After the term topline or revenue or sales, the second most mentioned marketing term seems to be the word “brand” or “branding”. In fact, it is very rare to come across a marketer that doesn’t utter the word brand or branding in a full business conversation or interview with the newspaper, radio or Television.
From its early origins of brand which literary means “to burn”, branding has been a long tradition that was used to differentiate (another common concept in marketing) items and was first used by the Indians and Italians. It is however the cattle branding that spurred the adoption of the word into the corporate corridors to serve exactly the same process – use of the words, symbols, colors, to differentiate one company’s products from another with the view of getting the attention of the potential buyer.
Just like many African countries, Malawi quickly picked the concept with the invasion of multinational companies such Coca-Cola and Carlsberg, Unilever (then) that invested a lot of resources and time to grow their brands. The rest is history as most these corporate entities succeeded to brainwash most of us to an extent that we would at one point call any soft drink Fanta or any toothpaste Colgate – The power of branding!
If executed properly, the brand has the power to corrupt ones thinking permanently to the extent that the brand dictates ones behavior. There are many people that would attest to this observation including The Eleven lines who was thoroughly brain washed by the late Steve Jobs products (may his soul rest in peace). Apple changed ‘The Eleven lines’ way of thinking so much that he can not comprehend imagining using a windows driven product let alone an android powered product.
“What sparks this helplessness of consumers to fall head on heals on a brand that does not come cheap in most of the cases?” We would all wonder.
Just like any love affair or relationship, it is the promise that each brand makes to the target market. Once the promise meets the delivery and some cases surpasses the promise upon delivery, then the target gets locked up in this beautiful world that the brand initially promised and delivered (happily ever after) which they cannot live without. Using the illustration of a love affair, as the target audience experiences some shortfalls in the brand, any clever brand continues to evolve to ensure it does not disappoint.
Coca cola and Colgate are usually The Eleven lines’ Favourite examples that fit in this illustration perfectly. Each time the love affair of these two brands (with there respective markets) is threatened by some competitor, some if not several theme-based responses always pop up. The response could be in form of a new product line extension or a theme base campaign to defend or frontal attack to suffocate the contender.
Coming closer to home Malawi as a country seems to have too many promises that the brand called Malawi can offer. We speak highly of our coffee grown in the northern highlands of Malawi, the tea in the southern region, the mighty Chambo along the precious fresh lake Malawi, the warm hearted 17 million people – the list is pretty long.
“But why are they not pronounced as they should have been?”. May be we have gotten so used to them such that they do not mean anything more than the usual products that Malawi has. May be we do not have business minded people in the powers that are to look at these valuables different. We get busy with international brands that are simply supporting development in the countries they are produced and not us.
For example, a custom-made suit can sell in excess of USD1000.00 (MK741,080). The Eleven lines is aware of many executives, business captains and government officials that are paying this much to get one custom made suit or shirts (that usually has owners’ names embroidered on the pocket and hand) done in China.
To begin with the suit in most cases may not necessary look that expensive but the promise is of durability and setting one aside from the rest of the population (differentiation) by these custom made brands is what drives most of us to fall for this trick. We have become a nation obsessed with brands that we can not sustainably afford.
A friend of The eleven lines who is in this business supplying specific cuts to top end of the market once disclosed the margins he makes supplying these custom made shirts – Very irreligiously big margins!…
To be continued”
“We would like to hear from you on your experiences with these global brands.” Eleven lines 2019.
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