The Hindu Business Line : All about brands

Brands are, in fact, for everyone, the industrial products businesses and even the not-for-profit sector. They are relevant for any organisation that seeks to develop a favourable set of attitudes amongst its present and future clientele.

It is difficult for many to imagine a time when brands and branding were an esoteric subject, almost a black art reserved for the advertising and consumer products businesses.

As recently as the 1980s there were not many courses or standard works of reference on the subject. And very much less Indian experience, other than in the few international companies in the soft goods sector.

Subsequent managerial experience and developments in the market place have proven two old fashioned notions to be totally wrong. Branding had been widely misunderstood as exemplified by media promotion of the kind normally seen around the well-known cola drinks, shampoos, detergents and personal high-ticket items such as cars.

On the contrary, brands are in fact for everyone, the industrial products businesses and even the not-for-profit sector. They are relevant for any organisation that seeks to develop a favourable set of attitudes amongst its present and future clientele - and who in his right mind wouldn't unless they want to go out of business?

Another factor that helps in developing brands is the degree of competition and the demand-supply balance in the industry. If you had suggested to someone in HMT or SAIL during the 1970s and 80s that they needed brands, they might have laughed at the notion. Customers were queuing up outside the sales offices, with demand drafts and cash, all ready to receive their allocations. Choice was a laughable idea. Under those conditions typical of the socialist era in Indian politics, it was not surprising that no one cared for the subject.

We now recognise that brands at a minimum create an identity, and a signature for the owner, a name or form on which his reputation can be built. It is in fact a business asset, not just a marketing tool.

Imagine a hotel or an airline, or indeed a hospital with a wishy-washy or indistinct reputation. No one knows about them, nor what they stand for - how good they are, how expensive or otherwise, how accessible, how they treat those who walk in, nor indeed what to expect from them. They would find it very difficult to attract clients (or customers) and would fold up quite soon.

Such businesses do need a perceived set of attributes - it is these perceptions, beliefs, thoughts or prejudices if you will, which determine their future prospects.

Today brands are everywhere. They are probably too intrusive sometimes, especially on television and on the roads when we as audience have better things to pay attention to. And yet to businessmen in a hurry a brand standing quickly established actually means reduced costs of long-term marketing.

The much-used popular phrase `brand image' has an exact connotation: the halo-like set of associations, attitudes, beliefs and feelings that surround the name and symbol. These are often quite apart from hard facts. They may even be exaggerated notions or fallacies created in the mind by advertising. These are often temporary advantage and do not last beyond the actual fact of user experience.

Think of how marvellous your first bicycle seemed to you when you were 15 years old, and how ordinary it looks to you today - which is also true of the first Parker pen or Titan quartz watch and so on. Nevertheless the halo is real even if not strictly objectively provable. Another important difference this example will have brought out is that brands, like beauty in the human form or in nature, are indeed in the eyes of the beholder.

Historically branding originated, according to one version, in the practice of making sure that the owner did not lose track of his grazing cattle: a fire-brand marking on the back of the cow or buffalo ensured that. Later, traders were brand owners. They wanted to have their produce separately identified so that they could lay claim to special qualities, even when it seemed indistinguishable commodity, as in rice, corn, or any food grains. The wheel has gone one full circle and in today's India common salt, sugar, rice and scores of edible articles and condiments are now sold in distinctive packages, with recognised brand names.

In the long run, the future of Indian agricultural prosperity depends on more sustained efforts by the organised sector, be they retailers or processors, to convert the ordinary fare such as onions, potatoes, tomatoes, peas and the like into ready-to-eat foods or packaged brands for the housewife to buy with confidence.

And that brings us neatly to the very essence of branding, form a 360-degree perspective. It is that which creates the confidence, or trust that one can safely buy the product carrying a particular identity. In that trust lies the customers' as well as the brand owner's source of benefit: a surplus for both, willingly given and taken.

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