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.

Brand Update : “Eat 5 Star Do Nothing” and the Power of a Consistent Brand Theme

Cadbury Five Star has used its latest brand theme, “Eat 5 Star, Do Nothing”, to the hilt. This Valentine’s season, the brand has launched a new campaign that celebrates Valentine’s Day by doing nothing — and it has built a topical story around that idea with impressive consistency.

Valentine’s Day advertising is usually predictable. Brands flood the market with romance, gifting cues, emotional storytelling, and aspirational couples. In such a cluttered environment, the biggest challenge is not creativity — it is differentiation. Five Star manages to cut through this clutter by taking a contrarian route. Instead of joining the celebration, it mocks the pressure around the celebration.

The ad builds the hype effectively and delivers the punch with precision. It is topical, entertaining, and at the same time, completely aligned with the brand’s core personality. The brand is not “trying” to be relevant. It is simply extending its existing worldview into a seasonal context. This is where the campaign becomes a strong case study in branding. The most interesting aspect is not Valentine’s execution, but the power of a consistent brand platform. When a brand theme is strong and repeatedly reinforced, it becomes more than a tagline. It becomes a storytelling engine. It creates a familiar mental frame in the consumer’s mind, and every new campaign becomes easier to process, enjoy, and remember.

In Five Star’s case, “Do Nothing” is not just a line. It is a brand attitude — a cultural commentary on how modern life is overloaded with expectations. Such an approach makes the theme highly extensible. Whether it is exams, office stress, social pressure, or now Valentine’s Day, the brand can use the same platform to create new stories without reinventing itself every time.

This trend also highlights a key shift in advertising effectiveness. In a world of short attention spans and content overload, consistency often beats novelty. Brands that keep changing their positioning may win applause for individual ads, but they lose the compounding effect of long-term brand memory.

Five Star’s Valentine’s campaign is a good reminder that when a brand owns a strong theme, topical marketing becomes easier, sharper, and more impactful.

Stanley Tools : Work Faster

Corporate Brand : Stanley

Brand Analysis Count : 626 

The Indian hand tools market is a highly fragmented market with a market size of over $850 mn (6800 crore). The challenge in doing business in a fragmented market is the price-based competition. With many local players in the market, selling at a premium becomes a challenge, especially in a diverse, large market like India.

It is in this context that a brand like Stanley becomes intriguing. Stanley is a USA-based brand which has had a rich legacy since 1843. The company was founded by Frederick Stanley in Connecticut as a bolt and doorware company. From there, the company has grown to become a reputed player in the tools business. The company had a formal corporate presence in India from 1993. In 2010, the company merged with Black & Decker to become a major player in the Indian market. 

The tools and other related products that come in the B2B segment are basically used by professional plumbers and contractors. The interesting thing is that the growing popularity of DIY culture has opened a significant market for such products in India. Brands like Stanley will be able to reap the benefits of such an emerging trend. It is in this context that creating a brand becomes important. Stanley by design has created a brand based on the power of brand elements. The brand has been very wise in incorporating the brand element of colour in all products and packaging, thus creating a very prominent brand visual effect. The brand has a colour combination of yellow and black, which is itself very contrasting and visually striking. The brand has used these colours in the handles and all possible places in the product itself, along with the usual packaging. The combination gives a striking effect when the customer glances through the options. The power of brand elements has not got much attention in the branding sphere; the examples are plenty, but seldom do we see brands making the maximum use of colour combinations to create that stickiness in the mind of the consumer. 

Stanley as a brand is positioned as a brand that helps make work faster, and it does what it promises. The brand, with its history and focus on quality products, is well on its way to reaping the benefits of the emerging DIY culture in the times to come.

Maruti Suzuki and the Line Filling Strategy – Locking Customers Within the Brand

Maruti recently launched a new SUV - Victoris at a price starting from Rs 10.5 -20 lakhs, at the same time, it's bestselling brand Grand Vitara starts with the same price range. When I was watching the Victoris review, a famous autojournalist commented- why would Maruti Suzuki launch a new product at the same price range of its own product with the risk of cannibalization. In marketing theory, this is called line filling strategy where the company deliberately launch products within the same range of existing products. 

This risky strategy has its own advantages. The major advantage is that the brand is able to give a complete array of products across the price ranges and variants which often prevents the customers from going to another competitor. The brand by launching products with so much similarity is offering a wide range of options thus locking the consumer to the brand. If a consumer doesn't like a model in a price range, the brand thus offers another model within the same range. Often this is seen in FMCG, cosmetics etc where consumers search for variety, Maruti Suzuki has perfected it in the automotive segment. 

While other automotive companies cannot copy this strategy because there are a lot of consumers in India which when thinks about buying a car, thinks first about Maruti and then its options. The brand doesn't want these customers to move out of the brand. Further this heavy list of brands and variants acts as a powerful deterrence against the competitors eliminating any gap for them to enter. Having said that Maruti too had the gap in the SUV segment which was capitalized by Mahindra and Tata Motors. In the EV segment also the market leader was trumped by Tata Motors. But once the company finds a platform, it fills the models to prevent customer switching.

Maruti’s strategy of line filling may look risky on paper, but it works because of its brand gravity—Indians still think ‘Maruti first’ when buying a car. By flooding price bands with options, the company prevents leakage to rivals and maintains dominance. The real test will be whether Maruti can apply this same formula to the fast-growing EV market, where it has already ceded ground to Tata Motors. If history is a guide, once Maruti finds a viable EV platform, it will quickly fill every gap to keep customers locked within its brand orbit.