1.

Introduction
At the core of the marketing strategy of any firm, lies the concept of Segmenting,
Targeting and Positioning1. Marketers start with the belief that anything can be
differentiated and the success of our marketing efforts is a direct implication of the
efficiency with which this task has been executed.

Indeed one of the key functions of a brand for the customer is to provide a point of
difference within the clutter and provide a means of replicating favorable past
experiences.

In this context, a typical problem is worth exploring. Customers are exposed to inordinate
amount of information flow from the marketer. This is the prime reason why they try the
brand. Suppose that this vital stimulus – marketing by the manufacturer - is absent or
ineffective or worse still, deemed impossible to execute (the case of commodities). Do
customers stop the evaluation process? What is the importance of this key variable to a
positive experience with the brand and possible repeat purchase behavior?

This paper makes an attempt to address this issue using commodities and provide a
framework for how the customer takes on the role of a marketer and carries out what is
called as ‘customer-branding’. Significantly, the authors provide insights into the
toughest task a marketer would have to undertake – branding a commodity.

The lessons from this paper can be applied in general to understanding and rectifying
situations where marketers have been ineffective. From a research standpoint, the paper
provides an interesting application of the stimulus response model.

2. Activities in Customer branding of commodities

The three key tasks in customer branding are the same as those activities carried out by
marketers to develop a formidable brand.
a) Identification and differentiation: Customers use creative and unique methods to
differentiate commodities by identifying/evaluating them with parameters that
they have already have experienced (For e.g., the country of origin, or shipping
marks)
b) Maintaining consistency: Customers brand commodities so that they are confident
that all interactions with the product will yield consistent results
c) Communicating existence and attributes to customer and channel: By simply
attaching a name and distinguishing between different sources of the same good
the customer reverses the communication flow. The branding here is supported by
the communication from the customer which overrides any other source
(including the manufacturer)

3. Occurrence of customer branding

For customer branding to occur, the customer should be in a position to don the role of a
marketer. For this shift to occur three criteria need to be satisfied simultaneously:
 a) The customer should perceive the market to be heterogeneous while the marketer
behaves as if it is homogeneous. It is important to note that the attributes on which
the variation is perceived is different for different customer segments.
b) The channel perceives the product as a commodity and hence branding is not
readily apparent or available to the customer. As a result, standardized product
obtained in the market is unacceptable for purchase by the customer.
c) The customer is able to identify and obtain a subset within the value chain that
executes the differentiation on parameters deemed important by the customer.

4. Paths of brand evolution

Ingenious ways in which customers have branded products deemed undifferentiated by a

marketer provide valuable insights into consumer behavior. Many important tasks like
naming/labeling the product, providing brand names, highlighting attributes, etc are done
by the customer which the marketer can borrow hence pushing the brand into a better
stage of evolution

References
1. Kotler , P . (2009 ‘A framework for Marketing Management’, Pearson Education, Inc.,
pp 170