150 brands vie for CII''s brand award

Chennai: Around 150 brands from 90 companies are competing for the `CII Brand of the year 2005' awards to be announced at the Confederation of Indian Industry's (CII) third 'brand summit' at Chennai to be held on February 17 and 18, 2005.
.
Agreeing that there are several best brand awards are there in the country, Anita Gupta, senior vice president and general manager, J Walter Thompson and a member of the CII 'brand summit' steering committee, said, "We have avoided the regular trap of evaluating brands on financial parameters or based only on an expert panel's opinion."

Instead, the brands will be evaluated on the basis of a 360 degree evaluation by the consumers, trade / and channel partners, industry peers and a jury of experts. Only the most deserving consumer product or service brand will be given the award.

"Even regional brands will have a fair chance of winning the award," she adds.

What adds prestige to the winning company is that there is only one award across the industry segments and the competition is open to Indian subsidiaries of multinationals, companies with national and regional brands.

The selection process consists of four steps — self-nomination, brand wagon, brand microscope and brand inquisition. After a company puts in its nomination, the nominations are screened. Different stakeholders then evaluate the short listed brands.

After that, the short listed companies have to make a presentation and answer specific questions by the expert panel and finally the winning brand is chosen.

According to her the war for the wallet will be intense in the coming years across the sectors as the working population will increase to 615 million from the current number of 485 million. To cash in on that and also to survive the fierce competitive environment, brand building will assume immense importance.

Speaking about the third 'brand summit', Krishna Mohan, president, general management, Ogilvy & Mather, and also a member of the steering committee of Brand Summit said, "Connecting with the consumer in the changing business scenario will be the core focus of the event."

He also added the summit would begin with an in-depth analysis of the radical changes that have taken place in the brand environment and the consumer's mind space.

Tracing the evolution of the CII's 'brand summit', N Murali, joint managing director, The Hindu and chairman of the steering committee, said, the first round focussed on the need for brand management, the second on impact of technology on branding and communication.

L Ganesh, vice chairman and managing director, Rane Engine Valves Limited, remarked that it was important for Indian companies to occupy the mind space of the customers to compete in global markets.