BRANDING – IS IT THE MANTRA TODAY ????
Since our childhood days or before that also products were always the responsible for the success or failure of a company. Earlier companies saw that the sales were coming down they would come to a conclusion that their product was failing but today the company sees it as the failure of a BRAND.
Why do the Brands fail? Today it isn’t the physical item present on the shelf which is at fault but what the item represents. The product-blame game is shifting to the brand-blame game. In the words of Laura Ries “Today most of the products are bought and not sold” is so very true. Branding presells the product to the consumer. If this was true to 100% we would not have seen products which fail miserably in the market place due to a bad branding. While branding increases the rewards it even increases the risk.
APPLE I-PHONE FAILURE
When the Indian phone fanatics came to know about the release of the Apple iPhone 3G in India, they were all excited and so was Apple who expected to see great sales in the largest cellphone market in the world. But that was not to be the case. When the iPhone 3G was released on Vodafone and Airtel, it disappointed a lot of awaiting customers due to it’s high price of Rs.35,000/- (700US$). Even the people who bought their iPhone 3Gs couldn’t use it fully due to the lack of 3G networks in India. A senior Airtel executive said that iPhone sales have yet to reach 50,000 handsets.
Even in the black-market, where the phone sells for about half the price, the phone has failed to grab attention. Some say that the iPhone is way too overpriced and that for the price of three iPhones, one can afford to buy a car in India. This is where Apple went wrong in India and we see a very very recent Brand Failure.
By the end of 2009 or early 2010, Apple is expected to launch the iPhone 3G in China after holding talks with the largest mobile carrier China Mobile. The Chinese Government however has some restrictions such as not allowing Wi-Fi etc. There are already lots of illegally imported iPhone with Wi-Fi in the country. Like India, a success in China is not guaranteed but Apple is willing to take the risk.
Some of the brands which have gone on a real success in India are Mc Donald’s, Lays, Dominos Pizza and many more even. What different did they think or do when they entered Indian market?
Today Mc Donald around the Globe has the same menu but when it came to India they were very much aware of the culture of India and they introduced Big Mac which was prepared from Lamb and they excluded the menu which had Beef and pork on the list. The latest advertisement of Lays is running a contest for the flavor of the chips which the consumer wants today. Who thought that when Uncle Lays came to India with potato chips that we will have flavor called “masala Lime” the latest by Lays. Today Lays is successful as the brand recall among the consumer specially the children is very very high. Dominos serves Pizza in the international market with Spaghetti and Pasta toppings but when they came to India they started off a new series in the pizza toppings. They had chilly paneer, tandoori chicken, and many new flavors.
In all the above three cases we will see that they tried to give the maximum importance to the local taste which the normal or an ideal Indian prefers today.
‘There is a bigger opportunity in localizing your offerings and the smarter companies are realizing this,’ says Ramanujan Sridhar, chief executive officer at Indian marketing and advertising consultancy firm Brand Comm.
- REJI MEPRATHE
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