The Hindu Business Line : <I>How brands create bonds </I>

Branding is an increasingly important tool that helps companies communicate better with their customers. The word `brand' has become such an integral part of the business lexicon that everyone seems to know what it denotes in the marketing milieu. This term has now evolved to include everything that personifies a product. A brand is a joint statement by a company and its customers; together, they construct its substance and significance. A brand is a set of attributes of a product as perceived by its consumers to be real and of adequate value to buy and possess.

Branding creates bonds between the company and its employees, suppliers, customers, and shareholders. It is a combination of ideas and products. A company's advertising and marketing campaigns project those ideas and products onto the public spotlight.

The magic and logic of branding is attractive to companies because an identifiable and well-positioned brand is eventually equated with real capital. Branding is an important instrument in building trust and engaging the customers in a dialogue. A product per se contains little value. The conspicuous display of the company's logo on the product lends it lustre and creates a perception — an expectation — of certain attributes, which lend the value.

Given the advances in technology and the speed at which information is transmitted in the business world, any attempt by a company to develop an exclusive brand is duplicated by its rivals in no time.

This casual, cut-and-paste view of life is affecting the business environment badly. A by-product of this imitation culture is the widespread virus of video piracy, which eats into the vitals of the motion picture industry.

Brands are useful in differentiating the unique products from the generic variety in the market. Some brands become so powerful that people tend to address a "product" by the brand name. Just as the brand is used as a verb in "Can you xerox this for me?", shoppers in India ask for Dunlopillo when they want a foam mattress and refer to steel cupboards as `Godrej'.

The basic purpose of a brand is to identify a product — to establish its legitimacy and reliability. It conveys a sense of security and authenticity regarding the source of its manufacture — the people behind the product. No wonder, the brand has the sanction and sanctity of a copyright, a trademark and a talisman, all rolled into one.

R. Devarajan