Book Review : Outliers

Book : Outliers
Author : Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher : Allen Lane ( Penguin Books)


Price : Rs 399


Book review # 8

I bought this book with lot of expectations . I was thoroughly impressed by Malcolm Gladwell's previous books - The Tipping Point and The Blink.
The main motivation for me to buy this book was the " tagline" of the book. Gladwell marketed this book as one which will explain the story of success and honestly I fell for it.

I am disappointed .
Unlike the earlier creations, Outliers is nothing to write about. It is an ordinary and often a very boring read, except for the first two chapters. I found the book boring may be because I expected too much out of it. I knew that it was not a self- help book that will give you a step by step approach to success but I expected a hell lot of insights into those beautiful minds that created successes.

The author defines Outliers as those who have achieved extraordinary success in their lives.

As a reader, my only take-away from this book is his 10,000 hours rule. It is a remarkable insight and may be that single insight makes the money spent on this book worthwhile.
The ten thousand hour rule is simple
If you want to be a genius in a chosen field , you have to put in 10,000 hours of practice/study.

That is it...

This is not a new insight . We all knew that hardwork is essential and hardwork = success equation has become a cliche. But nobody has put a quantitative benchmark to the amount of hardwork needed to become a success.
Malcolm Gladwell did a great service by putting a magical number to hardwork. I thank him for that. Now I can tell my daughter and students about the quantum of work they have to put in to become a genius.

To my surprise, after giving away a powerful insight, Gladwell tried to undo and negate this 10,000 rule in the rest of the chapters. By quoting outdated examples , Gladwell tried to establish that external circumstances play the major role in shaping outliers. So effectively he says that even if you put in 10,000 hours of study , you may not become an outlier ????????

Then he goes on proving his contradictions with examples from history and most of the examples were alien to me.

But in the marketing point of view, this book was marketed well. There will be lot of readers like me who may have bought this book thinking that Gladwell will reveal the secret key to success....
and the message given to us by the author was :

fool... try working hard.. nobody has become successful by reading a book...

Tamariind : RIP ( 2001-2002)

Brand : Tamariind
Company : Skumar's
Agency : Percept

Brand Analysis Count : 380

Tamariind was a brand which died inside the TV Tube. This much hyped brand had only one year of existence in the Indian market.

Tamariind was the readymade brand from the textile major S Kumar's Ltd. The company wanted to tap the emerging readymade segment . Tamariind was targeting the middle and upper-middle class segment.

Tamariind had a dream launch. The brand had roped in Hrithik Roahan who was at that time was a phenomenon. I think Tamariind was one of the first textile brands to take him as the brand ambassador.

Riding on the pulling power of Hrithik Roshan, Tamariind had a huge brand recall during the launch. Infact the ads were so effective that large retail chains were stocking this brand within a few days of launch.

How ever, the euphoria did not last long . For some strange reasons, the brand was dead in no time. In 2002, the brand was out of the retail shelves.

Tamariind was positioned as a fashion wear. The clothes were designed by the famed London based designer John Paul Vivian. The brand had the tagline " The Flavour You Wear ". The brand was designed to be a fun,fashionable trendy brand.
Tamariind was also brought in the concept of Total Wardrobe Solutions by providing all type of clothing to the target consumer.


Initially the company planned to use the brand name Cinnamon for its readymade venture. But a retail chain having the same brand name moved to court and restrained SKumars from using Cinnamon. That caused the company to come up with the new brand name -Tamariind.

So here is a brand which had a trendy name, a big star, an international designer and a reputed company ...... and how come such a brand fail that too so fast ?
I personally think that three major factors was the cause of this brand's failure.
Price and
Distribution and
Differentiation.

Price was the critical issue in this case. Tamariind was steeply priced and this repelled many potential customers . Those who bought the brand could not be convinced about the quality which did not justify the steep price.

The brand also tried to focus more on exclusive outlets which again severely restricted its reach among the audience.

Tamariind spend around Rs 12 crore on the launch promotions but could not sustain or convert the initial hype into sales. The brand ambassador Hrithik also faced so many flops after the initial success which inturn affected the brand negatively.

Other than the brand ambassador, Tamariind has nothing to talk about. The product did not have a meaningful differentiation that could justify its high price. When a brand is aiming at the premium class, the product should have some meaningful qualities that will justify the premium. A mere presence of a celebrity will not create a sustainable value for the product .

Print ad source : afaqs
PS : Tamariind brand has two "i" s and is not a spelling mistake.

Brand Update : Sprite

Summer is setting in and beverages companies are upping their marketing ante. Sprite have heavily started their summer campaign by launching two television commercials. Last time Sprite launched a high profile ad blitz for its variant Sprite Xpress.

This time Sprite is doing the campaign for the core brand. Since its launch, Sprite has been experimenting with its tagline ala positioning. It has changed its famous original tagline of " Buchaye Only pyaas, baaki all bakwas" to
No Gyan only Sprite ,
Seedhi Bath, No bakwaas
then to the last one " Clear hai"

The brand had also experimented with celebrities by roping in Sania Mirza as the brand ambassador. All those efforts have created astounding results.

Sprite had a spectacular 2008. According to Economic Times dtd 11.2.09, Sprite has become the second largest softdrink brand in India thus trouncing Pepsi to No.3 .

Quoting the AC Neilsen study, the following are the market share figures of soft drink brands in India
Thums Up leads the pack with a share of 16.6%
Sprite is the second largest brand with a share of 15.6%
Followed by Pepsi with a share of 13%.

This should have shocked Pepsi .
Sprite has reached the top because it delivered its promise of a no-nonsense simple brand.

Sprite now is an overdrive to cash in on the new found leadership position. Currently the brand is running two TVCs.

Watch the tvc here : Sprite Killer
Sprite Wedding
True to the spirit of the brand, the ads are cool and humorous. It is also interesting to note that the brand now have a combination of all taglines it used in the recent past.
The new tagline is :
Seedhi Baath, No Bakwas, Clear Hai ?

I liked the ads because the characters are cool, plot is simple and funny and even after seeing it for more than 10 times, it is not boring.

Pepsi is also not sitting idle, it had rejuvenated the 7UP brand with some new ads. The ads focus on the lemon content. But the problem with 7UP is that Pepsi has not invested in the brand as consistently as Sprite. 7Up have not yet found the correct positioning platform and Pepsi was little confused in terms of focus with their two brands 7Up and Mountain Dew.

Sprite has reached the top because of consistent investment in brand building. Although it had aberrations, the brand was also consistent in its positioning platform.

Kudos for the marketing team.

Related Brand
Sprite

Book Review : Tribes

Book : Tribes
Author : Seth Godin
Publisher : Hachette India

Price : Rs 375


Book Review #7

Tribes is one of the best books I have read in recent times. This book from the marketing guru Seth Godin is inspiring and insightful. It is a book with contains simple truths of leadership in the current era.

Tribes, as the term denotes, is a book on leadership. In the first page itself, the author cites the example of an ordinary person like Joel Spolsky who created a tribe of its own through the careful use of blogs , books and conferences.

Seth Godin defines Tribes as a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, connected to an idea. He argues that in this era , any one can create and lead a tribe. The penetration and popularity of internet has opened a unique opportunity for anyone to create and lead .

The book is also refreshingly different. The book does not have chapters. It is a collection of insights and anecdotes that will stir you to think about this opportunity.
According to Seth, the concept of leadership has changed . While the traditional leadership concept is built around power, the new age leadership is built around idea and passion and ability to tell stories that inspire. The election of Obama as the President of United States is the classic case that shows the power of ideas and passion.

Seth also wisely identifies the powerful inhibition that pulls back ordinary people like me and you from becoming leaders. It is FEAR. He paraphrases Peter's Principle as " In every organization, everyone rises to the level at which they become paralyzed by fear.. How True...

Internet has made boundaries irrelevant. If you are connected, then world will become your playground . With social networks like Youtube , Facebook , Twitter etc, it has become easy for us to spread our thoughts and become a leader.

But creating and leading a tribe is not an easy task. The leader should be able to clearly and passionately advocate his ideas . The leader should be able to devote his time in nurturing and monitoring the Tribe.
Towards the end of the book , the author tells that building and leading a tribe is more of an obligation rather than an opportunity. He says " To have all these advantages , all this momentum, all these opportunities and then settle for mediocre and then defend the status quo and then worry about corporate politics - What a waste"
He then says
' I think we have an obligation to change the rules, to raise the bar, to play a different game , and to play it better than anyone has any right to believe is possible".

Tribes is a must read for all of us . It is simple and tells you the obvious. But often ,most of us fail to see the obvious. That is the tragedy.

Secret Temptations : Sorry Boys

Brand : Secret Temptations
Company : McNroe Chemicals
( Marketed by Future Brands)

Agency : Euro Rscg


Brand Analysis Count : 379

After spreading a fire of controversy with the brand Wild Stone, McNroe Chemicals is back with another deodorant brand named " Secret Temptations". The new brand of deo which is targeting the girls is already making noise in the visual media.

Secret Temptations is marketed by Future Brands which is the brand- consultancy division of the Future Group. By associating with India's largest retail company, the brand has already have ensured presence across India. With the backing of this large retail giant, the only thing that Secret Temptations have to concentrate is to build the brand.

According to Exchange4Media website, Secret Temptations is a popular brand in Eastern India. It was in 2009 that the brand have made a national launch.

The launch of a deo targeting the female segment makes sense because there is a potential for a deo brand in this segment. Rexona ,Cuticura, Fa and Spinz are the major players in this category.And none of these players are aggressive in the market interms of brand building and promotions. Rexona is banking on its past glory and other players are silent in the market.

The market is flood with imported brands and I feel that the threat of Indian brands are from these imports rather than the domestic competition.

Secret Temptations is targeting the teens and youngsters. Although the name Secret Temptations can give the brand a sexy connotation, the company has deliberately decided to go decent about this brand compared to the controversies created by WildStone brand.

The launch campaign of Secret Temptations is a good one ,clearly communicating the brand's promise.

Watch the campaign here : Secret Temptations

The idea of guys being " floored" by the fragrance and the girl playing hide & seek gives the brand a sense of 'cool'. The fact that the girl choose not to reveal the identity to the "impressed" guy also makes a point- which will be liked by the target audience. At last there is an ad which breaks the usual pattern .

The brand also has a cool tagline " Sorry Boys" which is inline with the positioning of the brand . While most of the female personal grooming brands are centred around the concept of " impressing guys" theme, it is refreshing to see a brand towing a different path - girls playing " hard to get" .

It will be interesting to see how the market leader Rexona will react to the competition. HUL has been showing some of the foreign ads for Rexona currently rather than developing India-centric campaigns.The leader is complacent and it gives an opportunity for a challenger brand like Secret Temptations to make a place of itself in the Indian market.

According to reports, Secret Temptation is not going to be a pure deo brand but a personal grooming brand for girls.

Related Brand

Wild Stone

Brand Update ; Scooty

Scooty is a brand which has more brand updates than any other brands analyzed in this blog. The simple reason is that this brand never fails to innovate.
Peter Drucker wisely said that there are only two critical tasks for an organization - Marketing and Innovation.
TVS Scooty is a brand that virtually practices this dictum.

This January ,Scooty launched another variant Scooty Streak in the Indian market. The new variant is a more stylish and trendy scooter targeting the new generation girls. The brand website boasts about a new and trendy look for this variant.
But I did not visibly see any big difference between Scooty Pep+ and the new variant.The specs and style looks almost the same.

More than the looks, the new variant is an opportunity created by the brand to build itself. And Scooty has done it with style. For this variant, it has roped in the tennis diva Sania Mirza as the brand ambassador.

The choice of Sania is also wise because she is a respected aspirational figure for today's young gals. She has the looks and the attitude that the new gen gals like.


The new variant is being positioned as Tough and Trendy scooter for the newgen girls. The scooter now has LED tail-lamps , easy to use centre stand, external fuel fill etc.
Now TVS Scooty have four variants in the Indian market
Scooty Pep+
Scooty Teenz
Scooty Teenz electric
Scooty Streak.

The natural question is whether these variants will cannibalize each other and create a confusion in the market.
Although Scooty Pep+ and Streak only have a difference in price of Rs 3000, the brand is trying to offer a complete range of scooters for the consumer through these variants.

Another factor that I like about Scooty is its focus on using internet as a medium for giving brand information. Each variant of Scooty have a website or a page of its own. And these websites are well made, updated and cool. All the information that a consumer needs about the variants are presented beautifully. It means that the company is serious about each variant and considers each variant as an independent brand.

For Scooty, these variants serve the purpose of creating excitement in the market.Young girls prefer brands which are fresh and dynamic. Hence by creating new campaigns around such variants brings in lot of freshness to the brand.
Please remember that this brand was born in 1994 and the brand is much more fresh and dynamic than most of the brands launched after it.

Related Brand

TVS Scooty