The Name Game

My dear marketing friend…if you had a chance to go back in time like Michael J. Fox did in Back to the Future and could change just one thing that you or someone concerned with your brand had done to it, which one would that be?

While you are still thinking on that, let me share with you what most of my marketing and advertising friends replied when I posed the same question to them.

“I would change the name of the brand that I am handling. I am goddamn stuck with this stupid name.”

Why would one want to change the brand name of all the things?

Simple. You could always reposition, albeit difficult, your brand; target a different set of target audience half way through; even change the pricing strategy and alter the course of your brand any time. But it’s close to impossible to successfully change your brand name mid way through, and also live to tell the tale.

Put otherwise, you can’t change the brand name mid way though the life of the brand without improving the chances of its demise. You better get the branding right before you launch the brand. Or else you might have to seek the help of Christopher Lloyd to travel back in time to get it right later.

What is this thing about naming brands?

How do you get your branding strategy right?

I am not sure about all these myself but let’s together take a ride down the market place and look at the good, bad and ugly names and figure the answers for ourselves.

First, what is so critical about naming brands? The answer for this would probably set the context for our search. Of all the descriptions that I have seen for brand name the one by Al Ries and Jack Trout beats every other textbook description hollow.

“Brand name is a knife which cuts the consumer’s mind to let the brand message inside.”

Simple set of words but coveys brilliantly the power of a good brand name.

Fair & Lovely, a name that clearly conveys what the product would do to the consumer. Or how about Krack – the cure for cracked heels – a well-crafted brand name that sets the tone for the brand message that follows.

That’s the other benefit of good brand names – the good ones connote the category in which they operate and appropriate the generic benefits all for themselves. When Satyam Infoway launched its unlimited Internet connectivity pack, their advertising agency named it (actually I was involved in this, so I guess I could say ‘we’) UnLtd… - a brand name that owns the category and also appropriates all generic advertising of its competitors in that category. Every time a competitor advertises its unlimited pack, Satyam’s UnLtd… rides the free mileage.

Getting an apt name for your brand is winning half the battle. And there are different ways of getting the branding right. One way is to have the Brand name be a synopsis of the brand’s positioning. If you have done your homework well and positioned your brand properly, all you need is a brand name that just aptly summarises it. Dermicool – a name that tells what the brand’s benefit is and also what the brand would do to you. Or how about the brand name Ceasefire – the fire extinguisher.

Head & Shoulders, a brand name that clearly highlights that it is an anti-dandruff solution. Where else does the problem manifest but in those two places! Now, that is another lesson in branding. It is not the goodness or the badness of the brand name, in an aesthetic sense that determines effectiveness. It is the appropriateness of the same!

And there are names that reflect the target audience. Close-up is a classic example of a name that summarises whom the brand targets – smell fresh when you get up close to your sweetheart.

But, hey, what about all those stupid sounding names that have made it big – Pond’s, Videocon, Surf, Ariel et al – They mean almost nothing but they all got away with such inaneness because of competition or rather the lack of it. What was competing with Videocon? BPL, Philips and more such inane names.

Naming brands, in pre-competition days was more or less similar to the way people were named. Go back in time and recall the names of your high school friends. There were hardly any special names floating around. You probably had at least three Sureshs, a couple of Rameshs, and a host of Kumars while in school. Naming people, and for that matter brands too, was just a ritual and needed no thought or intelligence.

Not any more.

Why? For the first time in consumer India, we are staring at something called competition. Too many brands vying for attention. Too many brands for the consumers to remember. The stakes are high and so is the need to have a name that would cut the consumer’s mind to let the brand message inside.

Talking about names, Al Ries and Jack Trout talk about people’s names and their bearing on the success of the people who have it. Their theory is simple - “There is a growing body of evidence that a person’s name plays a significant role in the game of life.” In other words, a person with a unique name has more chances of making it big in a field than a guy whose name is just like anybody else’s.

This theory translated in Indian context makes fascinating reading. Most, if not all, people, who have made it big in whatever field they have made it in, have names that are unique or rather names that are not run of the mill. Tell me, how many Rajinikanths do you know of? Or for that matter, how many Vajpayees? Can you recall more than one Amitabh Bachchan?

Did you know that Rajinikanth’s original name was an ordinary sounding ‘Shivaji Rao’? And do you think he would have made it big with his original name? I don’t think so. Nor do Al Ries and Jack Trout.

A simple name like Raja makes it big in music when he renames himself Ilayaraja and rules the South Indian music industry for more than two decades. If he had not changed his name, do you think he would have reached dizzy heights? Perish the thought.

So what do you do if you have an ordinary name like, say Sachin? Just add your last name to it if it’s unique. Sachin Tendulkar. There you go again.

M.G. Ramachandran sounds quite ordinary huh? That’s why he called himself M.G.R – now, that’s unique - to rule the Tamil film industry and its political field for decades, till he died.

Put otherwise, an ordinary name hardly succeeds. Is there an extremely successful Kumar that you know of? Or for that matter, Sunil, Chandra, Geetha, Raju? There might be a few exceptions, as is the case with everything in life but rarely will you find a successful person with an ordinary sounding name. Believe me, I have even gone through the telephone directory myself to verify it.

The same holds true for brand names. Sony, Pepsi, McDonalds, Lexus – brands that make it big have names that are unique and not plain run of the mill.

Having said all this it is also critical to understand that a brand name is also what the marketer makes it to be over a period of time through persuasive positioning and powerful marketing. Without these even a great name becomes meaningless!

Before we part, the brilliance of branding in vivid action was amply evident among the 630 odd wine shop that dotted the city of Madras a few years ago. Amma has since closed all private wine shops and let her Government retail liquor instead under a boring ‘TASMAC’ brand name. Talking about names, Madras is still popular and in vogue and not the renamed Chennai.

Anyway, talking about branding of wine shops then, some shop names connoted the benefit – Joy Wines, Jolly Wines, Sorgalogam Wines (Read ‘Heavenly wines’ my dear non-Tamil brethren). But the one that would have won an Oscar for brilliant names, if there were ever a category for brand names, would have been the wine shop in Adyar, an upmarket neighbourhood - a brand name that induced increased usage and promoted loyalty.

It was named ‘Daily Wines’.

The man who owned that shop should have ideally written this column. He sure knows a thing or two about branding!

Brand Extension II

It’s ironical that my column on Brand Extension has to be extended! But it is warranted to answer a few questions that were posed to me, by a few, through feedback and mails.

So here is the extension! The questions first and my comments follow it.

Question: “Your statements are sweeping in nature; what about Johnson & Johnson. They are into a range of baby’s products – oil, talc, creams, shampoos etc., and quite successful too. So your arguments against Brand Extensions fall flat at the feet of J&J.”

First, my statements are not sweeping in nature. I think I have given enough instances and proofs for every statement made in the column. One could disagree with my statements but I am not sure if I could be accused of making sweeping ones at that.

Secondly, on J&J, while I concede it is widely extended and cover a range of baby’s products, I would like to know who it is competing with? The answer is simple - none. There is either no brand that competes with J&J or if there is one, it is a well-guarded secret. And, when there is none to question, you do things your way – though it does not necessarily make it right. Give J&J some time. It is amazing such a huge category – baby’s needs – has not attracted the level of competition that is even found in boring categories like centrifugal pumps! Once stand-alone brands walk into the category, you will start witnessing the eroding of J&J. (I guess this could be termed a sweeping statement).

Question: “Well thought out extensions can work. It is only unrelated extensions that fail.”

No matter how much you think and plan well, you can’t make a rock talk – or for that matter make extensions work. Take a look at Hindustan Lever. Having worked with that system for a few years let me tell you they are paranoid about market research. Every damn move they would want to make is thoroughly thought out and well researched. Short of asking their research agency if they could go to the loo, every damn thing is checked and checked scrupulously. Yet, why would all their extensions fail? Without an exception.

The answer is simple. Brand extension is a failed concept. It is great on paper. Brilliant in theory. Foolproof when ideated. But will not work when executed and has not either. You see, brand extension is like communism. Great on paper, garbage when executed. Want proof? Spend a week in Russia. I am tempted to say West Bengal, but I do have a few bong communist friends who would roast me alive!

Didn’t someone say, “at 20 if you are not a communist it means you don’t have a heart; at 30 if you are still a communist it means you don’t have a head!”

The stupidity of extensions was just seen again in the recent launch of fairness cream for men by HLL. Nothing wrong with the strategy other than that it is a few months late but the biggest problem is in the name – Fair & Lovely.

Fair, ok, but lovely? Which male in God’s name would like to look lovely? Maybe the ones who score same side goals a la gays. Don’t you think Fair & Handsome is a good name and a better strategy? For starters, it is not an extension to begin with. You could argue F&L has the word ‘Active’ to add the necessary macho to the brand. No body calls you by your surname. No brand is called by its surname either. For the consumer, it is just plain Fair & Lovely.

Fair & Lovely for men would be more Inactive!

It is not that marketers don’t realize extensions never work. If they sincerely believed so, why would all these liquor marketers advertise their brands as mineral water or as apple juice. Do you really believe Kingfisher is advertising their mineral water every time Michael Vaughn tries to teach Freddie Flintoff sing the brand’s tune? No man, Kingfisher knows that the consumer would only recall beer and not water when he sees that commercial.

Before I sign off, here is something to think about, something that I had even written about in my book (Marketing Maayaajaalam published by Kizhakku Pathipagam). Assume your wife delivers a second child who resembles your first. Would you still name him with the same name as your first one or call him so-and-so II? Why then would you do the same mistake with your brands?

Didn’t someone say the brand is the marketer’s baby?

Brand Extension is Brand Extinction!

“Lux is soap, right?”

“Yeah, why”?

“I am told it is now shampoo too”?

"Bull”!

“No, I am serious.”

“Come on, who would ever use Lux on their head”?

Well, it turns out not many did and Lux shampoo is dying in the shelves. Maybe dead and gone by now. Looks like nobody at Hindustan Lever used their heads in the first place. But, hey wait. Lux stands for glamour. And people want glamorous hair, don’t they. And Lux is a great brand, isn’t it. So why should Lux shampoo die?

Well, the question is so good that it is stupid! And the next 1,788 words in this column explore this very question and more.

We are talking about a silent killer here; call it an epidemic if you will, which is spreading across the Marketing landscape. It goes by the name Brand Extension. Brand Extinction would be a more apt name for it!

Let’s go back to Lux again. Yes, the Indian woman wanted glamour; wanted to be like her favourite actresses; and got it with Lux – but make no mistake about this, she got it all with Lux soap. She just used the name ‘Lux’ as a surrogate for soap and that was Lux’s reason for success.

It made the brand stand for the generic.

In other words, she bought glamour in soap form and called it Lux. So what happened when Lux shampoo came by? She could not bear to use soap on her hair. So Lux shampoo had to die. It was destined to die. And, it will, if it hasn’t so far.

No matter how we all live, we like to simplify life. Simplification includes slotting the best brand (in our mind) in a category and using them interchangeably. Pepsi is Cola. Mach III is razor. NIIT is Computers. The Hindu is Newspaper. This is the pinnacle of branding – making the brand stand for the category. “Can I have today’s Hindu please?” No need to say “Can I have today’s Hindu newspaper?” ‘The Hindu’ has over the years made the brand stand for the generic. And when you extend the brand you shake the very foundations of the brand in the mind of the consumer.

Here’s how.

The Hindu means credibility; The Hindu means authenticity; The Hindu means trust. But what are buried within these traits are things that the consumer would not be able to articulate nor would the marketers of The Hindu be able to figure out. The Hindu is English; The Hindu is a daily; The Hindu is newspaper.

When the marketer tries to extend The Hindu into a Business paper, it fails. Why? The Hindu is not business, that’s why. When the Marketer tries to extend The Hindu into a Web site it fails. Why? The Hindu is newspaper. Try extending The Hindu into anything else and I would wage a month’s pay it will fail too. The marketers can believe that they are extending The Hindu’s credibility, authenticity and trust into other product categories. But the consumer is not willing to extend them any further from where it currently is.

Now you know why ‘The Hindu Business Line’ is floundering. It flounders, not just because of The Economic Times, but also because of ‘The Hindu’ prefix to the brand name. The guys at The Hindu thought their brand name was a source of strength. They realized pretty late in the day that the truth was to the contrary. They tried making the prefix smaller and emphasizing ‘Business Line’. But the damage was done. You can’t expect to change fortunes by just changing the brand name. (More on this aspect of brand names in my next column!)

Welcome to the world of the specialists. To use the much-maligned example of the General Physician Vs Specialist, the world is moving towards specialists for each sphere of life and life’s problems. Gone are the days when we went to our neighbourhood general physician for whatever medical problems we had – from toothache to tuberculosis and from headache to heart ailments. Now, when we have a toothache we rush to the dentist. Problem with the eye? No problem, we just head to the Ophthalmologist. Thank heavens, we still don’t have a left eye Ophthalmologist and a right eye Ophthalmologist. Not yet, at least!

The same story is repeated when we buy brands. We slot the specialist in each category and destine it to be the category. Nothing more, nothing less. So, Clinic Plus is shampoo. When it is extended into hair oil, we simply ignore it and continue to use Parachute or Vatika or whatever we feel is the specialist in the hair oil category.

Need more proof of extended brands dying around us? Just take a look around - hair oils, skin creams, consumer electronics, toothpaste, you name it. The categories are awash with extensions and consequent extinctions.

Colgate. The undisputed leader of Indian teeth, till recently, is still fighting cavities. Just that there are more cavities in its marketing strategy. Ask any Indian women what Colgate is and she would have jumped up and said – “protection”. And, then what happens? Colgate is extended - Colgate Toothbrush, Colgate Toothpowder, Colgate Total, Colgate this and Colgate that. Any extended rubber band snaps after a point. That’s what happened and Colgate started stagnating since it was diffusing its basic brand image in the mind of the Indian women – ‘What’s Colgate now?’ Everything. Read nothing.

And that’s when something else happened. Hindustan Lever launched Pepsodent. Pepsodent targeted the mothers – Colgate style. Pepsodent appealed to the mother’s instincts taking the kids route – Colgate style. Pepsodent stood on protection – Colgate style again. Me too’s don’t work in marketing and Pepsodent should have bombed. It didn’t, simply because Colgate was losing its specialty appeal and Pepsodent walked in to occupy that slot, without a fight. The Indian woman started lapping it up and Pepsodent climbed up the stairs too fast for Colgate’s comfort and started breathing down its neck.

Smart Levers work huh? Nah. The silent epidemic called brand extension was at work again. At the corridors of Levers this time. “Pepsodent’s been a brilliant success. Let’s leverage its equity,” went the thinking there. Read, let’s extend it further. And Pepsodent 2-in1 is launched. So two brands can now fight Colgate. Wow, what a brilliant piece of garbage that masquerades as Marketing Strategy.

The icing on the cake was Pepsodent 2-in1’s base line – ‘The complete toothpaste”. So what does that make Pepsodent? Incomplete? Even Colgate could not have attacked Pepsodent better.

So, where is Pepsodent 2-in-1 heading? Needless to say, where Lux shampoo is. And, what more, it started diffusing what Pepsodent stood for in the minds of the Indian women who is getting confused. And the confused mind always tends to go back to things it is comfortable with – and in this case it’s Colgate. Surprised that Colgate is picking up lost market shares? You shouldn’t.

Let’s get this straight. Brand Extensions don’t work. Period. A Brand stands for one thing in the mind of the consumer – and more importantly in one category, one form only. I repeat ‘only’.

Well, marketers do continue to extend their brands in spite of its miserable failure record because of its short-run benefits – the mirage that, they find out only later. Let’s go back to Lux shampoo. The extension is launched and the sales force takes it to the retailers of India. The retailer is thrilled. “You mean Lux. It sells well and sure I would stock enough of this too.” After all it has the initial extra launch margins too. The initial launch targets are met and the marketing team breaks open champagne, “three cheers to brand extension.” But, like as we saw earlier, the Indian woman thinks other wise and continues to use her favourite brand of shampoo, thank you. The retailer will try to push the brand but ends up pushing it back only to the company, to where it rightly belongs!

But still, why is this mad frenzy for this marketing suicide called brand extensions? The marketing landscape of India is littered with the debris of dead extended brands but why is this lesson not learnt. Just take a look at any category near you.

India Today is a success. India Today Plus isn’t.

Fair & Lovely fairness cream is a success. Fair & Lovely moisturizing lotion isn’t.

Zee Hindi channel is a success. Zee English channel isn’t.

Dreamflower talc is a success. Dreamflower deodorant isn’t.

Well, the roots of this malaise can be traced to the short-term nature of the recruitment, promotion, increment policy that is prevalent in most Indian companies and the peer-pressure it creates within. More so in the marketing departments. Most brand managers handle a brand for just a couple of years. He or she is under pressure to leverage brand strength and rake in extra profits. He or she takes the easy way out and goes and launches a new product with an existing successful brand name. As we saw earlier, the extended brand shows initial promise, launch targets are met, accolades are heaped and the brand manager is promoted to another division or even worse, he or she flaunts this success to leap into another company. A new brand manager walks into his shoes only to coincide with the decline of the extension and promptly takes the blame for causing the decline. And when the final requiem is sung for the extended brand, the brand manager who caused it is two jobs or three divisions away working on, what else, another brand extension, of course!

But hey wait, what about these grand pan-category brands like Videocon, BPL, Philips etc? Aren’t they extended across categories? Doesn’t this argument against brand extension fall flat in front of them?

NO.

These brands belong to an era when serious competition existed more in its absence. Once competition walked in with their guns blazing clear leaders started emerging all over the place. Each of these brands still rule – but they rule just one of the categories they are in and not in all as they used to.

Take this simple test. When you think of Videocon, what comes to your mind? Washing machines, sure. No surprises and Videocon is the leader in washing machines and slipping in many other categories. Why? Consumers see Videocon as the washing machine specialist.

When you think of BPL, what comes to your mind? Televisions. No wonder BPL leads in TV and lags others in every other category. Consumers see BPL as a TV brand and not so much otherwise.

This tells us yet another crucial lesson – call it an escape clause for brand extensions. Brand extensions will succeed only and, make no bones about it, only when its competitor is another extended brand. Take deodorants, for example. Rexona, an extended brand, succeeds in it only because its competitors – Fa, Cinthol and Spinz - are all extensions.

What about all the other new kids on the block like Samsung, LG, Daewoo et al who have extended themselves across categories? Give them some time to hang themselves. Once the dust settles you will find each one ruling in one category and sagging in every other.

Want proof? Remember a brand called Philips? It had its name lent to every possible category in consumer electronics, and now probably sells well…. only in bulbs.

That’s brand extension for you.