On Great Branding Ideas...

Taking the discussion on corporate brands and their communication solution further I want to talk about the notion of the Branding Idea. Stephen King mentioned it first but I haven't seen much understanding of this concept beyond that. When the brand is the corporation, it needs more than advertising, a visual metaphor that can not only go across a host of media vehicles but also captures the identity of the organization in a well understood metaphor. Probably the ML Bull and the Singapore girl are the best recognized examples of such an approach, not to forget our very own Maharaja. They all capture the personality of a service brand and serve as a guideline for all frontline staff.

However a lesser known concept of a branding idea is one where the proposition or the promise of the brand is captured in a metaphor. I have been fortunate to work on two such exercises for not-for-profits and although i cannot share the specifics of strategy, the Janaagraha idea captures the idea of participatory democracy while the VoteIndia idea is about political reforms. I see the LeadIndia logo drawing heavily from this idea that was developed by my creative colleagues about 3 years ago.

And to round it off here is another highly successful example of a branding idea that focuses more on the promise than the personality of the brand i.e. BPCL's Pure for Sure. It is an area of personal passion for me so you will see much more on the subject of branding ideas. Treat this one as a bit of a primer.

The Rajeev Cluster!

Icons are defined as ideas that are a symbol of their times and 'Iconic Brands' as well perform the same role in our consumption driven society. It probably requires the benefit of hindsight to distinguish the real icons of an era and doing it for the recent past is always tricky given how much of the real substance of certain brands is really drenched in hype...when every second brand is claiming to be the spirit of new India, which ones will realy be remembered 20 years from now remains to be seen

Here is taking a shot at a few icons from the 1980s- I think the central event of the decade was the coming to power of Rajeev Gandhi, who despite all his flaws brought a refreshingly modern world-view to India and for a couple of years we were all enrolled in it till he lapsed back into the politics of the past...i think at his best he represented youth, progressiveness, professionalism, a world-class standard of doing things and by being that repositioned the past (mostly to do with his mother and her coterie) as regressive, feudal and dated. And riding on that spirit were three brands which did exactly the same repositioning to the respective incumbents in those categories. The icons for the 80s in my opinion would be Maruti, Hero Honda and Titan - b rands that actually did a Rajeev Gandhi on Ambassador, Bajaj Sccoters and HMT. Only Bajaj, of the incumbents, has been able to reinvent itself and among the icons Titan has probably lost a lot of its iconic appeal by continuing to did deeper into a category fast losing its relevance. If one were to conjecture on the iconic brands of the 1990s, what would they be?

Any guesses?