Tide : Neat strategy

Brand : Tide

Company:P&G

Agency; Leo Burnett

Tide is the largest selling detergent brand of P&G worldwide. Tide was launched with much fanfare in 2000.

Indian detergent industry is estimated to be around Rs5000 crore and is dominated by the marketing giant HLL. P& G although was in the Indian market for a long time was not a serious player in the detergent market. But when the Indian market opened up and the economy began to prosper, P&G could not resist entering the Indian marketin a big way. As always MNCs are too proud of their brands that they want a premium from the consumers. Here also ,Tide was launched as a premium brand and as usual got a luke warm response from the value conscious Indian consumers. P&G had to settle with a miniscule 8 % of the detergent market.

Then came 2003 and the price war started and now there is no premium brands in the detergent market in India. The price war enabled P&G to popularize the brand and increase the penetration. Although HLL and P&G did not increase their marketshare because of the price cut, the overall market size increased because the regional players lost their share to these giants.

P&G had a serious problem after the price cut because there was a chance of cannibalizing between Ariel and Tide because there was no significant differentiation between the two brands.

Now Tide has found its formula, the same global positioning as a Detergent that cleans perfectly. So using whiteness ( safedi) as a base Tide has now unleashed the campaign highlighting its whitening power against HLL's Rin which has the same positioning.

The campaigns has a desi touch and well executed. The pricing is competitive and hence HLL is forced to rope in none other than Big B to defend Rin.

Through the new strategy Tide aims to capture the safedi segment while Ariel will fight Surf in the Color segment.

A marketing fight worth watching....

Complan: Complete Planned Food

Brand : Complan
Agency : Leo Burnett

Baseline : Extra growing power


Complan is a major brand in the 1200 crore malted beverage segment in India. A brand once owned by Glaxo was acquired by HJ Heinz in 1995. Heinz is a $9.2 Bn conglomerate that has operations in 200 countries and is famous for its Ketchups.

Complan has always been positioned as a Complete Planned food with its famous baseline " I am a complan boy : I am a complan girl"
The market for malted beverages has been stagnant for a while. But recent years it has been seeing some activity, the reason being that Indians are forced to be health conscious. Complan also found itself to be stagnant in terms of market share. The researches found that although the brand is established and popular among its users, the brand is not growing because it failed to attract new users.
This can be dangerous because a brand can sustain only if it is able to attract new users to its fold. Hence Complan changed its promotional strategy from targeting the existing users to attracting new users. The baseline was changed to " extra growing power" and ads were mainly targeting the non users of the product.

The change in the positioning is also due to the increasing competition from Horlicks and other GSK products in the segment.
Complan have also launched Complan: Family , a variant aiming at all members of family as a part of expanding the target market. Another interesting strategy was the launch of Complan sachet priced at Rs5 for 15gm complan . I am little confused at the exact purpose of the sachet launch , may be they want to explore the bottom of pyramid

Complan has been an established brand in the Indian health drinks market.The brand was carefully positioned and nurtured by its owners. With the competition getting hot all the time the brand is reinventing itself . It will be worthwhile to watch the fight of David And the Goliaths in this market .......

Air Deccan : Simplifly

Brand : Air Deccan
Agency : Orchard India ( unit of Leo Burnett)
Baseline : Simplifly

Launched in 2003, this low cost airline of India has changed the Indian Aviation industry for the better. Dominated by government owned airlines and one private player in Jet, Indian aviation never had been in the mind of the Indian middle class.

Then came the visionary Capt.Gopinath with a ( crazy ) idea of a low cost airline for the masses. The large airlines shuddered at the prospect of a low cost airline in the country. How can any one forgo the monopoly. But It happened.

It was disheartening to see the reports that Air Deccan's maiden flight caught fire and was grounded. I bet the bigwigs in the airline industry were very happy at that tragic incident ( no serious mishap happened but it was a terrifying incident for the company) . I wrote off the airline at that time but Capt. Gopinath did not or infact he could not. He had a dream and he could not just write off that dream ( Am I being Dramatic ?) .

Air Deccan is modeled in the lines of low cost airlines like South West airlines (a Harvard case study ) which was the only profit making airline during the slump that followed 911. There was a huge market for a low cost airline in India. The overall economy was shining and middle class was spending money and executives were traveling frequently.

Targeted at the frequently traveling middle class, Air Deccan is now a force to reckon with. After 2 years, Airdeccan has discovered a viable pricing model and has revolutioned the industry by offering tickets at Re 1 and Rs 500.
Having tasted success in domestic market, Air Deccan is going international through its subsidiary in Srilanka .Deccan knows that Indian officials will not favour the Airdeccan going global so it choose to go via SriLanka.

AirDeccan always tried to explore new markets and now is targeting the First class train travelers.

Although there are many noises about the service as such , we must understand that the prices are really low and it takes lot of effort to keep it that way.
Hats off to Air Deccan.....

Bajaj Discover : Discover the positioning!

Brand : Discover
Company : Bajaj
Agency : O&M


Bajaj has been on a roll these days and if the stock valuations are any indication of firms performance, then Bajaj is Bachchan of two wheelers. It had been an interesting story of Bajaj , interesting in the marketing and strategic point of view of how a company which thrived during the closed economy has evolved to a dynamic company in a free market economy.

The brand has evolved from " Hamara Bajaj" TO " No one can beat a Bajaj" TO " Inspiring Confidence".
Rahul Bajaj , the Part time Chairman of the company has been instrumental in facilitating this change from a Fuddy Duddy image of a scooter manufacturer to a dynamic young M/Cycle manufacturer.

Bajaj which was proudly known as world's largest manufacturer of scooters in the nineties found to its surprise one day that Indians now don't like scooters, they like m/cycles. Bajaj first thought it is not possible. How can people who once waited for 3 years to get a scooter can think of buying a m/cycle. But ultimately numbers proved the point. Bajaj no longer mattered in the new scheme of things. Hero Honda is the leader in the motorcycle segment (which was once dominated by Yezdi, Enfield and Java) and scooter sales are coming down.

Bajaj still believed that things were as usual, people prefers scooters, m/cycle is just a fad, no one can beat a bajaj ...... but ..,

Once Bajaj has realised that Indian consumers have changed, It has to change and it changed for the better.
Bajaj came with a series of M/Cycle launches but it took a long time before Bajaj could establish itself in the M/Cycle market. This proves the point that as a marketer, you cannot take customers for granted no matter who you are.

Pulsar helped Bajaj to establish itself as a serious player in the Indian M/cycle market. Bajaj had failures in establishing its presence in the executive segment where Hero Honda's splendour rules .

Hence Bajaj launched Discover DTSI with much fanfare. The brand ambassador was none less than the legendary Jackie Chan. Things were perfect for a bestseller. But has Discover delivered?

Still No.
Partly because Bajaj is still struggling with the positioning of the brand. The same mistake was done with Caliber. Bajaj is trying to sell Discover by its looks. But then the new commercial suggest something else. The new commercial with a Harry Potter look alike is well executed but has no marketing significance. What is being communicated to the customer ? Just like the Hoodibaba campaign involving cartoon characters which actually killed the product, Discover campaigns are based on Fantasy.

It will be helpful for Bajaj if it realises or rather study its target market.
" M/cycles are used by adults above 18 educated and the product is M/cycle that is used for transportation" Bajaj knows this more than I do, But then how can you sell a Motorcycle to an Adult based on fantasy?
Bajaj should decide on which platform Discover is going to be placed at. Is it going to be sold as a stylish bike or performance or both?
Positioning has to be realistic and should differentiate the product from the competitors. That is theory and it works also.
Here M/cycle cannot be sold on the basis of some fantasy or cartoons, Bajaj should realize that. Discover had a dream launch. If Bajaj fails to capitalize on that then this product will be another Caliber .

Bajaj can relax for while because Hero Honda's new bike Achiever is also poorly positioned and campaign stupidly executed..

Liril : Bring back the Liril girl

Brand : Liril

Company : HLL

Agency : Lowe

If you are looking for a case of an iconic Brand that is going to be killed by poor marketing strategy , look no further, here is Liril for you.

Launched in 1975, the year I was born, this is a brand that built a segment or should I say category for it self in the Indian market. The brand is also the testimony to the genius of India's Ad man Alyque Padamsee. This is what he says about the Liril Brand

The name Liril had been registered by Hindustan Lever from a list sent to them by Unilever in London. Levers were very keen that the soap have striations, wiggly stripes of different colours running across the tablet. I recommended the tablet be blue - because waterfall is blue with white striations. Hindustan Lever was very excited and produced 1,000 tablets for testing.
At this point Derk Wooller, the Marketing Controller of Hindustan Lever's soaps division, stepped in and suggested we add the freshness of lime to our story. He felt that though the waterfall had tremendous emotional appeal, Liril needed a rational ingredient to clinch the deal. I was not averse to this but suggested that we do an `As marketed' test: Blue Liril versus Green Liril with limes. I was wrong and Wooller was right. The rest is history."
Alyque Padamsee in his book A Double Life.

The brand was a run away success and the Liril girl became the talk of the town. The brand has

beenconsistentt with its communication and the effective use of brand imagery. Further on brand imagery can be found in this article , visit http://www.blonnet.com/catalyst/2004/09/23/stories/2004092300100200.htm

Liril was positioned on the freshness platform right from its birth. The girl and the waterfall with the unique jingle ensured that the freshness is experienced by the audience. Liril can be called as an experiential brand and the communication perfectly supported that.

Liril did not change its positioning for 25 years although the models changed, the brand communication was consistent. Then some nut in the company or the agency thought that they should change the communication that worked so effectively. The rest as I say it " Liril became history".

Liril has changed the imagery and the jingle in the name of freshness .The new jingle or the ad never had that freshness. That is why Liril had to change the Ads twice with in a span of five years. Mind you Liril never changed its imagery or the Jingle for 25 years...

Reports say that Liril had to change because of its stagnant marketshare. I think there are reasons for declining market share which can be that the brand failed to understand the changing consumer expectations. There was a flurry of brand launches during the past 10 years and Liril was sleeping all the time " may be resting on the laurels" . It should have hold on its positioning of ' freshness " not by changing its communication but by communicating more, developing variants, bringing in flanking brands or variants and thus owning the whole segment for itself.

But it never happened , Liril tried to introduce the Icy mint variant very late and that too with a different jingle and imagery. We knew that the Old Liril had died. HLL could have used the same communication strategy . Then came the horrible experiment of Orange Liril with a stupid Jingle OOFYUMMA.... excuse me what the hell is that?

The product failed. Then came the new campaign involving a couple and a new jingle " La-ira -ela", the ad was good but where is liril ?

Like Onida , Liril has to come back with the old imagery and old jingle that made liril what it Is ( or WAS?) [ It is a prediction].

When it does that consumers will take the brand to their heart .

Laaaaa lalalala laaa ...................

Tata Indica : Truly more car per car

Brand : Tata Indica
Agency : FCB Ulka
Company: Tata motors

Baseline : more car per car

India is a lucrative market for automobile manufacturers. If we believe the fancy numbers floating around regarding the industry size, this is a market no one can ignore.

Fighting with all the big names in the auto industry is our very own Tata Motors.

Let me be patriotic and say " we have done it". We have our own Indian Car: Indica.
Well You may say that the design was outsourced from IDEA ITALY so this is not 100% Indian. I would say that Tata's are smart so they outsourced it.....

Any way as hypocritic as we are by birth, although we say " sare jahan se acha " , we were ruthless towards Indica. Everyone looked down upon this car from Tata talking about all the negative points about the performance and writing off this dream of an Indian to build an Indian car.

Despite the initial setback with Indica, Tata motors reworked on the engine and relaunched Indica as Indica V2. Now indica is the second largest selling car in India.

Indica is positioned as a value for money car. I have said in my earlier blog that this is a proposition that will always work on Indian consumers, provided the promise is delivered.
Indica delivered its promise. It promised that it will give more car per car and delivered that.

The success of this proposition had an interesting side effect ( positive of course). Tatas have discovered its vision : deliver more value at a reasonable price. The recent launches prove that Tatas have imbibed this "value for money " proposition . The latest products like Safari Dicor and Indigo give many features which were seen only in premium cars.