Brand Update : RIP Sunfeast Fit Kit

Even God was not able to save this brand. The much hyped sub-brand of Sunfeast - Sunfeast Sachin's Fit Kit is dead. The brand is not available in any of the shops in my state and sources say that the brand was discontinued shortly after it was launched.

  The company so far has not given any hint ( in any media) about this brand being discontinued. I am making the assumption that the brand is being discontinued for the reason that it is not present in an important  market like Kerala. 

So how can a brand which is co-created and endorsed by none other than Sachin Tendulkar himself suddenly went out of the market ? That too when the market is flooded with "healthy biscuits " ? Fit Kit was touted as the first celebrity co-created brand in India. The brand had everything going for it - the marketing muscle of ITC, brand Sachin, etc but still it was not well received by the Indian consumers. The question baffles me. 

In the case of Sunfeast Fit Kit, one probability can be that the brand was too early for the market.The market size is too small for such a large investment and the quantity the market can absorb was limited to justify such a huge investment. Sunfeast thought that with Sachin's endorsement, the brand will grow and will carve out a niche of " Multi - grain " biscuits. But the product did not grew as big as the brand thought it would be. 

Secondly , the target market for Fit Kit was the kids and they would not eat a biscuit just because Sachin endorsed it. The taste and the variety matters more than the health benefits. With a plethora of brands and variants available in the market, getting kids to stick to a variant is near impossible. The poor volume offtake may have prompted the company to relook its investment in this brand. 

More than anything , the category demands heavy continuous investment in brands and ITC may have decided to route the investment to the entire basket of biscuits rather than only Fit Kit. 

These are only possibilities. Only the company officials know the exact reasons why such a much hyped brand be taken off quickly. The failure of the Fit Kit is a grim reminder of the weakness of  celebrity driven brands.

Related Brand

Sunfeast Fit Kit

Nestle Bar One : Kaafi Hai ? Not Enough !

Brand : Bar One
Company : Nestle India

Brand Analysis Count : # 484

Bar One is a brand which was languishing in the product portfolio of Nestle for around two decades. The brand recently got some attention from the owners and its future is being rewritten. Bar One was launched in India in 1991 ( in some sources its given as 1994). The brand when launched was positioned as an energy /snack bar- some thing that you can eat in between times.

Bar One initially was well promoted by Nestle so much so that at one point in time, Bar One had a market share of around 5 %.But Nestle's attention soon shifted to non-confectionery items and Bar One was pushed aside interms of strategy and investment. I still remember the old Bar One jingle
Nestle Bar One Ba Ba Bar One
For those in between times ......

Later the brand had the tagline " Get More Out of Life " ( see the storyboard)

Bar One is a caramel based chocolate which has naugat and chocolate similar to Cadbury's 5 Star. The brand was positioned as a high energy funky chocolate which is essentially a small snack. The brand was well ahead of its time especially in the Indian market with respect to positioning. Indian consumers were not familiar with the concept of chocolates as a snack when Bar One was launched.

Second factor is the weak positioning of Bar One. Infact Bar One did not had a powerful positioning compared to the competitor . The focus on "energy bar" was too early for the Indian market. Later the company itself ditched the brand by stopping brand promotion.

Bar One in terms of brand competition competed with Cadbury 5 Star. 5 Star had tremendous brand power during the nineties and Bar One could not hold out with the competition. How ever Nestle did not kill the brand but put it on the sidelines. The interesting part is that the brand was available in the retail outlets even when the brand was silent in the media.
The major reasons ( in my opinion) for the brand's lackluster performance are Packaging and Positioning. The earlier packaging was dull compared to the 5 Star's golden packaging. The package for confectionery is significant because this is a product that is bought impulsively and the packaging conveys a strong cue for the purchase. 

In 2010, the brand was relaunched with a new packaging and price. The new packaging is bold and lot of golden color splashed across it. After a long while, the brand had a reasonably attractive packaging. The relaunch also saw a new positioning for the brand. The brand sadly messed up on the positioning in the relaunch also. The brand came out with very poorly executed campaign positioning Bar One as a chocolate that will attract girls !!!

Watch the ad here : Bar One 

The brand now has the tagline " Kaafi Hai " meaning " Its enough ". I really don't understand the connection between the brand and the tagline. One notion can be that Bar One is enough to satisfy your hunger ? Anyways the ad series with the new tagline may not be enough to lift the brand's fortunes. But the strong presence at the retail outlets coupled with the tendency of consumers to try out different brands will once again add more sales for this brand.
Bar One desperately needs investment in serious brand building. The brand is capable of building a position in the market dominated by Cadbury's brands. Bar One also has strong recall among the consumers backed by better taste and reasonable pricing. It needs more focus on developing a meaningful positioning . 5 Star has already owned up the " Taste" platform . The current campaign of Bar One is below average and will only make matter worse for the brand. 

Brand Update : J Hampstead takes Hrithik as Brand Ambsassador

The premium suit brand J Hampstead from Siyaram has roped in Hrithik Roshan as the new brand ambassador. The new set of commercials are in the pipeline for the brand featuring the new brand ambassador. The brand is still focusing on the celebrity route for brand building. 

J Hamsptead had earlier used the Bollywood Diva Priyanka Chopra to endorse it. The move was different since not many Male brands roped in female celebrities to endorse it. The celebrity endorsement route had worked for the brand in creating certain amount of awareness in the market. The brand is now worth around Rs 50 crore and grew about 20% CAGR in 2010. In 2009-2010, the brand launched its international range of readymades in India.

The entry of Hrithik will add the style quotient for the brand to a large extent. The brand is targeting the upwardly mobile 35 + consumers who look for high quality stylish cloths. The brand's major competitor is the market leader Raymond's. 

The celebrity powered branding works well in creating lot of awareness/visibility to the brand but brands are built on meaningful differentiation. Here J Hampstead is focusing on Quality as the key differentiating attribute. But quality is an attribute that is taken by every other competitor in the market. Along with the celebrity, J Hampstead needs to identify a relevant differentiator if it wants to fight Raymonds. The problem with celebrity endorsement is that it will help get the brand noticed. If the brand wants consumer to remember, message is important. 

Related Brand

J Hampstead

The 

Koutons : 50% + 40% Off

Brand : Koutons
Company : Koutons Retail India Ltd

Brand Analysis Count : # 483

Koutons is a brand story which has gone sour. This 1000 crore corporate brand is now facing the worst period of its existence- facing mounting debt and bad press regarding the financial position and the stock price moving southward. 

Koutons , the brand owned by Koutons Retail India Ltd was born in 1991. The original name of the company was Charlie Creations which was later rechristened as Koutons. Koutons is both the corporate brand and an individual brand . The company has a range of readymades with the brand name Koutons. Along with it , the company also has other brands of clothings like Charlie Outlaw, Le Femme etc. The current post focuses more on the individual brand.

Koutons Retail is a classic entrepreneurial story. The company was founded by Mr. DPS Kohli. Mr Kohli and his family owned a television manufacturing business which was destroyed during a riot. Mr. Kohli  had to suffer huge financial losses from that even and had to work as an insurance surveyor for long . Later he ventured into the retail textile business.

Koutons grew really fast. The company became India's largest retail apparel chain in a span of 10 years . In 2009, the company had around 1400 Exclusive Brand Outlets (EBO) making it the largest apparel chain. The company had a turnover of around Rs 1000 crore in 2008-2009.

Koutons was a brand built on a very unique strategy - deep discounting. Deep discounting is a pricing strategy where the brand offers huge  ( often mind-blowing) discounts on an unusually high MRP ( Maximum Retail Price) . So the consumers are attracted towards the product seeing the huge discounts which are actually not a discount ( in pure sense). 

Koutons has a popular discount scheme  known as 50% + 40 % off. So there is a 50% off on the MRP and then another 40% off on the discounted price. So  the consumers obviously are delighted to get a shirt with an MRP of Rs 1500 for as low as Rs 450. Another very successful offer was " Buy 4 garments for the price of One ". Seeing this unbelievable offers , consumers flock into the showrooms and buy what ever that is available .

Along with the deep discounting strategy, the brand also invested some money in the brand building.Koutons has the tagline " The way ahead, always " . It had campaigns featuring foreign models and usually the showrooms are located in upmarket malls thus giving the impression that Koutons are a premium brand.  But frankly no one really knows whether Koutons really sells a shirt for Rs 1500. 

But nobody was complaining because consumers got a feeling to getting a good bargain and that is what matters. So this model worked well for the firm for more that 20 years. As usual, 20 years is pretty long time for consumers to learn the discounting model. The sales started drying up and the cost and inventory started building up. More discounts followed and revenues started sliding. The company landed itself into a financial trouble. ( source).

The brand really was able to tap the " value for money " psyche of the Indian consumer. Indian consumers like a good bargain and for long years, the firm was able to capture profit out of it. But the popularity of other discount outlets of established brands and the quality issues of Koutons paved the way for the downside for the brand. According to some newsreports, the company faced the issue of inventory mis-estimates and huge debts. 

I also have bought the brand believing that I got a good bargain later found that I was a victim of a very clever marketing strategy. Often some students ask me whether Koutons will lose its brand equity if it gives discounts like that, assuming that they sell the product at MRP atleast in some outlets. In the case of Koutons, they sell by these discounts.

In the deep discounting model, the brand is secondary. What matters is the  attractiveness of discounts and high media spents announcing the discounts. It is not the brand that pulls the customers but the perceived bargain. Ofcourse the consumers should feel that the brand is aspirational . So it is a kind of a very risky , clever strategy. Project aspirational image and use discounts to pull the consumer in.

Koutons as a company is in financial trouble and the fate of the brand depends on how the company survives the crisis. The deep discounting model will work in a market like India as long as the firm is able to project the aspirational image. It lacks the glamour of brand-building but may work for short-term. In the long term such deep discounting will eventually kill the brand. 

Brand Update : Kara Skincare fights the mighty Hand Kerchief

After a long period of silence, the tissue wipes brand Kara from Aditya Birla Group is back in action. Launched in 2008 with much fanfare, the brand went into a long silence throughout 2010. The product was not even visible in the supermarkets and were silent across media. Now the brand is back with a bang with a new positioning and celebrity power. The brand also had a trademark issues with Dabur's Kaya brand since Kaya also had tissue wipes which was later settled ( source). 

Skincare Wipes are an emerging category in India. We Indians are not yet familiar with the idea of using paper tissue instead of our very own hand kerchief. But this trend is visibly changing with the new generation being open to the idea of carrying tissue instead of the hanky. This is the trend that Kara wanted to see and capitalize.

It can be said that the brand went in for a relaunch. The brand sports a new positioning and a tagline. The new positioning of Kara is very interesting since it pitches itself as an alternative to the ubiquitous hand kerchief. The brand also have roped in two celebrities to endorse - Sharman Joshi and Anushka Sharma.

The brand had moved away from the earlier positioning of " feel good " to hygiene. This is a major shift in the positioning platform of this brand. For that purpose, the brand had pitted against hand kerchief saying that using hand kerchief to wipe the face is a " bad habit " since we use hanky for lot of unhygienic purposes (as highlighted by the ads) .
The ad features these celebrities  highlighting the unhygienic nature of the hanky and encouraging people to use Kara Skincare wipes. The brand is talking about three basic benefits - Cleansing, Nourishing and Deodorizing. Kara Skincare has Cucumber, Aloe Vera and Mint oil  as ingredients to support the claim.

Watch the ads here : Sharman Kara 1, Sharman Kara 2 , Anushka 1 , Anushka 2

The current attempt of Kara is interesting and the brand has the guts to take on the generic competitor hanky head-on. The fact is that many consumers are unaware of the unhygienic nature of hanky and we believe that since it is washed daily , hygiene is taken care of. The ads highlight is issue nicely. The brand currently has adopted the tagline " Face Refresh Karne Ka Specialist "  ( Specialist for refreshing your face !).

The big question is whether the consumers will actually see the tissue wipes as an alternative to hanky - atleast for the use of  wiping the face. The answer is both yes and no. There is a section of our society which already is open to such extra-conscious about the hygiene. Most of the young girls have started using wipes because of convenience factor. These people will adopt the idea first and then there is a chance of more consumers adopting this product.
The brand had earlier tried to position itself  on the feeling good platform highlighting the benefits but consumers did not respond warmly to it. This may have prompted the brand to take an aggressive approach. The direct comparison with hand kerchief will definitely make consumer look at this brand seriously.

Another interesting aspect of Kara's strategy is its focus on both the genders. When launched, Kara was focusing on female segment but now it is explicitly targeting the male segment through Sharman Joshi. The brand also is not projecting itself as a hip-hop brand so that it does not alienate the larger segment of the society . So the brand had put the characters of the ads as common folks .

The strategy of fighting head-on with generic competition is a very risky but bold strategy. Here the brand is trying to create a parity with the hanky . The rationale is that Tissue Wipes is a new category and brand and category competition is not what should be addressed at this stage.
Making this category into a mainstream is the challenge that Kara faces and it has done the homework well.

Related brand
Kara Skincare wipes

Brand Update : Barclaycard RIP ( 2008-2011 ?)

According to newspaper reports, the Barclay's Corporate which runs the credit card business has decided to put Barclaycard on the block. The report further suggest that Barclays is going to scale down its retail operations owing to the bad debts accumulated during recession. The unofficial number of creditcards of Barclays is put at 2.4 Million.

Barclaycard was launched with much fanfare. The brand offered several differentiators which was later matched by other players. The company was in the dilemma of choosing between high risk Vs growth. Finally it decided to sell of the credit-card business and concentrate on other banking domains. 

Credit card brands are a confused lot. On one hand they want the users to splurge  and on the other hand, they worry about bad debts. Greed makes these brands charge exorbitant charges which adds to bad debts. It is a vicious cycle.

Having said that, Barclays had a reasonably good business albeit small in market size. That may bring in some suitors who wanted to scale up their business. Barclaycard failed because the brand lacked the distribution reach which is essential to scale up. The recession add to its voes for fear of accumulating bad debts.

Anyways another brand is going to die. RIP

Related Brand

Barclaycard

News reports