The Hindu Business Line : Superbrands India now plans to catalogue top corporate brands

AFTER naming 101 consumer Superbrands in 2004, Superbrands India now plans to catalogue Business Superbrands 2005, which will identify and felicitate the strongest corporate brands in the country. The number of business categories for scoring in India is about 101, and the number of brands under them — approximately 750.

Launched in 1994, initially as a radio programme, Superbrands is a concept developed by UK Marketing Guru, Mr Marcel Knobil, the founder of the Superbrands Organisation and the former chairman of the Superbrands Council, UK. The Superbrands organisation was established to promote excellence in branding and the discipline of branding itself. It has been tracking the branding phenomenon for the past 10 years and maintains councils in 39 different countries. Some of these are Australia, France, Germany, Holland, Hong Kong, Italy, Malaysia, Philippines, USA, Singapore, Spain, UAE, Indonesia, Ireland, Egypt, Denmark and India.

The company said the Council of Members for Business Superbrands include the FSA chief, Mr Anmol Dar as Chairman of the Council; Reliance Industries Chairman, Mr Mukesh Ambani; former Procter & Gamble CEO, Mr Gurcharan Das; Tata Sons' Executive Director, Mr R. Gopalakrishnan.

Business Superbrand offers customers significant emotional and/or tangible advantages, over its competitors which (consciously or sub consciously) customers want, recognise and are confident about investing in.

Every year, the Superbrands council in each of the countries it operates in, selects the top brands under various categories and awards them the status of "Superbrands".

The brands are judged on the basis of a number of criteria. Participation is strictly by invitation and only the very strong brands are awarded Superbrands status by the Superbrands council made up of luminaries within the world of marketing. These awards are celebrated by a Tribute Event and also in the form of The Superbrands Book in a sumptuous coffee-table book format. The Superbrands Tribute Event is held annually and the audience consists of senior brand guardians (chairmen, managing directors, marketing directors, brand managers) and other important industry figures.

Superbrands India was established in 2002 and its first activity was to choose the first 101 consumer superbrands. The Council of Members for Consumer Superbrands included Mr Anmol Dar as Chairman of the Council; Mr Piyush Pandey, Group President & National Creative Director of Ogilvy & Mather.