Brand and Understanding the Value of Branding

Branding is seen as the exclusive prerogative of the marketing and communication staff. This undervalues the role played by the other parts of the company in ensuring a successful branding policy.
Eg Coordinated marketing.

Brands are the direct consequence of the strategy of market segmentation and product differentiation.
Eg Focus group discussion of IBA and ICICI as a brand.

As companies seek to better fulfill the expectations of specific customers, they concentrate on providing constantly and repeatedly, with the ideal combination of attributes both tangible and intangible, functional and hedonistic /self gratifying, visible and invisible under viable economic conditions for their businesses.

 If this business were split up, I would give you the land and bricks and mortar, and I would take the brands and trade marks, and I would fare better than you. John Stuart, Chairman of Quaker

The first task in Brand analysis is to define precisely all that the brand injects into the product or service and how the brand transforms it
What attributes materialise? What advantages are created? What benefits emerge? What obsessions/passion does it represent?

 Brands should be capable of answering following crucial qns:

What would the market lack if we did not exist?

Any Brand innovation necessarily generates plagiarism (copying, stealing). Any progress made quickly becomes a standard to which buyers grow accustomed. Every interaction with the company is an interaction with the brand. Thus the importance of creating and keeping a core identity that can remain over time.

 For a while, the innovative brand will thus be able to enjoy a fragile monopoly, which is bound to be quickly challenged unless the innovation is patented. The role of a Brand is to get Mental patent. If successful, leads to rewards for the risk taking attitude and price premium.

 Products come to life, live and disappear, but brands endure. A brand is a living memory Within a generation, people continue, even after 20 years to prefer the brands they liked during young days. Unlike advertising, in which the last message seen is often the only one that truly registers and recalled. The first actions and message of a brand are the ones bound to leave the deepest impression, thereby structuring long term perception. In this respect brands create a cognitive filter, dissonant and atypical/unusual aspects are declared unrepresentative, thus discounted and forgotten.

 Major brands have a meaning which indicates what they are made of and where they are headed. Eg Siemens Durability, Reliability and Trust, Tata Trust, Rugged etc On one hand we need to be vigilant to change, but we also need to hold fast to the core elements of the brand. Products are mute, the brand is what gives them meaning and purpose, telling how a product should be read. Same features give different benefits as the Brand changes. A brand is a contract
Brands do not legally testify that a product meets a set of characteristics.

 Through consistent and repeated experience, a brand becomes synonymous with the set of characteristics. By creating satisfaction and loyalty, the branding program forces the brand to fulfill the quasicontract that binds it to the market. This mutual commitment explains why brands, whose products have temporarily declined in popularity, do not necessarily disappear. Brand contract is economic and not legal.

The logic of co-branding Eg Washsing m/c and detergent.

Launching new brands

Every major brand had a strong identity, a well identified core activity, a genuine added value, a defined brand personality and a set of values. Most famous brands, rich in meaning and values, started out as the ordinary names of new and better products than those of competition. These names were generally randomly chosen, without any prior study or analysis. Mercedes was the name of Mr Daimlers daughter, Adidas is a spin-off Adolph Dassler etc. If a new Brand doesn't convey its values from the very start, it is quite unlikely that it will manage to become a major brand.

Successful Brand - Asian Paints

Marketing Factors Market leadership
Market leader with 35% market share in organized sector Closest competitor does not have even half of market share of AP For last 20 yrs, AP is a market leader

Product range
Widest product range in terms of products, shades and pack sizes

Brand power
Brands like Apex, Ace, Apcolite are quite powerful

Distribution
Over 90% accuracy in forecasting, even month to month, far superior to competitors, over 100 fastest moving SKUs monitored day to day Countrywide distribution, AP reaches all the markets where organized as well as unorganized reach 15000 dealers across the country, nearest competitors has less than 10000 Large network of regional offices, depots and sales personnel APs average inventory level is 28 days, whereas industry standard is 51 days, at the same time the service to the customer is much higher as compared to the competitor in terms of availability of material.

Credit control
Outstanding is received within 25 days, where as for the competitors it is 40 days or above

Service First company to provide paint solutions, online solutions, world class display showrooms

Manufacturing/Operations factors Size advantage as compared to competition In house production ensures high reliability in supplies and quality assurance Four production locations spread Finance factors Leader in profits and operating margins ROI 40%, rest of the industry 22% Cash rich Corporate factors Many accolades and awards 1995 Corporate excellence award from HBSA & ET One of the Indias most excellent companies by IDBI Amongst top 5 paint manufacturers in the world by KC Luyben of Amsterdam And many