Do brands deliver happiness? The story is simple.
It started with green pajamas which came as a gift. A white UCB (United Colors of Benetton) packet was lying in my car’s back for quite sometime. As the gift box was opened, a nice warm pair of pastel green pajamas unfolded. The feeling was good and it gave me a certain kind of comfort cum happiness as I went inside.
Aren’t brands everywhere now a days! They have entered our households like never before. Wherever we look, we find a brand – be it soap, powder, medicine, cloth, television, radio, bedsheets, towels, pens, shoes, eatables, cars among others. There are many many products seeking to establish themselves as brands. They are trying to connect with consumers on a daily basis.
The power of publicity and advertisements has grown and we have adapted to all this quite well. Even the milkman and the washerman have access to branded products in their households. It so seems that even during the recession, the purchasing power of the common man has improved which was not seen ever before.
But how fast we can tap the rural consumers as well, given the fact that 70 per cent of India’s population (read consumers) live in countryside? Together with urban areas, India has a large consumer base of 1.27 billion (52% males and 48% females) constituting nearly 17.31% of the world’s population.
Meanwhile, whether it’s an expensive brand or not, I must say the feel is good and guess that is what drives people to trust a particular brand. So, instead of buying something which is available at a cheaper rate on the roadside, people tend to buy higher-priced commodities of known brands.
The packaging too matters a lot. That is why Apple sweats every last detail when it comes to its products. Wish every company in the market finds an obsession for product’s packaging! Good packaging makes consumers prospective buyers – they then see something beautiful and useful without seeing the product actually and immediately.
Whatever… I slept well in a comfy pair of Benetton pajamas, last night, like an emerald beauty.
