Brand Update : Kingfisher

It is very rare to see Indian brands being mentioned for its service excellence. Today I was fortunate enough to to read one such story about Kingfisher Airlines. The story becomes more interesting because it is from one of the renowned management gurus of our times -Tom Peters.

Read the story here : Tom Peters Blog

Kingfisher Airlines has very cleverly used " Moments of Truths " to differentiate itself from the rest of airlines. Infact, the brand took extra care to treat the customers like real guests. The above said story also reveals another lesson - little things matter most in customer service. The biggest job for the service provider is to find out those little things which can create a " WoW" factor. Kingfisher created lot of goodwill when they appointed Ushers who would help carry the luggages of the customers. It could be done by any airline but it was Kingfisher who first thought about it.

A sincere smile, genuine care and happy employees can create a powerful differentiator.

Kudos to Kingfisher Airlines Team.

Brand Update : Air Deccan RIP (2003-2008)

On August 30 ,2008, Kingfisher officially announced the rebranding of Simplifly Deccan to Kingfisher Red. It marked the end of a wonderful brand which rewrote the aviation industry in India.

Air Deccan was India's South West Airlines. It made air travel affordable and many Indians had a chance to experience traveling in a plane. Now it is a part of history.

As a marketer , I am upset at the demise of a wonderful brand. As a consumer I worry that I will not be able to have an affordable air travel. Without Air Deccan , air travel will not be the same again. Its back to the earlier days where flying will be restricted to rich and those who travel at their employer's expenses.

When Kingfisher took over this brand followed by rebranding it as Simplifly Deccan, I thought that Air Deccan will emerge as one of the best low cost carrier in India. I did not believe media reports that Kingfisher was only looking at the overseas flying license.

Now I feel these reports were correct. Kingfisher had the following agenda :
Kill the competition
Gain market share
Get the overseas flying licence.
Many new airplanes and routes.

By taking over Deccan, Kingfisher got a larger marketshare to fight Jet Airways. More over Air Deccan was creating huge problems for full service airlines. By taking over and killing this brand,Kingfisher has made life easier for all airlines.

For Captain Gopinath, its life as usual. As an entrepreneur , he has built a business, scaled it and then sold it at a best price.

The problem for Air Deccan was that it went public too early. When the companies become public, its operations are guided by the quarterly reports and stock markets. Stock markets never understand the logic of long term sustainable business models. If the quarterly results are bad, there is media / investor frenzy calling for blood.

For Low cost carriers, one cannot survive by looking at quarterly results. The business may bleed for long before attaining break-even. Especially in Indian aviation industry where there is still confusion in terms of policies.

For a consumer, the death of this brand is a huge loss. Its visible also. All airlines have jacked up prices, cut many routes and scaled down their operations. This has prompted many consumers to depend on Railways again. If Air Deccan was alive, it could have rode this season with lower prices. That's what a low cost airlines will do when every airlines increase their prices.
Kingfisher Red will not play the game of Air Deccan. It will be a flanker brand that will fight Jetlite. But never will you be able to fly at reasonable rates.

Related brand
Air Deccan

Brand Update : Kingfisher Airlines

Kingfisher is right now running a print campaign in major business publications. To be frank , the campaign did not catch my eye because it is too ' Un-Kingfisher " ads. I expected the Kingfisher ads to be flashy, glamorous but these ads were totally against my perception.

The new series of campaigns are focused on the functional attributes of the airlines. Deviating from the usual flashy ads, Kingfisher is now appealing to the Left- brain of the consumers. The ads are targeting the three segments of users i.e Children, Ladies and Males but the ads are talking to Men who are the key decision makers .

The ad for the young travelers talks about special kids meal,wide seats and games. The ad ends with an appeal to the father that " Your little prince deserves to feel like a King ".

The ad for the lady travelers talks about the seats that bend all the way back, the footrest that will pop up , life valets when your lady lands at the airport at midnight and helping hands that lift her bag. The ad ends with the message " Queen of your heart deserves to fly like one ".

The third in the series aims at the decision maker itself. The ad aimed at male traveler as usual talks about the ' flying models ", the smile that tastes better than the icecream, spectacle cleaner and the air-boutique. The ad ends with the message ' Every man's seat feels like his throne'.

The new campaigns aims to reinforce the service differentiation of this airline. Kingfisher has humbled Jet Airways through its clever service differentiation. But to sustain the service differentiation is not easy because the competition can easily emulate or even make good on your service strategy. Also the brand should keep its costs under control when offering service differentiation. That requires a clear understanding on the consumer expectation regarding the service quality .
With regard to the quality of campaign, it may miss some eyeballs because of not being an eye catchy ad. But the message surely is smart. The basic premise in this ad campaign is that Men are the decision makers with regard to this service. May be a campaign aimed at lady executives may also come in the future.

One strategic reason behind this campaign is to broaden the user base for this brand. Kingfisher has been a hit with the young ( at heart) male fliers and the 'flying models ' , inflight service were well taken by this segment. May be the brand managers feel that Kingfisher is not perceived as a airline for " Family " . The campaigns, the positioning , the hostess all make the brand to be perceived as an airline for men. This can create certain issues in the future and there is a potential problem of the brand restricting itself to a specific gender. The new campaign tries to address this issue and is wooing the non-business travelers as well as the family members of the TG. By way of addressing the larger audience , Kingfisher is trying to take on the Jet Airways' main customers.

On the promotional front, Kingfisher has signed up the latest diva of bollywood Ms Deepika Padukone as the brand ambassador.


Related Brand
Kingfisher

Brand Update : Airdeccan

It seems this is a season of rebranding. Along side the mega rebranding of Hutch to Vodafone, another high profile rebranding is taking place .... at Airdeccan. After the high profile and highly surprising " acquisition " of Airdeccan by Kingfisher, the brand is going through a makeover.

When the media announced that Kingfisher has taken control over Airdeccan, one thing that will have popped up in the mind of a marketer is about the brand "Airdeccan ".
How will Mallya treat Airdeccan ? was the million dollar question. Personally I thought that Vijay Mallya will keep the two brands in two different platforms. How dare one can even think of integrating a low-price brand with a lifestyle brand ? My reading was that Mallya will definitely try to cut unprofitable routes , may tweak a little with the level of service at Airdeccan but keep the brand at arms length from Kingfisher.
But what Mallya did with Airdeccan made me realize again that I am still a student of Marketing.
Airdeccan has changed completely. From the brand name, the logo, positioning and all the brand elements. Airdeccan is now " Simplifly Deccan " . The earlier logo of Hands has paved way for the Kingfisher logo. The color of Yellow and Blue has changed to Red. The old tagline has been integrated to the new Brand name and the new positioning statement is " The Choice is Simple ".
According to agencyfaqs.com, the rebranding exercise is costing around Rs 15 crore ( media spend).
The rebranding and the heavy secondary association with Kingfisher was surprising to me because I thought that it is highly risky for a premium brand to be associated with a price warrior brand. So any association of Kingfisher and Deccan may hurt the Kingfisher brand most. But having seen this repositioning exercise, I now have a changed point of view.
The new Simplifly Deccan is promising many things to the customer :
Excellence in timely performance
Wider Network
and more importantly " Little Delights all the way ". The new repositioning identifies all the weakness of Airdeccan. There were constant harping about poor customer service, delays and no free food. In blogs and forums , harried customers aired not so good words about Airdeccan while conveniently forgetting the fact that " You get what you paid for ".
Kingfisher has now bought in a breath of fresh air into Deccan. The Kingfisher airlines brand has established itself as a clear leader in delighting the customers by managing the Moments of Truth. Now that promise is being given to Airdeccan customers. And interestingly Mallya need not do much but just bring in the culture to Deccan. Deccan already have good planes, crew and infrastructure. Bring in Kingfisher culture will be the key change that we are going to see in Airdeccan... sorry... Simplifly Deccan.
The new positioning is also significant. The positioning of " The choice is simple " takes strength from the famous old tagline :Simplifly. It builds on the old platform and aims to be the " preferred airline " for the discerning customers.
So the questions remain. Will Kingfisher brand suffer by associating with a low price brand ? May be no because price was not what Kingfisher is all about. Whether it is Kingfisher airlines or the beer, the brand never was an expensive one. The focus was on experience and lifestyle. There can be huge expectations about the new Deccan and people ( including Kingfisher loyalists ) will try out the new Deccan but will see a clear demarcation on the service levels between the two. The Kingfisher experience will be limited to Kingfisher airlines but you will get a teaser of that in Deccan ( that may be the idea). Having said that , this rebranding exercise is definitely a risky affair for Kingfisher brand.

Related Brand
Airdeccan

NDTV Good Times : A Unique Co- branding

Brand : NDTV Good Times
Company : NDTV
Agency : Equus Redcell

Brand Count : 279

In September 2007, NDTV launched India's first hardcore lifestyle channel branded NDTV Good Times. This new channel is unique in two ways - its India's first lifestyle channel and secondly its the first time where a product brand has co-branded with a channel.
Co-Branding is where two brands operating in two different domains coming together for a common cause ( objective) . The objective can be anything from tapping a common market or sharing promotions. The oft quoted examples in classrooms were the co-branded credit cards .
NDTV Good Times is promoted by NDTV alone and not with any equity stake by the UB Group.
The new channel is all about lifestyle. In theory , we tend to describe lifestyle with the three descriptors
Activities
Interests &
Opinions ( AIO).
Truly like this concept, Good Times is all about activities, opinions and interests. The channel devotes its time to Health, Fashion, Food, Luxury, Technology , Chats with celebrities, life of rich and the famous etc. The channel also wants to create a class of its own by roping in HOT Properties to anchor respective shows. These include the actor Rajat Kapoor, Chef Manju Malhi, Techie Rajiv Makhni etc. The channel is full of aspirational lifestyle programs and contains about 50-60 original programs per week.
The channel is looking at the target market comprising of socially upbeat 20-40 yr old SEC A viewers.
The questions arises as to the benefit of these two different brands coming together in a channel. For NDTV, the brand association with Kingfisher gives it the revenue cushion. According to Agencyfaqs, UB group has committed around Rs 100 crore worth of ads in the next five years. For NDTV this takes away the risk of launching a lifestyle channel with is atmost a Niche . Kingfisher will provide the much needed ad revenue till the channel began to attract other advertisers.

For UB Group, its a boon. We know that Indian law does not permit Kingfisher Beer to advertise. The rules are getting stricter day by day. Hence there is nothing better than a channel that carries your tagline and the mascot. Besides that every businessman knows the power of having a media under its fold. UB Group may not have the capability to run a media, so why not associate with the best brand in the media domain NDTV. Also Kingfisher as a brand epitomizes lifestyle positioning. Whether its the beer or the airlines, Mallya has built the brand on lifestyle platform . Hence Co-branding with a lifestyle channel makes perfect sense.

But things are not as rosy as it seems. This whole concept will work only if NDTV can bring in quality content to the channel. NDTV has proved its capability in the news front but entertainment is a different ballgame altogether. Right now cost of the new launch maynot be a headache since NDTV has its processes and systems in place. What is going to make or break this channel is the quality of programming and the innovation that this channel will bring in to get the eyeballs sticking. For NDTV , Good Times is testing waters since it plans to roll out an entertainment channel in collaboration with the ace director Karan Johar. For Kingfisher, its a promotional expenditure ( nobody ever has perfectly measured the effectiveness of advertising as yet !!!). I feel that Good Times channel will be an integral part of inflight entertainment in the airlines too in future.
So as of now its a win-win game for both the brands. Time will tell if GOOD TIMES will last.
Related Brand
Kingfisher

Brand Update : Kingfisher

It is a tough task for a beer marketer to keep the brand's share of mind when there are government restrictions on advertisement. How surrogate can you go without getting into trouble... The issue become more critical when you have a super brand like Kingfisher. The brand had so far being able to promote itself through high profile events like the Kingfisher calender. 2007 saw another series of ads of Kingfisher mineral water taking advantage of the Jingle...
You can watch the latest TVC here , : Lift :Fitting Room
The ads take advantage of the brand element : jingle.. a smart way of reinforcing the brand in the customer's mind. The ad is an attempt addressing the new users and non users of the brand at the same time a reminder ad.
The ad also shows the power of brand elements and its importance in brand building and promotions. The jingle was carefully built over time, you can watch some of the brand's earlier promotions here: Kingfisher ads

Great attempt. ole lale lo


Related Brand
Kingfisher

Kingfisher : The King Of Good Times

Brand: Kingfisher
Company: UB Group
Agency:JWT

Brand Count :169

Kingfisher is a classic case of branding success. This brand can even be termed as an iconic brand. A brand that had extended itself from beer to airlines can be equated to the Virgin brand. The brand is synonym with Beer in India. Now ask a young man from India what a Kingfisher is ? The most likely answer will be either Beer or Airline. The power of the brand has virtually made the bird a brand extension.

Kingfisher is a brand from the UB group stable.It is the largest selling beer brand in India commanding a market share of over 28% in the Rs 5000 crore Indian Beer market.The brand epitomises energy, youthfulness ,enthusiasm ,freedom but with a touch of professionalism.

United Breweries (the original name of the group) have a history dating back to 1857. The company came into existence as UB in 1915 with the merger of five small breweries . The Kingfisher brand was launched in the year 1980 ( the exact year of the birth of Kingfisher is not known,80's marked the real life of this brand).

The brand was the brain child of the current Chairman of UB group Mr Vijay Mallya. Reports says that Mr Mallya went to work in Calcutta as a part of mentoring program under Mr HP Bhagat. At that time the brands that were popular from UB stable was Kalyani Black label, Doctor's Brandy etc. Mr Mallya wanted to create an exciting brand and none of the existing brands did not impress him. He went back to Bangalore,searched archives and stumbled upon an old label with a Kingfisher in it. That marked the birth of the Iconic Kingfisher brand.

The major factor behind the success of Kingfisher brand is the Passion that Mallya have on the brand. When marketing theorists says that Marketing is a serious business, Mallya will tell you that Marketing is CEO's business. When the CEO takes interest in the brand and virtually promotes the brand in every occasion, there is so much equity generated on the brand. Like Virgin's legendary Richard Branson , Mallya also showed that the primary task for any CEO is to be passionate about the brand. While in most cases CEO comes into picture to deliver the annual shareholder's meet, Mr Mallya takes the brand with him everywhere.

Kingfisher brand is a unique marketing success story because it thrived in an environment where liquor/ beer advertising was banned in India. The owners have built the brand circumventing the ban on promotion. During 1997 , the brand roped in Ajay Jadeja and Sourav to feature in the campaigns. In 1996 the brand become the worldwide sponsors of the West Indies cricket team. But the brand was conscious to keep Kingfisher the star . The West Indies team personified the brand values of fun loving but successful team. The famous jingle " Oola la le lo" and the fun filled TVC rightly placed the brand as a fun loving one. Unlike brands like Pepsi which is focused on cricket, Kingfisher promotes all sports and the brand sponsors football stars and even Formula 1.

The brand directly talks to people who are Easy going, chilled out person who's always willing to take a break and party with the friends. But they are very professional and successful .

Most of the business reports try to relate the persona of Mr Mallya and the brand which I feel is unjustified. The brand Kingfisher does not derive any thing from the personality of Mr Mallya. The brand has its life of its own. Since the chairman is passionate about the brand, he takes personal interest in the brand . Other than that relating the person and the brand and trying to say that Mr Mallya is more flamboyant than the brand is doing unjust to the brand.

The brand also have a 360 degree approach to promotions tapping all possible ways to communicate with its target audience. The brand sponsors lifestyle events and the Kingfisher Calender has attained a cult status with in 4 years of launch. During 2003-04 the brand logo got a make over and the Kingfisher started flying rather than sitting. The new logo signals the brand's vision to get to new heights. The new logo designed by Claessens was backed with lot of noise in the media.

To circumvent the regulatory ban on surrogate advertising, the brand has launched into different categories like Mineral water and even into readymades taking a lesson from Wills.
2005 saw the UB group getting into the Airline business with its Kingfisher Airlines.The airlines became a brand to reckon with with in a year because the brand lived to its expectation and promise. Positioned as a funliner, the brand equity of the mother brand has been enhanced by this Extension ( can i call it an extension?).

Behind the glamour of swimsuits and parties , one should not forget the strategies that made the brand a super brand. The distribution and the point of promotion strategies of KF is excellent. The brand has maintained international quality but made sure that it is with in the reach of the Indian consumer.

source:kingfisher.com,businessline,magindia.