Brands and people

The Peter Collin Publishing Dictionary of Marketing defines a brand in the following long definition with sentences for clarity: Brand (noun) make of product, which ca be recognised by name or by design; the top-selling brands of toothpaste; the company is launching a new brand of soap; brand awareness = consciousness by the public of a brand’s existence and qualities; how can you talk about brand awareness when most people don’t even know what the product is supposed to do?

A brand is more than a product with a name, trademark, or a promise of performance. A brand is a network of associations in the minds of the consumer. A brand that is not in one’s memory is not a brand.¹ As long marketers and advertisers believe that brands possess global meaning and associations with all people of this world, the greater will the continuation of miscommunication and a waste of resources. There is no doubt that in South Africa many brands or products have meanings and associations that continue to entrench the relationships amongst people and brands, and many owners of these brands are not aware of these associations and meanings.

The essence of a brand is that it is a name in the memory of consumers. It is a perceptual map of positive and negative associations, a symbolic language, a network of associations. Brands create meaning and identification. A brand’s values must fit the mental mapping of people.²

Brands or products have lived in peoples’ home for many years. It is obvious that in many cases strong relationships have been established amongst people and brands. There are reported cases of people selecting to walk and travel long distances to find that special trusted brand, and actually spend more money and time compared to the monetary value of that “special” brand, even where suitable substitutes are available in the local outlets. The Brandpilgrimage has not been able to establish a sense that people associate brands with certain personality traits. It is fine for brand specialists to believe that brand personality assists brands in defining their own differentiation in the market, with an attempt at finding and creating real equity. These brands personalities have to be built with the full grasp of the type of personality traits that would be acceptable to the people that purchase and consume these brands. However, it is clear that people in the rural and urban communities of South Africa believe that some brands taste or clean better than others. In-depth research would provide varying indicators or answers on how people define better taste and cleaning. Brands are clusters of functional and emotional values which promise stakeholders unique experiences, and the functional values are less sustainable than the emotional values.³ 

There are many successful brands that have managed to get into the minds of people and touch their hearts. These brands succeed because they possess that unique ability to connect with people, far beyond the strategic visions of their founders and the quality of the management teams that provide direction for these brands. Luck will not hold for any brand that omits to recognise and commit to sound and informed relationships with the people that purchase that brand. This relationship has to be based on the people’s terms, since it is the people that have to live and accommodate these brands in their homes.

Very little effort, if any, is invested in searching and thriving for the understanding of the relationships people have with brands and how the cultures and languages of these people impact on those relationships. To many, the advertising seen on television and print that is insensitive to the language and cultural nuances of the people does more to confuse even the relationships that have been established by people on their own terms.

There are a number of brands that fail in the marketplace after years or months of relative success, because what people had perceived the brands to be has been fundamentally altered by the new ill-informed marketing strategies and messages in advertising. For example, the famous and previously the top-selling Lion Lager brand totally ignored its core market and support base and went the route of attempting to appeal to a new female market. This strategy lacked the understanding that staunch rugby supporters and other loyal customers in the coloured communities, especially men, would not take kindly to sharing their brand with females. The failure of this brand was also compounded by the perception that the taste and quality of the brand had been tempered with.