Brand building journey is fraught with challenges, roadblocks and innumerable surprises along the way Traditional parameters such as Quality, good service and even Consistency for that matter are now a given, so to say in the current competitive environment where choice engines have taken over search engines. Only businesses that have thought leadership beyond these traditional thinking recognize the critical drivers that go into making this rather complex but challenging journey into creating a product into a brand.
- Building trust across Stakeholders about the underlying and consistent values that the brand stands for by taking strong positions, no matter how hard it may hit financially in the short term –
A case in point is the Campaign of NDTV #FairnessCreamsRacist Campaign. “NDTV believes fairness and skin-lightening creams should have no place in India and the thought at work behind fairness creams is exactly like racism. For over a year, NDTV has not run any Ads for fairness creams or products. NDTV will not associate with any product in this category”
- A product development philosophy that makes effective use of Consumer insights to identify pain points of the customer and drive innovation.
What comes to mind here is the Prestige Brand name for Kitchen appliances. They have truly evolved into a Brand to reckon with. The way they have anticipated and aligned their product development philosophy with the evolution of the traditional Indian Housewife into a Working woman breaking glass ceilings demonstrates their empathy with the target consumer needs through their product innovation journey.
- Strategic partnerships that are long standing and consistent add great value to building a strong foundation for the brand. It could be employees, channel distributors or vendor partnerships. The value creation that comes out of the learning curve that has evolved over the years may seem intangible and therefore underestimated at times but they are truly a very powerful driver to transform midsize brands to premium Brands.
These factors do not just drive annual revenue budgets but consistently power the Brand and grow Brand Equity organically. In essence, Brand building encompasses all functions across value chain in businesses and is a highly customized process, unique to each and every business even if in the same industry space.
Branding is often mistaken for expensive ads, celebrity branding, digital marketing and marketing facades but organic branding goes far beyond. Branding is a holistic process that goes far beyond and is a very practical, honest and no gimmick approach aimed to enhance customer experience on a sustainable basis and thereby create Brand equity both for the client and thereby for the Brand itself.
