August 2012, for me, was a sad month. The “India against Corruption” campaign came to a grinding halt. While the group proclaimed that it was reshaping its strategy, to the world it seemed to have been disbanded. In the heady days of the movement last year, it galvanised support online and offline and 72-year-old Kisan Baburao Hazare became a youth icon. People connected with the cause and came out in “large” numbers to support it. There was a universal cry for the passing and implementation of the Lok Pal Bill. The Bill was tabled in a special Parliament session and went through one House. Yet, when the movement “owners” opened the conversation again this year, the support wasn’t as overwhelming. The owners opened new fronts of attack. The media, sympathetic and supportive in 2011, now raised counterpoints and questioned the lawfulness of the process and its dilution of the objective. This resulted in chaos, and a retreat of the movement’s managers who resolved to retake guard and decide what their next course of action would be. A movement hailed by many brand students as an example of how to get things right has now become an equally powerful example of what could go wrong!
Wise marketers recognise that while they are targeting consumers, they are also talking to people at the same time. Brands, categories and shopping are only a small part of people’s lives — they have many other tears, fears and cheers to worry about and celebrate. Not surprisingly, many shopping decisions fall into habits: buy what you bought last, what your mother bought, what your shopkeeper recommends or just what catches your eye at the point of purchase. People get into habits for various reasons. Habits simplify life; they help give structure to an otherwise chaotic life; they give stability in an otherwise turbulent world. So any brand builder needs to work extra hard to change behaviour because he is actually fighting habits. Often if the mental predisposition is changed – the consumer’s attitude or belief – there are still inertia and force of habit that often push her into doing the same thing she has done in the past. “Corruption” is just one of the many problems in the average citizen’s life.
In today’s instant gratification world, there is often a tendency for marketers (marketers are people too!) to seek quick results and hope to get success fast. New launches get initial traction propelled by the experimentation-friendly mindset of today’s generation. That gives the impression of success and the marketer feels an instant high. Often these successes are proved to be deceptive. Over 80 per cent of product launches fail because marketers think the formula for early wins will sustain them in later phases — which is often untrue. A wise marketer told me that he discounts performance in the first three years and only opens champagne if the brand continues to do well in year five. There are always innovators and early adopters who come into a category quite easily — some for novelty value, others who see value immediately. Add to these categories the flirters, who come in only for the experience and then lapse back into old habits, and one can understand and explain the euphoria attending the early success of any new launch. But even innovators and early adopters move on to the next new idea in the market. Ask any technology marketer, and he will tell you how difficult it is even to sustain on major new innovations. The real challenge is to get people motivated enough to continue to support a new brand over a period of time. The consumer is fickle; and this fickleness is a product of habits that are deeply ingrained, and temptations that keep coming up for the consumer to flirt with. This fickleness needs to be understood, accepted and overcome. This is where the Hazare movement came a cropper. The movement has to overcome one more barrier: consumer cynicism about social change — “will anything ever change?”
In this context, one cannot but admire commercial brands that have withstood the test of time and continue to garner loyalty and support for decades, some even for over a century. Think of iconic global brands like Coke, Nike, Apple, Pepsi and IBM or, closer home, brands like Asian Paints, Titan, Cadbury, Lifebuoy and Colgate. They are built on ideas that have constantly evolved as society has evolved over time, and have successfully adapted themselves to new cultures as they have moved across geographies — neither is easy. They have successfully kept consumers engaged with them, through new products and refreshed communication. They have taken knocks and setbacks during their journeys, but have always taken fresh guard. Cadbury survived the wave of snack-food launches in the early ’90s and came back; so did Titan, when mobile phones became big in the 2000s. Lifebuoy changed its avatar in early 2000 to match the evolving aesthetics and health needs of the new millennium’s consumers, moving from the brick carbolic soap to a more modern form. Business sustenance may have been the deep driver, but it must be accepted that brands have been able to keep their flock of supporters.
Hidden behind their successes are stories of patience and perseverance. Brand building is a marathon. To keep a brand going, owners need to remain consistent to their core idea (benefit and values in marketing language, the cause for the anti-corruption movement) and keep plugging away. While big budgets do help create quick awareness and salience, success comes to those who are able to stay the course. There is no short cut to success, only hard work.
This is true even for iconic heroes who have espoused causes and changed the history of nations and the world — Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela. They mobilised people over years through continuous messaging and dogged cajoling. Marketing had much to learn from the Hazare movement last year — the power of causes, the seamless use of multimedia online and offline, the power of influencers like the media, and the importance of milestones. The Hazare movement’s owners should turn to classical marketers to imbibe principles on how to sustain people with an idea. The mantra is: patience, perseverance and an investment of time — something worth thinking about.
The author is vice-chairman of Ogilvy & Mather India.
These views are his own.
madhukar.sabnavis@ogilvy.com
