The concept of buying only a branded product has entered many consumers' mind over the last two decades. In the case of most of the products, the customer stays connected on a daily basis when he buys the brand. But there are certain product categories like paint or floor tiles wherein he buys a certain brand, but the brand goes into hiding after the product is installed or applied on the walls. These products remain in the consumers' mind only for a certain period of time as they blend into the household environment. Such products or brands are termed as Invisible Brands.

Ask anybody what brand of tiles or glass or cement or paint is used in his house. Most of them will draw a blank and may take a wild guess. The primary reason for this is the product does not permit to have a branding which is prominent and visible. Products related to the construction industry such as steel, tiles, cement, paints and glass, which were earlier sold as commodities, have now realized the need of branding. All these products have now been transformed to brands. But the biggest challenge these products face today is that they are seen and remembered as brands only at the time of purchase and installation. Thereafter, the consumer does not take the trouble to remember them.

A few days back, I visited the house of a friend of mine who had just refurbished it with some new flooring. Since it looked very impressive I was prompted to ask the brand used, but to my disappointment, the brand could not be recalled. In many cases, the decision on buying the floor tiles, to a large extent, is left with the mason or the architect. The end customer is of course involved, but not so much as his knowledge on the category may be less. Whenever we go to shopping malls, we enjoy the ambience; appreciate the flooring and the walls which are aesthetically done using tiles, glass, aluminum laminates and the latest in paint technology, but unfortunately, the brand name is not visible on these products. The irony is that all these invisible brands have helped the construction companies to create and build their own brands. Today, even after the construction of a mall or a township is complete, one will remember a DLF or a Hiranandani but the construction products used tend to take a backseat.

Advertising Express, Fast Moving Consumer Goods, FMCG, Consumer Durable Goods, INTEL Corporations, Architect Journals, Service Brands, Paint Technology, Intel CPUs, Mass Media Campaign, Saint Gobain Glasses.