Onida relaunch strategies

ONIDA – Relaunch Strategies

Siva Tejo 1421429

Kunal Sharma 1421412

Jaideep Mudgal 1421411

Tirthankar Sutradhar 1421427

Sapna Bhagat 1421352

Surmila Sen Roy 1421455

Sachin R 1421420

ONIDA – RELAUNCH STRATEGIES GROUP 2

Onida is one of the most popular Indian-grown electronics brand. The origin of the Onida is

trademarked to Monica Electronics, a company which was incorporated in 1975 and which was

owned by the Mirchandani family and which was acquired in 1981 by Mirc Electronics (also

owned by the Mirchandanis). In 1982, Gulu Mirchandani and his brother – in – law Vijay

Mansukhani along with Sonu Mirchandani started assembling television sets at their factory in

Andheri, Mumbai. Since then, Onida has evolved into a multi-product company in the consumer

durables and appliances sector. After few years, Onida also achieved a 100% growth in ACs and

microwave ovens and a 40% growth in washing machines.

In the 1990s Monica Electronics had allowed Onida International (through a letter) to use the

Onida trademark since the company was set up by the Mirchandanis themselves to export

‗Onida electronic products to the Middle East. Sonu Mirchandani owns 80% of the stake in

Onida International while a minority stake is held by his brother Gulu Mirchandani.

Mirc Electronics won an Award for Excellence in Electronics‖ in 1999, from the Ministry of

Information Technology, Government of India. The shipments to the Gulf contribute almost 65

per cent of Onida’s export revenue, while shipments to the fast growing East African market

(Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia) and the SAARC countries accounted for 16 per cent of

export revenues. In addition to the Gulf countries ONIDA has a presence in Russia, Ukraine and

neighboring CIS countries. Apart from Television Exports to Russia, Onida also exports DVD

Players and High end LCD Televisions. The wide range of products which ONIDA offers

include:

LCD / LED TVs/ Monitors

Plasma TVs

Televisions

DVD and Home Theatre Systems

Air Conditioners

Washing machines

Microwave Ovens

Presentation Products

Inverters

In 1980‘s and 1990‘s the brand had a wonderful time and was in the top three brands in market

share behind BPL and Videocon. Then the Koreans came and Onida too became a victim of

liberalization. Korean heavyweights such as LG Electronics and Samsung came to India with

aggressive pricing and distribution strategies and conquered the consumer electronics market.


The older players, such as Mirc, Videocon and BPL, couldn‘t match their ability to scale up

operations and cut prices while playing the volumes game. Most companies went into the red and

rest became history. Onida stopped using the devil as its icon but after seeing the sales and brand

identity suffer, the company thought of re-introducing the devil in 2004. The devil was a

memorable mascot for Onida reintroducing the devil in 2004 was a wise decision. They observed

that a lot of misbranding was the result of not using the devil as Onida’s face for eight years.

As soon as they reintroduced the devil in 2004, their sales shot up. People again started

recognising the uniqueness of Onida’s brand positioning in the market. As stated by Mr. Sriram

Krishnamurthy, Vice-President, Sales, Marketing and Service the company has re-launched its

brands in September 2009, and invested nearly Rs 100 crore next year to set up its third

manufacturing plant in Maharashtra. It already established its second factory at Roorkee,

Uttaranchal, with an investment of Rs 60 crore. It rolled out 30 exclusive galleries to showcase

its new products across India in 2011-12 as part of its ‗Mission $1 billion' to achieve turnover of

Rs 4,500 crore by 2012-13. But now Onida’s well-known devil' of the Eighties and Nineties has

been replaced by a regular ‗Onida Couple' as neighbor’s envy' has lost meaning in a durable

market and owners take pride in changing their brands. Also the company has no plans to

appoint a celebrity as ambassador to endorse its brands.

Having identified its new growth drivers in the markets of air-conditioning, flat-panel devices

(FPDs), microwave ovens and mobile phones, MIRC has also tripled its ad-spend to Rs 150

crore in 2011, primarily targeting the mass media for brand rebuilding. Nearly one-third of the

revenues of around Rs 2,000 crore in 2010-11 came from sale of air-conditioners. Onida has got

a 14 per cent share in the split air-conditioning market and overall 9 per cent in this segment in

2011 and is also targeting to double its TV flat panel and mobile phone market shares to 6 per

cent.

1) Internal Management Problem: A Brother’s Envy Owner’s Pride

Clearly the Onida trademark has turned out to be A Brother‘s Envy Owner‘s Pride. Given the

popularity of the brand in the 1990‘s it was but obvious that the ‗Onida trademark and the

goodwill associated with it is an extremely valuable asset to Mirc Electronics and it was unlikely

that Gulu Mirchandani is going to sit by and let his brother exploit the trademark especially after

paying him handsomely for his stake in Mirc Electronics. The ‗Onida trademark soon became

the subject of an interesting legal battle between the Mirchandani brothers. The fight between the

brothers: Gulu and Sonu Mirchandani and their brother -in-law Vijay Mansukhani over the

control of the Onida group, destroyed the brand image of ONIDA. Gulu bought out Sonu’s

holding in their company Mirc Electronic and Sonu started launching a range of electronic

products under the ‗Onida brand and through a company – Onida International in which Sonu

has an 80% stake. But Sonu did not intend to manufacture the electronic products himself instead

he entered into a joint venture with a Japanese company to market their products under the Onida

trademarks. Onida tried to stage a recovery after the successful re-launch of the brand and the

return of the Devil. But the family feud made things difficult for the brand all the time.


2) Changing Advertising and Taglines: Problem worsened with changing Ad agencies

The fight had severely eroded the share of the brand and even the marketing of Onida. In the face

of India's changing consumer tastes and their financial capabilities, Onida has decided to say

goodbye to their good old "Devil" mascot or their so called brand ambassador. With the stiff

competition from international brands like LG and Samsung, Onida decided to rebuild its brand

and to build a complete new brand mascot to grab the attention of India's new consumers. And

therefore, the creative duties of the brand have partly moved from Rediffusion to McCann

Erickson. But as usual, when the agency changed, the entire brand elements got changed. Things

are consistent till the same agency handles the account. But when the agency moves on, the new

agency resist continuing the existing strategy since it was crafted by the competitor. So whatever

be the quality of the existing branding strategy, the new agency will try to change it. Same

happened with Onida, as soon as they changed their ad agency; it resulted in a drift from a time-

tested successful theme to uncharted territory and sink in further confusion with an unnecessary

change in the positioning strategy. Even the brand was not been able to consolidate the earlier

theme based on 'truth', the brand got repositioned again.

For Onida, the quote ― Change is always good, proved to be the worse. When O&M took the

brand from Rediffusion, the famous tagline "Neighbor's Envy, Owner's Pride" and the Devil was

taken off. The brand suffered for almost 10 years and has never recovered since .The change of

agency again changed things and Devil returned in a new avatar and a new tagline "Nothing but

the truth" came into existence. But the new arrangement did not made things better. And

therefore in 2007, Onida launched a new campaign for its A/C and with a new tagline again

"Enjoy in your life".

And then a new campaign for the air conditioner features a new Devil and the tagline has again

changed to "Experience the desire". They thought of changing their Tagline to a newer one to

attract more customers but whenever it tried to replace its original tagline with new one, the

results were disastrous. And this how Onida proved best for the case study about "How to Mess

up a wonderful brand". Later the devil was even replaced by a married couple - Siddharth and

Ritu, but even then the brand could not survive. Onida now has a new tagline- "Tum Ko Dekha

to ye design aya" meaning "Designed with you in mind". With this new brand campaign, the

company would address the youth and establish it as more than a TV brand. The brand replaced

the iconic devil with a new-age couple as the protagonists. Onida has now done repositioning on

the basis of "Customer Oriented Design". But in comparison with the classic old tagline, the new

campaign falls short of expectations.

3) Aging Customers Base: Brand Amnesia

The customers of Onida have grown older with times and the brand has failed to connect itself to

the current generation. The ―devil‖ in the advertisements is not helping them either. ONIDA has

reached a stage of Brand amnesia in which when a venerable, long-standing brand tries to

create a radical new identity, such as when Onida tried to replace its original tagline with new

one, the brand forgets what it is supposed to stand for and it runs into trouble.


4) No After Sales Service Provided

Onida TV‘s got regular problems of complaints from different customers, but there was no one

to listen to customer‘s complaints and which had created a great dissatisfaction amongst

customers. The regular feedback of poor after sales service posted by customers on social media,

have ultimately resulted in reducing the brand sales from the market.

Country Wide extensive consumer research: to give a fresh lease of life to the brand Onida

should start at the very basic and grass root level and have a soul search about the perceptions of

the brand, the market of tier 2 and tier 3 cities in general the current mood amongst the

consumers the trends their aspirations behavior and purchasing patterns. It can probably

outsource an outside research agency to maintain the objectivity and have a wider perspective

one that will give brand truth market truth and competition truth.

Targeting and Positioning: What we as a group thought that brand ONIDA should take stock of

the current situation and target the Tier 2 – Tier 3 cities at the outset the brand recall is still

present which will further help the product. The market potential is huge with growing

consumerism and also digitization of television and set top boxes television and other electronic

products have become more of a basic need even to the lowest strata of the society. We

recommend it to concentrate on air conditioners and washing machines apart from LED

televisions, Onida has been coming with Android television but it should concentrate more on

providing a basic LED television set with flat screen higher quality picture and sharper image

superior sound because tier2 and tier3 cities still appreciate the basic television with

contemporary looks sleek design at an affordable price hence enhancing their value for money. It

can even look at providing a greater choice in terms of screen size by coming out with 14‖ 21‖

and other such varieties. Onida TV should be positioned as a medium for entertainment

providing advanced technology at affordable prices. The focus of the company would be to allow

those people to upgrade who want to upgrade but do not have the means. Target consumers

should see it as an aspirational home appliance. Onida owners are regarded in high esteem –they

are special, and this can act as a strong differentiator

a. Road-shows in mobile Cars: Since Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities throws up a great many avenues

for organizing road shows in public places haats and even the malls which are on the rise. They

can have games, interactive events contests and involve the customers as well as inform them.

Merchandising and giving them crisp and relevant information distributing free pamphlets

brochures. Organizing certain contests to have the customer engagement in place and put in

place brand recall.


b. Promotional Strategies: They should bargain for more shelf space in specialty stores like

Croma, eZone etc. They may negotiate with discount stores like Big Bazaar for promoting Onida

TV. They should also invest more in dealer promotions (Videocon has had reasonable success

due to aggressive dealer promotions)

i. Consumer Promotion: Promotions like contests, lucky draw, exchange offers etc. will help in

brand awareness and better brand recall. This way they can capture a good part of replacement

demand. Another aspect we thought was connecting with the mid aged people who in some way

or the other are the influencers in the decision making process of the final purchase those who

saw the golden age of Onida and their emotional connect can be leveraged to re connect with the

brand.

ii. Celebrity Endorsement: The Company can rope in a celebrity to endorse its brand in a fresh

advert. This way the brand can be benefited from celebrities brand equity. We suggest rope in a

sports icon or a Bollywood star rather than the inconspicuous couple (as per the current ads)

where the recall value is poor. This will also help in better brand awareness. If we have a look at

the other consumer electronics brand be it Samsung Videocon and others all have roped in a

celebrity and successfully and creatively used all the celebrities to create brand identity and

recall value, Onida on the other hand started with a devil it was innovative at the outset in the

early 90‘s but during today‘s times it needs a celebrity to leverage the brand and create a new

refreshed identity along with the devil a series of creative can be formed where the devil and the

celebrity are seen in a notorious confrontation. Since the other two big khans namely Shahrukh

and Aamir are already endorsing other brands the brand can think of roping in Salman Khan and

his notorious image goes well with a confrontation creative with the devil that we seek to

propose.

iii. Association with events: To regain old customers and to regain visibility, Association with

events can help. Onida’s problem of low visibility will be solved with its sponsorship of events

like cricket matches (ICC World Cup & IPL), rock events etc. The LG co-sponsored ICC World

Cup and got tremendous mileage in terms of increased sales and brand building. A part from

Cricket they can be associated with sporting events that are trending.

iv. Innovative Advertisement: They should come up with catchy advertisement ahead of

Cricket and IPL seasons. Their decade old Devil can be portrayed to find a connection with

today‘s mid-age generation, who are their potential customers and confront with the celebrity

roped to create a series of recurring ads with a theme in them during a sports season.

c. After Sales Service: This is one aspect where a lot of effort is required from the brand since it

has faced a lot of flak in being a poor after sales service provider, internalizing the brand and

providing a better after sales service can be a differentiator also it being a desi and indigenous

brand targeting the tier2 and tier3 cities can better understand and build relation with the

consumer because they already might be having a member of the family who has experienced or

heard about the brand earlier. While giving the service they can tap into them by asking the user

of their favorite ONIDA memory. The primary effort on the part of the brand should be to


internalize the brand so that each and every person concerned should have the mission vision and

strategy of the brand attuned to themselves.

a. Wide range of products: One stop shop for consumer electronics. The Company should go

for line extension in value segment so as to target more customers in the lower segment.. These

products will target the young and first time buyers. These buyers will have an emotional

attachment with the brand and as they graduate to the high end segment, Onida can target them

with its high end products. Onida is now in one of the most difficult times. The brand needs to

come out with a product that will change the game. Changing the mascot is secondary at this

point of time. LCD market is the fastest growing segment and this is where Onida should focus

immediately. These products will fetch higher realization than the low-priced TVs. They should

launch high-definition, LEDTVs. They should continue the USB supported TV which will be a

good differentiator to project its technological superiority and user-friendly features.

b. Marketing Mix: Onida is facing a marketing problem and more than a branding problem.

Everything is fine with the brand. People recognize the brand. The issue is on a larger

perspective. It needs to concentrate on its entire marketing mix not just the brand elements.

Onida needs to convince the consumers that its products are better designed and technologically

superior. It is about managing perception .Features can be copied by competitors easily but

changing perception is a difficult task.

c. Work on R & D: This is another important initiative that ONIDA has to work on if it wants to

survive in today‘s dynamic and rapidly changing technological market. It needs to convey this

message to both consumers and dealers and distributers so that the positioning of a brand focused

on continuously innovation is conveyed to all stake holders. The conveyance to the dealers

should be done via brochures pamphlets rational means of communication that it is a brand that

seeks to reinvent itself always and through its R&D efforts is always looking to give the

consumer a better product adapted to the latest technology.

Relation building with channel members dealers: They play a role in the ultimate purchase of the

consumers especially in tier 3 cities and incentives to the channel members in the form of rewards

like foreign trips may be thought of amongst others. Retail malls and exclusive stores need to be

tapped as well. Incentive schemes to channel partners spread over a longer period is required.

.


Timeline proposed by us is to start the pre-launch buzz from September and keep the launch

period for the Diwali festivals and extend and sustenance phase till other festivities, and the start

of the sporting seasons like the T20 world cup extending up to IPL season.

Initial buzz would be via a prelaunch of the brand with a customized LED TV with sleek

design.

Social media can also be tapped by completely working on Facebook page giving it new

features. They do not have a twitter page. As well the buzz can be created and

communication encouraged by asking what you would do if you encounter the devil this

Diwali.

A press conference with the top honchos of the brand, the proposed ambassador and the

devil communicating to the press.

Strategic news items and print ads in all the news-papers, prints banners and billboards

communicating that the brand is coming in a new avatar this Diwali.

Also can go for guerrilla marketing by putting innovative product items at streets and

setting up real devil models at malls which would be interacting with the shoppers and

grabbing eye balls.

Teasers in Television that the devil is coming this Diwali beware can be put forth.

Mall and store décor (mall to be lit up every night for 15 days with trellis lights)

Contests like ‘Guess the Price’

Backpack hoardings.

Mall façade branding, dropdowns with door buster offers.

Gate Arch in the form of trolley.

Teasers in Television that the devil is coming this Diwali beware can be put forth.

Dealer meets.

Promoter activity: Residential contact program at key residential areas. Singing and

Dancing contest over the weekend.

Weekend Promoter activity : Trolley procession, Cavalcade, Weekend Events

IPL cricket event showing at pubs, clubs, malls, market place, live cricket matches

featuring on an ONIDA TV.


In our detailed analysis of Brand Onida we think that the brand due to its turbulence internal structure

and getting too much influenced by others and trying to do too many thing all this while not having a

uniform positioning nor an integrated marketing communication went from an admired Indian brand

to virtually a brand in oblivion. It committed basic and glaring marketing blunders on the way and

also was a victim of the heightened competition owing to the entry of many foreign players who had

a great set of product line in place which were technologically superior at competitive prices. They

continuously innovated, had an effective sales and distribution channel in place and a uniform

communication strategy. Brands like Samsung LG and even to an extent Videocon went ahead in the

race.

Considering the “MAKE IN INDIA” campaign it is still not lost for Onida if it considers to put its

best foot forward with reviving its brand the essence of brand revival should be to look at itself work

on its products first work on its brand internalize it work on the R&D to present to its customers with

contemporary stylish and relevant products. It needs to work on the after sales services and use its

experience of being an experienced and indigenous brand to penetrate into the proposed Tier 2 and

Tier 3 cities with fresh launch and communication strategy in place via conventional as well as non-

conventional communication in place.

Onida needs to go back to the drawing board and chalk out an aggressive marketing campaign after

proper market research and finding truths about the market its own product and about the competition

at large, apply proper segmentation and try and have a uniform positioning and not get mixed up by

trying out too many things. Indian market still presents itself with a huge opportunity to tap into and

the brand recall and emotional connect of the brand is still very high. The only thing missing is the

stewardship and strong will.

This campaign as such would definitely act as a trigger to penetrate into the Tier2 and Tier 3 cities

and result in an Onida competing and grabbing a significant market share and later look to expand

further.