Thursday, February 8, 2007

You know you are a brand when


Every brand owner or brand custodian aims to build a brand. But what is a real measure of a brand well built?

I am no authority on quantitative or qualitative research that sometimes attaches numeric values to the extent of joy that a brand creates among its intended consumers but here are three subjective measures that I’d like to share.


In some way they are organized in increasing order of their significance.


1. A consumer or employee dreams of the brand more often than once or twice.


Some Google employees actually dream of their company and office regularly. And these are dreams not nightmares ; )


2. When the consumer is ready to forgive the brand


If brand is a person & we love this person, than this person could play any of these roles viz. a friend, a guide, a relative, a mentor, a partner etc. In our lives there come times when some of these people that we know commit mistakes, might end up doing something unknowingly that upsets us. But we do not snap ties with these people just because of that one act of theirs. Instead we pardon them and move on.This is exactly the response that a ‘real’ brand gets from its loyal users when something goes wrong. If the user does not forgive the brand and moves away may be it was not a ‘real’ brand after all (at least not among this set of users).


3. When the customer begins to think what might the brand be thinking about him


This is my favourite. I do not know how many brands have been able to trigger such emotions or thoughts among their users. But if a brand can pull this off then we are talking brand equity or voltage or power at an entirely new level.

9 comments:

Kaj said...

hey.. do you have any examples for #3? experiences or anecdotes that suggest some brands may be doing a good job of this?

Saurabh Sharma said...

I am afraid no one has measured brand power/equity thus.
A lot of nation brands do this effectively. Country is calling you, the nation is watching etc

Subramaniam Avinash said...

Nice parameters. So what you're saying is Brands are people?

blaiq said...

I wouldn't go as far as saying brands are people, but brands are like people. In fact, the whole idea of branding for me goes way back in time when people first decided to give names to each other. These tags made it possible then to attach past memories, future expectations and made these tagged people referenceable in conversations by others. Doesn't it work that way with brands too?

Subramaniam Avinash said...

You're right Blaiq. So what you're saying is brands are people. :-)

Saurabh Sharma said...

Uber,
Brands are people - just one difference.
Pardon me it borders philosophy.
People are born without purpose (though we claim to be finding it as we live our lives); Brands on the other hand are brought to the world with Profit a the Purpose..

Subramaniam Avinash said...

According to Richard Dawkins, people are genes and the sole purpose of genes is survival. Hmm. Profit is a means to survival. Now what?

Kaj said...

Man, this could turn into an existential debate, but I agree with IQ that brands aren't exactly people.

I think people are created, shaped, affected by their environment. Brands seek to affect that environment

I think generations of people repeat themselves but brands evolve more dynamically as industries & technologies do

I think that few people can be the same, speak the same way, choose the same food, culture, likes..whatever.. across different countries the way brands to.

Building on from what Saurabh said, brands can straddle a wider ground because they're built by people to serve. They're living. definitely, kicking & alive in the minds and conversations of people (that ugly word called consumer perhaps!)

Kaj said...

Saurabh - The only Nation focussed ads I can remember doing your country needs you kinda jazz really forcefully are the US army ones. *mmm* The stuff at the mo -The India now blah blah blah leaves me feeling pretty cold. Got any present day examples? BTW anyone read the Lon 2012 jon steel case study?