What is a super-brand?

My Mom is a Super-brand

By Harish Bijoor

What is a Super-brand?

The word is being bandied around in our commercial lives by every Tom, Dick and Harish. Everyone out there in the great marketplace for brands seems to have his or her own version of a definition to offer. Time to sit up and take stock.

A super-brand is a brand that has made it big. A brand that has been around for a long number of years and has survived the upheavals of a tumultuous marketplace. A brand that has very-very large volumes that makes it to the top-of-the-pops chart in every consumer home. A brand that is very profitable. One that rakes in the 'moolah' without much of advertising and marketing spends even. A brand that has arrived. A brand that is a consumer favourite. A brand that causes for goose flesh in you when you hear the name uttered. A brand that is a rage. A brand that causes for cult following. A brand that is a product no more.

All of this and much more for sure. At the same time, none of these on their own as a point of precise definition!

The super-brand is a complicated entity really. More complicated than the concept of a simple brand. The super-brand in reality is a passion. A brand that has scaled the highest peak in the passion-scale of brands and their respective consumers.

Let us also establish what a super-brand is not. Let us categorically say that a super-brand is not what is proclaimed in a broad-spectrum list of 100 brand names in a country across categories. It is not what an organization rates. It is most certainly not what is awarded the Super-brand logo by a poll of executive opinion!

A super-brand is then a very different entity. An entity that deserves some attention. Some respect.

Let me start at the level of the commodity. A commodity is that much less of a brand than a quasi-brand is. The quasi-brand is a more recognizable form of the commodity but a wee peg lower in the hierarchy of the brand. And the brand is a thought. A thought that resides in a consumer mind.

The super-brand is right at the top of the pecking order of brands. The super-brand status is indeed that status which a brand enjoys as its sets of consumers self-actualize in the joy of the brand. To understand this statement, one needs to visualize Mr.Abrahame Maslowe’s hierarchy of needs.

Right at the bottom of the pyramid is the broadest segment of them all. This is the segment that lies in the food, clothing and shelter domain of utility. Largely utilitarian in nature. This is indeed the mass of space where the commodity sits.

Just above this segment, a little higher in the pyramid sits the quasi-brand. This is a smaller segment. Consumers sit at higher-end needs in this category. The consumer has had his basic needs met. It is time to now look for the finer things in day-to-day life. Time to look for that bit of differentiation that sets apart the commodity from the quasi-brand.

And just above this segment of brand-wannabes, is the brand itself. This is an arena of distinct thought. This is higher up in the hierarchy. The brand is a distinction. A distinction that sets apart standards of craving and want. The brand is a craving. A desire even.

Climb higher then. Right at the peak sits the super-brand. If the brand is a craving and a desire, the super-brand is a madness! It is a passion of passions!

The super-brand is that status which a brand acquires when the product offering is irrelevant even! The Harley Davidson is not a motorcycle at all! It is a cult-statement! Nescafe is not a coffee at all! It is a lifestyle!

Imagine and assess the passion that a super-brand can command in its set of most loyal consumers, and you have the answer whether what you behold is a super-brand in reality or a fake bestowed with a label for commercial purpose.

What would you do to get the last available Harley Davidson in the world? Would you lie for it? Would you rob for it? Would you kill others for it? Would you take a 'supari' on Osama Bin Laden or our own Veerappan for it?

Quantify and evaluate the passion that a brand evokes in its sets of consumers, and you might have the tinge of an answer that tells you what a super brand really is. It is indeed quite possible to build what I would call a Brand Passion Scale, which tells you where the brand in question sits on its evolution scale, from commodity to super-brand status.

The super-brand has normally a cult following that will not sway too easily from the format of the brand on offer. Many a time, the entire brand offering is controlled by sets of these cults. The Harley Davidson is a movement. A movement that is spurred on by specific free-form Harley Owner groups (HOGS). They will meet. They will debate. They will spread the Harley movement around, much as a cult would spread its tentacles all across potential sets of consumers.

The question again then. What is a super-brand?

In many ways, the answer is a difficult one. A super-brand in many ways is a very specific offering that has distanced itself from its product utility to emerge as a passion and a craving. A brand that has for it a cult following that will even kill for the brand if the need arises. The brand in question is in many ways a part of the life of the consumer. Any hurt or slur on the brand is quite taken as a hurt on the consumer in question herself!

As I close this piece on the quintessential question, there is a point to note. A point I make with passion. Just as a brand is a thought that is owned in the consumer mind, so is the super-brand a property in the mind of a consumer. Every consumer is likely to have a different super-brand of his or her own. In the case of comely Sumati Raman of Mylapore. Rajanikanth is a super-brand. Her neighbor believes Mr. Honest Raj is a super-brand. And her neighbor believes Cuticura talcum powder is! And her neighbor will kill for a copy of The Hindu! One day without her favorite super brand is enough to set off withdrawal symptoms!

In short, to each their own. Each of us has our very own super-brand. There are just too many of these around. At the other end of the specific domain of the super-brand that is recognized by one and all, there are too few. There might just be eight super-brands in the world that are real and are able to stick to the tight definition of the super-brand I believe we must weave!

Therefore, let’s respect the super-brand for what it is. It is an exclusive club. Not too many members in this league. Let us not clutter it with the confusion of our lack of understanding. There are only 8 super-brands in the world at one end of the spectrum. And at the other, your mom and mine are all super-brands for each of us!

The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

Brand Endorsers on the move

Brand Endorser Promiscuity!

By Harish Bijoor

I am confused. All of a sudden there is a Big B Blur on my idiot-screen plasma panel. Mr.Big B is out there plugging Parker pens. An intermission then, when there is yet another advertisement shouting its unique selling proposition from the rooftops! And in comes Mr.Bachchan again! This time round it is hands dipped in paint, passing the Nerolac Paints message all across! A couple of seconds later, it is Mr.Amitabh Bachchan in a natty suit. Reid & Taylor it is!

An intermission again. This time, a longer one. There is some intrusive content amidst all this advertising. A daily soap with its daily dose of “rona and dhona”(“crying and washing”, to those uninitiated to the Hindi language)! In comes Big B again. This time a benign presence for Sahara City homes! And then it is Dabur Chywanaprash! Give a wee bit of a gap, and Amitabh is back again! Once again! This time extolling the latest virtue of the latest in packaging from the house of Cadbury’s!

Amitabh Bachchan is all about on TV! Amitabh the brand-endorser plugs in as many as thirteen different appeals. Every one of these brands seem to depend on the mass pull and mega appeal this star of yester-years has commanded! The quintessential Brand Ambassador is here! Amitabh the mega star of yesterday is today’s brand hero. A brand-endorser you can depend on to create the pull. Somebody who is the sure-shot formula for brand awareness scores to go through the roof. We are not too sure of the buy-scores, but then, who cares? Awareness is it!

Add the total duration of appearances that Amitabh makes on the 'telly' every day. Add the number of exposure minutes up right through the week, and it might just as well rival the best of what a Sridevi gets with her all new tele-serial Malini Iyer!

The brand ambassador is not a new phenomenon for sure. Brands of every category have used it in their quest for mind and market-space. Brands have used the tool of the brand icon and brand ambassador in their quest for success over the years.

What started with a Leela Chitnis for Lux went on to categories that took on brand ambassadors real and animated. A Gattu for Asian Paints became as good a brand ambassador and an icon as any person alive or dead!

The brand ambassador in many ways is meant to do different things for brands at different times in their brand life cycles. While Lux uses endorsers who are reigning actresses of the day, every endorser gives the brand back its key proposition of the beauty soap of the film stars (“filmi sitaron ke soundarya sabun”) position a plug and a boost! There is indeed a queue among film starlets of every kind to be featured in a Lux ad. It is a kind of a sign that they have arrived in Bollywood!

Sachin Tendulkar for every Tom, Dick and Harish category of branded item, our ex-health minister Mr.Shatrugan Sinha for Bagpiper whatever (playing cards, soda or Mineral water?) and every start-up cricketer, macho film-star, a rare ex-election commissioner, a rarer still animal rights activist, and even Mr. N R Narayana Murthy, is a brand ambassador par excellence!

Brand endorsement is a way to go! A way to get your brand noticed amidst all the clutter that brands create in the marketplace. Amidst all the noise and hype that brands indulge in so very freely. Brand endorsement is possibly the best way to get the awareness rating of your brand up there in the stratosphere of a clutter-free terrain, otherwise unattainable with the me-too strategies of the marketer at large.

The key question then? Are brands built by brand ambassadors?

The answer is a yes and no. It is a big yes if the brand ambassador you choose and nurture is one that is solus for your category of ‘dhoop stick’ or ‘doodh’ alike. And a big and vehement “No” if the ambassador you choose is a promiscuous one, focusing not only your brand but also three others! Brand ambassadors must not moonshine! Brand ambassadors who focus on one brand can achieve great results. Focused results that will form part of the brand building strategy of the marketer in question.

Brands that use the promiscuous brand endorser who will endorse a car just now, carburetor oil in the next and a panty hose in yet another piece of advertising blitz, do not contribute much in the brand-building process. At best, these endorsements yank up the brand awareness for the duration of the use of endorser-at-large! Few brand-folks realize this!

The brand ambassador therefore works in categories where the focus is solus. Look at the use of Ustaad Zakir Hussain by Taj Mahal tea. Zakir is today an in-built proposition of Taj Mahal tea! Wah Taj! Wah! Brand endorsement works here in the case of Taj Mahal tea as a brick that is helping build a mega brand in the mind of the consumer.

Peek keenly then at a Pepsi, a Parker, a Palio! Brand endorsement in these categories at best helps spur the awareness ratings of the brand.

The use of brand icons such as a Gattu, Goody the tiger and Choco the bear, on the contrary, is use of good strategy to use the icon as part of the brand on tout!

Contemporary use of brand endorsers forgets to use the endorser as part of the core brand building strategy at hand. Endorser-promiscuity is a disease today! Time to sit up and take notice!

What’s the trend then? What’s out there in the future?

Wait with bated breath for the re-invention of the brand icon. Wait for the re-invention of the brand mascot that will be owned 100 per cent by the brand-marketer at large! Wait for the 3D Brand mascot who will look real. Who will have life breathed into it! So much so that you the consumer will call it a “him” or a “her”! You will fall in love with “her”! You will worship “her”! You will recognize your favorite brand by the personality your 3D Brand Mascot will display and embellish all the way!

There will indeed come a time when this 3D Band Mascot of yours will give every Tom Cruise, Dick Whittington and Harry Belafonte a run for their money! The virtual will rule over the real!

The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

E mail: harishbijoor@hotmail.com