Indian firms wake up to brand value, finally
Monday, 16 September 2002, 19:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: It wasn't very long ago when the mention of "brands" in India evoked images of the sturdy Ambassador car, Nirma detergent, Cibaca toothpaste, Parle biscuits and Bombay Dyeing furnishings. Today, even smaller towns in the country are abuzz with brand names like Coke, Pepsi, McDonald's, Sony, Ariel, Samsung, LG, Ford, Hyundai, Microsoft, IBM and Ray Ban. And this, experts say, is just the beginning. Thanks to economic liberalization and a boom in mass media, Indian consumers have started witnessing the resurgence of some truly global brands in the domestic market, bridging the gap between local and international products. This has resulted in Indian companies getting on with the more serious business of creating a brand identity that has a nationwide appeal. "Initially we didn't appreciate that brands are the key value drivers in a business and they exert significant influence on the market," said Shunu Sen, chief executive officer of marketing consultancy firm Quadra Advisory Service. "Indeed, the winds of liberalization have demonstrated how many large and powerful businesses have destroyed brand value to such an extent that the original businesses just do not exist anymore," he told a business seminar here. According to the marketing guru, strong brand value helps motivate consumers to buy a company's offering in preference to other alternatives. "For example, Lux toilet soap is associated with film stars, a strong emotional association though not a reason to buy the brand." Some of the new generation Indian companies such as tech bellwether Infosys Technologies and motorcycles maker Hero Honda Motor have, however, managed to create a brand identity in India as well as overseas in the last few years. "Successful brand building has always been one of the surest ways for companies to distinguish themselves from their competitors and pull away from the pack," said Santosh Desai, vice president of advertising agency McCann Erickson. "The product is different from its brand name. A product is made in the factory, but a brand is what a consumer buys. "A product can be copied... A brand is unique. No one can make another Lux, not the soap we use physically, but the soap we buy." Experts say building a strong brand is about occupying a prominent place in the "perceptive space" of the targeted customers, edging out the competitive brand images. The distinctiveness could be derived from just about anything. Desai recalled that Coca Cola decided to launch its bottled water brand Kinley in the Indian market at a time when rival Bisleri controlled a 60 percent share of the total bottled water market. "Besides the fact that Kinley was a water brand from the Coca Cola company, it had no particular product advantage. So the focus was on the brand Kinley that captures the essential meaning of water. "This helped the company to corner a 34-percent share of the bottled water market, earlier completely dominated by Bisleri," he said. The brand-building exercise begins with understanding and anticipating the needs of consumers and the key attributes of the product. The physical properties must match the brand's image, argues Desai. Added Sen: "Strong brands have high visibility, strong meaning and should provide a satisfying experience to the consumers. While a strong brand image removes uncertainties from the mind of the consumer, it increases a company's profit." Jay Bakshi, head (corporate communications) of Hughes Software Systems, said India had become a software brand in the global marketplace mainly by highlighting differentiators like availability of high quality talent. But with situations where a consumer can with a computer and an Internet link flip though an estimated 800 million Web pages of public information, marketers have to get to the right mix to create a winning brand in the long term, Bakshi said.
Source: IANS
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