MxMIndia

Category: PRODUCTS

  • Do consumers get influenced by names like 'Munich Polo' and 'Franco Leone' for locally made products?

    Do ‘phoren’ names work for Made-in-India brands?

    Pick the odd one out: Zara, Tommy  Hilfiger, Munich Polo, Skechers and Pavers. Answer: Munich Polo. Reason: It’s the only Indian brand amongst the lot of global labels

     

    As the rush of single brands into the country-including those that have applied for approvals-peaks, a number of home-grown, international sounding brands are melding themselves into the retailing landscape.

     

    “The trend will gather momentum,” says Piyush Kumar Sinha, professor in retailing and marketing at IIM, Ahmedabad. Indian brands will try to look and sound foreign to make the most of rising aspirations of foreign-label fascinated Indians, he adds.

     

    Munich Polo, which has positioned itself as a German brand and recently rolled out its premium kidswear stores in New Delhi, is the latest addition to the serpentine list of home-grown brands flaunting foreign tags. This include Da Milano, Franco Leone, La Opala and Monte Carlo.

     

    Munich Polo uses the German language and depicts Munich’s rich cultural history on its website. It draws inspiration from Munich’s heritage for its apparel designs, and uses fair-skinned child models to give the brand a German look and feel. When contacted, a Munich Polo spokesperson did not comment on why the brand has appropriated a German name and positioning.

     

    Another local brand Da Milano, a high-end leather accessory label, is widely perceived to be of Italian origin. Company officials refused to comment on the brand’s local origin.

     

    Franco Leone, a Delhi-based premium footwear brand, has an explanation for its Italian-sounding name. “My father bought the brand from two Italian designers called Franco and Leone,” says Vikram Bhamri, director of Franco Leone.

     

    But why did the brand continue to use a foreign name in India? Simple, it makes immense business sense. “It has to do with the Indian mindset. We love and easily accept European and American fashion because it is aspirational,” adds Mr Bhamri, who roped in Bollywood star Ranbir Kapoor as brand ambassador last year.

     

    Mr Bhamri himself is one such consumer who would prefer a foreign brand over an Indian one. “Despite the high quality of Liberty (Shoes), I would still prefer Lee Cooper because of its foreign tag,” he shrugs.

     

    For Monte Carlo, a 26-year-old woollen wear brand from the Ludhiana-based Nahar Group, having a foreign name does have some advantages, but it has to be reinforced by quality of the product. “The name is built by customers, not by brands,” says Sandeep Jain, executive director of Monte Carlo Fashions, which was hived off from Oswal Woollen Mills of the Nahar Group last year. 100% foreign direct investment for single brands will only help raise awareness of their local counterparts, he argues.

     

    Veteran adman Piyush Pandey thinks a foreign brand can be a double-edged sword. If it doesn’t deliver its promise, it is doomed to bomb. “Consumers are not stupid, says the executive chairman & creative director of Ogilvy South Asia. “You can fool them once, but not twice. If you claim to be an Italian brand, then you have to deliver Italian quality. If you don’t, people won’t buy it.”

     

    Mr Pandey turns the trend of foreign-sounding desi brands on its head by pointing to international brands with Indian names. Like French jewellery house Boucheron that has a perfume exotically branded Jaipur. “Now, calling it Jaipur doesn’t make it an Indian brand, does it,” asks Mr Pandey.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2012, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

     

     

  • Mr Chatterjee has transformed marketing from a 3-4 man team, providing support services to teams pitching for new business, to a 300-person team at the forefront of HCL Technologies' brand transformation

    How Krishnan Chatterjee is shaping a unique identity for brand HCL

    By Rahul Sachitanand

     

    Even as 65-year-old Bruce Springsteen was kicking off yet another soldout tour in his four-decade-long music career, one Indian marketer could only marvel about his longevity from afar. Seventeen studio albums and countless shows later, The Boss was showing few signs of dimming fan interest as successive generations of fans lapped up his latest tunes.

     

    This timeless appeal left Krishnan Chatterjee, Strategic Head of Marketing, HCL Technologies, enthralled, as both a diehard fan and a marketer looking for solutions to build a strong and ever-lasting brand. A vocalist and rhythm guitarist for HCL’s band named Contraband, he wonders at the musician’s ability to build a strong personal brand and keep fans asking for more.

     

    Mr Chatterjee is hoping to use some lessons from music at HCL Technologies. As technology has evolved, the delivery of remote software services has become a commoditised offering, leaving vendors, his employer included, hunting for new growth drivers. Rather than chase the same opportunity, Mr Chatterjee has been pushing new business opportunities, growing units such as remote infrastructure management from $60 million when he joined in 2004 (after a decade-long stint at ITC), to a billion-dollar unit today.

     

    His ability to find a winning proposition for a brand began before HCL Technologies, when be moved from the Tobacco business to lifestyle retailing under the Wills Lifestyle brand. “He was able to quickly build a competitive proposition and identify a need gap in a cluttered market,” says Sabyasachi Mishra, CEO, Vietnam and Indo-China for advertising agency JWT. According to people who know him well, Mr Chatterjee sets tough goals for himself and isn’t afraid of going after slackers for failing to meet these targets. If CEO Vineet Nayyar is the face of HCL Technologies, Mr Chatterjee is happy to play the understated counterfoil, keeping the marketing machine humming.

     

    History is now repeating for Mr Chatterjee at HCL. He has transformed marketing from a 3-4 man team, providing support services to teams pitching for new business, to a 300-person team at the forefront of HCL Technologies’ brand transformation. “We even started Team 360, which has 72 people today, to provide marketing services to teams at competitive rates.”

     

    Part of the challenge for HCL Technologies and other large Indian IT firms is to be noticed when grouped with globally-recognised brands such as IBM and Accenture. “Indian companies are recognized by a tiny fraction of our target customers,” he reckons.

     

    Also, he helped build Employee First (CEO Vineet Nayyar’s book on the subject has sold thousands of copies globally), to try to stand out in the clutter. A YouTube video on the subject has got over 2.5 million views, he adds, pointing to its success.

     

    According to Anand Narayanan, VP of Marketing for Beroe, a provider of procurement intelligence and market research, Mr Chatterjee’s biggest accomplishment has been to grow HCL’s brand recognition, despite being a relatively small player based out of India.

     

    Creating this sort of brand is important at this time because HCL plans to hire some 10,000 people in the US, at a politically sensitive time, with Presidential polls around the corner. “Never lose sense of your people … they are your biggest source of strength, credibility and voice,” he says.

     

    Mr Chatterjee, an IIM-A alumnus, is taking a tough stance on getting Brand HCL noticed, While the “Mr HCL” series of advertisements did the rounds recently, he thinks the company will look beyond these confines. “The age of advertising has gone past us,” he declares. Instead, building brand HCL will be a much more targeted campaign, tilted towards digital, especially targeted at the firm’s customers. “You’re building a brand for the next century,” he claims loftily.

     

    Mr Narayanan agrees. “What Krishnan has demonstrated is a pilot of HCL’s capabilities,” he says. “It has the potential to become the bellwether of marketing.” Steering HCL to these lofty heights will be Mr Chatterjee’s toughest mission yet.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2012, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

     

  • The tried-and-trusted brand is further strengthening its message with entertaining commercials that reinforce the product's qualities

    Fevicol Marine: the bond that remains even in water

    By Tuhina Anand

     

    Looking at the success of Fevicol Marine, Pidilite Industries is pulling out all stops to position the product in the mainline category. The product has seen tremendous success and the demand has seen a rise post its first campaign two years ago. The company sensing an opportunity is looking to make a big leap forward. Fevicol Marine is a variant adhesive that can be used in moist and damp condition and protects furniture from de-bonding even when exposed to water.

     

    Its earlier TVC borrowed from the iconic Fevicol advertising featuring the Dum Laga Ke Haisha tag and focused on bringing out the functional aspect of the product. Now the TVC aims to push the product into the mainline, especially seeing that its growth has been 3 to 4 times the category growth. The latest ad keeps in line with Fevicol’s communication tone and humour and reinforces the promise of a strong bond that Fevicol Marine provides, even in water.

     

    Anil Jayaraj

    Anil Jayaraj, Chief Marketing Officer, Pidilite Industries said, “Fevicol Marine has progressed immensely and hold huge potential. While the first commercial talked of the functional value, we want now to match the tone and tenor with the Fevicol ads that are humorous and interesting t watch while conveying the core value of the product.”

     

    The TV campaign will be supported by an integrated marketing campaign. There are outdoors, POS and increased visibility at trade outlets besides a number of activation has already been initiated with carpenter programs conveying the core message of the adhesive being able to hold its bond even in wet or most conditions.

     

    Talking about the agency Ogilvy, that has created the campaign, Mr Jayaraj, said, “We share a unique relation with Ogilvy where we co-create the brief and that has been responsible for the success of these ads. The idea in this campaign like our other campaigns has been to make the communication interesting and at the end of it should bring a smile on the faces of people watching it.”

     

    Commenting on the concept, Piyush Pandey, executive chairperson and creative director, Ogilvy & Mather- South Asia says, “Keeping in mind the tone and manner that Fevicol has had for the last 20 years, the Fevicol Marine ad captures the spirit of India, borrows from India and therefore becomes a part of the fabric of India like all Fevicol ads have been.”

     

    The ad will be aired across key markets including entire Hindi speaking belt and supported by regional channels in South India, West Bengal, Maharashtra, and Gujarat for 4-5 weeks period starting mid-September, 2012.

     

    The TVC features a boatman, somewhere in the rural hinterland. His boat is filled to capacity with wooden chairs. As he rows through the serene waters, an old man waves out to him, almost as if he wants to hitch a ride. Since there’s no room on the boat, the boatman subtly gestures to the old man that he can’t take him on board. Just then the old man clarifies that it’s not him who wants a ride but his young daughter. The boatman suddenly stops the boat.

     

    When he sees the beautiful daughter, he decides to offer her a ride at any cost. He kicks a stack of chairs into the water and makes room for her. The girl quickly points out towards her goat. So the boatman throws more chairs into the water. Once again the girl points out towards a huge hay stack. Soon all chairs are kicked out of the boat. And the boatman happily continues his journey, ferrying the girl, her goat as well as the hay stack. And he hasn’t gotten rid of his chairs either. He’s tied them to the boat with a rope, unperturbed by the fact that the wooden furniture is submerged in water. The film ends with a VO which brings forth the brand promise: “Fevicol Marine. Wohi mazboot jod, paani mein bhi.”

     

    Mr Jayaraj, summing up the reason for Fevicol ads being such a success, said, “I think its because we have been consistent in our communication, we have through our communication maintained that Fevicol is the ultimate adhesive available and have been creating communication that has been interesting as well as informative.”

     

  • Do regional brands dreaming big of going national achieve success? Or does the scale even kill their regional dominance?

    Regional brands attempt to carve out pan-India presence

    By Kala Vijayraghavan

     

    In the 1990s, a north-based biscuits company, Bakemans Industries, gave industry leaders Britannia and Parle Products sleepless nights with its aggressively-priced offerings in the Marie and Glucose segments. The regional brand with an enviable 13% share, most of it coming out of Uttar Pradesh, was going places – until it decided to go national.

     

    An attempt to carve out a pan-India presence ended in disaster with it plunging into a sea of red. To wipe out its losses, Bakemans raised prices on its home turf, in Uttar Pradesh. That move proved to be the proverbial final nail in the coffin; Bakemans not only failed to become a national player, it lost pole position in the market in which it once ruled the roost. The company was put up for sale, but even the acquisition by a Sri Lankan biscuit player ended calamitously. The Bakemans debacle serves as a grim reminder for regional brands seeking to go national.

     

    “Their ability to grow beyond their home turf is typically stymied not just by capital but also by a difficulty in building the right kind of organization to create national strategies and more sophisticated brand launch and promotion models that can be sustained,” explains Justin Sargent, managing director, Nielsen India.

     

    Such apparent dangers are not deterring a clutch of regional powerhouses like Ghari detergents in the North, Wagh Bakri tea and Balaji Wafers in the West, SAJ Food Products (which owns Bisk Farm) in the East and Cholayil (which owns brands like Medimix and Cuticura) in the South from looking beyond their backyards.

     

    Consider Wagh Bakri, which rules the roost in Gujarat. Over the past couple of years, the company has forayed into Mumbai and New Delhi with its tea lounges. Says Parag Desai, executive director at Wagh Bakri: “Our strategy is to completely swamp every district in one state in distribution and marketing before moving into another.”

     

    Darshan Patel, a co-founder of Paras Pharma who broke away from his elder brother in 2006 to start up the Vini group four years later, says going national is not an option but a necessity. “If one doesn’t have the resources, build the resources but go national. It is all about taking risks because regional brands cannot grow beyond a point.” However, he does add a rider. “The mantra has to be: differentiate or die,” says Mr Patel who has launched brands like Whitetone face powder, Jinjola talcum power, 7X itch cream and Quco hair perfume.

     

    The New Delhi-headquartered personal care firm Vi-John is another regional player that is putting up national outposts. Says CEO Vimal Pande: “Our field force in the South and the East is now as strong as it is in the North. Our presence was weaker in Maharashtra and we are in the process of strengthening it.”

     

    Jyothy Laboratories is a great example of how a single-product (Ujjala liquid fabric whitener) regional marketer went on not just to command a national presence but to acquire a multinational rival – Henkel India, the Indian arm of the German laundry & home care corporation. Post-Henkel, Jyothy today is a multi-brand consumer products company with a pan-India, rural and urban presence.

     

    Ullas Kamath, joint managing director of Jyothi Laboratories, has a few tips for brands seeking to go national. One, go national only if you have a differentiated product; and two, only if the regional brand has operating margins of at least 15%. He advocates a ‘big bang theory when going national.’ “Trial and error cannot work. You cannot sit in Kanpur and understand Karnataka or Kerala,” he adds.

     

    There are those like the Rajkot-headquartered Balaji Wafers that prefer caution to extravagant expansion. Balaji has relied largely on word-of-mouth publicity to capture consumer mind space over the past two decades. Managing director Chandu Virani says, “I do not see the need to be overtly ambitious. We have financial investors chasing us all the time but we do not have the appetite for a grand national plan. It will happen very gradually,” he explains.

     

    Also being cautious is the 500 crore SAJ Food Products. The company, which dominates eastern India with biscuit brand Bisk Farm, is now venturing into other markets, albeit selectively. Says managing director Vijay Kumar Singh: “Each state especially in foods has its own nuances and it is pointless to get into markets where your brand cannot break the clutter and you land up being a me-too.” Brand consultants say entrepreneurs like Messrs Virani and Singh have good reason to play it safe.

     

    “It can be a vicious circle of dreaming big without the resources. It makes good business sense to grow state-wise and each state in India is the size of France. So why go on this big expensive ego trip to go national,” asks Sunil Alagh, chairman, SKA Advisors. Alpana Parida, president, DMA Yellow Works, a brand consultancy, says there are not too many regional brands that have a differentiator other than price.

     

    Damodar Mall, foods director at Future Group, says, “Unless one has the right product, adequate production facilities and a supply chain to back a national venture, national food launches can fail miserably.”

     

    Source:The Economic Times
    Copyright © 2012, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

     

  • UTV Spotboy, AKFPL and India Food Network have joined hands to create ‘The Asli Chicken Khurana’ recipe.

    A real Chicken Khurana recipe coming up

    By A Correspondent

     

    UTV Spotboy and AKFPL (Anurag Kashyap Films Pvt Ltd), producers of Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana, have joined hands with India Food Network’s (IFN) home chefs to create an exclusive rendering of the popular Chicken Khurana recipe.

     

    IFN’s chefs Joel D Souza, Kalyan Karmakar, Veena Gidwani and Archana Arte took up the challenge by coming up with their best interpretations of the Chicken Khurana recipe. While some chefs prepared an authentic Punjabi dhaba dish, some added a twist to popular dishes like Chicken Tikka and Tandoori Chicken. The chefs used Punjabi ingredients and interesting improvisations to get the perfect flavours.

     

    “The entire cooking session saw tremendous ingenuity on the part of our chefs. We could never imagine that you could replicate a dhaba style of cooking in your kitchen. One of our chefs, Archana, actually used charcoal to create that asli Chicken Khurana feel,” said Anagha Rajadhyaksha, Director, Acquisitions, Ping Digital Network.

     

    Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana is the story of a quirky Punjabi family in pursuit of a secret recipe that will enable them to reclaim their pride and wealth. The film, directed by Sameer Sharma, releases on November 2.

     

  • Location-based mobile advertising platform AdNear has raised Rs 35 crore in its first round of funding from venture capital firms Canaan Partners and Sequoia Capital

    AdNear raises Rs 35 crore in its first round funding

    By Biswarup Gooptu

     

    Location-based mobile advertising platform AdNear has raised Rs 35 crore in its first round of funding from venture capital firms Canaan Partners and Sequoia Capital, signaling the growing attractiveness of the sector for risk capital.The funds will be used by the Bangalore and Singapore-based startup to expand its presence across the Asia Pacific region, including Australia and New Zealand, as well as towards building its team.

     

    “We decided to participate in the mobile advertising eco-system, and picked AdNear, because it has built technology to provide target advertising on mobile phones,” Rahul Khanna, partner, Cannan Partners, said.

     

    The four-year old startup, promoted by Anil Mathews, has developed its own platform that does not require Global Positioning System (GPS). It also works on both feature and smart phones. Within a year of launching its service, it has picked up multinational customers, such as Nokia, Toyota and Samsung.

     

    Sequoia and Canaan declined to state their exact holding, only saying they would hold minority stakes in the company.

     

    “It’s a technology play after a very large market of mobile advertising that has not been explored in this part of the world,” Mohit Bhatnagar, managing director at Sequoia Capital said on the AdNear transaction.

     

    The investment comes soon after Bangalore-based InMobi, an independent mobile advertising company announced that it was shutting its operations in Africa and Russia.

    The global mobile advertising market is dominated by Google’s AdMob, with growth coming from markets where smart phones dominate, including, Japan Korea and the US.

    In September last year, InMobi raised $200 million – till recently, the largest deal in the global mobile internet space – from Japanese telecommunications and media corporation Softbank.

     

    Mojiva raised $7 million earlier in the month, while Jumptap raised $27.5 million in July, prior to its public offering.

    On the mobile side, Canaan Partners had earlier invested in interactive mobile content manager Cellcast in 2007, and has also invested in mobile gaming company Kabam.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2012, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

     

  • A new identity and packaging for Britannia's Tiger Glucose and Creams by Elephant Design reinforces the brand's growth promise

    Tiger partners with Elephant Design

    By A Correspondent

     

    Premier design firm Elephant Design has conceptualized and designed the new brand identity and packaging for Britannia’s Tiger Glucose & Creams range of biscuits with a strong proposition of growth nutrients. Elephant Design has conceptualized and designed the new brand identity and packaging.

     

    Ashwini Deshpande

    “When redesigning a large popular brand like Tiger, one has to layer the packaging communication in a way that announces the new story delightfully, and yet does not alienate existing consumers.” says Ashwini Deshpande, Founder Director, Elephant.

     

    Elephant has managed to do a fresh take on “growth promise” through a mnemonic and dynamic arrow that clearly connotes visible growth, informed Ms Deshpande.

     

    For a brighter and smarter appeal, Elephant team fine-tuned the Tiger palette of red, blue and white. The product promise of 25% Daily Growth Nutrients was picked up and amplified on the pack through a mnemonic that was supported by RTBs of Iron, Calcium, Folic Acid and Vitamin A & D.  The brand identity has been revamped to look cleaner and contemporary with 3D white letters encased in blue. Since Glucose biscuit is a well-known product format, it is showcased on the pack only to retain the familiarity. However, for Tiger Creams, product shots are used as an opportunity to appeal to kids with taste & fun quotient.

     

    Talking about the design strategy, Mayuri Nikumbh, Principal of Packaging Design practice at Elephant said, “We tried to probe what mothers look for when they are making important everyday decisions towards growth of their children. Our insight led us to communicate the fact that a simple Glucose biscuit could actually play such a positive role in growth and with proper choice, one could derive significant benefit for a growing child.”

     

    Said Anuradha Narasimhan, Category Director (health and wellness), Britannia said about the Tiger relaunch: “It was a challenging brief that we gave our design agency. To bring in credentials and nutrition to a brand design that used to stand for fun and energy, while maintaining continuity and recognition. I am delighted that Elephant Design brought in the growth story with the right confidence and credentials and managed to carry it through the entire portfolio of Tiger Glucose, Krunch and Creams. I am sure the brand will come together and stand out in a crowded retail space”.

     

    Britannia has partnered with Elephant since 2006 as its primary packaging design agency for brands like NutriChoice, Marie Gold, Treat, Tiger, Bourbon, Pure Magic, 50-50, TimePass, breads, cakes dahi and flavoured yogurt.

     

  • Tata group company Titan Industries is finalising a plan for an edutainment vertical to tap the country's 330 mn population under 15 years of age

    Tatas eye big foray into edutainment

    By Anshul Dhamija & Reeba Zachariah

     

    India’s oldest industrial house, the Tata Group, is sketching big plans for children’s edutainment market, a move signalling the tea-to-telecom conglomerate’s interest to tap business opportunities around the country’s 330 million population aged below 15 years.

     

    Bengaluru-based Titan Industries, a Tata Group company, is expected to finalize business plan for edutainment vertical, positioned as ‘after school education through gadgets and technology’, within a month, people familiar with the development said. This will be among the biggest growth drivers for watch and jewellery-maker, which is the fifth largest Tata firm by market valuation.

     

    The company’s new business division wants to develop a network of about 160 edutainment stores, expected to rake in more than $1 billion revenue by the end of the current decade. Titan scanned several business models targeted at the children’s market, including toy retailing, before narrowing its focus to edutainment stores.

     

    Titan’s edutainment business strategy will combine content with 3D and simulation technology with themes like ‘journey across time’, which sits well with the company’s watch business too. The company has prepared an extensive case study, with inputs from design architects, to be presented to the board of directors later this month.

     

    The edutainment business will be deemed to be formal only after the board approves it. A questionnaire to Titan Industries spokesperson remained unanswered at the time of going to press.

     

    Titan reported Rs 8,840 crore ($1.63 billion) revenue last fiscal powered by the watches and jewellery divisions. The company has explored plans to boost its top line revenue to $10 billion by 2020. The company, in which the Tatas hold more than 25% stake, closed the Friday trading on BSE almost flat at Rs 307.

     

    Tata Group companies with surplus cash on their books have been asked to draw up plans of how they would utilize their cash surpluses in adding value to shareholders. Titan had surplus cash of nearly Rs 800 crore at the end of last fiscal. The flagship edutainment stores will be more than 80,000 sq ft, located in the suburbs of the big metros, attracting investments of Rs 100 crore each. The stores in smaller cities will vary between 8,000 to 10,000 sq ft.

     

    Titan will start work on rolling out the initial stores in two southern metros, once the board approves the business plan.

     

    The $100-billion Tata Group’s interest in edutainment tracks the growing investments in this space. Last month, Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan acquired 26% stake in the India franchise of Mexican edutainment brand KidZania, scheduled to open first store in a Mumbai suburb March next year.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2012, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

     

  • Herbal cosmetics queen Shahnaz Husain may raise Rs 200 cr PE to expand business, launch coffee and book shops

    Shahnaz Husain may raise Rs 200 cr PE to expand biz, launch coffee/book shops

    By Vijaya Rathore

     

    Shahnaz Husain, a first generation herbal cosmetics and beauty salon entrepreneur, is in talks with international private equity firms to raise up to Rs 200 crore to expand her business globally as well as to launch a coffee and book shops chain.

     

    “All these years we have remained a completely private company, with no outside shareholders,” Ms Husain, chairman and managing director of The Shahnaz Husain Group, says. “But the time has come when we are ready to get some private equity funding of around Rs 150 crore to Rs 200 crore,” she adds.

     

    The money will be used to expand training centres and beauty salons across the world, and to launch a chain of coffee and books shops under ‘StarStruck’ brand. Husain also plans to retail gift items under ‘Shahnaz with Love’ label.

     

    Ms Husain, who founded her company in 1970 with a “small sum of borrowed money”, is currently holding talks with 4-5 international PE investors.

     

    She says the idea is to invest more money in the training centres and salons across the globe. “I also want to focus more on innovation, ideation, education and quality control.”

     

    Ms Husain says she will soon establish a chain of cafes that will be a networking place for people with coffee and books. “We are looking for strategic partner for the same,” she says.

     

    Her group operates and franchises a chain of around 4,000 salons in India and abroad, besides selling a wide range of herbal products at around 15,000 counters.

     

    It has factories in Noida and also imports high-end beauty products from exclusive partners in Italy. Ms Husain says the company grew 37% last year.

     

    She says the entry of a host of foreign beauty and cosmetics brands in the country will not impact her business much.

     

    “We have been around for a long time. International brands in India today are where we were 30-40 years ago. They will be what we are today, 30-40 years from now,” Ms Husain says.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2012, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

     

  • In LG management reshuffle, Sanjay Chitkara is new chief marketing officer while Sanjeev Agarwal is sales boss

    Chitkara is new LG CMO, Agarwal sales head

    By Writankar Mukherjee

     

    LG Electronics India, the country’s largest electronics company, has replaced its heads of marketing and sales as part of a top-level reshuffle seen as a reaction to its failure to keep pace with revenue target.

     

    LK Gupta, chief marketing officer, has put in his papers after leading the role for five years and will be replaced by Sanjay Chitkara, who was earlier heading sales administration. Amitabh Tiwari, who was heading sales, will switch roles with Sanjeev Agarwal, who was the head of business excellence.

     

    They will report directly to company MD Soon Kwon, a senior company executive said.

     

    “Probably, the headquarters felt a big change was required since LG India is falling short of its revenue target,” the person said, requesting anonymity. “While changes in top management is an annual affair undertaken every December, but never before have there been such sweeping changes like now.”

     

    A detailed questionnaire sent to LG India’s corporate communications team on Wednesday to confirm the management changes and its business plans remained unanswered.

     

    The company has also made some changes in its product group heads and split the role of the head for refrigerators.

     

    Manish Gupta, the product group head for televisions, will now head microwave oven. Vijay Babu, who was heading microwave ovens, will look after frost-free refrigerators while Praveen Gosain-presently regional manager for East zone two that includes markets like Orissa, Jharkhand and Bihar-will head direct-cool refrigerators. Vishal Karan, who was the regional manager for Bengaluru, has been made the chief of modern trade. All the changes will be effective from January.

     

    While LG India is yet to give any indications about its sales this year, trade sources expect the company to fall short of its revenue target of 20,000 crore for the current fiscal. Last year, it grew marginally to 16,200 crore from 16,000 crore in 2010, falling short of a target of 20,000 crore.

     

    Trade sources say during Diwali, LG sales grew by 10% against a target of 15%-20% growth.

     

    LG has been trying to reposition itself as a premium brand. However, industry insiders say it has made limited success in this regard and Indian consumers regard Sony and Samsung more premium brands. The only major exception is the 3D TV segment where LG has emerged the market leader with 37% share, as per GfK-Nielsen retail audit for January-October 2012.

     

    India is identified as one of LG’s key growth markets and the company had earlier expected its Indian operations would outgrow the parent company by 2015.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2012, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

     

  • The year 2013 looks exciting for the colas as Pepsi is title sponsor of IPL, Coke celebrates two decades in India and Thums Up now backed by Salman Khan

    LOOK-IN 2013: An exciting year ahead for Pepsi and Coke

    By Amit Bapna

     

    2013 is set to be an exciting year for colas, what with Pepsi stepping into role of title sponsor at IPL, Coke celebrating two decades in India (and almost certainly thinking of ways to derail its competitor’s official sponsor status), and Thums Up now backed by serial Bollywood hit-man Salman Khan. However the excitement around the category and its appeal to the youth is of an even earlier vintage as the first edition of Most Exciting Brands proves. (The Most Exciting Brands survey findings are published in the Brand Equity section of The Economic Times dated January 2, 2013 – Editor)

     

    The findings of the first ever Most Exciting Brands survey reaffirm that in spite of supposedly sexier categories like mobile phones and tablets, excitement about colas continues unabated. Three cola brands feature in the Top 5 rankings: Coca-Cola emerges as the most exciting brand followed by Pepsi at 3 and Thums Up at 5.

     

    Not bad for a category that was created way back in 1886, when Atlanta-based pharmacist Pemberton stirred up a fragrant, caramel-colored liquid and combined it with carbonated water. As per legend, the concoction initially sold a measly 9 glasses at five cents a glass for almost a year. Today Pemberton’s creation, famously known as Coca-Cola, is a ubiquitous brand, selling in over 200 countries and all set to celebrate 20 years of its return to India after being exiled from the country in the late 1970s.

     

    Competitive brand battles are nothing new, but few have been waged as consistently as the cola wars. To the people working on these brands, there is seemingly never a dull moment. Says Santosh Padhi, cofounder, Taproot India, “In a category like this, where the product is not there to sell (unlike a mobile where the features are being sold) what is being pushed is the imagery and all three brands have done a damn good job, when compared to any other category.”

     

    The cola brands have been on a journey of constant reinvention, building their brands around cultural references, including cricket, football, adventure, music and films.

     

    Says Tanuka Ghoshal, assistant professor – marketing, Indian School of Business, “For a low involvement product that’s often purchased on impulse, and where brand loyalty is typically low, sales thrive on one and only one thing: salience and top-of-mind recall.” In her view, this is what leads to a category that is overactive with each brand vying to outdo the other on share of voice and consequently share of mind. The brands strive to achieve this through a plethora of exciting and creative campaigns.

     

    For Coca-Cola, the leader of the pack in this survey, what worked well was the insight of integrating the brand with popular culture, through its campaigns and on-ground properties, informs Anupama Ahluwalia, VP – marketing, Coca-Cola India. Campaigns like “Ummeed wali dhoop, sunshine waali aasha” that exhorted people to believe in a “better tomorrow”, followed by the summer campaign, which profiled cricket as India’s most loved sport and featured the iconic Sachin Tendulkar, and finally the Coke and meals campaign, which spoke of happiness around mealtimes, seem to have worked well for the brand in creating buzz.

     

    Pepsi positions itself as “a curator of pop culture across the world.” The excitement has been kept alive by carrying forward it’s iconic ‘Change The Game’ plank shares Homi Battiwalla, EVP – Colas, Hydration & Mango Drinks, PepsiCo India. The campaign re-energised the brand. In 2012 the same central thought was carried forward in all communication.

     

    Piggybacking on the growing popularity of football as a sport in India, Pepsi created campaigns that set the world’s most popular sport against cricket and cricketers. The first commercial ‘Ab badlega game’ featured the brand ambassador Ranbir Kapoor arguing with a young football fan about why cricket is better. The other campaign featured cricketers and footballers playing against each other – Chelsea’s Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard and Fernando Torres against Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina and Harbhajan Singh.

     

    The idea was to showcase the possibilities in a country which is cricket-mad but also very football-interested. For the T20 series that was held in Sri Lanka, the campaign was all about “Na tameez se khela jata hai na tameez se dekha jata hai” (roughly translated as the rules of the game have changed – it is no more played or viewed in the same decent manner as it was done earlier). All the campaigns have the same irreverence and tongue-in-cheek tonality.

     

    Views Samir Gupte, president, OgilvyAction, the brand activation arm of the Ogilvy Group, “While advertising tries to create imagery for these brands non-traditional media, be it activation, events (sporting and others) or concerts help build differentiation and association with the brands especially in this category.” Come 2013, Pepsi is set to jump headlong into its IPL association as the title sponsor.

     

    Thums Up is one brand that has been keeping the testosterone levels high with its macho star associations – on TV and print as well on ground. The signing of Salman Khan as brand ambassador in 2012 has worked particularly well, especially with his dream run at the box office with Ek Tha Tiger and Dabbang 2. Prior to Khan coming onboard, the brand used the South-based star Mahesh Babu as its face with the campaign Aaj kuch toofani karte hain (let’s do something exciting today).

     

    The challenge for all these brands is to adapt to a world in which one-way communication is giving way to two-way consumer engagement and participation. Shares Samyak Sanjoy Chakrabarty, chief youth marketer, DDB Mudra Group, India, “It would be harakiri to take this target audience for granted, and that’s why the cola brands are always engaging with them whether through presence at the key touch points such as canteens, bars, college events, or live events and properties like the Coke Studio etc, which ensure top of mind recall.”

     

    In this task, the role of digital and social media is pivotal. Today’s youth is consuming multiple screens and brands are cognisant of this reality. Different brands are doing this with varying degrees of success and engagement. For instance, Pepsi’s football campaign generated a huge volume of conversation on social media – it reached out to more than 150+ million users online and garnered close to 570 million impressions across all platforms. Pepsi T20 Football Facebook activation got 2.5 million engaged users and added 1 million new fans. The way forward for cola companies, will be to invest extensively in creating experiences that allow on-ground activation and digital media to converge seamlessly.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2013, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

     

  • Axe offers free ride to space, ropes in moon-man Buzz Aldrin to pilot project

    No tablet-phablet! Axe to offer free ride to space!!!

    By Namrata Singh

     

    Space expedition is the new paradigm in the world of marketing. Several consumers would have won laptops or a holiday tour through marketing contests, but here’s one that will take people from across the world to travel into space, where few men have ventured before.

     

    In what is being considered to be one of its biggest promotional events so far, Axe, a Unilever brand, has partnered with Space Expedition Corporation (SXC) to send 22 men and women from across the world into space. SXC is a private company, which is planning to kick-start its daily commercial flights into space next year.

     

    None other than Buzz Aldrin , the second man to walk on the moon, has been roped in as the ambassador to promote the Axe Apollo Space Academy , or AASA, to rhyme with NASA, which will shortlist men and women through an online competition . The winners will be sent into space on board the Lynx, a two-seater suborbital reusable launch vehicle, in 2014.

     

    So what does the man whose space vision is to generate the next wave of human exploration, have to say about AASA? “It brings into effect the things I have been waiting for where more people can learn about space. It’s an opportunity that has been given to the youngsters and they must avail of the same and learn more about space. They should avail of the opportunity to be selected early on pioneering flights,” Mr Aldrin said in an exclusive interaction.

     

    Across 90 countries, about a hundred people would be selected to go to a three-day space camp this year. They would experience the training astronauts undergo. From this group, 22 people would be selected to go into space. SXC is the launch customer of the space vehicle XCOR Aerospace’s Lynx vehicle that takes off and lands like a normal airplane from regular airports.

     

    The Curacao airport in the Caribbean is expected to be the first location.

     

    According to SXC’s website, the tickets to go to space are priced at $100,000, which means Axe, which has annual sales of over 1 billion euros, would be pumping in large sums of money into this promotion. The amount that would be required to send 22 people into space itself would cost around $2.2 million.

     

    “It is meant to be big. Big brands need to behave in a big way. Clearly, we believe this is something worth spending on. We are absolutely convinced that it is the right thing for the brand and the benefits would outweigh the costs. Our target of young men needs to be engaged and entertained. The essence of what we are really doing is to surprise in many ways,” said Russell Taylor, Unilever’s global brand VP for Axe (called Lynx in some markets). Mr Taylor, however, did not reveal the promotional spend numbers.

     

    The objective behind launching AASA is to recruit a new generation of consumers into the brand’s fold as also to retain existing consumers with new propositions. “We genuinely believe that people usually approach a brand for the first time and leave. This is a brand we want people to be a part of and that’s the business model that a brand like Axe would be following,” said Mr Taylor.

     

    According to him, Axe is one of the brands that would be contributing to Unilever’s larger goal of doubling its turnover.

     

    “The trick with young consumers is to always give something different as compared to what you have done before. It should be something that would surprise. Last year, we created exciting (versions) for ‘him’ and for ‘her’ . We did the female version to surprise and to generate conversations and debate. Space travel is the next big thing that is rapidly approaching. We decided to build something exciting around space and we launched a new variant called Axe Apollo,” said Mr Taylor.

     

    Axe is a leading global deo brand whose marketing proposition is to give young men the edge in the mating game. The brand figures among Unilever’s top 10 brands. It has a strong footprint in the developed world and is said to be growing fast in the emerging markets as well.

     

    (This writer was in New York on an invitation by Axe)

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2013, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved