The Human Brand Relationship

It is always said, "A Man is a social animal", who relish meeting others of the same kind, making friends and establishing long term relations. In our lifetime, we meet thousands of people, remember few hundreds, but develops a long-term friendship and relations with only handpicked out of those hundreds. This social behavior and ability to establish long-term relations are not only visible in our personal life but in every decision throughout our life. This is the reason why we prefer one brand over other despite both giving the same benefits because we make a relation with them.

Since our infanthood days, we developed the relation of brother/sister, niece/nephew with our relatives based on our parents' relations with their friends and relatives. We got our uncle & aunt because our parents chose to develop long term relations with them from their hundreds of college friends. In a similar manner, we developed a relation with "Jhonson & Jhonson" because our parents chose J&J over other brands and established a relation of trust for us. We looked upon "Nestle" with trust when we were served Cerelac three times a day and were not ready to accept anything else if ever tried by our parents.

Till the time we went to kindergarten, relations with people and brands were gifted by our parents and we automatically developed long term relations with them, but as we began going school, met new kids, developed an ability to pick and choose both people and brands.

We started demanding "Disney" characters to play with, "funskool" toys and "Hotwheels" cars to feel proud of our game collection. We developed a relation with our favorite "Natraj" pencil, sharpener, and eraser and were excited for the art lecture to use the new pack of "Camlin" crayons. We deliberately rough handled our old school shoes to buy a new pair of "action" school shoes, our first "pilot" pen when we entered 6th standard.

As we reached adolescence, we were already having the bunch of close friends and certain brands with which, relations will be a lifetime, but also had faced many heartbreaks, loss of trust both by people and brands. Sometimes we changed our priorities for people, and switched to other brands, and sometimes people change theirs and brands left us as they discontinued or lost their identities.

We realized the importance of relations with people and brands when our best friend and "Old monk" gave us his shoulder to exude our tears on our first breakup. We became responsible when our parents gifted a "Raymond" suit for our first job interview and we felt accomplished with the first salary credit notification from "HDFC" bank in our "Nexus" phone.

When we will become parents, we will trust the same brands which our parents gifted us when we were infants, and this led to generational relations with brands, which is best for any brand. In today's world of brand flood and communication tsunami, it is difficult for any brand to establish long term relations with consumers and in this scenario, if any brand is abe to establish relations with more than one generation of its consumers, it becomes immortal.

Human relations with brands changed according to human life phases from infanthood to adolescence to parenthood. At inception, we received relations from our parents, then learned to develop relations but were not able to understand their importance and with time realized the grandness of relations and established life-long relations.

"A man is known by the people with which he spends time", and a man is known by the brands he carries. This ability to reflect the personality of a man in Brand makes the idea of celebrity endorsement so successful. Brands utilize charming personalities of Celebrities to develop brand personalities which become the most important reason for a common man to carry that brand. We want to add that personality element offered by the brand to our personality and as a result, choose different brands which complement each other and develop our overall personality. Here brand act as the medium for human-human relation.

In return, brands also get something from our personality when we carry them. Brands built their personality further with the help of its users when a user carries it with other brands. Here human act as the medium for Brand-Brand relation and one brand utilizes personality of another brand to further built its own.

Just after parking your range rover endeavor, you received an important call on your apple i phone 6S, and suddenly looked at your omega and realized you are late for the meeting, rushed to the meeting room and at the end you happily took out parker from your Van Heusen suit and signed the contract. Here, you carry brands like apple, omega, parker, Van Heusen and range rover to add their personality elements to your personality. At the same time, all brands complemented each other and utilizes each other's personalities to develop their own personalities.

Man builds relations with bands and brands builds relations with other brands and thus, the chain of human brand relationship keeps on the building.

Why 'travelling' is the best gift you can give yourself ?

Travelling has been an important part of human civilization from centuries. The early man used to travel in search of water, food and shelter. When the early man started living in civilizations, he learned to farm and started traveling in search of fertile land. As more and more civilizations flourished, the man learned to trade and he started traveling for business.

With sands of time, the man turned greedy and started traveling for invasion and loot. Part of the civilization who were called as 'wise men' started spreading their knowledge through the education system and people started traveling for receiving the education. As more men turned wise and aware of right and wrong, traveling for invasion and loot decreased and major traveling was for business and education. 

As the man become technologically advanced, he invented technologies like the telegraph, the telephone, mobile phone and the internet and virtually reduced the distance of miles to zero, which allowed the man to not travel cities-countries-continents for business and education. Now he can arrange a business meeting on video conference rather than traveling to other city and can get online lecture without the need to travel to foreign university.

Most people consider traveling a headache & waste of time and thus are happy to rely on technology as an alternative to the traveling. But they do not realize what they miss when they choose technology over traveling. It is always said, 'the more you see the more you learn' and 'change is the only constant thing', and traveling is the only way to see more and to experience the constant change in life.

Some of the reasons why traveling is the best gift:


The feeling of Euphoria

We humans are blessed with an imaginative mind and when we are traveling to new places which we have never visited before, it paints an image of the place in our mind.

This image is being painted on the canvas of our expectations, excitement, past experiences and our resistance to change. That feeling of ecstasy when that painted picture turns into reality or of amazement when it turns out divergent is what it makes traveling a fun and the reason people still love to travel in this technological dependent world.


Building contacts

While we travel, we meet new people with different beliefs, mindsets, and experiences. This helps us to develop both personally and professionally. While we observe and interact with them, we get to learn things which no book can teach us.

On personal grounds, we get to understand different belief system, different cultures, different living styles and methods to deal with different situations. Sometimes you even get lucky and meet your prince charming or princess Fiona, but do not travel for this intent only.

On professional grounds, we learn from their experiences, are able to generate new ideas from their stories, learn what to do and what not to do in our career and get new opportunities.

This way we develop a unique perspective towards life and a unique approach towards our career which is the result of all the knowledge which was absorbed from countless contacts you made while traveling.


Boosts your confidence

In our day to day lives, each one of us has to face uncertainties in both personal and professional lives. A flat tyre when you are already late for office, or elevator went out of order when you returned home after long day's job, or you find your partner dating your ex. Well, this may sound bizarre, but it is also true that anything can happen in our lives and the main thing is how we handle those situations. Traveling is a tool to make self-comfortable to handle any unpredictable situation in a much better way than we do.

How is that so?
Because traveling gives us exposure to anomalies at every step on which we don't have any control but we have to face them and find a way out of it. This experience of facing oddity helps us to handle uncertainties in our day to day lives.



Try different mode

While we travel, we always have to use more than one mode of transport to reach our destination. Traveling gives us the fun of the feeling of butterflies in stomach everytime plane takes off, the fun of rocking every time train changes its tracks, fun of stopping at a motel for refreshment on a long highway and fun of increased blood circulation when we walk.

The real fun is when you travel to rural parts, and experience an auto rickshaw, jugaad (very popular in rural India), horse carts or bullock carts. All these amusements which you get in traveling via different modes are unparalleled.

Makes you an explorer

When we travel to new places, we desire to see its tourist attraction spots, taste its special dishes. So to explore a new place in a better way, make the checklist of places to be covered according to the time you have, make an itinerary and start exploring,

The best way to explore a place is by taking an alternate route from one place to another when we travel between for more than one time, have our meals at different eating places rather than sticking to one place each time we have your meal outside the home.

Time for yourself

Traveling gives some time for us to introspect and think about matters which we don't in our daily routine. This helps us to get a fresh start with new ideas and strategies which will improve our present condition both professionally and personally.

So, the next time you plan for a video conference, think twice and plan some traveling and I guarantee you will not regret it.

If old is 'Gold', new is 'Platinum'..!!

Those long arguments lasting for more than an hour where you both try to prove your point, you think she doesn't understand you and only obtrude her decisions, you don't talk to her for days and finally this cold war comes to peace when she comes to you with all her love in eyes and gives her agreement on what you want.

Well, some of you have already started thinking about quarrels with your girlfriend, but don't WhatsApp her because here I am talking about your Mom. We all have faced this situation with not only with our mom but also with our dad and the extreme case is with our grandparents.

Generally this war of words is followed by a long speech by our respected orators on the subject of respecting elders and the phrase which each one of them uses to arouse some sense of guilt in their auditors is "Old is Gold".
It left us speechless and we question to ourself, "If old is gold, then what is new"?

This dissension between our elders and us is never ending because its root cause is something which can never be quashed and only be minimized, which is 'generation gap'. When there is so much trouble in our real lives due to this 'generation gap' then just imagine how big pain in the a** it is for companies, particularly for marketers.

The marketers are always in a dilemma of either focusing on our parents or us, as it is strenuous to cover everyone. Today, Earth is the home to more than 1.8 billion youth (10-24 years of age) out of 7 billion total population and according to a UN report, 28% of India's population is youth, making India the youngest country of the world. Every third person in India is youth which is going to be increased to every second person by the year 2020 taking the median age of country 29 years of age. After all these facts and figures if any company decides to focus on our parents and grandparents, I am sure that company is in the business of adult diapers only.

The world population is grouped into generations on the basis of cohorts, and the three generations which are the most active buyers are:

Generation X
Born: 1961-1980
Age in 2015: 35 to 54

Generation Y, Echo Boomers or Millenniums
Born: 1981-1995
Age in 2015: 20 to 34

Generation Z
Born: 1996-2015
Age in 2015: 0 - 19

Generation Mismatch

There was a time when more years you spend on the Earth, more experienced you were considered, but now higher the age, higher constrained your thinking is considered.

In the era of Generation Y and Generation Z, most companies' senior executive posts in the discipline of marketing are occupied by Generation X, which is only suitable for understanding wants of Generation X not of Generation Y & Z. This is the major reason, most companies are still in an abyss of focusing Generation X and not Y & Z.



India is a young country with major population lying in Generation Y and Z. These two generations are the present of the country and will be the future in another 10 years.


Relationship between Age and Loyalty

Pick up any study measuring risk taking ability and age of an individual and you will find same results. With growing age of a person, his risk taking ability decreases. There is an inversely proportional relationship between both,

Risk taking ability (RTA) ~ 1/ Age (A)

There is also a relation between risk taking ability and loyalty. Higher the risk taking ability, lesser loyal a person is to his choices, whether brands or girlfriends. There is an inversely proportional relationship between both,

Risk taking ability (RTA) ~ 1/ Loyalty (L)


That means, There is a direct relation between a person's age and loyalty,

Age (A) ~ Loyalty (L)

Leser the age of an individual, less loyal he is to his things. In childhood days, we want new games every day and something new to eat in our every meal. We are least loyal to anything and we are only focused on wasting things we got in order to get new things quickly.

As time passes and we join youth force of our country, we become somewhat loyal to some brands in some categories. But real shift comes when we reach the age of 35, avoid changes and have decided what is good for us for the rest of our lives.


Relationship between Age and Inquisitiveness

There is a similar relation between age & inquisitiveness as that of age & risk taking ability, inversely proportional,

Age (A) ~ 1/ Inquisitiveness (I)



The younger we are the more inquisitive we are, and as we climb up the stairs of aging, our inquisitiveness comes straight down the ladder and finally on the ground.



Generation Gap

When we talk about Generation X, it has the median age of 44.5 years, that means most of the people who belongs to this generation have lower risk taking ability than those in generation Y and X. Moreover, the former one is far less inquisitive than the latter and thus they restrict to pre-tested things and do not readily try new things. It can be said that generation X is far more brand loyal than generation Y and particularly generation Z.

Due to this rare characteristic of loyalty, companies loves generation X and try to attract these honey bees to their nectar. But one thing they fail to realize is they already have a favorite nectar and now it is a waste of resources to try for these honey bees.

On the contrary, Generation Y & Z are much more inquisitive and have need of trying out different things, which makes them less loyal or it is better to say negligible loyal. Both the generations, particularly Z, frequently changes its brands and keeping this in mind companies do not try to focus on these generations. But they again fail to understand,

• These generations are majority of population and hence potential pool of customers
• These generations will also face the effects of aging and by the time they decide their loyalty, they will still be in majority
• Looking in future and constantly hammer the childish minds of generation Y & Z, so that by the time they become loyal to one brand, it is your brand, not the competitors'.

Thus, for any company it is inevitable to focus on generation Y & Z, which is only possible if there are same generation people creating products and strategies for that generation customers.

For becoming generation Y & Z centric, the first thing a company has to take care is of its leadership. The person holding a lantern for the whole team should understand the importance of Gen Y & Z and then the only rest of the company will follow him. Next level comes of functional heads of the company, who guides the path of a function, be it Marketing, Sales, HR or finance. It with the mutual consent of all the functional departments, a company can be on the top priority of Gen Y & Z.

In the recent past, there are many companies belonging to different industries which have realized the need to change the focus toward gen Y & Z. A recent article of Brand Equity, mentioning one of the homegrown company Dabur focusing now on gen Y & Z and turning the new leaf after peeking into the future.

Gen Y & Z characteristics which should be understood by our modern marketers, to make themselves equip to stand the tough competition are:

• Have high awareness about things around them because of their high level curiosity, 
• Impulsive in nature and do not ponder much before buying, because of their risk-taking ability, 
• Price factor comes last, what matters is the ability of a product to make them feel unique and better than before, 
• Communication matters a lot for them, should be reminded about product very often and from different sources, 
• Time & convenience is more important than price, thus favors to shop from air-conditioned hypermarkets than a local Kirana store,
• Creative advertisement is more impactful than celebrity claims of making them better, 
• Increasing purchasing power as they believes in saving less and living a larger life, 
• High aspirations, go out of the way for fulfilling their aspirations,
• Easily influenced by peer group, everything is a fad, not a trend

On the basis of these characteristics, marketeers favourite concept of 4Ps can be mixed and served according to the taste of Gen Y & Gen Z

Product & Price

For marketers, there has always been a trade off between Product & Price, but for Gen Y & Z, their problems are much less. Focus on product and price will be paid by these generations. These generations always craving for something new irrespective of the price which they would have to pay for it.
The gretes example is of Fogg deo by Vini Cosmetics, which chaged the whole deo category. The price was much higher for their gassless deo, but gen Y & Z walcomed it with their both hands open and and a result every company including hotshots like Unilever had to launch gassless deo to stay in market.

Place

In this technology era, where everything is only a 'touch' away from us, it is inevitable for companies to make themselves present digitally. Whether you are present in a Kirana store or not, you must be present at supermarkets and leding e-commerce sites.

Promotions

Whether you have POPs (point of purchase) at the retail outlet or not you should have google ads
Whether you communicates through TV, banners, print medium or not, Faacebook, Twitter, Youtube and mobile advertisement is must


Rural Youth

All of the things holds good for the urban youth, but what about rural youth? Can it be ooverlooked over the urban and neglected? Well, let us look over some facts:

According to world bank report less than half of total world's population lives in rural, but 68% of India's population lives in 'Bharat', the rural India. Since the major population of country lives in its rural part, so the major part of its youth force breathe in rural area. So it is clear, rural youth is as important as urban one.

Rural Gen Y & Z is moving to cities either for higher studies or for better job opportunities. Highly influenced by their urban counterpart and thus their behavioural characteristics is same as that of urban.

With smartphones available at considerable low prices and internet pack prices dropping down, Internet has reached to 350 million population of the country, second largest internet users in world and is expected to reach to 500 million by year 2017 (according to IAMAI-KPMG report). More rural youth is using internet through their smartphones, opening a door for marketers which is common for both rural & urban youth.

When one eye of company is gazing Generation X, other should search for generation Y & Z because if old is 'Gold', new is 'Platinum' and latter is more expensive than former, you know what I mean.