Off Topic- Branding Again
I was digging a 1966 reference in Harvard Business Review (HBR), don't ask me why! But one good thing came out of it. I stumbled upon Theodore Levitt's 1966 article 'Branding on Trial.'
I said before that these days I am reading a lot on branding and I am one of those who thinks 'good life' is exactly the opposite of what the brands try to portray! If someone asks me to spend a lot of money in order to have a good life, I immediately become suspicious.
But then one idea that I read in the' Branding on Trial' article in HBR by Theodore Levitt really made me pause!
He talks about Russia in the 1960s. Several factories made 17 inch TV sets and all were identical. By their buying experience, the pulic came to understand that one company made leomns (seriously defective products). Now there are no identifying marks and the public in general was forced to buy less 17 inch TVs. Later factory names were put on the sets to help labor officers identify offending factories and not for common public. But the public used the same information and soon the factory that made defective products saw its sales drop (Levitt, 1966).
Now when I think of it, I think I will prefer to live with branding (and consumer reviews on the internet) rather than identical products with nothing to differentiate among them!
Reference
Levitt, T. (1966) 'Branding on trial,' Harvard Business Review, 44:2, 21–33.
I said before that these days I am reading a lot on branding and I am one of those who thinks 'good life' is exactly the opposite of what the brands try to portray! If someone asks me to spend a lot of money in order to have a good life, I immediately become suspicious.
But then one idea that I read in the' Branding on Trial' article in HBR by Theodore Levitt really made me pause!
He talks about Russia in the 1960s. Several factories made 17 inch TV sets and all were identical. By their buying experience, the pulic came to understand that one company made leomns (seriously defective products). Now there are no identifying marks and the public in general was forced to buy less 17 inch TVs. Later factory names were put on the sets to help labor officers identify offending factories and not for common public. But the public used the same information and soon the factory that made defective products saw its sales drop (Levitt, 1966).
Now when I think of it, I think I will prefer to live with branding (and consumer reviews on the internet) rather than identical products with nothing to differentiate among them!
Reference
Levitt, T. (1966) 'Branding on trial,' Harvard Business Review, 44:2, 21–33.
posted by Mridula at 8:55 PM
4 Comments:
that makes sense. still how long can a brand ride on the reputation.
I think products by different manufacturers have never really been entirely identical, except in countries with communist regimes.
Branding is fine for me as long as it is worth the extra money i pay for brand. there are some cases however where for brand name i have to pay abysmally high prices. for example
there are some brands which increase their price in direct proportion to defect reduction( say 1 defect in 100 will be priced at x and 1 and 10000 will be priced at 100x. instead of buying 100x product i will prefer to by x twice which will make defect ratio as 1 in 10000 .01*.01). again off-course this depends on how critical that defect is.
Poison, I agree and I do not like all the more what feels like exaggerated claims that most brands make.
Sidhu, that is a very valid point, something that did not occur to me as the example seemed so novel to me!
Nilesh, I think all of us have our preferences where w would go for a brand! For example when it came to buying a digital camera I did look for brands but when it comes to clothes it is another matter ...
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