Here are few world famous brands and their hidden meaning.

The name Adidas is derived from that of its founder, Adolf Dassler. The company’s logo has changed over time, but it’s always included three stripes. The current configuration is three stripes at an angle which together form a triangle. It symbolises a mountain, which in turn represents the challenges which all athletes need to face and conquer.

Rob Jenoff the designer who created with the world-famous Apple company logo, has explained how he came up with the idea: he bought a whole bag of apples, placed them in a bowl, and spent time drawing them for a week, trying to break the image down into something simple. Taking a bite out of an apple was part of the experiment, and completely by coincidence he realised that ’bite’ sounded exactly the same as the computer term ’byte’. A byte is considered as a unit of memory size of computer. Wow!! What a coincidence, and creativity that is.

Amazon has been using its current logo for 18 years. The logo illustrates that company sells everything from A to Z. The arrow in the logo points from the “A” to the “Z”.  The arrow at the bottom also symbolizes a smile, portraying that their customers are happy after using their service. The logo shows that Amazon can get anything for you at your doorstep; all you need is to log on their website.

The white and blue checker boxes represent a white/silver propeller blade spinning against a clear blue sky which portrays a happy drive on bright day. BMW logo also symbolizes the Bavarian flag colors which represents their origin. Also, it’s often supposed that the central part of the BMW logo symbolizes the rotating blades of an airplane, which are in line with the company’s earlier history of aviation technology.

The iconic Coca-Cola logo has changed many times over the past 126 years in design; however, you may be surprised to know the brand’s world-famous font of script and wave have always looked exactly as they do now. In the world-famous logo of the Coca-Cola Company, in the space between the letters ’O’ and ’L’, one can clearly see the Danish flag. The company has nonetheless used this as part of its marketing campaigns in the Scandinavian country. Just for the sake of the history of this brand, when it was introduced in 1885, it was marketed as a health tonic to cure a range of ills, including headaches, low sex drive and addiction. Coke started out with coca which is the extract of cocaine as a key ingredient, along with the kola nut. Hence it was named as Coca-Cola.

The FedEx logo was designed in 1994 by Linden Leader & Landor Associates, at first appears simple and straightforward. However, if you look at the white space between the “E” and “X” you can see a right-facing arrow. This “hidden” arrow was intended to be a subliminal symbol for speed and accuracy. FedEx assures on time and safe and sound delivery of courier.

The logo of Hyundai appears as “H” the first letter of the brand name. But, the South Korean conglomerate Hyundai’s logo symbolises two people: a client and a representative of the company shaking hands. People shake hands in contentment.

The logo of the South Korean electronics company LG portrays a person’s face, which is the central body region of sense. According to the company, the logo represents its aspiration to maintain everyday human relations with its customers intact. It believes in nurturing relationships with its customers which is a crucial part of growing a successful business.

The Pepsi logo portrays the globe with twirling red, white, & blue color design in a sphere-like shape. It is considered one of the world’s most recognizable corporate trademarks. It’s hard to believe, but Pepsi paid over a million dollars to create this special logo with its secret meanings. The new special design hints at mysterious and secretive themes, such as the Earth’s magnetic field, Feng shui, Pythagoras, geodynamics, the theory of relativity, and the golden ratio. The designer has explained that this logo also makes reference to the Mona Lisa, the Parthenon, and even René Descartes. The red, white and blue colors have always represented the American flag.

In 1990, Toyota debuted the three overlapping Ellipses logo on American vehicles. The Toyota Ellipses symbolize the unification of the hearts of our customers and the heart of Toyota products. The background space represents Toyota’s technological advancement and the boundless opportunities ahead.

I am sure many people like me must have wondered what the logo of Wikipedia means. Each piece bears a glyph (a character or a sign) symbolizing the multilingualism of Wikipedia. As with the Latin letter ‘W’, these glyphs are in most cases the first glyph or glyphs of the name “Wikipedia” rendered in that language. The empty space at the top represents the incomplete nature of the mission of Wikipedia; there are more articles and languages yet to be added. I find this logo most interesting. There are currently 301 language editions of Wikipedia. It is owned by Wikimedia Foundation.

Branding is a complex process it is tough job for any marketer to personify a product or a service into an image that is either liked or not does not be liked. Marketers keep juggling with branding strategies which at times become a hit. To introduce one new product and build a brand out of it, is itself a very intimidating task and to have a plethora of brands in the portfolio can suffocate the basket of products. This concept of launching and managing a plethora of brands by one company is considered as Brand Proliferation.

Brand proliferation is the opposite of brand extension. While in brand extension, new items are added using an existing brand name and several products are offered under the same brand name, in brand proliferation, more items are added to the product line with different brand names. In other words, the firm has several brands in the same product line or product category. It means that the list of independent brands increases. For instance, Unilever has more than 25 brands of ice creams and P&G has more than a dozen brands of detergents. This produces diversity for the firm as it is able to capture its sizable portion into various market segment. However, it can also lead to money spinning because of too many products, efforts and economic resources being wasted. The consumers get confused and they make mistakes while purchasing the products.

Each brand requires a different treatment, each brand is a unique identity, and each brand needs a unique handling; the very dynamism of product proliferation makes it hard to manage the brand. Complexities multiply by an ever-changing landscape of customers who demand and companies’ attempts to meet that demand with formation of products and more product variations. Brand proliferation also leads to brand cannibalization; each brand eating into market share of another product from the same basket.

ITC’s soap portfolio consists of a product line with Essenza Di Wills at the top end, followed by Fiama Di Wills in premium segment, Vivel in mid-segment and Superia at the entry level. ITC seems to have segmented the market fittingly and has different products to cater to different segments. Moreover, Vivel is targeting young consumers who are ready to flirt with new brands. The large array of products in the toilet soap category offers consumers access to some of the best-in-class products in different segments with vibrant attractive pricing and packaging. Brand proliferation can help expand the company’s market share in a particular category. It can also increase the company’s clout at the retail level by offering variety. New brands also generate enthusiasm of the sales team of the company at the same time, but all of this also creates many pitfalls in the process. More brands from a company’s product basket increases competition in the market. The main advantage of proliferation is that the company’s presence is felt overall in the market.

On the negative side, when a firm introduces a number of brands in the same product line with an amount of parity among them, the danger of cannibalization is high; the share of individual brands can come down because of its own sibling brands. Another disadvantage is that the company may dissipate its resources over several brands, which may not guarantee proportionate returns, nurturing just a few brands to a highly profitable level often proves to be a wiser option.

Having brands with distinctive positioning is, strategically, the best way of minimizing cannibalization. If different brands are designed to deliver different benefits to different segments of markets, it can restrict competition among brands. To avoid cannibalization completely is often impossible. It is not essential either, but one has to be sure whether a net incremental benefit that justifies the additional cost and complexity accrues by adding one more brand. It’s differentiating for the sake of differentiating and can retort back when not sensibly used.

I am awe of Maruti Suzuki the way it handles it product portfolio. As of January 2016, Maruti Suzuki has about 47% of the Indian passenger car market. Maruti Suzuki manufactures and sells its popular cars to each segment such small size, mid-size, SUV, Sedan, Saloon and Hatchback. It has a car for each segment – the Alto, Swift, Zen, Celerio, Wagon R, Swift, DZire, SX4, Omni etc.  Maruti Suzuki has 146 cars models available in India out of which 85 are hatchbacks, 26 are sedans, 14 are SUVs and 19 are MUVs/MPVs. Maruti Suzuki has total of 85 petrol cars, 50 diesel cars and 11 CNG cars. There are 21 automatic cars and 125 manual transmission cars to select from. Alto 800 is the most economical car and the most expensive model is S Cross. Vitara Brezza is the latest car by Maruti Suzuki launched on 8th March, 2016. Maruti Suzuki is the apt example of how a good brand proliferation strategy strikes a fine balance so that too many brands do not result in brand cannibalization and erosion of profits.

Companies in their struggle to compete with other brands and the compulsions of growth often do not have kind of definite time at their disposal and time is the essence. They find takeover, acquisition and buyout of ongoing brands as an easy way out.  For example, while entering India, Pepsi wanted to enlarge its brand portfolio and to ensure it without much gestation it went in for out of some ongoing brands. Pepsi acquired the 105 year old Duke’s and gained two powerful brands, Duke’s Soda and Mangola overnight. It gained a strong position in the Mumbai market which has dominated traditionally by Duke in the relevant categories. Similarly, Godrej acquired Traselecta, the company which actually revolutionized the Indian home insecticides market with many successful brands like Good Knight, Hit, Jet and Banish, it was essentially a case of acquisition of brands. The acquisition was part of Godrej’s long term strategy to become a substantial player in the growing home clean product market. It needed brands in the category.

It is worth noting, that most organizations do not go into depth of examining their brand portfolios from time to time: this examination is essential to check if they are prone to sell too many brands, identify the weaker brands, and discontinue the loss making brands or the unprofitable ones. When organizations tend to ignore loss-making brands and merge them with healthy brands instead of selling them off, or drop them they choke the healthy brands. Furthermore, the startling truth is that most brands don’t make money for companies. The 80-20 thumb rule is a reality that organizations make 80% profits from 20% of their products. From a small number of brands. Unilever had 1,600 brands in its portfolio in 1999, its business spread over in some 150 countries. More than 90% of its profits came from 400 brands. Most of the other 1,200 brands made losses or they earned marginal profits. Another example is of Nestlé – in 1996 it marketed more than 8,000 brands in 190 countries. About 55 of them were global brands, 140-odd were regional brands, and the remaining 7,800 or so were local brands. The bulk of the company’s profits came from around 200 brands, or 2.5% of the portfolio.

If only corporations realize that if they slot several brands into the same category, they incur hidden costs because multibrand strategies and they give partial treatment to healthier brands.

In 1984, the Olympics became a self-sustaining entity when the International Olympics Committee (IOC) declared that it did not require public funding. They accomplished this by offering worthwhile sponsorship contracts that provided exclusive rights to “official sponsors.” Unknowingly, they also gave birth to new advertising strategy known as “Ambush marketing.”

According to Jerome McCarthy – one of the well-known marketing scientists, Ambush marketing is a type of marketing by a company that is not an official sponsor of an event, but which places advertisements using the event, to induce customers to pay attention to their advertisement. Fundamentally, it is unwarranted for the un-sponsoring company to include its advertisements in the event. From a theoretical perspective, Ambush marketing refers to a company’s attempt to capitalize on the goodwill, reputation, and popularity of a particular event by creating an association with it, without the authorization or consent of the necessary parties. The word “ambush” as used in the expression Ambush marketing, means “an attack from a hidden position” and is derived from the old French verb embuschier, having the meaning “to attack by hiding in wood” –  deployment of persons in hiding to make a surprise attack.

How does Ambush Marketing work

Ambush marketing is an emotionally-charged phrase that refers to the practice of appearing to align a brand with an event for which that brand has not paid for the right to be a sponsor. Probably this practice had existed in even before 1984, but the sheer volume of money involved and the worldwide attention given Olympic events have led many to view the 1984 Olympic Games as the origin of Ambush marketing.

Fuji won the rights to be an official sponsor of the 1984 Olympic Games, its rival Kodak ambushed the event by responding to Fuji’s official sponsorship rights subtly by purchasing extensive advertising during the broadcast of the games! Although Fuji was the official sponsor, many viewers saw Kodak’s ads and mistakenly assumed that Kodak was the sponsor.

Some ambush campaigns flirt with the law; others clearly break it. Yet, the value of these sponsorships ensures someone will be planning an attack on a corporate sponsor’s exclusivity. If you can get your brand in the broadcast or media images or even in the news broadcasting of the event, many viewers will not recall the sponsor’s ads, they might not even bear in minds who’s the official sponsor and why they have sponsored the event; instead they might recall the ambusher’s ads if they are trickily placed. We need to remember here that often an ambusher enjoys a better position than the official sponsors.

Another glaring example of Ambush marketing is the Barcelona Olympics in 1992; in this event American Express literally destabilize Visa’s Olympic sponsorship. American Express ran ads dodging and breaking the law. They ran very cheeky ads that said, “You don’t need a visa to visit Spain.” Of course, Visa dragged American Express later in the court.

While the legal fraternity still does not have a dictate on Ambush marketing, companies use it as a promotional tool and seem to enjoy its positive effects. The ambushers often gain as much mileage as the event’s official sponsors. Although ambushers rub on the wrong shoulders of the sponsors the wit and astuteness in some cases cannot be ignored. The 1996 World Cup tournament of cricket which was played in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka was sponsored by ITC and also Coca-Cola. It seems Coca-Cola paid around Rs 40 crore for the privilege, but PepsiCo defiantly stole the limelight with its tagline ‘Nothing official about it’!

Most Ambush marketing campaigns are short lived. In the recent times, i.e 2010 we witnessed a conflicting promotional campaign between Hindustan Unilever’s and P&G’s shampoo brands, Dove and Pantene. P&G was planning to unveil their new Pantene Shampoo on 1^st Aug 2010 and kept using tagline “A mystery Shampoo” in their entire pre-launch advertising campaign. But, Hindustan Unilever ambushed the campaign by placing an adjoining hoarding with the tagline “There is no mystery, Dove is the No. 1 shampoo.” thus ambushing Pantene’s prelaunch campaign. HUL’s swift, mischievous response to the ‘mystery’ of P&G was in true sense a tongue-in-cheek respond. Ambush campaigns are carried on parody and spoof.

Ambush marketing strategy has been on a rise since the last few years.  Nokia had spent a big fortune to sponsor Shahrukh Khan’s exclusive premier of his film ‘Ra.One’ at PVR cinema in Delhi, Few minutes prior to the premier Samsung’s advertisement were flashed on the screen. In another similar incident in Bengalore, Samsung stealthily stationed cabs painted with Samsung Omnia advertisement right outside Nokia Stores and this was right after Nokia started its Lumia cab marketing drive.

Can Ambush marketing be legalized?

Senior marketing practitioners view it as direct efforts of a party to weaken rival’s efforts of getting footage in an event. It is believed to be the biggest risk for advertisers seeking sponsorships at any events. Ambush marketing is also looked upon as commercial theft. Ambush marketers simply develop a creative advertising campaign around the event, by not using the event logo or trademark. They capitalize their association with the event without paying for the “official sponsor” status. The Pepsi hot air balloon flying above Sharjah, on the day of the Coca-Cola Cup final, is one such instance. Many high profile marketers have used the ambushing tricks which are proven to be perfectly legal. For a company which sponsors the event controlling the entire event becomes a costly affair; to control every ad outlet associated with an event is difficult for the sponsor because in any event there are too many gaps that competitors can purchase. Furthermore, many sponsorship contracts do not tackle legal loopholes thus creating gaps for the competitors to make a backdoor entry.

There is no doubt that the practice of Ambush marketing is an unethical business practice, and that it calls for stringent rules and regulations to protect the intellectual property protection. On the other hand, it may be argued that it is each corporation’s free right to advertise during entertainment event, sports events, prominent seminars or workshops which involve national pride, it is unjust to a corporation that enters into agreements with the event organizers and pays millions to acquire exclusive rights to advertise, and corporations that have not paid officially to also enjoy the same benefits. It is only fair to put a cost on acquiring a right of association especially when the benefits accrued far exceed the initial cost. But, since a major chunk of any games/event budget comes from corporate marketing sponsors, broadcast rights fees, and royalties from official merchandise licensees. Event organizers should educate the public about the basics of intellectual property helping the fight against Ambush marketing and battle against trademark infringement.

The most crucial challenge for businesses is to create new customers while maintaining the old ones. Traditionally, successful branding serves the purpose of creating and maintaining such differentiation to the benefit of the consumer, the retail channel, and the producer or owner of the branded product or service. However, the forces of change as mentioned above make the task much more dreadful – to serve a national, regional or a global market, and yet ideally serve each market as if it has a single consumer. In such volatile situation Ambush marketing can impede the promotional effort of a sincere sponsoring organization.

But let’s except a fact; in marketing wars “Everything is fair” Ambush marketing is going to stay on, may be in different styles and with different approaches.