Premium : Pleasure,Ecstasy ,Euphoria

Brand : Premium
Company : JK Helene Curtis

Agency : Impulse

Brand Analysis Count : 401

Premium is one of the most under utilized brand in the Indian personal care category. A brand which has been in existence for more than 40 years has not been able to make its mark in Indian market.

Premium is a brand owned by JK Helene Curtis which is a Raymond's group company. Despite from a group that owns iconic brands like Raymond's and Park Avenue, Premium failed to reach anywhere near its peers.

What usually comes to my mind about this brand is its Cologne. Premium Cologne is one of the very few affordable colognes in the Indian market. I was initially surprised at the price of this brand because I felt that Premium would cost more.

Premium brand is not a failed brand . Infact company claims that Premium is the market leader in room fresheners.

Premium is an umbrella brand that endorses various products like Talc, Shaving products,perfumes and Room fresheners. There are experts who argue that the unrelated extensions have created problems for the brand.

In a report in Business Line, another brand expert suggested that the brand name Premium has created positioning issues for the brand. The name has caused a perception that the product is priced higher which created a problem of Narrow Positioning.

But more than the brand name, Premium is languishing because of lack of marketing effort. The company has never cared to create a Brand DNA for Premium. There is no brand manthra, no core brand values or a brand persona. There is not even a tagline that gives the brand an identity. There is also no memorable brand campaigns.

I personally feels that the company is not able to fit the brand in its portfolio along with Park Avenue. Park Avenue has its own range of men's toiletries and Premium may be sidelined for making space for Park Avenue range.

Premium is really a sad story. The brand has a good name, a good company to back it and an opportunity in the market but there is no will from the brand owners to develop it.

Marketing Funda : The art of story telling

My article on the Art of Story Telling published in Adclubbombay.com : Read it here

Marketing Funda : Creating Brand Experience

My article on Creating brand Experience published in Adclubbombay.com : Read it here

Marketing To Youth : Youth Power or Myth

Economic Times (25/05/09) has a very interesting and enlightening article on Indian youth. Written by Mr Rajesh Shukla, the article throws light into some important data regarding the Indian youth market.

Read the article here : Harnessing Indian Youth Power

Some of the important statistics are reproduced below :

The total youth population (13-34) is 390 million which is 38% of the total population and is expected to rise to 440 million by 2020.

70% of the youth reside in over 600,000 villages.
72% of youth are literate.
41% of these literate youth fall in the age group (13-19 years) , 23% fall in 20-24 and 36% are in 25-34 years.

59% of literate youth are male. 7% are graduates and 12% have passed higher secondary.

The article also presents a clear view about the definition of youth. According to Rajesh Shukla , youth refers to a category rather than a group. The difference between category and group is that category has diverse or heterogeneous elements unlike groups which are similar in its composition. Youth relates to an age group that is transiting between childhood and adulthod and may comprise of a conglomeration of sub-groups with differing social roles, expectations and aspirations.


UN defines youth as those in the age group of 15-24 years. UNICEF defines youth in the age bracket of 15-30 years. Indian National Youth Policy considers all individuals in the agegroup of 13-35 years as youth population. NYP divides the youth population into two groups - 13-19 years as adolescent and 20-35 as Youth.

As far as marketers are concerned, the sheer size of this market is a huge opportunity. But no one so far has been able to rightly understand the Indian Youth's psyche.

As the article points out, the youth market cannot be considered as a group because it is not homogeneous. So does it mean that marketers cannot segment this market on the bases of age alone ? . Segmentation is based on the assumption that the members display homogeneity . So if the members of a specific age group display heterogeneous characteristics, it no longer becomes a segment.
The implication is that marketers should find out variables other than age to segment the Indian youth market.So when age becomes irrelevant, does it mean that the so called Youth Market is a myth just like the much hyped Indian MiddleClass ?
Most of the marketers tend to use Lifestyle as a variable to define segments with in the Youth market. How ever lifestyle segmentation is tricky and highly subjective in nature.

This probably explain the reason why Indian marketers are still finding it difficult to find a formula to tap this huge lucrative market.

What do you think ?

Marketing Funda : Branding a Commodity

My article on branding a commodity in Adclubbombay.com. Read it here

Brand Update : Cadbury Eclairs

This year Cadbury Dairy Milk Eclairs has comeout with a new campaign and a new positioning. The brand has identified itself with a sweet chocolate time bomb that will explode in your mouth. 

The brand is running an interesting TVC to communicate the postioning. 

Watch the ad here : Cadbury sweet bomb

Cadbury's Dairy Milk Eclairs has always been focused on its chocolate inner and as a consumer  we get a special feeling when the crispy outer covering of the eclairs give way to the soft chocolate liquid inside.  The brand is now trying to capture this feeling through the new campaign. 

The brand is equating this experience akin to the blowing up of a chocolate bomb from inside. The ad captures this concept quite beautifully. 

Although the ad is quite good, there is a striking resemblence with the recent KitKat ad claiming to be more chocolatey. The only difference is that the chocolate explodes outside the head.

Watch the Kitkat ad here : Kitkat exploding

Competition is not only for market share , it is also for the ad copy.

Related brand

Cadbury Dairy Milk Eclairs