Brand Aadhar

Kiran Khalap, 26th April, 2010

The word brand has been used since Roman times, and means the same thing in over 13 of the oldest European languages including Frisian…and yet, it is about to get a new meaning in India.

On April 26, 2010, the Unique Identification Authority of India (uidai.gov.in), led by the man (Nandan Nilekani) who is credited with having invented the phrase ‘Flat World’, launched a brand name and logo that could, if all goes well, stand for the biggest, hairiest, audacious-est brand in the history of mankind and brands.

“What a pompous claim!” I hear you say.

No, not pompous; and not a claim.

The brand’s intention is to grant an identity number to 1.2 billion Indians (based on biometrics), ensure it can be validated all over India, and thus start a revolution that equalises opportunity in a civilisation and a culture where, for a majority of people, identity is a foregone conclusion predetermined by caste, class, family, community, village…here is a sharp, simple, scalpel comprising sixteen digits that can cut the Gordian knot and free the individual to rise to her highest potential.

Please join the revolution…start by watching the launch video from link Brand Aadhar above; then visit the web site, and end by offering your help!

By Yashesh Shethia

I have loved cars ever since I can remember. Maybe even before I started school. Way before I started working to earn a living. Decades before I joined chlorophyll (a brand consultancy in India).

I did all the things one should do, collect posters, models, die-cast models from Matchbox and followed some of the brands that made the fastest cars, even dreaming that one day I’d have one in my garage. (you may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one!)

Naturally, Porsche made the list. Particularly the 911 (it is a favorite even today) (and you always say nine eleven not nine one one

And I remember loving the Porsche TV ad…when a kid walks in to a showroom to check out the new 911, which he is then allowed to sit in, even recall his eyes sneaking up behind the steering! There was that glee and excitement in his eyes!

It’s an iconic ad of sorts, I am sure most of you would have seen it, but here it is anyways.

Porsche 911 clip

Porsche 911 clip

A few weeks back, VW launched an aggressive campaign to support their India launch. One of the TV commercials has a similar theme, a kid walks in, is shown all the models and when they will fit in to his life, ending with his father finding him at the showroom (all the characters seem soooo artificial). Have a look at the TVC here.

There is no doubt once you see both these ads, that they share the same lineage (more so with VW and Porsche now being part of the same group).

But riddle me this.

Why would Porsche (or VW) allow another VW ad to take this route?

Being inspired by the original is one thing, but how do you justify this?!

To me its like the killing of a cult. 

by Anand Halve

Americans are delightfully simple. For instance, if they are convinced about a concept or a line of thinking, they’ll say, “I’ll buy that!”
The language of commerce - a willingness to pay - being the definitive proof of acceptance!
However, for some time now, marketers have been in denial about this fundamental axiom.
“Give it away free” has been a popular business model backed VC, PE and other acronymous sources, staring at teenaged geeks bursting with pimples and ideas.
The notion being that someone else (read advertisers) would pay for a product being consumed by others.

The media (print, TV, social, antisocial, whatever), succeeded for several decades. But in the process, they have created a monster.
A consumer who – like a farmer buying fertilizer – now expects purchases to be subsidized. This ‘freeloading’ attitude is why people get their knickers in a knot when asked to pay more, whether it is to watch the antics of pre-pubescent brides or post-pubescent cricketers.
The expectation from subsidies however, grows rapidly. Once fertilizer is subsidized, one expects the seeds to be subsidized. And power charges… and diesel… you get it.
“The price I pay is my acknowledgement of value”
‘Price’ should be the agreement on value between buyer and seller, but consumers now expect some ‘invisible benefactor’ to pick up some or all of the tab.
Consider email. What’s the worth of the email or chat service you say you love?
Rs. 15 / day? (one bottle of drinking water?)
Rs. 20 / week? (one McDonald’s Happy Menu meal?)
Rs. 300 /month? (one home delivered pizza?)
I’ve asked dozens of people and almost no one is ready to pay anything at all for web-based services. They’d rather switch to another free service.

How many unpaid Limewire downloads do you have on your computer?
Do we ever wonder who pays when we take off into the skype, so to say?
Would you limit the number of results delivered if you were charged ‘per result’ for search?

Undifferentiation via borrowed glory
However, the potentially fatal threat to branding is the number of marketers who seem to accept that ‘price’ itself is a gaseous notion, uncoupled from perceptions of value delivered.
Because it’s not just consumers who are freeloaders. So too are marketers.
PC manufacturers allowed themselves to become undifferentiated when they cheerfully backed Windows and gleefully embraced ‘Intel Inside’, as Intel picked up part of the advertising tab.
Result? Most PCs became little more than boxes with ‘Wintel’ inside.
Non-stick cookware brands buried their differences under ‘Teflon’, when most brands started making Teflon (a Du Pont property) their main claim to fame.

Commodities pretending to be brands?
Supposedly, one of the key metrics of brand equity is, “the premium a brand commands”
So how come Coca Cola, long revered by Interbrand, if not Indian consumers, can’t command any price premium over its competitors?
Conversely, one of the most critical pieces of evidence that Harley-Davidson is a great brand, is the fact that people are willing to pay a lot more for it than for a ‘commonplace motorcycle’.
Likewise, your conviction that the Gucci name has great cachet shows when you pay hundreds of times more for it than for a handbag on Linking Road.

A product that only sells at a price identical to that of its substitute products used to be called a ‘commodity’.
But maybe I’m just old fashioned.
“Me-too… but I have a bigger advertising budget”
It gets worse.
Does the world really need dozens ‘ayurvedic shampoos’? Or readymade shirts? Or whatever.
But marketers of even completely me-too products seem to feel that with a celebrity any brand can differentiated. So every Sunny Deol flexing his equipment in a Lux Cozi banian, competes with a Sunjay Dutt parading his pectorals in a Rupa banian!

Similarly, while the already-almost-forgotten Olympic boxer puts on his gloves for one insurance company, Tendulkar bats another.
Do people really follow sport stars into a bank? Do you?
And how many of us rushed out to get a BSNL connection after watching Deepika Padukone’s bizarre imitation of a classical dancer on a Kerala house-boat?

Aah, but marketers seem to buy the story.

by Anand Halve

Most of us have seen that regions shown as part of India in maps published by the Government of India, are shown as parts of Pakistan, or China or merely ‘disputed’, in other maps.
Clearly, both sets of maps cannot be correct… and the map is not necessarily the territory. In fact often, one knows that the map does NOT reflect the territory.
The problem however, is that often the lack of congruence is forgotten and decision makers focus on the map, not the territory.

Such confusion is also common in the marketing and branding landscape.

Testing advertising
Consider pre-tests for commercials. The industry has created various models of how advertising works. The models assume that consumers receive, process and respond to advertising in a certain way. This ‘map’ becomes the basis of creating pre-testing methods for ads.
The key thing is that the pre-tests measure the performance of an ad with reference to these metrics.
Over a period of time, the metrics gain a life of their own, become the bell that triggers the salivary glands of the Pavlovian ad-creator. And unfortunately, the people who write the scripts start writing for the test.
The ‘map’ that was initially created as a surrogate for the territory, becomes an end in itself, and eclipses the territory.

You do the math
The same problem gets multiplied (if one may use a mathematical pun) in exercises using spreadsheets.
Take the drive towards ‘aggressive targets’. I remember a marketer involved in the launch of an international beverage brand telling me a story about how this can make things go awry. The international marketing head of the company was not happy with the sales targets worked out by the Indian JV, and wanted them to be “more ambitious”. He suggested increasing the targeted per capita consumption target from ‘n’ to ‘n plus 1’.
My friend said, “I don’t think the guy realized that with a casual change in one cell of the spreadsheet, he was adding a billion bottles for us to sell each year!”
But on the ‘map’ it must have looked so simple and logical – unhampered as it was with the heat and dust of the marketplace.

Differentiation on paper
The other big danger of confusing the paper reality with the real article is that we see differences –and differentiation – magnified manifold.
When concepts are tested, they often are couched in language that is consciously and one-sidedly complimentary to the concept. For instance let’s look at a concept for a new product to a consumer, say about “a new shampoo with the goodness of natural herbs that will stop hair fall and keep your hair looking great”.
Now, this is a no-brainer in its obvious appeal. So the research will show a high “willingness to try” this product. Ignoring the territorial truth that there are perhaps a few dozen products offering exactly the same cocktail! And while the concept may get high scores, it really doesn’t have much of a chance in the real world.

Valuation
The paper-mirage is of course at its finest in the valuation game. The facts of the case, if one only were to step back for a moment, would clearly show that several business ideas have NO hope of ever making money. (One good test of this, which often seems to be ignored, is this simple question: Will anyone ever pay anything for this thingybob?)
And yet the businesses attract high valuations. One can only see this as a Ponzi scheme where hope lies in the expectation that one can pass this hot potato into someone else’s hands.

Provability and Truth
There is a truth articulated by the renowned mathematician Kurt Godel that offers a way to see things more clearly.
Godel’s first Incompleteness Theorem states that, “for any consistent… formal theory… there is an (arithmetical) statement that is true but not provable in the theory”.
In short that there are truths that are obvious, but are not ‘provable’.
But you know that in your gut, right? Now if only we didn’t let the ‘maps’ guide us into the valley of death.

by Anand Halve

A Brand consultant sometimes feels like a psychoanalyst, as a marketer’s eyes glaze over and he begins to share his deepest secret desires, his dreams, his fantasies, how he thinks he is actually Napoleon. Or Bill Gates or Richard Branson.
One tries to understand the underlying obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety neurosis or schizoid isolation that drive him.
Recently I had to put on my psychoanalyst hat to interpret a prospective client’s words: “I want to create an Iconic brand”.
Huh?

Blame it on Management literature
The problem is too many books that make everything achievable by ‘formula’: ‘Seven habits of successful people’, ‘Good to great’, ‘How to turn reluctant consumers into blobs of putty in your hands’ (ok, I made up the last one.)
The point is, these books make it sound so easy. The message is ‘Read my book, and you may go forth and be fruitful’. Or at least become insanely successful.
One of the recent buzz-words has been ‘Iconic brands’. So now, everyone wants his own ‘iconic’ brand’, like a personal trainer or something.

Cart before the hearse
They read about Harley Davidson and men tattooing the logo on their arms, and begin to dream of having their brand name adorn fleshy body parts.
They hear about the awe in which the Apple fans listen to Steve Jobs at Macworld, and they start imagining their own fruit in technicolour.
They forget the simple fundamental truth, that ‘Iconic brands’ are not the output of a desire. They are the result and consequence of everything you do consistently over the years.

Let us begin with just the definition of the word.
An Icon is “someone or something widely admired, especially something symbolizing a movement or field of activity”.

That implies that the brand actually symbolize something.

Most brands attempt to do exactly the opposite. They believe that they must be all things to all men and women.
In case this sounds like an exaggeration, just watch commercials on air currently for certain balms and oils as examples, and judge for yourself.
Secondly, brands must, like Arjun, stay focused on the eye of the fish, and not get seduced by the Menakas of market change (if one may mix mythological metaphors).

Consider some brands that have achieved iconic status in India.
Cadbury’s Dairy Milk: Here is a brand that has changed with the times, from ‘Sometimes Cadbury’s can say it better than words’ to ‘Kuchh meetha ho jaye’ but continues to do it endearingly, retaining it’s leadership. Even as imported products become commonplace, CDM continues to define ‘what a chocolate should be’.

Infosys: The brand that is synonymous with India’s IT story. TCS may be bigger, but it is Infosys that defines the coming of age for India as an economic power. It’s Infosys that showed us that Lakshmi (the Goddess of wealth) and Saraswati (the Goddess of learning) could live under the same roof.

Amul: Amul is to milk products what Infosys is to IT. Respected. Trusted. Credible. And the game changer that after all these years continues to define the sector.

Tata: The brand that stands for integrity, transparency, honesty and symbolizes the nobility that Indian business can be. From Tata Steel to Taj hotels to the Nano. Which is why on 26/11/2008 it was more than a hotel – it was India that was attacked in Mumbai.

And there are those who could have become icons, but stumbled on the way, and are less than what they could have been.
Bajaj Auto: Slipped into a protectionist mind-set at one point, and missed the shift to motorcycles. Is fighting back, but has never quite got back to the ‘You just can’t beat a Bajaj’ glory days.

Raymond suiting: Defined the changing Indian male psyche in the 1990s, but didn’t change with the shift to readymades, out of touch with twentysomethings today.

Bullet motorcycles: The ‘Harley Davidson’ on Indian roads. Got lost on some side road, and never got back.

I am sure you can add your nominees to both lists. But the point remains the same: You can’t build iconic brands by merely wanting to.

By the way, I identified the psychoanalytical term for that marketer: It is “delusional”

by Anand Halve

There is an oft-repeated story, possibly apocryphal, about the commitment to customer satisfaction at Nordstrom, the famous US retailer. The story goes that the brand is so strongly committed to its ‘No questions asked’ returns policy, that when a person brought in a product that had not  even been bought at Nordstrom, they refunded the purchase amount to him. No questions asked.
Now, that is commitment to customer satisfaction.
And indeed, as we are avail of more and more services (retailing, hospitality, airlines, etc), we realise that what matters is what a brand does, not what it says.
Here are just a few recent examples of the gap between words and action that show the real intent of the players.

On the ground
I was at a multiplex last week. When I came out, I saw a car parked next to a bus stop, with some shopping bags in the front passenger seat, and no sign of a driver. Given these times of terror threats, I asked the guard standing nearby (wearing a blue uniform, with an American-cop-style baton tucked into his waistband), why he had allowed this and wasn’t he going to call the police or have it towed away, since it could be dangerous.
“No”, said the worthy. His impeccable logic for inaction being that, “the parking has been done on the road, and that is the BMC’s area”.
The embroidery on his uniform said “XYZ Security Services”, but his behaviour clearly demonstrated that XYZ was not providing any ‘security service’. Their man unflappably brain-dead and unable to understand that shrapnel does not care where it is parked.

In the air
Cabin crew on airlines, an otherwise noble species, is of course trained to deliver their spiel in incomprehensible language.
Beginning with “Deviyon aur Sajjanon”, they proceed to ask us to tie our “kursi ki peti” (can’t they just call it a belt?) going on to tell us that “mobile phones should be kept in the power off mode”. Verbosity being the soul of the half-wit, they reject the simpler option of asking you to “switch off mobile phones”. They do say though, that you should not switch it on, until the “seat belt sign is switched off”.
Of course, most passengers switch on their mobiles and vocal cords as soon the plane lands, while the crew stands around smiling beatifically.
Now, either the phones in their ‘power on’ mode are actually a safety hazard, in which case the airline must enforce the rule, or they are not, in which case they should stop the needless announcements.

And in politics
To begin with, Vilasrao Deshmukh and R.R.Patil tried to talk their way out of their failure in protecting Mumbai during the terror attacks last November. And then began the blame game, and the question of who would take the rap.
But even before the embers of the funeral pyres turned cold, the greed for power was visible in the unholy haste and glee with which the supporters of Maharashtra’s new CM began ‘celebrating’ his selection even before any official announcement.
Again, words versus action. And the twain seldom seem to meet.

Actions speak louder
The above is not just a cliché, it is a signal that in the 21st century, what will matter is what you do, not what you say.
And if you do say something, then of course, the customer will expect you to act accordingly. So, a brand may use boundless hyperbole in its communication, but the customer will then demand that the brand demonstrate its words in actions.
On a lighter note, a Sahara Airlines may thus say, “Emotionally yours”, but the demanding customer will then expect the pilot to have a lump in his throat as he informs you about a flight delay, and certainly would feel disappointed if the air hostess did not weep inconsolably and clutch him to her bosom, as she said goodbye when he disembarked.

But more seriously, we have to start recognizing that in a world where twitter, social networks and sms spread facts at the speed of a thumb, brands can no longer hide behind words.

by Anand Halve

It is assumed to be a truism of marketing that when there is greater competition, quality improves, and the consumer gets a better product.
Evidently the minds that developed this hypothesis had not reckoned with 24-hour News and Business channels on TV.
And while there are a few notable exceptions, by and large, greater competition in this market – far from improving quality - has led to a dumbing down to an extraordinary level. What might be described, like the financial scenario, as a mess of “historic proportions”.

The death of depth
The fundamental problem of course is that the poor things have to keep churning out stuff all the time. There is no respite for either the channel programmers or the viewers. And therefore, to give some semblance of meaning and substance to the telecast, various ‘analysts’ and ‘experts’ are invited. Or invented. Often, all it takes is the addition of the term ‘guru’, as a nomenclatural addendum to the tail of his or her kite flying.
Not that they have to do much. In the age of the sound-byte, a couple of statements are sufficient, no matter how complex the subject being discussed. As in, “…and now can you tell us in 15-seconds…how do we solve the liquidity crisis gripping the markets?”

The intensity of intent
To enhance the appearance of depth, there is the “lean on your elbow” technique. Where the anchor dons an intense expression and pummels the audience with rhetoric.
The intense questioner, after say, a body found in a car, might ask:
“Why was she there at night?”
“Who was with her?”
“Was she wearing green shoes?”
“Has she seen Dostana?”
“Why am I asking ridiculous questions?”
“NO ONE HAS ANY ANSWERS!!!”
Becoming so animated by this time that you fear he is likely to have a fit.

The eternal smile
To relieve the state of anxiety created by the Intense One, there is relief in the form of pulchritudinous ectoplasm. Smart, pretty reporters who wear permanent, possibly botox-enriched smiles, even as they inform you that “today, markets across the world lost 35% of their value” or that “XYZ Ltd laid off 300 more people at their plant”.
These same ones, are actually ‘fans’ in the guise of reporters: Gushing all over the CEOs and Entrepreneurs or Young Achievers they meet. These interactions are conducted outside the studio, and afford them the opportunity to get out of their more formal attire and slip into something more comfortable as they walk across golf courses, and meander through corporate campuses gazing worshipfully at the deity of the day.

One size DOES fit all
To simplify life, the reporters are equipped with a more-or-less standard set of questions: “What does your company see as the way forward in the near-term?” or “Has the increase in global competition brought about changes in your strategy?” or “Were there challenges that you faced when you started out?”
Thus equipped, they are ready to sally forth to interview Narayan Murthy, Sunil Mittal, Venugopal Dhoot, Ratan Tata, Rahul Bajaj, Warren Buffet, Indra Nooyi, Bill Gates. You name the person.

Mind(less) games
And although this last one is not from a News or Business channel, one could not have discussed the dumbing down of TV without mention of a program called ‘Bigg Boss’.
This is a contest without any need for skill or ability. Where participation in the ‘game’ has no purpose beyond participation itself. Where ‘victory’ is achieved without any achievement and the reward is given for a vegetative existence.
It is the epitome of viewer-ship as mindless voyeurism, in which last week, a talent less, zero-personality, non-entity who demonstrated nothing beyond carrying out a pointless existence for several months, was declared the victor.
Many years ago, Carl Sagan launched an ambitious program SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence), to explore if there is intelligent life in the Universe. So far, no conclusive evidence has been found.
But perhaps a more immediate question needs to be asked: “Is there intelligent life on TV?”.

You have 15 seconds to answer.

by Vidya Damani
Is BR Jewelers a brand? “Not likely” (?) Is Narandas & Sons a brand? “More likely” (?) What about Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri (TBZ)? “Ummm…probably is a brand” (?)

And what would you say about Tanishq, Orra and Nakshatra? Most would say “Yes, they definitely are brands”.

One thing we all probably agree on is; everything with a name and design is NOT a brand.
So what are the checkpoints of a brand?

Here are some of them:

A brand should have a defined target group

A brand should have dedicated resources (people and budgets) which work 24/7 to promote the the brand.

A brand should have a set of values that it believes in, which are obvious to anyone who comes in contact with it.

A brand should be able to express an idea (some call it the brand core), which is unchanging over time.

But a retail store could also claim to have the above…maybe in an unorganized way.

Having first hand experience in retail, I would say what distinguishes a retail store from a retail brand (in addition to the above); is that the store experience should remain the same. Be it the product range, the behaviour of the staff, the look and feel of the store, it should not differ from one outlet to another. In short, once a person enters s/he should forget whether it’s Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru or Ahmedabad! The experience one goes through should remain the same.

The ground reality of this would mean a lot of back-end and front-end processes (SOPs, ERPs, etc.) need to be in place and implemented strictly.

Some good examples of international retail brands would be Starbucks Coffee, Ikea and Subway…the proof of the pudding is when you actually go looking for it on a visit to an unknown place, just to feel ‘at home’!

Would you like to add your thoughts on what distinguishes a retail store from a retail brand?

-by Kiran Khalap
In January 2010, Naomi Klein’s book ‘No Logo’ will pass the decadal test: it was published on the eve of the Seattle demonstrations against capitalism, it completes ten years as Copenhagen seems to come apart for exactly the same reason.

The rich seem unable to live without that all-consuming four-letter word: more.

20% of the population consumes 80% of the earth’s resources but they still want more. So is Ms Klein’s attack on the ‘brand bullies’ (as someone described the big brand companies) still relevant?

Personally, as someone brought up on the Eastern thought system of the ‘connectedness of everything’ I am chary of laying the blame for the earth’s misfortune’s at the feet of big corporations. Big corporations pursue quarter-on-quarter profits under pressure from stakeholders like large mutual funds who are under pressure from their investors called… you and me. So!

But despite the attack on brands as creators of the lust for more, I remain an optimist.

I see an emerging positive in brands of a certain type: I call them the HCF brands (as opposed to the LCD brands).

HCF brands make promises that appeal to the Highest Common Factor of business, society and mankind; LCD brands appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator of business, society and mankind.

Excel Industries India, a leader in agrochemical intermediates, discovered and acknowledged the harm that man-made fertilizers cause to earth and then went ahead and invested heavily into sustainable solutions instead. They actually changed their business so that their brand remained farmer friendly and earth friendly.

Patagonia expunged that dangerous word “more” from their lexicon and committed itself to a lower rate of growth as early as 1996.

To me these are HCF brands.

On the other hand, a LCD brand pursues profits whether it destroys human beings, society and finally, its own business, in the bargain. (Read any of the Toxic Ten stories on the web.)

Though there are many differences between brands and human beings, in this one area, they appear to be similar: HCF human beings think of the higher good as the basis of action, and are therefore inclusive and positive. LCD human beings believe ‘more money’ as the only worthwhile definition of their identity and end up being ruthless exploiters of colleagues, nature and everything in between.

What about the brands you work with…and what about you?

- Kiran Khalap, November 29, 2009

Surprised to hear that the CEO is Barrier Number One?

Well, okay, let’s qualify the statement: a hired CEO (as opposed to the promoter CEO or entrepreneur CEO) can often be one of the first barriers to the creation of his own corporate brand.

Look at the stats. The average tenure of a CEO is somewhere between 5 to 8 years, with variations for category (longest tenure is in financial services), research sample (world’s top 500 vs only publicly traded companies) and geography (North America vs Asia); yet the trend is clear: it’s declining.

Some of the best corporate brands on the other hand have lasted for over a century.

So in that scrunched up time for performance, what do you think any sensible hired hand will focus on: Top line? bottom line? Keeping the Board happy? Keeping all-powerful mutual fund managers happy?

Or long-term corporate brand building?

You realise that time is not the hired CEOs ally.

There is one more problem the H&H (harried & hurried) CEO has: the ability to think of the corporate brand as an idea outside of herself/himself.

An idea at whose altar the CEOs have to sacrifice their personal beliefs.

This inability, coupled with the performance anxiety linked to a short tenure, means that creating long-term differentiation and business value through branding becomes a vague, inconsequential item on the CEO’s check list.

Think instead of the promoter/enterpreneur CEO, whose idea of the brand is the one that started the business in the first place. They don’t have to pray at any altar of any idea; it’s in their hearts.

That’s why Steve Jobs gets voted CEO of the Decade (Fortune magazine.) For a moment, forget how the editors made their choice and listen to another entreprenuer CEO, Larry Ellison of Oracle, talking about Steve Jobs

“He’d rather have nothing if he couldn’t have perfection.”

That’s the kind of absolute commitment that an entrepreneur CEO brings to the table. And you know what that commitment results in in terms of business? Apple grabbed 48% of the U.S. PC industry’s revenue in October according to NPD. This, after coolly redefining the music and the phone industries.

Want to build a corporate brand that outclasses all others in business?

Just believe. In an idea.