Branding's Waste

Branding has become a big hit in every corner of business arena. In fact, it has become an essential part of the money tree to reap financial fruit from potential customer. So how does “Branding” come about? I suppose it started out of nothing more than a company delivering quality goods or services that gained its popularity over time and that particular company goods and services is recognized as branded. Quality being meeting customer expectation in some form or another such as durability, accuracy, technology advancement, appearance, reliability, effectiveness and the list go on but it’s the persistence standard of quality that make hungry consumer keep spending money and gossip about it. To create a brand it take time, cost, new ideas and risk but the reward is as lucrative as the capital invested, so much so as the failing.

In the 60’s, industrialization has taken place follow sue the reinvention of production line which change the entire history of humankind. Mass production is made possible and machinery has been introduced to agriculture; shortening life of production cycle while lower manpower requirement ensuing sufficient production of necessity to meet human population.

Nonetheless the lower cost as a result of mass production has lure a pool of similar goods of different brand to share production facilities together, leaving the only difference is the label that stitched onto the products and even then it probably done with the same machines! However mass production can be specifically cater for a certain brand if demand has the call, but then again how it retains the authentic quality of the brand is a big question all together.

Well, there’s no question if the final product is somehow meeting the original intended quality but more often than not it has to compromise with the limitation of mass production (i.e. the flexibility of customization). The fact is that most consumers only blinded with advertisement or peer pressure in making buying decision without aware of where or how the extra cost paid for the branded goods come about.

Since “Branding” has become the de factor in making buying decision it has become a weapon in business battlefield. While many company still keep their good tradition value in assuring the authenticity of their products with great amount of investment in time and cost, competition has lead impersonator to invade they brand with cheap mass-produced imitations that hard for laymen to distinguished, henceforth many of these good company started to lose faith in keeping higher cost to compete. Consequently they initiate cost cutting exercise that somehow skip something in the process along the production line or reinvent themselves with unique features and constant technology shifting that make competitor impossible to keep up with. Any of those options resulting greater affordability to consumer and lesser lifespan of goods. As a result, increase the need for greater resources for production and space for dumping field.

What originally started as fame for quality goods has turn to be a huge hypnotized industry now. Branding has bring up the advertising media alive and undeniably commercial is one of the main source that keep media like Television, radio, newspaper, magazine and even website, or superstar movie, survive.

As our society evolve along with technology, globalization& economy. Buying decision no longer solely depend on NEEDS. it is more of WANT nowadays. Believe it or not, we possess much more things that we don’t actually need. In some circumstances, some even buy things that they never even use but we brought it simply because advertising is so powerful that it over-right our mind to create the WANT-EFFECT.

What we want doesn't necessary translate to what we need but somehow we still brought it, why? Buying Decision is an interesting topic for marketer and inadvertently most of them depend on it to push their products into buyer’s door.

Each individual, ethnic, city, country and nationality has buying decision patent of its own but generally factors influence buying power are buying power, trend, peer pressure, basic needs& media. Each specific goods has it target buyer and thus each media has its target audience and that’s why cost of advertisement for TV vary from commercial between news and midnight, advertisement slot in newspaper front-page, business section and lifestyle section charge differently and different language, type of newspaper with different readership charge also different, even If you observe carefully superstar movie such as the 2012, World War Z, and 007 contain hidden commercial value that branded company paid for. By associate idols, superhero, religion or anything that consumer love, repetitively around our sensory organ, with that I have to say media has given branding a new definition.

In Malaysia, solid waste management is a profitable business eminent by the crescendo trend in rubbish generation of our household and business activity. The federal government is paying RM8 per household per year amounting to Ringgit Malaysia five hundreds millions per year on top of local government RM 2.30 per household. When there is cause, there comes the effect. Same thing apply to "where there is cost, there come the taxpayer money". So as more waste is generated government will force its way to claim more property tax and business licence fee in order to offset cost.

while not all the solid waste directly attributed by the "Branding Waste" but statistics unfold some evident to reflect somehow it does co-relate to each other; ten years back we have 2.9 billion urbanites each contributed 0.64 kg of solid waste per person per day which dump 0.68 billion tonnes per year. Now that we have 3 billion urban residents that dump 1.2 kg waste per person per day which requires facilities to managed waste of 1.3 billion tonnes per year!! A 187.5% increase in consumption and at the same time advertisement market is ballooning every year, from 2012- 2014 the market up-sized from 7 to 14 billion in social media advertisement alone! In USA digital advertising in 2012 is already a 37.31 billion dollars market and a 16.6% growth in 2013 which estimated to be double fold in 2014.

Ironically, we are not only keep paying the extra cost for product advertisement (in order for us think worth paying) but also inadvertently paying more to keep our city clean from the redundancies we (*once) thought worth owning.

I'm not opposing any brand/branding activity nor do I put any negative conviction on any media or advertisement. In fact, media is a powerful medium to spread information or knowledge to large audience effectively. It is also a great tool for marketing and connecting people of a particular community. The existence of internet allow marketing to spread worldwide shaping the way how business is conduct and revenue of businessman. Terms like ebay, lelong, amazon, alibaba& many others internet trading platform has created many billionaires and made B2B possible in becoming a norm in today business.

Branding create identity, providing a niche that facilitate ease of decision making. Good brands that consistently show its worthiness always distinguish itself from the market and there’s little doubt on demand even a little extra premium is added above market rate. Branding also create loyalty which keep repeating buyers, stabilizing profit and loss account.

Branding create desire/craving for consuming thus it also used as label to promote good practices. GreenMarks, GreenStar, Green Building Index& LEEDS are among the notable name for green building rating. Greenlabel and Energy efficient rating on the other hand set standard for manufacturers to meet certain criteria in their production materials or process in order to be environmental friendly.

There is no hard and fast rule here. Each individual buying power varies so as their needs. Be vigilance in spending, consume in environmental friendly way and be frugal in unnecessary luxury. It’s the earth that we are living in, its earth that we are eating, make sure what out from us does not harm us back.....so be a Symbiont not a pest!