Markmantra is the brain-child of IIFT, encompassing various dimensions of marketing and exploring horizons of this integral business function. To bring out the best in the marketing domain from the trivial to the bizarre things that really matter which is aimed at enlightening the marketers is the onus of the team. We have a legacy of producing one of the best marketing magazines across all BSchools. Trend analysis and innovation in the market are two prime focus areas of the magazine. These, we think, will make you ponder upon how a company proactively or reactively markets its offerings. Customer value is of paramount importance to every marketer and we as IIFTians strive to provide maximum value proposition to our customers, that is, you. This issue of Markmantra focuses on the ever-evolving, demanding and market-savvy segment of youth consumers who have been giving nightmares to marketers. Not content with any single brand, marketers must constantly innovate in order to sustain the short attention spans of such an attractive segment of customers. A new section has also been added that throws more light on the marketing activities of a certain corporation, in this issue, Hindustan Unilever. We have also extended the Corporate Speak section this time to provide you, or reverend readers, with more perspective about the corporate world.
TEAM MARKMANTRA Editor-in-Chief
Managing Editor
Sidharth Nanda
Prashant Sishodia
Associate Editor
Ankit Devangbhai Shah
Supporting Editors Apurva Joshi
Rakesh Ku. Patnaik
Sachet Ahuja
i.
Cover Story: The Fountain of Youth
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ii.
International Marketing
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iii.
Upgrading the Arsenal
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iv.
Going Retro
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v.
Corporate Speak: : Mr. Kishore Chakraborti, VP, McCann Eickson
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Guest Lecture: Mr. Vivek Upadhayay
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vii.
Corporate Visit: Aircel
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viii.
Focus HUL: Sustainability and Growth—The Unilever Way
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ix.
Focus HUL: Premium Brand Dilution VS Mass Absorption
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x.
Focus HUL: War of Brands—Rin VS Tide
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ix.
Web SavvY
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x.
Marketing Failure: Blackberry Playbook
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xi.
Out-of-the-World Marketing Ideas
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xii. Product Launchpad
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xiii. Ad Competition
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xiv.
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Light-Headed Corner
What is it that brands like Mountain Dew, Armani, Apple iphone, Axe and Yamaha R15 have in common? Simple, they all exert a magnetic pull on Gen-Y, the group of people born sometime between 1986 to 1995 that today forms perhaps the most powerful market-savvy consumer-group for marketers, not just because they are the first people to embrace ‘cool’ new trends, but also because they are the ones to set such trends. The fact that they were born when the world was improving both economically and technologically, and that they were exposed to new marvels like IT, telecom, TV, market forces etc. and that too without any true controls further corroborates their power and desire to be special. Raised to believe that they can do anything and be anything, and that too in an age of freeflowing information, they view each brand with great scepticism and are quick to shift to greener pastures, thus forcing brands to constantly innovate in order to reign their minds. They form an ‘experience culture’ that does not like to be told what to do, but to use their own judgement. No more content with plain vanilla products, they seek variety at every step. Although separated by many time-zones, diversified both geographically and demographically, there is something common in the youth that runs much deeper, something so intrinsic that they are ready to go against age-old traditions in order to satisfy their cravings. The youth today have a highly liberal attitude, expressing themselves freely of things that were considered taboo just
about a decade back. They are a blend of traditional values and a modern materialistic world. They seek not only excitement and comfort at each step, but also value for money. A survey conducted jointly by The Hindustan Times and CNNIBN (carries out by MaRS) on the 18-25 years population spread across 18 cities of India found that 21.4% of the respondents spend more than their income/allowance, 53.7% save some money and 20.2% more or less spend as much as they earn or get in allowance. Most of the spending of the sample population is on mobile phones (39.6%), food (22.6%) and clothes (22.6%), then come movies (6.2%), personal grooming (4.6%), gifts (1.5%), boyfriend/girlfriend (1.1%) with liquor (0.7%) and sports and gym (0.7%) coming in with least spending percentage. They seek involvement in the entire marketing process and not just one-way flow of information. Yet, even with all the involvement, a brand must capture their attention in about 5-10 seconds or risk losing them. In such a situation, it becomes indispensable for marketers to properly understand their minds, to map out their thinking processes, to embrace their beliefs, which may range from movies, music, fashion to technology and games and to become one with them in order to capture this burgeoning consumer segment. That’s why we see them doing things nowadays that seem to blur the line between marketing and madness. From utterly
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humorous and outrageous advertisements to viral contests and campaigns to online interaction, the youth-marketer of today has to strive hard to keep pace with the evolving youth culture. Small-time yet innovative marketing like Kolaveri Di can work wonders while big budget campaigns may just flop. The youth want the spotlight on themselves, not on the company or the product, and so product-personalisation is quite an important thing in a brand’s offering (even CocaCola resorted to personalised cans). Gen-Y has moved beyond mere one-way media advertising to interactive marketing like online marketing, viral marketing, campaigns etc. It is essential to provide them a sense of brand association and ownership through unorthodox marketing campaigns in order to capture and retain them. The key to this is to define precisely what they want and what benefits motivate them to buy a particular brand and tailor the offering accordingly. Marketing to Gen-Y is truly something no marketer can afford to take lightly.
Sidharth Nanda MBA(IB) 2011-13 Indian Institute of Foreign Trade
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The world has made a move from the concept of globalization to the new found theory of glocalisation. More important than anything, the marketing world seems to be heavily obsessed with this phenomenon. In this article we will try to find out what does this mean to us as a marketer and as a consumer. “Glocalisation” is a blended word formed by the combination of words “Global” and “local”. And just like it sounds, it is defined as the practice of conducting business according to both global and local considerations. It has its origin in the Japanese business practices. It comes from the Japanese word “dochakuka”, which means global localization. It originally referred to a way of adapting farming techniques to local conditions. Lately it has developed as a much adopted marketing strategy by the firms across the globe. The youth culture is closely related to this phenomenon. The “teenage culture” on a global scale shares a youthful lifestyle that values growth and learning with appreciation for future trends, fashion and music. The emergence of youth as a social category has been closely linked to the development of modernization. The taken-for-granted idea that youth is a distinctive group having inherent qualities like rebelliousness, experimentation, etc is a fairly recent cultural invention. With the onset of modernity, the rise of the bourgeois classes, and urbanization, the teenage identity has become inextricably linked to leisure and hedonic consumption. Undoubtedly the youth of different parts of the world exhibit differences in terms of the ideologies and culture but they are also linked to each other in innumerable ways. The youth from USA and the youth from China or for that matter from India essentially aspire for similar things with their own degree of customization. This property makes it a lucrative segment for the marketers to target their advertising. Youth Marketing also has it challenges but acknowledging those challenges is the first step in achieving success in youth marketing campaigns. A few of the challenges are:
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Fragmented Market Youths have many interests and hobbies, ranging from your mainstream tastes in western music & entertainment to slight less known hobbies in games & Japanese animation. So identifying and targeting the right patch is critical Too Much Marketing Noise When there are too many companies vying for youth’s attention it creates too much noise. The challenge is to get them to understand your unique selling point as soon as possible & as fast as possible. Regardless of all these challenges, the opportunity of youth marketing is too big to be neglected by any firm. The firms have long realized the fact that the products they come out with have to be global but with a garnering of local fragrance. That is what we see in the form of McAloo Tikki, Maharaja Mac, Lays Indian magic masala, nimbooz and many more. After all there is no fun without a little Desipan, the tagline which Kurkure came up with in 2009. Thinking of global brands that have gone desi, the first thing that comes to my mind is HSBC, the bank which calls itself “The world’s local bank”. They never underestimate the importance of local knowledge. This is expressed by the firm by sponsoring sports in various countries like English Rugby League side Telford Raiders, American Ice Hockey club Buffalo Sabres and Mexico’s Pachua Football Club.
In 2004, Nike teamed up with MC Yan, an underground hero in Hong Kong, and one of his claims to fame is the fact that he was one of the first graffiti artists to tag the Great Wall of China. The result was the Nike Air Max 1 NL Premium, a shoe that pays homage to Chinese culture, the spirit of modern Hong Kong and the Air Max evolution. What a perfect combination of subculture and global business! Why do we have to look too far when we have absolute examples around us? The metros have moved a step ahead in embracing the city culture into the street foods too. The “Vodka-in-Golgappa” concept sweeps many off their feet. The Golgappa is served along with pepper vodka filling and the general pani-puri gets transformed into what the youth call “Golgappa Shots”. Apple, the biggest firm in the world, which advocates standardization all throughout, has come up with apps customized to match local interests. Have you heard about the Hanuman Chalisa itune available on the apple site?
In addition to the localized changes in their offerings, the firms are now taking on to latest forms of communication with the youth. Social networking and tweeting has changed the way the brands convey their message to their audience. Latest in news is the Tweet Mob publicity stunt done by Mirinda for the launch of 2 new flavours ‘Orange Mango’ and ‘Orange Masala’. It was like a Flash Mob on Twitter. The intention was to take over Twitter and engage Twitterati for a certain duration while plugging-in the brand connect. The hashtag “#PagalPanti” started trending and the activity saw 3,700 tweets in the span of 9hrs. Amul has been running its youthful ad campaign since a long time. The ad campaign of series of hoardings with topical ads, relating to day-to-day issues has now moved from the hoardings to the world of social networking. The Amul fan page in facebook has been constantly coming up with such advertisements with an intention to grab the attention of the youth who spend much of their time networking. But despite all the effort put by the firms, they find it challenging to keep up with the pace of the youth culture which inherently has inconsistency in their choices. Youth culture has therefore always been articulated with conflicting but mutually implicative interests: on the one hand, marketers praise the continuously innovating youth culture as an engine for market expansion and profits; on the other
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hand, they suspect their loyalty towards their brand. Although little can be done to change the attitude of the youth, constant innovation holds the key to keep the consumers interested in the products. Nowadays most of the firms are looking to spread their roots and establish themselves as global brands. It’s important for them to not make the mistake of generalizing the whole youth market and taking a strategy that fits all. It’s worth it in the long run to invest in the time to identify what suits the local taste. If you ask me I would say the mantra should be “Think Global, act Local, Go Glocal”
Rakesh Kumar Patnaik MBA(IB) 2011-13 Indian Institute of Foreign Trade
An article illustrating how marketers are shunning the conventional and coming up with innovative modes of appealing and promoting to the yoth.
Vivacious, risk takers, adventurous, sensible – these are only a few adjectives that in short describes the youth of today. It’s not that these instincts were not present in the youth of yesteryears; it’s just that today the youth have got the independence to express their true self. The advertising world took the cue and in no time they evolved in the quest of luring these new age youngsters. Today, we see a number of innovations in the advertising and the marketing world, not to mention that most of them are mainly done to grab the attention of the GenY. The conventional marketing tools are no longer valid for the GenY because they have moved far ahead of it. So they cannot be expected to watch TV commercials, listen to radio channels or read newspapers. It is the digital age and hence it is time for digital marketing and promotion. This also makes it easier for the companies to gauge the effectiveness of their promotions because the responses are quick and immediate. The entire Gen Y has an online presence with Facebook, MySpace etc. So the companies also came forward and joined these online forums to walk along with its customers. The number of video advertisements watched on Facebook through the updates and sharing of the same by their friends is increasing day by day and may soon outperform the television viewing of the advertisements. This way companies also can save on the money invested in booking slots in between the T.V shows. Moving over to text based advertisements, it is seen that the text fashion is catching up like a house on fire. Quoting Nielsen Wire, on an average, 3146 texts are sent by a teenager every month. So text promotion is another way of hitting the nail on the head. Most of the telecom service providers have youngsters as their major customer base and hence they do
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not hesitate in coming up with various schemes to provide convenience to this segment. Airtel and Vodafone have special night packs which allow the nocturnal population cheaper call rates during the night hours. Many of the top brands are getting associated with and sponsoring the youth reality shows. Lux got associated with one of the most popular youth dance show on Zee TV, Dance India Dance. Hero Honda has been the key sponsor of MTV Roadies since past many seasons. These are strictly youth associated shows and sponsoring them is like closely interacting with the youth. There has been a shift in the decision making power. Earlier the purchase decisions vested with the adults in the family- mother made decisions for the daily household shopping and father for the expensive technology base shopping. The times have changed. Now the age at which the youth are getting the wallet power is fast decreasing. They engage in part time work, get employed in BPO and fill their pockets to spend with their own free will. With a shift in this power more and more companies shifted to cater to this segment.
Tata Nano launched as a family car in the year 2008 immediately turned to the youth segment after its initial failure. Even the luxury segment brands that earlier catered to the premium segment have turned their focus towards the youth. This is not because the youth possess all the money to enter into the premium segment, instead it is because the decision making power has shifted into the hands of the youth. They have a greater say in products buying.
What does Gen Y want. It wants the products to be cheaper, of good quality, with fast service and a good experience. A perfect example of it would be Apple promotion. Apple gave an opportunity of 99cents download that merely required 8 seconds for the entire transaction. Why did it work? Music is the weakness of gen Y and faster and cheaper the service the better for Gen Y. Hence it clicked right. The habit of newspaper reading has shifted from the hardcopy to the soft copy of epaper.com. Not only the advertisements published in the newspapers are viewed here, but also the webpage contains many lucrative offers by various products and services companies. The recent one displayed is ‘jet airways’ announcing the lowest fare offers on its site and LIC showing the best possible investment scheme. The easy direct to their own site makes it feasible for the customers to get more information. Online reading of newspapers has instigated the use of this space by companies to promote their services. The Airtel’s recent “Har ek Friend Zaroori Hota Hai” advertisement was an excellent approach towards their youth customers.
Eye catching and mind boggling taglines are also doing the needful. Quoting a few- ‘Think different’ by Apple, ‘Ye dil maange more’ by Pepsi, ‘A lot can happen over coffee’ by CCD are the examples which have retained their youth customers for quite a long time. A classic example of basking in the success of another product is what company Emami did with its brand Zandu Balm. The company was not too pleased with the use of the brand’s name in the song ‘Munni badnaam hui’ in the movie Dabbang, and it slapped a legal notice to the producers of the movie for using their brand name which they said was used without their consent. So they asked the producers to either withdraw the song or delete the brand name from the lyrics. Later, however with an out of court settlement Emami went on to use the song for the promotion of its own brand.
The advertisement design should be such that the youth can easily and involuntarily feels connected to it and that is what Airtel’s add did, thereby increasing its youth customer base even more. The companies are also sponsoring competitions held at various colleges. Providing gift vouchers is an easy way to promote the brand. Spykar giving a 500/- Rs voucher may not make it possible for a guy to purchase a jeans at the store but it may definitely make him think to pay the difference if earlier he thought that it was not affordable for him.
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Its biggest advantage was that the song had already sunk in into the minds of the youths. All it needed was to advertise the product along with the song. What could be a better promotional strategy? In the upcoming days, the focus will fast shift from Gen Y to Gen Z, which is a generation that has been born in an era of post modernisation and globalization. Hence, the strategies need to be changed with time. Companies will need to innovate more and more to strike the cord at the right time and at the right spot.
Noopur Borwankar Indian Institute of Management– Shillong
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An article describing how marketers are rebranding brands that have come to be associated with the old ages, for the new age youth. Retro branding has seen a new found interest among marketers in recent times. This is not without reason though. Whenever there is a socio-economic shift or a radical change in the way people perceive the world, there emerges tremendous scope for retro branding. This is due to the fact that consumers associate retro brands with older times, which they perceive to be more familiar, safer, more comprehensible and less commercial. They tend to take comfort and solace in being surrounded by familiar brands which bring back fond memories of the times of yore. Such a shift was witnessed in the late 1990’s when the millennium was drawing to a close and there was a looming sense of nostalgia across the globe. It was also witnessed after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack in the United States, which radically changed people’s perception about the world. Retro brands are perceived to provide legitimacy and authenticity to products. Consumers also tend to connect old brands with old events which they experienced when such brands were mainstays in the market. Thus, the consumers personalize these brands through such events and start establishing a sense of belongingness and community with retro brands. With reference to a study conducted by Brown, Kozinets and Sherry, Jr. (2003) “Teaching Old Brands New Tricks: Retro Branding and the Revival of Brand Meaning”, retro branding’s objective aspect can be defined using four A’s, i.e. Allegory, Arcadia, Aura and Antimony. To briefly introduce these concepts: Allegory: Allegories are stories built around the brand. They form the “plot” for the brand. They consist of stories of brand experiences that consumers share with one another and company promoted storylines which create the image of a brand.
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Arcadia: When we think about times gone by, we tend to remember good experiences while filtering out any incidences that will make us uneasy. This is the essence of the concept of “arcadia”, which portrays the bygone days in the light of a utopian society, idealizing it and communicating that the days gone by were better than the present times. This provides the “setting” in which retro branding is carried out. Aura: The ‘aura’ is the essence of the brand. Consumers tend to seek a brand with an aura around it which lends it a sense of authenticity. Consumers perceive contemporary products as widely commercialized and compromised on quality as compared to products of the years gone by. Therefore, we see a number of brands trying to create such an aura of authenticity and credibility around themselves. Aura builds the “character” of a brand.
Antinomy: Antinomy refers to the paradox that lies at the heart of every retro brand. There is always an internal conflict that makes consumers curious about retro brands and makes the brands more captivating and mystic. The paradox can be old-fashioned styling coupled with the latest cutting-edge technology or loyal consumers who value the emotional bond between them and their favvourite retro brands pitched against corporate houses trying to cash in on the marketing potential of these cherished brands. It is a balance between progress and primitivism.
Another aspect marketers need to focus on is the differentiation between retro branding and the duplication of retro products. Consumers love old brands with which they can connect but the image of the brand can only be maintained by combining the old with the new. The styling of retro brands must be combined with the latest cutting-edge technology in order to provide a competitive advantage to these retro brands. The reason for this being that the technology used in yesteryears did not incorporate any of the currently used safety features nor was it complaint with today’s safety and regulatory norms. In a nut-
brands which might not align with the message which the marketers are trying to portray. This is on account of the fact that consumers identify with a brand based on their personal experiences in addition to companymediated messages. This is not to say that the final image of a retro brand is totally created by consumers, rather, in order to successfully execute a retrobranding project, producers and consumers must come together to co-create the brand image.
Remaking the old classics shell, retro brands should be ‘old-fashioned, brand new offerings’, thus harmonizing the good old days with contemporary times. A famous example of retro branding is ‘Blue Ribbon Sports’, which was renamed by Nike in 1978. Nike revived the Blue Ribbon brand and now sells its merchandize at high-end retail outlets across the globe. Blue Ribbon is now positioned in the premium segment and enjoys a nostalgic emotional connect with consumers. Another jewel in the crown of successful retro brands is the ‘new Beetle’ by Volkswagen which has taken the market by storm. It combines a style which is designed on the lines of the original Beetle with state-of-the-art technological features which makes it competitive with any production car on the road today. Retro branding is not only restricted to products. If we take a look at our very own film industry, aka Bollywood, there has been a flurry of retrobranded commercial releases. We have seen a spate of re-makes of old movies and incorporation of old songs into new movies, which seek to do nothing else but to draw on the nostalgic appeal of these classic titles to consumers. Farhan Akhtar’s remake of the 1978 classic ‘Don’ was a runaway commercial success. So was the Karan Johar produced remake of ‘Agneepath’ which stole the spotlight with Sanjay Dutt’s re-enaction of the character of ‘Kaancha Cheena’, originally portrayed by Danny Denzongpa. We can summarize that retro branding is an attractive proposition because of the sense of nostalgia these brands bring along with them and the heritage they embody. However, we have only tried to provide a structure to the objective part of consumers’ perception of retro branding. There is a subjective aspect involved which is very fickle in nature. Marketers use different strategies to promote different retro brands, but when these brands are promoted in the market, consumers tend to associate meanings with these
Rebranding by Royal Enfield for the youth
Vibhu Anurag Symbiosis Institute of International Business
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Corporate Speak Mr. Kishore Chakraborti Vice-President Consumer Insight and HFD McCann Erickson India
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Q)In terms of International brand management, what are the client's expectations from McCann Erickson and what does McCann Erickson expect from the client. Also where does McCann Erickson come into picture and where does the marketers/brand managers from your client side take a back seat? All marketing knowledge has been demolished. We are on a plain, on a horizon whose end none of us are being able to predict because life is changing very fast. Whatever you can think can be implemented, technology has gone to that level. So with that respect, this is one time where both brands and agencies are on the same boat, nobody has any idea what is to happen and therefore we are also very very free. Free is a sense that it is the age of idea past the age of information. Now we have gone into an age of idea + imagination. The client also doesnot know anything and neither does the agency. In agency’s case they never had an idea at any point of time. Having been in this business for 30 years, I have noticed that everywhere agency was an outsider. This is an advantage to the agency and also a disadvantage. The clients don’t want the agency to be involved in their day to day process which is good because if you are then the openness of your mind will be affected. If everywhere you start putting breaks into your thinking then you will not be able to think at all. So agency’s role has been to bring in freshness. Sometimes the agency comes up with absurd ideas, but yes absurd thinking is necessary for the more absurd you are, the more differentiated you become. It is quite possible that what you are thinking as abusrd is not at all absurd. Its like you are the frog in the world and you start believing that this is the world. It is when somebody breaks down the wall that you say wow. So this is where agencies come into picture where they also hold the client’s hand and say”lets discover the future together”
Q) Is there always a tussle between the marketers of various companies and creative agencies? Regarding tussle between marketers and agencies, there will always be a tussle between the two. For Example first you learn to walk, then your next demand is to dance because now, walking everyone can do. So in marketing you should know how to dance. The problem arises when you start believing that walking is dancing and this is where the tussle takes place. This tussle is healthy for both. It also disciplines’ the agencies “It is dance with a purpose”, thus the marketers will try to leash you and the agencies will try to break away by saying “ Walking is not dancing, for dance you should have rhythm, madness only then will people get attracted and intoxicated”. Hence this tussle is very healthy and a true marketer and true agency should understand that. Q) In your illustrious career spanning over 25 years you know what the industry demands from a professional aspiring to work for McCann Erickson. Please enlighten us with the ground work one should be ready with to become a success @McCann Erickson Every agency has got different departments and each one has its own requirements. Servicing, planning, media all will require one particular set of skills. However in all the departments you will require a general set of skills and that general set of skill will come from 2 areas: Client and Consumers. With respect to client, you should have the knowledge of what the client sells, what is his business model. Whether the client sells lipstick, cars or sanitary pads, each one has its own challenges and requirements. So the knowledge about them should not only be in the form of numbers that who is the market leader, what are the sales etc etc but also about how that category is doing. You need to know whether you are tackling with a Messi or with a Baichung Bhutia. Both are good players but the level is different. Messi will create a mess wherever he goes, so here you are actually encountering a genius irrespective of the category. Therefore your competitor is a Messi. Now wherever football runs Baichung Bhutias of the world will do good but your actual competiton is with the Messi of the category. So you have to find out where is your brand in terms of category and how good is it in its own category. Messi of the category will infact drive the growth in the market, even when the category growth is sluggish, Messi’s of that category would outperform. Moving forward you have to learn how does the sale of your product take place, where is it sold, who sells it and most importantly to whom is it being sold. Consumer is the queen, you never know what is going on in her mind but you have to latch on to her where ever she goes: what are her whims and moods. Therefore study the consumer continuously. For example the consumer now wants to become the “Chikna Hero”,a new trend which the consumer has adopted so now if you try to sell Gillette you will be selling it with the tide. Now you are no longer dealing with a child,it is an adult world, it is a created world, it’s a profiling world so some keep a gotti some have their head shaven. Why? People now have their body as a canvas and you need to understand that they are writing their identity on their canvas. Another example would be say telegram. Telegram in movies was always shown as a harbinger of bad news so people said, no news is good news and look at today, you will not even go to the washroom without your mobile. In one age connectivity was bad and in the other if connectivity is finished you are in limbo. Hence to be really great at your work you need to understand the consumer through and through.
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Q) Is the need for research pull driven or push driven? Also is the intuition of a marketer bigger than the research finding, which quite often happen to be contrary Yes it is both pull driven and push driven. Everybody does research, be it the marketer or the agency however the methodology of research will change. To do your research also you have to do another kind of research. For instance you (a guy) are the brand manager of a sanitary napkin and you have been asked to grow the brand. At start you can’t even figure out the importance of the brand to the females. Who will you sell it to: a girl, a maid, an aunty or a sister. Needs are the same but need fulfillment has to come from somewhere. So to start with you will conduct a focus group discussion among women with a women moderator. This will help you find out the needs of the women and the role a sanitary napkin plays in their life, where it enhances, what are the embarrassments, what are the taboos, what are the requirements etc. You find that the packaging has changed over the years. The way it is dispensed has changed. Earlier how many girls used to go buy a sanitary napkin? Their fathers, husbands or servants used to be the messenger between them and the shopkeeper. Earlier they used to come in black polybags vs now could find a single pad in the back pocket of a girl. Look at the changing trends. At the end of the day it is just a biological need. Now what is the sociological change? You will know 3-4 issues what women face, through the focus group which would in no way would have come to your mind because of your lack of connect/awareness about the category. Moving forward you will define the questions which you would like to ask 10,000 women each from the given 4 territories. Your research would reveal results like what the women are embarrassed about and what they like to flaunt. If bikinis hare considered hot, why not sanitary pads. Now you have to analyze, can the packaging change, can the product itself change and come in a diaper format or a designer pad? Analyzing your research and finding out the root problem is where your role comes in.However not everything can be solved with research. You got to understand the inner dream. This is where agencies have an expertise because they have experience in this field Q) Having changed the fortune of several brands with your advertisements, how does McCain Erikson deal with ad campaigns for 2 competitor brands?Also what are your views on comparative advertisement of Rin Vs Tide Naturals Competitive ads earlier were extremely sacrosanct. However I find it ridiculous and I will tell you why. If I have an expertise in advertising about cars and you say not to hire me because I have expertise in designing ad campaigns for a car and I will steal your marketing plans and provide it to your competitor, you are neglecting the fact that I am the one who can exploit your marketing plan to its full potential because I have experience. Today I am a professional, If I have done advertising and I have to survive in the industry, knowing fully well that in this industry nobody is friend and nobody is foe, donot rub anybody the wrong way. If I add value to you in any way, this would be an investment for the client. If somebody is a profession it means there is honesty, there is sincerity and it is within that framework that you display your skill. I being a professional will respect his secrecy . If someone does something unprofessional, market being a small place, your image once tarnished will lead to your downfall. Once you understand the fact that in your growth is our growth, this issue of competitive ads will never arise. Intention is very important, expertise is very important, professionalism is very important rather than whether you will keep secrecy or not. Technical excellence is dying. It is really tough to be different technologically today. Any new feature you come up with will be copied by your competitor easily. So if you have something different then say it aloud. If a mobile phone says I have such and such features and the other doesn’t then it’s ok but if an FMCG firm does the same then if becomes an issue. If you have it and can prove that you are superior then there is no harm. However you have to be careful of the repercussions of such ads because if you are not able to prove your superiority then the whole campaign might backfire on you. Q) One book you would suggest all marketers to read ‘We are like that only’ by Rama Bijapurkar Q) What goes into designing a campaign that is able to establish a consumer connect and win accolades like the prestigious Cannes Lion at the same time? McCain’s motto is ‘Truth Well Told’. Throughout centuries sages and wise men have elaborated on the importance of truth. It is ubiquitous and cannot be hidden. It always comes to the fore. In an advertising agency you have to reestablish and contextualize the truth every time. The truth will remain eternal ,what matters is how you contemporize it, how you contextualize it and make it relevant in today’s context. If you are telling the truth to the consumers then they will buy the product. And truth gives way to creativity. You must keep in mind that creativity in advertising is paid creativity. It is different from the creativity of artists like Van Gosh who painted to capture the beauty of the movement. For these artists it was all about expression and experiencing the primordial thrashing of emotions within ones soul. That is what they wanted to show irrespective of whether it was good bad or ugly, for him it was cathartic , orgasmic, and for his own pleasure. That is pure creativity. He did not buy anybody else’s product, did not spend anybody else’s money. He just spent his whole life in his single minded pursuit of capturing the beauty of what he witnessed in the world around him. Compared to that a business man would focus on developing a good communication campaign around the product in question. His prime focus would be to make the product attractive to the masses, so that it sells.
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Q). McCann Erickson India has been instrumental in the strategy and creative development of the worldwide pitch for multi-media campaigns of Intel, Unilever’s Quality Walls to name a few. So can we say that Indian advertising has come of age globally? Earlier Indian advertising was not so widespread. There was no innately Indian flavor in Indian advertising. The industry was run by English speaking babus who were well versed in the Queens language and their communication was primarily in English. There was a dearth of original ideas, they referred to a set of prescribed books and took inspiration from the same. Post eighties the advertising landscape changed. If you look at Piyush Pandey or Prasoon Joshi, they are not excellent English writers but their Hindi composition can bring tears to your eyes. They are poets and their poetry has an Indian essence. The Indian culture, nuances and traditions are palpable in their compositions. These things started contributing to the brand and the biggest testimony to this fact is the ‘Thanda Matlab Coca Cola campaign’. Globalization has done many things to us, it has given us a new perspective towards the world. You can be global in emotions. But the point of reference for an Indian audience is very different. Indian advertising has shown to the world, that the American point of reference of Coke and the tagline of ‘Share my dream ,share my Coca Cola ‘ may not be as effective in the Indian context as the idea of ‘ Thanda Matlab Coca Cola ‘ is. In the American context, Coca Cola is a part of their culture, their life, their folklore, their dream, their nostalgia and their tradition. So there is a very strong emotional connect between an American and his bottle of Coke. The same is not valid for India; the point of reference for the Indian consumer is very different. India is a poor country in which while there is no point of reference for Coca Cola there certainly is a point of reference for water. Even the poorest of the poor would want to quench your thrust by offering a glass of water even if they cannot afford anything else. You never refuse a glass of water to a beggar also. And Coca Cola picked up in the Indian heartland after this campaign. People warmed up to the idea of Coke as a thirst quencher, a substitute for water. After an Indianized point of reference was created, the product sales in India skyrocketed. Indian advertising has become big because they have been able to tell the world how to create a unique point of reference. Q).How is advertising in the Indian context different from that in the global context? Does the fact that India is a multicultural and ethnically diverse nation pose problems in designing advertising campaigns of brands that follow a more or less standardized promotional approach worldwide? It is essential to note that Indian culture is very different from the culture of western countries. Consider the culture of staying alone, of individuality, this is not a culture that is very acceptable in the Indian context. In India, children do not move out of their homes by the time they are twenty. Ours is a culture that revolves around families, parents, filial bonds. We cannot be on our own. Indian children still take their parent’s advice when selecting a partner to spend their lives with. They might choose their own partner but if the parents refuse, the children are willing to give it second thought. This would be considered ridiculous in a country like the US. Indian parents are highly involved in the lives of their children; they will do a thorough background check, their due diligence and then approve or disapprove of the match. Trends are changing in some areas, influences of globalization are percolating but still there is an Indian element in all of us that makes us different from our western counterparts. Our culture, upbringing, traditions are different .Our level of tolerance for what might be acceptable in a country like US is different. An advertiser needs to understand these finer nuances. An advertiser’s subject is a living human being, the product is just an excuse, our subject is living human being with dreams and tears and sorrows. The more you connect with your audience the more successful is your advertising campaign.
The interviewer is a student of IIFT.
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Mr. Vivek Upadhayay shares his insights with the students of IIFT regarding B2B marketing.
‘B2B Marketing,’ riding on the fast-growing services sector in India, has become almost a buzzword today. Every player, big or small, from just about every sector is either engaged in it or desperately wants to be. The reason for the same is not far to seek. Companies do not simply want to remain dependent on the capricious nature of the B2C market, but instead want to cater to the needs of fellow enterprises, form a part of their value chain and rake in the profits from that angle as well. That apart, the B2B market forms the lifeblood for even giants like Cummins, who sell in approximately 190 countries and territories through a network of more than 600 company-owned and independent distributors and approximately 6,000 dealers. This is why we at IIFT had invited Mr.Vivek Upadhyay, the Regional General Manager at Cummins India Limited, Power Generation Business Unit over to the campus to be a part of IIFT’s Headstart series of guest lectures and to expound upon the intricacies of B2B Marketing and the nuances of Cummins’ strategies to stay ahead in this very competitive market. Mr.Upadhyay started off by giving a brief introduction about Cummins India, a company which, with a turnover of USD 2.3 billion, has managed to grow by 25% in the last 5 years. He was glad to note that this year Cummins has entered the 50th year of their operations in India this year, just like IIFT! Mr. Upadhyay then spoke briefly about the differences between B2C and B2B marketing, focusing primarily on factors like customer focus, relationship building, customized products, customer involvement, buying process and sales cycle, among others. In brief, the differences can be seen as follows:
Next, he expounded upon the differences between tangible and intangible benefits. The tangible benefits, say, for an engine can be the amount of power it can generate. But most companies today are at par, based simply on such tangible benefits. The intangible benefits offered by the product, therefore, become the differentiating factor in such circumstances. Intangibles, according to the speaker, are things/ values that can be perceived or experienced, but can’t be physically felt. The attributes of any product that can be said to be ‘intangible’ in nature are those such as reliability, trust, emotional connect and pride or prestige. Such intangible benefits help generate customer loyalty in today’s competitive world by building trust. Cummins is a brand that provides all of the above benefits plus brand promise, which exemplifies dependability. This is a key brand attribute, as it means that customers can ‘rely’ on Cummins completely. Strong brands are therefore those that, for their target audience, can become symbols of quality and reliability. Mr.Upadhyay pointed out how vital it is to create a ‘good perception’ about a company’s products. Say, the company launches a high quality, high performance product, but the market does not believe in its promise. Example: The problem Fiat faced in the 90s and early 2000s, and to an extent, till date! Success in making a good product doesn’t guarantee the success of the
B-2-C
B-2-B
Product driven Focus on maximizing the value of the transaction Large target market Single step buying process Shorter sales cycle Merchandising and point of purchase activities
Relationship driven Focus on maximizing the value of the relationship
Brand, Emotional buying decision based on status, desire, or price
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Small, focused target market Multi-step buying process Longer sales cycle Brand identity created on personal relationship, educational and awareness building activities Rational buying decision based on business value
product. Word of mouth publicity plays a big role as customers themselves become representatives of the company. Perception is therefore vital, though it needs to be supported by performance to create sustainability in the long run. The focus of the discussion then turned towards how to discover the value of an intangible asset and how to measure these intangibles. Some of the answers which the companies attempt to seek through the projective questions include What is the premium the customer is likely to pay beyond the mentioned ‘tangible’ benefits? How strong is the customer’s loyalty towards the brand? Cummins makes use of an evaluation mechanism called NPS or Net Promoter Score. Developed by Fred Reichheld and Setmatrix, this evaluation methodology is being used by numerous other big names in the industry such as Caterpillar, Honeywell, Allianz, Shell and Phillips. In this methodology, customers are classified on a scale of 1-10 as (i) Detractors (0-6), (ii) Passives (7-8) and (iii) Promoters (9-10). Detractors are those who are not likely to recommend Cummins, while promoters are those who are most likely to do just that. NPS is then calculated as follows:
NPS = (% OF PROMOTERS) – (% OF DETRACTORS) Mr. Upadhyay next discussed the Net Promoter Maturity Model, the step-wise summary of which is given as follows: Step 1: Participant takes survey (Conducted by a 3rd party to remove possibility of bias) Step 2: Alert sent to action owner Step 3: Action owner follows up Step 4: Management Reviews, Learnings and Survey Results Step 5: Teams across different functions meet to form Improvement Plans Step 6: Communicate results and make investments
At the end of a very informational and interactive lecture, Mr. Upadhyay highlighted the fact that it is ensured that everyone in the entire value chain (from the user to the influencer) is questioned as a part of the survey. He explained how the collected information is used to analyze the relationship of each evaluated pa-
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rameter with respect to derived importance and satisfaction. Following actions are suggested as per the results: Prioritize the factors which have a high impact on loyalty but are low on satisfaction Improve upon the ones in which the impact on loyalty is low, but so is the satisfaction Leverage upon the aspects which have a high impact on loyalty and are providing high levels of satisfaction to the customers Maintain the ones where the satisfaction is high, though they currently have a lower impact on loyalty He also informed the audience that the latest results suggest that the number of detractors stands at 14%, passives at 36% and promoters at 50%, and signed off by reiterating that success in the future depends on the emotional connect that the brand manages to create with its target group i.e. on the intangibles.
Four students of IIFT– Aayush Singh, Raman Arora, Dhruba jyoti Chatterjee and Swati Jain visit the Aircel Corporate Office to gain first-hand insights about corporate frameworks. Here’s what they got to know.
Mr. L.V. Sastry
Mr. Indranil Mukherjee
Mr. Dinesh Kumar
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How relevant are the theories of Mr. Kotler and Mr. Keller in the real world? How much significance does the Porter’s model hold beyond the confines of the textbooks? Does the 4P (or 4C or 7P) analysis really help one in finding new insights about the potential consumer? How do the inherently complicated frameworks help generate a clearer understanding of the business scenario? Does the success of an enterprise originate from strong theoretical concepts or is it the other way round? As students of International Business at Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, such questions keep intriguing us, the answers to which aren’t easily available (Even Google has its limitations, you see!). Invariably, the answers are found in the words of the business leaders and managers who lead their respective organisations and consequently, the industry. With similar questions and the intention to learn more about business processes in general, we walked into the Aircel Office in Gurgaon. Having arrived dressed in formal suits, we were initially startled to see a number of employees clothed in traditional wear; the office itself had been adorned by rangolis and flowers. But then the next day being a ‘holi’-day, this should not have come as a surprise! We were received by Mr. Indranil Mukhejee, Inside Sales Head, Aircel and an IIFT alumnus, whose constant guidance and encouragement had resulted in this corporate visit. He gave us a brief overview about the company and its operations in India. Started in 1999, Aircel is one of India’s leading telecom players today, occupying the top spot in Tamil Nadu and the North-east. It is India’s fifth largest GSM mobile service provider & seventh largest mobile service provider (both GSM and CDMA). While brand Aircel enjoys a strong recall, thanks to its efficient marketing campaigns and the popularity of its brand ambassador, MS Dhoni, Mr. Mukherjee discussed in detail about Aircel Business Solutions (ABS), the business-to-business division. He highlighted how Aircel has been providing communication solutions to its customers through a range of products and services, which include ILL (Internet Leased Line), NPLC and IPLC (National/International Private Leased Circuit), MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching), BudgetTalk (VOIP Services) and Data Centre Services (Gurgaon is home to India’s first Green Data centre, an Aircel entity). Besides the technical aspects, he helped us understand how optimal solutions are developed for customers considering CAPEX and OPEX constraints and business forecasts. Talking about the future and the emerging trends, he pointed out how BWA (Broadband Wireless
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Access) could be the answer to the poor broadband penetration in India. Having gathered greater information about Aircel and the telecom industry, we were introduced to Mr. Pritpal Lakkha, National Marketing Head Aircel. An expert in marketing strategy and brand development, Mr. Lakkha looks after the brand management of Aircel through marketing communications, media and the digital forum. He explained to us the hierarchical structure of the marketing function within Aircel which has been divided into numerous verticals, such as Brand (handled by Mr. Lakkha and his team), Value-added Services, Acquisitions, Go-to-Market (further divided into customer research and the various regional heads) and Properties and Retail (the IPL franchisee Chennai Super Kings sponsored by Aircel and Save the tiger campaign are a part of it). He described the role that the creative agencies, advertising firms and market research companies play in designing and implementing the marketing campaigns. He stressed on the need of all business functions coming together and playing a collaborative role in generating value for the organisation, citing the example of online transactions playing an important role in customer satisfaction, which involves the combined effort of the IT and digital marketing teams.
He was quick to point out that creativity and healthy experience are necessary ingredients for making a successful marketeer, which may not be found in the textbooks alone. We bid him goodbye only after receiving a ‘smiling assurance’ that he shall visit the IIFT campus and share his valuable experiences with us. We then proceeded to meet Mr. Dinesh Kumar, GM and Country Manager – B2B Sales Aircel. With more than 19 years of experience in cross-functional sales and marketing domains, Mr. Kumar has seen the telecom revolution in India from close quarters. He expects the teledensity figures in India to be revised, since the usage of multiple sim cards isn’t taken into consideration right now. Once that is done, the figure may drop down to 3540% from the current number hovering around 75-80%; he therefore sees a huge opportunity in the market, much larger than anticipated. He sees the telecom sector as an extremely challenging industry which is constantly evolving, and hence, Aircel, like the other players, must remain alert. He informed us that Aircel has close to 500 B-2-B channels across India, thanks mainly to a dedicated sales team and trusted channel partners. On an average, one sales person handles 25-30 channel partners. Most of the business is coming from the IT/ITES companies, education and healthcare sector, Government institutions, BFSI domain and the Manufacturing sector. Mr. Kumar pointed out the various challenges involved in providing end-toend solutions to the customer, which often go beyond technology, and therefore, stressed on the need of adopting a techno-commercial point of view. An interactive session with Mr. L V Sastry, National Head - Sales and Operations—Enterprise and SMB – Voice and Data Services, Aircel completed our corporate visit. The enthusiasm and friendliness with which Mr. Sastry spoke to us made it a delightful and unforgettable session. He had kind words of advice for each one of us regarding our career aspirations and gave us meaningful insights into growth in the professional world. With numerous instances and interesting stories, he highlighted the importance of proper mentorship in one’s life and pointed out how one’s mentor could be his/her best critic. He lent a patient ear to all our queries and answered each one of them in great detail. It was indeed our privilege to have the opportunity of meeting a business leader of the highest quality in Mr. Sastry.
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Sustainability and Growth The Unilever Way The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan is one of the most ambitious strategies that any global company has ever embarked on. Pioneering a bold new business model, the company pledged to double in size at the same time as halving its environmental footprint, setting out to achieve a series of concrete targets by 2020. It aims to decouple business growth from environmental impact so that while the company increases in size it will reduce its total environmental footprint across the value chain. We look at three distinct products which show the commitment of the company towards sustainable growth.
doing the right thing if it is profitable, and the leadership business case - making the right thing profitable. This distinction is crucial, as it shows that a business has considered the profound implications of big sustainability challenges on the business, and has a plan to respond to these challenges in a way that works for the business and the world around it. Unilever has clearly recognised the interdependence of a business and the system around it
PureIt: Targeted particularly at lowincome consumers, the product has provided access to safe drinking water for 20 million people. It was launched in India in 2004 and has since expanded to markets like Bangladesh and Brazil. Lifebuoy soap: Unilever aims to change the hygiene behaviour of 1 billion people by showing them the health benefits of hand washing with soap at key times of the day. This has the potential to reduce diarrhoeal disease by 25% and acute respiratory infections, two of the biggest killers of children under five, and increase school attendance by up to 40% Surf Excel Quick Wash: By far, the largest contribution to GHG footprint of Unilever comes from consumer use which accounts for 68% of the total, most of it caused by people showering, washing hair and doing laundry. To achieve its goal Unilever will have to provide consumers with more products that use less water. Surf Excel enables people in water-scarce countries to rinse hand-washed clothes using only one bucket instead of three. Unilever has delivered strong financial results that outperformed its competitors, despite the recession. So is sustainability the secret of Unilever’s recent success. There are 6 basic steps with which Unilever has achieved this growth and sustainability: 1. Asking the right question – from my world to our world Unilever has not just asked – ‘how can I be sustainable?’ Critically, in drawing up the USLP, their main question was, how could business contribute towards a sustainable future. And, this is the difference between the standard business case for sustainability –
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2. Thinking long term It is perfectly possible, today, to be commercially successful and think short-term. Many businesses are in this camp – fuelled by a fascination with short-term profit maximisation. But this short-termism means that businesses are missing out on an opportunity to build resilience into the business, and secure its medium and long-term success. What happens to the business model when oil reaches $300 a barrel, when stringent legislation comes crashing onto the statute books to secure dwindling supplies of natural resources, from water to wood. If a business hasn’t thought about the impact of these long-term trends, some of them very certain in their nature, then its ability to deliver long-term value creation is seriously compromised. Unilever has worked through the longer term implications of global trends for its business. The USLP targets are responses to these implications and are designed to ensure that Unilever is in business next year, and into the next decade. 3. Embedding sustainability into the business – accept this is a journey of cultural transformationUnilever has also started to translate and embed the USLP targets into its core working practices anprocedures. Across the business, Unilever has also started to provide its people with the tools, skilland knowledge to be able to deliver the USLP. Crucially, the influential ‘Categories’, that own and innovate the brands, were involved in developing the overall USLP targets
and now have their own specific targets and scorecard for tracking progress against the USLP. The USLP is also giving the business renewed purpose and enthusiasm. In Paul Polman’s words, “it also gives a tremendous purpose to what we are doing as a business that creates an enormous energy here and employee engagement that I’m sure will explains half of the growth that we will be producing”. This all sounds really obvious stuff, but too many businesses think that the production of a cutting-edge strategy is enough, its employees will suddenly intuit the change in direction, and work out for themselves what they need to do differently. Or, possibly worse, organisations set about telling everyone everything about the new sustainability targets, leaving a trail of confusion and inaction. 5. Not waiting for the pull–push sustainability demand coming from consumers A common barrier to progress towards mainstreaming sustainability is deciding to wait until consumers demand more sustainable products and services. Paul Polman, quite rightly, has decided not to wait, and sees taking sustainability pro-actively to the millions of people that buy Unilever products as a real priority. And he thinks this is the right time, “but they are ready for it I can tell you, increasingly so, and it’s no longer a developed market phenomena - it’s rapidly becoming a global phenomenon…We are basically trying to turn this company over to the consumer at the end of the day.” Trends such as ever-increasing consumer demand for transparency, as well as resource scarcity, mean that sustainability will be mainstreamed in the next few years 6. Changing the system Finally, Unilever realises that it can only so far on its own before it reaches the constraints of the unsustainable systems in which it operates. As any leading business knows full well, a common barrier to progress can be the mainstream investment community, who are still struggling to reward sustainability practices, and are too focused on the shortterm. By dropping quarterly reporting, and yet still delivering commercial success, Unilever is trying to change the external system in a way that, in the end, will reward sustainability.
Atul Kumar MBA 2011-13 Indian Institute of Foreign Trade
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Premium Brand Dilution VS Mass Absorption Can the Launch of Cheaper Variants Save Knorr? Ratan Tata has repeatedly said that his inspiration for the Nano came from seeing an entire family -- father, mother and two kids -- perched on a two-wheeler, navigating crowded and dangerous city roads because they couldn't afford anything better. In his view, the Nano is a family car. But when that family was given a choice to possess this “family car”, it simply rejected the whole idea. The rejection was such strong that at one point of time Tata Motors could only sell 500 Nano in a month. What went wrong in such a noble thought? One major reason was the positioning. Nano waspositioned as a “Lakhtakia” – a car that has the lowest price. It was found that people did not want to associate themselves with such kind of imagery. One has to realize that customers in the rural markets are as aspirational as their urban counterparts. All that one needs to know is how to sell to them. Now Nano has changed its positioning and is projecting itself as an aspirational car which has ample features and is full value for money. It is now infusing a feeling of satisfaction in the minds of Nano owners. So what connection does HUL has with this story? Recently, HUL has launched low price soup variants under its umbrella brand – Knorr. The obvious reason is to increase sales as “Soup” as a category has not been very popular in India – prime reason being the concept of soup is more associated with the Western cuisines. This increase in sales can be achieved in three ways – 1. Increase penetration in the low- end of the urban markets and the rural market. 2. Increase the existing customer up the value chain and creating more occasions of consumption. 3. Increase sales by the combination of the above two. According to Euromonitor, branded packaged soup market in India was in the range of RS 100-125 crores (USD 22 mn – 27 mn) in 2010. This segment of packaged food has been relatively under penetrated in India but with urbanization and rise in organized retail, rise in income and changing lifestyles, the segment has experienced growth rates of more than 20% year on year in last 5 years. The market is primarily dominated by 3 players: 1. Knorr from HUL, having a mar-
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ket share of about 60-65% 2. Nestle’s Maggi Soups 3. Capital Foods’ Ching’s Secrets Apart from the above players, various modern retail players have come in with their own offerings (example Feasters from More) in order to increase their bottom lines. As the consumption patterns and the processing food technology has evolved, so has the varieties and the flavours that the soups are available in. In India the market is still at its infancy and concentrated mainly in the urban areas. Most of its early days dried soups purchase was restricted to the cooler winter months or for convalescing patients. Marketer’s grappled to increase the occasions for soup consumption which continued to be limited. Also unlike other processed foods such as instant noodles, bread or biscuits which had a large mass consumption base and suited for round the clock consumption soup remained as a premium dinner meal accompaniment restricted for niche westernized urban households. Knorr repackaged soup as ‘essentially desi’ replacing the elitist image attached to it. The positioning of the product was also changed as a snack option before dinner rather than a meal option. HUL understood the preference of the Indian consumer for local taste and introduced their soups in flavors such as tomato chatpata (rasam), corn mast masala, vegetable hara bhara, tomato makhni, chicken malai tikka and also reduced prices to appeal to a larger audience. The latest news is that the Knorr soup brand of Hindustan Unilever will be available at cheaper rates, Rs 12 a cup compared to Rs 30-35 for the premium varieties. Company sources said in Mumbai that the strategy was to increase sales especially in the middle and low- end of the urban markets, and the rural market. Branded packaged foods are gaining acceptance in small towns and villages if the price is right, market analysts say. With lower priced packs under Knorr, HUL is hoping to penetrate the soups segment in these markets.
One of the first things while analysing the intention behind the move and the move itself has to be its past performance and results doing the same. It has to be kept in mind that in the past as well, Knorr has tried to increase penetration of the soup category by smaller Rs 5 packets of the premium variety, under Knorr Annapurna with Soupy Snax, did not succeed to the expected levels in the market place. However, as mentioned before, things are changing now. The purchasing power of the lower and middle classes have been steadily increasing, and the move to drop prices shall encourage the consumers to try out its products. Also the fact that the modern retail format is expanding to Tier II and Tier III cities slowly, thus increasing accessibility and promoting evolution in consumption as consumers slowly start valuing convenience and taste. Knorr was one of the first ones apart from Maggi to promote the “Desi” version of the Snack and has been at the front of innovative products relating to this category.
A price reduction would not necessarily dent its premium image, primarily because soup as a category is slowly and steadily losing its exclusivity from Metros and Tier I cities. A similarity can be seen in Shampoos which were initially present in Tier I cities and penetration was increased through the use of Sachets without losing the parent company’s exclusivity. Chik as a player benefitted immensely in South India from the very same. However, Knorr as a brand suffers from one major disadvantage that its chief competitor Maggi doesn’t: The support of a good brand name. Maggi Noodles have been credited with creating the category of instant food in India and when such a brand lends its name to a new category like Soups, the new category is bound to benefit, especially when Maggi Soups have been positioned on the Health and Wellness plank. Thus if Maggi goes ahead and follows Knorr in this step, there is a low probability of its brand being diluted, because of its brand being famous and ubiquitous across the country. However, even Knorr should not experience brand dilution in the first place as the drivers and benefits from such a move outweigh the
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disadvantages. A move such as this combined with increase purchasing power in the lower segments and new products in the category (noodles+ soup) shall be beneficial for Knorr and would hopefully contribute to its food segment revenue which grew 13% in the third quarter last year. If modern life wasn’t already confusing enough, brands are trying to complicate matters further by creating multiple identities. And if HUL wants to continue with its existing positioning and also launch cheaper variants then it is on the same track. It is trying to sell something similar which Tata Motors did. And we have seen that in the past also HUL failed to increase its penetration with smaller SKU of Knorr which was priced at Rs 5. It had to ultimately withdraw that smaller SKU. If HUL really want to tap onto the huge opportunity existing in the rural India then it has to launch a totally separate brand of soups which have health benefits like fortified with iron and which complete the nutritional intake of the rural customer. This new brand of soup should target rural India and thus should be positioned as a healthy way to keep children in rural India free from iron, calcium and vitamins deficiencies. Separate communication mix should be developed particularly in rural India and regional brand ambassadors should be chosen. Kajol should remain the brand ambassador of only premium Knorr soups. This strategy may involve the cost of launching a new sub-brand or a completely new brand but looking at the future prospects of growth in branded packaged soup category it will eventually turn out to be a good investment as this way HUL will get the first mover advantage in rural India while it will be able to maintain Knorr as a premium brand and thus will be able to retain and expand in the urban markets also.
Moksha Sharma MBA 2011-13 Indian Institute of Foreign Trade
Mohit Saxena MBA 2011-13 Indian Institute of Foreign Trade
War of Brands — Rin VS Tide Unexpected, Unconventional and Inexpensive, these are a few words one would associate guerrilla marketing with, a term coined by Jay Conrad Levinson. Gone are the days when huge marketing budgets were allotted to convey a simple fact-“I am better than xyz”. A stealth attack directly in the face of your competitor/ unaware customers is what Guerilla marketing is all about. Some marketing decisions are instant success, some are instant failure and the rest become a centre of debate with respect to their success. Rin vs Tide(natural) was one such case which had the marketers divided on who won and who lost. Before we do a thorough analysis of what transpired let us have a look at the history of Rin vs Tide war. Rin entered in the detergent market in the 1990’s as the first national detergent brand. Rin had the the first mover’s advantage in the mid- segment detergent market which it utilized to further move up the value chain by launching Rin Powder White in 1998.Since its launch, Rin positioned itself as a whitening detergent with its commercials ranging from Uski saari, meri saari se safed kaise to Safedi ka Shehanshah. First signs for stiff competition for Rin came in 1998 with P&G entering the Indian detergent market with Tide. Tide was initially launched in the premium segment however it was welcomed with a lukewarm response. Sensing a loss of opportunity P&G rose up to the challenge to increase its market share from a mere 0.3% by slashing the prices of tide drastically, thereby leading to Tide’s entry into the mid segment level. Welcome to the world of price wars – says Tide. The war heated up in 2007 with Tide taking away the leadership position from Rin. Angered and disturbed as Rin was they were helpless. Tide’s whitening formula was unmatched in the market with a claim that their powder prevented dirt molecules from settling on the clothes thereby keeping them clean and white. Tide also added lemon flagrance to further widen the gap.
HUL had to respond back if not in the terms of the product, then innovative marketing. This is what they did when Tide launched its product extension:-Tide Naturals. Tide Naturals was priced Rs20 lower than Rin which quickly ate into Rin’s market share.HUL filed a case against Tide naturals claiming that Tide Naturals did not have any real lemon/santoor as portrayed in their commercial. This resulted in a court order ordering P&G to add a disclaimer that Tide Naturals did not have any natural fragrance. This was guerrilla marketing in the true sense for not only did it catch P&G unaware, but also it generated enough news in the market to make the urban customers sit up and pay attention to the warring giants
The war has began The threshold which the marketers feared to cross was broken in the detergent world. COMPARATIVE ADVERTISEMENT. There was a said code among marketers against the use of direct comparative marketing, however marketers at HUL thought otherwise. Rin launched its bhramastra by launching a comparative ad stating its superiority over Tide in terms of whiteness. The ad showcased a Rin mom and a Tide mom standing at a bus stop with the Tide mom engrossed in a 22 sec long monologue about how Tide is awesome only to be “chaukofied” by Rin ki Safedi. Do we see a new era of Guerrilla marketing emerging here? A mode which was a big no-no among the marketers of the old school of thought, might have some acceptance among the new gen marketers. It is said that every change meets with some resistance , the flank which
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Rin’s tv commercial drew might be a visible sign of such resistance. Looking at the other side of the coin, there were several professionals in the industry who were all praise about Rin’s marketing prowess. They said the aim of such ads is to entrench your superiority in the eyes of your consumers, which this advertisement clearly scored high on. Someone once said ”Any publicity is good publicity”. Maybe this is why marketers are against comparative advertisement for it gives your competitor free publicity. Rin Vs Tide ad spoke about Tide naturals for about 22sec of the total airtime of 30sec.Now in money terms that is a huge amount of money dropped in Tide natural’s pond. Guerrilla marketing is a double edged sword, if it turns into your favor, the sales of your company will grow by leaps and bounds however if it turns against you, you shall be paying for ambushing yourself with your own marketing plan. Ethics and Guerrilla Marketing These two have never got along, since the inception of guerrilla marketing. When practicing Ambush marketing, which forms an integral form of Guerrilla marketing, critics say you are cheating your customers by showing something what actually isn’t. Each company decide’s its own set of ethical practices. Rin vs Tide was well within HUL’s.
Ambush Marketing for a movie:-Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which drew a lot of flank from the public for unethical marketing. Most women named Sarah Marshall would not be pleased with being ambushed like this
Moving forward we can see more and more of comparative advertisements become the principle weapon for guerrilla warfare with respect to the Indian scenario. The Horlicks vs Complan triggered it, Rin vs Tide propagated it and by the time I finish writing this article there will be many more out in the open. The way forward is clear: Catch your customers, snatch away those that aren’t yours for the road ahead is bumpy and only those who can risk it, will get the biscuit, oopss detergent in this case.
Sachet Ahuja MBA 2011-13 Indian Institute of Foreign Trade
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Web SavvY An article describing how marketers are rebranding brands that have come to be associated with the old ages, for the new age youth. With the advent of 21st century and in the wake of the dot com bubble burst, emerged a whole new arena of technology, Web 2.0, which has redefined the dynamics of marketing completely. Enterprises are now using Web 2.0 in many different ways to connect with customers, employees and other stakeholders. Web 2.0 has been defined as a ―new breed of application, which runs primarily on Internet servers and company intranets, is generally understood to be dynamic (that is, content updates automatically) and collaborative (drawing information from multiple sources and from user contribution). The technologies themselves vary widely; examples include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, Blogger and Flickr. While Web 2.0 is not a newer version of the Internet, the idea that users are now the ones providing content on the Web makes it much different than its largely passive predecessor. To demonstrate the popularity of Web 2.0, five of the top ten most visited websites are Web 2.0 sites, including Facebook (#2), YouTube (#3), Blogger (#6), Wikipedia (#8), and Twitter (#10); the other five top sites are all search engines (Alexa.com, 2010). In addition to current usage, the Gartner Group, an IT consulting firm predicts that by 2014, social networking – a type of Web 2.0 technology – will replace email as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20% of business users (Pettey, 2010). According to Facebook‘s metrics, 86% of Fortune 100 Global companies currently use some form of Web 2.0 technology and 99% of all online retailers plan to have a Facebook page by 2011. The modern day youth, who happen to techsavvy, are found to be online most of the time. As per the psychographic segmentation, the youth primarily comprises the Experiencers segment and are the ones who turn to internet whenever presented with a new product. Due to development in related technology fields such as 3G, it has become possible for them to stay online through phones as well, thereby increasing the influence of Web on them. To tap into this huge
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influence which the Web exerts on youth, companies are adopting various avenues. Blogging: Companies use blogs as a tool to engage the youth in different ways. Primarily it used to dissipate information among the youth about the product and its related offerings. A Blog also provides support for placing orders and shopping carts for promotional goods such as posters and T-shirts. The blog contains links to other social media activities. Finally, Bloggers could share articles among themselves and even cut and paste links to YouTube videos in their entries. Hence a blog, allows potential customers to come to a corporate site and learn more about the product or service. It can, also, help generate a community of people with the same interests. Wiki: Wiki is emerging as a strong tool for marketers to practice CRM for the company. Wiki is a very good source of information. It allows users to add, modify or delete its content via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a rich-text editor. The companies are able to provide all the related information about their offerings on a separate wiki. It also contained advertising and entertainment media for youth.
Podcasts: Web content feed is used to push information to the mailboxes of the potential customers who subscribe to the RSS feeds of the company on its website, blog, wiki etc. With the dynamic nature of the youth and the transient attention span, it has become more critical for the marketers to engage them in a manner where more information is delivered to the youth in a more interesting fashion and in lesser duration. The Webisodes and audio files provide exactly that. By either listening to an audio clip, watching a video or podcast versus reading a piece of literature, youth are more engaged. Besides, RSS feeds allows interested parties to access content of interest through a single click. Online Shopping: A report by the Internet and Mobile Association of India has revealed that India’a E-commerce market is growing at an average rate of 70 percent annually and has grown over 500 percent since 2007.The current estimate of US$ 6.79 billion for year 2010 is way ahead of the market size in the year 2007 at $1.75 billion. Apparently, more online users in India are willing to make purchases through the Internet and this is no hidden fact that most online users in India are the youth. Hence it is imperative for the companies to provide this avenue of facilitating the buying process because youth prefer to have an option, even if they don’t exercise it.
Social Networks: The addiction of youth with Social networking is well known, as the Web becomes modularized through the use of widgets and gadgets, there's an opportunity to use those technologies to spread a community virally in the social-networking world. A band's latest songs, for example, can be packaged in a widget and spread to many different audiences. A clip from a new movie, made portable through YouTube embed codes, moves quickly among the youth market and can become fodder for additional mash-up content. Building a socialnetworking environment can be a very important technique, not only to build community but enable a new type of connection that leads to increased word of mouth (WOM), better products and services, and a more engaged customer base.
Challenges The more youth is engaged online, the more is the information available to them and more are their expectations. They will demand increasingly personalized experiences and shorter response times to their queries. The anecdotal benchmark for email response appears to be 24 hours, with slower replies requiring an explanation of the delay. This informal benchmark may remain applicable to email, but with personal communication increasingly moving to text and instant messaging, customer expectations of corporate response times will undoubtedly shorten. Also, the youth will be seen as co -creating a brand when engaged comprehensively through online mediums. It will be a challenge for the marketers to be able to manage this double-ended sword.
Lalit Gupta MBA 2011-13 Indian Institute of Foreign Trade
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Marketing Failures Blackberry Playbook An article describing why Blackberry’s grand and glamorous tablet offering flopped.
Quote by a student : For $600, why should I buy something that’s incomplete, that will probably not get the same level of enthusiasm ever as competitors and that can’t even handle freakin basic email (unless through a Bridge, which the whole thing sounds clammy). Why not just buy an ipad for the same price, the thing has been prevailing in the market for well over a year, nobody complains, simply because it is a well-designed, functional and fun device to use. To give a broad picture of above said : The big value proposition of the PlayBook was its ability to be connected wirelessly to a BlackBerry device and allow the user to interface with the PlayBook instead of the BlackBerry handset. So if you own a blackberry playbook, the need to own a blackberry mobile phone is a pre-requisite. Well, when the carriers punted this value away, you were left with an expensive tablet with a small screen and no good apps. The marketing team put itself in a house with no back door. This move was a result of the product marketing department not specifying the device correctly.
Determining the intended audience for the tablet was an issue from the start. Typically, the co-CEO structure allows the two to focus intensely on their strengths and interests. Lazaridis can concentrate on technology while Balsillie can develop carrier relationships. But their interests sometimes overlap, such as with branding or marketing, and certainly when RIM develops a new product like the PlayBook. Former employees say the two present a united front on issues when together, but discrepancies can arise in their views when talking to executives separately. This, too, leads to confusion and undesirable outcomes. According to former employees, Lazaridis wanted to target a broad range of users with the PlayBook, including consumers; Balsillie saw it as a tool primarily for business clients. The conflicting views may have contributed to an unfocused product. The marketing campaign positioned the tablet as “professional grade” and yet the very name of the product suggests it’s all about fun. It ultimately hit the market without meeting the needs of either consumers or business users.
The development and launch of the PlayBook stands as an unfortunate example of how RIM’s internal problems result in poor execution. The irony is that RIM had an opportunity to be on the forefront of the tablet market. Years before Apple’s iPad debuted, RIM’s corporate customers were pushing it to scale the BlackBerry experience up to a larger device. RIM envisioned a digital picture frame that would mirror BlackBerry content on a bigger screen. Later, the company talked with bookseller Indigo about creating an e-reader, according to those familiar with the matter. But the massive success of the iPad in 2010 made it clear the company needed more than an e-reader.
Some RIM executives envisioned the PlayBook as a fancier BlackBerry, and wanted to market business executives. Other RIM officials wanted to skew younger. They wanted to embrace what makes the iPad so wildly successful — flashy ads, customizable features, and attention to movies and music. This disconnect in RIM manifested itself in a proposed ad campaign. At one point, RIM also discussed an ad that would use humor and celebrities like New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. The spot’s tagline: Go Pro. “There’s an internal war going on around the marketing message. Even the guys at the top don’t agree,” a RIM executive said at that time.
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While the PlayBook was crippled by its deficiencies, one feature that it did include further hurt its chances of success. RIM developed an app called Bridge that, among other things, allows the PlayBook to connect to a BlackBerry and browse the Internet without the need to purchase a separate data plan. Some inside RIM warned that carriers wouldn’t be receptive to this feature since it’s essentially a lost revenue opportunity for them. Balsillie, according to those familiar with the events, pushed it ahead. It was an unusual move for a company that has always promoted itself as a faithful companion to carri-
ers. “Enthusiasm took over,” says a person familiar with the situation, “and that resulted in trouble.” The indecision over a target audience, and RIM’s general reluctance to move away from its bread-and-butter demographic — business clientele — also led to the PlayBook’s failure. The PlayBook makes up just 1.1% of the tablet market, according to research firm IDC Corp. RIM’s tablet, the Blackberry Playbook hasn’t generated any revenues either. The plan to sell a large number of units on its initial release ended up in huge failure. The plan was to sell the initial 500,000 units of the Playbook at a discount, and then sell millions more at full price. RIM was hoping that the initial cheap tablets would initiate craze and enthusiasm among the consumers, which would encourage them to buy the remaining products at a premium. But with the lacking of apps and its requirement of bridging it to a blackberry mobile phone, unfortunately, the plan backfired. RIM announced a write down in December 2011, saying it had "a high level of BlackBerry PlayBook inventory" and that "an increase in promotional activity is required to drive sell-through to end customers due to several factors, including recent shifts in the competitive dynamics of the tablet market and a delay in the release of the PlayBook OS 2.0 software." RIM of late has cut the price of its playbook by half, but it actually doesn’t turn-
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around the whole fiasco when the product itself is nongratifying and unfulfilling to the required extent. A marketer’s work primarily involves conducting qualitative conversations with their customers to deeply understand how they feel about what the company is doing and what the company is thinking about doing. If RIM had talked to its customers like this, it would have quickly learned that they probably weren’t particularly interested in a BlackBerry tablet without built-in email, messaging or contacts! If you’re not talking to your customers, you’re just guessing from a conference room. For marketers, RIM is a textbook case of a company that rose, thanks to its great product, and is now imploding thanks to the absence thereof. RIM’s problem is not one of bad advertisements, or a weak brand. Instead it’s the product, which is utter stupid. RIM has failed to deliver devices that people would choose over the competition. And since marketing, to succeed, must extend into all aspects of the relationship between audience and product – then marketing deserves its share of the blame for the sorry state of RIM.
Ankit Devangbhai Shah MBA(IB) 2011-13 Indian Institute of Foreign Trade
Ashwin Nakshatri MBA(IB) 2011-13 Indian Institute of Foreign Trade
Marketing Ideas Out-of-this-World Blendtec– Will It Blend ? Presenting yet another weird marketing idea that clicked. Ever thought of buying a brand new, over Rs. 40,000 Apple Iphone 4S, only to chuck it into a powerful mixer-grinder, turn on the switch and obliterate your purchase into a million tiny pieces of metal and plastic ? If that thought made you squirm, you should check out “Will It Blend”- the series of videos made for the Blendtec line of blenders, in which Tom Dicksonthe founder of Blendtec, dressed in a white lab coat, takes up all kinds of stuff- from spinach, chicken and avocados to Xbox Kinects, Ipads to even marbles, vuvuzelas and stun guns - and shreds them all in order to display the power of his firm’s blenders. After doing so, he puts out the broken contents for display, at which point the subtitle reads “Yes, it blends”. It’s things like this that make one wonder whether marketers are freaks. Well, freak or not, when Blendtec marketing director George Wright found out about Tom’s weird habit of blending wooden boards for fun, he had a brainwave. After a few hundred dollars of investment and 186 online videos, Blendtec’s sales had skyrocketed by 700% !!! Their Youtube channel has 200,000+ subscribers and they feature on many mainstream media outlets like The Wall Street Journal, The Tonight Show etc., including winning many awards for the best ads ever made. So what are the factors that actually made such a weird idea tick? Well, a few would be as follows: Viral Content: Though many of us must have thought “What if I blended this in a blender?”, these guys actually went ahead and did it, and that too with products we would never have imagined blending. That was enough to arouse the people and create a buzz of magnanimous proportions. The videos were promoted on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and their own blog. People flocked not just to see the blenders’ power, but also to see their favorite products/brands (like Nike shoes, GTA IV game disc, Transformers toys etc.) being subjected to brutality. Not only that, Tom once
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blended six Bic lighters, in which the explosive mixture soon caught fire inside the container. The machine still kept operating though, and that was quite a sight. Authentic Alignment to Brand: Having actual members of the firm participate in showcasing live the true power of their product provided a big boost to their claims. They showed that their blenders were the best in what they were meant to do i.e. ‘blend’. The explosive blending as mentioned above corroborated their strength. This helped build solid brand awareness. Involving Customers: Blendtec regularly asked its viewers for suggestions on what they should blend next, thus involving the whole community and building followers. They also floated contests asking users to blend their old phones and send the videos, with the prize being a new IPhone 4. Related Merchandise: Will It Blend merchandise like T-shirts, or the auctioning of autographed Blendtec jars with broken IPhone contents on Ebay, all these were instrumental in expanding fan following. Proper Timing of Content: During the week of SuperBowl XLI, Tom blended minitiature helmets of opposing teams (AFC vs NFC). To coincide with the release of the film Transformers, Tom blended Transformers toys and showcased it. When the Weezer’s 2008 album was released, he blended the disc with some pork and beans. All this helped sustain virality. Such a powerful yet funny and innovative combination of factors helped propel the brand Blendtec to great heights. While such creative tactics are certainly not meant for every organization, they can surely help bring dim and struggling brands into the light on a low budget. So, anyone ready to put his/her laptop to this torture test ??
Sidharth Nanda MBA 2011-13 Indian Institute of Foreign Trade
Product Launchpad Product: Herbs and Berries Company: Hindustan Lifecare Limited Category: Healthcare (Ayurvedic OTC) Herbs and Berries is a foray into the $ 1813 million OTC market in India by Hindustan Lifecare Ltd. In the ayurvedic healthcare segment. HLL, a Govt. of India undertaking based in Thiruvananthaputram and well known in India for its healthcare products like condoms, bloodbags, contraceptives etc., has teamed up with a respected traditional ayurvedic company- Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala- to develop the said product, which is to be marketed by HLL. India is the world’s 11th largest OTC market. Ayurvedic OTC market in India is growing at a rate of 15% per annum, and the market is highly competitive too. Regulatory framework in this segment is much relaxed as compared to other medicines, thus attracting new players. The entry of HLL into this is bound to raise the competition. Some of the largest OTC brands in India are registered as ‘Ayurvedic Medicines’ because of their plant-based natural active ingredients (e.g. Vicks VapoRub, Amrutanjan Pain Balm, Zandu Pain Balm, Iodex Pain Balm, Moov Pain Cream, Itch Guard Cream, Eno Fruit Salt antacid, Vicks Cough Drops, Halls Lozenges, Dabur‟s Pudina Hara, Calcium Sandoz etc.). It already markets Herbs and Berries Chyavanules as chyavanprash granules, but is looking to take it forward with joint-care cream and ayurvedic jair oil products under the brand. The product will first be sold in Kerala, followed by Delhi, Punjab and then other parts of the country. HLL is not an aggressive marketer. However, in this case, it needs to pay attention in nurturing the brand and establishing its visibility in the market. Since HLL already has a strong reputation, a little effort in this regard would work wonders for this brand.
Product: Red Dot Company: Hero Cycles Category: Bicycles The world’s largest bicycle manufacturer, Hero Cycles, has launched a new range of premium bicycles. Named as the Urban Trail series of bikes, it launched the first product Red Dot. Priced at Rs. 43,000, this bike is sports a body made up of carbon fibre and weighs a meager 12.9 kgs. Carbon fibre is a strong material used in the bodies of F1 cars and even aircrafts, and tends to be very strong yet very light and also rust-free. The weight of the bicycle is approximately 12.9 kilogram and currently available in blue, white & black colors. “Red Dot” has 620mm MTB handle; HL Alloy wheels with 160 mm disk brake that provides it incredible control and balance even in rough terrain. It also has a 21 gear mechanism with TX-35 and TX-51 shimano gears for uphill and downhill ride to give the rider best riding experience. "With the changing dynamics of social-economic scenario in India, the future clearly lies in the premium and luxury segment. With the launch of Urban Trail, we want to achieve the leadership position in premium and luxury segments," Hero Cycles Co-Chairman and MD Pankaj Munjal said in a statement. While the mass-market segment for cycles is experiencing a sluggish growth of between 4-6% annually the premium & lifestyle segment is growing at a CAGR of over 30%. The definition of high end bikes itself is changing. Earlier the high-end bikes were considered as those selling between Rs. 5000 to 8000. However now with global brands moving into the country this definition is also changing with price-points starting from Rs.15000 to as high as a few lakhs! Earlier, cycles were simply segmented into gents, ladies, kids and high end. But now the lifestyle bikes are being segmented in line with the global trend that is based on their usage. There are Road bikes, Mountain bikes, Tourers, Hybrids, BMX’ to name a few. Virtually all the
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big names are present in the country like Giant, Trek, Merida, and Cannondale etc. Hero Cycles is setting up a dedicated Rs 50 crore unit to roll out the premium cycles at Ludhiana, with a capacity of 5 lakh units annually. It is also scouting for partners in the US, Germany, Japan and the UK to export the cycles under a contract manufacturing deal. The company at present exports a small quantity to Spain, African region and Poland.
Product: Fruttera Company: Hindustan Unilever Category: FMCG (Ice-Cream) Everyone is keen on jumping upon the health bandwagon, be it chips, icecreams, or even toothpastes (like Vicco Vajradanti sugar-free paste). HUL, not wanting to be left behind in the ice-cream segemtn, launched the Fruttare brand of real-fruit ice-creams. Fruttare is positioned as ‘India's first ice candy which is made with 100% real fruit juice and pulp’. The product is targeted at young adults who are health conscious and also keen on getting refreshment. Fruttare truly believes in this philosophy and the products are designed around it." For the launch, a series of small teaser ads were made to build curiosity and salience while establishing the proposition of “Made with 1005 real fruit”. They had three short (10sec) and one 30sec teaser film with the end slide announcing the date of ‘Fruit hai re’ reveal. The films were scripted in such a way that it heightened the consumer curiosity about ‘What is fruit hai re’ without even giving them a hint of the product category. The teaser campaign lasted for five days with TV and digital being the lead mediums. The campaign then moved into reveal phase where again the lead creative is a 30sec TVC which subtly reveals why and how ‘Fruttare yaani fruit hai re’.
Compiled by Team Markmantra
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Ad– Making Competition Theme – Zodiac Styled T-Shirts
The winner of this issue’s ad competition is: Rakesh Marar WE School (Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research)
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Light Headed Corner
Answers will be published in the next issue. However, you may also refer to the Facebook page of Markmantra for the answers.
Answers to last issue
Laugh Till You Pop !!!
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