Get Brand-y!

Nope... Don't get me wrong! Am not in a mood to get on a high, am high on life already! :D As has been said, is being said, and will be always told on this blog, Brands are an integral part of life. While we perceive of products as the shapers of our habits, we pursue brands as the reason for crystallizing them!

From our childhood, we have always been using products, but we do not consider each of those products brands. For example, though I buy a certain company's footwear most of the time, I am open to other brands too, for I do not consider it brand enough to woo me, where as, call it loyalty or addiction, nothing out of HUL in Home and Personal Care products for me! :D

So, I am sure each of you must have been influenced by some brand or the other somewhere in your life. Now, please take some of your time, and let me know what are the brands you associate yourself the most with and why? In other words, what is the brand you are most loyal to, and what is it in the brand that makes you so?

Branding is never concrete without advertising. They always must and will go hand-in-hand! An ad is a review to the book called brand, and it is reviews that drive people to read books and love them! Hence, I would also like to know what are the advertisements that have captured your attention and enslaved you to the brands? I personally know many people who went berserk over the Pulsar-Definitely Male campaign and bought one! What is your such experience? May it be brush or a BMW, do let me know!

Advertising, when good, can only help a brand in gaining mindspace among its intended audience. But, when it is bad, it gets notorious. It digs a grave, and buries the brand in such case. So folks, also the advertisement that turned you off totally from a product. I am waiting...

To put it straight, these are the three things I am looking for:

• What are the brands you are most loyal to and why?
• What are the advertisements that made you like, buy and idolise a brand?
• What are the advertisements that turned you off totally from a brand?
  

Post your answers as a comment!

I am waiting eagerly, and this is to study Branding and Consumer Behavior. Had been trying to capture this somehow, but never knew the way, until an oracle, a dear friend Arpita Sharma gave me this idea! Thanks to her... :)

Selling your Customers...

Every large or medium scale services company has a loyal base of customers, and for god's sake, there are a billion services outside IT Services, so please do not assume customers to be mega firms here!

Imagine a locality or a town or a village being served by a firm. Now, that firm would automatically want to stretch its revenues and looks for all avenues to boost them! In that regard, can it collect the info of its customers and sell it to interested firms?

Suppose a firm A owns a cattle farm and provides daily milk to an entire village V. Now, can A ask every interested family in V to fill a form giving out contact and demographic details, compile that data and sell it to banks or other interested firms?

This is seemingly an easy task, but what if later families of V sue A? What are the legalities involved in this sort of data collection? Can such data whose intention of collection is not divulged at the time of collection be sold at free-will? I have not come across any law that curbs such acts, but I dont feel it ethical to do so. If you know of any law, please do tell me and if u just feel something about it, let me know!

The most important point that hits me is, in case it is legal to do all this, should A inform residents of V of its intentions beforehand? Also, in this age of protecting consumer privacy, are there any legislations anticipated in this regard?