What is the Real Brand of a company?- SHIV

Often the term Brand is loosely used to describe the name of the products that the company sells or offers to the customers. Brands like Surf, Crest, Apple, Windows, which are well known are often confused with the respective products Detergent, Toothpaste, Computer and Operating System respectively. But Brands are much more than that.

In the following examples let us look at what the real brands are:

Surf – Stands for whiteness, purity, cleanliness, dependability, ease of use etc.

Crest- Freshness,  Health, sparkling, clean, confidence etc.

Apple- Good looking, cutting edge technology, sleek, dependability, cool etc.

Windows – dependability, familiarity, multiple uses, ease of use etc.

We can list many more examples but we want to look beyond the obvious. Our experience in being associated with  various brands such as Apollo Hospital Care, Apcolite from Asian Paints, Ray Ban, Swarovski etc. has shown that the real brand is the one that is unseen.

Successful brands and by extension, Successful Organisations, have one common characteristic – Passion. Passion in manufacturing the products without a flaw (visible or perceived) , passion in the packaging and passion in ensuring that the goods reach the user in the way the creator envisaged it to be. 

In a leading brand of Crystal, the brand was in the centre of everything. When the goods were packed and shipped from a single warehouse in Europe, they were packaged individually in gift boxes with a protective sponge in them. Then they were packed in a cardboard carton and wrapped in waterproof film. The water proof film was wiped clean before sending to the stores.” It was not necessary” ,said many but the credo in the organisation was that when you sell beautiful products you need to present it in his finery even when it is being handed over to a delivery boy. That is passion and hence brand for you.

Painting is a messy affair and paints are messy “stuff”. When the house is being painted, it is topsy turvy with everybody’s nerves on edge!!. Routine gets affected and people just wish the whole “ordeal” gets over!! To make things easier, Asian Paints has extended the brand to not only making innovations in the products – faster drying, less smelly etc but also has offered a complete painting service- keeping the consumer delighted. The Brand Apcolite or Brand Asian Paints stands for efficiency, high quality and great service driven by one passion element that the founders of the company envisaged – joy of painting. Asian Paints success story is well documented.

Sunglasses have made the journey from eye protection goggles to fashion statements over the years. As it is the most visible accessory on a person, it needs to communicate to the world at large as to who the wearer is!!. A successful brand like Ray Ban managed to do that by not only developing styles but also packaging them in apt sunglass cases!!.  Something like a sunglass case is often seen as an appendage and not as an extension of the brand’s personality. The Signet – a dressy model and the General – named after a World War II Hero- had special sunglass cases which reflected the design. But that is not all – Sunglasses can also accentuate the mood in which the wearer is. A case in point is another model called “Predator” – a very clubby and fashion forward model of those times which reflected the aggressive but stylish persona of the urban male!!. All in Black, these were the signature models of the Men in Black!!.

The lesson from all this is that the passion in creating the whole persona of the brand is essential to a successful brand and thereafter to a successful organisation.