The Hindu Business Line : Brand religion

A super brand is all about a brand cult. A brand religion that creates in its consumers passionate souls who go far beyond the brand's commercial purpose.

BRANDS create cults. Cults of consumers. Some cults are small and some big. Whatever their size though, every brand has its own cult following.

As the pure commodity traverses the way to become a quasi-commodity for a start, the process of distinction of the offering happens. The plain old rice becomes a `Nellore' rice and the plain old tea becomes a `Nilgiri' tea! The quasi-brand then morphs on. It becomes a brand. A brand with that much more specific appeal and distinction. A Kohinoor Basmati rice and a Red Label tea are examples of the popular brand.

Brands are common enough in our lives. Ask any self-respecting brand manager and the journey is not complete as yet. Legions of managers of the brand and its appeal will have you understand that their journey is one to the end with the achievement of the status of Super Brand for their offering of condiment and condom alike.

The super brand is therefore the end goal for many a brand. Few brands achieve this status and there are indeed few we can talk about today. A Harley Davidson and maybe a Rolls Royce!

Will Nescafe get there soon? Is Ovaltine already there? We are not too sure of that, but let's wait for the jury to be out on this. And this might just take a hundred years more!

What makes a super brand then? A lot of warmth? A lot of positive feel? A feel-good factor that dominates all else? A bonding that is so sacrosanct in the consumer-brand interface? Or is it all about a whole big dose of the intangible? A whole big dose of the inexplicable? A whole dollop of passion and fire that just happens when you think of this super brand?

I think it is primarily about consumer passion. It is most certainly about the process of the consumer adopting a brand for more than what it physically stands for. It is 99 per cent about the non-physicals and one per cent of the body, the gut and the gore of the brand. The super brand is fundamentally all about a `bonded consumer'. It is about the consumer bonded to the brand with a great big garnish of the irrational. It is quite like religion as well. Brand religion, let's say!

The super brand happens over a long number of years. Long number of trusted years when the brand subliminally enters the psyche of the consumer in manners that are best left to the imagination to describe, rather than the fundamentally weak word to attempt.

The super brand needs to have all those trusted ingredients of the reliable brand that delivers. Functionality apart, the super brand brings with it a hoary past of advertising appeal. An appeal that swims entirely in the territory of the mind and mood. An appeal that knits together every consumer with the basic thread of similar passion.

And then it is all about a brand cult. A brand religion that creates from among its consumers passionate beings that look far beyond the commercial purpose of the brand. The brand is therefore a religion of sorts. A religion that breeds like-minded souls who turn into cults of worshippers.

I have been to McLaughlin (very, very close to the mother of them all gambling towns, Las Vegas) on a day through Harley week. More than 60,000 worshippers of the Harley cult, out in their drag attire all with their beautiful flying machines!

All with a passion that is common and crazy! This sure was a brand cult celebrating its own festival of the brand. In this case, the Harley legend!

As Ovaltine, the Swiss brand of powdered barley, malt, egg and cocoa is being put on the selling block, there are hundreds and thousands of appeals coming from the Overtimes (a veritable club of Ovaltine users of the UK, founded in 1935) asking Novelties AG, its owners, to reconsider selling out to non-Swiss interests! There are protests galore! The common link: Passion! Brand passion!

Consumer passion is therefore possibly the one common thread that makes for the super brand.

Brands that build cults of followers of this kind reach the status of the super brand!

And these brands are far and few between. Can a Maul aspire to become one then? In the next hundred years? Depends then on the number of followers `Religion Maul' will nurture in the years to come.

In a nation where temples are built for starlets who capture the imagination of the public, is it too far-fetched then to find a temple dedicated to the religion of brands? One never knows! Touché!

(The author is a brand-domain specialist and currently COO, Zip Telecom Ltd. Feedback can be sent to bleditor@thehindu.co.in)

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