UmmahTalk

As brand marketing professionals, we delve into the structural issues of developing a brand, and often invest heavily on the “brand building” process but do not take into account the associated risks or undertake a “Brand Risk Analysis” on those risks (at times).

With the growing importance of brand, the risks too, have proportionately grown. Given the rising growth of social media usage, the global financial collapse triggering major socio- economic changes and issues of transparency and trust, all have been catalysts in moving brand risk to centre stage and in the limelight.

Brand risk management can (and should) be identified, measured and managed within the enterprise risk management framework of an organisation. Given that brand risk is multifaceted—strategic, operational, financial, regulatory—and that, currently, these risks are often, managed by organisations in individual silos (departmental planning based), being able to get a true picture of the potential brand risk is poor.

Brand risk evaluation and planning doesn’t deserve such silo based approach but a much more strategic and integrated approach.

But let’s start with “What is brand risk?”

Under traditional risk management (originally the domain of finance), brand risk has no definition. It comes across as an output from other identified risk areas such as lawsuits or adverse regulatory decisions or supply chain issues.

In layman terms we can define brand risk as threats to the brand equity or threats to the brand differentiators that make consumers choose one product or service over the other. Thus brand risk can be defined as anything that threatens:
1. The sustainability of current and future demand for a company’s product or service
2. The company’s commercial freedom

The key, internal areas, where brand risk is (usually) generated are:
1. Poor manufacturing quality
2. Poor customer service (brought about by dissatisfied or not-in-sync with the brand philosophy employees)

Externally areas are:
1 Behaviour by consumers—boycotting the products or services of the company due to change in perception brought about either by a change in the brand differentiator communication or experience OR due to changing social values
2 Retail space capturing, buying out of stocks, removing stocks on display etc tactics by competition
3 Political or community opposition to the brand to do business within a geographical region which limits its ability to develop

The value of approaching brand risk in a comprehensive manner, utilising the parameter of looking at the brand all round from the point of view of answering the question— “what can affect the sustainability of the brand?”– provides a useful framework for risk analysis. Such an analysis can aid in corporate planning for business growth as well as in being a measurement for brand equity as a value.

An oft used word in today’s corporate world with limited or practically no delivery in terms of action. This could sound like a pretty strong judgemental statement. It probably is. It’s based on a decade long experience across industries, professional dealings and employee-company relationship. Out in my part of the woods, the experiential learning seems to lean towards the above (so far. And I’m still looking out to be proved wrong!)

Whilst developing a ‘brand identity’, the marketing team, the consultants, advisors et all use this particular word quite often. Finally, it goes into the documentation and at times also into the processes developed. But that’s where the DROP occurs! When it comes to putting the process to practice ie having free flowing two-way information between the employee and his/her superior, between the senior management and the mid, and junior management levels, somewhere some of the ‘information’ is “not communicated” in its full form. Resulting in assumptions, presumptions, and individual interpretations and finally producing a ‘pot-pouri’ where the brand experience is concerned.

So the question is, can such DROP’s be avoided or a back-up plan developed in case it does occur (during a strategic plan implementation stage)? YES, it can be avoided.

The way to do this is:
1.Role clarity: Right from the start of any project/activity, the team leader should ensure that each individual of the team involved understands his/her role in terms of how the communication would flow, who is responsible for what, and the timelines of the same.
2.Reviews: in the implementation process, productive reviews should be factored in. Productive reviews are team meetings which are aimed at bringing up to date the team members on each specific area of the project as well as each team member using that review session to clarify queries, flag issues and agree to the next deliverable.

Transparency can’t be simply spoken about. As a work cultural value it needs to be demonstrated or shown. And the best way to show is by practicing it.

If a organisation, in its daily operations, follows the above two steps of basic project management, they will automatically be creating a ‘transparent culture’ ie a culture where failure is not penalised as the occurrence of failure will be diminished due to the teams having role clarity and frequently meeting and clarifying all issues.

This in turn would form part of the ‘brand experience’ that the employees in turn will make the stakeholders experience. Simply put, the employees would behave (with the stakeholders) exactly as they do in their interactions internally as it would be a habit for them. As a result, the stakeholders would be getting full information on their brand through their interactions and this would enable them to trust the brand more and more thereby leading to becoming the external brand champions.

(But that’s another topic…..)

Ameen Ul Haque, vice-president, planning, at O&M, says the Muslim market in India cannot be ignored because of its size and the challenges in India here are different from other places.

“There are unique challenges in India — one of inclusion rather than exclusion,” he says.
The idea is to communicate about brands that are coherent with Islamic values, which will help members of the community to be included in the larger mainstream.

“For instance, being a Muslim does not mean one should get isolated in a beer-drinking crowd as non-alcoholic beer brands too are available,” he says. “Then, there is no need to order a fresh lime soda.”

Brand expert Harish Bijoor says the initiative provides scope for advertising to split into cultures.

Islam is non-profiteering and has specific features such as food habits, he says. This also means breaking the secular framework and transcending from pan-Indian to pan-global cultural niches. “Even if comparisons are made between south India and north India, cultures cannot be ironed out. They can, at best, be creased out,” he says.  Full Article

Am I wrong in doubting the expertise of Ogilvy Noor based on the statement above, from the vice-president of planning at O&M, Ameen Ul Haque?

Having spent over a decade in this region in strategic brand marketing and business planning, one glaring, operational deficiency that emerges behind lack of success of certain medium sized (local) private business operations is the GAP between strategic business planning and business operations.

Most organisations have well intentioned attempts at business growth. Some undertake inordinate amount of meetings and planning sessions covering analysis of their products and channels and communications. Yet, when it comes to having a well-articulated and simple strategic view and translating that into a clear roadmap of activities, each of which is aimed at achieving a specific objectives, there is a lot left to be desired. Net result of such business operations is a lack of focus, and doing the “headless chicken run”. Read the rest of this entry »

In today’s changed economic scenario and social media connected, consumer groups can CSR play a meaningful role in establishing a strong brand identity amongst the global Muslim community?

The growth and acceptance of various social media platforms (professional and personal) have given rise to, interest based, on-line communities. Communities that hold a strong ‘recommendation/influencer’ power over its members. Trust in the recommendations of a fellow group member goes a long, long way than the advertising and traditional marketing communications of a brand. Read the rest of this entry »

The global Muslim community is fast becoming a consumer segment that all businesses are looking at.
At 20% of the world’s population, in terms of sheer numbers, its enough to make any marketeer, worth his salt, salivate. However, it’s critical to note, that the purchasing power of this global community is not aligned to the population numbers. The Marketing Week in UK recently carried this article detailing the age and social connectivity of the Muslim umah (http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/in-depth-analysis/cover-stories/young-connected-and-muslim/3014934.article). Read the rest of this entry »

This is the 3rd and last part of this series:

7. Listen and involve people in strange new ways
In order to ensure a strong brand identity, the culture of listening needs to be inculcated amongst the employees. This leads to developing trust. And trust will ultimately lead to transactions.
Trust is important to have as that enables the organisation to know the pulse of the brand stakeholders’ opinion and through that be able to guage the health of the brand.
Engaging the brand’s stakeholders (employees, shareholders, customers, partners, vendors etc) is key in projecting the desired brand culture. This engagement can be brought about in many ways (and will be covered in another post on this topic). Read the rest of this entry »