Industry View | Textile Articles

Create Brands & not Products

Published: May 29, 2012

Author: TEXTILE VALUE CHAIN

Create Brands & not Products – Emotional Connect to Customers!

Rushin H.Vadhani

AGM-Marketing

AYM Syntex Limited

(Formely Welpsun Syntex Ltd)

A lot of market research goes in the entire product life cycle of the products. Market research is one of the most important marketing activities. Products are introduced depending on the taste, preference and keeping the price point in mind. Three P’s – Popularity, Positioning and Pricing of the product matters in the market. Thus, consumer buying behavior, purchase pattern and complex buyer behavior play a key role in deciding on the lines of introducing products/entering a target market.

The customers are more influenced by emotion centered marketing strategies than logic & fact based marketing strategies when it comes to selecting specific products like of personal use , lifestyle products & high value brands. Although consumers are not going to strictly be influenced by emotional aspects over logical aspects ,the goal is to prove that emotional aspects are considered before logical aspects. Consumers, at times, appear to be more concerned with how the product looks, feels & appears to other .Its like a woman wears a beautiful dress & she receives compliments for self ! It makes her emotionally happy & feel good. She believes in brand she is wearing. The logical factors only comes into the consumer’s mind after more superficial characteristics are satisfied.

Various marketing strategies which will enable marketer to launch , market & brand products to segmented markets to target customers. Rational Vs Emotional Consumer Behavior :

Marketing Mix Strategy : Features & Objectives
It determines where the company should place its product, how to promote the product, how the product can be marketed itself & how to price the product effectively
Gives importance either on product benefits, what value it has for customers or how it is different from a competing brand or competition
The distribution & pricing objectives would depend on the target segment
The promotional medium would also depend on the target segment & positioning but the basic mediums are T.V, radio, billboards ,magazines & internet (social media)
The strategy is based on very logical & factual elements which has little to do with consumer emotions.

Porter’s Theory of Generic Strategies : Features & Objectives

Overall Cost leadership – Achieve an overall cost leadership in an industry through a set of functional policies aimed at this basic objective It requires aggressive construction of efficient-scale facilities ,vigorous pursuit for cost reductions from experience, tight cost & overhead control ,avoidance of marginal customer accounts & cost minimization
Differentiation – Differentiates the product or service in order to create something that is perceived industry wide as being unique or innovative. This strategy can take many forms & ideally the firm should differentiate itself along several dimensions.
Focus – Focus on a particular buyer group, segment of the product line or demographics. The entire focus is built around serving a particular target segment very well & each functional policy is developed with this in mind. The firm is thus able to serve its narrow target more effectively or efficiently than competitors who are competing more broadly.

Experiential : Features & Objectives:
Focuses valuable deal on how customer experiences a product & eventually chooses from competition
The consumption situation is examined to discover what the meaning of these situations are for consumers & how important they are for them
Customers are seen as emotional as well as rational beings by nature which means that more emphasis will be put on entertaining ,stimulating & emotionally affecting the customer
Methodologies of an experiential marketer are very diverse & there are a lot of various ways that this type of marketer can get their research
Sensory :Features & Objectives
Appeals of five senses with overall purpose to give customer excitement & satisfaction through sensory stimulation
Overall goal is to get customer completely immersed with the product so when the customer thinks of the product will be reminded of how senses reacted
Differentiator – Stimulates & creates new feelings & emotions for customer because product is presented in new & innovative way.
Motivator – Motivate customers to try new products by precisely entice them in through a perfect amount of stimulation so that they feel that this new product is exactly right for them for consumption & experience its benefits.
Value provider – Needs to be a sense of value perceived by the customers & that the product is giving the customers & that the product is giving the customer a unique value
Feel (Emotional/Experience centered) : Features & Objectives
Causes consumer to have effective experience linked to the brands within inner feelings & emotions
Works best when there are strong emotions linked during consumption or use of the product which can range from feelings of anger or excitement
Tries to attach specific emotions to the brand so consumer can relate to & connection with it
Contains a great deal of emotions in the advertisements to create & dredge up emotions within customer to try to connect them to the products
Works best with more complex products but can work with low involvement products with a lot of customer interaction prior to the purchase
Hard to see if it works because most of the analysis needs to be done during consumption stage of purchase cycle & normally this occurs once the customer is at leisure

The first strategy discussed is the marketing mix strategy which is essentially traditional approach. It emphasizes elements of particular product, price, promotion & distribution. Generally, the firm does very traditional & logic based elements for the strategy such as differentiating it from other brands, pushing the products quality characteristics or positioning based on how it is built.

Eg.FabIndia & Khadi products

The next strategy is based on combination of Michael Porter Model strategies of cost leadership, differentiation & focus. The strategy is based on efficient cost it has over other companies, how the firm can differentiate its products from other products & focusing on particular segment to fully concentrate on serving particular one segment.

Eg- Ikea & Walmart

Experiential marketing strategy focuses on how the consumer experiences the product & how consumer encounters it. The emotions of consumer are very important to this approach since the firm wants to know exactly how the consumer feels about the product in every aspect.

Eg- Apparel Designer labels

The sensory strategy is centered in the five senses & how consumer reacts to product. It meant to differentiate the product to create new feelings & emotions, to motivate the consumers to try new things by focusing on their emotions & give the product value which also makes it unique.

Eg- Levis is iconic brand for denim but creates a different experience with its new line of creations –theme base

The feel marketing strategy tries to create an effective experience that would link the consumer’s emotions to the brand. The overall goal is to attach specific emotions to the brand so the customer can relate to it & connect.

Eg – Brands like Louis Vuitton & Hermes connect to customers more emotionally by enhancing overall experience. Its class apart .

The above marketing strategies needs to be adopted judiciously as per market dynamics & positioning strategies. A well crafted strategies & timely execution will surely assure good sales & branding for company .Connect to customers emotionally & win their trust, you will have a loyal customer for lifetime!

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