Building a brand is crucial exercise that often takes years or decades to accomplish. The benefit of brand equity is realized in the bottom line. You researched brand equity from a consumer standpoint. For this assignment, you will select a big nationally or internationally known brand that has advertisements that feature a famous person or persons.

PART 1: Research Background

Research the selected brand using both its Web site and articles in the AIU Library’s full-text databases, and address the following:

• What does the brand mean in today’s market?
• How has it evolved over time?
• What is the target market(s) for the brand? Has that changed from the past?
• How is the competition positioned of Toyota Corporation?

This section of the assignment requires the use of articles from the AIU Library’s full-text databases. Articles are found in periodicals. These are not to be confused with eBooks or reference books. The most popular databases in marketing are: ABI Inform Global, Academic Search Premier, and Business Source Premier. This section of the paper should be at least 2 pages in length.

PART 2: Application

Marketing is not all serious research involving scholarly, statistical, and practitioner resources; it is also about trends, buzz, and pop culture of the day. Actors, models, musicians, athletes, and reality stars of the moment are hounded by the press. Their lives unfold in the media, and many are seen wearing, carrying, eating, or driving a particular brand. For this section, you may research the following in any media outlet:

• What celebrities endorse your brand? Why are they a good fit? To what target market do they connect?
• What other famous characters could be connected to your brand? Explain why.
• What about the competition? What kind of endorsers do they use?

This section of the paper should be at least 2 pages in length.

Your report must include a reference list. All research should be cited in the body of the paper. In-text citations and corresponding references should be included in your paper. For more information on APA, please visit the APA Lab. The paper should be written in third person; this means words like I, we, and you are not appropriate. The use of direct quotes is discouraged but may be used sparingly in appropriate situations.

Your assignment should contain a cover page, an abstract page, and a reference page in addition to the body. The body of the paper should be 4-5 pages in length, starting with a brief 1-paragraph introduction and ending with a short conclusion. The entire submission will be 7-8 pages in length.