Losing Brand Equity

Consumer is the King. He buys what he wants. She buys only if she likes it. They buy whenever they want to.

There are a lot of companies out there in the market who are looking for selling their stuff. Usually, within the same product segment, multiple brands from myriad organizations are attempting to have their piece of pie. 

Building a Brand

To get a larger piece of pie and to make an impression in the mind of the consumers, the products are building brands with advertisements. Brands with which people could identify easily and closely. Brands which could make a small place in their hearts and minds.

Usually such brand building exercise converts into increased sales and more profits. However, sometimes, such attempts convert into a loss of brand image.

Let me cite you some examples.

Consider the recent Cricket World Cup 2011, which was played in the Indian sub continent. 

Usually, there is a break between the overs - where the advertisements are shown on TV. Such breaks span approximately 20 to 30 seconds, and can fit in an advertise or two.

However, with the urge of making more money, the television team and the marketeers slip in an ad immediately after a fall of wicket. What does that do to someone like me, who enjoys watching human emotions? 

Well, I'm deprived of seeing the happiness of the bowler who took the wicket. I can't see the pride of his fellow players. I can't watch the disappointment written on the face of the player who got out. And the collective sighs and shouts of triumphs of the thousands of men and women inside the stadium. 

These are the moments for which I'm watching the match. Yet, the silly advertisement that pops up immediately after the wicket prevents me from enjoying the euphoria.

Forced Selling

Net result, I hate (now that is a strong word) the brand for showcasing it's product at such a moment. I stop identifying with it. Couldn't it wait for a few moments more? And frankly, the brand doesn't gain any brownie points for this advertisement.

Do you feel like me?

Let's take another example.

After a day's work, you come home and open your laptop to surf your favorite websites. And as soon as you open the site, a flash advertisement comes up which prevent you from seeing the site. 

In my opinion, such advertisements are desperate to gain attention. It will get attention only if it deserves it. But this forced attention seeking technique is not doing any good to the brand image .

There are some ads which fore scroll the screen and take upto 10 seconds get you back to where you wanted to be. These are the worst.

Brand Equity

If this was about online advertisements, you could have experienced something about paper advertisements too. How many times would you have had a pamphlet thrust into you hands selling some offer, only to realise that it is valid only with "Conditions Applied". 

Well, a popular pizza brand in India is an expert in selling it's pizza with such conditions. And I have stopped taking it's pamphlets. If you need to sell, sell it without any complex conditions.

Just yesterday, I opened my Sunday newspaper only to see a half page advertisement sticking on the front page of the paper. To read the newspaper, I had to tear away the advertise from the paper. I was very careful, yet, I ended up tearing a part of the paper.

Guess what happened with the advertisement? It (and maybe the brand image) became a part of the trash.

There are several examples like these where an attempt to increase the brand equity backfires and translates into a loss of brand image.

I strongly hope that the marketing people are more intelligent and aware of such consumer needs. Only then can they create a sucessfull brand.