Many think that both branding and marketing are the same and focus only on one activity. It is not so. A brand is assiduously built over a longer period of time and marketing is all about maximising sales revenue y-o-y. A Brand is nurtured to retain customer loyalty, confidence, trust and fairness in dealing with both internal and external customers. A well positioned brand immensely helps the marketing team to increase the sales and the reach. Large corporates don’t have a brand manager but a brand custodian as he is devil’s advocate inside the company to oppose any action that will tarnish the image of the brand.
Communication is an important element in both branding and marketing exercises. As Peter Drucker said, the most important thing in communication is hearing what is not said and branding is the perfect example.
We have seen the successes of many Indian consumer brands – TATA, Amul, Reliance, Maruti, ITC, Wipro, Bajaj, Dabur, IPL to name a few. But some brands have failed – Kingfisher, HMT, Jet Airways, Sahara, Onida – because there was no sustained effort and financial discipline from their management teams to keep the brand alive and they were not innovative.
Build Better Brands for a long haul – hope the new age start-ups thriving on huge funding sustain their momentum to stay alive on their own feet. Otherwise investors will be the losers.
#sales #management #branding #marketing
THE PULSE by Sivakumar Gopal 