Monday, December 12, 2005

Colorplus : consistency pays


Brand : Colorplus

Agency : Rubecon

Company : Raymonds



Colorplus was launched in 1993 by Colorplus Fashions which was a unit of Coimbatore based Ambattur Clothing Limited.

It was launched at a time where no global brands were seriously exploring the Indian market. I would say that no serious branding effort was there in place during that time . The ready to wear segment was in a nascent stage.


Colorplus as a brand now has an iconic status in the readymade segment.The brand which is carefully crafted and brilliantly communicated is the perfect example of brand management.
Rajendra Mudaliar, managing director, and Kailash M Bhatia, CEO has been clear on what the brand is and how this is to be communicated.

In 2003 this brand was acquired by Raymonds. I thought that the communication and brand strategy would change but to my pleasant surprise , it is the same. Thank God...

The brand falls under the Smart casual segment in the ready to wear market with its presence in South and west Asia. In this era of celebrity endorsement , this is a brand which uses no celebrity , and Colorplus is always the star. The brand is exposed through careful media selection and you never see a TVC of this brand. The copy and the layout is ever so consistent and the ads has maitained a classy look throughout its existence.

Seen only in premium publications and business magazines reveals that the brand is clear about the target segment.

Raymonds by acquiring this brand has now entered the premium casual wear segment which is now fast growing. With Parx at the lower end and Colorplus on the premium end, Raymonds is hoping to gain a major foothold in the Indian ready to wear segment in years to come.

Hope Raymonds don't mess up this brand...........

Friday, December 09, 2005

Ford Fiesta : Go Fida, excuse me GO What?


Brand : Ford Fiesta

Agency : JWT

Base line : Go Fida


This exciting new powerhorse from the Ford Stable is set to hot up the Indian automobile scene.
Ford has tasted its success with its josh machine which is considered as a stylish and powerful car which is priced sensibly. Then the entire market witnessed a large number of product launches and the competition was carving in to Ford's market. Hyundai with its aggressive marketing was able to beat Ford with their Accent .

Ford is fighting back with the launch of Fiesta.
Fiesta is priced aggressively at around 6lakhs is set to capture a fair share of the market.

As usual Ford is also relying on the bollywood stars to sell its car an this time roped in Abhishek Bachchan to endorse the car. The campaign is executed by JWT.
Regarding the campaign, I have my own reservations. I know hindi but the term Fida is strange to me, so it will be for the entire south indian market. josh although it is an Hindi word, south indian languages also have similar words. but Fida is a real strange word. Only yesterday I came to know that it meant "mad about something" .............well fine....
Ford will have to spent some money on teaching the Non hindi speaking consumers about the main positioning statement " Go Fida"
Marketers should be careful about the positioning statements and its linkages with the market. It is important that they understand a diverse maket like India with 17 odd major languages and million dialects. So does it make sense to have a positioning statement that is simple and could be understood by the target market.
Fiesta will be successful because it offers excellent value for money proposition, the one and onluly one proposition that works in India, but for the campaign and positioning , I have my doubts

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Onida : The Devil is Back



Brand : Onida
Company: Mirc Electronics
Agency Rediffusion

I am celebrating the Return of the devil, still wondering why it was taken away in the first place. I was in my teens when they launched the TV with a " devil" . The marketers predicted doom for the brand but the devil clicked.

The Devil was originally created by Mr gopi Kukde of Avenues in 1982. It was a welcome break from the boring TV industry. If I remember correctly, Onida was the first brand to advertise in Television, ie TVC about TV in TV.

The brand had a wonderful time and was in the top three brands in marketshare behind BPL and Videocon. Then the Koreans came and rest is (Became) history. Onida had a fair chance to succeed when the koreans came to the Indian market. Onida was perceived to be a vibrant brand with technological superiority.

Then Mirc electronics decided the switch the agency to O&M.The creative hotshots there convinced Mirc that Devil is outdated. Hence the company changed from the famous " neighbours envy, owners pride" to some thing that i dont remember. What a tragedy......

Here is a time tested and successful positioning statement and a mascot that was so wonderful but it was changed for no reason what so ever. Then the newspaper reports quoted the agency telling that people resented the " neighbours envy" part so they have to change it... it was a lie.

O&M used some funny creatives like two elderly women using TV to terrify some young thing walking through the street. It was the death of a brand. The brand never recovered . Its market share dwindled to abysmal 5% in the late 90's.

2001 marked the return of the devil and the account shifted to Rediffusion. The consumer surveys showed high recall of devil even after 2 decades. The devil has to come back and it came in style.

The first devil was acted out by David Whitbread who was a model coordinator. he played devil for 14 years

The new devil is Matrix insprired and sports a contemprory look. Played by actor Rajesh Khera, the devil now is rocking. Onida which has recovered its market share to 12 % is aggressively playing on the marketing game. With a slew of product launches and careful segmentation, the market is opening to the devil. Onida is careful in positioning itself as a technologically superior premium brand although the prices are very competitive. It has launched the Poison brand which is a premium brand and Oxygen , Black and KY for the value for money segment.

In this Rs 10000 crore crowded market ,Onida has struck the right positioning .


Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Clinic All Clear : Clear about what it does.




Brand: Clinic All Clear

Agency : Lowe

Baseline: No dandruff No hairfall

Indian Shampoo market is estimated to be worth Rs1200 crore and is hotting up like anything.

This market has long been HLL fort and with a market share of around 55-60%, HLL was the king. The major brands being Clinic Plus - Positioned as family health brand

Clinic All clear -positioned as anti-dandruff

Sunsilk-- positioned as conditioner shampoo.

With P&G getting aggressive in the Indian FMCG market which is estimated to be around Rs 50000 crore with aggressive product launches and price wars, we are now seeing marketing in practice.

Globally P&G has been the market leader in the haircare segment. In India it was not able to replicate its marketing success. Having a share of only 15-20 %, P&G is now concentrating on building the market share and HLL is feeling the heat.

Hll has been working on the best selling Clinic Plus brand with lot of noise in the media. From Shah Rukh to Shahid, the brand was promoted by film stars. Hll also gave a regional touch by roping in Madhavan for the south as its brand ambassador.

But in the Anti dandruff segment, P&G 's Head & Shoulders was the leader with a market share of 35-36% followed by the brands of HLL. HLL having sensed that more growth is in the Anti-dandruff market has launched Clinic All Clear with a variant "Hairfall Defense" with a new packaging and positioned on twin benefit of Less hairfall and no dandruff.

HLL also roped in Bipasha and John Abraham to endorse the brand with the communication executed with perfection by Lowe

The communication was followed with a 360 degree brand building exercise with presence in the Web, contest in association with Contests2win.com and events featuring brand ambassadors. Hll has also relaunched a beautiful site for the brand www.clinicallclear.com which was designed to catch the young with lot of games and forums.

HLL has put their marketing power behind the brand and expects it to deliver and I feel that it will.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

The Great Horlicks Challenge


Brand : Horlicks

Agency :JWT

Company: GSK.


A 135 year old brand com constantly reinventing itself. A case of marketing common sense in action. Horlicks has long been the favorite health drink of India.
The brand commands 54% market share in Indian Health Drink industry which is valued at around Rs 1300 crore.

As always the brand which was successful was perceived to be a "boring brand" ( that is what the literature says). May be the reason was that there was no significant change in the look of the brand in terms of communication and packaging for a long period of time. So marketers who think that a brand has to constantly change itself inorder to maintain interest in the mind of the customers, were not at all impressed.

Then as usual , the competition increased. The major competitor "Complan" from Heinz stable began to experiment and create noise in the market. So the sleeping giant has to wake up.

Horlicks was positioning itself with nutrition. It had a strong nutritive association for very long period. GSK decided to extend this nutritive association and the communication was changed from "Great Family Nourisher to " pleasurable family nourisher". GSK began to introduce different
flavours ( choco,vanilla, elachi) trying to create excitement in the customers. The packaging has been changed to a much more colourful and funky bottle.
Lot of noise was made in the media with some meaningless blabbering " Apang Opang Japang" aimed at kids.

Then GSK thought about tapping the aged also. Horlicks lite was launched with lot of ad support featuring Boman Irani. Horlicks lite is a sugar free drink targeted at the health conscious /diabetic people. This is a good marketing move since this segment is fast growing and Horlicks have the advantage of a positive brand image.

The recent aggressive campaign of Horlicks features the new positioning " Now proven-Taller,stronger sharper" aims directly at Complan- which is now focusing on non drinkers.

The campaign is done in association with National Institute of Nutrition and features a " clinical trial" on 869 kids of age group 6-16 yrs. One group was given Horlicks while the other a placebo. The result is that the Horlicks group were more taller stronger and sharper than the control group.

Although there is a scope for controversy about this campaign, it is going to take a lot of work from Complan to counter the threat of Horlicks " new challenge"




Saturday, December 03, 2005

Colgate Dental Cream : ye hai hamari suraksha chakra


Brand : Colgate Dental Cream

Agency : Rediffusion DYR



Colgate has been ruling the Rs 2200 crore oral care segment for long with a market share of over 50%.

The flagship brand of this multinational giant is The Colgare Dental cream which alone has a market share of 35%.
The toothpaste segment can be divided in to three segments : white, Gel and herbal based on the product characteristic.

Colgate had enjoyed higher market share all through the years despite stiff competition from the likes of HLL and a host of regional brands. But the gaint shed its lethargy and stood up, fought the war and won.

When Colgate was enjoying its leadership position in the market, HLL successfully entered the market with a googly. It created a new segment with Close- up gel. While using Pepsodent to fight the Colgate Dental Cream (CDC), it created a market for itself with the gel that came in funky colours and excellent advertising.
Every marketer has then signed Colgate off saying that it cannot fight with the marketing giant HLL.
But colgate struck back with the launch of Colgate fresh energy gel and the famous campaign " TALK TO ME" starring the charming VJ Purab that stole the gel category from HLL .

Close up never recovered from that blow.

Then the multinational faced the onslaught of regional brands like Ajanta , babool that gave these guys a run for their money by selling toothpaste for ridiculously low price .These regional brands quickly gained market share from these MNC,s and a lot was written about the rise of regional brands.

Colgate and HLL responded to this threat by coming out with low priced flanking brands. Colgate launched low priced Cibaca to counter the regional brand while HLL had Aim to counter it.
The current figures show that the regional brands are finding it difficult to sustain the market share.

Colgate' s flagship brand CDC had consistantly positioned itself in the germ fighting platform. It had the famous " suraksha chakra " platform from where it had built its brand to this level.

All marketers know that it takes lot of smart thinking to keep the brand alive in a market. So Colgate launched many variants to ward off threats from the niche players and adapt to the changing tastesof the market. For example, it launched the herbal toothpaste when every one talked about the efficacy of herbs. The came the advanced whitening formula to fight the threat from Pepsodent whitening variant

The latest addition is the Colgate with power of active salt. The brand is developed after a careful study on the customers: the company says. Colgate undertook a study of a "day in the life of a customer" that gave lot of inputs about the customer's trigger and touch points.

As of now it is great going for the brand