Dharmendra Satapathy

Saturday, January 21, 2012

BRAND BUILDING - THE VERDICT BETWEEN CHANGE AND CONSISTENCY

Think of the Navy - I see WHITE

Think of the pirate - I see the EYE PATCH

Think of RIN - I see a comparison of whites

In a sense these are BRANDS.

They have an IDENTITY

They guard this IDENTITY

The IDENTITY evolves into a BRAND PROPERTY

A BRAND PROPERTY is a BRAND ASSET

It becomes the reason for creating MORE AWARENESS than the competition

It becomes the reason for creating a POSITIVE ASSOCIATION to the BRAND

But should the IDENTITY remain CONSTANT till ETERNITY

OR should it CHANGE

This is a KEY decision which has to be managed by the BRAND TEAM

Too many changes DOES NOT BUILD an IDENTITY

AND keeping it CONSTANT for a very long period can make the IDENTITY lose RELEVANCE

So what the brand team needs to do?

The answer lies in understanding the ENVIRONMENT and FINE TUNING the IDENTITY in keeping with the ENVIRONMENT.

The ENVIRONMENT CHANGES gradually over a period of time.

Some of the notable changes that we have seen are:-

1) Change from wired phones to mobiles
2) Change from talking on phone generation to SMS generation
3) Change from "reading from book" generation to the DIGITAL people
4) Change from going to CINEMA to see a movie to going to CINEMA for gain an experience.

Thus change is the only constant and the brand needs to FINE TUNE according to long term change.

While the BRAND EVOLVES, the brand team also needs to decide the BOUNDARIES that DO NOT CHANGE

Thus BRAND LIFEBUOY evolved into different packaging formats and variants. From being a pure carbolic anti germ square soap it evolved its shape and introduced variants with added value propositions such as soap + moisturizer, soap + herbal, etc.

Hand Sanitizers and liquid soaps were variants that ffitted within the framework.

Thus the boundaries were DRAWN.

ANTI GERM, CARBOLIC BASE, NAME, RED was the CONSISTENT

The variants represented the EVOLUTION

Thus the BRAND REMAINED CONSTANT but RELEVANT by way of gradual evolution.

Personal BRANDS too are prone to such challenges and have to manage their IDENTITY.

The CASE OF ANGELINE JOLIE is amazingly interesting in this context.

The image of predatory sexuality gave her the start that she needed at one point in time. But that kind of IDENTITY would not have sustained her career over a long period of time. She had to re-invent herself with losing her CORE VALUES.

Thus the point of EQUILIBRIUM between CHANGE and CONSISTENCY is a CHALLENGE that will ensure that BRAND TEAMS will always find EMPLOYMENT.






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