Monday, January 29, 2007

You know you are a brand when..


Every brand owner or brand custodian aims to build a brand. But what is a real measure of a brand well built?

I am no authority on quantitative or qualitative research that sometimes attaches numeric values to the extent of joy that a brand creates among its intended consumers but here are three subjective measures that I’d like to share.


In some way they are organised in increasing order of their significance.

1. A consumer or employee dreams of the brand more often than once or twice.
Some Google employees actually dream of their company and office regularly. And these are dreams not nightmares ; )

2. When the consumer is ready to forgive the brand
If brand is a person & we love this person, than this person could play any of these roles viz. a friend, a guide, a relative, a mentor, a partner etc. In our lives there come times when some of these people that we know commit mistakes, might end up doing something unknowingly that upsets us. But we do not snap ties with these people just because of that one act of theirs. Instead we pardon them and move on.
This is exactly the response that a ‘real’ brand gets from its loyal users when something goes wrong. If the user does not forgive the brand and moves away may be it was not a ‘real’ brand after all (at least not among this set of users).

3. When the customer begins to think what might the brand be thinking about him
This is my favourite. I do not know how many brands have been able to trigger such emotions or thoughts among their users. But if a brand can pull this off then we are talking brand equity or voltage or power at an entirely new level.

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