"Get More from us"- Anchor

Anchor,  India’s leading  manufacturer of electrical materials like switches and wires, is running a huge branding exercise, largely visible in Mumbai. The major punch line is “Get More from us”, we are now Anchor by Panasoic.

This campaign is certainly a high visibility and high impact exercise in Mumbai, if someone visits the city, chances are very less that he misses this campaign. As Primetime outdoor agency, which is a OOH agency of this campaign has put in all efforts to place this ad at every possible visible area.

Surprisingly this campaign is launched in more than 100 towns and cities and announcing company’s association with the parent brand i.e. Panasonic but somehow as compared to Delhi, Mumbai seems to be major spending area of the company as Anchor ‘s headquarters in Mumbai. The major objective of campaign is to show that the brand is associated with more products than only Switches .

The company has very smartly used outdoor media to promote various products at the same time saving the cost of print or TV. Using outdoor media, they can certainly launch various message statements and target the large audience at the same time.

Primetime Outdoor used a wide media mix including hoardings, unipoles, bus back panels, bus shelters, station branding, gantries, Meru Cab branding, utilities, 

Metro station branding, wall wraps, LED screen, in train branding, kiosks series, and many more to give the brand a lavish spread.

Starbucks

On Tuesday, March 8, Starbucks marks its 40th year – and as part of the celebration, we’ll start rolling out the new logo we announced a few months back.

The first place you’ll probably see the new logo is on the cup of your favorite beverage. It could be a while before the signage in your neighborhood store is changed – it takes a while to update 16,500 stores!   

For communication professionals and design nerds like me, this is an exciting time. Watching the reaction to any new logo is fascinating, because people can hold such passionate attachments to these marks. The comments on our Facebook page and blog posts were decidedly mixed – some of you don’t like the new look at all, some of you think you’ll love it once you get used to it. (Honestly, that was pretty much the reaction we were expecting.)  The verdict from the design community has generally been more positive, and even the voice behind the hilarious (but fake) Gap Logo Twitter account lent support. 

For those of you who aren’t sold on the new mark, all I ask is this: give it time. As you start to see it out in the world, I hope you’ll start to appreciate the simplicity and elegance of the new design. I like the new mark because I feel that we’ve unleashed the Siren, a mythological figure who represents the romance and creativity that inspired the founders of Starbucks 40 years ago. I hope that unleashing that energy – that mojo – will keep us (and you) inspired for the next 40 years.

Courtesy: Starbucks official website

Babies’ world

Some 24 million (240 lakh) babies are born in India per annum, much more than born in any other country globally.

What do you know about them? It’s not only about their rising numbers. It’s about their mindsets. It’s about their approach. It’s about their thinking, their preferences, likes, dislikes and everything else that make a kid a kid.

One of the most fascinating and complex facets of retailing happens to be branded children’s apparel. This segment has been till now small and largely stable. But exciting times are in the offing. In the kids apparel market, the large variety, segmented customer profile and changing tastes plays a big role. Also, the children’s buying behaviour, influence of parents and media makes a huge difference in the purchase decision. Selling kids apparel you would soon realise is no child’s play. Spunkywear, for instance, is an iconic global apparel brand. Its premium name commands a loyal customer following. In India, Spunkywear has been a prominent brand in adults wear segment. The company now aspires to achieve a similar status in kids segment with its brand ‘Spunkywear Kids’.

Children are also the main focus of Indian families, and their aspirations in terms of education and career choices are quite high today. The average family size in India has been on a decline, coming in now at almost 4.3 as compared to earlier years when it was more than 5. With the reduction in their average size and the increase in their incomes, Indian families have more money to spend. And children being the main focus, parents try their best to fulfill their aspirations. Net result, they get more attention and participate a lot in the decision making process.

Gone are the days when children would go ga-ga over a doll or a toy car. With most of them buying toys on their trips abroad now, the desi market is literally burning the midnight oil to come to terms with this demanding shopper. Education consultant Ekta Singal, mother of a three-year-old, says, "My son knows his mind. He is very definite and selective about the toys he picks up." Echoes Saurabh Gupta, a toyshop owner, "Parents are happy to go by their children's choices. The price is hardly a consideration."

Next time you tell your friends that you are taking your children shopping, correct yourself. If the figures are anything to go by, it is the little ones who are taking you on a shopping spree because, incidentally, you hold the purse strings.

From toys to FMCGs to apparel to gizmos, kids want it all. And this snooty tiny tot is responsible for a $3 billion market, which is growing even as you read this. India is the largest children's market in the world and such are the demands of children here that business organisations and associations are holding meets and calling experts to understand what children want.

India has a rapidly expanding middle class and therefore the world’s largest retail groups have long been circling India and are urging the Government to drop rules that prevent foreign companies owning multibrand retail operations

Dominos: New positioning

Here is a brief description of how Dominos’ evolved as a brand over the period of time. Dominos’ call itself to be in Food Services sector but not as a pizza player. The very definition of Marketing is that it is discipline of optimally allocating company’s resources for fulfilling consumers’ needs so as to ensure a balance of consumers’ subjective profits and the company’s long term financial profits.

Over a period of time, customers’ perception about Dominos changed and hence the subjective profits also varied. To sustain the long term profits in the market Dominos’ had to work hard in redefining its positioning in the minds of the customers.

For any business the first thing to do right is to choose a right segmenting variable. Segmenting variable could be anything like demographic parameter like age, region, sex etc. Or attitude behaviour like lifestyle, culture, belief, habits etc. Most of the people would be surprised to see that age, disposable income and family size are not the segmenting variable of Dominos. Infact the segmenting variable of Dominos’ is OCCASION. They have segmented the market on the basis of occasion so that people want a meal replacement for change in mood, party, spending time with family and kids, spending time with old friends, formal meeting with colleagues, clients and so on and so forth.

So dominos business is providing a high quality tasty food in meal replacement sector. When Dominos entered into Indian market, they tried to establish in a pizza category. First of their communications and tag line was based on the attitude that whenever and wherever you are hungry just call dominos. “HUNGRY KYA?” in one of the initial advertisements Mallika sherawat was the model. So some of the advertisements did fairly well and they established points of parity with other players.

Soon they realized that for home delivery model, time is the parameter which most of the customers value so they created a points of difference by new value proposition that is “30 Minutes or free”. Paresh Rawal featured ad in monsoon of Mumbai was a real hit and got many national and international awards. So after some time, when dominos’ business was not growing as fast as they expected they did lot of in depth and focus interviews where they found that it is not fast service which is the value driven parameter for customers, it is Taste which people want to pay for along with value for money. So once again as per the customers’ expectations Dominos’ introduced pan size pizza worth rupees thirty five and it all along changed the perception of people that Domino’s is a value for money.

So now responding to the customers’ reactions of valuing taste as the foremost reason to order pizza at home or office. They spent huge amount of money in R&D, hired new chefs on Dominos’ payroll and introduced various new variants in the Indian market like Cheese crust, Chinese pizza, other regional flavours etc. Some of them were instant hit and some could not do well. But one thing was very clear that constant innovation in product would only make your company better.

So now company has established three core values namely “30 Minute, free delivery”, “taste” and “Value for money”, with once again new positioning. “KHUSIYON KI HOME DELIVERY” is a new tag line and by virtue of this proposition, they could incorporate any of the core value in a same tagline. This is a beauty of any successful brand “CONSISTENCY”. The brand which is consistent over a period of time across product line is there for long time. Recently Dominos’ have introduced new series of commercials featuring sawant. Dominos is a smart company and they kept on this advertisement for quite a long time because of the recession in the market so they are banking upon the value proposition.

Hope to see brand dominos there for long time in the market with new brand proposition.

Videos of Dominos can be watched at the following link

http://www.dominos.co.in/advertising.jsp

Thanks to Dominos senior management for above piece of information.

Horlicks

Horlicks is a health drink brand existing in India since decades. Horlicks holds 50% market share of milk beverage market of India that is around 2300 crore (source: The Nielsen Company). GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare is a proud owner of such a strong brand. The brand has created such a great entry barrier that other big players like Nestle and Dabur have got a hit.. Nestlé has stopped making Milo and new entrant Dabur India has decided to stay clear of Horlicks and pitch its Chyawan Junior against GSK Consumer Healthcare’s other beverage brand, Boost.

One of the important reasons of Horlicks domination since years is because of constant innovation not intems of product only but also marketing. GSK Consumer Healthcare has decided to use the brand to get into new categories. In the last few months, it has launched biscuits for children, a nutrition drink for women, an energy bar and chilled milk.

The crazy thing is that Nestle and Dabur fell into the trap of Horlicks. It is GSK who dictates terms, all these new categories always existed in the market and GSK identified the market gap and filled it with its new product line. GSK is fully utilizing the strong brand equity of Horlicks to promote its new products and now Horlicks is India’s 6^th trusted brand.

When marketers see saturation in the market, they have either two choices one expand the market second increase the usage of its existing products. As of now Horlicks is banking on the first strategy and that is very obvious Young kids would like to continue with Horlicks when they grow older.. As increasing the usage is very difficult. Again, five years ago, GSK Consumer Healthcare had reached out to pregnant and lactating mothers with Mother’s Horlicks; last year it came up with Women’s Horlicks catering for women across age groups.
There’s Horlicks Lite for the elderly who often have a sugar problem and for the youth there is Horlicks Nutribar

With Horlicks Nutribar, positioned on the twin planks of health and convenience, GSK Consumer Healthcare has leveraged the brand to venture into an entirely new product category — energy cereal bars. A strong brand, opens up doors to new variants and even new categories.

In 2003, the brand was revamped: It was made tastier and launched in two new flavours — vanilla and honey. The company had earlier launched a chocolate version to try and win over consumers in the North and West who typically prefer chocolate-flavoured drinks. Not just higher tonnage, the company does succeed in extracting a price from consumers. In January this year, for instance, prices were upped by about 5 per cent. But it has been seen that parents in India can spend to maximum limit on two things Child’s nutrition and education. Horlicks cover the first part.

Horlicks has used media mix to its full capacity to reach out to every customer be it TV, radio, Print, Point of sales etc. Now it seems the next big task and if it succeeds, Horlicks would become the biggest brand in India is to sell Horlicks in rural India and make every villager drink Horlicks Milk.

Product failure

Business market is highly competitive, it is very important for company to develop new product at regular intervals because customer constantly wants something new. It is not necessary that whole product is new to the market, the new product can be new in terms of packaging, new flavour or modification in the exciting product. New products involve lot of risk for the company that is risk of failure of product. Company invests lot of money in research, designing, production, commercialization of product. If product fails then it is big loss to company in terms of finance and in terms of time. It has been experienced that consumers buy only those products, which they have trusted . However, then at times there is gap and a product fails.

Why product fails in market? Well reasons are different for different products. One of the reasons of product failure is faulty idea for e.g. in case of “COOL CATS” - fans from polar industries. These new fans from company were decorated with cartoon character meant primarily to attract children. Price was kept high. Huge advertisement was done for promotion, but product failed. Because when the fan was put on, it did not have any colour effect and so its price was not justified. Another reason of product failure is improper positioning- Positioning means putting the product into predetermined orbit. However, Tanishq- a jewellery brand by titan failed in this. When company introduced its 18-carat jewellery and the product was positioned at elite class, there was contradiction. In Indi,a norms for gold at that time was 22 carat so, why this elite segment should go for low carat gold, so product failed miserably.

According to market sources, 95% of products fail due to inability to communicate them. Communication is costly business, companies have to spend huge amount to reach to consumer. Even after reaching to consumer its effectiveness cannot be guaranteed. Product also fails when company has no plan related to distribution strategy. How the product will reach to consumer? Which network will be used? How much distribution cost to company? This was the case with Nestle they launched new chocolate, which is meant to store in refrigerator. Large number of retailers did not have this facility so company has to suffer losses.

Size of market is another big criteria, faulty selection increase complexity. The bigger the market the more complex is to handle. In a smaller market it is much easy to penetrate and to prove itself. For e.g. if MNC has decided to enter India, then they should clearly define which part of India they want to cater to. Faulty Packaging also results into product failure. Product benefits should be clearly mentioned of packaging which influence consumer buying. Quality of packaging should be taken care of. Apart from all the above mentioned reasons product can also fail due to no justifiable pricing even cannibalization result into product failure. One of the solutions to increase the cycle time of new product is testing the product prior to its launch. Thereby a well designed test market reduces the risk of launching a flop product.

However, in the times of Confidence Crisis, every successful company is investing lot in new product development. During these times, cost of input factors are less and all companies want to leverage the opportunity. In order to increase the brand awareness and brand loyalty companies come up with new products or variants at frequent intervals but the reasons mentioned above if ignored can be costly affair to the company.

Customer: King or not?

In one very, mature viewpoint.  JWT VP & Strategic Planning Director Mr. JItendra Dabbas talked about the increasing demanding nature of consumer in India. He published an article “Why the consumer should not be the King in India”. Following are the excerpts of an article, which is available on one of the blogs started by JWT.

“

The sudden rise of ‘bully consumers’ in India

When was the last time you heard someone warning his mobile service provider and threatening him about switching to another brand? Or when was the last time you snubbed a representative from a reputed bank/ insurance company selling you loans/investment products? Chances are, if you are in India, you would be experiencing one or more of these frequently.
About 10 years ago, it used to take 15 days to 3 months to get a telephone installed at your residence. Today it takes less than 24 hours for an active landline connection and you can have an active mobile phone connection almost instantly. There are more than 20 banks to choose from – all of them armed with latest technologies to make your life easy.
An even more intriguing aspect is consumer behavior before all this. 10 years back, the line man from the state-owned BSNL would install the telephone after months of applying, but most consumers felt very obliged to happily offer him sweets and warm hospitality.
And yet today, when we as consumers are having the best time of our life, and service brands are treating the consumer as King, we are becoming increasingly foul.
What explains the sudden emergence of this rude consumer behavior towards service brands?

Is this the REVENGE OF THE CONSUMER?

Some suggest that increased brand choice across all categories has made him a ‘spoilt child’ and hence his bully behavior. So what could explain the increasing bad-behavior or intolerance from the consumers in a culture which is seen as tolerant and polite?
A look at the social structure in Indian society would reveal a pyramidal construction with the power gradient being steep between levels/classes.

 

The Power Distance Index

A more scientific understanding of this behavior comes from the study of different cultures by Geert Hofstede on various dimensions. One of the dimensions is Power Distance, defined as "the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally".
India has Power Distance (PDI) as the highest Hofstede Dimension (among the five dimensions), with a ranking of 77 as compared to the world average of 56.5.

 

Implication for brands 

To be respected in such a culture, brands will need to increase their distance and will have to assume power. If brands try to play a ‘subservient’ role in such cultures they will not be treated well. Hence the conclusion that in India (and similar cultures with high PDI) THE CONSUMER NEED NOT BE THE KING. Brands should not operate from “You are the king” mindset with the consumer.

What does it mean?

It simply means that brands need to be always at a higher level of hierarchy than the consumer if they need to protect the premium-ness. If the choice has to be made, then brand should be the king.
Service brands need to be careful when they’re training their staffs in soft skills. They need to be told the difference between being polite and being servile.

A good example here is the way Vijay Mallya invites you aboard his flight, it sounds like a ‘King’ inviting you to his kingdom. The equation with the consumer is therefore stated clearly in the very beginning.
The argument that by increasing the Power Distance from your consumers you will become niche is also not correct. In fact, brands with high Power Distance from their consumers will always be the bigger and more desired brands than others.

 

“

The point here to talk about this article is whether the idea put forth is relevant or not? In a market of a size of India where the purchasing power of middle class is increasing, where there is huge potential, still left unexplored at the bottom of pyramid, where there is huge competition and a margin of single percent can throw your company out of the market.  It is obvious that the companies try hard to make the major stakeholders of the company happy and that is customers.

Though it is not a sudden changing nature of Indian customer, the companies in a view to capture the market have offered huge benefits to customers. Particularly in service industry where there is no tangible product, companies differentiate only in a way of their offerings. In this process, they have made consumers the KING. It is being taught to all executives in an industry that consumer is always right and in order to capture new customers companies have to spend 5 times more than to retain their old customers so why not companies follow the strategy to make them King and it is just a way how you offer your services.

Now a day’s companies spend huge on CRM software so that they could identify more profitable customers and offer them better valued services. If customers buying behaviour is known then what is wrong in making him/her King if it in turns help companies in long term.

 

 

 

Amul

India is one of the leading producers of dairy items in the world and milk is most preferred food item after cereals in Indian families. its contribution in GDP is also significant for the year 2006-2008 milk contribution alone was Rs 1,44,386 crore ,higher than any other agriculture produce. In terms of value output, milk is now the single largest agricultural commodity in India

Milk producers had to travel long distances to sell their produce. Due to lack of proper facilities milk get sour in traveling before reaching to actual customers, which led to a major  loss to milk producers. In order to come up with this problem a marketing agency with the name of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) was set up by the Kaira Cooperative Union in 1973. This dairy cooperative union followed a three-tier structure at village, district and state level for procuring, processing and marketing milk and milk products. GCMMF is the largest exporter of dairy produce from India under the brand name Amul.

Anand Milk Union LTD known as Amul was formed in 1946 as a dairy corporative movement in the country. It is managed by GCMMF, which is Joint Corporation of 2.6 million milk producers in Gujarat.

Amul is a household name in Indian homes, when one thinks of Amul one reminds of Amul butter with its polka dotted butter girl, famous for its longest running advertisement campaign “utterly butterly delicious amul” . First hoarding of Amul was put up in 1967 in Mumbai. Since then Amul is consistent in targeting its customers. Positioning of Amul is “Taste of India”. It has created value for everyone in value chain, be it customers or farmers.

Amul has Competitive sustainable advantage (CSA) over its competitors. Amul’s CSA lies in its procurement  part ,the ability to collect 447,000 litres of milk every day from 2.12 million farmers ,convert them into goods worth Rs 6 crore and distribute them to 5,00,000 retailers across country ,is not easy. No other dairy in India has such a sustainable procurement network.

Managing the large scale supply chain of Amul which begins from milk producer and ends with supply to customer from retailer is very critical job. It requires lot of dedication and hard work from all members of the corporation and also distributors and retailers across country

.

It is not that Amul had a successful campaign, many of its ads backfired. One ad meant to target Marathi segment during Ganpati festival had to be removed under political pressure. In another incident on advertisement in which Amul girl was wearing Gandhi cap had to be again removed. In one another incident Amul had aired an ad portraying Hussain as “Heroine addiction”, for this Amul was taken to court.

Most of Amul’s communication is based on latest happenings in the country. That is why its ads are termed different from what is that of its nearest rival, Mother dairy. Most of Mother dairy ads are directly targeted to children where as Amul’s ad are on current affairs, in which adults are also involved.

Amul has high brand equity and umbrella branding of Amul has helped the company in bigger sense. Amuls’s brand name has helped its other brands also like Mitahi made, Amul Ice creams, chocolates, Amul Kool etc. So umbrella Brand, Amul is used to build and offer value to customers in bigger sense. In literal sense, a company has high brand equity if it has multi dimensions. Amul has explored various available opportunities to reach to mass customers. It has opened a community on public forums like orkut, sponsored events like Amul voice of India etc. The brand value of Amul will surely help company to maintain the status of largest food brand in India at least for sometime in future.