Marketing Insight : What drives brand trust ?

Last day, I went to buy a small appliance as a gift, there were two brands- one was an instore brand and another a very well known brand. The in-store brand product looked very good with more features than the national branded product. At the similar price point , the instore brand looked a very good buy.  

When my wife asked my  " expert" opinion, I urged her to go for the national brand despite the fact that I knew that the private label brand would have been a better choice. 

On introspection, I found that what I was doing by choosing the national brand was risk-reduction. That is what branding is all about isn't it ? The national brand offered a much less featured product so on a value calculation, the private label offered more value. But as a consumer, the national brand offered less perceived risk.

So why did I as a consumer felt that the national brand offered less risk compared to the private label ? 

Firstly, the brand was reputed ( familiar) and its legacy gave me comfort that it would not fail me in terms of performance. Secondly, as a consumer, I had a positive experience with the brand which made me trust the brand more than the private label. Thirdly since the product was an electrical appliance, the perceived risk is more compared to another product category. 

So for marketers, creating trust for a new brand is not easy especially in product categories have high perceived risk ( common sense !) . And brand's role is that of risk-reduction. And as a consumer, I can say that for me a brand would be trusted if it is familiar and has perceived product expertise. 

What do you think are the drivers for brand trust as a consumer ?

VWash : Creating Intimate Hygiene category

Brand : VWash

Company : Glenmark

Brand Analysis Count : # 541

After making the face and under-arms of the Indian consumers fairer, marketers are moving to uncharted territory. Indian market is witnessing the development of Intimate wash category in the Rs 1500 crore female hygiene market. This category came into public domain with the brand " Clean & Dry " from Midas Care. 

Clean & Dry with its very explicit campaign raged lot of criticisms owing to the way the brand message was executed. 

Watch the ad : Clean & Dry

The controversies helped the market to notice this category but I have a negative opinion about the way the brand executed its communication message. 

VWash is the competing brand in this category from the pharmaceutical major Glenmark.Unlike Clean& Dry, the brand has took the positoning in a much more subtle way.

Watch the ad here : VWash ad

While Clean & Dry focused on the fairness which repulsed many opinion ( also opinionated) leaders, VWash chose to take the less controversial hygiene route. VWash is positioned as a hygiene product and talks about common issues like irritation and itchiness. 

So VWash in my opinion was able to take the category out in the public domain in a much more civilized fashion than the category innovator.The health pitch would also prompt the Indian consumers to buy these products without any inhibition. 

 And interestingly the company was able to put the product displayed in prominent places in the chemists shop owing to the brand's relationship with that channel.  

Increasingly Indian market is seeing lot of new products and pitches which raises the question whether marketers are testing the " Line of Control " . Similar question marks were raised when Nivea launched the Under-arm fairness deo. But now many brands including the likes of Dove has a variant for that purpose. 

May be this category of intimate wash products may become a part of the female hygiene market in India too. 

Market Statistics :Soaps

According to Business Standard ,Indian soap market is worth INR 10000 crore. HUL's lifebuoy is the largest selling soap with 15%share.
Lux market share is 13-14 %
Dettol at 8.5 % and Santoor at 8.2%.

Brand Update : Cadbury India to be rebranded as Mondolez India, What it means to brand Cadbury

According to Economic Times report, Cadbury India is going to be rebranded as Mondolez India. This was predicted after the iconic company was taken over by US based Mondolez International. It is interesting for a brand enthusiast as to see how this affect the iconic brand - Cadbury.

Cadbury has a huge equity in India and is consistently rated high in most of the brand ratings in terms of trust and popularity. So what happens to Cadbury after the company is renamed to Mondolez.

Firstly, Cadbury after the re-naming of the company will no longer be a corporate brand. Then what will it be ?

If one looks at the brand architecture of products from Cadbury India, Cadbury acts as the brand endorser for most of the products - whether it is 5 star or Dairy Milk or Shots. Cadbury thus extends its powerful equity to all the chocolate brands from its stable. So powerful is the equity that when Mondolez launched its Oreo biscuits, it chose to endorse the brand with Cadbury .

Cadbury had its equity derived from the rich heritage dating back to 1824 . The brand has grown to an iconic status through the brands like Dairy Milk. So this is one of those family brands which derived its equity through the success of the brands it endorsed and also as a leader in the chocolate category. As a corporate , Cadbury became strongly associated with chocolates and became the world's second largest confectionery company. 

In my opinion, although the Cadbury has lost its status as Corporate brand, it will be retained by Mondolez India as a family brand which endorses the chocolate products from its stable. 

While earlier, Cadbury earned its equity in the capacity of a corporate brand ( being the largest, most respected confectionery company) that source is now lost because it is no longer a corporate brand. So from where will the brand gets its equity from ?  Now since Cadbury is no longer a corporate brand, Mondolez needs to create new sources of equity for this iconic brand. Cadbury needs to be nurtured as a family brand and the company no longer can take the strength of this brand for granted. If it is going to be relegated as logo on the pack of the products, that will be  a sad state for an iconic brand. 

How marketers visualize deadly Germs !

Indian marketers are in love with germs. Many brands have taken up the task of protecting Indian consumers from the deadly attack from the germs. Keedanu is often the generic term used by Indian marketers to denote the germs. 

For many brands, especially in the cleaning segment, the basic USP of most of the brands is the germ-fighting. Marketers have chosen different ways to visualize the germs. While some brands have tried to make the visualization close to reality, some brands have chosen to go beyond reality. 

A peep into how marketers visualize the deadly germs.

DETTOL

Dettol has been in the forefront of fighting germs and the USP of the brand is " Be 100% Sure". This brand has visualized germs in a realistic manner.

Dettol Handwash 

Dettol Soap

LIFEBUOY

Lifebuoy  is a brand which fights Dettol in terms of the positioning. While Lifebuoy soap which boasts of protecting consumers from 10 types of Keedanu has chosen to depict these germs in a realistic manner.

On the other hand, Lifebuoy handwash has gone the exaggerated way with the deadly germs taking up the form of animals with hands legs and even tails. Some looks like octopus.

Lifebuoy Handwash

Pepsodent

Pepsodent is another brand which talks about fighting germs and the brand has also tried to visualize germs in a more realistic manner.

Pepsodent Germs

Colgate

Colgate which is the principal opponent of Pepsodent has gone to depict the germs in a comic fashion. The germs although deadly looks cute and funny. But beware : Looks often deceive !

Colgate Germs

Lizol

Floor cleaners are another saviors for consumers in the fight against the germs. Lizol which is the major brand in this category also have realistically portrayed the "Deadly Germs" 

Lizol germs

Danone Yogurt 

According to Danone, there is good bacteria and bad bacteria. Good bacteria are round shaped,  cute and colorful.

The award for the best creative visualization of the deadly KEEDANU goes  to

DOMEX !!

Nothing beats the visualization of germs as done by Domex. These germs comes from the labs of Steven Spielberg. The Domex germs are organized and there is a leader who is plotting war against the humans. But thankfully Domex saves the world.

Wikipedia

This is what Wikipedia gives as image for bacteria !

E Coli

MRF ZVTS : The comfortable radial

Brand : MRF ZVTS
Company : MRF Ltd

Brand Analysis Count : # 540

Tyres which are generally boring products belonging to a whopping Rs 45000 - 50,000 crore category has seen many interesting brands being built. Although tyres belong to a high-involvement category owing to the high cost of purchase ( replacement category) but the purchase is seldom enjoyed by the consumer.

MRF is the market leader in the Indian tyre market with a share of ~ 27 %. ZVTS is the radial brand from MRF. What is interesting about ZVTS is the care that the company has took in branding and positioning this brand.

ZVTS was launched in 2000 and was expected to drive the MRF's entry into the radial segment. The replacement market for tyres are huge and MRF was expecting that ZVTS would make its mark in this segment. What makes interesting about ZVTS is the consistency in the brand communication.

MRF ZVTS is positioned as the " Most Comfortable Radial ". The positioning has been consistent in the entire 14 year history of the brand. In the initial years, the brand was endorsed by Sachin Tendulkar. 

It is also interesting to see how the brand communicated the positioning in their ads. The brand has maintained a consistent imagery in most of their campaigns. The brand used  the imagery of a small child enjoying the drive , car floating in the air etc. These imagery has been consistent in the brand's communication and has effectively communicated the positioning clearly to the consumers

Watch the ad here : ZVTS ad

                              Zvts old ad

The imagery , in my opinion, is one of the best and very relevant one in communicating the brand's proposition of a comfortable radial. Hopefully the brand will not change is powerful imagery in future.

In the brand architecture , MRF has followed a policy of carefully creating sub-brands like ZVTS, Wanderer, ZLO and developing USPs for each of these sub-brands. For example, Wanderer is for SUV and ZLO is for " high speeds". Along with this MRF has been careful about building and nurturing the parent brand also.