'Daag acche hai'- influencing creatives

The 'daag acche hai' campaign has been widely appreciated. Kudos to the creative and strategy team to completely turn the concept of communication for detergents on its head.

The depiction has always been on school kids getting their clothes dirty. The target audience is the home-maker and she knows all too well that its most difficult to wash clothes of school going kids since kids do not take care of their clothes and are involved in all types of outdoor activities. College going kids and working professionals hardly get their clothes dirty. So using a Salman Khan for Wheel detergent defies logic. Anyway, to each his own.

The point of discussion here is the creative depiction of the print ad (shown at the top) for Nahar's Amrit Shakti housing complex in Mumbai. Builders have been using the 'slice-of-life' type advertisements since a couple of years. This ad though clearly seems heavily influenced by the 'daag acche hai' campaign. I am sure the Percept guys would say otherwise. But the ad appears next to each other on the newspaper page making the 'influence' clearly visible.

A pleasant marketing problem

Mergers and acquisitions were the order of the day during the pre 2008 days. It took a break after the fall of Lehman Bros and the ensuing recession. They are back again in town with the buying out of Paras Pharma by FMCG giant Reckitt Benckiser. Paras Pharma owns over-the-counter brands (OTC) such as Moov which is a pain relief ointment, Krack, a heel care lotion, and D'Cold, a cold remedy among others. RB adds these brands to its already established brands such as Dettol, Disprin, Clearasil, Veet and Durex.

This acquisition would leave RB marketers in a bit of a quandary. What sould they do about Dispirin and D’cold which almost are used for similar purposes. Headache, cold, clear throat. Although not a direct competitor with each others, it begs the question that what would be the solution when two competitor brands merge or are taken over for inorganic growth. Should they continue with the existing own brand and the newly taken over brand or should the new brand be killed to make way for a stronger home brand. To make it clear, consider this very hypothetical example. What if P&G takes over HUL? Or visa versa. Would P&G kill the powerful brand Surf Excel to further its own Ariel brand? Would it kill the powerful Sunsilk and Clinic for making Pantene and Head & Shoulders the favourite?

In this uncertain world with flexibility being the buzzword, can there be an obvious way for this problem to be solved. I know that the answer for this cannot be an absolute one but would depend on the type of companies involved and the power of brands taken over. For Arcelor steel merging with Mittal Steel or Tata with Corus, there isn’t much to think. Commodity market as such doesn’t give marketers sleepless nights as does consumer goods. But what about a Ranbaxy which is so ingrained in the Indian mind after it being bought out by Daiichi Sankyo? Would they kill the Ranbaxy brand to make DS a global brand?

A bigger dilemma would be when a ‘House of Brands’ takes over a ‘Branded House or a ‘Branded House’ taking over a ‘House of Brands’. What if Tatas take over P&G or HUL? Would we have Tata Pantene and Tata Clinic or would the brands retain their identity? What if P&G takes over Mahindra & Mahindra? Would Mahindra Tractors be replaced by an individual brand name without the family brand?

One thing is certain that creating a brand and an appeal requires a lot of resources. Maintaining requires even more resources and is difficult as well. Thus it seems at least that when two power brands come together under one roof, its better to pursue both separately and let them cannibalize the market as it would be a win-win situation even then.

Marico ad- one of the best headlines i have seen

AWESOME headline.. took me a couple of readings to interpret it... please comment if u understood it...

The new ‘pull & push’ marketing

It should not come as a surprise that the company called ‘the CEO factory’ and which aspiring marketer would give an arm or leg to work for has come up with a new theory. Not in research or a white paper but in implementation and thought-process. The new ‘push’ marketing concept which takes marketing application one step further. HUL- the house of brands.

Consumer engagement has been the buzz word of late in marketing circles. To break away from the clutter, companies have been engaging customers through different and unique touch points, more so with the acceptance of social networking sites amongst the young who are at a impressionable age. Read this from one of the GMs of HUL “The push is through traditional, one-way messaging to consumers through TV and other traditional ad media. The pull is through inviting consumers to engage with the brand and experience the Axe effect. Digital is the new focus as it offers brilliant scope of engaging with the consumers and having great conversations.” This is regarding the competition in the deodorant category where all the brands are following the ‘girl getting seduced by the fragrance’ theme.

This can be interpreted in different ways. One- HUL is going beyond the price competition. In the short term, obviously there would be sales promotions but in the long run, the brands which engage the customer will benefit and give long term opportunities for profits. I think HUL has read the Indian market and consumer very well. They have realized that in the growing economy, there will be growth but growth can be sustained and with profitability with strong brand building, not through the traditional ways but in different ways making the consumer feel the brand through experiential marketing.

There is so much competition that the pull effect seems negligible with no special difference between products/ services. So the objective of ad is to push the product, in your face, to win over the competition. A zero sum game.

Thus with the push undergoing a change, pull has become even more customer-centric and a two way process compared to the earlier passive one way. The new pull, rather than just saying good things about you, lets users experience it first hand and then buy the product/ service. As mentioned earlier, customer engagement would be easier with social networking sites for the young target audience but reaching the un-tech savvy customers would be the real marketing challenge.

Lux- the ‘not-so-premium’ brand:

Brand building happens over a period of time. It takes even more time if it is a premium brand. For a brand to scale up is desirable but it isn’t easy, for a brand to scale down isn’t a very good strategy unless the product has become obsolete due to technology or any other factor beyond the control of the brand manager. Scaling down is much more undesirable if it is a premium brand.

Aspirational aspect of the human psyche gives the brand the ‘premium’ effect. Till the time this aspiration to own the brand holds good; the brand retains its premium positioning in the mind of the consumer. A classic case of scaling down resulting in disaster is the Daewoo Cielo car brand in late 1990s. Sudden reduction in price made the car positioning from luxury segment to mid-level segment. The result was complete hara-kiri.

Similar is the case happening with Lux, Hindustan Unilever’s premium soap. Lux has been going through a tough time with many competitors in the same segment. Peers and Dove (cannibalization), Fiama Di Willis et al. Lux’ market share has taken a beating. Lux celebrated its 75 years in 2005 with a special ad featuring Shah Rukh Khan and 4 Bollywood actresses, Hema Malini, Sridevi, Juhi Chawla and Kareena Kapoor who have endorsed the brand at some point of time. This shows the power of Lux to get such star power in the ad. No other brand can boast of such lineage of endorsers. Lux is considered such as premium brand that a Bollywood actress is assumed to have arrived on stage when she endorses Lux.

The latest endorses is former Miss World Ms. Priyanka Chopra. Like they say a ‘Bond girl’, we can say ‘Lux girl’ for all these ladies. With this new ad, Lux has scaled down with a soap for Rs. 10/-. Thus immediately the premium positioning is lost when you can get a Lux for such a low cost. The aspiration for the middle and lower class of the populace is realized resulting in increased sales in the short term but in the long term, the affluent ladies would resist from using it.

The ad itself is pale in comparison to the sophisticated ads done earlier. The first thing that strikes you is the song used in the background. It’s a copy of the ‘Dus Bahane’ number from the Bollywood movie ‘Dus’. For a brand as renowned as Lux and its parent company being Hindustan Unilever, we expect an original sound track, not a straight rip-off. Priyanka Chopra could have been sued in a much better way.

A loser ad and loser strategy with nothing to gain but everything to lose.