Brand Update : India Post

Its more than two years since I posted the critical analysis of India Post. I had criticized about the wastage of immense potential of a service which had unmatched distribution reach across the length and breadth of India.

In 2008, Indian Government had decided to restructure the entire postal department. The restructuring exercise is called Project Arrow. The project aims to make India Post a logistics giant by leveraging the core strengths of the institution. The restructuring is being done in consultation with Mckinsey.

As a part of the restructuring exercise, the institution has redefined its business. According to Professor Theodore Levitt, Every business should ask this fundamental question : What Business are You In ? The answer to this question can throw up lot of opportunities for growth. Narrowly defining the business can create Marketing Myopia which may wipe out the business in the long run.

From just a postal institution , the department has reframed its business to be in the logistics service rather than just a postal service. The move is a significant step in broadening the scope of services that could be handled by this giant.

It is important to reinvent the business definition since the postal service is facing competition which could make its business irrelevant. The e-mail and the rise of affordable private courier services has taken away a significant chunk of profitable business of this institution. Since it is a government department, India Post could'nt change fast to accommodate the changing environment.

In line with the restructuring exercise, the department has also rebranded India Post by launching a new logo. The rebranding was done by O&M.

The new logo retains the signature red color but has made significant changes to the logo. The new logo sports a yellow color which signifies happiness , hope and joy. Red stands for passion. The wings from the old logo has been retained with some modification. The new look brand take Passion, Power and Commitment as the core brand values.

According to the press reports, 50 post offices will be refurbished to make it a new-look hi-fi post offices in the first phase of Project Arrow. The number will be scaled up to 500 post offices in the near future. The new post-offices will be technologically enabled to provide faster service to the customers. A lot of new products have also being created for meeting the new demands of the customer.

It gives me joy to see that the brand has slowly waking up to the new realities. I was surprised to find that India Post was losing almost Rs 1300 crore every year on its operations. This is despite the fact that India Post handles 10 crore Money orders and 17 crore savings accounts with deposits over Rs 5,40,000 crores. The deparment has 1,55,000 post offices out of which 89% is in the rural areas. India Post is the largest postal service in the world.

The government hopes that with this restructuring, India Post will be able to make profits rather than bleed the exchequer .

Related Post
India Post

Dunlop : Always Ahead ?

Corporate Brand : Dunlop

Brand Analysis Count : 353

Dunlop is a failed brand. It was a brand that pioneered automobile tyres . But the brand failed miserably for reasons not of its own making.

Dunlop is a British brand that have a rich heritage and history. The brand has its origin dating back to 1889. Infact the brand is named after John Dunlop who patented the technology for making pneumatic tyres.

The brand has a fragmented ownership across the world. Dunlop tyre is sold in Europe and US by Goodyear. Recently Apollo Tyres acquired the brand in South Africa and the Japanese company Sumitomo is selling this brand in other countries . In India, the brand is owned by the Pawan Ruia Group.

Dunlop set shop in India in 1926. This is the brand that pioneered tires in India. Even after 82 years, the brand is still living in the minds of the Indian consumers.

Dunlop had been ruling the Indian market for a while . Being a pioneer and also being a British brand had its own advantage. After our Independence, the brand continued to thrive. At one point of time, even RP Goenka was on the board of Dunlop India.

But the brand was moving into rough patch. There were strikes and lockouts which hampered the smooth operations and in 1988 Manu Chhabria's Jumbo group acquired the controlling stake in Dunlop India.

The situation in the company went from bad to worse. The company was virtually bankrupt and was referred to the BIFR ( Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction ) in 1997. Much of the company's problem was attributed to the mismanagement .

Dunlop is a heritage brand in the tyre industry . Despite being the pioneer in tyres, the company had invested in developing the Dunlop brand. The brand offered excellent quality tyres and even in a category which belongs to slow-moving consumer goods ( SMCG), Dunlop made customers ask for this specific brand.

The brand started as a cycle tyre then became the generic brand for all tyres be it for commercial or passenger vehicles.
Dunlop was heavily promoted in the media. The brand had the memorable tagline " Dunlop is Dunlop, Always Ahead ".

Another interesting fact about the brand is that , although Dunlop is known for its tyres, the term ' Softness ' comes to my mind when I hear Dunlop . The reason is that the brand is famous for its pillows. The company diversified into manufacturing pillows which was branded as Dunlopillow. The pillow was famous for its softness and still Dunlop brand is associated with softness .

This brand went into trouble not because of marketing problems but for mismanagement of company operations. After a long while, almost ten years since referred to BIFR, the brand found its saviour in a maverick entrepreneur Mr Pawan Ruia who heads the Ruia Group.

Pawan Ruia took over this brand along with another tyre brand Falcon Tyres in 2005. Within a short span of three years, he has managed to turn the company around. According to reports, the company is set to make a notional profit in 2008.

But things are different now. Indian tyre market is crowded with Who is Who. All the major international brands are here fighting it out with Indian brands like MRF, JK and Apollo. The dynamics of the market also has changed.

Dunlop still has its brand equity intact in the consumer's mind. Although the consumers remember this brand, its not enough to make them opt for this brand in the new avataar. That may be the reason why the brand is now concentrating on OEM and other industrial markets.

Dunlop is a sad story of a heritage brand biting the dust. But the silver lining is that the brand is trying to make a comeback.

Best Marketing Practice : Guerrilla Marketing

It has been a long time since I saw a guerrilla marketing action in Indian market. Now I had a chance to witness one.

Guerrilla marketing is a term coined by Conrad Levinson through is best selling book titled Guerrilla Marketing. The term is used to denote the unconventional marketing tactics adopted by firms to outwit the competition. These tactics are generally used by smaller firms using limited budgets against their competitors. The term is derived from the military tactics of guerrilla warfare which uses stealth and unconventional tactics to defeat or unsettle the enemy.

As the term implies, these are tactics ( short term ) and should not be confused with long term strategies.

But guerrilla marketing is practiced by many large firms also. There was lot of instances of Guerrilla marketing or ambush marketing fights between Nike and Adidas, Pepsi and Coke , American Express and Visa in the past.

The context of this post is the fight between two large firms Reliance 's BigTV and Airtel DTH.

DTH stands for Direct- to Home service where the reception of satellite television programmes is made through a personal Digital Dish antenna .Currently the major players in India are Tata Sky, Dish TV, Sun Direct Doordarshan, and now the recent entrant -Reliance's Bigtv.


In the recent past, I was noticing a teaser campaign featuring some funny animals/characters and a red large chair with the line " See you at home ".

Watch the TVC here : See you at home

Later through the press reports, I came to know that this was the teaser campaign for the DTH launch of Airtel.

Then came the BIG surprise.

Now there is another set of commercials featuring the same red chair but with the message " See you at home with digital picture and sound " from Reliance's BigTV.

The ads of Big TV uses the same elements of Airtel's campaign like the color schemes , lines, chair etc. Thus those who have been seeing the tv ads only will think that the teaser campaign was for BigTV rather than Airtel.

Through this move, BigTV virtually took the steam out of Airtel's teasers. Infact it is the teaser who got teased.

Iam not a big fan of teaser campaigns. The fundamental flaw about teasers is that they are terribly expensive . And the success rates of teaser campaigns and the subsequent follow-ups has been negative in the Indian market.
Another drawback for such campaigns is that you are giving lot of time for the competitors to prepare an assault on your launch . The above example is a classic case of the competitor hijacking your teaser campaign .

Some times the teaser campaign build lot of expectation in the market but the follow up campaigns let down on those expectations . The case of Digen Verma is an example of such a teaser failure.

Now what will Airtel do about the teaser campaign. I have noticed the Airtel logo being pasted in the teaser campaigns now. But the entire air -time investment on this teaser campaign has got wasted.
Having said that , teaser campaigns can also be a successful strategy if you
a. Have an entirely new product
b. No competitors
c. Lot of money to waste.

So kudos to Reliance BigTV and the advertising team at Mudra.

Picture source ; Afaqs
Read related report on afaqs here

Marketing during Recession

The global economy has already moved into recession. Reading business dailies has become akin to watching horror movies. Predictions about job losses and credit crunch makes one nervous about the near future.

Lot of bloodshed happening in United States, the reverberations of problems in the World's largest economy is bound to hurt many countries including India. Much of the problems are happening in the financial sectors but analysts are predicting that consumer markets are going to face the music in the near future.

The next three quarters are going to give marketers sleepless nights. For the past one decade, Indian marketers were facing a vibrant consumer markets which was heavily supported by an aggressive credit market. Banks were luring consumers with loans and prompting them to buy as if the world ends with in one year.

The euphoria is slowly dying down and the credit crunch is going to take a toll on the consumer market also. Housing markets are already facing the heat.

So what should a marketer do in times of recession.

Time to introspect :
Recession is a good period for marketers to take an objective look at their brand portfolio. When there is euphoria, value takes a backseat and consumers indulge. When the time goes tough, consumers tighten their purse strings and value comes to the driving seat.
This is the time to see which brand in your portfolio offers more value to the consumer. If your sales are going down like hell , its the time to re-engineer the brand's value proposition.
Invest in brands
Usually the initial reaction by marketers in respond to recession is to cut marketing cost. On the contrary its time to invest in brands. You will be heard when all others are shutting their marketing mouths . Bargain with the media for the rates and invest in building your brand.

Seth Godin says its an opportunity of a lifetime

Be a paranoid
India is not yet in a recession but this is the time marketers should be paranoid about recession. Only those brands will survive who is prepared for a recession even during the sunny days. So meet your brand managers and ask them what to do when India moves into recession. Have plan B, C D and E ready.
If India does not move into recession, thats a great news. If it does, then your brand will be ready.

Cut Costs
Even if you are selling a premium brand, cut costs like hell. Cut costs and not investments. Invest in your brand, put lot of advertisements but cut cost in media, raw materials etc. Strive to lower your brand's break-even points to new lows.

Partner your stakeholders
You may not be able to survive recession on your own. So partner your stakeholders be it your lenders or customers or employees or your channel partners. Create an ecosystem of trust and kinship and face the downturn together. It will be worth it.

Trade Up or down
Super Luxury brands are often less affected by the downturn. Those who can afford a Merc is not going to buy a Maruti 800. Its those brands aiming at the middleclass who are going to be hit by the downward slide.
So if your brand is somewhere in between super luxury and low-priced, its time to get into the drawing board. Remember Walmart makes more money during the recession than during good-times.

Listen to your customers
Your customers will tell you how to beat recession. Only thing is that you have to ask them. Atleast understand them . So when customers starts tightening their purse, you can do that too. Also they will tell you how much they can pay you. Listen to that and do it.


I agree that its more risky to invest in new products during recession times, if you cannot ,then cut your cost. If your company is the lowest cost producer then you have a better chance of survival.

Kalikkudukka : Catching them Young

Brand : Kalikkudukka
Company : Malayala Manorama


Brand Analysis Count : 352

Kalikkudukka is one of my favorite brands - as a marketer and as a customer. Kalikkudukka is a Malayalam publication for nursery and primary school children. Kalikkudukka is from the Malayala Manorama Group which is one of the largest publishing house in the state of Kerala . The group publishes the largest circulated regional language newspaper in India which is Malayala Manorama.

The group publishes some of the popular publications in the state and also the national news-weekly brand - The Week.

Kalikkudukka is India's largest selling pre-school publication in India. The brand has a circulation of over 1,15,945 copies ( ABC Jan-June 08).

From a parent's point of view , Kalikkudukka is the best product that a pre-schooler can have. The magazine is full of pictures and stories that can keep a child engaged for hours. Till this September, the brand was a publication aimed at pre-schoolers but the brand repositioned itself last month targetting primary school students.

The new Kalikkudukka is following he format approved by Society for Early Learning ( source : company news ) and includes a new section prepared in line with the nursery school syllabus.
The repositioning of this brand is in line with the customer needs. Keralites are too concerned about the education of the kids and I should say that we are too bothered about kid's exam and syllabus. The brand knows this psychology and has changed to suit the customer's needs.


My child is only four year old and she is eager to get this magazine. Parents also get a chance to spent quality time with the kids reading and drawing together . There are songs, stories, quiz, coloring sections, cartoons, action songs, riddles etc. Every section carries pointers to parents and teachers regarding the utility of these items.

What I like most about this publication is the care that the editors has put on the continuity of the content. For example, if the cover of the issue feature an animal lion, then there will be a story about lion, pictures of lion, a song about a lion, coloring picture of lion etc in that issue. This makes sure that the kid is reinforced again and again and he/she is able to identify this animal after reading that issue.

The most challenging issue for any publication marketer is the content. For a pre-school magazine, the challenge is more . But this brand has the backing of a major publishing group and the brand has been able to maintain the standard of the publication.

In a marketing perspective, the brand fills in an important need for a customer. There was a strong need for a pre-school publication for kids during the time this brand was launched.

Although there was lot of coloring and story books for kids, there was no regular weekly type of publication targeting this segment.
Malayala Manorama always had a strategy of looking at filling the publication needs of an individuals' life-stages. The segmentation strategy of this group was life-stage segmentation . Now the group has a publication for every life-stage of a typical Malayalee.

When the publication was launched in 1994, it was instantly well accepted by the parents. The brand also did lot of below-the-line marketing like road shows in schools, sampling and also made teachers recommend this publication to the parents.

More than these marketing efforts, it was the quality of this magazine which propelled it to become highly successful.
Taking inspiration from the success of this magazine, the group launched the English version branded as " Magic Pot " . Magic Pot is a fortnightly and is aimed at the national market. The brand already have crossed the 1 Lakh circulation figures since its launch in 2000.

Kalikkudukka is retailing at Rs 9 per issue and Magic Pot at Rs 12 per issue. These brands are also a stepping stone for kids towards other publications from the group. Typically the kids move from Kalikkudukka to Balarama- another publication from Malayala Manorama targeting older kids ( primary schoolers ).

According to Business Today the pre-school market is estimated to be around $ 985 mn and will be around $ 3426 Mn by 2012. After food, Indians spend maximum for education constituting around 9 % of the total household expenses. It is this willingness of the parents to spent that is driving the success of brands like Kalikkudukka.


The success of any brand lies in loyalty of its core customers. My little child have never seen the ad of Kalikkudukka. But she identifies this brand and demands that she gets this publication every week. To make a 4 year old brand loyal is not a child's play.

Your views on this brand is important and will add lot of value to the readers. Please share your valuable thoughts on this brand as comments.

Snickers : For the 4'O'Clock Hunger

Brand : Snickers
Company : Mars INC

Brand Analysis Count : 351

To the joy of all chocolate lovers, the world's largest selling chocolate Snickers is now officially in India. The brand has been selling like hot cakes in India as an imported chocolate. Now Mars INC has formally launched the brand in India.

Snickers is owned by Mars Inc which is a $21 Billion company headquartered in US. The company belong to Mars Family which has a rich heritage dating back to 1911. Snickers is the largest selling chocolate in the world with a sales of over $ 2 Billion. Mars Inc is famous for its famous Mars chocolate which have a huge fan following across the world. It also markets the brands like M&M and Bounty.

Snickers has been a favorite of Indian chocolate lovers who devoured this chocolate bought either from the duty paid shops or brought in by the NRIs. But over the last two years , the brand has been available in most bakery's across the country . A report in Business Standard ( June 08) suggest that the imported Snickers and Mars outsold Cadbury's and local brands.

Snickers was born in 1930. The brand acquired the name from one of the favorite horses owned by Mars family

Snickers has been soft launched in India. There are no media reports or Press releases announcing the launch of this brand. I am not sure whether Mars Inc has started producing this chocolate from Indian factories or its still imported.

Snickers is a heavy chocolate with peanut, milk chocolate and caramel. Globally it is positioned as a snack rather than a chocolate . In India too, Snickers has been positioned as a snack.
What is interesting about Snickers launch in India is that the brand chose to localise the brand communication . The first TVC of this brand is made for India and made in India.

Watch the TVC here : Snickers India

Usually MNC brands try to import their global communications to India to create that global image. How ever Snickers chose to be Indian from the very beginning.

Snickers is positioned as a snack food. More specifically , the brand is being positioned as a snack food to fight the Four' O ' Clock hunger. The brand has the Hindi Tagline " Hunger Baja Char . Snicker Khol Yaar " , translated to " When 4'o'clock hunger strikes, open Snickers bar".

The positioning of Snickers is not very different from its competitors. Remember that CadburyPerk had the same positioning as a snack. However Snickers have a strong fan following in India even before its official launch.

For many years chocolate marketers have been struggling to teach Indians to take chocolates when you feel hungry. But so far they are not able to break into the mindset of Indian consumers. Indians don't consume chocolates when hungry. Chocolates are mostly taken after you take some food or they take it when they want some thing sweet . Why because Indian consumers don't consider chocolate as a food. So Snickers will be fighting the age old perception and will have a tough time teaching Indian consumers new lesson.

Snickers will have a tough time in India. Most of the chocolate manufacturers are faced with stagnant sales . To sustain the initial momentum is not going to be easy. Globally the brand has been trying hard to prove that Chocolates are good for health. It had undertaken many studies which prove that chocolates can be good for health. These studies are also very controversial and sparked many debates about its validity.

Snickers has the advantage of a strong cash rich parent and a strong brand equity. It will be interesting to see how this global brand breaks into Indian market.