RAVI BALAKRISHNANAirtel may want to be remem-bered for its snazzier, youth-ful advertising, but one of its definitive commercials is the barber’s shop ad from the mid-2000s. As the trademark Airtel ring tone sounds, cus-tomers and the barber hastily reach for their phones. But the call is actually for the chai-wala, subtly establishing the brand’s ubiquity and ability to cut across classes.

Over the last two decades — Airtel turned 20 this July — it has grown to be India’s largest mobile network. For lakhs of Indians, it’s been the first tele-phone connection of any sort. No mean feat in a hyperactive market that at one point in 2009, had close to 10 players and has been through suppos-edly giant slaying trends like mobile number portability.

Ac c or d i n g to Srini Gopalan, lead – consumer business, Airtel owes it all too keeping its core essence intact. He explains, “Human connections are at the heart of the brand. Over the years, we’ve been able to capture this in multiple memorable ways.” For instance, Express Yourself starring AR Rahman to the more recent Har EkFriend which acknowledged that friends were a new form of family. It’s a singleminded stance at variance with many

newer entrants who initiated price wars or took potshots at other players. Says Gopalan, “While others have obsessed about spe-cific technology or the competition, we have obsessed about custom-ers, providing a great network and service.”

Of course, there’s a lot more to Airtel than a few well liked ads. It has tai-lored itself to various target audiences offering internet and videos at `1 for the popu-lation that’s getting online for the first time. It claims to have started providing 4G to its 3G subscribers at no extra cost. Gopalan explains: “I don’t think the basic formula has changed from when Sunil Mittal started this business. We’d rather keep that intact and customise product, com-munication and service rather than be different things to different people.”

It’s a few days to Independence Day, but that won’t stop us from celebrating India’s freedom from British Raj. Besides there’s no Brand Equity edition on Saturday! Today, we go back not only to the birth of a nation but to

homegrown brands which have built India, meta-phorically and literally.

The food brands have nourished generations of Indians. Others mobilised the entire nation: giv-ing people the means and wheels to work, learn, grow and excel. Brands have made our lives eas-

ier and some continue to serve India after almost seven decades of liberation.

There were quite a few that fit the bill. But what we’ve got here are some cream of the crop.

We’ve also got leading marketing minds on vari-ous subjects: like the personalities that helped take Brand India to new heights on a global stage and the myths marketers have been labouring under.

So, might we suggest you enjoy your freedom this Independence Day with Ben Kingsley’s Gandhiand this issue of Brand Equity? Read on.

DELSHAD IRANIIn May 2014, Hindustan Motors stopped manufacturing the car with Sophia Loren-esque curves, the Ambassador, due to fast de-clining demand. For almost six decades the Ambassador traversed across India, carrying multiple generations of Indian families. She’s still around, though, thanks to government and military officials, taxi drivers ferrying natives and tourists and Amby aficionados.

The story of the first Indian car began in

1957, when BM Birla owned Hindustan Motors (established in 1942) manufactured the first Ambassador, modelled on the Morris Oxford. It was a matter of prestige to own one, especially after a five-year waitlist. She was a symbol of a liberated, new India, forging ahead in noth-ing less than a beautiful tank, so to speak. You couldn’t find a tougher passenger car. And still can’t. In 2013, the BBC show Top Gear put this to test — before Jeremy Clarkson famously punched his way out of favour. The Ambassador

went up against Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Toyota and Honda, all in service as cabs around the world, in a deadly taxi shootout. While the rest emerged dismembered, the Ambassador crossed the finish-line intact and in good spirit. The irony: It was the advent of the Maruti 800 in the mid-80s and 90s that heralded the decline of Ambassador as the queen of Indian roads. Of course, changing consumer likes killed the Ambassador, too. Unchanged over the years, a car reminiscent of the bowler hat isn’t every-body’s cup of tea. And competition grew from two (Premier Padmini and later the Maruti 800) to today’s smart sedans, SUVs, MUVs, hatch-backs for every taste and type of Indian clan. Just 2,200 Ambassadors were sold in the year ended March 2014, according to reports.

However, the Ambassador’s legacy is one adopted by others as their own. Even before Maruti pitched itself as the “people’s car” with an outpost in every cranny, it was the Ambassador that could be mended by the sides of highways with a spanner and some ingenuity. Today, however, Ambassador parts are increasingly rarer, expensive and harder to source. The Amby is also the original an-cestor of supersize, utility vehicles, which can accommodate the entire family, pets and luggage for holidays through temperamental terrain. With room to spare for Ego. So, you see the Ambassador’s not quite dead. Long live the Queen.

BRANDS THAT BUILT INDIA

INDEPENDENCE DAY SPECIALRAVI BALAKRISHNANFew brands can stake as much of a claim to literally having fed India as Amul. Its ubiq-uitous butter shows up in bread baskets at fine dine restaurants and at streetside sand-wich and snacking stalls that advertise their ‘made with Amul’ credentials on large chalk boards as an assurance of quality.

A mu l but ter c a me i nto it s ow n in 1966 when its agency DaCunha Communications, perhaps unwittingly, created what would go on to be one of ad-vertising’s longest running campaigns. The Amul butter girl was initially a foil to a sexy milkmaid mnemonic of arch ri-val Polson’s. Topical ads were introduced a year after the Amul girl first appeared and continue to date.

Along the way, the campaign has be-come less about butter and more about what Amul stands for. A good move since butter is no longer Amul’s flagship prod-uct, accounting for a mere 10% to 11% of its ̀ 21,000 crore turnover of which 50% is cornered by milk. It’s arguable if the cam-paign flogs more product. But the ads — now also freely available via Facebook — have become an amusing, sometimes sen-timental, sometimes sardonic document on life in India over the last five decades. Rahul DaCunha, director, DaCunha Communications observes, “The ad-vertising has stayed consistent and the Amul girl has truly become the daughter of India: there’s a possessiveness people have about her. Too many advertisers let go of concepts too soon. That we’ve stayed consistent while updating the campaign every year has helped.” While hoardings are still a mainstay, on Amul’s Facebook page there are sometimes new topical ads every day that are eagerly discussed and shared.

Amul has staved off competition, which has intensified particularly over the last decade and a half. According to manag-ing director RS Sodhi “Our business strategy evolved 68 years back by Dr Veghese Kurien is C2C or cow to consum-er. When both producers and consumers are with you, you are not afraid of compe-tition. We do not replace expensive natu-ral ingredients with synthetic cheap ones like other companies.”

Which explains why Amul and its moppet are one of the few Indian brands that have survived the slog from pre to post-liberali-sation India, a culling that consigned many former market leaders to history books.

2,200 Ambassadors were sold in the year ended March 2014

Long live Amby

Friend-zoned and loving itTHE TELCO THAT WANTS TO BE EVERYBODY’S FRIEND — AIRTEL

The taste of IndiaAMUL — THE BRAND THAT’S BUTTERED GENERATIONS OF TOAST

AMBASSADOR — THE FIRST INDIAN CAR STILL LIVES

As of June this year Airtel had 230,662,000 GSM mobile subscrib-ers, with an ARPU of `198

Inside: P2 Bajaj,

Parle G, Titan, Godrej,

Thums Up+ By Invitation

People Brands That Built India

P3 Big Bazaar, Videocon

+ By Invitation The Wrong Chase

P4 First Newsjackers of a Free India

Amul and its moppet are one of

the few Indian brands that have survived the slog from pre to post-

liberalisation India

THIN

KST

OCK

THE ECONOMIC TIMES AUGUST 12-18, 2015

Product: ETNEWMumbaiBS PubDate: 12-08-2015 Zone: BrandEquity Edition: 1 Page: BEFP User: sandeepd0203 Time: 08-06-2015 23:30 Color: CMYK

SHEPHALI BHATTIf you lived through the 80s and 90s without witnessing a family of four (man, wife and two kids) on a BajajChetak, it’s safe to assume you weren’t living in India. Bajaj Auto gave India its first family car: only it was actually a scooter.

The journey of bringing mobility to people in a country marred by poor transportation began in 1961. Bajaj got a licence from Italy’s Piaggio to manufacture and sell Vespa in India. Around early 70s, Piaggio went ‘No can do’ on renewing licence which led to the launch of Bajaj Chetak. In 1977, Chetak raced ahead of every other player in the two and four-wheeler category securing sales of over 100,000 units in a year. Ten years later, this number had soared to 500,000 and by the time we hit the 90s and liberalisation set in, Bajaj Auto was selling 100,000 scooters per month. The brand had practically attained the status of ‘Chunnu Munnu de Pappa di Gaddi.’

Bajaj scooters succeeded because they were active in a scarcity economy, says Suman Srivastava, founder of Marketing Unplugged consultancy and CSO of FCB Ulka. Incidentally, it’s the first brand he worked on. “The 70s was a rationing era which made Bajaj the undisputed king. They had a prod-uct at a reasonable price and the consumer

badly needed it. You had to wait for a decade to get a Chetak,” he recounts. “When Rahul Bajaj, then MD of Bajaj Auto (now chairman) took over the reins and started focusing on scooters, his main fight was with the Bombay Club to grant him licence to expand capacity,

to sell overseas. The product was always in short supply,” Srivastava adds.

So what if Lintas’s marketing genius of ‘Buland Bharat ki Buland Tasveer - Hamara Bajaj’ was only a holding opera-tion, acted upon when scooter sales were plummeting in the wake of 100cc bikes? It did its job. With confirmed reports of Bajaj Chetak making a comeback next year, one can be certain the scooter’s success wasn’t a flash in the pan. It is a ‘Lambi race ka gho-da’ indeed. AMIT BAPNA

There are people who won’t drink their favorite rum, Old Monk, if it’s not served with Thums Up, leaving many a barman wonder-ing if the tippler’s loyalties lie with the rum brand or the cola? Launched in 1977, Thums Up continues to have a hold across the length and breadth of the country and

remains an enigma that marketers, over the years, have tried to unravel on the success recipe of the brand. It also remains a case study for the Atlanta based Coca-Cola company that has not faced such a situation anywhere in the world — of having a homegrown brand take on the might and muscle of the big brother (Coca-Cola) and continue to be the winner. According to Debabrata Mukherjee, vice president, marketing & commercial, Coca-Cola India and South West Asia, “Thums Up has had a clear ‘masculine cola’

positioning and the brand has continuously adapted to the relevant codes of mas-culinity over the years that have worked very well for it.”

The brand launched by the maverick Ramesh Chauhan was already a force to reckon with when it was acquired by the Coca-Cola Company in what was possibly the most famous deal of the early 90s. A person familiar with de-velopments of the deal says on condition of anonymity, “Coke by buying the largest cola brand in the country was hoping to get the entire cola equity transferred to it.” That it didn’t pan out that way was something that the cola giant had not bargained for while closing the deal. Says KV Sridhar, chief cre-ative officer, SapientNitro, “In a country like India it is not cola that is culturally rooted: what is rooted is the strong taste of Thums Up — a product made for the Indian palate.”

Neither pulling the plug by reducing distribution strength nor scuttling adver-tising budgets — something that the parent Coca-Cola has known to have tried many times — worked in the case of this brand that continues to own the mind and heart space for millions in the country. Points out Sourav Ray, chief strategy officer, Havas Worldwide, “Relative to Coca-Cola, Thums Up had more free-dom but less budget which worked as the perfect tonic for the marketing team to create a differentiated posi-tioning for the brand, focus, think out of the box and free-ly express themselves.”

AMIT BAPNAWhen Madhukar Sabnavis, vice chairman and country head, discovery and planning at Ogilvy & Mather India says, “For me, Titan made wrist-wear a meaningful fashion state-ment”, he echoes many Indians. Established in 1984 as a joint ven-ture between Tata and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation, it got the category out from a hitherto dull avatar and made it fashionable.

According to Suparna Mitra, chief marketing officer – Titan Watches & Accessories, “It’s al-ways been a very Indian brand and international in its appeal, even as it has gone about redefin-

ing the category and continued to grow with the Indian consumer.” The brand has been calibrating segments carefully while re-

maining edgy and contempo-rary. For instance, it launched Raga in the early 90s as a separate sub-brand to cater to the aspira-tions of Indian woman even if it meant going against the global trend of women lines tending to be smaller sized versions of the men’s range. Another brand Fastrack, initially launched as a collection within Titan was hived off as a standalone in 2004, catering to the youth and has been a runaway success sit-ting on a market share of 14 % (by volume). Sonata, the mass brand launched in 1998, has also become the largest selling watch brand by volume in the country with a 32% market share. To

cater to the kids segment, at an age when they become aware of accessorisation, Zoop was launched in 2009. The brand also revolutionised consumer durable retailing in the early 90s by bringing fashion retail into India. As per Mitra, there are currently 435 World of Titan stores across 185 cities and 158 Fastrack stores across 79 cities.

In addition, according to Sabnavis, the brand was built through the 90s on the back of product showcasing and gifting - a two pronged attack that created desirability and then emotional value via its advertising. Keeping track of time has turned out to be one helluva profitable business.

DELSHAD IRANI Some have it plain, some dip it in tea while others pulverise five to make a hot chai smoothie, (Starbucks, you listening?) Eat them at break time or exam time or when you have a hangover. It doesn’t matter how or when you eat Parle-G: considering the number of Indians, from children to septuagenarians, who have consumed the bis-cuit, surely, it would be safe to say that Parle-G is yet another brand that built India, quite lit-erally.

Last time the company count-ed, 4,551 Parle-G biscuits are consumed per second. Makers of the world’s largest selling biscuit brand, Parle Products, a company that has been around since 1929, produces 400 million biscuits daily and sells more than 100 crore packets across sizes every month through its 5 million retail outlets. In fact, Parle-G sells more than all the biscuit brands sold in China, which is the fourth largest bis-cuit market in the world.

Back in 1939 when the first batches of Parle-G sprinted out of hot ovens, biscuits weren’t typically an Indian snack.

Rather they were the ideal com-panions to a cup of Darjeeling and cucumber sandwiches at High Tea. Parle, primarily a confectionaries manufactur-er, however, wanted to create the common man’s biscuit. It’s that philosophy that has driven the brand for over seven decades. Even when competi-tion increased in the 90s and 2000s, and countless variants emerged — chocolate, cream, savory and whatnot, Parle resisted increasing prices for Parle-G. Today, the worth of biscuit sales registered by Parle-G is around ̀ 5010 crore.

Says Mayank Shah, deputy marketing manager, Parle Products, “From masses to classes enjoys Parle-G biscuits. Everything we’ve done from pricing and brand positioning to advertising, has stayed true to the original philosophy.” That’s perhaps most clearly evident in the case of a 35-year-old woman in Mumbai who keeps about 30 packets of Parle-G biscuits in her SUV. Why? They’re a contin-gency snack for when she or her three children get hungry to and fro from school or piano lessons. But the biscuits are also meant for street kids who come knock-ing at the car window for money or food. In this case, Parle-G.

BAJAJ SCOOTERS GAVE INDIAN MIDDLE-CLASS IT’S FIRST TWO-WHEELER CAR

Brand images are about peoples’ perceptions of what the core values, distinguishing features and key at-tributes of the entity are, in this case of India, the country. There is a trea-sure trove of world renowned, world shaping people from India who have through their life and work built a many faceted brand India — scien-tific India, spiritual India, artistic India, intellectual India, intelligent India and so on. Faced with this prob-lem of plenty, I have picked those who

caused a paradigm shift in how Brand India has been per-

ceived, both to Indians and to the rest of the

world.

My first pick is Mahatma Gandhi.From a perception of India being Britain’s powerless cash cow, and as Churchill famously said, unfit to rule itself, he fashioned Brand India to be one that was to people inside and outside, poor but proud, peace loving and non-violent, strongly self-reliant, fearless in pursuing its goal, undaunted by the might of the British empire and un-awed by western civilization, which he irreverently remarked would be a very good idea. So strong and was the identity and uniqueness he built of us being non-violent people and em-bracing all religions and creeds, that whenever our behaviour has been contradictory, the dissonance is

enough to shame us to try harder. My next pick is Jawaharlal Nehru

who didn’t do much for Brand India’s positive or negative perceptions ex-ternally but internally reinforced the brand vision of Mahatma Gandhi through embedding in our psyche the definition of success as being inclusive development and social justice, and he made us self-reliantly build what he called the temples of modern India. Post 1991, the new Indian economy was shaped, leveraging these very

foundations. In even the eyes of the most impatient free mar-ket worshiping Indian, inclu-siveness is non-negotiable and development continues to be the cherished brand goal. Indira Gandhi cre-ated a different perception of Brand India externally, though centred on earlier themes of self-reliance and ‘pursues its own

agenda’. Brand India was seen by world leaders as xenophobic, trouble-some (“cannot be managed will do as it pleases”), that did as it pleased. (Remember Bangladesh, Pokhran, India’s criticism of US bombing in Vietnam even as PL 480 food shipments were on). Internally, she told us that we had to be self-reliant because the world was not our friend and over-saw the green revolu-tion that ushered in self-sufficiency of food grains. Ironically, through the Emergency, she internally reinforced the sacredness of Brand India’s core value of democracy. Even today, 40 years later, the “be vigilant so that we don’t have another emergency” is on top of all our minds.

The IT men and women definitely were game changers of India’s image. In the words of Nandan Nilekani,

India revolutionised services de-livery and took the world by storm exactly as the Japanese had done with manufacturing. NR Narayana Murthy and Nandan were the most visible and articulate builders of this

new dimension of Brand India , though critical mass for the brand perception came from efforts of TCS and others and the sweat and blood and tireless toil of

millions of India’s 22-30 year old foot soldiers. Internally, the new India’s brand perception was a land of amaz-ing opportunity, “Silicon moksha” as someone called it.

My final pick is Narendra Modiwho is reshaping our brand vision and identity as a proud, capable and modernity seeking India, not ashamed at all of its cultural roots. If Indira Gandhi’s “India marches to

the beat of her own drummer” percep-tion was based on capriciousness, his is calculated and steady. Master of symbolism, he shapes young Indians’ perception of Brand India with a mix of old and new. Talk of smart cities and cleaning mother Ganges and International Yoga day; bowing his head reverently at the steps of par-liament like westernized Sonia or Rahul Gandhi would never dream of doing, of taking his Navaratri fast to the White House, speaking Hindi to world leaders. India unbound, India unabashed, India on a march to de-velopment modernity is the brand perception he seeks to create.

In a democracy like ours, every Indian is a Bharata bhagya vidhaatatoo and a brand builder. The brand building model is that of a few pow-erful lighthouses and millions of fireflies.

(Rama Bijapurkar is a market strategy consultant and author)

THE PEOPLE BRANDS THAT BUILT INDIA

Common man’s biscuit

In the late 80s the only thing tougher to get than a Bajaj Chetak was a telephone connection

What is rooted is the strong taste of Thums Up – a product made for the Indian palate

Titan has been calibrating segments carefully while remaining edgy and contemporary

Parle-G biscuits consumed annually put end-to-end, would cover the Earth’s circumference 192 times

76-YEAR-OLD PARLE-GIS THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE STILL

Days of thunder

THUMS UP IS STILL THE KING OF COLAS

ANIR

BAN

BO

RA

DELSHAD IRANI Before smart fridges which can do everything short of whipping up a meal with the left-overs vege-tating on their cool shelves, there were “frigidaires”. It was the name used for all refrigerators at a time when ice-boxes were a luxury. Never mind the fact that Frigidaire is an American brand of appliances that also manu-factures refrigeration units. In fact, the slang term ‘fridge’ comes from Frigidaire, accord-ing to reports. In 1950s India, frigidaires were still a luxury afforded by a few to keep their dairy, veggies, veal and brew cool. And the brands available were all foreign. That was until Godrej & Boyce, the makers of

locks and cupboards, which have kept generations of Indians and their valuables and other knick-knacks safe, manufactured the first Indian refrigerator in 1958. Today, the early made-in-India frigidaire that needed some seri-ous upper-body strength to pull open its heavy, single door, are long gone. They have been re-placed by newer generations of machines that are not only smart but eco-friendly, too.

Says Kamal Nandi, business head & executive vice president, Godrej Appliances, “Godrej made an exorbitant luxury an affordable reality. The genesis lay in the concept of a ‘self re-liant India’ which Ardeshir Godrej believed in. From locks

and typewriters to appliances and soaps — the idea that shaped Godrej was the dream of a self reliant India with products that could compete with the

world’s best. This commitment to a progressive India fuels the brand till date.” Since then sev-eral transformational changes have taken place, changing India into a fiercely competitive battleground, especially in this industry. The only way Godrej Appliances has been able to stand this test of time is by constantly innovating and evolving itself and bringing relevant technol-ogy to its customers to suit chang-ing needs and lifestyles. In fact, the 118-year-old Godrej was the first company in India to manu-facture 100% CFC, HCFC and HFC- free refrigerators, and is on its way to create the first range of 100% green refrigerators.

If, however, you’re hankering for a feel of the old frigidaire, the one place you might still stumble upon one is at a Parsi or hipster home.

‘Buland Bharat ki buland tasveer’

Keep it cool

GAME CHANGERS OF BRAND INDIA

GODREJ IS THE MAKER OF THE VERY FIRST INDIAN FRIDGE

Godrej entered the appliances sector in the year 1958

Modi... Master of symbolism shapes young Indians’ perception of Brand India

RAMA BIJAPURKAR

Time to take a bowTO THE WATCH-WEARERS IN INDIA, THERE IS A WORLD BEFORE AND AFTER TITAN

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THE WRONG CHASEFIVE THINGS MARKETERS GOT WRONG

ABOUT THE INDIAN CONSUMER

The Poor Want PurposeWithout branding by M a h at m a G a n d h i , Khadi would have re-

mained hand-woven cotton fabric, good for

sweaty climates. He elevat-ed it into a larger purpose for the masses — swadeshi and swaraj. What Mahatma Gandhi did with Khadi, Baba Ramdev did with yoga, maybe not as mag-nificently. Baba Ramdev preached spiritualism on the one hand and sold corn-f lakes and anti-dandruff shampoo on the other. What Kellogg’s couldn’t achieve with Iron Shakti in 20 years, Baba Ramdev did with Yoga Shakti in less than a decade, building a `2000 crore FMCG empire. Disclaimer — cornflakes is Patanjali’s top seller,

though not the only prod-uct. So what’s going on? The mass consumers of India want spiritualism and consumption in the same breath. All this while we were peddling functional benefits to them, as per Maslow. Aspiration Before Affordability‘Frugal Innovation’ may qualify as one of the buzzi-est terms in the emerging market lexicon, contested closely by Jugaad (more on that in a bit). However, taken out of context, it has meant that we take a car, refrig-erator or phone and strip it down to a level where it stops looking like a car, refrigera-tor or phone. Inspired by fru-gal innovation, Nokia built Asha, which was a feature phone pretending to be a smartphone. Close on the heels of the Asha series, Samsung launched real smartphones in the same range — Gala xy Y. As i t t u r n e d o u t , Samsung’s desir-ability was a bigger pull for the mass consumer. Nokia’s Asha series or Nano aren’t failures of product design or marketing strategy. They are a failure of how we think about mass markets — through the lens of affordability, not aspiration.Jugaad Is The E n e m y O f ExcellenceThis second buzzi-e st ter m i n t he emerging market vocabulary, essen-tially means fix by hook or by crook. A couple of years ago, a Bulandshahr dis-trict hospital was in news for ward-boys stitching up people’s wounds and giv-ing injections. As it turned out, this was a jugaad for a lack of trained medical staff — an expla-nation that didn’t convince too many p e o p l e . Ju g a a d means it’s okay to skip standard oper-ating procedures. It means the roadside mechanic will fix the hole in your

car’s silencer,

so what if it turns the engine into junk? Jugaad subtracts value. There can be no patli gali to excellence. Chase Youth Not StereotypesThe portrayal of youth in India is caught between ste-reotypes. On the one hand is the mean guy, mouthing expletives, as seen in MTV Roadies, on the other is the guy from SOBO (south of Bombay) who, when he misses his college friends, takes a trip to Spain as seen in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.Between these two worlds lies the real youth of India in mug shots for ads by IIT JEE coaching institutes. Media and advertising have fed this amorous, mean and manipulative archetype of Indian youth. An Outlooksurvey asked 18–35 year olds how old they were when they had sex for the first time. The average turned out to be 20, not 16, as we have been led to believe. Clearly, there’s more to being young in India than getting laid, attending raves, sporting tattoos, and watch-ing expletive laden content. Unity More Than DiversityIndeed marketing has made a big deal about India’s diver-sity. So if languages change every 100 kilometres, how is that information action-able? Should we create dif-ferent products? How do we reach micro audiences? Where is the targeted me-dia? Doesn’t this defeat the promise of one big market? On the other hand, what’s more interesting than the diversity spiel is the rise of a national culture. Our regional influences that di-vided us are now powering up a rich, textured national culture. In this collage, Vada Pav, Momos, Salwar Kameez, YoYo Honey Singh and Rajinikant sit next to each other with pride. Our diversity then, is a source of inspiration, not a sign of complexity. Jeans pockets with Lucknow chikankari, anyone?(The author is CSO, Grey South & South East Asia)

Marketing has made a big deal

about India’s diversity

DHEERAJ SINHA

SHEPHALI BHATTIn 1982, when colour television en-tered India, the Dhoot family was busy handling distribution for Bajaj Auto. A not-so-well-kept secret was that the Aurangabad based family business knew the trade well and offered deals that no one could refuse.

In 1985, Nandlal Madhavlal Dhoot de-cided to channelise this into the colour TV business. On 19th January’85, he founded and incorporated Videocon

International which aimed at manu-facturing 100,000 TV sets a year. “Videocon became the first company to bring colour TVs in India,” claims Anirudh Dhoot, the founder’s grandson and Videocon’s current director.

“Videocon TVs changed our view-ing experience and it happened simultaneously with our world opening up to a variety of content,” says Anand Halve, co-founder of Chlorophyll brand consultancy.

Marketing students might remember Videocon for its Bazooka and Bazoomba

models and strategy of playing on louder sound, but Halve feels all TVs in the market back in the 90s were calibrated to achieve that. “Not to mention our tendency to keep the vol-ume such that the neighbour got to hear the telecast as well. The game-changing move was to drop the price of colour TV sets and bring it under the ̀ 10,000 bar,” he says.

Videocon TVs were cheap, heav-ily advertised and well distributed. They had all the traits of a respect-able price warrior in the 80s that saw numerous players like Dyanora,

Weston and Onida, of course. The advent of global players weak-

ened their game significantly but Videocon never gave up on TV de-spite a strong presence in washing machines and a few other electronic goods. “Our indigenous and resource-ful strategies helped us withstand competition,” Dhoot says. Their cur-rent share in the flat panel display (FPD) segment is about 16%, and Dhoot plans to make significant R&D investments to launch new products in the TV market that are customised for Indian viewing habits.

RAVI BALAKRISHNAN

“We feel we’ve become modern since Big Bazaar has opened here.” A common re-action that Kishore Biyani, group CEO, Future Group encounters when the flagship department store he founded 14 years ago in Kolkata, starts operations in small, currently Big Bazaarless towns. The chain is nearly 200 stores strong with footfalls of 250 million and an annual turnover of around ̀ 15,000 crore according to Biyani.

Over the last decade, Big Bazaar has changed how Indians shop. From in-ception, the store was designed to rep-licate the slightly chaotic vibe of an Indian marketplace: L and U shaped sections instead of the aisles favoured by Western stores. Its assortment too was atypical. Says Biyani, “Very few retailers have been able to sell food and fashion and we are probably the only retailer who has created a high fash-ion brand in the hypermarket space with FBB (Fashion at Big Bazaar).” It was also a pioneer in viewing days of national importance like Republic Day and Independence Day (which just hap-pened to fall in a slack non-festive time of the year) as major consumption op-portunities. Its first sale in a store at Lower Parel in Mumbai was perhaps

a little too successful for its own good with the police having to be deployed for crowd control.

It’s not all been hunky dory though. Biyani recalls, “We went on a seven city journey where we thought we’d saturate the market and then expe-

rienced a downturn. We found every new store was cannibalising an existing outlet and had to course cor-rect.” The strategy now is expanding into geographies that are yet to experience large format retail. Even if it means buffering up product availabil-ity at locations where many companies do not have supply chains. But is the store still as relevant at a time of ecommerce, same day delivery, and a 24/7/365 sale cycle? Biyani argues it is: “Everybody is not so digital savvy. The excitement of shopping on our big sale days is palpable. People come with food in hand and it becomes an adventure and an occasion for social interaction. You can’t get that feeling from technology.”

Big Bazaar has also discovered its customers now care about a lot more than just buying cheap resulting in the dropping of its famous isse sasta aur achcha kahin nahin tag line for ‘Making India Beautiful.’ A change that according to Biyani has been led by consumers: “In the Western world, it’s all about maintaining one’s life-style. Here it’s still about upgrading.”

The colouring agent

INDIA’S LARGEST RETAILER BIG BAZAAR HAS UPGRADED FROM SELLING CHEAP TO BEING BEAUTIFUL

VIDEOCON MADE COLOUR TV SETS AFFORDABLE AND CHANGED THE COUNTRY’S VIEWING EXPERIENCE

What started in a one-room setup has grown to become a $6 billion conglomerate

AN

IRB

AN

BO

RA

The chain is nearly 200 stores strong with footfalls of 250 million and an annual turnover of around `15,000 crore

No longer just sabse sasta

THE ECONOMIC TIMES AUGUST 12-18, 2015 3

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Kim Kardashian bares her ample bum on a magazine cover trig-gering headlines the world over; the global event ‘breaks the Internet’; brands butt in with

their own japes on social media, hijacking the news for marketing mileage.

That, in a nutshell, is newsjacking. According to David Meerman Scott, marketing strategist and author, it’s ‘the process by which you inject your ideas or angles into breaking news, in real-time, in order to generate media coverage for your-self or your business.’ Companies from Coca-Cola and Mondelez to startups have people on stand-by to hijack news, from landmark bills to sport fiascos, and ride

outrage or trending topics. Because in the digital age, it’s ‘tweet first, think later’, or hardly ever, in certain cases. Marketers though are typically more cautious than individuals: the latter more susceptible to dispensing commentary on social media like a malfunctioning gumball machine .

Newsjacking is fashionable indeed. But the 21st Century marketer didn’t invent it. The ultimate case study in newsjacking, at least within the Indian context, comes from the year 1947. The year of India’s liberation from her colonial masters. In the 15th August 1947 edition of The Times of India are examples of companies leveraging the historical moment to amass goodwill and social currency but not the digital kind.

Attempts by some brands to appropriate a piece of Independence Day were subtle, while others were more brazen. Tata paid homage to those who fought for India’s freedom while pledging to build a land in which “the mind is without fear and the head is held high” in a quarter-page ad in the broadsheet; others like Usha fans suggested, ‘Celebrate the dawn of Freedom. Install a Usha fan.’

Now, in the strictest sense of the word this isn’t quite newsjacking, because it’s not in real-time. Advertisers had time to prepare, surely. Nonetheless, since social media was still a pipe dream, this was the closest thing to newsjacking in the early 20th Century. And that would make these marketers the first newsjackers of the Republic of India.

Czech footwear brand pledges to serve the weary feet of millions of Indians. The Indians return the favour by mostly forgetting Bata’s Czech antecedents

Liberty, happiness, peace, free

and India: Oriental’s

homage reads like it

was being tailored for

keyword searches

on Google

One can hardly call it opportunistic when the company’s founder went to jail for the cause

‘Half a century of national service’ — Godrej prints a reminder of its contribution to India

This is no time for sentimentality. Dalmia Cement has a nation to build

Jaago Re before Jaago Re

The ‘Make in India’ tag comes into play

Allen Berry & Co puts the onus on industry to drive a new India

‘A glamorous Stantex room with a view of the tricolour’

FIRST NEWSJACKERS OF A FREE INDIA

Here’s what newsjacking, the quintessential 21st century marketing trend, looked like in 1947. By Delshad Irani

‘Today Dawns The Liberty - Brushing Off Slavery”: Aryan Supremacy but only for Indian teeth

Usha doesn’t beat around the bush. So, take a seat and dry your blood, sweat and tears under a newly installed Usha fan

That’s clever — ‘LIGHT of liberty.’ All capitals, just in case you missed the pun

PHOTOS: TIMES OF INDIA ARCHIVES

Regn.No.MAHENG/2002/6711 Volume 14 Issue No. 32Published for the Proprietors, Bennett Coleman & Company Ltd. by R. Krishnamurthyat The Times Of India Building, Dr. D.N.Road, Mumbai 400 001 Tel. No. (022) 6635 3535, 2273 3535, Fax- (022)-2273 1144 and printed by him at (1) The Times of India Suburban Press, AkurliRoad, Western Express Highway, Kandivili (E), Mumbai 400 101. Tel. No. (022) 28872324, 28872930, Fax- (022) 28874230 (2) The Times of India Print City, Plot No. 4, T.T.C. Industrial Area, Thane Belapur Road, Airoli, Navi Mumbai-400708 and (3) TIMES PRESS, Plot No. 5A, Road No. 1, IDA Nacharam Ranga Reddy District, Hyd-

erabad-500076. Editor: Ravi Balakrishnan(Responsible for selection of news under PRB Act). © All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written permission of the Publisher is prohibited.

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