Kelvinator : RIP 1963 - ?

Brand : Kelvinator
Company : Electrolux

Brand Count : 246

Kelvinator which ruled Indian refrigerator industry is no more. The brand did not die on its own. This heritage brand was killed by sheer negligence and marketing myopia. Any marketer with common sense would not have done this to a brand like Kelvinator.
Kelvinator came to India in 1963. The brand along with Godrej, Allwyn has ruled the market for decades. A global brand, Kelvinator has its origin dated back to 1914.The brand changed hands so many times and came to the fold of Electrolux in 1985.

In India, the brand's disaster started in 1996 when Whirlpool acquired this brand globally. Whirlpool wanted to sacrifice Kelvinator for its own brand The entire episode of the change of ownership of this brand will make any Hindi serial sops look like a kid's story. According to Business World, When Electrolux bought the company White Consolidated which owned the brand globally, In India during 1996 Kelvinator's Indian licensee sold the license to market Kelvinator to Whirlpool. So Electrolux became a contract manufacturer of its own brand which was being marketed by its competitor. Whirlpool had the license to market Kelvinator brand in India till 1997. Because of this Electrolux entered Indian market with its own parent brand. The fate of Electrolux in India was also not good since it ran into huge loses.

You can see that Kelvinator brand lost its place because it fell into a cobweb of ownership issues. Whirlpool did not invest in Kelvinator since it had the rights to the brand only till 1997. So why invest in some other's baby. So during these years, Whirlpool harvested Kelvinator while developing its own brand. When the brand came back to its original owner, Electrolux did not had the money to build this baby.In 2005, Kelvinator was killed. When the brand was taken off, it had a market share of over 14 %.
A look at the brand assets of Kelvinator will make every marketer drool. An International pedigree and a whopping market share together with two great brand elements :
Mascot : Penguin
Tagline : Its the coolest one.
During its peak years, the brand was heavily built. During 2000 , the Australian circket team endorsed Kelvinator and Adam Gilchrist was the main character in the TVC ran during that time.Kelvinator's main positioning was based on its cooling power. The tagline aptly captures the USP of the brand. Kelvinator's compressors was one of the best available globally. Besides that , the brand was considered to be a tough and reliable one.

One of the best and most apt tagline for any refrigerator brand " Coolest one" , this tagline is still in the mind of many Indian consumers. The brand equity was so powerful that even without much promotion , the brand had two digit market share during early 2000.
I would blame the death of this brand on its owners Electrolux. In 2005, when Electrolux decided to go for the parent brand, Kelvinator still had a life left. It could have been a wonderful entry level brand for Electrolux. A brand with so much heritage could have easily created volumes for this company. But alas.... According to reports,Electrolux is set to come back to Indian market in a new avatar.

Kelvinator will soon fade away from the memories along with it one of the coolest brands.
Source: businessline, businessworld, economictimes

Brand Update : Parryware

Parryware has now embarked upon a new campaign focusing on its range of bathroom fittings and accessories. Feeling the heat from the competitors and also unbranded products, the brand has renewed its marketing thrust.

But the new campaign is a sad story all together. In my earlier post on Parryware, I had mentioned that Parryware has redefined the Bathroom fittings by innovating the concept of Glamourooms. The brand achieved super brand status through this smart positioning. But during 2003, the brand made a big mistake in changing its core positioning to " Add glamour to your life" and then changed the tagline again to " Surrender to the temptation " and crap like that.

The new campaign is shocking. The brand now adopts the tagline " What a bathroom!". Its a pity that the brand has come to a full circle. It has reached the stage where it has started its successful journey. From "Glamourooms " , the brand crashlanded to "Bathroom".Glamourooms differentiated Parryware when everyone was talking about bathroom fittings and now also things are not so different. The fact is that man companies are talking about glamorooms and now Parryware has started talking about Bathrooms. What a paradox.I don't see a logic and cannot understand why those creative hotshots at JWT could ever letgo of a highly successful positioning and land the brand back to square one !
Ofcourse I know that the answer will be " the old positioning has lost its charm". But I feel that its the job of the creatives to find ways to refresh these ideas not kill them for the heck of change. The brand now is in a state where it has lost is DNA. The ads may be good but the strategy is horrible. The brand has undone the entire equity built over its past years ( Glamouroom era).

Do You see any logic?

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Parryware

Book Review : Services Marketing by Rajendra Nargundkar

Book review originally published in SCMS Journal of Indian Management April-June 2007

Title : Services Marketing:Text and Cases

Author : Mr.Rajendra Nargundkar

Edition : Second Edition

Pages : 481

Publisher : Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Limited, New Delhi.

Services Marketing has evolved to become a major stream of study across b-schools in India thanks to the boom in the sector. With analysts expecting further growth in the Banking, financial and Insurance sectors in the coming decades, the importance of this stream of study has become more visible.

In that perspective, Mr Nargundkar’s book on Services Marketing is indeed a valuable addition to the existing literature. Although there are may books dealing with Services Marketing, Mr Nargundkar’s book is refreshing and stimulating.

Services Marketing: Concepts and Cases follow the traditional 7 P as its foundation. The chapeters 2-8 focuses on explaining the 7 P’s: Product, Place, Promotion, Price, Physical Evidence,Process and People. Nargundkar follows a lucid style in presenting the concepts, which makes reading this book easy for management students. Mr. Nargundkar has followed the same style of his earlier book on Marketing Research, which is a preferred book of management students on that subject.

Services Marketing also touch upon the concepts like Strategy, CRM and its application and also some insights into retailing in the service angle. Besides the chapters on concepts, the book also offers mini cases and Perspectives, which give insights in to the application of these concepts in the practical world. The book is full of such boxed items and illustrations that too Indian examples which makes this book more attractive to the Indian audience. The chapter on Promotion has several print ads of Indian service firms, which speaks volumes about the importance of advertising campaigns in service industry. The book also has 30 cases, which offers a valuable pedagogical tool for faculty and students. The cases are a mix of conceptual and quantitative data and the author has been able to strike a balance between both types.

Although the book is refreshingly Indian, the book is only an adaptation of existing services marketing concept in the Indian context. The book is purely conceived and developed as a textbook for management students and it fulfills that promise. For a scholar on services marketing, this book may pass on as another basic textbook since the author has not tried to develop or propose any original model or concept. The book also does not provide links to any additional reading in terms of references.

Services Marketing: Text and Cases is a good basic academic textbook that is easy to read for students and pedagogically useful for academicians.

SAS Paper Leaf : Innovation

Brand : SAS Paper Leaf
Company: S A Saifulla & Company


Brand Count : 245

SAS is an offbeat brand and is a classic example of innovation. The brand claims to be the first in coming out with Paper Banana Leaf. The brand is owned by SAS Company based in Pudukottai in TamilNadu.

Now for non South Indian Readers, Banana Leaves is.. no was an integral part of one's lunch. With the changed lifestyle, the use of Banana Leaf is now restricted to Marriage Feasts and also during festivals like Onam ,Vishu, Ponkal etc. Banana Leaf is also used in restaurants to serve traditional south Indian meals.
This tradition has taken some serious threats due to the change in the lifestyle and also because of the rapid urbanisation that we see now. The banana leaves are becoming scarce in cities and towns. In the earlier days, every house had Plantain cultivation and getting banana leaves was not an issue. But now in cities where flats and congested living has become a norm, who has the time and space to maintain such plants? Now frantic search for Plantain leaves is common during festive seasons and one has to pay even Rs 2 for a leaf ( which was available free in olden days) which is a stark reality of today.

Catching this need , SAS company has comeout with artificial paper banana leaf which solves the problem of the urban masses. This is an innovative blend of tradition with modernity. Although eating a feast or a sadhya in a artificial leaf will not give the thrill of the original, one should appreciate the logic and smartness behind this innovation.
The brand aims at the following target customers and usage situations:
1. Restaurants who serve traditional sadhya .
2. Hotels who supply parcel meals.
3. Caterers
4. Unexpected guests, functions ( households)
5. Export markets where south indians are more eg. middle east
6. Lunch packs during picnics outings etc.

The Brand faces competition from local unbranded players. But the website of SAS claims the following differentiators: Hygienic, sterilized, withstand high temperature hence ideal for packing,. The brand also claims that it cannot be torn and uniform in size. More than that it is available in all departmental stores and supermarkets. The brand is priced Rs 12 for a pack of dozen. Hence the brand takes advantage of the convenience and ease as its main selling point. The brand also advertises heavily on Television .

I feel that the brand will fare well in the institutional sales at hotels and restaurants. At the consumer end, since the usage of Leaves are limited to specific occasions , one cannot expect steady sales at this front. For that the brand may have to spent lot of money tackling the seasonal issue for this traditional product.One way is to prompt the customers to stock atleast one pack of this product for emergency situations. A campaign in this regard can drive some sales for the short term. Once the customers are comfortable with this product, SAS can be assured of some steady sales at the customer end.
Whether the brand will thrive or not, SAS Paper leaf is a classic innovative marketing story.

Source : saspaperleaf.com
imagesource : healthynspicy.blogspot.com

Real Twist : Come ,Let Us Twist

Brand : Real Twist
Company : Dabur
Agency : Lowe

Brand Count : 244

Dabur has come out with a new brand Real Twist in the highly lucrative Indian Fruit Drinks market. The above statement is wrong... because Real Twist is not a new brand but a Product Line extension and the brand is not new because it was launched way back in 2005. But since the brand is now having an entirely new marketing mix, I thought I would call it a new brand.

Dabur's Real brand of fruit juices are market leaders in the Rs 350 crore Fruit Juices + Nectar market. The brand has a whopping 85% share. But this market is small compared to the Rs 1200 crore Fruit Drinks market which is dominated by Frooti and Maaza.More over this market is growing at an impressive 25%. Interestingly majority of customers doesn't fully understand the difference between fruit juices , nectar and fruit drink. The deciding factors behind their purchase decision is Product quality , Price and Promotion.Dabur which aspires a high growth in FMCG and foods business cannot ignore this mass market.

Dabur's Real brand which has a variant named Real Activ is positioned on the Health platform. Recently Real is running a campaign " Tastes Like a Real Fruit". Although Twist is now launched as a product line extension, on a closer look the Real brand is just endorsing the new brand. I feel that over time Twist will have its own identity. When it was launched initially in 2005, it was a real product line extension. But now it seems to be a real product launch rather than a relaunch.

Twist is a fruit drink which is positioned as a fun brand. The target group is obviously young people which forms a larger part of the consumer population in this category. Currently Twist is promoted heavily in Television. Twist is really a Mango drink with an addition of other fruits. There are initially two variants with Mango remaining the base in both the variants.

Watch the ad here : Real Twist

The brand uses the tagline :" AAo Twist Kare" translated to "Come Let us Twist" . The ads are well made and creates some amount of fun and energy for the brand. Essentially the brand is trying to promote itself as a highly young and vibrant brand.According to reports, along with the promotion , the brand's strong point is the price. Twist is now retailing at Rs 10 for 200 ml and Rs 25 for 600 ml and Rs45 for 1200 ml. The attractive price with some good promotion can give Frooti some serious touch of competition. For the customers the endorsement from Real will give them some confidence about the health factor in this drink. And since Twist is not going to depend on Real for its existence, there is no issue of the dilution of Real's equity as a healthy Fruit Juice.
As a lover of ads, I am impressed by the ads in the sense that it is fun and not boring. But the real test of Twist comes in the product performance.Frooti sensing the competition has already running a few campaigns. The competitors are going to up their ante and lot of ads may be on air soon.
Dabur has always surprised market watchers. This company which had the image of a chyavanprash company has changed itself to become the one of the major FMCG company in India. Twist is the byeproduct of their aggressive growth strategy. Will TWIST make a REAL difference is something to watch for.

What do you think?

Source : businessline, businessindia,agencyfaqs,ET

Brand update : Clinic All Clear

Clinic All Clear has launched India's first anti-dandruff shampoo for men. The brand is launched in two variant : Active Sport and Hairfall Decrease. According to the press release, HUL has conducted intensive research which revealed that Men's scalp is significantly different than the female scalp and hence require specialized care. Also men's scalp is found to have 33% more dandruff than that of females, reason being more sweat and less hair care. These insights have helped the company to launch a variant addressing this segment.
Although the company states these reasons, the real reason behind this launch is that Men's grooming market is booming. Clinic wants to retain its overall leadership position in the shampoo market and does not want to be lagging in a booming segment. Moreover, the brands like Garnier is already targeting men for their shampoo range.
It is interesting to note that Clinic is smart enough to retain and extend its core positioning of No Dandruff for this variant also. The brand is priced at Rs 130 for 200 ml and Rs 72 for 100 ml and Rs 3 for sachet. The packaging is also eye-catching and stylish. The new launch is expected to make the male grooming market more interesting and is going to see a lot of new launches.
Related Brand
Clinic All Clear