The industry is gradually shifting toward intelligent solutions. It is an exciting time for brands. Triumph of brand concept has been obvious in recent years. It is very much to the point to underline the fact that now it has become something of an absolute must for everyone to think of themselves as a brand. Companies are making their honest best to enhance their brand awareness and entice the younger customers to supplement its loyal but aging user base. Here comes the role of Brand Managers on whom the onus is to make their brands more attractive and sale-able.
Now the brand managers don't have the luxury of sitting in ivory towers and commanding ad agencies to conquer the market. With the advent of social media, which in turn has democratized the market place to a greater extent, the scene has gone sea change. There was considerable growth found in the corporates who focuses on exploring various Brand awareness exercise year on Year, results is consistent improvement in engagement with partners and customers to meet the expectations. Their main forte is the clear understanding of successful branding. Portrayal of appropriate behavior is expected of them. The best interests of the company and brand should top the list of their priorities.
Competition in today's business environment is becoming increasingly intense. While a company may be a market leader today, the status quo might change overnight. The key determinant for prolonged growth is sustainability- the ability to maintain a competitive advantage. Time is also of the essence. While others are merely finding their orientation to stay abreast with the latest innovations, the winning company is already moving up to the next level. Organizations can seek consolation in the fact that most competitors are also struggling to survive in this turbulent business environment. This section talks on how the corporate world is managing that effective corporate branding and that is the key to their success. Here is a look at some of the famous Brand Managers in the country who have successfully maintained credibility, relevance and differentiation of their brands.
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Dr. Alok Bharadwaj
Senior Vice President, Canon India
A brand is not merely a product or logo or technology or even product's identity. There is a saying that 3M's are necessary for a successful brand building - Money, Message & Media. I call it a 3C clarity viz: Create, Convey and Continue. When you do this, you build a Big 'C' brand. It means Charismatic. Long live brand managers of India.
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Jayanthi Sethuraman
Head - Marketing & Alliance,
Fujitsu India Private Limited
In my view, true branding is inside-out. It reflects the personality of the company or a product consistently and over an extended period of time. However, for a brand to make a true impact, it is also internalized by the various stakeholders of the brand and experienced and expressed similarly.
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Ankesh Kumar
Emerson Network Power's Director of Channel Products & Marketing in India
Branding means something far simpler. In my opinion, it is an accurate representation of the experience that the brand or product guarantees to its customers. The various tools of branding help package and position this guarantee in the consumers’ mind, but a brand custodian’s role is broader in scope.
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Khwaja Saifuddin
WD's Sr. Director (Sales) for South Asia, Middle East & Africa
A brand is a promise. Buyers who are savvy or even cautious make purchases based on familiarity with a brand or based on recommendations they have received from family, friends or from authorities on the particular product. Branding is a depiction of the brand’s consistent delivery on its promise.
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L K Pathak
Global Head, Corporate Communications, Elitecore Technologies
Brand remains just a name if it is not associated with a set of values which makes you a cut above the rest. For me, if you are consistent and successfully keeping your brand promises you will be able to establish well in the market with good brand value.
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Ashim
Mathur
Marketing Head, Dolby Laboratories
One needs to understand that branding is not about getting your target audience to choose you over the competition, but it is about getting them to see your brand as the only one that provides a solution to their problem. A strong brand is invaluable as the battle for customers intensifies day by day. It's important for a brand to spend time investing in researching, defining, and building your brand.
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Rajesh Agrawal
MD, Micromax Informatics Ltd.
Today, branding has moved from a commodity-driven model to a value-driven model. Branding is not about getting people to choose your offering over the competitions. It is the act of managing consumers’ expectations so as to condition your target audience to see your offering as the only answer to a specific need.
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Sukanta Pal
Head – Marketing, Sify Technologies Limited.
Branding is beyond positioning a product in consumers mind. Any brand is a set of perceptions and images that represent a company, product or service. A brand is the promise of what will be delivered or experienced (often derived from the company vision on how it is going to impact the life of its customers)
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Ranjivjit Singh
CMO,PPS, HP India
A Brand is a significance of a product to the consumer. And this significance is linked to unfulfilled or sometime unfelt needs and desires of a consumer. A brand is a promise and every element of branding right from the product, packaging, display, pre-purchase interaction online or at retail, post purchase experience with service, all needs to deliver that promise. Hence, branding is an effort by the company to consistently & simply communicate and deliver the brand promise.
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Rothin Bhattacharya
EVP - Marketing & CEO - HCL Security
Branding is one of the most important aspects of any business, large or small, retail or B2B. An effective brand strategy gives the company a major edge in an increasingly competitive market, where the brand is considered a company’s promise to the customer. It helps in providing information about the company's products and services, and thus, differentiates one’s offering from its competitors.
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Shailendra Katyal
Director, Marketing, Lenovo India
Branding originated as a means of distinguishing product of one manufacturer from another. Since then, driven by advertising and communication, branding has taken on a much bigger role of providing emotional and expressive identities to the consumers of those products. It has gone far beyond a mere indicator of quality or trust on the product.
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Souvik Chowdhury
Marketing Manager, Kaspersky Lab
Branding is not about getting your target market to choose you over the competition, but it is about getting your prospects to see you as the only one that provides a solution to their problem. In today’s competitive world, branding plays vital role in differentiating one company or its products over others.
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Subrotah Biswas
Country Manager, Logitech India and South West Asia
A strong brand is about making connection with consumers, understanding their needs and offering great experience, and hence establishing a trusting relationship. For Logitech, we're about connecting people to the digital experiences they care about. In the 30 years since Logitech’s founding in Switzerland, we have become the world leader in a full portfolio of peripherals for the PC that enhance peoples’ experiences with their digital pursuits.
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Suchita Vishnoi
Head - Marketing (India & SAARC), Trend Micro
Branding is the journey an organization has in the market place with its customers, it is timeless and gets built over the years. In a dynamic & ever changing environment of today, it is much more than just positioning of “a product” or “a company” in the mind of its consumers.
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Sukhesh Madaan
Founder & CEO, Envent
Branding is basically the identity of a product or a company. But it is a much larger concept than just positioning of a product or a company. it’s very important to invest continuously in brand building activities. Consumers’ knowledge about any brand depends on how the manufacturer markets its brand.
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Vinny Sharma
Marketing Manager- Brocade Communications (I) Pvt. Ltd.
Branding is all about building intangible, but very real company assets. It is a way to build a relationship with its most critical public - its consumer. Brand is much more than mere positioning of the product - it involves enhancing the customer experience - from pre to post sale and beyond.
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Chetna Katyal Sundaram
Sr. Manager, Marketing, Intex Technologies (India) Ltd.
Branding is much more than positioning a product or the company in consumer’s mind. It is the source of a promise to the customers, client & prospects. They should see you as the only company that provides solutions to their problem. It is very important for a brand to connect with the consumers emotionally as well and be in their hearts.
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Cynthia Wong
Director of Marketing - APAC, HID Global.
Over the years, the HID Global brand has become synonymous with quality, leadership and integrity as the trusted leader in providing the delivery of secure identity solutions to customers worldwide. The HID Global brand - how we are perceived by our customers, investors, and the public-is one of our most valuable assets.
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Rohit Chugh
Founder and CEO, Logicserve Group
Branding is how consumers perceive your brand. Branding creates a perception in the consumers mind that your Brand is unique and different from others. These perceptions could be based on rational aspects of the product (Vim cleans grease effectively, Head & Shoulders shampoo removes dandruff ) or emotional ( Pepsi Cola is cool).
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Rohit Pandit
Executive Vice President, Fujifilm India
Branding is not just about reaching your target market; it is delivering your message clearly, increasing your credibility, emotional connect of the brand with consumers and last but not the least user loyalty. Industry is spending time and investing in researching, defining, and building your brand to gain competitive edge.
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Sanjay Sharma
Head - Carrier Software & Core Network Business, Huawei Telecommunications (I) Co.Pvt.Ltd.
Branding is the Image of a product or a company or service that a consumer is connected with. It’s the recall value of consumer and once marketed more and more people identify it with certain Logo, slogan or design. It’s the capability of the company to attach customer.
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Sharad Gupta
Head, Marketing Communications, Xerox India
Branding is positioning the corporate identity or the equity across segments whether it is customer domain, channel domain or messaging platform to the related audience and market eco-system. Branding conveys much more than a product...it speaks about a company’s strength, connect with the consumer and promise that the brand express.
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Sony Bhandwalkar
General Manager- Strategic Marketing, APC by Schneider Electric.
Once a “brand” is born, it is supposed to give individuality to the company and all products of that genre become synonymous to the ‘Brand’. In my opinion, the intention of branding is not for your intended target audience to choose you over your competition, but getting them to see you as the only solution to their problem.
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Sudha Jagadish
Chief Executive Officer, Dax Networks
The two aspects of branding are brand image and brand perception. Brand image is created by the company on how they want their customers to see the product. Brand perception on the other hand, is how the customers actually see the product. For a brand image to create successful brand perception, it must impact values pertaining to individual's principles or ideas.
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Vishal Parekh
Marketing Director, Kingston Technology
Branding has evolved in the past 2 decades where it is not just about positioning the product or a brand. A brand used by a person, defines his lifestyle, personality, status. Kingston took the lead in changing itself from being just another technology brand and move towards a lifestyle, fashion, and youthful brand keeping the core values of our product line – quality, reliability and commitment to excellence.
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Vishal Dhupar
Managing Director , Asia - South, NVIDIA
Branding is no longer about positioning a product in the market or in the consumer’s mind vis-à-vis competition. While these are definitely key aspects, today a product’s branding is intrinsically linked to the idea of customer value creation. It is governed by how well an enterprise anticipates and meets customer needs and how effectively it keeps its offerings relevant to the end customer.
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Vivek Prakash
Marketing Specialist-India & SAARC, SafeNet
Brand and branding are two different things but at the same time both are locked with each other. Brand is name/ logo/ tunes/ colors whereas branding consists of different activities to build that Brand. Brand not only speaks about how any product or company makes space in consumer’s minds but it says how individual think of that brand (product or company).
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Amit Chopra
Head – Marketing, Juniper Networks India.
Branding is about creating a strong differentiator for your company with which customers can easily relate to. Although there are different definitions of brand positioning, probably the most common is: identifying a market that is niche for a brand, product or service by utilizing traditional marketing placement strategies like price, promotion, distribution, packaging, and competition. The tactics can vary widely, but the goal is single. Continue to re-invent and innovate yourself so that you are always ahead of the curve. The need for innovation arises from the fact that the world is changing so rapidly. Solutions and technologies tend to become obsolete and organizations have to keep pace with the changing needs of customers. This is what we strive to do at Juniper Networks.
