Question 1
What is the meaning of the brand identity of OSIM?
Brand identity emanates from the organisation, and is how it wants its products to be viewed by its stakeholders. ‘Brand identity’ is not defined in Marketing in Asia, but Aaker defines it as “what the organisation wants the brand to stand for in the customer’s mind” or “how strategists want the brand to be perceived”. In more recent literature, Kotler and Keller define it as “the way a company aims to identify or position… its product”.
Applied here, the question is therefore how OSIM aspires for their brand to be perceived by both their internal and external customers. Here, OSIM wishes for their brand to be “synonymous with healthy lifestyle”, “[i]nspiring [w]ell-[b]eing” through having a positive mindset and healthy living.
What are the different aspects of this identity?
For ease of reference, for this part, I have decided to adopt Aaker’s Brand Identity Planning Model (see Figure 1 below):

Figure 1: Brand Identity Planning Model
Brand as a Product
OSIM’s brand promises “product innovation, design and quality, performance, and safety standards”. Further, OSIM intends for its products to be perceived as something which is value-for-money. Here, the focus is more on the intangible benefits, in particular the impact of having a healthier lifestyle.
According to Aaker, under this category, it is important for customers to recall a brand when they have a need in that particular product class. Having been ranked by Synovate as the “most preferred brand in the healthy lifestyle products category” in a 2008 survey, OSIM has done so for its key markets of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. This is in line with its vision to be the “global leader in healthy lifestyle products”.
Brand as an Organisation
OSIM, as an organisation, strives to be customer-centric. This is the