Brand vs. Product

The other day while participating in a certain discussion in the marketing class i found myself listening to as well as speaking the words "brand" and "product" far too often. However, what I realized was that we are not too clear when to use these words. This prompted me a come back and read a bit about this. Following is a result of whatever I have understood.

A brand is a collection of images and ideas representing an economic producer; more specifically, it refers to the descriptive verbal attributes and concrete symbols such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme that convey the essence of a company, product or service. A product is anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a want or need.

To highlight the difference, I would like to put forth a recent example:

The ShahRukh Khan commercial featuring Dish TV concentrated on portraying its features viz. pause live shows, get the language of your choice, movies that you like and so on. Here, there is no real creativity involved. The ad is plain vanilla informative marketing.

However, the more recent commercial of "Tata Sky Plus" featuring Aamir Khan and Gul Panag concentrates more on talking to customer based on the experience from the perspective of a regular young couple which almost any middle class consumer can identify with. Thus, apart from providing information about the product to its target customers, the commercial is also successful in creating a long-lasting imprint in the viewers' minds - thus creating a better recall for its brand.

This example highlights one very important factor. The product in both the cases is DTH technology service. Although there are hardly any differences in terms of the products qualities and features, there is a marked difference in the way the target customers perceive the product. This is clearly due to the way the brands have been positioned.

So, on a broad level, we can generalize the some of the very visible differences between a Brand and Product:

At a very basic level, a product is something made at a factory. (This definition, in today's world is outdated as a product today can be a service being provided). A brand is something which is bought by the customer. Typically, a product can be copied by a competitor whereas a brand is unique - its either there or not there. A product may be outdated very quickly whereas a successful brand may be timeless. A products may change from time-to-time depending on its life cycle stage; a brand typically remains consistent over a long period of time. A product is a more producer/seller centric approach; a brand is a customer centric approach.

Typically, marketers yearn to convert their products into brands which can then be leveraged to get higher returns for their products. A brand involves a loyalty factor, thus making it very enticing for marketers to convert their long running products into brands. As a side note, one also needs to keep in mind that a strong brand can be built only for a strong product which performs according to the expectations consistently.

A realm of my thinking

I got up today morning
thinking of her in my day
the presence of her in my eyes
the thinking of her moving along me

the walk which i was going to walk
the sounds of her giggles around
the ruffling of the leaves by her footsteps
the naughty twinkle in her eyes when she winks

the creation of my mind
something which is close to reality
but then struck a thought
if this could be true

A thought then filled me
well, this is a dream
and i woke up with a start
to look into the hue...

Taare Zameen par

I watched this movie day before yesterday. (Too late, I know - But its always better than never :P)

Anyway, my literary skills (ignorance) will not be able to do justice to the piece of art the movie is. Its almost perfect. Everything in it. From the acting to the characterizations to the relationships to the grounded reality to the heart tugging innocence.

It is bound to moist your eyes atleast once. :) Please watch it if you haven't.

I plan to watch it again :).

PS: After the movie, the guy sitting beside me said that the movie was a documentary. Although, I know everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion, but I don't know why i wanted to go and hit this guy . :|

Politics in India - Another view

"I want to be a politician". There was a few seconds long stunned silence when Manek said these words in response to the question about his future career goal. This was proceeded by a long round of uproarious laughter - so much so that the Principal had to move to the corridor to confirm if nothing untoward had happened.

This is a scene which could be replicated across almost all the schools and the society with a uniform degree of similarity. Why is it that this career is looked down upon as a viable option in India? Why is it that the respect reserved for the Engineers, Doctors, Artists, Sportsmen (women too :-P), Lawyers gets evaporated when it comes to Politicians? Why is it that the students are not encouraged to pursue politics as an active career? Why is it that the Politicians evoke fear and anger in our hearts and minds rather than comfort and trust? Why is it that entering politics is considered dirty and a job of people who are from some other planet? Why is it that politics is equated to corruption? Why is it that politics is associated with illiteracy? Why is it that every child who dreams about being a politician is scoffed at, laughed at, and looked down upon? Why is it that people like you and me, instead of taking up the responsibility of doing something, simply take shelter in hurling abuses to the politicians?

One of the reasons could be the current state of politics (and politicians) in our country. It could be because of the profile of the politicians currently practicing politics. Politicians in our country generally include a huge cross-section of criminals masquerading as social workers - in order to siphon off the resources of the country further. Not many of them are well educated. The apathy shown by them towards the populace of the country is a major factor in putting off people.

Contrast this with the politicians in US; they have had presidents; almost all of whom have represented the United States in Wars. They are respected widely (exceptions are always there ;)) and are looked up to. It is generally the well educated set of people who turn politicians.

Although, politics may be a ugly career, the youngsters of today should be encouraged to take it up as a serious career. The educated should be re-educated in order to take over the reins running the government so that India could be better for tomorrow. It is the educated who will make the difference to the thinking, to the policies adopted, to the people.

Amen

PS: I absolutely love my country. So, no need to think otherwise. In case this line still doesn't convince you, then you are free to comment.

The effect of Mobile's Mobilizing the world

How important is a cell-phone to our everyday existence? Ever wondered about it? Well, rather important if you may think a bit about it. A case in point would be the example of last week where i forgot to carry my cell-phone with me to office. By the time i reached home late in the evening, there were about 10 missed calls and 15-16 messages to be responded to. (I may be exaggerating a little, but :P). So this brings us to the pertinent topic at hand. Mobile evolution has revolutionized communications so much that even the most unexpected of people have cell-phones. Imagine my surprise when the other day the vegetable stall owner offered her cell phone number to my mom so that my mom could place orders through that. (Truly astonishing). So, availability of mobile phones with everyone now brings us to the matter of Mobile phone users which I have particularly observed over the past few days. They can be classified into the following categories:

The Sabzi Wali(wala): - The type I have already talked about. :P They are those people whose new found sense of connectivity keeps them on cloud no. 9. Although, they rarely make any calls from their phones themselves :).

The Student: - They are typically youngsters barely in their teens, continuously typing out SMS's. (Speaking doesn't give that pleasure mate :P. And yeah, Messaging is very cheap ;))

The High-Flying Executive: - Investment Bankers, (some) IT professionals, Suave Businessmen fall in this category (I apologize if i have missed out someone). They generally own very expensive PDAs which are used for business purposes too. They carry a very important looking attitude and continuous keep fiddling with their Styluses.

The middle-Class: - They, as their name signifies, have the Middle end cell phones, which they are fiercely protective about. Hell, i even saw a person actually keeping his phone packed inside a plastic cover. He had to remove the cover every time he attended a call :O.

And if u don't fall in any of these categories, then you do fall in my category. :P

One special thing i would like to mention is that, contrary to expectations, its not the Lower-Class or the Students who are poor at cell phone etiquettes. It is mostly the educated Indian class which is so poorly literate about Cell-phone manners that it sometimes makes me cringe. Some of the examples would include keeping the phone in loud ringer mode during important meetings, in cinema halls; speaking loudly in Public spaces causing inconvenience to others. I feel we need to learn manners before we are allowed to carry cell-phones. And a fine be imposed on people behaving irresponsibly with respect to cell-phone etiquettes.

Hope i made some sense :P.