Brand Update : Dear Engage, Parent in me requests - can you move on please !

Engage, the deo from ITC has made a quick impact in the Indian market. Within a year, the brand has claimed second spot in the India deo market with a volume market share of 8.1% ( source : ET). The brand playing on the " attraction " theme has taken it to the next level.

This season, the brand has come out with the new campaign for the "zero gas" cologne spray version.

Watch it here : Engage Deo

The brand's ads have always forced parents like me who have little kids to scramble for the remote to change channels. The new ad takes the " attraction" to the next level.
 While the rise of the Engage deo can also be attributed to the effectiveness of these ads, my personal opinion is that brands should also be little sensitive to the audience especially the family audience. Ofcourse the counter arguments would be that movies are much worse or explicit, that doesn't justify a suggestive ad.

I am getting old , I suppose. 

Libero : Love Every Moment

Brand : Libero
Company ; Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget ( SCA)

Brand Analysis Count : # 551

Johnson & Johnson (J&J) now has a competition from a global player in the Rs 4500 crore Indian baby care market. SCA which is a  $10Bn Swedish company has launched its range of baby products in the Indian market. SCA is a global hygiene and forest products company which is Europe's second largest diaper maker. 

SCA has launched its diaper and other baby products like soaps, baby lotion , powder etc. The brand is now running its campaign in my state Kerala for its range of products.

Libero is positioned as a natural product which is skin friendly. The brand is emphasising natural positioning by comparing it to mother's touch. The brand has the tagline " Love Every Moment" which is not something that the brand projects. The brand is currently putting its muscle behind the Natural positioning. 

Watch the ad here  : Libero 

The Indian baby care market is huge by its sheer size . Economic Times estimates that there are ~ 50mn babies in the age group 0-2 years and 304.8mn in the age group of 0-12. The market for baby apparel , footwear and baby cosmetics is estimated to be around $12 bn growing at a CAGR of 17%.

The diaper market is around 2500 crore and baby toiletries market is around Rs 2500 crore.  

J&J has a strong foothold in the baby toiletries market. 

SCA has launched a whole range of products in the Indian market with a branded house strategy. All the products launched has the family brand - Libero. The company is heavily promoting the brand in the visual media. But here one issue is that since the brand is new, consumers would be unsure about trusting it. It is surprising to see why the brand is not promoting its " Swedish Country of Origin" since it would have helped in establishing credibility in this highly sensitive market. 

Brand Update : Colgate Slimsoft Charcoal toothbrush will make you say WhattheBlack !

A black bristled toothbrush for your white teeth !!

Colgate has done something unusual in the Indian market- a black colored toothbrush branded as Slimsoft Charcoal. The brand which is available in other parts of the world is now launched in India with much fanfare.

What is unusual and interesting about the new product is the color of the toothbrush itself. Black color is something that will be in the last option when one chose a color for the toothbrush bristles. However Colgate chose to play contrarian and launched it in the market.

The brand claims to have charcoal infused bristles which will remove bacteria and plaque better than ordinary bristles. Now only Colgate knows what is meant by charcoal " infused" bristles. 

Whatever it might be, the launch is pretty interesting. Conventional wisdom says that black color may repel a customer from buying a toothbrush for cleaning your teeth. Just like whether one would choose a black color liquid floor cleaner !

But marketing is all about defying conventional wisdom.

The black color is definitely intriguing for a consumer and this will prompt him to try the brand. But he may have fight the natural urge not to chose black color . Novelty, the backing of the Colgate brand and the relatively low risk would be the factors that will aid the new product to induce trials. 

To hardsell the new launch, Colgate has initiated a social media campaign with the hashtag : # Whattheblack. The initiative where the brand reached out to key influencers like bloggers with a mystery black gift with only the indication of whattheblack site. The intrigued influencers spread the message on their platforms and according to the reports, this went viral ( source) 

What the new product will definitely do is the bring back some kind of energy back to the toothbrush market. 

Marketing Funda : Brand Refresh

This post is inspired by  my learned Twitter friend @vijaysankaran when he queried about my opinion about the brand refresh by Raymond. I was more familiar with Re-branding and not refresh which lead to more learning about this term. 

Brand refresh is a term that signifies slight modification of the brand ( or brand elements). Radical modification or change of brand elements implies re-branding. 

Refreshing of brand usually happens under following conditions 

• The brand is perceived to be old.
• Brand is trying to appeal to a new segment , for example younger crowd.
• When there is a change in the brand positioning.
• When there is a shift in the characteristics of the TG.
• When the brand elements need modernization . 
• When the brand launches products in other categories ( Brand Extensions)
• When you feel consumers are bored with the brand.
• When nothing else can be refreshed !

Brand often do these refreshing by slightly tweaking the logo/color/tagline /positioning etc but as per the theory , radical changes in the brand elements are entitled to be called as Re-branding. Hence there is only a thin difference between re-branding and refreshing.

As the term implies, refreshing brand make sense especially when one cannot make any radical changes in the product. For example, for products like softdrinks, the product attributes remains the same and only thing that can be changed are the brand related attributes like taglines , slogans etc. 

Brand refresh can be done by 

• New campaigns 
• Changing taglines and slogans ( or introducing a tagline )
• Introducing or changing imagery
• Changing the protagonists in the campaigns
• Introducing brand extensions
• Introduce a brand element which was not there before .
• Re-positioning 
• Re-targeting 

My take on this term is that what ever activities that marketer undertake to make brand fresh without radically affecting the brand elements can be termed as brand refresh. One article rightly compared  Brand Refresh to a Makeover. ( source ).

Brand Update : Raymond formally enters into ready-to-wear segment

Although the reports of Raymond entering into the readymade segment was there since 2007, I feel the brand has only now fully launched itself into this category. The " Complete Man" now has become readymade !

The Indian men's wear market is around Rs 97000 crore and the formal menswear market is estimated to be around Rs 15000 crore ( Source TOI) . Raymond has brands like Park Avenue, Parx, Color Plus and Notting Hill in the segment.

The addition of Raymond will further strengthen the company's portfolio but at the same time would cannibalize the other brands like Park Avenue. Having said that the move has to be seen in the larger picture where the trend is moving towards the ready-to-wear segment.

Raymond is now running the campaign for its ready-wear push. The brand retains the tagline " The Complete Man".

Watch the ad here : Raymond Readymade
The ad is well crafted - simple and elegant.
As long as the brand moves with in the positioning of " The Complete Man ",  the readymade push would be well accepted by the consumers. But Raymond has to create a separate space for its brands with distinct identity to avoid cannibalization.  I think it will be interesting to see how Raymond will be affecting Park Avenue .

Marketing Funda : The cost of Hype

October 6 ,2014 could have been a historical day for Flipkart but in reality, that day proved to be more of a PR nightmare than a marketing success. It may be true that on that day, the company would have emptied its inventory of many products but at the cost of a lot of goodwill .

The huge hype created by Flipkart and the subsequent backlash forces us to refresh some basics in managing expectations. 

One of the classic theories related to expectation and subsequent satisfaction is Expectation-Confirmation Theory ( ECT) . The theory is no rocket science . It simply states that during the pre-purchase stage, the consumer forms expectations either by the conscious act of the marketer or through other means. After the purchase or service encounter, the consumer's satisfaction is decided on the perceived performance of whether the original expectations are confirmed.

Because of the equity established by Flipkart, the consumers expected that on that day 

• They would get a fair bargain .
• The site would work perfectly.
• Orders would be fulfilled.
• Deal would be fair.

Getting a big bargain is a game. Consumers know that and wouldn't mind if the deal is taken by someone else - its a competition. That's why for many consumers, getting discounts is an ego-satisfying process. But when there are news about price tampering and deliberate price increases     preempting the sale, the issue of fairness becomes dominant. It's here that Flipkart got the stick. Consumers were furious not because they didn't get the deal, they felt cheated because of the fairness- factor. 

Here Flipkart simply took the billion day offer to stratospheric levels that even to the best of the intentions, it cannot be matched. Then in reality the entire sale became a nightmare. 

The lessons learned has to be that marketers need to set realistic expectations ( common sense !). But some times common sense need to be emphasized.