The Hindu Business Line : Brands - The power of insight

PRODUCT managers, they say, spend more time with their products than with their spouses, so they get very attached to them. The products, that is! I think the malaise of focusing on one's brands or area of competence is becoming increasingly prevalent. The downside to acquiring this specialised knowledge is simple, though it may not be all that obviously apparent. We run the risk of knowing more and more about less and less and may end up eventually knowing everything about nothing!

BrandWidth, a seminar held recently by brand-comm, was an attempt to address this problem and provide a cross-industry perspective to delegates from across a variety of industries - technology, FMCG, consumer durables, agriculture, fashion and jewellery were some of the industries that featured in the deliberations. A galaxy of eminent speakers shared the insights they had gained through the years, about consumers and their experiences with brands.

What is your brand's DNA?

Subroto Bagchi, COO, MindTree Consulting

Subroto Bagchi, Chief Operating Officer, MindTree Consulting, shared his experiences in building the corporate brand of his company. "The cornerstone of any brand must be value," he said. "Every company has multiple stakeholders and technology companies strive to be "the employer of choice." To do that your corporate brand must have a DNA. The vision has to be communicated internally and externally. Formulation of the vision and driving it strategically is essentially the task of a company's senior management and should not be abdicated to the advertising agency or the public relations agency" he averred.

"Is your position `inclusive'? How good is your intranet? And do people in your organisation know your DNA? Can senior management be questioned when it does not adhere to the DNA?" were some of the questions raised by him.

Can `public service' help a brand?

Pranesh Misra, President & COO, Lowe India

Pranesh Misra, President and COO, Lowe India, spoke on a subject with a difference. Public service communication can work equally for service propositions such as Aids and leprosy as it can for brands like Lifebuoy and Surf Excel. The integrated campaign Balbir Pasha ko Aids hoga kya? created waves in Mumbai, increased awareness dramatically and made its way into a campaign by political parties and into the advertising campaign of the iconic brand Amul. The leprosy campaign, which attempts to "spread the word" features Amitabh Bachan in an interesting commercial.

The other two examples of "Little Gandhi" and "two buckets of water" were for Lifebuoy and Surf Excel, brands of tremendous stature. The mantle of carrying the burden of a public service message as their brand proposition rested lightly on their shoulders as these brands had intrinsic strength.

As a result, other Asia Pacific countries were seriously looking at this as a strategic communication option that could be used in their own environments.

Co-creation, a glimpse of the future

S. Sivakumar, CEO, Agri-Business, ITC

S. Sivakumar, CEO, Agri-Business, ITC, shared his thoughts on `Co-creating brands together with consumers.' e-choupal has demonstrated the difference that technology can make to rural India. Co-creation, he said, is only a few years old, as a concept, and cited the example of the iPod. The success of e-Choupal demonstrated the value of choosing lead consumers with care. They could champion the cause and the brand as they are the first consumers first who get the system going. Co-creation, though a nascent concept, offered great opportunities not only to brands like e-Choupal but to sectors such as tourism which could tailor-make packages in collaboration with their customers.

The brand can be a source of experience

TI Cycles President, G. Ramprasad, reiterated the need for brands to look beyond advertising. He gave the example of Toyota, the enormously successful car major that served as an object lesson to all other car managers, several of whom were in trouble. The Corolla, arguably the largest selling car model in the world, owed a lot of its success to the quality and the confidence that its reliability created with the consumer. This experience with the brand had very little to do with the advertising he said. He said in TI Cycles, the company was promoting cycling amongst non-traditional uses. The attempt was to induce prospects to savour the brand experience. He gave the example of `moonlight biking', an experiment in Bangalore where young people had the perfect ambience to savour the pleasures of cycling and would perhaps end up not only as consumers but brand champions as well. The question that emerges quite naturally is simple: "Are we relying too much on advertising when we can go further with our consumers?"

Chandru Kalro, Executive Vice-President (Marketing), TTK Prestige, spoke about making brand extensions successful. Pressure cookers as a category was crowded to say the least - no less than 250 brands striving to get into consumers' kitchens!

The change in Prestige's philosophy from viewing itself as much more than a pressure cooker or a kitchen appliances maker to a smart kitchens solutions provider has made a sea of difference to the company and its fortunes.

The company's ability to find franchisees with a completely different mindset to the traditional and at times `not-so-responsive-to-new-ideas' mindset the pressure cooker dealers had made all the difference. Prestige is the leader today and the initiatives of the last two years in branding, advertising and merchandising have paid handsome dividends. And the question we need to ask ourselves, though as old as the hills, is relevant even today "What business are you in?" We may end up with a completely new strategy.

The world of fashion

Anchal Jain, Marketing Manager of Tanishq, spoke about how its transition from Western imagery to essentially Indian tradition was one of the key factors behind the brand's success.

Making headway and growing at 40 per cent in a largely traditional market (Rs 65,000crore) meant some out-of-the box thinking like hard-hitting campaigns drawing attention to the impurity of most gold being sold in India. The category was unique and an integral part of Indian women, culture, religion and rituals.

The brand, with the Tata name of reliability solidly behind it, was poised to be an even bigger success, she said. The question that arises is, "How relevant is your brand's positioning today?" Must we learn from brands like Tanishq to become more relevant and more Indian?"

Hemachandra Javeri, President, Madura Garments

Hemachandra Javeri, President of Madura Garments, shared his insights on fashion marketing. The challenge in fashion is to fight for "share of wallet." A Van Heusen shirt was competing with Nokia for the consumer's attention and a share of his disposable income. He gave an interesting analogy, likening fashion to the fresh flower business — so acute was the threat of obsolescence.

He stated that large brands and large businesses could not be `fashion - forward'. He spoke about `Nike towns' and the difference they made to the brand's imagery, even though they were huge investments, which may not have been justifiable as returns on investment. India had its own fashion opportunities like the `kurti' which was even making waves abroad.

Yes, brands are constantly a challenge and an opportunity.

"Does your brand have raison d'etre? Is it relevant to the consumer? How different is it? And finally, what insights do we have into the consumer? Are you looking outside your own industry?"

The answers to these questions will determine not only your success but your future as well.

(The writer is CEO of Brand-comm.)

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

More Stories on : Brands | Events | Third Umpire

Stories in this Section
Biting into health

The evolving salesperson

Sir Martin Sorrell

The captain of crunch

Brands - The power of insight

Let not new ideas die too soon

Hardsell