Mother-branding The Future
By Harish Bijoor
The future of brands will lie in the powerful mother brands you will build assiduously today.
Amul built it many years ago. Amul the mother brand is advertised and all other brands that shelter under this umbrella are at best driven by local promotions, tactical pieces of advertising and activities very much below-the-line. Amul is therefore a butter as equally a Pizza and a 'Shrikhand'. It could be anything else as well!
Nescafe is taking those wee baby steps towards mother-brand status with its not such an old hat decision of bringing the Nescafe label onto the hitherto aggressively and single-mindedly advertised South-India centric brand of coffee-chicory soluble mix, Sunrise! It happened in slow motion, but the moves are distinct and noticeable. In the beginning came the Nescafe brand name on the top label of
Britannia is a classic example as well. Britannia means Jacob's Thin as much as a Milkman. It could even mean the mother of a Tiger or a mother of a 50:50!
And then we have the latest moves of the latest mother-brander of them all! HLL! Peek keenly at the strategy that lies underneath the division of the tea portfolio of brands within the Lever pack! From a brand-doctor's point of view, the HLL beverages strategy seems well honed. The idea is simple. There will be two sets of mother brands. Lipton and Brooke Bond! Two hitherto very strong brand names that conjure up the very basic image of quality tea in the Indian market. Two big mother brands that represented two different competing companies in the tea market in the Indian context. These two giant tea companies at one point of time literally occupied the entire share that was available for the Packet tea industry in the country. Till one day both companies came under the common Unilever umbrella!
And then began a process of consolidation of these two sets of disparate brands with distinct identity sets in the minds of the consumers. Many a consolidation effort took many a step that wanted a complete rationalization of the brand offering in the common Indian market, hitherto attempted to be cracked open by the two big mother brands as two separate companies. Individual brands under the banner of each of the two companies in question were pushed pretty aggressively.
Years went by, and the Power Brands happened. The Power brand movement across markets is a keen focus on those singular brands that enter large number of homes and hearts. Brands that possibly contribute bulk of the revenues and brands that possibly occupy dominant mind-shares. Dominant brands that hold the potential of bringing in the profits of the future.
In many ways, the Power Brand movement swims quite against the tide of the mother-branding norm. Power brands are pretty individualistic in their quest for mind-share and slice of market. Mother-brands on the other hand are benign umbrellas that shade many a power brand of today and, Brand Manager and God (in that order) willing, many a power brand of the future! The Mother Brand movement is all about providing equity rub-off to all kid, cousin, sister and even aunt brands one might find in the existing portfolio of the company in question.
The HLL effort is distinct. Has come a full circle after exploring the gamut of whatever was possible. Commendable for sure! Brooke Bond will want to regain for itself the last remaining vestiges of positive equity that consumers still feel for the one generic term that represented good quality tea in the country. Brooke Bond the mother-brand will then take on under its wing granduncle A-1, sister Taj Mahal, cousin 3 Roses, father Red-Label and a host of others.
The Unilever movement in the domain of tea is very likely a big experiment in the realm of Mother-branding. Possibly the biggest we will see in any industry sector within the country. Remember, these packs of teas have a significant amount of consumer interfaces daily! If it works, who knows, the entire detergent category might be a Surf and the entire Toothpaste category a Close-Up!!!
As HLL experiments with mother-branding, paving the way for a whole big way of looking at brands in this country and indeed the region, it will be interesting to watch the trajectory individual brand propositions will take.
One route to adopt: Forget all those confusing little propositions different sub-brands normally take and assume the consumer understands the subtle differences and nuances between one Brand Positioning Statement and another. Worse still, remember, a BPS gets into the trickier arena of the APS (Advertising Positioning Statement) that in the current day and age of high-tension-creativity is even more mind-boggling. Keep it simple. The mother-brand will advertise and no one individual brand will. Over the next several years, even decades, the individual brand propositions built with such great passion will be soon forgotten. What will remain is what the mother brand will say!
The other route then: Above the line communication will be occupied by the mother-brand. Remember, segmenting the audience in mass media is getting that much more difficult than before! And below-the-line communication will focus on the individual brand propositions. The strategy is mother branding. The tactical inputs into the brand will focus on the sub-brand! This is a well-hedged route for the brand to take. The best of both worlds-route really!
Look out then for more mother-branders in the future! The benefits are clear. As advertising gets more and more expensive a proposition to handle, as clutter in mediums get akin to visual and aural garbage, as segmentation of audience becomes a great big challenge in the mass media of the day there seems just one prudent way to go. Mother brand!
Remember, if I advertise Ford, I build a durable future for my mother brand. If I advertise the Ikon alone, the Ikon will come and go as a fashion statement. Generations will come and go and with it will go all the money I spent on Ikon advertising. If I advertise on Ford and keep strengthening equity, it is a property I build forever. Build for the ever-stretched out future!
Brand-kids, watch-out! The mother-brand movement is here!
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The author is a Brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.
Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com
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