The Hindu Business Line : Distinct brand names, loyalty can give companies the edge

Focus on quality: Mr Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, Integrated Brand.Com, Bangalore, speaking at the one-day management development programme on ‘Branding for profit’ at the VIT University in Vellore.

Our Bureau

Vellore, Sept. 26

It is vital for companies to select an apt and catchy brand name for their products, which is distinctly different from the brand names of their rival companies, choose an appropriate strategy for promoting their brands, and last but not the least, take earnest steps to ensure brand loyalty among their customers.

How do companies earn this loyalty? This question found a variety of answers in the one-day Management Development Programme on ‘Branding for profit’, organised by the VIT Business School in association with The Hindu Business Line at the VIT University Campus in Vellore last week. Mr Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, Integrated Brand.Com, hit the nail on the head when he said that quality is the basic necessity for any product to go down well with customers. No ‘emotional connect’ is possible if the product is lacking in quality, he said.

On brands

Interspersing his talk on branding with many TV commercials and characteristic deadpan wit, which often had the students, faculty and corporate executives roaring with laughter, Mr Sridhar defined a brand as “a mixture of a tangible and an intangible attribute of a product”. “A brand is a product plus values and association,” he went on. Elaborating on what makes winning brands, he said, “Successful brands are relevant and different. We need names that are different from the rest.” He cited the example of ‘Orange’, the mobile phone service provider, which had selected the name of a fruit for its service, distinctly different from rivals, which used the suffix ‘tel’ to their names.

He explained how some companies use cartoon characters and other popular characters including the pictures of animals to popularise their brands.

Mr Sridhar’s power point presentation played the commercial of the suitcase manufacturing company, VIP. The commercial used only the words ‘bye-bye’ in the form a song.

VIP used this effectively in its 360-degree branding exercise using the words in print ads and luggage tags. It even had an ad with a green baggy cap with just ‘bye-bye’ when cricketer Steve Waugh retired, with the words ‘happy journey’ inscribed at the bottom of the ad.

With difference

Mr L.V. Navaneeth, the Chennai Station Head for Radio One FM 94.3, spoke to the students on establishing a ‘brand new’ brand.

The station when launched had to take on two established players in Radio Mirchi and Suryan. “We created a young, fun, urban and cool station that did things differently,” he said. With a special emphasis on youth the station set out its objective of celebrating life with a big dose of humour.

To retain and motivate young staff, Radio One, he said, consciously kept an open workplace where friends and family of staff were encouraged to come, with space to play games as well.

Mr Navaneeth, who played various funny spots from the Radio One programmes, told the audience that the different formats the station tried helped it gain the number two slot in the 15-34 age group in less than 250 days from launch.

Emotional ties

Earlier, Business Development Managers of Castrol India, Mr Ajit Gopalakrishnan and Mr. H.S. Manikandan, in their talk on the Castrol experience, dwelt at length on the need for emotionally connecting with the customers in order to induce them to use their products and even sell their products indirectly by word of mouth. Mr Ramesh Viswanathan, Vice President, Marketing, CavinKare Pvt Ltd, spoke to the students on how to build value through branding. Building brand loyalty, he explained, helps reduce marketing costs as it is less expensive to retain than get new customers.

In between the lectures from brand specialists the students stole the limelight with their lively presentations of skits, such as one on the evolution of Brand India and one on a cosmetic product.

Prof. K.T. Rengamani, Associate Dean, VIT Business School, welcomed the gathering while Dr. Bhushan D. Sudhakar, Assistant Professor, introduced the programme. Also present at the seminar was Mr. K. Venugopal, Joint Editor, The Hindu Business Line.

Hutch (Vodafone), Reliance Life Insurance, Apollo KH Hospital and Press Form Industries were the sponsors for the programme.