Building great brands make agencies top of mind

With most of the work that media agencies do getting commoditised, building differentiation is the big challenge today. In the competitive and cutthroat world of advertising, Building great brands is the name of the game.

When it comes to any creative field where talent and skill is the criterion for shining, it matters not whether you are a man or a woman. A star will shine. Priti Nair, co-founder of advertising agency Curry-Nation, is one such star. Her passion for advertising is palpable and her excitement infectious. She literary breathes advertising and wants to evoke the feel of Indian culture in all the work that Curry-Nation does. In an exclusive interaction with 4Ps B&M, Nair, who has been an advertising professional for the past 20 years, shares her views and insights of the ad world.

With competition intensifying, what is it that acts as a big differentiator for advertising agencies today?
I think that advertising agencies are now distinctly being driven by brand building through enormously engaging communication. It’s no longer just about picking up awards or no longer just about bagging business. Getting recognition for the work you do and building truly memorable brands is what makes agencies top of mind.

Still, most work done by media agencies remain commoditised. Is there a way out?
Media touch points have changed. But I feel media planning has not yet taken that parallel leap. It is still quantitatively driven. But with so much media hitting the consumers from all sides and a fight for a share of voice, agencies are turning innovative and taking a more qualitative approach to addressing the needs of clients.

So what will it take and how long will it take for the change to become rooted and established?
I think the momentum for change needs to come from the clients. As long as the whole business is about bigger and bigger bargains, it will remain a numbers game. It is a mispreception to think on the part of clients that driving a hard bargain with agencies is optimizing on a fixed budget. Stretching the buck is no longer about just how many spots the TVC is about and where and when and how they appear. There can be greater brand recall even if the spots appear lesser number of times.

Consolidation seems to be the new buzzword in the industry and Omnicom’s majority stake in Mudra is the latest example of this trend.How do you think will it affect the dynamics of the industry?
I think that consolidation will lead to media agencies getting better deals and squeezing more efficiencies out of their operations. However, there’s also the possibility of the qualitative aspect getting relegated. The fallout of consolidation has led to media agencies and creative agencies getting separated. That may not work out to the advantage of the industry because in today’s world integration is what we hugely need in order to find new and innovative ways of delivering communication. Thanks to the information available today, it is becoming easier for agencies to stitch and integrate a media plan into communication at the initial stage itself. Something magical can come out when the two entities work hand in glove.

Do you think that the challenge for faster execution for media planners is taking the attention away from ROI and leading to wasteful spending?
The challenge in not just for media agencies, it’s equally challenging for creative agencies to come up with communication that breaks the information overload barrier. It’s becoming more and more difficult to gauge your ROI with the bombardment of media on the consumer from all sides.

How different is online branding from the viewpoint of a creative person as compared to working with a conventional medium?
Online is a very different world. And it is the medium increasingly taking hold of the world. It’s open, impatient and active. You need to breathe the medium to know what makes it tick. It depends on technology to back ideas but when you know what technology is available it can truly get you some breakthrough stuff. The thing with that medium is a new technology or a new app gets launched almost everyday somewhere in the world that surprises you at what is possible. One needs to be experimental and open to taking the risk. Unlike conventional mediums, where you keep telling consumers you need me (i.e your product and its benefits), good online or digital branding comes from understanding what the consumer really needs and wants.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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Advertising - Hotspots and Rankings - The Idiot Box

There are ads, and then there are those 10 that have personified the concept of how branding can be made to work for the product most efficiently and effectively. From creativity to brand recall, from concept to execution, these 10 advertisements have got our attention; thanks to the commitment of the teams that created them. We present you with our review of the top three ads.

Indulge at you own risk!
Advertiser: Cadbury
Baseline: Jo khaaye, kho jaaye
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather

4Ps B&M take: Over the years, it has become all the more evident that there is a lot of scope for creativity when it comes to confectionery brands. Last time, when Cadbury came up with the Ramesh-Suresh duo (remember those guys riding dummy horses in the middle of the road?) for the TVC of their 5 Star brand, we were disappointed. So much so that we featured it as one of the worst commercials of the fortnight and concluded that such creatives would not work for the chocolate brand. Come November and we’re humbly taking back our words after seeing the latest from the stable of Cadbury conceptualised by Ogilvy & Mather. Ramesh and Suresh, in trademark 1970s attire, walk into a traditional tailor shop. They hand over a pair of trousers to the tailor (who is talking on the phone) as Ramesh exclaims, “Masterji, Pitaji ki patloon ek blan choti kardijiye” (Please cut short our father’s trousers by a hand’s length). As instructed, Master Ji cuts the trousers and gives it to his assistant to stitch. Both brothers have one bite of the 5 star and forget everything, making the request again. This iteration repeats itself till the trousers are left to a pair of shorts. And yet, the brothers make one final request after a bite of their 5 Star. The VO talks about the chocolate, caramel and nougat in every bit of five star that can lead to this blissful amnesia. The message is the same, but this one’s far more entertaining and most importantly, it doesn’t get on your nerves.

Why don’t you believe me?!

Advertiser: Volkswagen
Baseline: Das Auto
Agency: DDB Mudra

4Ps B&M Take: Competitors would be quick to say that they are going over the top too soon, but Volkswagen does manage to raise a din with each of its campaigns. Somewhere, somehow, the agency and the brand seem to be clicking very well. This ad was conceptualised by DDB Mudra in a bid to promote the ‘Breeze’ variants of Polo and Vento recently launched by the automobile major. The TVC opens inside a Volkswagen showroom where a customer care executive is diligently completing paperwork for a car which he probably just sold. Just then, the camera shifts to girl err... guy disguised as a girl (well you too did get confused at first sight, right?) who is sitting in front of the executive. As he enquires, “So, what do I get with the Polo and the Vento. Oh, and what comes with the Breeze models?” the executive gives a look which tells us that he’s had enough of this guy as he patiently answers, “Sir I’ve told you this many times before, but for some reason you don’t believe me.” The guy takes off the wig (as it turns out, he came earlier and got the same answer from the salesman) and retorts angrily, “You’re still pulling my leg aren’t you!” VO: Unbelievable but true. Get Rs.40,000 worth of benefits and features with the Polo and Vento Breeze models. The ad ends with the same guy disguising himself as a Gorilla and asking the same question. When it comes to pitching a sales promotion, companies usually do not experiment much with creativity and tend to simply tell things as they are as far as possible. Volkswagen crosses that line and successfully too.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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Minister steals a telephone exchange, loots BSNL

Indeed a shocking, daring robbery. A telecom central minister from Tamil Nadu got the BSNL to connect 323 telephone lines to his home, not in Delhi where he had work, but in Chennai where he had none. He got all the 323 home lines listed not in his name but in the name of the Chief General Manager BSNL Chennai. These lines virtually constituted a telephone exchange in the minister’s home. It was exclusively used for his family business by laying 3.4 km long secret cable along public roads to connect the lines to the business premises. This had caused huge loss to BSNL. Who was that enterprising minister? The infamous A Raja? No. It is the famous Dayanidhi Maran; Raja’s predecessor, now the central Textile Minister. The CBI, which probed the fraud, wrote to the Secretary Telecom on 10.9.2007 recommending action against Maran for the fraud. Dayanidhi Maran was obviously not playing marbles with 323 telephones. He got the BSNL to lay separate and exclusive underground cable from his Boat Club home to the SUN TV office at Anna Arivalayam in Anna Salai and fraudulently linked the 323 home lines to his brother Kalanidhi’s SUN TV network. The first 23 of the 323 lines bore numbers ‘243722 11’ to ‘24372301’ and the next 300 lines bore numbers ‘24371500’ to ‘24371799’. Since the first four digits ‘2437’ were common for all 323 lines, the lines constituted a home telephone exchange. The Dayanidhi home exchange was operational in the SUN TV establishment for at least months from January 2007 through the fraudulent cable connection from Dayanidhi’s Boat Club home. They were no ordinary telephone lines, but costly ISDN lines, which could carry tons and tons of TV news and programmes faster than satellites to any part of the world. These lines, the CBI says in its report, are “normally used by medium to large commercial enterprises to meet special needs such as video conferencing, transmission of huge volume of digital data of audio and video” – precisely the facility that SUN TV would need for its telecasting operations. For this, the SUN TV would have paid huge cost. But it got it all free, at government’s cost. The Maran home exchange, says the CBI, was “programmed in such a way that no one other than the authorised BSNL staff were aware of the existence of such an Exchange created for his [minister’s] exclusive use”. It added that by linking the minister’s home and SUN TV office by the stealthy cables, “it would appear as if the lines were used in the residence of the former minister, but actually the cables laid facilitated SUN TV network to utilise the services of BSNL provided at his residence”. Google map shows the distance to SUN TV as 3.4 kms along the main artery roads of the area, which were dug up to bury the illegal underground cables from Maran home to SUN TV office! It was not one of those secret White Collar frauds, but a crime committed in the open roads.

Maran, a grand nephew of Karunanidhi, was the central telecom minister from June 2004 to May 2007. Perhaps the only Hindi knowing family member, Maran was Karunanidhi’s eyes and ears in Delhi and his connect to Sonia Gandhi. The ‘young’ and ‘dynamic’ minister was amongst the most powerful in the UPA government of which the DMK was the most critical partner.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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A SPICY EXCEPTION

It has not been easy for entrepreneurs to flourish in the militancy scarred valley of Kashmir. But some like Muhammad Amin shine out as ‘spicy’ exceptions, feels Haroon Reshi…

It was the year 1972. The Indo-Pak war had just ended and a separate Bangladesh had been carved out of East Pakistan. Armed militancy had still to raise its ugly head and calm serenity waxed eloquent in the Valley. It was in these peaceful times that engineering graduate Muhammad Amin started a spice grinding unit in Anatnag, with an initial investment of just Rs.5,000. That was 37 long years ago. Today, the Rs.1 billion Kanwal Foods & Spices Pvt. Ltd. has an iron grip over the valley, cornering almost 75% market share (self-proclaimed) in spice consumption within the State, with its range of basic and blended spices, instant mixes, ready-to-cook foods and traditional Kashmiri recipe mixes, pickles and jams.

But having an entrepreneurial vision was not a bed of roses for Amin. In the late 80s and 90s, when militancy was at its peak in the valley, looming threats of life and consistent shutdowns and curfews forced scores of entrepreneurs to stash away their ambitions in the cold storage. But not Muhammad Amin. The ordeals only served to add ‘tang’ to his resolve and subsequently to the resolve of his son Farooq, who joined ranks with his father after completing his business management from London. “Militancy disrupted everything,” Farooq Amin, legal heir and the Director of the company told 4Ps B&M. “It was difficult for a common man to live his life, leave alone the question of running a full scale industrial unit. It seemed that the entire industrial fraternity of Kashmir was going down. Many units were declared sick. We found ourselves on the edge. But we did not lose heart. We started surveys and found that despite militancy, every household needed spices everyday. The demand was unaffected and so we stood our ground. When it became impossible for us to function at full capacity in Kashmir, we expanded our production capabilities into Delhi and flew down our manufactured products in J&K and used every effort to push the goods into the market,” he reminisces.

Persistence pays. Soon, Kanwal Spices’ market share increased to the point that it became the largest food processing brand in the state, collecting every possible national and international level accreditation along the way viz. ISO standards, HACCAP and Agmark. “We have always met with some stiff competition from the brands that are sold nationwide, like MDH, BMC, et al, which have been around for quite a long time now. Though I must press the point that in terms of quality we are way ahead of them as the raw materials we use are of the best grade available,” boasts Farooq. Not resting on past laurels, the group expanded its product offerings to include a bottled water brand in its fledging kitty. Named Treish (Kashmiri word meaning Drinking Water) the company has already set up a state-of-the-art packaged drinking water processing and packaging plant for the same. It took five Years of R&D before the project kicked off, besides numerous visits to global markets in search of technology and know-how. Incidentally, before Treish the mineral water segment in the state was largely deemed as a “big flop” as most businessmen, who had tried their hands at this industry, had failed to make a dent in the market. Kanwal Spices took the challenge head on and created a brand that made the MNCs in the segment sit up and take note. Incidentally, Treish is BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards) certified and its quality and composition are almost at par with globally prestigious brands like Evian.


Both Farooq and his father are now quite upbeat about the potential that their brands have for both, expansion within India and internationally, especially with a brand tagline that read: ‘Adding Kashmiri Flavour to Global Cuisine’. Farooq feels that thanks to the huge brand knowledge about Kashmir ensures that any and every product line of the group has the potential to sell like hot cakes. “Imagine Kashmiri Deghi Mirch. It is sold all over India under various brands and has huge takers even though the chili does not really come from Kashmir. We have a line of products which is competitive in terms of quality, purity, aroma, packaging and we manufacture almost every spice that is used in India, be it Biryani Masala, Korma Masala or even the traditional Garam Masala and Meat Masala,” he says, adding that the group is already firming up its plan to go the whole hog with a national distribution and marketing roll out.

In fact, slowly but surely Kanwal Spices is already becoming visible in many major cities of India. They are already supplying their spices to some cities in north India and are in the process of tying up with major players in the retail market, including Reliance Fresh, Subhiksha, Vishal Mega Mart, and More. With already functional manufacturing units in Delhi and Bangalore, the group feels that they already have the competitive edge for a pan India presence. Markets like Lucknow, with a perceived penchant for mughlai cuisine, are becoming primary targets. Adds Farooq, “One thing that drives home the fact for us that we have a great potential for the Indian market is the immense response that we have got from different sections of the Indian consumer while participating in various trade shows, food fairs & expos that are held every year. People who buy our spices during such events love our products and for them we sometimes supply small quantities of our products to the farthest parts of India.”

Much more is cooking at the company headquarters in Anantnag. “We are currently doing research and development (R&D) for the manufacture of organic fruit juices, fruit jellies and bread and bakery. The manufacturing of these products will be carried out in line with the latest European technology and machinery. We are hopeful that within the current year we would be able to establish these industries in Kashmir and would be effectuating sales by the next fiscal,” says Farooq. Further, the group is also expanding into the manufacture of bread, bakery and confectionery and another manufacturing unit is being built in Srinagar to cater to this excess capacity.

For a generation of Kashmiri’s, the success of Kanwal Foods & Spices could well serve as a role model to emulate and encourage young entrepreneurs. Here’re Farooq Amin’s parting words to them, “I have witnessed a strange phenomenon creeping into the mind of the youngsters of Kashmir - they want to grow rich overnight. I would urge them to stop fantasising and realise that while staying on the ground they can build up and reach for the skies. Easy money is for easy goers and it never sees the light of the actual day. Let us toil together and work towards a future that is as bright as the sun.”

Haroon Reshi

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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Leo Burnett’s Arvind Sharma on slowdown strategies adopted by brands.

If a brand suffered from low growth before slowdown, the time was right for corrective action, he says.

Prof Arindam Chaudhuri of IIPM on MF HUSAIN‎

Imagine you have lived your usual office day… checked your mail, fussed over quarterly targets, cracked a strategy or two, sat through a presentation, argued with the client – or agency; depending on which side of the table you are sitting. Then you have sat through innumerable traffic jams, talked endlessly on your hand phone, had dinner, caught up with the news, sat till midnight on the rest of the mails awaiting attention in your inbox, and finally slept. Imagine that you wake up the next day and find that while you were sleeping; your whole world has turned topsy-turvy. Your bed is stuck to the wall, the ceiling has become the floor, the chairs and tables have turned turtle, and your car is standing outside parked on a cloud. The slowdown has been a bit like that.

In a year where we recorded the fastest economic growth ever and markets were glowing with optimism, the slowdown was totally unexpected, and when it came, it turned our safe, happy little world upside down.

Today, one year down, it’s time to look at the biggest lessons that have emerged during the year gone by. To my mind, the biggest learning for a marketer is that there is no ‘one size fits all’ slowdown strategy. Before considering the strategic choices before the brand, it’s important to take stock and understand where the brand stands. If the brand is of high relevance to consumers, even those consumers who were flirting with more premium brands when the economy was booming, or were simply experimenting for the sake of change, return to home ground. The best thing is to just stay on course, and drive value without making any drastic changes. A case in point is Tide detergent, which surfed the slowdown by staying on its equity of superior cleaning, while driving a value story of better whiteness with just half the quantity of detergent. McDonald’s continued to grow through its twin-pronged marketing plan focusing on its value and its popular menu items.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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They believe in the age-old philosophy that slow and steady always wins the race. And why not?

It has worked for them in the past. But with swift mockers all around them today, will this Titan pull a rabbit out of the hat once again? Analyses Angshuman Paul...

“Slow but steady wins the race.” Consistent and effective efforts lead to success. This is the moral of one of Aesop’s fables – “The Tortoise and the Hare.” Of course, the prerequisite here (as per the fable), for the tortoise success, is that the hare must sit under a tree and relax for sometime before continuing the race. But what if the hare doesn’t want to take a chance and decides not to take a nap midway through the course, even if the tortoise is too slow for him? Well, then we don’t think we need to tell you what will be the outcome…

This alternative version of the Aesop’s fable becomes more relevant when one links it to the to the ‘dog-eat-dog’ world of business. A world where one cannot take a chance to relax, particularly if he (read hare) is running against a bunch of swift mockers that have the potential to beat him in any terrain.

No doubt, Ratan Tata’s gigantic enterprise – Tata Group – has always been known for its fast and furious expansion strategies and the momentum that almost all of its ventures have shown in the past. But wait! Perhaps, this is the only exception – a slow-moving tortoise among a score of swift mockers!

Way back in 1984, when Ratan Tata started Titan Industries, the sole objective was to conquer the wrist-watch market by cornering the then indispensable market leader, Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT) Ltd. Whether attribute it to the luck, the denting position of HMT in the 1990s enabled Titan to score an easy victory over this state-run enterprise without adopting any explicit business strategy. In fact, sources, then close to the Tata family, say that apart from eyeing a significant market share in the Indian watch industry, Ratan Tata really had no big plans with Titan Industries.

Perhaps, this is the reason that Titan was left out from the ambit of the time-honoured aggressive strategies that Tatas had for their other group companies. Even analysts coin it as an enterprise that has moved at a snail’s pace with abundant caution. So, it’s no surprise that the first diversification (jewellery business) for Titan happened after 11 years of its inception and it had to wait for another decade for the next (eye care business). However, Bhaskar Bhat, the deft MD of Titan Industries, coins such delays as ‘doing full homework’ before foraying into a new venture.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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Ashok Leyland, India’s second largest commercial vehicle maker, is running hard for a cover from the financial avalanche.

But will it be able to make it to the safe base before the deluge crushes it to pieces? Pawan Chabra analyses…

Imagine a skier who is already half way down a snow capped mountain and then suddenly he sees the bitter reality coming down on him in the form of an avalanche. Despite the freezing surroundings a drop of sweat trickles down his forehead and all he does is to push hard for his life while the monster continues to come closer to engulf him in one go!

There is no denying that the commercial vehicle segment (not only in India but also across the globe) has been suffering from a slowdown in demand for quite some time now, but it’s the sales team at the Ashok Leyland camp, the flagship company of the Hinduja Group, that seems to have been stuck by a similar predicament. And why not? After all the company has witnessed a pathetic fall of over 69% in terms of total vehicles sold during the month of April 2009 (from 5,705 units during the same period last year to just 1,750 units sold in April this year).

In fact, it’s not just April, the company struggled to make a mark in the market during the last fiscal as well. For the financial year 2009, Ashok Leyland reported a whopping 22.6% and 59.5% yoy decline in its topline and bottomline respectively as compared to the previous year. The company, however, managed to stay away from the red and was able to maintain its 60-year profitability record as it clocked a turnover of Rs.5,981 crore and a net profit of Rs.189 crore last fiscal as against Rs.7,742 crore and Rs.469 crore respectively in FY 2007-08. “When the economic tsunami hit, I think medium and heavy vehicle industry was right up at the beach and as such was the worst affected. In this backdrop of very turbulent year I think next year will be most challenging,” reasons R. Seshasayee, Managing Director, Ashok Leyland.

Even the industry experts fully agree with Seshasayee and opine that there has been a major hit on the commercial vehicle segment due to the slowdown. But then one cannot show its back to the fact that Ashok Leyland has been at the bottom in terms of sales when compared to its counterparts in the industry. The company sold just 54,431 vehicles last fiscal, against 83,307 units sold during the FY 2007-08. “The weaker brand in the commercial vehicle market always gets a beating under the slowdown blues,” avers auto expert Murad Ali Baig. No doubt, Ashok Leyland has been taking the beating from its arch rival Tata Motors for the last few months, both in terms of product portfolio as well as its geographical presence. Many experts even consider Ashok Leyland’s diminutive presence in the light commercial vehicle segment, where the demand has been robust in the past few months, as one of the biggest reasons for its bad performance during the last fiscal. But what has been hurting it the most is the low level of sales of heavy commercial vehicles coming in from the southern region of the country, from where Ashok Leyland gets a large chunk of its domestic business. “The company has lost a lot of ground when it comes to the domestic sales mostly because of the fall in demand for heavy commercial vehicles in the southern region. But the company still stands tall when it comes to the bus segment,” adds Baig. Noticeably, the company still is the market leader in the bus segment and holds a healthy 46% market share. But then the million dollar question is whether the company will be able to survive the zooming avalanche?

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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The Axis’ Plexus

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Brand: Axis Bank
Agency: O&M

Bidding farewell to the UTI name, this campaign re-branded a quasi- government bank to a professionally run private bank. It helped the bank add new retail customers by 7-8% month on month and the bottom-line too surged by 30% in Q2’08 & 34% in Q3’08.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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Of pretty butterflies and grim germs...

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Brand: Lifebuoy
Agency: Lowe

Lifebuoy’s ‘butterfly campaign’ repositioned a brand that was losing its sheen. Used to volume increases by 100,000 tonnes since 1986, in 2002 Lifebuoy sold just 82, 000 tonnes. The campaign depicted a doctor using Lifebuoy to fight germs. The message clicked and growth escalated. The first quarter of the next year, saw sales grow at 31.2%.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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Jailed with JLR?

IIPM, GURGAON

An exuberant Ratan Tata and his over exuberant Jaguar and Land rover (JLR) deal, both seems to have stuck themselves. It was last year when Tata went ahead and bought the two luxury car brands in an all cash deal ($2.3 billion). But what followed next shows the blunder Ratan Tata had done. Tata Motors which raised money from a consortium of 11 banks is liable to payback $2 billion bridge loan by June this year. Moreover, “revenue synergy is limited in the medium term (2-3 years),” avers Srinivas Rao, Analyst, Deutchse Equities India Pvt. Ltd. It is also estimated that the proforma profit before tax will come down by 5-10% in FY09. Besides, due to the recession the performance of the brands which was already low is expected to only go down further.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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