Discovering Differentiation

In a 1997 Harvard Business Review article titled ‘Discovering new points of differentiation’, Ian C. MacMillan and Rita Gunther McGrath argue that if companies examine customers’ entire experience with a product or service – the consumption chain – they can uncover opportunities to position their offerings in ways that neither they nor their competitors thought possible. They list a set of 11 questions to help identify new, consumer-based points of differentiation.

I took their list of questions and figured out brands that have used their framework effectively. The result is here for you to see. Figure out how can you differentiate your brand asking these simple questions.

1. How do people become aware of their need for your product and service?
Very often the consumer doesn’t know if she needs the product. We never needed a vacuum cleaner, for instance. The hell, even after buying it we never use it. When was the last time someone in your house used it? But we still bought it, didn’t we? Coz the Eureka Forbes guy came home demonstrated the product and brainwashed our wife or mother or sister into buying the damn thing. Now you know why most Indian homes still don’t have a microwave oven. The damn microwave guys never explained why we should ever buy one.

2. How do consumers make their final selection?
Case in point is Preethi mixie. The housewife typically enquires her friends and relatives when buying a mixie, a fact Preethi mixie used smartly in their advertising. Recall the ad. A collage of shots of different women, each one talking about the virtues of Preethi mixie and ending their quote with the words, ‘Buy a Preethi. I guarantee’! No wonder Preethi mixie is a bestseller today.

3. How do consumers order and purchase your product or service?
Look at what telephone & net booking of tickets, along with home delivery, have done to Sathyam cinemas. One thing movie goers hate is to go all the way to the theatre to find the tickets full. This, apart from other reasons, curtailed movie-going habit and many cinema theatres have been closing down. Not Sathyam that is growing stronger than ever. They tackled the root of the problem, and bingo, it is one of Madras’s most sought after theatre complexes today.

4. What happens when your product or service is delivered?
Have you heard of a video rental brand in the U.S called Netflix? They screwed Blockbuster and Co and revolutionized the way movies were rented in the U.S. Visit their site and amaze yourself with their unique delivery model.

5. How is your product or service paid for?
Most new home buyers depend on a home loan to buy their dream property. Hygrevar Home & Hearth, a leading Madras-based real estate brand realizes this and they not only sell their property but also help their customers get a home loan and help them complete all loan related formalities as well. No wonder, this helps differentiate Hygrevar from thousands of other real estate brands around!

6. How is your product stored?
Realizing the small space in bathrooms and the consequent small cabinets to hold toothpastes, Close up tooth gel redesigned its pack to make it stand up on its lid, thus making it easy for the consumer to store it. Smart, wouldn’t you agree.

7. How is your product moved around?
Imagine if a cooking gas brand gave free trolleys to the housewife to help her place gas cylinders on it and also move it around easily. The consumer might choose such a brand over others since she could lift it and move it around easily, without having to depend on others to help her.

8. What is the consumer really using your product for?
Arm & Hammer found that their baking soda made a great refrigerator deodorant and hence repositioned it and marketed it that way…successfully too.

9. What do consumers need help with, when they use your product?
You are working on a word document or a PowerPoint presentation and you have a doubt. It’s late in the night and you can’t call your friend. Wouldn’t you be grateful if Windows had a phone-in-help-centre - someone sitting 24x7 to answer your questions, clarify your doubts and suggest ideas? What can you offer for your product or service?

10. What about returns or exchanges?
Readers’ Digest uses this extensively and effectively. ‘Get a one-year subscription along with the free gift, read the magazine and if you don’t like it your money is refunded. While you get to keep the gift still’!

(It’s a pity this facility is not extended to matrimony!)

11. What happens when your product is disposed of or no longer used?
Apparel manufacturers use this to help consumers dispose their old dresses and by doing so inducing them into walking into their store to buy new ones. Recall their offer ads: ‘Gift your old pair of jeans and get Rs.250 off on our new one. Your old jean would be donated to XXX charity.’

A few good rules to keep your client happy

Rummaging old stuff does have its benefits. You could unearth hidden gems that have escaped your memory. I just did and found this - a document one of my ex-bosses passed on to me when I had first moved into the Advertising world. It was titled ’50 rules to keep client happy’.

Fifty wouldn’t fit in this blog and hence I condensed them into a manageable lot. The rules are applicable to anybody who serves a client. Not necessarily to account management of an ad agency.

One cursory look at this and you are going to describe them as old-fashioned, not so new, yeah-I-know-them stuff. But put your hand to your heart, or whatever is left of it, and tell yourself how many of this you practice.

That’s the point!

Product Knowledge
Crawl all over the customer’s products and/or services. Know them at least as well as your client contact does and you’ll be much more adept at counseling him or her when problems and opportunities arise.

Keep Clients Informed About Competitors
Keep alert for news of client competitors’ new hirings, new price structures, new products, new R&D projects, new acquisitions, new plants or modernization activities. When you’re privy to this kind of information, immediately send it, in writing, to the client and his or her boss as well.

Constant Contact
Even though you might be the world’s greatest, it often comes down to ‘what have you done for me lately?’ For some reason or other the out-of-sight, out-of-mind syndrome predominates the client psyche. It is therefore important that you make sure the client feels you are thinking only of him or her and their company 24 hours a day. Be sure your client gets something pertinent in the mail from you, besides your call report, at least once a week. You must let your client people feel they are constantly on your mind.

Punctuality
Never, ever be late for a meeting or date with a client. If you are sloppy in this regard, the client will sooner or later be convinced that you are sloppy in the way you are spending their money and handling his or her account. Remember, clients just don’t like to be kept waiting – your time is their money.

Call Reports
Very often people coming out of the same meeting or hanging up after a telephone conversation have totally different interpretation on what has transpired and therefore have no clear idea of who is to do what next. Putting important meeting details and discussions down on paper and distributing this information right after the session enables everyone involved to have a chance to get back to one another to rectify any misunderstandings that might have occurred.

Notebook
I don’t care how great a memory you have, you cannot hope to remember every single item in the myriad of details you have to retain in day-to-day handling. This is especially so after a substantial lapse of time. Keep a spiral-bound notebook. Date it daily and use it for keeping notes of meetings, phone calls, things that need taking care of and whatever.

New Ideas
Be a self-starter. Come up with new products ideas, new merchandising ideas, new promotion ideas, new manufacturing ideas, new tax benefit ideas, new acquisition and merger ideas, new tax shelter ideas, new cost-cutting ideas, new legal loopholes, anything you feel will benefit the client even though it might be way out of your professional purview.

Use Your Head and Your Client’s Products
Always help the hand that feeds you. If your client is a clothing store, buy and wear its clothes. If it sells toothpaste, be sure you and your family brush your teeth with that brand. It’s even smart to go a step further down the distribution chain and support your customer’s customers.

Customers and some telephone courtesy

I am not sure who reads this blog. If at all it is read by anyone. My profile views keep going up and it indicates someone, somewhere is reading all this somehow!

I wonder who reads them. Is it a he? A she? A student? A vice-president? Either way, if it is someone who is big enough to have a secretary or works in a company that is big enough to accommodate a receptionist or secretary, then what I am going to write about now might make sense. And for others, it will at least make them smile! No guarantee, though!

It’s about our secretary or receptionist or both. What’s this got to do in a marketing blog, you ask? Good question and I refuse to answer that for the simple reason I don’t know!

Oh, I can give one reason, however remote. It’s about how to treat our customers. Gotcha!

Now for the subject matter. It’s about telephone manners and a few key ones are in order. Never ever have your secretary or receptionist place a phone call and have the client hold until you pick up the phone. As marketers or advertisers, we are suppliers and, as such, we are in business to sell things to our customers or clients. As buyers, they deserve a few grams of respect. Having our secretary phone instead of personally doing it yourself gives an impression that you are more important or busier than the customer or client.

Also, let your secretary or receptionist not interrogate phone callers and put them through police-like inquisitions. “Who may I say is calling?” is a much better rejoinder than ‘Who is this?” Similarly, “You are calling in reference to?” sounds much better and saner rather than the rude “What’s it about?” Don’t expect them to know all this themselves. You have to take the trouble of telling them, teaching them and training them.

Speaking about telephone etiquette, I think you’ll like this piece from Bill Marsteller’s book, ‘Creative Management’:

This morning I called the newly appointed vice president of sales of one of the country’s largest publishing firms to invite him to lunch. I dialed the call myself, as I always do.

His secretary answered, “Mr. Shirt’s office.”

“This is Bill Marsteller. Is Mr. Shirt in?”

“What did you say your name was?”

“Bill Marsteller. It not only was; it still is.”

“How do you spell it?”

“M-A-R-S-T-E-L-L-E-R. Is Mr. Shirt in?”

“What company are you with, Mr. Marsteller?”

“Marsteller Inc. Is Mr. Shirt in?”

“Is that the advertising agency?”

“Yes. Now Miss –“

“Mr. Shirt has someone with him. May I tell him what this is about?”

“Look, Miss, just have him call me please. 752-6500.”

Time passes. The phone rings. I answer “Bill Marsteller.”

“Mr. Stuffed Shirt is calling Mr. Marsteller.”

“This is Bill Marsteller.”

“Will you hold please for Mr. Shirt?”

Time passes. I read the Wall Street Journal and finish Gone with the Wind.

Finally, “Bill? Stuffed here. What can I do for you?”

“Sorry,” I say. “I’ve forgotten why I called you. If it ever occurs to me, I’ll write a letter.”

Possibly to his president!

Bill Bernbach said...

I found an old file in my computer that had a collection of quotes credited to Bill Bernbach, one of the three who formed ‘Doyle Dane Bernbach Needham’. He is probably very old now or even very dead. Or maybe both!

Honestly I don’t know much about him. I don’t know if he, in his time or ours, was God’s gift to advertising. Nor do I know if he was an over-rated, over-blown ad guy. But I do know that some of his quotes make sense. Maybe not all, some!

I thought I could present here the ones that made some sense. If not for anything, at least to help you put them on your computer as a screensaver! A favourite way for some to show that they are advertising professionals!

Over to Bill….

“If your advertising goes unnoticed, everything else is academic.”

“It’s not just what you say that stops people. It’s the way that you say it.”

“Nobody counts the number of ads you run; they just remember the impression you make.”

“You can have everybody coming in on time, everybody leaving on time, all work finished on the due date, and still have a lousy ad, and fail.”

“I can put down on a page a picture of a man crying, and it’s just a picture of a man crying. Or I can put him down in such a way as to make you want to cry. The difference is artistry – the intangible thing that business distrusts.”

“It is one thing to have a selling proposition and quite another to sell it.”

“Just because your ad looks good is no insurance that it will get looked at. How many people do you know who are impeccably groomed…but dull?”

“We are so busy measuring public opinion that we forget we can mold it. We are so busy listening to statistics we forget that we can create them.”

“Be provocative. But be sure your provocativeness stems from your product. You are NOT right if in your ad you stand a man on his head JUST to get attention. You ARE right if you have him on his head to show how your product keeps things from falling out of his pockets.”

“I warn you against believing that advertising is a science.”

“A great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster. It will get more people to know it’s bad.”

“Adapt your techniques to an idea, not an idea to your techniques.”

“Advertising doesn’t create a product advantage. It can only convey it.”

“The difference between the forgettable and the enduring is artistry.”

“Can you really judge an idea from a storyboard? How do you storyboard a smile?”

“There is practically nothing that is not capable of boring us.”

“Dullness won’t sell your product, but neither will irrelevant brilliance.”

“Getting a product known isn’t the answer. Getting it wanted is the answer. Some of the best known product names have failed.”

“It’s not how short you make it; it’s how you make it short.”

“Logic and over analysis can immobilize and sterilize an idea. It’s like love - the more you analyze it the faster is disappears.”

“A unique selling proposition is no longer enough. Without a unique selling talent it may die.”

“Because an appeal makes logical sense is no guarantee that it will work.”

“We don’t ask research to do what it was never meant to do, and that is to get an idea.”

“All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of the society. We can vulgarize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level.”

“More and more I have come to the conclusion that a principle isn’t a principle until it costs you money."

Brand Nugget

A lady struck up a conversation with a marketer.

“Why”, she asked “did you put two Xs in Exxon?”

“Why ask?” he asked.

“Because”, she said, “I couldn't help noticing?”

“Well”, he responded, “that's the answer!”

The Smile File

Who said marketing isn’t fun. Here are some gems I found rummaging through books, scanning the net, chatting up with colleagues and friends, and interacting with professionals, clients and others over the years. Some might make you smile, some might make you think and some might end up doing both. If any of the three happened to you, the quotes have done their job!

'Marketing is what you do when your product is no good'.

'There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman down, simply by spending his money somewhere else'.

'To err is human; to blame it on someone else shows management potential'.

'Price is what you pay. Value is what you get'.

'Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark.
You know what you are doing, but no one else does'.

'People who read the tabloids deserve to be lied to'.

'Don't tell my mother I work in an advertising agency; she thinks I play piano in a whorehouse'.

'What is the difference between unethical and ethical advertising?
Unethical advertising uses falsehoods to deceive the public; ethical advertising uses truth to deceive the public'.

'Well-managed brands live on - only bad brand managers die'.

'In this fast-paced world, today's popular brand could be tomorrow's trivia question'.

'A global brand-building strategy is, in reality, a local plan for every market'.

Marketing Explained

Marketing professors, academicians and theoreticians struggle to explain marketing concepts to layman in an easy-to-use manner. Here is a gem I found somewhere. It explains the key terms in marketing and leaves every reader with a clear idea about what this damn business discipline is all about. Those who struggle to understand the key marketing terms even after reading this deserve to remain a marketing illiterate.

Here is it, Enjoy!

You go to a party and you see an attractive girl across the room. You go up to her and say, "Hi, I'm great in bed, how about it?” That's Direct Marketing.

You go to a party and you see an attractive girl across the room. You give your friend a tenner. She goes up and says, "Hi, my friend over there is great in bed, how about it?” Now, that's Advertising.

You go to a party and you see an attractive girl across the room. You somehow mop up her mobile number. You call and chat her up a while and then say, "Hi, I am great in bed, how about it?" That's Tele-Marketing.

You go to a party and you see an attractive girl across the room. You recognize her. You walk up to her, refresh her memory and get her to laugh and giggle and then suggest, "Hi, I am great in bed, how about it?" That's Customer Relationship Management.

You go to a party and you see an attractive girl across the room. You put on your spring boots and walk around playing Mr. Busy. You put on your best smile and walk around being Mr. Congenial. You fresh all the Thesaurus links in your memory and play Mr. Polished. You stand straight, you talk soft and smooth, you open the door for the ladies, you smile like a dream, you set an aura around you playing the Mr. Gentleman and then you move up to the girl and say, "Hi, I am great in bed, how about it?" That's Hard Selling.

You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and before you say, "I am very rich. Marry me!" She turns her face towards you. Shit, she is your wife!
That's Competition grabbing your market share.

You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say, "I'm rich. Marry me" She gives you a nice hard slap on your face. That's Customer Feedback.

You go to a party, you see an attractive girl across the room. She comes over and says, "Hi, I hear you're great in bed, how about it?" Now that is the power of Branding!

The Perfect 10!

Have you heard of UPGA?

No, it’s not a society against cruelty to animals nor is it a green movement aiming to save the environment though it sounds close. UPGA, when expanded, reads ‘Unilever Principles for Great Advertising’.

I know most marketers and advertisers think the term Unilever Advertising is more an oxymoron. I am not getting into that debate – whether Unilever advertising is boring or not - not because I don’t believe it, but more because I think it’s a subject matter worthy of debate at a different time. Though I should hasten to add here that companies like P&G and Unilever make effective advertising (most of the time if not every time) thought it might not be seen spectacular in the eyes of the advertising fraternity.

Al Ries and Jack Trout punch the noses of critics hard when they say this: ‘It has become fashionable in Madison Avenue to pooh-pooh P&G advertising but it would be nice to note that P&G makes more money than all 6,000 ad agencies combined’!

The point is these companies do advertising that seems to work most of the time. Proof: both P&G and Unilever are Fortune 500 companies and quite high up in the order as well. I believe it’s got to do with good marketing and even better advertising.

This article is about one of the two companies referred earlier – Unilever – and the set of principles that drive their advertising worldwide. A set of ten principles collectively referred to as the UPGA.

Interestingly, Hindustan Lever is accused of stealing P&G ideas from abroad so much so that a HLL Brand Manager even confessed to me sometime ago that UPGA should ideally stand for ‘Use P&G Advertising’!

What follows is the result of years of Unilever experience in advertising. It is distilled into ten Principles. In all good advertising these principles are present. Read it and if you believe it makes sense don’t forget to thank Unilever.

1. It concentrates on one big idea
The brand’s benefit to the consumer is conveyed, not just by a selling message, let alone a series of messages. But single-mindedly by one big idea – a visual and or aural expression of that one big concept exclusively linked to the brand. In other words, an idea that is arresting, exciting and unexpected.

2. Its promise discriminates a brand from its competitors
The ad must communicate a benefit. But it must distinguish that benefit from others promised by competitive brands. The brand must therefore communicate uniqueness. Uniqueness may reside in the physical brand itself (e.g., formulation) or in some other value inextricably associated with the brand. One of those values is the advertising. Thus whether the benefit is unique or not, its expression must be.

3. It involves the target consumer
It has immediate dramatic impact, arouses interest, holds and deepens that interest. It elicits a favourable emotional response by appealing to the consumer’s self interest, relating to a known need or problem and promising satisfaction of that need or a solution to the problem.

4. It establishes / develops a relationship with the consumer
A relationship is built on mutual understanding. The situation shown, the style of presentation, the people depicted the language and tone of voice used…all reveals the advertiser’s understanding of, and sympathy with, the consumer’s experience and aspirations. The ad should induce a strong feeling in favour of the brand and establish a preference for the brand, so that the consumer feels confident in choosing it.

5. It is credible – it feels genuine
Statements made, demonstrations shown must not be misleading. They must be fully accepted by the consumer. Though the manner of presentations may involve humour or hyperbole, the fundamental brand benefit must always by felt to be obtainable.

6. It is simple and clear
Anything that can be misunderstood will be misunderstood. Too many thoughts, too many impressions will confuse and lose the consumer’s attention. The execution should be simple and the expression unambiguous. It should be clear from the ad what the target consumer is expected to do. This does not mean that everything needs to be spelled out. Communication is two-way. The consumer should participate.

7. It integrates the brand name with the central idea
The big idea must be inextricably linked to the brand name. It must be remembered only in association with the brand.

8. It takes advantage of each medium
Ideally, the big idea should find expression in all media (TV, Print, Radio, Internet, Outdoor, and Direct mail). Each medium has its own characteristics, which offer opportunities for exploitation. The big idea itself is fundamental, but the writing and design of the ad should take maximum advantage of the media possibilities available.

9. The idea must be campaignable
The big idea will endure. It is not a single ad but a campaign. It is not one campaign but a series of campaigns. It is capable of development. This is more than simple repetition or even variations on a theme. The big idea will not only endure, it will grow.

10.It must help build the brand personality
Each ad affects the consumer’s perception of the brand. If any one ad conflicts with that perception it will cause, at best a neutral, at worst a negative feeling. Several such ads will begin to weaken the brand personality. It is vital therefore to ensure consistency. Each ad should help to build or reinforce the desired brand personality.

Social Marketing

Marketing, like most business disciplines, has its fair share of concepts and terms that have been adequately misunderstood and extensively misused. I wish to talk about one such misunderstood tem – Social Marketing. I have not seen this being used in India adequately far less being misused!

What is Social Marketing?

Comprehension of this term varies from public service ads released by leading brands (drink so-many gallons of water everyday; message brought in public interest by x brand) to ‘grow more trees’ campaign unleashed by some NGO.

The answer lies somewhere in-between.

The term social marketing was first coined by Philip Kotler and Zaltman in 1971 to refer to application of marketing to solution of social and health problems. The basic premise went something like this: Marketing has been successful in encouraging people to buy products such as Pepsi, Rolex, Ford, Nike etc., so, the argument was, it can also encourage people to adopt behaviour that will enhance their own - and their fellow citizens’ - lives.

They defined social marketing as "the design, implementation and control of programs calculated to influence the acceptability of social ideas and involving considerations of product planning, pricing, communication, distribution and marketing research."

That translated into plain English reads something like this: ‘Social Marketing is the use of marketing and communication techniques to sell social messages.’

A good example of Social Marketing in the Indian context is the ‘Aids’ campaign that was so popular that it is still referred as the ‘Pulliraja’ campaign! If you could recall, that campaign was run like any other marketing campaign. It had its own positioning, personality, logo, baseline, advertising strategy etc., and was run with the singular objective of popularizing the AIDS message to the target consumer.

In other words, message about AIDS was the brand and selling this idea to the target was the objective much like how marketing happens for many products and services. This, ladies and gentleman, is Social Marketing as defined by Kotler and Zaltman!

Social marketing, like generic marketing, is not a theory in itself. Rather, it is a framework or structure that draws from many other bodies of knowledge such as psychology, sociology, anthropology and communications theory to understand how to influence people’s behaviour add Kotler and Zaltman.

However, social marketing is less different and more difficult than generic marketing. It involves changing intractable behaviours, in complex economic, social and political climates with often very limited resources (Lefebvre and Flora, 1988).

Furthermore, while, for generic marketing the ultimate goal is to meet shareholder objectives, for the social marketer the bottom line is to meet society’s desire to improve its citizens’ quality of life. This is a much more ambitious - and more blurred - bottom line.

There are some important differences between social and commercial marketing though. Specifically, in social marketing:

• The products tend to be more complex.
• Demand is more varied.
• Target groups are more challenging to reach.
• Consumer involvement is more intense.
• The competition is more subtle and varied.

Finally, one of the most serious forms of competition for Social Marketing comes from commercial marketing itself when it attempts to sell unhealthful or unsocial behaviours. For instance, for every small voice that urges people not to drink or smoke there is a huge scream from the marketers who urge you to smoke and drink.

Thank God we don’t have legalized prostitution yet in this country to take head-on the AIDS campaign. Imagine if we had it and there were enough ‘brothel’ brands vying for people’s attention. We could well see the following Press ad (no pun intended).

“Chosen from the finest among the fairer sex. Visit Slam bam Services, India’s finest brothel centre. Fill it. Shut it. Forget it”!

Social Marketing, then, would have met its match!

A game of bridge

This is about Brand Positioning. Relax, I am not going to insult your intelligence by telling you what positioning is but rather present a new way of positioning brands. It goes by the name Bridged Positioning.

No, this is not one more jargon intended to make marketing look and feel like science. Bridging is the technique to position or reposition brands optimally. Optimally in the sense that the brand will then make the widest, most powerful appeal to its target. The concept itself is a result of studying successful positionings of brands around the world. This is not just a new term but an all-new way of positioning brands. Believe me, this one makes sense, and more importantly it works. Read on.

The basic premise of bridged positioning is that every brand promise consists of a functional and psychological component. And the attempt is to find that single word or phrase that captures both and ties it intrinsically to the brand.

Put differently, bridging is the process whereby a key functional component of a product is bridged to a relevant and credible psychological satisfaction derived by it. And the bridged term will most effectively communicate the totality of what the brand offers and what it stands for.

Let’s take an example. Colgate is PROTECTION.

Is protection a functional promise? I understand it is.

Is protection psychological as well? You bet it is.

Now here is a positioning that promises functional utility to the user and also satisfies the psychological feeling of being protected. That is bridged positioning. And the beauty of this technique is that the two fundamental components are captured in a single word.

That is the hallmark of bridged positioning. The functional and psychological benefits of a brand encapsulated by a single word or phrase.

Allow me to present a few examples; immensely successful ones.

Heineken is REFRESHMENT.
Pond’s Body Lotion is SOFTNESS.
Scooty is FREEDOM.
Kingfisher is FUN.

Study the bridged position these brands have occupied. Softness is as much functional as it is psychological. Freedom is physical and psychological as well. Needless to say, these brands are able to satisfy the functional and psychological aspects of a purchase and expectedly have become leaders in their respective categories.

You see, consumers will never look at a component individually – always in a total context. They will judge function in the context of the psychological element and vice versa. As the user responds to whole gestalt, these elements support each other and are consistent. They fit perfectly.

Bridged positioning is a big, relevant, motivating and unifying idea. The integrated idea is the bridged need.

Dettol is PROTECTION.
Johnson & Johnson is CARE.
Suffola is HEALTH.
Sharan Plywood is STRENGTH.

These brands have been able to capture both the functional and psychological aspects of purchase in a single word. Study successful brands and you would find most of them holding bridged positions.

In short, Bridged positioning is about the integration of the two key needs of any purchase – functional and psychological - and therein lies its power and persuasive ability to woo customers.

I am not for a minute saying, only bridged positioning succeeds. All I am saying is bridged positioning increases your chances of success in the marketplace. Triumphant brands bear this truth.

Before I sign off, let me present a few such integrated concepts that are as much functional as they are psychological.

Attractiveness, Success, Safety, Admiration, Power, Security, Celebration…

If you agree these are bridged terms, you might also be able to spot brands that have appropriated them to rule their respective categories.

Give it a thought, will you.

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.