After spending over a decade of my professional life in
brand management, and coming across 100s and 1000s of people from various walks
of life or with thoughts from other planets, one thing I have surely concluded,
every individual who reaches the age of
60, ends up with thinning hair and reaching a limit where the person ends up
saving all his money which he ones upon a time used to spend on hair care
products.
Even though majority of individuals go through this phenomenon,
but the degree of baldness varies from individual to individual.
With up gradation of technologies and newer innovations
happening in the field of dermatology, more and more of these TOO-BE-BALD soon
types are making beeline outside these mushrooming shops where they put new
hair back on their shining head piece!
From nylon threads, to animal hairs to original human being
hair, wigs have come along way and so have the newer technologies like hair
weaving. Which makes the new hair as natural as they can be?
Now the question which comes to my mind is, what is the
right time when a person should decide whether he needs a wig or weaving or
clean shave.
If an individual who is extremely successful, renowned,
famous, celebrity kinda!. He may just stay normal and not even think about
adopting such dramatics.
At the same time, few not-so-confident ones, who believe
that this world is made only to give them sufferings, and having low hair
density is a curse on them from God. They may actually feel low on confidence and at times out-of-place
when the peer group starts chit chatting about the new shampoo brand in the
market!.
Be it a celebrity or an ordinary man, my gut feeling is that
both tend to get into this dilemma, as to when is the right time to revive their
hair style.
And this is the cause of my disturbed state of mind, where I
foresee a connect between the above mentioned phenomenon and story arising in
the life cycle of many brands. As brand custodians, many times we do come
across a situation when nothing seems to be working for the brand. The same set
of best practices, media plans, consumer engagement initiatives, that were
writing success stories in the past, prove no more than just some scribbled
words on excel sheets, slides or word doc.
That’s the time when we get into dilemma thinking, when is
the right time to revive the brand or bury it to death. In other words what’s the
good time to get hair weaving or just shave it clean?!!
We have seen biggest of the brands going downhill, simply
because they were not refreshed in the correct spirit at the correct time. Lehman brothers, Schlitz Beer, Kodak are few American
iconic brands who couldn’t make out when to refresh their brand, and ultimately
let them to near death or about to die.
Hence for any brand, it is extremely important to keep it
fresh, keep it lively, keep it growing. We must keep in mind that a carefully strategized
positioning for the brand always means that it is targeted towards a specific
age group. And AGE is the most dynamic phenomenon of life, which keeps changing
every moment.
While there could be a large TG to whom one has targeted with
a brand, there would be many who would be moving out of this age band in future.
At the same time, there will be many who will be entering this group too!
Thus we must keep a dialogue of the brand alive with the
consumers. The brand may talk various things to the consumer which can keep it
alive and young. New flavours, new packaging, new distribution channel, new
product benefits, new pricing, new usage of the product. The opportunities are
umpteen, the scope of communication is un ending. One just needs to keep an eye on pulse of the
consumer, especially the ones who are entering the category to understand their
lifestyle, needs, wants and desires and accordingly compare your own brand,
whether it fits into the life of the consumer of or not.
And if one realizes that the brand has completed its life,
it cannot be revived and its better to shave it off…THEN DO IT!
