Business world is undergoing drastic change day
by day and the media is getting cluttered both in terms of number of
advertisements and avenues for advertisements. To plan and advertise for your
brand in the long run is the only solution to keep ahead of the competition and
this needs consistent approach in branding activities. Most of the Kerala
brands are not finding it easy to scale up their brand visibility and some of
the myths about branding prevailing among the Kerala clients are worth noting
in this context:
What is branding?
In simple terms we can define branding as all
the activities that go into bringing the name of your product/company along
with its qualities/services to a top of the mind recall bracket in a customer’s
mind while making the final purchase decision.
It is important to make the customer emotionally connected to your brand
rather than trying to get attention for
a short period. This is the one single differentiator that makes the change
over from just ‘a customer’ to ‘a loyal customer’ and branding
should be seen as a long term investment decision rather than a short term
business booster. The first and foremost decision of a client should be how we
should project our product/company and who would be our customers. The latter
part (identifying target audience) is more relevant but lacking in any
discussions about branding in Kerala. Just check out the successful brands from
anywhere in the world and their focus on this long term perspective will be
more clear. There are quite a few myths related to branding & advertising
that rules a client’s psyche. Though I admit that some of these myths are some
of the most common ones all over the world, here am trying to point out more
from a Kerala perspective.
5 myths that rule the Kerala market
1. An
Ad that attracts everyone !!!
Though this is a common problem faced, atleast
once in his life time, by every advertising professional, this misunderstanding
has a big relevance in the Kerala context. One out of 2 clients we meet would
put forward this suggestion of targeting every one out there. Its time to come
to face the fact that there is no such advertisement method to attract every
single person of a population. Its time to realize that people are different in
every way and we can only get a group of people with almost similar tastes
& preferences to address our advertisement. The lack of proper focus on who
you would want to buy your product (target audience) is the main reason behind
this proposition. Without a target audience every rupee you spend on
advertisement or branding will be just like throwing away in a gamble. Just a
look at the world famous brands will help us realize the folly of trying to
target everyone at the same time. Just imagine a Mercedes ad saying anyone can
own it and an ambassador saying its luxury incarnated.
2. Common
man can’t understand!!!
This is the most interesting misconception
among clients in Kerala. “Though I can understand, you can understand & my
sales people can understand, I don’t think the common man will understand” Here
it goes. Please friends, let me know who is this common man who doesn’t
understand? Especially in a market like Kerala where we have high literacy
levels, high exposure to all kinds of media & high levels of brand
awareness how can we judge that the so-called common man is less informative
& intellectually less inclined than ourselves. This again comes out of the
confusion due to non identification of a target audience. Without a target audience
in mind the client is confused whom to address and so tries either to
complicate or oversimplify an advertisement message and the end result is that
it doesn’t connect to anyone out there.
3. Creativity
in advertising
Totally admit that advertising is not a
completely creative work and an advertising professional has no liberty as an
artist or sculptor. Creativity in advertising goes only to that extend where
the message is communicated to the target audience. But to communicate that
message the ad should connect in some way with the target audience. The success
of an ad is only as much as getting a customer notice about the product/brand.
The success of the brand/product goes beyond that like fulfilling the promise
in an advertisement and after sales service to keep that customer loyal. Most
of the clients misinterpret that an advertisement is something that increases
their sales from the very next day which is almost impossible in a real market
situation. So keep in mind that advertising is a tool to project a character for your brand/product, the character in itself depends on the brand or product itself.
4. I
know all about advertising/branding
The quintessential fight between clients and
advertising professionals in Kerala is the notion of every client that they
know all about advertising/branding. The truth is that unlike the earlier days
a lot of studies & corrections are happening literally every day in the fields
of management & marketing. New principles are being experimented and old
ones replaced or renewed as the business world is undergoing a sea of changes.
Advertising, like any other marketing management disciplines, is a professional
field where lots of changes are happening and the client would benefit if they
let the advertising professionals do their job unless they are deviating
drastically from the brand’s principles. Most of the clients in Kerala have not
realized that bygone are the days when anyone could use a computer operator,
prepare lay outs and release an advertisement. Advertising like any other
branch of business is now a field which needs specialized skill sets and above
all experienced specialists. Here it is important to note that in Kerala every
company engaged in advertising business is treated as an agent & called an
advertising agency rather than an advertising company or brand consultant. Most
of the Kerala based advertising companies have also contributed to this by
doing just that kind of job like a mere agent or agency would do. But times
have changed and only those companies who can add value to the brand/product
can survive in modern world of marketing communications and there are quite a
lot out there who can do that. . Its time to stop spending a lot of time on the
artworks or ideas and coming up with phrases like “I don’t like the colour or I
don’t like the font” and concentrate more on identifying the target audience and
propping up the product quality or service quality. Once decided to entrust
your brand with an advertising company let them do their job and bring you
wonderful results.
5. Beat
the competitor on you ad spend alone
The media in itself is undergoing lots of
changes and the customer gets new avenues almost every day to get information in
the modern world of communication. In Kerala market clients believe the more
you spend the more your brand gets customers. Just think for yourself - will
you go to a showroom in a remote location just because you saw their TVC. No
way. Its pathetic to see every small town showroom spending huge sums of money
on ad spends in Television & print and closing down shop within 3 or 4
years. Target customers are scattered around and to reach them there should be
involvement of a smart media agency that is specialized in media planning &
buying. Gone are the days of so called 360 degree advertising companies unless
they are huge multinational advertising companies and again whether to avail
their services depend upon the scale of operations and ad budget for your
brand. Its time to realize that the field of advertising have already split
into creative & media and is further splitting down as digital agencies,
mobile advertising agencies and so on. So just spending a huge amount of money
as ad spend won’t work anymore in this cluttered media space just find the
right partners and reach your target audience using the best available creative
ideas through the right media vehicle. Instead of raising your voice higher to
unknown faces, better talk to your
prospective customer directly.
