Future to unveil four brands this year

Future Brands, the wholly owned subsidiary of Kishore Biyani's Future Group, is poised to unveil at least four new brands this year, beginning with a denim brand and going on to consumer durables, fast-moving consumer goods, food, home appliances, apparel and personal care.

It will re-launch apparel brand John Miller, which had disappeared after flaunting its American origins a decade ago. The group, which owns the Big Bazaar and Pantaloon retail chains, will also take some of its store labels and turn them into conventional brands. One of these is the Dreamline range of home care products, which actress Hema Malini has signed up to endorse.

According to Santosh Desai, the high-profile advertising professional who left McCann Erickson six months ago to head Future Brands, this is the first effort anywhere in the world to convert store labels into full-fledged brands.

"Most of the new brands will roll out by the middle of 2008, while 4-5 will be launched by the end of this year," said Desai in a free-wheeling chat with Business Standard on the sidelines of the Brandscore, a sports marketing summit organized in Mumbai today by ESPN-STAR Sports and MindShare. Excerpts:

What have you been doing the last six months?

Future Brands was formed to perform mainly two functions. One was to build brands across categories. The other side is consulting to companies in the group and outside. We are already working on two projects with Titan (the watchmaker of the Tata Group.) We are in talks with three-four other companies.

How different is this from what you did earlier?

Consulting is very much aligned to what I did at McCann, where I also headed a consultancy called Lighthouse. In brand ownership, the content is similar, though day-to-day activities are different. It is a question of skill. It is about applying all consumer understanding gathered over the years and some new ones. Retail redefines the relationship between consumers and the brand.

How brand-conscious is the Indian consumer?

Indian consumers are not very brand-conscious; they are category-conscious. So, they would know they want to buy a television, a 29-inch at that, but not which make. Brand consciousness can happen only in some cases, like one can say I want a Nike. However, consumers are slowly becoming brand-conscious.

Why did you leave McCann?

I had spent 10 years there, and 21 years in the advertising industry (Desai says he is 44, but looks a decade younger). I was bored.