Essenza Di Wills :Your Essence, Your Soul

Brand : Essenza Di Wills
Company: ITC
Agency: Law & Kenneth

Brand Count : 159

In the year 2004 there was lot of speculation of ITC entering the FMCG personal care segment competing head on with the gaint HLL. Two years later the debate is still on. But most of us did not realise that in 2005 ITC has forayed into the HLL bastion. Essenza Di Wills is the ITC's take on the Rs 480000 FMCG business.

Essenza Di Wills ( EDW) is positioned in the top end of the premium personal care segment. Retailed exclusively at the Wills Lifestyle stores, this brand personifies a fine balance between Classical and Contemporary. EDW is a classic example of building a premium brand. The promotion was low profile and aimed at projecting the brand as an international one.

According to the EDW website, the brand value relies on Exclusivity and is considered as Intriguing Elegant and Sophisticated.The company has chosen Diana Hayden as the brand ambassador.Priced steeply above Rs 1600, this brand is clearly aimed at the super rich.
Although small in size, the premium personal care products has been growing at a rate of 15%.While the entire market is dominated by famous international brands, Essenza may be trying its luck at the bottom of the Premium pyramid.

EDW was promoted during its launch in Visual media and select magazines. The TVC featured a man and a woman in a glass maze. The details of the campaign and the meaning is given in their website. Frankly I did not understand the ad since I am not in their TG. I can say that the ad was intriguing in line with the brand positioning.

EDW has around 16 products for both sexes. The main product is their perfume branded as Inizio. The perfume is positioned as a brand that is exclusivem innate, stylish,sophisticated and magnetic. All the ranges have uniform fragrance thus giving the EDW customers a harmonised fragrance experience. This is a differentiator since most of the time the Deo , the Spray and the aftershave have different fragrance and what come out will be a horrible mix. EDW gives you a harmonised experience.
The brand has an added advantage of piggy backing on the success of Wills Lifestyle shops. Within five years of launch Wills Lifestyle has emerged as a major brand in the premium lifestyle clothing. With excellent distribution strength and the already built in brand equity EDW certainly going to have lot of trial purchases.

Sustaining those customers will depend on the quality of the product. EDW has taken proper care in making sure that the packaging is in line with premium positioning. As we all know in the product category of perfumes, packaging plays an important role in the success of the brand. There is lot of explanation about the meaning of the color and the style of the packaging in their website ( most of which I didn't understand).

In the marketer's point of view Essenza Di Wills is a case of building a global brand. ITC may have mega plans for making EDW a global brand.

source Essenzawebsite, itcportal.com,businessline

John Players : Play It Cool

Brand : John Players
Company: ITC
Agency: FCB Ulka

Brand Count : 140

John Players is the mass market apparel brand of ITC. Launched in December 2002, the brand is poised for becoming a major player in the Rs 6000 crore ready-to- wear market in India.
John Players when launched in 2002 faced a luke warm response from the market. Primarily because of quality and positioning issues.

I mentioned about quality on the basis of my own experience about the brand. I purchased this brand because of the ITC tag plus the price offer ( 1+1 free). I was terribly disappointed with the quality of the material and the range. But I could see the rush at the counter for this brand because of the offer.

John Players is competing with Peter England in the mass market range. ITC knew that Peter England has established itself as a value for money brand and it is a tough brand to compete with. 2005 saw John Players identifying the right positioning platform for itself.

John Players is positioned as a brand with a cool attitude. It is positioned as " Style With a Playful Side" exemplified in its tagline " Play It Cool". The brand rightfully fills the gap of a Cool Brand in the mass market category. The brand is being endorsed by the style icon Hrithik Roshan and the advertising campaign featuring Hrithik was well executed. The brand has a price range of Rs 500-900 for its shirts and Rs 800+ for the trouser range.

Although the positioning platform of being a " Cool " brand is a wonderful proposition, it is a task that is difficult to achieve. It is like a very abstract concept. To quote Ms Rashmi Bansal from a presentation she made at our campus, It is not possible to make a brand or a person " COOL" by just saying that it is " Cool", the customer has to perceive it as a Cool brand. That cool attitude should come into the brand DNA. Hence it is a tricky situation and a tough task for the brand manager. The marketer has to create a lot of subliminal cues to make the brand cool. Hence the brand logo, colors, ads, models, colors etc has significant impact on making the brand " COOL". That is the reason why there are a few COOL brands in our country.

Since my tryst with John Players was not that positive, I have chosen to stick with my favorite brand Peter England. But I think that ITC has worked upon the quality and design aspect of this brand. The brand is in a very tough terrain. It is to be noted that this brand is usually promoted during the festive season mainly using sales promotions. I hardly see any brand building campaigns of John Players during off season. While brands like Color Plus, Van Heusen, Louis Philippe is being built using print ads in a systematic and regular manner, John Players is a brand that is not investing in regular and frequent campaigns. I feel that with a model like Hrithik endorsing the brand, John Players should look at print campaigns at regular and frequent intervals.

source: itcportal,agencyfaqs,businessline,economictimes

Hide&Seek: Building brand on bull shit again!

Brand : Hide & Seek
Company : Parle
Agency : O&M

I have no personal grudge against Parle but seeing how they waste their money in so called brand building is terrible. First it was Parle Digestive Marie now it is their Hide & Seek. Parle is so scared of ITC and Shahrukh endorsing sunfeast that they are pumping in money on celebrities ( not brands) desperately.

Hide & Seek is India's first and only chocolate Chip Cookie, Although the basic difference between a biscuit and cookie is that Cookies are considered to be more Sweet and chewy while biscuits are brittle.
Hide & Seek was launched in India in 1998. Although there were certain variants of Hide & Seek like orange flavour, only chocolate flavour survived. Later Parle tried with butter and cashew variant to fight Britannia Good Day brand but failed miserably. Now Parle is concentrating on Chocolate Hide & Seek.

Hide & Seek is positioned as a premium snack cookie. The cookie market is estimated to be around 500 crore in the 5000 crore biscuit market. The baseline for Hide & Seek is " Taste itna ki Dil Aa Jaye" meaning your heart will love the taste( I suppose, since I am a south indian, these hindi baseline are sometimes difficult to understand: are marketers listening?)

With ITC tasting success with Sunfeast and the dislodging of Parle from Premium market of biscuits, Parle is trying out the celebrity game. This time the agency O&M has roped in Hritik Roshan against the mighty SRK of Sunfeast. Playing the supporting role is Isha Shravani .

I watched the TVC of Hide & Seek with horror. I am not explaining the story board but believe me it is ridiculous. Like the Digestive Marie ad, this ad does not talk about the product but its Hrithik and his dancing skills, nothing more nothing less. Celebrity should endorse the brand and the brand should be the star.... but alas. Any one who have seen that ad for the first time will miss it for a cola ad. May be the Star discovering the taste Hide & Seek in a party makes more sense than this Dance hungama. It is hyperbole at its worst form.

Hide & Seek is a good product with certain premium touch to it. You have signed Hrithik which still have some brand value but this ad is nothing but a waste of money. The ads should have talked about the chocolate and the taste and surprisingly there are no kids around? May be parle is trying to target the adults then it is competing with Lays not sunfeast. Look at how Lays is using Saif and how it had understood the youth's psyche perfectly. But the current Hide & Seek campaign is uncool.

Once again " You cannot build a brand on bullshit".

Sunfeast : Spreading the smile

Brand : Sunfeast
Company : ITC Ltd
Agency " FCB Ulka

Can a cigarette manufacturer succeed in marketing Biscuits? What do management thinkers say about unrelated diversification? Unrelated diversification will succeed if it is based on the core competency of the firm. So What is the core competency of ITC that is being leveraged when it decided to enter the Foods market. ITC relies on three core competencies

1. The depth of distribution

2. Its brand building capabilities.

3. The ability of Quality outsourcing.

Sunfeast has been a success because of these three competencies of ITC. Sunfeast was launched in 2003 was one of the diversification forays of ITC which wanted to establish itself as a serious FMCG player from its position of Tobacco products leader. ITC had the advantage of the well entrenched distribution setup which is matched only by HLL.

Indian biscuit market is estimated to be around 4500 - 5000 crore. The market is dominated by Parle and Britannia. Parle is the volume leader with brands like parle- G, Krackjack and Monaco while Britannia is the value leader with brands like 50: 50, milk bikis, Tiger, Goodday etc. The biscuit market has now moved from the core Glucose base to more value added categories. The key markets are UP, Maharashtra, and Tamilnadu. The percapita consumption of biscuits in India is only 1.2 kg per annum while the percapita consumption is 15 kg p.a in developed nations. While the glucose biscuits are popular in Rural India , Urban market prefer Cream biscuits.

To establish a brand in this tough market was never easy. Sunfeast using heavy promotion and careful brand building have already garnered 10% market share in this market. Sunfeast is positioned as an exciting brand. This platform is supported by a series product launches. Since Biscuits are convenience goods , new tastes and new products are essential to built excitement in the market. Sunfeast have maintained continous series of new launches like Milky Magic, Coconut, strawberry, pineapple cream etc. Recently Sunfeast launched a product for the premium segment named " Dark Fantasy" with chocolate flavour and cool advertisements.

Sunfeast have used the baseline " spread the smile" as the brand essence and the brand is endorsed by Shah Rukh Khan. The use of SRK makes sense since the TG is mainly kids . SRK have the energetic persona that goes well with the brand. The mascot of Sunfeast is the Animated Sun which is the symbol of contentment, satisfaction and Pleasure. This mascot has been well received by the TG. The ad campaigns are catchy and full of colors and excitement. The product is also of very high quality. Thus Sunfeast has managed to get all the winning combinations in the right mix.

Sunfeast is also trying to garner more share in the Marie category which is estimated to be around 600 crore. It launched the Marie with different flavours that has enabled it to gain a strong foothold in that category. To expand the brand in to the snack category Sunfeast has launched Pasta Treat which talks of a healthy snacking option for kids.

Sunfeast also uses lot of Below the line promotions for brand building. It sponsors Sunfeast Open, a recent initiative aiming at the school kids by providing them an opportunity to enhance creativity through painting competitions, " Hara Bano " campaign which set a world record in planting maximum number of saplings etc.

The constant product launches and careful promotions have enabled Sunfeast to move to the top league in the biscuit market with in a span of 3 years. We may see this brand expanding to many categories .Hope they don't mess the brand by extending it to underwears.

Sunfeast : A marketing success story.