Brand Update : 5 Star wants you to do nothing !

For now, Ramesh and Suresh are retired from 5 Star advertisements. The duo which gave a different narrative to the brand has kind of becoming boring because of familiarity. The duo can be hated or liked but could not be ignored.

This year, the brand has launched a new campaign in line with the earlier positioning of " Getting Lost in the taste of 5 Star". The new campaign which is humorous enough has the narrative of getting lost but a twist in the message -" It is good to do nothing"

The challenge faced by established brands like 5 Star is to be interesting and relevant across time. Since there is little scope for product-changes, the only variable is advertisement theme and positioning. While frequent positioning changes are not advised, these brands need to always deliver fresh creative campaigns. 

The new ad achieves the purpose of freshness and the new positioning platform is cheeky and has the steam to run a few seasons. The current advertisement story is not unique but the execution is very good. What I liked is the cheeky tagline " Eat 5 Star, Do Nothing". In a way, the brand has a competing narrative to KitKat which is based on having a break. 

One8 : By Virat Kohli

Brand: One8
Company: Virat Kohli

Brand Analysis Count: 591

One8 is a brand owned by the cricketing icon Virat Kohli. The brand is an interesting one in the perspective of the business model. Brands created and owned by sports stars are nothing new. There are very well-known and successful brands like CR7, KF and the like. One8 owned by Virat Kohli is special because of the star himself. 

One8 brand whose name is derived from the jersey number of Virat was created in 2017. Virat Kohli signed a long-term 8-year contract with the sports brand Puma for a whopping 130 crore, and it is said that the idea of One8 brand grew to fruition from that partnership. Soon Puma launched the One8 range of sports shoes endorsed by Virat Kohli.

 Just like the brand owner, the brand began to aggressively extend itself into multiple categories. The business model is basically a licensing arrangement. Now One8 has launched products under the following categories

Sportswear - Puma

Fragrance - Scentials

Innerwear - Artmas Fashions ( Lux)

Footwear - Aeon Sports

Energy Drink - O'cean

Kidswear

Restaurant 

and probably many more to come in future. 

As one can observe, the brand has been expanding into a wide range of categories. The question is whether a new brand like One8 has the equity to spread itself too far across multiple unrelated categories. 

The brand derives its equity from the celebrity owner himself. All the products under this brand are endorsed by Virat himself. While many sports personalities launch their labels close to retirement, Virat was wise enough to launch his brand much early in his career and there is a lot of years of cricketing left in him. 

Different categories of products require different story-telling and narratives. When one tries to capture multiple categories with a single brand, it creates a huge amount of strain for the brand's equity and personality. For a personality-driven brand like One8, having too much endorsement also reduces the exclusivity of the celebrity and has the risk of brand-dilution. 

In a profitability or revenue point of view, getting into maximum licensing agreement make sense. It is like make hay while the sun shines. However, too many extension that too in many unrelated categories is bound to have its price. 

Lessons of Leverage from Cadbury & Oreo

When you have two very popular brands, how often you think about leveraging the strength of those two brands for mutual advantage? Lessons are to be learned from the two most popular brands from Kraft foods - Cadbury and Oreo. When Cadbury was taken over by Kraft foods, many saw synergy in the business and not brands. However, Kraft foods have very cleverly leveraged the strengths of both the brands by launching variants exploiting the strength of both the brands.

Take the two products - Cadbury Silk Oreo which has Oreo biscuits inside and Oreo biscuits dipped in Cadbury chocolate. Consumers have different tastes, some like their chocolates to be crunchy while others would like creamy chocolates with no interference in between. But more importantly, consumers are craving for more consumption experiences. They are willing to experiment with different combinations and here loyalty seldom matters. 

So when the two brands which have powerful equity decide to collaborate and bring new products together, the experiences multiply manifold. Of course, there will be consumers who don't like these variants, there are original products for them. However, a large set of consumers of this category of foods love new varieties and combinations. 

While many FMCG brands bring out variants and combinations, it's very rare that such brilliant leverage of brand strength has occurred in the Indian market.

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Brand Update : Odomos' experiment with product forms

In classic marketing textbooks, one of the strategies in managing the maturity stage of the product lifecycle is product modification. Theory suggests that there are two types of modifications - retention modification and conquesting modifications. Retention modifications are those which aims at satiating existing customers while the conquesting modification is aimed at getting new customers. 

Odomos has been in the market for decades and the challenge it faces is that stagnation in the market in terms of product penetration. Although mosquitoes are ubiquitous, Odomos is still a small brand in terms of size. This is probably because of lack of awareness and doubts about the safety of applying the cream directly into the skin. 

Odomos in recent years has addressed this problem head-on by launching a series of different product forms. Now the brand is available in the original cream form, liquid, gel, patch and now wearables and spray form. This strong marketing thought behind the brand should be appreciated. 

In the promotion front, the company has been very active. The target segment in most of the campaign is the children. I wonder why the company is restricting its target ( at least in the ads) to children. It is true that children are active outside the house and risk of them getting diseases is high, but the brand should have focused more on functional/benefit positioning targeting away from the age variable. 

The current campaign of Odomos is also well made which is themed in a rap setting but again focusing on children. 

The competitor Good Knight is also very active and since the product form differentiation is not insulated from emulation, other brands are also quick to come with their own versions. 

My personal take is that Odomos should think of a change in the segmentation strategy focusing on the proposition of a facilitator to active life since mosquitos are a nuisance to an active outdoor life. 

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