 "boxing, JSW Foundation")
When Sakshi Malik won the bronze at the Rio Olympics this year, employees at the JSW group office in Mumbai cheered wildly. Malik is one of the 12 athletes that the group had supported under the aegis of the JSW Foundation and the win provided a perfect opportunity to cash in on its patronage and build its brand with customers and employees alike. “It is our passion which has given birth to a strategy for brand building. So passion was the trigger and brand building comes later,” says Sangita Jindal, chairperson of JSW Foundation.
Branding is always a challenge for groups such as JSW that make steel, cement and power. How does one connect with the customer without an identifiable product to show for? The solution that many companies such as JSW have hit upon is sports; as the nation warms up to games other than cricket, branding opportunities have opened up. And industrial groups such as Hero (football), public sector Bank of Baroda (badminton) and Amul, Edelweiss and a few others have jumped in.
Jindal says that the group’s branding strategy that has been shaped over the course of two years rests on five pillars. “Our businesses, whichever may be the segment—steel, energy, cement infrastructure, make the first pillar. This gives the JSW brand its presence in the industrial community. The second is an offspring of the first, it is leadership (within the sector),” says Jindal. The initiative to protect and nurture the girl child and preservation of culture and heritage are the other two pillars. Olympic sports makes the fifth pillar and holds a special position in the branding portfolio and is expected to give the group much needed international recognition, she explains.
Finding a global peg to hang its brand on, is important for the group as its flagship company is keen to build itself up as an international entity. JSW Steel has tried to enter the European steel market using an inorganic route, by buying out small local units, but has not made any headway so far. Currently, as far as overseas operations go, Sajjan Jindal owns a plate-and-pipes steel mill in the US acquired in 2007 from Jindal Saw owned by his brother Prithviraj Jindal.
Aligning with Olympics sports is also the best way to combine the group’s philanthropic initiatives with global brand-building ambitions. “We feel there is a strong need to improve the country's Olympic capability and hence the sports initiative is our key focus. We are mainly looking at Olympic sports and not mainstream games such as cricket,” says Jindal.
This is an interesting development. Given the country’s obsession with cricket, almost every brand wants to ride the game’s mass appeal. However the prohibitive cost of sponsorships for international cricket makes it difficult for brands to sustain long term relationships with the game. With sports such as wrestling, athletics, boxing, the relationships can be longer and more fruitful, believe experts.
“Though we are not completely closed for mainstream sports, our interest towards mainstream largely depends on business requirement,” explains Jindal. The JSW Foundation looks at judo, wrestling, boxing, athletics and swimming. Though the group has been investing in these sports, art and culture in the past one-and-half years, Jindal feels it is too early to reap benefits.
“These brand building initiatives will take a while to reflect in the group's topline. We are sure to see benefits in the long run, but cannot quantify anything at this stage,” she says. Meanwhile, the Group has taken its sports initiative to its industrial townships and employees through an annual sports programme. Though there is no formal policy for employees, the Group is encouraging and supporting individuals in these disciplines.
Many experts however question such initiatives, calling them corporate social responsibility tools rather than branding measures. Community outreach programmes that support the girl child or help an artist find national recognition can hardly be called branding, they say. However, the lines are increasingly getting blurred as companies align their CSR initiatives and brand objectives.
It seems to be working for JSW as its association with Olympic sports is paying off in multiple ways. It has created a global profile for the brand, building recall among customers who may not be associated with its products or even have known its name. At the same time, it has helped the brand score big among employees at home — when Malik visited the group’s office in Mumbai, she had employees queuing up for selfies and tweeting about their moment, thanking the group for a chance to be associated with an Olympian.
