Brands and their Identity Crises, Hindu Retail Plus , 12 July 2009

Mohan Menon, Former Member of the Board of Ogilvy & Mather, Director & Member Governing Council, Chennai Business School

Brands were intended to be differentiators  and  symbols of quality.Wherever literacy was absent, the written word naturally meant little.Which is why we had brands with symbols like horses, lions, keys ,et al.These may still hold good in some markets but don’t be surprised if counterfeiters make hay. Because the symbol is everything for the consumer who may not be very discerning regarding other aspects of  its advertising and packaging .

Now , many refer to mineral water as ‘Bisleri’ owing to the fact that it was the first to be launched. The prime mover advantage. However if you remain just prime mover and do precious little along the way, then your brand runs dry. Today  the brand  has no visual recognition except for the name and it has  no emotional attachments either. So sadly it has become a generic entity. ( In Tamil Nadu, soft drinks for example were being referred to as ‘colour’.)
 
Take some international brands that are available here. Say, Perrier with its its famous and distinctive green bottle containing  ‘natural  spring water’. Many of us have observed people in  bars abroad  asking just for Perrier. For the barman, it’s a perfectly legitimate order. There are also  movies and books galore where the protagonist  asks for Perrier as his preferred drink. A brand’s persona is built up in so many little ways. When people see you in a restaurant with that green bottle on your table, it conveys quietly that you are a person of taste and refinement.

Not everyone recalls that Perrier was pulled off the shelves a few years ago when they discovered  benzene contamination.Though damage control was quick, but for the brand’s aura and resilience it could have ended up as a footnote in history.

In India, Aquafina tried a young sporty image. Kinley  attempted an emotional approach using mother and baby. However there doesn’t seem to be a consistent brand building exercise . The current thrust seems to be  in using distribution muscle and offering bulk supplies.

It seems to be fairly apparent that the Indian consumer only needs to be assured of clean drinking water and is unwilling to pay a premium for what is considered a very basic need. Yet the right imagery can create a preference. A ‘first among equals’ so to speak. The name ‘Himalaya’ for example suggests that it’s from those very snow-clad peaks.

For the cognoscenti, there’s always a source for the rare and unobtainable.I know of a place in Chennai that has a ‘water bar’ stocked with exotic offerings from around the world.

Cadbury is another brand that is synonymous with chocolate. But it didn’t go the Bisleri way . The  brand has built strong emotional ties with consumers tenaciously over the years. Again the strength of the brand helped it overcome the quality issues of insect-infestation  that plagued it resulting in huge stocks being withdrawn from the market place.

In chocolate éclairs however, Cadbury had tough competition from imitators. In the those small unit sizes dispensed from jars, the branding was not too clear. So willy nilly éclairs did descend into a generic category.

An example of  branding that highlights the ultimate consumer benefit is Good Knight . The positioning is distinctive and differentiates itself from its largely undistinguished competitors.

It’s clear from these illustrative examples  that brands need to be not  only strategically named  and  positioned  but  also supported consistently to retain loyalty. Or they’ll  end up as countless brands have , unmourned  and unsung in the cold , deep ravines  of Valhalla.