Does brand attitude drive consumer pull?

One of the strongest marketing campaigns that the world saw was IPL 2011. The power brands Mumbai Indians and worthy winners Chennai Super Kings both secured sponsorships totalling a staggering two hundred and fifty million dollars plus, even though the brands put together value only one hundred million plus.

This clearly reflects that the brand attitude that has been garnered drives marketers wanting to secure associations so that it can garner consumer pull. But the key question that one can ask is, does it make business sense when the final numbers are tallied between share of expenditure, share of voice and markets share?

Cricketers as brands

As product brands go through different stages in their life, so do sports personalities, like the brand Lasith Malinga for instance also moving in this same direction with advertising, keeping pace with the out-of-the-box Pepsi campaign that sure got the attention of the IPL audience.

It is strange that even though some power brands like Dhoni and Sehwag endorsed Pepsi at IPL 4, some brands have the power of screaming for audience attention by way of advertising relics and persona that results in standing out from the crowd.

The one brand that comes to my mind is brand Lasith Malinga. Even though he could not take Mumbai India into the final and win IPL 4, the brand had the power to fight through the clutter and make a point of being an explosive cricketer that can sure entertain the crowd. This takes me back to my argument, is it brand attitude that drives consumer pull or need satisfaction? Which one is more important from a brand perspective?

Some can argue that brand attitude is more important in the short term whilst need satisfaction is what ensures need satisfaction in the long term, but then again this can be also argued with real life examples in the market place. A classic example is where the brand Sanath Jayasuriya was voted in as the favourite sports personality by Sri Lanka at the SLIM awards when in actual fact there was no need satisfaction as the brand had not played international cricket for quite some time.

Building DNA

If one digs deeper into the two brands discussed, what one can argue is that if the message is the vehicle that builds the brand DNA and if the personality aptly matches this brand imagery that one is trying to create, this creates such a strong attitude that can drive consumer pull even in an entrenched competitive market where one cannot equate the numbers based on share of expenditure, share of voice and markets share.

The essence

To capture the essence, the brand Lasith Malinga gives an attitude to the brand that drives differentiation. Hence, even though a brand constitutes a bundle of features that constitute product features and consumer benefits, what finally gives the brand that edge is none of the above but something that may be called attitude.

Regardless of the type of exposure that a typical brand gets, what makes a brand stand out in a crowd is the attitude it imparts to the brand. Such brands become icons.

At its best

When Pepsi came out with the campaign ‘Nothing official about it,’ it became a brand with an attitude. With the advantage of being a challenger brand it cooked a snook at leader Coca Cola and became the brand of preference among the youth.

When Cloguard toothpaste launched the first herbal toothpaste in Sri Lanka, conventional wisdom drove the market towards ‘herbal-natural toothpastes’. When Anchor full cream powder was launched in Sri Lanka some time back, we saw the fire unleashed in this category with the mother, made to separate the grain from the chaff, who would not hesitate to call a spade a spade when she said ‘best next to mother’s milk’.

Her slightly know-it-all attitude may not have endeared her to all housewives but they were more than willing to stop and listen to her, which arrested Lakspray in its tracks. Today Anchor is the market leader in Sri Lanka and the brand has become an ‘icon’ with an attitude today.

Another one

For years chocolates had been advertised as the bond between loved ones, with parents or adults gifting it to the children on special occasions. The cricket ad with the girl running with great abandon on to the field breaking cordons and rules made Cadbury dairy milk an icon with attitude.

When soap advertising was fighting shy of showing women bathing, Lyril broke open the bathroom door with the legendary girl in the waterfall.

Upside down

It is always easier to describe something by what it is not than by what it is. The same goes for attitude. It is perhaps evident from these examples that brands with an attitude need not be from a particular product category or a lifestyle or for that matter a recent phenomenon.

When a campaign has the courage to buck the trend, maybe it is on its way to acquiring an attitude. However, just being different is not enough as in the Ceylinco VIP advertisement where for the first time in Sri Lanka we saw a dynamics of a working woman and a rough street lad depicted in the insurance industry. The promise of Ceylinco coming to her rescue to help her carry on with the busy schedule drove home the attitude of the brand.

The use of a movie star or sports personalities is perhaps not enough to give a brand an attitude. They certainly make it more interesting and entertaining, but you need far stronger characters and stronger statements or far more iconoclastic treatment to impart an attitude to the brand just like what the brand Lasith Malinga has in cricket where his communication perfectly fitted his DNA.

Like stars

In my view brands are like stars, or even better. Lady Gaga is known to have said, “Right from the beginning I wanted to be more famous than Persil Automatic” and in fact she has become that today, just like brand Malinga.

Stars come and go but brands last and last and are constantly being rejuvenated. What gives stars their iconic status is their attitude – think of intelligent captain Sangakkara, Cool Angelo Mathews or the optimism of Sanath Jayasuriya. Their attitude makes them what they are – stars. So the question is, why not brands as it will sure lead to consumer pull?

(The author is an award winning marketer and respected business leader. He is currently on a Senior Management Leadership Programme at Harvard University in Boston, USA.)