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This is a very difficult goal to achieve, because to see God formlessly is not a simple task. So Shankara Bhagavadpada, in his wisdom promoted the concept of giving God a form before worshipping. Dwaitham as it was called was meant to make the path to God simple. When the human mind cannot concentrate on a formless God, make it concentrate on a form like us would make meditation simpler.

It is strange and almost supernatural that Shankara has put forward a great branding concept too.

Dwaitham in the branding world is common and many times very helpful in making the essential connect with the consumer.

One of the first examples of Dwaitham in branding that I learnt about was Gattu. The mascot for Asian Paints. I can still remember the character created by R K Laxman though Gattu has ‘retired’. Naughty, colourful and ever ready to take on the challenge of painting a house, Gattu resonated a vibrancy that no other paint brand of that time. The brand still stands for all that, but doesn’t carry Gattu anymore.

The Maharaja of Air India is another character that has now been retired but can never be forgotten. Curiously, the character was created to be used in notepads by Mr. Umesh Rao of JWT, but became the official mascot of the brand.

Nipper of HMV, Bibendum of Michellin, Tux of Linux, Ronald McDonald of McDonalds, Fido-Dido of 7-Up and the Onida Devil are all characters that have brought the brand live in front of our eyes. While many points of view float around about the longevity of these characters, to me they would live forever.

A few examples. Fido-Dido was once retired about 10-12 years ago. I remember from my school days, this cute little line drawing character jumping out of the notepad and gulping down 7-Up like a cool dude would! But unfortunately, they retired him once and the brand was almost lost in the mélange of aerated drinks markets that we live in. After a hiatus of about 10 years, Fido re-appeared. And the brand was visible again. People started remembering the brand and the sales numbers reflected it. However, the brand managers confused it by featuring Mallika Sherawat, whose value systems does not match with the ‘cool dude’ attitude of 7-Up. Pity they retired both Fido and Mallika and brand is somewhere in the oblivion again.

Another classic example of brand connect through an imaginary character is ‘Chintamani’. I am broaching a topic in Financial Services, which is against my policy. But am giving a special mention to Chintamani because through this character, the brand was able to connect with the consumer and his problems beautifully.

But another R K Laxman classic is ‘The Common Man’ of Times of India. It is almost impossible for any of us to imagine the newspaper without the common man and the way in which the brand mascot connects with the consumer – by living the problems that a common man faces and shown with satire. The brand Times of India at one point used to stand for that satire, that questioning mind and challenging the authority. Today, it has morphed into much more both on the positive and negative side, however, the common man has and will always stand tall in my mind. For it was the common man that gave a ‘physical shape and size’ to Times of India as a brand.

I would like to end this post with another great mascot. Mickey Mouse. Perhaps Disney and Mickey Mouse have merged because the mouse brought out everything that Disney as a brand wanted to and still stands for. The brand was brought to life by Mickey Mouse and perhaps would remain to be amongst the greatest examples of Dwaitham in the Brand World.

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I learnt that the western world views brands very differently from the eastern world. At least till the 80s or even the 90s, the western world indulged in ‘Product Brands’. For them each product was a brand unto itself. So you would find that any related product would only be line extensions. A classic example is Gillette.

Gillette is a product brand. It is so entrenched in ‘shaving’ as a category, that it would be impossible for any human being to consider Gillette as let’s say, a shampoo. The brand just doesn’t seem to fit the bill when it moves out of Men’s Shaving Care area.

Even large business houses which are considered ‘Gods’ of Brand Building like Coke in my argument would be a single product Brand. Other products are all with a different brand name. Consider this, Mazaa, Thums Up, Sprite, Fanta, Limca, Minute Maid, Kinley, Georgia.

But as we move towards the right side of the world map, we find that brands extend beyond a category and get into every possible space of business (products or services) and have been BLOODY successful. A homegrown example is Tata.

The Tata Group is a conglomerate of about 150 companies held by Tata & Sons. The businesses vary from Steel to Software to Salt. Multiple companies operate with the same brand name and the brand gets extended within and outside the line of products that they operate in. Another recent example is Reliance. You would find that all their operations are under the same name (barring Vimal maybe).

Is culture the answer?

The Eastern philosophy of branding endeavors to ‘milk’ the brand’s value to the fullest. It stems from our culture (I presume). The eastern world is more occult and has never run behind materialistic pleasures (until the last couple of decades, maybe). We have limited needs and have never been the gluttonous consumers that the west has always been. To us, we need to get the full value of every paise spent. Thrifty that we are, we end up milking the brand to its last drop of blood.

The West is the consumer. The use & throw world. And brands are treated pretty much the same way. Gillette would spend separately for Mach II, Mach III and shaving gel because each of them is a separate brand. Each has a separate P&L account and hence spends on them would be mutually exclusive. So what if Mach II would be retired or phased out once we put 3 blades in that small space!

The west has to use and throw the brand. The value of the brand would be lost once it gets phased out for whatever reason. However controversial it may sound, I think it is very difficult for any American company to straddle a brand across product categories successfully.

I am sure there are people who think otherwise. Any views?

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For many, these guys might look like the morons of the marketing world. To be honest, I have felt that way a few years back. And then it dawned into me that there is a very deep sense in what these guys do. Especially, after I happened to interact with some of the consumers. I must admit however that this is not based on any structured research. But Prof. Malay Chaudhuri (who taught me Market Research in campus) once told, “The best sample size for a research sometimes is 1”. I tend to agree with him.

When was the last time you bought salt? Do you remember what brand you bought? Can you remember the last occasion when you bought ‘rock salt’ or ‘powdered salt’ which didn’t carry a brand name and was packed in newspaper by your friendly neighborhood Kirana store?

Anil, Lion, Idhayam, Jeyam, Sakthi Masala, Gold Winner – You may not have heard these names outside Tamil Nadu. But within the state, these are names which the woman of the house swears by. These are brands, which I have learnt to admire lately for their ingenuity. A simple comparison between these two concepts shows that these marketers have borrowed generously from the Salt phenomenon and have executed seamlessly to taste success (pun intended).

Packaging started playing an important part in both these phenomena. Having the words ‘A trusted name’ would make a lot of difference in reaching out to large number of people. With packaging playing an integral part of brand building, they didn’t let go of their South Indian-ness and added a lot of color, brightness and attractiveness to it.

Once common salt became a ‘branded item’ and ceased to be a ‘kirana store’ buy, these brands started innovating concepts with respect to Salt. For instance, my salt is ‘whiter’ than the competition, OR one pinch of my salt is better than a spoonful of the other and so on.

Not the kind to be left behind, these smart marketers found once concept after another. I believe there is a ‘Z’ Technology to clean Tur Dal. Wow! It sure is something like the PUF which was in every refrigerator, but was made famous by Godrej.

There is a Urad Dal brand which claims that Idlys made with this brand is more ‘fuller’ than the others. I am yet to figure out how, but the brands are just hitting the right nerves.

There is another ingenious attempt. The brand is Lion Honey. Lion is a brand under which the company peddles ‘dates’, ‘date syrup’, honey, oats and many other food items. He was the first to attempt positioning Honey as a substitute for Sugar. The brand had their TVCs running which had honey replaced in almost every sugar usage including honey being mixed with milk, during cooking etc. This was also tried by a larger brand at a later date – Dabur – featuring Big B & MSD.

These brands have grown multi-fold that they can afford large advertising budgets. Today, almost all these brands feature celebrities (read film stars) and have well produced TVCs backed by a very impressive on-air presence.

Branding of essential commodities such as sugar, salt, pulses, spices etc, does the same job as branding any other product, say, T-shirts. It takes the pain out of buying. The consumer gets to choose amongst the many brands available and is able to make the purchase with a confidence that the product would be free of malicious content, adulteration etc.

Branding commodities help in achieving a straight line supply chain, thus making availability easy and the pricing affordable. By adding more value to the product (not just as a brand) but in say nutritional value much as iodized salt did to the salt industry, health is certainly a platform that the consumers would benefit on.

And moving up in the chain, branding helps create higher value for these products. This ensures that the manufacturer and the farmers who actually cultivate these items are benefited immensely.

As a consumer I have always been hit by their communication every time I get in front of the idiot box (especially with my mother around). And when I do look at it from a Marketers’ perspective, things fall in place.

• Branding essential commodities may just be a category starter
• Branding essential commodities adds its own value to the consumer, manufacturer, supplier and the economy alike.
• It is absolutely fine to copy a strategy as said by the legendary Sam Walton. Just be sure that the execution is better. Or at least, ensure that the execution appeals to the sensibilities of your target audience.

So when you enjoy your meal the next time (especially the South Indian meal), you can rest assured that a marketer has touched your life and your tummy .

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I used to live in a place called Mambalam Road, which was once an integral part of a thriving industry. Film Hoardings.

There used to be two large players in this market with the largest being J P Krishna. Almost every single hoarding in the state for all large banners Tamil Film banners including AVM, Satya and Devar used J P Krishna’s services. The speciality? These hoardings were hand painted and will look so real and beautiful. And it used to be a sight to watch these painters at work because being a film fan I used to get to see the posters / photographs before many others. Also, the size used to amaze me. 40ft hoarding will be actually hand painted. WOW!

Come to think of it, that was all they did for promoting a film other than PR. Those were not the days of TV promos because there were only 2 channels. DD local and DD National . Moreover, the film industry wasn’t run by professionals. They were just the creative kind and all they could think of, was film making. So the rest of the departments including marketing weren’t their greatest strength.

I am amazed at the speed with which the Movie Marketing Industry has taken over the Movie Making Industry in current times.

Nowadays, a movie budget includes the marketing budget and the number is substantial enough to ensure that enough visibility is garnered in the first weekend itself. Considering that 50% or more collections for a movie happens in the first weekend (or maybe the first 2 weekends), it is important to have a very high intensity burst and the marketing functions for these film houses do the job brilliantly.

Icing on the cake? They actually employ advertising agencies and they get really creative in promoting a movie. With many aces up their sleeve, I thought it would be worth discussing a few here.

PR – This is something that goes on an overdrive before a movie release. We Indians are suckers for celebrity secrets and the problem is that the movie marketers know it. So before the release of a film, you would end up knowing almost every dirty secret (of which I would assume that more than 60% would be fabricated) will be shared with the publications with enough pictures. Sometimes, not sharing any detail of the film will be the PR activity itself. And many times, it would be some controversy. Take the case of Raavan. The film was mired with enough controversies to ensure that enough people spoke about it. Starting from Junior AB claiming to have done a stunt and some swimmer from Bangalore claiming to have performed the stunt to Senior AB launching a desperate attack on Mani to say that the Hindi edit wasn’t great, PR was on an overdrive. Maybe it is this overdrive that cost the film dear, but the function did its job beautifully. Unfortunate that the strategy didn’t work.

Trailors – With the idiot box taking over as one of the largest modes of promoting a product / service, it meant that the 30 second cut of the film must be so slick that you would want to endure 3 hours of the same thing. So the idiot box edits are nothing short of awesome to make you want to watch the film.

Reality Shows – The world today is nothing short of The Truman Show. With reality shows garnering more TRPs and GRPs than your favorite serials movie houses started connecting with these shows to promote their films. After all, this would mean that they get to promote the film for half hour (or one hour in some cases) in the given channel. So you can find the key cast of a film participating in a reality show just to ensure that their film gets talked about.

Online – Starting from a full fledged website for a film (example: www.idiotsacademy.com) to taking over the twitter accounts of key members of the cast, the online promotions side of the movie house has its hands full. Sonam Kapoor just before the launch of Aisha started sharing images from the film in the pretext of finding out how she looks with everyone. The good looker that she was, the film did get a positive opening owing to her strategy of sharing images through Twitter. Every film today has a Facebook page too. Social media today forms a key part of every film’s marketing strategy.

Just to be sure that we don’t leave out… Print happens too!

However, it is refreshing to see that movie marketing has taken a leaf out of advertising for products and indulge in creative and innovative ways to promote. Furthermore, these campaigns get considered for Advertising awards. The campaigns for Paa & 3 Idiots won accolades at Emvies for innovative usage of the media.

Film stars go to any length (figuratively and literally) to promote their movies. One of the Emvie winner ‘3 Idiots’ got it for Aamir travelling the length and breadth of the country many times in disguise and the competition was to identify him. This kind of made the character blend with the masses, thus ensuring larger audience for the film.

This certainly is a category where the bar is always high and is raised further with each large project. The film making business is creative and to advertise that you would again get creative. Sounds like the second level dream of Fischer in Inception.

Would certainly be fun…

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Living in Bombay brings its own idiosyncrasies. One of them is the various modes of public transport. No. I am not talking about trains. The reference points here are the Black-Yellow Taxis and Autos. The germ behind the movement is very simple. Three advertising professionals (Jaidev Rupani, Rachna Brar and Abhilash Krishnan) just decided to take the issue in their hands when they were facing the constant ‘nays’ by these ‘service providers’. Adding fuel to fire, a few weeks back the public transport system came under the mercy of the auto and taxi drivers when they decided to go on a strike demanding a fare hike.

Dubbed Meter Jam and designed like a reverse auction, Meter Jam is a reverse strike. While the taxis and autos be plying the road, the idea was to motivate the common man NOT to take either of these modes.

The movement appealed to the sentiments of the public because everyone has been affected by the ridiculous ways of these operators. It was initially promoted only through Social Networking Sites (SNS). But Six Degrees of Separation led this to become a national movement. Well almost!

To add fuel to the fire, news papers (read ‘tabloids’) picked up this cause and fanning it decently. With Mumbai Mirror starting it and Mid-day following right behind, the rest of the publications didn’t want to be left behind and covered it sufficiently. They actually interviewed the union heads and asked if they were afraid! PR picked up steam and the trio was nothing less than celebrities giving interviews to every channel / newspaper.

It has reached a peak and if you search for Meter Jam today, you would find the press articles before the actual site.

Meter Jam was held (or upheld) on the August 12, 2010. There are mixed reports on how successful the reverse strike was, but I felt the roads to be relatively easy to navigate. There were lesser number of black-yellow vehicles on the road and I personally offered a ride to a few colleagues on my way back.

The movement needed a mainstream support like that of PR for it to be known amongst a larger audience. It is absolutely true that it is not possible to build or retain brand salience only through Facebook and Twitter. It may be a very good starting point. Few reasons:

• The SNS user is looking at a quick bang. You don’t see a topic trending beyond say, 8 hours?!
• There still is a large audience outside SNS. Take me for instance. I have been bitten by the IT Policy bug and I don’t have connectivity to any social media (irrespective of the fact that I use them for official purposes too).
• The relevance of SNS may get restricted to a finite set of audience because amongst your connections / friends / followers, it is not a guarantee that everyone would be moved by your appeal. Striking the right chord at least for a movement should be more than just SNS.

The other one was a media sponsored movement along with an NGO of high repute. The NDTV Greenathon, which the channel conducts on its Flagship NDTV 24×7 every year, is generally a great success. The entire package is 360 degree in approach. The event is well promoted in all the channels owned or is part of the NDTV bouquet. The event is also taken on to other media including online. Today it is possible to connect with your favorite news personality through their website. They have their own social networking platform which is also activated during the Greenathon, which is conducted over a period of 24 hours.

Adding glamour is the presence of Bollywood personalities every year. They have some film start co-hosting it for the entire period, thus ensuring enough eye-balls for the key time-bands at least. The event is generally tied up with TERI and is in support of providing basic amenities in far flung villages of India. Some reasons why it almost always is a hit:

• Promoted by a large news channel, thus ensuring enough reach and visibility for the event.
• Presence of a celebrities (which Meter Jam lacked).
• 360 degree in approach thus ensuring a larger reach and awareness for the event.
• Sufficiently sponsored. With a lot of money going into running this ‘on air, on ground, online’ event, reaching and making it a success is not a great difficulty.
• Having a well known NGO brings in its own set of audience and credibility.

By bringing a serious issue out in the open, social movements take its own course to spread, propagate and in hopefully making this world a better place. However, not all such movements get to see as many reams of paper or footage time. Building a brand like ‘Jaago Re’ cost the Tata Group 2 years and sufficient funds to push the thought through. Even then, we had a key market like Bombay registering 34% votes in the general elections.

Though these social movements become large brands, effectiveness still depends on the buyer of the concept. Pity this is not a product / service.

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Many entities which have started much after the independence of the country have made it big and have gone international. But from a brand perspective, I just wanted to review where India Stands.

It has been a roller coaster ride for the country and the last 63 years have been nothing less than crazy. The country has progressed and regressed at the same time.

With the Commonwealth fiasco that we are exhibiting to the world India certainly is not building a great image for itself. But there are areas where the Indian brand stands taller than many other countries.

Indian corporate growth has been par excellence. With global corporations acquired by Indian companies, Indians have created a mark for themselves in the corporate world. After all, who would have thought that Jaguar Land Rover would be once owned by an Indian multinational! That and the Corus buy probably showed India has not just software prowess, but also leaders in creating large business corporations.

India has proved itself to be a large enough market for large international corporations to set up shop in the country. With almost every large brand under the sun available here in this country, it is actually not required for the average Indian to visit foreign shores to buy some brands. Today, almost all cars including the hybrid cars that have been launched across the world get launched in India simultaneously. Even Hollywood doesn’t ignore India one bit. Starting Matrix Revolution (part III) almost all large productions in Hollywood gets released simultaneously in India, thus proving the worth of the country!

Indians have also made their mark in building brands. The brand marketing and business strategy world has had many stalwarts from India. The late C K Prahlad was a name to reckon with in the world of business Strategy and there are names which are today revered amongst business world. Prof. Mohanbir Sawhney is amongst the top 25 influential people when it comes to technology marketing and is with Kellogs School of Management.

Another area where India has scored very high and still does a great job of it is promoting India as a tourist destination. The Indian culture is a highly intriguing for people across the world and the tourism department has done a fantastic job of promoting the country. However, the brand moment of truth – when the tourists do visit the country – doesn’t leave them with a great experience many times. The latest internal campaign taken up by the Tourism Department doesn’t seem to have a great effect on people here.

There may be a million reasons why India may not be a great place to be associated with. Terrorism, corruption, living conditions, pollution etc may be great deterrents but India as a brand, Indian Brands and Indian Branding and Marketing personnel have made their mark across the world.

One more are where India and Indians should feel proud about!

Jai Hind!

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Two of the largest telecom companies moved their creative agency.

Airtel moves from Rediffusion to JWT

Reliance moves to Grey

Is there a signal? Some observations:

Problem 1: Both brands have not had a great ‘last few campaigns’. Personally, I think it is because Airtel & Reliance have been trying to say too many things and somewhere down the line, barring the signature tune, there was nothing that connected the many communication pieces that was coming out of these behemoths.

Airtel had a campaign with SRK based on his life story and how he is connected with his friends. Loosely made TV based campaign, which was doing nothing to the brand. Their earlier messages were clear and crisp in terms of communicating the brand objectives / values to the consumer. The SRK commercial didn’t connect well.

Reliance on the other hand brought in Hrithik. I am still unable to make sense out of the TVCs made by Reliance using Hrithik. This proved to be a classic case of lazy communication by bringing in a celebrity. The opening up of the GSM platform for Reliance was a tremendous opportunity, which I think was not utilized properly by the brand team.

Problem 2:  The relationships have either gone sour between the agency and the marketers. With Airtel, the relationship is since inception of the brand. This kind of long relationship would obviously bring some moments where one takes another for granted. It could be from the client’s side or the agency’s side. Either ways, the relationship would obviously suffer. Having been the agency since the beginning is a tremendous advantage for Rediffusion, but alas, it is not meant to continue.

With Reliance the account was with Mudra for a long time (again since inception if I am right) although the brand seems to have flirted with Cartwheel for a short while. But it is better for them to settle down with an agency properly with a long term view else the sufferer will be the brand.

Familiarity breeds contempt seems to have happened in either cases.

Problem 3: I also believe that there has been a churn at the client’s end in both these cases. Chandru alias Chandrasekhar of Airtel quit the telco very recently. And there is very little clarity (at least in media) about the person who has taken over the mandate.

Reliance marketing team also seems to have gone through a churn. I know for a fact that they are in the process of getting their marketing head on board. Internally there has been a churn which seems to have ailed these brands.

Problem 4: Intense competition. Tata Docomo, Idea, Uninor, Videocon, Virgin and many more have started digging deep into their pockets to start communicating. New regulations including Number Portability is not helping the cause and is building immense pressure on all the brands to maintain market share.

Problem 5: Highly fragmented customers. Starting from a Rs.10/- recharge to a VAS customer with an average billing of about INR4000-5000 per month makes it difficult to maintain the consistency. Also, both these brands have tried to communicate more than one message at the same time. Typically the brand ambassadors or the messaging style / guideline for each message is very different thus creating dichotomy. On the other hand, though the brand communicates different kinds of services Vodafone has at least managed to create a property which could be milked for 3 years in a row. And all their messages followed the same route, thus bringing in some consistency with respect to the different kind of customers and the kind of messages sent across.

I sincerely hope that both these brands will correct themselves on these parameters and many more that I may have left out. It is important to get the act right here because continuous errors on this front will expedite the brand’s demise. I wouldn’t want to see either of these brands in the twilight zone. Probably the change of guard is just the first result of a wake-up call.

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The position ‘Brand Manager’ is one of the most aptly named positions ever. Coming from the Kapferer school of thought it is impossible to believe that a brand can be owned by anyone other than the consumer!

Let us try to put things in perspective.

Who owns the brand?

Brand owner
The entity that has put money behind the brand is the actual owner of the brand in terms of the brand value, the brand asset value and the monetization that the brand brings along with it. This means that the brand is an asset and at any point if the brand has to be liquidated, the brand owner get the cash. However the price of this ‘asset’ is never fixed. It changes on a daily basis and is as volatile as the stock market.

Where does the brand reside?
Though the brand owner has put in money behind the brand as an asset to grow it in value, the brand does not reside with him. The brand is always in the consumer’s mind. I am taking reference from Al Ries and Jack Trout. In the book POSITIONING, they have used the term Cherchez le creneaux – French for the term ‘Find the hole and fix it’. Published first in 1981, the book captures the essence of brand management in simple terms and in just the phrase ‘Find the hole and fix it’. The explanation for this term is to find the hole in the consumer’s mind for the brand and fix it. It is difficult and is a time consuming process, however, that exactly is where the brand resides and thrives. So if you end up placing your brand in the wrong position, then try how much ever, the consumer will not be able to accept you or your brand.

Positioning - Finding the right space in the consumer's mind

So who is this Brand Manager?
A brand manager’s only job (apart from the operational issues that one goes through) is to ensure that the brand stands for the values that the brand owner wants – in the consumer’s mind. The medium, the communication or any other tool used notwithstanding, it is important that the brand manager keeps the message, finds the position in the consumer’s mind and fixes the brand in it. It involves many years of painful work to ensure that.

So, whose responsibility is the brand?
Is it the brand owner, the brand manager or the rest of the organization? I believe that it is a bit straightforward. In many ways, Brand has a higher level of importance compared to Marketing. It is only after you get the brand strategy fall into place can you take up a marketing strategy which will execute it.

For instance let us assume that the brand stands for innovation, freshness and responsive. Is it the job only of the Marketing organization to exhibit these adjectives for the brand to achieve salience?

Alternatively, every department (production, distribution, sales, marketing, finance, administration et al) lives and breathes these adjectives. Don’t these qualities fit every department and every employee of the organization? So by each department and employee living these attributes, do you think the brand will gain in salience?

There is a concept called ‘Moment Of Truth’. Every touch point, conversation, meeting of a consumer (or any stakeholder) with the brand (could be the product, service, office, receptionist, salesperson, telemarketer or any front end of the brand as an animate or inanimate entity) is a moment of truth. So if you are travelling in a Boeing plane, you have just had a MOT with Boeing. If the air conditioner in your room is Carrier, then you just had a MOT with Carrier. If you just met a sales person from Mercedes Benz, you just had a MOT with Mercedes Benz. If you were watching an F1 race on your Sony TV, using Airtel DTH through Huawei Set Top Box and Ferrari lost the race, then you just had an MOT with F1, Sony, Airtel, Huawei and believe me… Ferrari.

And you as a consumer, are most welcome to make your own views about each of the brands. So if the reception is not good, you can curse Airtel or Huawei. If the race is marred by people throwing bottles into the race track, you can curse F1. If your TV power chord fails and you can’t see the race, you can curse Sony and if Ferrari loses the race, you can curse Ferrari. You – the consumer – are the KING.

Now, my argument is:

The responsibility of the brand lies in every employee and every entity which provides a Moment Of Truth for the brand with the consumer.

So… Brand is NOT JUST a Marketing responsibility.

The job of the Brand Manager (who happens to be working in the Marketing Department) is just to steer the brand by doing the right set of things and guiding the rest of the employees in doing the right set of things. This would result in the BRAND doing the right set of things which results in a great Moment of Truth and hence the perfect ‘POSITION’ in the consumer’s mind.

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I am trying my best to live up to this commitment. Just a disclaimer! As a policy I don’t write about the category I work for. And since I am attempting a category I have never worked for, I expect this to be challenging. So if there are errors, please do highlight.

BMW – Bayerische Motoren Werke

BMW - Yum

The hallmark of German engineering, BMW is a brand that I admire a lot. Despite the early alleged Nazi connections, BMW as a brand has been able to shake it off and still prove to be amongst the top automobile manufacturers in the world.

Let us take a look at their brand positioning statement: SHEER DRIVING PLEASURE.

Close your eyes and imagine sitting behind the wheel of a BMW. You can see the blue and white roundel logo on the steering wheel. You are now cruising on a highway at a speed of 200 kmph and all you can hear inside is the mild music that you have played on the music system.

Now open your eyes and read this line again: SHEER DRIVING PLEASURE.

BMW Driving Pleasure

Okay! I have made the point. You are a consumer (or a potential consumer) and all that BMW wants to leave you with is the ultimate driving experience. The joy of making that travel by yourself. The fun in sharing this experience. The happiness in driving. The delight of stepping on the gas. The ecstasy in reaching that top speed again.

This brand is JOY. The PLEASURE. The ELATION in the act of driving.

All that you have read till now is for you as a consumer.

Cut to the PR World now. Please read these reports:

Hindu Business Line
Business Wire India
The Hindu

I can see it screaming on my face that BMW is a luxury car. A couple of more reports:

Business Standard Motoring
India Today

Another key message that I get is that they are the largest in the luxury car segment.

What has the positioning been to say, the journalists?

I would tend to believe that the positioning statement for the journalists is: “A successful luxury car company” or better still, “The number 1 luxury car company in India”.

While the reader of the message (the consumer) gets reinforced on one more different facet about the brand viz., STABILITY.

Because a luxury car is an expensive proposition and is an involved purchase decision, there is a fair bit of importance given to the stability of the organization that sells the vehicle. So, by reinforcing on a regular basis that BMW is the number 1 luxury car company in India, the brand is just cementing its place in the consumer’s mind.

Why should a brand do that?

A consumer buys it for a stated benefit. It could be the ultimate driving pleasure (BMW), but the journalist is interested in understanding the stability of the company and the business it has achieved. By proving the stability, the brand is passing a subtle message to the consumer that they are dealing with a stable entity.

So, YOU as a customer are left with:

Here’s BMW – a car that is a sheer pleasure to drive, a joy to own and is from a stable company.

Isn’t that a winning proposition?

JOY of travel

And I wanted to leave you with JOY. And don’t forget to search for GINA. Happy driving.

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