The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Go with the brands

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 28, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Go with the brands

Sumit Bhattacharjee

What goes with a name? Ask this question to a brand manager or a marketing man and the answer would be “Everything”. Everyone loves to be associated with a brand. It could a pair of jeans or a cell phone or for that matter even footwear.

In today’s marketing scenario consumers are ready to pay just about anything only to flaunt the brand that he she purchases.

Brands rule the market. Right from a nail polish to a shirt and from a car to a personal computer the demand is for brands.

It has even percolated down to the education sector. Ask a brand user why, and pat would come the reply: Quality, durability and value for money.

Though the concept of branding has trickled down from the west it has caught up with the Indians pretty quickly- thanks to the huge ad spends and catchy advertisements. Companies spend millions on advertising and brand exercise just to build a brand and position it in the market. But the real mantra lies in sustaining its position in the market.

The concept of brands has caught up with the young and the old alike. Today a college going boy or girl would like to carry a branded cell phone, sport a branded pair of jeans and footwear where the logos speak of the price, quality and status.

“We believe in brands even when it comes to education. Joining a reputed education institution is itself a brand exercise.

If one can join a reputed institute be it for engineering or medicine or MBA or for that matter even an institute offering multimedia courses – life becomes easier.

The institute’s brand image gets tagged on to us,” says Ajay, who is doing a multimedia course.

Marketing gurus say that the concept of brands was initiated by business houses a century ago, in order to make it easier for consumers to differentiate between high-quality products and their lesser known locally made counterparts. But the concept has changed a bit over the years.

A lot of things are associated with brands. Basically it speaks of superior quality, pricing and the superficial notion of status.

Benchmark

Consistency and quality are the benchmark for product brands. Well-known brands tend to exceed the sale of generics simply due to the trust they have garnered among customers.

Once a customer connects with a certain brand or company, they are apt to go back again and again when in need of their product.

Today the concept of branding has crept into almost every sphere and the basic reason being the factor of trust that is associated with the brands.

People like to invest in a real estate company that has developed a brand and trust over the years and consumers prefer a particular shop or brand of jewellery only to satisfy their feeling of buying a quality product.

Though when we talk of brands the products of reputed companies come to one’s mind but the concept has stretched even into the macro-level of retail trade.

Today, people like to shop in one particular mall or go to a particular furniture store or to a specific undergarment store or to a reputed computer hardware store only because of the brand image that has been built over the years.

“It is not the status symbol alone that prompts us to buy a particular brand or impel us to visit a specific store; it is more to do with quality.

On any given day, branded products are better than the non-branded ones. Reliability is another factor that is associated with brands and it is always advisable to pay a shade higher than to compromise in the areas of quality and reliability,” says Rajesh, a software engineer and a brand buff.

The slogan is going with the brands, as they rule.

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