The Hindu Business Line : Brands that survive

Indeed, industrial products and services as well as high-ticket items are not without a strong following. It is as much a function of strongly held beliefs as of proven fact.

Top-of-mind recall as soon as a category is mentioned is a good predictor of brand share.

How old is the oldest brand in the world? A good quiz question, the answer to which according to one source is Schweppes, the tonic water, which was launched around the year 1770.

As we know, it was believed that the quinine in the tonic helped the colonial traders survive the bites of malarial mosquitoes in the tropics — of course a bit of gin in the tonic must have helped too. Nonetheless, it is a tribute to the durability of the product that it has outlived thousands of others and spread to many parts of the globe.

Closer home, there are many brands in India that have been actively promoted and marketed through much of the last century. Lux, Sunlight soap, Lifebuoy, Vicks Vaporub, Colgate toothpaste, Amrutanjan, Godrej safes and wardrobes — these are some obvious examples of household names that anyone even not directly concerned with the marketing profession or theory would reel off in no time. Such instant recognition itself is a very powerful proof of the strength of brands.

What makes a brand strong? David Aaker has theorised that strong brands have some common characteristics, whether they are worldwide brands or purely country-specific ones.

Strong brands usually have a high level of instantaneous recall amongst a majority. In fact, top of mind recall as soon as a category is mentioned is a good predictor of the brand share.

Some, like Dalda, Frigidaire and Godrej, actually define the very category itself. They arouse expectations of superior performance and typically command higher price premium, although this might not always be the case if two similarly powerful brands are competing for the top spot.

Strong brands have many associations and rich and varied ones; they are seldom uni-dimensional. Sometimes, they evoke fierce loyalties too, although this is also to do with the nature of the product itself. The more personal the product, the greater such association.

Consumers who have had long experience with the product develop a personal relationship with it, much as one would with a person or a pet and therefore form a clear profile of the character.

Answers to the well-known research question, "If this brand were a person, what kind of person would she be?" are often very revealing in this respect. Detailed profiles emerge which are remarkably consistent. This suggests that the "image" of the brand is very real, not a figment of the advertising agency's or marketer's imagination.

Going one step further, in those product categories where the ownership is a personal one as in cars, motorcycles, toiletries, apparel and accessories, the brand is considered an expert's choice, as if the consumer is saying, "I know who I am and what I stand for."

This does not mean that loyalty is only for small value, high frequency purchase goods. Indeed, industrial products and services as well as high-ticket items are not without a strong following. It is as much a function of strongly held beliefs as of proven fact.

The endorsement of long-term users and sheer popularity over the years invests such brands with a perceived superiority and therefore a brand premium — as in tyres and batteries and customer service-oriented offerings including hotels, airlines, Internet service providers, cable TV and so on.

The user does not see himself as an expert in such categories, but goes by the best and most reliable advisor and, in the absence of anything else, by reputation.

Of all such arguments, the strongest is the brand being found everywhere or "everyone I know has one". This is one of the greatest sources of hidden profit in strong, market-leading brands, usually with a head start of several years.

However, none of this is a cast-iron rule. Any brand can be destroyed within a decade by sloppy, complacent or corrupt management. Many have been, as one can see by just considering well-known case studies. This becomes a disaster for the company and can threaten its life if the brand bears the same name as the corporate entity.

IBM nearly went under in just such a case. General Motors escaped because the cars are identified by separate names, never as GM alone. Great brands, however, are not built on puffery claims or sweet sounding words alone. They are built only on the foundation of strong and visible, provable brand values and principles (including an integrity of design and looks) that last for a long time. The secret is never to tinker with these essentials, however much one might change the superficial elements in a particular model or a country. Without such shared disciplines among all its top managers and across continents, the very existence of a multinational business such as Unilever, Honda or Toyota would be in jeopardy.

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