Brand Busting in One minute

Brands cannot be created overnight. It takes years to convince the consumer about the role of the brand in its life. A single-minded focus is what is required to build a brand. A brand needs to identify an emotional truth about the consumer that it can associate itself with. This emotional truth or emotionale helps the brand to connect with its target consumer. If the consumer experiences that connect then the journey towards advocacy begins and ultimately that consumer becomes the brand champion.

However, if the brand doesn't do justice with its loyal consumers in terms of their expectations then the consumers never forgive the brand.

Recently, I had a very disappointing experience at McDonald's. I went to McDonald's Mumbai Central outlet (station premise) and ordered potato wedges. That day McDonald's was running a promotional scheme under which they promised that if they failed to deliver the order in one minute, they would give away a coke free. Great!

But to my disappointment, just to ensure that they don't cross the one-minute benchmark under any circumstances, they were serving cold, stale stuff which was already kept ready.

My reaction - A big thumbs down!

How can they serve someone cold potato wedges/french fries?

- Never forget the fundamentals: Quick service is not the necessity but quality food is. McDonalds can offer a quick service but not at the cost of the quality. Consumers go to McDonalds to have a quick bite, not to have food that is prepared in 'quick time'. Quick service is just an add-on.

- Don't chew more than what you can: Dont make promises if you are not equipped to fulfill them. Either you install more equipments or get more employees to keep your words. If you can't, then don't make unrealistic promises.

- Understand your consumer: Understand what's important to your consumer. Any promotion or offering should be properly analysed and then only be implemented. It doesnt make any difference to consumers' life if it gets its order delivered in one minute or one and half minute.

It takes years to build a brand but just a minute to bust it.

World's smallest 'learn-by-earning' University

Yes..you read it write. Sumit Roy (my Account Planning teacher at MICA) runs world's smallest learn-by-earning university called Univbrands. Check out his website here. Read an article on 'Aha' trees - A tool devised by Sumit for doing brand research and generate consumer insights. Click here to read the article.

Emotions in Advertising

"Advertising is an art of manipulating the emotions of the people".
Products have rationales, brands have emotionales. This was one of the most important learning that I had during my post-graduation. Thanks Sumit!!, for putting this into my head.
Unfortunately, most people do not differentiate between a brand and a product. What is fastrack selling? Watches, accessories....no. Fastrack is selling fashion.
What is the brand Reliance all about? It's about ambitions and dreams. Tata is selling trust, volvo is selling safety.
Advertisers, apart from being creative, are the experts in exploting these emotions of human beings. Advertisers know that selling a product to the consumers is difficult but selling emotions is not. Remember Hutch (Vodafone) pug!!