Title of the Project/CaseGroup Assignment 2Innovations in Brand building in the last 2 yearsCourse: PGCBM 32Study Center: HRBR BangaloreName of the faculty: Dr. Sanjay PatroSubject: PBM (Product and Brand Management)Submitted by (In case of Group): Group No.:-33Group membersMr.
Rajesh Alevoor Kini Roll No: 2235770Mr. Siva Divakar Rajesh Kommuru Roll No: 2235444Ms. Poonam Patnaik Roll No: 2235488 IntroductionBranding is a marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products and creating an image for the product or company in the consumers mind such that they identify sellers goods or service as distinct from other sellers. “Launch and Grow”-Is the prevailing Mission and Vision statement of current day Business and Organization.Branding is an old terminology which has come from initial days as an identification mark to its position or product as a weapon for its consumers to know or identify.
Every organization use branding as a way to control and manage consumers view or perceptions about their products or image. In most of the cases, branding creates competition for firms.What a firm should invest in branding, how much needs to be invested or when to be invested, is purely dependent on the strategic, operating or business model that the firm adapts. Like, many buyers of electrical appliances would certify, as companies or organization that invests more in branding, also invest heavily in Innovation. Here the question arises how firms’ branding strategies meet and collaborate with their innovation strategies. And whether there is support from each other? Do firms consider branding or innovating as an option? Innovation and Market Competition are two important elements in determining the growth rate of an economy. The mix of innovative activities and competitive market decisions can form the pillar for strong economic growth in any country. However, the effects of these two elements are so interrelated, and so alike, that each of them collide with the other.
Market competition has always multiple effects on innovation in many ways. On the one hand, when competition is too much it discourages innovation. As and when competitive pressures get too strong, firms fail to innovate or have a very low scope. Saying that innovation is costly and risky, any add in expenditure should be justified by the potential profit margin.
Where the intensity of competitive market conditions prevail, the profit margin may not be sufficiently large, or significant enough, for firms to recover their investments in innovative activities.Briefly, for competition to best describe innovation, it has to be neither too big nor strong nor too weak. While we try to figure out the relationship between competition and innovation, a graph would reveal an inverted U-shaped figure, whereby innovation increases as competition intensifies; however, after a certain threshold of competition intensity, innovation decreases as more rivals enter the market.Every year, Popular Science select the 100 best new innovations in science and technology. Such are the best breakthroughs that would shape the future.
According to Kanter, “Innovation includes original invention and creative use and defines innovation as a generation, admission and realization of new ideas, products, services and processes.”Today most of the organizations are evolving in a very rapid pace, and branding has become part of the reformation to relate better to their customers. Branding dedicates themselves to helping brands, define their ‘brand promise’.Some common factors while thinking about Innovation in Brand Building,RebrandAt times company come up with refreshing their brand image, they are more into rebuilding their brand with some innovations in technology, application, expense management etc. it’s always a good to put on a fresh coat of paint. This helps to rebuild business.
We need to understand what does brand represent? Does the competencies of the brand match with our goals? Also if they are idealistic in nature? Probably while getting into a startup we didn’t put much effort into it. Now by doing a rebranding we can be very beneficial. It’s a common strategy for pubs and clubs in particular, because people always look forward for varied latest experience.New Caption/SloganOne particular punch line would rebuild the whole business and it’s brand.
One meaningful Slogan will give an idea to all potential customers what you’re all about, and it will strengthen the loyalty that existing customers have. In order to make something perfect it is an art, although we have so many templates, organizations, PRs in place that may help us to come up with inspiration.Reframing the mission statementMission statement is something which should be relooked every time, most of the business ideas, strategy style of operation lies in the mission statement of the company, hence quite often it should be relooked.And some companies may not have mission statements at all, they can actually frame one. Success stories in Brand innovationPaytmPaytm is an Indian mobile and eWallet firm, which was founded in 2010.
Paytm started off as a prepaid mobile and DTH recharge firm. Though it got in principle approval for banking services in 2015, it had not really caught the imagination of the general public. By 2015 it had a user base of 105 million but still it was not a well-known brand to the masses.
When demonetization took place in India in 2016, Paytm seized the opportunity to rebrand itself. From being known as eWallet services for the classes, it really went to the masses. The shortage of currency, especially small change created a niche market for Paytm. The company provided user convenience by having apps on mobile phone as smart phone penetration was quite high by then, thus enabling the available technology. It positioned itself as a poor man’s wallet where you could make small transactions of few rupees. There was no purchase required as people could transfer money from person to person and not just to vendors. Paytm spent Rs 600 Crore on brand management, 50 Crore in advertising in TV and print media. But they also got into low cost branding by approaching vendors and keeping small tabletop cards with scan code.
This was advertisement for Paytm, the vendor attracted customers displaying this easy mode of payment and resulted in customer experience as they did not have to type in mobile number to pay the vendor. Their brand positioning for the masses helped increase startup investment, at times of slowdown in 2016, when other startups were suffering from lack of funds.Today they are expanding into retails selling clothes, mobiles and laptops. They have further strengthened their brand by buying sponsorship right with cricket, which is popular with the masses. Every referral to third umpire during IPL, results in a 5 second Paytm display on giant screens in stadium. These innovative advertising has helped in brand management by strengthening Brand recall and making the brand ubiquitous. RBL BankRatnakar Bank Limited was a small scheduled commercial bank in Kolhapur, Maharashtra.
It had mostly local footprint catering to local traders and agriculturists and was known as a regional lender restricted to mostly Maharashtra. Despite being one of the oldest private sector banks, it was hardly known in the banking circles or public domain.RBL started planning growth via low cost funds in current and savings bank accounts. The focus areas of SME, agriculture and retail segments.
They continued to project themselves in niche areas like agriculture where they finance the entire supply while growing into new areas like corporate and retail banking. Apart from planning strategy for growth, they also went for brand building. They hired McCann World group for rebranding. They rebranded themselves from a regional sounding name like Ratnakar bank to an abbreviated RBL bank. To match the new brand image, they changed logo and brought in professional board of directors.
They also brought local assets of Royal Bank of Scotland to further strengthen their image as a pan Indian player. All this was done before they floated IPO so that they get enough subscription. The IPO was oversubscribed 69 times and listed at 22% premium. Today it has undergone a complete makeover and is known as a professional bank catering not just to Agriculture but also has other verticals like corporate ; Institutional banking, Micro ; small business banking and retail banking. RBL has been listed on NSE and BSE since August 2016. Their Net profit for 2016-17 has grown by 51% while maintaining a very low NPA.
Earlier they were a cooperative bank with direct lending, which could result in lot of NPAs. They were able to shake of that image by good strategy and effective brand management. It has ticked all the banking parameters to call it a successful bank.Few Failures to Learn fromCompanies should take extra care while trying to brand innovation through bold and innovative advertisements.
They should think from multiple perspectives and should never create an advertisement or branding spot that could easily be taken out of context. For example the Facebook’s spot of telling viewers the advantages of “Facebook Spaces” VR App by showing a virtual tour of damages in Puerto Rico after the hurricanes and calling it a “magical tour” was not received well by viewers and termed it as exploitative to sell products like apps by covering sensitive subjects like natural disasters. Another such example is the advertisement of Dove in 2017 which faced lot of criticism from consumers and termed it as racist which shows a dark women taking off a shirt to reveal that she had turned into a white women.
After receiving much deserved criticism Dove pulled the advertisement and apologized, which tarnished their brand image with lot of consumers boycotting the brand. This shows that while brand innovation is necessary, one has to be careful about innovating, lest it ends up hurting the brand.References:-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RBL_Bankhttps://www.rblbank.com/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paytmhttp://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/lessons-learned
