A brand is not a logo and it is not an identity but brands are all around us and they form the landscape of our times, said Mr Amit Pande, Retail Director, Allen Solly, Madura Fashion and Lifestyle.
Delivering the Business Line Club lecture “Personal branding for success”, sponsored by Syndicate Bank for the students of Department of Management Studies of New Horizon College of Engineering, he said that a brand is a person's gut feeling about a product, service or organisation.
Highlighting the importance of personal branding, Mr Pande remarked that not only companies or products can own a brand but today, everyone can be a brand – organisations, sports teams, individuals and so on.
On encountering a brand
“A brand is the process of an experience planted in the target audiences' mind. And, the brand experience is reinforced by everything a brand does. Today, people are branded in companies and it is important to control the signals a company or an individual is sending out and these signals must capture the essence of a product or the person,” he said.
Mr Pande told the students that encountering a brand is like meeting a person for the first time. “When you come in contact with a person, you form impression based on how they act, how they dress and so on. These impressions govern how you associate with that person – what you say to other people about them, whether you trust them and so on – this creates a personal brand.” Organisations use tools such as the ‘brand index prism' to monitor such signals, he said.
Quoting examples of a few brands and companies, Mr Pande explained to the students about ‘brand index prism'. It has six elements such as physique, personality, culture/values, self-image, reflection, and relationship.
“The physique reveals the quality of a brand, while personality would reveal, if a brand was to be a person what it would be like. The self-image is what the consumer feels about himself when he buys a brand and reflection is about consumers' thinking – what others think about him when is seen with the brand. Relationship is all about how brands influence and provide services in connection to their consumers,” he explained.
“This can be applied for individuals”, Mr Pande added and provided them ‘brand me' worksheets to understand their own individual brand identity.
Information was also provided to students about “SyndVidya”, the educational product and the interbank mobile payment services launched by Syndicate Bank. Dr M.M. Bagali, Dean, Department of Management Studies, New Horizon College of Engineering, was present.