STRATEGY TO IMPROVE BRAND AWARENESS

Brand strategy is an important thing that has to be built by the company to strengthen the relationship between a company and its customers to provide benefits for the company so that the company is able to win the competition in the industry (Sadat, 2009). Wheeler (2013) explains that the company can create a brand strategy to provide a strong sense so that it can compete with the competitors. The development of creative industries in Indonesia made a great contribution in the economy of Indonesia where the craft sector became the biggest contributor (Indonesia Kreatif, 2014). Companies which engaged in the craft sector are increasing, so that the companies face intense competition. It means that the company needs to build a brand that build good perception and gain the trust of the customers. This study aims to find strategies that can increase brand awareness by conducting case study on Empress Box company. Empress Box that founded in January 2014 is a company engaged in the creative industries. The company produce exclusive jewelry made of silver. The method used in this study is a qualitative with case study approach. The result of this study suggest three strategies. The first strategy that can increase brand awareness is the brand building characteristics that determine the segmenting, targetting, and positioning. The second strategy is to do integrated marketing communication (IMC), by using social media, joining competitions and exhibitions. The third strategy is product placement by doing endorsements and displaying the products in multibrand stores.


Table 1. Gross Value Added Creative Economy of Indonesia Year 2010-2013 (In Billion Rupiah)
Ket: *)Angka Sementara, **)Angka Sangat Sementara, ***)Angka Sangat-Sangat Sementara Source: Indonesia Kreatif, 2014 Based on Indonesia Kreatif (2014), Craft Industry had a significant growth from 2010-2013 as many as 8.25% in 2011, 5.99% in 2012 and 9.09% in 2013. Fashion Industry also had a significant growth from 2010-2013 as many as 13.34% in 2011, 10.35% in 2012, and 9.53% in 2013. In this modern era, silver is mostly used in Creative Industry also Fashion Industry. Silver is believed to be able to make people look more beautiful when they used it as a fashion.

Figure 1. Export Destination Indonesia 2011
Source: Kemendag, 2012 Based on Warta Ekspor Magazine (2012), Hong Kong and Singapore had become the export destination of silver jewelry from Indonesia. In 2011, the minister of trade noted that almost 56% from the total export of silver jewelry from Indonesia had become those two countries export destination. America also becomes the third biggest country of export destination Indonesia for silver jewelry (15.98%). Based on this good business opportunity in silver jewelry, and based on the vision to give contribution to increase the growth of creative industry in Indonesia, one of Ciputra University students with International Business Management Major named Monica Fransesca Liando created Empress Box in January 2014. Empress Box is a manufacturing company specialized in accessories needed in fashion. Nowadays, accessories become important items in fashion. Accessories with luxury brand can give luxury look and value to the persons who wear it (Chevalier & Mazzalovo, 2012). Consumer's mindset about luxurious brand is about an association about expensive price, quality, esthetic, rare, and something extraordinary (Kaprefer, Bastien, & Ebrary 2012).
As a newcomer in accessories industry, Empress Box is less known by public compared to similar companies that also moved in accessories industry. To promote their business, Empress Box brand must be developed continuously so that can reach people awareness. The first step that Empress Box takes, as the first strategy, is focusing on brand awareness. Wheeler (2013) thought that through brand awareness, a company can build the consumer loyalty. The company can take the chance to prove to their consumer why they should buy that company brand compared to the other brand or the other company. Kartajaya (2010) said that, brand awareness is the most important factor in business and it had been proved able to make the consumer aware and remember about one different product and through brand awareness, a company can make the consumer perception through the product that offered. In Empress Box Company, consumer brand awareness is still low and the effect is in the buying decision and consumer loyalty. With the low consumer loyalty, it can affect Empress Box sales from April-July 2014 which is a stagnant sale.

Figure 2. Sales of Empress Box
Source: Internal Data of Empress Box, 2014 Empress Box did some action to improve the brand awareness by joining some exhibition like international craft exhibition that held in Jakarta and also Bling Bazaar that held in Bali. In the exhibition, Empress Box shared the name cards, catalog to the visitor, the company also made a guest book so that it can follow up the visitor who had interest in the business. Empress Box also asked for silver accessories business to business data to the Inacraft committee. The company also did some consultation to Disperindag and ASEPHI Indonesia as well as joining the exhibition. But those two exhibitions have not given any answer to the brand awareness problems. So, the company decided to improve the strategy to increase the brand awareness of Empress Box.
Empress Box tried to do some observation that shows about target market which prefer to choose the other famous brand that already established sooner than Empress Box, although the price that the competitor offers to the market is higher comparing to Empress Box and with lower quality comparing to Empress Box. Some of Empress Box competitors are F. Xaverius that had been established since 1984. F.Xaverius has three stores in Surabaya, Jakarta, and Bali. The other competitor is Tulola Design which is located in Bali. From the observation to those two companies, it is discovered that the two companies joined some national scale exhibition and international scale exhibition, beside that those two companies also promote their product by posting in big fashion magazine in Indonesia like Dewi and Harper Bazaar. Those two ways cannot be followed by Empress Box because of the limited of capital. It is very important to know the strategy of those competitors when they started their business.
Based on those phenomenon, brand awareness is very important to support the consumers' product purchasing decision especially consumers of Empress Box. It can increase the company's sales performance. A company should perform a variety of strategies to improve brand awareness. Therefore, this study will explore strategies that can be used to increase Empress Box brand awareness in order to win the consumers in the future. Based on the description of the background, the research question is what strategies can be used to increase Empress Box brand awareness?
There are two ways to improve the brand awareness from Empress Box. The first way is to use literature review by doing some research from the previous research with the similar type of research and the theoretical basis proposed by some parties about brand awareness. The second way is to do the interview and benchmarking to similar company.

Researcher
Year Results Khan 2012 The brand that has the character to give more support to brand awareness because it has the hallmark of the brand.
Hakala, Svenson & Vineze 2012 There is a relationship between purchasing decisions by consumers against top-of-mind awareness. The top-of-mind brand among the countries with the other countries is different, depending on the national context of a those country.
Khairunnas & Assauri 2012 The brand identity consists of a logo, slogan, color, and iconic brand companies can make prospective customers interested in using the products or make aware the existence of a company, which later became the typical company to gain customer awareness. Khan (2012) did a research that focused on the contribution of brand awareness and brand characteristics towards customer loyalty. This research purpose is to know the customer loyalty about branded milk in Peshawar, Pakistan. The indicator used is the brand awareness and brand characteristics. Both of them have important role in customer loyalty in buying the milk product. Khan (2012) said that brand characteristic is more on showing the product quality and the brand image, it become the key factor to create the consumer loyalty to the branded milk. Besides, brand awareness is contributing as a comparison against other branded milk. In essence, the brand has the character to be more supportive to brand awareness because it has the hallmark of the brand.
Hakala, Svenson & Vineze (2012) also did a research about consumer-based brand equity and top-of-mind awareness as a cross-country analysis. This research aims to explore the relationship between awareness of consumers towards a brand, consumer attitudes to brand equity, and changes in consumer attitudes in different cultures. After doing some researches of the 743 respondents in four different countries, there is a relationship between purchasing decisions by consumers against top-of-mind awareness. Hakala, Svenson & Vineze also said that the top-of-mind brand among the countries with the other countries difference depending on the national context of a those country.
Insania & Mutiaz (2013) did a research to prove that the integrated marketing communications and product placement can affect the brand awareness of the Pink Project. Product placement includes exhibitions, advertising, and endorsement of products produced by Pink Project. Khairunnas & Assauri (2012) also did a research about brand identity, design and the process of brand awareness. The study aims to prove whether the brand identity consists of a logo, slogan, color, and iconic brand companies can make prospective customers interested in using the products or make aware the existence of a company. In essence, these researches help Empress Box in creating brand awareness, build brand identity previous need in advance, which later became the typical company to gain customer awareness.

Figure 3. Conceptual Framework
Source: Data Processed According to Umar (2010), the strategy is a very important tool for achieving competitive advantage. Strategy is defined as a process of determining a plan for long-term goals of the company, accompanied by the development of a method or attempt how that goal can be achieved (Umar, 2010). The concept of strategy can be summed up as many different ways to achieve company goals. There are various strategies in business, one of which is the brand strategy.
Brand strategy is the force that created the company to tighten the relationship between companies and customers in the middle of the competition due to the strong brand will be very beneficial in business (Sadat, 2009). Wheeler (2013) explains that the best brand strategy is the company can provide something very different and strong impression so as to exceed the competitors. Brand strategy explains the position, differentiation, competitive advantage, and the unique value of a company. According to Wheeler (2013), brand strategy can be said as a map that leads marketing becomes easy, making sales increased, providing clarity, and inspiration to be company employees. Rangkuti (2009)   According to Kartajaya, (2010) brand is an indicator of value for all stakeholders (customers, employees, and investors). A brand is an asset that can create value for customers by increasing satisfaction and appreciating quality. Brand image is not only as a representation of products owned, but also can serve to create value and emotional connection with customers. Kotler and Keller (2009) defines that a brand is a name, sign, symbol or design that identifies the products or services of a company and an indicator of a differentiator with a competitor. Kartajaya (2010) explains that brand equity is the strength of a brand and is defined as the amount of assets and liabilities associated with the brand, the name and symbol of a company, which increase or decrease the value of a product or service for the customer or the company itself. Source: Sadat (2009)

Figure 5. Dimensions of Brand Equity
Kotler (2009) said that the brand equity consists of several elements and brand awareness is one of it. Huang & Sarigöllü (2014) describes the customer's brand awareness is the ability to recall or recognize a brand, or at least the customer recognize about the brand. Brand with a good brand awareness can lead to the impression and appears in customer retention so that through his name customers can recognize the brand characteristics. Brand awareness can influence a buyer's decision and provide a competitive advantage to a company (Huang & Sarigöllü, 2014). Brand awareness pyramid has several levels, the lowest level (unaware of the brand) to the level of the centipede (top of mind). brand. At this level, customers remember the brand as it first appears when discussing a particular product category. When brand awareness of the company is good, it can provide a lot of positive impact and strengthen its brand presence in the eyes of customers, among others (Sadat, 2009): • Be a source of association's development • Familiar: encouraging customers to like the brand • Rise the commitment: high brand awareness to lure customers in the • purchase commitments • Always consider: the customer will always consider a product with a brand • top-of-mind before deciding to buy Brand Characteristics (Permana, 2012) is the formation of true perception in the eyes of the consumer so that the consumer can understand what is being offered by the brand and can facilitate the marketing activity of a company. Brand characteristics (Neumier, 2013) are the nature of human nature or characteristics associated with a particular brand name. Common traits or characteristics that are represented include uniqueness, sincerity, competence, excitement and sophistication. Brand characteristics give consumers something related to them. Integrated marketing communication (IMC) by Herman (2012) is a marketing communications activities to build relationships with consumers. According to Kotler (2009), through the IMC a company can present the company and its brand in which companies can create dialogue and build relationships with consumers. IMC (Kotler, 2009) consists of advertising, sales promotion, event and experience, public relations and publicity, direct marketing, effective marketing, word of mouth marketing and personal selling.

Research Methods
This study is a qualitative study involving three speakers who are considered competent. During the interview with the company to conduct a similar study, the research subjects searched by criteria: • Companies engaged in the creative industry • The Company has a good brand awareness (well known brand) • The product must be sell globally There are 3 companies selected by Empress Box in this research: • F. Xaverius Silver is silver jewelry company that has been established since 1984 and has several outlets in major cities such as Surabaya, Jakarta and Bali. F Xavier Silver has a strong enough brand awareness because many silver jewelry lovers know this company. Mr. Roy is the owner of the F Xavier Silver • Priyo Salim is a jewelry brand that has been established since 1960. Priyo Salim has strong brand awareness, especially for jewelry lovers with the carving techniques. Priyo Salim owns the products which have penetrated the international markets such as America and Europe. Priyo Salim himself never received the prestigious award of Mutumanikam Indonesia in 2009. Sources of brand Priyo Salim is Mr. Priyo Salim as the owner. • Peggy Hartanto is a brand that is engaged in fashion. The company was established since 2011. This brand has been known both nationally and internationally. Peggy Hartanto also received many awards and was covered by major media such as Harper's Bazaar. The brand becomes famous since the collection worn by Giuliana Rancic, presenter E! Channel and several other Hollywood actress. The resouce from Peggy Hartanto is Mrs. Lydi Hartanto as brand strategy and sales director. According to Putra (2011) in qualitative research, findings or data must be verified in order to avoid bias, one of them by using the technique of triangulation. This study uses triangulation source and triangulation techniques. Collection techniques triangulation is defined as data collection techniques are combining of various data collection techniques and existing data sources (Wahyuni, 2012). Triangulation source refers to the speakers who participated in this study and compare the results of interviews from several sources (Ahmadi, 2014). Triangulation source is triangulation performed to test the credibility of the data by checking the data that has been obtained through several sources (Sugiyono, 2013). Validity will be found for not using a single source in conducting interviews and research. Triangulation technique refers to the data obtained from interviews and previous research and theory support. The validity obtained from triangulation technique is because the data are not obtained from any of the methods that can be said of the study valid (Wahyuni, 2012). Reliability test (Ahmadi, 2014) in qualitative research is defined as the degree of correspondence between the data or description obtained from the subject in accordance with the actual conditions. Reliability in this study using photo documentation and audio recordings were obtained in the field. This study will use Miles and Huberman model for data analysis. Data analysis model of Miles and Huberman is the activity of analyzing qualitative data is done interactively and continues over time until complete, so the data is already saturated (Sugiyono, 2011). The activity in the data analysis are data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions. The steps in analyzing the data are: 1. Reduce data by selecting data in accordance with a strategy that can be used to increase brand awareness Empress Box. In data reduction, the researchers will select strategies that fit with the company's condition Empress Box. 2. Collecting data from other sources which is owned by researchers such as previous studies, magazines and books in accordance with the object of research. 3. Provide additional contribution of previous studies. 4. Develop and define strategies to increase brand awareness of Empress Box from the data obtained.

Result and Discussion
Based on the interview, Peggy Hartanto attach great importance to brand characteristic, it was stated repeatedly by informants. Through Peggy Hartanto characteristic, it can deliver uniqueness and differentiation of Peggy Hartanto products to consumers and can raises awareness and increase brand identity. Peggy Hartanto Strategy is very good in increasing awarenes through product placement and through the endorsement of Peggy Hartanto in which directly targeting Hollywood, the center of the fashion world. Besides, it also is doing collaboration with multi brand stores, proactively contacting various fashion websites and magazines to be covered. From there, Peggy Hartanto got connections and offers to cooperate with the stylish and artist to do photography.

Figure 7. Strategies to Increase Brand Awareness (First Informant)
Peggy Hartanto also actively uses the social media to promote the brand. From the social media, Peggy Hartanto can deliver the brand image and do the direct selling. By joining the exhibition and fashion show Peggy Hartanto can increase the brand awareness. At the first year of the company, one of Peggy Hartanto strategies is regularly joining competition, because from that achievement, the consumer can be aware about Peggy Hartanto Brand. Even though they cannot win the competition, at least Peggy Hartanto can have some connection / relation from that competition and that is important for the company's development and to introduce the brand, because connection / relation is important, said Mrs. Lydia Hartanto.
Based on interviews with Priyo Salim, Priyo Salim' brand awareness began to grow when he opened a showroom, from there Priyo Salim set up several showrooms in Kota Gede, Yogyakarta, and gets potential buyers through the showroom. Mr. Priyo Salim also enjoys participating in some jewelry design competition, besides as a marketing communication, the other purpose is to make Priyo Salim Brand increasingly recognized. Through the competition, Piryo Salim gets connection that introduced to Novica and Discovered. Through product placement in Novica, and Discovered many overseas buyers who contacted directly through the website Priyo Salim, and they even become a regular customer until now.

Figure 8. Strategies to Increase Brand Awareness (Second Informant)
Priyo Salim also raises brand awareness by following exhibitions, festivals, and product placement in hotels. Researchers gain factor which makes Priyo Salim as known brand, it is the uniqueness and differentiation of its brand character, because the products Priyo Salim want to present culture of Jogjakarta silver carving techniques, which are implemented in jewelry. Based on the interview, it showed that F. Xaverius use marketing communication to increase brand awareness. Every month, F.Xaverius has a schedule to follow local and international scale exhibitions. F. Xaverius said that existence is very important because can increase awareness and can gain the consumer trust. For example, through joining the same exhibition every year, it can make F. Xaverius recognized and can increase the consumer loyalty. Beside exhibition, direct sales strategy by opening the store is important too. F. Xaverius became known because of its first store in Supermall Surabaya. Currently F. Xaverius already has seven stores throughout Indonesia. Before opening the store, F. Xaverius puts the products into multibrand stores such as Centro, Sogo and supplies to some shops in Yogyakarta, Bali and Jakarta. F. Xaverius said to be disciplined in updating in social media. SEO Management website can also increase brand awareness. F.Xaverius gets customers because of SEO management.
Source: Data Processed

Figure 9. Strategy Boosting Brand Awareness (Third Informant)
Similar with Peggy Hartanto and Priyo Salim, F. Xaverius also very concerned with the characteristics of the image of a brand. F.Xaverius thought that brand image was built to provide something different to customers. From the different characteristics makes F.Xaverius often published by a variety of magazines, for example F.Xaverius several times already covered by the Hong Kong magazine. Based on interviews that have been carried out, then the strategy to increase brand awareness by three informants are as follows: The all informants said that the brand characteristis was one of the supporting brand awareness of their brands. According Permana (2012), brand characteristics can be used as the formation of the correct perception of the consumer, so that the consumer can understand what is being offered by a brand and it can facilitate company's marketing activities. For example, Peggy Hartanto brand that has a characteristic of simple and bold and implemented to create promotional products of Peggy Hartanto become easier, because potential customers will easily capture and remember the brand that will eventually form the top of mind awareness. Similarly, the brand of Priyo Salim and F.Xaverius, the result showed that F.Xaverius known for offering something different from the others. Previous research by Khan (2012) obtained results that brand charateristics also support customer loyalty.
Strategy of product placement which collected from the three informants showed that their own way can raise awareness, although there is the same. Peggy Hartanto and F.Xaverius uses multibrand store to introduce their products at the beginning, while Priyo Salim chose to put its products into luxury hotels. Peggy Hartanto also uses the endorsement strategy to artists and fashion bloggers, who eventually make their products to the attention of many potential consumers. Priyo Salim creates products that can enter into Novica and Discovered started from the competition Femina, which is one of the intregated marketing communication (IMC) strategies. IMC is a marketing communications activities to build relationships with consumers and an element for creating brand equity. Intend to enter the competition to be known even bring benefits for Priyo Salim as it gets a connection to place products in Novica and Discovered.
Similarly, Peggy Hartanto and Lydia Hartanto, as informants, said that the competition is one of the best strategy beginning to increase brand awareness, in addition to collecting achievement, also can get a connection that is useful to the company. Peggy Hartanto brand can finally get to know important people in the fashion industry through the competition and may eventually enter into a variety of well-known magazines such as Harper's Bazaar due to encouraged collaboration in the shooting.
" Routine use of social media updates and the exhibition is also the third best strategy undertaken by informant to introduce its brand. F.Xaverius is a brand that is very active in participating in the exhibition compared to the other brands. F.Xaverius stressed that the exhibition can assert the existence of F.Xaverius the eyes of consumers. With frequent exhibition, according to F.Xaverius, it will foster trust and customer loyalty. F.Xaverius is also heavily in direct sales by opening a showroom in a wide range of major cities in Indonesia. F.Xaverius manner that is somewhat different from the other brand is to optimize the website SEO. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a technique to improve the ranking order of the search results on search engines Google or any search engine by optimizing the keywords through meta tags that exist on the website (Rahman, 2013). Although in the beginning lots of money spent in optimizing SEO, but the result is worth, because many potential buyers visit the website of F.Xaverius. Based on the result of this study, Empress Box can apply this strategies (see Table 4). According to Mrs Lydia Hartanto (first informant), the first strategy done Empress Box is to find a competition that Empress Box can join, so that it can have a connection and channel. The other strategy is about the product placement, go to the multi-brand stores via online and offline and do endorsements. The purpose is to be reached by consumer easily. Third, the utilization of the IMC is active in social media updates, so far Empress Box still seldom doing updates and the lack of content for the post so as not to give maximum results. Active in the exhibition will enable Empress Box to gain the attention of customers. Empress Box will also start making a list of Jeweler and potential companies to be contacted. Finally, the last strategy is optimizing SEO website of Empress Box. During this time, Empress Box is not overly concerned with the importance of SEO website Empress Box. In the future, Empress Box will also perform line extension strategy to enter the men's jewelry or jewelry for kids. This strategy is done by F. Xaverius to expand market share, in addition to support brand awareness F. Xaverius.

Conclusion
There are varied of strategies in building brand awareness of a company, but the important thing is to build the brand characteristics in advance. Through the brand characteristics, a brand can deliver what you want to offer the brand, making it easier to form a perception of a brand in the minds of consumers. The best strategy is beginning to build Empress Box brand awareness is: • Assess and strengthen Empress Box brand characteristic in advance, in accordance with the segmentation, targeting and positioning of Empress Box • Following the competition-related business field of Empress Box, in addition got the achievement also get a connection that will be useful for the development of enterprise • Implement B2B to multi brand stores and endorsements • Maximize the use of social media and SEO website • Following the exhibition in accordance with the target market and brand of Empress Box The best strategy to increase brand awareness is to utilize integrated marketing communications and product placement. Besides, building the brand characteristics in advance is a must for companies, especially companies engaged in the field of luxury brand.