Potential too, has a shelf life, writes Navonil Chatterjee. And by asking the right questions, he proposes, marketers can unlock a brand’s true potential.
Case 1: He was supposed to be a household name in Indian cricket, having led India to the under-19 World Cup trophy in 2012. The name of his lesser-known teammate at that point happened to be a certain Virat Kohli.
Case 2: His was the ‘masoom’ lover-boy face, one that was touted by Bollywood as destined to rule countless hearts in the years to come.
Case 3: This young boy was dubbed the “next Pele.”
Today, the only thing common to Unmukt Chand, Jugal Hansraj and Freddy Adu is the fact that they are at best a forgotten memory. What truly connects them however is that all three of them made hugely promising starts, but failed to live up to their promise.
Brand Unmukt or Brand Unlock?
As is with Unmukt Chand, so often in life we hear this said about certain people around us, that they have not been able to realize their true potential. And perhaps nothing in life is more wasteful than this wastage of talent or potential. What marketers quite often forget is that brands too are sometimes at fault of not realizing their true potential, of not becoming the best that they can be.
Brand Ambition: The Janitor And The President
There is this famous anecdote of a janitor working in the John F Kennedy Space Centre. Once, when asked by President Kennedy what he was doing there, he famously responded: “I am helping America put a man on the moon.”
This anecdote is a wonderful exhibit of the inspirational power of purpose, how it can galvanize both humans and brands towards greatness. Marketers too need to ask themselves about the true purpose of their brands, because defining that itself can unlock the true potential of their brands.
The world of marketing is driven by short-term objectives and target-setting, because patience is not always a virtue displayed by Senior Management. The one thing that gets stifled in this pressure-cooker scenario is invariably the brand, and Brand Ambition is sacrificed at the altar of Personal Ambition.
Tools To Set The Angel Free
In Renaissance Italy, a huge 18 feet block of marble was lying for a long time, unused. Sculptors and painters who saw it thought that it was flawed and good-for-nothing. But the great Michelangelo saw an angel inside that worthless block and started chipping away at it because he wanted to set the angel free. Marketers too need to set the locked-up angels inside their brands free.
And the good news is that like Michelangelo, we too have tools available to help marketers unlock new possibilities for their brands.
Unlike Michelangelo however, our tools are not hammer and chisel, but a whole new set of questions. Questions like who or what is your brand’s favourite enemy? What does it hate or oppose fiercely? What is that one emotion or feeling that your brand can successfully own? Is there a stereotype that your brand can bust, a conflict that it can resolve? And can that result in your brand finding the immortality-nectar? Is it possible to stand out in your category by borrowing codes from a completely different product or service category? How far can you stretch your brand proposition? Asking these questions can undoubtedly help in refreshing your brand and giving it a renewed sense of vigor, purpose and direction.
Whether You Are A Debutant, Sachin or Kambli
What is quite obvious is that unlocking a brand is something that an entrepreneur launching a new brand can hugely benefit from. At the other end of the spectrum, if you are a well-established and highly successful brand, you still need to challenge your brand thinking from time to time. As competitive context, environment, technology and consumer tastes change, asking these questions is critical to future-proofing your brand and ensuring continued success. Or else, there is a possibility that your brand will fall into the ‘Kambli Trap’ and be a victim of its own, initial, heady success.
Potential Too Has A Shelf Life
Finally, there is no better time than now to unlock your brand’s potential. The pressures and immediacy of the day-to-day will always result in the urgent postponing the important, but as marketers will do well to remember, it is called ‘important’ for a reason. In fact, for a very good reason, because even unbound potential comes with an expiry date.
As someone said, better to dance in the storm than wait for the rain to stop, for that might just take too long.
UnlockBrands™ is a proprietary brand empowerment tool launching soon from Flibbr®. To know more, write in to unlockbrands@flibbrconsulting.com
3 comments
Sudarshan Karandikar
“Potential too has shelf life” – what a power statement. I personally believe what we as a brand can achieve has a lot to do with what and how we deep dive within the organisation to begin with. Rest follows…
Navonil Chatterjee
Thanks Sudarshan. Also agree with your ‘deep dive within’ thought. That’s what led Johnnie Walker to ‘remember’ its long-forgotten ‘striding man’ symbol and look what happened after that! Becoming the signifier of ‘personal progress’. Brands do have a lot of untapped potential and the unfortunate thing is that they don’t realise it themselves.
Rahul Jauhari
Thanks for this thought-provoking article, Navonil. While you have put it so simply, the fact is that so often we encounter brands which have so much potential to rise beyond the category average, but simply miss the bus because of the lack of vision and often the courage to do so. “Potential too has shelf life” is such a powerful and true statement. Loved it.