When Regulators Give You a Brand Constraint

An interesting advertisement from Ujjivan Small Finance Bank featuring R. Madhavan caught my attention. The headline asks, “‘Small’ Finance Bank. Really?” and the campaign declares, “Nothing Small About Us.”There is an interesting branding dilemma here, one that was perhaps unintentionally created by the regulator itself.

When the RBI introduced Small Finance Banks, the objective was to promote financial inclusion by serving underserved customers, small businesses, marginal farmers and others who had limited access to formal banking. The word 'small' was essentially about the segments these banks were expected to serve, not necessarily the size or ambitions of the banks themselves. But consumers don't always interpret regulatory terminology the way regulators intend.

For an ordinary customer, a Small Finance Bank could easily mean a small bank with limited branches, products, resources or capabilities. An unintended perceptual disadvantage built into the category name!

The problem becomes more interesting as these banks grow. They compete for customers with established banking giants, whose ability to serve smaller customers is not similarly restricted. Yet the smaller challenger carries a label that could make it appear less capable.

Ujjivan has decided to confront this perception head-on. With R. Madhavan as its brand ambassador, it is highlighting its one crore-plus customers, 800-plus branches and presence across 26 states and Union Territories to communicate that there is nothing small about the bank.

But is this the best positioning strategy? One option would have been to ignore the word 'small' and promote its wide range of banking products, convenience and customer experience. Another would be to embrace the Small Finance Bank identity and build a distinctive position around accessibility and financial inclusion.

Ujjivan has chosen a third route: challenge the meaning of the very category to which it belongs.

From a marketing communication perspective, this raises an interesting question. When you repeatedly draw attention to a potentially negative association in order to correct it, are you weakening that association or inadvertently reinforcing it?

Of course, Ujjivan's campaign is based on customer insights, and there is merit in directly addressing an existing misconception. But once that misconception has been challenged, the brand still needs to establish what it wants to stand for.

Perhaps that is the larger branding dilemma.

When your category name itself becomes a positioning constraint, do you fight the category, redefine its meaning, or build a distinctive identity within it

Ujjivan has made its choice. It will be interesting to see whether other Small Finance Banks follow.

#BrandStrategy #Positioning #Banking #SmallFinanceBanks #UjjivanSmallFinanceBank #MarketingStrategy #BrandPerception #FinancialInclusion

When the market leader creates an opening for competition

I recently came across a news report about Swiggy and Zomato facing competition from smaller players offering restaurants lower or even zero commissions, potentially translating into lower prices for customers.

It made me think about a question that has bothered me for some time: why should a market leader, after spending enormous resources creating a market and building customer habits, leave a price umbrella large enough for competitors to enter underneath?

My own experience with Gillette is a small example. I have been a die-hard user of Mach3 Sensitive for years and had very little reason to experiment with anything else. But cartridge prices have steadily moved upwards and are now around ₹200 or more depending on the pack and where you buy it.

It is not that I cannot afford it. Somewhere, the price simply started feeling too high for what I was buying, and that did something interesting.

Gillette's competitors did not persuade me to try them. Gillette's pricing did.

For the first time in years, I started looking at Bombay Shaving Company and LetsShave. Whether they satisfy me enough to switch is another question, but Gillette itself provided the nudge to search.

I see something similar happening with Swiggy, which is again my go-to food delivery platform. As the total cost of ordering has increased, I haven't abandoned Swiggy, but I order less frequently, compare alternatives more often and occasionally check whether ordering directly from the restaurant makes better sense.

Interestingly, Swiggy's response makes the story even more fascinating. It has launched Toing as a separate value-focused app, advertising prices around 30% lower. Strategically, it makes sense to defend the value segment without disturbing the economics of the core platform.

But it raises an uncomfortable question: did the economics of the original platform itself create the space that now needs defending?

Premium pricing backed by strong brand equity is perfectly legitimate. But there must be a point at which monetising loyalty starts weakening the very loyalty that made the premium possible. Once a loyal customer who was not even considering alternatives starts searching, the competitive game has already changed.

Perhaps that is one of the peculiar risks of market leadership: in trying to monetise the market you created, you may inadvertently create the opportunity for the competitor who comes after you.

#MarketingStrategy #PricingStrategy #BrandLoyalty #CompetitiveStrategy #ConsumerBehavior #Swiggy #Zomato #Gillette #BrandStrategy

Melody : When Moment Marketing Meets Co-branding

The gifting of Melody chocolates by PM Modi to Italian PM Giorgia Meloni gave a decades-old candy brand something every marketer dreams of—organic, nationwide attention. Social media amplified the conversation, celebrities joined in, and suddenly Melody was back in popular culture.

What happened next was even more remarkable.

Instead of launching a series of brand extensions or spending heavily on follow-up campaigns, Parle chose a different route. It partnered with Vadilal to launch a co-branded Melody Ice Cream, converting a viral moment into a licensing opportunity. From a marketing perspective, this is a fascinating move. The product works because Melody already has strong associations with chocolate and caramel, making the transition to an ice cream flavour feel intuitive. Rather than creating a new flavour proposition, Vadilal borrows Melody's existing equity while Parle monetises its brand without entering an entirely new category. What is even more intriguing is what Parle did not do.

Most marketers would have attempted to milk the viral success with expensive campaigns, multiple brand extensions and aggressive communication. Parle, instead, acknowledged the phenomenon with a simple "Thank You" advertisement and largely stayed away from overexploitation. That restraint is unusual in today's marketing environment, where marketers stretch every viral moment to its limit.

Whether this strategy proves more effective than an aggressive brand rejuvenation campaign remains to be seen. The Vadilal partnership may simply be a low-risk way of testing whether Melody's renewed recall can travel beyond confectionery into adjacent categories.

Time will tell whether the viral moment becomes a long-term brand asset or remains a short-lived cultural phenomenon. But the Melody-Vadilal collaboration is an excellent example of how moment marketing can evolve into co-branding through strategic licensing rather than conventional advertising.

The Curious Case of Aryaas, Anand Bhavan and Saravana Bhavan

Travel anywhere across Kerala and you are likely to come across restaurants carrying familiar names such as Aryaas, Arya Bhavan, Anand Bhavan and Saravana Bhavan. To an outsider, it almost looks like one large family of brands spread across the state. Yet every regular customer knows that these restaurants are usually unrelated businesses with different owners, different managements and often very different standards.

What fascinates me is that despite knowing this, many of us still experience a certain level of comfort when we encounter these names. The moment we see "Aryaas" or "Anand Bhavan", we instinctively expect reasonably good South Indian vegetarian food. We know there is no common ownership, yet the names themselves seem to act as a signal of trust.

Interestingly, this phenomenon differs from names such as Udupi or Punjabi Dhaba. In those cases, the trust originates from a geographical cue. Udupi points to a place and Punjabi Dhaba points to a region and its food culture. Aryaas, Anand Bhavan and Saravana Bhavan, however, do not carry a geographical tag. Yet they seem to communicate a similar promise of authentic South Indian vegetarian food, familiarity and hygiene. The equity appears to come not from geography, but from decades of collective association built around these names.

Part of this may be explained by the pedigree associated with Tamil vegetarian restaurants. Over decades, successful brands such as Saravana Bhavan and countless smaller establishments have built a strong association between these names and quality South Indian cuisine. The reputation of Tamil cooks and restaurateurs in this category has probably contributed to the equity as well.

What is interesting from a branding perspective is that the trust often transfers even when there is no formal relationship between the businesses. Entrepreneurs have benefited from this collective equity, but there is also a downside. When too many businesses use similar names and visual identities, the names themselves begin to lose distinctiveness and gradually move towards commoditization.

Perhaps that is why we increasingly see modifiers such as Sree Aryaas, Aryaas Grand, Aryaas Park, New Anand Bhavan and numerous other variations. The businesses are trying to enjoy the familiarity of the original cue while simultaneously differentiating themselves from everyone else doing the same thing.

It is a fascinating example of how brand equity can sometimes exist not at the level of an individual brand, but at the level of a category. The question is whether this shared pool of trust ultimately strengthens all the players involved or slowly erodes the distinctiveness that created the trust in the first place.

I would be curious to know whether others have noticed similar examples in other categories.

Marketing Practice : When Packaging Triggers Purchase

I was pleasantly surprised to see this new bottle design from Milma — Kerala’s homegrown dairy brand, often seen as the state’s equivalent of Amul.

Milma has been part of Kerala households for decades and enjoys strong trust and market pull in the state’s dairy market. Which is why this small incident caught my attention.

My better half bought this bottle milk primarily because of the packaging. And interestingly, after using it, she said she would buy it again. Also not to forget that the bottle commands a premium compared to the traditional plastic milk pouch.

A small but telling reminder of how packaging can influence consumer behavior.

Milma had recently gone through a rebranding exercise, and this bottle reflects a far more contemporary design language. The use of white space, the calming blue palette, the careful use of transparency blending naturally with the milk, and the clean typography together create a premium yet familiar feel.

And then comes the interesting little detail on the pack — “Cow Milk".

Technically correct perhaps, but grammatically it feels slightly amusing. Somehow, its simplicity makes the otherwise polished packaging feel even more rooted and local.

What makes this even more interesting is that while the packaging may have triggered the trial purchase, decades of accumulated trust probably helped reinforce repeat intent. That is often the advantage legacy brands enjoy when they modernize thoughtfully without losing their core familiarity.

Happy to see even traditional dairy brands increasingly recognizing packaging not merely as a container, but as a silent salesman.

Brand Update : Taste the Thunder is Back in Style

 Thums Up seems to be back with a bang this season.

The brand has launched a new music-led branded content piece featuring Hanumankind, Vishal Dadlani, and Sushin Shyam, and it feels like a powerful return to what Thums Up has always stood for: josh, intensity, and attitude.

For a brand like Thums Up, the challenge is not awareness. The challenge is keeping the brand’s energy alive in a market where cola advertising has increasingly become celebrity-heavy and visually glossy. Over the last few years, Thums Up’s communication often felt like it was leaning more on star power than on the brand’s raw personality.

The brand’s classic positioning space has always been clear. “Taste the Thunder” is not just a tagline—it is a brand identity. It signals boldness, masculinity, high energy, and a slightly rebellious spirit. Thums Up has historically owned this space better than any other cola in India.

However, in recent years, while the brand continued to use the language of adrenaline and thunder, the execution often felt diluted. The communication became more celebrity-driven, and the brand personality sometimes took a backseat.

The current campaign feels like a correction.

What works well is that the branded content is not trying to be “safe.” It is high-voltage, loud, youthful, and confident. The artists chosen also fit the mood. Hanumankind brings contemporary edge, Vishal Dadlani brings vocal power and familiarity, and Sushin Shyam brings the modern sound texture. Together, they create a piece of content that feels culturally relevant while staying rooted in the brand’s original DNA.

This is also a good example of how branded content can be more effective than conventional advertising when done right. Instead of forcing a 30-second message, the brand becomes part of a cultural experience. It creates recall not through repetition, but through vibe.

For long-time Thums Up fans, this campaign feels like a relief. It reminds us that strong brands do not need to borrow relevance—they only need to rediscover their own core.

Taste the Thunder.