Brand apart

What makes powerful brands stand apart from the others? Is it a combination of savvy marketing, brilliant advertising and groundbreaking design? At the Business Standard Brand Derby 2010 summit, some of the country’s top marketers explored how branding is evolving with the fast-changing consumer mindset

Brand-building is undergoing a tectonic shift in the changing socio-economic milieu of the country; conventional tools will no longer work. This was the central message of the Business Standard Brand Derby 2010 Summit held at the Leela Kempinski hotel in Gurgaon on July 16. The Brand Derby, an annual survey, ranks the top brand launches in a year. In the 2010 Derby, 3 Idiots had won the Derby. The survey is published in The Strategist, a weekly supplement of Business Standard.

In his keynote address, Walmart India President and Bharti Walmart Managing Director & CEO Raj Jain said that the context for brand-building has changed because of the country’s demographics (over 50 per cent of the population is below 30), better connectivity, more empowerment in the hands of the consumers, higher population of value-conscious buyers and higher competition across categories. Citing examples from Walmart’s experiences, Jain said that brands connect with consumers differently today. Apart from television, the newer touch points include the internet and mobile phones. Modern retail and ethnic diversity add new dimensions to the task of the brand manager. Corporate social responsibility, he added, needs to be built into brand-building. “It will have to be steered by marketing teams and not people who do government relations or corporate communications,” he said.

Jain gave the example of Tata Tea which is promoting its brand with a campaign that focuses on social consciousness. Nestlé Maggi’s latest advertisements do not talk of the convenience of instant noodles or their flavours; instead these advertisements try to create an emotional bond with consumers. “Brand-building will be as much about the consumer as the society and environment he lives in. It will not be just about serving their needs; it will also be about sharing their values,” said he. Jain also debunked the well-known concept of first-mover’s advantage, a point endorsed by other speakers. “There is too much premium on first mover’s advantage. Companies often go to the market with an imperfect product. It is often the second or third entrant who succeeds in the long term with better insights,” he said.

Shailesh Rao, the Managing Director of Google India, said that digital brand-building has arrived in India with the huge penetration of internet and mobile phones. The digital media will become more central to people’s lives in the next two years, he prophesied. The viewership of YouTube, the video- and picture-sharing website of Google, is higher than many Hindi general entertainment channels. “Research shows,” he said, “that brand uplift improved by 80 per cent in Germany and 60 per cent in Japan when YouTube was included in the communication campaign.” Analysis of the viewership of trailers of Hollywood films can predict with accuracy their initial box office collections, he added. In other words, the digital media is not an island anymore; it needs to be built into the media plan of every brand manager. Third-generation telecommunication services and broadband wireless access will help the cause of the digital media.

Anil Arjun, the CEO of Reliance Mediaworks, which produced and distributed 3 Idiots, outlined how four months prior to the launch of the film, a 40-member team was put in place to market the film. There was clutter in the market — 36 films, Hollywood as well as Bollywood releases, had also hit the theatres around the same time. Also, the campaign had to be crafted in such a way that it appeals to all category of viewers — those who go to multiplexes in metros as well as those who watch films in a single-screen theatre in a small town. The film was shown to all Reliance Mediaworks employees and all other stakeholders, weeks before the release on December 24, to ensure that everybody spoke the same language and kept the communication consistent. It was followed by a full 360-degree campaign. Two weeks before the release, a huge splash was made online. A site called idiotsacademy.com was started to engage the viewer. Aamir Khan, the star of the film, travelled to various parts of the country in disguise to create buzz about the movie. “To ensure that people come to the theatres to watch the film, we destroyed 2.1 million illegal downloads,” Arjun said. And to surprise the viewer when he came to the theatre, the character of Chatur Ramalingam was kept under wraps right through the pre-release campaign. At the end, he proved as much a crowd-puller as Khan.

Tata DoCoMo, which came second after 3 Idiots, broke the clutter (there are eight to ten brands in each of the 21 telecommunication circles in the country) by making its brand colourful and playful.

Research showed that up to 75 per cent customers were not satisfied with their existing service providers — brand loyalty in the industry was as low as 25 per cent. Customers were confused. They wanted transparency and simplicity in tariff plans. So, Tata DoCoMo came out with the pay-per-second plan for voice calls and pay-per-character plan for SMSs. “The promotions were not about the tariff plans but aimed at engaging with the customer at an emotional level,” said Gurinder Singh Sandhu, the head of marketing for Tata Teleservices.

The Chevrolet Cruze was launched months after General Motors was declared bankrupt in the United States. “We could not afford to pay consultants, so we went out to the customers ourselves to find out what were their concerns,” said General Motors (India) Vice-president (marketing, sales and after-sales) Ankush Arora. The feedback was consumers were worried if the company would stay put in India, and what would happen to spares and service. Two points of action were identified: One was to launch a campaign to tell people that General Motors is in India for the long haul, and the other was to launch new products. The first was taken care of when GM India President & Managing Director Karl Slym replaced Saif Ali Khan as the brand ambassador and talked directly to the consumers. To tackle the second, the company launched the Cruze which was bigger and bolder and came with features like cruise control. “The Cruze was the new face of Chevrolet in India,” said Arora. “It was launched in a cluttered category. We werethe challengers and had to break the myth of (the superiority of) German and Japanese brands. So we provided features that nobody had even dreamt of in this category.” For higher visibility, the Cruze was integrated into the popular reality show, Big Boss Season 3.

The function was attended by leading lights of the marketing and advertising world. It was announced at the function that this event would happen every year and Brand Derby would henceforth become interactive — readers will suggest the top launches of the year. The list will be run through top marketing professionals to arrive at the winners and losers. From next year, the winners of the Brand Derby will be announced at this event.