Avoid Over-Branding, or be Ready to Bid Farewell to Your Customer
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Avoid Over-Branding, or be Ready to Bid Farewell to Your Customer
Fremont: Too many cooks spoil the broth. The same applies to the brands developed by companies. They tend to focus more on making their brands look appealing that they lose focus from the main aspect--the quality; which turns the customers away. With the cut throat competition among companies, products have become almost at par with each other in terms of quality, if not better, thus making branding a fad. Branding is said to have developed long ago, when people used to mark their cattle to identify them easily in a crowd. What started out as an ID card was developed upon by companies as a differentiator for their products. This helped people to recognize the products and recommend those which were good to their family and friends. The word of mouth publicity turned out to be a powerful marketing tool, which till date helps companies sell more than what they can sell using the other marketing techniques. The extended effort by companies to lure customers to their products, repels the customers, sending millions spent on advertisement, go down the drain. A simple test of this would be to look around the things that you use at the moment and think which of the items--mobiles, laptops, bags, shoes, stationary items--were influenced by a very creative advertisement. The answer would be almost negligible, because we buy a product which looked good to the eye, or was cheaper, or was recommended by a peer. People have been known to be ready to pay premium and wait for long duration for better quality products. Why else would a person be ready to wait to two years after paying full cash down for a Rolls Royce, rather than an easily available Maybach? The quality is what matters more to the customer than buying something cheaper and easily available. Sorting through numerous brands is a tedious and time consuming process, which makes the customers irritated and numb as the choices are aplenty. Even for companies, less brands means better control and manageability. It was been noted that when P&G cut down its Head and Shoulders brand from 25 to 16, the profits increased to 10 percent. Customers don't want teeny weeny additions to the products to be packaged as a new product; unless it is a game changer, the small addition or little reworking here and there won't help a company to make a mark on the customer. People relate to products which are social, which contribute their bit to the society. This helps develop trust and goodwill among the customers as they feel that a company which can do so much for the society would definitely ensure that their products are the best. So instead of making the customer obese with millions of brands and tonnes of advertisement, change the focus from what you want the customer to buy, to what the customer actually wants. Don't make the customer run away by giving them so many choices that they go to your competitor who offers limited, but quality products. The bottom line is that advertising about the various variants of your product would not make the customer come running to you, it is the quality and the trust that you imbibe along with the products that makes the customers stick to you.