Thursday, June 14, 2007

I just saw it couple of feet away!!....

Remember, some years ago, there were only few spots which were "the thing" to do something...for example, in Hyderabad, Koti and Abids was for shopping and the situation was something like people from all over the city would come over to these areas to shop around....whereas in the case of Bangalore, it would be perhaps Brigade Road....But all this is a thing of past. Now, there are just too many options I suppose, which in a way I must say has done a lot of good for the citizens who now will have to travel less....I just hope, the old doesn't ever lose the charm for which it was once famous for...and I hope People always remember such places for what they stood for once upon a time....

Brand Visibility is perhaps the biggest matter of concern for today's market when there's just too many things to choose from. So, that's more or less would be the reason why you see billboards of the same company every 2 miles...leave advertising; this thing is happening for offering services as well...and undoubtedly the telephone service providers are numero uno in this issue...and coming close in that matter would be banks and ATMs perhaps... But over the past couple of years, I have seen something else coming up too...

ICICI bank once had a goal; to establish its branch every 2 kms across India, so that it can provide better services to the people...and SBI did another nice thing....an amazing network of ATMs...more or less one every 200 metres in some places...am sure it has made money transaction easier for most of us.... but giving it close competition is another unlikely brand....I would say it's "Cafe's Coffee Day" outlets...they are just everywhere....trust me in a city like Bangalore, it easily outnumbers any other brand in its segment and otherwise...it's more or less like a deja vu, each time you spot one, it feels as if you saw something just couple of feet away...maybe that's true in some cases!

What I wonder is, how we see this mushrooming of brands as? If it's a case of people loving coffee and the ambiance, may be...if it is a case of giving people a place to chill out..maybe...but my point is, do we need so many of the same brand that too....sometimes just few steps away! I still hope that they do good business in each of their outlets otherwise there's no point...as of now, it looks like that the panipuri outlets of our yesteryears have taken a new form...(hehe..No offence intended!)....wouldn't it be nice if SBI and Cafe' Coffee Day come to an agreement and instead of having one outlet separately, maybe there could be an ATM in every coffee day...this would save lots of space!!!

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