today, while travelling in the second class compartment of Mumbai’s beloved local train, i got a bit conscious of my music player…

when you are busy fidgeting with your player, people are busy trying to figure out what (and of how much worth) are you carrying around. this is not to mean that these people are thugs or anything, well not all of them are anyways… many of them, in fact are from India’s rising middle class–very much affluent… but still, the inquisitive Indian, at times, does bother me…

i started thinking of where all might the brand be imprinted on the music player and shall give away the value of the device, and also, how someone would make small talk about a thing as stupid, saying something to the effect, “i saw this guy in the second class compartment today, he was totally showing off his expensive mp3 player, you know these people… … …”…

MP3 Players

this got me thinking of how one could categorise brands by the way their consumers, according to their own social/economic status, prefer showing or not showing off these brands…

for example, the Apple iPod is notoriously irreverent, it doesn’t care about being showed off, its audiences are very much self-conscious and just plain want to listen their music on a functional device [that happens to be hip and trendy ;)]… it is not to say that the iPod is discreet; in fact, it can be easily figured-out by its unique appearance… some small-time brands also try to ride on the iPod’s unique design by mimicking its design elements such as the trademark white earphones, the jog dial, et cetera… however, the iPod’s appearance is rather clean and lacks mention of the brand name or symbol–very much to the taste of its audiences… i would like to call this the urban MIG+ brand association…

then there are LIG-lowerMIG brand associations… here, the brand is pretty average in stature, but offers assurance of respectable quality and justifies its rather minuscule price difference over the generics (though nowhere comparable to the hips and elites) through the same… an example that comes to mind is that of the Transcend music players that are so popular among the lower and lower-middle income groups around quite a few Indian towns… i myself started-off with a 2GB Transcend flash player… the brand has earned dependence in terms of quality and function and is yet very much affordable… so… when you are looking out to get a cheap music player, you can say, ‘hey, i got a Transcend: nothing fancy like your iPod, but then, it costs less, and works just as fine!’… here, the brand name is reassuring that though its cheap, its not compromised, its the right value for money…

another category is the elite HIG category brand association… in this category, the consumers do not mind showing-off the brand… in fact, they will flaunt their brands… for one thing, these brands are way past the functionality scale and are racing on merit of luxury, dearness and exclusivity more than anything else (i once experienced how uncomfortable a leather-upholstered BMW vehicle can be)… the brands operating in these spheres need to present themselves subtly, thereby respecting their price-coughing owners and lending extra sophistication to the whole affair, to everyone involved… if not showed-off, these brands are a sheer waste of fortune… also, since their consumers move around in their own circles, unlike me, they never have to worry about who’s eyeing their music player/bag/car/whatever for all the wrong reasons; if at all they do, they have got their private security and what not to take care of it all… ;)… a comparable example (wrt music players) here would be say that of a Bang & Olufsen mp3 player–its owner will definitely want to show off; however, here, the brand is supposed to be known in his/her circles where a show-off of price and quality would be not only unnecessary, but also a rather cheap thing to do… the owner will flaunt it as a matter of his own taste and choice more than anything else…

its questionable, the thought of brand associations in terms of LIG-MIG-HIG types… but then, why not, i say… after all, a brand is a personality in itself, its got all those human attributes!… :D…