Brand Thinker

Chicken and egg retail

2012-02-03T19:26:00.001-08:00

The Chicken and Egg of Retail

By Harish Bijoor

As we get excited with every data bit and byte that hits at us on the front of the Indian economy at large, and the emergence of modern retail as the ‘manna from heaven’ solution that promises to tie up an efficient supply-chain that links the deprived back-end to the craving front end of Indian consumers on a consumption spree, we forget something basic.

Yes, India is growing. Yes, the prognosis says that India will be a USD 7 Trillion economy by 2020. Yes, we will be the third largest economy after China(which will incidentally be at the USD 16 Trillion number in 2020) and the US(at USD 21 Trillion!)
And yes, the latest census proudly tells us that we are all of 1.21 Billion people now. And yes, the spending power of the Indian is on the morph. But, as I have already said, we keep forgetting something basic.

The basic then: Indian retail is chasing the Western dream a bit too much by rote. If at all Indian retail needs to be relevant, original and innovative in terms of appeal to the Indian at large, we need to be different. Different on the one acid-test scale that every human being looks at the buying, selling and intermediation process at large. With Integrity.

In the several marketing summers I have lived, fought, sweated and thrived, there is one insight that has held me in good stead. This is the insight of Integrity branding.

Integrity branding is all about saying the simple truths in your brand communication process. Stick to the tone and tenor of integrity and you can’t do no wrong!

Let me look at it in a manner of detailing the concept at hand. The point is simple. All consumers are essentially truth seeking animals. Yes, all of us lie in some small manner or the other. These are really the small lies that make the fabric of our modern day lives. Small lies that ward off the inconvenience of a lie-less society.

Despite all these small lies, we are essentially truth seeking as consumers. When you buy a toothpaste, you expect honesty out of the entire exercise. The consumer-brand interaction process is a relationship. A relationship quite like the many relationships we go through in our social lives.

When you get into a relationship with a member of the opposite sex, or let me be politically correct and say member of the same sex even, you expect just one primary thing out of the relationship. The truth. There is no relationship you get into expecting dishonesty and the lack of integrity.

Very simply put, consumers get into brand relationships based on the expectation of the truth. But does she get it? And how much of it? And how frequently so?

My belief is that the brand that offers the most of the truth most of the time in this continuous relationship is the one that succeeds. The brand that fails on this count is an utter failure right away, or on the path of a self-fulfilling prophesy of doom round the corner.

Let me illustrate this with an example. Let me choose my favorite gourmet table bird for this example, the chicken! Let me take three of them.

There are really three chickens in our marketing lives. And remember, all of us are marketing people, since there are only two kinds of people in the world. The “marketing person”, who markets to others. And the “marketed-to person” at the other end!

Imagine three chickens out there. Each of the chickens is a manufacturer and a marketer. Each of the chickens has done something they are very good at. Each has laid an egg. And each of the eggs looks alike.

Each of the marketer chickens takes a different path to market their respective eggs.

There is the first chicken, which I call the “Shy chicken”. This chicken looks at the egg it has laid and finds the product quality to be all of 100. It then stands up, looks at the target audience of potential consumers and whispers with a decibel of shout that is at best 2 on a scale of 100.

This chicken’s whisper is heard by very few of those in the target audience. Even those who hear of it, hear it as a faint whisper. The promise offered by the whisper is just 2 on a scale of 100. Those few who hear the whisper actually come to see the egg, lured often by the under-shout that creates quite a bit of mystery in the consumer at hand.

When the few consumers actually arrive to see the product, there is great joy. The consumer expectation of 2 is rewarded with a delivery of 100. The positive strokes offered in this purchase is +98. The negative of this approach of course is the fact that it scores very low on consumer awareness scores.

Look at the second chicken then. This is what I call the “honest chicken”. This chicken looks at the target audience and shouts out the product offer with a shout level of decibel 100. The shout quality is equal to that of product quality.

The pros of this approach is apparent. Awareness scores are good. Everyone has heard that the chicken has an egg to offer. But there is a problem here. Consumers do not necessarily respect honest chickens. When the consumer has heard the full story, he does not want to see the egg at all. There is just no mystery. Only a few arrive to see the egg, and these are the only ones who actually need an egg. And when they arrive, they expect 100 and get 100. No positive strokes and no negative. The potential of a buy is low as well.

The third chicken is waiting. This chicken finds the competition hot. This chicken gets onto the rooftop and shouts with a decibel value 400. The darned chicken has laid an egg but shouts as if it has laid an asteroid! The awareness scores are terrific. The entire town lands up to look at the phenomena. The expectation is 400. The delivery is 100. There is a negative stroke quotient of -300. And nobody buys!

All these three chickens and their respective approaches are out there for the marketer to choose from. Each of us makes this choice every living day. There are variations available in the gamut of 0-400 in terms of shout levels. Different marketers choose differently.

But guess what, the chicken that shouts with a decibel of 80 is the one that succeeds the most. Also, after 400 what? Back to a decibel of 2. In a market where everyone is shouting at 400, the one chicken which whispers the least is the one that is heard and trusted the most.

Think about it. Which chicken are you as a marketer? And which chicken are you as a working person? And which chicken are you as a person living in a family of your own?

The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc., a consulting practice with presence in the markets of Hong Kong, Dubai, UK and India.
Email:harishbijoor@hotmail.com
Follow me on Twitter.com/harishbijoor

Market Research Newness

2009-01-27T20:32:00.000-08:00

Virgin Research!

By Harish Bijoor

Market Research is too important a subject to be left to the Market Research people. A statement enough to get me on the hit list of many an MR man, woman and child in the great Indian marketplace for Market Research!

There is for sure a case to involve the “all and sundry” in the process of understanding the process. A need for a thorough overhaul of sorts. A thorough shake-up of the traditional paradigm. Market Research in India has remained somnolent for far too long. Too static. Too traditional. And too bound by the manual of marketing research, carved in stone.

The times have changed. People, habits, usages, mind-sets, culture, icons, marketing men and women, markets, consumers, non-consumers, retailers, wholesalers, intermediaries of other kinds, and literally every constituent in the marketing chain of events has changed. Nothing indeed is the way it was. Why then must MR be the way it was? Time to change. Time for a radical kick-up of the tried and tested ways!

Sample-based research, Intrusive research, the omni-present Questionnaire, the Omniscient Focus group and the Omnipotent Dipstick of every hue and variety, are testimonies of the life gone by.

But all of a sudden, the nifty marketer is jolted. Much of what he saw and read in those bound MR reports are not happening the way they were meant to. Micro tests are not predicting properly, Usage and Attitude trends tapped in the traditional way aren’t working, and life in the fast lane of Marketing is getting unpredictable, despite the back-up of reams and reams of consumer insight, gathered the painstaking way.

The 2X2 matrices, the trend lines, those very impressive nuts and bolts are just not impressive enough. Time to sit up and think why.

The consumer seems to live and breathe a more dynamic mind, mood and language than the one represented in well-crafted PowerPoint presentations made off high-end laptops!

All that apart, I make out a case on the methodology of market research itself. I make a strong case to say that briefing a market researcher on the product and its consumption patterns, the target segment, the demographics to check and stuff of this kind itself is a technique that is passé. Let us floss over this process completely.

A brief is meant to be really brief. When you market research your way through a category of a Lux or a laxative in the market, investigate with the eye and mind of a newborn child. Investigate a category not based on the bias of a brief. Probe not deeper into the category by reading up all that is available on the category. Probe into a territory of research as a newborn. Probe with the eagerness and undiluted enthusiasm of a child on the prowl. Virgin research! Shall we call it that?

An approach such as this is needed to jolt the complacent from their cocoons of contentment. Market Research is getting too easy. Is it getting quite like the territory of the Consultant? The guy who picks the mind of this and that to arrive at a theory that is but a poll of executive opinion? Can market research afford to be just that?

How many can really stand up and say that the bias of the client does not find its way into the end-diagnostics that are presented by a whole host of MR practitioners across the country? If you want to challenge this, the best way is Virgin research. Just take a three line brief from the client. Read less of the written stuff. Read less of the syndicated material on the category you investigate. Surf the Net even less to get this view and that opinion.

Go forth into the market knowing nothing that can cloud the insight you will gain from the market. Make your methodology that much more open-ended, that much more explorative, and that much more reliable. Base it less on the bias of the category and the bias of the client.

Be prepared as well to present to the client findings that might just not jell with the sophistry of category understanding, which is the prerogative of the client. Be prepared to feign ignorance of the basics that the client assumes you must know. This is no longer an embarrassment. The true-blue client will see this as strength, in times to come.

But give the client that much more of understanding. Understanding that does not necessarily toe the line of expectation. Instead, understanding and consumer insight that is that much more pure and unaffected. Understanding that may well nigh be complementary to what the client already has.

Is this how market research of the future will be done?

I hope so. Hope so! Hope so! Hope so!

The author is CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.
Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

Branding in the Outdoors

2009-01-09T19:34:00.000-08:00

Brands Run Out-of-Home

By Harish Bijoor

Have you caught the tail of a new trend in town? Have you as yet spotted the best of brands running into the terrain of out-of-home consumption? Running for cover from the melt-down in the in-home segment of consumption!

Lipton Yellow Label has painted many a town and city yellow! A whole corner of the stretch of territory near Mumbai's Juhu beach is all but he colour yellow! Many a restaurant, many a bus stop, and many a signage potential is today all yellow! Lipton seems to run out of home and focus on consumption that is outdoor while sister Brooke Bond seems to focus on what is happening inside the home!

Peek keenly at the new Horlicks commercial! Peek keenly at the development of the Café(including the Nescafe Café) of every hue in the great Indian marketplace. Brands, hitherto pretty content with in-home consumption seem to want to be out there in the great outdoors! Amidst the happening people of a happening Indian marketplace!

Every Vending machine out there in the great Indian marketplace, every new Mall that is breeding a whole new "Mall-dude" who just about hangs out, moving from mall to mall, and indeed every new range of Pret wear seems to brand the out-of-home category with pretty much focus!

Out of home is in! Out of home branding is the new buzzword sweeping Indian shores. Brands that stubbornly remain indoors through their positioning and segmentation strategies are in for a jolt!

Consider the facts. The Indian population is a young population. Life expectation is longer than before. Income standards are up. Except for a year of aberration, the Indian monsoon has largely behaved! Good monsoons mean a good crop. Large parts of the rural economy is a non tax-paying economy. Good rains spell good crops and good crops in turn spell a good amount of disposable income!

The metro is a happening place. We have 5 big ones and a whole host of 29 one million plus population towns that are buzzing with activity. The man works. The woman works as well. Double income is a norm in many a home of these 34 big urban agglomerations. People work hard. They party hard as well. Entertainment is big business. Eating out is a bigger fad still! Time is at a premium and anything that saves time and adds to the joys of daily living is a big hit!

The average Indian is spending a lot more time out of home than before. 8 hours at work, 2 hours on travel and 2 hours of outdoor entertainment and eating out, gobbles up half his day. And that's a lot of time spent out of home! The brand in his life has to appeal to his senses more out-of-home than when in home. In any case he is sleeping most of the time when in home alongwith a two-hour tryst with the television! The Indian in the metro is largely on the go. Man, woman and child alike!

The brand of today and tomorrow has to spend a great bit of quality and quantity time with the consumer in his avatar as an entity 'on-the-go'! The brand that will make an impact on the consumer of the new day and age we find ourselves living in, will be the brand that adopts a lifestyle that is as clonal as its consumer's! The successful brand of the future is therefore going to be the brand that will jump off the idiot box and jump right into the lives of the consumer on the prowl in the great Indian marketplace.

The buzz: Out of home! Out of home in every realm that marketing impinges on the consumer. Out of home advertising, branding and distribution included! Does not matter if your commercial brand offering is that of a hand-phone or a hairdressing solution! Out of home is chic! Out of home is the latest brand Pret wear!

Take a peek at the positioning stances brands are adopting, and will progressively embrace more and more as the on-the-go generation establishes its credentials in Marketing India. Brands will want to shake up their hitherto traditional imagery which confined them to a lifestyle that was largely indoors. A coffee was all about being served indoors by the neatly decked-up wife to the hard-working husband on his proverbial office-return. The imagery was all about the wife who worked and moped at home and a husband who did the same in a crummy office situation.

How long can you keep beating this imagery to death and beyond? The innovative brands of the day tweaked this image on norms that were psychographic and represented a small reality but a big aspiration. The very same brand had the woman of the house coming in from work as well, and the hubby of house rolling up his sleeves to bring her a cup of tea or coffee or whatever! This was fun. This was different. This gave the woman of the house many a positive cue. The marketer was waking up and recognising a new woman. A new India altogether. And the marketer in question was not too scared of alienating his traditional segment of consumers. But this was still within the home!

Brands in contemporary India are fast understanding the new consumer who is more outdoors than indoor. Brands are treading cautiously out of home for a change. A good way to begin is by looking at what is offered as dominant imagery in the advertising of the day. Time to shake up the in-home scenes with zing from a life spent outdoors! Many a brand is today attempting what Nestle first attempted in India with their brand that did not click. Dolca soluble coffee! Nescafe took this ahead with its complete outdoors imagery through its flagship brand Nescafe! It was not only outdoors with an aspirational (but never fulfilled) lifestyle of river-rafting and pole-vaulting, but it was International as well! It was all about Paris, Milan and blonde-heads on the go!

Look keenly at the dominant visuals of a Lipton Yellow Label imagery. Look with focus at what GSK's Horlicks aims to achieve with its all new zingy commercial that offers nutrition on the go! The rendition is outdoors, young, with-it, peppy and all about health and vitality that is fun! Nutrition is fun! And bulk of it is outdoors!

Brands will progressively step outdoors in their positioning imagery requirements. And this will morph into the market segmentation exercise as well! If the average Indian is spending that much more time out-of-home, might as well segment him and his requirements by doing a time-slot analysis that take us through a branding time and motion study!

Positioning, for a change, will therefore lead and segmentation exercises will follow. And following all this will be the physical distribution requirements brands will want to explore! This is a big one!

If the Indian consumer is that much more outdoors than indoors, there is certainly a whole big requirement to offer him the brand at every one of his locations outdoor. Time to whip the brand out of the somnolence of its traditional distribution system. The alimentary canal system of distribution (from company to C&F to redistribution stockist, to wholesaler/retailer to final consumer) is not enough then! Time to offer the brand in question at arms length and desire's length distance in every one of those out of home locations he will spend more and more of his time.

If your brand is that zingy brand of water, this is the way you would go! In the beginning it came out of taps. In came the brand and bottled it for the consumer. The bottle reached the consumer through the alimentary canal which occupies 98 per cent plus of all Indian distribution. The consumer is now on the go. You need to reach the bottle to him wherever he desires to take a swig of water. It could be on a bus, it could be at a mall through a vending machine. It could be in a cinema theatre through paper-cup options, it could be in an office through a bulk decantation method. It could be in a Café through a branded initiative, it cold be in a hotel through the mini-bar service. And this list is not as exhaustive as it can be!

Very simply put, explore very move your target consumer makes in a day outdoors. Do not expect him to carry his favourite brand of water with him on the go. Give him what he wants through every distribution possibility there is. Track his every move and let it be available whenever he just might desire it!

In this new era of outdoor life, the brand and the product need to be ubiquitous. If you can't jolt yourself to do it, your competitor will! The future is tense!

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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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Brand Knowledge Management

2009-01-02T22:29:00.000-08:00

Brand Knowledge Management…from the market!

By Harish Bijoor

I stepped into the world of brands very early in life. At age 21, I was a Group Management Trainee at large with a company that boasted of the largest direct-distribution network in the country, with 2450 salesmen running as many company depots selling tea, coffee, spices and condoms to the remotest nooks and crannies of this country that is India.

One thing I picked up from day one in the markets was this nugget of wisdom that said that nothing could replace market knowledge. Not even an MBA degree from the best of Institutes in the country or outside! Everything there was to learn about markets and consumers had to be learnt from the great Indian marketplace. There was no definitive book that would teach it, nor was there a ‘gyan-guru’ who could tell it all the way it was.

As I grew up from being a novice Group Management Trainee to be a slightly less-novice Deputy Sales Manager, another bit of Nirvana dawned on me pretty early in life. At age 23, I was convinced there was no permanent way of learning about the consumer. The consumer was an ever-changing entity. Heraclitus was right. The only permanent thing in life is change! If I had to understand the consumer and stay with her wants, needs, desires and aspirations as my cue to success in the world of marketing, I had to hold her hand right through. I had to keep my finger on her pulse right through. And held her hand, I did! To the chagrin of many!

To my utter delight, my early years of hard and detailed market-working to understand markets in the early days, and my subsequent many years of continuous “finger on the pulse of consumer” orientation, had me running fast and running ahead of many a marketing man, woman and child in corporate organization.

Living on frugal market-lunches that comprised green chillies and “Jolada Rotti” in Bidar and Rice Conjee and lime pickle in Behrampore had paid off. Two seminal pieces of truth became a part of my marketing psyche.

1.There is no better way of knowing a market than being in it. Living in it like a consumer out there, the way he does, every day of his life.

2.Keeping your finger on the pulse of the consumer is important. The consumer changes. As she does, you need to be the first to spot the change and take advantage of it…….in sheer marketing terms, of course!

The brand and its future depend on just two basics. The first is the market. The second is the disposition of the consumer it aims to attract into its consumption and continued patronage. Knowing both, and knowing it well and right through is the way to cutting edge leadership in the domain of branding.

There are essentially two tools to use to get where the action in branding lies. Active market working on a continuous basis was a tool to use to get right there at the cutting edge brand leadership precipice. And Market Research as a tool to keep a continuous feel of the pulse of the consumer was the second tool to use.

Market working was a way to research the market first-hand. Market Research through intermediaries was a way to research the consumer, albeit second hand!

Let me take a peek at Market working for brands, the way an organization must attempt in these tough and tumultuous days of parri-passu branding and lack of distinctive appeals that shake the market and the consumer to cascade revenue and traffic into your brand at hand.

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The One Big One: Turning turtle the knowledge management process!

Knowledge management within brand organizations is pretty hierarchical. The selling system, which is possibly the richest repository of market and consumer knowledge, is the least respected of them all. The system of compartmentalizing selling in one silo and branding in another is a paradigm to destroy.

The salesman occupies the lowest rung in organization. He is incidentally the richest in terms of market understanding. He is the front-face, the foot soldier of organization who has been there and done that. He is the least empowered one to act as well. The most knowledgeable entity in organization is the one that contributes least to the branding process.

The market knowledge management process in organization is run in a filtered upward cascade manner. The 100 per cent knowledgeable salesman reports into a Supervisor who is about 70 per cent as knowledgeable as the salesman. The 70 per cent knowledgeable supervisor reports into a Manager who is possibly 40 per cent market-knowledge linked. He in turn reports to a General Manager who has long forgotten markets and is possibly a 20 per cent knowledge-link. And over to the Vice-president of organization then. A 10 or even a 5 per cent entity at hand! And finally to the CEO! The decision maker! The final decision maker is the least connected with the market! A worry to tackle!

One more disease in this hierarchy then! The most knowledgeable of them all, the salesman reports in a trend and an idea to his boss the supervisor. The supervisor adds his filter to the idea and cascades it upwards to his boss, selectively, based on his “judgment and old market knowledge”. His boss the Manager does a similar thing. Every level cascades the trend and idea upwards, applying judgmental filters that are often too wrong. Often too old as well!

By the time the trend and the idea reach the top man of organization, it is not alive at all. It is but a thought that has been ruined by the successive archaic filters that leave nothing that is original in thought. Nothing to act upon at all as well!

There is indeed no substitute to active market working in the brand building process. There is a need to turn turtle the knowledge harvesting process. Time to get the CEO of organization to work those seven days a month in the market the way a salesman does. Time to get the “decision-maker” and “knowledge-holder” to fuse into one entity rather than splintered across different folks at different levels.

If the friendly decision-besotted CEO of organization is worried about these seven days in the market with 'Mirchi-bajjis' and Rice Conjee for company, time to cascade the brand decision making prowess to the salesperson of organization! The choice is yours! But do bit the bullet, dear CEO!
The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.
Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

Brandisease is here!

2008-12-28T20:19:00.000-08:00

Brandisease is here!

By Harish Bijoor

In the beginning there was the commodity. Everything all about us was the base commodity. Rice, Lentil, Sugar, Coffee, Tea, Steel, Plastic and a host of items that were basic. They served purpose. They fulfilled the basic need. Want was a different thing altogether though!

And then there was the quasi-brand! The commodity morphing into brand status, but not yet there. This was really the transition stage. In many cases it was the creation of an altogether new category that catered to the wants of consumers. Tired consumers who had been through the base level of the commodity wanted more. This was the articulation of their individual “wants”! A phase where just plain old rice wouldn’t do. The consumer craved for differentiation. The product category was vast enough to offer this differentiation. There were a hundred types of rice. The quasi-brand happened. In came “Ponni rice”! In came “Nellore Fine” and in came “Basmati”, to be followed by “Texmati” as well!

The quasi-brand in many ways is not a brand at all. It is but a point of differentiation in the commodity hierarchy. A wee peg higher in the commodity band spectrum, but a wee peg lower in the brand band. This is cusp status. But the quasi-brand is something you just can’t ignore. Many brand-thinkers do…..at their own peril!

And then comes the brand. The entity we know so well. The brand as an entity that I define simplistically. “The brand is a thought! A thought that resides in the head of a consumer!” A thought that excites. A thought that creates much of the passion that moves a consumer into the orbit of the brand.

The brand is therefore the first of the entity in the Commodity-Brand hierarchy that caters to the “aspiration” of the consumer at large. Something that satisfies and something that calms desire. An entity that tames aspiration.

Consumers by definition have needs, wants and desires. While the commodity caters to “needs”, the quasi-brand serves “wants” and the brand tames “desires”!

The consumer articulates more than all this though. The consumer who is truly sitting right at the top of Maslowe’s hierarchy of needs is in a state of self-actualization. When you sit at this peak, your brand needs are many pegs higher than those that sit at the sundry other ladders of the pyramid. While the ones in the “Food, clothing, shelter” sector crave for the commodity at large, those in the segments higher look keenly at the quasi-brand. Those that sit even higher up are the early adopters of brands. Folks who are pretty keen on brands in every sector of their lives.

The brand in many ways is a disease. A disease that spreads slowly. At the onset of ‘brandisease’ adoption of brands happens in categories that are higher end. The first brands to be adopted will be in the categories that cost a lot and in categories that are high-end manufacturing oriented. The car you buy and the refrigerator that will stock the stale food in your house will always be a brand! Brands signify reliability and acute differentiation in these categories. Brands are therefore expensive buys in the very beginning.

As ‘Brandisease’ spreads, it spreads its tentacles to categories that are less expensive. 'Brandisease' is therefore a top-down spread. After satiating brand need at the top-end category, the consumer understands the significance of value in brand-buys. The price-quality equation at play, convenience, reliability, image, status appeal and all the sundry other attributes of a brand-buy spread to other categories as well. This is a cascade!

The next expensive shirt you buy will be a brand. The daily wear work-wear shirts will still be tailored outfits. The eveningwear category will be the first brand of rag you will buy. Not to worry though. This will spread to the office-wear category as well, and move on to casual wear of every kind, and right into the terrain of the nightdress you will wear to bed! Doesn’t matter if it is only your wife of 13 years that will see you in it! The brand has arrived!

'Brandisease' will keep spreading. From outerwear which is seen by one and all, to innerwear which will be seen by few….hopefully! The top will be an “Allen Solly”, the trouser a “Pantaloon” and the brassiere a “Vanity Fair” and the panty a “Feelings”! 'Brandisease' has surely spread! And how!

The brand is therefore a disease. A disease that affects every consumer in the market. It starts small, but engulfs one and all in its stretch. Nascent brand markets will learn from the advanced markets that have had this disease rampant on their shores for many generations now. Nascent brand markets such as India would do well to learn what to do and what not to do as this disease spreads in the vast hinterland that is India.

The brand is a compelling entity. The key is to manage it with sensitivity. Important to stay sensitive to what must be done and what must not. Let’s not go overboard. At this point to time, this is still a benign disease. Let’s keep it that way.

The day the brand is considered to be a lesion in the mind of a consumer and a canker to be cured, the day of the disease at spread is over! Managing this balance of keeping the disease benign and away from malignancy is the collective responsibility of all the brand-folks who evangelize the disease in more ways than one!
The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.
Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

BrandNext!?

2008-11-04T21:09:00.000-08:00

BrandNext?

By Harish Bijoor

In the very beginning, it was the commodity! The commodity that held no individual status whatsoever. The commodity was as generic as it could get. Life was basic. Uncomplicated. Rice was just rice!

And then came the quasi-brand. As consumers evolved and articulated needs and wants which were multi-faceted, the basic staple evolved in its identity. Rice that came from the northern part of the country got categorized differently from the rice that came from the South. In many ways this distinction caused for a polarization of taste, want and need. The quasi-brand was here. North Indian rice that was long-grained and aromatic. South Indian rice that was shorter-grained and less aromatic!

And then came the brand. Basmati Rice! Texmati rice! And what's worse; every Basmati took on a brand name that differentiated one from the other. ‘Kohinoor’ Basmati rice competed with a 'Lal Quilla' Basmati rice! The brand had arrived!

As we swim in a market filled with brands, the key question that floats up amidst all this flotsam of brands is the one that asks "What next?"

Let me postulate a personal theory that guides my every move and every step in the tortuous world of business in general and marketing in particular.

The simple thought: Everything is cyclical! Everything happens in a cycle of want and non-want. Take the habit in foods. In the beginning the market loves good old home-food. There is freshness, there is variety and there is personalization and plenty of ability to custom-make! And guess what? It's made by mom!

As society moves through its paces, home food causes for fatigue. One is looking for an offering that is different and food that has a tang that is distinct in its offering. The brand happens! A McDonald's Big Mac is as big a hit as any offering of a factory made burger can get! This phase goes on for awhile! In most societies, this phase lingers on longer than any! This is indeed a phase that is buoyed up with plenty of money power and all the advertising the category can afford!

A society that grows through this compulsive high-decibel stage of the brand will be poised at the critical point of decision. What next?

The answer lies differently in every competing consumer market at different points in the trajectory of brand-life cycle. As the commodity morphs into a quasi-brand and then into a brand, the key question: how long will this last? What next again?

I do believe the next point in the brand continuum is that in which the appeal of the brand ceases to exist altogether. Brands that are built on the format of the generic, and brands that believe in the traditional formats of “Old Branding” will cease to exist altogether as entities. On the contrary, brands that re-invent themselves and morph into dynamic, intrusive and participative parts of consumer life will flourish.

Brands therefore, to survive, will have to step off the pedestal. Step off the pedestal of mass media television, Press and radio formats. Brands have to assume significance in peoples lives on a 1: 1 format. Direct marketing and 1:1 appeal will need to be built into every brand offering. The paradigm hitherto operated within by brands will need to be broken. Brands need to jump into peoples' lives on 1:1 formats of interaction.

1: 1 is personal and 1:1 is customized appeal delivered personally. The trend surely is towards the de-massification of the brand appeal. Massification is passé! But watch out here! As brands operate on 1:1 formats, the concept of the massified brand itself in question. The brand itself will need to morph into a non-brand mode!

As brands adapt to one-on-one formats, a whole new competence needs to emerge in the realm of brand management. This competence is all about managing brands on non-mega-media formats. It is all about a competence that speaks more of ‘below-the-line’ and less ‘above-the-line’. It is indeed a competence of physical work. A competence that will need to dictate hard physical work in the markets that make brands. Delivery standards can be easily set and delivery efficiencies can be easily tracked in this format! What a far cry from the good old days of easy advertising?!

The super-brands of the future will be made in this format of market approach. The lazy brand that will not attempt this hard task ahead will fade away. The big brands of today that actually make an honest attempt at this route will survive and walk tall into a bright new brand future.

The brands of today will all write a self-fulfilling prophesy all their own. Every script will differ. Some brands will happen with a bang and many will die out in a whimper!

The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc. with a presence in Hong Kong, London and Bangalore.

Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

The role Insight in Managing brands

2008-09-14T02:54:00.000-07:00

First-Hand Insights for managing Brands

By Harish Bijoor

The consumer is a rather important link in the world of brands. A link none of us can do without. The brand exists, thrives and dies because of the consumer. While the Brand Manager is quite a Brahma (Creator) in the link, the consumer remains the Vishnu (Preserver) and Maheshwara (Destroyer) for sure!

There are two simple truths in managing consumers in the quest to create successful brands. The first is that consumer understanding, something that we fashionably call “Consumer Insight” in the world of Marketing, is very critical to process.

The second and more important one. The consumer changes every day of his life. Every new experience, and indeed every new input of the political, religious, economic and social variety, cascaded by media of every variety to boot, has an impact on the consumer. The consumer morphs. Ever so slowly, but very, very surely!

As the consumer morphs, it is indeed critical to process to understand the changing consumer. Keeping “finger on pulse” of consumer on a continuous basis is therefore critical!

Managing brands is therefore a very dynamic process. Consumer insight gathering is a process that is dynamic as well.

Traditional brand managers collect consumer insight in traditional ways. The time worn techniques have been processes that relate themselves closely to market research techniques that are quantitative and qualitative. Techniques that believe in grouping numbers and grouping comments. Techniques that believe in the power of the diagnostics form a consumer frozen in time. A consumer forced to articulate his wants, needs and desires through the artificial and intrusive process of consumer market research. In an artificial environment as well. A Focus Group discussion room, if you may! Something that has over the years morphed into a social occasion where target segment women dress up, and represent their vocal capabilities to impress their depth and width of knowledge to all those sitting in the room of repute. Never mind if what they is just plain talk and not true-blue “insight”!

Traditional ways work. Traditional ways work for a while. Till they stop working altogether.

Traditional ways have one other disadvantage. Every savvy marketer of the day has access to similar data. The techniques at play are limited. A Procter and Gamble is just as capable of latching onto data from its third-party providers of market research technique and tool, just as much as a Hindustan Lever . A Coke and a Pepsi have equal access and ability to tap into the consumer mind and mood, using the very same ways each of them invariably do!

Remember, the Marketing head of a Coke and the marketing head of a Pepsi were batch-mates at the very same IIM-B donkeys’ years ago. They studied the same ways. They practiced the same ways. They ate the same canteen rice and read largely the same books they had to!

Time to add that wee bit of a dose of differentiation-savvy to the process of consumer insight gathering. Time to look at the number-gathering process differently as well. Time to walk down memory lane and check out all the things we did in our old marketing lives.

Down memory lane then….

1) The Dustbins of Rajahmundry:

I arrived in the dusty town of Rajahmundry, one summer morning many years ago. I was the newly appointed Area Sales Manager for a freshly carved out region in Andhra Pradesh. My headquarters would be Rajahmundry, and I was the master of all that I surveyed all around me. Coastal Andhra!

I needed to get a quick idea of the popular brands in the market place. I tried everything there was to try. I checked out the retail outlets for diagnostics. I visited every re-distribution stockist there was in the area for competing brands of every kind. I peeked into voluminous reports from reputed MR organizations (which was good for trend but horrible on volume estimations), and in short did everything a normal Tom, Dick and Harish would do in a normal market as ASM!

I had gathered data of every kind. I had to correlate it with consumption. Three of my young salesmen and I had the pleasure and privilege of doing something interesting in our lives. Something we will all remember and tell our grandchildren about.

We went visiting every dustbin in the area. I remember covering sixty-three of them myself! Between the three salesmen and I, we had scoured as many as 175 dustbins in the area with prodding sticks we used to rustle through the junk. At the end of those three stinking days, we were rich in our findings. We knew every pack size of consumption of the teas we sold in the market. We knew the market leaders in terms of actual consumption versus that of market leads in terms of stocking on the shelves! The results were dramatic! Eye-popping even!

2) The Huts of consumption in Mandya:

Three months on a project to revive the fortune of Super Dust tea! The dusty town of Mandya. If one was to get any diagnostic of this town, the only way to do it was to visit the various types of homes there were to visit.

First visits do not give diagnostics rich enough to make decisions upon. Most brand people think they are vested with the unique prowess of superior observation skills that will get them to do a quick understanding of the consumer by just a peek at markets. Not true. It takes a lot to actually observe usage, attitude and living pattern of your consumers. You need to live there. Live with them. Live like them, to understand them better.

And so it was to be. I spent a fortnight across three homes in Saggere village in Mandya district. What I came out with was diagnostics rich in content. Very fine and minute observations that told me the language to use, the tone to depend on and the tenor of any communication that was to hit a rural home and market. It gave me such an earthy feel of the rural home! An insight that made for sensitive communication, and a lifetime’s sensitivity to rural markets.

3. Watching women in Warangal:

Warangal has been a tough market for us for long many years. As the young Deputy ASM in-charge of the market, one had to depend on rustic ways of rustic observation skills in the market place.

Nine days at a stretch, I camped in three different outlets. The objective was simple. Watch consumers as they shop.

The first three days was spent at a Kirana outlet of small size. Three lazy days, sitting still in a dark and dingy outlet. Woken up by the shrill voice of shoppers who would come in and ask for anything from 'garam masala' to Gillete shaving blades.

The next three days was spent watching men and women shop at a departmental store. And the next three watching women shop for groceries at a super-market in town!

Nine rich days of what I now call “Shop Watch”! Nine days of soaking in consumer behavior at the shop level. Nine days of understanding what a consumer does. What she does? Where she does? How she does? With what attitude?

Nine days of soaking in consumer jargon. Nine days of de-mystifying the process that rests in the mind of the brand manager. Nine days of sanitising many a brand management head with diagnostics of his consumer. Nine days of de-constructing the consumer as he is. As he really is! First hand!

4) And Lots more!

There has been a lot of excitement in life. Like the wardrobe checks we ran recently, walking into homes on surprise permission-led visits to check on wardrobes and the skeletons in the cupboards of Indian women! The shocking tale of age of garment and the shocking tale of the “unlucky” garment that hangs forever in the cupboard of many a man and woman!

Playing gully cricket with kids on the street just to check out on the jargon they use! Precious bits of jargon that could form the core of the advertising execution of the next generation Cola film!

Watching movies in the vernacular of the area to check out on the social mores that are exciting to the consumer. Sitting through the movie in a theatre and recording their expression of glee and disgust across the scenes that come up! Just to capture possibilities for the future of advertising!

The list can be really endless. Creativity is your domain, dear brand manager!

There is a lot to be done, if one really wants to do it right. The brand manager can actually lead a hectic and interesting life if he wants to. On the contrary, if he wants a nine-to-five role in organization, spoon-fed by market researchers who research for all and sundry, so be it!

Life goes on!

The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

What is a super-brand?

2008-08-14T02:10:00.000-07:00

My Mom is a Super-brand

By Harish Bijoor

What is a Super-brand?

The word is being bandied around in our commercial lives by every Tom, Dick and Harish. Everyone out there in the great marketplace for brands seems to have his or her own version of a definition to offer. Time to sit up and take stock.

A super-brand is a brand that has made it big. A brand that has been around for a long number of years and has survived the upheavals of a tumultuous marketplace. A brand that has very-very large volumes that makes it to the top-of-the-pops chart in every consumer home. A brand that is very profitable. One that rakes in the 'moolah' without much of advertising and marketing spends even. A brand that has arrived. A brand that is a consumer favourite. A brand that causes for goose flesh in you when you hear the name uttered. A brand that is a rage. A brand that causes for cult following. A brand that is a product no more.

All of this and much more for sure. At the same time, none of these on their own as a point of precise definition!

The super-brand is a complicated entity really. More complicated than the concept of a simple brand. The super-brand in reality is a passion. A brand that has scaled the highest peak in the passion-scale of brands and their respective consumers.

Let us also establish what a super-brand is not. Let us categorically say that a super-brand is not what is proclaimed in a broad-spectrum list of 100 brand names in a country across categories. It is not what an organization rates. It is most certainly not what is awarded the Super-brand logo by a poll of executive opinion!

A super-brand is then a very different entity. An entity that deserves some attention. Some respect.

Let me start at the level of the commodity. A commodity is that much less of a brand than a quasi-brand is. The quasi-brand is a more recognizable form of the commodity but a wee peg lower in the hierarchy of the brand. And the brand is a thought. A thought that resides in a consumer mind.

The super-brand is right at the top of the pecking order of brands. The super-brand status is indeed that status which a brand enjoys as its sets of consumers self-actualize in the joy of the brand. To understand this statement, one needs to visualize Mr.Abrahame Maslowe’s hierarchy of needs.

Right at the bottom of the pyramid is the broadest segment of them all. This is the segment that lies in the food, clothing and shelter domain of utility. Largely utilitarian in nature. This is indeed the mass of space where the commodity sits.

Just above this segment, a little higher in the pyramid sits the quasi-brand. This is a smaller segment. Consumers sit at higher-end needs in this category. The consumer has had his basic needs met. It is time to now look for the finer things in day-to-day life. Time to look for that bit of differentiation that sets apart the commodity from the quasi-brand.

And just above this segment of brand-wannabes, is the brand itself. This is an arena of distinct thought. This is higher up in the hierarchy. The brand is a distinction. A distinction that sets apart standards of craving and want. The brand is a craving. A desire even.

Climb higher then. Right at the peak sits the super-brand. If the brand is a craving and a desire, the super-brand is a madness! It is a passion of passions!

The super-brand is that status which a brand acquires when the product offering is irrelevant even! The Harley Davidson is not a motorcycle at all! It is a cult-statement! Nescafe is not a coffee at all! It is a lifestyle!

Imagine and assess the passion that a super-brand can command in its set of most loyal consumers, and you have the answer whether what you behold is a super-brand in reality or a fake bestowed with a label for commercial purpose.

What would you do to get the last available Harley Davidson in the world? Would you lie for it? Would you rob for it? Would you kill others for it? Would you take a 'supari' on Osama Bin Laden or our own Veerappan for it?

Quantify and evaluate the passion that a brand evokes in its sets of consumers, and you might have the tinge of an answer that tells you what a super brand really is. It is indeed quite possible to build what I would call a Brand Passion Scale, which tells you where the brand in question sits on its evolution scale, from commodity to super-brand status.

The super-brand has normally a cult following that will not sway too easily from the format of the brand on offer. Many a time, the entire brand offering is controlled by sets of these cults. The Harley Davidson is a movement. A movement that is spurred on by specific free-form Harley Owner groups (HOGS). They will meet. They will debate. They will spread the Harley movement around, much as a cult would spread its tentacles all across potential sets of consumers.

The question again then. What is a super-brand?

In many ways, the answer is a difficult one. A super-brand in many ways is a very specific offering that has distanced itself from its product utility to emerge as a passion and a craving. A brand that has for it a cult following that will even kill for the brand if the need arises. The brand in question is in many ways a part of the life of the consumer. Any hurt or slur on the brand is quite taken as a hurt on the consumer in question herself!

As I close this piece on the quintessential question, there is a point to note. A point I make with passion. Just as a brand is a thought that is owned in the consumer mind, so is the super-brand a property in the mind of a consumer. Every consumer is likely to have a different super-brand of his or her own. In the case of comely Sumati Raman of Mylapore. Rajanikanth is a super-brand. Her neighbor believes Mr. Honest Raj is a super-brand. And her neighbor believes Cuticura talcum powder is! And her neighbor will kill for a copy of The Hindu! One day without her favorite super brand is enough to set off withdrawal symptoms!

In short, to each their own. Each of us has our very own super-brand. There are just too many of these around. At the other end of the specific domain of the super-brand that is recognized by one and all, there are too few. There might just be eight super-brands in the world that are real and are able to stick to the tight definition of the super-brand I believe we must weave!

Therefore, let’s respect the super-brand for what it is. It is an exclusive club. Not too many members in this league. Let us not clutter it with the confusion of our lack of understanding. There are only 8 super-brands in the world at one end of the spectrum. And at the other, your mom and mine are all super-brands for each of us!

The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

Brand Endorsers on the move

2008-08-02T00:24:00.000-07:00

Brand Endorser Promiscuity!

By Harish Bijoor

I am confused. All of a sudden there is a Big B Blur on my idiot-screen plasma panel. Mr.Big B is out there plugging Parker pens. An intermission then, when there is yet another advertisement shouting its unique selling proposition from the rooftops! And in comes Mr.Bachchan again! This time round it is hands dipped in paint, passing the Nerolac Paints message all across! A couple of seconds later, it is Mr.Amitabh Bachchan in a natty suit. Reid & Taylor it is!

An intermission again. This time, a longer one. There is some intrusive content amidst all this advertising. A daily soap with its daily dose of “rona and dhona”(“crying and washing”, to those uninitiated to the Hindi language)! In comes Big B again. This time a benign presence for Sahara City homes! And then it is Dabur Chywanaprash! Give a wee bit of a gap, and Amitabh is back again! Once again! This time extolling the latest virtue of the latest in packaging from the house of Cadbury’s!

Amitabh Bachchan is all about on TV! Amitabh the brand-endorser plugs in as many as thirteen different appeals. Every one of these brands seem to depend on the mass pull and mega appeal this star of yester-years has commanded! The quintessential Brand Ambassador is here! Amitabh the mega star of yesterday is today’s brand hero. A brand-endorser you can depend on to create the pull. Somebody who is the sure-shot formula for brand awareness scores to go through the roof. We are not too sure of the buy-scores, but then, who cares? Awareness is it!

Add the total duration of appearances that Amitabh makes on the 'telly' every day. Add the number of exposure minutes up right through the week, and it might just as well rival the best of what a Sridevi gets with her all new tele-serial Malini Iyer!

The brand ambassador is not a new phenomenon for sure. Brands of every category have used it in their quest for mind and market-space. Brands have used the tool of the brand icon and brand ambassador in their quest for success over the years.

What started with a Leela Chitnis for Lux went on to categories that took on brand ambassadors real and animated. A Gattu for Asian Paints became as good a brand ambassador and an icon as any person alive or dead!

The brand ambassador in many ways is meant to do different things for brands at different times in their brand life cycles. While Lux uses endorsers who are reigning actresses of the day, every endorser gives the brand back its key proposition of the beauty soap of the film stars (“filmi sitaron ke soundarya sabun”) position a plug and a boost! There is indeed a queue among film starlets of every kind to be featured in a Lux ad. It is a kind of a sign that they have arrived in Bollywood!

Sachin Tendulkar for every Tom, Dick and Harish category of branded item, our ex-health minister Mr.Shatrugan Sinha for Bagpiper whatever (playing cards, soda or Mineral water?) and every start-up cricketer, macho film-star, a rare ex-election commissioner, a rarer still animal rights activist, and even Mr. N R Narayana Murthy, is a brand ambassador par excellence!

Brand endorsement is a way to go! A way to get your brand noticed amidst all the clutter that brands create in the marketplace. Amidst all the noise and hype that brands indulge in so very freely. Brand endorsement is possibly the best way to get the awareness rating of your brand up there in the stratosphere of a clutter-free terrain, otherwise unattainable with the me-too strategies of the marketer at large.

The key question then? Are brands built by brand ambassadors?

The answer is a yes and no. It is a big yes if the brand ambassador you choose and nurture is one that is solus for your category of ‘dhoop stick’ or ‘doodh’ alike. And a big and vehement “No” if the ambassador you choose is a promiscuous one, focusing not only your brand but also three others! Brand ambassadors must not moonshine! Brand ambassadors who focus on one brand can achieve great results. Focused results that will form part of the brand building strategy of the marketer in question.

Brands that use the promiscuous brand endorser who will endorse a car just now, carburetor oil in the next and a panty hose in yet another piece of advertising blitz, do not contribute much in the brand-building process. At best, these endorsements yank up the brand awareness for the duration of the use of endorser-at-large! Few brand-folks realize this!

The brand ambassador therefore works in categories where the focus is solus. Look at the use of Ustaad Zakir Hussain by Taj Mahal tea. Zakir is today an in-built proposition of Taj Mahal tea! Wah Taj! Wah! Brand endorsement works here in the case of Taj Mahal tea as a brick that is helping build a mega brand in the mind of the consumer.

Peek keenly then at a Pepsi, a Parker, a Palio! Brand endorsement in these categories at best helps spur the awareness ratings of the brand.

The use of brand icons such as a Gattu, Goody the tiger and Choco the bear, on the contrary, is use of good strategy to use the icon as part of the brand on tout!

Contemporary use of brand endorsers forgets to use the endorser as part of the core brand building strategy at hand. Endorser-promiscuity is a disease today! Time to sit up and take notice!

What’s the trend then? What’s out there in the future?

Wait with bated breath for the re-invention of the brand icon. Wait for the re-invention of the brand mascot that will be owned 100 per cent by the brand-marketer at large! Wait for the 3D Brand mascot who will look real. Who will have life breathed into it! So much so that you the consumer will call it a “him” or a “her”! You will fall in love with “her”! You will worship “her”! You will recognize your favorite brand by the personality your 3D Brand Mascot will display and embellish all the way!

There will indeed come a time when this 3D Band Mascot of yours will give every Tom Cruise, Dick Whittington and Harry Belafonte a run for their money! The virtual will rule over the real!

The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

E mail: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

Branding 'desi' Politics

2008-07-26T04:05:00.000-07:00

This brand of 'Desi' Politics!

By Harish Bijoor

As election fever touches a 'typhoidic’level, I keep wondering whether the Politician on the ground needs to learn from the brand manager or the Brand Manager in his air-conditioned cubicle needs to learn from the Politician in turn.

I do believe Brand Management can learn many a lesson from the politician at large on the ground. Many valuable lessons that will tell Brand Management that all it knows today is not necessarily from the market for soap and sanitary napkin alone, but from the market for votes as well!

The Politician, in many ways, is the quintessential Brand Manager. A designation that got invented well nigh nearly with the coinage of the word Politics itself! Look keenly at the politician, and let’s see who can teach whom. And who has taught whom, over all these years!

The brand is a thought. The politician is the brand. If Laloo Prasad Yadav is the politician we want to discuss in this piece, Laloo is the brand. The brand Laloo is nothing but a thought. A thought that lives in consumer heads. The brand Laloo is not what Laloo thinks he is, but what the consumer thinks Laloo is all about!

Laloo the brand then!

Mr.LP Yadav, if you please, began in the rustic world of Bihar politics as a rustic man with rustic thoughts! Laloo got it right first time round. The gent went to town reveling in his rusticity. He did everything right from day one. He kept his cows in his front yard, glamorized the 'Bihari Baniyan’ to the extent that you had ramp models in Bangalore walking in them, he milked his own cows, made the “Laaltein”(lantern) his symbol, chewed on endless ‘Banarasi Meetha” paans, spat blood-red paan-juice at every street corner and made “Thook-daans”(spitoons, to the uninitiated) regulation fixtures in government offices and the Secretariat at large!

The cognoscenti in India, that micro-percentage of folks who represent little of this country, laughed at Laloo. Felt embarrassed. And kept wondering why folk of this kind existed in Indian politics at all!

Laloo went through the process of the poll. He won. And when he could not remain a Chief Minister, he made his wife one! Laloo the brand wins!

Laloo read his market right. Bihar is one of the rare Indian states where 90 per cent of the populace is still rural. As the rest of the country passes through a creeping-growth phase of urbanization, Bihar remains a rural oasis of kinds. Laloo the politician reads his market right. He knows what a market of this kind needs. And he gives it all that it needs, with gusto!

To be fair to all the politicians who have gone by and all those who are pushing up precious diaisies, Laloo is not the first one who has read his market right and delivered what it wants. Every one of them has! VV Giri did it in his own ways with the Labour vote in mind! George Fernandez did it in his hey days with worker-rebellion as a sentiment to read, synthesize, package and re-deliver to the market.

Mrs.Gandhi! Oops! I need to clarify which one! Mrs.Indira Gandhi was the shrewdest reader of the market of them all! She read the feminine vote right first time round. She read dynasty and its merits right. She read every nitty gritty of the branding process rather keenly in her own shrewd way.

Mrs.Gandhi was so good at it that she know when to dye her hair, how much of it to dye and indeed what to wear for what occasion and to create what impact with even what she wore!

Are our modern day politicians clued on to all this? Yes, they are. Some of them are being coached by Brand spin-doctors. Is Pramod Mahajan one? Of course he is! Possibly the best Brand Manager in the country today. Managing the BJP brand at large! Putting together strategy. Putting together events that talk of “carpet-bombing the market” even! Oops! At times there is a slip in the jargon and terminology! At the end of the day, the electorate is a vast market. A market that discerns. A market that watches it all carefully before making that vital decision to cast that really valuable vote!

And some are being groomed by PR agencies. What to wear, what to say, what not to say, when to say. With what “passion” to say! This is high art! If any of you mistake the utterances of the politician at large on your television screens to be spontaneous reactions and outbursts, you are being naïve! There is a coach behind it all. There is a script behind it all. There is a purpose as well!

Branding and its many tools are being found useful aids by the politician today, as there are not too many large issues that capture the imagination of the masses at large! We don’t have a war! We don’t have issues that are so overbearing that the entire mass of people sit up and listen. Time to therefore create those issues, and depend on the impact these small issues can really cause. In comes PR! In comes Branding! And in comes Drama as well!

Every Party name commands an equity that is distinct. The Congress is about Independence heritage, the Bharatiya Janata Party is all about Hindutva, the Janata Party is all about the farmer and the list goes on!

Every party symbol is a powerful articulation of the brand and its values. Even suave Mr.Vijay Mallya is capable of getting the rub-off from the powerful party symbol of a farmer with a plough! Never mind that he has never ever ploughed a field himself!

What’s more, despite the very acute shortage of colours prominent national parties seem to swim with for their party hues, every party is able to create a distinct equity for itself with the colours it sports. Look keenly at the saffron white and green of the Congress versus the saffron and green of the BJP and the saffron and deeper-still green of the Janata Party! Or at the colours of the DMK and the AIADMK! How much can a black and red give you? Plenty, it seems!

Every concept in contemporary and modern branding is something that you can learn out of the efforts of the politician at large in India. The politician is possibly the best teacher of marketing of them all. Let’s learn form they. They are the best barometers of public sentiment we have today. They are the best direct marketers. The best door-to-door canvassers. The best specialists in one-to-one marketing and the best practitioners of mass marketing as well!

May their tribe flourish!

The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

Brand power shifts

2008-07-07T23:49:00.001-07:00

Brand Melt-down is here

By Harish Bijoor

Brand Power is the one elixir that has made many of us brand folk heady in the past. It is this very power of the brand that has gotten many of us to occupy the positions we do. The reputations we command.

Does not matter whether you are brand-owner, professional CEO, brand-manager or any other entity of modern organization who manages a brand, the very power we took for granted is under siege.

This elixir of power is however under threat. Under the threat of a possible shift of power from the brand of yore to the demand of organized retail for the non-brand of the future. This threat is a one that many of us will not see. Many of us who have spent decades in the marketplace, decades in consumer space and decades still in the midst of the folks we work for, will deny it all the way. The younger you are, the more will you believe in the direction I point at in this article.

Let’s begin with the oldest marketed categories of them all in India. FMCG. There is a brand melt-down at our doorsteps. The challenge is typical. The power of the brand is under question. This begins first in the categories consumers are used to for a while. Let’s say all of two generations?

The brand melt-down in our lives is all about top-line volumes being under stress in most categories that have been around for a while. Categories that are pretty 'parri passu' in their offerings even. Categories which have over the years seen a host of clones in the same territory of consumer space. The fight is a journey-cycle to journey-cycle fight. Top-line volumes just refuse to budge in the right direction. Growth rates are at best static numbers. Numbers that even define a new nadir to the standard Hindu rate of growth at hand.

Every working day is therefore a story of volumes under stress then. This has gone on for a while now. What’s the solution?

A brilliant gent in the marketing department gives way to the repeatedly articulated demand of the sales team. The sales team has been under the stress and stick to perform by top management at corporate office. The sales-team in turn is all about asking for those price-cuts which seem to promise those magic numbers of growth in volume.

One excited top management therefore yields. If you take a price cut, it must be dramatic enough to yield enough of a volume chunk. No point in twiddling the marketing thumb with price cuts of 10 per cent anymore. Takes a dramatic price cut of 35 per cent. Wow! The market is stunned. The lead competitor in the market is stunned as well. Everyone is.

The lead competitor cannot sit quiet on this. He needs to respond. He does. He cuts his price a whole 35 per cent as well. All in ten days flat. Wow! The consumer is stunned now.

The situation in the market place in terms of price, and most certainly in terms of product and all the other dimensions of a marketed item, is back to 'parri passu' status then. The price cuts have happened. The consumer has gained.

The consumer is quizzical as well. Did these guys enjoy that kind of a big margin all these years? Or worse still, there is yet another question in the air. How can they cut their prices this way? Have they tampered with the quality they offer today at these low prices? The image of the brands in question is sullied in more ways than one.

Quite likely as well that the marketing organizations in question have diluted their spends on the brand in terms of advertising and below the line promotion. How can they afford to cut price and do all of advertising and promotion as well in any case? Has this hurt the brand?

The brands in question have largely regained top-line volumes at the levels they have been for a long-long while now. Despite the price cuts.

These very brands have however lost a very deep chunk of their profit margins on the brands. The slash is as deep as 35 per cent at the minimum.

One of the most classical definitions of the brand is the simple line: the brand is a premium. Where is the premium now? What did you do with it?

Is a brand without a premium a brand at all? The brand melt-down is here.

Brand melt-down is a reality in our lives. This melt-down has struck a bit like the much threatened Bird-flu at the oldest marketed category of them all for a start. It will then follow into every other category there is, age-wise in terms of presence in market. This is therefore a reality to grapple. This is the pain of not the FMCG marketer alone. Ask the question who’s next, and if the finger points at you right away, start planning the demise of the brand. Or think different.

The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

The Brand Endorser as a Brand!

2008-07-05T21:47:00.000-07:00

Brand Endorser Promiscuity!

By Harish Bijoor

The key question then? Are brands built by brand ambassadors?

Peek keenly then at a Pepsi, a Parker, a Palio! Brand endorsement in these categories at best helps spur the awareness ratings of the brand.

The use of brand icons such as a Gattu, Goody the tiger and Choco the bear, on the contrary, is use of good strategy to use the icon as part of the brand on tout!

Contemporary use of brand endorsers forgets to use the endorser as part of the core brand building strategy at hand. Endorser-promiscuity is a disease today! Time to sit up and take notice!

What’s the trend then? What’s out there in the future?

There will indeed come a time when this 3D Band Mascot of yours will give every Tom Cruise, Dick Whittington and Harry Belafonte a run for their money! The virtual will rule over the real!

The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

E mail: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

The Future Brand

2008-07-03T02:48:00.000-07:00

After the Brand what??

By Harish Bijoor

The brand is here. What next?

January is as good a month as any to do a forecast piece on where the brand movement is heading. If “What next?’ is the question, here is a clue.

Traversing down memory lane into the rough and tumble world of brands, one sees the distant past. A time when there were no brands at all! A time when the brand meant the first slap of hot iron slapping a live cow, writhing in pain! Just to distinguish one cow from another.

From the commodity world at large, emerged the brand. As commodity morphed to brand, a cusp-category was but natural as well. A category we call quasi-brands. A category where recognition and identity were two parameters just about happening!

With the first brands hitting the shores of the Western world, the brand phenomena was slated to become bigger and bigger. Till it enveloped the whole world at large! As it has now!

What next? Let me peek into the crystal ball and fathom out an answer that makes sense.

A few brands in very, very few categories will go on to become super-brands. But just as there are only four super-models in the world, and the rest of us are like what we are, there will be only a handful of brands that make it to the league of the bold and the beautiful.

Hundreds of thousands of brands will therefore remain brands. But is this brand movement forever? Does it have a lifespan at all?

Though many a mind of the past believes the brand is forever, the concept of forever itself is a wee bit different than we understand it.

The brand movement is slated to head to a finish line in the medium to long-term future. Look at the trends that stare back at us when we study brands, the minds that harbor these brands and the consumers that actually buy into these label offerings.

1.In the beginning there were a few brands. There were some categories that had no brands at all even. For instance the rice category in India. And then comes a time when every category has a brand name leader within it. Think of the category and think the brand name. Think truck and think Volvo. Think coffee and think Nescafe. Even this was fine. In fact great.

And now we come to a state of acute category clutter. There are just too many brands in every category. The toilet soap category has 62 big brands, the ‘Atta’ category has seven, and the salt category has eleven! Competition for mind-space occupation is acute and interesting.

As the years roll by, there will be more brands. More brands that will add to the confusion that will prevail. Brand owners will add to the clutter-factor by extending their cash-cow brands into categories related and un-related. An Anchor will therefore not only be a thread, but a bulb and a toothpaste as well!

Too much confusion will result in that single quest of the consumer to look for the non-confusing. To look for the one offering that does not confuse. The one offer that simplifies it all. And this is likely to be a non-brand. A generic offering even! Back to the Vedas!

2. With too many brands doing the rounds of consumer minds, creating in the mind of every consumer a virtual dustbin of brands, price and value will dominate the brand-agenda in the years to come. As price, hitherto a dirty word in the lexicon of the purist brand manager, gains importance, the price war will result in a price-led-hierarchy of brands, destroying the very ethos of branding.

Value will dominate the agenda as well. As the value-conscious consumer is further value-sensitized by the overt offerings of “more for the same price” kind of promotions brand guardians will offer, yet another nail will be struck onto the coffin of brands.

3. The brand movement started off with the initial brands in every category being high price premium offerings. The first few brands were distinguished entrants into a category. An Yves Saint Laurent, a Tommy Hilfigher and a Gucci were all offerings at the premium end of the market. The brand movement then got to be more common. Other offerings such as Arrow, Allen Solly and a Peter England to boot, have made the brand movement as democratic as it can get.

Today, the brand is something that is within the reach of the common man. To an extent the brand has become a bit too common even. This is going to get even more so. Wait for the moment when every category will have an offering that will have a label on it. A common label!

The common label movement will then drive the consumer in search of the non-label. The “No-label” offering that will offer not only value, but exclusivity as well!

4. Brand incredulity is the last of my arguments on the prognosis for the brand movement in the future.

Brands have gone a bit too far in their promises to the consumer. In the beginning brands promised the earth and delivered the moon. And then they promised the earth and delivered the earth. And now, brands promise the moon and deliver the earth!

The future will be more complicated. Brands will promise a mix of Jupiter, Uranus, the moon and the earth all bundled together. In terms of delivery, there will be a fault. A small part of the earth (and that too a wee bit of Dharavi) will be on offer.

As brands fail in their promise and as brands stretch the imaginative line a bit too far, consumers will drop out and will want the non-brand on their menu of choice.

Four arguments that point to a clear “No-brand” future! A future where the non-brand will be a fashion statement. A statement of having arrived! A choice that will distinguish the intelligent from the stupid! Oops! It hurts!

The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

Thde power of !: 1 Branding

2008-06-30T22:50:00.000-07:00

Reinventing One: One!

By Harish Bijoor

Just look back at the decades that have gone by in our sales and marketing lives. Look at the one big idea that has changed radically over all these years.

The one big idea that is different in the world of Marketing: In the old days we were very good at marketing direct. We took the first few brands of teas that hit the Indian market in packet form and demonstrated it in the remotest corners of the country. We marketed direct. 1:1 Marketing!

Today, we market on a format that is 1: Many!

The one big idea that is different in the world of Advertising: In the days of yore, we advertised the product and service alike on a 1:1 format. We went direct to the consumer and seeded the idea of the product. We created advertising messages that were direct and personalized. One specific message for one specific need. Advertising was specific!

Today, we advertise on a format that is 1: Many, if not 1: Very Many!

The one big idea that is different in the world of selling: In decades gone by, we sold at a very personal level. Selling has always been a 1: 1 effort. The salesman met the prospect and sold physically right in front of him. The appeal was specific, customized and special.

Today, we sell on a format that is 1: Many!

Indian marketing witnesses a great big change in the Big Idea! The old big idea was 1: 1 and the new one we have so wantonly adopted is a 1: Many format.

The worry then! 1: Many is a format that is just not working. Not working hard enough to produce results in the marketplace!

As the worry-lines engulf many a marketer facing the great big marketing meltdown of recent years, it is time to take stock and check on all those things we do right in the world of selling. And worryingly so, the many things we do wrong in the world of selling today as well.

Think efficacy. Think 1:1 selling!

The most efficient form of selling we see in the Indian market today is the one where the seller meets the buyer face to face. This form of selling is as intrusive as it can get, but efficient!

Do you remember the pesky salesperson that came up to you and wanted to sell you that stuffed doll no one ever wanted in the house but you ended up buying? Or that “insurance Uncle” who kept coming to your house and wanted the collective audience of the entire family as he told stories of other families and how they handled crises in their families? Tales of woe and joy told with equal panache to an audience that was being seeded the very thought of Insurance as a product?

Do you remember the first few women who actually came home to home seeking the privacy of the afternoon hours when no man was to be found at home? Do you remember the evangelical talk they took you through with product flip-charts that detailed the benefits of using a sanitary napkin as opposed to the use of cloth?

Do you remember buying 'papads' and ‘murukkus’ from the same woman who came to your doorstep week after week for those twenty years you spent as a housewife at large? The woman was a friend at large! A salesperson you saw eye to eye and trusted with an emotive appeal that was different! The week she didn’t turn up, you missed her!

Selling 1:1 is an art and a science all of its own. It is personal. It is custom-made and packs the best of the integrity approach there can be in the realm of selling. It is selling the way it is meant to be!

Over the years, when selling of a personal kind got difficult, marketers started depending on the persuasive power of the media influences that exert pressure of the selling kind on the mind of the consumer. This morphed personal selling onto a platform of impersonal selling, if you may. The television creative that had the functional motive of selling in mind did a great job or reaching out to larger numbers in its one all-embracing sweep! Never mind if the creative seemed forced to some in the target segment! Never mind if the emotive appeal of the message was not strong enough! Never mind if the creatives meant everything to everybody! The sweep was great.

Early first generation pieces of advertising, which were really a form of aggregated personal selling did wonders to the fortune of brands. All of a sudden, a brand of 'pan masala', which depended on the evangelical selling of its produce on a 1:1 format, realized the power of mass-selling through the media of television! Pan Parag is a classic example!

The early-years of success spoilt the marketing man on the prowl. In many ways, the sales person in the marketplace started depending on the power of advertising to offer umbrella cover to his selling line. This was fine!

And then came a time when the salesman on the field lost his selling sheen slowly but surely , and laid his tongue and every trick of the trade of selling to rest. He started depending more and more on the power of television and indeed the power of advertising in every format there is to advertise.

And then comes the dreadful time when your salesman starts complaining that he is unable to sell your soap and shampoo as the company is not advertising enough! What’s more, even if you as a marketer are advertising to adequate and decent norms of acceptability, the New-Gen salesman is the first one to complain that he is unable to get the sale going as the competitor in the marketplace is spending more bucks on his advertising!

Selling has indeed come a full circle. From the days of pure and undiluted 1:1 to the days of pure and undiluted 1: Many! Selling, to many a salesman in the field today means more advertising!

How wrong!

What has happened to the power of one? The power of 1:1 selling?

New Gen salespersons have forgotten the art of doing it right on their own might. The New Gen salesperson depends a bit too much on the crutch that marketing and advertising provides.

Time to wake up and smell the coffee. As advertising as a pure selling tool works less and less in this day and age of spiel, spit and polish, it is time to re-invent and re-invoke the good old ways of doing things right.

Look at the categories that are the toughest to sell today. Take the case of the toothpaste, the detergent and your daily tot of tea! The consumer is getting more and more tired of messaging that is 'parri passu' across the competitors in the category. The consumer is tired of the ridiculous USPs that are making a joke of the marketing process itself! The consumer whets your advertising message with a filter that has a loud statutory warning of sorts on it that says,”An advertised product is not necessarily the best product out there”! There are memory tags that come free with it.“An advertised product is more expensive”! “An advertised product uses hype to sell”! “An advertised product is a massified solution”!

The tags can go on. While amongst one generation of customers these tags were really of positive connotation, as the generations go through more and more of advertising as a core form of selling itself, the consumer is getting sensitized.

While at one end of this sensitive scale is complete magic and involvement with the advertised product, at the other end of the scale is a complete state of consumer apathy! The consumer in every product category, be it simple soap or high-tech sun-shade, traverses through the various milestones on the scale. From complete magic to complete apathy!

At this point of time, in every category of detergent, toothpaste and tea alike (which incidentally are the oldest marketed categories of them all in the Indian market, and therefore face the brunt of a very sensitized consumer) there is a keen need to re-invent the selling process. The keen need to re-invent processes 1:1!

The first one to do this will be the first one to see growth in these meltdown categories of the day! Bring back personal selling here. Bring back the old approach to the market. Bring back personalization. Bring back hard work!

The author is a business strategy consultant and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

Brand and the Psyche!

2008-06-26T02:39:00.000-07:00

Ouch! It hurts!

By Harish Bijoor

Psyche! Nice sounding word. Dictionary definition: The human soul! The intellect! A subjectively perceived functional entity based ultimately upon physical processes but with complex processes of its own!

Fragile stuff! Un-understood stuff! Misunderstood stuff as well!

Contemporary brands of the day are suddenly scurrying around the riddle of the consumer psyche they reside in. Brands are ready to invest in understanding the consumer psyche that much more all of a sudden. The consumer psyche is important all over again. Brands that aspire to remain strong entities in consumer mind-space are constantly in the quest to understand their base of residence better. Remember, the brand is an entity that resides in a consumer mind…..and not in a vault in the brand manager’s bank locker!

Psyche is a buzzword all over again in the brand manager’s lexicon as he grapples to tackle very hurt ones. Damaged ones. Mauled psyches!

Think Pepsi and Coke. Think damaged consumer psyche. Think Cadbury’s. Think hurt psyche! Think Air Deccan! Think bruised consumer psyche! Think Amitabh Bachchan! Think hurt psyche! Think hurt brand equity!

Brands of every type will go through a phase in their lives where the equity they build otherwise with a great deal of care, stands bruised. On many an occasion, this equity-hurt is caused by factors external, and on some, this jostling of consumer psyche will be caused by brand accident!

A Pepsi-Coke combination and indeed the entire category of carbonated soft drinks got pulled into the terrain of controversy over the issue of pesticide residue. This was as external as it could get. An independent testing of sludge and samples of the drink itself dragged these otherwise status symbols of young India into the sludge of hurt psyche brands.

A Cadbury brand accident by reasons that could be as distant to the manufacturing process as the way chocolates are stored by the retail trade, could worm its way rather insidiously into consumer psyche that is damaged and hurt with every story breaking the event of more worms in more chocolates! At the end of the day, the brand carries the burden of a bruised psyche!

A more direct accident then! An Air Deccan inaugural flight catches fire in full view of the assembled guests and media! An engine trouble a couple of flights later! Enough to hurt consumer sentiment. Fragile consumer sentiment! Enough to cause a consumer to associate the otherwise USP of advantage (low fares) to low quality and therefore high risk to life and limb!

Consumer psyche is therefore fragile stuff. This realm of the yet-to-be-understood terrain is difficult to manage. Difficult to insulate from hurt. Difficult to keep shielded away from factors both external and internal that can cause harm.

Fragile consumer psyche needs to be therefore managed by processes nifty and sensitive in their own right. This aspect of sensitive branding is emerging to be an art all of its own. Scientific it will get, but not as yet. As of now, as brand managers grapple hurt psyches, this is high art. It is only as scientific as the process of the human mind is. Little!

What will an Air Deccan do? How does it rise above imagery that is dominant in its consumer profile of it being an aircraft that has fire in its tail?

Profiling the consumer and understanding every individual in the target segment of brand imagery is the first imperative. Remember, the psyche is a not a collective thing. The psyche is an individual thing. It is all about an individual mind. There are just no aggregates here!

The old ways of understanding consumers as clusters will not work here. The techniques of consumer understanding that depended on the extrapolatative nature of research will not work as well. If there can be 1:1 marketing, let there be 1:1 Market Research as well! Holistic market research that understands the consumer as a human being with a mind of her own, rather than a cluster of brains that operate on average thoughts and aggregated decision making structures. Get real! The consumer is for real!

Having understood the consumer mind, mood and psyche in relation to the hurt that the brand accident has caused it, time to get going on sorting each and every ladder of hurt. Remember, if I see the picture of an aircraft tail on fire and associate a brand name to it, it is going to be pretty difficult for the salesperson of the concerned airline to sell me a ticket on its flight now….and for a long time to come.

What’s more, when my seven-year-old son grows up and wants to fly the airline concerned, I will tell him to watch out and narrate an incident that happened twenty years ago, which he never saw or witnessed. Never mind how long ago, hurt-psyches remain! Hurt minds remain! Hurt takes a long while to remove! Hurt minds cascade the hurt on to those they wish well. Hurt psyche is contagious! Hurt spreads fast! Virally!

As you cleanse every ladder of hurt, every image that hurts need to be replaced by a multiple of images that cause delight. One image of a fire in the tail can be cleansed not with one image of a smiling airhostess on board holding a welcome drink! One needs several such images. One negative thought is possibly equal to eleven positive thoughts in some minds, and possibly forty positive thoughts in a more stubborn mind. Assess it right and sort it all out!

Brand managers who handle hurt-psyche brands need to demonstrate a different set of core-competence altogether! These are really crisis managers who are empowered to cleanse the mind. Very patient folks who might have their roles cut out for a whole generation ahead after the event that has caused hurt.

The approaches to sorting the hurt psyche will be as progressive, as overt or as covert as necessary. While a Pepsi might want to take on a stance that is head-on collision, with a cheeky line that says that Pepsi is not safe, other brands such as that of Amitabh Bachchan have taken very cloistered and safe stances, very different to a head-on approach.

The approaches are many. The challenges are equally many. Let’s remember, mending a hurt psyche is long-term task. A Pepsi might want to stop showing Sachin drinking a Pepsi and might want to show Sachin forcing his little son to drink the stuff, with tender loving care, instead! And follow it up with 39 other positive strokes the brand deserves.
The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.
Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

On Motherbranding

2008-06-25T03:45:00.000-07:00

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 Sunrise. And then it grew in size! There sure will come a time when the Nescafe mother-brand on the pack will dwarf a Sunrise into a status of sub-brand altogether!

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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clustrmaps

2008-06-22T07:33:00.000-07:00

The six senses of branding!

2008-06-14T06:25:00.000-07:00

Sixth-Sense Branding

By Harish Bijoor

The brand is an intangible. Managing this intangible has been made into a fine science by practitioners of the science of brand management over the years. Years of painstaking research in categories as diverse as FMCG and durables, services and products, have led us believe in the make-believe world of the rational brand.

If only the brand was a tangible, all this would have worked beautifully. Sadly the brand isn’t tangible at all! The brand is as intangible an asset as any can get. A piece of intangible asset that occupies virtual space in the concept that is a consumer mind! Quite like a mystery wrapped in an enigma encased in suspense! The brand is a difficult proposition in itself.

Firstly there is the intangible asset. The consumer buy-in needs to be got for the concept of the brand itself. The marketer’s challenge is one to get the consumer to pay firstly for water in a bottle. And the second challenge is to get her to pay that much more as a premium for the brand Bisleri with all its allure and appeal. This is tough task number one!

Tough task number two is to operate in virtual space. All of us know that the consumer mind and mood is vital. None of us however do know with accuracy as to how all this works. The mind is an amorphous concept. A concept that finds the seat of thinking embedded in it. And the seat of thinking is normally embedded in the brain. An organ that is yet to be understood! And guess what! Just as the seat of love is romanticized to be in the heart (represented by the shape of the heart slapped and immortalized in the Playing Cards of our lives), we just might be wrong about the seat of thinking as well!

The brain and indeed the entire spinal cord, ending right up at the Coccyx could be at play for all we know! For all we know, we sit on the seat of thinking most of the time!

Add the entire nervous system to this process of brand understanding and response, and we have an intricate network to manage! A huge network that we just don’t understand as yet!

Tougher task number three still is the fact that the marketer has to manage the concept of virtual space! This is a concept as pure as it can get. It is a concept as wild and maverick as free will itself! The consumer is quite diverse and unpredictable in the exercise of his will and in the articulation of choice as triggered by the marketing stimuli marketers believe they send accurately to their customer base!

Add the big one to all this! The marketer needs to understand not one, but all his target customers. The new day and age has proved it to the marketer decisively that there lies a lot of deceptiveness in the aggregation of the consumer as a homogenous mass. Understanding needs to be in clusters. Distinct and dominant consumer clusters that may run into hundreds of groups, depending on the category of product you represent!

The marketer is boggled by the size of task at hand. The best thing to do in this situation of chaos is to attempt the simplification process. Brand folks have done this very well over the years. And it worked! Worked in a day and age when the offerings in the market were limited and choice was governed by limited availability. Not anymore though! Not for today and not for the brand new Brand age ahead of us!

Management of brands in the present and the future will be a complete art, science and philosophy on its own. The immediate imperative for the savvy brand manager to understand is the imperative of understanding consumer clusters that make the choice for his brand of peanut or pumpkin. This understanding needs to be a holistic understanding. Something that defies the concept of the brain and rational thinking. Something that goes right into the nether depths of the spinal chord and further into every tiny nerve-end that stretches miles and miles within our physical bodies.

Savvy brand management of the years ahead will be about depending on senses beyond the ones we already know and understand. The sense of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch are reasonably well understood and acknowledged by us. We need to now go beyond these basics. Branding will need to tread into the territory of the not-yet-understood realms. Soft-realms that represent a cluster of what we could call the Sixth Sense!

Sixth sense branding will need to depend on consumer intuition. A whole lot of dependence on the gut-feel mechanics of consumer movement will need to be brought in as studied science. The market Psychologist and Sociologist alike will have a role to play in this process at hand! The endangered species of social Anthropologist will need to be pulled out of the back room and given her place in the sun!

Brands dominate every part of our lives today. If we are to make branding relevant in a society that is emerging as Generation Infinity, branding needs to re-invent itself and make it relevant to the consumer of tomorrow. A discerning, maverick consumer, who in his consumer-evolution index is many, many notches ahead of the consumer traditional marketers have been comfortable dealing with in the past!

If branding needs to maintain its edge and relevance, it needs to get complex. More complex in its approach than it is today. The consumer is a complex entity. Branding needs to match this complex animal in its cue and response dynamics. Very simply put, we need to invest a great deal of time, money and effort in research and development. R&D that focuses on the complexity marketers deal with. The simplification process has gone too far! Far enough to stop yielding results!

The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

Branding the Hype and Hoopla!

2008-06-12T01:57:00.000-07:00

Hype and Hoopla Branding

By Harish Bijoor

In the current advertising era of hype and hoopla, precipitated to the fore by brands screaming absurdities into your brand de-sensitized ears, the big question in my mind: What next?

How is the future of branding to shape up? What would be an excellent trend-line to follow and implement for the future? What would really distinguish brands and catapult them to the fore of consumer acceptance in the future? What must all this hype and hoopla lead to? More of it? Less of it? Or completely no hype at all?

Last week, at Indore, I met the Mayor of Indore. The first citizen of Indore, and indeed the current "first brand of Indore" (as I referred to him much to his delight) is an interesting guy. Mr.Vijayavargi had an interesting tale to narrate to me.

It is a typical Indian village story. There had been a spate of robberies in an innocent village that did not believe in locks on the doors. This went on for a while, terrorizing the villagers , till the robber in question was ultimately caught. The village Panchayat then went into the details of how to punish the errant robber.

A bright idea dawned on the bright guys around the Peepul tree. It was decided that the robber's nose would be chopped off! This would identify the perpetrator of the crime and would warn all concerned. Further, it would be an excellent deterrent for any other entity of the village with such criminal intent in mind!

The robber's nose was chopped off. The poor chap spent a couple of days in the village, and then fed up with the taunts he had to face day in and day out, the robber fled to the nearby forest and lived there a lonely life.

Many years went by. One fine day, a group of village women were picking twigs in the forest and came across a Sadhu sitting in a posture that was truly meditative. The Sadhu had tattered clothes on him, had a gaunt look about him, had a flowing beard and long hair. The women-folk immediately prostrated before the Sadhu and sought his blessings. As 'dakshina', the women-folk left all the food and water they had.

What distinguished the Sadhu was the fact that he had cut off his nose. The legend spread that this was indeed a supreme sacrifice to appease the gods. The story spread far and wide and village-folk from far and near came to worship the Sadhu Maharaj they called Moni Baba by now! The Sadhu without a nose!

The robber of yore and Sadhu of the current rage did not complain for sure. The 'dakshina' kept mounting. In the beginning it had been food and water. Now it was more of clothes and gold and money to boot. The Sadhu Maharaj became more and more prosperous and lived a happy life!

Success always breeds imitation. Many a young man with aspirations to make an easy buck watched the growing appeal of the Sadhu. What distinguished this Sadhu from all of them worshippers out there was his nose-less form. Inspired by the charm of wealth, many a young-man cut off his nose and opened up territories in the nearby forests, attracting the attention of the pious. This was indeed a business model that seemed to work.

Till one day, when there were too many nose-less Sadhus in the market! And then presumably began a process of further distinction. In came the Sadhu without a nose and a right arm for one! A Sadhu without a nose and an ear to boot, maybe! Till Sadhu-dom became a terrain of the have-nots in terms of body parts altogether!

How far could one go in this game of distinction? How long then till a wholesome body with all parts intact could once again aspire to be called a Sadhu? When really will all the hype and hoopla of current day branding and advertising lead to the day and age of the real brand with real advertising and real branding emerge?

The quest is indeed for the real! A movement that will distinguish the imaginary and the incredulous from the real. A movement that seeks to move branding, which has traveled a trajectory that started with the sublime and has well night ended up in the ridiculous appeal that smacks of hyperbole!

If one peeks at a universal truth that speaks of everything in life being cyclical, it is time then for the ridiculous to give way to the sublime once again! I forecast the re-entry of the real appeal in our branding and advertising lives in the medium-term future.

Look out then, and hopefully be the first of these pioneer-marketers who will do one or all of the following.

1.Junk all those models that look so unreal in the real context of the brand and the market it swims in. Check out the real market and its needs for once. Bring in that realism in it all. Candid-cam advertising, real-life cameo branding, establishing consumer touch occasions that cause for a real-interface of the brand with the real consumer in the marketplace…….are all movements not to ignore. Remember, the first ones to do it will really stand out with their appeal and will indeed reap the best benefits of this new, improved, real branding!

2.Who will then be the first marketer to occupy the high ground of Integrity? Who will do this first piece of advertising that will speak about the positives of the brand appeal at hand for a start……to be followed by a comparative evaluation of the other players in the market?

Who will make this piece of advertising that will highlight the company brand with all the hype and hoopla? Everyone will! But who will be the first guy who will add on a ten second billboard that will highlight the pros and cons of competing brands as well……with a tagline at the end that says, "Dear Consumer, there is choice in the market. These are the choices.The choice is yours to make!"

Let's remember that if none of the above are attempted in the medium-term, a day will surely dawn when forced legislation might want to make an appearance. Consumer-friendly legislation that will allow advertisers to use all the hype and hoopla, but will demand that all brand advertising pass through a certification board that will give a credibility and integrity certification.
Imagine the plight of the savvy marketer of the day, forced to add a certificate-flash at the beginning of every ad that declares: "This advertisement contains 11 per cent fact and 89 per cent hype"!

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!

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The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc. with a presence in London, Hong Kong and Bangalore.
Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com
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Brands and teh Outdoors

2008-06-10T04:05:00.000-07:00

Brands Run Out-of-Home

By Harish Bijoor

Have you caught the tail of a new trend in town? Have you as yet spotted the best of brands running into the terrain of out-of-home consumption? Running for cover from the melt-down in the in-home segment of consumption!

Lipton Yellow Label has painted many a town and city yellow! A whole corner of the stretch of territory near Mumbai's Juhu beach is all but he colour yellow! Many a restaurant, many a bus stop, and many a signage potential is today all yellow! Lipton seems to run out of home and focus on consumption that is outdoor while sister Brooke Bond seems to focus on what is happening inside the home!

Peek keenly at the new Horlicks commercial! Peek keenly at the development of the Café(including the Nescafe Café) of every hue in the great Indian marketplace. Brands, hitherto pretty content with in-home consumption seem to want to be out there in the great outdoors! Amidst the happening people of a happening Indian marketplace!

Every Vending machine out there in the great Indian marketplace, every new Mall that is breeding a whole new "Mall-dude" who just about hangs out, moving from mall to mall, and indeed every new range of Pret wear seems to brand the out-of-home category with pretty much focus!

Out of home is in! Out of home branding is the new buzzword sweeping Indian shores. Brands that stubbornly remain indoors through their positioning and segmentation strategies are in for a jolt!

Consider the facts. The Indian population is a young population. Life expectation is longer than before. Income standards are up. Except for a year of aberration, the Indian monsoon has largely behaved! Good monsoons mean a good crop. Large parts of the rural economy is a non tax-paying economy. Good rains spell good crops and good crops in turn spell a good amount of disposable income!

The metro is a happening place. We have 5 big ones and a whole host of 29 one million plus population towns that are buzzing with activity. The man works. The woman works as well. Double income is a norm in many a home of these 34 big urban agglomerations. People work hard. They party hard as well. Entertainment is big business. Eating out is a bigger fad still! Time is at a premium and anything that saves time and adds to the joys of daily living is a big hit!

The average Indian is spending a lot more time out of home than before. 8 hours at work, 2 hours on travel and 2 hours of outdoor entertainment and eating out, gobbles up half his day. And that's a lot of time spent out of home! The brand in his life has to appeal to his senses more out-of-home than when in home. In any case he is sleeping most of the time when in home alongwith a two-hour tryst with the television! The Indian in the metro is largely on the go. Man, woman and child alike!

The brand of today and tomorrow has to spend a great bit of quality and quantity time with the consumer in his avatar as an entity 'on-the-go'! The brand that will make an impact on the consumer of the new day and age we find ourselves living in, will be the brand that adopts a lifestyle that is as clonal as its consumer's! The successful brand of the future is therefore going to be the brand that will jump off the idiot box and jump right into the lives of the consumer on the prowl in the great Indian marketplace.

The buzz: Out of home! Out of home in every realm that marketing impinges on the consumer. Out of home advertising, branding and distribution included! Does not matter if your commercial brand offering is that of a hand-phone or a hairdressing solution! Out of home is chic! Out of home is the latest brand Pret wear!

Take a peek at the positioning stances brands are adopting, and will progressively embrace more and more as the on-the-go generation establishes its credentials in Marketing India. Brands will want to shake up their hitherto traditional imagery which confined them to a lifestyle that was largely indoors. A coffee was all about being served indoors by the neatly decked-up wife to the hard-working husband on return. The imagery was all about the wife who worked and moped at home and a husband who did the same in a crummy office situation.

How long can you keep beating this imagery to death and beyond? The innovative brands of the day tweaked this image on norms that were psychographic and represented a small reality but a big aspiration. The very same brand had the woman of the house coming in from work as well, and the hubby of house rolling up his sleeves to bring her a cup of tea or coffee or whatever! This was fun. This was different. This gave the woman of the house many a positive cue. The marketer was waking up and recognising a new woman. A new India altogether. And the marketer in question was not too scared of alienating his traditional segment of consumers. But this was still within the home!

Brands in contemporary India are fast understanding the new consumer who is more outdoors than indoor. Brands are treading cautiously out of home for a change. A good way to begin is by looking at what is offered as dominant imagery in the advertising of the day. Time to shake up the in-home scenes with zing from a life spent outdoors! Many a brand is today attempting what Nestle first attempted in India with their brand that did not click. Dolca soluble coffee! Nescafe took this ahead with its complete outdoors imagery through its flagship brand Nescafe! It was not only outdoors with an aspirational (but never fulfilled) lifestyle of river-rafting and pole-vaulting, but it was International as well! It was all about Paris, Milan and blonde-heads on the go!

Look keenly at the dominant visuals of a Lipton Yellow Label imagery. Look with focus at what GSK's Horlicks aims to achieve with its all new zingy commercial that offers nutrition on the go! The rendition is outdoors, young, with-it, peppy and all about health and vitality that is fun! Nutrition is fun! And bulk of it is outdoors!

Brands will progressively step outdoors in their positioning imagery requirements. And this will morph into the market segmentation exercise as well! If the average Indian is spending that much more time out-of-home, might as ell segment him and his requirements by doing a time-slot analysis that take us through a branding time and motion study!

Positioning, for a change, will therefore lead and segmentation exercises will follow. And following all this will be the physical distribution requirements brands will want to explore! This is a big one!

If the Indian consumer is that much more outdoors than indoors, there is certainly a whole big requirement to offer him the brand at every one of his locations outdoor. Time to whip the brand out of the somnolence of its traditional distribution system. The alimentary canal system of distribution (from company to C&F to redistribution stockist, to wholesaler/retailer to final consumer) is not enough then! Time to offer the brand in question at arms length and desire's length distance in every one of those out of home locations he will spend more and more of his time.

If your brand is that zingy brand of water, this is the way you would go! In the beginning it came out of taps. In came the brand and bottled it for the consumer. The bottle reached the consumer through the alimentary canal which occupies 98 per cent plus of all Indian distribution. The consumer is now on the go. You need to reach the bottle to him wherever he desires to take a swig of water. It could be on a bus, it could be at a mall through a vending machine. It could be in a cinema theatre through paper-cup options, it could be in an office through a bulk decantation method. It could be in a Café through a branded initiative, it cold be in a hotel through the mini-bar service. And this list is not as exhaustive as it can be!

Very simply put, explore very move your target consumer makes in a day outdoors. Do not expect him to carry his favourite brand of water with him on the go. Give him what he wants through every distribution possibility there is. Track his every move and let it be available whenever he just might desire it!

In this new era of outdoor life, the brand and the product need to be ubiquitous. If you can't jolt yourself to do it, your competitor will! The future is tense!

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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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Branding India

2008-03-06T22:43:00.000-08:00

Alisha, Time to sing two new songs!

By Harish Bijoor

Everything all around us is a brand. You are. I am. India is.

You, India and I are all in the marketplace seeking our place in the sun. The only reality of significance for the moment is the Buyer-Seller Dyad, made famous by Henri Tosi many, many years ago. Everybody is a buyer and a seller. And buying and selling is an image-driven issue. What starts with utility, moves on to price and what lingers on price moves on higher up in the hierarchy to the brand and its unique image. The brand is IT!

India is a brand then. And brand India is seeking to establish itself a unique identity. An identity that makes it stand apart from the rest. An identity that will create a craving among sets of consumers who will choose India over all else in the great ‘Swayamvar’ of country-brands that decides the future of many a business.

How does one put the India brand in the top rung of image-recall among sets of consumers globally? How does one leverage what is unique to India’s distinct credit?

In this discussion, we must traverse some key issues.

First of all, what is a brand? Do we really understand it? I redefine the brand altogether differently. And then, who is the consumer? What focus do we take? What really are the Unique Selling Propositions of brand India? How do we leverage that? What are the hurdles around? What is the competition? What are the India negatives? What have we done in the past? And have we been wrong? What must we do in the future? And who will do it?

Many questions to discuss. Let’s go!

What is a brand?

Many years of swimming with definitions that say this and that have tired me. I have kept moving on in my quest for a definition that embraces the real nature of the brand. I have seen every definition there is, and have felt an inadequacy and emptiness that has been plaguing my need for a truly definitive definition!

Nirvana dawns on me and my research years. The year is 2003!

My definition of the brand is simple: “The brand is a thought!”

Peel that definition further. The brand is a thought. A thought that rests in a consumer mind. The brand is not owned by the Corporate or brand manager or advertising agency or whoever the brand intermediary. The brand is owned in the mind of a consumer! One consumer!

This definition is tricky in its offering. It throws the brand as an entity that is an ephemeral thought that sits in the head of a consumer. As many consumers (and indeed non-consumers) in a market, that many thoughts…..in that many heads! A difficult proposition to manage. Brand Management is indeed the art, science and philosophy of managing brands in consumer/non-consumer heads!

Managing a brand is therefore an extrinsic concept rather than intrinsic. Brands are managed in the heads of consumers and not in the Board Rooms of Corporates or the cubicles of advertising agencies. Many thinkers of the past have gone awry in their understanding of the brand. My years of research simplify the brand and its definition. At the same time, it complicates. How in tarnation does one manage the minds of a million consumers? A million consumers who are individuals and not clones. A million consumers who go through unique family lives, social conditioning, life-experiences, economic upheavals of different kinds and political exposures which are as varied as they come!

Let’s leave the definition aside for the moment. Let’s agree to accept a simple definition. The brand is a thought in a consumer head!

Who is the Consumer for Brand India?

Everyone is. At the beginning and indeed at the end of the marketing game, everyone is a consumer in some way or the other. However, let’s add some focus to this exercise of honing in on the consumer for Brand India.

While at the macro-level, everyone who comes across the name India is a consumer (either existing or potential), at the micro-level, the market cane divided into two simple sets. The B2B (Business to business) market and the B2C (Business to consumer) market. Both are important to the India brand at large.

While the B2B interface is necessary as we build a robust India brand amongst countries, organizations that fund countries, NGOs that support country causes, corporates we supply to, intermediaries who source for markets globally, bankers who put out image reports and market diagnostics, and a whole host of others, B2C image is an equal necessity to address.

B2C is a necessary image for a country to leverage as its brands enter consumer markets. As products and services from India hit global markets with a greater degree of regularity, the India brand image is a vital necessity. India needs to have for itself a positive imagery that is socially, economically, religiously and even politically correct.

The world looks keenly at the product that emerges from a social system that is right in its eyes. When South Africa had social sanction against it, a South African product was shunned by many a country that was careful to distance the social outcast of a country that believed in apartheid! The brand must have and build positive Brand Social Equity (BSE)!

The world looks equally with keen eyes at Economic equity. Brand Economic Equity (BEE) is a key term I would coin to describe the process at play. The world seeks a basic level of quality from those that supply it. The India brand must establish and sustain these basic quality levels which have become a basic entry parameter into global markets. Brand Economic Equity is also about costs. It is about the low-cost high quality product that can compete in the global market as it adds to the bottom-lines of all those who handle the product as intermediaries. Look keenly at China. China has done to the manufacturing sector what India is attempting to do to the Services sector with its BPO and ITES sectors. Driving down costs to the bare minimum and offering the product and service of high quality!

Brand Religious Equity (BRE) is really a niche today. It is indeed a term that describes a country brand as a bigot brand or a secular freethinking brand. Every country that adopts the norms of the secular and every country that embraces with debate, dissent and much turmoil (as we saw at Cancun) the offering of the WTO is normally on safe ground here.

Brand Religious Equity is also about which part of the world you belong to. The brand from Iran is a suspect brand here! Syria is a rogue state. Both Syria and its brand-offerings in consumer space will suffer here. The India brand will need to represent itself with the cloak of secularism that will make it stand apart in a region that is a suspect-geography for the biggest global players in the Marketing game of the world!

The final frontier is that of the Brand Political Equity (BPE). This is all about the politically correct being in the market. The Indian product that adheres to the norms of hygiene, quality, hazard control and most importantly political correctness will find a place in the global sun. The Kashmiri carpet woven by kids will hurt the BPE of the India brand just as much as patent-infringed roses will affect our image on Valentine’s day all across the world.

The India brand needs to cater to each of these B2B and B2C segments offering the best of brand equity to markets and its sets of discerning consumers across the gamut of the social, the economic, the religious and political equities that are becoming more and more important in the world at large today.

India USPs!

India shining then! 18 great monsoons (with an aberration in one year) that has caused for continued rural prosperity in an economy that depends on the rain! A services sector that is growing at a robust clip! Self-sufficiency in the food sector. A young population that contrasts itself from a geriatric world at large! A burgeoning rate of tele-density that rivals the rate of population growth, which was hitherto our claim to fame in the past. Better infrastructure across the realms of need. India is shining really!

India has USPs that are distinct, some of which we will discuss as we enter the realm of what we must do to re-orient the branding of the image that is India in the mind of the global consumer. Let us for the moment focus on the Goldman Sach’s BRIC Report on the BRIC economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China!

India’s economy could be larger than all but the US and China in 30 years! India’s economy can be larger than Japan’s by 2032! India shows the potential to grow the fastest over the next 30 years! Growth rate could be more than 5 per cent over the next sustained 30 years! India is likely to raise its US dollar income per capita in 2050 to 35 times the current level! In 2050 India’s GDP per capita could be $17,366!

India is unique in many ways. A population size that is large, heterogeneous, largely English speaking, educated, and boasts of a deep culture that runs into thousands of years. India is young. India is vibrant. India is just about on the verge of shaking off the image of sloth and bundled bureaucracy that has haunted it for many decades. India is happening!

Just as India happens, we need to very quickly make an analysis of all the things we have done wrong thus far in the branding of India. Time to recap and take account of the many mistakes we have made. The image of India is what it is today because of all that we have done thus far. Done wrong!

The new Way Forward

I strongly believe that India has done wrong in projecting itself as a brand of significance in the world tapestry of understanding. India has been done injustice to.

India has touted for long many years the “Made In India’ line. A line that came into prominence during the Nehruvian era. Pandit Nehru was besotted with production and productivity. In many ways he hijacked the nation that is India onto the road of production and productivity.

Nehru’s vision encapsulated an India that would compete with the rest of the world on the same parameters that the rest of the world progressed with. The Nehruvian plan for the country was but a me-too approach paper that had us setting up manufacturing facilities all over and focusing on agricultural productivity that was higher than what was being achieved. We copied the model that was at play in the rest of the developed world in those early days of our Independence.

I think we did wrong.

The manufacturing sector which was the focus of attention produced more. The agricultural sector focused on producing more as well, from the same landmass. Inputs of agricultural pesticides and fertilizers spurred on the process even further!

Peek keenly at the agri sector of the economy. India, which was once a dominant organic producer of the vegetable and the grain alike, adopted fertilizer and pesticide in a large industrial manner of adoption. The unique proposition of an organic nature of cultivation was sacrificed at the altar of productivity and self-sufficiency! Indian agriculture thus lost its cutting edge! Blunted by aping the West and its practices in a frenzy!

And then came the “Made In India” line. The Indian product, manufactured in our factories and on our farms hit the global market with the “Made In India” line! This line was faulty. The Indian product was not able to live up to the highest standards of quality that the International customer expected. The product failed. The “Made in India” label became a liability for product recognition. Made in India meant low quality and inferior performance in many a category. And then came a time when the Indian product would hit the global shore, but the made in India label had to be removed. Walk into Harrods and you will find moiré than eighty made in India products. Not more than five of them actually have the made in India label. The rest pass-off as superior imports from a more reliable destination!

The “Made In India Label” has been flogged for far too long. Time to revisit this line. Time to focus on our other two key areas of strength.

I believe we have a strong agricultural heritage. We could get organic. Back to the old ways of doing things. We pluck our crops by hand. No machine threshing here. Our cultivation process is not mass cultivation. Our crops are the output of small farms. Our agriculture is still labour intensive, compared to many a Western nation that is highly mechanized. Our cropping is non-Corporatised!

Our crops are shade-grown. Handpicked. The output of small micro-farming effort. Indian agriculture is politically correct in many ways. Use it to advantage. Let’s focus on the “Grown In India” line!

One other USP that is uniquely Indian is in the services sector. India has a heritage of being a service-oriented culture. The guest is still God in our homes. Indian hospitality is cherished. The Indian serves well. The translation of this is seen in the many ITES and the BPO sector initiatives that have taken off! Time to use the “Served Out Of India” proposition as well! Remember, manya credit card transaction in the US and in Europe and in Japan is run out of a Koramangala in Bangalore or a Gurgaon near Delhi!

Dump the “Made In India” focus then. Focus on “Grown In India”! Focus on “Served Out Of India”!

Let’s create the new India brand! Alisha time to sing two new songs then!!!!!

The author is a Brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc., a private-label consulting outfit with a presence in the markets of London, Hong Kong and the Indian sub-continent.

Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

Branding Word of Mouth

2007-11-11T06:18:00.000-08:00

WOM is Here…….Again!

By Harish Bijoor

WOM is here…once again, it seems!

Word of Mouth is today becoming the biggest thing going in the world of marketing. Call it Buzz, call it Viral Buzz, or simply put, word of mouth, is the biggest weapon in the arsenal of the marketing man, woman and child out there in the great big marketing space where consumer meets products, services and brands.

Did it ever go out of fashion? Not really. All the same, word of mouth has played a varying degree of a role in the marketing mix of many a product and service that satisfies our latent needs.

In the very, very old days it was only word of mouth. The only known form of advertising, marketing and indeed selling, was word of mouth. Positive and negative strokes that a brand got in the great marketplace of yore. If a product was good, it got its plaudits. If it was bad, it was condemned immediately. Whatever was the verdict, it spread through the marketplace to the benefit or detriment of the brand in question. All brands were indeed bought or not bought on the strength of consumer verdict of the friendly neighbour in question.

The best research you could embark upon when in search of a brand in the market was the way early consumers of the item were reacting to it. The early adopters were not only the guinea pigs of marketing society, but they were also the harbingers of WOM marketing. You wanted to buy into that rather expensive brand of Murphy radio, the best way to do it was find out from all the accessible owners of the Murphy transistors you could catch and trust. Murphy radio and its immense success in the early years of the last millennium is attributable most certainly to the role of WOM!

WOM played its role not only in the realm of the consumer durable. It played its potent role in the case of many a fast moving consumer good that costed even much less in the marketplace. Det detergent, Swastik detergent, and a host of early Indian consumer brands were built solely on the firm tenets of WOM marketing. One satisfied consumer spreading the good word to seven others and these seven evangelists spreading the word even further with the gusto that can only be best felt in the realm of WOM marketing!

Many a brand failed in the early years of Indian marketing thanks to WOM as well! A potent tool in the early years of Indian brand building. A double-edged weapon of the marketer at large! The consumer verdict was immediate and damning as well. A bad product could not aspire to survive long enough in the Indian market. WOM was its nemesis!

For many, many years the Indian practitioner believed word of mouth marketing to be something of an adjunct to the marketing process itself. There are indeed many in the marketplace even today who believe word of mouth to be something that just about happens on its own. Something that is organic to the marketing process itself. Something that is natural and something that cannot be controlled, calibrated and leveraged. How wrong they are!

Word of Mouth marketing today is a recognized form of marketing itself. Yet another mantra in the marketing Vedas being written and re-written all the time! Word of Mouth is possibly the most potent form in the entire marketing mix that can be leveraged to the benefit of your own brand, and surely to the detriment of the competitor’s offering, if properly and intelligently used.

Yes, while the consumer verdict is natural and immediate, it is certainly one that can be technically leveraged, channelised and disseminated meticulously to ensure a sure-fire and quick strategy that makes or breaks brands, either yours or the competitors!

Word of Mouth is it! I have just returned from a travel into the continent of Europe, parts of South East Asia and lands akin. Wherever I have been, there is but one product that best signifies the role being played by Word of Mouth marketing in contemporary days. The product is the collapsible scooter, a two-wheel push-along contraption, which many of us have played with in the early days of our childhood, an item that is a rage across markets today in a more sophisticated and sturdy format. All steel, all rugged, suiting the requirement of all heights and weights and ages of consumers. Rubber and silicon wheels and a trendy look that is today fast spreading across markets. The US, UK, Continental Europe, all of Asia literally and large parts of the landmass everywhere else is caught up with this product.

Incidentally, this is not an advertised product. Its best advertising is the satisfaction of its ever-expanding user-base across all ages. Its best advertising is its wide usage across streets in the busy metropolises, on the French Riviera, across the boulevards surrounding Lake Geneva, in crowded supermarkets, airports and railway terminals alike! There is a big buzz about the product. People pay the equivalent of anything upwards of INR 3600 to possess this brand new rage. A rage best attributed to the positive use of WOM marketing! The most contemporary use of WOM indeed!

WOM marketing is indeed less expensive and more reliable in its delivery than the mediums of advertising, sales promotion and other marketing mantras the modern marketing man is used to. If used well, if used judiciously, consciously, responsibly and technically, WOM marketing will pay dividends much richer than the traditional means we have used over the last decades gone by.

And guess what? WOM can be used for the latest brand of liquid gel-filled push-up bras that offer a natural feel and so also for your brand of ‘chakki fresh atta’ with equal panache and effectiveness!

E mail: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

2007-11-01T23:22:00.000-07:00