Monday, April 27, 2015

Brand Update : Alia Bhatt to Perk Up Cadbury Perk

Cadbury Perk is a confused brand. Perk came into limelight with an epic fight between KitKat and Perk. Then both these brands went to two trajectories. While KitKat was able to find a direction in terms of positioning , Perk was totally a confused brand. Nestle then launched Munch to fight Perk. Perk kept on experimenting with advertising themes and positioning and still has not found its mojo. 


Really I miss the magic of the launch campaigns of Perk . From this classic ad, the brand went to meaningless campaigns and later somewhat settled into its glucose energy focus. While KitKat focused on Have a Break positioning, Perk was no where in the picture.


Now Perk is again trying a new positioning featuring the Bollywood star Alia Bhatt.  The brand is running the campaign featuring the new celebrity endorser. 

Watch the ad here : Alia Bhatt Perk
Along with the new ad, Perk now has a new tagline " Jiyo Lightum Light"  which probably means to live life freely. 
From the ad, I have a feeling that the campaign was created around the celebrity rather than the brand. The thinking would be like , let us make an ad that fits Alia Bhatt ! 
My feeling is that Perk is struggling to find the right positioning. The new positioning lacks a connect with the product and the practical joke theme and the bubbly girl character has been heavily used by many brands in the past. 
Its sad to see the standards of the Perk's ads go down compared to the earlier ones ( featuring Preity Zinta). 

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Brand Update : Live-in makes Ajay Devgn say " Can't Live Without"

After some unworthy advertisement campaigns, Live-in has come out with a new campaign featuring the actor- Ajay Devgn. The brand is currently running the new campaign featuring the celebrity.
The brand had come to the limelight with some smart campaign featuring Dino Morea with the focus on comfort as the USP. 
Later the brand changed track and produced some averagely creative campaigns and faded into the clutter.

This time around, the brand is putting its future on Ajay Devgn.
The choice of the celebrity is interesting since he does not feature in the young brigade of celebrity endorsers. So wondering whether the brand is taking the risk of alienating the young consumers.
The brand has retained its tagline " Can't Live Without "
The  new campaign is somewhat ordinary without any wow factor. The presence of the actor gives some freshness to the otherwise forgotten brand other than that the new rejuvenation exercise delivers not much. Along with the new ad, the brand also has a new logo . 
My opinion is that this brand faded into oblivion because of lack of marketing investment from the owners. After the initial high profile branding, there was no  note-worthy campaigns for this brand. Even at the stores, this brand was virtually invisible. Hopefully the brand will receive more sustained investment in days to come. 

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Brand Update : This summer, Frooti gets a major makeover

This summer, the 30 year old Frooti has got a bold makeover. Frooti has re-branded itself with a new logo, new packaging and ofcourse new brand communication. Frooti has a commanding 80% + share in the tetra-pack segment of the Rs 3500 crore Indian mango drink market. But the overall market share of the brand is only 11% in the total market. This is because the market is dominated by PET packs

The brands like Maaza and Slice dominate the market with their PET bottle variants. More over, the company feels that Frooti is perceived to be a kid's brand thus alienating the young/teen consumers who now form the majority of the consuming class of these products.

So along with the re-branding, Frooti has also changed the product formula with more juice pulp added to it. The re-branding also saw a change in the advertising agency . The company has roped in Sagmeister  & Walsh for this exercise.
The result is a bold logo, new color for the packaging and a new campaign.

Watch the tvc here : Frooti life

The brand has retained SRK as the endorser.

The ad uses the stop-motion animation and frankly I didn't get the plot until I read the detailed story line in an article

The theme revolves around the tiny people in a tiny world living a Frooti Life.
The brand which brought back the classic " Fresh'N'Juicy " tagline has dropped it in the new scheme of things. The new tagline it seems is " The Frooti Life".

The packaging is bold and refreshing. The ad is amusing because of the stop-motion animation but I am not sure whether it has the wow-factor enough to cause the youngsters to flock to it. The brand has attempted a laddering up from the highly functional FreshNJuicy proposition. But I feel that the plot is not that clear. 


While the brand has made a refreshing change, I am wondering what next for the brand ? How is the brand going to take the " Frooti Life " forward ? Just being amusing is a dangerous goal in a re-branding and re-segmenting exercise. 
The 2013 campaign was so good and bought back the freshness to the brand with SRK boosting the presence. A drastic change in the whole branding and segment is something which is quite intriguing.
Some how I feel a disconnect between the tiny people and SRK and Frooti Life ! May be  because I am out of the TG. 

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Brand Update : Fair & Handsome ropes in Hrithik Roshan

Indian men's grooming  market is estimated to be  Rs 4300 crore market ( Source - Euromonitor). The skin care market is estimated to be around Rs 700 crore. The fairness segment for men was created and dominated by Fair and Handsome . Launched in 2005, FAH became hugely popular. The brand rode to fame with the endorsement from Shah Rukh Khan.

After 8 years of association with SRK, FAH has now roped in Hrithik Roshan as the brand ambassador. Hrithik is featured in the new ad for FAH Face wash. The men's face wash category is worth to be around Rs 250 crore. The 8 years association with SRK has helped FAH to be the leader in the category.

The new brand ambassador is expected to rejuvenate the brand and bring in freshness. The brand is currently airing the TVC featuring the new brand ambassador.

Watch the TVC here : Hrithik FAH

The ad highlights the functional benefits of the FAH facewash with brand ambassador as the user. The reports suggest that Hrithik would be one of the ambassadors and does not indicate that he has replaced SRK. 

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Brand Update : Sunfeast Brand Architecture

Launched in 2003, Sunfeast has come a long way. The brand has become an umbrella brand endorsing a wide range of biscuit and other products from the ITC stable. It is interesting to see the brand architecture of Sunfeast.

Brand Architecture refers to the strategy in which the company decides on how to use the brand elements and how these elements are shared across products. So Sunfeast's brand architecture refers to the strategy on the usage of Sunfeast brand elements across various products.

ITC has used Sunfeast as an Umbrella ( Family ) brand name for biscuit and snack products from its stable. Sunfeast endorses the following products - biscuits, noodles and pasta. 

Within each category, the brand architecture of Sunfeast is interesting.

According to the brand's website, ITC has divided the biscuits into four sub-categories - Cookies, Cream based biscuits and  Light and Fun biscuits and Healthy biscuits.
In the brand architecture , the company has used sub-brands for various types of products .
















In the cookie sub-category, Sunfeast has following sub-brands - Delishus, Special Cookies and Mom's Magic . 

In the healthy biscuits sub-category, Sunfeast has Farmlite, Marie Lite, Glucose and Milky Magic sub-brands.

In the cream biscuit sub-category, Sunfeast has Dark Fantasy,  Bounce , Bourbon Bliss and Dream Cream  sub-brands.

In the light and fun biscuit sub-category, Sunfeast has Sweet'N'Salt, Nice and Snacky sub-brands.
Within the Dark Fantasy brand, there are three modifier brands - Choco Meltz and Choco Fills and Luxuria.

Besides the biscuit category, Sunfeast is also extended to Noodles and Pasta . For noodles category, Sunfeast uses Yippee  sub-brand and for pasta, it has Pasta Treat sub-brand. 
Recently Sunfeast launched a competitor for Choco Pie in the form of  Yumfills which is not a biscuit but a cream filled cake. 
It is interesting that ITC is investing in not only Sunfeast but its sub-brands because it has lot of cash to spend. These sub-brands are differentiated through packaging and other brand elements like color. 

In this brand architecture, the parent brand  Sunfeast is present as a logo in most of the products. In all the packaging and brand related communication, the primary driver is the sub-brand. ITC expects that over a period of time, these sub-brands will acquire equity and Sunfeast would just be a token endorser. 

Wednesday, March 04, 2015

Milso : The ( Goat) Milk Soap

Brand : Milso
Company : Good Buy Soaps and Cosmetics

Brand analysis count : # 556


This post is about a soap brand from my state of Kerala. It feels good when some one from a predominantly consumer state like Kerala dives into the world of marketing with a brand. Milso is a " Made in India" brand of soap from a little known firm - Good Buy Soaps and Cosmetics. According to reports, the company which began operations in 2007 has been marketing soaps in the rural markets. This is the first foray into the branded urban consumer space.

Milso soap's USP is that it is made from goat's milk. According to the brand, goat's milk has many skin nourishing properties. The brand claims to be the first Indian soap brand to have goat's milk. 

The brand is currently running its launch campaign in its home state. 
Watch the ad here : Milso
While there is nothing great about the ad, the thinking behind the ad is to make the " goat's milk" proposition popular. It is true that there is a novelty in the brand which will definitely catch the interest of the consumer. 
The brand has the tagline " The Milk Soap " and I assume that the brand name is also derived from milk-soap. The company has done right in terms of packaging which looks attractive. I am not sure about the pricing part which will be updated soon.

In the highly cluttered toilet soap category, getting a space for a new brand is not that easy. It takes lot of investment to get the eyeballs and also to induce trial. In a cluttered market, the trouble is that one has to continuously burn cash in order to be in the top of the mind. 
Milso has an advantage in the fact that its USP is really new to the Indian market. That gives a certain amount of eyeballs and trial. The brand according to the company is trying to build awareness about the efficacy of goat's milk in the personal-care space. The fact remains that any other competitor can imitate the brand without much of a problem. 
As a new product, Milso has many good things going for it , the fate now depends mainly on how the brand performs and fulfill its promise.