Getting the ‘Punch’ right?

It was great to hear the news that Sri Lanka has made it to the influential Country Brand Index at number 67 globally and 13th in the Asia Pacific in the eight-year history of the company FutureBrand.

However, a point to note is that with the aversive media that Sri Lanka got exposed to globally where top globally media aired the agitation by the lawyers and in the weekend the shooting of a journalist not to mention the ‘Geneva’ debacle unfolding, what impact it will have on Brand Sri Lanka in the next edition of FutureBrand index will be interesting to watch.

Dettol case in point

Brands and markets go through different stages in their lifecycles and advertising and the media keeps pace and goes through transformation in concept and execution elements with or without being conscious of what’s happening at the macro level. But, with increasing product parity and brand proliferation, advertising focuses on things other than product performance as discriminators to stand out in a crowd.

The best example I can cite is a brand I managed some years back – Dettol Liquid. The brand is an antiseptic disinfectant that protects a family from germs. However, the one thing that makes this brand one of the most powerful brands in the consumer’s mind is the cutting edge ‘advertising’ – namely the cloud burst captured by still camera. This frame is what sticks in a consumer’s mind that indicates that Dettol attacks germs that the naked eye cannot see. This goes on to leave an attitude on how the brand kills germs whilst leaving a strong bonding on how the brand protects a family from illness, which is referred to more popularly as brand equity

Brand Sri Lanka?

We now need to conceptualise what happens to Brand Sri Lanka and what the brand equity of Sri Lanka is. The fact of the matter is that just like the brand communication of Dettol, the attitude that we create for a brand happens to be what a person gets exposed to from media.

As at now, if we take the stories with the highest share of voice, they have been the tussle between the Judiciary and the Executive and the many demonstrations seen among the legal fraternity. Then the photos captured of the demonstrations staged recently – be it the university students, the Halal issue, health workers, and media highlights on the shooting of a journalist over the weekend. Not to mention the up and coming Geneva debacle and CHOMG fiasco.

From a strictly marketing science perspective, the attitude that we project to the outside world will be that we as a nation are very aggressive and vociferous whilst in fact Sri Lankans are known among tourists for smiling faces and warm hospitality. The latter was an insight from the latest exit survey results released by the tourism authority. This highlights the gulf between the perceived brand image and the actual brand image from a real marketing point of view of brand equity. It’s an interesting situation given that research reveals that this will have an impact on investment and tourism sectors.

Kotler’s and Porter’s views

To give structure to this discussion if I quote the works of Philip Kotler (2009), brand equity is added value endowed on products and services. It may reflect in the way consumers think, feel and act with respect to the brand, as well as in the prices, market share and profitability the brand commands for firm.

The brand that commands great brand equity, besides gaining, retaining and growing market share will also have equally great brand value. Brand audit is the starting point of the brand equity building and the purpose is to assess the financial health of the brand, discover its sources of equity, and suggest the ways to improve and leverage that equity which include brand vision, mission, promise, values, position, personality and performance.

Porter (1985) asserts that a company’s strategy is robust when it has strong points of differences from their competitors. Two important components need to be addressed when searching for a sustainable differentiation that is point-of-parity (POPs) association that are attributes of the brand shared with other brands and point-of-difference (PODs) that are attributes or benefits that consumers strongly associated with a brand, positively evaluate, and believe that they could not find them in other competitive brands. But differentiation does not mean that we should do so for shake of differentiation, but it must be done only if the target market desires so, lets it would be in the predicament that coke experienced many years ago.

Brand attitude

To capture the essence of this concept the brand line ‘Families that use Dettol, fall ill less often’ 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 stage that advertising is in, what makes brands stand out in a crowd what separates good advertising is the attitude it imparts to the brand. Such brands become icons.

If I am to explain this concept of ‘attitude,’ let me take a brand line Pepsi which once came out with a campaign called ‘Nothing official about it’. Pepsi became a brand with an attitude. With the advantage of being a challenger brand in many markets, it took a shot at leader Coca Cola and became the brand of preference among Gen X.

When Cloguard toothpaste launched the first herbal toothpaste in Sri Lanka, conventional wisdom drove the market towards ‘herbal-natural’ toothpastes, which is what we can called attitude of a brand. When Anchor full cream powder launched in Sri Lanka, we saw the fire unleashed. The mother in the advertising was smart enough to call a spade a spade. Her slightly know-it-all attitude made all housewives give attention to her and they were more than willingly to stop and listen to her. This is the making of the brand to become an icon with attitude in today’s world of a mum.

It is always easier to describe something by what it is not than 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, such as lifestyle, or that it is not 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 Ceylinco VIP ad where for the first time in an insurance ad, the dynamics of a working woman and a rough street lad was depicted. 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 for more interesting and entertaining ads but you need far stronger characters and stronger statements or far more iconoclastic treatment to impart an attitude to the brand.

Sri Lanka: Iconic?

The FutureBrand report states very clearly that Sri Lanka is associated with attributes such as stable legal environment, history, authenticity, natural beauty and arts and culture that resonate with visitors just as much as ‘value for money’ or accommodation. This can ideally be extrapolated to transcend to an attitude in a customer’s mind that can be iconic in the word. But for this to happen, we need to continuously demonstrate this effect in the way we behave. If not the world will perceive us to be very aggressive and vociferous like what the global media portrays us to be, which is sad.

A point to note is that Sri Lanka achieved the highest rankings in natural beauty, art and culture and in the latter as well as attractions and authenticity, beating countries like Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Bangladesh, which is the power of this brand and the potential the brand has to be iconic globally.

The study also reveals that Sri Lanka is way ahead of the countries mentioned before on the aspect of most likable to live in and standard of living. But in contrast when reports emerge of killings in Kelaniya and journalists getting killed or attacked, these media releases act as a barrier to the iconic status that we as a country can become.

Conclusion

The FutureBrand report summary that “Sri Lanka has made it to be a ‘respectable’ 67th rank with great potential to move up the ladder fast” is a fair statement given the features that it can use to market the product and in the alternate how the message can be said to give an attitude to the world. But the key issue is if there is a will to do so.



 (The author can be contacted on [email protected]. The thoughts are strictly his personal views and not the views of any organisation he serves in Sri Lanka or globally.)