Farmer's Brand
Branding Agricultural Commodities
Branding by its own definition branding makes a company able to charge a premium for its products. In today’s era we are listening about popular concept of commoditisation of brands thanks to faster imitation of technology and product design innovations. Mineral water, toothpastes, soaps are few examples those are being treated as commodities nearly. Thus what do we get from the discussion that it is increasingly becoming difficult for organizations to maintain the uniqueness of their brands.
What if some one talks about branding of agricultural commodities those do not have any or little visible differentiation. Seems too far fetched? Wait for a minute. Let’s have a look at some of the agricultural commodities that have been attempted for branding, successfully or unsuccessfully.
1. Atta -Pillsbury, Knorr annapurna, Ashirwaad
Status-Fairly Succesful
2. Salt - Tata, Captain Cook, Annapurna, Ashirwaad
Status-Success
3. Sugar- Sugar Cube, Sugar Free, Pyar-Dular-Sanskar
Status- Uncertain
4. Edible Oils - Saffola, Sunflower, Dhara
Status-Success
5. Spices - MDH, Catch
Status-Limited Success
All above mentioned examples share one thing in common i.e. all these products are Processed/Semi processed commodities. Value has been added to these products during processing operations which has made these products visibly distinct and capable of charging premium over their commodity counterparts. But when we talk about branding agricultural commodities, we are going one step further.
Agricultural commodity branding can be defined as “Process by which any organization or individual adds value to a agricultural commodity prior to any treatment/ processing operation that makes its sensory attributes differentiable and capable of fetching premium is Agricultural commodity branding.” ACB can be done with respect to following attributes.
Sources of Differentiation
Branding by its own definition branding makes a company able to charge a premium for its products. In today’s era we are listening about popular concept of commoditisation of brands thanks to faster imitation of technology and product design innovations. Mineral water, toothpastes, soaps are few examples those are being treated as commodities nearly. Thus what do we get from the discussion that it is increasingly becoming difficult for organizations to maintain the uniqueness of their brands.
What if some one talks about branding of agricultural commodities those do not have any or little visible differentiation. Seems too far fetched? Wait for a minute. Let’s have a look at some of the agricultural commodities that have been attempted for branding, successfully or unsuccessfully.
1. Atta -Pillsbury, Knorr annapurna, Ashirwaad
Status-Fairly Succesful
2. Salt - Tata, Captain Cook, Annapurna, Ashirwaad
Status-Success
3. Sugar- Sugar Cube, Sugar Free, Pyar-Dular-Sanskar
Status- Uncertain
4. Edible Oils - Saffola, Sunflower, Dhara
Status-Success
5. Spices - MDH, Catch
Status-Limited Success
All above mentioned examples share one thing in common i.e. all these products are Processed/Semi processed commodities. Value has been added to these products during processing operations which has made these products visibly distinct and capable of charging premium over their commodity counterparts. But when we talk about branding agricultural commodities, we are going one step further.
Agricultural commodity branding can be defined as “Process by which any organization or individual adds value to a agricultural commodity prior to any treatment/ processing operation that makes its sensory attributes differentiable and capable of fetching premium is Agricultural commodity branding.” ACB can be done with respect to following attributes.
Sources of Differentiation
1. Inherent superiority of basic material e.g. Virus free potato, Transgenics
2. Regional/Geographical advantage e.g. Bird's Eye Chillies from north east
3. Uniqueness of cultivation operations-Organics
4. Time utility e.g. Early season fruits
Concept is of particular relevance in the case agricultural commodities are directly used for consumption and where quality is the important parameter.
We will discuss in detail the issues involved in ACB in details in next post.
posted by Ravinder Grover @ 11:33 AM
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