There is a lot more to branding than identity, advertising and public relations. Brands also need to get in touch with their human face.
“I want to build my brand.”
I have lost count of the number of times I have heard this statement in the 11 years since we started brand-comm, a consulting company dedicated to building brands. And yet, as is to be expected, people have different expectations from branding and the entire process of branding. The next steps to these statements usually follow one of the following courses of action. ‘I think our identity is dated and today’s consumers are young, so let’s change it, and shouldn’t we be thinking global?’ This is good news for international brand consultants and design experts as they instantly see (million) $$$ signs. The identity change is announced with great fanfare and it usually goes down like the Indian team went down in Zimbabwe – with scarcely a whimper – as nothing except the identity has changed and the brand is still the same boring brand.
Another alternative is to try to build corporate image through a high-profile TV commercial, probably shot in New Zealand, but without the benefit of a core idea that defines the essence of the brand. “The execution will be clutter-breaking” says the agency Creative Director. The brand promise is not delivered, after all “Yuvarajs” exist in corporate life too!
Another way forward is to hire a public relations firm which goes hammer and tongs at the media – organises one-on-ones, speaker and photo opportunities – all of which generate intense interest about the MD in cocktail parties and amidst head-hunting firms but nothing much happens to the brand. And today there is another option as well.
Sponsor some high-profile IPL team and even if the team does not win a single match, the players dutifully land up at post-IPL parties wearing your brand on their sleeves (if not their hearts) on them.
I know that I am perhaps sounding cynical, a not unexpected reaction from someone my age, but that is hardly the impression I wish to convey or the point I wish to make. There is a whole lot more to branding than identity, colours, TV advertising, sponsorship, events and public relations. While I am not denying the importance or value of these, I think there is something more basic, more obvious and yet, perhaps, more difficult to manage, which is why companies seem to spend so little time on this and that is what I would call the “human side of branding”. Here are a few examples of how companies, however big, get this important aspect of their functioning woefully wrong.