Direction of demand

Brand addicts will tell you this: if you want to get us off the stuff, or onto an alternative, suffocating supply will not work; you must address its demand""and thus figure our mind out. This book, Kellogg On Branding, a definitive guide on the subject put out by the marketing faculty of the famous business school by that name, is for anyone alive to "demand" as something more than just a curve from Economics.

The book does not reinvent the wheel. But then, nor does Apple iPod""except that its click-wheel is an innovative navigator if you know broadly what to navigate, if not exactly which acoustic strings strike what chord.

So too with this book.

Who should read it? One: freshers who think of S&M as something kinky instead of sales & marketing. Two: investors who opt for long-term value over quarterly myopia, and justify high price-earning (P/E) ratios on the basis of brand vision. Three: marketers who've heard Philip Kotler say "know your customer" and "differentiate your offering" so often that they only need to refresh their context of understanding. And four: strategists who need a handbook to monitor and make the most of market demand.

The book defines a brand as a name that bears a consistent "set of associations". Example: Coca-cola, the world's biggest brand, holds associations of cola, refreshment, red and The Real Thing. Colgate, India's biggest, equals oralcare, which also assures a wide "frame of reference" for the purpose of "positioning" it (in consumer mindspace).

Positioning is often taken as the cornerstone of strategic branding, though new launches tend to use the concept to emphasize a "point of difference". Gillette's M3Power is the only electric wet shaver you get.

If that still doesn't rivet your interest, the book presents an illustrated cube that changes orientation while you stare at it. The reason? To talk of the "psychology of consumer perception". Next up: some anthropology. A brand here is about the human "quest for meaning", "a promise", "a performance", "a relationship", "an elastic covenant", even an embodiment of "the transformative heat of passion". Naah, you half hear yourself groan, but if make sense of it you must, try the part on advertising. Here, it's the neural networks of the brain that you're dealing with: an ad gets encoded in short-term memory, but the finer job is to activate prior knowledge that processes the ad into a message you can't get out of your head.

For ideas on dynamic markets in a state of flux, read Mohanbir Sawhney's contribution on tech branding. Technological change and brand consistency, he writes, are not mutually exclusive. To achieve both, first grab mindshare with a market vision""and then take the brand along a "vector of differentiation" drawn from enduring human needs.

The chapter on measuring brand value is excellent too. It values the intimacy of the consumer relationship as much as the accountancy of the bean count. Never ignore the consumer who diligently goes by the fineprint instructions on his/her tube of toothpaste, and demands that the brand satisfies its end of the bargain as well. People in India are getting discerning about brands""selling in rickety village uplift-box carts or on snazzy city flat-tube screens.

This is good news.

People getting discerning about intellectual choices is always good news. This is market emergence, as directors of brand roles know.

KELLOGG ON BRANDING

Edited by Alice M Tybout & Tim Calkins
John Wiley & Sons
Price: Rs 1,390; Pages: 334