Branding is belief and quality assurance for the customer and guaranteed business for the company. Toothpaste was synonymous to Colgate and at some point of time & it still is at some places. To share how strong brand value grasps the mind of market, I would like to share an incident, it was when I was working with BTL Company in the early days of my career. I was assigned a brand promotion project for one of the leading toothpaste brand. It was a school activity to enhance brand equity. All students participated in the activity must be taught well the brand name of the toothpaste through dental hygiene spiel, check up and free gift of toothpaste. My job was to ensure the quality of the activity. Once I randomly picked a boy to check the quality of the activity being carried out by our company team. When asked which brand of toothpaste he had, he repeatedly said Colgate despite all effort made to convince him he had other brand, all in vain. The truth behind this incident is that the branding of particular product became so strong it replaced the original commodity name.

First comes, the need and then demand. Demand created through marketing is branding. Branding is the process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumers' mind, mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers.

With multifaceted growth, complexities of modern era came as package. Fire and Safety need is also one of the prominent among them. Henceforth lot of rules and regulations came into existence and thus need of fire and a safety product was experienced. Manufacturers and suppliers joined the market seeing the generating requirement in the market. Some of them perished when competition came in, some restricted to localised business but some who worked on marketing well and remained focused on branding are today strong stakeholders of the market. You can name any leading company they are the one who meticulously taken care for the branding strategy over the years.

Fire & Safety business is flourishing both qualitative and quantitative. Indian manufacturers should come in more open to establish brand value both at local, national and international level & they are coming. The expanding trade exhibitions are the witness to it. The perception is changing. Fresh talent in the business is more eager to take business to the next level. Young entrepreneurs have made difference to the business atmosphere. This is more structured and tech friendly.

This trend has to change faster and deep. Indian companies have potential to grow. Moreover they have world’s biggest consumer market. All required is more clear vision towards marketing and apt to sketch advertising as per the requirement of the organisation and better coordination with technology. Sometimes companies have potential but they remained happy with the chunk of business they have and becomes complacent for branding and this damages in long run.

A fresh breeze of new business can be felt. This is a good sign. But still lot has to be done. Many potential business houses have to come out from the shadow of old methods and happy with local business attitude.

Many international brands are working in India as major stake holders in the market because they are big brand. They have worked hard for branding and shun the attitude of happy with local business. Branding yields profits for the generations to come. Indian companies can also go global as a stakeholder of international market with good brand.

In the early days of computerization in India 70% of market was covered by assemblers and all the companies were restricted to only 30% market share. It was good business for Indian assemblers and brilliant chance to establish brand value but most of them restricted to local business prospects only. Now look what is the percentage? How many assemblers present in the market? On the contrary see international brands how they have worked on branding & have taken full share of business here. The crux of the case study is that myopic business vision drives dull chances to flourish business in long run.

We hope to see more and more Indian fire and safety companies to join this procedure of evolution to become the breed of survivor.

Mayur Lalit