Madhukar Sabnavis: Challenging time for challengers

The mantra for new brands is to sustain their innovative approach over a period of time

Pay-per-second billing has become the norm in mobile telephony today. However, this was stimulated by the launch of Tata DoCoMo — the nth entrant in a crowded category. Idea challenged the leaders — Airtel and Vodafone — with a very distinct brand advertising to stand out and get noticed in a cluttered market. DoCoMo used a pricing innovation to enter and make an impact. Though the jury is still out on whether it has worked and on what volume the brand has gathered, there is no doubt the brand has been noticed and the fact that competitors have followed — imitated — it is perhaps recognition that it has done things right. This will be a feature of brands and marketing in future.

Indian markets are slowly but surely reflecting a lot of characteristics of developed markets. No longer are categories dominated by single or two horses — they are becoming multi-horse races. And, it is going to be harder and harder to get the consumer mind-space. It has been psychologically established that the human mind can “at best” store and recognise six-to-seven names in a category. With the proliferation of categories and life filled with so many other anxieties and challenges, the mind will automatically attempt to store fewer and fewer names in its conscious space. The challenge for new entrants (and laggards) in many categories will be how to gain “relevant” attention and remain embedded in the human mind. The leaders have a natural advantage of being first in. And the leaders today are becoming more and more sagacious — no longer resting on their laurels to let someone else come in and displace them. Many leaders are exhibiting the “paranoid” syndrome, reacting aggressively and instantly to competitive challenger attacks — the Airtel response to DoCoMo being a sterling example — just as Nokia reacted sharply to Motorola’s “style” invasion with a glut of products in 2007, thus denting the impact of a “challenging” follower. Such counter-attacks necessitate sharper and more aggressive thinking from the challengers.

Inspiration can be sought from Adam Morgan’s seminal work on “Challenger Brands” in his book Eating the big fish. He outlines eight credos that create successful challenger brands. These are:

1. Break with your immediate past: Introduce new codes in the category.
2. Build a lighthouse identity: Don’t navigate by the consumer, instead invite the consumer to be navigated by you.
3. Assume thought-leadership of the category: Get people to talk about you as much as see you as relevant to their lives.
4. Create symbols of re-evaluation: Get consumers to re-apprise of what they are currently doing.
5. Sacrifice: Be willing to give up something that is seen as the high-ground of the category.
6. Over-commit: Focus on something narrow and relevant, and drive that hard.
7. Use advertising and publicity as a high leverage asset: Focus on salience rather than affinity… the first step to purchase is to be salient.
8. Become idea-centred rather than consumer-centred: Build your idea rather than try and get driven by the consumer.

In the past, many “follower” brands in India have managed breakthroughs by adopting one or two of the above “challenger” principles. However, once success has been achieved, they have tended to drift to becoming mainstream. There has not been the pressure of maintaining the “challenger” thinking. Sunrise dented Bru in south by positioning itself for the “sunrise in your life — the younger generation”. Closeup created the gel category in the early 90s with its “social confidence” positioning, going after a more youthful imagery. Pepsodent in the late 90s attacked the classic toothpaste market with its “germi-check” offering that redefined consumer expectation from oral-care and owned the mother-child relationship very effectively. Motorola (as mentioned earlier) rejigged the mobile handset market with its “style” offerings in a market defined by Nokia through its functionality and technology platform. Most recently, Bingo! redefined the packaged snack market with its unique product offering and “mad” advertising. In every case, the brand has been able to make a dent. However, in many of these cases, it has often been in markets of either one or two dominant brands — usually quite complacent and casual. Much of the gains have come from a growing market and the capacity of the market to easily accommodate multiple players.

The environment today has changed. Leaders are no longer silent spectators to competitive attacks. Many markets are no longer defined by a few brands. Categories like financial services, automobiles and consumer durables are clearly filled with a plethora of multinational, national and regional brands. Even fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) consists of local and store brands — competing for both consumer mind and wallet share. And in some categories, growth is no longer going to come organically. Finally, given the human mind, the Al Ries/Jack Trout principle of markets ending up being a three-horse race will be true. Followers need to be conscious of that and must plan to be one of the three when the category settles in the long run. In this context, while leaders need to think more aggressively and take on larger stances, Number 4, 5 and 6 brands have a bigger challenge in front of them.

Unfortunately, followers in many such categories (except perhaps mobile services) are hesitant to think and do things differently. The urge to try new things and take risk seems limited. The financial services market — bank, insurance, mutual fund — is an illustrative case. While products are being commoditised, the branding is also gradually moving into commodity — with visuals of happy families and promises of growth and prosperity — and no new entrant is attempting to re-shape consumer perceptions, whether through advertising or product services.

The days of looking at the Indian market as one broad piece — at best breaking it by economic demographics — are gradually coming to an end. Markets need to be thin-sliced — brands need to make stronger, “emotionally-differentiated” offerings and target potential segments if they are to stay in business. Staying mainstream or entering at the fringes and then getting mainstream will not be the way forward. Challenger thinking needs to become a way of life for “follower” brands. And marketers need to recognise that in every category there is a leader and many followers.

DoCoMo’s entry with a challenger stance is interesting. But for success, such thinking needs to be sustained over a period of time and that is where the challenge lies.

Something worth thinking about.

Madhukar Sabnavis is Country Head-Planning, Ogilvy and Mather, India. Views expressed are personal
madhukar.sabnavis@ogilvy.com