Disposable Brands

The ubiquitous brands are not seen anymore, after a short stint of operation and they are either merged or upgraded to a new brand. Their merger is celebrated by marketing and advertisement blitzkrieg so that the people will get an impression that the “old” brand is no more relevant and a “New” brand is came into existence, which is by far better and superior than its predecessors, though the human resource and the stock of goods are same.

The concept was an extension of the IT sector, where versions has importance where each product is separately identified with extended tails such as 2.1,2.2 etc. Each product is  superior to the previous version on a minor front only. However, the consumer believe that the latest one is the best and superior to all and the demand for the previous versions will reduce drastically and the vendors are forced to bundle the products with latest versions.

The trend is evident in the recent developments in the consumer business, especially among Consumer Electronics. The inauguration of MyG (Chain of Mobile Shops). TecQ are the classic example of this. Mobile World, who was the leader has renamed itself as  TecQ chain of Mobile Phones. Similarly, 3g Mobile has upgraded itself to MyG. The brand has to reinvent itself, by constantly updating its look, sometimes drastically to meet the evergrowing market and ever changing consumer tastes. This is the part of the companies effort to keep its brand above the crowd. The older brand names will get older along with the passage of time.(see Bottom) . Here the owners of the brands has taken a "disposible" approach towards brands. When the brand became a burden, where new players started to eat the market share, the decided to kill it by calling it "upgrading".

Here the brand owner gives more importance to the business and its revenue potential than the romance with the brand. The brand will remain in the books of the company only when it generates money or looks younger. No demand for the old. The brand owners give no mercy in killing those brands and give birth to new brands, which will give a young look and will be ready to establish the younger brand at exhorbitant marketing expenses. He just treated the brand just as the treatment towards a disposible glass, which is a use and through attitude.

The positive result of introduction of the brand is that it will prevent the company get into complacency and lose of vigour due to age. The challenges will motivate the employees to stay focused.

The B Schools are teaching you about strengthening brands to get the mindshare of the customer, which there by improve your profitability via increased sales. Even “Brand Equity”, “Brand Value” are the colloquial terms that is used to depict the importance of Brands.  Each brand carries uniqueness that is attributable to that particular product. We were used to have a strong brand recall about some products and some products are even known by the brand names only (eg. Dettol, Jeep etc)

However, the change in demography of the consumer changes the value of so called Brand Equity. The brands that earlier used to enjoy the loyalty of the customer is no longer enjoys such privilege. The problem not lies with the product, but lies with the customer. The customer group who were loyal users of that particular brand is no longer uses their product, may be due to their age or preferences.

The users of Colgate Powder Tooth paste is no longer exists or exited from this world. The demography changes in every 10 years. The child of today becomes the teen of tomorrow, and teen of today becomes the adult of tomorrow, the adult of today becomes the senior citizen of tomorrow. The teachings about demography in marketing states that the people upgrade from one brand to another as they are changing from their child hood to adolescence to old-age.  Here the assumption is that the people will naturally migrate from one brand to another and the brands have only to ensure the migration and they can enjoy the life for eternity.

The young boy who uses Horlicks Growthplus today may migrate to Horlicks Oats as he becomes old. The customer is expected to hook to the particular brand through out his life.

The market will never respond as is said by theories. It is true for brands also. Now the marketing is facing a problem with brand recall. It’s a good factor that the consumer remembers a brand. But brand recall is associated with age also. A brand that is used by our parents is no longer favour of ours. The brands of our parents are hence not so popular among us, similarly our popular brands are not so popular among our children. Despite having much expenditure on marketing, the brands such as Videocon, Nirma, Onida, has lost its sheen and some are NPA of Banks.

Hence before the marketing myopia catches your eyes, be ready to re-invent your brand by renaming it or by introducing an additional new brand and position it as young. To position an old brand as a new one is just like Mammootty (a 60+ old Malayalam Movie actor) plays a College Teen.

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The examples are from Kerala Only

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