18 minute read
Brands and the World of Women
Brands, as “products”, have a “role” to play in our lives. But they become big “brands” only when they connect with consumers and have a little bit of “soul” that conveys a larger message. That message must go beyond the product category. It should speak about life itself, touch us and inspires us in some way.
Role and Soul
It is important for brands to not only have a defined role but also an evolved soul, so that they grow. Anything and everything that brand custodians do must have only one purpose—to make the brand grow in the market. Role is about 'what I do' and soul is about 'who I am.'
Let me go back to Pond's Dreamflower Talc advertisements with which I was associated.
The talcum powder basically fights odour control and gives you freshness. We shaped Pond's Dreamflower Talc girls into becoming an icon of feminine empowerment and confidence. In those days, working woman was a rarity. The Dreamflower Talc woman was among the first women in advertising to be shown as stepping out to go and attend an interview and get a job in a man's world. So “what I do” is I give you a freshness after a bath and keep you fresh all day long. But “who I am” is a symbol of feminine empowerment, confidence and social confidence.
On the other hand, Pond's Magic was about romantic attraction. “What I do” is to keep you fragrant. “Who I am” is a symbol of romantic attraction. So in the same product category, we have two brands. Then you add a little bit of soul to the role of the product in your life. It is as simple and as difficult as that.
Role in Moment, Role in Life
When Ford Ikon was first launched, it had the best acceleration in its segment in the industry. The role in moment was acceleration. Role in life was to be your josh machine. The important thing is that this soul comes from some product truth. If that vehicle didn't have acceleration, they could not have said, 'Josh.' It is up to the brand custodians to pick a value. Words like confidence, empowerment, romantic attraction and josh are all 'category agnostic.'
A shoe can give you josh. A computer can give you josh. A bike can give you josh. These are life values that brands choose, to go beyond the role and infuse some soul into the brand. It goes back to a famous quote by Charles Revson, the founder of 'Revlon,' who said 'we make lipstick in the factory but sell hope in the shop.'
We always ask this question: What do you make in the factory? What are you really selling? I am not selling just a talcum powder but feminine empowerment and feminine confidence. I am not just selling a car but the spirit of josh. We may make paint in the factory but sell imagination and family expression in the shop.
Product Enables, Brand Inspires
Take a cola as a drink which refreshes you. The product enables you to refresh the moment and soothe your parched throat. But brand Pepsi is a youthful soul mate and cool irreverence. Take Mountain Dew. They make a lemon drink in the factory but sell the spirit of courage. When every young man in a small town in India picks up a bottle of Mountain Dew, he feels that he is a fearless guy. So the product enables and a brand inspires; a product gives you a role in the moment and a brand gives you a role in life; a product has a role, a brand has a soul.
Gender Equality from Washing
You must be familiar with the Ariel ads. Ariel is about washing clothes. The role in moment is to wash your laundry. For the outside world, they implied gender equality by asking, "Is laundry only a woman's job?" The washing powder shares your load. A husband also has to share the load of his wife.
They put the soul into the brand by being a little provocative and pitched it at the right time in society's evolution to say that laundry is not just a woman's job. They built on it year on year. They showed a mother teaching her son that he should also be involved in housework. They showed an elderly father who watches his daughter and then realises, "Maybe, I should have helped my wife too."
We must pick something that is true to the category and then pick a life value and a human truth, and something that is happening in the lives of the target audience that will bring extra meaning to their lives and will make them think, inspire and provoke some conversations. Sitting in their drawing room, people will say, "That's exactly what happens in our house." Probably, the wife will look at her husband and say, "Did you see that?” or “I hope you heard that." That is the kind of reaction and involvement we want.
If you notice, this is not done in an angry or aggressive way but quietly with a lot of grace and dignity. They say, “When you share the load, you actually multiply the love”. It is not just about washing clothes. We provoke conversations on gender equality.
Dirt is Good!
For decades, a good mother was one who kept her children clean. While Ariel talked about sharing the load in washing clothes, Surf Excel talked about stain removal. It turned the whole idea of a clean child on its head. Just when parenting norms were changing and mothers were beginning to question what kind of children they wanted to bring up, Surf came up and said 'dirt is good.' Over the years, they showed a little boy getting dirty to help his sister and to help an underprivileged child in the neighbourhood. They kept building on the theme and showed children helping underprivileged people of other faiths and helping older people, for a little good beyond the home. The role was about washing clothes but the soul was about promoting conversations on parenting—that we don't just bring up a good child but a good citizen.
Jewellery Beyond the Occasion
Tanishq has many brands and many lines of jewellery. Weddings are traditional occasions. In promoting wedding jewellery, they took a slightly provocative stance. They talked about second weddings and interfaith weddings. They brought in a grandmother who teased her granddaughter and said, "You may be a Punjabi but if only you had married a Tamilian, you could have brought a different kind of jewellery.”
The role in moment is to buy a wedding jewellery. The role in life is to encourage you to think about the new norms in weddings. Jewellery is just a product but to make it a brand, you add some soul in it. Thus, a product enables and a brand inspires.
Skin Care and Real Beauty
At a time when cosmetic and artificial beauty was on the rise, Dove which was about clean and clear skin went against cosmetic beauty and propagated real beauty. It said every woman is beautiful in her own way, however she looks and whatever body shape she has; every woman should feel empowered and confident about her body and feel beautiful about who she is. It is not just about what she looks like.
Daughter, Wife and Mother
How can we map brands and the world of women? Historically and rightly so, we have thought of women first as a daughter, then maybe a girlfriend. Then she may become a partner, a wife, a mother and a grandmother. These roles are very important and that is what shapes women. They love and enjoy these roles.
The daughter, wife or mother is very much part of the soul, but women are beyond and over and above these roles. Similarly, none of those soul creating or life value-adding propositions of brands were instead of the product value. Rather, they were on top of it. In fact, they sprang from the product truth. When women think beyond their roles, they grow in a unique way giving a fourth or fifth dimension and enhance all the roles that they play.
Work vs. Career
I started working exactly 40 years ago. At that time, working was not taken for granted. A woman can be a daughter, wife or mother. The role varies automatically. On top of this, she can be a lawyer, astronaut, bus driver or an anganwadi worker. It is something that takes her beyond the role and makes her grow.
Just like we find the product truth, we have to find our passion. It can be anything—gardening, birdwatching, cooking. If you want to be a lawyer, you should be passionate about the cause of justice. Every woman or man has some talent and skill. I thought I had a writing skill when I started my work life and was interested in communication. The world of advertising and branding, attracted me. Communication was my passion.
If you have a skill and talent, and in that line of passion, if you can find a line of work and on top of it, if you can earn, then really half the problem is solved and life becomes quite easy.
For 10 years after my child was born, I decided to work part-time. Even if I was in a meeting with a Managing Director, I would excuse myself saying that I had to pick my son up from school and leave the meeting. I told myself that I would chase “work”. “Career” will happen. If you chase career, then you tend to get caught up in the race to designations, promotions and money. If you focus on work, everything comes automatically. You have to be passionate about work and focus on it. So chase your work.
Find Your Balance
Balance is important, whether you are a man or woman. Everybody's heart is different, everyone needs to find their own balance. It changes over the years. In one decade, the balance maybe a little more of home and in some other decade, you may like to spend more time and energy on your work. We have to make choices and decisions about balance and not question them every day. Be proud and confident of the choices that you make and move on with the flow. But importantly, figure out and work out your balance.
Change Limitations to Advantages
We must turn our limitations to advantages. Much of my career was in Chennai, and in those days, Chennai was never seen as the best place to be in for the world of marketing. Instead, it was Bombay or Delhi all the way. But I found that my organisation and boss helped me to turn that limitation into an advantage. I became a lead on innovations, content and thought leadership, though I was based in Chennai. I was given opportunities to work with clients in other cities. I managed to work on brands that belonged to other cities. I found interests of my own—like publishing articles, which would also be of interest to the organisation, and developed those interests. So there are always a way to turn limitations to advantages.
Keep Growing
Every year, I would ask myself, "So what next?"
If the organization was interested in training, I would offer to do training. One year, I created training content and another year, I taught in IIM. We have a lot of industry awards. So one year I requested and became part of a judging panel. The next year, I tried to be an international jury. This approach applied on the home front too.
After my retirement, I decided to write articles again. I taught a course in a subject that I had never taught before. I learnt tarot reading and pranic healing. Now I am looking into some Sanskrit chanting. So keep growing, at work or at home. Everything adds up and helps you work better. They become your advantage, teach you balance and help you grow mentally, professionally, emotionally and spiritually.
Support Groups
Lastly, just like brands have ecosystems, we need support groups. You can now put up a post in Facebook and crowdsource or get encouragement, sympathy or appreciation. It was not so 30 years ago. We then had our families’ support.
Women need friends. I grew up in an apartment complex where a group of women supported each other looking after each other's children. We did not have physical support alone but had emotional support too. Women must have professional sisterhood in office. I had some amazing women colleagues throughout my career, who were a great source of emotional support.
So chase the work, find your balance, find your passion, turn limitations to advantages, keep growing and always have support groups.
Let me close with some famous quotes. Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Well-behaved women rarely make history." You don't have to be perfect and polite all the time. It is okay, once in a way to get a little angry, to cry a little and to throw a little tantrum. Don't be too harsh on yourself.
Here's another quote on women: "A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water." The stronger the wind, the stronger, the timber.
So trust the universe and keep the faith!
5 Principles of Brand Building
How do brands build these ideas over a period of time? There are five simple principles of brand building:
Depict a truth:
If you say that I remove stains better, you have to first deliver on that product promise. As an ad agency, we spend a lot of time investigating the product truth. Then we pick a human truth and match the product truth with the human truth and thus turn the product into a brand.
Point of view:
Add a point of view that is human. You may have a point of view on parenting, on women or on beauty. It has to do something with your category. Raymond took a point of view on men being masculine, and said a complete man can also be sensitive and can show his feminine side. If the point of view goes a little against societal norms or if it picks up a trend that is just beginning to evolve, then you are in a good space and can take your consumers along with you.
Tone of voice:
You can make your point of view without being aggressive but very quietly, with grace and dignity. Some brands have a humorous tone of voice, some have an aggressive tone if that suits them and the product. It is important to shape the tone of voice and stay true to it.
Ecosystem:
The brand belongs to a whole ecosystem—not just to the manufacturer and the marketer. There are other brand custodians like the agencies that we work with, filmmakers who make the communication on the brand, public relations people, media and a whole lot of external stakeholders. This whole ecosystem must buy into your truth, agree with your point of view and must strictly follow the tone of voice.
Consistency:
If you pick a human truth and a point of view, which is about life and based on a trend that is just starting, in all probability, you will be able to run it for five or maybe even 10 years. If you stick to that tone of voice, then you can build the brand with consistency and consumers know what to expect from your brand. Then it all adds up. Not everybody is sitting in the drawing room with pen and paper, waiting to see what the ad says. It is not just the ad but the kind of programs you sponsor, what you do on social media, what kind of content you create, what you write at the back of the pack and even what kind of promotions you create. All of these need to be consistent with the tone of voice and talk about the same product truth and same human truth.
Q&A
Ravichandran: In the communication industry, there is also a darker side. Objectification or likeability is imposed on women in any situation and expectation is much more on women than what men need to bring to the table. How do you combat this in your communication, your agency work and in your day-to-day life?
Some communication continues to objectify. Change has just started and it's a long way to go. Brands will have to change their tune. Over the last 20 years, definitely there is a lot of change. Not just women's brands but even men's brands are beginning to talk to women respectfully, because women are also becoming better spenders and have money. Brand custodians need to become a lot more conscious. The more the society demands that of brand custodians, the custodians will create better communication.
When it comes to life, we need to take one step at a time. Look for where you can get support from and keep trying. Women must stop being apologetic for doing something good for them.
Kannan Gopalakrishnan (Former MD, Adidas Singapore): You have been a fantastic role model as a woman. You have managed to get things done and get organizations and even clients to support you. Can you elaborate how you did it? Also, you have not bucketed yourself in Role A or B or C. You had your own clarity on what your soul was. If we define ourselves into one role, after a while, we start living up to that definition and start accepting the situation. How could you break out of it?
I had a lot of support at home—from my husband and family. My organisation was fantastic. I had the best bosses who never said 'no' to anything that I wanted to try, as long as I didn't ask them for too much of money and investment! If you ask with a lot of passion, then you will make it difficult for them to say, 'no.'
If it is something that is likely to be of value to the organization and if it is something that nobody else in the organization is offering to do, bosses will most likely accept it. I was allowed to work part-time. I could bring good ideas of value to the organization. I asked for support and it always came.
My soul was not just about being a communication specialist, but it was about “seeking growth”—growth for my clients, organization, team and family. I read a fantastic quote that a teacher is not known by what he knows, but by what the student knows. Continuous growth has been a mantra for me.
As my hair became grey, I tried out “practical wisdom”. It is very easy for marketing people to drown in jargon and make things complicated. When I talked to clients, I always tried to talk about things that can be practically applied to their brands and that will potentially show growth. It worked and that was the trick.
How can you as a woman develop a robust personal brand?
It is about the principles which I put out: discover your skill and talent, find your passion and develop it. It will be great if money comes. Chase your work. Find your balance. Find your tone of voice. Think about what you want to be known for—even amongst your friends. Ask what you bring as a member of a family or team to the table. Social media helps you in this. Look at whom you follow and what you share. Shape a personality in social media. Let it not be just about your work. Get your support group and be consistent.
Kannan Gopalakrishnan: It will be great if we can find our passion. Typically, it is not one thing that people are passionate about. How do we handle this?
It changes over the years as well. You may have more than one passion and you can pursue them. I would advocate pushing for one or two—one may be professional and the other may be, outside of professional.
Is it advisable for brands to engage in viral marketing strategies?
You can, but it depends on your category, the life stage of the category and brand and what the brand already stands for. Remember a brand is like a citizen and it is part of the society. But brands do have a limit on their spends. So ideally, societal conversations should be within the brand’s world, and as long as it does not harm your brand, you can go ahead with it.
Kamala: Today, brands are struggling to get attention because of the short attention span of consumers. Though we have passion for using communication, we as marketers are struggling to communicate and so, what would be your advice to talk to consumers?
In shaping the brand, the tone of voice and consistency are important. The whole experience needs to be built around the predominant brand promise. Ask questions like—Where is your showroom? How many shops do you have? How do they look like? How have you trained your sales people? For example, if you have a hospital, every doctor, nurse and watchman must understand what the hospital stands for and behave in a certain way. More and more service brands are now coming up. The employee as a brand and shaping the experiences are becoming an increasing aspect of brand building than communication.
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