Marketing, Branding, Brands, Customer Dissatisfaction, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Delight, Brand Ambassador, Marketing, Advertisements.

1. Power of Brand
Coca-Cola, Fair & Lovely, Airtel etc. are some of the few companies which have carved a niche for
themselves in the competitive market, not because they sell something unique but because they have
created a value for themselves i.e. they are “Brands”. A brand is an intangible asset (which can be sold at
a good price) which refers to the name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one
seller's product distinct from those of other sellers. Brand is a marketing tool that stimulates recognition
and helps in developing a personality and reputation that stands out among its competitors. Brand helps
a product to eliminate its competitors by creating a mark of its own in the customer’s memory. Let’s
take for example if a person is out of house and suddenly he feels thirsty, he won’t go to the shop and
ask for water but he would ask the shopkeeper to give him a Coca-Cola, this does not only make Coca-
Cola win over its competitors like Pepsi, Thumbs up etc., but also eliminates its substitutes like water,
and other fruit drinks. The magic of brand is such that it makes most of the customer believe in the
quality of the product without having any second thoughts. For example, a lady goes to a supermarket
to purchase washing powder, there she has two choices to chooses from, one an unbranded washing
powder and the other some branded washing powder, which one do you think she will choose?, no
prizes for guessing, it’s the branded one, although the unbranded powder might be offering her more
quantity at a less price, she would not prefer it, because people trust brands. Brands sometimes
automatically create a sense of satisfaction in the customer just by using it. Take the case of various
costly bikes and cars like Harley Davidson, Ducati, Lamborghini, Porsche and BMW etc. to name a few,
these automatically create a sense of satisfaction in the user once they use it and this satisfaction is
sometimes immeasurable.
Customer Satisfaction is generally of three types-
 Dissatisfaction- when the product does not meet the expectations of the customer, it’s called
customer dissatisfaction.
 Satisfaction- when the product meets the customer’s expectations, it’s called customer
satisfaction.
 Delight- when the product exceeds the customer’s expectations, it is called customer delight.
Brands generally make the customer either satisfied or delighted. I doesn’t mean to say that no
customers are dissatisfied with branded products, I just want to say that the percentage of dissatisfied
customers as compared to satisfied ones are very low.
Brands offer various benefits to the producer like higher prices, higher market share, higher profit
margins, better distribution, and customerloyalties etc.But brand is not easy to create. A strong brand is
backed up by careful planning, long term commitment, keen understanding of the product, its
competitors and the market etc.
One of the important things that affect a brand is the way it is portrayed or marketed. Brands need to
market themselves properly in order to reposition themselves in the customers mind and to overcome
the competitions that is coming up every day in the market.Advertisement is one of the tools that
introduces customers to a product and plays an important role in creating a brand. Let’s take the
example of the chocolate industry, there are many chocolate brands available in the market, Dairy Milk
was wise with its heart touching advertisement of “ Shubh Arambh” and since then there is no looking
back for them, they rule over the chocolate industry with the highest market share, then came 5 star

2. which with its “Ramesh-Suresh” advertisement and gave stiff competition to Dairy Milk, these brands
were able to reposition themselves in the minds of the customer and hence were able to increase thei r
sales as compared to the other chocolate brands available in the market. In the same manner Vodafone
with its famous “zoo-zoo” advertisements won many hearts along with market share.
Many brands take the help of Brand Ambassadors who help in uplifting the brand value in the eyes of
the customers. For example, Boost with Sachin as its brand ambassador was able to add value to its
product in the industry where its major competitors like Horlicks and Bournvita don’ t have a strong
brand ambassador.
Unilever, P&G etc. are some of the parent companies which manufacture many goods, these companies
are themselves a brand. Many customers trust the products made by these companies because of their
brand value, thus the product made by these companies also become a brand and are easily sold off.
Brand build customer’s faith in them and thus they rule over the market over longer time. New
innovations made under the old brand names find their way to people’s brain. Example- Ponds initially
started with cold cream, then came Pond’s fairness cream, Pond’s face wash and the latest Pond’s BB
cream, all these are easily sold off as people trust the brand “Ponds”.
Creating of brands require lots of research about the market condition, the requirement of the people,
the upcoming competition and a clear vision of what you want to produce, how you want it to be
perceived and who is your target audience etc., but once created these brands attract customer’s
towards themselves. Known brands just jump off the shelves in supermarket because they have
achieved their marketing goals.
A good brand is able to constantly update itself in the customer’s mind and thereby requires less
marketing. Once loyal to a brand, it is hard for the customer to leave it and go for a new product. Brands
are generally not affected by competition. But with the upcoming number of choices that market is
offering it is not hard to change the customers mind. So brands need to be ready to fight with the new
competitors, who knows, today’s brand may become a story tomorrow.
- G.Preethi
PGDM 2nd Year
Emerald’s School of Business
Tirupathi
8019665081

3. References:
This article was written as per my knowledge of what a brand actually is, but I would like to thank
 Wikipedia- Brand
 Marketing Management by Philip Kotler
For proving me with better understanding of the topic.