Sunday, March 23, 2008

Quality awareness about Indian Brands- Research Paper

"Local brands show what we are; global brands show what we want to be." – Consumer Insight

There is a general agreement that source of prowess of successful companies is the presence of big brands in their portfolio. Every company wants to create & own the ageless brands & does spend a lot of money towards this objective. Yet, many top executives are not very comfortable with following a structured approach to branding.

Our research on the past successful and unsuccessful brands says otherwise. On a careful inspection successful brands show a lot of common threads. These commonalities led us to model the consumer behavior model that is the ultimate reason for the existence of any brand. Kevin Keller captures the essence of branding when he says “A brand resides in the minds of consumers”. A brand should move beyond its physical character to acquire a perceptual character hence representing itself as a means to achieve what is sought by a customer.

In this paper, we start by discussing what a brand is from the perspectives of the organization as well as the consumer. This gives us the foundation for building the models subsequently. Next we build a model for consumer decision making process and bring in the perspective of the Indian brands vis-àvis multinational brands. We touch upon the importance of various parameters in building the Indian brands and stress upon them with relevant examples. It’s not just the initial creation of a brand but the reinforcements, evolution and revitalization that ultimately decides the winners in marketplace.

We have also conducted a primary survey to analyze the quality perception and understand the
consumer behavior and hence, help us arrive at the model. We conclude the paper by discussing a framework which could help build the Indian brand both domestically and globally.

To see my full article, please visit:
http://www.brandcameo.org/search_result.asp?text_search=chain

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Marketing of Luxury Brands

Luxury branding is a whole new ball-game altogether, both from the perspective of the marketer as well as the luxury consumer. It therefore becomes important to view it both in relation and isolation from the ‘regular’ goods marketing.

To achieve the above objective, we first look at how luxury goods are different from regular goods and then go on to explore some facets and trends of the luxury goods as well as their market and consumers. This finally sums up into a SWOT analysis of the luxury goods segment, thereby helping in obtaining a bird’s eye view of the exercise at hand.

Considering that the luxury concept has shifted to the ‘new’ meaning, we delve into that aspect to understand the drivers for luxury brands presently, as well in the time to come. This is followed by a luxury potential determination of the Indian market both in terms of quantitative growth factors as well as qualitative initiatives.

Post identification of the mindset of the Indian luxury consumer, we have conducted a synergetic strategy building exercise, in an attempt to make sure that there are actionable points, which will go on to ensure the best interplay between the 3 most important factors for a luxury brand, i.e. the product brand, the brand / reputation of the service provider and the price-value relationship of the luxury brand.

To see my full article, please visit:
http://www.brandchannel.com/papers.asp?pageno=3#top