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Branding For Dilution…..??
Manisha Gupta
Dec 2010
Dec 2010
What's most sought after today? Happiness, some would say, while others may settle for Spirituality. Well, the general trend does indicate this. Having accumulated a lot of materialistic baggage, people are still not satisfied. So they, in search of that real thing, are swaying towards these.
But all the same, ironically, one most important thing that drives our lives in this modern era is Brands. The craving for buying branded products raises its head early on. Little children still struggling with spellings of Apple or Zebra are pretty sure of which brand chips, chocolates, bicycle or shoes they want. Everyone is madly scrambling towards big malls for big brands and don't have any scruples about shelling out hefty amounts. Such is the power of brands.
This Dhanteras I ventured out to buy a non-stick sandwich toaster to replace our existing branded one that hardly lasted a year. I told the shopkeeper to give me a better brand, even if it cost a little bit more. You know what he told me- “Aap koi bhi brand khareed lo, sab ek hi hai. Sirf label ka farak hai. Aur us label ke hisaab se daam kam ya zyada hoga. Item sare ek hi manufacturer ke banaye hue hain”. What an eye-opener! No wonder even after paying a higher price for a particular trusted brand, we land up with an inferior product. Or, in cases where product is good, we pay much more because of the brand label, though the product has been manufactured by a small enterprise. Consumers pay brand premium for the trust they repose.
My experience with a Compaq laptop has been sour. The one I bought just wouldn't switch on many times. This was replaced. But the next one too, after a few months started giving the same problem which persists. Can you imagine Shahrukh Khan advertising and the laptop not just turning on? I don't know if SRK actually uses that brand, but if he'd got a piece like the one I did, I am sure he would think twice before endorsing it. Had similar experiences with established national consumer durable brands in existence for over five decades, where quality of products is deteriorating. Trust suffers a setback and long adhered to preferences may be forced to change. Dilution in quality of even the greatest and oldest of brands will simply snap off the relationship built over years.
Branding is not creating logos or marks, it's rather all about creating a positive, quality based image, trust and connect in consumers' minds. You keep delivering good quality, strength of your brand goes on increasing. But the moment you try to compromise on quality, the consumer knows it. After all he's the best judge of your product or services. Your brand will 'grow or go' as per the consumer's faith in your deliverables. You dilute quality or make any negative changes like reducing quantity keeping prices same and you think nobody will notice. Recession saw popular items like Lays potato chips, Maggi Noodles etc. employing this strategy. For the same price, weight of Lays chips has come down from 90gms to 80 to 70gms now and that of Maggi Noodles from 100gms to 95 to 90 to 85gms. Somehow the size of packets “appears” to be the same. Now isn't this visual deception?
Consumer feels cheated. And big brands think they can get away with this. When they give even 5gms extra, there's so much hullabaloo. Every advertisement screams telling the whole world that this much is being given free or extra. But when quantity is reduced by even as much as 15 or 20gms per packet, they don't want to let the consumer know. Ditto Brooke Bond Red label Tea and Henko washing-powder. It would have been better to either let the world know that packets contained less or prices could have been simply increased. Lost consumer trust! This is just testing consumer patience and using his buffer and dissonance before he switches. Exorbitant expenditure on advertisement and celebrity endorsement could be used in enhancing value to consumer.
SMEs can derive lessons. As SME entrepreneurs, you must create an identity, a perception in the minds of your customers. It's absolutely essential you establish a relationship of trust and create goodwill. Maintain quality standards of your products or services. Keep the promises you make regarding enterprise's deliverables. Quality should only go one way -up- otherwise you lose your loyal customers. If customer satisfaction doesn't last, goodwill created and brand name will diminish. When sub-contracting for large brands, the SME can upgrade its own brand image, make much higher margins and build its own recall with consumers. A long term perspective by a knowledgeable SME to enhance its brand value, premium and higher profits is needed.
Why does a company create a brand? Why does it create this confidence in the consumers' minds that its products carry a certain quality, maintain a specific standard? Is it not to retain this clientele forever? Then why first win over trust and customer loyalty only to let it down?
Why build trust, make promises, establish a brand and then compromise (Kum-promise) on quality? Branding now for dilution later…….? Just why ??
2 Comments >>
Akash Mehrotra
17 Jul 2011 (08:10:29)
This is sadly the case all around the world. Lays has reduced the 20 Rupee pack from 110 Gm to 63 over the years. It has reached the point that they even had to reduce the size of the packet . There is nothing that can be done about it unless the brand has sufficient contest. In a monopolistic market the brands tend to screw people over and over. Had there been more chip brands like lays then lays would be competing for quality rather than trapping people with Dumb Illogical(Dillogical) schemes .
ATULYA
10 Dec 2010 (22:32:37)
You have made a very valid point that brands don't worry about the consumers that would they be still loyal,buy their brand,have faith in them etc. They should create faith in the consumers and confidence in them so that the consumers buy their brand.They should make their consumers their clients and on their own be suppliers not sellers.
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