The Hindu Business Line : Celebrations, cement and Bollywood

Anandi, corporate anniversaries are useful in many ways. The first and most important use of the anniversary is to focus attention on the company and its heritage of years. Heritage is an important marketing tool, particularly for corporates to use. Not necessarily for brands, though. For instance, if Indian Airlines celebrates 50 years of existence and paints the aircrafts’ tails with the 50-year logo, it could bounce back on it commercially, as an older airline is trusted less as it for sure has older aircrafts with it. At least, that is the perception it would drive.

The corporate anniversary adds positive strokes to the company imagery at large. And there are good numbers to use here. One is a good one. So are five, 10, 25, 50, 75 and 100. The corporate anniversary plays two distinct roles in the communication process. One role is for the internal employee and the other role is for the consumer and the external entities that interact with the company and its offerings.

Internally, the corporate anniversary can be a good tool to use in the internal branding process that looks at deepening the glue that binds relationships. Externally, it is a celebration of trust and longevity of partnerships as well.

What are some of the retail formats that are likely to work in the Indian environment?

- J. L. Scaria, Kochi

Dear Mr Scaria, I do believe there will be many formats. The format that will really work in the great Indian marketplace is that of the 7-11. The consumer in India is seeking convenience, upgraded shopping experience, variety, high quality and competitive price. This is best offered by the 7-11 chain format.

Don’t be too surprised if a retailer’s association somewhere gets together and organises itself into a co-operative enterprise. An enterprise that will have a chain of 6,000 outlets across the country overnight. Much faster than any organised retail enterprise, as these are already existing outlets and do not have the disadvantage of starting from scratch. This co-operative enterprise could actually source from suppliers in a centralised manner, and offer the price advantage back to the consumer. In addition, branding could be common. A brand name, say, Sevak, appended to the original name of the store. Every store will therefore retain its old name along with the new. A ‘Sevak Vivekananda store’ somewhere and ‘Sevak Kalathil store’ somewhere else! Expect this and a lot more. I do believe the ‘small is beautiful’ model will survive and thrive, if only it is made more contemporary and price-relevant.

Even makers of cement brands are using Bollywood stars. Why?

- Ajay Sekhri, New Delhi

Ajay, why not?

Cement players are also using Bollywood, as Bollywood is a good awareness-harvesting tool.

Cement companies work in the space of extreme brand clutter. Brands in this category are largely dissipated in their individual imageries. Further, many operate in the space of the quasi-brand and what’s more, with tough competition from the space of commodities. In such a brand-dissipated environment, cement brands are crying for awareness scores. In this quest, the easiest route to the awareness market is the use of the brand endorser. Either from Bollywood or sport. Use of such Bollywood endorsers gives these brands a quick recall value, a quick connect with the persona exuded by a star, or a quick connect with a national sentiment like in the case of Chak De.

In the consumer durables market, smaller players are finding it very difficult to compete with the LGs and Samsungs of the world. Are these going to just dominate the show?

- Arvind Singh, Kolkata

Arvind, there is a tendency in the markets for brands to polarise. The top two brands in literally every category float up and the rest remain far behind. Smaller brands are, therefore, pushed into a corner to compete with one another at cut-throat prices, while the bigger brands at the top fight on image scores.

There is a re-definition of the market. At the top of the pyramid lie the image brands fighting eyeball-to-eyeball image battles in consumer minds, and at the bottom of the pyramid lie the smaller brands, at times numbering 120-plus in the durables category alone. One difference in this pyramid: The size of the top of the pyramid is at times larger than the bottom of the pyramid. Further, value harvested by the biggies at the top is larger than those that happen in the price category at the bottom.

What is your top three listing of “Heritage brands” out of India?

- Jayanthi Ram, Chennai

Jayanthi, this comes easy to me.

Cadbury Dairy Milk, which bridges generations of taste, except for a small scar with the nickel content in chocolates hurting it for a while in its sweet run.

Milkmaid, again the favourite of generations that have used it in their tea, their ‘mithai’, their everything that desired the goodness of Milkmaid.

Woodward’s Gripe Water, which attended to a whole generation of kids. Fought colic with consistency, gave relief to and got the blessings of millions of mothers. These are my top three for India.

Disclosures: My company handles none of these brands!

Harish Bijoor is a business strategy specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

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