Branding educates both trust and desirability

A brand reflects the story of the work it has done and is something similar to the reputation that is earned by doing hard things well. If you want to hire an online reputation expert, you need to know the reputation management price, which will depend on the task you’ll need. You can read here if you need additional guidance on managing your brand reputation. Loren Weisman wrote: ‘Your story, shared with authenticity, can do more to sell you than any sales pitch, marketing piece, or ad.’ Philip Diekhoner talked about a brand being ‘a guarantee of value’ and then there are others who talk about abstract values like sensuality, texture, and flavour sweeping in to make a brand what it means to the users. The important point is that a brand finally emerges in the words of what people say when brand creators and brand promoters are not around. If you want your brand or business to instantly entice your audience and, at the same time, leave a lasting impression, you can hire the services of topnotch companies like https://www.func.media/content-creation.

A few days back I happened to talk to Sachin Bhonsle, the research head of TRA and he immediately told me that brands are a composite of rational, emotional, communicational, and aspirational appeal. he added that elements from these aspects ooze into the brand attractiveness and make the way towards brand desire clearer. TRA (formerly Trust Research Advisory), a part of the Comniscient Group, is a Brand Intelligence and Data Insights Company dedicated to understand and analyze stakeholder behavior through 2 globally acclaimed, proprietary matrices of Brand Trust and Brand Attractiveness.

Branding is vital for the education sector

It is vital for readers of Education Post to know that TRA conducts a primary research with consumers and stakeholders to assist brands with their business decisions based on our insights on Consumer Behavior. They provide Competitive Intelligence Reports mined from more than 33 million data-points on brand intangibles of 10,000 brands and also custom-made studies for the same. TRA is also the publisher of ‘The Brand Trust Report’ and of ‘India’s Most Attractive Brands’. They have also ventured into mapping Educational Institutes on a much needed factor of trust, based on their Brand Trust Matrix. With real-time email address verification ,you can validate each newly acquired email address to prevent typos and fake accounts from creating additional unwanted hard bounces. Visit ZeroBounce for email validation solutions that can help with your business.

Now India’s Most Attractive Desired Brands 2020 has been recently launched, it is time to take a dive into the gems it has given us. However, before we go into the way brands have fared, let me add here that I asked Sachin if their matrix also considered the advertisement like fleet wraps and marketing promotion budget as an SEO agency may help in creating better inroads for a brand and if CSR activities also mattered. Sachin told me that these these three things are definitely important but at the same time, the other things which will always overcome consumer reticence, are more critical, to understand. It is the four appeals and not merely the brand’s own desire that creates an impact. The best online marketing companies can help you direct the funding towards high-value campaign attributes instead of wasting it on the non-effective ones.

He added, ‘Just to give an example, the money in the pocket may not determine the character of a person. And it’s vice versa as well. The character of the person cannot be determined by the money in the pocket. So there has to be those intangible attributes to focus on. I mean, there are many leading brands who do a lot of advertisements about themselves, you know, there is a lot of investment which goes into advertisements. But what do the brands know exactly how much of their investment done in advertisement has really given them a watermark? The only thing that matters and that can be measured is trust and desire that the brand creates for itself over time.’

The TRA methodology

When I insisted if brand recall was a function of the amount of advertisement and marketing budget for which they choose cheap but good services like SEO las Vegas, NV, Sachin said: ‘Yeah, there’s definitely some impact but if you look at our methodology and the way this report is done, or the methodology in which the research has been conducted, concepts will get clearer. For instance, we ask respondents the attributes and for every attribute, they are asked to recall at least three brands. The next question is about the category for that particular brand. And the third most important question is about the rating they will give. Now, while they give a rating to a particular brand, they might end up giving a lower score for the first brand that they have mentioned. So this means that the consumer now fully comprehends what an attribute really means to him and whether it tickles the right form desirability or not.’ Sachin then gave the example of Mirage, a leader in marketing white cloth with a worth of 2000 crore. This company does not advertise nationally and is limited to a region but the impact it has in its limited area of operation thanks to the help of their SEO company is what has converted it into a desirable brand.

There were other questions as well but let us, for now, jump into what the report has to talk about. One of the features that was striking was that the Indian brands dominate the top 100 of India’s Most Desired list featuring 42 brands, followed by 15 American, 12 Japanese and 11 South Korean brands. 6 German brands also feature of which three luxury car brands dominate the list. 4 UK brands make it to top 100, and the three Chinese brands which are included in the list are from the Mobile Phone category.

Understanding a brand

We all know that brands are powerhouses that tell inspiring stories that tell customers to associate with a brand… or products associated with that brand. A product, by the way, is generic but a brand turns it into a promise, a pledge, an assurance, and a commitment. Brands are built by actions and not mere words. Thus, in the case of educational brands if someone assumes that a catchy slogan is all that is needed to convince a potential student, one would be wildly off the mark.

N. Chandramouli, CEO, TRA Research, said at the launch of the report, “Desire is a longing for a brand irrespective of its need, and the success of a brand is highly dependent on the desire quotient it emanates. The brands which feature in this list have been able to exude a deep magnetic pull that impacts the consumer at a subliminal level. TRA’s syndicated research is based on our proprietary Brand Desire Matrix which measures consumers’ expressions of desire on 36 intangible attributes of a brand”. MDB 2020 lists 1000 brands across 326 Categories and 39 Super-Categories.

The F&B Category has 159 brands in the report and FMCG features 129, totalling 28.8% of the listing. Automobile features 75 brands, Consumer Electronics lists 59 and BFSI & Personal Accessories have 56 brands each. The Fashion-to-Financial Services conglomerate, Tata Group, leads with 29 brands featured, of which ten are Category leaders. Godrej Group has 11 brands listed with three Category leaders and Amul gets 9 brands included in the report of which eight top respective Categories.

One of questions that I asked Sachin was: ‘A lot of brands are there, tangible brands, and a lot of services are there which are not so tangible. Now, we also have something called podcasting, which is picking up in India. Do you think something like podcasting or blogging or blogging can ever become brands and will they be analysed by TRA?’ According to Sachin Bhonsle the super category of internet brands have gradually been growing and the number of brands entering into the into the report has been growing. So that means there is a larger audience moving towards towards internet trends. So, while social networking is becoming extremely important, Twitter is becoming more important day by day, LinkedIn is becoming more important, and blogging is also becoming more important. He added, ‘And of course, I mean, we had a brand in a new category called YouTuber. Okay, yeah, so when a YouTuber category itself gets created the others cannot be far behind.’ This means a lot from the educational segment angle because everything from blogging to micro-blogging is now a part of the way things happen and get communicated there.

TRA on educational brands

Rankings for universities, colleges and institutes are already there to be considered. However, TRA has a specific category on education. Sachin elaborated that they had ‘a few years back, launched a report in India that was India’s largest study, which was been done across 42 cities.’ They had called it India’s most trusted educational institutes where they had more than 20,000 unique education brands listed. More than 8000 faculty, students, and parents were interviewed. However, an industry-specific study requires a lot of time and resources and is definitely in consideration for the future.

What does it take for an educational brand to take-off? Besides the visual identity, what is vital is for a brand to highlight assurance by pointing out the core benefits associated over time. A value-based mission linked to this brand is what will make it outrun and outshine others in the competition.

The TRA report hasn’t as yet analysed the conventional educational brands but has categorized and ranked brands like Zee Learn, Aakash Institute, Kangaroo Kids, Don Bosco, DPS, Viva College and others. However, they have identified super categories that include consumer electronics, apparels, food and beverages, automobiles, FMCG, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, BFSI, and others and have concluded that South Korean electronics giant Samsung wins the crown in TRA’s Most Desired Brands 2020, making it a fourth time victory in six editions of the report. The brand also led the list in 2018, 2015 and 2013 reports as well. Technology giant Apple takes the 2nd place up one rank from last year, having climbed steadily over the years from rank 290 in 2015 to the exalted place this year. Samsung features again at 3rd rank in the Consumer Electronics Category. Sony TV, the GEC channel is a debut entry and rises by an impressive 594 ranks to occupy the 4th position this year followed by Maruti Suzuki at 5th. The Austin-based laptop maker Dell secures 6th rank; Samsung in Televisions at 7th, Amul Milk at 8th, Honda Activa at 9th and Hyundai at 10th follow sequentially. The MDB 2020 list has 394 new brand entries which did not feature in the last edition.

Other interesting aspects in the TRA report

The top 10 Indian origin brands include Maruti Suzuki at #5, Amul at #8, Lakme at #11, State Bank of India at #16, Royal Enfield at #17, Titan at #18, LIC at #19, Lux at #21, Reliance Jio at #22, and ICICI Bank at #27. This does appear to be a fairly dispersed list until one goes deeper and finds that there are 9 technology brands in the top 20, 4 automobile brands, and the remaining has a sprinkling from retail, FMCG, food and beverages, and BFSI. This seems like we in India have a higher preference and possibly recall for technology-related products.

In the other category listings, the top names include Kingfisher from the Alcoholic Beverages category at #427, Otto from Menswear at #120, Madame from Womenswear at #402, Biba from Ethnicwear at #115, Voltas from Airconditioners at #78, LG from Washing Machines at #73, Samsung from TVs at #7… and so on. As Mahesh Gupta, Chairman of Kent RO says: ‘Every brand has to attract its audience… and brands must give consumers a compelling logic.’ The Kent RO logic is obviously Hema Malini, a celebrity endorser of the brand.

Executive quotes and its relevance for education

Bipin Jain from Madame believes that ‘brand desire and identity should be distinguishable from other brands because with increasing competition and the wide geographical spread, brand desire begins to hold a much higher value.’ A Padamasingh Isaac from the Aachi Group of Companies finds that ‘a brand’s ability to control consumer behavior consciously and unconsciously by meeting the needs or desires making it magnetic for them to purchase a product or service repeatedly showcases this attractiveness.’ Suvanker Sen from Sence Gold and Diamonds goes a step in a different direction and admits that brand desire is ‘the ability of a brand to induce desire in the minds of a consumer with minimalistic communication’ which simply means that the consumer psyche has to be primed in ways that it becomes not just a one-time buyer but an influencer.

It is clear that even educational brands are clubbed in a segment where they need to begin highlighting features that distinguish them from others. Besides this differentiation, it is the attractiveness of it that may tilt the balance towards them because it is never one batch but repeated batches of students that players in the education segment prefer. Many brands see the process of gaining customers as ‘an ardent dedicated chase’ as M Chandramouli of TRA puts it, and adds that ‘the language of wooing includes terms like curiosity, cultivating, relationship, caring, intimacy, admiring, and doting. Pursuit is the start of a one-sided transaction  whereas wooing is the beginning of a life-long relationship.’ By the way, if educational institutes need to avoid a pursuit mentality they need to be wary of terminology that includes words and phrases like market share, share of wallet, conversion rate, customer acquisition cost, and customer mindshare. The truth that educational honchos need to believe in is that when their message woos, their institute becomes an object of desire.

Lessons in brand strategy for educational players

Besides the ones already pointed out in the earlier paragraphs, what matters is that a unique brand identity needs to be established in a way that it positions it in an advantageous substrate. The planning and implementation of brand marketing programs need to consider the art of wooing and not be limited to just pursuit. The benefits of doing a regular analysis and interpretation of brand performance is without doubt because we are living in an environment that is dominated by change. It is this continuous appraisal of promotional policies that not only help it keep the message fresh and relevant in times where thought processes change, but also help in the growth and sustenance of brand equity because after all, no educational brand wishes to be called a ‘one batch wonder’.

The policies of branding are vital for every player in the educational industry because most will have not just one brand but a lot of sub-brands to look after. Market needs and competitive precedence besides equity and revenue flow are the factors that will dominate the way the brand architecture builds up. What matters most is that it is time for the education industry to wake up to the call of subtle wooing techniques and not get into a huffing and puffing of a race that enervates the entire outlook for their future.

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Arvind Passey
March 2020