5 very important elements to become a “BRAND”

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5 very important elements to become a “BRAND”

"Brand" is not just a word or a jargon made for corporates or to be used by consultants. Brand is the very basic reason for which a business is initiated. Any entrepreneur who starts a business wants to be known and famous along with earning lots of money. He wishes that people talk about his product or service and there is a huge pull for his product in the market. So what do you call this wish? It is the wish to become a brand from a commodity. It is the wish to be known among the clutter of similar options. So the next question shall be: How can my business, product or service can become the "Brand"? Let's have a look at few important elements which are prerequisite for any business, product, or service to become a brand.

1. Clear Vision

When you start, you shall have a clear vision for tomorrow. You should know what you want to become. Mostly every beginning is small but there is always a huge potential for growth if you have a good offering with unique features and clear vision for growth. You can go small small steps but your path has to be well defined. And for that today you have to act like a brand of tomorrow. Your quality policy, ethics, work standards, investment in branding etc. should be well defined. You need to create a culture within the organization and develop smooth relations with vendors as well as consumers from day one. You cannot think only for "Profit of Today" but you have to think for the strong brand of tomorrow also. If you have this vision from day one, your journey will be easy and there will be fewer complications in future.

2. Equal Focus on 4 P's & 1 C

Product, price, placement and promotion. These 4 P's are like 4 legs of a chair. Can you sit on a chair which has 3 legs? Or which has one leg is shorter than others? The answer is clear NO. The same way any brand or business cannot survive if any one element is missing or falling short. We met many clients who have invested in best of plant and machinery but when it comes to advertising, their mindset is negative. They think that investing in production is more than enough why to bother about branding? They make a major mistake here and many a times stay behind of competition or loose on some great opportunities. Same way if I have invested a great amount in launch of my FMCG brand but my distribution network (Placement) is not strong, I will again fail. Along with these 4P's you cannot ignore the Consumer. If your product or service is not appealing to the consumer or not making any difference in his life, it may not be accepted by the consumer. So when you are designing your product or strategy, keep the consumer in focus from day one.

3. A mango needs time to Ripe

First of all a mango tree needs years of care to grow. And a mango also needs time to ripe if you want to enjoy the sweet mango juice. Same is for any business or brand. Nothing happens in a click. Even in the edge of fast technology, every product or service needs time, efforts, investment and continuous care to become a brand. Coke has a story of more than 100 years. TATA is now synonymous with TRUST, but it has a strong foundation which was laid down 100 years back. They have seen good and bad days but survived as they had a vision and focus. Today many clients come up with new products and want us to use a magic wand to make it a success story in one year. Yes, you can walk ahead with one step of success but you cannot jump the ladder and reach the next floor in short time. But you have to have a mindset to reach there and act like that. We always advice our clients, go slow, if necessary, but go step by step.

4. It cannot be a one man show

When you start small you handle multiple jobs along or you have control on each and every action in your organization. That is required also. But once you start growing, you have to look at a larger picture and work more on macro things rather than micro. As a leader if you are focusing on every small task in your organization you may miss on the bigger things like future plans, product innovations, market trends, developing relations with bigger clients and so on. We have observed that many companies grow up to certain level but then the next jump becomes difficult for them as the owner or top management is not ready to hire smart people and if they  hire they are not ready to give them  authority. If you wish to become a well known business group or brand, you need to  hire smart people and give them responsibilities and  authority. They will focus in their area of expertise and you can focus on larger decisions and developments.

5. Continuous innovation and development

Time has changed. 50 years back products were enjoying market leadership for many years as there were fewer competitors, low media exposure and consumer was not ready to try new things fast. Now-a-days the market has become global with more opportunities and more competition than ever. Due to technology things are changing very fast. By the time the product has settled in the market there is a need to upgrade or you get replaced by something else. Consumer has more options and he is ready to experiment new things. In this situation you have to be ready to upgrade. You have to keep one eye on market and one eye on product innovation and development. Take example of APPLE or SAMSUNG. They keep innovating their current products and launching better versions as well as bringing new products very frequently.

 If you follow these 5 critical rules and design your strategy, chances of long term success are more. Yes, I am talking about success in long terms as brand can never be made overnight. If you have liked the article or if you have your views on it please share them on info.purplephase@gmail.com and also visit our website https://www.purplephase.in/to know more about us.