Every year a lot of people graduate from business schools and join marketing! Throughout business school a word taught in all marketing courses is ‘Brand‘. To be brutally honest one of the main reasons to go to a business school is The Brand! but lets try and have a better look at the origination of brands and its current use.

While discussing with friends we tried to analyze how the first brand came into being. Probably it all starts with one small shop which is excellent in whatever product it sells. Next the shop becomes really popular amongst its consumers, followed very quickly by other shops trying to copy the original shop, and the original shop naming itself and giving its product to distinguish itself from others. Well in some way or other most brands have come about this way, and I think Nike and Starbucks are such examples (not sure!!! though) So I guess that is the first major use of a brand “to distinguish the original from other copies” but this is mainly from the producers point of view.

From the consumers point of view what is the one of the most important viewpoint for a brand? It is ofcourse Reliability! When I go and buy Bata in India, what I am actually buying is reliability of the brand, when you buy Colgate you are again buying reliability, when you buy lee jeans then you buy reliability. Reliability of quality and consistency which is really important to a consumer like myself.

But there is presence of another factor of Brands, which is increasingly becoming the most important one, Exclusivity. Everyone wants to be unique and project themselves as influential and brands are being used to do so. Buying Tag Huer is not just for the quality of the watch but probably because the exclusive club it belongs to, driving a Lamborghini or Porsche is not just because of the quality of the car but because of the exclusivity, the esteem it brings.

So going ahead towards what is a brand is probably much bigger topic than what can cover one blog post! Here I am just trying to explain the difference between buying a brand because of its quality or its exclusivity. We are all slowly moving towards exclusivity, which can partially be also called a shallow world! Anyways just a thought!

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