The Hindu Business Line : The power of brand properties

We live in a crowded, competitive, cluttered world of parity products. Each product looks, performs and costs as much as its closest competitor. Manufacturers have been struggling to create differences in the performance of their products for quite some time now.

The role of advertising and the agency to create awareness and recall for the brand has never been as critical as it is now. I do not envy the agency today. While the products have remained more or less the same in terms of performance (despite the frequent claims of "new" and "improved"), the advertising agency has to strain every resource to beat the clutter and stand out from it. Consumers are not waiting with bated breath for our communication and prefer things that are simplified for them to remember and recall at the appropriate time.

The appropriate time, of course from our perspective, is when she (the consumer) makes a monthly shopping list or is actually out there buying. Why must she remember our brand and not our competitor's brand? How can we make it easy for her? And it is really here that the concept of creating properties for your brands comes in — colour, a signature tune, a tag line ... all of these have the potential to become properties. These are essentially in the domain of the agency and when properly handled, any of these can be a source of competitive advantage.

The power of `Only Vimal'

My mind goes back to 1987. It is a hot day in Ahmedabad, right in the middle of summer. A. G. Krishnamurthy is sitting in his cabin in the Mudra office. He is quite cool and relaxed — after all, he is interviewing me for a job! The soft board in the agency is full of campaigns of Vimal and Rasna, the flagship brands of the agency at that time. He asks me why I wish to join Mudra. My answer is simple: "I want to be involved with advertising like the ones on display." I get the job, not because of the profundity of my answer, but ... Nevertheless, I start an important period of my life where I am often learning and occasionally contributing.

One of my first learnings was in the `induction programme'. Mudra believed a lot in "storying around" and one of the stories was about Dhirubhai Ambani and the `Only Vimal' campaign. Dhirubhai was briefing the advertising agency. (In those days, Dhirubhai used to brief the agency. It was only later that his job description changed ... he went on to figure out who the next finance minister of the country should be.) In his brief, he kept telling the agency that only Vimal had the most modern plant, only Vimal used merino wool, only Vimal had the best of international technology ... and lo and behold the agency copywriter came back with the tagline `Only Vimal!'

Over the last two decades, Vimal must probably have done hundreds of pieces of creative work with the best designers, photographers and film producers, creating award-winning ads, TV commercials, posters and point-of-purchase material with the same tag line `Only Vimal!' You can debate till the cows come home about the cleverness or the appropriateness of the line but there is no denying the fact that it has been used consistently and very often creatively to become a property of the brand. It has been said, sung, set to music differently, but has remained a feature of the brand's advertising and continues to be recalled by consumers.

The power of music

India loves music. And advertising agencies love to give the Indian consumer what she wants. The year 1987 was a landmark in Indian advertising and marketing. It was the year when Titan was launched in this country even as HMT, the giant in watches and machine tools, was slumbering. Titan's marketing and advertising success have been well documented. Superior styling, superior distribution and superior advertising were the reasons behind the brand's continued success. And the brand has continued its well-recognised music track in every one of the hundreds of TV commercials it has done over the years. People remember and recall the brand's music track - Aamir Khan hums it endearingly in one of the commercials. If you went to the consumer in the street and asked her what she recalls of the Titan brand, more often than not she will say: "The music."

Yes, the brand's signature tune is a property that has been cleverly created, assiduously built and carefully nurtured over the years. Hardly surprising that it is a brand property. Building properties takes time, effort and investment. It may seem too time-consuming for today's get-rich-quick brand managers. But then remember this: "No pain, no gain." Take your pick.

Coffee, toffee or argument?

Another brand success from the South was the brand of confectionery - Coffy Bite. This brand was an interesting product that captured the consumer's imagination. The taste was unique, a blend of coffee and toffee, and the initial advertising had the father and the son arguing about the taste.

The brand progressed and the advertising got cleverer. The arguments continued and overshadowed the execution. Teenagers argued, politicians argued and the message had moved from the taste platform to the argument. The advertising was striking, often won awards and the property was "the argument."

While a property was being created, the problem was that the property was not central to the brand. Somewhere along the road, the brand lost its way. Till the agency and client went back to the taste platform that was theirs from the beginning. So the downside to getting caught up in the creation of an advertising property is the risk of it being irrelevant to the original promise. So keep monitoring your property and just ensure that you stay true to the original, relevant promise.

The king of good times

It is never easy to advertise for beer. Oh, okay, mineral water. Yes, surrogate advertising poses its own special challenges. Kingfisher as a brand is arguably one of the better branded and better advertised products in the category. Hardly surprising that it enjoys the success it does within and outside the country. I remember the brand's initial advertising featuring the West Indian cricket team who were endorsing the brand, enjoying itself.

The commercial had a racy jingle that has endured. The images were Caribbean, fun-loving and the music track held the commercial together. While one had some reservations about the then West Indian team (which could not win a match to save its collective life) as endorsers of the brand, one could have no reservations about the advertising or the use of a catchy jingle.

Clearly, the agency sees the jingle as an important recall factor that can actually become the brand's property over time, if it is not already. All the recent commercials use this. There is a nice commercial with Michael Vaughan and Andrew Flintoff where the all-rounder struggles to sing it right and is classified as a new Kingfisher fan. The latest commercial in the loo, however, leaves one cold, though. Imagine singing in an Indian public loo! But again I wonder if the brand is losing sight of its theme - The king of good times. I daresay the agency can argue that singing is a sign of the good times. I just wonder if at times agencies get carried away with the power of their own creativity and lose focus.

Brand properties are not new

I have given you a few examples of properties that I recall but agencies have used them for quite some time for a variety of brands. Coke has used red forever and Pepsi has been blue for decades (notwithstanding the current fiasco with our boys in blue). IBM's big blue imagery and Venetian blinds have endured. Britannia has had its `Tin tin da tin' for as long as I can remember. Agencies will continue to search for some enduring features that brands have that can set them apart. It can be done. Just put in the time, effort and energy to arrive at a property. Then just go for it. And most importantly stay with it.

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO of brand-comm.)

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