Scoobee Day : My Friend

Brand : Scoobee Day
Company : Anna Group ( Kitex Garments)


Brand Analysis Count : 400

I am celebrating the 400 th brand analyzed in Marketing Practice with a Kerala brand.

Scoobee Day is a pioneer in the branding of school bags in Kerala. The brand is from the Anna Group which is a major player in the textile and Aluminum products in the state.

School bag market is essentially dominated by the unorganized sector. Except for a few national brands like Duckback and Bata, most of the players are local manufacturers.

During the early 2000, Anna group launched the brand Scoobee Day in the school bag segment.
Scoobee Day quickly captured the attention of the kids. One of the reason for the quick attention and recall of the brand was the brand's phonetic resemblance to the popular comic character Scooby Doo. During the launch of Scoobee Day, Scooby Doo cartoons were a huge hit among kids .

Scoobee Doo became a quick success through a very careful brand building process. The brand knew the pulse of the target market and the strategies were bang on target.

Scoobee Doo was primarily targeting the young school children in the KG and Pre primary segment. This brand was built on the art of story telling.

School bags are seasonal products . The consumers buy these products during May-June period. Mostly the parents let their kids choose the product since a new bag is definitely a motivation for kids to go to school.

Scoobee Day adopted the strategy of hooking the kids. The brand name itself was a hit and there was something more. The brand told a story. The hero of the story is the brand mascot - a Bee named Scoobee.

Scoobee Day is positioned as a kid's best friend. The brand all through its journey had told stories of how Scoobee Day helped the kids in distress , fighting those monsters who tried to attack the kids.

Watch an ad here : Scoobee day old ad

Watch the latest ad here : Scoobee Day 2009 ad

The brand also had the tagline " Scoobee Day en Changathi " ( in Malayalam) translated to Scoobee Day , My Friend.

The brand told consistent stories which involved kids being chased by dragons and monsters and how Scoobee rescues the kids and tames the demons.

The jingle containing the tagline and the catchy stories of Scoobee helping the kids, made a very strong impression in the mind of the kids. Even my four year old child recites the jingle and is very familiar with the brand.

The brand also ensured that it provided excellent value for money for the consumers. The bags are of very good quality and is very durable. So parents are not complaining for the premium paid for the brand.

To counter the price competition from the local players and cheap chinese imports, Scoobee Day is flooding the market with freebies along with the bag. Free offers include tiffin boxes, water bottles, pencil box etc. This year, the brand is offering pencil box, tiffin box, water bottle and a Scoobee mask.

Scoobee 's success is a classic example of brands built on story telling. The brand had a compelling story and it told the stories consistently . When entering a market dominated by unorganized players, the critical factor for success lies in differentiation. Scoobee Day differentiated itself from the rest through strong brand elements backed by product quality.

Now Kerala market is flooded with branded school bags. But Scoobee had the first mover advantage. The brand had already created huge equity and brand recall among the consumers.

Brand Update : Horlicks

Yet again , another brand extension from Horlicks. Horlicks has recently launched a ready to drink flavored milk product branded Horlicks Chill Dood.

The product category is reported to be worth around Rs 250 crore. Dairy based products are now seeing more action these days owing to the shift of consumers to healthier products. Amul is the most visible in this segment with its Kool drink.

Horlicks ChillDood comes in attractive flavors like chocolate and the product is targeting kids. Animated ads are now on air to promote this product.

2009 has seen this brand undertaking aggressive extensions into un/related categories like energy bars and now dairy products.
Horlicks is one of my favorite brands. I liked it because the brand was very flexible in adopting to changing competitive environment and proactive in launching new products in new segments .
But one gets jittery when the brand becomes too ambitious. Horlicks has always been associated with health drinks and it was highly focused on that category.The result was obvious, the brand has been a market leader for long time.
The current extension gave me a feeling that the brand is taking too much far by extending itself into categories like energy bar and milk. All these new launches will get a positive initial acceptance by the consumers because of the huge brand equity of Horlicks but all these launches has the potential to dilute the core brand.
The silver lining is that all these launches are in the health related products and thus cater to the emerging trend among the consumers.

Related Brand

Horlicks

Havells : Shock Laga Kya

Corporate Brand : Havells
Agency : Lowe

Brand Analysis Count : 399

Havells is one of the leading players in the Indian electrical products industry. The company which was virtually unknown 5 years ago shot into limelight through some clutter breaking campaigns in recent times.

Havells is a part of the Indian business group- QRG group. Established in 1958 as a trading company , Havells came into existence in 1983. The company is now a Rs 1600 crore company with presence in all major electrical categories.

Havells business is primarily focused on four key verticals.
Switch Gear
Lighting and Fixtures
Cables and
Electrical consumer deliverable.

What is interesting about Havells is their penchant for advertising. The company had been making major investments in promotions and has been using the recent IPL for brand building.

Havells shot into limelight with their campaign for Mini Circuit Breakers (MCB) which are used to prevent short circuits . Most of the new homes/offices have it but these products were never advertised.
Havells came out with a clutter breaking humorous ad for their MCB which caught the consumer's attention. The product ad had the famous tagline " Shock Laga Kya ".

Watch the ad here : Shock Laga Kya

The ad was a hit because of the creative execution. I think the positive response from the consumers prompted Havells to invest heavily in brand promotions.

Another classic ad was for Havells CFL bulbs. The Rimpoche ad too was a highly interesting ad for a dull product.
Watch the ad here : Rimpoche

Havells followed its ad campaigns with a touchy mother son campaign for its cable product range
Watch the ad here : Mother- son
I like this ad very much because it conveyed the " heat resistant " feature of the product very smartly and touchingly.

For its fan range, Havells came out with another funny campaign : Bijilee

Recently Havells made use of the Recession to come out with another creative one for its MCB range : recession ad

Havells also has been using the recent IPL for brand promotion. Whenever some batsman gets out or when he scores a six, the two second message ad comes on the screen " Shock Laga Kya"

These clutter breaking ads has significantly increased the brand familiarity and liking of Havells brand. The brand is fighting very well established players like Crompton Greaves, Usha,Anchor , Legrand etc. Havells scored over these brands through its higher share of voice.

Regarding the branding campaign, Havells has been focusing more on product advertising rather than building its corporate brand.
There is an interesting piece written about this in hindu : read here

If you see all these ads of Havells, the ads does not have a common thread . The cable ad and the MCB ad and CFL ads are all very different. Although it all comes from Havells, one cannot find a common thread.
This is a problem for Havells as a corporate brand. The company has so far not tried to bring in a corporate brand theme. Havells does not even have a tagline.

Now everyone associates Havells with the Shock Laga Kya tagline which is a specific tagline for its MCB range. I am not sure whether this is a planned strategy where the company tries to develop its corporate brand through product ads .

There is no doubt that these product ads are well crafted and has served the purpose. But when we analyse the branding , Havells as a corporate brand has built strong familiarity but no brand depth.

If you ask me what Havells stands for, I would say that it stands for " Shock Proof MCB". So Havells stands to be identified for a single product rather than as an umbrella brand.

One disadvantage of developing a common corporate brand theme is that every Havells ad should then have to align with that common thread which may constrain creative thinking. But a brand should own a distinct place in the consumer's mind. Havells corporate brand right now does not have than distinct space for it .
The logic of the current strategy is that through the product ads , Havells will gain familiarity and thus brand equity. There is now flaw in this logic. But the issue is about the brand personality.
A brand should have some core brand values and manthra which makes it unique and distinct. This mathra has to be created by the brand and communicated to the consumers.It is in this context that the current strategy of product ads driving a corporate brand becomes ineffective.

Havells need not stop its product based advertising, what it can do is to develop a brand manthra and a corporate tagline and when show the tagline in the product advertisements. The individual product ads can retain their taglines like " Shock Laga " . Thus Havells will be able to create a distinct corporate brand image which will be highly beneficial in future.

Brand Update : Lacto Calamine (RIP)

After a long long time, there is some development for Lacto Calamine brand. This heritage brand was lying low with little or no support from the company.

This year, Nicholas Piramal decided to invest some energy into this age old personal care brand. The brand has been given a facelift, a new packaging and also a new positioning.
The brand has roped in the design consultant Elephant Strategy to revamp the brand. (read the design change report here)
The brand launched a variant containing Aloe Vera.

What is interesting is that the brand have coined a new term Skinsurance .Skinsurance means that the brand is providing protection ( insurance) for the skin. It is a smart positioning statement.
The report in the Exchange4Media site gives a disturbing news also. The brand name Lacto Calamine is going to be shortened to the initials LC . This is to facilitate further brand extensions.

The company feels that the brand name Lacto Calamine is constrained because the name indicates the contents Lacto ( Milk) and Calamine lotion. Hence the brand cannot be used for extensions. This brand is one of those brands whose name restricts the extension. Other examples are Thirty Plus & Band Aid.

The company plans to slowly rebrand Lacto Calamine to LC in a phased manner. At first, the new brand name LC and Lacto Calamine will appear together and gradually Lacto Calamine will be phased out . LC will then be an umbrella brand that will endorse a range of personal care products.

So for all practical purposes, Lacto Calamine brand is going to be killed. Instead we will have a meaningless Two Letters LC.

I don't understand why Lacto Calamine brand has to be killed for a new umbrella brandname which is just a meaningless initial. Piramal could have easily launched a new brand for personal care products. Shortening Lacto Calamine to LC will not add any value and will not trasfer any equity to the shortened brand name. It is going to be just a waste of valuable promotional money.
Lacto Calamine is a niche brand. I think the company should have made it a profitable niche. Lacto Calamine is a good product with lot of good properties. It had the equity to remain a profitable niche but the firm think that it is better to convert it to a umbrella brand.

What the company should have done was to introduce a new meaningful umbrella brand for personal care products. It could easily integrate the Lacto Calamine brand into the new brand folio by endorsing Lacto Calamine by the new umbrella brand.

So RIP Lacto Calamine ( 1970-2009)


Related Brand
Lacto Calamine

Brand Update : Amul Macho

After creating controversies through the previous two commercials, Amul Macho (innerwear) decided to be decent. I suppose this is a unique season where controversial brands have decided to be subtle. We have seen that in the case of Wild Stone.

Amul Macho is running a new campaign this year

Watch the new ad here : Amul Macho

The new ad is a spoof of the typical Bharatiya Naari ( Indian Women ) as depicted in the K - Serials. The twist is that in this ad, the role is exchanged.

While the previous ads of Amul Macho was defenitely of bad taste, the solace for this one is that its funny. The brand retains the tagline " Yeh To bada Toing hai "

Related Brand
Amul Innerwear

Best Marketing Practice : ZOOZOO

One of the best campaigns I have seen so far is the Vodafone's ZooZoo campaign. Never in the history of Indian advertising we witnessed a campaign that generated so much interest and curiosity among all the segments of the society be it young or old.

So much has been written about ZooZoo in various media. Hence I am not going to repeat it all over.

Read a wonderful analysis in afaqs here : Afaqs on ZooZoo

Another nice one in Businessline : Business Line on ZooZoo

Rajesh of Blogworks on ZooZoo : Here

Some ZooZoo ads here : ZooZoo collection

I never expected Vodafone to be a creative volcano.When Hutch became Vodafone, I was little sceptic whether the creative spark of Hutch will be carried forward by Vodafone. The news of the famous Pug being discarded deepened my scepticism.

But the brand just beat all those cynicism . The Happy to Help campaign and the VAS campaign all proved that this is a brand that will do anything to be creative.

ZooZoo was created to promote the value added services ( VAS) of Vodafone. Vodafone was trying hard to capture the VAS Space because it is a potential cash cow for cellular companies.
Vodafone also wanted to make the most of the IPL season 2. Although IPL is a crowd puller, it is also a marketer's nightmare because of the clutter. IPL attracts all the deep pocket advertisers and to standout, one needs to think out of the box.

Thus ZooZoo was born. ZooZoo is a semi alien semi-human character living in an earth-like place ( lot of which is left to the viewer's imagination).These are very very simpe biengs who are very expressive. They laugh aloud , cry loud and have a child like simplicity around them. I think many of us wanted to be such an expressive being which makes ZooZoo very personal .

The success of ZooZoo is the success of minimalism and simplicity. Although the production process of ZooZoo ads are not simple, as a consumer I was attracted to the simplicity of the concept and the execution. ZooZoo also highlights the power of storytelling. Each ads tells a very simple story. Afterall brands are made through story telling.

Another factor that aided the success of ZooZoo is the scale of the campaign.Reports suggest that there are around 25 different ads of ZooZoo to be aired during this IPL season. This unprecedented scale has kept the curiosity high among the viewers. It has infact dwarfed all the other advertisers in this season.
There is lot of risk being taken behind this campaign. The Vodafone managers who okayed this campaign may have risked their jobs to bring out such a massive campaign. The agency also risked their credibility. One should appreciate the creative talent of O&M and Nirvana Films who proved that Indian Advertising has come of age.

Vodafone has taken ZooZoo beyond advertising. The fanclub in the facebook page of ZooZoo has already touched 70,000 and counting. The brand has comeout with an interactive quiz that shows the type of ZooZoo you are : here
There are also mobile downloads of wallpaper, screensaver etc.

All these has transformed into a great viral movement. There are already a plethora of mail forwards and blogposts celebrating ZooZoo.

ZooZoo is a great marketing story. Vodafone has benefitted immensely by this campaign. It caught the attention and fancy of the consumers, aroused curiosity, told stories and made people retell the story.

Marketing Guru Seth Godin always emphasised that Brands should be Remarkable. He defined remarkable as " Worthy of Making a Remark about "

The ZooZoo is a classic example of being Remarkable...