The Hindu Business Line : Cricket clutter

Endorsements by cricketers are losing value as there is no exclusive relationship between brand and cricketer. The scandal that shadowed the game in recent times, and the constant visibility it gets, is taking off the sheen.

Angry cricket fans in Karachi burn posters of Pakistani cricket players after the team lost to India in the 2003 Cricket World Cup series.

Air-India enjoyed monopoly in consumer mind space but the aviation sector got crowded with the emergence of high-decibel international airlines and domestic airlines getting the green signal for some international routes. What could be the competitive strategy to bail out Air-India from the clutter?

- Suparna Ganguly, Mumbai

Suparna, Air-India needs to establish its presence in the mass market commodity that an airline ticket has well nigh nearly become today. Aviation is one sector where in the beginning everything is a commodity and then morphs into distinctive brands. Some become super-brands and others have to contend with remaining just brands. And finally, in sectors such as aviation, the brand becomes a commodity once again. Telecom is another such category. In the US today, where service is largely pari passu and where technology is rather pari passu as well in telecom, you search for the cheapest cent rate for your call of destination. Does it cost 17 cents a minute to India or 15 with another operator? Telecom has become a commodity again.

Air-India fights in this back-to-commodity space once again. So it needs to look for a distinctive appeal to focus on. It cannot be a part of the commodity game. Right now, it is time for it to attain a niche status and grab seats with a brand appeal that will be distinctive. There is plenty of scope in the name itself.

India is a happenning brand across the world today. Indian Yoga is a big hit. Alternative therapies are on a rampage. The India name is hot! Indian music is hitting the world charts, just as Bollywood is making huge inroads into the rest of the world. The BPO and tech sectors are equally creating a great India brand out there. The airline of this country can surely capitalise on all this India-centricity in the world

Cricket endorsement is big business. Where do you see it going? Are we overdoing it?

- Ravi Balan, Chennai

Ravi, I think cricket as a game is an over-played game in the country. It is being done to death. The fundamental approach to the game that lays the golden eggs is itself faulty.

Look at it this way. This is a game that has captured the collective imagination of the people of this country for many, many years.

Over the last couple of decades, whenever we have run a study to find out amongst Indians the one thing that unites India and knits it as a whole, cricket, particularly an India-Pakistan fixture, has always figured as one such! Cricket managers in the country have, however, flogged the game a bit too much. The logic is simple. Fewer the number of games, more the interest. The current mania seems to go against this tide. Too many games! Cricket as a game has also gone through its shares of ups and downs. The match-fixing racket really brought down this game and its icons many a peg down the image ladder. Many a fan felt cheated. My definition of a brand is simple. Differs from what Aaker and Kepeferer and modern day thinkers have to say. I define the brand as a thought. The brand is a thought that lives in a person's head. Cricket is a thought that lives in a person's head. This thought can be positive or negative. Never neutral. Cricket is fast traversing the minds of many a consumer from a positive to a negative thought. This is the point of time when cricketer endorsements get questionable ratings, as does the game itself.

Cricketers have also overdone the brand endorsement game. We have guys endorsing as many as nine different brands, confusing the consumer altogether. With multiple brand endorsement as the norm, the brand endorser is only good at perking up brand awareness scores and nothing else. They fail miserably when it comes to moving the awareness score on to an interest in the product, a desire to buy, the action of purchase and, of course, the post-sale satisfaction scores.

Cricketer brand endorsements, therefore, have a limited role today. The quest for the single brand endorser is on. Look at Ustaad Zakir Hussain and Taj! The umbilical cord between brand and icon is tight. Think Zakir ... think Taj. Think Taj and think Zakir. We can't say this of many a cricketer-endorsed brand!

And finally, yes, cricket endorsements swing up and down with the performance of the Indian team at large. When the team is down, endorsement weight is down. When it is up and running, the weight is that much more!

Reliance Telecom gets its share of digs from consumers all the while. How do brands survive all this?

- Shyamolie Kapoor, New Delhi

Shyamolie, mixed customer service and hiked or delayed bills have spewed around many jokes, most taking off on the Kar Lo Duniya Mutti Main positioning. This can happen to any brand in any category. The big brand that does not perform to expectations will need to bear the brunt of such ridicule.

Reliance suffered from this tremendously and its equity is already hurt on this count. Regaining trust of its customer base once again is a tough task ahead of Anil Ambani. It is indeed task number one! Correcting image is more difficult than creating image.

Harish Bijoor is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc. Email questions toaskharishbijoor@thehindu.co.in

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