Microsoft's branding will be difficult after Nokia

Microsoft has officially dropped the Nokia brand name and is working on rebranding its mobile phones division. It continued launching the Windows based phones under the brand name Lumia and held on to the Nokia name for the other existing products. Last week, the company also killed the Nokia Asha branded low-end smartphones, and is now on its way to completely doing away with the Nokia brand in one country at a time, including India, where the phone was at one time ubiquitous.

Snake anyone?

The consumer is also getting promiscuous. The consumer wants a good product and even the most loyal ones are moving away from the brand, particularly of late since a lot of negativity has resulted from the news of the shutting of the manufacturing plant in Chennai and the resultant loss of jobs. Although Nokia was considered to be one of the most trusted bands in India, despite it still being on the list, it will require Microsoft being proactive to garner some of this trust.

You can read the full piece on the merger in the Times of India here.

Micromax latest to join likes of HUL, Dabur and UB to opt to tease rival products with potshot advertising.

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.

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Brandware - A Comprehensive 8 Weekend Brand Management Course

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.

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Adieu, decade of turbulence!

They made for much hype, agitation and excitement - the Y2K bug, the dotcom bust, the cell phone, big-buck brand campaigns, middling service notwithstanding ….

Writing a year-end column is challenging enough but to review the decade is a bit like landing up at the Centurion on a damp, murky day straight from the airport and finding Dale Steyn thundering in and suddenly realising that you have walked in to bat without your protector! On the lighter side I was trying to recall just what are the changes that have happened in my own life over the last decade and came up with a sensational discovery.

Ten years ago I used to painstakingly write my column on ruled sheets of paper and my secretary (who is now in Australia perhaps supporting the rejuvenated Aussies) would dutifully key it in. (I used to have a decent handwriting thanks to the plethora of loving and frequent impositions that my old school, Don Bosco Egmore in Chennai, so lavishly bestowed on me.) But today, as I key in my fortnightly 1,500 words religiously on my Apple laptop, my handwriting has gone for a toss. Of course, we could argue endlessly about whether my ability to write columns has improved! But let's move to more dramatic things - the economy, the consumer, brands, communication and life in India over the last decade. What has happened and what seems likely to happen in the near future? Let's take a look at the past before we venture our opinion on the future.

Y2K to Wikileaks

Do you remember the turn of the last century and the excitement, the dread around the Y2k bug and its impact on the software business at least? Well, things have blown over and the winds of change have blown in - something more sensational - Wikileaks. God, has the media gone to town or what, with every politician and statesman making more off-the-cuff remarks than Tendulkar's numerous centuries. The decade witnessed the dotcom boom and consequent bust. I remember (painfully) that our company that was called brand.comm became brand-comm as we went away to lick our wounds after putting all our eggs in the dotcom basket. Speak of the power of brand recall, many of our clients and well-wishers still refer to us as brand.comm. But the World Wide Web has taken over and digital is the medium to be in and everybody and his brother-in-law claims to have a digital strategy.

Of course, while many are denying that digital will actually take over the Indian markets, there is no denying its potential or criticality and the smarter, savvier brands are those that are showing the way rather than following the leaders. In a sense, India had been a follower of Madison Avenue earlier and is following in this medium too, as connectivity and security issues continue to dog us. But make no mistake, India is poised to fly and is just waiting to take off despite the blocks. But India has to discover its own new model which might be a marrying of offline with online. Consider a marriage site such as bharatmatrimony.com which has offline centres where horoscopes are printed and given to anxious and yet technologically challenged parents. India has traversed the mobile space with greater speed than several others and soon there might be a union of the two to move ahead. The future will have to do with harnessing the power of the mobile.

Roti, kapda aur mobile

No analysis of the last decade in India would be complete without the telecom and mobile revolution that has swept through the country. Even small villages in India discovered the pleasures of being in touch with their relatives in far-flung places thanks to the STD booths that littered the length and breadth of this country. Today, thanks to technological innovations it is possible for someone living in the villages to do a video call with family members he has left behind in his quest for employment and livelihood.

But I am getting ahead of myself and missing the mobile services revolutions. This is something India and Indians can be justifiably proud of. Today the mobile population is close to 800 million with 16 million phones being added every month. Mobile phones from China and Taiwan have flooded the market and new brands such as Micromax are giving the leader Nokia a run for its money. Mobile service operators continue to advertise heavily - and often produced outstanding advertising. Brands that readily come to mind are Idea Cellular with their “What an idea, Sirjee!” and the Vodafone campaigns featuring the now famous pug dog and the Zoozoos. There is no doubt, in my mind at least, that mobile services advertising has overtaken the colas in creativity.

The sad reality, though, is that advertising agencies continue to create ads that are independent of the quality of the service. Of course, this strategy is not unique and continues to apply to banks as well. But to return to the mobile services business, while it has continued to be driven by schemes, price offers and tremendous advertising expenditure, there has been a game-changing strategy too. I speak of the Tata Docomo strategy of per second billing which the competitors too had to reluctantly follow, to the delight of the consumer who continues to speak as rapidly and as needlessly as some of our TV commentators.

The retail revolution

It is difficult to discuss the last decade in India without the growth of organised retail as players such as the Future Group.

Trent and Reliance followed the Shoppers Stops and the LifeStyles of the world and went into the smaller towns and realised there was a completely service-starved consumer waiting for them there. Yes, the value format was here to stay and the consumer in the smaller town was growing in confidence and affluence. On October 15, 2010 no less than 150 Mercedes Benzes were sold on a single day at Aurangabad!

After that interesting titbit, let's return to organised retail which, though it may get media attention and interest, accounts for less than 3.5 per cent of the total trade. Not a figure to be sneezed at but nothing to set the Ganga on fire either! Yet, the decade has witnessed the emergence of private labels and the beginning of the tension between brand marketers and large formats, which are pushing brands to be on sale constantly. Brand values are being diluted by each and every sale and hardly anyone visits the company showroom as they find the well-lit, air-conditioned factory outlets a far cry from the factory outlets of yesteryear where you had to check your merchandise and could not exchange it even if it was defective. How times have changed and with it, consumer preferences!

Summing up

The consumers are changing, becoming more affluent and more demanding. They are used to quality, such as the new airports. Service and consumer engagement will be the key. How good is your service offering? Price is important as Big Bazaar has demonstrated. But how well are you positioned? The Nano is struggling as it is seen as a “cheap car”.

Agencies, in their quest to talk about things like “consumer connect”, are forgetting the importance and value of the big idea, fragmenting their resources and trying to achieve too much with too little.

The decade was easily the decade of crises – whether it was the financial crisis or scam after scam that India unearthed. The media too, which was busy playing judge and jury, suddenly found itself in the dock. Crisis management was key and few of the companies seem to have mastered the fine art of crisis management. And the next decade will see more of this. After all, we live in Kalyug, don't we!

Companies that pay lip service to social media and are experimenting with it without their hearts in it or getting their hands dirty are going to be hit, and soon. Companies that harness the mobile phone's capability will thrive.

Agencies continue to bemoan the lack of talent and yet steadfastly refuse to train their personnel. First we pay peanuts and then refuse to train the monkeys that we have brought into the industry, lest they be poached. Why wouldn't clients be frustrated?

Clients, even as they understand and appreciate the need for good creative, continued to haggle on prices even as they complained about the quality of service.

Brands changed their identities, often because they seemed bereft of other ideas to rejuvenate themselves. When will brand owners realise it is more important to get the essence of the brand right rather than merely tinkering with cosmetic things?

And finally, longevity will be key. Brands that endure will have clarity and consistency. In 1999 I was in England for the best World Cup to date and Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar had to rush back to India for his father's funeral. He came back to thrash bowlers all over the park and dedicate his efforts to his deceased father. Now he has scored his 50th test century and dedicated that too to his father. So that's one factor that has been consistent through the turbulent decade.

Consistency and longevity will continue to be key in the next decade as well. Here is wishing you a great year first and a wonderful decade later!

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

I am glad to share with you that I will be leading brandware3, a 8 weekend certificate program on brand management in Bangalore at our training facility. The last 2 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.

Click here to register for the program Brandware 3

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

The program starts on 26th November 2010.

Best Wishes
Ramanujam Sridhar

Brand revolution or evolution

Defining brands: D. Shivakumar, Vice-President and Managing Director, Nokia India, defines a brand as a time-saving device. The job of those managing brands and communication is to make the consumer's choice-making simple and less traumatic.

Last week I was at Hyderabad at the prestigious Indian School of Business to chair a session at a seminar on branding, interestingly titled ‘Brand{r}evolution' and had the opportunity to rub shoulders with the who's who of the marketing fraternity in India and also to interact with some of India's brightest minds who are studying at the institute. Whilst some of the deliberations of those sessions could well form the basis of future columns, I thought I should share with you the learnings from the keynote address delivered by D. Shivakumar, Vice-President and Managing Director, Nokia India. His presentation gave an overview of the entire branding process, what it means, its importance, the value of brand experience, the evolution of brands, the importance of design and a whole host of interesting and thought-provoking ideas that made me think and more critically, write this piece.

So what exactly is a brand?

There are multiple definitions of what a brand is, starting from the traditional one by the American Marketing Association to more esoteric ones by a host of consultants. Shiv's definition was insightful; he defined a brand as a time-saving device. Yes, in all fairness, all our efforts as people who manage brands and communication is merely to make the consumer's choice-making simple and less traumatic. Why do most FMCG majors release their advertising between the 25 {+t} {+h} of a month and the 7 {+t} {+h} of the following month? The reason for that is simple and reinforces the definition of branding made earlier. This is the time that middle-class India makes its monthly shopping list and sends it either to the kirana at the corner of the street or to the Big Bazaar in your neighbourhood. As marketers we do not want our home ministers to write ‘detergent' but write ‘Surf Excel', not put in agarbathi but ‘Cycle', not ‘dishwashing liquid' but Pril, and so on.

Yes, brands are constantly trying to be recalled at the appropriate time by consumers who save time and effort in the bargain. Shiv went on to talk about the importance of brands not only to consumers but to companies. In fact, he stated, there is increasing awareness amongst companies that the brand is the most stable corporate asset that they have in their control.
Celebrated singer Asha Bhonsle stayed contemporary by adapting to the demands of modern times.

Where do brands derive their power from? From defining the brand experience and delivering on it consistently with boring repetition, day after day, year after year, for as long as the consumer so desires. Another significant development has been the increasing importance of brand goodwill to the top 100 companies in the UK growing from 40 per cent not long ago to as high as 70 per cent today. Yes, it is certainly a brand new world and the smarter companies are cashing in on this reality.

The evolution of brands

One of the greatest challenges facing brands is that the consumer is changing dramatically in front of our very eyes, while technology is metamorphosing and the competition is renewing itself every day. So how must brands evolve? Brands must maintain consistency and yet evolve to stay fresh. While there are a multiplicity of ways in which the brand can reinvent itself, the most palpable and visible way is the logo.

The logo has been the point of entry to the brand and perhaps the most visible part of the brand, something that consumers recall. Car major Ford has tweaked its logo several times over, since its inception in 1903, as has Nokia, which was founded in 1865, and so too has Pepsi which commenced refreshing America in 1898. Another manner in which brands have tried to remain contemporary is by taking advantage of the sweeping changes that are occurring in the arena of design and packaging. Nowhere else is it more apparent than in the arena of colour televisions.

My mind goes back to 1984, which, if my memory serves me right, was the Olympics year, and my first colour television set, a Konark TV. I am not even sure if the brand exists today, though it delivered excellent picture quality. It probably weighed a tonne and took pride of place in my living room, occupying as much space as it did. Contrast this with the wall-mounted, sleek LED TV of today and we can understand the magnitude of the design revolution. Consider too the Premier Padmini of those days, a car that you had to wait four years to get, to the aerodynamically designed mouthwatering beauties of today (lest you get the wrong picture I am talking about cars). And let's not forget running shoes that boast of so much technology and have so many dreams built into them that middle-aged couch potatoes imagine themselves pounding miles even as they sink deeper into their bean bags. Brand evolution, then, is about meeting current consumer needs. Innovation takes brands from a stage of evolution to one of revolution.

“An indicator of the strength of a brand is its ability to stretch,” said Shiv. My mind went to Virgin and the ability of the maverick brand to take on larger, lazier leaders in markets where people were waiting to be served. “Sometimes brands can get into trouble with stretch,” said Shiv, and spoke about the 72 variants of Pantene and asked “Are there 72 variants of hair?” I studiously chose to ignore that question!

Interestingly, strong brands also have a price stretch and he gave the example of Nokia which has mobile phones priced at a little over Rs 1,000 to a few priced over Rs 40,000. He did speak about brands at times getting carried away by the power of their own rhetoric and their misguided belief in themselves, and gave the example of Ponds, which was a leader in talc, making a disastrous foray into making toothpaste. He spoke about the valuable insights that the Mylapore mami provided in the focus group and my own mind wandered (as it usually does) to another Mylapore mami who told me in her own blunt way: “Who would put what you put under your armpits into your mouth?” Oh, if only we had the courage to listen to our customers!

Market leadership and thought leadership

“Successful brands evolve with the times and respond quicker to challenges,” Shiv said. He gave the example of Toyota which had left the ‘big three' behind by the speed at which it had gone hybrid and is going green. He gave the interesting example of how brands and people respond to change in the Mangeshkar sisters and how Asha had morphed into today's singer and cut discs with Brett Lee while Lata had remained a legend of the past. Icons such as SRK and the Big B are now capitalising on their brand strength to move into areas such as cricket and entertainment.
On to the moments of truth that companies realise, talk about, but rarely win. Advertising, he said, is the first moment of truth, but there are several more, and the successful brands win more moments of truth than they lose.

Every brand, he said, must keep asking itself the question ‘What are the moments of truth I can win?' And what of the future? Brands have to be concerned about issues such as the climate crisis and identify with some key cause. Brands have to determine their own cause for advocacy, he said, and for a brand to be revolutionary it needs to set the agenda rather than merely follow it. Shiv made an interesting differentiation between market leadership and thought leadership and emphasised the value of the latter. “While a brand like Maruti could be the market leader, the mantle of thought leadership has moved to other brands such as Hyundai and Toyota recently,” he said. He spoke about the airlines sector and how the thought leadership in India moved from Indian Airlines, which had the monopoly, to Jet, to the erstwhile Air Deccan the price leader, and to Kingfisher which is doing a number of small but significant service revolutions that are making it the thought leader of the Indian skies.

Brands are constantly evolving as they try to keep changing with the fast changing consumer and a competition that is often cut-throat in nature. Throw in the environmental challenges and the pressure of activists, not to mention the crisis in the financial markets and it is simple to conclude that there is never a dull moment in the lives of marketers. Market leadership is important and brands will cheerfully give an arm and a leg to attain that. But the future can and will belong to brands that are thought leaders.

Is your brand getting there?

Ramanujam Sridhar is the CEO of brand-comm, and the author of 'Googly. Branding on Indian turf'.