Brand Makeover: Refresh or Rebrand?

A brand can never be a static entity. Changes in external environment, including but not limited to competition, as well as shift in consumer behaviour make it imperative for companies to keep revisiting the brand, in particular, its strength and relevance in time and day. The change however, can sometimes be from within as well. A firm may choose to change its vision and mission, re-look at its portfolio or expand in different market(s) and consumer segment(s). Obviously, an existing brand (and its associated attributes like identity, essence and promise) may fall short of meeting the expectations of the changing world in and around.

Evolution of the Coca Cola Visual Identity over the years

There are multiple ways in which a brand can be made-over to represent its new-found vision and aspiration. This post looks at two such makeover strategies in particular - Rebranding and Brand Refresh, also because these are probably the most misunderstood and incorrectly interchanged terms.

To understand the two terms clearly, let’s take a short caselet.

There are three brands – Air, Earth and Water. All the three brands cater to young audience between ages 18-35 years and are about 10 years old now. Air and Earth are facing some troubles in their sales cycles as well as customer retention and loyalty scores.

Executives from ‘Air’ found out that their Target Group (TG) isn’t able to relate to the brand anymore. The TG has attributed this disconnect to its visual identity (Logo, theme, colour, design). The target audience claimed that the brand didn’t convey a youthful personality and hence has resulted in eroded association and attachment of the customers towards the brand. It felt that the brand has not kept up with time and has remained stagnant in terms of its expression and what it stands for. Conclusion- The brand isn’t preferred by its TG  for its loss of appeal.  

‘Earth’s executive had a worse reckoning with their TG. The customers claimed that they do not associate with the brand anymore and it is for their parents instead. They further added that the competitor has climbed up the ladder in terms of customer understanding, offerings, communication, engagement and even futuristic concepts for them. On the other hand, ‘Earth' is still stuck with the same Brand Identity and older form of communications. 

Conclusion- The brand is ‘there’, but ‘not there’ for its TG ("Not for me").

‘Water’, was in a different boat altogether. Having done well in existing target market for its products, it now aims to appeal to a much larger segment albeit with a different set of products under its current brand. However, it understands that its current brand identity and messaging will not be able to appeal to multiple segments effectively. So, the brand needs to be acceptable to multiple markets and segments.

Hence, what ‘Air’ needs is a facelift. A visual identity make-up which will make it more appealing to its target audience. The values and vision does not change, but the focus is only on cosmetic changes that would make the brand more appealing and relevant to the TG. ‘Air’ needs a Brand Refresh.

Britannia (2018)

However, it is not necessary that only those companies, which face issues as mentioned above go for Brand Refresh. Brand Refresh is often used as a routine strategy by some companies just to maintain a new visual identity that gives them a contemporary status in the target audience to avoid brand fatigue.

Godrej (2008)

Some of the examples of Brand Refresh globally are Google, Verizon, and Starbucks. Back home, Britannia, Godrej, Star TV and HUL have adopted a simple Brand Refresh strategy. While there may have been associated communication for their brand refresh launch, these were mostly cosmetic changes to be contemporary. 

‘Earth’ and ‘Water’ have bigger problem and opportunity respectively at their hands though. They requires much more than a cosmetic retouching, something which is deeper and affects the core and values of the brand. The change would attempt to make the brand relevant, not just by its visual identity, but with its newly framed (or communicated) brand promise and even culture to the customers. These brands will see a structural change in how they look at the customers, what the brand will stand for and what does it intend to be for its customers. ‘Earth’ and ‘Water’ need Rebranding.

India Post (2008)

Rebranding can occur with or without any name, design or logo change (unlike Brand Refresh). Some of the examples of Rebranding globally are Old Spice (in 2010), Apple (post 1997 when Steve Jobs took over) and Walmart (From “"Always Low Prices," to "Save Money. Live Better" in 2007).  In India, companies like Airtel (To tap a larger audience through their internet services), Hero (Post split from Honda in 2011), India Post (“Giving wings to your dreams” campaign trying to tap youth) and Incredible India(Show India in a different light) have taken the Rebranding route for their respective brands.

An interesting perspective on Rebranding is presented by the 2018 winner of REBRAND  GLOBAL 100 AWARDS, Brand Bhutan. The video shows how a tiny hillock nation is trying to rebrand itself for its products and services, a shift from its earlier branding of a scenic and spiritual country. This way, one unified, overarching country brand has been  developed for Bhutan. Click for more details on the Rebranding campaign -  Brand Bhutan.
  

Finally, Rebranding and Brand Refresh are brand makeover strategies but should not be confused as being one and the same. Brand Refresh is a cosmetic change which essentially deals with the look and feel of the visual identity of a brand. It does not look at structural and architectural changes of the brand and does not affect its brand promise (at least not explicitly). Rebranding on the other hand is much deeper. A Rebranding strategy cannot be undertaken without making structural changes to the brand. It also leads to subtle changes in brand promise and brand identity, which are propagated down to the target audience through cues and messages, implicit as well as explicit.

In the next post, we'd look at what are the other brand makeover strategies and when to use which one?

Brand Valuation by Royalty Relief Method

Top-10 Most Valuable Brands

BrandFinance released it Global Brand Value report in February 2018. Some of the highlights from the reports are –

• At US$150.8 billion in Brand Value, Amazon is the world’s most valuable brand ahead of Apple and Google in the report
• Apple’s diversification challenges are taking a toll on its Brand Value
• Technology brands rule the roost with all Top-5 brands in Brand Value table are from technology sectors
• The growth of Chinese brands has been phenomenal. Since 2008, China’s share of global brand value has increased from 3% to 15%, growing to US$911.5 billion in 2018

This posts’s focus is to de-mystify the approach adopted by BrandFinance to come to the Brand Value figures of the brands in question.

The approach, also known as ‘Relief from Royalty’ is based on a notion.

Imagine that a brand holding company (For example, Nestle) owns the brand (Maggi) and decides to license the brand to a different operating company (ABC Food Products). This means that Nestle decides, not to sell the brand Maggi itself but to license ABC Food Products to sell the brand. So, ABC Food products will be able to use all the elements related to brand Maggi and generate revenue out of the sale of Maggi.

Now, obviously in return Nestle would expect a revenue stream from ABC Food Products. This revenue stream would be called as ‘Royalty’ which ABC Food Products will pay to Nestle for using brand Maggi for its own profits. This Royalty value is notional, as the value of brand is more conceptual than actual cash-flow at that time (since the revenue will only start coming in future and that too cannot be accurately estimated).

This notional price paid by ABC Food Products (called, the operating company) to Nestle (called, the brand company) is expressed as ‘Royalty Rate’.

Since the revenue made by ABC Food Products by selling brand Maggi is going to be realized only in future, the estimated revenue stream for future must be calculated and should eventually be expressed in its present value form. This is because the value of the brand (Maggi) is to be estimated at present. To find the present value of revenue stream/cash-flow in future, the Net Present Value (NPV) method is used after estimating the future revenue stream or cash flow.

The Net Present Value (NPV), thus found based on all forecasted royalties, represents the value of the brand to the business.

Step by Step Process given by BrandFinance for calculation under Royalty Relief method.

• Obtain Brand specific Financial data
• Annual Revenue, Annual Profits and Profitability (Ex. For Maggi)

• Estimate the demand of the product category and individual Brands including your own Brand as well as the competitor Brands
• Demand Estimation for Instant Noodles, and individual demand estimation for Maggi, Sunfeast Yippi, Top-Ramen and Patanjali noodles
• Estimate the future cash-flow or revenue stream for the brand based on the financial data and category and brand demand
• Future Revenue and profits estimation for the brand
• Let’s say this comes to $ 20 bn (Absolute value, without considering the year of realization).                 

•  Establish the notional Royalty Rate for each brand
• Royalty Rate = (Brand Strength Index) x (Royalty Range)
• Brand Strength Index – A score on a scale of 1-100 based on:
• Marketing Investment – Investment towards brand building in terms of advertising etc.
• Stakeholder Equity – Brand Perception among various stakeholders including the Brand owners, marketing managers, company employees, channel partners and most importantly the customers
• Business Performance – Financial measures representing the status of the brand in terms of price strength, sales volume and trade leverage
• Hypothetically, let’s say this comes to 80.
• Royalty Range – A range of percentage value for a given industry/segment (For Ex. Instant noodles segment) which represents what is importance of a brand for a customer in that industry
• Premium and Luxury (luxury watches, expensive jewelry etc) segments have a high brand importance for customers and hence have a higher Royalty Range
• Commoditised or low-risk segments (steel, staple food products etc.) have lower brand importance due to minimum differentiation and hence lower Royalty Range
• Hypothetically, let’s say this comes to 20%.
• Hence, Royalty Rate = 80 x 20% = 16% (This is Royalty Rate that represents that this percentage of sales for the Brand comes due to its Brand Name)
• Calculate the notional future royalty income stream for each brand.
• Based on the Royalty Rate Calculated, arrive at a revenue portion which is realized due to the brand value 
• Based on Future Cashflow and Royalty Rate, this comes to  $ 3.2 bn (Check table below)

                                         

Estimated Future Cash-flows in $ bn with and without Royalty Rates

• Discount this future Royalty stream to arrive at a Net Present Value (NPV)
• NPV is calculated based on the discounted rate (assumed 6%). In this case, the NPV is calculated $ 2.38 bn

• This is adjudged as the Brand Value of the brand, in our example, for  Maggi.
• Brand Value of Maggi comes to $ 2.38 bn (Based on hypothetical figures taken for Future Sales, Royalty Range and Brand Strength Index, for understanding purpose only)

Clearly, Royalty Relief technique is not only one of the easier techniques for Brand Valuation, it is also a good estimate of brand value since it takes into consideration, the brand’s strength, its financial performance, competitor standing and also its future revenue estimates. Brand strength also brings in the factors like how much the company is spending on the brand building efforts, what is the equity or engagement of the stakeholders with the brand and the actual business performance.

While, this approach does not take into consideration the influence of competitor brands in the future sales and the effectiveness of the marketing spends for brand building, which may have an adverse effect on the calculation of Brand Value, Royalty Relief is still, a simple to understand as well as implement method, to calculate Brand Value for any given brand.

Cheers,

Inner-circle counter branding- Ear and eyes open!

I recently came across a print-ad for Nasaka water purifier from Okaya group, and in no time a peculiar fact hit me. Veteran actress Shabana Azmi is seen endorsing the water purifier in the ad. The peculiar fact was that her son (from Javed Akhtar’s first wife, Honey Irani) is also seen endorsing the same category product, Pureit from HUL.

While, it is understandable that Farhan Akhtar is not Shabana Azmi's own son, and this conflict can very well be no conflict, an important question to ask here is, how credible does a product endorsement come across, when close family members, with equally strong brand image and credibility, endorse or anti-endorse products that are in direct competition or even substitution of that product or category.

The context and its implications of such a situation, also makes it imperative to judge if it is critical now to extend the boundary of due diligence and selection process for a brand ambassador beyond the individual to his closest set of people? Simply put, how pertinent it is to given to the individual’s image, appeal, relevance and credibility, should or shouldn’t the inner-circle deserves some notes and thinking, before inking  that million dollar deal?

Coming back to the first example cited, Both Shabana Azmi and Farhan Akhtar are known to be thinking actors and have associated themselves to a social cause every now and then. They have also managed to stay away from any major controversy adeptly, while being known for speaking their mind up. Crafty! Such attributes make them very attractive brand ambassadors for food and health category. Hence, Okaya and HUL were both bang on with the choice of their endorsers. However,  Okaya recently got Shabana Azmi to promote their Nasaka brand of water purifier, while it was well known that Farhan Akhtar promotes Pureit.

This can be a clean overlooking or may even be a thoughtful move. As Jack Trout and Al Reis suggest, in order to build a positioning in customer’s mind, try manipulating what is already there, instead of trying to create something new altogether. People know Farhan Akhtar and that he promotes pureit. So when Shabana Azmi comes up with an ad for another purifier, it helps than remember Nasaka since they would quickly relate Shabana Azmi to Farhan Akhtar, who is related to Pureit, and in the process will remember Nasak water purifier. Or at least the Nasaka marketers would hope for that.

Now, it is quite possible that people don’t fret much about how endorsements by members of a a particular star family cut, overlap or even counter each other, and they are able to remember them individually only attached to their respective endorsements. However, going by the argument in the last paragraph, connections are the easiest way to remember things, for example, Network maps, and hence it cannot be completely ignored that people may notice that while a male actor is promoting a tobacco brand, his star wife is busy educating people about ill-effects of Tobacco. This will not affect the Tobacco consumers but will definitely raise eyebrows on the sincerity of the star wife, and hence can mar the anti-tobacco campaign.

In order to ensure that such confusions and complexities are never allowed to find their way in the prospects’ mind, it is important that the due-diligence which is a regular exercise, post personality-alignment between the brand and the prospective endorser, is not just restricted to the prospective endorser but also to his or her inner-circle ie, the closest family members. The due diligence must along with other things (acceptability, appeal, relevance, credibility, social status, legal baggage etc) include a possibility of prospective endorsements and a contingency plan in case the family member’s brand endorsement interferes directly or indirectly with the primary brand endorsement. While this is a internal preventive technique, marketers can also adopt a regulated preventive technique where contracts pertaining to brand endorsements can be made to extend the exclusivity and non-compete clauses to family members. These of course will be difficult to draft as well as implement, and beyond doubt much more expensive.

There are of course various factors to consider before choosing one of the two techniques and a risk-impact analysis is a must before making a final call. These techniques can help marketers avoid losing their sleep over a challenger brand piggy-backing on their brand ambassador’s family member (and hence manipulating an already established positioning of their brand in the prospect’s mind!).

5 things about Patanjali and its product placement in Modern Retail set-up

Patanjali has been at the center of limelight for quite some time now. Many case studies have been piloted and a lot of research has been done to analyze its purchasing, operations, logistics, marketing and to some extent financing.

In this post we will look at the more simpler yet distinct steps it has taken in modern retail in terms of product placement, shelf design and location and assortment display. Here are five things which you may have missed when you passed by the Patanjali ‘mini-store’ in a modern-store.

• Patanjali, with its strong consumer-demand derived strength, has been able to command for itself exclusive mini-store like spaces in the modern retail set-ups. These are a set of shelves especially reserved for Patanjali products. More often than not, these shelves will be separated from the long racks stocked with other manufacturer’s brand-lines, which gives Patanjali a strong visbility and adds to its distinct-ness.

• Apart from the distinct-ness created due to a separate display space creating an anti-me-too impression (much needed differentiation in FMCG domain!), Patanjali is able to keep all its products at one place irrespective of product category (food products like noodles, honey and chyawanprash, and personal care products like bathing bar, face-wash and face creams) that leads to extensive cross-product selling. Customer who would have wanted to buy Patanjali toothpaste can take a long look of, feel the packaging and read the content on the face-wash that is kept just next to it.

• Interestingly, Patanjali is only one of the very few known brands at the moment, who in the modern retail set-ups, have not resorted to multi-unit packings for products such as soaps (bathing and washing bars), toothpaste etc. This means, that consumers who do not want to spend 100 Rs on buying soaps (even if it means buying 3 soap bars) can always pick Patanjali soaps for as cheap as 13 Rs. Also, none of the products offered has gone to package size beyond the nuclear-family packs, hence, none of the product’s price seems outrageous (when your brain is not in the mood to calculate per kg or per 500 gm or per ‘normal unit size’ price of the product, it just renders pricing of bhujia at 200+ Rs (for 1 Kg!), and 400+ Rs corn flakes (1.2 kg!) as outrageously expensive, and for some time putting the “unaffordable” tag on the brand itself.

• Patanjali can attribute its success (provisional revenue for 10 months in FY 16 upwards of 3200 crores Rs) to many things and there is a lot already written about it. One of many such attributes is its products’ direct or indirect link to Ayurvedic roots. Patanjali Yog Kendra and Swadeshi Kendra have been selling ayurvedic products and medicines for quite some time but there haven’t been strong inroads for these products in modern retail set-ups. However, the presence of these products right next to the fast-running ones like soaps, toothpaste and biscuits makes up for their weak revenue generation. These ayurvedic products reinforce the connection of fast running non-medicinal products to ayurveda, just by being placed next to them, and helps in maintaining and growing brand credibility

• Critics observe that one segment which has not accepted the product the way a bigger chunk has accepted it is the Muslim community due to their religious beliefs and also with lack of resonance with the star ambassador of Patanjali, Baba Ramdev. However, the company has tried to make some inroads with the segment by putting the label on their recently launched spices packs in Urdu, along with other Indian languages. While, this is just a start, we may see more such attempts to woo the community by advancing Patanjali products to their ‘consideration set’ from the current ‘evaluation set’. 

Product Placement/Collaboration - A Journey from Vicarious to Personal Experience

Product Placement is formally defined as - "any form of audio-visual commercial communication consisting of the inclusion of or reference to a product, a service or the trade mark thereof so that it is featured within a programme..". Its about time we change the "..featured within programme" part in that definition, as the product is not placed far away in a movie reel anymore, it is within its actual intended customer's reach, and sometimes literally in his hands!

From FedEx in Cast Away to Coke in Taal and from modern family's apple ipad show to the Safari Storme's presence in the Indian TV series 24, the product placement was pretty much a vicarious experience, with its relevance preserved and communication cascaded through the scene's. The TG not only related with the product through the associated actor and story line, but also the brand message was succinctly absorbed. But the tactic soon started to be overused to an extent that the two essential component for product placement's success, relevance and integration were given a back seat and mindless visibility drove the fad. Soon, more often than not, the placements started to be first ridiculed and then conveniently ignored by the audience.

This trend was slightly arrested by bringing a higher credibility to the product's relevance and its integration with a real-life situation (instead of story line), by taking products a little closer to 'reality'. The wave of product placement in the so-called "Reality Shows" struck and we started seeing bottled beverages consumed by the judges' and motorbikes being ridden by the contestants. Since, the audience generally believed that the reality shows are for real (yes, it did then and it still does!), the products were brought closer to the real target audience with much ease, piggybacking on the credibility and fan-following of judges and contestants of these shows.

Parallel to this, another wave of product placements brought this marketing tactic even closer to its audience by the means of enhancing the 'reality' content to highest level thus far. It must be noted that the product placement in sports has been there for a long time, but never been given so much prominence, as it is been given now. The strongest argument in favour of product placement in sports is that it is as real as it gets (fingers crossed!) and hence the audience is able to relate to the product communication and promise in an empowered way, as the customer attributes the purchase decision to a strong and credible show of trustworthiness by the product/brand through sports ambassadors in a real sporting event.

While, many would have thought that this is as closer as the product placement can get to its customer,  i recently came across two on-field executions  where the product is placed further closer to its target audience(literally in audience's hands!). Relevance and Seamless Integration - the two basic pillars for a successful product placement strategy are excellently preserved.

The first one was Ms Hema Malini promoting "The World's Best RO Purifier"(What?) at 30000 fts, while the very welcomed 'complimentary' paper cup with water (assuming RO purified!) is served (How?) in an Indigo flight (Where?). A simple cup of water served with an ad by an aggressive and innovative water purifier company, in a set-up where everyone has lots of time to notice, watch and analyse (When?), a sweet spot is hit.

The second execution was of mindfully placed 'Tempo' hand sanitizers on each table at a McDonalds restaurant. A beautiful multi-pronged placement strategy -

• Promoting an easy to use hand sanitizer with a pleasant fragrance (What?)
• Invoking hygiene and health concerns when people are about to eat food (When?)
• Making the product available at arm's reach on the same table where the food is placed (Where?)
• Allowing customers to try the product for free (How?)
• Gain customer mind-share, especially with a very dominant player present in the segment

The above two product placement (& collaboration) strategies with their multi-pronged targeting demonstrates a never ending world of opportunities to market product and brands with placement anc collaboration strategies.

Also, these executions open hosts of other avenues for product placements/collaboration well beyond the traditional audio-visual commercial avenues that forms the basis of the widely accepted definition of product placement.

Certainly, the product placement as a marketing strategy has brought the products once marketed by TV actors in the movies and vicariously experienced by the audience, to the very hands of its target customers where the story line is not just real, but is also personal and tha too, to each one!

Cheers,.

Jaguar XJ ad features Kareena Kapoor Khan - Misfired?

Recently the new commercial for Jaguar XJ was aired. The ad features the beautiful Kareena Kapoor Khan.

While the ad tries to demonstrate the killer looks and astonishing features that the Jaguar sports, the effort fell way short in creating the magic one would expected from a Jaguar ad (Given their pleasant track record in ad intelligence, especially in last couple of years). The reason could be attributed to a series of loopholes that found place in this ad.

The ad starts very much like the Jaguar ads made for foreign markets but very quickly gives away the protagonist baton to the actress. The subsequent screens take their own sweet time while admiring the beauty of the actress while squeezing the frames which had the car and its features as focus.

• Emotion mismatch - Elegance mixed with confidence would have been the right emotion for presenting a product which is an icon in itself. It would also have complimented the global image of the brand, hence keeping consistency for the brand communication across poles and hemisphere. But for some strange reasons, the ad-makers and the script writers chose to unleash the good actress, which she is  instead of the product being the center piece of communication.

          The gestures and the emotions displayed by the actress are more suitable for a furniture or bathroom fitting advertisement. For example, multiple glides of fingers on the car fixtures. Also an interesting expression spawned over multiple frames, that of an overjoyed kid sitting first time in a 'big' car

              

• Choice of Brand ambassador - Well, this may be a contentious one, but Kareena Kapoor Khan may not be the best choice as a brand ambassador for the Jaguar. The power and iconic status the brand should look for itself in India, does not resonate with the actress brand image. 

More so when the actress is also doing ads for many mass products like cold drink(limca) and cosmetics products (boroplus). To add, she has been doing these ads for quite some time now. Long enough for the audience to have created a perception of brands associated with her. So when she promotes a low cost mobile phone(iball) or a sachet for boroplus that costs 5 rs, the audience bolsters a perception about her association with price sensitive product (barring Sony Vaio).

Not to forget she hasn't had any 'iconic'performance, critically or commercially, for a long time now in            movies either. Bad time to form an association!

• Adjectives chosen to define brand traits - Elegance and Sophistication are the right words we would want to associate with the brand Jaguar. But liveliness and inner beauty are misplaced. Somehow there is a lousy attempt to associate the actress' personality traits to the Jaguar. This not only is irrelevant but also puts the idea of wow-ing the audience with the product in the back seat. (Is Kareena Kapoor Khan the benchmark for Jaguar?). 

The tagline "How alive are you" may come out as a good one in a different situation and a different ad but wrt this advertisement, it comes out to be completely out of place, not leading the audience anywhere.

              

• Brand personification - The conversation in the ad's background by the actress, tries to personify the brand, quite forcefully with someone who understands her. An easy innuendo to her partner in real life. This trick kind of takes away the focus from the car to the actress' personal liking and life. Always remember - Indians lose focus of everything when placed against the Bollywood tit-bits. Bad move.

• Bollywod-yfying - While we love our bollywood, It is no secret that we love international brands to remain "international". It adds a perceived benefit to the product emotionally, socially and financially for us. Hence, though bollywood-yfying a product may look like reaching out to the newer pastures in terms of TG, it might hit back if the brand is too "Indianzied" in the effort. The term "Iconic British Brand" would yield more for Jaguar than the "Indianized" version of it.

While it can be agreed that having Kareena Kapoor Khan in the ad will connect with a bigger audience in the country and will create awareness about this iconic brand, but the real question is -

• Is the TG focused through this advertisement right for Jaguar XJ?

Before signing out, Check out this ad for Jaguar for UK market.

          

Cheers,

Amazon @ Seamless Innovation

Amazon’s Octocopter project swept many people e off their feet. It looked like future had arrived. Whether the project and idea is safe and more importantly legal in countries where Amazon would want to take this concept is a topic for a different day, but how revolutionary the idea is in terms of exceeding customer expectations in terms of delivery and service, we will take that into consideration for now. 

   

Marketing is not just about building a brand. It is also about creating a brand promise, communicating this promise to customers and most importantly, fulfilling that promise, time and over again.At a time when there is intense competition between companies to grab a share of consumer consumption, arriving at a brand promise and consistently delivering it is a critical factor for success of any brand and company.

Reliable, quick and hassle-free home-delivery is one such promise that is being made by a lot of companies these days. These companies are from sectors like e-commerce, food-chains, courier & logistics and many more.

With benchmarks for customer service and satisfaction rising due to the availability of alternatives and higher purchasing power, run of the mill ideas for marketing and customer services have started to feel the heat. Whether a company wants to grab its TG's attention or want to delight its customers through its service, innovation has become a game changer.Innovation has become a major factor to differentiate between ordinary and brilliant companies and brand.

Amazon is one such company which has always been know for its innovative approach towards its business.  The recent initiatives taken by Amazon testifies this. One is the much hyped experiment about using drones to deliver products to customers. But the other one is much local and much more viable option which many of us would not have imagined.

When a company demonstrates its futuristic delivery idea, how many of us would imagine that the same company is also roping in an organization tagged as old and slow – India Post, for the same objective- delivery! .  This is a classic example of seamless innovation. This is also something, which most of the organizations have not been able to achieve. When a company goes for all-tech futuristic innovations, it is almost impossible to have eyes open to more traditional avenues to innovate. Amazon did that.

The end objective in both the cases is same but the TG of course changes. The drone delivery would be for achieving quick delivery times and the India post collaboration is to achieve high penetration for the company in terms of customer reach. Not to forget the drone experiment was not done in India or for Indian market though, but the extent of pro-activeness and the efforts to achieve customer delight  is remarkable in the Jeff Bezos led company.

Also, one should note that Amazon's drone delivery experiment is not the first one since Dominoz has done this experiment in June this year already.

   

 But what makes Amazon special is the bandwidth of innovation it allows its employees and teams across globe to create value for their customer. This organizational culture not just enriches its employees with learning but also benefits its customers. Truly inspiring!

Cheers, 

Brand Building Series #1

CPM – Three Pillars of Brand Building 

Branding is everywhere. And hence, it has gone through what everything that is everywhere has – for ever and ever. Overburdened! Cliched!Confused!

Unfortunately, definitions and explanations sought on branding are more likely to confuse the seeker than clarify. The reason is the vicious mumbo jumbo everyone chooses to rattle rather than KISS-ing (Keep-ing it simple!)

This short piece is to make things really simple for everyone.

Brand is not the name of a company or a logo or a colour its mnemonics carry. Instead, these are part of the brand identity.

Brand, simply put is – What people perceive in their mind about 

• A person
• A company
• A product/service

Obviously when we perceive something good about apple or amazon – It means that these companies have been successful in creating an effective and beneficial brand image for themselves. In broader terms they have been able to create a brand for themselves.

But how have they been able to do that while others either failed or were not so successful?

It takes more than just pumping money in campaigns and promotions to create a brand. It is generally a slower process and hence demands utmost discipline and patience.

In this piece, we only invoke the three pillars of brand building while keeping details on how a brand is built, for the next parts of the series. These pillars must be closely analyzed in order to move in the right direction to build a brand that lasts!

The three pillars of Brand Building are, CPM –

·    

• Customer
• Who is my customer 
• Target Group and traits
• What delights him
• Know what they expect and exceed it
• What influences him 
• Decision-making and influencers 
• Product
• What is my product type
• High/Low Involvement              
• Mass/Niche catering
• Innovative/Me-too
• Where does it fit in
• Need
• Comfort
• Aspiration
• What is its UVP  
• Unique Value Proposition
• Market
• Competition
• Acknowledge
• Observe
• Study
• PoSs and PoDs
• Points of Similarities
• Points of Differences within products available in the market
• Industry trends/Norms
• Fundamentals of the Industry
• Influencing factors

These pillars must be thoroughly understood by every marketer who wishes to build a brand.  Each parameter/question/factor mentioned under the pillar and sections under the pillar requires deep analysis which leads to certain answers.

Based upon these answers, a strategy is devised to help in building a brand. More on this, in the sequel to the series.

Cheers,

Mantastic may not always be Fantastic - Milind Soman Old Spice Ad

The latest ad from Old spice india is already creating buzz. With more than one and a half million views already, this ad has sure grabbed enough eye-balls. Stats have been disabled for the video for now.
There are multiple facets to the theme, execution and brand proposition offered by this ad.

For starters, Old spice India, with this ad, brings on television - Milind Soman, the first and probably the only super male model of the country to the small screen after a long time and more importantly, in an avatar which accentuate his presence.

The underlying theme for men's deodorants have largely been same across all brands. Fog and Nivea, very recently did something on different lines but still the underlying proposition largely remains same. Unfortunately, this ad, though with a peculiar set up and execution theme, does not strike a very different chord than the chore.

Firstly, this ad is heavily inspired by the Old spice ad on the theme - "The man your man can smell like" which was a wildfire in online ad trade. The ad starring Isaiah Mustafa was thronged by monologues which made it difficult to break attention for the viewers. The underlying proposition was - Old spice does wonder to its consumer and makes him uber-attractive to his female counterparts

In the latest Indian version, Milind Soman is seen to be undertaking the similar task. The ad starts with him donning just a towel and a pair of sunglasses(and of course a gold chain shouting out loud -'MAN') to add to the "kewl" quotient. He later talks about his realization on how being a macho is not about gelled hair. One can't miss a cue dropped when while being uber-cool he is sipping tea in a silverware (trying to break more myths on "kewlness"). He then invokes the lady-luck of all deodorant brands, the 'sweetheart'(How did fairer skin become an inevitable part of men hygiene?) to hand him over a bottle of old-spice deodorant. The ad ends with the 'sweetheart' sitting in his lap but not before he has pushed hastily a brief and desperately timed sales-pitch where he insipidly asks people to buy Old-spice to become 'mantastic'. The newly coined word 'mantastic' just seems to be a substitute for "macho-ism". Ans all this is happening when the background music is being played on sitar.

   
There are highs and lows for this advertisement and i'm sure marketeers were betting more on highs than they were worried about lows. For example, Milind Soman seems to be a great choice for the product and brand considering his reputation of being bold and due to the fact that he has been a male super-model, a coveted profession for many. Bringing him onscreen with a low 'apparel budget' was also a way to strengthen his
'desirable' rapport with women. The set-up easily breaks out off the clutter from run-of-the-mill deodorant ads where audience at the start of ad itself can zero down the ad to be for either a condom brand or a deodorant(sadly yes!). Background music is intelligently chosen to aid the set-up.

Alas! The highs ends here, and i have not even touched the product and the brand proposition. The biggest problem as mostly with clutter-breaking ads is, when the ad takes over the supposedly central figure of the whole idea- the product or brand.

The 'Mantastic' theme seems to be halfhearted one. How Old spice builds it from here, will be important. The flat speech on do's and dont's of macho-ism looks more like an interview which audience didn't ask for. The "Sweetheart" ends up adding the same 'old spice' to the ad only bringing it closer to the other deoderant ads by emphasizing the 'Use deo to get girls' theme.Informing the audience about ingredients which are largely chemicals (or at least sound so) doesn't help the cause either.

Overall, the ad gives some new and intelligent avenues while falls flat miserably at some points. How it helps P&G in terms of top-line, that is yet to be seen. But for sure, this ad is a great learning for marketing students on what to do and what not to do while conceiving an ad concept.

Cheers,

Nike – Just did it…again !

It is remarkable how Nike manages to get into the wrong bogie every time. For the most innovative company of 2012 (Fastcompany.com), it is ironical to be astonishingly innovative and sadly, succeeding in finding a terrible end to its celebrity endorsement spree, with so much consistency!

When Oscar Pistorius was caught on charges of murdering his girlfriend earlier this week, Nike added another feather to its embarrassing “endorsement-gone-wrong” cap (Other feathers being Marion Jones, Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, Joe Paterno etc)

Oscar Pistorius

Celebrity endorsement has always been counted as one of the safest marketing tactics. But the times have changed and so is the perception of brands endorsed by celebrities. In the backdrop of multiple surveys it may be safe to assume that celebrity endorsement, to say the least, is no more a safe bet when it comes to ROI for marketers. However, endorsement of sports products by sports personalities still remains to be fairly effective. 

Celebrity-Brand connection due to endorsement

It is largely because of the very association which a consumer can make between the endorser and the product. Since the endorser is not just the propagator of the brand and its advantages, but is also an aspirational figure for the same audience, the brand identity is strengthened due to such endorsements.

Consistent brand communication, synergy between the endorser and the brand, brand personality created due to the endorser and the overall credibility of the endorser are some of the other reasons why companies are still relying upon sports figures for brand endorsements.

At first look, it may seem like this is it; the big marketing tactic for any product under the sun. But since we are only halfway through this post, I guess you must have realized that I would say, No!

Factors affecting celebrity Brand endorsement

Celebrity endorsement is not a no-risk game. There are substantial risks involved and multiple aspects must be considered before going on with one. Check the smart-art figure for some pointers on these.

Nike, for sure must have done extensive research work before inking endorsement deals but these did not turned out to be as favorable as Nike wanted them to be. Hence, what also must be clearly put through is a mitigation and contingency plan in the event of risk actualization. That is where Nike has had problems too, which is rather sad considering that the other factors, of course, were beyond its control, but its own response to the disaster was rather perplexing and self-defeating.

Tiger Woods hurt the brand due to his off-field behavior when he was alleged of having multiple affairs outside his marriage. The scandal hit both his credibility as well as personality. However, Nike kept faith in Tiger Woods and made an argument that being a world-class sports performance brand it builds upon the elitist athletic performances of its endorsers and draws a line between their personal and professional conduct. It though suspended certain ads for some time but got on with them after some time again.

Tiger Woods

Nike was a tad late in dropping Lance Armstrong as its endorser after he was charged for doping, which was as per the US Anti-Doping Agency, "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping programmme that sport has ever seen". It even stood by Armstrong initially, before disowning him emphasizing that since Lance Armstrong had betrayed the spirit of sportsmanship, which the brand stands for, there was no reason to continue supporting him.

Lance Armstrong

In case of Oscar Pistorius, Nike was quick to take off its “I am the bullet in the chamber” ad featuring him and seems to be on back-foot. This is in stark difference with the other two cases. Though the affecting behavior again is outside the field but the response was one which was supported by Nike for conduct on-field (in connection with Nike’s argument in case of Tiger Woods).

It’s a Deja-vu moment for Nike with Oscar Pistorius. It is to be seen how it respond to this known threat externally and internally but for sure, the celebrity research teams got their job-descriptions extended with - comprehensive personal information collection, analysis and risk calculation. May God be with them!

Cheers,