collaboration with Bentley came up with the Bentley Suite in Dubai. It is a custom designed suite a vision of which was to capture the elegance of magical moments created by a bespoke craftsmanship of Bentley Mulsanne and the impeccable glamor of St. Regis brand. This paper will extensively analyze the collaboration of these two prolific brands to show how well they come together to form a brand and product havin g a strong competitive advantage .
The two luxury companies joined to form a more luxurious brand that lives up to the standards of the firms. The association of the two brands can be considered as a successful venture. For instance, St. Regis has had a successful brand awareness campaign over the years. The same can be said for Bentley as a company associated with the famous luxury motor cars. They incorporated to create a more luxurious brand that combines St. Regis’ excellent butler service with bespoke interiors of Bentley. Therefore, their union forms a harmonizing effect that utilizes advantages of each company and creates a magical flare that seems to satisfy loyal customers of both brands.
In the collaboration between the two companies to form the Bentley Suite, the brand positioning has been successful. The purpose of the positioning is to act as a bridge between a product and the target segment of the market (MacInnis, Park, & Priester, 2014; Singh, Kalafatis, & Ledden, 2014). The allure of the craftsmanship of Bentley has been combined with the high-quality butler service of St. Regis to create emotional and physical attributes that are congruent with the target segment of the companies. Therefore, by using the main advantages of ea ch brand, the positioning has been perfectly placed to capture the attention of the target segment of the market.
In view of brand positioning, it is apparent that the Bentley Suite was formed through a unique business venture that incorporates differences of the two separate brands. The Bentley Suite was formed through a model known as co-branding (Washburn et al., 2015). The two brands were brought together by their unique appreciation of luxury that enabeled them to create and provide the unique and exceptional customer value. . The hybrid brand dubbed Bentley Suite has lived up to the expectations of loyal customers of both companies contributing to its development. Therefore, by means of co-branding, St. Regis and Bentley managed to develop an original product that bring a new value to the target audience..
Moreover, it would be appropriate to infer that the two separate brand images and personalities have contributed to the promotion and distribution of the unique product , Bentley Suite. To be more specific, Bentley’s customers may be attracted to purchase Bentley Suite due to the resilient interior features that speak of the craftsmanship of Bentley Mulsanne. Furthermore, St. Regis’ customers, who highly appreciate their excellent butler services, will also enjoy the products of Bentley Suite brand. Therefore, the brand resonance of the custom designed suite has made it possible for loyal customers to recall the companies in different consumption situations (Keller, 2016; Solomon, 2014). In view of this, it is evident that Bentley and St. Regis Hotel have gained additional brand awareness for their separate products through the contributing to promotion of Bentley Suite brand.
As Da Silveira, Lages, and Simões (2013) suggest, to appreciate the brand identity of the Bentley Suite, it is critical look at the two separate identities of the companies’ products. St. Regis brand identity appeals to customers of a certain niche that appreciate luxurious boarding facilities and hospitality services. Consequently, the Bentley brand identity attracts customers who look for the combination of functionality, luxury, and bespoke interior. The two brands collaborated to form a brand identity that appealed to clients from both niches. In view of this, it is apparent that brand identity is not only an important tool for enhancement of a brand awareness but also a significant agent in understanding why the two separate companies became successful in creating a stronger hybrid product .
From an intellectual and business-oriented standpoint, the presentation of a brand’s credentials must comply with where and how the target segment would expect to see its products. Furthermore, the presentation of a given brand must be explicitly consistent with its description (Huang & Sarigöllü, 2014). In view of the Bentley Suite brand, its presentation has borrowed some significant information from the separate introduction of the two founding companies. The evident parts that formed the Bentley Suite’s presentation are consistent with what customers expect to obtain from both firms. Hence, the representation of the Bentley Suite is successful as the joint venture managed to ensure that the customers will get the expected value from Bentley and St. Regis.
Further, the issue of price is considered to be significant when creating a new brand. However, in this case, the product’s price was based on the individual costs experienced by the companies. The prices associated with the Bentley and St. Regis Hotel brands created a framework by means of which a price for the Bentley Suite was created. According to marketing literature (Yoo, Donthu, & Lee, 2000), the price is said to be directly associated with a brand. Putting this into consideration, the features associated with the price of a brand, one could assume the expected price for a specific product . These features include a value for money and quality of products among others. Therefore, in order to form a pricing policy of the new joint product, the costs of both Bentley and St. Regis were considered.
Moreover, the price of a product is a crucial attribute that can be associated with a potential for a brand’s success. To be more specific, a price as a component of the marketing mix has been used to complement the brand description (Huang & Sarigöllü, 2014). Consequently, when building a strong brand, such as Bentley Suite, the manufacturers are handed the ability to charge a higher price. However, there might be some short-term price reduction that will appeal to the customers who are rather price-sensitive. Thus, as a price is one of the main determinants of a brand’s significance, pricing policy of Bentley Suite reflects on luxury positioning of both companies to spotlight the hiogh quality and value of the product.
In the view of the price associated with the product, there are some concerns that fall on some of the brand’s salient features that dictate price. For example, quality is a significant aspect that dictates the expected price of a certain product. In quality, there are three dissections that are applied including objective quality, actual quality, and perceived quality (Aaker, 2009). In the issue of price, perceived quality is what has the most significant impact (Akdeniz, Calantone, & Voorhees, 2013). Indeed, the high perceived quality of the Bentley and St. Regis has been transferred to form such of the Bentley Suite brand.
According to Akdeniz et al. (2013), no-name brands are perceived to have less quality as opposed to name brands. Considering that Bentley Suite was formed by two name brands, it automatically qualifies to become such, as well. Being a name brand means having much more perceived quality; therefore, it is expected to be extremely demand able product. Consequently, the higher the perceived quality a brand has, the higher price of the products the brand represents. In turn, a strong brand is likely to hold a sustainable competitive advantage in the market (French & Smith, 2013). Competitive advantage is mainly attributed to a high market power, high brand value, added value to the product, and the realization of high profits. Therefore, it would be appropriate to conclude that Bentley Suite is a name b rand characterized by perfect competitive advantage created by Bentley and St. Regis.
The collaboration between Bentley with St. Regis hotel gave birth to a strong brand, Bentley Suites, located in Dubai. The strength of a brand can be attributed to many factors. In this instance, due to co-branding, Bentley Suite was formed by two companies that are strong in their market niches. Therefore, the hybrid brand was as a result of the breeding of two firms that were already well-established. This accelerated the position of the new company to gain a competitive advantage as soon as it entered the industry. In turn, a close analysis of brand positioning, presentation, price, association, identity, image, and personality of the founding companies showed that they played a significant role in the creation of a hybrid brand. The Bentley Suite brand is a perfect example of how companies can come together to form a strong joint venture through effective association. It combined the benefits, attributes, and images of the mother brands to create a venture that lived up to the standards of the target segments of the separate companies.
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