John Players : Play It Cool

Brand : John Players
Company: ITC
Agency: FCB Ulka

Brand Count : 140

John Players is the mass market apparel brand of ITC. Launched in December 2002, the brand is poised for becoming a major player in the Rs 6000 crore ready-to- wear market in India.
John Players when launched in 2002 faced a luke warm response from the market. Primarily because of quality and positioning issues.

I mentioned about quality on the basis of my own experience about the brand. I purchased this brand because of the ITC tag plus the price offer ( 1+1 free). I was terribly disappointed with the quality of the material and the range. But I could see the rush at the counter for this brand because of the offer.

John Players is competing with Peter England in the mass market range. ITC knew that Peter England has established itself as a value for money brand and it is a tough brand to compete with. 2005 saw John Players identifying the right positioning platform for itself.

John Players is positioned as a brand with a cool attitude. It is positioned as " Style With a Playful Side" exemplified in its tagline " Play It Cool". The brand rightfully fills the gap of a Cool Brand in the mass market category. The brand is being endorsed by the style icon Hrithik Roshan and the advertising campaign featuring Hrithik was well executed. The brand has a price range of Rs 500-900 for its shirts and Rs 800+ for the trouser range.

Although the positioning platform of being a " Cool " brand is a wonderful proposition, it is a task that is difficult to achieve. It is like a very abstract concept. To quote Ms Rashmi Bansal from a presentation she made at our campus, It is not possible to make a brand or a person " COOL" by just saying that it is " Cool", the customer has to perceive it as a Cool brand. That cool attitude should come into the brand DNA. Hence it is a tricky situation and a tough task for the brand manager. The marketer has to create a lot of subliminal cues to make the brand cool. Hence the brand logo, colors, ads, models, colors etc has significant impact on making the brand " COOL". That is the reason why there are a few COOL brands in our country.

Since my tryst with John Players was not that positive, I have chosen to stick with my favorite brand Peter England. But I think that ITC has worked upon the quality and design aspect of this brand. The brand is in a very tough terrain. It is to be noted that this brand is usually promoted during the festive season mainly using sales promotions. I hardly see any brand building campaigns of John Players during off season. While brands like Color Plus, Van Heusen, Louis Philippe is being built using print ads in a systematic and regular manner, John Players is a brand that is not investing in regular and frequent campaigns. I feel that with a model like Hrithik endorsing the brand, John Players should look at print campaigns at regular and frequent intervals.

source: itcportal,agencyfaqs,businessline,economictimes

SS Music : Losing The Spice

Brand : Southern Spice Music
Company: Fortune Media ( Martin Lotteries)

Brand Count : 139

Southern Spice Music (SS Music) is an interesting case study. This unique channel was launched in April 14 2001. The channel was initially conceived to be one to broadcast the daily draw of the lottery . The promoters was primarily lottery dealers ( largest in India ) and had ventured into online lotteries.The channel was conceived to create transparency in the selection of lottery winners. Since the duration of lottery draw is only 30 minutes, music videos were used as fillers. Hence 18-20 hours were devoted to music videos which acted as fillers.

But contrary to the designs of the promoters, the channel had a flying start. The channel had filled a gap in the market. The need was for a south Indian music channel. Indian Music channel industry at that point of time was dominated by MTV and Channel V. As usual these channel disregarded the need of the South Indian consumers. Hence without knowing , SS Music catered to this unsatisfied need.

When I saw this channel, I was pleasantly surprised and delighted as a consumer . The programs were good and the VJ's were bubbly. The channel owners too was surprised at the reception it got and played to the audience. There were blockbuster programmes like Reach Out and Viewer's choice. The brand was slowly becoming MTV of South India. At one point of time SS Music displaced MTV in TAM ratings in Tamil Nadu and was a consistent second in music channels in the south.The cumulative reach of SS Music was 15.99% in 2004. This ensured that lot of ads to flow into this channel. The TV ad spend in Tamilnadu is around Rs350 crore and in Kerala it is Rs 100 crore.Started with a meagre 5 crore, this channel doubled its revenues in no time.The channel plays a wide assortment of music from the 4 southern states.

2006 saw this channel facing intense competition from its home turf TamilNadu. With the market leader Sun TV not letting any competition to gain upperhand in any segment revamped it Sun Music Channel and launched another music channel ( Live ) branded KTV. SS Music is also faced with distribution issues ( My cable provider does not support this channel). Together with the dip in any new blockbuster programmes, SS Music is facing its toughest test in the market.

The brand was positioned in the line of MTV . Youth , Assertive, Stylish, Gennext can be said about this brand personality.

SS Music was a brand that was given a personality and life by the consumers. But later the brand failed to live upto the expectation of the viewers. The brand has to again go back to the customers to find what made it tick . In otherwords the channel lost its spice and the programs no longer was exciting.

SS Music has all to potential to become a profitable niche player in the Southern market. The creative directors should reinvent the channel inorder for it to survive.

Source:southernspice.com,businessline,rediff.com

Ceat : Born Tough

Brand : Ceat
Company: RPG

Brand Count:138

Tyres as such is not an exciting market like FMCG or durables. The product that comes fitted with our vehicles come to the customer's mindset when it needs to be replaced (am talking about ordinary consumers).While in the case of business customers like truck owners, the choice of a tyre is important because of factors like mileage, maintenance and toughness.
Indian tyre industry is worth around Rs 10,000 crores and is dominated by players like MRF,JK, Appolo, Ceat etc. Ceat is one of the oldest players in the Indian market.
Ceat was established in the year 1924 in Torino Italy. For those who wonder what CEAT means, Ceat is the acronym of Cavi Electrici Affin Torino, that means Electrical Cables & Allied Products of Turin. Ceat came to India in 1958 in collaboration with Tata group. In 1982, RPG group took over the company which became Ceat Ltd.
Ceat was a major player in the market and the brand was promoted aggressively through the media esp in the passenger car segment. The brand faced its major challenge with the launch of Radial Tyres in the Indian market. Reports suggest that it was JK tyres that pioneered radial tyre revolution in India ( correct me if I am wrong).Radial was a disruptive innovation that changed the dynamics of the market. Ceat was caught unaware and the market slipped from this company.
Ceat now is in the fourth position interms of market share. The brand is well established in the Heavy commercial segment with amarket share of 19% while in the car radial, it has only 10%.
Ceat is famous for its Tagline " Born Tough". It is one of the best positioning you can have in the industry. The mascot Galloping Rhino exemplifies the positioning of the brand as the tough brand. Ceat used this mascot and the positioning during the nintees with lot of effectiveness.The website of Ceat talks about the target segment as Strong Men who are Dynamic and Adventurous which personifies the brand DNA. Ideally this brand could have been an icon in the market . But it did not become one.

For some reason ,the brand became invisible.The company may have chosen to concentrate on the OEM segment where more than branding , Sales effectiveness counts. Together with the aggressive media campaigns from MRF and JK , the brand was sidelined in the car/bike segment. The problems with Industry interms of rising input costs and reduced margins have added to the problems for this brand.

Ceat is a brand which have a good brand recall and equity. The quality aspect is questionable since the brand is featured at the lowest position in the JD Power surveys. With the entry of big international names like Bridgestone, Michelin & Goodyear into the market has made the task tough for the Rhino. Ceat had it been aggressive in brand building could have positioned itself as a premium brand for SUV and similar segments. The brand with its exceptional positioning platform has not being able to realise its potential in the point of view of a marketer.

Ceat : Born Tough, Mellowed Later.

source: domain-b.com,ceat.com,businessline

Coffy Bite : Coffee or Toffee

Brand : Coffy Bite
Company: Lotte India
Agency: JWT

Brand Count : 137

Coffy Bite is a power brand in the Rs 1500 crore Indian Sugar Boiled Candy market.This 100 crore brand has a history of 18 years of existence.

Coffy Bite is one of the brands which I grow up with. The brand is unique and its positioning and ad campaign was one of the best in that era. The brand is in the coffee category which is around 15% of the Sugar boiled candy category. Coffee Bite have around 9 % market share in the SBC segment.
Coffee Bite was introduced in India by Parry's confectioneries of the Muruggappa Group. This was the flagship brand of Parrys. Later in 2004 , Parry's confectioneries was sold to The Lotte group.
Coffee Bite is famous for the " Coffee -Toffee " argument followed by the tagline " Its a Coffee in a Toffee" . All the campaigns of this brand was a fun to watch and as a product, the brand offered excellent taste and quality. Overall this product was a winner. The brand enjoys a recall of as high as 85%.

With the entry of Big names like Perfette, Parrys faced intense competition in the market for all its major brands. Along with this heat, the company faced pressures in pricing coupled with rising raw material costs. Infact, these issues are still haunting the confectionery manufacturers.

The candy market is faced with two marketing issues

a. The product: since the product is purely an impulse product, lot of money has to be spent on the brand and also on developing new variants to create and sustain excitement.

b. The Price: The consumers in this segment is price conscious. Because of the competition, companies cannot afford to price the product at a premium and renounce volume. With the 50 paise price point becoming the industry norm, most of the companies are facing profitability issues.

The problem that Coffy Bite faced was again the issue of relevance. Because of some reasons, the brand missed the new generation. The brand was perceived to be " Old". Hence even though the recall was high, the actual purchase was as low as 20%.

The task for the new brand owners "Lotte" was to make the brand more relevant to the new generation. By New Generation , I mean those kids born after1990's : the liberalisation child.

Lotte changed the packaging to make the brand more contemporary and youthful. The communication also was changed. Thank God, the brand managers did not change the famous " Argument". So the argument continues. The new baseline is " Enough to start an argument" was an unnecessary change for this brand which is famous for its " Coffee in a toffee" baseline. The brand owners has to think as to who is bored by the old baseline, company or customer? As a customer I prefer the old one. I think that the brand need not change the taglines and positioning to become more relevant.

Since the category is Coffee, you cannot have any other taste, that can give some consistency to the communication.I hope the owners will not come up with variants like Pineapple coffy bite. Besides the taste, the "Coffee -Toffee" argument gives the creative guys lot of things to work with.I feel that this brand should take the " Topical" advertisement route perfected by Amul( discussed somewhere in my blog) which will be enjoyed by all. One more major positive for this brand is that it is more of a family toffee that gives it a huge market to tap.

Coffy Bite is a brand that has a unique space in the mind of the customers. Is it a Coffee or a Toffee.. the argument continues.

Source: Businessline, agencyfaqs,fnbnews.com, lotteindia.com,economictimes.com

Cerelac : In a Tough Terrain

Brand : Cerelac
Company: Nestle
Agency: McCann Healthcare


Brand Count 136

Cerelac is the market leader in the Rs 3oo crore Baby Cereal market in India. With a market share of 85%, the brand have a huge equity in the Indian market. The brand right now is facing the worst nightmare of its lifetime .

In Kotler's Marketing Management text, he elaborates on the various external environmental factors that affect marketing . In that chapter, he talks about the regulation and laws affecting the marketing of a product. Cerelac is a classic example of Regulations negatively impacting the marketing of a brand.

The infact foods market is a very sensitive market. Since it is concerning infants , the stakeholder's interests are high. In India the market is regulated by an act IMS act of 1992. The act lays down the rules for marketing infant foods and other products in the market. Earlier the law prohibited any advertising and marketing campaigns for baby foods for babies under 4 months of age.Recently the act was amended and restricted any promotion of foods for infants upto the age of 2 years. This amendments was a severe blow for Cerelac whose target market was infants.

Along with this regulatory factor , other factors also affected this brand. The major influencers of this product ;the doctors began recommending normal food for infants. Another major influencer WHO began global campaign on promoting breast milk and the government began to demarket milk substitutes.

The marketers (generally speaking) were also responsible for creating such a situation. The brands were promoted using claims not validated and there were also quality and health issues that was ignored. Seeing all the chubby babies on the ads, it is said that mothers started feeding infants with artificial foods that may have caused health problems. ( I have not yet come across any such serious health issues in kids who took these foods).

The new amendment prohibits use of baby models in the packs and restricts any form of promotions including sponsoring doctor conferences, surrogate ads, events etc. For sure this may have a huge impact on the market for such kind of products.

Sensing the threat to the category of Cerelac, Nestle has launched a brand Ceremeal ( a porridge) for kids aged above 2 years.

Now Cerelac sells through word of mouth publicity. The product will sell because there is a need for such nutritional infant foods in the market. Even there is going to be a huge potential for infant milk substitutes because of changing lifestyle and the fact that there is an increase in the number of working mothers.

Cerelac as a brand has not written off its future. In 2003, the brand launched a new formulation Cerelac 123 aimed at different stages in a baby's growth chart.

Since the brand is not advertised, the positioning is not very obvious. The brand is basically positioned as a highly nutritious food for infants.

So here the million dollar question for the marketer is this :

How do you promote such a product where there cannot be any promotion?

Surrogate advertising will be caught by the civil society workers and unnecessary controversy will be created. Events are also ruled out.

As of now the company rely on the shelf promotion for the product. The company has launched lot of flavours and variants in attractive colorful packages that give a banner effect at the shops.

The product is priced at a premium and does not have any sales promotions giving the company value growth.Since the brand is facing little competition, the lack of media promotions may not hurt the company too much.

One thing I have noticed is that the brand has a cute mascot or brand character . It is a blue teddy ( I am not sure whether it is named). If the brand wants to aggressively promote, then Teddy can show the way. Start giving away this small teddy with Cerelac and kids are gonna love it. The marketer can do wonders if they have a cute Mascot /Character.

Cerelac has one, use it.

source: businessline, agencyfaqs, magindia, nestleindia

Disclaimer : This is an analysis of the Cerelac brand in the point of view of a marketer, not a promotion of this brand.

Cuticura: Leaving You Speechless

Brand : Cuticura
Company: Cholayil
Agency:Rediffusion

Brand Count:135

Cuticura is an International brand which has a history of 200years. Once synonymous with talcum powder, this brand was pushed to oblivion because of marketing myopia or marketing laziness.
Cutucura came to India 80 years back.Cutucura was owned in India by Muller&Phipps. Globally this brand was owned by Keyline Brands which was acquired by Godrej Consumer products in 2005. Interestingly the brand is owned in India by Cholayil who are the marketers of Medimix soaps.Cholayil refuses to sell the brand to Godrej. Godrej hence have the rights to the brand outside India. It looks like a typical hindi film story script. Cutucura may be crying " Main kon hu, Main kahan Hu, Mera papa Kaun hai"?

Cholayil acquired the brand from Muller in 2002. The brand was given a make over and the new owners was trying to revive the brand. Cuticura was a leading brand of talcum powders in India in the 80's. Indian talcum powder market is estimated to be around Rs 600 crore. In the late 80's the brand faced competition from HLL and Cuticura was not able to sustain in the market.One major factors was that the Muller underestimated competition. The brand failed to change . Today the talcum poweder market is dominated by HLL's Ponds with 65% share.

Cuticura's stronghold is the southern market where it claims to have a share of 30%. The brand still holds equity in this market. So for Cholayil who markets Medimix, this brand gives a platform to get into personal care business.

Cuticura is known for its fragrance. The classic brand also famous for its orange and white packing which still has a huge recall. Cuticura while retaining its classic product launched a lavender variant in 2003. Reports suggest that the variant failed to make any ripples in the market. But these efforts helped the brand to post a decent turnover thanks to the brand equity. Now this brand is worth Rs 10 crore.

Although the Cholayil group has taken serious steps in reviving the brand, the campaign lacked the punch needed to propel the brand to new heights. The brand still retains the classic positioning based on fragrance. The new tagline talks about the brand leaving you speechless . Although creative idea is OK, the execution is horrible. The hyperbole fails to catch the imagination of new generation.

The biggest challenge that the brand face is that its core users have become old. The customers who liked and used this brand have now become old and the new generation does not know this brand. Hence the brand has to be relevant to the new generation competing with the power brands like Ponds.

2006 saw the brand extending to deodorants. The extension was branded as Cuticura DeO2.The main USP of DeO2 is its ingredient Farnesol. The brand has the tagline " Let your underarms breathe". Although a not thrilling tagline, to some this make sense because this product will help you smell good without inhibiting perspiration which is an important function of the body. Most of the deos inhibits perspiration to control the bad smell.

Unlike the talc ad, the DeO2 campaign is carefully executed to appeal to the newgen. Cuticura DeO2 will be pitted against Rexona, Fa, etc in this segment.

The brand has a potential to be a serious player in the personal care segment. The brand has to exploit its brand equity and strive to be relevant to the new generation who may have forgotten this brand

source: historypages.net, magindia.com, agencyfaqs, cholayil