16. Need for Brands

What is need? Need is something that is necessary or wanted. In a same way marketer finds or creates need for brand in consumers. This is the first step towards building a brand. This is how their category grows. I think this the most creative and important step to build a brand.

The objective of a brand is to satisfy the needs of their consumers. There are many types of needs that brands have to identify and satisfy. In the book- 9 Brand Shaastras by Jagdeep Kapoor, it is mentioned the types of needs that are, Existing needs, Latent needs, Opportunity needs, Changing needs, No needs.

According to the needs, they create an emotional connect with their consumers which plays a vital role in branding. The needs which are already there is known as existing needs. It is there in consumer’s conscious mind but the main task is how a brand shows its creativity to differentiate their features from other brands in the market of the same category. For example, water, food.

Sometimes we don’t acknowledge some needs but they exist. This is something about which consumers are not conscious of. This is latent need. Brands bring this subconscious need to the conscious mind of consumers. Here is how they get success in their first step of building brand. One common example of latent need is, health insurance.

Opportunity needs are being created by the bands. they keep creating needs according to the changes which occur in society. For example, from landline phones to wireless phones, wireless to IPhone these all are opportunity needs. Blackberry, a very known and strong mobile brand is nowhere in the market because it didn’t innovate according to the changing demand of the public. From SMS to email and then MMS, these are the examples of changing needs.

Sometime it happens when a brand thinks that it spotted a need but in reality there is no need for that brand or product. Here it fails to stand in the market. It is very important to analyze all factors of needs to build a brand, then only it can sustain longer.

“Markets don’t decline, they shift”- Jagdeep Kapoor.