Archive for the ‘Brand Management’ Category
CENTURYPLY is undoubtedly one of the major furniture brands in India. Century Plyboard stayed away from TV advertising from the last four years, before it came back on TV with its new TVC on the World Anger Day – 28th Aug, 2012.
In this blog post, we shall evaluate this TVC from Century Plyboard and understand if it met its objectives. Please watch the TVC below.
TVC
Objectives:
Though Century Plyboard is a major brand in India and consumers trusted the brand, research suggested that it is not an aspirational brand in the eyes of the consumers. So, Century Plyboard wanted to build a campaign that brings out the brand as a “lifestyle brand” and truly make it aspirational. As we all know, for any brand, the ultimate apex in brand hierarchy is to be aspirational for its target group.
However, in process of making it a lifestyle/aspirational brand, Century Plyboard also wanted to communicate a key functional aspect – “durability of the furniture“.
Let us check the TVC on some of the key parameters.
1. Does it command the attention of the recipient? √
No doubt that the thrown car and the angry gorilla at the beginning of TVC attracts your attention, and is clutter-breaking among any group of advertisements. I would say 100 out of 100 for the Bates team for such a clearly clutter-breaking start for the TVC.
Great! Now that it got the attention of the consumer, it would have to be relevant and communicate the message.
2. Communication of Durability √
As the consumer watches attentively, the next scene that attracts attention is that the gorilla is not able to break the door and it enters the house breaking through the roof. As the gorilla lands on a dining-table, the dining table doesn’t break and the gorilla chases the person in the scene to the cupboard. Until this point, the consumer is still attentively wondering “what is the gorilla upto?”.
Now, as it turns out that the gorilla is the husband’s imagination of his wife’s anger, it brings out an element of empathy and fun making the whole commercial very enjoyable. The message in the background also re-emphasizes on the visual communication.
It is a great story with an element of suspense, and clearly communicating the durability of the furniture. I give 100/100 in the communication of the functional aspect “durability”.
3. Does it bring the Lifestyle/Aspirational element? Χ
Though the advertisement communicates the durability aspect, it communicates it in a raw manner and definitely doesn’t communicate it creating an aspiration for the brand. The point of concern is: is “durability” a differentiated factor among branded furniture or is it a hygiene factor where the consumer is looking for more than durability. This is why Century Plyboard as a brand should become a lifestyle brand and be more aspirational in the consumer’s mind. This helps to enhance the product portfolio and target the up-class consumers, together bringing in the brand aspiration.
The TVC clearly falls short in the aspect of creating aspiration. The commercial is definitely enjoyable and it has the brand recall with “CENTURY PLY” cards at the end of the ad. The advertisement would have been perfect, had the situation been that people don’t have much trust in its durability. However, the situation here is to somehow create an element of aspiration for the brand.
On the whole, it definitely does well on breaking the clutter, consumers will enjoy the ad, communicates the aspect of durability and increases the awareness of “CENTURYPLY”. However it falls short in creating aspiration.
For years, Cadbury Dairy Milk (CDM), India’s favorite chocolate brand, has been trying to be the symbol of celebration and expression of every sweet moment in your lives. In continuation of its pursuit, Cadbury Dairy Milk celebrates the beginning of new friendships with its latest TVC, ‘nayi dosti ka shubh aarambh’. The TVC showcases the first magical moments of a blossoming friendship between a young girl and boy on the sidelines of a wedding, an occasion that in itself connotes new relationships.
watch?v=s2jsCGLO56g&feature=player_embedded
The new commercial plays out at a traditional wedding ceremony. A teenage girl and boy exchange notes on how every family has a “dancing uncle/aunty” and an “allergy aunty/uncle”. They quickly realize that the two families have much more in common than they thought. When the girl excitedly asks, “Tumhaari family mein mere jaisa kaun hai?” the boy smiles and replies ”Main”. A piece of Cadbury Dairy Milk is exchanged to celebrate their new found friendship and the closing VO states, ”Nayi Dosti Ka Shubh Aarambh. Also, the commercial plays the same jingle which would help establish a strong brand recall.
On Air on July 21
It is set to hit TV screens nationwide on July 21, 2012 and is expected to have a presence in over 70 television channels. To further
strengthen the brand’s digital presence, the TVC was released online on YouTube and Facebook on July 13.
Ad Timing: Friendship Day and College Re-opening
The campaign is perfectly timed to be on-air two weeks before the Friendship Day on 5th August. Also, with most colleges opening in June of the year, it also has good timing with students just starting to make new friends in colleges. CDM wants to be the chocolate through which the students express their emotions of the ‘friendship moments’.
The TVC will be supported by a robust integrated marketing campaign, including on-ground activations in 80 colleges, creative print placements, interesting radio capsules in leading radio stations across many cities and outdoor, to urge people to make new friends and celebrate special “friendship moments”.
Symbol of different things in different contextual situations
Cadbury Dairy Milk is trying to own every sweet moment of celebration and expression in your lives. This is part of the long-term brand building campaign ‘Shubh Aarambh‘. CDM has taken a very difficult challenge and it has done a decent job by partly owning the festival and family celebrations with its product line ‘Cadbury Celebrations’. It later built on the valentine moment between a boy and a girl.
It now comes up with this intelligent TVC trying to own the moment of ‘friendship’ with the message and building on its earlier moments – valentine, family, and celebration – with the background of marriage. This is intelligent, as CDM is trying to become the message itself within different contexts, and bringing all the moments together.
It is very encouraging to see Kraft Foods continuing its strong brand-building activities, despite the inflationary times. With the consumers feeling the price increases on all products, consumers are already decreasing their discretionary spends such as chocolates. So, it is very interesting to see whether this will translate into sales in the short-term or not, but it definitely is going to help the brand in the long-term. This is a classic example of a strong campaign with a long-term vision for the brand.
The press release for this advertisement has been shared by the strategic communications agency, The PRactice (www.the-practice.net).
Before reading this article, just close your eyes zeroing your mind for a moment and recollect three television advertisements. Write down a few details of each of the television advertisements you could recollect.
Of all the numerous advertisements I’ve watched, I could recollect only three advertisements:
- The old Nescafe advertisement
- The recent Flipkart’s advertisement of office-going children
- The JK Cement advertisement
These are the only three advertisements I could recollect instantaneously. It is strange to think that I hardly could recollect any other advertisements. Now, close your eyes and recollect a few brands. I recollected a few brand names listed the following:
- Dairy Milk (chocolate)
- Kellogg’s
- Dettol
- Coca-Cola
- Pepsi
- ICICI Bank
- Samsung
- McDonalds
- Ford Figo
- Flipkart
Also, if one wants to understand which brands do consumers associate with a category, then we have to ask the consumers to recollect advertisements w.r.t those categories. The above shouldn’t be mixed with this.
Clearly, the top of mind (TOM) set of brands are the above. I read through the list and tried to recollect the last seen advertisement in each of these brands. I could recollect the advertisements of all the above brands. Now, why couldn’t I recollect most of these advertisements in the first question? It is because the first question lacked a context.
This shows that a television advertisement on its own is generally of not much use. But if you provide a context to the consumers, then the television advertisements will help the consumers connect the brand with the context. Consumers going to the shop will subconsciously recognize the brand that they’ve watched it on television. This means if you are investing in television advertisements, you have to provide sufficient contextual support such as in-shop presence, BTL, distribution etc.
Until now, we spoke about two things: Advertising your product on television and creating a context offline. This helps the consumers connect the brand with the context. But what actually helps the consumer receive your communication in the first place.
To communicate something you need to first command the recipient’s attention
Consumers, as human-beings, switch on and off in various situations based on different factors. One of the key factors that make the consumers decide to switch on or off is Relevance. A consumer who is about to buy a car will suddenly switch on (becomes attentive) while watching an advertisement of a car. The same consumer 2 years back might be passive and switched off to advertisements of cars.
Also, anything different from routine generally catches the attention of people. For example, the Flipkart advertisement having elderly looking kids. Another example is the use of celebrities. Because consumers become attentive when they look at celebrities, usage of celebrities and other unique elements commands attention.
I’ve put celebrities and unique creative elements under one category because they are good in commanding attention. But they are not enough. Only uniqueness in the creative will help consumers remember the advertisement, but consumers will not remember the brand of the advertisement.
To communicate something you should be relevant to the recipient
The presence of unique elements or celebrities doesn’t make a communication relevant. But the problem is relevance is something that has to come from the consumers. I cannot shout in the media that I am relevant to you, hear me! For example, a consumer considering to buy a car finds the advertisements of cars relevant. Does this mean that to communicate to a target audience I have to wait for the consumers to feel my category relevant to them? No, in such cases you have to build category relevance to the consumers. You have to give them reasons why they have to use the category.
But, how does one build relevance? Relevance is a recurring theme. You build relevance to a category by relating the category to what is relevant to the target audience. For example, if you want to communicate something on conditioners, you have to make consumers relevant to the category. But the category is very nascent and consumers don’t feel a relevance to the category. So, in such cases you build relevance for conditioners by understanding what is relevant (1-level below) to the prospective buyers of the conditioners and connecting that (1 level below relevance) with the category. So, you come up with elements like softened hair, strong roots, etc which are relevant to the consumer and connect that to the category. This is building category relevance for effective communication. The recent TVCs on Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief is also an example of the category relevance.
But what if the category is already a well penetrated category like shampoos or toilet soaps? As the category is already relevant, all brands clutter the consumer confusing him and he switches off to the category. This is where brand relevance comes into play. This means you have to make the consumer feel relevant, not by talking about the category, but by talking about the brand. Here you don’t talk about the category elements like softened hair, but you try to build relevance by distinguishing your brand such as natural, herbal, seeds of some plant etc. You have to give reasons to buy your brand and make your brand relevant. This is the true test of marketers on how well they can create the brand relevance – the brand associations, the aura of the brand, brand values, brand differentiation etc. Consumers have to feel a specific brand in the category relevant to them.
Most television advertisements today fail because they are not relevant to the audience and they failed to build relevance. The media is so cluttered today that advertisers struggle to draw attention first, and the very few that draw attention fail in being relevant to the target audience. So, television advertisements are an effective tool to build brand awareness and recognition. But it is a difficult task to build brand relevance using TVCs, because consumers are not ready (and too much clutter) to receive the differentiating factors that should make this brand relevant to them.
In my next post, I will write about how to build effective relevance and how we can connect relevance with the consumer decision making process.
Although advertising can be a highly effective means of communication for those consumers who are exposed to it, it is becoming extremely difficult to reach with increased media fragmentation and costs of TVCs. Advertising on TV is a very costly affair and is done only when other vehicles cannot attain the objectives.
Increase in Modern Trade
With Modern trade contributing to 20% of FMCG retail consumption in the major metros and tier-1 cities of India, now more and more consumers are scanning your products. The Indian consumers love going to malls and the consumers find the “product talking” at the store more relevant. With these changing dynamics in India, packaging is going to play a major role in the future.
For most of these consumers, packaging is the first point of contact which attracts them to the product while they scan the shelves. According to some newspaper reports of shopper research, an Indian shopper typically spends 20 seconds scanning a shelf. Research always talked about the importance of packaging and the consumer perceptions built on packaging. It is just that marketers didn’t find its relevance, as Indian retail was majorly dominated by traditional trade.
Packaging plays the biggest role in winning the First Moment of Truth (http://brandalyzer.wordpress.com/2011/09/24/google-and-pg-on-zmot/) and plays a crucial role even after the purchase of the product, Second Moment of Truth.
At the point of purchase, packaging serves a number of key functions, namely:
- Cutting through clutter and letting the consumer notice your product
- Communicating marketing information
- Stimulating or creating brand impressions
- Providing brand cues and values – safety, style, value, quality, etc.
Sensation Transference
Consumers don’t make a distinction between the product and the package. How consumers feel about the package is transferred to how they feel about the product itself. For the consumers the product is inclusive of the package. There is numerous research that shows that consumers build quality, experience, and taste perceptions from the package itself.
Multinational brands that are eager to chew up a bigger share of the Indian market are spending huge sums to carefully study the Indian consumer to bring in elements that appeal to them. For instance, the latest Kellogg cereal packaging to hit shelves has created more drama around food to make it look more appealing.
Packinnova 2011
This year, for the first time in India, design outfit Desmania, under the aegis of Procter & Gamble, organised a competition for innovative packaging ideas, Packinnova 2011. The company invited students from leading design institutes in the country to submit ideas on ‘packaging for small volumes’. So, the point is clear – packaging is gaining importance in India.
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Product Range Management
A product range is the total product offering expressed in terms of width and depth. The width of a product range depends on the variety or number of types in a product category. The depth of a product range refers to the amount of choice offered in terms of product and brand variation within a product category. A product range with a lot of depth allows you to cover a range of price points. Similarly, the width allows providing a great variety and choices to the consumer with line extensions.
Brand Extension: The brand Rasna extended into another category like packaged juices.
Line Extension: The brand Maggi launched new flavours of Maggi. Here Maggi is still in the same category, but the variation comes within the offering. Line extensions are not necessarily in flavours, but happen in any of the product attributes.
Grammage Range Extension: When Surf Excel extends its Grammage range. Earlier it used to launch 50 gm and 100gm, and now it launched a 20gm and 250gm. Also, remember most Grammage extensions are considered as line extension.
How promotions help?
For example, let us suppose there is a biscuit company XYZ in India which is a very big brand. XYZ currently offers its packs in 90 and 150 gm packs. The challenge it faces in North India is from local competition. There are a few strong local players who offer more volumes at low price points. The local companies offer very large pack sizes and doing very well. The consumer behaviour in the North India shows that people tend to buy large packs, and generally don’t prefer to buy small packs.
Challenge1: The Company XYZ doesn’t have production capacity for large packs.
Challenge2: It is very difficult to create trials when consumers tend to buy large packs.
So, the company decides to have a two-pronged approach:
- Give a rider promo (give your small pack biscuit free with another category) to induce trials.
- Introduce large combo-packs to attract the large-pack buyers
To give a rider-promo, is to give a product with another popular product based on the target consumers you want to reach. Marketers ask the question: Which is the product in my existing portfolio that reaches the maximum target group of the new biscuit product? This will help them leverage the existing distribution. If there is no product that is present in your existing portfolio then you may negotiate with other companies who operate in similar categories. Though there are other considerations, leveraging the distribution is one of the most crucial factors in a promotion, if the intention of the promotion is to induce trials. Because one of the most important factors to create trials is that the product should be present in the stores.
How is Intel promoting Core?
Posted on: October 1, 2011
The heart of a computer is the processor and that is what Intel makes. Let us see how Intel is constantly reminding the consumers about what they build and inspire them to engage with their technology. In a bid to engage consumers and promote its i5 processors, Intel is doing a range of promotions.
Objective:
To push the sales of i5 processors in India. To make the consumers think of Core when they make the next purchase. So, they want to increase the awareness, involvement and association with the Intel Core brand.
Target Group:
Youth in the age-group of 19-35 years. This is the largest consumer segment of all computing and communication products.
Intel recently launched a viral app called ‘Museum of Me’. It also created an interactive video gaming adventure on YouTube called ‘The Escape’. It continues to advertise on TV in India.
Rationale behind ‘Museum of Me’
While the Indian PC market is in an interesting phase of development and the internet consumption too is growing fast, it is observed that there is an interest in the internet users to recall memories and share them on social networking sites. This consumer behaviour has been the trigger of these promotions.
‘Museum of Me’ pulls information from the user’s Facebook page to create a virtual museum of digital life. Photos, videos, and friends are presented as pieces of art in a museum or an art gallery. The campaign is witnessing an organic growth on the social networking sites 15% of Indian Facebook users already exposed. The company markets this with the tagline Visually Smart reminding consumers of the high end graphics and multimedia abilities of the Core i5 processors.
The Escape
This is a game on YouTube with a movie style chase sequence. The visuals are created for the user to experience the benefits in an emotional way. The game has already got good number of visitors which also helped double the visits to the page http://www.intel.com. There has been an increase in positive buzz about the brand in the social media post these promotions. It is obvious that these wouldn’t immediately translate into sales and the ROI will come in the next three to four years. The visually smart positioning is advertised with the Bollywood movie channel on Youtube – Youtube BoxOffice.
TVCs for lower-tier markets
India is at a different stage of development where the phone and TV penetration beats the broadband internet, especially in the Tier-III and Tier-IV markets. The consumers in these markets are not so active on the internet and spend more time on TV. So, Intel continues to spend a lot on the television commercials.
The company doesn’t want to advertise in the face rather create experiences around the brand and engage the consumers with the technology building a long term equity. Most of the promotions may not immediately translate into sales but will build the brand and let more consumers come into the category and the brand. With an appropriate promotion mix of both digital and traditional promotions, Intel is trying to capture the share of mind and be the top of the mind(TOM)of the consumers when they go for their computer purchase.
Promotions: Maggi Club
Posted on: September 29, 2011
Maggi Noodles was launched in 1983 as a tasty treat for children, with the brand communicating a strong fun element. The packaging was bright, innovative, and attractive. The brand appealed to mothers as it was very convenient, taking only 2 minutes to prepare, and the price is very affordable. Maggi was a big success.
But, subsequently the brand faced two main challenges:
- Cost escalation forced the company to increase the price of the product
- It became clear that advertising was required to maintain sales. The brand requires constant support.
Objective:
The need was to establish a strong core franchise of loyalist regular users among children under 14 by means of more closely targeted and less expensive than continuous mass media advertising.
Promotion Chosen:
Children under 14 were invited (by press ads and leaflet distribution in schools) to become members of a Maggi Club. The child has to send 5 Maggi logos cut from the packs. The members received a club membership card and a list of gifts of fun activities for the year ahead. Some of the gifts are: Snap Safari Game, Disney Today Comic , Standees Set, Cap and Mask set, etc.
Result:
The promotion was extremely successful with large enrollments obtained. These members represented an expanding core franchise set of regular loyalists for the brand.
Hot Wheels die-cast metal cars were launched by Mattel in India in 1990. They were positioned as high speed international cars for boys 3-12 years old. By 1992, the brand has attained about 10% share with competition largely coming from smuggled goods of MatchBox and Corgi from Hongkong, Taiwan, and Singapore.
Mattel faced two main problems:
1. Repeat purchase of their Hot Wheels cars was low
2. Most retailers were not stocking Hot Wheels (priced at Rs. 25 each) as they preferred to stock high priced toys having more margins
So Mattel has to design a promotion programme to increase the repeat purchase and to increase the number of outlets that sell Hot Wheels cars.
Promotion Vehicle Chosen: Television Commercial (TVC), In-store display
A 15-second network TV commercial and in-store display material supporting the ad were designed for this objective. The promotion came up with a creative concept of giving driving license to kids. The TVC and the point-of-purchase (POP) material announced that during the two month period, purchasers of Mattel Hot Wheels cars will be given a driving license. The child receiving it was encouraged to paste a photograph of himself in the space provided, much as in an adult’s real driving license.
The driving license showed models of cars to be introduced in the following months, enabling the child to look out for these ask them by name. This is used to drive the repeat purchases of Hot Wheels and the consumer pull will eventually make the retailers stock the products. Also, along with the driving license the child was given a journey card encouraging him to note down how many miles did he drive. This brought the brand closer to the child.
Results:
Mattel has sold 3,00,000 Hot Wheels cars in two months and a huge increase in distribution is achieved as stockists who never stocked Mattel started to buy huge stocks. This is one of the best promotions involving both ATL and BTL created for the kid segment in India.
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