Swiftly shifting contexts, touch points and how last year’s top launches managed these.
Brand-building is undergoing a tectonic shift in the changing socio-economic milieu of the country; conventional tools will not work. This was the central message of the Business Standard Brand Derby 2010 function, held at the Leela Kempinski hotel in Gurgaon this evening. The function was attended by leading marketing professionals.
The Brand Derby, an annual survey, ranks the top brand launches in a year. In 2009,
3 Idiots had won the Derby. The survey is published in The Strategist, a weekly supplement of Business Standard.
Change
In his keynote address, Walmart India’s President and Managing Director & CEO of Bharti Walmart, Raj Jain, said the context for brand-building had changed because of the changing demographics, better connectivity, more empowerment in the hands of the consumers, more value-conscious buyers and higher competition across categories. Citing examples from Walmart’s experiences, Jain said brands connect with consumers differently today. Apart from television, the newer touch points included the internet and mobile phones.
Corporate social responsibility, he added, needs to be built into brand-building. “It will have to be steered by marketing teams and not people who do government relations or corporate communications,” he said.
Jain also debunked the familiar concept of first-mover’s advantage, a point endorsed by other speakers. “There is too much premium on first mover’s advantage. Companies often go to the market with an imperfect product. It is often the second or third entrant who succeeds in the long term, with better insights,” he said.
New Tools
Shailesh Rao, the managing director of Google India, said digital brand-building had arrived in India, with the huge penetration of internet and mobile phones. “Research shows,” he said, “the brand uplift improved by 80 per cent in Germany and 60 per cent in Japan when YouTube was included in the communication campaign.” Analysis of the viewership of trailers of Hollywood films can predict with accuracy the initial box office collections of the films, he added.
Anil Arjun, the CEO of Reliance MediaWorks, which produced and distributed 3 Idiots, outlined how four months prior to the film’s launch, a 40-member team was put in place to market it. There was clutter in the market – 36 films, Hollywood as well as Bollywood releases, hit the theatres around the same time. The film was shown to all Reliance MediaWorks employees and all other stakeholders, weeks before the release on December 24, to ensure everybody spoke the same language and to keep the communication consistent.
It was followed by a 360-degree campaign. Two weeks before the release, a huge splash was made online. “To ensure that people come to the theatres to watch the film, we destroyed 2.1 million illegal downloads,” Arjun said.
Tata DOCOMO, which came second after 3 Idiots, broke the clutter by making its brand colourful and playful. Research showed that up to 75 per cent of customers were not satisfied with their existing service providers; brand loyalty in the industry was as low as 25 per cent. Customers wanted transparency and simplicity in rate plans. So, Tata DOCOMO came out with the pay-per-second plan for voice calls and pay-per-character plan for SMSs. “The promotions were not about the tariff plans but aimed at provoking with the customer at an emotional level,” said Gurinder Singh Sandhu, the head of marketing for Tata Teleservices.
The Chevrolet Cruze was launched months after General Motors was declared bankrupt in the United States. “We could not afford to pay consultants, so we went out to the customers ourselves to find out what were their concerns,” said General Motors (India)’s vice-president (marketing, sales and after-sales), Ankush Arora. The feedback was consumers were worried if the company would stay put in India and what would happen to spares and service.
Two points of action were identified: One was to launch a campaign to tell people that General Motors is in India for the long haul, and the other was to launch new products. Thus was born the Cruze, which was bigger and bolder, and came with features like cruise control. “The Cruze was the new face of Chevrolet in India,” said Arora.
