question hour

Brands are selfish entities

When a brand-endorser is in trouble, most brands ditch the endorser. Why?

Kolkata

Paulomee, brands are essentially selfish entities. The good of the brand is always protected passionately. To that extent, a scandal or the undoing of a star celebrity in any other way is typically not tolerated by brands. Brands resonate the aspirations of their consumers. Therefore, they read the consumer mind and act accordingly.

I do not believe brands must stick their necks out for their celebrities in trouble. This is business. Hard business. (See adjoining column ‘the factoid of the matter’)

Baba Ramdev is a big consumer brand today. How has he done it?

Kolkata

Rakesh, not yet, but he is getting there.

The timing is just right. We have just about come out of the FMCG waters muddied by the Maggi controversy. Consumers are getting more and more aware and active about what they are putting into their bodies. If Patanjali can offer valid substitutes in the market with the Ayurveda spine and a fun front-face, things will work. Making Ayurveda fun and a practical part of practical life is not such a difficult thing really.

India is today polarised in terms of competition. At one end are HUL, Nestle and Procter & Gamble, and at the other are brands such as Emami and ITC. Now, Baba Ramdev promises to open up the third frontier. Exciting times ahead for the category, it seems. There is certainly a very intelligent method in this madness. A madness that will possibly redefine marketing intelligence itself.

Also, wait for more. Baba Ramdev is not the only player in this space. Expect Sri Sri Ravishankar and lots more to make consumer offerings in a bigger and more focused way than they do today.

What’s happening to my favourite Rasna? Wasn’t this category a big hit once upon a time?

New Delhi

Anand, it still is a favourite for sure.

The powdered drinks market is an old one. It is a time-tested category, and does very well in India, where the terrain of consumption is divided between urban and rural, and where distances are large. Powdered drinks offer the benefit of a packaged recipe drink reaching distant locations, only to be converted into its liquid avatar at the point of consumption.

The category shows efficiency, as opposed to the RTD (ready-to-drink) category, which needs to bear the cost of transportation of liquid as well.

While the powdered drink category in India suffers from inferior brand imagery at large, the liquid RTD variants enjoy the snazzy and with-it imagery. RTD is, therefore, able to derive better margins from consumers. In the bargain, RTD is able to deploy a fair bit of money on advertising and market promotion as well.

The key challenge for the powdered drinks category is its imagery at large. It needs to invest in building a more solid imagery for itself, as opposed to RTD options.

Rasna is the mother and Tang the great-grand daughter, as far as India is concerned. Rasna has gone through the complete brand development curve as it has evolved in India over the decades. Tang, on the other hand, has just landed in the market when everything is more hunky-dory. In terms of brand imagery, Tang is ahead whereas Rasna is fairly jaded as of today. Time to reinvent.

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