Saturday, February 27, 2010

Brand Update : Maggi


I recently saw an ad featuring Maggi Sauce. The ad was commemorating the 25 year celebration of the Maggi sauce brand. The ad was a collage of all the ads of Maggi Sauces that features Javed Jaffery and Pankaj Kapoor. The duo was instrumental in making the Maggi sauces famous through the intriguing tagline " Its Different".

But the new ad also had a shocker. Maggi Sauces has decided to change the tagline ' Its Different ' to " Make A Difference ". Regular readers of this blog will be knowing that I despise when brands changes their famous tagline. This time also, its true. Maggi over this 25 years has built consistently the tagline " Its different " and the tagline has been very famous. Now how in the world should the brand change its famous tagline ?? Who was bored with the tagline- is it the customers or the ad agency or the brand manager ??

There is a lot of positioning difference between " Its Different " and " Make a difference ". "Its different" is a tagline that directs towards the product characteristics. The brand had earlier changed the tagline " Its different " to " Enjoy the difference " but later reverted back to the classic tagline. The tagline was able to act as a differentiator for the brand without clearly mentioning the difference. But " Make a Difference" is something that is directed away from the brand. I am not sure how the brand is going to communicate the new idea . What I have seen is only a teaser announcing the change of tagline.

What ever said and done, changing a tagline which has become an integral part of the brand and which has become a powerful brand element is not at all a good idea.

3 comments:

  1. On totally unrelated note, I saw Rin's ad where they had direct comparison with Tide. This is something new in Indian advertising space.
    ad here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M5rBXtK9iA

    Although its very common to see this in other parts of world. We see Verizon vs AT&T or MacD vs Burger King direct comparison.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It looks to me like Maggi's agency read your thoughts on brand laddering and decided to move from describing product characteristics to creating a personality for their brand... ;)

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  3. Anonymous1:22 PM

    when people know its a teaser then how can they comment so prematurely. it is but obvious that there is a reason why the brand custodians have chosen to say make a difference.
    Lets wait for the main ads.

    ReplyDelete

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