Brand Update : Sprite

Summer is setting in and beverages companies are upping their marketing ante. Sprite have heavily started their summer campaign by launching two television commercials. Last time Sprite launched a high profile ad blitz for its variant Sprite Xpress.

This time Sprite is doing the campaign for the core brand. Since its launch, Sprite has been experimenting with its tagline ala positioning. It has changed its famous original tagline of " Buchaye Only pyaas, baaki all bakwas" to
No Gyan only Sprite ,
Seedhi Bath, No bakwaas
then to the last one " Clear hai"

The brand had also experimented with celebrities by roping in Sania Mirza as the brand ambassador. All those efforts have created astounding results.

Sprite had a spectacular 2008. According to Economic Times dtd 11.2.09, Sprite has become the second largest softdrink brand in India thus trouncing Pepsi to No.3 .

Quoting the AC Neilsen study, the following are the market share figures of soft drink brands in India
Thums Up leads the pack with a share of 16.6%
Sprite is the second largest brand with a share of 15.6%
Followed by Pepsi with a share of 13%.

This should have shocked Pepsi .
Sprite has reached the top because it delivered its promise of a no-nonsense simple brand.

Sprite now is an overdrive to cash in on the new found leadership position. Currently the brand is running two TVCs.

Watch the tvc here : Sprite Killer
Sprite Wedding
True to the spirit of the brand, the ads are cool and humorous. It is also interesting to note that the brand now have a combination of all taglines it used in the recent past.
The new tagline is :
Seedhi Baath, No Bakwas, Clear Hai ?

I liked the ads because the characters are cool, plot is simple and funny and even after seeing it for more than 10 times, it is not boring.

Pepsi is also not sitting idle, it had rejuvenated the 7UP brand with some new ads. The ads focus on the lemon content. But the problem with 7UP is that Pepsi has not invested in the brand as consistently as Sprite. 7Up have not yet found the correct positioning platform and Pepsi was little confused in terms of focus with their two brands 7Up and Mountain Dew.

Sprite has reached the top because of consistent investment in brand building. Although it had aberrations, the brand was also consistent in its positioning platform.

Kudos for the marketing team.

Related Brand
Sprite

Book Review : Tribes

Book : Tribes
Author : Seth Godin
Publisher : Hachette India

Price : Rs 375


Book Review #7

Tribes is one of the best books I have read in recent times. This book from the marketing guru Seth Godin is inspiring and insightful. It is a book with contains simple truths of leadership in the current era.

Tribes, as the term denotes, is a book on leadership. In the first page itself, the author cites the example of an ordinary person like Joel Spolsky who created a tribe of its own through the careful use of blogs , books and conferences.

Seth Godin defines Tribes as a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, connected to an idea. He argues that in this era , any one can create and lead a tribe. The penetration and popularity of internet has opened a unique opportunity for anyone to create and lead .

The book is also refreshingly different. The book does not have chapters. It is a collection of insights and anecdotes that will stir you to think about this opportunity.
According to Seth, the concept of leadership has changed . While the traditional leadership concept is built around power, the new age leadership is built around idea and passion and ability to tell stories that inspire. The election of Obama as the President of United States is the classic case that shows the power of ideas and passion.

Seth also wisely identifies the powerful inhibition that pulls back ordinary people like me and you from becoming leaders. It is FEAR. He paraphrases Peter's Principle as " In every organization, everyone rises to the level at which they become paralyzed by fear.. How True...

Internet has made boundaries irrelevant. If you are connected, then world will become your playground . With social networks like Youtube , Facebook , Twitter etc, it has become easy for us to spread our thoughts and become a leader.

But creating and leading a tribe is not an easy task. The leader should be able to clearly and passionately advocate his ideas . The leader should be able to devote his time in nurturing and monitoring the Tribe.
Towards the end of the book , the author tells that building and leading a tribe is more of an obligation rather than an opportunity. He says " To have all these advantages , all this momentum, all these opportunities and then settle for mediocre and then defend the status quo and then worry about corporate politics - What a waste"
He then says
' I think we have an obligation to change the rules, to raise the bar, to play a different game , and to play it better than anyone has any right to believe is possible".

Tribes is a must read for all of us . It is simple and tells you the obvious. But often ,most of us fail to see the obvious. That is the tragedy.

Secret Temptations : Sorry Boys

Brand : Secret Temptations
Company : McNroe Chemicals
( Marketed by Future Brands)

Agency : Euro Rscg


Brand Analysis Count : 379

After spreading a fire of controversy with the brand Wild Stone, McNroe Chemicals is back with another deodorant brand named " Secret Temptations". The new brand of deo which is targeting the girls is already making noise in the visual media.

Secret Temptations is marketed by Future Brands which is the brand- consultancy division of the Future Group. By associating with India's largest retail company, the brand has already have ensured presence across India. With the backing of this large retail giant, the only thing that Secret Temptations have to concentrate is to build the brand.

According to Exchange4Media website, Secret Temptations is a popular brand in Eastern India. It was in 2009 that the brand have made a national launch.

The launch of a deo targeting the female segment makes sense because there is a potential for a deo brand in this segment. Rexona ,Cuticura, Fa and Spinz are the major players in this category.And none of these players are aggressive in the market interms of brand building and promotions. Rexona is banking on its past glory and other players are silent in the market.

The market is flood with imported brands and I feel that the threat of Indian brands are from these imports rather than the domestic competition.

Secret Temptations is targeting the teens and youngsters. Although the name Secret Temptations can give the brand a sexy connotation, the company has deliberately decided to go decent about this brand compared to the controversies created by WildStone brand.

The launch campaign of Secret Temptations is a good one ,clearly communicating the brand's promise.

Watch the campaign here : Secret Temptations

The idea of guys being " floored" by the fragrance and the girl playing hide & seek gives the brand a sense of 'cool'. The fact that the girl choose not to reveal the identity to the "impressed" guy also makes a point- which will be liked by the target audience. At last there is an ad which breaks the usual pattern .

The brand also has a cool tagline " Sorry Boys" which is inline with the positioning of the brand . While most of the female personal grooming brands are centred around the concept of " impressing guys" theme, it is refreshing to see a brand towing a different path - girls playing " hard to get" .

It will be interesting to see how the market leader Rexona will react to the competition. HUL has been showing some of the foreign ads for Rexona currently rather than developing India-centric campaigns.The leader is complacent and it gives an opportunity for a challenger brand like Secret Temptations to make a place of itself in the Indian market.

According to reports, Secret Temptation is not going to be a pure deo brand but a personal grooming brand for girls.

Related Brand

Wild Stone

Brand Update ; Scooty

Scooty is a brand which has more brand updates than any other brands analyzed in this blog. The simple reason is that this brand never fails to innovate.
Peter Drucker wisely said that there are only two critical tasks for an organization - Marketing and Innovation.
TVS Scooty is a brand that virtually practices this dictum.

This January ,Scooty launched another variant Scooty Streak in the Indian market. The new variant is a more stylish and trendy scooter targeting the new generation girls. The brand website boasts about a new and trendy look for this variant.
But I did not visibly see any big difference between Scooty Pep+ and the new variant.The specs and style looks almost the same.

More than the looks, the new variant is an opportunity created by the brand to build itself. And Scooty has done it with style. For this variant, it has roped in the tennis diva Sania Mirza as the brand ambassador.

The choice of Sania is also wise because she is a respected aspirational figure for today's young gals. She has the looks and the attitude that the new gen gals like.


The new variant is being positioned as Tough and Trendy scooter for the newgen girls. The scooter now has LED tail-lamps , easy to use centre stand, external fuel fill etc.
Now TVS Scooty have four variants in the Indian market
Scooty Pep+
Scooty Teenz
Scooty Teenz electric
Scooty Streak.

The natural question is whether these variants will cannibalize each other and create a confusion in the market.
Although Scooty Pep+ and Streak only have a difference in price of Rs 3000, the brand is trying to offer a complete range of scooters for the consumer through these variants.

Another factor that I like about Scooty is its focus on using internet as a medium for giving brand information. Each variant of Scooty have a website or a page of its own. And these websites are well made, updated and cool. All the information that a consumer needs about the variants are presented beautifully. It means that the company is serious about each variant and considers each variant as an independent brand.

For Scooty, these variants serve the purpose of creating excitement in the market.Young girls prefer brands which are fresh and dynamic. Hence by creating new campaigns around such variants brings in lot of freshness to the brand.
Please remember that this brand was born in 1994 and the brand is much more fresh and dynamic than most of the brands launched after it.

Related Brand

TVS Scooty

Dyanora : RIP( 1975 -1995)

Brand : Dyanora
Company : Dynavision

Brand Analysis Count : 378

Dyanora is a brand which evokes lot of nostalgia in me. Dyanora was our first television. I still remember the thrill of watching programs in Dyanora. Thrilled because I no longer needed to plead with my mother to allow me to go and watch TV in our neighbour's house.

Dyanora brand was launched in 1975. The brand belonged to a company known as Dynavision which was JV between Tamilnadu Industrial Development Corporation and the entrepreneur Mr Obul Reddy .

During those periods, there was severe restriction in the manufacturing and selling of TVs because of licence raj. Those companies who got license minted money because of lack of competition.
Dyanora also benefitted out of such limited competition. Dyanora started selling B/W television and in 1982 it launched the Color Television.

The TV marketers started selling real volumes during 1980's when the government started increasing the transmisson towers across the country.
The company was also going to face threat arisng out of the Government's liberal economic policy during the 1980's where the licences for manufacturing TV was given liberally. With the liberal license policy, many small and medium companies started their manufacturing and marketing of television sets.

From a period where Dyanora faced competition from Solidaire and nobody else, things started moving towards a highly competitive scenario.

Dyanora faced competion from large multinational and national players and also from local regional players. It could not sustain itself in that competitive world. The demand also began to go down which inturn affected the profitability.

Dyanora was a highly popular brand. The company also invested in brand building. The brand had the tagline " keep in touch".

Watch the commercial here : Dyanora

The jingle were very popular at that time so was the visuals. I especially liked the dog with spectacle visual.
The lyrics went on like this :

Are you in touch with whats going on
Are you in touch with the latest around
Get in touch with Dyanora
Get the best point of view
and the Sound thats true
stay in touch with the times
keep in touch with the new
Get the latest Dyanora
Keep in Touch.......

The ad was well made and was very popular during that time.

But the brand did not survive. The company also was confused about the future of the brand. Faced with competition from large companies, Dynavision also tried to prefer building a foriegn brand over the home grown Dyanora.

In 1995, the company entered into a JV with French multinational Thomson International to sell their brand in India. With the focus on Thomson , Dyanora was relegated to the backyard. Consumers also preferred national and international brands which resulted in a significant erosion of Dyanora's market.

Finally the company went into BIFR fold in 1999 and later into eternity.

Dyanora was thus a part of history.

Consumer Insight : Please Play it Straight

Today, I got an email from an Indian e-retailer announcing a 50% value-back offer on purchase of any product from their website in the month of February. Greedy as Iam, I decided to check out the website which is owned by a premier media company.

As usual, all these offers comes with the ubiquitous term " Conditions Apply". Of course the company is definitely offering a 50% value back offer but as a consumer, it pays to know a little math.

Here is how the offer works.

When you buy a product from the website, the value-back offer is not given to the customer in cash but by Gift Certificates. The gift certificates are of value Rs 500, Rs 200 and Rs 100.

Ok so far so good.

Here comes the catch..

These gift certificates carry a minimum order value....

That means , a customer has to purchase ( again) a product of a minimum order value inorder to redeem this certificate.

For redeeming Rs 500 gift certificate, you have to make an additional purchase of Rs 2500.
For Rs 200, the additional purchase requirement is Rs 1000 etc.
And these certificates are valid only till March.

Further , you cannot club two gift certificates together.

If I purchase a product worth Rs 10,000,I would have got coupons worth Rs 5000. But if I wanted to redeem those coupons, I must purchase products worth Rs 25000 in the next month.

Frankly speaking, these sales promotions may do more harm to the marketer because there will be customers who may fall into this trap and then repent having given into the greed.Those customers may never come back to the website for purchase.

Is it beneficial to the company ?

In one way, such " Big " offers will prompt many consumers to visit the website. So the site benefits from the traffic generated by such offers. There are also chances that these consumers get attracted by either the price or merchandise and thus becoming a regular user.

In my personal opinion, these offers is akin to exploiting the greed of consumer. It pays more to be playing straight to the consumer. Give a straight discount or a plain cash-back offer rather than offers which puts the consumer into a trap . Make him feel happy about a bargain purchase.If he gets a bargain, he will come back for sure when ever he has money.

In this period, where consumers are wary about making big ticket purchases , these offers lure them into parting with their valuable cash. But if they feel that they got a raw-deal, the consequences will be terrible for the marketer's long term brand equity.

The primary aim of a marketer is to create a customer NOT making a sale.