Brand Ambassador

The Smithsonian Gallery in Washington DC is going to showcase the Ambassador for six months "" starting March 4 "" as a "representative Asian car"

Tobias Moss is an UK-based taxi operator. He runs a fleet of customised Ambassadors "" and he charges £ 40 per hour for them. These are in great demand each time there's an Indian cultural event happening anywhere in the UK. According to him, "it [the Ambassador] is one of the most easily-recognised icons of India"

At the 6th Auto Expo in New Delhi last year, Hindustan Motors (HM) asked 20,000 visitors to write out the most significant attribute of the Ambassador. Close to 90 per cent wrote about their "emotional connect" with the car

In June-July last year, Sir Mark Tully drove from Kolkata to Delhi in an Ambassador. On reaching the capital, he addressed a press conference where he mentioned that he had specifically opted for an Ambassador because "the car is ideally suited for Indian conditions".

All these are significant for two reasons. One, it justifies HM's stand on not reinventing the brand; and two, it throws light on why the Ambassador has managed to survive in its present avatar (since 1957, albeit with a few modifications over the years) "" without having the benefit of any advertising and "visibility" campaigns.

In 2002, of the 89,695 cars sold in the C-segment, the Ambassador sold 13,768 "" the third-highest after the Hyundai Accent at 20,003 and the Ford Ikon at 14,970. This is surprising simply because there is a general impression that the car has been reversed out of the auto track, and parked somewhere behind the bushes.

If you view the figures in totality, they will probably tell a different story. In 1980-81, the Ambassador had a market share of 71 per cent. Today, it has 3 per cent. The flip side is that competition "" from all over the world "" has driven in. For instance, in the C-segment alone (where the Ambassador belongs), there are as many as 11 cars.

To top it all, HM has not changed the look of its flagship brand. This, according to competitors, is because of the financial constraints that HM is facing. But according to a company spokesperson, "This is a very conscious decision."

What is it that's keeping the Ambassador moving?

"A lot of people probably aren't even aware of what's being done with the car, given its low-profile, but almost everyone knows about it "" in one sense, it has top-of-the-mind recall," says a company official.

Obviously that's not enough. Other than the brand recall, there are the features. "It's a very sturdy car, is easily repaired, there's a lot of luggage space and gives a very comfortable ride," says B K Chaturvedi, president and executive director, Hindustan Motors. "Also, it is the only car that has four fuel options: MPFI, diesel, CNG and LPG."

Why is it that despite the "emotional connect" and the modern features, the car remains low-profile? Why isn't HM pushing the brand?

Though Chaturvedi says that the Ambassador was, is and will be the flagship brand of HM, the company also admits that given the deep pockets of the foreign players, it would be useless to take them head-on. So it is relying on "tactical advertising" "" or below-the-line (BTL) activities.

For this, it has identified its target segments. Of the total number of Ambassadors sold, 65 per cent are bought by taxi-owners, 17 per cent by the government and the remaining 18 per cent by corporates and households in the smaller cities.

There's a growing feeling that the in the taxi segment, the Ambassador's dominance is being threatened by the Tata Indica "" specially in the private cabs category. Consider this. In 2000, there were 18,416 Ambassadors sold; that dropped to 14,382 in 2001; and further to 13,768 in 2002.

So last year, HM spent a hefty Rs 5 crore on the Ambassador's BTL activities. For this, it involved its 100-odd dealer network and organised taxi operators meets, free service camps, product demonstrations and so on. "If one is sitting in a metro, one doesn't get to know about it "" but the fact is that we target the segment and the people who matter," says a spokesperson.

Advertising has been limited till now. The company ran a series of print ads in mid-2002. The advertising strategy, says the company, has also been very clear: there's no attempt to create a hype. The line it takes is that it is India's most trusted and reliable car.

For instance, one of the ads it ran was Cargill. The car was actually taken up to a mountain top in Kargill where the Indian Army was present, and the ad showed armymen endorsing that it was the only car that could tackle the hazardous landscape.

Starting next month, HM is breaking with a reel campaign which will be shown across movie theatres "" television doesn't feature as a medium for the time being, but talks are underway. The company says that it is opting for the theatres because there is a trend of families going back to the movie halls.

The Ambassador, according to the company, is a car that most Indians have grown up with. But the younger generation are not clued into it. "When we look at like a theatre like, say, PVR, we know that the younger people are the ones who patronise it the most and, again, this will be a good way of building awareness about the brand," says a company official. This is also a less expensive medium, compared to, say, television, so it makes financial sense.

This year is going to be significant for the Ambassador. For the first time, there's going to be a brand extension: the "restyled" Ambassador, which is retro in looks and contemporary in style (with state-of-the-art features), and will be launched within the next couple of months. "We are drawing on the heritage factor of the car," says an HM spokesperson.

Again, the restyled Ambassador (the name is under wraps given the impending launch) will be given a niche positioning: as a fashion statement, as an attitude. "The idea is to make it aspirational, to give it a new perception," says the spokesperson. It will be priced slightly higher than the existing model "" which is Rs 4.43 lakh for the petrol variant and Rs 4.34 lakh for the diesel one.

For the time being, HM seems content to rest on the Ambassador's brand equity. As Chaturvedi says: "the Ambassador will continue to drive the nation". Even if it doesn't drive in the numbers.