All about game theory

Book review - "Lessons from the Playground"; Author - Vinay R Kanchan

Sport is something that excites, enthrals and rewards or on occasion even devastates the viewer. Business — on the other hand — is dull, serious, strategic and, in some cases, can even be a matter of life and death for those running organisations.

Clearly, at a first cursory glance there is nothing in common between the two. You work to earn a living and watch sport to make that life interesting, is what the average person might tell you. But Vinay R Kanchan, the author of Lessons from the Playground, is no average person. He seems to be a ‘sports tragic’ whose interest spreads across a variety of games.

In his book, Kanchan attempts to give a method to brilliance and success on the sporting field and talks about the learning that the corporate world can take out of that. So, whom does the book target? This book is for anyone in business who is interested in some sport or the other.

Is this all about cricket? Sadly (for me) it is not. The book covers a multitude of sports and sporting personalities such as tennis star Roger Federer, Brazilian football legend Pele, boxing giant Ali, US basketball sensation Michael Jordan and our own cricketing phenomenon, Little Master Sachin Tendulkar.

Of course, I have missed a few others thanks to my ignorance of sports other than cricket.

What’s it about?

The book is classified into four Ps (such as the four Ps of marketing that we grew up with). They arepeople, platforms, processes and pinnacles.

The section on people highlights and eulogises the achievements of heroes of the sporting world who have thrilled spectators and audiences in different playing fields of the world. This section features Tendulkar.

The section on platforms is interesting, talking about Wimbledon and the uniqueness of the grass surface, not to forget the rituals of strawberries and cream, and other huge sporting events such as the Olympics and the cricket and football World Cups.

‘Processes’ is a significant section given the Indian fixation with results.

One remembers the much vilified Greg Chappell (the former Australian cricketer and erstwhile India coach) constantly talking about processes. But he was sacked unceremoniously as all we wanted was results, the process be damned.

The final section on pinnacles speaks about unforgettable sporting achievements. What better example could be chosen than Kapil Dev’s match-winning innings against Zimbabwe when the cause was almost lost.

As luck would have it, the BBC was on strike, so we came to know of this after the fact!

Some lessons

The book is strewn with examples on all the four ‘Ps’ with pertinent questions to corporates on what they could learn and apply from Lessons from the Playground.

I must mention too that at the end of every chapter there is a quick summary of the lessons from the examples detailed.

Having authored two books in English and one in Tamil, I believe I have an understanding of how authors go about writing and positioning their books.

Marketing a book is much like marketing a brand — just as brands try to differentiate themselves from the competition in a multitude of ways, authors too try to position their books differently.

Both my books, One Land, One Billion Minds and Googly. Branding on Indian Turf, were built on the fact that India is a cricket crazy county. India must be the only neutral country in the world which watches a Bangladesh vs Ireland match! My books catered to this audience with extensive references from the cricket field and related it to the world of marketing, branding and communication. It worked I thought.

Kanchan has realised that India is evolving. Its youngsters are no longer unidimensional in their viewing.

They are watching a variety of sport from across the world. They are equally familiar with football, tennis and basketball (the NBA), unlike my audience.

Their exploits are firmly entrenched in viewers’ hearts. Hence Lessons from the Playground is perhaps extremely relevant to today’s sport-loving audience which is spending time at the corporate work place.

I have nothing but admiration for the author who seems to have followed every game under the sun. Where would he have had time for anything else!

On a more serious note I found the book comprehensive, well-researched and addressing the modern Indian viewer who watches NBA, the English Premier League, and Wimbledon in addition to the inevitable cricket, unlike my generation who were fixated on just one sport.

On strategy

As a management teacher, I tend to be really annoyed at the indiscriminate and ill-advised use of this word ‘strategy’ today.

Thankfully, the book addresses this sensibly with examples and speaks of innovations in sport like the switch hit which have become an integral part of modern cricket.

The author urges corporates to think out of the box and reinvent themselves the way sports and sportsmen have done. While there are many parts of the book worth talking about I will stay with one as it struck a chord.

Indian hockey has lost its lustre over the years. In many ways it is like a brand that was once dominant and which is now struggling for visibility and recognition.

What can we learn from this trend? How do we ensure that our company or brand does not tread the same tortuous path? This is a question we might wish to ask ourselves.

Food for thought

To sum up, Lessons from the Playground is an interesting if somewhat long read (434 pages). It has examples from multiple sports to cater to readers with diverse interests. Read it if you love sports and are working.

From my side, I learnt a lot about sports other than cricket, even if I had the niggling thought that some of the greatest sportsmen such as (former West Indies cricketer) Viv Richards were naturals reared on the “see ball, hit ball” principle and that, to my mind, could well be the difference between sport and business.

Sport values natural ability while business might be a little more mundane.

Meet the author

Vinay R Kanchan is a Mumbai-based brand ideation consultant and trainer. A former advertising professional, he has worked with Lowe Lintas, Mudra, Rediffusion, Everest, Triton and Network. Kanchan is the author of The Madness Starts at 9. An electronics engineering graduate from Mumbai University, he holds an MBA from NMIMS

In niches there are riches!

Leading from the front:Harsh Mariwala, CMD, Marico

Harsh Mariwala of Marico shows the importance of clear strategy and meticulous execution..

Creating a culture in an organisation is easier said than done. It calls for rigorous implementation and the use of training. It calls for constant communication and collaboration amongst the key people in the organisation.

January 31 is a special day for people in advertising and marketing in Bangalore as it is the day the Ayaz Peerbhoy memorial lecture has been delivered to an eager audience over the years. It has been a calendar event for the Advertising Club, Bangalore for years now. This time it was the 29 th such occasion that the lecture was being delivered and the speaker was in no way inferior in achievement to his illustrious predecessors who had delivered it earlier - a who's who of Indian industry, people such as R. Goplakrishnan, C.K.Ranganathan and Kishore Biyani, to name just a few. Harsh Mariwala, Chairman and Managing Director of Marico Ltd, spoke about the exciting corporate journey of innovation that his company had taken over the years with little nuggets of wisdom and experience that had the audience thinking and perhaps wondering why they were unable to do the same with their own companies. The man embodied what his company stood for - understated, yet with the ability to think differently and inspire a whole bunch of MBAs to leading the company from a modest turnover of Rs 5 crore not too long ago to Rs 2,800 crore today.

Strategy is key

One of the most abused words in management literature is that curious word ‘strategy'. I say curious because different people have different perceptions of the word strategy. In the case of my students in business school, they have heard the word repeated so often by so many different people, that they have it coming out of their ears and often are clueless as to what it actually is. But less of my students and more of Marico Industries. Strategy, as any expert will tell you, is basically sacrifice, as when you choose one particular segment you ignore others, and at times the grass can always seem to be greener on the other side. Marico has consistently stayed in areas that have seemed niches (mind you, some of them have become pretty large over the years), areas where it could dominate and where it did not have to contend with MNCs with deep pockets and staying power.

The company that was primarily in the low-value commodity business transformed itself consciously over the years into a high value FMCG company. Often, people in marketing, thanks to their preoccupation with the brand and sales promotions, do not acknowledge the importance of culture and people to the brand's success. Mariwala placed the transformation of the organisation's culture and the dissemination of values as the key factors behind the success of the company and the brands driving it. It is often the ‘blinding flash of the obvious', but simple things such as sharing of information, being on first-name basis with the senior management, higher responsibilities or cross-functional exposure, though often talked about, are not practised with the same zeal with which they are spoken by companies. Clearly, Marico has been doing it, with great success, so that it has become internalised now.

A lot of Marico's success has been due to Parachute, the leading coconut oil brand. Parachute is a brand that most Indians, particularly in the South have used and continue to use, those with hair at least. When Mr Mariwala spoke about some of the innovations that the brand had been doing over the years, my mind wandered (as it seems to do more often these days). Often enough, copywriters in agencies turn up their noses when asked to create advertising for certain products saying these are ‘dull', and my response usually has been, “There are no dull products, only dull writers!”

Similarly, it is easy to view coconut oil as just a commodity, but the company has not and the results are there to show for it. The company did a number of packaging innovations starting with HDPE and also through its specially designed pack prevented freezing, something that is very common in the North of India. The seal guarantee also made it difficult to duplicate, even for the experts that India seems to unearth so often in this wonderful world of fakes and imitations. Parachute entered the rural market through laminated pouches and its flip-top and mini-packs brought in a new category of users. Innovations continued with the promotion of the concept of ‘ champi' with Parachute before shampooing. Suddenly, the category had become visible and attractive to the Levers of this world. And as Hindustan Lever (as Hindustan Unilever was then known), acquired Tomco, it promoted Nihar aggressively and threw its weight of distribution and promotions behind it. Levers even tried to take over the brand and Marico's stock price fell dramatically.

But the company counter-attacked, held on to its market shares, eventually did a David and also did the unthinkable (at that time, at least) by acquiring Nihar in 2006. Strike one for an Indian company against a large multinational! Innovation can often be a treadmill and the companies that are on it refuse to get off and the attempts to morph Parachute from a coconut oil brand to a beauty brand continue with variants, new fragrances and new formulations.

From the head to the heart

Very few people of my age can get away without using Saffola, thanks to the benefits of relaxed lifestyle built around addiction to the couch and the picture tube and a tremendous ability to postpone anything that suggests even the mildest physical activity. We are the people that keep doctors and the makers of Saffola laughing all the way to the bank. Just to put things in proper perspective, Saffola, all said and done could have been just another cooking oil, but it strongly positioned itself on the heart platform, taking the stance of a leader on World Heart Day and propagated walking every day.

True to company culture, innovations continued, like the 15-litre tap to enable ease of usage. But Saffola realised it had the capability and the competence to build on the equity in the health segment as it introduced oil blends and brand extensions such as low sodium salt and products in the area of diabetes and cholesterol management. Over the years the brand has moved from being just another edible oil brand to a health brand.

Marico has moved on to skin care with a bevy of Kaya skin care centres that are making waves all over India as young Indians get more conscious of the way they look and are opening their wallets to the new concept all over the country.

Significantly, the company has been avoiding the franchise route as it wishes to control the quality of service and the output that customers receive.

Creating a culture of innovation

Creating a culture in an organisation is easier said than done. It calls for rigorous implementation and the use of training. It calls for constant communication and collaboration amongst the key people in the organisation. The company too has been empowering its people by committing resources and ensuring that new members are carefully integrated into the organisation. The key thing about innovation is not only about ideas but about their implementation.

So what are the learnings for people who are leading organisations or teams?

Do you believe in your people?

Are you open to ideas?

Can you build a team of ‘constructive yes men' and not ‘boring yes men'?

Can you create a culture where there is a willingness to experiment and learn from failures?

Can you keep being innovative over a period of time however difficult and however expensive?

Success stories are good to read about after they have happened and there are lots of things to be learnt from examples like these. I have probably made it out to be a lot simpler than it actually has been for the company and the people who made it happen. They had a leader who believed in the team and who led from the front without actually getting in the way of his charged troops. It is certainly not a rags-to-riches story but a story that demonstrates that if you have a clear strategy and meticulous execution then niches are certainly the way to riches.

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, brand-comm, and the author of Googly - Branding On Indian Turf.)

Who will win the battle of the ballot?

As politicians get down to branding, what does this mean for the average Indian voter?

Of symbols, signs and slogans: Political advertising and branding is nothing new, but what will really catch the voter’s eye?

India is a country divided by differences of language, race, caste, colour of skin, religion, sub-sects, dialects and just about anything, And yet this divided country has common interests that strangely end up creating further differences.

Indians as a race are interested in politics, cricket, films and music, not necessarily in that order, and that applies through the length and breadth of the country. And yet these interests too continue to divide. Shah Rukh vs Aamir, Tendulkar vs Dravid and now Rajasthan Royals vs Chennai Super Kings … you get the picture.

Now, in the middle of the summer, two of India’s major passions will captivate the imagination of a poverty-stricken nation starved of entertainment. Yes, Sir! The controversial second version of the IPL and the general elections will simultaneously jostle each other for eyeballs and action.

Even as we get ready for the midsummer days and ‘nights’ madness that will be upon us almost immediately, I need to confess (with considerable regret, though) that a cricket fanatic like me is not going to talk about IPL, but stay with the elections. One aspect of it that I am perhaps in a position to talk about is the political advertising that is likely to come on air, print or be plastered on every piece of available space in this vast country. I will also talk about how political parties have used branding over the years and what one might well expect in the forthcoming elections.

We smart, politicians smarter

Many of us have an exaggerated sense of our own importance and intelligence. We simultaneously have a poor opinion of politicians promptly classifying them as ‘dumbos’ who do not deserve the level of success that they seem to enjoy. After all, we have been to IIT and IIM, hold majors in marketing and can tell the world a thing or two about strategy, or so we think, even as we chafe about the quality of people who are governing us. And yet, I think we are making the mistake of slotting them, wrongly.

Let me explain. I grew up in Tamil Nadu, which is a State that understands politics. In a sense that is a misleading euphemism and a statement similar to other obvious ones like ‘Australia plays cricket’ and ‘Chennai is hot in April’. While today’s political leaders seem quite unimpressive, to us at least, they actually have a greater understanding of strategy than we realise. I am now able to see the value of what I observed as a child, several years later, so much for my intelligence and my management education!

The political leaders of my time knew the value of branding long before I knew what the term meant. Branding is about symbols, and political parties like the DMK knew this long before people like you and I did. The DMK, for instance, has the symbol of the ‘rising sun’ which it kept repeating visually and orally and kept reiterating to the politically aware State.

Similarly, branding is about colours and this is something that politicians knew then and realise the value of now, perhaps more than ever. The DMK’s strong colour sense manifested itself in the usage of red and black which extended to the designs of the dhotis and even the towels those politicians and party members wore. I also used to smile at MGR’s dress sense. He would invariably wear a black shirt and lie down on a red carpet as he sang and I would wince. But the people behind this knew something that I did not know at that time. They were not bothered too much about aesthetics or dress sense but were subtly and overtly reinstating the brands, read the party’s colours.

Yes, political parties have always realised the value of branding and continue to invest in symbols, colours and slogans. The AIADMK has its twin leaves, the BJP its lotus, and the Congress a hand and so on. Symbols become even more critical in a country that has a high level of illiteracy and we need to remember that people cast their votes on these very symbols that are there on the ballot papers.

Still on the subject of branding, I would as a child fret about why MGR’s films scripts used to be so predictable. He would not smoke or drink in films, would not chase women (women chased him), he was a friend of the poor, he would give donations to the poor both in his films and in real life, he would do every film with the same story-line. But he had an agenda. He was subtly but surely telling his voting populace that this was the real MGR. He probably was, but there is no doubting the precision of his strategy or the methodical manner in which it was executed. Tamil Nadu loved him, voted for him and still continues to vote for his party.

Political advertising in the past

Traditionally, other countries have had greater reliance on advertising and one remembers Saatchi and Saatchi’s powerful campaign for the Conservatives with the line ‘Labour isn’t working’, taking a direct swipe at the increasing unemployment under Labour rule. Even more recently, Obama, in his high-profile election campaign, ran a 30-minute infomercial on major television networks. Speak of media muscle! India too has had its share of political advertising that has been high-decibel, if a bit low on creativity, as specialised agencies have worked on them generally, who probably knew the ropes and had access to the political leadership. In a sense all that changed when Rajiv Gandhi entrusted the task of the campaign to his Doon school friends who were running Rediffusion, the advertising agency. The campaign was a standout and a clearly different one from what the average Indian voter had been exposed to. Maybe the only hint of criticism that I can offer now, several years later, is that it perhaps came with an urban bias.

The other campaign which was quite visible was BJP’s ‘India Shining’ campaign which too had its fair share of visibility and did get some acclaim when it was launched. However, everything took on a different hue once the elections were lost and the campaign was unfairly (in my opinion, at least) made the scapegoat for the party’s fiasco in the elections.

This time around, the advertising budgets for the elections are slated to be Rs 500 crore; another estimate puts it at Rs 1, 000 crore making sure the troubled advertising industry least has something to look forward to.

The power of the slogan

Advertising is often reduced to slogans or tag lines and their recall. This is perhaps most true for political advertising. Perhaps a few we can recall are Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan and Garibi Hatao. Given the vast and diverse nature of the country and the fact that many of the people who vote are below the poverty line, the value of a slogan that is memorable need hardly be emphasised. The Congress probably said “why reinvent the wheel?” and just took over the Oscar winning Jai Ho.

I think there is a basic principle in advertising and that is great advertising is just not the ‘lowest common denominator’. You just cannot afford to talk down to the consumer. The greatest ideas are simple and powerful and make a profound impact on the target audience, however limited their education might be and that is the challenge that has to be addressed in this election. Throw in also the challenges of a metropolitan audience that is Net-savvy – then we have an indication of the complexity of the task that awaits the advertising agency.

What about the voter?

While we talk about all this, we just cannot afford to forget one important reality. The urban voter seems to live in a different world, particularly the educated one. He is generally apathetic to politics, politicians and his own responsibilities when it comes to choosing the right people. So, advertising is likely to be even lower in his priorities. It matters nothing to the voter that the people who are governing him and in effect leading his destiny are criminals. It is in this context that initiatives like ‘No criminals in politics’, which is just gathering momentum, are indications that the number of people who care about the future of the country and are actually putting their money where their mouth is.

As an advertising professional, I would like to see some great advertising for the next election. But as a citizen of India, I can only hope and pray that the Indian voter will have the sense to get the right people in and that will be the greatest news that India can get amidst all the doom and gloom that seems to be surrounding us just now.

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, brand-comm, and the author of One Land, One Billion Minds.)