Brand Update : Onida

Onida has launched its new campaign after putting the devil to rest. The campaign is aimed at repositioning and rejuvenating the brand. The brand is trying for a comeback after years of uncertainty which made this (once) iconic brand lose its share in the market.

Watch the new campaign here : Onida new campaign

In my last post on Onida, I commented that Onida's real problem is not branding but marketing. The brand desperately needed break-through products and embrace new technologies. If the new ads are any indication, the brand is moving in the right direction. The brand is trying to launch products with new features, which is the right thing to do .

Regarding the brand campaign, Onida now has a new tagline- " Tum Ko Dekha to ye design aya" meaning " Designed with you in mind ". The brand replaced the iconic devil with a new-age couple as the protagonists.

Onida is now repositioning on the basis of " Customer Oriented Design". The brand is saying that its products are designed with the new-age customer in mind. The new tagline has nothing new in it and "customer-oriented" design positioning is used by many brands before. In comparison with the classic "Neighbor's envy , Owner's Pride", the new campaign falls short of expectation. ( Another viewpoint here)

In the consumer durable space, it is the product features that attract the buyers not the ads. If Onida can give technologically advanced products at reasonable price, consumers will definitely try it out. But there are issues in such a product oriented strategy. Most of the new features can be copied easily by the competitors unless otherwise protected by patents. When Onida launches a DVD player which plays micro-sd cards, other players are bound to follow. It is in this scenario that branding becomes important. Onida needs to convince the consumers that its products are better designed and technologically superior. It is about managing perception .Features can be copied by competitors easily but changing perception is a difficult task.

Onida needs to work hard on creating and nurturing new perceptions about itself in the mind of the consumers. Long way to go for this brand......

Related Brand

Onida

Brand Update : Onida

According to a report in Economic Times, Onida has decided to send its iconic mascot- The Devil to Hell. According to the report, the brand feels that Devil is no longer attractive to the consumers and hence the decision to remove it. The report further says that the brand is working on a new mascot.

The report gave me a sense of Deja_vu. This is not the first time that Mirc Electronics ( brand owners) has scrapped the Devil.

In1998, Onida withdrew the mascot citing the same reasons that they have given now. The explanation given in 1998 was that Indian consumers no longer find Devil, who symbolizes Envy, relevant. So they scrapped the famous tagline " Neighbour's Envy, Owner's Pride " together with the Devil. But ever since it changed the tagline and mascot, Onida never found a powerful positioning .

After six years of drifting around, Onida brought back the Devil with much fanfare in 2004. Media and brand enthusiasts welcomed the move and eagerly awaited the Devil in a changed modern avataar. But the comeback was damp squib. The brand suffered heavily due to ownership issues within the company. There was no brand promotion or new product launches worth talking about since 2004. If at all there were launches, promotions were not sufficient enough.

Now in 2009, Onida is redoing its old strategy.

Onida is facing a marketing problem and not a branding problem. Everything is fine with the brand. People recognize the brand, love its mascot. The issue is on a larger perspective. It needs to concentrate on its entire marketing mix not just the brand elements. Changing the devil and bringing in a new mascot is not going to do any good to Onida.

The Economic Times report suggest that Onida is changing its brand elements because of competition from Korean brands like LG and Samsung. These Korean majors has built its position in Indian market riding on Product strategy rather than on heavy duty brand promotions. Their products were good, reasonably priced and well promoted. In the case of LG and Samsung, nobody really cares about the tagline. For them , the product speaks for itself.

Onida failed because its products failed. I was a die hard Onida fan . I loved my Onida KY Thunder Television. But after that there was nothing remarkable about Onida. No high technology products came from this brand.Onida became successful because the Devil was backed by products that really created envy in others. Now there is nothing to envy about Onida. Last year, I bought an Onida DVD player which boasts about playing scratched DVDs but the product failed miserably.

Now in the consumer durable space, brands are coming out with new advanced products on a monthly basis. Technology keeps changing and most brands are moving with break-neck speed to catch up with consumer expectations. In the case of Television, flat is now old and brands are talking about plasma, LCD etc. What is Onida doing in this space ?

Onida is now in one of the most difficult times. The brand needs to come out with a product that will change the game. Changing the mascot is secondary at this point of time.

Related Post

Onida Brand Update

Onida

Brand Update : Onida

Onida has ventured into mobile phones. The brand has launched the phones in the price range of Rs 1500-8000. The brand hopes to cash in on the equity of the brand in the white goods segment.

Onida was facing the issue of rivalry between the brothers over the control of the business. At one point of time, there were reports of the brothers putting the brand on the block .Now it is said that they have reached a consensus and the focus is again on the business.

It is in this scenario, that the brand has extended to mobile phones.The power of Onida brand was visible during the recent spat between the brothers. Despite the management issues, the brand was able to hold on to double digits market share in the CTV segment. During the last year, the brand was virtually silent in terms of promotions and had messed up the positioning by constantly changing the slogans.

Onida mobiles also carry the same positioning of the parent brands . The slogan used in the print ad is " Call Your Other Side ". The brand calls itself " Wickedly tempting" which will bring the spunkier side in you.

I feel that the brand has jumped into this category too early. The brand although enjoys a good equity has not been nurtured in the past couple of years. So without nurturing the core brand, any extension is going to have a negative impact . On the other side, the extension can also bring freshness to the core brand . Onida may be hoping that the extension can rejuvenate the brand.

But the issue is that mobile phone market is a highly competitive market with Nokia ruling the game. Almost all consumer durable majors have their line of mobile phones and almost all celebrities are booked by different brands. The latest being Samsung endorsed by Aamir Khan.
Hence to get eyeballs in this category requires hell lot of investment. And I bet Onida may have to compromise on other categories if they want to seriously enter the mobile segment. The brand may be hoping that the noise made in this segment will also have an effect in other categories also.

Second is the huge investment needed in product development. The models in this segment has a shorter product lifecycle and Indian consumers are now learning the habit of changing mobiles every year. Again more money to be spent on R&D and less money on brand building .

Brand Update : Onida

The summer is on and air-conditioner ads have started to peep in. Surprisingly one of the ads that caught my eye was that of Onida.

Onida and the devil is having a tough time . The main reason for this is the fight between the brothers : Gulu and Sonu Mirchandani and their brother -in- law Vijay Mansukhani over the control of the group.
The fight had severely eroded the share of the brand and even the marketing of Onida. Onida was staging a recovery after the successful relaunch of the brand and the return of the Devil. But the family feud made things difficult for the brand .

What is interesting about Onida this time is the branding . According to reports in Livemint.com, the creative duties of the brand has partly moved from Rediffusion to McCann Erickson.

But as usual, when the agency changes, the entire brand elements changes. For Onida, the change is always for the worse. When O&M took the brand from Avenues, the famous tagline " Neighbor's Envy, Owner's Pride " and the Devil was taken off. The brand suffered for almost 10 years and has never recovered since .The change of agency from O&M to Rediffusion again changed things and Devil returned in a new avatar and a new tagline " Nothing but the truth" came into existence.

The new arrangement is not making things better. In 2007, Onida launched a new campaign for its A/C and with a new tagline " It can change your life ".
Now the new campaign for the air conditioner features a new Devil and the tagline has again changed to " Experience the desire " .

Onida is proving to be a case study about " How to Mess up a wonderful brand ".

As a marketer, I believe that the ownership of the brand should be with the Company and not the agency. But what is seen is that the brand managers 'outsource' the strategy to the ad- agency. Things are consistent till the agency handles the account. But when the agency moves on , the new agency resist continuing the existing strategy since it was crafted by the competitor.

So whatever be the quality of the existing branding strategy, the new agency will try to change it. This has resulted in many brands drifting from time-tested successful themes to uncharted territory and often sink in confusion.
Onida which already is in deep trouble is moving on to further confusion with an unnecessary change in the positioning strategy. The brand has not been able to consolidate the earlier theme based on 'truth'. Even before establishing it, the brand has repositioned again.

Can anyone explain the logic ?

Related Brand
Onida

Onida Candy : RIP (1999 - 2002)

Brand : Candy
Company : Onida

Brand Count : 268

Candy is a sad brand story. This unique brand is a classic case of entire marketing mix gone awfully wrong. A good idea killed by poor marketing strategy. Or is it a failure because the brand was ahead of its times ?

Candy is the 14 inch Color TV launched in 1999 with much hype. In the early 90's the Indian brands were ruling the roast with no serious external competition. Then came the rush of Global brands to the Indian market. The market began to get crowded and technology no longer became the key differentiator. Candy was a serious effort from Onida to invent a new segment in the crowded undifferentiated TV market.
Candy was truly a Color TV, in the market where all TVs were either black or grey, Candy came with four color variants. The concept was good. Have a TV which is colorful and targeting young customers.
Candy was conceptualised based on certain customer insights. The young customers would like to hear loud which often created irritation with the grown ups. Hence why not have a TV which has a wireless headsets which would ensure privacy to the audience. The managers thought that the attractive colors on the cabinet and the cordless headset will act as a differentiator . Candy came in four colors : Berry Blue , Mint Green , Lemon Yellow and Cherry Red.

I feel that the brand managers was too ambitious about Candy. The brand was priced well above the existing 14 inch televisions. Candy was launched at a 40 % premium over the other brands. Candy thought that customers will be willing to pay a premium for the differentiators that Candy offered.
But the brand failed. Infact during 1999- 2001, the brand was selling like hot cakes but later the sales slipped. Ultimately Candy was no longer there in the market. What went wrong?
As mentioned above, Price was obviously the villain. The small TV market was the most price sensitive one and customers was not willing to pay 40 % premium for color alone. The brand failed to convince the TG on the value proposition of the brand.
There was segmentation issue also playing spoil sport. Candy was not focused on the TG because some where the brand wanted to attract the replacement market ( New TV for Old) rather than positioning itself as a second TV. This put additional volume pressure on the brand which was at best a Niche brand.

Because of the blurred segmentation, positioning also suffered. Instead of positioning as a youthful vibrant brand aimed at the youth, Candy was struggling to find the right positioning. It was trying to compete with the large TVs instead of creating a new segment. More over reports suggest that the four colors were not enough to create a vibrant brand. ( compare this to the 99 colors of Scooty) . Some customers felt that the colors are too dull to be paid a premium.
In 2001, Candy came out with a variant Candy Duet which had two colors. The brand made a big mistake by introducing a 20 inch variant further diluting the brand.

Candy when it was launched was touted as the APPLE ( brand) of Televisions. It was expected to do what Apple did to the Computer industry . The brand was to take aesthetics as the main attribute and revolutionize the market. But it neither had the aesthetics of Apple nor had the staying power. Candy is a case of poor marketing execution of a good product concept. An idea that could have carved a place in the market on its own. Onida had big plans for the brand . It planned to take Candy to the level of a multimedia brand but could not sustain the initial success. It failed to understand the value proposition of its consumers nor was it able to create a meaningful and sustainable differentiation . Some where in 2002-2003, the brand was quietly laid to rest.

Source : magindia.icfai case,businessline

Onida : The Devil is Back

Brand : Onida
Company: Mirc Electronics
Agency Rediffusion

I am celebrating the Return of the devil, still wondering why it was taken away in the first place. I was in my teens when they launched the TV with a " devil" . The marketers predicted doom for the brand but the devil clicked.

The Devil was originally created by Mr gopi Kukde of Avenues in 1982. It was a welcome break from the boring TV industry. If I remember correctly, Onida was the first brand to advertise in Television, ie TVC about TV in TV.

The brand had a wonderful time and was in the top three brands in marketshare behind BPL and Videocon. Then the Koreans came and rest is (Became) history. Onida had a fair chance to succeed when the koreans came to the Indian market. Onida was perceived to be a vibrant brand with technological superiority.

Then Mirc electronics decided the switch the agency to O&M.The creative hotshots there convinced Mirc that Devil is outdated. Hence the company changed from the famous " neighbours envy, owners pride" to some thing that i dont remember. What a tragedy......

Here is a time tested and successful positioning statement and a mascot that was so wonderful but it was changed for no reason what so ever. Then the newspaper reports quoted the agency telling that people resented the " neighbours envy" part so they have to change it... it was a lie.

O&M used some funny creatives like two elderly women using TV to terrify some young thing walking through the street. It was the death of a brand. The brand never recovered . Its market share dwindled to abysmal 5% in the late 90's.

2001 marked the return of the devil and the account shifted to Rediffusion. The consumer surveys showed high recall of devil even after 2 decades. The devil has to come back and it came in style.

The first devil was acted out by David Whitbread who was a model coordinator. he played devil for 14 years

The new devil is Matrix insprired and sports a contemprory look. Played by actor Rajesh Khera, the devil now is rocking. Onida which has recovered its market share to 12 % is aggressively playing on the marketing game. With a slew of product launches and careful segmentation, the market is opening to the devil. Onida is careful in positioning itself as a technologically superior premium brand although the prices are very competitive. It has launched the Poison brand which is a premium brand and Oxygen , Black and KY for the value for money segment.

In this Rs 10000 crore crowded market ,Onida has struck the right positioning .