Branding and some important Jargons

Hello Readers,

How is the preps coming along? Good and steady I hope, and not boring. To energise things a little bit, I have got a very interesting topic in marketing for you today – Brand!

No, no, no … don’t roll the eyes or groan – it is interesting and important and you should know! Don’t we go for ‘branded’ denims and sunglasses and watches all the time?!

Before we start though, I wanted to share something interesting and smart with you. When

researching around on WWW to bring to you the best out there – I stumbled across a word – ‘smarketing’. I was totally bamboozled – what on earth is smarketing?!

I thought it was ‘smart marketing’ – turns out is it ‘sales and marketing’!

See, sales is just sales – sale as many products as you can –increase volume of sales – it is just selling left and right and not really putting any other thought to it.

Marketing is a lot more and involves many activities. But I like to simplify it by thinking it as – ‘selling the idea of the product to the groups who would want them strategically’ and creating customers – target market – for the sales to actually happen.

So, marketing is integrating the objectives of sales and marketing; which results among other things better/higher sales figures and revenue increase!

But, smarketing or not – our aim is to become sbankers – not sales bankers! – We do not want to be cooped up in sales and marketing division of Banks!

Our aim is to be Smart Bankers and for that, given the level of competition and the quality of competition (all engineers/MBAs/CAs/BScs/MCAs…!) in getting into banking sector – we better be Sbankers!!

So … Branding and some important jargons!

1. Brand Equity: is the overall value of a brand in the market.

Imagine – what would be the brand equity of Lux soap in the market? Very large I’m sure. As in every retail/kiraana/departmental shops you at least 2 racks of Lux soaps, and they are always more than the other soap brands!

Thus, speaking in terms of how much of Lux is in the market in the form of customer base is brand’s equity.

2. Brand Insistence: customer’s willingness to search for a particular brand and insist on buying that particular brand is customer’s brand insistence. It is synonymous with brand loyalty or brand preference.

Like your mother might always prefer Tata Salt or Fortune Sunflower Oil and nothing else – and you’ll only buy those. You may prefer Reynolds or Parker pens for writing. And your brother may prefer Nokia over Samsung or any other company’s handsets!

3. Brand Awareness: is a measure of a product’s knowledge within consumer circle.

Are you aware of Micromax smart phones? Are you aware of Flipkart? Are you aware of Uninor?

Check the updated IBPS SO Marketing Syllabus here

4. Brand Recall: when you think of pen drives what comes to your mind first? Sandisk?

The extent to which a brand name is recalled/ remembered is ‘brand recall’.

5. Brand Dominance: is the phenomenon where it is believed a particular brand is outperforming the other brands in the same market.

In smart phones – do you believe Samsung Galaxies are dominating the market? I do!

6. Brand Positioning: is the creation of a distinctive position for a product – that ensures that the consumers can identify, differentiate and authenticate the particular product with the specific offering.

The goal of positioning a brand is to develop and own a specific market position within the hearts and minds of consumers.

For example, Complan is marketed not just as any health drink for children – it is specifically shown to be best in the market to aid height growth apart from other overall development of mind and body.

7. Brand Licensing: is when brand name is leased by the brand owner for use by another company, usually through licensing fee or royalty rate will be agreed for the use of the brand.

8. Brand Repositioning: Developing and operating a new strategy, to move a brand to a new market, like a new segment/area/country/region.

It is done by influencing new consumers to consider, prefer and ultimately purchase the brand offering.

For example, Starbucks, Walmart, BurgerKing, McDonald’s, and KFC (to name a few) are all American very well know and famous brands – these have been introduced to India and to the Indian people, and now we talk about week end party at McD’s like Ronal McDonald was our own!

9. Brand Revitalising: A strategy to recapture the lost popularity of a brand and re-engage the consumers. This may include product modification or brand repositioning.

Maggi Noodles has been a staple and everybody’s unhealthy food since my childhood! Top Ramen came and went, but Maggi stayed on forever! But some 5-6 years back, they went for ‘brand revitalising’ with the ‘2-minute’ noodles, different flavours and Amitabh Bachchan!

10. Brand Revival: is resurrection (to bring back to life!) of a brand that which has been eliminated.

I recently saw an ad on T.V. of ‘Kisme’ toffee – now that is a brand revival! I thought it was dead and gone!

I hope this article has branded some useful terms in your memories and that it wasn’t boring!

Good day y’all!