Brand War

The brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind. But a brand is simply a collective impression some have about a product. 

Brands are a type of product manufactured by a particular company under a particular name. Today brands might be a valuable asset, which brings companies earnings to unexpected heights. Brands with good reputations are well known in the markets and make consumers satisfied with high quality products or services and sometimes better value for money. Of course, brand‗s good reputation should be built and managers should make strategic steps to keep consumers loyal by doing various marketing activities. Strong brands usually become strong because they become famous and desirable. To become a desirable or a famous brand must be different and give some added value to the consumer. A good brand will make you feel good about the choice you have made, to buy it and to use it. A good brand will help you make that choice in the first place, and it can do that because it knows how to make you feel good.

Brand managers are assumed to be able to control consumer brand choice behavior by ensuring an optimum mix between the four main elements of the marketing mix. The marketing mix is hence a key instrument for understanding and facilitating transactions between the company and the market. The logic is that a brand will succeed only if the manufacturer of that brand is able to produce a product that delivers high utility benefits, then sells it at the right price.

When we have various brands of one product, it leads towards brand war.  Brand wars basically means the responses given by a company against its competitor. Two or more competitors become rivals. Rival brands have been challenging each other through a wide range of advertising mediums – from posters and billboard ads to videos and emails.

Brand war is meant for sales promotion, comparing products and/or services of a company with the same of  rivals. It is believed that the Brand war aims at highlighting the advantages of the product. It is also used to drive sales by comparing and contrasting. Marketers in the field think that there may be reasons behind Brand war like:

Ø  To invite greater attention, through the larger number of views

Ø  To come up more aggressively with bold and loud claims of being better than other players in the field.

“Mass advertising can help build brands, but authenticity is what makes them last. If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.”

Howard Schultz

In Pakistan we see many brands war example. The competitor brands become the rival brands now. Often the most brutal battles come in the form of comparative advertising -- the direct comparison of one company's product to another.  For example, when war betewen Tapal Danydar and Lipton create the hype of CHAI WAR.

Tapal: “Chai ka label Yellow ho ya Orange, strong chai to Tapal Danedar hi hai”

Lipton was equally responsive, bringing in their big guns with the controversial star Hamza Ali Abbasi as the face of their campaign.

Lipton:  “Lipton ek baar, bhool jaogay Daanaydaar. Maza na aaey to paisay wapas!”

When two competitors doing such things through their advertising, many other brands also jump into this and try to make their brand more visible. In the war of Tapal Danydar and Lipton, Everyday Milk, Interwood, Hilal cupcake and and LU biscuits try to make themselves prominent.

For example,

Everyday milk: “Chai lajawab ho ya danedar, only Nestle Everyday makes it khaas!”

Interwood: “Chaahay Chai jo bhi ho, rakhi tou hamari table pey jati hai”

Hilal cupcake: “Danedar chai ka Lajawab saath”

LU biscuits: “Chai jo bhi ho janaab, humara maza Lajawaab”

Once the line is drawn, it's up to the opposition to either fire back or ignore its competitor. Some companies have been duking it out for decades, like Coke and Pepsi. Others took decades to respond. Apple ran its first anti-PC advertisement in 1984, and Microsoft didn't fight back until recently. It let hardware makers like Dell and HP do the fighting.

Brands value for the companies more than their tangible assets. The brand provides distinct benefits, promise, and delivers high level assurance to customers. Brand helps customer in decision making by building trust and assurance of standards. A brand helps companies in building strong customer base. A brand provides customer and employees who work for them a feeling of pride, if someone is working with Infosys and Microsoft, company brand name motivates employees that they are working with some branded institution. Technology never remains same, its keep on changing, same like brands which keep on innovating to become successful. Consistently reinventing and remain on its promise is the quality of the brand which customer appreciates. Loyal set of customer base helps brand to enjoy a monopolistic advantage over a period of time. The customer enjoys the quality of the products and services because brands create healthy competitions among competitors which indirectly benefits consumers.

Brands are very important for consumers as well as marketers, but, nowadays, brand management is becoming more and more difficult for both. Consumer need to pay high prices as a premium for brands, as well as for marketers, they need do lots of investment in advertising.

Consumers trust brand blindly, that’s why sometimes manufacture comprise with the quality to increase profits. Customers’ expectations are always high for brands and they expect the same positive response from the company side. If customers get a negative response from the companies brand dilution occurs where customers start losing their interest in the brand. In order to make a brand, as Global brand, marketers need to remove the concentration of west and focus on the world as a global village. Making global is not easy, it requires a large investment both on advertising and promotions which indirectly going to increase the product price.Investment on Brand promotion is considered social waste which increase cost of production and making brand price higher.