Brands are made from the heart - Piyush Pandey
Published February 1st, 2005 in Branding.I had observed in my previous article on Hughtrain, that brands are never owned by the organisation that puts money behind it. Instead the brands are owned by the consumers and the job of the brand manager is to steer the consumers’ mind towards positive reinforcement.
My views are now strengthened on this subject!
This article which summarises the view points of Shelly Lazarus - Chairperson & CEO of Ogilvy Worldwide is more on India as a market. She has quoted P. Chidambaram - the Finance Minister of India. He had said a few years ago that when people think of India, they should think of software, not elephants! Visionary thought. Her parting line was even better! “The ultimate measure of a brand is its sales”.
This still doesn’t answer Suman’s question though. Is it possible to actually sell without salesmen? I disagree with Seth Godin. I have been a salesman myself (David Ogilvy started as a salesman himself but went on to become a branding GURU) and I can vouch that it is difficult to sell even the best of brands. Views?
Apple topped the list of Global Brands in 2005. Is it easy to sell Apple Macs? No.
So, the short answer is a Brand may be having top recall in a customers mind but the same mind processes a lot of information before pulling
out hard-earned money from the wallet. I feel economics not branding alone drives purchase decisions in mass market goods like PCs. A top
brand may have a huge recall because it might be considered a premium/aspirational brand for a product category. Not every purchaser though would put his/her money behind the premium/aspirational brand.
Ujwal
Posted by Ujwal Tickoo