Category: Advertising

December is here!

Dear Brand Heads, Executive Creative Directors, Creative Directors, Account Planners, Client Servicing Managers and all the other assorted executives.

If in the fervor of all the dinners, karaoke parties, night outs, account wins and people movement, you have forgotten the impending deadline, let me take the liberty of gate crashing into the party and reminding you of the date. December is here! Hit the panic button guys and girls. After all it’s that time of the year again. The time when all of you scramble to find friends, relatives, neighbors, strangers and even mothers-in-law who own businesses. Apart from all the regular work that you do for your regular clients, the time to submit entries for the award shows is almost here. End of December!

I know most of you would be getting into serious thinking workshops. And workshops mean free tee-shirts with funny one-liners in large fonts on the front and giant logos on the back. It also means a location like Goa or Kerala for most of the creative team. And that means it’s time for those flip-flops, spaghettis (or is the noodle the flavor of the season?), cargo shorts, large sunglasses to come out of the closet. Women might want to go to the beauty parlors for their manicure and pedicures. Men may want to start with their gyms. These workshops are serious affairs after all. And so are the party sessions with free flowing booze where you get to hit on that cute art director who you never had the courage to speak to in all these months! And of course you are supposed to write a few award winning ads that could be sent to Europe, Asia and Goa for judging by your NCD and their friends.

Anyways, coming to the point, here is my offer. I am in process of launching a brand of bathing cakes. This is a product targeted at the young (at heart) and discerning Indian. Since this is a handmade product (which means it is actually made by poor village women), it is slightly expensive than the regular soaps made by the assembly lines. This also means that I am not using any chemicals or any harmful things in it. And as a direct result, the cost of manufacturing this is high. And to make some profit, I have to keep the price point a little higher than the best selling luxury bathing soap in India. So you may safely say that the positioning would be premium. Yes, you read it right. Young and Premium. Which other brand can you think of that lets you justify these two keywords this easily? After all this is a prerequisite for making a brand cult. Look at any of those cult brands. They all have had these humble beginnings. So, for this bathing cake, I need a brand name, a logo, packaging and a launch campaign.

I hereby invite all the agencies and individuals to come and present their thoughts on the product. When I say thoughts, I don’t really mean long presentations but I just want one small write up on how you plan to approach the brand. Once you have done so, I shall shortlist 6 of you and let you guys invite me to your offices so that you may present your pitch with spec shots of the campaign that you would create for me. And then, after much thought and deliberation, I shall award the business to one of you. I will do the press releases and create media bytes so that your agency is covered by all the leading websites and magazines. And you could then enter your work, for my brand, to all the award shows and books. I would of course give you a letter proclaiming that you are the godsend creative outfit that helped me launch a product in this very difficult and competitive market. Everyone would obviously know the importance of this letter. No award entry can be submitted without this letter. Clients do get their dues.

And guys, I am damn serious about this. I have this brand to launch and I am running short of ideas to do so. The investor is breathing down my neck and is after my life to do the launch. I will be an awesome client and would not bug you for meeting the deadlines. There are no mandatories and that means you have no thick brand books to read. You can create it out of thin air and I will still approve it. Trust me I am fast with approvals. I am a one man company with me being the Brand Manager, the Marketing Director, the owner of the company and the owner’s prodigal son.

You know, it’s a typical win-win situation we are looking at. You get to do a launch campaign for a brand that could potentially win you lions, pencils, stencils and all other cherished trophies. I get the identity done and get to launch the brand. And did I mention that unlike other ads that you release in December where you pay for the ad space, I don’t really mind spending on the media (in Free Press Journal at Indore, Kolkata, Jallandhar and all the other obscure places where you may want to release the creatives). This may help you sell the idea to your branch head, who, apart from the awards that his branch wins, is also concerned about the profits and targets that have been set by bosses sitting in Americas and Europe.

I have tried to give you as much information I could about the new brand that I want to launch, but if you still need more information, please send your briefing formats (if you actually have a document like that) to me and I shall revert with a brief that you can comprehend and work on.

And one last word. You need to be very fast on this. After all the competition out there is tough and you don’t want to be left behind in blind rat race to win most awards at an award show. I don’t have to extol the career boosting benefits of an award winning campaign. The CVs, they say, are forever. Finally, even if you pass on this irresistible opportunity to work on the next iconic brand from India, just a friendly reminder, December is here!

Cadburys Main Khush Hoon Khamkha

This is one of those few ads that I really adore. Khamakha from Cadbury’s

Copy:
Khamkha muskuraaon,
Khamkha gungunaon,
Khamkha chalta jaaon main,

Khamkha machalta hoon,
Khamkha fisalta hoon,
Khamkha uchata hoon main,

Main khush aaj Khamkha,
Main khush aaj Khamkha,
Main khush aaj Khamkha yaaron.

Vid on Youtube:

In fact this is one of the reasons why I jumped into advertising.

Branding 101 for Digital Brands

In this post I shall talk about brands as I understand them and as they are applicable to digital brands. Please note that this list is still in beta and will evolve with time. Your feedback would be really appreciated.

This is required because we need to stop looking at startups as just startups but serious businesses where branding plays a vital role. Often, the way you look at the business makes a lot of difference to way you work.

Coming to the point, I think there are three principles. Utility, Emotional Connect and Relationship that goes beyond just one product.

A: Utility

  • Customers never talk about a brand they are going to use. They talk about the action they will perform. What problem does the brand solves?
    • I need to book and air ticket. I will use Cleartrip.
    • I need to upload slides and show them to friends. Let me use Slideshare.
  • The brands that can make themselves synonymous to utility invariable become the leaders.
    • Can you Google the data on number of Internet users in India?
    • Can you Slideshare your presentation please?
  • The utility could be functional, mechanical, emotional, psychological or any of those –al things.
    • Using Twitter helps me stay in touch with friends on the go.
    • I use FB because the elite Internet users in India are on FB.

B: Emotional Connect

  • A customer will use a brand that he can associate himself with.
    • I like Apple products because they stand for innovation, user interface and simplicity.
    • Google stands for open culture. I am an open source evangelist and hence I will use and promote Google initiatives.
  • If possible, the association with the brand should elevate the status of the user.
    • Google could have invited everyone when they launched Gmail. Limited invite was a way to get traction. All limited launches are like that.
    • Alltop gave away batches like “featured on alltop”. People displayed these batches because it was a way to show off that you belonged to the best of the category (as rated by alltop).

C: Relationship extending beyond single product

  • The relationship should start with one product and when the company launches more products, I should be aspiring to buy them too. This is very important for creating sustainable businesses that go beyond one time relationship.
    • My relationship with Apple started with an Ipod. I have already bought a MacBook and have pre-ordered the iPhone.
    • I started using Google as a search engine. Then I started using groups. Then it was Gmail. And then calendar. The list continues.

Which one of the three things are valid about your brand? If it does only one, how can it do other things?

Please give your feedback to me at saurabh.garg+digitalbrands@gmail.com

Ceat, Shoppers Stop and Godrej Rebranding stories

Three very big Indian brands have gone for a makeover. Godrej, Shopper’s Stop and Ceat. Before I get into a long rhetoric on these individually, I think except Godrej, Shopper’s Stop and Ceat have got it wrong.

Godrej Industries Ltd.
Godrej has added colors to it age old logo. Shoppers’ Stop and Ceat have completely changed their looks. Also, Shoppers’ Stop says “Change is Good” and Ceat says “Change is here”. I wonder if both these have been created by same team?


Godrej the behemoth that sells everything from shoe polish to animal feed to almirahs to locks to lavish food for rich to real estate to a lot of things unimaginable has got a new look. They did not do anything drastic. They retained their logo. Added some animation, color and jazz to it. As a customer I love what they have done. For me I have grown up in house where we had tons of Godrej almirahs and locks and for me Godrej means trust. Is the new look enhancing that? No it does not but it gives me a sense that owners are trying to reinvent the old company and are committed about it. And since And are they doing it because a Godrej Properties is planning to come with its IPO?

Shoppers Stop
Coming on to Shopper’s Stop, its is a chain of premium retail megastores. They sell clothes, accessories and other fancy things that riches and the great Indian middle class buys. In fact they are amongst the first players in Indian retail industry to have experimented with large format stores and organized retailing. Their earlier logo and identity was very classy by Indian standards and for the last 10 odd years that logo has been itched in the minds of the customers. It had everything a premium brand’s logo should have – curves, stars, symmetry. It was very very appealing.The new logo is anything but premium and yet is a good piece of work on a stand alone basis. But moment you compare it with older logo (and comparison is inevitable), it looks dull. It looks like someone has stepped back in time. To start with it is plain text in a font that can be used by anyone and everyone. A plain text logo could have been good if you added colors, gradients or other elements to break the clutter (hint Godrej). But that too is missing. I think they wanted more serious and elegant look for the brand and the logo has failed to deliver that. I would say this was created by an amateur designer trying random text layouts.

I have no clue what warranted the need for a change in logo. I understand that Shoppers’ Stop is coming up with an IPO but did it require a change in look?

Ceat Tyres
Ceat is one of the oldest tyre manufactures in the country. Its a publicly traded company and although I have not had any interactions with their business (never purchased a ceat product), have heard a lot about them. The new logo looks like a half baked pie. Its like work in progress and first time I saw it, I could not relate it to the type manufacturer. When I read the headline, that was the time I realized that it was ceat they were talking about.

As a customer and as an observer, I like their earlier logo better. It had a meaning to it. I could see a rhino and I could conjure an image of a vehicle running on a ceat tyre negotiating hard curves. The new look might also have a road (the E looks like a road with a divider) but it fails to conjure any kind of imagery. Is there a trend in design houses to move towards plain text fonts with minimal use of colors? Or both Shoppers Stop and Ceat have been done by the same agency with a Creative Decision Maker believing that plain text is good and we should talk about change to go along with that?

Its often said an organization is as good as the decision makers it has. I dont really think design teams for both Shoppers Stop and Ceat have done their homework and tried to design a contemporary look. And they should consider the fact that people do not buy products or services. They buy and consume brands. And brand is something that makes the decision process for the consumer simpler. Not more complex by creating conflicting images in their minds.

Design, Advertising and financial markets may sound very different but there is indeed some kind of a relationship. Any more IPOs or redesigns coming up .. ?

P.S.: All the comments are not from an aesthetic point of view. I am hardly a person who has good design sense. I am talking from the perspective of a customer. I have tried to think how would a customer feel when he is interacting with a brand that is supposed to be premium.

All three companies trade on the stock exchanges and I own certain number of shares of Godrej Industries ltd. I might or might not choose to buy/sell these shares.

And I just realized that I am indeed passionate about brands and way consumers think abut brands. As a very good friend would say .. “Aha” moment of the day !

Tags: IPO, Indian Financial Markets, Godrej, Ceat, Shopper’s Stop, Retail, India, Design, Logo, Re-design, Advertising, Marketing, Branding.