Category: ADVERTISING

By Shramana Ganguly Mehta

 

Televisions and washing machines brand Onida is poking rivals such as LG, Voltas and Daikin through a new ad campaign as it seeks to regain share in the country’s Rs 35,000-crore durables and electronics market.

 

“The idea is to provoke consumers to look out for products that are best for them rather than falling for brand names,” says Vipul Mathur, marketing VP at Mirc Electronics, which own brand Onida. Some advertising experts, however, feel it’s a desperate move and that such comparative advertising may not work.

 

Onida launched its print campaign last week and TV commercials will soon be aired. It has earmarked Rs 100 crore for the campaign. One of the print advertisements says, “Let LG and Voltas debate who’s Number 2. Onida is Number 1 in AC innovations.”

 

Another says, “Open your eyes. Are you buying any brand or a brand that actually cools,” complete with specifications of comparable AC models from LG and Daikin. While FMCG, auto and aviation companies use such comparative advertisements, it is being used in the durables space perhaps for the first time.

 

Mr Mathur says Onida will roll out similar campaigns for its LCD, LED, washing machine and microwave ranges to establish itself as a brand that provides innovative and powerful products with substantial price advantages over competition.

 

“We are competitive and have innovative products to offer. So we are not scared of the rivals hitting back,” he says.

 

When contacted, LG refused to comment on Onida’s move.

 

Mr Abhijit Avasthi, national creative director at O&M India, which worked on Onida’s campaign, says, “We’re not accusing anyone or hitting below the belt. We are just stating the facts.”

 

Onida, like other homegrown brands such as Videocon, Godrej and Voltas, is trying hard to regain its durables market share lost to Korean rivals LG and Samsung in the 1990s.

 

While Samsung and LG together have 34% share in ACs and 45% each in refrigerators and semi-automatic washing machines, their shares in some categories dipped last year due to tough competition from Indian and Japanese rivals. Samsung’s share in the AC market, for example, dipped to 11% in 2011 from 19% in the previous year, while that of LG slid to 23% from 28%. Voltas, at the same period, jumped to 17% from 12%.

 

In the colour TV segment, Videocon is on the heels of market leader LG, pushing Samsung to the third position.

 

Onida says it is the fourth largest air-conditioner brand in the country with 10% share in the market, fifth in washing machines with 8% share, and sixth in flat panel TVs with 6% share.

 

Some experts, however, are not impressed by Onida’s new campaign. Mr Sudarshan Banerjee, business development director at DDBMudra, sees it generating little excitement among consumers. “The campaign is sad in the way it is done. It is not a nice ad,” he says, adding comparative advertising has not done well in recent times.

 

Triton Communications’ Mr Sanjay Chakraborty says, “While it’s easy to look at a competitor and poke holes in its product or services, it’s harder, but definitely more valuable, to plug the holes in one’s own offering and build real competitive advantages.”  He says comparative advertisement helps consumers make informed choices provided it does not misrepresent the facts.

 

Not so long ago, the advertising space saw war of words between detergent brands Uniliver’s Rin and P&G’s Tide war and health drink brands GSK’s Horlicks and Heinz’s Complan.

 

The most brazen comparative advertising was perhaps the Jet-Kingfisher campaigns. When Jet Airways embarked on a campaign to announce: “We have changed”, Kingfisher hit back with a hoarding right besides Jet’s to proclaim: “We made them change.” The duo fought literally on one of most busiest crossroads of Mumbai in 2007.

 

Source:The Economic Times

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