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| Sunday, 17 March 2002 |
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Business |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Marketing and branding - keys to competitiveness Iron rules of economics and the needs of the customer decide whether a product will be a brand or a standalone product. Brands did not exist 20 years ago, but new distribution channels together with the advent of new technology and the Internet paved the way for products to be promoted as brands, said the CEO of Chartered Institute of Marketing, UK John Stubbs. After a company decides whether the product will be promoted as a standalone or a brand, "Value the brand as the first step to branding, then build and manage the reputation aligned with customers," he said. "When building brands, think of customer preferences, alignment, differentiation and value addition as these are key ingredients to branding and brand building. "The most important asset of a company is its brand and companies invest heavily on this. The world is full of brands and they even compete with governments," he added. Brands can become icons, but it needs careful management as branding is customer experience. Brands remain with us for a long time if they are good or vice versa if they are not good. Therefore, mobilise people to act on it while believing it. At present the fastest growing brand is Intel," said Stubbs. He said that there is no use of building brands, investing heavy sums of money if the company does not care about the customers as they are the consumers. "Therefore, take time to understand the needs and wants of the customer as social accountability is moving from strength to strength," he said. At present CEOs spend very little time in getting to know their customers, but since the role of the CEO is important, they should spend more time with their customers, said Stubbs. Marketing and branding are the keys to competitiveness and play a crucial role in wealth creation. He said the greatest single expense of branding is the hidden cost of the amount of time people spend on brand proposition. "Therefore, every cent you spend to drive the brand up should be accounted for, as this will show how much a company has spent on it," he added. In marketing of consumer brands, "imagination is very important as globalisation is a market of products", he said. The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) has over 60,000 members worldwide while the Sri Lankan branch has over 100 chartered marketers, 500 members and 3000 students. CIM is the world's largest professional body for marketing. |
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