The Hindu Business Line : `Low disposable income limits branding exercises'

CORPORATE spend on branding and brand repositioning in Asia will continue to move along the traditional course: turn to branding when there is no other choice. This notwithstanding the huge potential opening up in the region to reinvent the value of corporate wealth through brand repositioning, a Singapore-based Brand Consultancy/Brand Auditing firm executive, Mr Joseph Baladi, has said.

Mr Baladi, the CEO of Carlyle Brand Consultants, a member of the Bately Group, who finds a co-relation between the level of disposable income generation and the spend on branding exercises by companies, said the true value of many Asian companies remains locked today as they do adequately capitalise on them through branding exercises, unlike companies in the West. This is also true in the case of businesses in India.

Indian businesses, too, according to Mr Baladi, would see the scope for them to undertake brand promotions to be slower, as the companies still consider their spend on branding to be spending on `intangibles.' Blaming it on the general low-disposable-income syndrome, he said the average Indian companies are driven to the view that branding would be a costly indulgence, though average affluent middle-class Indians are fast emerging as spenders on branded products.

Mr Baladi's Carlyle Brand Consultancy has undertaken a brand auditing on apparel brand Crocodile. The brand auditing covers the Crocodile brand positioning in China, Korea, Malaysia, India, Taiwan and Japan.

Mr Baladi and his team member from Carlyle are in India as part of the brand auditing aimed at repositioning the brand on which the $2.6-billion Crocodile International Pte Ltd is said to be seriously working on. The Carlyle team is here on a visit to Crocodile International's Indian associate, Coimbatore-based Crocodile Products Pvt Ltd.

Talking to Business Line, Mr Baladi said the brand auditing exercise on Crocodile would last for the next nine months, by which time it would be able to have a blue print to reposition the brand for the Asian markets.