What Challenges Brands face every day?
Brands
are fighters in the market. They fight for their Position and for their Market Share.
They operate in a market place that is not just volatile but aggressive too, in
every possible way. The question to ponder for us is, why does that happens?
Most
marketers think that once a brand is launched and placed in the market they
should automatically find some buyers. But in reality such expectations get
seldom converted into reality and buyers are far and few in-between. A great no
of marketers or should I say product sellers (?) possibly assume that the
market in India for most products are large and they constitute of those who
are dissatisfied with their current product/brand usages. While that may be a
good assumption to make but that may not be true in reality in most cases.
Brands are a habit and an attitude and the existing brands would have fought
hard to build their own relationships with their current users.
So
what would make the consumers look at or consider switching to new brands or
products when they are comfortably settled with their existing ones? Would it
be a new added feature (Colour Pixels for a TV) or an enhanced feature (Net accessibility
for a Mobile phone)? Would it be the durability of a washing machine or the surround
sound effect of an audio system.
The
point is brands are finding it more and more difficult to exist despite that
fact that no of buyers are increasing or multiple shopping options are
available from shopping malls to e-commerce. What is also important to note
that with changing shopping behaviour are the buyers changing too? Buyers are
not the same when researches are carried out. With every new option attitudes
are changing and with more options available buyers are getting more discerning
too.
Failure of new brands are increasing by the day
We
in marketing find more and more unsuccessful brands in the market that ever
before. To examine the key reasons one comes across a few points:
1.
Lack of Research – of the competitive
environment and the evolving market
2.
Lack of Consumer Insights – of how the Consumer has
changed over the years
3.
Lack of meaningful Brand
Positioning
– spaces that brand can own
4.
Lack of Creative brilliance
5.
Lack of understanding of how
‘Celebrity’ endorsements should be implemented for a brand
Most
brand managers are afflicted with this strange habit of finding the convenient or
the most predictable way out. Most tend to copy or even duplicate the leading
brands which are successful in the category. They are reluctant to build their own
brand story and live under the assumption that most buyers would buy their
product if they offer the same features of the leader brand at a lesser price.
This carries on as a trial and error basis till one day it explodes on their
face. What is critical here is to learn and develop Product or Brand differentiation/s
and not pick up differentiations from others.
Most
managers complain stating ‘lack of budgets’ for research, ‘lack of time’ to
understand the Consumer lifestyle and ‘lack of good agency support’ that would
guide his brand’s effort to succeed. Most Brand Managers worry about meeting ‘launch’
deadlines and ‘keeping the bottom-lines’. Or about achieving ‘break-evens’ and
show a ‘better ROI’. That is understandable as they are running against time. But
the key is to think long-term if brands are to be built.
Research – is it all about hiring a market investigation agency and waiting to
hear some marketing gospels? Not really. Market feedback and trend-spotting
happens with continuous probing and keeping a keen ear to the ground. There are
brands which are very agile and they undertake continuous research and keep
gathering intelligence but unfortunately they are more skewed towards sales and
numbers. While it is important to do the number crunching regarding the market it
is also important to connect with new users. Find new trends or understand the
changing habits. What about those who don’t buy the brand and their
motivations. It must be a continuous and in-depth study. It is the
understanding of the complex matrix of feelings and emotions and that makes a
brand tick.
Consumers – are they a face-less set of numbers or those in
the social media where they are either ‘following’ or ‘trolling’. Consumers are
human beings like anyone else is. They come with their own aspirations,
attitudes, ambitions, ahankaars (egos),
aadats (habits) etc. They have their own set beliefs, loves,
desires and reasons that compels them to behave in a particular manner or walk along
a particular path, follow a message or understand a brand benefit. Humans don’t
come alone as they are part of a society, family, nation, faith, religion, sex,
mannerisms. As they have beliefs they also have a set of disbeliefs, a set of
fears and a set of uncertainties. Consumers comprise of a lot of conflicting
emotions, pulls and pushes of compulsions and situations where they don’t have any
control. Brands have to survive all that and yet market itself.
Positioning – is it a peculiar word or a thoughtful thought.
Positions are places which determine where each thing is. The Earth is one
place (or is it?), the Sun in another, Planets, Moons – all have their
positions. Marketers say brands have positions too in human minds. But the
question is how do brands make or seek positions when consumers are already
conflicted with numerous messages, emotions and compulsions. When consumers are
slaves of dead habits or seduced by attractive prices or offers which they
consider better options in a biased sense altogether, a brand has to create its
own particular appeal. That appeal must be thought provoking and immensely
tempting for a consumer to succumb to.
Creativity – is never a lost technique in creating unique
brand stories. Neither is Creativity a manner of writing smart lines that
becomes boring in the next exposure. Creativity is Big Idea. An idea that can
sell a country, a community, a political party to even an underwear. Stating ‘health’
is no more creativity but stating how health is the new expression of love is
possibly one. Stating ‘premium’ is no creativity but how premium makes your
life glorious is one. So creativity even needs new expressions and the
challenge remains how brands can make lives creative too. Look at Apple.
Endorsement – is the best way to run a hundred meter sprint in
a marketing race. But most brands don’t have it in them to convert their brand
ambassadors to a Usain Bolt. For a brand
to become Jamaica in the world of sprinters it’s critical to spend in building
a culture of running and the endorsement must come in the form of building the
eco-system that built Bolt and Jamaica’s dream team of sprinters.
Ranjan Mazumdar
RnT Communications
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