The encyclopedias define generic products as –‘unbranded products identified only by product category’.
But the pictures you see above show some products which have managed to become generic despite of being branded. Two contradicting terms brought together by something I call ‘the power of the brand’
Let me explain how –
Customer 1to shopkeeper: give me a bottle of Bisleri
Customer 2 to shopkeeper: I need a Walkman
Customer 3 to shopkeeper: give me some chips….the shopkeeper gives him Uncle chips
In the above examples what the customers want is packaged water and a cassette player, they are not at all conscious about the brand instead they see the brand name as the generic name for the product.
This is the power of a brand, making some products so popular that they become the generic names. The power of the brand, its popularity makes u believe that if u need package water it has to be Bisleri and in most cases we even feel that the brand name for the product is actually the product itself (even I didn’t know that walkman is a product from Sony, I thought walkman is a synonym for cassette player).
This strategy can indeed help your brand to easily become the market share; exploiting the ignorance of the customers about brands or their inability to differentiate products by brand names (I have no intentions to disgrace the consumer’s intelligence here).
Most of this has been happening automatically over the years. The reason maybe the brand being the market leader in that particular category or sometimes the only player in the category or maybe in some cases the first mover.
Then why call it a strategy??? The companies never planned this। That’s true; it just came into their bounty by luck.
But I’ll still call it a strategy because presently some companies have started
looking forward to deliberately convert their branded products into generic names। The best example for this can be none other than that of COKE. Remember the ad ‘thanda matlab coca cola’…….. Mostly the customers are not particular about brands in purchase of undifferentiated products or the products that require lesser involvement in purchase.
So what coke wants is that whenever a customer asks for a ‘thanda’ (cold drink) he should end up purchasing a coke …….that is the reason why time and again coke comes with new and innovative ads but the concept remains the same, the mantra for its success i.e. THANDA MATLAB…..COCA COLA
So what coke wants is that whenever a customer asks for a ‘thanda’ (cold drink) he should end up purchasing a coke …….that is the reason why time and again coke comes with new and innovative ads but the concept remains the same, the mantra for its success i.e. THANDA MATLAB…..COCA COLA
