Brand Personality With Laddering

Concept learnt in class: Brand Personality: consumers attribute various descriptive personality-like traits or characteristics to different brands in a wide variety of product categories. It provides an emotional identity for a brand and encourages consumers to respond with feelings and emotions towards the brand. Laddering: The gradual change in focus that brands undergo over a period of time, in order to achieve a better connect with the customers. Famous brands take the route of attributes  functional benefits  Emotional benefits over a period of time to increase the brand value in the minds of customers.

Brand under study: Parle-G Parle-G or Parle-Glucose which is the flagship brand of Parle Products has positioned itself on the ‘taste+healthy’ proposition initially. (Ref: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fsbQhxNXjo) During this period, the brand launched campaigns on how Parle-G biscuits are so tasty (attribute) along with being able to make one strong. The campaign goes like a grandfather convincing his grandchildren on how tasty and healthy it is to eat Parle-G biscuits. After this period, the brand made use of the Indian habit of having biscuits during tea time in its positioning for a considerable period of time. Once the brand started gaining momentum, the brand moved to the next step and launched its ‘Hindustan Ke Takat’ campaign in which it enunciated that Parle-G is the strength (brand personality) of India. (Ref: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsViulV9CuI) in this campaign, the brand focussed on the affective component of the consumers mildly touch-basing on the ethnocentrism aspect. This ad showed how common people choose to be strong in tough situations and that is the pulse of India. It is also interesting how Parle-G which had been perceived as children’s brand so far, had made use of only adults and much more serious problems in that campaign. This Parle-G focussed more on the strength factor (functional benefit) moving on from the attribute focus. More recently, Parle-G has launched its ‘G for Genius’ campaign which shows clear its positioning on children. It is also interesting to note how Parle-G went on to launch this campaign in two phases. The first phase made use of Amir Khan and Darsheel Safary (a child celebrity who rose to fame due to the famous movie Taare Zameen Par, which talks about how he tackles Dyslexia, a learning disability in Children). This ad funnily explains how Darsheel rescues Amir with Parle-G from an embarrassing situation. (Ref: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=ZMYN5_DoP6o ) In phase two, with the more recent campaigns, Parle-G moved from its celebrity connect and has focussed on how children become brilliant and quick-witted with Parle-G. Their recent ‘Roko mat took

mat’ ad campaign (Ref: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sADzIi4lOC8 ) talks about how children end up becoming brilliant with Parle-G and their parents feel proud of their children (Emotional benefit). The ad also shows children’s jugaad ventures such as making a bulb glow with electricity generated from potatoes, how they make use of an old motorcycle to blow their balloons and such similar quick-witted actions) The ad also advocates that there is no better school than childhood and no better teacher than curiosity. It is also interesting to note that mostly, brands which are already very successful in the market in their own categories like Fair and lovely make use of this laddering technique to establish a better connect with consumers.