In continuation of the earlier post, I continue to be fascinated by how brands are a collage of imagery, symbols, sounds, associations and how these all fit into the context of an user — for eg., what’s the background and the cultural context that the user grew up with and hence what are immediate associations that come to life once the user/consumer recognizes the brand, purchases it and then uses it.
This is where some brands get it right and some don’t. As an example, I remember having been impressed with how quickly maska chaska/50–50 could grab market share from krackjack (which had a 10 year head start and a much bigger size/distribution). Of course, one could also argue that things like advertising, product quality also make a difference but is’nt it easier for a desi to say “ maska chaska” than it is to say “ krackjack”.
I remember having read long back that the trouble with some of these European brands is that people don’t quite know how to to pronounce them — people still say “ Renault” and not “ renooo” or say “ peu-geooot” and not “ peu-geooo”. It simply aint’ in our DNA and unless you have a memorable sub-brand — for eg., duster is easier to remember than say “ c3 cross”, it is always going to be a lot more of an uphill climb to get customers to even recognize your brand, leave alone remembering it.
And I don’t surprised that Maruti became Suzuki — a full 30 years after well.. they launched as Maruti — in the 80s india with a strong cultural dis-inclinations against foreign brands (remember the campa cola was touted as being better than coke), I am not sure if a Suzuki name in 1984 would’ve been as successful. Infact, for a long time, Maruti kept its Suzuki association quiet with a large “M” until after the 2005’s — a full 20 + years after they were launched.
This has implications on how you :
- Choosing a brand name — its relationship to the cultural milieu, alignment with the broad cultural tropes of the TG and the unconscious and the subliminal Given the changing context in india, unless you are an uber luxury brand, an European/anglicized brand name might not longer have the same appeal it did a few years back. Think about it — now an Indian single malt amrut sells at a higher price than European variants.
- Choosing the trope — a recent advertisement of creta had me thinking about how much the tropes around SRK have changed in the last 25 years — The santro was launched on humour and quirkiness whereas the creta tropes are class, power and styling — sort of inline with how SRK has evolved as an actor and how Hyundai has itself evolved
- Building associations — Are these associations in line with what the customer has been primed for, can relate to and has memory maps of. For eg., washing clothes is a morning ritual and comes with its tropes — so anything that has associations with evenings will add to the jarring nature of the experience.
- Map emotions/feelings to the associations : All successful brands map the highs you get from fulfilment from the brand — for eg., a mother’s happiness on seeing a happy, satiated kid was maggi’s end state; the “ daag ache hain” feeling that a parent gets when their kid strives/is physically active was the trope that made surf excel; and for a long time, Maruti had the boasting rights on “ kitna deti hai”
I wonder if there are tropes build on psychology, anthropology and micro — cultures for each part of India that brands could rely on as a check list before they can verify, validate and choose from. I suspect a lot of FMCG giants like HUL, P & G might have this — if only you could map these tropes to neuro-scieence and assess the strength of the emotion and reaction both immediately and much after !
