Like an Ambassador, the ultimate brand is one that goes beyond the product to become a part of our lives. For better or worse, through good times and bad
Nilakshi Sharma

All the world’s a market and to brand or not to brand is no longer the question, it is given. Brands, the instantly identifiable logos of business companies or products are so ubiquitous that they have begun entering the lexicon of popular culture, and becoming an intrinsic part of our shared culture, even the folkloric evocation of an era.

From the strident, no nonsense Lalita ji who asserted the supremacy of Surf and the inverted red triangle of Nirodh contraceptives; the husky timbre of Kapil Dev’s voice as he assured the nation, “Plamolive da jawab nahin,” to the beauty bathing under a water fall and endorsing Liril, branding allows for the creation of a distinctive, instantly identifiable identity for the product and often even the company. While all company’s have brands, there are some cases where the brand transcends the company and product. The brand, with its symbol and/ or ethos goes beyond the brand experience or recognition to become a psychological brand image that both, non consumers and consumers of the product associate with the brand.

A decade later, the memories of my first introduction to Delhi are still vivid. The slow mist uncurling from the lush lawns of South Bloc as a newspaper delivery man trundles on his bicycle. A group of students clustered around a tree, sharing a newspaper. The capital stirring to life early in the morning and reaching for The Times of India. This advertisement became the leitmotif of my first experience of the city as I began my undergraduate studies. I am not a Times loyalist and yet that advertisement remains a point of reference for me. And that is the hallmark of a truly successful brand building exercise. The Times of India may not have become my newspaper but it did become the definition of a time for me.

At its best a brand has an impact that is more emphatic than immediate sales. It creates an identity for a product that stays on in the consumers mind, which is half the battle won in a market bursting with products. Eventually, at its most successful, a brand allows a consumer to identify with the brand on a personal basis, when sales strategy is overtaken by the emotional experience of the brand and that’s when companies rewrite market rules and histories. While good brand building exercises such as advertisements and campaigns play their part in building a brand, the real value and quality of a brand lies in something else. Simultaneously concrete and discrete, it is a mixture of the product and the experience the brand offers, the sum of which is always greater than the parts. A few years ago a well known Indian corporation launched a branding campaign which positioned it as the Indian MNC. A superb series of advertisements with an icon for a brand ambassador followed and yet the exercise was ultimately a failure because the products could not match up to the copy.

Possibly the most successful example of brand power and brand culture is Nike. For a company that at the end of the day began with running shoes it is a little staggering to realise that just the non verbal Nike swoosh today encapsulates an entire philosophy of living. Probably the most famous of brand tag lines, Nike’s “Just do it” has redefined not just the economics of a business corporation but impacted popular culture itself. As a brand Nike’s campaigns today have reached the level of meta narratives, where it is no longer necessary to place the product within the campaign itself.

Part of Nike’s iconic success story is the paradoxical positioning of the Nike brand as being the elitist, performance oriented brand of the cool, the cult, the underground, serious player of sport, while the company is a vast, mass manufacturing corporation. The reality of Nike as a business concern that is spread across various sports across continents is consistently at odds with the intense, inwardly focused individual who is competing to “Just do it.” In 1996 Nike ran an advertisement for the Atlanta Olympics with the tag, “You don’t win the silver - you lose the gold,” which was loved and hated in equal measure. Is Nike insulting women when it runs the “if you let me play” series? Or is it empowering them? Nike has more often than not generated controversy with its campaigns and that is in part what neutralises the gap between the MNC reality and the gritty, individual aspiration of the Nike brand. Brands, it seems, become bigger than the products when they enter the lexicon of cultural discourse.

After fifty “Utterly, Butterly, Delicious” years the Amul moppet in her polka dot dress is poised to become the world’s longest running advertising campaign. Dollops of butter have helped smooth the occasional hiccough generated by the advertisements. The moppet was born to create brand recognition for an indigenous co-operative product that was basically boring butter. The chubby moppet was supposed to appeal to the maternal housewife on her shopping trip. Instead, as the impish moppet began commenting on the topics and events of the day, she charmed her way into the psyche of a nation. Fifty years later, having been the social commentator par excellence, the Amul girl is a national institution whose social and political observations are sometimes naughty and sometimes wise, sometimes nostalgic and sometimes comforting and who has branded Amul as the true “Taste of India.”

A good brand, ultimately, is rather like the other iconic Indian brand, the Ambassador car. Famously described as a car that can be kept going with a prayer and a hair pin, the Ambie, as it was fondly known, was the ultimate symbol of a nation’s aspiration. Written off post liberalisation, the Ambie is today considered a retro classic, much sought after by the many who imbibe the car with the value and ethos of a bygone era. Like an Ambie, the ultimate brand is one that goes beyond the product to become a part of our lives. For better or worse, through good times and bad.

FAMOUS TAGLINES

Just do it >>Nike
Forever sport >> Adidas
The uncola >> 7-Up
Don’t leave home without it >> American Express
Let's make things better >> Philips
Yeh dil maange more >> Pepsi
The complete man >> Raymond
Jashan Mana Le >> Coca Cola
The name inspires Trust >> Birla Mutual Fund
Made for each other >> Wills Navy Cut