By Mahendra Shrestha
Is Branding really a decoration and everything else created by the marketing and advertising fraternity taboo? If you consider branding in philosophical terms, a brand is a unique ideology that explains its purpose, necessity and commitment to its consumers. It is a thought that is left in the world's collective minds at a given point, encompassing the net experience of encountering a brand through its marketing, products, people, support and commitment to responsibility. It’s like a prophet that truly expresses its values to its evangelist, a Rock star rocking away millions of fans, and a statesman moving an entire nation for radical change.
Brand Ideology comprises values and commitment so deep that its owner, fans are passionate about it. They are ready and happy to offer same commitment with defined standards time and again. If you get into any McDonald’s or KFC outlets, you will be hit by various communication, services, acts but integrated with respective single unique ideology. It has to be a unique ideology otherwise how come they live so long with large fan followers across the globe. Brands like Coke, Apple, Chevi, Levis, Nike, Budweiser, Microsoft, and Nestle are not just the products but they have become icons. No wonder when you compare those Charismatic brands with new comers they look very light in terms of their content.
Brand is something much less tangible impression, an invisible layer of a meaning that surrounds a product. A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service or company because in the end the brand is defined by individuals, not by companies or markets. Each person creates his or her own version of it. While companies can’t control this process, they can influence it by communicating and interacting to highlight the qualities that make this product. When significant people arrive at the same gut feeling, a product, service or a company can be said to become a brand. In other words, a brand is not what you say it is. It’s what they say it is. Therefore, an ideology can’t just be pinned on millions of consumer just like that. Pinning has to be done by enrobing with consumer aspiration.
True branding is much more than just the acronym, logo or art or packaging or advertising. It encompasses the feeling you want to evoke from the consumer about the product/service. Not just that it is to stand out on the shelf. But once the purchase is made, the consumer feels somehow connected to the product. It even goes so far as to include the customer service, a consumer experiences when dealing with the company behind the product or service, a client experiences when experiencing after sale services of the product. Branding needs to be addressed in each step of the process in order to help ensure a positive experience for the consumer consistently or evoke purchase intent and satisfaction with the product and services.
Of course part of a branding is aesthetics, shape and structure but Brand is not a decoration. It’s not the surface appearance of a product. It’s not about the color or stylistic details. Branding is the way product works. Branding is function, not a form. It’s rather an interface of product consumption and experiences. Branding should comprise ethos, proposition, values and promise of a product that should act as a curtain or bridge between consumer expectation and product.
Among the hallmarks of a charismatic brand are unique ideologies, a sense of goodness and dedication to aesthetics. Aesthetic is the language of feeling, in a society that’s information–rich and time-poor, people value feeling more than information and its magnet properties works as magic. Aesthetics comprises skillful use of colors, structures, images to compliment the brand ideology whereas its goal should never be for over-pleasing and over-entertaining, overpowering the brand ideology as normally done with decoration. Aesthetics are so powerful that it can turn a commodity product like furniture into a charismatic brand like: IKEA. Milk to the most powerful brand like: Amul. There are so many instances that aesthetics has proven time again and again way entertaining and effective than any blockbuster movies in 30 seconds like: Cadbury’s Advertisement. However, branding has to sacrifice outstandingly good decoration for the sake of most valuable proposition (MVP) of the product which we call a real branding and its utilities can only be justified that way only.
Now to initiate a decoration or branding all depends upon the priority and necessity that a product/service attracts in a business environment. Stake is a fate of product that has every chance to become another Coke or Nike, responsibility is on owners, managers, advertising agencies. Will they keep on doing decoration or follow the spirit of true branding by crafting the perfect recipe of logic, a brand ideology with magic, skillful use of aesthetic.
(Shrestha is a marketing and advertising professional. He can be contacted via email at [email protected].)
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