Brand

The word "brand" is derived from the Old Norse brandr, meaning "to burn." It refers to the practice of producers burning their mark (or brand) onto their products.

A brand is the personality that identifies a product, service or company (name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or combination of them) and how it relates to key constituencies: Customers, Staff, Partners, Investors etc.


Some people distinguish the psychological aspect, brand associations like thoughts, feelings, perceptions, images, experiences, beliefs, attitudes, and so on that become linked to the brand, of a brand from the experiential aspect.

The experiential aspect consists of the sum of all points of contact with the brand and is known as the brand experience. The psychological aspect, sometimes referred to as the brand image, is a symbolic construct created within the minds of people and consists of all the information and expectations associated with a product or service.

People engaged in branding seek to develop or align the expectations behind the brand experience, creating the impression that a brand associated with a product or service has certain qualities or characteristics that make it special or unique. A brand is therefore one of the most valuable elements in an advertising theme, as it demonstrates what the brand owner is able to offer in the marketplace. The art of creating and maintaining a brand is called brand management. Orientation of the whole organization towards its brand is called brand orientation.

Careful brand management seeks to make the product or services relevant to the target audience. Brands should be seen as more than the difference between the actual cost of a product and its selling price - they represent the sum of all valuable qualities of a product to the consumer. There are many intangibles involved in business, intangibles left wholly from the income statement and balance sheet which determine how a business is perceived. The learned skill of a knowledge worker, the type of mental working, the type of stitch: all may be without an 'accounting cost' but for those who truly know the product, for it is these people the company should wish to find and keep, the difference is incomparable.

A brand which is widely known in the marketplace acquires brand recognition. When brand recognition builds up to a point where a brand enjoys a critical mass of positive sentiment in the marketplace, it is said to have achieved brand franchise. One goal in brand recognition is the identification of a brand without the name of the company present. For example, Disney has been successful at branding with their particular script font (originally created for Walt Disney's "signature" logo), which it used in the logo for go.com.

Consumers may look on branding as an important value added aspect of products or services, as it often serves to denote a certain attractive quality or characteristic (see also brand promise). From the perspective of brand owners, branded products or services also command higher prices. Where two products resemble each other, but one of the products has no associated branding (such as a generic, store-branded product), people may often select the more expensive branded product on the basis of the quality of the brand or the reputation of the brand owner.

Brand Awareness

Brand awareness refers to customers' ability to recall and recognize the brand under different conditions and link to the brand name, logo, jingles and so on to certain associations in memory. It helps the customers to understand to which product or service category the particular brand belongs to and what products and services are sold under the brand name. It also ensures that customers know which of their needs are satisfied by the brand through its products.(Keller) 'Brand love', or love of a brand, is an emerging term encompassing the perceived value of the brand image. Brand love levels are measured through social media posts about a brand, or tweets of a brand on sites such as Twitter. Becoming a Facebook fan of a particular brand is also a measurement of the level of 'brand love'.

Global Brand

A global brand is one which is perceived to reflect the same set of values around the world. Global brands transcend their origins and creates strong, enduring relationships with consumers across countries and cultures.

Global brands are brands sold to international markets. Examples of global brands include Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Marlboro, Levi's, Shell etc.. These brands are used to sell the same product across multiple markets, and could be considered successful to the extent that the associated products are easily recognizable by the diverse set of consumers.

Benefits of Global Branding

In addition to taking advantage of the outstanding growth opportunities, the following drives the increasing interest in taking brands global:

Economies of scale (production and distribution)
Lower marketing costs
Laying the groundwork for future extensions worldwide
Maintaining consistent brand imagery
Quicker identification and integration of innovations (discovered worldwide)
Preempting international competitors from entering domestic markets or locking you out of other geographic markets
Increasing international media reach (especially with the explosion of the Internet) is an enabler
Increases in international business and tourism are also enablers

Global Brand Variables

The following elements may differ from country to country:

Corporate slogan
Products and services
Product names
Product features
Positionings
Marketing mixes (including pricing, distribution, media and advertising execution)
These differences will depend upon:

Language differences
Different styles of communication
Other cultural differences
Differences in category and brand development
Different consumption patterns
Different competitive sets and marketplace conditions
Different legal and regulatory environments
Different national approaches to marketing (media, pricing, distribution, etc.)

Local Brand

A brand that is sold and marketed (distributed and promoted) in a relatively small and restricted geographical area. A local brand is a brand that can be found in only one country or region. It may be called a regional brand if the area encompasses more than one metropolitan market. It may also be a brand that is developed for a specific national market, however an interesting thing about local brand is that the local branding is mostly done by consumers then by the producers. Examples of Local Brands in Sweden are Stomatol, Mijerierna etc...

Ambient Brand

An Ambient Brand is a movement, where the brand is organized around values and social needs instead of promoting a specific product. It is a virtual space, defined by values and occupied by a community of like minded people. Whereas a traditional brand is entirely independent of products and their parent corporations, an ambient brand is an independent social movement that companies can participate in. They are not selling products, they are allowing their company to participate in a social movement and allow their brand to be identified with this. It exists as a shared values space where consumers gather, converse and ultimately transact with organizations that are in alignment with the values associated with that community. Corporations do not create ambient brands. They must qualify for inclusion within them by demonstrating that they share the values and will service the interests of their associated communities. The brands develop organically as a result of emerging social and cultural codes and are materialized through peoples ability to organize around them through the use of mainly virtual communities on the web.

Brand name

The brand name is quite often used interchangeably within "brand", although it is more correctly used to specifically denote written or spoken linguistic elements of any product. In this context a "brand name" constitutes a type of trademark, if the brand name exclusively identifies the brand owner as the commercial source of products or services. A brand owner may seek to protect proprietary rights in relation to a brand name through trademark registration. Advertising spokespersons have also become part of some brands, for example: Mr. Whipple of Charmin toilet tissue and Tony the Tiger of Kellogg's. Local Branding is usually done by the consumers rather than the producers.

Types of brand names

Brand names come in many styles. A few include:
Acronym: A name made of initials such as UPS or IBM
Descriptive: Names that describe a product benefit or function like Whole Foods or Airbus
Alliteration and rhyme: Names that are fun to say and stick in the mind like Reese's Pieces or Dunkin' Donuts
Evocative: Names that evoke a relevant vivid image like Amazon or Crest
Neologisms: Completely made-up words like Wii or Kodak
Foreign word: Adoption of a word from another language like Volvo or Samsung
Founders' names: Using the names of real people like Hewlett-Packard or Disney
Geography: Many brands are named for regions and landmarks like Cisco and Fuji Film
Personification: Many brands take their names from myth like Nike or from the minds of ad execs like Betty Crocker

The act of associating a product or service with a brand has become part of pop culture. Most products have some kind of brand identity, from common table salt to designer jeans. A brandnomer is a brand name that has colloquially become a generic term for a product or service, such as Band-Aid or Kleenex, which are often used to describe any kind of adhesive bandage or any kind of facial tissue respectively.


Brand identity

A product identity, or brand image are typically the attributes one associates with a brand, how the brand owner wants the consumer to perceive the brand - and by extension the branded company, organization, product or service. The brand owner will seek to bridge the gap between the brand image and the brand identity. Effective brand names build a connection between the brand personality as it is perceived by the target audience and the actual product/service. The brand name should be conceptually on target with the product/service (what the company stands for). Furthermore, the brand name should be on target with the brand demographic.Typically, sustainable brand names are easy to remember, transcend trends and have positive connotations. Brand identity is fundamental to consumer recognition and symbolizes the brand's differentiation from competitors.

Brand identity is what the owner wants to communicate to its potential consumers. However, over time, a product's brand identity may acquire (evolve), gaining new attributes from consumer perspective but not necessarily from the marketing communications an owner percolates to targeted consumers. Therefore, brand associations become handy to check the consumer's perception of the brand.

Brand identity needs to focus on authentic qualities - real characteristics of the value and brand promise being provided and sustained by organisational and/or production characteristics.

Multi-brands

Alternatively, in a market that is fragmented amongst a number of brands a supplier can choose deliberately to launch totally new brands in apparent competition with its own existing strong brand (and often with identical product characteristics); simply to soak up some of the share of the market which will in any case go to minor brands. The rationale is that having 3 out of 12 brands in such a market will give a greater overall share than having 1 out of 10 (even if much of the share of these new brands is taken from the existing one). In its most extreme manifestation, a supplier pioneering a new market which it believes will be particularly attractive may choose immediately to launch a second brand in competition with its first, in order to pre-empt others entering the market.

Individual brand names naturally allow greater flexibility by permitting a variety of different products, of differing quality, to be sold without confusing the consumer's perception of what business the company is in or diluting higher quality products.

Once again, Procter & Gamble is a leading exponent of this philosophy, running as many as ten detergent brands in the US market. This also increases the total number of "facings" it receives on supermarket shelves. Sara Lee, on the other hand, uses it to keep the very different parts of the business separate — from Sara Lee cakes through Kiwi polishes to L'Eggs pantyhose. In the hotel business, Marriott uses the name Fairfield Inns for its budget chain (and Ramada uses Rodeway for its own cheaper hotels).

Cannibalization is a particular problem of a "multibrand" approach, in which the new brand takes business away from an established one which the organization also owns. This may be acceptable (indeed to be expected) if there is a net gain overall. Alternatively, it may be the price the organization is willing to pay for shifting its position in the market; the new product being one stage in this process.

Politics & Marketing in India

I see attack politics and attack marketing as pretty much the same thing. Or, a distinction without much of a difference, anyway. Politicians generally attack enemies who threaten their getting elected or getting some policy implemented. If you aren't a threat, though, you are basically ignored in that system. And if you are a little guy trying to attack powerful politicians, you are generally ignored, too. This is why collective protest is a necessary prerequisite for change. Strength comes in numbers. You have to make yourself a threat to even get noticed, and that has to happen well before you have a shot at changing things (whatever your thing is). But from the politicians point of view, since they have the power, it seems the attack principle dictates that they shouldn`t want to give too much exposure to a competitor or group they don`t support, so many politicians actually tend to attack pretty carefully. The rhetorically skilled know this very well. They think out a few moves ahead. Who should do the attacking? What`s the venue of the attack? What will the counter punch look like? Where will it come from? And when? What does it mean when no counter attack comes back at all and instead they are met with silence? And heck, what if the opponent praises in return instead of attacking as expected? The answers to these questions are imprecise at best.

I used to do competitive marketing, and I went through this exact same process. However, I always told my clients that attacks are best done by third parties and only in response to a precipitating attack. In other words, you don`t attack first. It`s not worth the headline. Instead, you be the one responding. Here`s why: those who attack first generally give away at least some of their position, and that gives you much more flexibility to respond. Unskilled politicians and marketers make this mistake all the time when they shoot their mouths off, but the concept holds up pretty well over time. I`ve said before that I think people attack for basically two reasons: (1) they are afraid that someone smaller than them may grow up and kick their butt, or (2) they are small themselves and want to pick a fight with a big guy to get attention. Either way, if you study your attacker you can learn a lot.

It's a game, granted. And everyone in it knows this. Most attacks can be quite easily turned around with some basic facts and logic. But rationality is irrelevant in the arena of delivering really good emotional propaganda for the purpose of influencing behavior. That's why attacks can work in some cases if they generate a strong reaction from the attacked. Attacks spread fear. And many times that fear shapes how people think if it`s not characterized properly. In fact, the term used to describe this process is sometimes called FUD -- fear, uncertainty, and doubt. It`s a silly sounding term, but it should be taken seriously because the best propagandists out there can be rather dangerous people if they have a power base and resources supporting them (a country, a company, an interest group, a foundation, a university, a union, whatever). In other cases, however, attacks and fear mongering backfire badly, and we saw this in the recent political campaign in our country where pols on both sides(BJP & Congress) took some things too far and the people (remember the people?) called them out on it.

So, what should you do if you are attacked in the marketplace? First, stop. Think. Don`t react immediately with the first counter attack you can think of in the first publication you can find. You`ve been attacked so you now have the upper hand for a period of time (not forever, though). What is the attack telling you about your attacker? Is he or she responding go your attack? If so, you deserve the counter attack so enjoy your stupid little fight. If not, though, something else is going on and you may be in a much better position than you think. It means that you got someone`s attention for some reason. You may have not even intended to get this attention, but that`s what the attack may mean and that`s valuable competitive intelligence if you can confirm it. Remember, if you were really irrelevant, chances are you`d be ignored. So, dig right there before responding and respond to defend and deflect not to attack back. And if you can praise the attacker (or his product or community or company or whatever) so much the better. Attackers are generally simple minded and angry and unable to deal with praise as a response. Alternatively, your attacker could just be engaging in bad marketing or politicking. Consider that too. Either way, you have the upper hand if you do the responding, not the attacking.

The New symbol of Indian Currency

The Indian Cabinet finalized a symbol for its currency, the Indian Rupee on Thursday July 15th 2010, denoting the strength of its growing economy joining a select club of countries whose currencies have a unique identity. The Indian Rupee today became the fifth currency in the world to get its unique symbol which is an amalgam of the Devnagiri Script 'Ra' and the Roman capital 'R' without the stem and two parallel lines running at the top symbolizing an equality sign.

India retains the reputation of developing the concept of coinage and issued some of the earliest coins in the history of mankind, which were the base for other currencies of the world. Continuing on the trails of its golden heritage, the Indian Rupee, the currency of Modern day India has formalized a new symbol for the Indian rupee, which reflects and captures the Indian ethos and culture. The Indian rupee is one of the well-established currencies in the world and in terms of sheer volume, the Indian Rupee is one of the most widely used financial instrument in the world currently being used by almost 20% of the world's population. With India becoming the hotbed of financial investment in recent times, the Indian Rupee is now ready to write a new chapter to complement its glorious past heritage. The significant strength exhibited by the Indian rupee in the recent years along with the continued good performance of the Indian economy have raised the issue of greater internationalization of the Indian rupee. Developing an important brand for the wider Indian economy among international investors and highlighting India's increasing global economic ambitions, the country has joined an elite group as the Indian cabinet approved a new symbol for its national currency emulating the pound, the euro, the dollar and the yen in having its unique distinguishing identity.

Until now, the most common notation for the Indian Rupee “Rs.” was used also being used by several Asian nations including Pakistan, leading international traders to rely on the clunky “INR” to distinguish it. The new symbol will distinguish the Indian currency from currencies of other countries like Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Indonesia which also use the word "rupee" or "rupiah" to identify their respective currencies. The new symbol, a combination of the Devnagiri script 'Ra' and the Roman capital 'R', will be used by all individuals and entities after its incorporation in `Unicode Standard’, ‘ISO/IEC 10646’ and ‘IS 13194’.

The need for the symbol had become necessary because of the Indian economy's rapid growth, which has propelled it to become one of the largest economies of the world. The unique symbol for the Indian currency comes after the Reserve Bank of India recently published a study looking into the potential of the rupee to be used in international trade and even as a possible reserve global currency, given the problems confronting the US economy and the dollar. The Indian rupee has been one of the best performing currencies among emerging market economies in the first quarter of 2010, beat currencies from other emerging market economies like Brazil, Russia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam and South Korea.

Currently, Indian rupee is available only in the denomination of Re.1 and Rs.2 coins and notes ranging from Rs.5 to Rs.1000. Paisa coins valuing 25p and 50p are rarely used. A unique feature of the Indian rupee note is its language panel, which depicts what that denomination is called in 15 of the 22 official national languages of India. The Indian currency has been one of the strongest in South Asia but has been hampered in recent times by illegal activities of fake currency notes being pumped into its borders from neighboring countries like Pakistan and Nepal. The attempt to pump in fake notes to destabilize and devalue the Indian currency has so far not had much of an impact on its robust growth mechanism which is backed by solid foundations and deep economic reforms. The publishing and printing of fake Indian currency continues to be a headache for the Indian government as it has started to use fine quality paper and inks that are difficult to imitate. Although India’s currency is on a surge, and it has made its mark as the top-performing currency the extent to which the symbol will gain international usage and cache remains to be seen. The rupee has grown increasingly stable in value. Versus the dollar, it made strong gains until the global flight to the dollar at the height of the worldwide financial crisis.

History Of The Indian Currency

India is the place where the concept of coinage developed at its earliest in around 6th century BC which later on built the base for other currencies of the world. According to the historians, the Indian currency i.e. rupee was brought into existence by Sher Shah Suri in the 16th century and it was evaluated as equal to 40 copper coins per rupee. The dominance of Mughals over India started diminishing when the British arrived in the country. The paper money was introduced under their reign in the latter part of the 18th century. Bank of Hindostan made the earliest rupee notes issues in the year 1770. After independence, the Indian rupee was unified by the Government of India as a single currency for the Republic of India.

Indian Currency Related Funds

After the gradual success of Indian equity ETFs as a low-cost option to gain diversified exposure to Indian equities, more and more investors are looking at the Indian currency funds as with the surge in the Indian currency, Rupee exchange traded funds have also performed handsomely compared to funds of other emerging economies of the world.

For investors who want to invest in currency in the emerging Indian currency market, a favorite investment vehicle continues to be the WisdomTree Dreyfus Indian Ruppee Fund (ICN). The ETF seeks to achieve total returns reflective of both money market rates in India available to foreign investors and changes in value of the Indian Rupee relative to the U.S. dollar. The fund normally invests in a combination of U.S. money market securities with forward currency contracts and currency swaps that are designed to create a position economically similar to a money market security denominated in Indian Rupee. The average portfolio maturity is 90 days or less. It does not purchase any securities with a remaining maturity of more than 397 calendar days. The fund is non-diversified.

With an expense ratio of 0.45%, it seeks to give investors a yield comparable to local money-market rates available to foreign investors. It also provides exposure to the movement of the rupee against the U.S. greenback. However, WisdomTree points out that the ETF is not a money market fund and isn't required to maintain a constant share price.


ICN Performance
52 Week Return: 5.41%
YTD Return: -0.08%
1 Week Return: 0.08%
2 Week Return: 0.76%
4 Week Return: -0.36%
13 Week Return: -4.84%
26 Week Return: -2.10%
ICN Expenses & Fees
* Expense Ratio: 0.45%
* Category: Currency
* Category Range: 0.35% to 0.89%
* Category Average: 0.5%
Issuer: Wisdom Tree
Expense Ratio: 0.45%

Another key instrument to bet on he Indian currency is the Market Vectors Indian Rupee-USD ETN (INR) that tracks the exchange rate of the U.S. Dollar against the Indian Rupee. The ETN is an unsecured debt security issued by Morgan Stanley and is based on the S&P Indian Rupee Total Return Index. Total return means that interest earned on funds deposited are reinvested rather than distributed. The Indian Rupee ETN gives investors a low cost way to quickly gain exposure to the movement in the dollar-rupee exchange rate. The annual expense ratio is 0.55 percent and the ETN doesn’t currently pay a dividend.


INR Performance
52 Week Return: 5.22%
YTD Return: -0.05%
1 Week Return: 0.32%
2 Week Return: 1.01%
4 Week Return: -0.42%
13 Week Return: -5.29%
26 Week Return: -3.00%
INR Expenses & Fees
* Expense Ratio: 0.55%
* Category: Currency
* Category Range: 0.35% to 0.89%
* Category Average: 0.5%

Practically speaking, ETNs work much the same way as ETFs, but they’re actually a form of debt instrument. The failure of an ETF provider should, in theory, has no impact on the value of an ETF, because it is backed by securities deposited with a custodian in the name of the ETF itself. ETNs on the other hand are merely structured finance products backed by the unsecured debt of their providers. Holders are therefore exposed to the credit risk of the provider.

The Indian Economic Growth Story

India's economy has experienced rapid growth since liberalization reforms in the early 1990s reduced controls on foreign trade and investment, and the country is widely forecast to become a global superpower. The Indian government predicts the economy will grow by 8.5 % this fiscal year and should hit double-digit expansion within five years. According to the International Monetary Fund, the outlook for India remains positive. Rising incomes should support consumption growth, and robust business confidence, high capacity utilization, and buoyant corporate profits will bolster investment. Over the next few years, growth is likely to moderate toward its potential rate of 8 percent, buttressed by favorable demographics and robust productivity gains.

Thanking you.......
Kamal

Brand strategy of Hindustan Unilever Ltd

UMBRELLA BRANDS

The 1980s witnessed a revolution in the understanding of the working of the brands. Marketers depict brands as a reflection of customers’ own personalities, so that they can relate to their products well. In fact the distinguishing aspect of the modern marketing has been its focus upon the creation of differentiated brands and using them as weapons for launching multi-level attacks on competition. Market research has been used to help identify and develop bases of brand differentiation. A brand identifies a product and its sources, but it does even more. Along came brand extension. Today brand extension strategies are widely employed because of beliefs that they build and communicate strong brand positioning, enhance awareness and increase profitability.
Brands are often extended beyond their original categories to include new product categories. Research has proved that the success of brand extension depends on the transfer of parent brand awareness and associations to the extension. The transfer of these quality perceptions is the key in umbrella branding. An umbrella brand is a brand that covers diverse kinds of products which are more or less related. It applies also to any company that is identified only by its brand and history. It is contrasted with individual branding in which each product in a portfolio is given a unique identity and brand name.
Mr. K.R.Senthilvelkumar, a professor at Jansons School of Business offers the most pragmatic of reasons behind an umbrella brand strategy, “with scarce financial resources, firms cannot afford to allocate huge budgets for building and maintaining several brands”.
Nowadays consumers have become quite unpredictable in their newspaper-reading or TV-viewing habits, it is very difficult to assure the reach of messages to the target audiences. The advertiser has to use many broadcast and print media with high frequency to create the desired effect for every brand, which ultimately puts huge burden on the budget. Hence, companies consider it wise to maintain a minimum number of brands in their portfolio so that they can do justice to each by effectively distributing their investment for promotion purpose.
Yes, umbrella branding is widely practiced. The Confederation of Indian Industry's second FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) conclave in 2003 almost declared that umbrella branding was the way to go in a competitive market environment. In an interesting anecdote, R S Sodhi, GM Marketing (Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation l), compared the umbrella brand and individual brands to an Indian family, where in umbrella brands - like the Indian family, the father is the head, looking over the children. When they grow up and become independent, they hold the umbrella for the family. Individual brands on the other hand are like a western family, who grow up fast and leave the father behind. Amul’s strategy of using “umbrella branding” has really paid off. Amul’s advertising and marketing spend has never exceeded 1% of its revenues. Most other food companies spend 6-7% of revenues on advertising and marketing. They (GCMMF) are not big spenders compared to Britannia or Nestle. Despite a limited budget, Amul’s creatives—in the form of billboards or the Taste of India campaign—have always managed to evoke a larger-than-life brand feel, consistency and spirit of Indian culture in a contemporary way.
Companies phase out the brands which have become redundant and retain one or two umbrella brands for every category with necessary variations under each. For example consumer goods major Reckitt & Colman India Ltd. chalked out an expansion strategy to introduce 20 new brands in the year 1999-2000. The strategy also involved repositioning its existing brands and consolidating sub-brands under its main umbrella brands - Dispirin, Dettol, Harpic and Cherry Blossom. The strategy was designed to vault Reckitt & Colman, in terms of sales, into the big league. With the launch of new brands and the repositioning of its existing brands, the company aimed to achieve expected sales growth. The strategy worked well as Dettol as an antiseptic lotion provided brand support to Dettol soap, which was re-launched in a fragrant form called Dettol Fresh to take on HLL's Liril. Cherry Blossom acted as a mother brand for several easy-to-use home products.
Hindustan Unilever Ltd’s (HUL) beverage brands have been amalgamated under two umbrella brands – Brooke Bond and Lipton and in the fabric wash category, the company has retained only Rin, Surf and Wheel, HUL has withdrawn brands such as Sunlight, 501, Dalda and Nihar; it plans to withdraw some more brands and group them under a few umbrella brands. HUL is currently focusing on 35 power brands.
Nivea cosmetics brand has a presence in huge number of product categories and countries. Once upon a time Nivea's performance prompted a yahoo.com news article to name it the 'Queen of Mega Brands.' This title was appropriate since the brand was present in over 14 product categories and was available in more than 150 countries. Nivea was reportedly believed to be a brand of local origin - having been present in them for many decades. This fact went a long way in helping the brand attain the leadership status in many categories and countries. According to analysts, the brand was the single largest factor for the 4.4% increase in the company's (Beiersdorf) revenues (€ 4.74 billion) and 10.7% increase in after-tax profit (€ 290 million) for the year 2002. Beiersdorf never tried to disturb the umbrella branding of Nivea and got fruitful results.
Today as organized retailing is gaining popularity, we can see that popularity of private labels owned by retailers. Retailers do not feel the need to develop many brands for various categories because it is the loyalty towards their store name which draws and retains the customers. Hence it is the umbrella retail store name which will be the brand for various product categories and not individual names for each. Customers prefer these brands over that of manufacturers, due to the fact that they address their functional needs well. The retailers also enjoy high margins for private labels. Today a retail chain like Shopper’s Stop’s 20% apparel section is driven by private labels. There are others like Trent from the TATAs which has developed its business model purely on private labels.
From Asian Paints in 2003 to Electrolux, Onida and Airtel in 2004, they have all made a move from individual product branding to umbrella branding. Just a few year ago Bharti Televentures had brand Airtel for mobile services, Touchtel for land line and India One for long distance calls. But with Airtel dominating the group's ad spends, the company figured that the other brands were hardly making their presence felt. The unified licensing regime in December 2003 - which means that only one license is required to offer fixed, mobile and other services - acted as a catalyst (new Airtel logo/ Airtel outlets). So come September 2004 and the company started selling all its services under one brand name - Airtel. It claims that the move not only upped brand visibility but also charged up its distribution network.
No doubt, umbrella branding has a number of advantages over individual brands in terms of low promotional costs and easy acceptance in trade but umbrella branding imposes on the brand owner a greater burden to maintain consistent quality and brand equity. If the quality of one product in the brand family is compromised, it could reduce sales of all the others. Single umbrella branding works relatively better for services like telecom; it may not be feasible in cases where there is a lesser degree of cohesion between categories, product values and target customers. So, maintaining a few umbrella brands is better option. For instance, suppose LG, a tech brand as far as Indian consumer is concerned, wants to sell you talc or toothpaste or detergent under that name. Consumers would find it very difficult to say what is transferred value from LG TV sets which they’re now going to put on their skin.
Nokia, a moralist for single umbrella branding dropped their single umbrella brand strategy in 2006 in naming it’s products. The company believed it needed to have a look at its competitors’ book. After the roaring success of the Moto RAZR, PEBL, SLVR and ROKR series, the Finnish mobile handset manufacturer felt that consumers found names easy to remember compared to the usual mundane numbers. Even LG launched its popular Chocolate range of phones under the Black Label series. For Nokia, barring few exceptions, numbers have been the only way its phones have been branded so far - remember 1100, 2600, 3310, 6020?
In 2006 they launched Nokia 8800 Sirocco Edition (a mixture of names and numbers). Nokia introduced this approach to make it easier for customers to navigate across their range of phones. They also launched E-series phones (which serve business users) and N-series (which have multimedia features).
While some players say that the naming trend will be restricted to the high-end, feature-led phones(for example- LG is also banking on the name game but in that case it is confined to the high-end range of designer phones), others like Motorola are banking on names irrespective of price slabs. Motorola believes that consumers don't look at these names in an abstract manner and therefore names convey a message to consumers.
A few umbrella brands or individual brands? According to experts, independent brands only make sense when the product clearly has a different proposition from the company brand; like Lexus from Toyota and Swatch from Omega. In the case of Asian Paints, there were so many sub-brands, there was a reduction of media weights for advertising each entity. Then, the company shifted to a brand-centric portfolio, which involved a change of logo, product names, packaging and advertising. But the response from the trade and consumers has been positive, overall brand synergy and shop presence have increased, and the advertising is more effective.
Most probably in near future the media environment will make it impossible to create newer brand names and the conditions at the consumer level, as well as the environment. So unless the product is clearly different in the mind of the consumer, umbrella branding is the way to go. Umbrella brands are going to rule!
THANK YOU

HLL – Power Brand Strategy

Abstract

This case let provides an overview of the branding strategies of Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL), the Indian arm of the Unilever group. It describes the rationale behind the strategy and the concerted efforts of the company to focus on certain select brands. The case let sheds light on the brand extension strategy undertaken by HLL as part of the modified branding strategy. Finally, the caselet gives an idea of the complexities involved in such a branding strategy.
Issues:

» Power branding strategy
» Importance of consistency in conveying core benefits of the brand
» Role of mother brands
» Developing sub-brands under mother brands

Introduction

In 2001, Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL), the Indian arm of the Unilever group, restructured its strategy to concentrate on its core brands – brands that add to the bottom line of the company. This was because the FMCG segment, which accounts for most of HLL’s business, witnessed lower growth rates in comparison to the double digit growth rates in the nineties.

Besides, the company’s core competence was in these consumer brands where the top 30 of its brands contributed to 75% of its sales. Based on these factors, HLL identified 30 national power brands and 10 regional brands from its portfolio of around 110 brands and directed its entire marketing efforts at developing and building them. Focus on select brands helped HLL to increase the scale of resources and spend more per brand. According to Mr. M. S. Banga, Chairman, HLL, "Our objective is to deliver directionally with the focus on certain key products.

Questions for Discussion:

1. Analyze the branding strategy used by HLL. What were the advantages that HLL expected to secure by using such a strategy?

2. By undertaking a power brand strategy, HLL exited from certain segments. This enabled regional players to operate and develop their brands. Besides, some of the sub-brands were repositioned under mother brands in different segments. How did these changes in the branding strategy affect the marketing communications campaigns of HLL?

RAAJNEETI & MARKETING

The movie so called RAAJNEETI is realsed produced by Mr. Prakash Jha a man of Bihar soil. The management of character’s & branding of Prakash jha in the movie is really worth full. Movie will go hit that’s credit goes to its marketing & campaign made by.
Had sort of stopped updating any post on movie marketing, as for past few months most of the Bollywood releases have been doing almost the same stuffs for promotion – websites, social media, television presence, reality shows participation, some general on ground events, radio messages etc. Their marketing strategies looked repetitive and formulaic. But with Raajneeti, things seem to be different. Not only the movie is in news because of its political semblances but their promotion campaign which is revolving around the integration between reel theme and real issues is also attracting enough eyeballs amongst interested common man & the media fraternity.
After Aamir Khan touring across India for the promotion of 3 idiots amongst mass, now its stars like Katrina Kaif & Ranbir Kapoor who were on a nationwide on-ground campaign to promote their upcoming movie Rajneeti. Keeping the political theme in mind, Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif have been on a run, hosting debates called “Aaj ki Raajneeti” in colleges in Bangalore, Delhi, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Kolkata, Indore and Ahmedabad. The groups discuss political and social topics concerning youth on varous channels like Aajtak, Star news etc. For instance, at IIM Bangalore the discussion was on youth taking active part in politics. As a part of this discussion cum promotion drive, the team is raising issues such as whether voting should be compulsory in the country; whether a year’s military training should be mandatory for every citizen; and whether film stars should join politics.

Marketing Mix

7P's of the marketing mix



Marketing professionals and specialist use many tactics to attract and retain their customers. These activities comprise of different concepts, the most important one being the marketing mix. There are two concepts for marketing mix: 4P and 7P. It is essential to balance the 4Ps or the 7Ps of the marketing mix. The concept of 4Ps has been long used for the product industry while the latter has emerged as a successful proposition for the services industry.

The 7Ps of the marketing mix can be discussed as:

Product
It must provide value to a customer but does not have to be tangible at the same time. Basically, it involves introducing new products or improvising the existing products.

Price
Pricing must be competitive and must entail profit. The pricing strategy can comprise discounts, offers and the like.

Place
It refers to the place where the customers can buy the product and how the product reaches out to that place. This is done through different channels, like Internet, wholesalers and retailers.

Promotion
It includes the various ways of communicating to the customers of what the company has to offer. It is about communicating about the benefits of using a particular product or service rather than just talking about its features.

People
People refer to the customers, employees, management and everybody else involved in it. It is essential for everyone to realize that the reputation of the brand that you are involved with is in the people's hands.

Process
It refers to the methods and process of providing a service and is hence essential to have a thorough knowledge on whether the services are helpful to the customers, if they are provided in time, if the customers are informed in hand about the services and many such things.

Physical (evidence)
It refers to the experience of using a product or service. When a service goes out to the customer, it is essential that you help him see what he is buying or not. For example- brochures, pamphlets etc serve this purpose.