Fitting in the right shoe: Brands

Honestly, the term brand was loaded in my dictionary not more than about five years back. Probably while transiting from school to early college in a pathetic attempt to feel belonged to a place that I didn’t really want to be a part of.

I was exposed to brands when almost all of us wanted a fastrack watch because it was a statement more than a watch. Sometime when it really mattered which store was the faded pair of jeans picked up from and I remember few friends using the fancy tags of jeans as book marks in the Chetan Bhagat books which again was merely following a culture that we begged to be a part of.

With evolution, this is what I feel of brands.

Brand to my renewed knowledge is what the company calls itself as strictly their product and the consumers find it to be their product in terms of comfort and luxury. A company or a product could become a brand comfortably if they successfully convince their pocket of consumers with continued support and consistency. To my grand mom, her fragrant incense sticks from her trusted company is her brand but does that mean everyone else is using the same? No. It simply means that the incense sticks has managed to stick on to someone’s life without giving a chance of replacement. With loyalty of consumers, a product becomes a part of someone’s life making them a testimony to their existence.

Subsequently, an aggressive effort to top the leads, brands thrive to create a need for themselves through strategies and efficient marketing. I remember how subtly fastrack made its impact on the youth. “How many you have man” was a straight challenge to have a collection of the accessories from fastrack which would in turn increase the cool quotient. “Move on” was yet another campaign on the fast moving culture by fastrack which was well accepted. While blackberry tried accommodating themselves among the youth, it couldn’t really make a mark simply because it didn’t seem to come in terms with what a typical student needs and what one could afford.

Ultimately what really counts is what goes best with the built-in attitude of a consumer and how influential are advertisements on the mindset. Individualistic minds are often not taken away by advertisements or a culture while some tend to give everything to try what a large number is using.

To me everything that I use is a brand. Not too long ago, I was in heavy impression that using a well known brand was what made me a updated denizen. Thanks to the company I keep now, I have a mind of my own and go by what the product has in store for me and not what the world has found it to be.