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The Value of the Brand

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PCQ Bureau
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As Tata's Rs 1 lakh Nano struggles to take off against the cross-wind of

agitation in Singur, WB, Maruti's original people's car is doing a spot of

rejuvenation on its 25th anniversary. There are over 2.5 million Maruti 800 out

there. Facing a 12% annual sales decline, the new '800 Uniq' sports “new

features like body graphics, beige upholstery...”

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Automobiles and tech are a world apart, not least because no tech product

would ever see a model living 25 months, let alone 25 years. And no tech vendor

would get away with a 'new launch' by adding body graphics and beige...

Two sectors, poles apart. .But tying them together is the brand: the common

factor across almost every sector in the world.

Brand Maruti is famous for service, low running cost, and resale value. So

most new models have a rush of bookings and months of waiting for delivery.

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But in the automotive world, products do have a chance to build a reputation

within their life cycles. So even a new entry has many months, sometimes years,

to do it.

Prasanto K Roy,

president, ICT Publishing Group, CyberMedia, pkr@cybermedia.co.in

Not so in tech, where products change so rapidly, and a laptop or router or

server is obsolete the month you buy it.

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The brand plays an even bigger role there. The brand is larger than life. Few

products get the chance to be judged within their lifespan on the shelves. So

the brand is everything.

Apple has shown what the power of the brand can do: Steve Jobs yanks out slim

and slight products from his jeans at a MacWorld and screaming fans queue up

overnight at the launch of the iPod or iPhone.

Brand Apple is known for the coolest, sexiest products on the planet. There's

cutting edge design, often very limited features (omissions that those fans seem

to not notice at all, or forgive, for the overall package).

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The iPhone skips the basics people are used to in a phone today: swappable

batteries, expandable memory, video recording...even SMS forwarding..the list goes

on.

The whopper is that the India launch happened at three times the US price,

while the iPhone's great new addition, 3G, would not be usable in India for

another year.

Despite that, the fact that there were eager buyers is testimony to the

brand. If the brand defines the premium you can charge, well, the iPhone 3G

passes the test with flying colors! But the same applies to a Nokia phone, which

so many millions would buy blindly.

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This month PCQuest runs its annual survey featuring India's favorite IT

brands, and bringing back the old favorite, the User's Choice awards.

Some results are predictable (Windows XP for instance continues as the

enterprise favorite, though Vista makes it on the consumer charts), some

unexpected. Most of the strong brands continue as winners, but there are upsets:

for instance the old faithful ThinkPad is out of the top 2 even in the laptop

enterprise charts, knocked out by HP and new entrant Dell. VSNL gives way to

Airtel for enterprise connectivity; AVG trumps Norton for desktop anti-virus

(consumer)...

Brands are a big deal in the online era, where they imply trust. Users might

be wary of files from unknown sources, but they'd happily download programs from

CNET Download.com. And they'd trust results from Google, the Internet's top

brand...

Even with rising commoditization--brands are going to get more important with

the years.

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