Impact of Marketer's action on brand image

I don't know why I chose these topic for blog but today when I opened my posts I found this one to be edited. In fact nothing was written inside accept the caption i.e. "Impact of marketer's action on brand image".

So lets talk about brand image first; What is brand image?

According to http://www.allaboutbranding.com/index.lasso, Brand Image is

A unique set of associations within the minds of target customers which represent what the brand currently stands for and implies the current promise to customers. (Note that brand image is what is currently in the minds of consumers, whereas brand identity is aspirational).

So a brand image is what consumer thinks about the brand.

And what are the Marketer's action: Marketer's actions are basically any changes in the 4Ps of Marketing mix which he uses to portray a certain image of brand. But the image what a marketer tries to portray and what consumer already has can be 2 very different things.

For eg. take Pricing. A brand which has established itself in the mind of consumers as a premium brand when comes with a low price alternative, for increasing the penetration, then it starts losing its current customers too.

Also a brand which was distributed in exclusive outlets when starts selling in every outlet, it reduces the exclusivity which tarnishes its image of a high quality product.

The perfect example for the above 2 should be Levi's. when Levi's came out with the idea of distributing its jeans through retail stores like K- Mart at affordable prices, it started losing its existing customers. Also its current retail partners threatened it of dropping the brand all together. That is when Levi's had to come with Signature its low cost brand which was then distributed through K-Mart and other such outlets.

So, we can see that how marketer's action can affect a brand's image adversely. But are there any other factors which have any impact on Brand image.

The answer to the question is, YES. these factors are related to consumer himself and thus come under a separate stream called as Consumer Behavior. These factors include consumer's motivation, perception, attitude, learning behavior etc.

The example for this may be Benetton. When the company came up with ads showing people of different races and colors together to project the image of United colors, it turned out to be a blunder. The ads were heavily criticized so that the company had to go back to its earlier strategy.

Hence, we can see that marketer's action do have an impact on Brand image, and the image that marketer wants to project and the actual image can be quite different from each other. Hence it becomes duty of a marketer to think from every angle before taking any step.

Innovation, Marketing and Business

My friend had a question, innovation or imitation, what is the way to success for a country like India. I am glad that I have friends those can think out of box, can think bigger, unlike me. That was a moment when I felt extremely happy to have such a friend.
But then I thought is it so hard a question or in fact is it a question at all and if yes than why did this question came up in first place.
The answer is simple ' we just forgot simple'. Amazingly people who are good thinkers and can think out of the box have this problem. They just tend to overlook simple. That is what my friend did. He like the other creative and good thinkers tried to think of an innovative solution, but is that really needed.

Is innovation so big a deal that a country like India aces such a big question. The answer is Yes and the answer is NO. Why Yes ... i think that need not be explained but why NO, when everyone one is saying that Indians need to innovate.

The reason behind the answer is innovation does not always means creating something great, something big. Innovation can be simple as simple as the story in which a thirsty crow found out a way of getting rid of his thirst by putting stones in the pot.

That was a simple innovation, he did nothing great but found out a way to do something in different manner. See that simple innovation is.

A 5 year old kid once had this problem of hiccups all of sudden. Doctors decided to operate. When they took him to operation theater his hiccups disappeared without any treatment. When asked the Doctor said that he never had a problem. He just innovated a way to get his parent's attention. Good example of simple innovation, isn't it?

A crow from your bed time stories could do it. A 5 year old kid could do it. So why can't such simple innovation happen in business. THEY DO.

One such innovation that revolutionized business in India was introduction of shampoo sachets.

So to answer the question of innovation or imitation:

Innovation is not that big deal that India should not go for it and imitation can not survive on its own. For every product there is some or the other innovation needed to make it successful i.e.

product innovation: new product or product modification

price innovation: a new pricing startegy

place innovation : new market for the same product

promotion innovation : new strategies of promoting the same product

distribution channel innovation: the way DELL started selling laptops

process innovation: manufacturing the same product in a better way for it to become cost effective.

Without any of the above innovation no imitation can succeed. Hence even if India is imitating she needs to innovate to succeed.

So for the record; Innovation is not big deal, not for marketing not business not for life, just keep your senses intact and we together can make India the biggest innovator in world.

real estate industry

Think of the top 5 industries in terms of employement generation and you can't miss real estate. This industry has become one of the largest employement provider after Agriculture.

Not long ago this industry was overlooked by the investors, but the scenario has changed.

Investors have started taking interest in real estate industry.

Moreover, the real estate sector is also responsible for the development of over 250 ancillary industries such as cement, steel, paints etc.

A study by rating agency ICRA shows that the construction industry ranks 3rd among the 14 major sectors in terms of direct, indirect and induced effects in all sectors of the economy.

A unit increase in expenditure in this sector has a multiplier effect and the capacity to generate income as high as five times

Almost 80 per cent of real estate developed in India is residential space, the rest comprising of offices, shopping malls, hotels and hospitals.

According to the Tenth Five-Year-Plan, there is a shortage of 22.4 million dwelling units.

Not only the demand the Indian construction industry is doing good on the supply side.

Though the recent recession might make it look like a bad investment but new real estate investment funds are promising bright future.

Also despite the situation now, the demand in major cities will grow continously and with many major players from other industries entering real estate, the future of real estate seems to be bright.

marketing and life

we always meet people who say marketing is an easy subject and teachers who say its not.

but how can anyone decide that it is an easy subject or not. or how can even one say that it is even a subject that they need to teach us.

isn't marketing nothing but life. we have been doing it since birth !!!!!!!!!!!

yes , we have been doing it from the day we were born.

have you ever seen a child who has just understood that when he cries his mother comes to her.

he will always cry when he needs his mother. when you wanted your parent's attention didn't you did something that u will laugh upon today.

when u wanted a gift on your birthday, u had a different expressions, u behaved like u were the most intelligent kid ever born.

selling urself, isn't it.

u behave in different ways with different people ur friends, siblings, parents, teachers.

knowing the target customers and thus segmenting and having a different approach of marketing.

well than why do we say that marketing is difficult. is it.

think..............