Neslac : Milk For Growing Kids

Brand : Neslac
Company : Nestle India

Brand Analysis Count : 471

Nestle has recently launched a new brand in the 1500 crore infant ( kid's) foods market. The company has launched its global brand - Neslac in the Indian market. Nestle is the market leader in the infant foods market with successful brands like Cerelac, Nestum, Lactogen, Nestogen etc. Reports suggest that Nestle has close to 70 % of the kid's nutrition market.

The Indian infant food market is a difficult market to survive because of regulatory constraints. The market is governed by Indian milkfood substitutes feeding bottles and infant foods ( regulation of production, supply and distribution ) act 1992. There is a restriction in advertising infant food products.

As an established player in the market, Nestle has an advantage since its brands like Lactogen, Cerelac are very famous and has tremendous brand equity in the market. Hence even without ad support, these brands are growing. But for a new player, establishing in this market will be a tough one because of the regulations.

So it is interesting to see Nestle launching Neslac in the Indian market despite these regulatory constraints. Neslac is not an infant food but a milk food for kids above 2 years. The brand is positioned as milk for growing kids. So this brand may not come under the purview of the above act. Neslac is currently running a campaign announcing the launch of Neslac. 

Neslac is a global brand with presence in various markets under different names. In Pakistan, this brand is marketed as Nestlac Honey, in Malaysia it is Neslac Excella Gold etc.

Nestle already has another brand Nido  which is a similar product but targeted at a higher age-group.. I have a feeling that Nestle has replaced Nido with Neslac ( just a hunch.)

It will be interesting to see how the highly regulated market will respond to this high profile launch. 

Brand Update : Philips To Acquire Preethi

The famous Preethi brand of small appliances is going to get a new high profile owner. The Dutch consumer durable giant Philips has agreed to acquire the assets of this homegrown brand.This move came as a huge surprise and  I never thought that Preethi could be a candidate for acquisition. Preethi brand was founded in 1978  and the  owners - M/s Maya Appliances has carefully nurtured this brand. 

The brand developed its mixer range quite beautifully and through careful product development and meaningful advertisement campaigns. The brand had constantly adopted the positioning based on durability and reliability which was communicated through the tagline " I Guarantee ".

Now once the acquisition is over, it will be interesting to see how the brand will fit into Philips' overall branding strategy.There are chances that Philips will use Preethi as a sub-brand with endorsement from Philips. 

It is also interesting to see how the brand image of Preethi will change with the endorsement from Philips. Suddenly the homegrown image of Preethi will vanish.

Through this acquisition, Philips will gain huge market in the mixer grinder segment. Philips will also get instant sales and service network of Preethi ( even though Philips has its own robust distribution network).More than that, Philips will get that vital market knowledge that Preethi had acquired over these years.According to news reports, after the acquisition, the company will be run by existing promoters. It will be interesting to see how this acquisition will turn up for this nice brand.

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Brand Update : Perk Struggles To Find Right Positioning

Perk which went in for a massive brand repositioning exercise last year is now struggling hard to find the right positioning. The brand which created ripples in the market with its perky campaign with Priety Zinta, is now searching for a positioning that makes sense.

Perk and Kit Kat created much sensation during the late 1990's with both brands trying to outsmart each other with smart campaigns. But soon the market turned cold towards this wafer based chocolate brands and the wafer chocolate category never grew as expected.

In 2010 , Perk went for a major repositioning/ rebranding exercise where the entire product properties and brand elements were changed. Perk began advertising focusing on its glucose content. The brand also changed the tagline to " Sapnoan se race kar le". The theme was more emotional and the brand was trying to ladder up to a higher level concept of " reaching out to dreams".

Now within 8 months of the rebranding, Perk was again forced to change its positioning. The brand chucked its attempted laddering and crash-landed to a very rustic and " funny stuff". The brand retains its focus on Glucose content but the execution strategy has been drastically altered. The brand now has the tagline " Perk Ghao , Glucose Chadao" roughly translated to " Eat Perk and Inject Glucose". Just see the drastic shift the brand made from its earlier positioning of " Chasing dreams".

Watch the ad here : Tired Son ad

There is no point in commenting on the individual merit of this ad,

I have a strong feeling that the brand has lost its way. For the past few years, Perk has been struggling to find a strong positioning. Earlier , the brand ran a few commercials featuring a young guy lost in an island and the tagline was " Take it Lightly". Now the positioning is miles apart from the past campaigns.

The basic marketing theory demands that positioning be consistent and significant/meaningful. Most marketers try to make the positioning meaningful but does not think that positioning should be consistent. While a positioning based on glucose content is meaningful for a consumer , the lack of consistency in the positioning of Perk makes the message less sticky or worth remembering. Such frequent drastic changes in positioning will do more harm for the brand in a long-term perspective.
What Perk needs to do is to do some soul search to find the right brand manthra. Once that is found then resist all temptations to deviate from the core manthra.

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Brand Update : Flipkart Goes for Rebranding

Is three years too short for a rebranding exercise ?? Flipkart thinks that it is not. The brand which started off as a no-nonsense online bookstore has transformed itself in many ways within a short span of three years. May be in digital marketing world, three years may be equivalent to three decades.

Flipkart made its major change in the business model in 2010 when it included movies and mobiles in its offerings. The brand shed its image of a bookstore and moved into an online store. Now in the beginning of 2011, the brand has made significant change in the logo and other brand elements such

as color scheme and website design. The new logo now carries the brand name and an emblem too.

Simplicity and minimalism which was the trademark of Flipkart logo has been compromised for this rebranding exercise.

But why do a brand which is just three years old do a drastic rebranding exercise ? Has the old brand elements became stale ? or is it a change for the heck of it ?According to a report in plugged.in , Flipkart is going to launch more products in the consumer electronics space and the current rebranding is aimed at that.

I am totally confused with their business model right now. Flipkart may have tasted success in their mobile + movies vertical and this may have given confidence for a full fledged transformation from a bookstore to an online store. The next logical step would be to change the landing page for the site. The landing page is still the bookstore and it will be matter of time that flipkart will change the landing page by including other product categories.

So another brand has moved from a simple solution provider to a metamediary solving many problems. I will miss the minimalism and the focus and the simplicity. It may be that an e-commerce site cannot survive on books alone. However, this change of Flipkart opens up an opportunity for a simple online bookstore.

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Marketing Strategy : Branding Basics for Small Business

In most of the marketing literature, branding strategies are usually skewed towards large businesses. The nature of these strategies also demands heavy and sustained investment in brand promotion and brand equity development. Often such high decibel brand promotion strategies create an impression that branding is a game for large players.

One of the fundamental question before any marketer is whether to brand or not brand. Although marketing literature suggests that there is an option for no-branding, for all practical purposes a firm cannot escape branding. No-Branding decision is where the firm chose to sell its offerings as generic products or commodities. But even in such a scenario, the firms which are marketing such generic products are distinguished by their company name which should be considered as a brand.

For example if you are a salt manufacturer supplying to retail outlets, although you are not selling branded salt, your company name will act as a brand for your customer ( retailer). Even though such firms are not into selling branded products, they have a corporate brand. Through their sales personnel and transactions, these firms are already building their corporate brand.

One of the most important advantages of branding is that brands help to identify and distinguish the seller. Even when selling commodities, the buyer needs to identify the seller and developing a corporate brand helps in getting repeat business from the customer.

Commit to Branding

The first step in creating an effective brand is a conscious decision to invest in branding the business. Whether it is a corporate name or an individual brand name, the decision to invest in branding will bring in a big difference. Branding is much more than putting a label in the cover of the product. Branding is a long term strategy which involves development of a brand vision and creation of brand personality.

Branding need not be expensive

Investing in branding is not about the money set aside for brand promotion but the level of involvement of marketers in developing the brand consciously. Small and medium enterprises have the constraint of limited marketing budget which forces them to overlook the importance of branding their products/business. But when we look at the long term perspective, taking baby steps now will go a long way in establishing a powerful brand in the future.

Big brands are built over a period of time. It is possible for small enterprises to build powerful brand through a consistent investment in smart branding practices. It is advisable to set aside a small percentage of revenue for the purpose of brand development alone. Consider this budget as a Systematic Brand Investment Plan rather than an expense.

Develop and protect the brand elements

Once a decision is made to build a brand, the next step is to develop powerful brand elements.

Brand elements include name, logo, symbols, mascots, color schemes, taglines etc. These brand elements should be prominently displayed in every communication that goes out from the firm be it visiting cards, gifts, brochures etc.

The next logical step is to protect the vital brand elements like Brand Name, Logo, etc. This is very important to prevent plagiarism and to challenge the rip-offs and copy cats.

Explore promotional opportunities

The fragmentation of media is in fact a big blessing for small brands. The proliferation of media has given lot of low cost promotional opportunities for small brands. The competition among the media has kept the advertising rates low especially for second –rung media. Small brands can make use of regional media options in a much more effective way than large brands operating in a national scale. Local newspapers, radio stations, cable TV channels offer excellent cost-effective vehicles for small brand promotions.

Brand promotions through these low cost media may not give a substantial ROI or a significant impact in sales in the short-term. In the long term, such small media exposure will increase the visibility of the brand and benefits will start accruing.

Corporate brands which operate in a business to business environment should explore their brand promotions in a different manner. For business brands, sales professionals are the biggest promoters of the brand. It is important for small businesses to ensure that the sales force is communicating the right kind of message to the customer. Business brands should try to communicate their brand message through every possible contact opportunities.

Every business has some communication materials like brochures, pamphlets etc and these materials offer some amount of information about the company and products. When endeavoring to brand development, these materials are of immense value. These materials should communicate the core Brand Manthra to the consumers. It is commonly observed that these communication materials are only used as a product catalogue rather than a branding tool.

It is a myth that brand building is expensive. Brands are built over time and through consistent systematic investment. The new highly connected environment has opened up many cost effective promotional platforms which can be used by small business to build their brands.

Originally Published in Adclubbombay.com

Nicorette : For Every Cigarette, There is Nicorette

Brand : Nicorette

Company : Johnson & Johnson

Brand Analysis Count : 470

Nicorette is a unique brand. The brand is world's best selling smoking cessation brand. Nicorette was recently launched in India by Johnson & Johnson . Nicorette is now launched its chewing gum product-line in India.

Nicorette has an interesting history. The brand is born in Sweden in 1967.

During that time, Swedish Royal Navy was facing an issue where their crew in submarines where increasingly becoming short-tempered because of the smoking ban inside submarines. Scientists discovered Nicorette while searching for an option to reduced the nicotine dependency of these marines.

Nicorette launched in the chewing gum form in India is a therapeutic nicotine-based gum which reduced the craving for nicotine among smokers. The gum when chewed releases nicotine in small quantities thus discouraging smokers from having cigarettes. The product has created a new system of Nicotine Replacement Therapy and has been claiming impressive record in helping people quit smoking.

The Indian market is especially lucrative for this brand by its sheer size. There are more than 275 million tobacco users in India. 24% of Indian males smoke and the use of tobacco in other forms like chewing tobacco is more widespread. This large size of cigarette users also results in large number of health issues and inturn large number of people who want to quit smoking. The demarketing of cigarettes by government and NGOs also increase the number of wannabe quitters.

Nicorette provides an infrastructure and a support system for those who wants to quit smoking. Rather it offers a pain-less way of quitting smoking by reducing the nicotine craving. The chewing of the gum releases just enough nicotine to satisfy the craving and over a period of time the user can reduce the intake of the quantity of gum also.

Nicorette is now availabe in two packs. The 4g pack is aimed at heavy smokers and is available on doctor's prescription and the 2g pack is available over-the -counter. The brand is currently running a TVC and ads in digital media positioning itself as an effective solution for quitting smoking.

Nicorette has adopted the tagline " Doubles Your Chances of Quitting Smoking ". The ads are catchy and the product makes sense for a person who genuinely wants to quit smoking. The ad shows a smoker wanting to quit smoking but the cigarette pack sticking to his hands ( symbolic of the nicotine addiction) despite his efforts to release it.

Nicorette launch also signals the arrival of new product categories into the Indian market. These products were existing in other developed countries for many years but the marketers felt that Indian market is not ready for such products. Now global players are becoming more confident of bring in their innovative offbeat products to India.