When in crisis or challenging times, like in life reach out and communicate. More the better!

It is by now common knowledge that companies are all about people. And customers and employees interact with people and not companies. It is also now proven beyond doubt that brands are like living beings and they are what they are because of the emotional connect they strike with it’s ardent and loyal customers.

It is time retailers and regional FMCG brands looked beyond TV spots!

Since the topic touches and will touch raw chords and nerves let me at the outset categorically state that the views are those of a seasoned communicator looking at the current scenario dispassionately.

Being a not so regular TV watcher and my mother tongue being Tamil end up watching commercial TV in Tamil mostly in the evening prime time slot. Over the past few years have consistently noticed that big retailers (guess there are tens of them out of Chennai and elsewhere) and most regional FMCG brands almost entirely depend on TV commercials for their sales or marketing or communication with customers. It also dawned on me that festive season after festive season, collection after collection, product after product, this formula remained largely untouched.

Is your brand just trying to ride the festive wave?

It is the time of Onam in Kerala when it starts wearing a festive look and wallets open for practically endless shopping. It is also the time brand managers of every possible consumer name start working overtime to get their brand and its promise persuasively to catch the shopper’s eye. Predominantly what most brand managers/brands end up focusing on is racking their grey cells to figure the most attractive or creative way of riding this festive wave. Very few take the trouble of not taking the not so beaten path of being able to immerse your brand into the festive scape. Allow me to explain.

Do you know your DNA?

In my limited experience of being a branding and image consultant for a lot of IT, IT services and IT-enabled services companies, there was one constant challenge. With the exception of a few, the business model/content of communication of majority of companies in this space is absolutely indistinguishable. However, there was always a lingering question, which begged an answer and, answer to which I thought would be the basis of differentiation for a whole lot of players in these sectors.

Looking for a proven way to build a credible brand? The answer lies within

Over the past few years the Indian economy has seen a visible and substantial shift towards the services sector with its growth outstripping the manufacturing sector by leaps and bounds. In any services business irrespective of its nature and its target audience, the critical factor to success lies in the commitment and quality of people inside. The reason why most services companies today are looking to build a strong corporate brand. It is the same reason that explains the growing finesse and level of corporate messaging in recruitment advertising. Unlike building a brand from a consumer perspective building a brand which includes talent attraction and retention as a key objective needs to have a lot more emphasis on credibility of the brand-building process and the vehicles used. In the ensuing few paragraphs will briefly attempt to provide an answer for the same.

Branding is as important if not more for SMEs

Increasing importance of corporate branding for SMEs

Ask most business heads of small and medium organizations about their top priorities and you would be surprised if corporate branding figured in the top 3 or 5 priorities. Majority believe so for the below reasons:

• existing business thinking imparts and exhorts that at the evolutionary stage of an organization, the top priorities are business development, customer satisfaction and managing the cashflows, the rest being add-ons. It further stressed that if one does this right, sooner or later the business will grow to a size at which stage only one needs to seriously look at corporate branding