FINANCE AND ECONOMY : HOW DO YOU NAIL YOUR MESSAGE

BY ROBIN GHOSH,

ECONOMIST AND BUSINESS MENTOR

KOLKATA | 1 MAY 2025

Having had some experience in designing marketing strategies for promoting a brand, I would like to share a few observations.

The gist of these observations is to guide Startups — how to build up a brand and how to enhance sales.

1. To take control of consumers’ minds, words are not enough.You need visual drill and visual hammer.

2 . I will give two examples

3. Heineken, a Dutch beer, used to hold  major market share in America. Corona, a Mexican beer, had beaten Heineken with a unique visual idea.

4. What is that unique idea?

Corona insisted that all restaurants serving Corona beer should serve with a lime on top of the bottle. A visual hammer to hammer words into consumers’ minds.

Here is another example.

5. This story is about Marlboro cigarettes. Cigarettes are basically a unisex product.

But Marlboro decided to create  ” Masculine cigarettes.” How did Marlboro do that?

Marlborough added a visual element to the brand – a cowboy .

6.  The key is that you have to invent a visual hammer or a drill to build your brand.

7. If you observe marketing messages , you will generally find — in most cases — hover around outstanding quality, reliability, and performance. Unfortunately, they are abstract ideas and can’t be visualized and therefore useless.

8. To popularise your brand, ask yourselves a deep question – what single memorable visual defines the essential nature of your brand.