The 'Death Zone' of branding

Can anything that has a brand name become a brand? Now that's an interesting question, but the thought this question consequently evokes is - Is there a limit to branding? Even though a marketer would be loath to admit it?
Take a mountaineering analogy. On the classic South Face route of Mount Everest, by which it was first climbed in 1953, expeditions establish many camps as they move higher- Base Camp, Camp 1, Camp 2, Camp 3. They then arrive at Camp 4, a small wedge in mountain called South Col. It is 8500 metres high. At this altitude, life changes drastically. Suddenly. The human body starts wasting, feeding on itself. Some 15 kgs of weight is lost; three layers of skin has peeled; there is a continuos hacking cough. The mountaineer is reduced to a pair of lungs flapping in the winds. The winds are screaming at over 140 miles an hour. The temperature less than - minus 30. The wind chill - another minus 20. Zero sleep. Zero appetite. And the waiting is indefinite.
South Col is called "The Death Zone". Climbers don't stay here beyond a few hours. As for sherpas, they don't stay here at all. They say it is haunted. The Yeti legend is active here. And if the summit window (when winds die down) does not open, one descends - either to try again, or to abandon the climb.
The human being is simply not designed for this altitude. (The summit to death ratio of Mount Everest continues to remain 1:4 since 1953, despite all advances in equipment and training. Incidentally the worst year was as recent as 1996)
Some commodities and categories fall in the Death Zone of Branding - for a variety of reasons. They are not inherently designed to become brands. They just try. The odd exception of course could be there (1919 was when man attempted Everest first but it was scaled in 1953)
One category characteristic which makes branding a verticle climb in rarefied altitude, is when the product category itself suffers from very low consumer involvement.
Some examples:
1. Ship Carborised matches from WIMCO struggled to fight the matches that came from middle / tiny sector viz Shivakasi products. They had three fundamental business problems. One, their cost structures were 'organised' and their competition enjoyed an excise free life; two - the consumer didn't really care about matches in general - it was a very low involvement product category; three - because they were an 'organised' organisation, they thought that Ship was a brand. The trouble was that it was not. Remember, the consumer decides this!
2. For years, Gillette struggled to fight the house of Malhotra double edged blades with their twin-blade product. But it was a losing battle for long. Gillette felt that shaving blades were very important in the consumer's life. The consumer didn't really share the sentiment! So they talked product! They showed in their ads, how the second blade shaves off the full hair, which the first one could not. And now they have three blades! And even five (Clearly, the first ad was wrong!). So the consumer now wonders, when will they have ten blades! True, they have some market, but because they have no competitor in the same category. Actually they are 'category', not 'brand'. (Don't forward this mail to Gillette!)
3. Xerox once released a huge ad campaign saying that "Xerox is a multiple dollar corporation and is not available for 30 paise". There were a few problems with this. One, the consumer didn't understand why they felt the need to say so! Two, it didn't solve their problem of having become so equal to the category, that when the consumer purchased any other brand also, he called it Xerox. The brand had become so generic, that it was no longer helping to drive preference in sales.
So what is the moral of the story? 1. You have to understand South Col - The Death Zone before you can cross it 2. You need a DIFFERENT strategy to cross it. It is another game alltogether. 3. A lot of self-talk pretends to be positioning, but is actually counterproductive.
Consider this: (a) for two decades television marketers advertised on TV claiming 'better picture clarity'. So here you were, watching a Toshiba TV ad on your Sony TV, which showed you how a Toshiba TV had better picture clarity (than a Sony), as you can see 'clearly' on your Sony TV! Now how funny is that.
(b) there were some Airtel hoardings, which showed the network strength symbol which we have on our phones saying "AirTel - the full strength network". And here you were at a crossing where this hoarding was showing the signal as full. So it forced you to look into your phone, where you found the signal to be half! (Please forward this mail to Airtel, if you are an Airtel customer)
4. And you have to be really very solid to scale the death zone of branding - else it's worth remembering, that there always was another lesser mountain to climb anyway. If you can define a category, choose the right one. Unless you are a suicidal daredevil.
But even in adventure sports, it is said, safety first, adventure later. Ever saw a dead body climb a mountain? Now that's true for marketing too.