Unbounded Branding

It was the year 1970 when brands thrusted to the forefront. Prior to that buying decisions were based on convenience and cost effectiveness. But now consumers buy "Branded" products.

Branding is not as simple as "gut feeling" it is a holistic scientific experiment. The experts keep on brainstorming and experimenting with new branding strategies to secure a place in this competitive and ever competent market.

It is well known that Coca Cola is a worldwide phenomenon when it comes to "Branding", which reminds me of its Friendly Twist Branding Campaign (refer the image below). So, what was the use of this innovative cap model? This is a called a good branding exercise with shopper insights in place where customer engagement is the key.

Furthermore, branding exercises are not just limited to engaging events and product activations and events rather capturing the routine "Sensory" techniques leading to Multi Sensory Branding exercises focusing on the five senses of sight, smell, sound, taste and touch. But these cliched sensory exercises have now gone “Unbounded”. Now brands concentrate their efforts to amalgamate all the sensory feelings into their single product so as to maximize the attraction and hence, the sales. Apple’s scent designed by the Air Aroma Company, Heinz Beans’ Musical Spoons which plays music when you put the spoon inside your mouth, Dunkin Donuts’ Atomizer, McCain Foods Baked Potato Aroma Campaign, Olay Thermal Facial Products, Louis Phillipe signature scent in every store, Experiential Marketing at Automobile stores like Porsche, BMW and many more.

Conversion Period + Branding - How are these two related?

For E-commerce this metric is much lower as it is easy to hold customers online owing to discounts, freebies, variety and easy delivery & returns, as compared to offline stores. It demands premium cost, efforts and Time. And that's where Branding Exercises help.

Just imagine yourself on spree to find a decent place for booze tonight and coming across this door on your side lane. What would be your instant reaction? For me it is, I am going in.”

Okay, one more. You are in the QSR queue glancing at the menu and waiting for your turn. You see two images, one with a muffin on a plate and another with a similar muffin on a similar plate but with a fork on right side. Going by the researches on human psychology, you will prefer choosing the second option. Thus, advertisers must consider the vitality of minutest details while working with products and their branding, as senses plays a very big role in decision making.

This is all wonderful. Very creative. But how far? How long?

Economy is going digital, consumers are becoming tech geeks and to fall in place with them, brands are also going digital. Technology knows what you want, when you want it and how much you want. And, I wonder how far can this go. Will the time come when brands would be sending out fragrances via advertisements on internet? or maybe they can simply hold our hands and take us for an app tour? I am not sure what future beholds, but one thing that has cent percent surety is that Brands will go Unbounded tremendously and there will be no limits to that.