As part of my work for several years putting down my thoughts on brands, and also my more focused Brandology work this year, one of the many areas that I have been exploring is the connection that brands have with companies. Actually, these connections are several and operate at many different levels. The important ones are:
- With strategy
- With core values
- With product and product range
- With innovations, especially those that are intellectual capital
- With communication, including advertising and brand communications
- With consumers
On looking at these connections, we realise that the first three – with strategy, core values and product range – form the core of the relationship and are closer to the company. While the latter three – with innovations, communication and consumers – are closer to customers/consumers. However, it isn’t until the brand builds relationships with consumers that it even becomes a brand. Which means the last three are critical in a brand starting its journey, growing and competing in the marketplace. It’s also important to understand all of these connections in detail, in order to know which connections to tap into, which levers to pull, during the different stages of a brand’s growth.
Some early observations
From what I can see, and from my long experience in the advertising industry in India, it appears that industrial businesses and other B2B type companies fall into the first set, where brand connections are more with strategy, core values and product or service, and therefore with the company itself. On the other hand, consumer-facing companies such as CPG, consumer durables, and services industries seem to belong more to the second set, where the brand’s connections with product/service innovations, with consumers and advertising and brand communication appear stronger.
There is no apparent reason why this should be so, as all linkages between brand and company are important, even if some companies lean one way or the other. For example, I’d say that Pepsi and PepsiCo need to consider all the linkages in order to grow the company in the strategic direction they set out many years ago, and to align all their brands in the same direction. I think that all car companies – with the exception of a few such as Toyota and Honda – have to reconsider their brand strategies, product range and their relevance to consumers and therefore, need to work on all the connections that brands have with companies. This is because in the automobile industry, the company is the brand, and Toyota as well as Honda are among the few who understand this well.
Service sector companies ought to have all the brand linkages in place, and in a seamless way, as they are in business to serve their customers. However, I think that while airlines and hotels might have these in order, banks and financial services companies as well as technology firms struggle with many of the brand linkages, especially those closer to the consumer and to communications.
Speaking of technology firms, Apple is a departure as their connections with customers tend to be strong. The company was recently celebrating 50 years and it seems that they might have been focusing on product innovations and the consumer side of the business a little too much in recent years. It was strange to read Apple being referred to as a consumer electronics brand, when it has always been a technology brand. Perhaps too much focus on the iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods are responsible for this perception. I am not an Apple person, but I think Apple needs to go back upstream and focus on real technology innovations including Cloud and AI, as it was always the fully vertically-integrated technology company and brand. As a company that transformed the personal computing industry and even took it to mobile handsets, they ought to be imagining what the world of personal computing would be like in the AI era, the Quantum era, etc.
Elaborating on the connections, brands have with companies
With strategy: Since companies devise strategies in order to grow their business and compete in the industry, brands are very much part of the plan, even if company bosses aren’t always aware of the connections early on. The connections between brands and business strategy are in the direction of growth, the defined market, differentiation from competitors, pricing strategy, relations with suppliers, with retailers and with consumers.
With core values: A company’s core values define how the company does business and while these are distinct from strategy, they lay down the principles that will govern how the company will go about achieving its strategy and doing business. Brands also have core values, and many will have a link with corporate core values. The better these are aligned, the greater the sense of cohesiveness between a company and its brands.
With product/product range: This is the stage where the connections between brand and company become obvious for the first time and in a tangible way. This is also when products are created to meet the needs of the defined market and differentiation is built in, where possible. It is from the product that the company builds a brand, so the connections are quite immediate and range from physical and functional attributes, differentiators and price to relevance to consumers, emotional benefits and the like.
With innovations and intellectual property: At the product development stage, companies ought to leverage technological strengths that they have which work their way into the products, along with product differentiators. These differentiators, process and technology patents can also be used to create intellectual property for brands at the product level as well as the consumer benefit level and even through a creative expression which becomes a brand idea.
With brand communication ideas and advertising campaigns: Product innovations and differentiators need to be communicated to customers and this is where brand strategy and advertising come into the picture. It is at this stage that products become brands in the true sense of the word, and begin their brand journey. The brand is imbued with a differentiating benefit, a personality, memorable communication, including an audio, visual or text burr that is unique to the brand in order to persuade the consumer to prefer this brand over competition.
With consumers: The final and decisive stage of a brand’s connection with a company is through its consumers. Brands are, in fact, the relationship that companies have with consumers through their products and services. This is also the final test of a brand, to find preference for itself, to play an important role in the consumer’s life, to be remembered in a positive way, and to make the consumer unwilling to change brands easily.
Titan wristwatch brand’s connection with the company
I had put down my thoughts on a new brand strategy and communication ideas for Titan wristwatches decades ago, but lost them to termites at my aged parents’ place in Goa. I thought this might be a good opportunity to validate my thinking on brands by using Titan wristwatches as the case for it.
The advertising agency I worked with decades ago in India, Ogilvy Advertising, is responsible for building the Titan wristwatch brand along with Titan the company, even though I never worked on the business myself since I was based in Delhi. The launch strategy and the campaign worked wonders for the brand for the initial couple of decades, after which the company seems to have reduced their advertising efforts on the watches business and focused more on growing their jewellery business. Understandably so, since Tanishq jewellery generates several times the revenue and profit that the Titan watch division does. The company has also concentrated on expanding their retail network across the country.
I think it is time for Titan to focus on its wristwatches in a big way again and strengthen the brand as international competition is here in India and at Titan’s doorstep. Titan Company Ltd is today a consumer lifestyle products company in India and much larger than just the watches business, operating in wristwatches, jewellery, eyewear, bags and accessories as well as sarees and ethnic Indian wear. However, the company and the wristwatches division share the same brand name from inception and therefore, in perception terms, it is important for Titan wristwatches to do well in order that Titan the company itself is seen as a high-performing company. Of the company’s entire product range, it is also Titan wristwatches that highlight the company’s engineering, technological and craftsmanship strengths the best, and offer several possibilities to build intellectual property for the brand and the company. Finally, when Titan Company Ltd goes international, it is Titan wristwatches and Tanishq jewellery that will help the company with its global ambitions more than the other divisions. I have my own views on what businesses the company ought to pursue, but this will have to be a discussion for a later date. In this piece, I am confining myself to Titan wristwatches and how to relaunch the brand with a new business and brand strategy. You may read my thoughts on the new business and brand strategy for Titan wristwatches in the document shared below.
In the document, I have briefly dwelt on what I think was Titan’s launch strategy and why it worked, as well as the new strategy I am recommending now for the wristwatches brand. In doing this, I also explore how the Titan wristwatch brand is linked to the company at the business strategy, marketing strategy and brand strategy levels. I have also kept in mind the fact that Titan Company will want to explore international markets for its Titan wristwatches seriously and to this extent, my new brand strategy attempts to raise the image of the Titan brand to appeal to premium and international watch buyers in India and across the world.
In part II of this exploration, I will be sharing my thoughts and ideas on the brand campaign for Titan wristwatches and you can look forward to reading this next month.
The featured image at the start of this post is by Beatriz Cattel on Unsplash
Post script: At the end of the brand strategy document for Titan wristwatches that I have shared in the article above, you will find that only my default email address has turned into a blue link, while my blog site address and my LinkedIn address haven’t turned into blue links.
This is nothing but unprofessional PR agency idiot bosses meddling and interfering with my work. These two addresses are also links that you may use, even though they aren’t blue in colour. Perhaps I should try underlining them next time.
Peripatetic Perch 