Two brands stand out marking their signature across the blue horizon of Branding, AQUAGUARD AND TANISHQ.

Three fundamental principles, in my opinion,converge in their race to stardom.

1. BRAND NAME

A brand name that so powerfully communicates its promise..leaving no stone unturned in its journey to generate high recall, strong memorability and an assertive functional association.

And through their intrinsic meaning, `Aquaguard ( powerful water protector), Tanishq( love for the body) create that emotional touchpoint in a subliminal manner forever in the brain.

2. COMMUNICATION CREATIVITY

A persistent and creatively designed communication that generates an experiential emotive bond between the brand and the user…the feeling of being ‘stirred’ by the story.

3. AUTHENTICITY

Real life people who seem to communicate the authenticity of the promise through their actual use situations. Rather than paid celebs who may or may not have anything to do with the product and which comes across clearly to the audience.

It is a matter of pride to be associated with these 2 CEO’s who have woven a tapestry of confidence and ‘feel good’ factors into the brain maps of the customers.

THE CONTRASTING OTHER SIDE

In stark contrast, we have 2 other brands in the telecom space that leave the mind guessing whether they are a toothpaste or a shoe till our eyeballs turn to the celebrities and we get to know what the product is. Wads of money thus parted only just to clarify what the brand name means!!, all of which could have been put to better use. Since in today’s world of celebs all they generate is attention towards the Ad, just a simple awareness and not some ratification of its functionality through their personal usage( called endorsement in the good old days!!) And with a brand proposition that’s so common and passe across all brands and one that’s easily transcendable its difficult to see any long term loyalty pattern emerging.

REVENUE VS PROFITABILITY

Its not rocket science to guess that their possible huge sales revenue is an outcome of the mammoth media frequency downpour rather than the uniqueness of the product or the creativity of its content. One can also hazard a guess into the profitability which could have very easily been an ‘x’ multiple( ‘x’ >> 1) if only one stretched their creative muscles in the direction of emotional bonding, rather than spending on brand ambassadors just to make one look at the brand name and what it means.

Aquaguard and Tanishq have conquered all boundaries without dependence on brand ambassadors etc sheerly by leveraging their creative capabilities to another level.

Interestingly now as these take on brand ambassadors…my guess is that these brands are adding more value to the image of the ambassadors rather than the other way.