Days and months have ticked past, since the last time I smelt for scope for understanding human behaviour at the loo…guess its time to take another leak….ermm I mean a “look” at the story – let’s cut the chase, and get to the topic!

Retailing as a business has been on the advent in India, with majors like Pantaloons, Marks & Spencers, Big Bazaar, taking up those huge mall-spaces to build what we call “Brand-share” and “Mind-share”.

We go down that swanky, spic-and-span oblivion of items we never knew existed, or were of even use to us – shampoos in myriad sizes, chocolates in heaps that`ll make every kid crave to be a store-boy, the best of the cereals and much more. Do we actually take a minute to think why we ever feel at ease at these stores? Why the new entries are placed in the immediate left of the counter? Why the doors are meant to open into the right?

Its been proved by some mad guy by me that, in a new environment (we aren’t talking of totally barren lands here) the human mind tends to notice the object placed/present in the immediate left of the entrance. A logical fallout is the reason why doors were planned to open into the right – to accentuate the process of looking to the left.

Do you ever realize that when you push the door open towards the right, you tend to look towards the other direction (the left) a bit more than on the right? The next time you visit that super-mall, remember to notice it!

The case of the Subconscious-Preference Map: Let’s get out of the super marts for a while and move into something from Part 1 – the red pack of Colgate.

Colors I believe have an integral part to play, in addition to a lot of other considerations, when it comes to creating that subconscious perceptual map – let’s say you never had jam after you were a kid, and we sent you in a super-mart full of them…would you go for the yellow mango ones, or the rainbow colored apple jam? Or what about navy blue colored Pineapple jam? No? You might be partially color blind for all reasons, but the truth is that you would buy a pink colored Mango jam! Did this color matter when you came into the store, that it should, now that you have to choose between the 2 bottles? Funny eh?

My explanation is simple – you might not have a preference mapping for certain things, but you mind subconsciously develops a preference pattern for things you have eaten, used, experienced, etc. since ages! You can feed an alien, blue mangoes, just because he never saw a normal one; his mind has absolutely no preference mapping for (a) its color (b) its taste (c) its shape.

That is the very reason why you would see Colgate launch Gel in blue, but never change the generic white paste branding to any color other than red! Coke would lose its essence if it were pink; Pepsi would go from fizz to fizzle without its blues! A classic case from the Indian scenario is when Pepsi launched a special blue colored edition to relate with our “Men in blue” – the blue colored cola bombed big time in the market. Well, it tasted just the same, but then every time you had a bottle, your mind said, “Hey wait, something seems wrong – I don’t feel at home with this bottle”

Back To Square One: Jerry Seinfeld puts it really well when he says that the best part of being “back to square one” is that we know exactly where we are – there is this sense of security about the term. Imagine someone saying “There! We’re back to Oval 29” – Well I think our “subconscious preference maps” are very much rooted here.

Familiarity is what, for me, forms the cornerstone, the keynote, and the bottom-line of why we tend to be finicky about certain things which we didn’t even thing would matter. Animals feel secured in their natural habitat – they fall ill in a zoo. Our human minds too feel at ease only when the so-called “natural habitat” is prevalent – I mean, there is this sense of security when things are just how they are expected to be. Looking for CDs, search the drawers near the computer; want some sugar? Check the shelf where the coffee is kept.

I tend to do that, since that’s where those things are kept in my house – so my mind guides me subconsciously to look for those things at those places at the neighbours’ (well, finding it there is a different story!).

The Benders: A question that comes to my mind, is whether this was such an impressionable thing to factor in that brands would never be able to change. What if Coke wants to change skins and turn green one day? Well then, Santa wore reds the first time Coke blended Christmas with the joy of celebrating with the cola. Will the kids be ok with a green or a pink Santa? Will habituated ‘Orange’ users feel odd with their Pink-ed new look?

Also, are there any products, brands, or facets of life where we never have a preference map? Imagine being given a choice in hell between boiling in oil, being poked with hot spikes or being bitten by vipers – it never crossed my mind, but I guess I`ll opt out of the oil since I still remember that Diwali celebration where some hot oiled poured on my hands. Did I really need to have a preference map for that? I don’t think so, but can we really stop our minds from creating one?

The Bottomline: Well now, is there supposed to be a bottomline and an end-note? Or are we just once again getting into the rut of expecting one, since every other article similar to this that we read, had one? Think…

A few weeks back, I was playing word association with a friend of mine back home from work - word association for those blinking blindly, is a simple game where you ask someone to name anything - say apple. The other person is supposed to tell you the first thing that comes to his/her mind when the word is said. Then you take that word, and get what marketers call “Top of the Mind Recall” for that word, and so on.

Well the objective of this post is not to start a chain of word associations amongst readers, but to talk about how this term is not something new to the average consumer. Every day - day in and day out, you wake up, wear, use, throw, preserve, gift, and aspire to buy what is beautifully called “a brand” in marketing terms. Well I call it a beautiful term because it subliminally hides a lot of depth behind that innocuous looking word.

A brand according to my understanding, is much more than a bundle of utility, much more than what mom would go and purchase all of a sudden without looking for a choice, something that separates one product from a host of others in the market, when almost all of them offer the same benefit.

Right now on my mind, as I write this post, a picture of a brand haunts like a ghost…
It refuses to leave, and is always on my mind, when I`m at work, or when I unwind…

Well the Hutch dog has been all over the place - be it small cutouts with the mutt guarding small stores, or posters outside retail stores, or be it those huge towering hoardings at highway junctions. Hutch entered Mumbai, and yes they did certainly beleive in making it BIG.

To start of with for the average non Mumbaiite, Hutch has had a pan-India presence, except for Mumbai, where it was branded as Orange; why orange? - I still dont know! Someone once quipped in our Branding class that perhaps it goes well with the brand’s tagline - “The future is bright. The future is orange.” Well as this blogger says, the future for Mumbai has turned PINK now!

Mumbai’s most envied telecom brand has changed its colors - from orange to Pink… what intrigues is, however, WHY PINK?

Well as I happened to read some interesting facts on K’s blog about how Orange as a brand had to be returned to France Telecom, by Hutch; the change was inevitable, and the company needed to get its orange hues out.

Hutichison Essar’s Corporate Vice President Group Marketing, Mr. Naveen Chopra says

“We believe the time has come to refresh this brand and inculcate a new ‘Hutch spirit’ which will make us more vibrant and promising for all.”

Websites and marketing gurus all over the www have been giving their views of how effective this new color could be to the brand - would the customer be able to say Hutch, when his friend says the word ‘mobile’ or is the future Pink & Shocking for the brand? Time will tell…

(Part 1 of a series on importance of brand imagery)

Other sources:
http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=13981914

I was going though an article talking about how G.A.P jeans were offering customers a free song an iTunes if they were to merely try on a pair of GAP jeans - my mom was quite amused about how they think its going to help in anyway. I read out the article to her and she quipped - “Customers gain. If I were to be given such an offer, I`ll try them everyday and get free downloads galore!”

Well what’s not totall madness, is as they call “marketing” - my mom calls it madness, I call it a mere case of dual existence…

Co-branding (also called Dual Branding) has become a rage in the marketing arena, with companies realizing that isolation is not after all the best policy. Buy a Filmfare magazine and get imitation jewelry free? What’s the relation? What’s the connection? Or free Duracell batteries with a magazine, which costs much lesser than the pair of cells? What’s cooking?

The markets of yesterday saw companies focusing on the customer thinking about “How can I promote my jeans?” The marketers today believe that the myopia needs to clear off to a “How do I define my customer?” approach. By saying, “defining my customer”, i don’t mean getting back to classroom and assessing who the target consumer is. Defining a customer means more in terms of creating a persona for the customer, or rather shaping the customer.

Lets take a small example: Consider that i am a dealer who sells fashion accessories and jeans. One of my target customers would be the youth, who want to look hip. Now lets analyze this a bit more.

Customer Profiling - Fashionable India youth

Demographics: Age group of say 15 to mid 20s, SEC A & B max (SEC = Socio Economic Classification), atleast college educated

Psychographics: Fashion conscious, looks more to belong to his ‘cult’ or ‘peer groups’, wants to be updated with the latest gizmos in town - mobile phones, fashion accessories, computer and media related gadgets, ready to pay for a premium product which makes him look exclusive.

In such a case, we can certainly identify some items that he/she might be interested in:

Latest Mobile phones

MP3 Players

Cars / bikes

Branded clothing

Fashion accessories

Personal Grooming products

Latest eateries

Non-traditional cuisine

Discos/ lounges / places to party

So if I were a clever marketer, I would easily identify items or rather products, which would define or rather, shape my target audience. After all, a person buying designer jeans cannot live on bread alone! He would also look at other items that would add to moulding his persona or his “outer self”, which many a times also have an important role in defining the “inner self” or feel that one gets after using a product/service.

What the gurus say?

Kotler, Philip (2003) defines Cobranding as “two or more well-known brands are combined in anoffer” and each brand sponsors expects that the other brand name will strengthen the brand preference or purchase intention and hopes to reach a new audience.

Kafperer talks of co-branding being quite beneficial such that:

Many line extensions capitalize on a partner’s brand equity.

Brand extension success rates are maximized in the new market when co-branded with the reputed brand that has established in that market.

Co-branding may help usage extension.

Image reinforcement may take place due to co-branding.

Loyalty programs increasingly include co-branding arrangements. The corporations are sharing the cost of loyalty programs; hence, the promotional costs to the companies are coming down.

Co-branding signals a trade marketing operation.

Capitalizing on the synergies among a number of brands is yet another advantage of co-branding.

Taking from the gurus:

In terms of defining the youth, a company cant perhaps do half as good as what two can, when they join hands… one of the positive take-homes from a co-branding exercise would be the fact that sales of a totally unrelated product would now help sell urs!

The advertising frat always laughed it off saying “Everyone knows that 50% of advertising goes waste – its just that you cant find out which 50% it is!”

Co-branding can be an effective medium to reduce ad-spend and still maintain more of “mindshare and heartshare”, as Kotler would put it.

Moving closer home - some Indian examples:

“Bharat petroleum corporation Ltd. (BPCL) has formed an alliance with Bank of Baroda (BOB) to launch a co-brand credit card Bharat BOB card. The deal works in favor of both the parties. BOB hopes to expand its current customer base. The bank charges 2% fee for this service. the petrol company on the other hand scores on customer orientation and an assured customer base.

Another Indian example is Diners club Citibank British Air ways card. Diners club has been providing the exclusivity of their charge cards through Citibank. The charge has to be paid every month and their targeted customers are business executives, who are mobile and frequently travel abroad. Diners club Citibank card along with facilities and privileges offered to a regular cardholder provides automatic membership to British airways executive club. Every Rs.50 spent on the card earns the holder one executive club mile and as such is a part of the frequent flyer program. This enables additional benefits to both the brands.”

The Final Word : I would say that Co-branding can be like a dual edged sword – G.A.P may well end up being generous with the iTunes downloads and end up not selling even a single pair of denims…on the other hand, the prospective customer would perceptually link iTunes with Music – with style – with class – with exclusivity – and finally with G.A.P…..what happens on the other side of the road…only time will tell.

Reads:

Examples: Venkatesh, R. and Mahajan, Vijay. “Products with branded Components: An approach for premium pricing and partner selection” Marketing Science 16 (1997)

Guru-talk:
Kotler, Philip. “Marketing Management The Millennium edition” PHI pvt. Ltd.: New Delhi (2003)

Kapferer, Jean – Noel. “Strategic Brand Management” Kogan Page India Limited.: New Delhi (2000)