On brand discipline
Successful brands and companies are built through brand discipline. Without brand discipline, they cannot be successful, in the top line on the bottom line. Without brand discipline, you cannot grow in awareness, trials, repeats, sales, market share or profit. Brand discipline is something which should be nurtured, cultivated, practised for top line and bottom line growth. It does not occur in just one part of the marketing mix, but needs to be adhered to in all parts of it.
Naamkaran: Right from the time you choose a brand name and position it appropriately, keeping in mind the category, competition, needs, target audience, benefits and credibility, all tenets of brand discipline must be followed. Many people believe that, under the garb of creativity, they can be undisciplined, which may not be true.
Creative discipline: Good creativity also requires disciplined thinking. While you could use both your left and your right brain and you could use various creative thoughts and think out of the box, you still need not lose sight of the purpose for which you are being creative. You need to keep in mind relevance. There will be times, when creative people will be tempted to forget the purpose and the objectives for which the creativity is being pursued. Those times could be dangerous and expensive. The most successful brands have had creative inputs, which have the flow of unstoppable creativity, along with a certain amount of discipline within a framework, to meet the brand objectives.
Portfolio discipline: In today’s world, there are many products and service categories, which have great potential for growth and profit. There are many opportunities available in the market. It requires brand discipline to be able to choose what would be the appropriate product/service category that should be entered, keeping in mind not only the external opportunity, but also the internal expertise and competence. You should not land up in a case where you are in every category, but do not mean anything to anyone because you are trying to be everything to everyone. Brand discipline has to be followed, to be able to choose the correct, appropriate and relevant product/service portfolio strategy.
Communication discipline: Brand communication is composed of both the message and the medium. The creative units as well as the media units need to be balanced and the message has to be conveyed through the right media. This means that the message has to enter the mind and heart of the consumers – and that through the right vehicles of media. While in creativity, an idea has no cost, it has great value. Similarly, while media has a lot of cost, it needs to be able to deliver value for money. There are many tools and instruments, there are many measures and parameters, which can be used for media planning. Similarly, there are many creative techniques, which can be used to brainstorm and generate a host of ideas. But finally, only a disciplined mind can decide whether it should be a creative presentation to be chosen out of many, or a media plan. And it does not stop at that. It needs to be constantly reviewed every few months and years, because while you can define something at the initial stage, you need to refine it regularly as the brand evolves.
Distribution discipline: Whether you are using an online or an off-line channel, my brand mantra is that you need to be in line with the consumers’ expectations. Regularity, training, review, monitoring, timely delivery and many such other things have to be implemented in a disciplined manner, to be able to be one up on the competition. Consumers are important, so are trade, sales and customer service. A comprehensive sales and distribution strategy conceived with discipline and implemented meticulously would invariably give desired results.
Pricing discipline: Pricing is a sharp weapon in the brand marketing mix. It could be used effectively to edge out the competition, or woo the consumer. If abused, it could irreparably cut and bleed the brand and the company that owns it. Pricing discipline requires discretion, analysis, as also experience and judgement, to come out and review the strategy on an ongoing basis and ensure continuous topline growth and bottomline profits.
Relationship discipline: Being in touch with your customers and consumers requires a lot of discipline. If you are out of touch with your customers and consumers, you will be out of the market. An ongoing relationship with customers and consumers is a must. Regularly communicating with them, interacting with them physically or through online measures and asking them for feedback, requesting for suggestions – that all form an important part of building a relationship with your customers and consumers.
Training discipline: One of the most important inputs in building a strong brand is regular training. A trained team is better equipped to be able to handle competition or serve customers and consumers and make the brand grow in a vibrant manner. Training cannot be done once in a while or during lean period of sales. Training is an integral part of brand building and must be done with discipline. Just like all other elements of the marketing mix are used, so should training be used – in a regular manner. I would recommend using my 3T module of ‘training, testing and tracking’ to be able to achieve high effectiveness amongst the team. This is part of the brand discipline, which may get forgotten or be given low priority, which could be dangerous for the health of the brand. Training does not mean that it has to happen only at the level of the sales force; it also means that it has to happen at the level of the brand management team, as well as the back-end and logistics teams, and, of course, the production and quality control areas. This is the true meaning of brand discipline.
Research discipline It is important that, in brand discipline, there should be a proper eye kept in tracking consumers’ behaviour, sales force and their productivity, trade behaviour or competition. Further, through qualitative as well as quantitative research, one must be able to understand the pulse of the market and the changing needs of consumers. It is important that marketing research brand discipline is followed regularly and not once in a while.
If you look at examples, whether of companies or countries, you would realise that those with brand discipline have been far more successful than others. Be they Apple, Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Samsung, Maruti Suzuki or Mercedes, companies that follow brand discipline have done better than others.
It is not necessary that brand discipline works only in a particular category. It could work for beverages like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Parle just as effectively as for garments like Raymond and Aditya Birla Fashion. Brand discipline is something that has to be inculcated bottom up till it becomes a part of the company culture.
Similar is the case with countries too. One country comes to my mind when it concerns brand discipline. I was impressed with the kind of discipline that is followed, especially among sports people, in Spain when I was there last fortnight. Be it Nadal or the latest sensation Carlos in tennis; the Spanish football team, which won the European Cup; or the Formula 1 racer Alonso, Spain has nurtured brand discipline in sports well and has been highly successful because of that.
Be they countries or companies, all can do well if there is clear brand discipline.
Finally, I would like to clarify something. Brand discipline does not mean that you should not allow your creative juices to flow or that you should not use intuition or that you should not pay attention to your gut feel. Brand discipline means to be able to harness both the rational and creative sides of brand building in a disciplined manner to bring out the best in your brand and serve the consumer in the best possible manner, so that the consumer loves your brand and helps you grow on all brand marketing parameters.
Three cheers to brand discipline!