Brand Mantra

New Year is a time to celebrate the success of past and hopes for future. This New Year has been truly special for me as I got to know a significant fact of life, "We must try to be skillful than being successful", which means that success is a function of skills. This comes from the biggest Bollywood hit of 2009, "3 Idiots".

Well, we all know such things but human character is such that they know a lot of things, but they still need to be reminded. In times of recession when jobs and pay scales are being cut, I think a fact link the one mentioned above can be a breath of respite and a motivating factor for recession hit people.

My motto of starting this blog post with a note on the movie is not to talk about recession, but to initiate a conversation on the power of a brand in recessionary times.

Brand is the most powerful thing on earth, which could make human beings do what the band intends to. Brands are not just material things, but celebrities are brands as well. Brands are associated with an innate element of trust and integrity, which differentiate them from products and commodities.

When we talk about the success of 3 Idiots, it is not just the brand value of the actor that is credited with the success of the movie. However, the box office statistics for the movie are just amazing. The movie earned more than 75 crore rupees in the first week of its release.

Well, generally people are reluctant to go to multiplexes without the review of a movie, but when it comes to an Aamir Khan's movie, people are just not concerned with review as they trust the potential of the brand "Aamir Khan". Aamir has always identified with the common man and has sensitively addressed their issues. He has performed better than customer expectations earlier and the trust element on the actor is ever lasting. Consumers know that they are not just gonna be satisfied as the actor is a master in delighting the consumers.

There are other renowned actors in the industry, but Aamir Kahn is the among the very few who is regarded as a "Perfectionist". This is the reason that his "one great movie every year" concept earn him more money that "2 idiotic movies every quarter" funda.

Every brand has a special and differentiating element, which may also be referred to as brand association. However, the element of customer delight is common among all brands. When consumers spare their hard earned money, they want the best return on their investments and that is when the quality assurance of a brand comes into play.

Brands are powerful, but it is extremely challenging to build a brand. The foundation of a brand lies in a good product with sustainable quality over years.

Hats off to the brand AAmir!!!

What's Paramount ?

I was reading a magazine on marketing a few days back and I came across an article on Paramount arlines. I have heard of this player in the airline industry and could even recognize its blue signature color, but what I didnt know was that it caters to only the premium segment. It only serves the business class and has no provision for economy class at all.

Well, this strategy may be the USP of the brand as none of its competitors has ever served just the business class. The USP of a brand helps attain the competitive advantage that is sustainable (Sustainable Competitive Advantage). Of course, this unique targeting of business consumers has given the airlines an edge, which is evident from the fact that the Paramount airlines has captured 27% market share in Southern Indian within a span of less than 3years. The airlines has ambitious plans to extend its services to north and north east India. Also, the airlines plans to go international after 2011, when it completes 5years of operation in the domestic market.

As such, Paramount has sucessfully been able to use its unique targeting strategy as its USP, but I guess the utility of this strategy is subjective than being objective. When the market was booming and economy was doing well, Paramount could have expected to extract the maximum out of its space or seat utility. But in times of recession, when the companies are into cost cutting, even the executives who are the target customers of Paramount airlines may travel in economy class.

Airlines sector is the one which is most badly hit by recession. The giants like Kingfisher and Air India have suffered huge losses. Kingfisher is trying to compensate for its losses through its low cost variant, Kingfisher Red and even Air India is seriously considering revision of its pricing policies.

As such, the unique targeting isn't a USP of Paramount airlines as USP helps you gain long term advantages, which hasn't been the case. USP isn't subject to subjectivity, rather it is objective which helps a brand to get out of adversities by differentiating from the competition.

When companies build brands, there are several criteria that must be kept in mind. The brand elements and associations must have six elements including memorability, meaningfulness, likability, tranferabilty, adaptability and protectability. The first three elements are offensive in nature and help in building brand equity while the latter three are defensive that help in maintaining brand equity.

I guess the offensive criteria for brand building are in place for Paramount which is evident from its growth figures, but I really suspect the defensive critera. The brand lacks the elements of tranferabilty and adaptability in the gross era of recession. I think Paramount airlines has missed on this Paramount part of a successful business strategy.

Let us just wait and watch and see how Paramount countinues to grow or move towards downfall.

What does consumer want???

Today I just came across a print ad of Good Knight. I was just wondering how this brand decided on its product offerings, as in how they decided to get into this category of mosquito mats and other insecticide solutions.

Now, India is a country where people do face a problem with mosquitoes. We had mosquito nets and mosquito repellent creams, but still lacked a good household insecticide solution. Good Knight, which is a joint initiative of Godrej, India and Sara Lee Ltd., USA, recognized this costumer need and finally came up with the product that worked wonders for customers as well as the brand.

So, the foundation step in the success of the brand is identification of customer need. Next, the brand positioning was great. The brand was (and is) positioned as a necessity for the family as it guaranteed a sound sleep. The brand name complemented its positioning. As such, Good Knight accounts for 59% of market share in mats category. Also, it diversified into liquid mosquito repellants and coils.

So, the key to the success of brands is identification of customer needs. This one single factor led to the grand success of the Good Knight.

Van Heusen's Signature line or Gajini line

I watched Gajini a few days back. Apart from other things, I felt that Aamir’s formal look was one of the USPs of the movie. I bet now you know the brand I am talking about, it’s Madura Garments’ Van Heusen. Now why do you think that the brand was being promoted through the movie?

Well, the reason is repositioning of the brand. In past few years, Van Heusen has redefined the corporate boardrooms across the nation, but the brand wanted a bit different positioning now. It wanted to communicate the consumers that the brand is no more only into stereotypic formals; rather it has entered a new arena, creating a line that is peppy, cool and at the same time, extremely sophisticated, which perfectly suits young corporates.

Says Mr. Shital Mehta, COO, Van Heusen, “We are proud to partner with Ghajini and style none other than the lead actor, Aamir Khan. The character he plays in the film embodies the values of Van Heusen as a brand, and makes a statement of power so unique, that we didn’t think twice before associating our brand with this movie.”

Van Heusen chose Aamir to promote its brand as Aamir is known for style and perfection, which is the innate trait of this brand. Also, Gajini has been a much awaited movie, and I feel this was the perfect occasion for the brand to launch its special Signature line.

This was a perfect example of repositioning and the brand witnessed tremendous success in its well-planned approach.

Hats off to the marketing minds behind it!!!

 

Why do brands get commoditised?

Every organisation wants to build its brand, as in this competitive era, when an array exists for every product, brand name becomes the differentiating factor. As such, in real sense, The essence of a brand is greater than the respective product. Brands do come, bloom and continue to enhance their effect and influence over time. But their have been brands that fade with time. They become more like a commodity, that is they loose the basis of thier existence as brand, that is, Differentiation. Such brands are called commoditised brands.

All brands are vulnerable to commoditisation and as such, its crucial to beat brand commoditisation. To know more on the topic, I carried out a research on it, and came out with the following article.

Commoditization or comodification is the transformation of a brand into a commodity, which is a product without qualitative differentiation. Brand commoditization, is a situation when a brand becomes a commodity, i.e., a brand becomes an undifferentiated product and needs a serious brand rethink. Terms like brand identification become irrelevant. This situation is advantageous to consumers as the price of the product goes down as a part of traditional strategy to sustain in a saturated market, but it has an adverse affect on the organizations.

The main reason why a brand gets commoditized is...

To read the article, Click on http://www.indianmba.com/Occasional_Papers/OP195/op195.html