From Brands To Icons

Kartik Mody

Great Lakes Institute of Management

Research Paper

HOW BRANDS BECOME ICONS Submitted to:

INDIA BRAND SUMMIT

KARTIK MODY Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai.

HOW BRANDS BECOME ICONS

Kartik Mody

Great Lakes Institute of Management

FOREWORD This research paper aims to look at brands from a different perspective and also understanding how brands when carefully managed can turn into Icons.

HOW BRANDS BECOME ICONS The paper discusses the progression of brands into Icons. The scope of the report; 1. Brands – A Perspective 2. Why companies build brands? 3. The Difference between Brands & Icons 4. The Brand Icon Model (TBIM) 5. Conclusion 6. References

HOW BRANDS BECOME ICONS

Kartik Mody

Great Lakes Institute of Management

BRANDS – A Perspective. The Traditional definition: “A name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of these, that is intended to identify the goods and services of one business or group of businesses and to differentiate them from those of competitors”. “A mixture of tangible and intangible attributes symbolized in a trademark, which, if properly managed, creates influence and generates value”. And perhaps, I should add a thought, “The Brand is an anchor for the customer in the sea of products” However, with all these definitions in place, the most common question that pops up today is, “what denotes a brand?” In this fast paced world, does a brand still denote the age old definition of “a name, term, sign symbol…..”? Companies like Revlon say, “In factories we make products, in the store the customer buys hope!” Is the brand in 21st century holding a different meaning altogether? The answer is… maybe yes…. A Brand stands for trust. Trust in terms of a commitment from companies to continuously offer the best to its customers. Customers, who believe in the brand, customers who blindfolded buy products from these companies because they know that they will be provided the best that was and will ever be there.

HOW BRANDS BECOME ICONS

Kartik Mody

Great Lakes Institute of Management

Keeping this in mind, we can state, BRANDS= PRODUCT+IMAGES The brand is a connotation of a product associated with Imagery. So, when a customer purchases a brand, he buys some images as well. A Marlboro cigarette personifies a cigarette as a product and the American cowboy as the image. For Raymond, the product is the fabric and the image is complete man.

HOW BRANDS BECOME ICONS

Kartik Mody

Great Lakes Institute of Management

WHY COMPANIES BUILD BRANDS? Companies outsource their manufacturing processes, finances, their human resource & logistics. Why not their brands? Because the brand is an ASSET for the company. Companies build their brands in order; 1. To create distinct brand identity & to be an ultimate Differentiator: A brand like Virgin has been stretched from music and entertainment to transport (airlines and trains,) drink (vodka and cola,) personal finance, cosmetics, and mobile telephones. They’re all held together by Richard Branson’s ‘unstuffy, irreverent, us-against-them’ attitude. 2. To deliver more profits for the company. A brand commands a premium price over a commodity.

E.g.: De Beers has successfully made diamonds into a brand from

commodities. 3. Successful brands can lead to brand extensions. Extended brands deliver more value for the company. E.g.; Christian Dior launched a label he named after himself, the first stylist to do so and with garments that spelt energy and excitement for French women in a war ravaged Paris in 1947. Today DIOR sells hats, perfumes and is a fashion brand globally. 4. Brands build goodwill and reputation for the company. E.g.: Today people buy a Sony product because it has icon status Sony has forayed into music, FILMS, ENTERTAINMENT CHANNELS apart from its strong foothold in entertainment electronics. 5. Successful brands can also push the sales of failed brands. E.g.: FIAT re-launched the SIENNA after it failed with the success of Fiat PALIO in the Indian Markets.

HOW BRANDS BECOME ICONS

Kartik Mody

Great Lakes Institute of Management

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BRANDS AND ICON BRANDS Consider a new product that a company has just introduced. Although the product has a name, a trademarked logo, unique packaging, and perhaps other unique design features—all aspects that we intuitively think of as the brand—the brand does not yet truly exist. Names, logos, and designs are the material markers of the brand. Because the product does not yet have a history, however, these markers are empty. They are devoid of meaning. Now, think of famous brands. They have markers, also: a name (McDonald’s, IBM), a logo (the Nike swoosh, the Travelers umbrella), a distinctive product design feature (Harley’s engine sound), or any other design element that is uniquely associated with the product. The difference is that these markers have been filled with customer experiences. Advertisements, films, and sporting events use the brand as a prop. Magazines and newspaper articles evaluate the brand, and people talk about the brand in conversation. Over time, ideas about the product accumulate and fill the brand markers with meaning. A brand is formed. A brand emerges as various “authors” tell stories that involve the brand. Four primary types of authors are involved: companies, the culture industries, intermediaries (such as critics and retail salespeople), and customers (particularly when they form communities). The relative influence of these authors varies considerably across product categories. Brand stories have plots and characters, and they rely heavily on metaphor to communicate and to spur our imaginations. As these stories collide in everyday social life, conventions eventually form. Sometimes a single common story emerges as a consensus view. Most often, though, several different stories circulate widely in society. A brand emerges when these collective understandings become firmly established. Marketers often like to think of brands as a psychological phenomenon which stems from the perceptions of individual consumers. But what makes a brand powerful and finally an ICON is the collective nature of these perceptions; the stories have become conventional and so are continually reinforced because they are treated as truths in everyday interactions.

HOW BRANDS BECOME ICONS

Kartik Mody

Great Lakes Institute of Management

THE BRAND ICON MODEL (TBIM) Successful brands will remain as Icons to the customer. In order, to- understand the TBIM, we first have to understand DAVID AAKER’S LOYALTY PYRAMID MODEL.

THE LOYALTY PYRAMID Consumers buy a brand not only for what it does, but also for who it is. I.e., Consumers are influenced not only by the functional values and the performance of the brand, but also by what it stands for – its character, so to speak; its psychological and symbolic values. They look at the brand as a person! Do consumers think in this fashion? When we talk of brand personality, we are breathing like into an inanimate object, describing it in humanoid terms. Wendy Gordon, one of the authors of “Understanding brands: By 10 people who do” explains “The terms brand personality is a metaphor for the emotional relationship that exists

HOW BRANDS BECOME ICONS

Kartik Mody

Great Lakes Institute of Management

between a consumer and a brand. It is a short hand way of describing the nature and the quality of the consumer response to a brand.” According to David Aaker, loyalty starts all the way from switches, the dealprone buyers whose loyalty is, at best, fickle, to the top of the pyramid, where consumers regard their brands as Icons .E.g.: Harley Davidson or Nike.

HOW BRANDS BECOME ICONS

Kartik Mody

Great Lakes Institute of Management

THE BRAND ICON MODEL (TBIM) The Making of the Icon Brand P.s.: This model is an inspiration from Subroto Sen Gupta’s Brand Quality Model (Visiting faculty IIM-C)

Icon Brand LONG TERM IMPACT – AN ICON BRAND IS BORN (Brand EMOTION/MEMORY)

GRADUALLY, THE BRANDS BUILDS A CONTINUOUS CUSTOMER CONNECTION (BRAND EXPERIENCE)

THE BRAND BECOMES EMOTIONALLY ATTACHED (Brand INDIVIDUALITY)

PERSVASIVE TO THE TARGET GROUP –THE BRAND CREATES A UNIQUE BRAND PERSONALITY (Brand IMAGE)

THE BRAND COMMUNICATES EFFECTIVELY TO BUILD UP ON IT’S FUNCTIONAL QUALITIES (Brand EFFORT)

BRANDS EMPHASIZE ON THEIR FUNCTIONAL PERFORMANCE (Brand UTILITY)

Brand HOW BRANDS BECOME ICONS

Kartik Mody

Great Lakes Institute of Management

BRANDS EMPHASIZE ON THEIR FUNCTIONAL PERFORMANCE (Brand UTILITY) The first step in TBIM is to construct on the brand’s functional performance which must inspire feelings of trust and confidence. Every successful brand has managed to communicate its company’s core beliefs and attitudes—what the company stands for—to its target customers. In fact, Market research has long illustrated that customers buy the products and services that best meet their needs. For example, a Rexona deodorant needs to “stop sweat” and “eliminate odour,” just as a Clinic All Clear shampoo needs to “make lots of lather” and “leave hair shiny.” These are “functional” needs that, in many ways, define both the product category itself and the “must- have features” of any successful product offering within that category.

HOW BRANDS BECOME ICONS

Kartik Mody

Great Lakes Institute of Management

Functionally, Brands allow you to clearly define and communicate what you stand for, whether you’re the “lowest-cost provider,” the “most innovative,” the “best total solution,” the “preferred choice” and so on.

THE BRAND COMMUNICATES EFFECTIVELY TO BUILD UP ON ITS FUNCTIONAL QUALITIES (Brand EFFORT) The Second step in the model emphasizes on the use of an integrated Marketing Communications (IMC), to build on the functional qualities. The marketing game has changed. Now, customers expect more. Marketers today have to make use of various tools to promote their products, create awareness and image. Functional qualities, if well supported with the right kind of media tools make a delightful difference in the way a brand is perceived by the customer. The brand marketer has to develop an action plan and drive all the IMC tools including advertising, public relations, etc. towards success. An example, Richard Branson is the face behind the VIRGIN GROUP. Being CEO, he draws a lot of attention by doing whacky things. Ultimately, VIRGIN has today achieved iconic status, satisfying a spectrum of customers.

HOW BRANDS BECOME ICONS

Kartik Mody

Great Lakes Institute of Management

PERSVASIVE TO THE TARGET GROUP –THE BRAND CREATES A UNIQUE BRAND IMAGE The Brand personality must be persuasive to the target group. The psychological stratification a customer derives out of the brand has to be emphasized. If the brand were indeed human, what sort of person would it be - jovial, serious, sporty, aristocratic, and cunning? Some brands have real personalities attached to them, e.g. Richard Branson of Virgin, and Anita Roddick of The Body shop. Some of these personalities could be dead, or long off the scene (e.g. Bill and Dave of H-P; Jack Welch of GE). Others do it by endorsement and association, such as Accenture with Tiger Woods and golf. Yet others just seem to have personality emerge from their essence, such as Apple, Post-it Notes and Louis Vuitton. Nokia, the Finland based manufacturer made it brand number one in many countries. Its personality is based in the heart of the brand. Positioned as a trusted friend, who connects people with ease, the brand has created a personality which has very well kept up to the expectations of its target group. Similarly, BMW, MONT BLANC, TAG HEUER or the MERCEDES have achieved icon status by making their customers special, truly special.

THE BRAND BECOMES EMOTIONALLY ATTACHED (Brand INDIVIDUALITY) The personality the brand creates for itself reflects on the brands attachment and gradually the starts getting emotionally attached to it. At this stage, branding is about meeting emotional needs, delivering on a relevant promise and reducing the buyer’s risk. Here, Branding is usually far removed from product features and the transaction and is all about the relationship between two parties.

HOW BRANDS BECOME ICONS

Kartik Mody

Great Lakes Institute of Management

Think about a brand you would personally like and buy. What value does it deliver for you? That’s the “value fix” and driving factor in your buying process. The same system works for your buyers. Some brand personalities can be described: Harley Davidson The Harley brand is not about a means of transportation or sturdy shock absorbers. It’s about an attitude of fullblown freedom, unleashing the rebel inside, and living your wild side. Victoria’s Secret Undergarments are a basic fashion commodity. Add some value/desire and personality (adventure, recognition, self-expression, and fun) to drive your advertising and you’ve got an international brand sensation. Both men and women were drawn in with these emotional magnets. Remember a commercial brand is an emotional relationship between the buying market and a marketed product or service—a bond of loyalty, a connection of relevance and earned trust. The better you know your customers, the more impact can be planned into your brand—and pocketbook.

GRADUALLY, THE BRANDS BUILDS A CONTINUOUS CUSTOMER CONNECTION (BRAND EXPERIENCE) For great Brands, Customers are never a one time customers. Every time the customer experiences your brand, value is created, captured or destroyed. It is extremely important for a brand to capture value for clients by defining, designing and aligning customer brand experiences across all touch points. It is always a pleasure to travel by airlines which provide a traveling experience each time a customer arrives. Jet Airways, for instance has been a benchmark for the experience it provides to its customers right from the boarding to the landing, and that too repeatedly. What makes a difference is that the brand improvises and innovates continuously to increase customer expectations and lives up to it each and every single time. A Nike shoe makes you feel the price that it is worth for a long time and that’s what brings you back to back a Nike again. HOW BRANDS BECOME ICONS

Kartik Mody

Great Lakes Institute of Management

LONG TERM IMPACT – A ICON BRAND IS BORN (Brand EMOTION/MEMORY) Finally, With skillful crafting & patience, a company can successfully build Icon Brands. Oprah Winfrey & Amitabh Bachchan are icons admired by their fans. Worldwide. Honda, Philips, Marlboro Motorola, Fosters, Champagne are all icons built by companies par over the years. Once an Icon, the brand becomes the ultimate yardstick. An Icon makes the difference between brand evolution and extinction.

HOW BRANDS BECOME ICONS

Kartik Mody

Great Lakes Institute of Management

Case: HERO HONDA

For a large majority of the Indian population, personal ‘auto-mobility’ is a huge status symbol, and the two-wheeler typically remains the first automobile acquisition. In the quintessential Indian way, the two-wheeler marks the various joyous stages in the lives of people: the coming of age of a young man, a statement of independence, an increase in income, the favourite gift for a wedding, or a family on the move. As India’s two-wheeler market leader, Hero Honda is undeniably intrinsic to all these emotions and experiences of upwardly mobile Indians. Moreover, this is one of the few product categories where the national leader is the world leader as well. This is the case of a product which has become an ICON in sorts. The part to follow will show the transition of Hero Honda into an ICON from a brand. As its company name indicates, Hero Honda came into being as a tie-up between the Hero Group of India and Honda Motors of Japan. Four Munjal brothers, led by Brijmohan Lall, founded the Ludhiana-based Hero Group. In the early 1980s, the potential and size of the automobile market in India attracted the Japanese automobile major, Honda. Looking around for a likely partner amongst Indian manufacturers, Honda noticed that Hero Cycles was the most suitable match for a marriage. Hero’s commitment to quality was another great inducement for Honda. The success of this liaison is best exemplified by the fact that Hero Honda is, today, the largest joint venture of Honda worldwide. Initially, the company with the strength of hero’s distribution strategy and Hondas technological advancements, rolled out product which helped the company to market their product on their

HOW BRANDS BECOME ICONS

Kartik Mody

Great Lakes Institute of Management

functional performance. This alone, actually, made the space for a potential big player in the Indian two-wheeler industry. Following this, the company made use of a lot of promotions in the years to come in order to build up on its functional performance. Various tools like advertising, PR, and other means of communication were used to create a positive and a lasting image in the minds of its customers. The company’s first advertising campaign was launched in 1984, with the truly memorable promise: ‘Fill it. Shut it. Forget it’. This capitalized on the fuel efficiency of CD 100. This punch line became a buzzword across India. In 2001, Passion was launched, with the headline: ‘Born in a Studio. Not in a Factory’ and a by line ‘When Style Matters’. This platform immediately positioned the bike as the best in looks and style. Within four months of its launch, Passion had created marketing history. It had become the second-largest selling motorcycle model in India. CD Dawn was launched as ‘Public ka Naya Transport’ showing people ready to move from public transport to private transport. It clocked sales of 100,000 bikes within just 100 days of its launch.

Apart from consistent media presence, Hero Honda

was

forefront

of

in

the

cricket

sponsorship, culminating

in

the

sponsorship

of

the

2003

Cricket

World

Cup. The company has also been a major sponsor of a premier golf tournament – the PGA Asia Tour. Hero Honda is also the ‘Title Sponsor’ of the annual Indian Television Academy Awards.

HOW BRANDS BECOME ICONS

Kartik Mody

Great Lakes Institute of Management

The brand personality, in a way depicts on the core values of Confidence and trust. These values define the bond that Hero Honda establishes with customers cutting across geographic locations, income levels and market segments. The reliability and durability of this relationship has resulted in positive word-of-mouth from satisfied customers, working to the brand’s advantage. The success of the Passport Programme among users of Hero Honda motorcycles confirms an emotional association with the company. In a market that has many brands competing for the customers’ choice and loyalty, this is a rare occurrence. Its emergence as a world-leader has also added lustre to Hero Honda’s image. Millions of satisfied Hero Honda customers take pride in belonging to this two-wheeler ‘family’. The brand has become an ICON to reckon with. Today, it stands as one of the most prestigious brands that the nation has ever produced. CONCULSION: - Finally, for ICON BRANDS, where the consumer would rather fight than switch and where we are dealing virtually with tribal feelings it is the brands touch that plays a dominant role in the consumer brand relationship. Harley Davidson is an off – quoted example. It is by no means a match for the technologically superior Japanese Motorcycles, but try saying that to a member of Harley Davidson Club.

HOW BRANDS BECOME ICONS

Kartik Mody

Great Lakes Institute of Management

REFERENCES: 1.

Brand positioning - Subroto Sengupta

2.

Branding – Debashis Pati

3.

FCB Ulka on Advertising. – MG Parmeswaran

4.

Strategic Brand Management. – Noel Kapferer

5.

Special Issues – Business Today & Brand Reporter

6.

Website: Agencyfaqs.com, Marketingprofs.com, superbrandsindia.com

HOW BRANDS BECOME ICONS