The world of marketing currently is filled with brands that have gone haywire in order to establish themselves. While some brands try to forge relationships with various means and causes to get the upper hand, a lot of others have forgotten their core identity in an attempt to race ahead others.
Keeping the above subject in mind, ‘Branding a purpose versus Purpose of Branding’ was the theme of the 5th edition of Pitch Top 50 Brands Awards from the exchange4media group, held last night wherein Amarjit Singh Batra, CEO, OLX India, spoke about the use of a purpose in branding in his keynote address.
Mr Batra began his address by explaining how similar to humans even brands today are eagerly searching for a reason to exist in the market today. He added, “Brands today feel that they can do so much more with themselves and thus they try to associate with bigger causes that may or may meet the brands core philosophy.” He further added that while most brands have forgotten what their reason of existence in the market space is, a few who have realized it are using it to their advantage.
Speaking on why do brands need to associate with a cause in the first place? Mr Batra responded by saying, ‘’by looking at purpose, companies are trying to differentiate themselves. A higher purpose is helping them stand out from the clutter. Earlier, even we had a problem distinguishing OLX from the ecommerce category because we saw many people doing the same things, talking the same language.”
So do brands have to create a purpose for their existence today? Answering this query he said, “You don’t really invent or create a purpose for yourself. I think you have to discover it and the process of discovery is more difficult for a brand that started 50 years back than for a brand that started a few years back. At Olx we found we were actually connecting people, helping them make exchanges. We came to know some inspiring stories of people buying and selling at OLX and how their lives were improving. So it’s not just about the transaction at OLX but what would happen if people could meet. Meeting unknown people could lead to so many possibilities.”
Further explaining himself Mr Batra said, “Most brands today have started associating with a cause but the purpose of a brand has to go deeper than that. Associating with a cause has to link back to the brands core philosophy. Indian brands are moving towards ‘cause related marketing’ because of stagnation as India has moved on from being a classical economy to an abundant economy and there is now a need for breaking the clutter.”
