STAND FOR SOMETHING- MANTRA FOR MARKETING SUCCESS

                     

Fill, Shut it, Forget it… The campaign that strongly associated Hero Honda  with fuel efficiency leading to an undisputed leadership for Hero Honda in the two wheeler bike market.

Neighbour’s envy, Owner’s pride… The campaign that associated Onida TVwith superior quality and pride of ownership that catapulted Onida toquickly climb up to value leadership in the colour television market

Thanda Matlab.. A memorable campaign that has led Coca-Cola to strong choice during the season.

Its Economy Stupid-  The campaign that led Bill Clinton to become theCome from behind to become the President of USA

Vote for Change- The campaign that catapulted Barack Obama to become the first Black President of USA.

History is replete with examples about overwhelming success achieved by                            Brands, organisations and Personalities when they get strongly associated a category or product or a name that resonates with a need or requirement or the imagination of the target audience. 

Amitabh Bachan as the Angry Young Man, Sachin Tendulkar as the quintessential model human being and a cricketer par excellence,  Xerox as the world’s best photocopier, IBM as the personal computer, Google as the world’s preferred search engine, Microsoft as the operating system and office productivity software of choice, Linux as the open source operating system etc., are a few such examples.

The most powerful organisations, brands and personalities are identified in the minds of their subjects and target audience by a single phrase or an image that represents them.

It is indeed a matter of interest that many brands and many organisation do not give any

importance to this doctrine of meaning something strongly to their target audience.

While it takes lot of investment, hardwork and patience to build a brand, once the brand name is established many brands try to extend the brand name to other categories in the name of extension and not only dilute the power associated with a brand name but also destroy the core values associated with the brand.

When RayBan, the world’s famous brand of Sunglasses a name associated with premium image, high quality and pride of ownership launched RayBan Suntamers, a low end sunglass brand, the equity of RayBan took a solid beating leading to a dramatic drop in the sales of RayBan core brand’s sunglasses.  This led to RayBan Suntamers being scrapped and it took a lot of time and resources to undo the damage done to the premium image of RayBan.

When a company owning a strong brand wishes to diversify it is best done by delinking the brand/company name with the product category and launching new brands as sub brands from the same company and support the same with all its might.

Examples like iPod, iPhone, iPad from Apple which is strongly associates with a computer with a new generation operating system,  You Tube, Chrome, Android etc. from Google strongly associated with the best Search engine, Lexus from Toyota, which is associated with mid range efficient cars, Lumia a new brand snart phones from Nokia are some examples of the way world’s leading brands are undertaking diversification into new businesses. Tata, Godrej, Reliance, General Electric are some examples in India where the brand names have surpassed representation of just a product and stand for a set of values

that these brands represent which are then imparted to the companies under respective banners.  This strategy can boomerang when any of the sub brands or the parent brand fails or acquires a negative representation.

Kodak is a classic example of a manual camera brand that could not change the perception associated with its image to become a digital camera of choice to the consumers.

Kingfihser Airlines is a classic example of a high class airlines, diluting its focus by trying to lend its name to low class and budget airlines and today, its stands for nothing in the minds of the customers.

Within the social networking space we have Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook which have created their own niches while Google+ is struggling to find its space in the mind of the target audience die its overpowering image and association with a Search engine.

 Successful organisations know the value of being strongly associated with a feature or a value that strongly resonates with their target audience.

Companies which have failed from positions of strength are those which have tried to extend the brand too widely, even if it comes to supporting them with huge resources.

This will lead to not only wasting huge resources and time for the company, but also the drain in working capital will lead to destruction of the core brand itself.

The classic example in the Indian case is that of BPL, once an undisputed leader  in Indian colour television market. As BPL diversified into telecom and cellular market by diverting huge resources as well, the resultant loss of organisational focus resulted in complete loss of market share for BPL. Finally BPL Cellular division was also sold off to competition though for a good profit, this remains etched in the minds of the BPL lovers as a classic case of misdirected brand diversification.

When Successful brands vacate their position in the minds of the customer, they should take care to replace the position with another product or proposition from their own stable but with a distinctly identifiable brand. Otherwise they stand to yield the position to the competition in a platter which may threaten the existence of leader brand in due course.

When Deccan airlines was taken over by Kingfisher Airlines, and the brand was unsuccessfully replaced by Kingfisher Red, as a budget airline, the failure of Kingfisher airlines was successfully leveraged by Indigo to become the largest budget airliner in India. Now the existence of Kingfisher airlines is under question.

Hence Strategically oriented successful organisations think in the long term and stay focussed on what they and their brands stand for in the mins of their consumers.