by Indrani Basu

Created on: September 23, 2009   Last Updated: September 24, 2009

Brands work by putting customers in the first place. Sometimes even the customer does not know what they would value the most. It is more on the latent needs of a customer that a brand has got a large role to play. To develop a great brand, it has to focus on the customers in the highest order of priority when he or she makes a choice. A good way to make this easier for a consumer to choose between the good, bad and ugly would be to rely on the "habits" of a consumer. Again that varies for different product categories. Generally this technique works best when it is done on the low involvement purchases where the customer just has to choose between two seemingly equally good products.

Another way of how brands could work would be based on perception. Perceptions start taking form from the day we begin to understand the ways of the world. It could be one's own point of view or from a peer whose opinion is mostly valued for. Perception could ring you to think logically with reasoning or absolutely the other way round. Remember the ad for Onida ? Neighbours envy, owner pride. That speaks for itself. Automobile companies and electronic goods are marketed mostly based on this ideology that what the neighbour would be jealous of is the one that would sell most.

Successful brands are those which encourage and entice customers to make them feel the same way as the owners of the brand would aspire it to be. The attributes of a brand could be very simple and rational ones like value-for-money or very complex ones like emotional factors. But getting this outright is very important for a brand manager. If you can feel the pulse of a consumer you are on your way to create a great brand.

The basics of creating a great brand may be explained very well by Kapferers brand identity prism. It is a model and has its own scope. But it always makes it easier for a non expert to understand on what dimensions a brand can be measured and valued.

Physical Facet describes the product, its features, value additions and its needs as well. For new entrants in the market, this area is very important to focus on while promoting the brand.

Brand personality is how one would think of a brand as if it were a human being. It talks about the human like traits of a brand. For example if there were someone called Cola-Cola, how would he or she look like or behave. This is more of a self image in the consumer's mind.

Brand Culture:This is the heritage the brand brings along with it. It could be the organizational history or overall culture from where it originated. Anyone could vouch for the Swiss watches, Rolex or Swatch. That is culture.

Brand Relationships:Mostly applies to services, this emphasizes on the relationship a brand has built with its customer over the years. We can think of the global banks like Citi or HSBC when it comes to relationships.

Customer Reflection:This is the reflection of the brand from a customer point of view. What kind of resonance or vibes does the brand give? For example Cadburys would mean celebrations more than cocoa and chocolate or milk to many.

Customer Self Image: Consumers get attracted to certain brand because they can identify themselves better and find similar traits in them. The cowboy ads created for Marlboro has given a totally masculine image.

It could be a little tedious and tough task to set a brand image in customer mind. And one has to keep on investing on the brand because like anything else a brand also has a life of its own. But with the right kind of branding strategy history can be made again and again.

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