Third Umpire on Branding

Year of the break-away agency?

2012-01-16T18:09:00.007+05:30

Anna Hazare and his campaign against corruption was one of the most widely followed stories on the media last year.

The ad industry's attention was once again drawn to people processes.

I met the head of the Indian operations of a large MNC a few days ago and asked him how the year had been and he made a telling comment. “Well, the only thing I can tell you is that I am glad 2011 is over.” The Indian cricket fan too would endorse the sentiment entirely, as contrary to bookmakers' predictions and my own hopes, India slumped to an embarrassing defeat in the Boxing Day test, which thankfully ended the cricketing action for the year.

But worse was to follow in the New Year as India slipped to an even more inexplicable innings defeat to an Australian team that is “in transition”. But the optimist in me still says, “Well things can only get better.” Instead of putting one more knife into the already beleaguered Indian cricket team, which must be feeling a bit like Julius Caesar right now with all those stabbings, let us move on and cast our attention to the relatively more peaceful world of media and advertising and look at what the year brought.

Analysis or news

Here is a quick look at the world of media. People watched more television, despite the tremendous choice of media that the viewer had. Significantly, it was the programmes that analysed events such as the Anna Hazare movement that people were watching and talking about. Of course, we did have a fair share of events worth talking about, even if television channels were preoccupied with classifying “non-events” as “breaking news”.

The significant programme to my mind at least was KBC in its latest avatar as it gave a lot of people the hope of becoming millionaires. Not a new concept, but this time it made more news than the previous editions as people made money, sometimes lots of it.

Though I am not a great watcher of soap on TV, the success of a programme such as Bade Acche Lagte Hai on Sony is, perhaps, an indication that people will constantly look for and support change in formats and formulae.

While still on the subject of making news, the biggest event for the PR industry, which constantly tries to make news on behalf of its clients, was the winding up of Vaishnavi Communications and the beleaguered Niira Radia calling it a day. In a sense, it was a sobering development, reiterating the validity of the statement that “one who lives by the sword shall die by it”. I am sure that many of the competitors of Reliance and the Tatas, who had their bones of contention with these huge groups, got back at the chief lobbyist. In many ways, it saw the quick and complete demise of “corporate lobbying.” There were certainly disproportionate earnings in this activity, but there was sudden death as well, which she experienced to her mortification.

Creativity, that all too rare commodity

Whenever I wanted to watch a cricket match on TV, I got to see advertising and lots of it. Of course, I have got used to not seeing the first and the sixth ball of overs when they are actually bowled, so I am not even going to complain about it — not because it does not matter to me and millions of other cricket lovers, but simply because nothing will be done about it. And the way India is playing, it might even be a blessing in disguise, as otherwise you may have the heartbreak of watching yet another Indian wicket fall — “live”.

But it is certainly irritating to watch the legitimisation of “creepy crawlers” on my TV screen and the fact that the image of the action has been truncated to accommodate advertising messages. Nor should I forget the repeating of ads (and lots of them are bad) within the same capsule. The day the consumer hits back is not far away and I am sure the advertiser will not even know what hit him. But back to the advertising agency and its “core competency”, which has always been creativity.

How creative were agencies last year? Brands that have a strong culture of creativity continued to do great work whilst others simply continued to use celebrities After all, the laziest strategies are the ones that are easiest to sell.

Brands such as Cadburys continued to entertain and sell. The Airtel friends campaign (and we will talk a little more about it) and the Idea number portability come to mind. Though, I must say, that most of the 3G campaigns left me cold. The latest Tanishq campaign to my mind at least was a throwback to the times when people actually wanted to see ads.

However, the age old principle that “20 per cent of advertising is great, 30 per cent mediocre and 50 per cent downright bad” seemed to hold true in 2011 as well.

As mentioned in my prelude to this column last fortnight, digital advertising is becoming increasingly important with some of the work in that area getting recognised by international awards such as the Effies.

Taproot takes root

The emergence of the creative agency is not a new one, but one has really made an impact and reinforced the industry folklore of guys in suits from all parts of the world working feverishly on their laptops to crack the problem while two guys walk in with their writing pads as competition and walk away with the business is the stuff that fairy tales are made of.

Taproot is not the first breakaway creative agency, nor will it be the last. The entry barriers to starting an agency have always been low.

But the reality is that for one success, there are several failures. I have run agencies and know how difficult it can be to start and, more critically, sustain. But clients are not bothered too much about the size of the agency, and worry only about the people they are dealing with.

People will always buy from friends, whatever the business they may be in. And in advertising, they will buy from people who will solve their communication problems and agencies which are secure in the nature of their client relationships must realise that it has always been and will continue to be about solving communication problems.

I am not sure this is a trend or even the shakeup of the advertising industry as some would say. But it is, perhaps, indicative of the problem that is likely to confront the larger agencies sooner rather than later and brings up the need to closely monitor the morale and mood of the people who work in these agencies.

After some time, people will want more than the security of a salary cheque on the first and the association of an international brand name.

Time to think? Perhaps, more significantly, time for certain agencies to act. How good are their people management processes?

One more Indian agency bites the dust

Mudra, which was arguably the last and the largest Indian agency, too, went under the Omnicom umbrella. It is probably a sign of the times. But I am worried about Indian clients. A large Indian advertiser on the condition of anonymity complained to me that though he works for a large MNC agency, he never gets to see the top flight creative talent. “They are busy servicing their MNC clients,” he cribbed. Well, with 19 of the top 20 ad agencies being part of large global networks, situations like these can only become even more complex. I have a larger worry. I entered advertising when it was headed and led by real owners, some of whom had pledged their wife's jewels or mortgaged their houses to run their businesses. There will always be a difference between owners and managers, in the way they think. Their priorities, how to handle stressful situations and 2012 will see more decisions that are agency-driven with very little thought being spared for the industry as a whole. I think the other reality or the issue of the agency business is that today's top agency heads are spending more time worrying about their budgets and their deliverables and answering their bosses in London, New York or Singapore than worrying about their clients. Most of the agency heads are fairly good financial administrators but don't they have a larger role to play? There is another reality too. Like the stars in the Indian cricket team, many of the agency heads are on the verge of retirement. Being in the age bracket of some of these agency heads, I can empathise with them for their reluctance to neither rock the boat nor look too far ahead. Is this the best option? I wonder.

Let me end with an interesting learning which probably holds true for older people like me. I met a director in IBM who is of my vintage. He spoke of an interesting concept called “reverse mentoring” where senior employees of IBM are being mentored by young employees, who are probably three decades younger to them on the digital media. So a twenty something guy tells this director who makes momentous decisions, on what to do with his Facebook page. And I think this has to be the way forward for 2012, for lots of older managers of today.

I am ready to be reverse mentored? Are you? That could well determine our future, not only in 2012 but even ahead. So get ready to get ahead.

Share your thoughts in the comments section.

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When value took centre-stage

2012-01-12T13:35:00.007+05:30

For the Indian consumer in 2011, economy was distinct from parsimony, and values too, came to the forefront.

The Boxing Day test is overshadowing even the deadline of my year-end column. In a sense it is easier to review the past than to predict the future. So let me stay with the past (as befitting people of my age) and not worry unduly about the outcome of India's Australia tour even if I can feel the excitement of a possible Indian win (after ages) in every pore of my body. How was the year for marketing and the consumer? And what about the poor advertising agency? As usual I believe in the collective wisdom of my peers many of whom are storehouses and repositories of information on marketing and the consumer just as Wisden has always been on cricket. So I humbly dedicate this column (errors et al) to my quietly wise friends whom I reached out to in my hour of need.

A new value-seeker

Thanks to reports of doom and gloom the average Indian consumer has stopped splurging. (Or has he?) The generation that not very long ago would cheerfully sign its entire life away in EMIs for expensive houses and fancy cars at the ripe age of 25, is now suddenly becoming cautious, perhaps, because it feels that the future might not be all that rosy. (Who asked him to read the business papers?) The consumer who reminded me of the extravagant stroke play of Virender Sehwag is suddenly resembling the caution of ‘The Wall' when it comes to spending. While it would be an exaggeration to say that spending has stopped completely, the reality is that there is an overwhelming mood of caution that is enveloping the country when it comes to spending. The new, improved Indian customer has discovered the real value of the ‘price-value' equation. This basically means that he realises that mere parsimony is not economy and will still buy a Daniel Hechter shirt at Rs 6,999 simply because he believes it provides value for money. So it is definitely not so much about price as it is about value. So marketers, more than ever before, will have to ensure that their brands provide value. Consumers will no longer be carried away by meaningless imagery and shallow claims that cue aspiration. Meaningless aspiration is out, sensible reality is in.

Insights provide greater value than ever before

Consumer insights were not invented in 2011. They are as old as the hills and yet, in my view, at least, they achieved a tremendous status this year thanks to Airtel's Friends campaign. Friends have always been important from the days of Charles Dickens and there have been enough films both in Bollywood and Kollywood eulogising the importance of friends over a usually demanding family. Yet the recent campaign in many ways has been the “blinding flash of the obvious” as we have highly watchable episodes of youngsters, including one who is optimistic enough to give a missed call to the police after a friend's car is broken into. I am sure every parent understands and appreciates the curse of the “missed call syndrome” from his child whenever there is a need for money! Youth too can relate to the audacity of one of their own kin going to an upscale restaurant, with two pretty women in tow, with the princely sum of Rs 265 in his pocket! Oh, the confidence of youth! However, in the same breath, I must mention the words of an industry expert: “There has been a lot of hype around this campaign in the trade press.” Can someone tell me what it has done for the brand?

Underlying all this insight is another change about India. The normally serious, and if I may add, boring, Indian is actually willing to laugh at himself. Now if that isn't a change I wonder what is. Speaking of youth and mobiles, there is another change that seems apparent and almost inevitable and that is today's youth seems to be a lot more conscious about social issues.

Enter Anna Hazare

There are two aspects about the Anna Hazare movement that need to be spoken about. The first is the preponderance of youth that was swayed by the aged leader and followed him with body and soul. At a more philosophical level, this is very heartening to me who belonged to the self-preoccupied Indian middle class of post-Independence India. In defence of our generation, I must say that we grew up in trying circumstances. A job was rare and often a big deal. Our generation barely earned enough to support itself, its aging parents and often struggled to help educate its children who invariably went to more expensive schools than we did. We had no influence and could empathise with the “Jaanta hai mera baap kaun hai” campaign of Pepsi. Our fathers were basically nobodies and we had time and concerns only for ourselves and our immediate families. The educated Indian middle class that I was part of even suffered an emergency in silent protest.

I have no hesitation in accepting the fact that the youth of today is much better than ours and much more conscious socially and thank God for that! This reflected in youth joining Anna Hazare in droves.

The second aspect of the movement is the usage of the digital medium to promote the event in a manner that was unprecedented and, in a sense, a taste of the future. The movement spread like wildfire. Youth is adapting to the new medium of the Net and the mobile with the same felicity that a duck takes to water. However, I wonder if we have really understood the importance of Brand Anna. India is missing opportunities to develop R&D on understanding the uniqueness of India and its people. And how can one ignore the enormous buzz around Kolaveri Di that was the high point of the year. I am not a great admirer of the song as, unfortunately, I grew up with Kannadasan and graduated to A. R. Rahman. But then who cares about me? In a sense, it symbolises the Tamilisation of India in startling contrast to the Punjabisation of India that was happening till recently. I was amazed to see two guys from Chandigarh listening to this song avidly in a restaurant in Bangalore and discussing Dhanush with each other! And for me who was struggling to come to terms with Sangeet and Mehendi in ‘Tambrahm' weddings, this was déjà vu. But more than the song and its melody, the key is the viral buzz that the song has created and new benchmarks that have been set about how brands, films and just about anything can be launched thanks to the new medium.

No, this isn't all. Another big trend is that people are buying stuff online. Look at what brands such as Flipkart are doing. They are capitalising on the ability of the new-generation Indian to go online and shop. But as a Flipkart user I can vouch for the customer experience that is becoming increasingly important today. Yes, India has tasted blood and is savouring the delight of customer experience. Interestingly, young India is even buying brands of jeans such as Jealous 21 online! Yes, the concept of touch-and-feel is giving way to click-and-buy. The interesting fallout of this is that marketers too are realising that if they do not have an online strategy they could be in trouble. Not long ago, online spending was an afterthought and people used to earmark a small portion of their advertising budget to experiment with the medium as they did not understand it but still felt it had potential. Now they realise that if they do not use this medium or have a strategy for it, they could be left far behind. The smarter brands have an online strategy, while the others are watching nervously and quickly gearing up or, at least, should.

Cricket takes a backseat

Although it pains me to say this, there is another trend which India is facing up to, though some of us have difficulty accepting this. Cricket is facing a bit of a crisis in the year that India won a World Cup after a small matter of 28 years. Even if you have difficulty in believing it, just remember what Rahul Dravid said in his Don Bradman memorial lecture and bemoaned the dwindling crowds in India of all places and the meaningless charade that the game's organisers hold day after day as even diehard fans get increasingly disheartened and move to more viewer-friendly and shorter duration sport such as Formula One and football. While the BCCI has to be more sensible about preserving the game's traditions and longevity, marketers have to worry about their own interests and future with cricket as the only sport that India watches.

And what about the advertising agency in the last year? It has been a unique and challenging year in every which way and just read my next column as to where the agency is headed.

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Logo Change? Think again!

2011-12-26T17:40:00.002+05:30

Your company may need a change of image, but it pays to keep some of the past.

Share your thoughts in the comments section.

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BPL's second innings

2011-12-23T12:38:00.005+05:30

The erstwhile leader in colour television is looking to diversify in a host of areas to stay afloat.

Recently, when it was reported that BPL had failed to salvage part of its 350-acre land bank pledged with Deutsche Bank, it was a setback for a company that used to be among the leaders in many consumer durable segments in the late nineties.

Sample this: In its heyday, the brand value of BPL was valued at Rs 1,400 crore – a trend-setting parameter which many Indian companies followed later. But within the next decade, they have almost lost it all.

The reasons are numerous. The company bleed heavily due to backward integration and diversification. Then, the Koreans and Japanese consumer electronic majors entered the Indian space. The brand, now, is trying to be visible by giving rights of the BPL brand to a relatively new company, Reach Distributors, started by an ex-employee.

“Leasing out the brand may be a short-term way of milking the remaining equity in the brand. In the past, BPL has been a big brand with consumer acceptance, franchise and has enjoyed a fair bit of consumer loyalty. It still does enjoy credibility and affection. What was once a consumer durable brand became a telecom brand, as well. This gave the brand a wider band-width of appreciation,” feels Harish Bijoor, brand consultant.

But the question is whether offering rights of the brand could have been avoided because it is a sacred thing for a company and founding family? Brand analysts feel that BPL does not have much choice. Its businesses, though, growing but have a small presence in the healthcare equipment market and energy efficient lighting products.

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, Brand-Comm, an integrated brand strategies company said that it was an interesting strategy to offer rights to another company as there are still more than 1.5 million households who use some BPL products. “If the new company brings in good quality products at an affordable price point in smaller towns, it may just work. The aspect of spreading awareness is not required as BPL has a good recall,” added Sridhar. He should know. Sridhar has been associated with BPL brand right from 1983 onwards, handling the advertising account of BPL with various agencies.

Brand analysts are of the view that there are several companies like BPL which have failed to take the consumer’s demand into account, leading to a dent in both market share and image over the years.

“I think the greatest problem that successful companies face is ‘living in denial’. ‘It can't happen to us’ is something most leaders of successful companies believe in. As a result, they are the last ones to recognise the problem, and often it can be too late,” noted Sridhar.

BPL, originally known as British Physical Laboratories, started out with medical equipment and later tied up with Sanyo for its electronics products. The flagship product was the colour television which took off with the Asian Games in Delhi, followed by the Olympics in 1984.

The company benefited from investing in technology and brand. “It outspent the competition, came out with superior products, built an extensive dealer network and became the leading brand of colour television in the country,” Sridhar recalled.

So what went wrong? Experts feel that its biggest fallacy lay in not recognising the possible threat from the Korean brands Samsung and LG. As Sridhar put it, BPL believed that Japanese were the only threat, leading to a sense of complacency that hurt it quite bad.

Meanwhile, the company is quietly putting in place a strategy. Ajit Nambiar, son of the patriarch founder T P G Nambiar, and the chairman and managing director of BPL said, “We believe the predominantly young customers of tomorrow would impatiently demand products that not only meet their rising aspirations but bring a real change in their lives. Looking at the future, as a company and brand, BPL will strive to make a difference in its customer’s lives, be it with affordable yet reliable LED lighting system for homes at the bottom of the pyramid or medical equipment for the growing need for primary healthcare, or even with lifestyle products.”

Consequently, the company has refashioned their brand promise to - Happier Living Everyday. It is a promise that the company plans to keep with its technology, products, service and the commitment of its well-knit team. “We want BPL to be a brand associated with the happiness of our people. We want our brand to grow by making people happier. We value trust and will continue to build this through our products and services,” Nambiar said.

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The arrogance of market leaders

2011-12-08T12:07:00.009+05:30

Fall of the mighty: BPL realised the value of investing in technology, but more significantly invested in the brand. So what went wrong? (Above) A file photo of the launch of a BPL TV _ G. R. N. SOMASHEKAR

“Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.” - William Pollard

It is 5.30 a.m. on the first day of the Australian Test cricketing season and I am sitting in front of my TV set as I have done for several years now to watch a lightweight contest between two ordinary teams, one of which has three youngsters making their test debut. As both teams strive for success on a cloudy day at The Gabba, my mind wanders to other examples of success and failure from the world of business. While success is rare and difficult to achieve, we need to remember that history is full of successful people who have lost their way due to arrogance and leading brands which have led their popularity to blind them to the pitfalls on the road to sustaining success. Let's take a look at some of the brands that have been consumed by arrogance or short-sightedness and see if there is any learning for our own future conduct.

Timekeeper to the nation gets its prediction wrong
In 1968, when I passed my matriculation exam from that wonderful school Don Bosco, Egmore, my grandmother (God bless her memory) gifted me with a HMT Sona watch. I can still remember my enormous pride at getting an HMT watch. I am sure countless young Indians like me remember their first and only watch which, more often than not, was made by this successful market leader. A whole generation of young and old Indians knew no other brand. I remember my uncle religiously winding his HMT watch every day. He never gave my aunt a fraction of the attention he gave his trusted HMT watch. But in all fairness, his watch never talked back to him or gossiped, only faithfully told him the time, day after day for the 84 years of his life.

HMT could justifiably and proudly claim to be “timekeepers to the nation”. But the winds of competition were getting ready to wake the giant who was living in denial. In 1987, Titan launched its range of Quartz watches with great advertising. An India starved of style, and which was going to Dubai and Singapore to get good watches, suddenly discovered a mind-boggling range of elegant quartz watches and HMT found itself on slippery ground, for the first time.

HMT clearly did many things wrong. Its marketing and production functions never seemed to work together or even see eye to eye. I used to work in Mudra in those days and we launched a brilliant advertising campaign for its new, macho brand of watches called ‘Roman'. The watches were extremely well designed, and came with even more provocative advertising with the line “If you are a man, raise your hand”. While Titan's brand associations were classy, elegant and sophisticated, it also cued a slightly effeminate image and this is where the opportunity presented itself to launch a brand of men's watches.

Instead of basking in a great launch we had the mortification of seeing consumers going to the HMT outlets and asking for the new watch only to find the stocks not being available. While marketing wanted the brand to be sold and stocked, the factory had other ideas and the brand and the company suffered as a result. HMT's greatest failure was its inability to spot the trend that Quartz was going to rule the Indian markets. The company's senior management pooh-poohed Titan's preoccupation with Quartz and went about opening plants to manufacture mechanical watches! Was it arrogance or ignorance? Not even time can tell!

Believes in the best but underestimates competition
A lot of my early success in my career in advertising was because of my association with the BPL brand as I handled its advertising from different agencies from 1983 onwards. The company, British Physical Laboratories, which started out with medical equipment, tied up with Sanyo, for its electronics products. The flagship product was the colour television. The till then sluggish colour television market in India took off with the staging of the Asian Games in Delhi as that rare event, followed by the Olympics in 1984, paved the way for an entertainment-starved country to recognise that sports watched in colour was an experience to be savoured. Since then the colour TV market has not looked back.

BPL realised even then the value of investing in technology, but more significantly, invested in the brand. It outspent the competition, came out with superior products, built an extensive dealer network and became the leading brand of colour television in the country. Where is the leading brand of the early nineties today? Does it exist? What went wrong? Was it because it was a single-product company that stretched itself too thin with too many weak products such as VCRs, audio systems, refrigerators, washing machines and vacuum cleaners? Was it because the company did not have resources to invest in its consumer brands because it had diversified into sectors that needed heavy investment? Or was it one of the real victims of economic liberalisation as a whole host of global brands gleefully entered the country? To my mind, the brand's greatest failing was a refusal to recognise the possible threat from the Korean brands Samsung and LG. ‘What can a Korean brand do? If it is a Japanese brand we can accept your views,' they said, even though the research seemed to point to the growing relevance of these new entrants to the Indian consumer. Maybe both HMT and BPL were complacent about their competition when they should have been paranoid about the other brands instead of underestimating them completely.

Today's leader takes its time
Yet the reality is that leadership or success can be a deceptive feeling that can lull you into a false sense of security. I speak of SBI, India's premier bank. I was selling a flat in Bangalore to my tenant, a very pleasant gentleman holding a very senior position in a multinational software company. He is clearly a high net worth individual and an excellent borrower whom most banks would love to lend to. He had chosen to go to State Bank of India for only one reason - the interest rate was 2 per cent lower than the competition.

In fact, it was a simple transaction. I already have a loan on the property, so the documents are with another nationalised bank which had already certified that all the documents were with it and would be handed over once the loan was closed. Of course, I am not a customer but the seemingly needless demands that the bank made again and again makes me wonder why anyone should deal with it. It has taken close to three months to get the loan sanctioned and the bank makes me wonder how it will ever compete with other banks if they drop their interest rates by as much.

Surely if the bank followed all these procedures with such painstaking precision, then it should not have a single non-productive asset! But clearly it has a high proportion as my stocks in the bank are worth much less now than they were a few months ago! Has not the bank heard of speed being a competitive advantage in today's world? What happened to good old banker's judgement of the creditworthiness of customers and the safety of the documents already being with another nationalised bank? Is the bank, formerly known as Imperial Bank, still living in the days of the Raj? Nearly thirty years ago, I was bitterly disappointed at not making it to the SBI as a probationary officer. Boy, am I glad I didn't! Imagine what I would have grown up to be in the bank!

Early warning signals
All around us are examples of failure of companies and brands that have ignored the voice of the consumer and have gone on in their own merry way without realising that their market share has been on shifting sands and they can soon be in trouble as some of the examples stated in this piece. I think the greatest problem that successful companies face is “living in denial”. Even when someone points out the possible risks in the environment, the leader refuses to believe that there is a problem. “It can't happen to us” is a familiar refrain and like the husband who is the last to know about his wife's infidelity, leaders of successful companies too seem to be the last ones to recognise the problem and often it can be too late.

So are you reading the warning signs? Or are you living in denial?

Share your thoughts in the comments section.

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Brands get older, consumers younger

2011-11-25T14:18:00.004+05:30

The human race is a wonderful species. It must be the only species that can actually exult at someone else's misery. Children specialise in this. However, I must quickly add that some older people are similarly gifted. Have you ever noticed (gleefully) the anguish a middle-aged woman experiences when she sees her first grey hair, or her horror when the mirror shows up her first wrinkle? Her pain, I am sure, is greater than that of the entire Australian nation that watched in disbelief as its cricket team was shot out for the mammoth score of 47 last week! Yes, wrinkles or greying are all tell-tale signs of ageing and no self-respecting woman would like that. And yet, I admire their dread of ageing, even though it is part of evolution.

Ageing is as relentless as forty-year-olds needing spectacles to read the newspaper. However, it is a completely different story when it comes to people like me who have needed spectacles for the last forty years to see anything. But I am rambling and will not try to stay with the process of ageing. I wish people in brand management were as paranoid about the ageing of their brands as their spouses are about their own looks. Yes, we have lots to learn from our spouses (and every other woman) if only we stop to observe them. (And one has also heard that watching women is a pleasurable occupation though one always wishes that one had done more of it.)

Brands, contrary to what we may wish to believe, are not timeless. They do not have the longevity of a Sachin Tendulkar and often run the risk of having as brilliant and yet as brief a life like that of his schoolmate Vinod Kambli. Yes, brands continue to age in front of the marketer's eyes and the smarter ones are those who can spot the warning signals early and actually do something to arrest the decline and ageing. Which are the anti-ageing cosmetics brands need in today's world? And which are the brands that seem to be ageing in front of our eyes? Which other brands run the risks of being seen as ‘dated' or ‘fuddy-duddy' by their consumers? What are the things that people in brand management should worry about when it comes to ageing?

My daddy's drink

Let me start with a brand I used to patronise. In the mid-Eighties, I was young(er), upwardly mobile and aspirational. I was then a whisky drinker and continue to drink the same poison nearly a quarter-century later though my brand has changed. The greatest characteristic of this heady brew is that people who drink a brand of whisky, sadly, do not stay with the same brand as they get older and more affluent. This may not be true for drinkers of rum or vodka, who may continue with their brand of drink even as they spread around the middle and become more successful. However, as always I am digressing, so let me return to my early brand of whisky.

McDowell No.1 was the brand of whisky I used to drink in those days. Mind you, it was a good whisky, not that any tippler can identify his brand in a blindfold test. I was glad to drink it and offer it to my friends who dropped in for a drink. It was an accepted social drink of middle-class India in the Eighties. Today the situation has changed for the brand. Mind you, it sells cases and cases of whisky, but the profile of the drinker has changed.

Today's the McDowell drinker is older, from a lower socio-economic class and runs the risk of being described as an auto driver's drink in focus groups, even if that sounds a bit harsh. In brand association tests, it is possible that youngsters are classifying the brew as their “father's drink”. And I don't see today's youngsters drinking the same brand as their dated, fuddy-duddy fathers. While I am sure the brand manager of McDowell's will hotly deny this, in my opinion today's youngsters, if they have to drink a whisky in this price bracket, are more likely to try Royal Stag even if one can laugh at Harbhajan Singh's commercial for the brand. I feel Royal Stag is more likely to be the aspirational brand for youngsters and in my opinion at least McDowell's is ageing and running the risk of finding that both its imagery and consumers are older than that of its closest rival. Is McDowell the only Indian brand to go through this tension? I am not so sure.

The world of luggage

VIP was a brand of luggage that we all grew up with. Some of my older readers, I am sure, can recall some of the earlier ads of the brand which featured separations, people crying as the daughter of the house left the family after marriage or a reluctant schoolboy left tearfully for boarding school. The situations were sad and this brand of luggage was at the helm of sadness and tears. While the brand was a leader it quickly lost speed as smarter, hipper, global brands with younger images entered the market. The brand was seen as old and “not for me”. The brand did take remedial measures, starting with a campaign that was happier with the theme of Bye, Bye focusing on travel situations that were happier with younger models and products that were contemporary. The brand undertook a 360-degree communication programme that was visible and seemed to have an impact on its image.

I have not followed the recent progress of the brand and would be keen to know how it is doing in the larger centres. One of the direct fallouts of image deterioration in the Indian market seems to be that the number of consumers has reduced in the cities while those in smaller towns, semi-urban and rural markets continue to buy the brand happily.

Market success and leadership invariably mean that the brand has been in existence for some time and has some regular customers who have been patronising it over the years. Over a period in time as newer, different customers enter the market, they may view this established player as “not the brand for me” and choose a younger, more happening brand.

So what should brands do?

I think it is important for brand managers and custodians to be honest with themselves. Very often companies and managers live in denial. Like the wife who is the last person to believe that the husband is unfaithful, it is the owners of the brand who refuse to see the danger signs. “Young people are buying our brand,” they vehemently say. “Our brand is aspirational” they insist. Even a simple analysis of the sales data in an outlet can give you an understanding of who exactly is coming to our stores and buying our brand. Is the person older, is he a school teacher, when we would like to believe that he is a high-flying executive? Observation of the store and seeing the sort of people who come into the store can be invaluable. Are more of the sales happening from smaller towns and semi-urban markets? Is our brand, even though a market leader, quietly being pushed into the interiors? Companies need to analyse their market data and do constant research amongst its customers and prospects.

Another possibility is that while the sales may be good, it is important to analyse the usage of the product as well. Is a lot of gifting of your brand happening, which means that the brand is not being used by the buyer? Sometimes it might be a good idea to ask young people, what their reaction would be if someone gifted your brand to them for their birthday. You will hear interesting things that young people have to say about your brand. Sometimes they are so forthright that it may not be easy to listen to them.

We live in times of turmoil. Brands are being built much quicker but also being threatened much quicker than in the past. Ageing brands particularly do not have the luxury of time. The time to do some soul searching is now. Are you ready?

Share your thoughts in the comments section.

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Brand Kingfisher in the red

2011-11-21T12:10:00.004+05:30

The King of Good Times is battling bad times, and all eyes are waiting to see how much the whole bailout issue will cost Brand Kingfisher. Right now, the airline business of Kingfisher is under deep scrutiny and the media focus has only heightened the negative atmosphere. Public memory, of course, is short and all ‘bailout’, ‘bleeding’ and ‘those who die must die’ phrases will be forgotten once Vijay Mallya is able to arrange the corpus to manage the airline’s functioning. Remember, Jet Airways employees’ protests against job cuts some years ago didn’t do much harm to the brand in the long run.

Kingfisher, known primarily for its beer, is unlikely to be affected. The brand has been there for a long time and people vouch for it. Even in this scenario, it’s the airline business that is under the scanner. The airline business is diversification of the core business, hence the impact on Kingfisher the brand would not be much. But when it comes to Kingfisher Airlines, people – especially frequent flyers and privileged guests wooed with the airline’s promise of an extraordinary experience – would stay away, considering flight cancellations and the consequent inconvenience.

Expressing his view, Harish Bijoor, brand expert and CEO of Harish Bijoor Consults Inc, said, “Kingfisher is a dominant brand in the Indian context. The brand for a start is a beer. And from there on has developed the brand equity of brand Kingfisher Airlines. To that extent, the recent sets of issues in aviation tends to hurt the equity of Kingfisher Airlines more than the beer. The airline is a service brand that touches the lives of hundreds of people. The beer is a product brand. To that extent there is less of an issue there.”

“The negative publicity that hits Kingfisher airlines is really about the pains of the traveller more than anything else. A traveller faced with flight cancellations at the last minute is impacted the most. This is where the biggest pain point of Kingfisher Airlines’ brand equity vests,” added Bijoor.

So at one level where the crisis has hit most is the frequent travellers, but that is more of a short-term problem. In fact, the brand has taken a beating but not as much. Even V Balasubramanium, Director at RainMan Consulting, is of the opinion that the brand would have been affected if the issues were that involving ethics or credibility but something like a ‘bailout’ and being cash-strapped will not impact it long-term as people already know that the airline industry is bleeding and the same goes for Kingfisher Airlines. So while the issue has not come as a surprise, it’s true that the rumours about large-scale layoffs or the airline shutting operations don’t exactly help Mr Mallya’s case.

One view that also emerges is that whenever UB has tried to diversify and move away from its core business of alcoholic drinks, they haven’t really succeeded. Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, Brand-Comm said, “The next two to three months will be critical for Kingfisher, and how they manage to emerge out of this crisis and do damage control. There will be close scrutiny and overcoming this will be a challenge. There is a negative undercurrent especially among those who have raised eyebrows over the extravagant lifestyle and now the financial mess. I think it’s a wait and watch policy and the next couple of months will be make-or-break as far as the Kingfisher Airlines brand goes.”

As it stands, the Kingfisher brand which is primarily associated with liquor will not be impacted in any case, as it will have its loyal followers, but for the airline business, which is actually a brand extension, it’s time to be cautious and move carefully. “Kingfisher needs to get off the pedestal and talk and emote with its users and those sitting on the fence with reference to its usage. It’s important to be transparent and admit folly where folly lies. In reality nothing succeeds like success. I do believe this is a temporary blip in the brand equity fortunes of Kingfisher Airlines. With some degree of fund infusion, it will be business as usual,” concludes Bijoor.

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Momentous days for the communications industry

2011-11-11T12:33:00.006+05:30

Stellar outing: The F1 event showcased India’s event handling capabilities much more favourably than the Commonwealth Games could. - Photo : Rajeev Bhatt

On October 31, I was at Lucknow to celebrate a landmark birthday of my classmate from IIM Bangalore. It was a unique experience to be in Mayawati's kingdom, but I shall resist the urge to talk about statues and parks with huge, forbidding walls and stay with the events that India and the world witnessed around that time.

The media in Lucknow was showering praise on Mayawati for helping organise the F1 event, taking place in Noida at that time. Although it was largely a private sector initiative, the papers, in Lucknow at least, spoke in glowing terms about the support that behenji had provided to make the event a great success.

In all fairness the event showcased India's event-handling capabilities much more favourably than the Commonwealth Games could. Even as I was admiring the lady's good relations with the media came the news of Vaishnavi, the high-profile PR agency of the Tatas, announcing that it would be shutting shop and the even more high-profile founder Niira Radia sending out an emotional press release to the company's customers and media about the mental anguish and the agony of the last year leading up to the winding up of the agency.

While all this was happening Omincom announced its taking a majority stake in Mudra Communications even as AdAsia, back in India after a gap of eight years, was holding the advertising industry spellbound at New Delhi. Let's start with AdAsia, the showpiece event of the advertising industry, before we talk about the other events that held the communication industry's attention at around the same time.

Back to Delhi after 29 long years

I remember looking at the AdAsia Convention in 1982 from the outside. I was not yet in advertising but knew that advertising was going to be my port of call soon. After all I had read David Ogilvy's Confessions of an Advertising Man and the great man himself was there talking up India and likening advertising in India to the tortoise which he said would overtake the hare, his description of advertising in the West.

I am not sure if the dour Scotsman was just being nice to the hosts as he spoke for his supper or it was his prediction of the shape of things to come. But even before he took permanent residence in his chateau at France, India was showing the world a thing or two as the Indian advertising industry was still growing while in the rest of the world it was stagnant. India and I had to wait for a small matter of 21 years before AdAsia meandered to Jaipur. I was covering it for another newspaper and had the opportunity to interview some of the greats who made it to Jaipur, including Jack Trout and Lester Wunderman, even though part-time journalists like me could only see the Big B and the walking salesman SRK from a distance. It was truly an experience, what with the palaces, the camels, the dinners and the presentations that were uniformly interesting and I had reams and reams of notes and frantically used to mail my stories to the newspaper in Bangalore at the end of each day.

If my memory serves me right Rajat Gupta, who was at the peak of his professional achievements, too was a keynote speaker. How things can change in just eight years for people and organisations! Strangely, in the midst of a galaxy of international speakers and presentations, the most profound exposition came from the unlikeliest of sources — Amitabh Bachhan — who, in his own inimitable style, gave examples of “positioning” and filling a “need gap”.

According to him, following the political emergency, an angry and frustrated India found a role model in the “angry young man” that the actor brought to life so wonderfully in films such as Deewaar and Zanjeer. The actor showed a frustrated nation how to hit back and they took to his role as hungrily as a top-class batsman would take to mediocre bowling. The second stage in his career (which had taken a major hit) was with KBC in its first edition. India had changed since the Deewar days and had spawned a “latch key generation.” A whole generation grew up on its own and the host of KBC was seen by them as a friendly, helpful uncle. The show was a hit. The Big B came back in a big way and his analysis of his own career situation was brilliant, something that even marketers would have been proud of.

Back to the present

Although I could not attend this edition of the AdAsia I have been following it with great interest in the columns of this very paper and online as well. Clearly, India's emergence as the tortoise that is showing the world a thing or two is clearly in evidence as evidenced by the galaxy of speakers, not least Indra Nooyi, originally from Madras that is now Chennai, making it in the global world and her five points that marketers would do well to remember.

The advice of one of the speakers to remember that women are a distinct and important market segment, and not merely men wearing skirts, as some would like us to believe, was extremely insightful. A lot of the discussion and debate has been about the emergence of online as the medium to watch out for and how brands could easily be left behind if they did not understand or harness the new medium that is throwing up new opportunities every moment.

The session about India becoming a global brand was a particularly interesting one to someone who like me has always agonised about the country and some of the things that have buffeted its brand image over the last few months. Sadly, the image of India has been dented by factors that it has little control over and seems to be completely clueless at tackling.

India does not seem to have a brand champion who cares for its future and destiny. Yes, we live in uncertain times and that is the only certainty today, as the conference theme aptly portrayed. And the fact that the advertising industry is changing and, probably, maturing was in evidence with the presence of Swami Sukhabodhananda whose quips and wisdom demonstrated that whatever you may be doing today , you still have to think of the future — not only of your body but of your soul as well.

I think the AdAsia is a tribute to the organising ability of the people who planned and executed it and India can justifiably be proud that the same Delhi that hosted the Commonwealth Games, also hosted the AdAsia, with far greater success and less heartburn.

One more Indian agency joins the network

I used to work in Mudra when the “fastest growing agency”, as it used to be called in those days, tied up with DDB Needham, the creative agency started by the legendary Bill Bernbach. The Indian agency, for a long time, held 90 per cent of the equity till recently, when Omnicom announced a majority stake. Mudra was one of the very few Indian agencies that had retained its name, identity and operating freedom for over two decades. The valuation too is an indication of its success and value to the Omincom group which can suddenly make a difference to Indian clients and businesses and will no longer be a mere fringe player. While I am quite sure Mudra will continue to think Indian and make a difference to its clients in its own unique way, as it has been doing over the years, I feel a tinge of regret that a truly Indian agency will just be another part, albeit an important part of a global network.

And another agency shuts its doors

Even as momentous things were happening in advertising, an even more dramatic happening was the winding up of Vaishnavi, a relatively new PR agency. While it certainly seems to be thinking about the welfare of its clients and its employees, it is a sobering moment for the public relations industry. While I am sure the industry has the legs and the commitment to come out of this crisis, an even larger crisis struck me. Cricket, the game I love and adore, got a body blow when the deceit and machinations of the cricketing trio from Pakistan threw the game into shame and its followers into complete dejection. Will the game survive? I hope so, otherwise what would guys like me do? Who knows, maybe we could watch Formula 1!

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Brand Bangalore in need of a makeover

2011-11-03T18:10:00.003+05:30

"Bangalore as a Brand has registered its mark world wide as the Software hub, thanks to companies like Infosys and Wipro. However the image of Bangalore as a brand is getting tarnished because of poor Infrastructure and governance, the city is in need of a "Brand Champion".

Share your thoughts in the comments section.

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The things brands do…

2011-10-24T12:23:00.010+05:30

Brand positioning should be directed by strategy, and not left to a lucky streak of publicity.

I have been married for a small matter of 29 years and I guess one of the expressions that I have heard most often is “I told you so!” I know that some of you at least may share some similarity in experiences, right? But the purpose of this piece is not so much to compare the relative states of our marital bliss (?) but to take a look at brands with a similar lofty philosophy. Often I have felt that it is wonderful to be a critic, sitting on judgement on brands and their foibles, but here I am more interested in the learnings for other brands from some of these acts of omission or commission that brand owners and marketers have done at different points in time.

Public relations can be a double-edged sword

I am a great believer in public relations and there is enough evidence to suggest that it can build corporate image, launch products, get a whole lot of visibility at a fraction of the cost of mass media advertising even while remembering that the source credibility for public relations is far, far more than advertising that you pay for (often through your nose). And yet it need not be an unmixed blessing. And why do I say that? I think I would be better served to explain this with a recent example and that is the Tata Nano. Is the Nano a success or a flop? I don't want to get into this debate right now, but let me just say that the brand is certainly not a Sholay. I am definitely not referring to the unfortunate accidents that the car had. I am trying to say in a convoluted way that it was not a hit when it was initially launched. What happened? Ratan Tata in one of the early press interviews spoke about the Tatas coming up with a “ Rs 1 lakh car”.

The response from the media was swift, electric even. The media loved the statement, lapped it up and went to town with their own version of the news. The people's car was coming. Soon the people's car became a “cheap car”. After all, media needs a hook or a story peg and what better peg than a cheap car for a poor country? There was reams and reams of publicity and I am sure the PR company and the client were very happy with the media value of the free publicity that was given.

As a result of that the client too decided that the brand had got so much publicity that there was a very limited role or need for advertising. Consequently there was no clear attempt to position the product and the market cheerfully and conveniently branded it as a “cheap” car. What is great news-making opportunity need not necessarily be a great position for the prospective buyer! The response was lukewarm, to say the least, and then the company belatedly swung into action with a lot of advertising, offers and freebies. Right now it has launched a scheme of cash discounts and reduced down payments. Has all this worked? I am not so sure, but even as the brand tries to retrieve lost ground my instinct tells me that the horse might already have bolted. What a fantastic opportunity squandered! Why would you not position a new product the way you want to rather than let it be positioned by the market? Let me quickly clarify that I am not knocking public relations. It can play a phenomenally positive role. But it needs to be planned. Mere coverage or thousands of column centimetres is not the answer. So carefully think through your public relations strategy and its implication on the launch of the brand. Is your media coverage more corporate when your need of the hour is product coverage?

Another car starts out on the wrong foot

I remember going to pick up my wife's Honda City from the Honda outlet a couple of years ago. There was a lot of excitement in the media and in the outlet at that time as Honda had just launched its Jazz with a lot of fanfare. The car, truth be told, looked absolutely stunning and the test drive too was more than satisfactory. Of course, any thoughts I had of buying it were quickly quelled when I checked the price of the new car. It was close to Rs 9 lakh, if my memory serves me right. I thought it was at least Rs 1.5 lakh more than the car deserved and I went away regretfully, wondering why car manufacturers can't get their pricing right.

All these reports about India growing in affluence and aspiration, whilst not unfounded, must be tempered, in my view at least, with the overwhelming obsession that middle-class India seems to have with ‘value for money' however, you wish to define that. I recall the commercials with the tag line “Kitna deti hai” which is as good a representation of the Indian middle-class mentality as anything else. Today a new version of the Jazz has been launched at a price that is Rs 1.5 lakh less and when I saw the new price announcement I felt like saying “I told you so”.

Mind you, the Jazz is just one example - I feel many car manufacturers have either an exaggerated view of the popularity of their products or an inflated view of the customer's ability to pay. Having been brought up on a diet of brilliant Volkswagen advertising over the years, I yearn for the Volkswagen Beetle, but however sexy, I am not going to pay Rs 23 lakh or thereabouts for it. Maybe I have got the final price wrong by a few hundred thousand but then I don't know any numbers above 15 lakh when it comes to buying cars! Pricing is critical everywhere, perhaps even more so in the Indian sub-continent. I do hope that someone sitting somewhere in the world making strategic decisions realises that there is a poor, middle-class Indian writing this column and several others like him can buy the Beetle, but will someone do something about the pricing?

Are airlines trying to tell us something?

Why are most airlines in a financial mess? I wish I knew! But I certainly know that some of them are confusing their consumers no end and end up hurting their top lines and bottom lines. Now why do I say that? I think both Jet and Kingfisher prove the point I am trying to make. In its early stages, I was a great admirer of Jet Airways and used to talk and write about it, whenever an opportunity presented itself. The brand, to me at least, seemed like one with the potential to make its presence felt globally. Then Jet did something that I wished it hadn't. It probably believed the future was in low-cost airlines and took over Sahara. It called the acquired brand JetLite and launched another low-cost airline too under its wing as Jet Konnect and ended up confusing the consumer. Some served meals, some did not and some of the best routes that I patronised suddenly became Jet Konnect flights, and I ended up hungry and angry. The service levels too varied and the brand, which had been consistent earlier, ended up sending conflicting signals.

It's hardly surprising that the brand has now decided to rationalise its brand structure and drop the Jet Konnect altogether, something I might have told them on day one. Take its competitor Kingfisher. I really liked that airline too and then it too decided it needed to enter the low-cost segment. Net result? It took over the Air Deccan brand and its primarily ATR aircraft. I too travelled by the acquired airline. It was a low-cost airline with a difference - I could use the lounge to have a wonderful breakfast free and take a cheap airline where too they served some snacks! I was wondering where the brand would make money from? Hardly worth wondering as the airline has gone seriously into the red and has now decided to drop the low-cost airline from its fleet, in its attempt to salvage itself. The learning? The simpler the architecture of the brand, the better. Brands should stay focused on their true offering is, instead of trying to send out conflicting signals to consumers. Brands that try to be all things to all people will have a problem. Maybe the rules for the beleaguered airline business are different but as a general guideline, long-term success happens to brands that are cogent and consistent. Associations are built over time and can be easily lost.

To cut a long story short …

Don't let the consumer position the product herself. Customers must be guided in the direction we need them to travel.

Public relations must be planned. Corporate PR, while great for the organisation, may not immediately do anything for the brand. If not led by proper strategy, it could be counter productive.

Pricing is key. Not every brand is an Apple that can command a super-premium.

Brands must clearly stand for something and not confuse the consumer.

And as a general rule companies can learn by looking outside of their industry. That is when the real learning happens.

So are you ready to learn?

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Mid-Day to diversify into cafe chains

2011-10-05T08:28:00.003+05:30

Mid-Day being so popular with the youth will help scale up this business in a space where there are very few organized players, a person with direct knowledge of the development said Jagran Prakashan Ltd (JPL), the publisher of Hindi daily Dainik Jagran and owner of the print business of Mid-Day Infomedia Ltd, is planning to open a chain of Mid-Day cafés, two people with direct knowledge of the development said.

“Mid-Day being so popular with the youth will help scale up this business in a space where there are very few organized players,” one of the persons said.

According to him, the group plans to launch cafés under the Mid-Day brand across India, starting with the metros. “Cities from where Mid-Day is published will be targeted first.”

Mid-Day, an afternoon daily, is published in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune and Bangalore.

The second person, a senior executive of the group, confirmed this is one of the plans that the management is considering, but what form and shape the venture will take is yet to be determined. “It’s on the drawing board. The board and management are working on it,” he said.

Both did not want to be named as the plan is not yet public.

Manajit Ghoshal, chief executive of Mid-Day, declined to comment for this story.

In July, Blackstone GPV Capital Partners (Mauritius) V-Q Ltd, a New York-based private equity firm, invested Rs225 crore in JPL. This cash, experts said, will help the company establish an all-India presence for the café chain.

This is not the first time a media company has ventured into the close to $185 million coffee chain market in India. Channel V, the music channel of Star India Pvt. Ltd, launched its first [V] Spot café early this year. Given the success of the first outlet in New Delhi, the channel plans 30-40 cafés in the next few years in bigger cities, said Prem Kamath, general manager, Channel V. Another 60 smaller format [V] Spot cafés will open in tier-II and tier-III cities, he said.

Ramanujam Sridhar, chief executive of brand-comm, a brand consulting and advertising firm, said cafés are a natural extension of the Mid-Day brand. “There are some things Mid-Day is known for—crosswords and leisurely afternoon reading. As a concept, cafés are a natural extension, and could be popular, depending on how different they are in terms of offering and ambience,” he said.

According to a report by Technopak Advisors Pvt. Ltd, the café market in India was $185 million in 2010 and has been growing at a compounded annual rate of 25% over the last five years.

On average, at least 200 stores have been added every year over the last five years, led by Café Coffee Day with $105 million revenue, Barista Lavazza ($45 million) and Costa Coffee ($18 million).

“International chains like Gloria Jean’s, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf are relatively recent entrants and have a limited footprint,” the Technopak report said. “With Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts set to open the first set of stores in the next six to nine months, the café market in India would further evolve.”

Café Coffee Day caters to people in the age group of 16-24. “Pubs close at 11 pm in most places down south, but Café Coffee Day outlets are open till 1.30-2 am, which makes them very popular,” Sridhar of brand-comm said. “Barista, on the other hand, has an executive style positioning. It’s a place where job interviews are conducted, ideas are brainstormed, and is priced higher than Café Coffee Day.”

Food and beverage is a high-margin business in a country where more than half the population is below 35 years of age.

Arvind K.Singhal, chairman of Technopak Advisors, said there are around 2,000 cafés in India in the organized sector, and around 3,000-5,000 could be added over next five years.

“I see no reason why Mid-Day should be restricted to coffee alone. They could offer specialty teas as Indians consume more tea than coffee,” he said, adding a number of the existing cafés had not lived up to their full potential and there was room for others.

Facing intense competition from Mumbai Mirror, published by Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd, Mid-Day has lost readership, and diversification into a café chain could recharge its brand value, analysts said.

Jagran fell 4.64% to Rs.104.85 on BSE Ltd on Monday. The benchmark Sensex fell 1.84% to 16151.45 points.

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India: a face for phones

2011-09-23T11:27:00.009+05:30

Will Chetan Bhagat be a good brand ambassador?

Please see my comments on the above subject in article below (Appeared in today's Financial Times).

In a country where most adverts feature celebrities such as cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar or Bollywood stars, an overseas phonemaker and an author seem like an unlikely, if interesting, pairing.

India’s best-selling author, Chetan Bhagat (left), has been signed up by Chinese telecoms company Huawei to launch its latest tablets and smartphones on the subcontinent, the Economic Times reports.

India is Huawei’s second largest market after China, contributing between $840m and $1.4bn per year (3 to 5 per cent) – of overall revenues, which totaled $28bn last year. But the company isn’t widely recognised in the country, and also must combat prejudice against Chinese products.

Last year, the Indian home ministry expressed concern that there was a “danger of spyware being embedded in Chinese equipment”, which could compromise the country’s security, India Today reported. Huawei’s reputation, and that of other Chinese vendors and manufacturers, suffered.

Whether Bhagat’s celebrity as an author – and the $3m the company plans to spend on advertising and promotion through the end of the year – will change that is anyone’s guess.

“I’m not too sure about Chetan Bhagat, but one has to wait and watch,” said Ram Gudipati, of Brand Harvest, a communications firm. “While people read, I’m not sure that the fan following – particularly when it comes to brand endorsement – will go a long way.”

Bhagat’s inspirational novels about the Indian middle class are written in what the author calls “simple English”, and what the New York Times recently called “a distaste for the dictionary”. But he is hugely popular among young and small-town Indians, and “3 Idiots” the latest movie to be made from one of his books, is among the highest-grossing Bollywood blockbusters in history.

The star of that movie, Aamir Khan, is himself a spokesperson for countless brands – from Titan watches to Samsung – as are many Bollywood celebrities and Indian cricketers.

Huawei, for their part, is betting on Bhagat’s youth appeal to promote its MediaPad tablet and Ideos line of smartphones.

“Chetan Bhagat is a youth icon and he has changed the dynamics of the publishing industry. Our endeavour is to bring high-end technology at affordable prices. Our target audience and values are the same,” Huawei Devices India President Victor Shan told the Economic Times.

That appeal is what makes him unique among authors.

“Whilst he is an author, he’s also a celebrity in his own right – he writes columns in The Times of India [and] he’s been seen as some sort of icon for youth,” said Sridhar Ramanujam, head of brand-comm, a strategic branding firm. “So I would say he has a richer profile than a mere author.”

Even so, Ramanujam said the decision probably came down less to Bhagat’s appeal than to how much he charges. There have been reports of a fee of around 10m rupees ($200,000), but Huawei declined beyondbrics’ request to confirm the amount Bhagat will be paid.

“Most celebrity decisions are basically cost versus benefit, and when you find an unlikely celebrity … it basically means the brand doesn’t have the resources to take on a major person,” Ramanujam added.

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The customer is king. But where's his kingdom?

2011-09-22T16:55:00.001+05:30

How companies can create true customer delight and offer service that really counts.

As I sit in the Custommerce National Convention listening to exotic concepts such as customer-centricity, engagement, experience frameworks and multi-channel customer interactions, my mind started wandering. I can almost hear you saying “tell me another” but in my defence I must tell you that I was still staying in the customer experience realm but in my own selfish way, I was thinking about myself as a customer and my own experiences over the years. Was there anything truly outstanding that I have experienced as a customer that I could remember, relish and share with you?

Before that I must make a quick point. I had just travelled by Kingfisher Red from Mumbai. Sadly, I realised this fact “after” I got into the flight. Now that by itself is hardly surprising given that I can give Lord Emsworth a run for his money when it comes to absent-mindedness. But the problem in this case is that it was a morning flight from Mumbai to Chennai (there I got it right) and Kingfisher Red does not serve breakfast but only sells some cold sandwiches and hot rolls, neither of which I can handle or eat. In any case, this is not about my craving for idli vada but about the experience which, to my mind, was outstanding and my every request (and boy am I demanding) was met with by a smiling stewardess unlike some of my other trysts with destiny with other airlines in the past.

I promptly filled up a feedback form mentioning the name of the stewardess who had bent over backwards to serve me. I don't know if anyone ever reads feedback forms but I was moved to write positively, for once. Come on, Kingfisher, hang in there, I may not be able to help you with your fuel tax but will continue to fly though it may not be a bad idea to carry extra breakfast trays on your Red flights as passengers such as me are forever famished at 8 a.m. and are willing to pay.

Now to the biggie

But let me talk about something which happened 12 years ago, something that I remember and wonder about. I went to England to watch the 1999 Cricket World Cup which, in my view, was the most enthralling so far as it had everything including a historic tie between South Africa and Australia and after that game South Africa promptly earned the ‘chokers' tag and in all fairness, they have lived up to this tag ever since but as I do not wish to offend Graeme Smith, I will move on to the World Cup.

But while the “carnival of cricket”, as it was called, was hardly a marketing success, I have wonderful memories of the tournament and I believe England is the best place in the world to watch cricket even if I don't care for cider. But the delight for me happened a year later when we got a letter addressed by the Chairman of the English and Wales Cricket Board thanking us for watching so many matches (they listed the matches) and giving us the itinerary of the 2000 season and the West Indies and Zimbabwe (if my memory serves me right) tours that were happening that English summer and hoping that we could make it.

To say I was floored would be an understatement. And why do I say that? That is because watching cricket in India live is a nightmare. You may spend Rs 5,000 as entry fee for the match and if you get up to go to the toilet (the stink of which would put the Cooum to shame) and return you would find a policeman sitting placidly in your expensive seat!

Of course, no one cares for the customer as there are a billion of us, anxiously waiting to take my place. So, grown as I have in a culture like this, I found the ECB's recognition of me as an individual and as a customer truly outstanding. Yes, I had an experience that I could never forget, not something that I would never forgive!

Analysis not paralysis

So basically what was happening in my English experience? Simple, they had a database which was out of the credit card purchase for the tickets. What they did was use the data with them to make me an offer which, incidentally, I did not take up. But more importantly I felt valued as an individual and as a customer.

Now this leads me to certain questions. We have a lot of information about our consumer- demographics, date of birth, anniversary date, every possible date that you can think of and if you had more time they would also ask you for dog's birthday! But how well is this information used is a question that bothers me eternally. Of course, some such as Shoppers Stop do keep reminding me with mailers that say ‘Hey, your birthday is coming soon', ‘haven't seen you at the store recently' and I think to myself, that the discount being offered is too low - they only offer 50 per cent and I will certainly visit them when the discount gets to a reasonable 90 per cent.

And yet I have a question for some of you. Yes, many of us are sitting on hordes and hordes of data, but how effectively or smartly are we using the information that we have? Is it information or is there an insight hidden somewhere that we are just missing? Let me clarify. If you have my date of birth, then you don't have to be Srinivasa Ramanujam to figure out that my age is 58 as well represented by my totally absent hair line.

So instead of sending me a meaningless birthday wish, can you come up with an offer that is relevant to a person of my age? What would people of my age look for? Retirement plans, pilgrimage … in fact, anything that people of my age would be or should be interested in.

Yes, data by itself is of no use, what you do with it is what makes the difference. Most fast bowlers have a Yorker but who uses it as well as Malinga? I wish some database marketer would bowl me over with a customer offer that I just can't refuse. But the starting point has to be that it comes from a deep understanding of me and my needs and an offer that makes sense to me.

Go ahead, surprise me

When was the last time a company or brand surprised you? So much so that you can share this with your friends or even tweet about that experience.

Recently I bought a Toyota Etios and forgive me if I have already shared this with you, but remember I am Lord Emsworth born again. Anyway here goes. Mind you this is not my first car, perhaps my sixteenth. As my friends solicitously tell me, I change cars like some people change underwear! It is a nice car (I hope my friends at Toyota are reading this) but that I discovered subsequently.

But what I am going to share is what happened at the outlet when I went to take delivery of the car. After the usual boring formalities, the manager of the outlet handed over the key to me. What was a simple gesture suddenly became an opportunity to recognise and reward.

For lo and behold, as the key was handed over, the whole dealership , I suspect that there must have been 60 people around, erupted into warm applause and a normally shy (!), reticent individual like me was actually blushing at all the attention. Christ, I was just buying a car, not got a hole in one! But I was pleased.

After all, however much we may deny it, we are all vain individuals who like to be recognised and rewarded as often as we can and I found this ritual quite different from those that I had experienced in my previous purchases.

Sum and substance

Each and every customer of yours is unique, even if he has not got his UID. Each one wants to feel special and be recognised.

Today with technology we have lots of information about the customer. Can we analyse this information insightfully. Can we make the customer truly feel like a king not like our former kings after the privy purses bill!

PS: I went back to Bangalore by Kingfisher Red on Saturday morning and the flight was delayed by a mere 3 hours twenty minutes. So normalcy has been restored!

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Flying Machine's new advertisement draws controversy

2011-09-20T09:39:00.000+05:30

It was meant to transport the brand into the consciousness of India's youth, but a new advertisement by Flying Machine has flown into a storm of controversy instead. A welcome controversy! One of India's early home-grown jeans brands, Flying Machine, over the weekend, released a print advertisement that shows the picture of a female model wearing tight fit jeans around her buttocks, with the catchline in big, bold font screaming: 'What an Ass!' It was probably meant to highlight the oomph and cool quotient in an old brand, perhaps even mimic the edginess of the 'All asses were not created equal' tagline in an advertisement last year by larger rival Levi Strauss & Co. While the jury is out on whether Flying Machine's latest campaign has found resonance with the cool set, the advertisement is generating heat in some quarters.

Women rights activists are certainly not amused. "It's outrageous and vulgar," says women rights activist and director of Centre for Social Research Ranjana Kumari. "Such sexually suggestive and titillating advertisements are responsible for creating the image of women as sex objects." Kumari plans to take up the matter with the National Commission for Women and the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

However, Flying Machine, owned by Ahmedabad-based Arvind Mills, the world's fourth-largest producer of denim and a supplier to some of the biggest brands in the planet, does not find anything vulgar in the ad. "There is a sensational headline," says Alok Dubey, chief operating officer of the youth, denim and sportswear division of Arvind Lifestyle Brands. "But if you read the headline and body copy harmoniously, there is humour."

Dubey says the Flying Machine advertisement reflects a strong attitude of a mature and aware girl who "doesn't care about those who mock her existence or physicality".

Ankit Fadia, a 26-year-old who acquired fame and fortune after he published a book on ethical hacking at the age of 15, also can't seem to understand why there is so much fuss around the advertisement. "This is modern India and women dress up the way they want to," says Fadia, adding that this advertisement is not at all vulgar when compared with the kind of advertisements aired on TV and what appears in movies.

Fadia is one of Flying Machine's brand ambassadors along with cricketer Virat Kohli and Bollywood star Abhishek Bachchan. Some branding experts say the advertisement was designed to be controversial, with the ensuing brouhaha aimed at making it a talking point that could improve the product's visibility.

"Once a familiar brand, Flying Machine is now trying hard to get back into public consciousness," says Josy Paul, chairman and chief creative officer of ad agency BBDO India. "Sensationalism makes even a small-size ad look bigger."

Branding expert and CEO of brand consultancy firm Brand-comm, Ramanujam Sridhar, says: "Young would love it, activists would hate it, but nobody can ignore it."

In Arvind's case, given what is at stake - India's denimwear market, according to Technopak Advisors, is expected to double to Rs 14,000 crore by 2015 from around Rs 7,000 crore last year - any controversy can only be good for business.

In a nation of more than a billion people, over 70% of whom are less than 35 years old and fast westernising, branding experts say Flying Machine, whose tagline is 'I'm Sexy When I Am Me', knows too well it needs a new, edgy language if it has to connect effectively with this demographic.

It's not the only one using what can be considered provocative language. A host of marketers are pushing the envelope of decency with edgy advertisements these days, hoping to stand apart from other competing products and nursing hopes that some controversy can yield collateral benefits.

A very fine line separates the sensational from the vulgar, and campaigns that fall in the latter category have found themselves on the wrong side of public decency - and with it, law. Recently, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting cracked the whip on some men's deodorant commercials for being overtly sexual and against good taste and decency because they depicted women as sex-starved.

Flying Machine must wish its latest ad is viewed as firmly in the first category, becoming the news while appearing between it.

Share your view on the Ad by voting in the Poll, on the top right corner of the blog.

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Tata DoCoMo may not get away with cheeky ads as ASCI receives complaints

2011-09-07T13:19:00.000+05:30

It has been 'keeping it simple' for so long, but now there is 'no getting away' for Tata DoCoMo. Or so it seems, going by the severe flak its latest television campaign has drawn from doctors, NGOs working with domestic servants, and even viewers.

The Advertising Standards Council of India has already received eight complaints against the mobile operator's cheeky commercials that portray doctors and domestic helps in a negative light. And a Delhi-based social organisation working for the rights of domestic workers threatens to take up the matter with the parliamentary standing committee on labour.

The new series of 13 television advertisements promoting Tata DoCoMo's network connectivity with a tagline 'no getting away'-released across national channels last week-is being criticised for "showing class bias", "cozying up to harmful social prejudices" and being indecent.

The advertising council's secretary general, Alan Collaco, says the self-regulatory industry body will take up the matter in its meeting this month. Tata DoCoMo did not respond to an email query. Draftfcb Ulka, the agency that made the commercials, says it just added humour to real-life situations.

One of the commercials shows two doctors in an operation theatre congratulating each other after a successful operation. The moment one of them is about to leave the room, he hears his mobile ring. Frantically searching for his phone, the doctor realises he has left his phone inside the patient's stomach!

In another, a maid finds a mobile phone while cleaning the house and hides it inside her blouse.

SUPPORT FROM AD FRATERNITY

But just as she is about to exit, the phone rings and her employer gets to know. A third one shows a parked SUV rock violently. A mobile rings and it stops.

Clearly, organisations working with domestic servants and the medical fraternity don't see anything funny in the advertisements.

"The advertisement is disgusting, disregarding and degrading. It must be banned immediately," says Kamal Chand, project manager at Domestic Workers' Forum, about the commercial featuring a domestic help .

The Delhi-based NGO plans to take up the matter with the task force committee on domestic workers and the parliamentary standing committee on labour, he adds.

Dr Kailash S Sharma, director (academics) at Mumbai's Tata Memorial Hospital, says the advertisement is "a brilliant example of lack of ethical principles in advertising".

Draftfcb Ulka Account Director Sudipto Poddar says there is nothing offensive in the campaign. "The story was weaved around real-life, stereotype situations, and we just added a bit of humour to it," he says.

When all the mobile service operators talk about the geographic reach of their network, it was important for DoCoMo to talk in a different manner, adds Poddar.

For the new campaign, creative directors Vasudha Misra and Ekta Verma worked on copy and art respectively while the copywriters for the campaign were Deepika Chauhan and Murtaza Said. The account planning team comprises Sanjay Tandon, Poddar, Omair Siddiqui while the film has been directed by Ram Madhvani of Equinox Films.

Poddar has some support in the advertising fraternity. Lyricist and McCann Worldgroup Executive Chairman Prasoon Joshi, for one, takes the campaign lightly. "They (the commercials) have been done in tongue-in-cheek manner, and should be taken light-heartedly," he says.

Brand expert and Brand-Comm CEO Ramanujam Sridhar goes a step further to say there is nothing objectionable in the commercials and, in fact, they are exciting and appealing to the youth. Ramanujam Sridhar CEO of brand-comm. and a Director of Custommerce.

Do you think the Ads are Objectionable? Tell us on the Poll in the Right Sidebar of the blog.

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Understanding fast-changing Gen Y is a challenge

2011-09-07T12:27:00.000+05:30

Gen Y no longer lives in an idyllic, insulated environment, chilled out and being itself. Hence, how marketers communicate to them is extremely important.

Ramanujam Sridhar CEO of brand-comm. and a Director of Custommerce.
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Annual Reports Get a Brand - New Makeover

2011-09-06T08:46:00.000+05:30

Annual reports to reasserting brand's value in the minds of shareholders. Some companies have started to use social networking icons and other icons to connect with the each other! Read more in the snippet below.

Ramanujam Sridhar CEO of brand-comm. and a Director of Custommerce.
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A century with a difference

2011-08-25T11:26:00.000+05:30

Bill Bernbach, who, in a land of supersized products, urged people to ‘think small’ when it came to the “ugly German car that made waves in post-War America”. _ V. SREENIVASA MURTHY

Remembering ad man Bill Bernbach, whose 100th birthday it was earlier this month

For some time now, a billion-plus Indians have been waiting for a century, actually a century of centuries from the little master Sachin Tendulkar, with bated breath initially and later with increasing restlessness, that now lies frustrated.

Around the same time, on August 13, to be precise, another century happened which was celebrated a lot more quietly by fewer people — it was the 100th birthday of Bill Bernbach who is arguably advertising's greatest legend. While any time is a good time to recall the legend and his contribution to advertising thinking and practice, now is perhaps the most appropriate time as any as advertising today teeters from a recklessness that would put Sehwag to shame and boredom that would easily put Boycott to sleep. What made Bill Bernbach a legend in his own lifetime, given that the advertising industry has been full of people who have a tremendous capability to be legends in their own lunchtime? (It is the worst-kept secret that advertising people specialise in three martini lunches!) And yet, I must bear in mind too what Bill (as I am going to call him for the rest of the piece) had to say about the risk of too much analysis — even love would not be able to survive such scrutiny, as he was fond of saying. So it is more the unabashed admiration of someone who has had the privilege of seeing some of the greatest work that Madison Avenue ever produced rather than some pointless analysis.

Confessions of the advertising kind

Like most young Indians of that time, the only exposure we had to advertising writing was through David Ogilvy and his ‘confessions'. To us David Ogilvy was the be all and end all of advertising. While there is no denying the impact the Scotsman made on an entire generation of budding advertising professionals, we now know the value of the revolutionary nature of work that Bill and his agency were doing, even if he has not left the legacy of his agency in a book form unlike some of his contemporaries and predecessors.

“The real giants have always been poets, men who jumped from facts into the realm of imagination and ideas,” said Bill, probably describing himself. Maybe one of my most nostalgic moments was to visit the room that Bill Bernbach worked from and even if it did not make the slightest difference to my creativity (or lack of it), it certainly was one more sneak peek at the greatness of a true giant.

Thinking big with a small car

Who could be in advertising and not yearn for a Beetle after seeing the Volkswagen ads? Not for nothing had the Advertising Age called the Volkswagen ad the greatest ad of the last century. Imagine the temerity of the man who came up with a ‘think small' campaign in a country of big cars, big burgers and big milk shakes! A car which would never win a second glance and which Hitler called the “people's car”, being a best-seller in post-war America! A tribute to revolutionary strategic thinking coupled with execution that demonstrated the truth of what Bill firmly believed in: “You've got to live with your product. You've got to get steeped in it. You've got to get saturated with it. You must get to the heart of it. Indeed, if you have not crystallised into a single purpose, a single theme, what you want to tell the reader, you CANNOT be creative.” Clearly he followed his own advice and discovered the real drama that was in the product and conveyed it through sensational advertising.

Mama Mia

Alka Seltzer was another brand that had the benefit of immortal advertising from the Bernbach school and that demonstrated, like other work of that period from the agency, the Bernbach principle of “Simple. Surprise. Smile''. Let me explain that principle as demonstrated by the Alka Seltzer commercial that I must have shown hundreds of times in my classes and training sessions. It features an Italian model and his beaming wife proudly watching her husband eating a ‘spicy meatball'. As luck would have it everything that can go wrong does so in the shoot, from the accent to the prop crashing, to the model messing up the lines leading to 57 takes and when you eat more than you should, there is always Alka Seltzer, and the surprise? Even as the shoot extends interminably and the model is on the verge of throwing up, the voice-over of the bored director says ‘Let's break for lunch'. This strategy of a commercial ending in the viewer's mind, only to see another twist to the tale has been standard operating procedure with DDB Needham and a whole host of other agencies who have been influenced by the Bernbach way. And yet it is perhaps as good a time as any to step back and think. How many of today's commercials are simple? Do they surprise? And do they make the consumer smile?

Stop smiling, start trying

Any tribute to Bill would be incomplete without a mention of the Avis “We try harder, because we are no.2''. Avis might find pride of place in several marketing discussions and case studies in business schools across the world about the philosophy of a challenger and how an entire company and its host of employees can improve their service delivery and stand up and compete with the leader who was twice their size and had more cars and more people and just about everything that the challenger lacked. But advertising can and will make a difference, especially when it is anchored on facts. “Avis can't afford dirty ash trays”, said the Bernbach ad that was based on research that Hertz did not have time to even clean the ash trays before the customer took the car that he had been waiting for. As Bill said, the real drama was in the product, it only needed a genius to discover it and better still, communicate it in a manner that you and I could relate to and act upon.

Here is Hertz Ad in response to Avis as to why they are No.1

A century of leadership

Today Bill may not be with us, but his philosophy sustains the creative minds of the industry that for long periods in time has been rudderless. Properly practised creative, as the master said, would make one ad do the work of ten. He felt that often enough we forget that we can create a trend instead of merely follow it. Yes, Bill realised that the advertising industry often enough does not understand or appreciate its own strength and is often satisfied being a mere follower when it can actually create trends, preferences and dictate the way the world thinks, feels and more importantly, actually, buys. Because Bill was clear that the purpose of advertising is to sell and he knew too that the best advertising does not draw attention to itself but to the product.

A time to remember

Now as the world goes into turbulence and the markets into a tizzy, it is perhaps time to remember that the more things change, the more they are the same. Human emotions remain the same and the basic needs of the human race have not changed dramatically. People may not want to be sold to, but would still like to be wooed. Does your advertising work? Or is it too clever by half? Is it predictable, anchored both in research and in the past or does it come like a breath of fresh air, like the ugly German car that made waves in post-war America?

And for someone like me with two real loves in life, cricket and advertising, at least the advertising has delivered me phenomenal joy. The cricket, currently at least, does not provide me with the same joy. But then you can't have everything in life, can you?

Here is hoping that the century of centuries happens in Australia, where it can make a difference to the outcome. And here is wishing that the principles that Bill was passionate about sustain another century of advertising and, more critically, inspire a generation of young creative people to carry the baton of creativity in a world that so desperately needs it.

Ramanujam Sridhar CEO of brand-comm. and a Director of Custommerce.
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Micromax latest to join likes of HUL, Dabur and UB to opt to tease rival products with potshot advertising.

2011-08-22T16:52:00.000+05:30

After helping end Finnish firm Nokia's complete domination in the Indian market, mobile handset maker Micromax has turned its attention to another multinational Goliath, Apple, through a cheeky advertisement that takes a jab at iPhone.

The latest print advertisement for Micromax's Android handset reads, "i (can afford this) Phone". While the overriding message is a play on the world's most popular smart phone's steep price tag in India, the ad talks about features offered by the new phone.

Micromax is the latest to join a rising list of advertisers who have opted to tease a rival product to promote their brands. Over the last month or so, UB's McDowell's, Dabur's Hajmola and HUL's Vaseline have resorted to spoofs or tried to piggy ride on the popularity of a rival brand or to cash in on a controversy.

It seems the era of potshot advertisement is back with a bang!

"Brands resorting to such form of advertisements are talking to younger consumers, and the tone of their cheeky advertisements goes down well with this section of population that has a good sense of humour," says Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO of brand consultancy firm brand-comm.

Micromax, which has around 10% share of the Indian mobile handset market and sells over 40 handsets every day, says its advertisement is not meant to take on the iPhone.

"We wanted to challenge the notion that innovation comes at a price. The advertisement conveys to the young consumers that here's a smart phone that you can afford," says Pratik Seal, the company's marketing head.

While experts find the advertisement smart and witty, some say it sidelines the Micromax brand and draws attention to iPhone.

Jagdeep Kapoor, chairman and managing director of Samsika Marketing Consultants, says there was no need for Micromax to do this.

"Micromax is a popular brand, is rapidly gaining market share, and has a good brand positioning and a great brand ambassador. So, why use iPhone stuff in advertisement?" he says.

"iPhone is still an aspirational brand and the advertisement just reinforces its brand equity."

Sridhar would not agree. He says the return of spoofs, potshots and teasing ads are deliberate. "The chances of success are far greater when brands target younger generation with cheeky stuff. Whether it's McDowell's No.1 or Hajmola or Micromax, their spoofs or teaser ads connect instantly with the youth."

This strategy works because it's meant for short term. "The main motive is to create instant excitement in the market and move on," says Sridhar.

A SPOOFY REWIND

Once the domain of Pepsi and Coke, spoofs certainly seem the flavour of the season. Recently, UB Group took jibes at cricketer Harbhajan Singh through its McDowell's No.1 Platinum spoof of rival brand Royal Stag's 'Make it Large' advertisement for about a month.

Late last month, Dabur's Hajmola candy spoofed Perfetti Van Melle's Chlormint 'doobara mat poochna' ad by coming up with a tagline 'bar bar poochna'. Says Dabur India category head (digestives), Rajeev John: "Most ads speak to the same target consumer; at times even their communication objectives are similar."

And consumer goods giant Hindustan Unilever made the most of the 'Vaseline' row stirred by former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan by timing its print and Facebook campaign for its petroleum jelly brand with the start of the third test match between India and England.

AD MEN NOT AMUSED

However, advertisement experts are unanimous in denouncing such form of communication.

Piyush Pandey, executive chairman and creative director (South Asia) of Ogilvy India, says: "It's not a trend, but a coincidence of a few lazy creative people working at the same time. Such advertisements are a waste of money."

Spoof is a very difficult thing to do and one must think 150 times before doing it, says the ad guru.

Agrees Josy Paul, national creative director of BBDO: "Spoofs are old-fashioned. They are more of a PR idea and less about creative advertising."

Samsika's Kapoor believes such advertisements tickle, but can't make one laugh. "Advertisements should attract, and not distract," he says.

"In short-term, a brand may score a few brownie points, but it's definitely not a long-term brand building strategy."

Draftfcb Ulka executive director and CEO Arvind Wable says the return of such form of advertising means that marketers are desperate to cut through the clutter in order to grab eyeballs. But in the process, they end up building the equity of the rival brand.

"It's a lazy creative when you start borrowing from other brands. And instead of building your own brand, the advertisement ends up reinforcing the message of the brand that you are taking a potshot at," says Wable.

Brand-comm's Sridhar, however, argues that such advertisements connect instantly with the people as long as a brand is consistent in attacking its rivals.

Take the case of soft drink brand Sprite, which till a few months back had been consistently spoofing its rivals.

But if a new brand does it, the ploy is likely to boomerang. So, one must exercise a bit of caution, says Sridhar. "Such form of advertising is a double-edge sword, and one must use it carefully and sparingly."

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
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Googly: Branding on Indian Turf

2011-08-22T13:05:00.000+05:30

Below is an extract from my interview coverage with MBARendezvous on "Googly: Branding on Indian Turf"!

“Mind it, Customers are not moron, they will react to your faulty deliveries on commitments so ensure that smart execution is done “

Mr Ramanujam Sridhar is a communication consultant, author, columnist, teacher, trainer, cricket enthusiast and a passionate social activist.

A postgraduate in Management from IIM Bangalore and an MA in Economics from Loyola College, Chennai, Sridhar had spent over six years in the banking industry, and in his own words “counted other people’s money and wrote other people’s Fixed Deposit receipts” before entering the fascinating and often frustrating world of advertising.

After completing over 25 years in the business and holding high-profile positions such as CEO of Pratibha Advertising( now Quadrant), Executive Director, RK Swamy BBDO and Executive Vice President, Mudra Communications, Sridhar founded Brand-comm, in 1998. Brand-Comm is a niche communications company headquartered in Bangalore with seven offices pan-India. Its range of services include brand consulting, advertising and public relations. Several well known brands such as the Future Group, MetLife and Dalmia cements are clients of Brand-Comm.

He is a former President of the Advertising Club, Bangalore and a former president of the IIMB Alumni association. IIM Bangalore has recently awarded Sridhar as a distinguished alumnus of the institute. He was honoured by the Madras Advertising Club for his service to the advertising profession in South India. He is on the board of Custommerce an organization committed to improving the quality of service in the country.

Sridhar is a visiting professor in several leading management schools in the country including IIM, Bangalore. As a guest lecturer at Cornell University, USA he spoke on “Branding in India.” He is on the management committee of a few prestigious management institutions in Bangalore. He also counsels students at ISB, Hyderabad on career options.

Often referred to as the “Third Umpire’ because of a fortnightly column that he writes under this pseudonym in Hindu Business line Sridhar has his own blog which addresses issues in branding and cricket as well.

He has authored three books - “One land one billion minds’, a best seller in India and its sequel “Googly Branding on Indian turf’. He recently launched his third book in Tamil ‘En Vazhi Thani Vazhi’ and is now writing a text book on advertising and brand management.

He has custom-designed programs on branding and communication for major corporations across the country. Oracle, Tata Teleservices, Hindu. Lowe and 3M are a few of them.

A professionally trained counselor, Sridhar helps and guides many distressed individuals at Vishwas a well-known voluntary organization in Bangalore. He is a trustee of Vishranti, an organization committed to helping senior citizens. He is involved with ‘Prerana’ an organization which helps deserving children to go to college. A part of the proceeds of the royalty of the book “Googly” will go to this cause.

Sridhar has recently founded a charitable trust in the name of his late mother to help the education of poor students.

On behalf of our readers we interviewed him to understand his Googly on Brand communication Following are the excerpts of the talk :

When we learn or being taught on how to create Brand or nourish Brand , we tend to forget to learn challenges as how to execute expectations of customers.

Customers adore brands but have certain expectations on perceived values & both tangible and intangible values . we need to understand these values . More so how to ensure that customer gets all values to his / her delight !

Who says that failures won’t come , they will come in at regular intervals. We need to learn from failures. Brand communicates only positivity so ensure that every single failure is converted to pluses and new success story can be written for Brand

Customers are not loyal to any Brand. They will move away the moment deliveries are coming as perceived or promised so execution is the key to hold on customers.

Ageing of Brand is positive sign in Indian context as that vindicates survival of the fittest but newer Brands will continue to challenge leader brands. Since 57% of Indians are in age group with average age of 24 years , we are sitting on golden pot. Never give up, innovate, design, strategize and communicate through multiple mediums of Media vehicles.

Advertising in general perceived as an exaggeration of values of Brand. This can’t be audited or controlled as main function of advertising is to communicate on USPs of Brand and arouse aspirations of customers, rest is up to individual customer to spend judiciously or go out of pocket, this is sheer common sense and nothing connected with image of Brand.

Brand is positively and should be bigger than Brand Ambassador and vice-versa will always be trouble-some for Brand. Brand ambassadors should be chosen or appointed in such a way that Brand must become more stronger in customer’s perceived values.

No more “Googly” folks, you can yourself understand Sridhar’s latest “ Doosra “ on Brand communication and reach him at http://ramanujam-sridhar.blogspot.com

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

Humble person, great brand

2011-08-20T09:40:00.000+05:30

Mr N. R. Narayana Murthy is retiring from Infosys, the company that he founded (with a few of his friends), a company that he led to pre-eminence even as everyone is asking “Why” and not “Why not?”.

To a perpetual student of branding like me, Mr Narayana Murthy is the ultimate personal brand — demonstrating in no uncertain terms that people from the corporate world can as much be brands as people from sports or entertainment.

For five years, brand-comm, the company I founded did a business leadership survey amongst management students in India and every year, Mr Narayana Murthy with predictable and monotonous regularity was the most admired business leader as chosen by India's future managers.

We promptly gave up doing the study after five years!

Tempted as I am to wax eloquent about his rise to personal brand stardom, I shall desist and stay with my views of him as a person that I knew. Although my opportunities to interact and learn from him were limited, they were impactful enough to make an impression on me and provide opportunities to learn from.

The early years

I first met Mr Narayana Murthy when I was the head of Mudra in Bangalore and it was our agency that had handled the advertising for the public issue. I remember a team of eight of us going for the meeting. (To those of you who are unfamiliar with the advertising industry,
I must confess that we believe in the strength of numbers rather than in the power of ideas). In those days, Infosys operated in a small office at Koramangala. Today that is a heritage office of the company.

But believe it or not, there were not enough spare chairs in the office and some of the employees went out to stretch their legs. And just see where NRN has taken the company in two decades! A simple lesson — it is not where you are now, but where you wish to be that matters in the ultimate analysis. I did have a small regret though.

The cutting edge campaign that we created for the company was not approved. In hindsight, the company took the right call as the campaign depicted what Infosys could be, and not what it was then. Even in its advertising, the company was not making forward-looking statements — something that other corporates might do well to note.

An unlikely cricket fan

I had wanted to interview Mr Narayana Murthy for my first book One land, one billion minds and he readily agreed. I was carefully noting down whatever he was saying in his cabin when we were interrupted.

He had an unexpected visitor in G. R. Vishwanath, who incidentally was my favourite cricketer. Mr. Narayana Murthy excused himself and when someone introduced him to Vishy, he said, “Of course, I am a great fan of yours. I was at Kanpur at your debut with my friends and can never forget your innings.”

To which that wonderful cricketer said with a twinkle in his eye, “Not the first innings, I hope,” , as he had scored a duck in the first innings.

While the incident itself was a simple one, it showed a new dimension to the great man. The wonderful game of cricket had an unlikely follower in one of India's leading lights of industry who even knew what the batsman had scored on his debut.

There was another aspect of the great man that I must mention. When the government thoughtlessly decided to control the functioning of the IIMs, the IIM-B alumni association of which I was a part sent a letter of support to over 40 board members of the different IIMs.

We got one solitary acknowledgement — that was from Mr Narayana Murthy who was the chairman of the board of IIM-A. Not even IIM-B, our alma mater, responded!

I have always admired Mr Narayana Murthy's ability to always acknowledge and respond to mails and letters. Sadly not many follow his example in today's corporate world, and perhaps not even in Infosys.

With brains and a heart

It is easy to talk at length about Mr Narayana Murthy's simplicity, his spartan life style, his down-to-earth qualities and the influence of his values on the company that he founded. His phenomenal success over the years had no impact on him as a person.

Even today, when he has become a global brand, he remains the same simple individual that he was in '91. And let us not forget his contributions and those by his family members to various social causes.

I wish corporate India had more gentlemen with brains and open wallets like the founder of Infosys who retires. He leaves with Infosys a legacy of success, values and ethics that few have created in their lifetime.

I am sure the future holds greater things for him.

Mr Infosys - the person and the brand.

Narayana Murthy walks into the sunset leaving Infosys with a legacy of success, values and ethics that few have created in their lifetime.

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

Service? What service?

2011-08-11T14:41:00.001+05:30

What's the problem with customer service — money or the lack of empowerment?

All of us are consumers and some of us are service providers and every consumer is different in her own way. Some of them are constantly teaching us a thing or two while most of us obstinately refuse to learn or change. Having made some dramatic statements that run the risk of sounding pompous, let me cut to the chase and to my own story and see if there is any learning. It started on a Sunday afternoon, which, incidentally, happened to be the third day of the Nottingham Test which was at an interesting stage. At least, it was, when I was watching it at the airport waiting for my flight to be called. England and Bell were just turning it around.

I am sure you are asking me why any sane guy would travel on Sunday evening, particularly on the third day of an important Test match. But then I am a committed executive (!) serving his company and (hopefully) his clients in the bargain and more importantly because I wanted to start a training programme at 9 a.m. the following day. At times my own dedication shocks me!

But less of me and more of my travails as a customer, as I flew into Mumbai on the day that city received the maximum rainfall this year.

King, pauper or in between

As I am a King Club Member, I flew with the “king of good times”. After all, who wants to be a mere passenger when he has the option of being a guest at Mr Mallya's house? The flight was on time, which was great news to a passenger to whom delayed flights are as common as Praveen Kumar's altercations with umpires, who are reluctant to raise their fingers to fervent and frantic appeals. But that was later. Before that, I settled into my seat ready to watch a third-rate Hindi movie as has been my habit for several months now. I kept pressing every button in the seat and kept looking anxiously at the screen as a teenager might at the bill when he takes his girlfriend to an expensive restaurant. There was no light at the end of the television screen and there was neither a C-grade movie nor a news channel which might have the score at the bottom of the screen. I almost lost it.

But then I remembered I was on good behaviour (which my family might not believe). I have these bouts of geniality, which, sadly though, are not all that frequent but come to the rescue of service providers. So I politely asked the stewardess what the problem was. She smiled sweetly. Sometimes I wonder how airline stewardesses can smile after pouring scalding hot coffee on your thigh! While she had done nothing as exciting or as hot, she said politely that the entertainment system was not working.

Of course, while there was a glossy brochure in the pouch which listed all the programmes and which is one of the reasons why I travel by Kingfisher, the reality was that the entertainment was not working. While mechanical failures are a fact of life, human failures are a little more difficult to stomach.

I wish, I only wish someone had made an announcement or better still made an apology for the entertainment not working. Is that too much to ask for? Do guests have a say, or is all this talk of treating passengers as guests a mere line?

Ian Bell has a good time

Whether I was having a good time or not, Bell was having a great time as Indians were treating him to long hops outside the off stump and full tosses on the leg stump. He was being truly treated as a guest in the Indian dressing room. Well, soon the batsman was thinking of scones and tea and trooped off for tea even before the umpires called for the break.

The Indians woke up and pulled off the bails and the dozing Bell suddenly realised that the party was over. Soon the Indians had a couple of guests in their dressing room as they tiredly sipped their tea. The English captain and coach promptly made their appearance. After all, mental disintegration is complete when the opposition team is not allowed to have its tea in peace, right? Anyway, they asked Dhoni to reconsider the appeal and Dhoni, perhaps recalling what his ancestors were regularly doing till 1947, agreed, albeit reluctantly.

I had missed all that though I was being flooded with Blackberry messengers and text messages. I went to my hotel, keen to catch up.

Who wants TV; radio is the medium of today

Our hosts had put us up in a hotel called VITS. I had never heard of that hotel, but trusted the judgment of our hosts. I was pleasantly surprised to note that it was from the same group as Orchid, a hotel I had stayed in several times in the past and where the South Indian restaurant Vindhyas had effortlessly increased my weight.

The room was nice, the layout similar to the Orchid and I switched on the TV set, in pleasurable anticipation of an Indian revival. Imagine my horror when I realised that the TV set had a mere 15 channels and Star Cricket was not one of them!

My geniality evaporated and my scowl matched Harbhajan's expression, which has been a feature of this English tour. But one of the features of the Ramanujams is that we don't take things lying down, particularly when it comes to the gentleman's game, more so when Dhoni had done the ultimate gentlemanly thing even if it was under duress!

I called the duty manager and there was a Maharashtrian gentleman there. I asked him in my sweetest tone as to why there was no Star Cricket in the room and as a Maharashtrian whether he watched the cricket at all. One of the basic principles of service providers is not to try to be fresh, particularly when their customers are angry. Perhaps thinking he would endear himself to me, he said that he too wanted to watch the cricket but what to do the cable had a technical problem. I asked to speak to his boss and he said I could do so the next morning.

I was quickly losing it and ran the risk of being banned as I asked for the number of the boss. He politely refused. I was ranting now and asked for the technician. The technician promptly arrived and said in his truthful way that Star Cricket was not being subscribed to. I was mad, but not mad enough to not follow the match and did so on my computer, as I heard the Test Match Special as I had done three decades ago, even as I waited for the next morning and the general manager of the hotel.

The morning after

Morning followed murkily, India was in the doldrums and I was getting more annoyed by the moment. I promptly met the Front Office Manager of the hotel, who was all smiles and said he knew about the problem and would fix it. I reminded him that the match started at 3.30 p.m.

I went back at 5 p. m., after the sessions, hoping against hope. Well, nothing had changed, neither India's fortunes nor the TV channel. When I confronted the manager, he said he had called the cable operator and there was a ‘technical problem”. I was amazed.

Did he really think I was born yesterday? Even an eight-year-old would know that it was DTH, which could be subscribed to at short notice and I had volunteered to pay! In hindsight it was probably better that I did not watch India's humiliation but my misery was complete when Geoffrey Boycott compared India to Bangladesh and unfavourably at that on radio, my now trusted media partner.

I walked morosely out to dinner to the restaurant to be greeted by posters of Mr Kamat, the owner of the hotel (someone I admire enormously), speaking of his inspirations. I just thought that he might have been better served worrying about his customers. But then who am I to complain about big hotel magnates? And yet as a customer, I started wondering about what ails customer service in the hospitality industry specifically and in the country in general. What was the problem? The money or lack of empowerment?

Do we empower routinely?

I believe we handle routine service issues well but get into trouble when the issue is non-routine. Should the lobby manager have been empowered? Should the manager of the hotel not have tried to be “smart” with his guest and told him something that was patently false? Should I have quietly gone away thinking dark thoughts? Sadly, I am today's customer. I have a voice and I will share it. But, if only, if only the hotel had shown the slightest empathy for me or even tried to handle my problem I would have been satisfied. I would have told the whole world of how much they cared. Solving a customer's problem is the easiest way to her heart and wallet.

But is someone listening?

I flew back by Kingfisher. The entertainment system was not working. Now, of course, I am used to this.

And yet, I believe some good came out of all this. I was so mad at everything that I cancelled my trip to England and shelved my plans to watch the third Test at Edgbaston.

Who knows, that might well be the change of fortune that India needs!

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

An insider's view

2011-08-11T13:37:00.000+05:30

I share my views on "The Steve Jobs Way: iLeadership for a new generation" by Jay Elliot with William L Simon.

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

Brandware - A Comprehensive 8 Weekend Brand Management Course

2011-08-10T02:58:00.000+05:30

I am glad to share with you that I will be leading brandware4, a 8 weekend certificate program on brand management in Bangalore at our training facility. The last 3 editions were extremely well received with participants from companies like Titan, Nokia, Manipal Education, Booster Juice, Indus League, United Spirits and a whole host of others. I have also been fortunate enough to get some of the biggest names in Bangalore in marketing and advertising to be guest faculty for the program.

Brandware 4 Registration and Request for more information.

Brandware is the vibrant intensive, all-embracing course in Brand Management run by brand-comm. Ramanujam Sridhar, brand expert, management guru and celebrated author of, "One Land, One Billion Minds" and, "Google - Branding on Indian Turf" is the lead faculty and anchor.

Please fill out the brief form below and the brand-comm team will be in touch with you to answer your questions.

* Required

I am hoping you would support the program and spread the word.

The program starts on 26th August 2011.

Best Wishes
Ramanujam Sridhar

United by team, divided by “spirits”

2011-07-28T15:14:00.000+05:30

The Harbhajan-UB row about a spoof ad is a storm in a whisky peg.

Even as England and India were getting ready for the clash of the Titans and a historic test match at Lords, the Mecca of cricket, another clash was in motion. This was between two of India's current greats, M. S. Dhoni, arguably India's most successful captain, and his premier off spinner Harbhajan Singh whose claim to fame was the subjugation of Ricky Ponting in his prime. The feisty off spinner promptly earned the nickname of “Turbanator”. An aggressive competitor if there ever was one, who came out unscathed after “monkey gate” even if he could not manage to escape censure for slapping Sreesanth, another team-mate of his who did not know what hit him and promptly burst into tears. But how is it that two of India's victorious cricketers who have been part of the No. 1 test team in the world and members of the World Cup-winning T20 and one-day teams in the world, are made to look as though they cannot stand the sight of each other and Harbhajan's family and the entire Sikh community is up in arms and breathing fire and brimstone. So what's upsetting the apple cart on the eve of what is arguably the most important test series in recent times?

Have I made it large?

It all started with a commercial by Royal Stag “mega cricket.” Of course, the whole world and its brother-in-law know that the ad is for whisky. We are a bit challenged, we Indians are, as sometimes we can't figure out the product that is being advertised! Anyway, to cut a long story short, the ad features Harbhajan Singh the brand ambassador for the whisky that has been doing quite well with the younger drinkers, at least on his first day at his father's ball bearing factory and he asks himself the question “Have I made it large?” If that isn't cueing the product category, I wonder what is. Anyways the young Sardar realises that his true calling is the game of cricket and bowling off spin with an occasional “doosra” thrown in and he keeps asking himself the question “Have I made it large?” and the tag line exhorts people like you and me to make it large. After all, it is our life, isn't it? As advertising it would hardly win an award, make it to Cannes or even make the person behind the edit proud. It is just another celebrity ad and then something happened to make me sit up and take another look at this ad.

Enter captain cool

Soon another ad started to appear which seemed surprisingly familiar. It is another ball bearings factory (isn't there any other industry in such a vast land as ours?) and a thin guy who looks suspiciously like our own off spinner on his first day there who asks the now familiar question, “Have I made it large?” He is surrounded by ball bearings that are larger than casks of ale and his furious father slaps him for being dumb and wasting money making oversized ball bearings that are useless and that no one wants even as the son protests that he has made it large. The scene dissolves to Dhoni with several young women in the background saying why think of making it large, just try to be different. Of course, it is an ad for club soda and the brand is McDowell's Platinum, a relatively new brand in the McDowell's stable. As ads go, it is a lot more watchable. Anyone loves someone who takes potshots at the competition especially when the competition is naïve enough to give them such an opening. Ideally, everyone should have had a good laugh and gone home, but sponsors are not like you and me who tend to laugh at minor idiosyncrasies but get very upset and look for redress, retribution and legal action.

How dare they?

Suddenly the situation became quite complex and emotional. Of course, it is common for brands that compete with each other head-to-head to bicker with each other and often resort to a legal solution to their squabbles in the market place. The ball bearing story too took an ugly turn just days before the all important first test against England at Lord's as Harbhajan's mother decided that the situation was large enough to send out a legal notice to UB spirits for creating an ad that mocks Harbhajan, his family and what's more, insults the entire Sikh community. Critically the ad creates discord within the Indian team and affects its morale. The demands were simple: Vijay Mallya was asked to make a public apology to Harbhajan and his family and also pull off the ad. Clearly the “king of good times” seems unfazed about this as I just saw the ad even as I was writing about the controversy. So what is happening here? Is there something that we need to think about or even learn from this entire controversy as students of branding, even if we don't drink the club soda that is advertised so heavily?

Mera No. 1

Let's first go back into the past before we venture opinion on the future of the brands in question. In the mid-Eighties when we were young and upwardly mobile (Wow! Now that sounds cool, was that really me!!), we used to drink McDowell's No. 1. Mind you, it was a good whisky and no one had any qualms about offering it to one's guest. I say it was because whisky is a funny drink in more ways than one. Because whisky drinkers as they get older, more affluent, they keep upgrading to more expensive and better brands, unlike rum drinkers who don't give a fig for what others think . So many of us have moved from McDowell's to other brands such as Antiquity, Scotch and ultimately to single malts.

Make no mistake, McDowell No. 1 is a popular brand still and enjoys tremendous franchise across the length and breadth of this country. However the market reality is that, unlike in the Eighties where the Indian consumer was starved of choice, today's consumer is spoiled by the enormous choice that is available to him. McDowell's whisky is facing a lot of challenge from a later brand, Royal Stag, that seems to have a younger, cooler image. On the face of it McDowell's is facing the challenge that many vintage brands face today from younger brands that challenge them. It is not uncommon for young customers to say “Wasn't that my father's brand?” In all fairness, McDowell has been vigorous in its marketing efforts and has not taken reverses if any, lying down. The ad in question is for its new variant McDowell Platinum.

Is this a good strategy?

Taking a potshot at your competition is not a new strategy. Brands such as Apple and Pepsi have been doing this for years with tremendous success so it is not surprising that brands attempt to do this and in all fairness Royal Stag has presented an opportunity to its competitor on a platter. In short, it was asking for it and promptly got it. But do strategies like these work in the long run? I think it works in the long run if the brands have a clear tone of voice and are aggressive in everything that they do. It also works where the target audience is young and has a sense of humour to see the absurdity of the situation. Brands such as Sprite have often attempted to make their competition look fuddy-duddy or slow, through their tongue-in-cheek humour and zany executions.

Is whisky a young person's drink? I am not sure; though I am sure there is enough research to suggest that in India the average age of the whisky drinker is dropping. It is also true that McDowell probably has older consumers in its fold and it obviously makes sense for it to woo younger customers and advertising like this would be one of the several things that the brand needs to do to catch up in the image stakes and remember that spirits are sold primarily on image. People have a very foggy idea of the brands they consume in blindfold tests and it is only the imagery that drives brands and motivates consumers.

Grin and bear it

Sadly, this is not a mere marketing skirmish. It makes for good copy especially when the family and the community get into it. But what was worrying was Dhoni's explanation that he did not know the script of the full commercial and he had only spoken his lines. Is this how India's foremost celebrity does commercials for multiple brands — without even knowing what the script is likely to be?

My advice to sponsors who use celebrities is simple: “Caveat emptor” - please be aware of your celebrities' weaknesses for if he is not even sure of the script of the film, then it is not good news for you and you need to take care of your brand's interests.

And finally one word of advice to the warring brands - just have a large club soda and move on!!

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

Branding your way up!

2011-07-26T17:47:00.000+05:30

I share my experience and views on getting your start company up to good position in the market. The most important thing being "branding".

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

Playing it Safe!

2011-07-25T17:21:00.000+05:30

My review on Anita Bhogle & Harsha Bhogle's " The winning Way: Learning from sport for Managers"!

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

Where are the iconic Indian brands?

2011-07-14T14:17:00.000+05:30

The sight of a Harley Davidson has our columnist reflecting on legendary brands and which Indian ones can one day fit the bill.

It is 3 o' clock in the afternoon outside the garden café in Leh, Ladakh and I stand transfixed, watching with undisguised lust a Harley Davidson motorbike which presumably one of the international visitors to the tourist destination must have driven in on. My expression is akin to that of a 5-year-old wistfully looking at another kid sucking a lollypop with great relish. What is this emotion that a 58-year-old who is extremely sober (mostly anyway) and who would be probably described as boring and who grew up in Madras not Minnesota is experiencing? Strange, when you consider that during my formative years my main means of transport was the Pallavan Transport Corporation and the No 10 buses which took me from T. Nagar to Casa Major Road in Egmore. How do I explain this unreasonable yearning to have my hair, or whatever is left of it, to fly in the wind as I visualised myself zipping around in a Harley? Why am I thinking of going to the Harley Davidson showroom in Lavelle Road as soon as I return to Bangalore to check out the bike that I may never buy? Is it aspiration? Is it the stuff that dreams are made of? Is it what makes Harley Davidson the iconic brand that it has been for as long as I can remember?

Icons are Inclusive

Today the brand is over a 100 years old and continues to captivate people all over the world, old or young, tattooed or not, whether they live in Nebraska or the Netherlands. The brand has people who are in love with it, who are passionate about it, not merely customers but the promiscuous variety that most marketers keep grappling with all their lives.

The brand has many things going for it. The sound of a Harley can be recognised by a Harley customer a mile ahead evoking memories, nostalgia and a wonderful feeling that only lovers of iconic brands can understand or appreciate. Its dealers are people with a difference. They are owners of Harley Davidson motorcycles, not merely people who make money selling a product. The Harley owners club has several thousand proud owners who meet, bike, bond, trade and create memories. The consumers keep the brand's flag flying high and core to the brand's success is its inclusiveness. It never has given the impression that it is not for you or me and that is probably why I certainly yearn to own one. The brand has evangelists backing it, not mere consumers, and that probably explains its cult status.

The Apple of My Eye

If ever there was a brand that could live up to its tagline of “Think Different” it has to be the company that Steve Jobs continues to lead with such dynamism. The Apple story has been often recounted and yet it is perhaps worth remembering something that has been crucial to the brand's continued success over the years.

That has been, in my view at least, Steve Jobs' obsession to make it as easy for the consumer as possible. In a team meeting to discuss the operations manual for the Macintosh one of the engineers suggested that the manual be so simple that a twelfth grader could understand and use it. Steve Jobs butted in (he used to keep doing this at meetings) to say it had to be so simple that even a kid in the first grade should be able to use it! This has been the design philosophy of Apple products since inception and driving the whole process with demonic zeal has been its founder, whose ill health had immediate and drastic implications on the stock price.

Take the iPod, for instance. Steve Jobs” design brief to his engineers was easy to communicate and difficult to execute. “The music has to come on with two touches of the index finger,” said an obstinate Jobs, and while it meant late hours and tremendous stress for his engineers, it has meant enormous ease of operations for countless technophobes such as me who continue to be addicted to the brand and are proud to flaunt it on our travels. Take the iPhone too. Jobs was particular that there be only one control button. His engineers resisted, but Jobs won and ultimately it was the consumer who gained.

In a day and age when sales promotions are more frequent than Dhoni's sixes, Apple has commanded a price premium for all its products. Its consumers go to town talking about the products on the Net and are the brand's most powerful evangelists. What greater testimony than “word of mouth” can we have in today's world which is rocked by a complete lack of trust? Consumers love the company and its products and are willing to pay a price premium and more critically are willing to tell anyone who cares to listen about how good the products are. I know several people who own an Apple computer, an iPod and an iPad, not to forget the iPhone. They just seem unable to get enough of Apple products. Loyalty is rare, evangelism even more so, making Apple another iconic brand that many secretly admire even as they compete with it.

Think Small

No discussion on iconic brands can be complete without the Volkswagen Beetle. Just imagine a German car, which Hitler had branded the people's car making a big success of itself in post-war America which was still hurting after World War II and still obsessed with ‘big cars. The campaign done by DDB Needham for the Volkswagen which Advertising Age rated as the best campaign of the last century was the starting point of some great advertising, and in many ways the launch of the brand's road to iconic status. A well-engineered, reliable product backed by some of the greatest advertising that we have been privileged to see, passionate consumers, all contributed to make the brand what it has become. I know that anyone in advertising and not necessarily in Madison Avenue yearned to own a Beetle. After all, some of us had sold our soul, hadn't we, and here was the brand offering us redemption. Who wouldn't take the option? These three brands are in India, though not in a big way. Others such as Ikea, Oprah Winfrey, Linux and WWE, to name just a few, have all been spoken of in the same breath, but not many Indian brands have achieved this rare status. But before that, let us examine some of the iconic brands that have ruled the roost for years now and understand what makes them what they are, or what has made them iconic.

Success that all so rare Elixir

Invariably these brands enjoy far higher top-of-mind recall. In a cluttered world where brands are perhaps satisfied with familiarity, these brands enjoy “super familiarity” status as a researcher classified them. They cater to the need of consumers wanting to be part of a group that is different, distinctive and a touch aspirational even. The owners of iconic brands keep experimenting and taking risks. Apple is a case in point. While its competitors have stayed traditional, Apple has taken risks and now with the wisdom of hindsight we can say that this pioneering spirit has probably ensured that the brand has stayed streets ahead. Cult brands have always remained hot to consumers because they are cool and have remained cool for years and will probably remain so. As mentioned earlier iconic brands are inclusive. Iconic brands too have a phenomenal cultural connect with their audiences. Seems simple doesn't it? Then why is it that few Indian brands are spoken of in the same breath as these iconic brands?

And the future winner is...

The last few months have seen two enormously successful brands – one Indian and one global – deciding to hang up their boots. The Sony Walkman, which defined the way individual music was heard for close to three decades, has decided to stop production of its once enormously successful product. Not very long ago, the Bajaj scooter that many of us took our entire family in for years on end decided to stop production. People talk of the Ambassador car, but it seems more a relic than a cult brand. The Maruti, perhaps? I have been an admirer of the Bullet motorcycle which I grew up with. Its familiar sound stoked our imagination even if some of us were not strong enough to handle its stand. Of course, Tamil films did a major disservice to the brand by showing it as the favourite vehicle of rapists! Thankfully, the company seems to have turned the corner and is doing many things right. I was delighted to see the rocky, mountainous terrain of Ladakh swarming with Royal Enfield motorcycles. Who knows? India might have an iconic brand after all!

Any names for iconic Indian brands, anyone?

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
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Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

In an ideal world...

2011-07-06T13:12:00.001+05:30

Banish the myopia: Committed relationships can benefit a brand and its advertising/PR managers — Titan Industries has been associated with O&M and Lowe since its inception and Iodex with HTA (now JWT) for 86 years.

A few years ago I saw a very interesting commercial for the iconic brand Absolut vodka. I daresay not the ideal product category to talk about early in the morning even if the commercial was about an Absolut world. The interesting thing, however, was that the commercial had been created by a consumer for the brand and posted on YouTube. It featured different situations - a policeman leaving a lollypop instead of a parking ticket on the car's windshield; a huge hulk of a man whom you would dread meeting in a dark alley contentedly sitting and knitting a sock; the wife giving the husband a huge pastry full of cream and chocolate with the comment “Doctor's orders”; a young couple saying fairly intimate and yet uncomfortable things to each other with a pleasant smile and so on. This got me thinking, what if we had an ideal world in marketing and communications instead of the stress-filled and tension-ridden one that we currently inhabit?

Clients and agencies thinking long-term

The most mutually beneficial relationships between clients and agencies are those which have endured. I remember the brand Iodex working with HTA as JWT used to be called those days, for a small matter of 86 years! What a fund of knowledge would be available with the agency in a situation like this! Hardly surprising that new product managers and trainees spent time with the agency when they joined the company as part of their induction.

More recently, Titan Industries which launched its brand in 1987, still has the same agency Ogilvy and Mather. It has a similar long association with Lowe as well. Agencies and clients keep talking about a “marriage” and “partnership” and yet start shopping around at the drop of a hat. In an ideal world both clients and agencies would look at a relationship from a long-term perspective and not ask for a few agencies to pitch every year as a matter of routine. This is particularly true of public relations arrangements. Will you keep looking routinely at other interesting men or women if you wished to stay in a marriage? As a person who has worked in the agency business for far longer than I should have, I am convinced that the agencies work much better (on the average) when they don't have to keep looking over their shoulder. They will invest in research; send their people out to markets if they know that the client is looking at them with a long-term perspective.

Integrating the communications partners

Today with the communications business completely unbundled, clients work with different partners for research, advertising, public relations, events, and even packaging. So very often the client is the only one holding the baton of the brand with each partner doing what he thinks is right for the brand, which may often be at cross-purposes with the tone of voice of the brand and what it should stand for, or attempt to convey. Rarely ever are meetings held with all the communication partners where plans are shared and open discussions are held. In an ideal world everyone would know what needs to be known about the brand so that they don't operate in isolation. It would help too if advertising agencies had a greater understanding of public relations and what it can achieve, and equally importantly the PR company must have a greater understanding of the power of advertising and the value of integrated marketing communications. An ideal world is a world of open sourcing. Sadly today the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing!

Awards are not only about Cannes

At some point in the recent past the major agencies decided that they would not participate in local awards functions, especially those being run by the Advertising Clubs in the South and some of them actually did not have awards functions for a few years. So if a young writer wished to compete with the Piyush Pandeys of this world, he could not do so at Chennai but could do so only if his work was sent to Cannes! It was a bit like most Indian Ranji Trophy players never getting to play with Sachin or Dhoni because they never ever played domestic cricket. Thanks to the IPL, the budding cricketers do get to play with the greats of Indian and world cricket. In an ideal world, India would be calling the shots in world advertising and awards, a bit like what is happening in the world of cricket.

An outstanding issue

In an ideal world the vexatious issue of money would not be the heartburn it so often is. Agencies constantly have to put up with inconsiderate and insensitive clients and it is usually the smaller partner who goes through the wringer when the client has a cash flow problem. Often, though, the cash flow problem is less of an issue than the carelessness or the lethargy of the brand manager or the marketing communications manager who is on leave, in meetings or unable to meet her boss! The situation gets even more traumatic when the account moves, particularly in public relations assignments. Clients cheerfully sign on new partners without bothering to settle their outstanding bills with the agency that they have been dealing with for so long. In an ideal world both the old public relations company and the new public relations company will talk to each other instead of studiously avoiding each other. If there is no forum such as the Advertising Agencies' Association of India that the advertising agencies have, the PR companies who strangely claim that they are in the communications business must at least communicate better with each other.

Training the key

In an ideal world agencies would train their people irrespective of the costs (or is the right word investments) and not make idiotic statements like “What's the point of training, in any case she will leave?” Attrition is a fact of life and will become even more acute as we are in a phase of growth. But properly planned and well conducted training programmes can most certainly improve the attitude and performance of the employees while they are in the organisation and actually help them stay longer. Our company does a lot of training for advertising agencies and market research firms and has direct and certain experience that a properly conducted training programme has a direct impact on the motivation levels and performance of the employees who are trained. The smarter companies have a basket of training programmes for their employees with different rating points for each and every employee has to go through or acquire a minimum number of points as part of their appraisal. This leads me to another interesting hope in the ideal world — learning from one's clients.

Can we learn from our clients?

Today agencies work with the best firms in India. Their clients are giants in more ways than one. Some of them are outstanding corporate citizens who have set up benchmarks for best practices across disciplines. In my experience agencies are quick to criticise clients (behind their backs, of course) as they are unable to see the larger picture and their opinion of the client is largely dictated by the fact that they have a demanding marketing communications manager or brand manager. It is perhaps the right time for senior management at the agency to educate their younger colleagues about the client, the business and what they can possibly learn from them. Agencies are often too critical of their clients as they often tend to take most things personally, especially criticism, and that colours their opinion of the client. At a larger level, I think it prevents them from objectively looking at the client and her achievements. So here is a tricky question. Do you admire your clients? Are you willing to learn from them?

Positioning – a battle yet to be won

Agencies are admirable at positioning their clients' brands. They come up with clever strategies and smart ways of communicating the positioning of their clients' brands and the more I see television, the more I am convinced of this. And yet, how well are agencies positioned? How distinct are they from their competition. In an ideal world advertising agencies and public relations companies would do some serious soul-searching and ask themselves the same questions that they so often ask their clients. Who are we? How are we different from our competitors? How do we communicate that difference?

Yes, we live in an imperfect world. We do not get the respect we think we deserve, though often enough our thinking and execution leave a lot to be desired. We can better our lot as organisations and industries that matter. The question is — do we have the will to at least create a better world even if we cannot create an ideal one?

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

Much nostalgia, some regret

2011-06-17T12:35:00.000+05:30

It is a little over three decades since I left Madras (as it was called then) and my mind goes back to the great times I had in that wonderful city. Madras was a great place to grow up even if it was 108 degrees in May. Who cared about the heat if one was chasing balls at the Marina cricket ground? A wonderful place to watch a cricket match and hear the Triplicane mamas waxing eloquent on which side of the wicket Derek Underwood should bowl from and the raucous chants of budding club cricketers whose wit far exceeded their cricketing ability. A phenomenal place to absorb culture even if you were only marginally inclined, and an easy city to live in, if only you knew the language.

Today, as I try to earn a livelihood studying brands and look back at the first quarter century of my life one thing strikes me about the city. (Who cares how late the learning happens, as long as it does happen!) The city was dependent on a few brands. Or better still, the lives of the citizens of Madras would have been a lot less interesting without some of these brands that I am going to talk about. I am sure the citizens of that city who spent their lives in the Sixties and the Seventies would have their own list, but I am going to restrict myself to three brands which mattered to Madras and me in that order.

Where is the paper?

Reading the newspaper in Madras was an involved ritual and it probably still is. Receiving the paper was the high point of our life and woe betide the poor newspaper boy who did not deliver the paper at 5.45 a.m. at our house in Mambalam! To me and to several other thousand people at that time, The Hindu was not only our window to the world but the voice of truth. While it is probable that you would not read it “first” in The Hindu, you could be sure, though, that if you read it there, you knew it was absolutely “true”. To me The Hindu was the only means to know the cricket score from anywhere in the world and the surest way of transporting myself into the world of Jack Fingleton. I had got addicted to it and remember a holiday in Bombay (as it was called then) and my frantic efforts to get a copy of the paper on the streets of Matunga. The bemused newspaper vendors must have marvelled at the nine-year-old's religious fervour and his fascination for pronouncing his religious beliefs as I kept repeating “Hindu”, “Hindu” in desperation! Today, I know the value of the brand and how indispensable it was in the lives of its readers, and I am sure it continues to be extremely important to million others even in the face of competition, not all of which is ethical.

Tamil Nadu hits the bottle

Tamil Nadu was one of the few States in the country that enforced Prohibition and even as thirsty denizens undertook thirst trips to neighbouring (then) Pondicherry, salubrious Bangalore and even Tada in Andhra Pradesh, the bootleggers ensured that every brand in the country was safely smuggled into the State. But the bottles consumed on the sly were nothing compared to the bottles of another beverage that was consumed in every dining room and kitchen in the State. Yes, life in Tamil Nadu was one big Horlicks bottle! Could one funny-looking bottle be the addiction of a whole State? You could bet your house on that fact!

Tamil Nadu consumed more Horlicks than the rest of India put together or at least it seemed like that to a young kid. When my grandmother was sick she was given Horlicks. When I went to my friend's house no prizes for guessing what I was offered by the lady of the house. When I woke up in the morning, the drink that I first had was - you guessed it! And housewives cheerfully collected bottle after bottle in which everything was stored from sugar to coffee to salt … I have consumed enough Horlicks to last seven generations as I am sure have most people who grew up in that era. Today the brand has many competitors and maybe it does not enjoy the same phenomenal franchise it once did, but nothing one can take the place it once held in the hearts and stomachs of Tamilians.

The state dreams

Enough has been said and written about the weather of Tamil Nadu and it is not uncommon for people to come out of the shower sweating like pigs. The really affluent ones had fans in their bathrooms! The antidote to the wonderful weather was Pond's dreamflower talc. Rich or poor, young or old, man or woman of that State had one thing in common. It was the brand they used. My mother had great faith in the product and would apply it liberally on my face, in the hope perhaps that it would make me appear a little fairer than I was! Sadly her hopes were belied and I ended up with what is euphemistically referred to as “wheatish complexion” in matrimonial ads! Clearly the State was waiting for Fair & Lovely! Be that as it may, it was the most dominant brand of the Seventies and the Eighties. To describe the brand as anything less than a dominant brand would be an understatement.

Later I went to a management school and understood how even the mighty brand faltered by launching Pond's toothpaste. And as I might have mentioned earlier in one of my columns the Mylapore mami is alleged to have said, “How can I put what I usually apply on my armpits into my mouth!” But let's stay with the talc which was also characterised by wonderful advertising over the years. I also remember the advertising industry in the city going into depression when the account was moved to Mumbai. After all, the city had so few large advertisers and when one of them shifted base it was bound to have implications.

Yesterday's confidence to today's uncertainty

Bill Bernbach used to say that today's advertising style is tomorrow's corn. And I have experienced sniggers and sly smiles when I proudly show yesterday's award-winning ads to today's kids. Similarly while it may mean nothing today, the Pond's dreamflower talc ad (that was how it was referred to) of the Eighties certainly made waves. I remember the commercial even today. Isn't it strange you can remember a commercial you saw 25 years ago but can't remember what your wife told you last night? However, the commercial was about a slightly nervous girl going for an important interview transforming herself into a confident, winning personality thanks to the effect of the talcum powder and what it does to her. Other commercials followed - in an art exhibition and in a school where the heroine gets what she so desperately wants thanks to the talc that is the elixir of the girl's confidence. These commercials were liked by consumers like me and by judges of advertising club awards functions who regularly gave the commercials prizes. In those days, there were no Cannes, so most advertising was entered locally! Let's move to the present …

I still use Pond's dreamflower talc. Habits don't die, do they? And as I watched the current commercial, my mind went back to the past. Let me explain the commercial in case you have not seen it. A boy is waiting outside his house with a bag in his hand. A girl zips in riding a Scooty and asks him if he is ready to leave. It soon becomes apparent that they are going to elope and the girl is the driving force behind the elopement. The boy is reluctant; he probably realises he will miss his mom's cooking and takes one last regretful look at his house. The girl says, don't worry we will have a register marriage and invite them for the reception. As a father of two sons, my heart bled at the thought that this is probably what today's girls are! Then I quickly reassured myself that the problem is not with today's young girls but with the scriptwriter who is saying that what he has created is a trend. To get back to the commercial the girl removes her helmet, the boy gets the fragrance of the talc and all is forgotten as they speed away to a new life and a new world, leaving me slightly uncomfortable about how a brand with a tradition of insightful advertising seems to have slipped somewhere.

I think the learning is fairly simple. Brands ultimately belong to consumers and people like me feel strongly about the brands we have been using for years. If The Hindu takes a wrong step it bothers me and if Pond's does a not-so-great commercial it upsets me. Are there more people like me, I wonder.

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

People are not brand loyal

2011-06-16T15:31:00.000+05:30

Pallavi Gupta, COO of Mast Kalandar & I, discuss about the food business, importance of advertising and branding.

Sridhar Ramanujam: I learn that you come from an IT background and later, shifted to the food business. What made you start the restaurant?
Pallavi Gupta: When I was working, we wanted a place for casual dining. As individuals, we craved for healthier versions of food. Since not much was happening in the Indian scene for speed and value for money with regards to the restaurant business, this further prompted us to start Mast Kalandar. We identified the gap and served healthy food.

SR: It’s interesting to observe how you’ve branded your restaurant. To start with, the name itself sounds very quirky?
PG: We wanted to be casual in regards to the name of our brand and bring a smile to everyone’s face. In Sufi, the name represents being happy and blissful and that’s exactly what we are trying to convey.

SR: Oh, that’s great to hear! Was there any logic behind serving only vegetarian food? What were the challenges?
PG: Our core audience is the working class and the younger generation, who prefers casual dining. We cater to a rather niche audience, who prefers to visit only vegetarian restaurants. Since customers are no longer loyal to a particular brand, we thought it’s fine to run a vegetarian restaurant. As far as the challenges are concerned, the shelf life is our only issue. However, we are trying to overcome that.

So Sridhar, since you are into branding, what is your advice for start-up companies?
SR: I’ve been noticing a trend in start-up firms, where they wait for a magic number. They are always in a hurry to get the big order and spend crores on television commercials, thinking that it will help them earn a better name. Companies should learn to spend money smartly. There should be a perfect balance between advertising, public relations and branding. One must set objectives and work towards it.

PG: Since digital marketing seems to be the current buzz word right now, do you think it works?
SR: Not much. For some companies, it has worked while for few others, it hasn’t. However, it depends on how one markets his company in the web world. For instance, several start-up firms have done really well after publicising themselves in social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter and the like. It does really help, especially, with these websites at bay.

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

AgTalk: Digital is where FM radio was ten years ago

2011-06-06T12:55:00.001+05:30

I strongly believe today’s industry lacks good visionary leaders and laments on the paucity of talent. Read on to discover as I unwind in an exclusive interview with Adgully.

Adgully: Can you share with us two key functional areas of Brand Comm?

Ramanujam Sridhar: We are a communication consultancy firm. The company is called integrated brand communications. We are a brand consultancy which deals with identity, positioning, re-positioning and brand architecture. We do advertising with a difference. We do a lot of our work which is in the area of talent. Third area which is the most visible part for us is Public Relations. We do a lot of training programmes and workshops.

Ag: What is the thought process that runs through the company?

RS: In our logo, there is a line that says power of insight. We sincerely believe that behind everything there is a consumer insight. The second is expanding your brand’s width.

Ag: Could you elaborate on the changing concept of branding in the last three years?

RS: There is great awareness for the importance of branding. When we started the company twelve years ago, people couldn’t even pronounce the word ‘brand’ earlier. Now at least they can. There is a realization now that many of the Indian companies are quite old. And when they had started it fifty years or so ago, it was done as a business propositions and not so much as brand propositions. Today many of them are competing in a global environment and they are competing with international players who have clearly defined positions. So I think there is a greater realization of importance of branding and what it can do for a company. The second big shift is because of the fact that most of India is young, so everyone wants their brand to be young. So I see a greater desire for brands to contemporize themselves today as compared to a few years ago. My only concern is brand is not only about the identity but also about the offering. It cannot be the identity alone if they wish to upgrade themselves, offering has to be a significant part.

Ag: What are the parameters clients look for in the branding process?

RS: What they are looking for is whether the branding company understands the category they are in. Second is whether they have the strategic capability to understand the clients’ business and present it in a manner that is differentiating. Third is does it have a long term opportunity? It must at least have a three or five year window. Also you must see if you can realistically be there or not. What companies like ours do is be objective and give them a different perspective to rebrand their products. This is because product managers are too close to their products and cannot be objective.

Ag: Do you think brands are getting more into digital today?

RS: Unfortunately digital is where FM radio was ten or twelve years ago. Suddenly everyone seems to have woken up. Digital is in that stage where clients are still trying to understand this medium. Though mainstream advertising is the way for most products, clients need to understand that there is an emerging customer and we need to capture that segment. There are different points at which we can reach out to the consumer. We need to cover every end of the spectrum. Today I don’t think any brand is using the digital medium to its full potential.

Ag: Can you discuss two of your best works?

RS: I would think the work we did for Vajram which is a cement brand is phenomenal. It is one of the largest selling cement brands today. We take immense pride in the work done for Calvin Care also.

Ag: Can you share with us some of the clients you work with?

RS: Some of them are CavinKare, Datacra, Vajram Cement, Ma Foi Randstad, Manipal’s entire education, Future Group and so on.

Ag: What kind of goals have you set for Brand Comm in the next five years?

RS: We are not in the mass market business. Our senior management is involved with most of the clients we work. We much rather be known by the quality of our work than the number of clients we have. We believe in long term relationships. We work closely with our clients.

Ag: What are some of the challenges for Band Comm at this point in time?

RS: The biggest challenge would be what the whole industry is facing today, that of attrition. Our future has always been young people. We recruit from management and communications school and many of them have grown with us. I am a teacher; there have been instances where my students have come to work with us.

Ag: You have authored two books already, are there any more books in the pipeline?

RS: Yes I am working on another book with Prof. Nair. The working title of the book is ‘Bees Saal ke baad’ which basically talks about after twenty years of liberalization what’s happening to the brands. Hopefully this should be published this year.

Ag: What message do you have for the industry?

RS: I think the basic problem with the industry is that there is no leader. There were people like Mani Iyer, Shubash Ghoshal, R.K Swamy who were visionary leaders and thought beyond their advertising and for the industry. And the second problem is that there is dearth in talent in this industry. The pay scales are too low and hence there is no motivation also to take this profession up by the youngsters.

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

Change is the name of the political game

2011-06-02T12:34:00.000+05:30

The recent elections have demonstrated how people can become brands and capture the public imagination.

Advertising agencies have, over the years, perfected the art of being wise after the event. Let me explain. Usually, a creative director comes up with a brilliant ad for a brand, a thought based on an idea which translates into an outstanding TV commercial or an award-winning press advertisement. The agency swings into action and lo and behold a fantastic presentation has been created to sell the ad after it has been created. It is what is jocularly referred to as a strategic retrofit in the agency circuit!

Similarly, after two outstandingly dissimilar women swept the polls last fortnight, analysts and consultants are ready to make a case study of these victories and do political postmortems ad nauseum after the ladies have done the hard work.

I am as knowledgeable about politics and its nuances as Mandira Bedi was about cricket and the Chinaman when she first started her stint with IPL, though I have a lot less hair than the charming hostess and even less television presence.

But this election has brought back memories of other political campaigns and my mind goes back to arguably the greatest political campaign created for another lady in a different part of the world, Margaret Thatcher. It is often claimed that the poster ‘Labour isn't working' created by Saatchi and Saatchi for the Conservative Party overthrew the Government and made the agency an overnight sensation.

While it is probably an advertising claim, there is no denying the campaign's effectiveness, even if the cynic might quibble that the queue in front of the employment exchange was made up of Saatchi employees.

I am not sure if our own advertising campaigns on the current election have been a patch on this for creativity, but the results throw up some interesting learning's for anyone interested in the theory of how people can become brands and capture both the imagination and the electorate, and also throw up interesting debates on what works — the message, whether it is by clever advertising or by way of an electoral theme, and the value or otherwise of freebies or sales promotions as people in the business would call it.

Poriborton! (Whatever that means)

My capacity to understand or learn languages (other than Tamil and English) has been limited as both my Hindi and French teachers will tell you. One quickly learnt Tamil as she found that it was easier than trying to teach me Hindi, while the other went back to Paris, a shadow of her former self, to relearn her French! Yet, even I could figure out that Mamata's campaign theme of change went down well with a State that has witnessed the same lack of progress for 33, or, was it 34 years?

While commentators may laud the lady from Bengal's achievements, I for one believe that people get tired, even the most patient ones, and that is what happened, though, as strategic retrofit kicks in, people are talking of positioning and packaging and how the shining knight in her Hawai chappals symbolises the hopes of the East.

But there is no denying the fact that she has been consistent in her policies — the Tatas might say against industry, her supporters would say for the poor, for, after all, she has been one of them for years now and struggled with them and for them, often sounding frustrated and ineffective as her political opponents might say.

But the feature of personal brands is consistency and her achievements in this election speak for themselves. The associations that would be evoked by her as a leader would be “simple”, “one of us” and “committed to our progress”. She, not surprisingly, emerged as a viable alternative to a Government that was not performing.

The iron lady

Let's move south and discuss someone who has achieved similarly dramatic results in the same election. Jayalalitha swept the elections in a State that has been ruled and dominated by the DMK, which was routed to an extent that it may never have imagined in its worst nightmares. It was worse than the three innings defeats that Australia suffered in the Ashes last winter at home, as minister after minister lost the people's mandate and went into political hibernation.

So, what happened? Of course, it was change, not after 34 years but dramatic change nevertheless. At the forefront of change was the leader brand. In many ways, very dissimilar to the lady from the East, but a strong brand nevertheless. What are the associations that one might associate with our southern leader? Extremely confident certainly (her critics might even say arrogant), intelligent, decisive in her actions and able to hold her own in discussion and debate with the most troublesome of press persons.

If Mamata Bannerjee is recognisable in her Hawai chappals then our own Puratchi Thalaivi is resplendent in her cape. Different leaders, different upbringings, different languages, but both led the same change that the two States desperately needed and, thankfully, experienced.

Advertising or sales promotion

While the elections in the East were fought on ideological issues, the situation was drastically and dramatically different in our own neck of the woods. Freebies were the order of the day. David Ogilvy might have thundered about how sales promotion can only produce a kink in the sales curve; but it certainly works down South.

Never mind who is going to pay for it, poor people in the State got free TV sets. It is a completely different matter that there was no power to watch the programmes on the free TV set, so people kept looking at the TV set. This reminds me of a panel discussion on television viewing that I participated in a few years ago when someone from interior Karnataka made a telling comment that made a lasting impression on me. “You city people can comment on which programme is watched, but in Hubli we can only watch the TV set as there is no power!”

Unlike in Karnataka, the power situation in Tamil Nadu, in my view at least, could have been one major issue. Of course, it certainly helped that the lady who won the election matched the offers for freebies one-to-one — laptops and fans and mixer grinders, which must have made these manufacturers lick their lips in anticipation of a bonanza. Having said that, I still believe that change, which has been one of the constants in Tamil Nadu politics too, had a major role to play in the overwhelming sweep that the election results provided.

What of the future?

People in marketing know the trouble with promise. Over promise and under delivery normally leads to post-purchase dissonance, consumer dissatisfaction and word-of-mouth that is unfavourable, leading to ill will. Thankfully, politicians have a longer window to deliver what they promise. Never mind the fact that the Left spent all of 34 years delivering nothing in the East and the DMK party members ended up in monumental scams.

So I guess the time to deliver starts now for both the leaders in question. At the risk of repetition, I must say that true leaders are those who have delivered results, whatever their field of interest and expertise. Mamata's results as a minister have been like those of the teams in the bottom half of the current IPL and Jayalalitha is going to be watched with keen interest, not only by her political rivals but by the people who voted her to power with such hope. Results have to be the operative word now that change has happened.

And just a little about brands

When we speak about brands, there are two aspects of a brand — the rational and the emotional. The rational is the functional utility of the brand — say, the fuel efficiency of a car. The emotional is the fact that the driver feels as though he is the sexiest man in the world. But if the car does not deliver or packs up on the road when our sexy man is going to meet his date, then no amount of advertising is going to help. Similarly, there is a lot of euphoria and emotion around the two victories that we have just seen. But now is the time for the functional quality of these two leadership brands to assert themselves in no uncertain terms, as now is the time to deliver.

Mere promise or actual delivery? Both leaders have won the toss on a belter of a wicket and have decided to bat first. Will they build a mammoth score and put the opposition under pressure or crumble like a pack of cards to the delight of their political rivals?

I am no match fixer. So l will wait and watch like you after the IPL is over!!

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

KISS and then, tell

2011-05-19T14:16:00.000+05:30

Doesn’t celebrity come with responsibility? How many star endorsers really use the things they promote?

Two decades ago the BPL brand was king. As someone who was involved with the brand's advertising for several years, I feel a great sense of sadness that the brand has virtually disappeared. But the purpose of this piece is not to indulge in nostalgia, however enticing that prospect is, but to remind you of something that the brand experienced and which has relevance to what is happening today. At this time, probably in the late Eighties, the BPL brand was on top of the heap even as Amitabh Bachchan was picking up the shreds of his career that had been shot to bits and his much touted company ABCL was on the verge of closure. (This was pre-Kaun Banega Crorepati). It was then that BPL in a stroke of absolute madness (or so I thought) signed on the Big B to be its brand ambassador. Why, oh why was my reaction then and even now. Why would the brand, which was on top, sign on a sagging brand and an aging star?

Be that as it may, a series of high-profile commercials were done for the entire range of BPL products which had enormous visibility. Everything was hunky dory till IFB (I hope my memory of the brand name is right) got into the act for it figured out that Amitabh did not own any BPL product other than a four-door Sanyo refrigerator (if rumours were to be believed) even if he was endorsing the entire range of BPL products and he actually owned an IFB microwave. So they promptly came up with a takeoff on BPL's tagline (‘Believe in the best') and took a hard hit at the leader with an ad which said that Amitabh believes in the best which is why he owns an IFB microwave! Well, to say the manure hit the roof would be an understatement. Having spoken elaborately about a brand that was on top while I had hair on my head, let me talk about another brand that is trying to make its presence felt through very visible ads featuring a much younger celebrity - Ranbir Kapoor.

Stand up and be counted

One of the features of the mobile services category is not only its enormous growth but also the phenomenal creativity that the category seems to inspire in a variety of creative directors. In fact, I have often said that while cola might have been the category to work for two decades ago, mobile services are the category that most young creative minds would like to create for. Having said that my constant refrain as a mobile consumer is that all mobile advertising is what Rosser Reeves might have classified as “puffery” and bears no relationship to the actual service that consumers like me get.

I was an admirer of the advertising that Tata Docomo brought out from its launch and its “life can change in seconds” was something that captivated me. The advertising, aided, of course, by a game-changing strategy, was truly memorable. In my case, the advertising really worked as I went out and subscribed to a Tata Docomo service. To classify the service as ‘poor' would be a euphemism. It was pathetic. It did not work in most of the places that I “roamed”, call drops were the order of the day and to activate any service was a challenge of monumental proportions. In disgust, I gave up my service and several months after I have paid everything and moved away I get calls every day reminding me about some due which is non-existent. So will they pay me a penalty as young Ranbir Kapoor so interestingly promises? This leads me to the current lot of commercials.

Very funny, but is it true?

I like Ranbir Kapoor, though Rishi Kapoor, his father, was arguably the hottest young star of our time. Could anybody from my generation forget Rishi and Dimple in Bobby? God, how ancient I sound! But let's move from the hot star of the past to today's teenage heartthrob and his latest range of “Keep it simple silly” commercials for the Tata Docomo brand. He is a stand-up comedian taking potshots at the mobile services industry in general. His cracks on marriage and his father and other mobile service providers are quite funny. Strategically, Tata Docomo too moved away from its earlier advertising stance and roped in a celebrity. While that strategy is questionable, there is no doubt about the execution as the commercials are genuinely funny and hold one's attention. I believe that in the Indian context where every consumer has the dangerous weapon called the remote control that enables her too easily to switch channels, commercials must entertain first and sell later. These commercials certainly do that, so let's discuss the story ideas and what they are attempting to convey.

Keep it simple

I have seen a series of commercials on the “simplicity”. The first (or so I presume) is the one about people choosing complexity over simplicity with his example of a wedding card and saying how guys choose to get married when their lives would remain simple if they stay single. Surely commercials like these will strike a chord with married people like me. (Of course, I can make statements like these with impunity and total courage as my wife usually never reads what I write). The analogy is with mobile companies that embrace complexity over simplicity, unlike Tata Docomo. Then there are others about the family plan where Ranbir mimics his father's tone of voice, particularly when he has a glass in his hand. He talks about keeping his dad's credit card while his dad is welcome to keep his mobile bill.

There are a few other funny commercials about the family plan where he talks about animals and how the family that eats together, stays together. The context of this well-enacted commercial is the family plan of Tata Docomo. There is another commercial on the family plan too where he speaks about breaking off his engagement with a girl because she put herself in his family plan. How dare she? Then there are other commercials which ridicule the customer service of other mobile service providers and how customer service guys keep mouthing inane statements like “your call is valuable to us” and how you have to press ‘1', ‘2', ‘3', ‘4' or ‘5' as against Tata Docomo where you can actually get to speak directly to a real, live operator. It also ridicules another service operator who keeps sending bills long after the customer is dead.

So what is the verdict?

As I keep repeating, the commercials are interesting, humorous and use the histrionic ability of this talented star to great effect. I am sure commercials such as these will have high recall, not only because of the creative treatment and the celebrity but also because these are real pain points for mobile users. I know what it is to try to speak to a service provider. It is easier to pick Murali's doosra! But my basic question is: Is Tata Docomo all that it claims to be? I really, really wonder and as I mentioned earlier, I used to be a customer of the same service provider and left completely annoyed and irritated. I am still being harassed by them long after I have given up the service and I have the mails to support my claim for the brand's inefficiency. But I am not going to go on and on about the service but want to talk about a slightly larger issue and that concerns advertising agencies and celebrities.

Who is your mobile service provider?

Sometimes when I see ads for mobile services and banks (definitely) I have a basic question. Does the agency which creates these ads use these mobile services? Do its people travel the length and breadth of this country, including the smaller towns, and try to communicate with their other colleagues in Mumbai or Delhi using the same service? Have they tried other services to compare and contrast the claims that they are so readily and so creatively promoting? And what about the responsibility of celebrities? Has Sachin ever ridden a TVS Victor after the shoot? Does Shah Rukh ever use a Santro (or maybe his gardener does?) and what about Ranbir Kapoor, our hot young star? Who is his mobile service provider? Has he ever used Tata Docomo? And if he does, I wish he would travel to a remote place for a shoot and desperately try to connect with his girlfriend in Mumbai whoever she might be, and then do a commercial.

Maybe I am asking for too much, but what the hell, I am a consumer, and more importantly a voter too, and as I end my piece two women have just swept the polls! But that is another story.

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

Keep it simple, if you can!

2011-05-05T16:56:00.003+05:30

On the heels of a crowded, elongated, often boring cricket World Cup that still managed to end brilliantly was another one-day series. You could brand it as the (former) titans versus (the perennial) minnows. Okay, let me try to be simple as that is what I am advocating here – it was Australia vs Bangladesh. And so brilliantly was the itinerary planned by the ICC that if Australia had won the World Cup as they had done on the last three occasions, then they would have flown straight to Dhaka from Mumbai with the World Cup (even if it would not be the real one) in their bag, gloriously hungover, to boot. Of course, Dhoni ensured that Australia was not inconvenienced and remained coldly sober as they quietly flew in to Bangladesh after a rare quarter-final defeat. The low-key series happened even as the diehard Bangladeshi cricket fan (what a glutton for punishment) faithfully turned up thrice in a week at the stadia only to watch his team get trounced (again).

But in other parts of the world there were other dumb viewers like me, who had nothing else to do but watch these games on TV. And, in between Shane Watson's furious and frenetic sixes, there were the sponsors' commercials, but one commercial kept repeating itself and that is the one I will start talking about. After all, it was my old (if not trusted) mobile service provider Airtel with its now old, new logo featuring a young army officer (who a few weeks later became the harassed husband of a pregnant wife for Axis bank) and his good-looking girlfriend. The commercial, I am sure, was brilliantly scripted in Hindi and I must confess upfront that I did not understand a word of it. Kya karen, I belong to the ‘Hindi down-down!' generation that grew up in Madras (which started to watch Hindi movies after Aradhana), even if I still own a mobile phone and can actually afford video calling.

But enough of me and more of the commercial that we will review in this piece. I must have seen the commercial a million times (what is a simple exaggeration in a column that is essentially simple) and each time I watched the commercial I got a different message as I constructed a different script in my mind. We Ramanujams are a creative lot, even if we say so ourselves. After tremendous thinking (difficult at my age) I finally figured out the script. Intelligence will eventually triumph! There is this young, handsome if slightly effeminate soldier making his way to the border and speaking to a pretty girl. He asks her, “Didn't a girl called Tillu live here?'' and the pretty young thing asks him, “What sort of guy are you who can't recognise me in my new hairstyle?” as she tosses her hair saucily. Even as the soldier is figuring out what to say his boss calls him, so he exits with the famous line “I shall return” from the World War II movies of my time. I was particularly happy with my script if not the commercial till I saw the Tamil version on one of the channels and imagine my consternation when I discovered that I had got it slightly wrong. Of course, I am being charitable to myself. I had got it as wrong as the Royal Challengers in not retaining Dayle Steyn, Jacques Kallis and Ross Taylor and Delhi Daredevils in bidding for Irfan Pathan at a fabulous price. So I was in august company. Losers all!

The real thing

As I watched the same commercial in Tamil I realised how wide of the mark my script had been. The same soldier is making a video call to his girlfriend. He is so captivated by her looks that he is tongue-tied. In her usual familiar way, she asks him why he is calling if he is going to be remaining silent. And then he asks her the million-dollar question that I had completely messed up: “Where is the mole that you used to have?” and I realised to my complete chagrin that tillu actually meant a mole!

How much the language seems to have changed in my time! But back to the commercial where the girl, after tossing her hair and showing her mole, gives the killer line where she tells her boyfriend that a soldier's eyes should never look down. What a wonderful piece of advice for all the youngsters who are thinking of pursuing a career in the army! The soldier, not to be outdone, tells her that he would take care of this once he returns even as he hears his boss calling. Most significantly, I realised that the commercial was about video calling. Speak about being intellectually challenged. But it leads me to my concern about commercials that are entirely conceptualised in Hindi and their limited relevance (if at all to Tamilians, Bengalis, Malayalis and a whole host of other Indians to whom Hindi is not the mother tongue and who watch cricket like I do where commercials keep being telecast in Hindi and are created around extensive dialogues and clever turn of phrase). Is this sub-optimal? Most certainly it is. While there is a Hindi audience which is being spoken to, there is another audience that is watching this commercial in Hindi and not making too much sense of it.

A sweeter Hindi commercial

But then there are commercials and commercials in Hindi. Unlike in my time when commercials were conceptualised in English (which had its own share of problems) today's commercials are almost always conceptualised in Hindi- only with varying degrees of difficulty of comprehension. I have been seeing another campaign for Cadbury's dairy milk which, though in Hindi, seems to make much more sense to me, even if I am not allowed to eat sweets. There are these commercials set in a home where the menu invariably seems to be some vegetable that even cows will not eat. (Please don't ask me what “lauki” is, I have no clue, it only sounds detestable!) And to add insult to injury there is even a commercial where the same vegetable presents itself on two consecutive nights! What a household! But what else would you expect in a household where one of the young people is busy texting with foundation on her face and the other is busy drying her hair. But even if this household has some young women with interests other than cooking they certainly seem to have loads of Dairy Milk which seems to compensate for all the dicey vegetables that invariably show up at dinner. I like the commercials because they are strategically sound. Positioning Dairy Milk as a wonderful dessert, particularly in households that are starved of good food, seems a great way to go. Significantly the commercials too are simple to understand even to Hindi-challenged mortals like me, even if it throws up interesting doubts about today's young women. When will they ever learn to cook?

But the prize goes to…

The prize for simplicity, clarity and single-mindedness of thought goes to the Havells commercial. The setting is the grihapravesh of a new house. A young couple is performing a puja with their adorable kid in tow. What wonderful models these agencies source! Anyway, the script is simple .The child watches in anguish as his mother struggles to add ghee to the fire. (Normally it is only the man who does it, or so I thought, but why quibble about a really nice commercial?) Her hand is hurting with the heat. The enterprising kid rushes to action. He takes his mother's permission and leaves the puja area only to find a piece of Havells wiring that he quickly shapes in the form of a ladle for his mother to pour ghee into the fire. She does that easily thanks to the “wires that don't catch fire”. Everyone is happy at the child's smartness. While it is the same theme and tagline as earlier, the execution is refreshing, simple and endearing. The greatest thing for me is that it is not language-dependent and makes sense through the length and breadth of this entire country.

So here are my questions:

How simple is your commercial?

Is it single-minded?

Is it too dependent on the language and the turn of phrase?

Remember, there are lots and lots of customers like me and if they don't understand your message they will just switch the channel, not write columns!

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

TV ratings remain flat for IPL

2011-04-29T20:07:00.000+05:30

Through IPL 2011, ESPNcricinfo will be tracking TV ratings using the TAM People Meter, India's leading TV ratings system. This is the second installment in the weekly series

The 2011 IPL continues to struggle to attract viewers compared to last season, with ratings down 21.99% on average for the first 26 games across six key markets. The drop was even steeper over the last ten games, with ratings falling by 27.08%. The likely culprits are cricket fatigue and a lack of familiarity with the teams, say media experts.

The average Television Viewer Rating (TVR), a time-weighted figure which accounts for time spent watching by viewers and the number of viewers, was 4.46 across the cities of Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad, down from 5.72 in 2010, according to TAM Sports, a division of TAM Media Research, the leading television ratings agency in India. The ratings are the lowest for the first 26 games since the tournament began in 2008.

For the 10 games beginning with Pune Warriors beating the Delhi Daredevils on April 17, and ending with Delhi scoring 231 in their crunching defeat of Kings XI Punjab on April 23, the average rating per game was just 4.20.

Sridhar Ramanujam, who heads brand consulting firm Brand-Comm, says India's sensational World Cup triumph is finally taking its toll. Ramanujam said he had recommended the IPL to his clients as a safer bet than the World Cup because television viewership for international cricket "is directly rated to India's performance and non-performance." India, however, went on a dream run to lift the World Cup. "[It had] everything you could hope for as a die-hard Indian cricket fan," Ramanujam told ESPNcricinfo. "Beating Australia in the quarter-finals. Beating Pakistan in the semi-final. Everything was at an all-time high. So after the World Cup, what?"

Ramanujam also believes the lack of outstanding games so far in the tournament has contributed to the decline in ratings, saying that aside from a few memorable performances from Paul Valthaty and Lasith Malinga, none of the games have caught his imagination.

Mumbai Indians, who currently sit atop the points table, continue to be the strongest draw for fans, partly because of the Sachin Tendulkar factor and partly their winning streak. Mumbai's game against defending champions Chennai Super Kings in Mumbai posted a 6.70 TVR, the third-highest rating so far, with 16.9 million turning in to watch Rohit Sharma and Harbhajan Singh deliver victory to the home side on Good Friday. But even the Mumbai Indians' ratings have suffered in comparison to last season, falling from an average TVR of 6.74 (over six games) to 5.29 (over five games).

For Hiren Pandit, Managing Partner-Entertainment, Sports and Partnerships at Group M, a prominent media buying agency, the continued popularity of Mumbai Indians suggests that the ratings are more likely a product of the confusion caused by players changing teams rather than cricket fatigue.

"My take is the teams have changed. Now because teams have changed, I think people are still figuring out who plays for whom. You are so used to a Yuvraj [Singh] playing for Kings XI but now he plays for Pune. So that is where to the problem lies"

Pandit expects ratings to pick up again as fans come to grips with all the changes but Ramanujam thinks the ratings will continue to suffer until the semi-finals, saying, "basically, it is overkill and too much of a good thing".

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

Leaders as brands

2011-04-23T18:17:00.000+05:30

When we talk about a leader as a brand, the only Indian example that used to come readily to mind was that of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He was an undisputed, undeniable brand in every sense of the term. This is not to undervalue the contribution of other political leaders like the simple but effective Lal Bahadur Shastri or the charismatic Jawaharlal Nehru, both of whom had their followers. Suddenly the Indian leadership stakes has a new entrant in Anna Hazare. What a leader! If someone can actually move our government and even the normally sluggish Manmohan Singh to action, he deserves nothing but the highest praise and the eligibility to enter the top brand management stakes. While it is understandable if I were to break into eulogistic rapture about his actual achievements I shall carefully desist and attempt to stay with the leadership brand, its characteristics and the learning therefrom for young aspirants. What can we learn from the Annas of the world - about leadership and branding?

Leaders stand for something

What sets apart truly visionary leaders is that their point of view does not change with the view. They adhere to and are passionate about the causes they espouse. Gandhi was the greatest exponent of non violence while Hazare is certain that the country and its people should not put up with corruption of any sort. Leaders too are instantly recognizable with their appearance. What comes to mind when I say “Winston Churchill?” Most certainly it would be his obdurate expression of defiance in the face of adversity and his trademark bowler hat. What comes to mind when I say Gandhi? It would have to be his beatific toothless smile, the loin cloth and his stick and his absolute determination to ensure that the British left the shores of this country.

It is also pertinent to remember that while leaders might have several achievements, they are revered and recalled for one singular achievement that usually outshines the others. The same principle extends to the corporate world as well. While the late management guru CK Prahlad had multiple achievements, he is perhaps most respectfully remembered for his “fortune at the bottom of the pyramid ‘. Thomas Friedman is remembered for his “flattened world” . I am sure Anna will be remembered for his fasting strategy which has often been abused by lesser mortals.

Leadership is about results

In all the hype and glamour that leaders often inspire, it is possible to lose sight of the basics. Leaders are revered for their results. The same applies to the corporate world. The truly great long term corporate leaders like Steve Jobs and Jack Welch were characterized by their ability to inspire results in good years and bad. As Jack Welch used to say, anyone can make money in the long run or in the short run, but it took real ability to make money in both.

Leaders inspire followers

How can you call someone a leader if he has no followers? Perhaps the greatest achievement of our latest leader Anna has been his capability to inspire millions of Indians who have been galvanized into action. For a lot of time now, people have been frustrated and even angry at all that is happening around them and yet barring a few angry posts or jokes in cocktail circuits, nothing tangible had emerged. Thanks to the power of the net and media that realized the value of this movement, the movement became a tide. For me, the most satisfying part is that the senior citizen was able to get so many youngsters to take to the streets of Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai to join the protests. It augurs well for the future of the nation that youngsters are not as apathetic as some of my generation has been and I make no apology for myself. I am sure too that the actions of this leader will have long term implications in the actions of every single Indian in future. For it takes two to tango. It is equally important that the bribe giver too desists.

May Anna’s tribe prosper and may his detractors get to face Lasith Malinga’s shoe crushing yorkers without pads on!

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

Champions on the field!

2011-04-07T12:09:00.001+05:30

Intrigued by the headline? The different faces of India are fodder for our columnist this week.

If the sponsors and organisers of the Cricket World Cup 2011 had drawn up a wish list before the impressive opening ceremony at Dhaka, the list might well have included:

Teams from the subcontinent in the last four (well, three of the last four were from the subcontinent)

India beating Australia in the knock-out (ideally it could have been the semi-final but I am not complaining).

India knocking out Pakistan from the tournament (Who cares even if the match did not have the normal high quality associated with Indo-Pak encounters?) Do you remember the Bandaid commercial where the kid shouts “match to jeet gaya!”

There would be a few close matches (we even had a tie! Can you believe it ?)

Sachin should be tantalisingly and intriguingly placed on 99 international centuries when he enters Wankhede for the final after being one of the highest run scorers of the tournament

A single Indian player, Yuvraj, would win no less than four Man of the Match awards.

If you look at all that has happened in the World Cup for India and the subcontinent, it is a dream come true and the sponsors and the organisers must be laughing all the way to the bank, not to mention some black marketers who made a killing, in the India matches at least.

Not surprisingly the sponsors had the good sense to schedule most India games over the weekends. The TRPs kept soaring from match to match and viewership was at a record high as the nation held its breath and 1.21 billion people forgot everything except that fantastic piece of silver which India has not had the chance to display at the BCCI since the magical moment at Lord's , a small matter of 28 years ago.

Obituary written too soon

Thanks to their preoccupation with the shortest version of the game, a number of experts genuinely got it wrong and predicted the end of the 50-over format. The BCCI was largely to blame for this as we kept playing matches with Sri Lanka every second day.

The possible risk in this strategy (?) could be evidenced on Saturday as India holds no terrors for our island friends who know our players and their preferences like the back of their own hands. But an entertainment-starved country like this has continued to lap up the one-day version (which started as an accident in Melbourne after an Ashes match was rained off and has come to stay).

Certainly it had to improve, having been started in a rollicking fashion by the flashing blades of Geoffrey Boycott and William Morris Lawry. It could only improve in interest and it certainly did, aided and abetted by the Kerry Packers of the world.

Living up to the hype

One of the biggest challenges that brands, movies and events face is the inability to live up to the hype that precedes them. We had a similar scenario in 2007 when India failed to make it to any stage and the team managed to only make it to the airport to catch their return flight back home with their collective tail between their legs and there I was with a host of my friends at Barbados landing up in Bermudas and India T-shirt for the wrong party!

There were no such hiccups this time as India willed its team on. The team, after some initial hiccups, made it to the finals on the strength of its superior batting ability and the consistency of the Sachins, the Yuvrajs and the Zaheers. Consider too some of the highlights:

Ricky Ponting in the face of criticism, hostility and broken TV screens, playing the innings of his life in his last World Cup match

Sachin and Murali having a face-off in their final World Cup game which, incidentally, is a final

England's ability to infuse interest and drama into any game they played except their last one

Kevin O'Brien's answer to the critics authoring the “minnows should not play” theory

Pakistan's ability to drop Sachin Tendulkar more times than he has been dropped in an entire series

The Indo-Pak leaders meeting in the cricket pavilion first before they meet to discuss more important things….

Yes, we have had a dream World Cup and I went nowhere near the stadium unlike in 1987, 1996, 1999, 2003 and 2007. India did not win when I watched these matches live and the only match I went to at Bangalore, we tied when we should have won easily.

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

Fill it, shut it and forget the advertising

2011-04-05T15:36:00.000+05:30

In the mid eighties I used to be the account executive on the Ind-Suzuki brand as it used to be called those days and used to watch the work of our competitor Hero Honda with fascination and ill concealed admiration. Hero Honda launched a four stroke bike (to the disapproval of my erudite friends in TVS) clearly positioning the new product on fuel economy. The ad campaign which I can still recall had the tag line “Fill it, shut it, forget it”. To put it mildly the consumer forgot all the other brands (well almost) as the new campaign and the new brand took the market by storm and continues to rule the two wheeler roost two decades later. The Hero Honda Splendor has been an enduring brand success, built on a product which works brilliantly in Indian conditions and on the Indian psyche (fed and nurtured as it is on fuel economy) and is an excellent example of clear, single minded communication that has been consistent over the years. Hero Honda, the company did many things right and as a former executive of TVS Suzuki confessed privately to me “the best thing I did was invest in Hero Honda”. Competitors know the value of the company they are competing with right? Just as any team that played Australia in the early 2000s would tell you what it meant to beat them and the collective ambition of the entire cricketing world was to beat them and when they did it rarely it was a cause for wild celebrations. Let’s return reluctantly to our brand story. Suddenly (though it has been brewing for some time now) the two companies have split and Honda will soon launch two entry level bikes even as the Japanese giant is building a new factory in Andhra Pradesh and looks to beefing its distribution presence.

The latest to bite the dust

Two wheeler partnerships are not new in the country. TVS had a partnership with Suzuki, Bajaj had another with Kawasaki, Honda had a partnership with Kinetic and when the two split Kinetic lost its way and was bought over by Mahindra whilst Rajdoot too suffered after the Yamaha split. It is not rocket science to deduce that foreign partners need Indian companies to get acclimatized to the conditions here and more importantly the people and the customs. Indian companies too already have their distribution in place through the length and breadth of this country and any marketer will tell you that distribution is key to any brand’s marketing success. The learning from all of this is pretty clear. The partner who is better prepared for the split actually survives the split and in cases like Bajaj actually thrives. TVS is another case in point. Even during its partnership with Suzuki which was exhibiting signs of stress, TVS continued to design its own vehicles. The Victor which was a big success of the company was actually designed by TVS and this caused heartburn to the Japanese partner and if rumour is to be believed was the final straw on the camel’s back. TVS had actually planned its exit from the partnership fairly intelligently and has now emerged as a serious player in the two wheeler market particularly with its Scooty which has created a completely new category.

Will Hero continue to rule?

Hero is already gearing up for life without its Japanese partner and is in the process of creating a new identity with an international design firm of repute. While design has its value the new brand and entity, will have to understand its point of differentiation to the others, most of all to its former partner and current adversary. There is no doubt that Hero, thanks to its leadership in cycles knows India and has phenomenal reach, which is extremely critical though one must admit that there are other factors at play. One of the major reasons for success of a product in the two wheeler category will have to be its design and that to my mind is a major cause of worry. Does the Indian counterpart have the design capability to take on the world and its former partner and woo the now spoilt Indian consumer? I have my doubts and in the final analysis that will probably determine its success. Hero is a strong company with excellent financials, anchored in India and I feel that they too will pull through, but it is certainly going to be a testing, challenging few years and I as an admirer of the company will be waiting and watching to see how they make us forget the competition.

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

Viewer’s delight, sponsor’s nightmare

2011-03-29T10:05:00.000+05:30

I must talk about the World Cup (habits don’t die) which is getting into the business end and India has managed to make every match interesting. How did they do that? They did that by playing way below their potential, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, turning certain victory into a pulsating tie and lo and behold Indians have to watch West Indies vs. England and South Africa vs. Bangladesh as our progress depends on theirs. What a coup for TRPs!!! And yet amidst all the Indian madness there is a bigger madness and that is the advertising. Even if I owe most of everything I have in my life to advertising, I am getting increasingly miffed with advertising for the World Cup which cuts into my viewing pleasure and makes me feel like throwing something heavy at the TV screen and blasting it into smithereens, but yet can’t as it is my hard earned money which paid for the TV in the first place. How many magic moments have been deprived thanks to the greed of the channels? Why can I not see the first ball and the sixth ball over of the over? Why should I see a half commercial when Shaun Tait ties his shoe laces? How many times do I have to suffer the same boring commercial? Why or why?

Mummy, no commercials!!

Suddenly God seems to have heard the plaintive wails of cricket mad people and decided to give us our HDTV. I can watch the entire duration of a 100 over match without a single commercial. With my new found toy, I can see the pores of sweat in the fast bowler’s brow, the extent of the frown on Ricky Ponting’s face and Shahid Afridi actually having his arms around Shoaib at the end of an over instead of Yuvaraj Singh talking about the benefits of some completely useless product that I am sure I will never use. In fact two interesting incidents must be shared with you. The first was when JP Duminy on 99 instead of tapping the ball for a single, goes for a six with the idea of boosting the team’s score as it was the last over and gets caught. In our normal broadcast, the delighted channel will happily put in commercial after commercial in the gap. But what did I get to see? The image of the entire South African team standing up to a man to applaud their unselfish team mate!. Cricket is richer thanks to images like this which we have been robbed of .The next is the image of Ricky Ponting losing his cool after taking the catch, despite Steve Smith coming in his way. The angry captain hurled the ball he had just caught in rage. I saw raw emotion of a guy who wished to win at any cost, not some insipid commercial.

Is there a problem?

The current base of HDTV users is probably low. Estimates vary and it is probably closer to 60,000 users. What is that number when you look at the millions, who are watching the regular broadcast, clogged with commercial after commercial. And yet are these high net worth individuals who are the advertiser’s dream? Will this currently small number grow? I can bet my bottom dollar (not that I have one) that it will grow. And why do I say that? Simply because I bought it out because I was strongly recommended this and I have already called a few others. Word of mouth, as the marketing consultant will tell you, always works. Of course the advertisers though secretly worried are telling themselves that this has not taken off in other parts of the world. They are probably right. It may be a fad for all we know. Some of them are crying foul that this is not cricket, but I am not complaining.

Yet I think it is time for channels to think this one through. Are they killing the golden goose? Are they irritating their customers? They most certainly are. They just must observe the reactions of viewers when the same ad keeps repeating itself, when live action is missed. For the time to take corrective action is now. Otherwise what is a mere trickle will soon become a flood and there will be more and more people like me who are only watching the cricket. Who knows, we may soon forget advertising as the channels are full of them.

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
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Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

Helicopter shot or switch hit? Take your pick!!

2011-03-15T13:18:00.000+05:30

Pepsi is one brand that has swigged cricket to the last drop and some of their best TV commercials have been around the game that often captivates and yet frustrates. In 1996 when Coke was the official sponsor of the World Cup, Pepsi who had lost the bid (if my memory is to be believed) did a guerilla marketing campaign and came up with the campaign “nothing official about it” featuring the likes of a (then) baby faced Sachin Tendulkar, the dashing Vinod Kambli (where on earth is he), the West Indian fast bowler and captain Courtney Walsh, the English speedster Dominic Cork and the legendary umpire Dickie Bird. This was a landmark campaign and people still remember it. See advertising actually works!! In ‘99 when the World Cup was held in England, Pepsi was the official sponsor despite all their previous cracks at the status! But then all is fair in sponsorships and cricket right? Let’s move on to the present World Cup and the current lot of Pepsi commercials. Incidentally do you like them?

Cricket in the air

I think there has been a significant change in the way the game is viewed today in India. It has captivated our attention and with the media getting on to the game and scams in that order, there is hardly any scope for anyone to say “yeh dil mange more”. Cricket seems to be coming out of our ears and even housewives seem to be familiar with the nuances of the game - thanks to T20 and the IPL. It is this passion and the familiarity with cricketing jargon (?) that is behind the latest Pepsi World Cup campaign featuring cricketers and their ilk. In addition to the grotesque (to me at least) body painting commercials featuring at least one of our not so athletic cricketers, there is one featuring some of their trade mark shots and gestures which continues to get high visibility in the media and most certainly in the big screens on stadia that I am going to talk about.

Billy oh Billy!

How was Pepsi to know that Billy Bowden would be India’s favourite umpire? Let’s ignore the sarcasm and stay with Billy’s crooked finger that has been behind the agony of many famous cricket’s greats.

The commercial features Billy eating Indian food and having the temerity to ask for a spoon! Imagine the cheek of the man! The group sitting next to him speaks in a dialect way beyond my limited powers of comprehension, but the gestures tell the story and he is taught how to raise his finger. He learns reluctantly after tasting a Pepsi and promptly raises it in the ground. Of course lessons learnt under duress like these don’t stay with you as our ancient wisdom will tell you and when he had to raise his finger at Bangalore he didn’t to the patent glee of Ian Bell and complete annoyance of MS Dhoni who was thinking of anything but helicopter shots at that time and wondering if he should transport the erring umpire in a helicopter to New Zealand preferably to an earthquake affected area.

Dhoni’s own commercial featuring his own trademark “helicopter shot” is another in the series. It is interesting but perhaps I prefer the shot to the commercial, like a true cricket lover.

Then we have Veeru’s Upper Cut. This is a better film perhaps because it has a lively Ranbir Kapoor energizing a bemused cricketer who is wondering what all the fuss is about. But when the need presents itself he promptly executes an “Upper Cut”.

Then we have Dilshan who is arguably the most wooden of the lot when it comes to histrionic ability doing the “Pallu Scoop” for us (what a name!) and finally we have KP doing the “Switch Hit” practiced with water melons and fine tuned by Pepsi.

Bhajji may not be getting too many wickets right now but he too bowls a “doosra” for Pepsi. There is no denying the fact that these commercials (and I hope I haven’t missed any) are interesting, topical and even funny on occasion.

I love the fact that they have been created for the world cup and tickle the fancy of the cricket lover and intrigue the casual watcher of the game. Of course the commercials have all been conceptualized in earthy Hindi in some dialects that hardened tamilians like me don’t really understand, but who cares about people like me!!

So here is my question to you? Is your celebrity merely holding his bat or doing something which is unique, identifiable with him and your brand?

May the World Cup have more India wins and may Billy Bowden put his crooked finger up more often when India appeals!!

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

Is the celebrity a brand or a product?

2011-03-10T17:09:00.000+05:30

Why do brands seek celebrities? They do that because celebrities stand for something; they are different from the herd and create instant awareness for their products. And that is not all. This is cricket World Cup time and each time your celebrity scores a four, snatches a wicket or pulls off a sensational catch, you are preening yourself on your choice. Unfortunately in the Indian context there is another imponderable reality for sponsors. They have absolutely no control over what the celebrity does. Of course while they may not have to worry too much about their celebrity getting into a controversy (unless of course they have signed on the spin king) they have a larger headache and let me try to address this. The biggest problem is that celebrities do not have control over their own destinies and lives but belong to sports management companies to whom they are mere ‘products’ to be managed, packaged and sold aggressively for a profit- brand and celebrity fit be damned. With Dhoni endorsing no less than 25 brands that I can recall and Sachin (or his sports management company) trying hard not to be left behind we have the current captain and the former captain featuring as brand ambassadors of more brands than they really should be doing. Of course the celebrity management companies are probably laughing all the way to the bank, but are the sponsors really happy or looking over their shoulders at every new brand endorsement that their own celebrity is so cheerfully signing.

Cost benefit

Ideally all good management decisions are cost benefit analyses with the benefits far outweighing the costs. However in the case of celebrities companies and decision makers seem to have conveniently forgotten this as they seem to be bowled over by the celebrity’s spell. Celebrity management firms are business men and women after all, and realize that now is the time to make hay .What are some of the other consequences of signing on cricketers ? While they are great on the field and can captivate you with bat and ball, in front of the camera they are like Atherton was in front of McGrath. Or to those not following cricket, “they cannot act to save their lives”. Neither do they reject scripts which ostensibly suck. Throw in the inability of the cricketer or his manager to differentiate between a script and a score card and you have films that are as pedestrian as the current Australian spinners. I would blame some of these problems on lazy strategists and lazier creative directors aided and abetted by safe clients. How can you be fired for signing on Dhoni? All of this reminds me of the Dell ad which was a rejoinder to the IBM line of no one gets fired for buying IBM with the rejoinder “but did they get promoted?” This is the time to take a risk, to push the envelope, do something different and not follow the herd.

The exception

Lest I be completely misunderstood, let me quickly clarify. The truth dear friend is not that I hate celebrities, but I love advertising. And there is no advertising that proves my point of view than the current lot of Pepsi world cup commercials. But while you build up your thirst, I just want to ask you a question which is probably worth answering after this world cup. How many celebrities will be able to match with the brands they endorse, after thousands of seconds and millions of rupees being spent on various brands, many of whom have mediocre advertising?

Use your heads my friends otherwise you would find yourselves with lighter wallets!

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

Cricket mad or actually Mad?

2011-03-07T15:12:00.000+05:30

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

In praise of cute kids

2011-02-24T13:20:00.000+05:30

People have an unreasonable liking for children and dogs and nowhere else does that liking make itself apparent more than in television commercials. Remember the McDonalds “swing’ commercial where the child smiles and cries with every movement of the swing as the signage keeps appearing and disappearing?

Kid appeal is certainly not a new ploy, nor is it something that Indian advertising has discovered. Yet whilst there are a bevy of TV commercials I will talk about two that caught my fancy. The first is the one made for the ICC cricket World Cup.

The scene is a dressing room of a cricket ground and instead of a collection of sweaty, swearing men one finds a collection of chubby cheeks, rosy lips, dimple chins and curly locks all busy doing multiple things. One is checking the bat, the other is ironing the T shirt , one secures the pads of a player, another fastens his batting glove, a third hands him the envelope and the camera opens on the player who is getting all the attention and for whom the frenetic activity is happening- Sachin Tendulkar. “Best of luck Sachin" says the cutest of them all to a delighted Sachin and the entire bevy of cuties pose for a photograph with the caption “best of luck India” and I felt secretly relieved that thankfully the producer and the agency at least, if not the rest of India remembered that it is not only Sachin’s world cup but India’s as well. I am tempted to go in support of Kapil Dev but will not and stay with the subject of children in advertising.

Say cheese

The next commercial that I am going to talk about is the new Vodafone commercial which is a subtle reminder about number portability and how others are welcome to join.

The commercial starts with a photographer shooting a young boy on a stationary scooter with our inevitable pug dog staring phlegmatically at the camera from the pillion. The photographer asks the boy to rev up the stationary scooter to complete the picture. Soon others kids join the party and as it is not a two wheeler commercial the group moves to a dilapidated bus. Hardly enough to accommodate the sudden influx of more good looking kids who now take their places in an airplane with the dog strategically placed as always. The commercial ends with the caption “welcome to join. Here is number portability with a difference- a subtle, a polite invitation to join the network using a continuing character, the dog which has been a feature of Vodafone’s advertising over the years. Of course it would be interesting to debate which is a better strategy- the more direct one from Idea that tells you simply and directly to “get Idea” or the more subtle one of Vodafone. That debate can wait as it is early days yet for number portability. But there is no debate about the value of having video hooks which serve as memory hooks. I am sure in day after recall tests, consumers will recall the kids and hopefully the brands in question. I certainly can. Though as someone who grew up reading the Malthusian theory, I often wonder whether commercials like these with adorable kids actually end up increasing India’s population!

So let me ask you a question…

How do you ensure that any attention getting devices like children, do not take away from your main message? Who wants a great commercial if you cannot remember the brand!!

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

Let the games begin!

2011-02-17T18:42:00.000+05:30

Thankfully all the pre-World Cup hype, hoopla and spin are over and it is time for the actual cricket to take centre-stage. All the former World Cup-winning captains have done their promotional bit and will give way (reluctantly perhaps) to the winners of the 2011 World Cup. Since I believe in the wisdom of the statement “Forecasting is difficult, particularly of the future” I will not stick my neck out (as I did before the Ashes) and stop with merely saying that both my heart and head say that this is perhaps India's best chance to win the cup.

Looking back, my mind goes back to India's finest World Cup moment and that was easily 1983. As I did not own a TV then, like millions of other Indians, I went to a relative's house in Jayanagar and watched that wonderful game live that has since been shown thousands of times. India's moment of triumph was celebrated with payasam! What else would get served in a ‘Tambrahm' house in the early '80s?

Since then I have been involved in several capacities with the World Cup, primarily as a cricket-mad wanderer travelling to different parts of the world in the forlorn hope that India would win the coveted World Cup that strangely in recent times has not gone past the alphabet “A”. But that will have to change; four times is often enough for Australia and surely, surely, a new captain and a different team will hold the cup aloft, one hopes.

The looks of a winner

The first World Cup that I watched live was the 1987 World Cup, where I was one of the lowly executives who was handling the event as the agency of Reliance Industries. I remember frantically scurrying around the Chinnaswamy Stadium hoping that nothing went wrong. In fact, my greatest regret was that in the finals at Eden Gardens I hardly watched the match on TV as my entire focus was on hoping that the Taj Mahal tea runner (that I had marketed) kept appearing again and again as I was worried about the client. So much so that I almost missed Gatting's since immortalised “reverse sweep”!

I must also remind you of a minor coup that Mudra and Reliance Industries effected. They had signed on three cricketers — Ravi Shastri, Vivian Richards and Allan Border — for the princely sum of Rs 50,000 each to promote the brand and as luck would have it, the unlikely winner was Allan Border. I wonder if such cost-effective options or opportunities to make marketing coups exist in today's World Cup!

The thrills of watching it live

Since then I have religiously travelled to different parts of India and the world as a cricket-crazy enthusiast searching for the Holy Grail – an Indian World Cup win. We had our chances in 1996, 1999 even and most certainly in 2003 till Ganguly won the toss and lost his nerve.

And everywhere, I must tell you, the marketing people have got it wrong — starting with the “carnival of cricket” in 1999 in England when India t- shirts were not available to thousands of fans. The worst, of course, was the West Indies in 2007 where empty stands greeted sheepish marketers who had the wisdom to ban musical instruments in the stadia!

My highlight so far in World Cup matches has been the celebrated India-Pakistan rivalry – I have watched each one of those since 1996 and I went promptly to keep my date at Barbados and watched Ireland vs. Bangladesh!

I am sure this time around the tournament has been designed keeping in mind the importance of the biggies and that means India and only India. You can perhaps throw in a Sri Lanka, Bangladesh or even a Pakistan. Remember this is a tournament being played in the sub-continent and we don't want an Australia-South Africa final at the Brabourne Stadium, do we?

It's all about the game, silly!

I think marketing people are too full of themselves and often forget that they are in business because of the game. The success of this World Cup will, as always, depend on the Sachins, the Sehwags, the Pontings and the Steyns of the world. Let's hope they perform and create magical memories like the tied match at Edgbaston or the Venkatesh Prasad moment at Bangalore. Moments like these are not created by marketers, who can only hope and pray that the players perform in the middle like Gilchrist and Warne did in the past, and hopefully Dhoni will do this time around. But it is perhaps worth reminding the people in the suits that this game owes everything to the spectators and the viewers. Please do not take them for granted. Give them good stadia and don't interrupt the telecast with irritating commercials, otherwise they will just move to more welcoming pastures. So here's wishing we have a wonderful World Cup and what can be more wonderful than the best team winning, particularly when it is India!

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

Software frowns while the rest of India smiles

2011-02-15T12:03:00.000+05:30

Brands makes waves, headlines and more often than not profits. Not so long back software was king and it took Bangalore along with it. Bangalore preened itself, without really doing too much, on the spawning of words like “Bangalored”. When Infosys was listed on Nasdaq it certainly and deservedly made it to the front pages. When Narayana Murthy's driver was declared a crorepathi the news made waves as did a host of other bits of news which in hindsight are no more than trivia like the Murthys not using domestic help. Then hipper sectors like retail, infrastructure and venture capital pushed software from the front pages and often even the business sections of the newspaper. They were no longer “breaking news” after all there were not too many scams there! NR Narayana Murthy whom media loves, moved out of an active role in Infosys and Nandan Nilekani moved on to handle the prestigious UID project. Suddenly the brand did not seem to have high profile spokespersons. Students of engineering colleges held appointment orders which had everything except a precise date of joining. The detractors and the cynics kept reminding us about the inability of Indian software to move up the value chain and the recession saw a number of people being laid off though PR companies working like beavers kept the bad news out of the media.

Back with a bang

The last fortnight has arguably been the worst for Indian software at least from an image perspective. It started with a fairly negative story on MindTree. Now MindTree is a company that I admire, a great place to work for, with several unique things to it, including a logo created by a spastic child. But thankfully for MindTree there was worse news to follow the very next day as two Wipro co-CEOs Suresh Vaswani and Girish Paranjape lost their jobs in a dramatic announcement. While the attention shifted from MindTree it certainly sent Bangalore into a tizzy. Barely had people time to digest this dramatic development before another wicket fell. Ashok Soota, a well respected doyen of the IT industry announced that he was leaving MindTree a company that he founded in 1999 with nine others. Not long after there were reports that SD Shibulal will take over as the CEO of Infosys sooner rather than later. Mind you, Infosys has always managed its leadership transitions in an exemplary manner and there is nothing negative about this, perhaps the only thing worrying would be the timing, given whatever is happening in the software environment.

A few good men
I have neither the competence nor the wisdom to tell Indian software the way forward but have a few half thoughts which I am sure could be a good starting point for the many wise men to build on. Many years ago, the army had a campaign that spoke about the need for a “few good men”. Clearly the industry needs a new set of leaders who will soon find that the shoes they have to fill are size 13 (like that of a Glenn McGrath) ! It needs to revisit some of its tried and tested principles- “who needs advertising?” for one! They should probably focus less on the investor and the stock market and more on market development and branding issues. It would need a new breed of startups developing high-value products based on intellectual property. There has to be a surge of fresh enterprise and new blood at the top. It would be a need for more down to earth appreciation and understanding within the industry that software is no longer king but just another industry with its own ups and downs. But I for one would like Bangalore to remember what it owes to software. Software was singularly responsible for putting Bangalore on the global map. It would certainly help if the confused government in Karnataka realizes the value of this industry too and tries to focus a little on helping it, instead of spending all its time on survival. Maybe take a leaf out of “vibrant Gujarat”?

So let me ask you a question
What would you do if you were the custodian of the brand called software?

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

Heroes, zeroes and wannabes!

2011-01-27T13:23:00.001+05:30

The IPL auction, hits and misses may be a media event but the quality of the game is what will determine its success..

Serious advertisers and those who have an interest in the game should go by the shorter version of the game and by that I mean T20.

The quality of the game,and not the players' prices, will ultimately have an impact on the success of IPL. As for the World Cup, that's another piece of entertainment better approached (or not) with great deliberation. Seen here are Mumbai Indians team owner Nita Ambani at this month's IPL auction (right) and the glittering trophy for the upcoming Cricket World Cup.

As I was sitting in front of the TV on the day of the much publicised IPL auction with my imagination boggling and my calculator working furiously, my mind wandered to my school days. Mixed with the pleasant memories of French cricket and wonderful friends were some other not-so-pleasant ones. While there is no denying the fact that I owe everything to the school (I can almost hear you saying, why blame the school) I must also concede that I may have had the dubious record of being the only student caned by the school and easily the person who got the maximum impositions with the piece de resistance being asked to copy the first 26 pages of the Geography text book! (Mind you, my parents, unlike those of today, did not rush to the media with complaints about student harassment.) But on a happier note, the school had the brilliant practice of always, I repeat, always, being closed on Saturdays.

Saturday was my favourite day as the shadow of homework to be done would hit me only on Sunday night. So no sooner than I had hurriedly gobbled my breakfast I would rush out, bat in hand, seeking other like-minded individuals. Sadly the parents of my friends were more alert than my own and I would hastily see windows being shut, loud whispers of “just see what happens to you now if you go out to play with that useless fellow”… You get the picture?

My parents too, who were as benign as parents of a mediocre student might have been, somehow saw red when they saw me with the cricket bat. And yet when I saw the IPL auction unfold before me and witnessed the unreal number of dollars being offered to often unheard-of players, I seriously wondered if I should have spent more time with my cricket bat than with my trusted Pilot fountain pen from whose nib more ink came on to my fingers and shirt than answers on to my examination papers!

The aftermath of Lalit Modi

The IPL is arguably the only Indian brand that has made a global impact in a phenomenally short period thanks to media, mind boggling numbers and the celebrities involved. And yet, with the manner in which Lalit Modi got shunted, the manner in which dirty linen was being washed in public, it was hardly surprising that the brand's image took a serious beating and the critics were out with their knives and the Western media which had initially goofed on its assessment of the possible impact was preening for not having backed the wrong horse. But make no mistake. The IPL had been conceptualised brilliantly for an entertainment-starved country which was suddenly discovering its new found importance and affluence. The inclusion of franchisees created its own share of muck in the auction; the viewer and media interest and the phenomenal amounts of money forked out to some completely bemused players are all a tribute to the strength of the concept. Clearly it will not be allowed to fail, which is a good thing.

Heroes to zeroes

The auction of the fourth edition of IPL came close on the heels of the English Ashes triumph. England had humiliated Australia in front of thousands of disbelieving Australians. The English team, which is having a dream run and is perhaps a serious contender for India's no 1 status, won in Australia after 24 years with desperate ease — no less than three innings defeats! Nor should we forget that England are the current T20 champions of the world.

But clearly, in Bangalore where the auctions were happening, no one seemed to care. Many of the top performers in the Ashes – Bell, Anderson, Swann, Prior, Tremlett, Bresnan … all studiously ignored! I think it is easy to write off the franchisees as clueless moneybags manipulated by Aussie coaches, but I believe they have everyone's statistics in Excel sheets if not at the tips of their ring-laden fingers. Throw in the ECB's snootiness to the IPL and the English media's superior attitude to it and you realise the English players have missed the IPL gravy train.

The Australians may be at the bottom of the international pile but that was not reflected in the interest or the pricing, aided and abetted by one Australian coach after the other. Of course, closer home more headlines were being made by the cold shoulder being given to our own ‘ Dada'. “How can the Knight Riders even think of leaving him out?” asked the indignant Bengali, and the franchisees made sympathetic noises without really saying anything! Public relations is an art, isn't it!

Having said all that, I think some (not all) of the pricing bids have been a bit difficult to explain. Instead of getting into the individual bids, I would like to go by the learnings from the earlier IPLs and the fact that the really smart franchisees were the ones who discovered the low-priced Shaun Marshs and Shane Watsons ... who will these players be for the fourth edition of IPL? Only God, and if one may add, Shane Warne, might know.

The franchisees too know that while most of the work is done (and money spent) it will be the uncapped players who will have to complete the team. But as a cricket lover I believe that this time around with 10 teams and some of them with a good mix of Indian and international players (no less than 38 Australian players) will provide some interesting fare even as the boundary ropes get drawn in to make the cheerleaders dance!

But what about the advertiser who makes the system go around? What does the IPL hold? Will it sustain interest? Does it make sense to put their bets on it? I believe the IPL's success as always will depend on the quality of the cricket, not so much the entertainment, with the BCCI being questioned on the need for cheerleaders and parties after the game. I am sure of the quality of the fare that will be on display and given the quality of the players involved and the stakes, the matches will be interesting. So serious advertisers and those who have an interest in the game should go by the shorter version of the game and by that I mean T20 which leads me to the longer version and the World Cup which is going to be held after a gap of 23 years in our own country.

Who will win the 2011 World Cup?

Every moment of the day the ESPN Star group of channels has been devoted to the World Cups from 1975 onwards with the Australians hogging most of the attention, much as they did in the IPL auctions. Yet, it is worthwhile to remember two things. Indians want India to win the World Cup. Our two unsuccessful attempts at home in 1987 and 1996 make me wonder if our billion and more people will put needless pressure on our players, aided and abetted by an over-the-top media which alternates between complete arrogance and absolute diffidence. Speaking of 1987, I used to work with Mudra which was handling the promotion of the Reliance World Cup. Rumour has it that Vimal, the flagship brand of the Reliance group then signed on three cricketers, Vivian Richards, Ravi Shastri and Alan Border, for the princely sum of Rs 50,000 each for the campaign ‘The looks of a winner'. Well there was an unlikely winner in Alan Border! Leading me to wonder who the next winner will be.

Yet, in my humble opinion, the marginal brands would do well to give this World Cup a miss. Watch it on TV but don't go near it unless you are an Airtel, Vodafone, Coke or Pepsi. Nearly 80 per cent of the games will be non-India matches and sadly the whole cricketing world has become completely partisan. Every country wants to watch its own players. In 1987 when England played Australia at Kolkata's Eden Gardens in the final of the same Reliance Cup that I was mentioning to you, 90,0000 people were crammed into the stadium with every available seat taken. But I worry for the TV viewership in case India does not make it to the finals. With too many imponderables, it perhaps makes sense to stay with the IPL where some Indian player or the other will be playing. Of course, smart companies will be waiting in the wings to cherry-pick.

Spare a thought for the viewer

Channels have become greedier over the years and the person who is usually shortchanged is the viewer. The first and last ball of an over will be cheerfully substituted for commercials. The same commercial will be repeated ad infinitum in the day. While spectator conditions may improve this time around, what happens to die-hard viewers such as me? Treat me well and I will be loyal to you. Don't continue to take me for granted.

PS: I have been traveling to different parts of the world — England, West Indies, South Africa, not to forget numerous grounds in India — to watch the World Cup over the years and India has not won the World Cup when I have watched live. This time, I will watch on TV and I am sure India will win!

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

Brand Positioning & Advertising Of Tata Tea, Thumps UP & Raymond

2011-01-20T15:28:00.000+05:30

Tata Tea's Jaago Re campaign was launched in 2007, the brand has positioned itself as a young vibrant one with the message "being the change that we want to see". Sushant Dash of Tata Tea talks about the campaign's success and I have shared my opinion on how the campagin has worked for the brand image.

Cola's Thumps Up has positioned itself as Masculine drink since early 1990's with the brand message of "Taste The Thunder"! Anand Singh of Coca Cola share his thoughts on the campaign.

For over a decade and half "The Complete Man" has defined the brand positioning for Raymond's. Shailen Sohoni talks about what the positioning has done for the brand, Aniruddha Deshmukh of Raymond's feels they would stick with the brand message and I share my thoughts on how Raymonds has built a strong brand via its consistent brand positioning.

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

The Times That We Live In

2011-01-13T12:32:00.000+05:30

While advertisers are trying to get Young India right, will they please think of the other, especially, younger India watching their commercials?.

Is it a reflection of the times we live in or a young creative person's ability to get our attention?

It is 6.30 a.m. on a wintry morning in Bangalore and England has just retained the Ashes in style, beating an Australian side which used to be “awesome” and is now pretty much “awful”, to raucous chants of the Barmy Army - “Australia, are you England in disguise” they cheer and Australia have nowhere to hide for it is all happening at the Sydney Cricket Ground and not at some remote place like Nagpur or Ahmedabad. Earlier I had proudly watched the Indian resistance on a quagmire of a wicket and India demonstrated to a disbelieving Western world that it deserved to be the No.1 test team in the world as they stood up to everything that the Proteas threw at them, including a bottle on our own home-grown brat Shantakumaran Sreesanth.

Graeme Smith could handle neither his swing nor his sledging and promptly whined (or is the right word whinged) as he has been known to do in the past.

Much as I would have loved to go on and on about test cricket and its ability to hold the attention of cricket-mad clowns like me, I am going to desist out of deference for my concern for you, dear reader and focus on some (don't worry) of the advertising that I had been meaning to write about, but could not as I was watching the tussle between bat and ball too anxiously.

Of course, Star Cricket and Ten Cricket (what a cheap thing Ten Sports did by foisting one more channel on us and threw in the worst imaginable commentary team as a perk) ensured that advertising was never out of our (and if I may add, their) scheme of things as they kept showing the same commercial over after over and often during the over as well. (How dare the bowler bowl a wide and deliver a seven ball over - shouldn't he know that it is commercial time!)

It's showtime, folks!

I have always been influenced by a few points of view that I have been exposed to. The first is the adage that every client gets the advertising that he deserves, much like Australia is getting the retribution it deserves for its arrogance.

The second is that advertising reflects the times that we live in. The third perhaps is that truly great advertising is on the “verge” of being outrageous. Now let's see whether the advertising that is going to be reviewed will remind us of some of these adages. I, however, need to caution myself that this is not about me or my prejudices, biases and pet theories but about the consumer. You need to remember, dear reader, that I was born in a village once called Madras (as many well-travelled people would sarcastically remind us) and spent my formative years in the conservative heartlands of Mylapore and Mambalam. So if at times you find an environmental bias creeping in, resist.

You be the third umpire on my judgments. Having provided a healthy preamble let's move on to a couple of edgy commercials that I have seen in recent times.

What, really,are these brands trying to convey through their advertising?

In the bag

In the heyday of Australian cricket (which Star Cricket keeps reminding us about in their pre-World Cup build up) the Australians would never let the opponents get up once they were down and their supporters would have placards which read “in the bag” a jaunty reference to how imminent victory was, which leads me to talk about the Fastrack bag commercial.

I am not sure if it has the visibility of some of the others that I will talk about later but let me explain. Of course, I need to quickly explain that I am not the target consumer as balding 58-year-olds don't go about shopping for fancy bags, however young at heart they may be. Having said that, I must mention that the accessories that the brand has launched have helped the brand talk to youth and perhaps even enhance its youthful image.

The commercial has two celebrities (after all, we love celebrities, don't we) in Genelia the actor and Virat Kohli the budding cricketer who clearly seem to be BPO types (easily recognisable in the pubs of Bangalore). They enter a cabin to some serious petting (not to be confused with the NDTV show featuring pets) when the ever-alert cricketer points to a close circuit camera. (It is not only TTD employees who are aware of close circuit cameras.)

The enterprising Genelia empties the millions of things in her bag (Fastrack bags are commodious) and covers the camera with her bag as they do whatever young people do in the confines of closed rooms unobserved by the prying camera.

Then the two set off hand-in-hand with the super “move on”.

While it is certainly an interesting use of celebrities – even if you did not know Virat Kohli the cricketer, the young man in the commercial fits the part of a brat, a role the cricketer has been trying hard to live up to in real life – but it is about the commercial itself and its tone of voice that I want to talk about.

Is this young India? Is this urban young India? Is it the aspiration of young Indians to lead such “ bindaas” lives? Is it a reflection of the times we live in or a young creative person's ability to get our attention?

Probably a little bit of everything. But it did not shock me unduly and made me wonder where my youth had gone.

From mobiles to condoms

The next commercial that I am going to talk about is perhaps a little edgier and closer to the “outrage” factor that I spoke briefly about earlier in the piece.

The commercial is set in a modern retail outlet and there is a young, smart-looking girl at the cash counter. She wears designer spectacles and perhaps seems more suited to the boardroom. A young man comes to the counter and pays up even as he keeps the mobile on the counter.

The lady apologises for not having change (where does all the change go, I wonder) and gives him two bits of confectionery. Another young man enters the frame and promptly deposits his mobile phone in a strategic location so that the camera and more importantly, the teller, can see.

It is a Lava phone, a masculine, ‘rocking phone' as the advertiser would like to believe. He too hands over a large-denomination note of which there seems to be no shortage with the youth. The shortage, of course, is with the change and consistent with her behaviour with all young customers, the lady again apologises for not having change.

But she does something different; instead of giving her usual confectionery she hands over a couple of condoms. The voice-over says, “The new Lava A10 with a gun metal finish and sharp masculine edges separates the men from the boys”. I got a couple of enraged calls from my friends, who belong to the same vintage, after they saw the commercial. My friends believe and know I am in advertising and when something offends their sensitivities or sensibilities call me to vent their ire, holding me accountable for everything that is wrong with the world of advertising. Of course, I felt like calling a couple of people too. There was nothing smart or cheeky about this ad, in my view. It was in-my-face and sending out wrong signals.

What were they saying? Was the girl making a “come hither” gesture and sending out a strong signal to the young man? Are mobile phones such a strong indicator of lifestyle indicators? Is young India like this? Were the phone's messaging and features getting clouded under all this? Of course, the client and the agency can and will tell you how their advertising is being talked about and a conversation piece in pubs (if you can make yourself heard, that is) and how it is a rage amongst young people. But to me, who incidentally is a mobile phone customer, it just did not seem right. Or is the expression just not cricket?

A little responsibility, perhaps?

I know I am sounding my age, but is it too much to ask for a little responsibility from broadcasters, advertisers and agencies? Pushing the envelope is fine, but only up to a point. Cricket matches are being watched by people of all ages.

How on earth am I going to explain this commercial to my eight-year-old nephew , or should I ask him to close his eyes like we unsuccessfully did with our own two kids while they were growing up? So tell me, am I overreacting or do you agree with me about my view on commercials like these?

You be the Third Umpire!

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri