By Ram Gudipati
Managing Director, Brand Harvest Consultancy
In my childhood, I would wake up to the sound of the prayer bell ringing gently in the pooja room, a signal that the day had begun. Most of us would have a similar experience or at best wake up to a Favre Leuba alarm clock, as I did.
In my growing-up years, I never regarded the alarm clock to which I woke up as a brand, but saw it as a generic product for its functionality.
Circa 2012. We have given away our lives to brands. The brands we consume determine our world, our privacy, our peace, and our happiness and above all, if not a hyperbole, the way we live. From who we are to what we do, everything is surrounded by brands. Today, from our formative years, every factor that shapes and influences who we are is determined by brands. Of course, your parents have a role to play, though a miniscule one. The schools we go to, the study material one we are exposed to, TV programmes we watch, the kind of food we eat - everything is influenced by brands.
It’s almost like at every stage, there are these faceless amorphous things called brands that are waiting by the roadside to attack. Once you have crossed a certain age, you become somebody’s target (audience). Now is the time to understand you better, because you are evolving, you are a rebel, fast-paced, fickle and every other conceivable attribute that you never imagined you possess.
In fact, the brand custodians know you at this stage of life more than you would know yourself. Anyway, you are not supposed to know at your age. The journey with brands so far has been sub-conscious, but now you are aware, a world citizen, arrived in some form. Hopefully out of the campus, and a new set of brands begin to lure you. You can choose from a new set of attributes like aggressive, fastest-growing, innovative, creative, open, global exposure, etc., and these seem to be fulfilling your aspirations. They begin to pamper you, involve you, engage you, entertain you and delight you. Why not? You become the king, but are not sure of the good times though.
This is the stage when there are maximum brands across categories targeting you. Day in and day out, left, right and centre. Okay, you are in the centre. They seek your attention, call you, message you, e-mail you and track everything you do in the digital world. They share your details, and your wife’s, children’s as well, including what you like, dislike, where you have been, what you purchased and for how much and when next you are going to purchase. They know it all, so you don’t need to know. In the world of the brands, you stand exposed naked and you do not know that.
Welcome to the world of brands where custodianship means not just guarding the brand, but ensuring that people like us are converted to consumers. We are researched, discussed, debated and brainstormed at one level. Scrutinized, segmented, analysed in microscopic detail, no less than what a medical lab does, to identify what the brand world terms as insights.
I sometimes wonder… did I as a professional involved with the practice of building brands also become its own victim? No doubt there. Being influenced as much as influencing others, thinking that we know why they (consumers) consume and yet fall prey the minute the alarm rings. Oops! Did I forget to say as the Blackberry vibrates?
Feedback: ram@brandharvest.net
