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,.

How advertiser funded films are going to change the marketing spectrum in India?

Branding and entertainment have traditionally been woven together by a simpler concept of product placement where a product is placed on the screen making it a part of the set-up in order to strike the audience with the brand and its usage by the movie/ programme’s characters.

A few years back when Adidas decided to finance the ‘Goal’ movie trilogy with about $100 million investment, it was more than just a product placement. The financial risk was high due to the huge investment while it also gave Adidas the freedom to try and convey its message and brand personality to its audience in more number of ways than what a product placement would have offered.

Such productions where the whole programme or a movie is financed by a brand or a company whose primary objective is to put across its brand communication to its audience in a way which is more entertaining and assertive than the traditional advertising are known as advertiser funded programmes (AFP) and advertiser funded films (AFF). Some people also choose to call this practice Brand entertainment since a brand wrapped in a programme or film entertains the audience.It essentially is a step further by marketers from the product placement concept in the entertainment domain for communicating with its customers.

Simply put, AFFs and AFPs are content that allows brands to forge a deeper relationship with production houses via a funding model either in full or in part. Once executed, the advertiser’s investment is employed into producing the content while the advertiser earns a great degree of ownership over the content as well as its use as a wider communication platform for its brand/product/message.

Watch a short video by Schuyler Moore on how AFFs can be the future of marketing. Click here

Outside India, AFPs and AFFs have been regularly used as marketing and communication tools. The term soap opera was so called because the original soap operas were funded and produced by soap companies such as P&G. Some of the recent examples are short films by BMW, Castrol edge, TBA by Vodafone etc. P&G and Walmart have already announced their interest and entry into this newer advertising platform.

Click the below links to watch the video clips.

BMW funded short film - Hire

Castrol funded documentary film on Cristiano Ronalo

AFPs have been common in Indian marketing context as well, though AFF is a newer concept for India. Some of the examples of AFPs in India are - Cadbury Bournvita Confidence Champion, IDBIs Sawaal India ka, L’Oreal Elite Model Look ’06 etc, MTV Panasonic face of beauty (Watch video clip) etc.

Read more on IDBIs Sawaal India ka

AFFs prospects doesn’t look bleak either with the numero uno car company of India, Maruti Suzuki having tested the AFF waters very recently by partly funding the bollywood release “Mere Dad ki Maruti” produced by Y-Films, a subsidiary of Yash Raj Films. The producers wanted to make an advertising funded movie and with the of the movie based on family car, they pitches it to multiple auto companies in the country and Maruti turned out to be the most favoured partner with highest bid. 

Maruti Suzuki invested around Rs 6 crores in the movie which had a total budget of Rs 10 crores. As for the returns for the auto major, the movie has already earned more than Rs 8 crore and apart from having its brand name in the film title, it also managed to hog the spotlight throughout the two hours as Maruti is the main protagonist of the film. From Maruti 800 to the Swift and finally the Ertiga, the story weaves in both loyalty and aspiration towards the brand. A common feedback from the movie audience was that the movie was a fun-filled 2 hour Maruti advertisement.

 Marketers’ biggest challenge these days is to secure brand-space in their customers’ minds and with customers trying harder than ever to keep traditional advertising away, the challenge has only become more daunting. Hence, newer platforms for communication must be continuously looked upon. Advertiser funded programmes (AFP) and advertiser funded films (AFF) are such innovative planks to base marketing communications on.

AFPs and AFFs can be the new flag-bearers for Indian marketing rumble but how quickly and in what spectrum they evolve, it is yet to be seen.

Cheers,