Monday, May 4, 2015

What is a Brand and Brandz in Bangladesh

I just started this blog about "brandz" in Bangladesh. Before going to other articles I just want to quickly point out what is a brand. After all, it is what we are going to read about.


I am just a student of Marketing and know lot less about branding. So let me quote the expert on brands to explain what a brand is:

[A brand is a] name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competition.
- American Marketing Association (AMA)

I agree that it is such a wordy definition of a brand.

But in short, all the things that helps you to recognize a brand from others, is called brand.

For example, Vaseline uses this logo:

Vaseline - no other brand has this color, font, or style

No other brand in the world has it- I mean the name, the blue color, the style of writing, and the combination of all these. As the style belongs only to Vaseline, it helps you recognize any Vaseline products without any doubt.

For example, can you identify the Vaseline product in this picture?


Although there are other brands that are using the blue color, but I guess you had no problem identifying the Vaseline product from all these other products.

(As a sidenote: If you have noticed, this blog is titled "Brandz in Bangladesh". This silly spelling of "brandz" will help to distinguish this blog from other blogs.)

This is why a brand is so important. Brand helps customers to recognize a specific brand from the store shelves. And what they are able to recognize, they would buy it as well.

Sometimes brands are so well recognized that they don't need to have a name in order to recognize it. For example, can you recognize for what this logo is?

Can you recognize this logo? Sure you can. That's beacause it's a brand.

Facebook is also a brand. Do you think that without its logo and its distinctive use of blue color, would Facebook be able to be here as today. I guess not.

The logo created a whole new identity for Facebook.

Additionally, we now have brand philosophy attached with brands. Some brands such as Dutch Bangla has attached with it a philosophy of donating to students. Robi recently introduced the "Dhonnobad" (thank you) campaign that encourages to help people in real life and also they help customers save some money and time, (with their partner outlet discount, priority service, surprise offer).

Robi Dhonnobad campaign, love the idea, love the typography

Bangladesh has so many brands working to get themselves noticed, such as, Grameenphone, Fair and Lovely, City Bank (Bangladesh), bKash, Lux, Marico, Aarong etc.

Some brands come and go, and confused with their identity, such as, Keya, Diploma, MyOne, Rexona.

Some brands are struggling, such as, Cute.

Some brands are in the graveyard. (May the almighty keep them in peace!) Such as, Aromatic, Tasmeri.

Some brands need no introduction! Such as Toyota, Samsung, Intel, Lux, Coca-Cola.

Some are fighting. Such as, Igloo and Polar, Grameenphone and Banglalink.

Some are totally "made in Bangladesh". Such as, Walton, Teletalk.

The act of designing, creating, modifying, updating and maintaining a brand is called branding. This is what Brand Managers do

Branding in Bangladesh is getting popular everyday. There was a time when people didn't care about what color their logo would be, or how their billboards are going to be designed, or how their packaging is going to be. Now they have entire departments regarding branding. They employ generous amount of employees who work full time to make brands better.

As a customer I feel that brands are important. Besides getting recognized, a brand helps judge us how the product is going to be. With the help of a brand we can hear good or bad review about it from friends and family and either can remember to buy it with a smiling face or reject it with an ugly, ignorant face!

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