BY FARAI CHIGORA
Our brands from birth, growth, maturity, saturation and re-invention are going to be judged — in some instances positively while in other circumstances ruthlessly and mercilessly. Throughout this journey, the brand managers should always be on the lookout for the best possible opportunities to position the brand for positive judgement.
We deliberately create our brands, thus giving them dominance over any other competing offerings through a clearly designed process. That’s what I call extended supremacy. Even with the living word saying “do not judge, or you too will be judged”. Wish the other side of the word will apply to our living brands, but it is inevitable since every day is a judgement day for our brands. Whether we like it or not, it is a constant occurrence. This is important to remember that these brands exist not just for themselves, but also for the entrepreneur, the company, and its products/services. This is something that our SMEs should be reminded about. Those who have made it to the top have done a lot of self-reflection which I believe should continue. “You lose if you snooze.” I discuss how character matters, and many of us agree that it does. Our brand also has a personality, which the rest of the world notices (whether good or bad). Some have utilised the brands as a type of deceit, similar to how raw food is coloured. That is an invitation to disaster in the media, decreasing the lifespan of our long-lasting companies. Others have gone too far, re-branding multiple times until the brand’s art, statement, and purpose have disappeared. All I perceive in these situations is judgment. “We don’t live for people,” as the saying goes. Which has become a common statement for conformity to encourage the weak of our societies. Yet our brands should not move by the same bandwagon. Brands live for people and people also live for these brands. Imagine GUCCI brand saga in the #blacklifematters. All the issues raised and addressed in previous editions were to create and cement a better position and identity of our brands. An oversight of our SMEs as they do their brand management is negligence of their own elements as they just place the brand on the market and let it find a way as a loner. That’s is not the way to do it.
There should be continuous assessment on the appealing levels of our brands as envisioned in the development. We need to prepare for a brand judgement that should always result in positive publicity and attractiveness to consume (extended to imagery issues here). Imagine how some cough syrups have had their journeys muddled through association as judged by the present markets. Some cough syrups have now lived to be shamed as users have overridden the intended purpose as a flu remedy rather than addictive and harmful substances.
Then you take a close scrutiny of our home-grown brands where SMEs do not put in place the needed and protective checks and balances that encourage a lasting positive image as judged by the potential markets. If not, then someone out there will do it for you and it will not be for the positive but rather to tarnish and destroy your presence on the market (brand infant mortality).
We all know that brands compete for market share and recognition in a highly fast-pace landscape. My fellow entrepreneurs, it is high time we should seriously consider “brand judgement” as something that we should foresee, prepare for and avoid its negative implications. This entails deliberately pushing our positive agenda that is associated with our original meaning as we grow to be the cause of excitement and pure satisfaction of our customers.
As a growing entrepreneur, you should be able to describe your brand, not as an ink and paper prescription only, but finding the real aspects that make your brand appealing as viewed by both the market you serve and yourselves. Even with the adage that “quality is in the eyes of the beholder,” our markets seem to judge the quality of a brand in the same way and viewpoint no matter their geographical locations. This is because there is always one leader to judge and incite others follow, especially in the advent of social media.
Know those who are leading in your brand quality assessment as customers and agents and then engage with them for they will eventually become your advocates and ambassadors (which is an outcome of a progressive brand) in the perpetual and positive presentation of our brands. Sometimes as we grow, we tend to lose touch of our brand associations as from the creation. When other agents (whether by engagement, serendipity or as imitators) now take ownership and control of our image, let these agents work for us not others, keeping that glamour of novelty initially configured in our own brands. “How deep is your love”? These sweet-toned words passed my ears celebrating Valentine’s Day. The same applies in our brand judgement in the form of customers trying to understand your brand credibility so as to make a decision whether to buy, or not.
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As informed in the previous editions, in their drive to eliminate any risk associated with brands, customers judge us.
They do not want to buy problems, if I can say. It is imperative for us as the owners of brand creation to ensure that the market is convinced of our credibility.
We should be fit for purpose through talking and promising what we can do rather than having the brand live on gimmicks and falsification. As they say, what goes around comes around. We wouldn’t want to be the self-destructive pivot behind our brand mortality. And now these customers will repeatedly ask themselves “why do we continue to buy this brand”?
Until now, our entrepreneurs have been caught in the middle, unable to answer the same questions for their own brands. Who else could it be, if not them? As a result, we are judged, but most of the time we confuse our customers as to whether or not we are the true owners and custodians of our brands.
I’ll remind my co-workers that ongoing self-evaluation is essential; else, we lose purpose in ourselves and via others. Conducting a regular brand audit should be part of the industrialisation craftsmanship demanded of our businesses. We should come up with measurable nodes that allow us for such an assessment in a clear and traceable manner. That way, we are able to answer some questions before our brand judgement day. That is when we are able to know even the difference between our customers and our competitors. These are the critical two parties in the judgement saga as they both have something to say about our brands and use in their own capacity and intensions. With these wise words, one should evaluate his/her brand if it is adding or detracting the current marketing of their products/services and the enterprise business as a whole.
I leave this to our SMEs to remember that brand judgement should not be ignored or escaped amid entrepreneurship in the age of industrialisation.
- Dr Farai Chigora is a businessman and academic. He is the head of business science at the Africa University’s College of Business, Peace, Leadership and Governance. He is into agribusiness and consults for many companies. He writes in his personal capacity and can be contacted for feedback and business at [email protected], WhatsApp mobile: +263772886871.
