MAM
BTR 2013: Finally a yardstick to measure trust in brands
BENGALURU: “The Brand Trust Report…. India Study 2013″(BTR 2013), the name says it all. The author – Trust Research Advisory (TRA) CEO N Chandramouli and the compilers – TRA have tried to give a form of tangibility to what has generally been considered intangible to measure – Trust. TRA has tried to use the ‘scientific method‘ to peg down the numbers to 1100 brands in India.
TRA says that Brand Trust is based on three foundations, all of which are dependent upon the actions of the trustee. They are – building the capacity to trust; perception of positive intent and demonstrating relevant competence. These three foundations of brand trust comprise of 10 brand behaviours, which are explained in the report.
According to TRA the current year‘s report is a result of more than 13,000 hours of fieldwork conducted across 16 Indian cities between July and November 2012, resulting in nearly 19,000 unique brands and three million data points. The 187 A4 sized pages report is divided into 4 parts.
Part I analyses the report and compares it to the position of the brands in the 2012 report. It has two chapters – India‘s most trusted brands and India‘s most trusted brands by category.
Part II speaks about the author‘s concept of “Understanding Trust and Brand Trust” over two chapters – Life‘s script: Trust and Understanding the Brand Matrix
Part III declares the quantum of work that has gone in preparing this year‘s report again over two chapters – BTR 2013 Study Methodology and Studying the Influencers Mindset.
The last and longest part of the book contains the BTR 2013 Listings – Most Trusted Brands. Part IV contains Zonewise Listings (Top 500 brands), Categorywise Listing of India‘s 1100 Most Trusted Brands and All India Listing of India‘s 1100 Most Trusted Brands.
The book is easy reading, with a well-composed layout and easy to understand charts. It has leaders from various verticals explaining their concept of trust. It also contains snippets of ‘Trust Gyan‘ (Gyan means knowledge) that tell stories about some of the prominent brands such as Maruti, Amul, Discovery India Channel, and Jaipan.
That the BTR is the probably the only report of its kind makes it a mandatory possession for all libraries of major brands, advertising agencies, media companies and the entire value chain involved in branding. A report of this nature can only be as accurate as the methodology, the statistical analysis and interpretation, which have been explained in part III, chapter 5.. As time progresses, future versions of the BTR are likely to be even more refined than the 61 point matrix that the TRA has adopted for BTR 2013. A rough unit of measure is definitely much better than no yardstick at all.
Brands
Faber-Castell India appoints Sunaina Haldar as director – marketing
With stints at Tata, SleepyCat and ADF Foods under her belt, Haldar is primed to redraw Faber-Castell’s brand story
MUMBAI: Faber-Castell India has poached Sunaina Haldar from ADF Foods, appointing her director – marketing as the German stationery brand looks to muscle up in a category that is rapidly reinventing itself around creativity and self-expression.
Haldar hit the ground running. “My first couple of weeks have been incredibly energising, understanding consumers, visiting markets, engaging with retailers and immersing myself into the world of Faber-Castell Group,” she said.
She arrives with considerable firepower. At ADF Foods, Haldar ran marketing across India and international markets for a portfolio spanning Ashoka, Aeroplane, Camel and ADF Soul. Before that, she was vice-president – marketing at direct-to-consumer mattress brand SleepyCat, where she helmed brand, content and performance marketing. Her résumé also includes a stint leading marketing, new product development and CRM for Tata SmartFoodz at Tata Consumer Products, no small proving ground.
Between corporate roles, Haldar also operated as a fractional CMO for early-stage startups, building marketing strategy and operational structures from scratch, a signal that she knows how to move fast with limited resources.
With 18 years straddling FMCG, D2C and the startup world, Haldar now takes the reins at a brand that has long owned the classroom but is clearly hungry for the living room. In a stationery market where the pencil has become a lifestyle statement, Faber-Castell has picked someone who knows exactly how to sell that story.
