This article looks at brand rituals as a means for both differentiating brands and increasing their consumption. Over the years, a number of brands have attempted to associate themselves with existing rituals or have created their own rituals in their attempts to capture the market. Due to their symbolic nature, rituals generate kinship towards the brand, enticing the customer to revert to the brand experience. Just like the brand name and logo, the rituals too get etched in the consumer's memory through incessant repetition. In an increasingly commoditized marketplace, marketers can unlock the hidden potential of brand rituals, thus opening up new avenues for brand differentiation.

Rituals have been primarily associated with major life events like birth, marriage, death, etc., and also with religious observances. Rituals provide a detailed prescribed procedure for conducting a specific ceremony or activity. Over the years, numerous brands have become integral to the performance of certain rituals. Examples include, Cycle brand incense sticks and offering prayers, Tanishq and marriage, Cadbury's Celebrations and Rakshabandhan, and so on.

However, in the context of consumption behavior, rituals encompass even everyday chores and not just the performance of religious ceremonies or observation of festivals. Daily behavioral rituals can be as simple as beginning the morning with a hot cup of coffee or taking a daily walk. Irrespective of whichever culture or sub-culture an individual belongs to, every activity of life, the various stages of life, seasons, successes and failures have been ritualized.

A ritual is "a type of expressive, symbolic activity constructed of multiple behaviors that occur in a fixed, episodic sequence and tend to be repeated over time." Rituals are responsible for structuring our lives. They are reassuring, familiar and have a host of memories attached to them. The relevance of rituals from the marketers' viewpoint is that, irrespective of their magnitude, rituals have certain commonalities that they occur at certain times of the year, month or day, and involve the use of certain artifacts (products/brands). The artifacts allow a marketer to access into the ritual, and its repetitive nature ensures regular product usage. Moreover, since rituals are passed on from one generation to the next, admittance into a ritual can lead to inter-generational brand transfer. Marketers can use rituals to create and maintain a distinct brand loyalty in today's over-crowded marketplace. Exhibit 1 presents various ritualistic experiences.

Marketing Mastermind Magazine, Ritualizing the Brand, Ritualistic Experiences, Consumer Durable Brands, Brand Ritual, Innovative Brands, Phantom Models, Marketing Programs, Traditional Branding, Customer Dissatisfaction, Religious Ceremonies.