Smith & Jones : Tadka Marke

Brand : Smith & Jones
Company : Capital Foods

Brand Analysis Count : 425

When I recently saw the ad of Smith & Jones, I thought that a new foreign player has entered the Indian noodles market. Much to my amusement, Smith & Jones is an Indian brand and has been in the market for a while.

Smith & Jones is a brand from Capital Foods - which are famous for its Ching's secret range of Chinese food products especially instant noodles.Smith & Jones is popular in ready to eat, sauce and jelly etc.

Smith & Jones is making lot of noise in the media for its masala noodles. The brand is taking on the market leader Maggi Noodles head on .

Watch the TVC here : Smith & Jones

According to news reports , the brand is trying to redefine the Masala Variant in the noodles category. Masala is a highly popular variant in the noodles segment and has become a generic variant with the same kind of taste offered by different players in the category.

Smith & Jones wanted to differentiate by offering an innovative taste in this category . According to the reports, the brand is trying to woo customers by offering a " Tadka " taste to the masala.

Tadka is a popular garnish ( seasoning) made out of various spices which are added to the food to make it more tasty. Smith & Jones claims that its Tadka is made of 52 Indian spices. The brand is differentiating itself using the " Tadka " ingredient. The brand has the tagline " Tadka Marke".

I still wonder why Capital Foods chose to extend Smith & Jones to noodles segment when it already have Ching's Secret brand of instant noodles. Smith & Jones was having products in the Sauce, Ready to eat segment etc and Ching's Secret was a popular noodles brand. Rather than extending Smith & Jones, Capital Foods could have introduced the new flavor under Ching's. By having two brands in the same category, the company is going to lose both share and money. There is a chance of cannibalizing one brand over the other. And to fight a market leader like Maggi, one needs to be very focused both on brands and also resources.

Another aspect of the brand is its insensitivity towards the linguistic diversity across the vast Indian market. Although I know Hindi, I was totally clueless about what a Tadka is. I did not knew the meaning of it till I made a conscious search of the word. If the customer does not understand the meaning of Tadka, the entire brand promise will be lost. The brand will have tough time in communicating its core differentiation across non-Hindi speaking markets unless it takes pain to find apt word in all those languages.

The brand has initiated sampling across 3200 schools across India and is sponsoring lot of events and contact program with the consumers. The brand is also trying product placement in movies and sponsor programs in kid's channels ( Source).

It will be interesting to see whether Smith & Jones will be able to make a dent in Maggi's stronghold in the Rs 1100 crore noodles market. Differentiation based on flavor is not sustainable proposition. It will be easy for any marketer to launch such a variant. That was one of the reason why I doubted the effectiveness of Smith & Jones' foray into noodles .

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Top Ramen

Brand Update : Lux

Lux got bigger. The brand has come back in style. Lux released its first commercial featuring the most famous "Star Couple " of bollywood - Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan. The brand is currently running this high profile campaign across the media space.

Watch the ad here : Lux new ad

HUL has been facing lot of heat from the competition. Most of its best sellers were losing market share and competition getting aggressive day by day. Despite having very popular brands, HUL began losing shares especially in the personal care category.
The HUL brands are facing tough competition from players like ITC , Wipro ,Godrej and the like.

Recently I checked on the HUL products purchased at my home , I was surprised to find that we have dropped many HUL products from our shopping list. In the soap category itself, we never purchased an HUL soap for the past 3 months or so. These spaces are now occupied by brands like Vivel,Dettol, Santoor etc.

In my earlier update on Lux, I mentioned that HUL is not promoting the "original " Lux and not using the equity of Aishwarya Rai. The new campaign involving the two biggest stars of bollywood gives a huge thrust to the brand.

Ordinary consumers seems to be very much impressed by the new campaign. My mother liked the ad so much that she plans to buy Lux soon.

Personally I feel that the ad could have been different. The theme is nothing new and is used by many brands before. But the Star Couple makes the theme irrelevant. The charm and the chemistry of the couple make good the flaws in the "big idea".The ad has a sticky factor and in that sense Lux benefits.

The current campaign although expensive gives the required thrust for Lux. Lux badly needed some thing new to bring back the consumers who switched to other brands and never returned. The brand had made a strong comeback and that too in style.

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Sparx Shoes : Add Sparx to Your Life

Brand : Sparx
Company : Relaxo Footwears
Agency : Arms Communications


Brand Analysis Count : 424

Sparx is a brand from Relaxo Footwears which is India's second largest footwear company. The company which started its operations in 1976 is famous for its hawai slippers. Relaxo footwears has a turnover of around Rs 400 crores.

Sparx is the foray of the company into the high end sports shoe market . The sports shoe market is worth around Rs 400 crore and is expected to grow very fast owing to the changing lifestyle and demography.

The Indian sports shoe market is now dominated by global icons. The fight is intense between Nike , Adidas and Reebok and the new generation is lapping up these brands . It is in this market that a domestic brand is trying to make its mark.

It is true that in the Rs 10,000 crore Indian footwear market, there is plenty of space of various brands and Sparx is aiming for the same segment that the global icons are fighting for.

Sparx is relying on the celebrity power to position itself as a premium sports shoe brand. Premium interms of image and not interms of price. The brand is using the Bollywood hero Neil Nitin Mukesh as the brand ambassador . Sparx has adopted the ad slogan " Add Sparx to your life" and the brand has the tagline " Go for It" . The brand could have added some more imagination while selecting the taglines.

Watch the TVC here : Sparx

The ad which looks nice,definitely gives the brand a premium look . But there is no Big idea. The theme is old and often used by lot of brands in the past. There is no positioning nor a differentiation . What the ad generates is a fair amount of brand familiarity.

The question is whether brand familiarity is enough to generate sales. To a certain extent it helps. Shoes is an experiential product . The customer has to first try it out and feel the comfort/design etc before the purchase. So if the brand is familiar, consumers may try it out and if the product is good, they will buy. But a brand cannot just rely on familiarity to promote its purchase. It should offer a compelling reason for the consumer to reject Nike or Adidas and go for this brand ( assuming that Sparx is aiming at that segment).

If the brand is looking at a segment that cannot afford global brands like Nike, then the current strategy works. Sparx brand is priced around Rs 1300-1500 range but the problem is that with a little more money consumers can trade up to a Reebok or a Nike. That calls for a serious look at the marketing basics of Positioning and Differentiation.


Sparx is a brand from a very established footwear maker. It has the resources and the reach which are essential pre-requisites for success in the Indian market. The brand has evoked lot of curiosity with its association with the celebrity. Its success will depend a lot on how it takes the communication from curiosity to engagement.

Ambuja Cements : Branding a Commodity

Corporate Brand : Ambuja Cements

Company : Ambuja Cements Ltd ( Holcim Group Company)
Agency : Grey

Brand Analysis Count : 423

Ambuja Cements formerly Gujarat Ambuja is one of India's largest cement brands. The company came into existence in 1984. Ambuja Cements is a classic example of a successful commodity branding.
Indian cement market is different from the rest of the world because the largest segment of buyers of cement in India is the individual home owners rather than the institutions. Although this scenario is witnessing a change due to the boom in the organized realty sector, individual home owners form a significant segment that no cement marketers can ignore.
Although these individuals shell out the money to purchase cement, they are not the decision makers in the buying process.

The intermediaries like the contractors , masons etc take up the role of the influencer/decision makers in the purchase of this product. Since the consumers view this product as a commodity, the involvement of ordinary home owners in the purchase .

Ambuja Cements is one of the companies that realized the potential of brand as a differentiator. Even in the eighties, Ambuja cements started its activities for building the brand. Infact according to Superbrands report, Ambuja cements is the first cement brand to start advertising in television. Ambuja Cements also used the outdoors extensively to reinforce the brand image and enhance brand recall.
Ambuja Cements also focused on influencing the other players in the business like the contractors/masons and engineers through camps and meets.

These initiatives helped Ambuja to charge a premium over other brands. With the competition hotting up from Grasim + Ultratech, Ambuja Cements could hold on to its share because of the brand equity it had created over these years.

While branding the cement commodity,Ambuja Cements concentrated on its core brand promise of " Strength ". All through its campaigns, the brand was very consistent on reinforcing its positioning as the " Strongest " cement . The brand was also very clever in selecting a unique logo.

Commodities are boring products . But for smart marketers, this is also an opportunity to make a difference. Ambuja cements bought in lot of humor to this ( otherwise) boring product. Most of its campaigns are humorous which makes the consumers stick to the advertisements . The ad which I like most is the ad where the brothers ( Boman Irani) try to break the wall which they put up to separate their houses when they were fighting with each other.

Some other ads here : Ambuja 1,
Ambuja 2

These ads reinforce the core positioning of Ambuja as a strong cement. Strength is a very highly relevant attribute as far as customer is concerned.

While branding a commodity, the critical question is whether these ads can influence the consumers to change their commodity mindset towards this category. The answer is definitely affirmative. I have noticed many home owners directly procuring these products for their home construction because they don't trust the contractors. In these scenarios, high brand recall will give the edge for the brands.

Branding can change the perception of consumers towards commodity. The point is to create a compelling reason to do so.

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Brand Update : Wagon R

Wagon R is one of the largest selling brands in the Indian car market. The brand is currently in its maturity stage and Maruti is all set to put Wagon R again into the growth path. The brand has roped in Madhavan as the brand ambassador . The brand hopes that the endorsement from the star will create a new growth path for it.

Watch the TVC here : Wagon R

Wagon R is a highly relevant product for Indian consumers. I have spoken to many Wagon R users and all of them have high regards for this vehicle. Even though the product is a globally " Outdated" vehicle, for Indian consumers the brand has remained very useful. One of the major factors that drive this brand's sales is its usability. The car is easy to drive and extremely comfortable and is virtually trouble-free thanks to the Maruti Reliability.

When the product reaches the maturity stage, marketers change its marketing mix elements to rev up the sales. In the case of Wagon R, Maruti chose to change its promotions. The choice of Madhavan as the brand ambassador will give an added thrust to the brand equity of Wagon R. The brand is feeling that it is not realizing its potential fully in the southern market. Madhavan is expected to boost the brand sales in the southern markets. ( related report)

It is also interesting to see how the brand has used Madhavan in its communication. Madhavan is being used as a model in the TVC rather than as an endorser. Here Madhavan is being used as a character in the TVC plot. He is being cast as an entrepreneur in the ad.One of the reasons cane be that if Madhavan acts as an endorser, no one will believe that he uses a Wagon R. So it makes sense to cast him as a character rather than as an endorser.

Wagon R retains its core positioning as a smart choice car and has a new slogan " Smart Ideas lead the world " . The brand retains its tagline " For a Smarter Race ".
The new campaign is pushing the idea that Wagon R is a smart choice for the consumers. Indian consumers seems to like that idea.
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Brand Update : Rin

It has been quite a while since I wrote about Rin. The brand was moving through various experiments in extensions and positioning. The brand merged one of its extensions with Surf Excel and withdrew some others. Frankly it was a real mess.

The brand was also experimenting with its promotional messages. Rin is positioned on its " Whitening " ability. The brand has remained focused on its core brand promise. But Rin was experimenting a lot with the communication of this promise. The brand could not find a tagline that was powerful enough to convey the brand promise.

In 2008, the brand came up with the promise of Double Whiteness. Rin adopted the tagline " Duguni Safedi, Duguni Chamak " .
Watch the tvc here : Rin

The ad was catchy but somehow for me, a connection with the tagline, the theme and the brand was not strong. Rin was trying to ladder up to a higher level need but the connection couldn't be established.

This year , Rin came with another advertisement with a new tagline " Chamakte Rahna " ( meaning Keep Shining).
Watch the tvc here : Rin Chamakte Rahna

The brand has finally found its right positioning statement. Chamakte Rahna is a wonderful tagline with immense potential and possibilities for new campaigns. The tagline has a strong connection with the brand promise and at the same time helped the brand to ladder up . The ad is also very nicely made .
Chamkte Rahna is a tagline that gives the brand new opportunities to communicate with the consumers. The core idea that the tagline conveys is " to realize one's potential " . Rin has already started promoting its new found positioning theme during the Dance Premier League where the contestants are made to say the tagline. The brand is celebrating the tagline quite well.

Kudos for the brand team.

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