Sunday, December 19, 2010

Mascots as Trade Symbol

The brand of any company or product is known by certain pictorial representations. These pictorial signs can be Logos, Symbols, Trade Marks, Mascots etc. that attracts the attention consumer and soon the product starts getting known of that picture. Let us see some of the Mascots which got big success in attracting the interest of consumers.

Shera - The Mascot

1_15012592_shera_mascotShera, mascot of the XIX Commonwealth Games 2010 Delhi, is the most visible face of the XIX Commonwealth Games 2010 Delhi. His name comes from the Hindi word Sher – meaning tiger. Shera truly represents the modern Indian. He is an achiever with a positive attitude, a global citizen but justifiably proud of his nation’s ancient heritage, a fierce competitor but with integrity and honesty. Shera is also a ‘large-hearted gentleman’ who loves making friends and enthusing people to ‘come out and play’.

In Indian mythology, the tiger is associated with Goddess Durga, the embodiment of Shakti (or female power) and the vanquisher of evil. She rides her powerful vehicle – the tiger – into combat, especially in her epic and victorious battle against Mahishasur, a dreaded demon.

Shera embodies values that the nation is proud of: majesty, power, charisma, intelligence and grace. His athletic prowess, courage and speed on the field are legendary. He is also a reminder of the fragile environment he lives in and our responsibility towards the protection of his ecosystem.

There are some Mascots in Indian history who have gain tremendous success. Let us discuss about some of them.

gattu in asian paints

Mascot Name: Gattu

Representing: Asian Paints

Created By: R.K. Laxman

This Gattu character got a big success in advertisement industry. It was able to appeal the nerves of the common man. This mascot shows the love of Gattu with Asian Paint that how desperate he is to paint. Look at the passion and zeal of that boy that he has painted his arms and legs even.

 

 

AmulGirl MascotMascot Name: Amul Girl

Representing: Amul Butter

Created By: Eustace Fernandes

Amul girl, dressed up in polka dots with blue hair and orange face, ruled the hearts of millions of Indians, since 1966. The ad became a roar with the tagline 'Utterly butterly delicious Amul'. The Mascot attracts the attention of Kids and Children, ultimately tending the elders one even to buy it. Advertisements are many in India yet nothing can score higher and privileged than the iconic Amul girl, which turns 44 this year, is all set to enter the Guinness Book of World Records for being the longest running campaign in the world.

 

 

air-india-mascot-maharajaMascot Name: Maharaja

Representing: Air India

Created By: J Walter Thompson

The success of Maharaja is not hidden from anyone. What Maharaja has given to Air India might not have been given by anything else in the history of Air India. This cartoon is making the customer feel like Kings that have been served with pride. Air India is trying to give Royal Hospitality to their customers with this Mascot

Mascots are playing vital role in giving the feel of Relatedness to the customers and are very helpful in Brand Promotion.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Strategic Battle among Top Noodle Brands

indexNoodles market in India is not any smaller. Its around Rs. 1500 crore business in the country. Even one percentage share in this big market is worth the investment and time. When you say noodles, it pretty much mean Maggi Noodles in India. Yes, over the past one decade Nestle has been a monopoly in the noodles food segment. Maggi is the market leader with 70% market share ( Business Standard). A huge market with one major market leader is definitely an attractive one. That is one of the reason why so many players have recently launched their brand in this segment.

Few years back Reliance tried to capture the Maggie’s market with its Noodles under the private label of Reliance Select but it was not successful in doing that. Now this year the two well known FMCG players HUL and GSK have introduced their own brands of Noodles. Knorr is from HUL and Foodles is from GSK. They have launched their Noodles in variants of tastes and ingredients. Nissin’s Ramen Noodles is the most renowned brand in the World for Noodles but that is for Non Vegetarians. After all Sunfeast. Between, where is ITC in instant food segment? Yes, ITC entered the Noodles market with its Sunfeast Yippee.

So this was all about their Strategic Battle, now let us talk about their Advertisement Battles.

MAGGI(Nestle)

What do you understand from the advertisements of Maggi?? Watch them carefully…  The ads indicates towards something, and the ads are informative.

The ads of Maggi are micro family oriented especially Mother and Kids. The special focus is on the time saving factor that the noodles get prepared in 2 minutes only. One thing is very common in the ads of Maggi. Moms are wearing yellow in all the Ads- Yellow, the Maggi Color.

Maggi after establishing itself in the category of Instant Food, now launched Atta Noodles ‘Taste Bhi Health Bhi’. Yes the ad is emphasizing on the 2 factors, one is Health and other is nutrition. But we cannot ignore the main factor that is the main reason of targeting it esp. to Mothers(wearing yellow), that is it can be prepared in 2 minutes only. So, it also attract kids and children so that whenever they will demand the food will be ready.

Maggi Atta noodles contains processed vegetables in it and it promises the diet equal to 3 chapattis, with this it gave birth to the competition bringing other players to come up with noodles having vegetables in itself.

Now the companies are trying to bring more variants to this sector. Now watch he ad campaigns of Knorr.

KNORR(HUL)

Knorr in order to compete Maggi followed the same Funda of targeting Micro Family esp. kids and mom but here the message is different to some extent. The ads indicates towards Fun and Entertainment and the variants in flavors.

The ads are cartoonised  in order to attract kids, so it is very clear that the target audience are kids even here. So that Moms can serve delicious food to their children. The cartoons are used to indicate the flavor – Lemon & Tomato- Iska Magic Hee Aur.

Knorr is the king of Soups as Maggi is of Noodles. Now maggi has launched its soups and knorr has launched its Noodles to show their rivalry. But knorr gave a new dimension to the category of soups and noodles by launching its Soupy Noodles-  khaa ke pio, pee ke khao.
 
Knorr endorsed Kajol for the ad of its soupy noodles. The reason behind taking Kajol is her Motherly figure. Kajol is married and has kids so the product could not have been advertised by any other icon. Everyone has seen the Mania of endorsing Kajol in the ads of Alpenlibe. So taking Kajol as the Brand Icon of Knorr is not a bad idea.
 
Lets see what targets Knorr will achieve in the category of Instant Food.
 
Horlics Foodles(GSK)

 
The Ads of Horlics Foodles doesn’t make it clear that what different or extra it is providing to its customers. A child is eating Noodles and Mom is running behind him saying that Noodles fir-se NO, and then there is tug of war using Noodle fibre between Moms and Children – NO Bunty NO. The reason of war is that Noodle word starts with NO that itself says that don’t eat noodles. Then Foodles appear sliding the earth in the same style as in out Mythology during Samundra Manthan. The line Noodles mein NO nahin … Ab aa gaye Foodles  doesn’t gives any message but the purpose of the ad is just to catch the attention of TV viewers rest it is just emphasising on the word Foodles so that the customes doesn’t get confused between Noodles and Foodles, leading to the purchase of Foodles only, saying that we should not eat noodles but only Foodles. This is the new style of competitive branding in which a new name is given to the whole category i.e. Noodles is given the name of Foodles.
 
Sunfeast Yippee(ITC)
 

The Yippee is challenging the market of Maggi directly. Maggi noodles gets very sticky after a few minutes of cooking. So Yippee giving that message through its ads that Yippee noodles don’t get sticky even after a long time. And the ad is taking help of Cricket to catch the attention. Yippee as targeted Kidz

Yippee has come up with a sort of innovation in the size and design of it Noodles. As Maggi slices are rectangular one but the yippee noodles are round shaped, to give the ease in cooking. The round shape is for the purpose so that there should not be any need to break the noodles into pieces while cooking and the noodles come into the pan as it is. There is one more advantage of that, it gives the real feel of eating noodles because the strings don’t get break and the long noodle treads get into the mouth.

This was all the Advertisement Battle in Instant Food sector, that has just started breaking the monopoly of Maggi. And now lets see where it will come to end.

Friday, December 10, 2010

No Idea Get Idea: Mobile Number Portability

On one hand where Airtel is on the verge of Rebranding itself with new Logo, Tune and Campaigns, on other hand one of its rival telecomm company is busy in generating new ideas. I hope you might have got that of which company I am talking about. Yes, I am talking about !dea .

As the name suggests !dea always comes up with some new ideas to appease its customers. Sometimes it brings some social messages like save trees by reducing the use of paper and sometimes it brings education for all.

Teach Everyone with !dea Mobile

There are various ads in which !dea is found to be not discussing its services but just giving message to the public that what they can do with an !dea phone. The message are like bringing democracy through !dea or eradicating the language barriers through  !dea .

No Language barriers if you have !dea

So the ads of !dea are known for bringing new ideas to people suggesting new reasons to buy !dea .

After getting the Green Signal for MNP- Mobile Network Portability, !dea launched its campaign for MNP before the launch of the service, leaving no chance for its competitors to capture its market share through this MNP service. The service will allow the users to switch the mobile operator without changing the number. And !dea  is seeking for its rival’s customers to switch over to it’s network. We can very easily identify the level of SWOT analysis done by Aditya Birla Group.

!dea is trying to attract its Rival’s market share on the basis of following 4 basic issues:

1. Unnecessary balance deduction

If you have unnecessary balance deductions then switch to !dea
 
2. Excessive Mobile Bill
 
Switch to !dea if you have excessive mobile bill
 
3. Network Problems
 
Switch to !dea if you are stuck up with Network Problems
 
4. Wait on Customer care number
 
Get !dea to reach customer care immediately
 
!dea , very selectively has given the name to its campaign – No Idea? Get Idea.
The campaign says that if you have no Idea that why you are facing these problem then switch to !dea . The Ads shows the scenes of 4 different places – Office, Parking, Lift and Bus that shows its approach in targeting the places too. If you are in Bus, Office, Lift or in Underground Parking you will get the Network and Services of !dea , this is the approach in showing these places.
 
The company is expanding its business right now, though it is one of the initiator of mobile services in India with the name of ESCOTEL, yet it is still growing.
Here I have an Idea – The Idea is that I need the valuable comments of my readers about what more I can add to my posts and what are the areas of improvements.
 
WHAT AN IDEA SIR JI… tin tin tining
So, everyone please comment…
 

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Airtel’s Rebranding: More of Global than Indian

After the busy schedule of 2 weeks, again I am back with some interesting and exciting facts about Advertising. I am very sorry from my readers for not posting since a week. Last time we discussed about the strategies of Bajaj and Hero Honda. But this time I am here with some different stuff.

Everyone knows that the logo of Airtel has been changed. And I know that everyone is thinking that why Airtel changed its logo and what was the strategy behind that. India's telecomm giant Airtel underwent a total makeover - it has a new logo, a remixed signature tune and a re-launched ad campaign. This massive investment has been made to create a new global identity for the Airtel brand. After global acquisition with Zain Telecom (African telecom company) Airtel felt the need to change its logo. Airtel is going to be a multi billion company worldwide. Airtel has acquired a whole lot of companies like Zain in Africa and Warid in Bangladesh. The company is trying to gain an international image -- a “new, modern, more friendly and accessible” image in the minds of all the users in these various countries. It has been changed in the supervision of advertising agency J Walter Thompson also known as JWT. It is first time after 15 years when company has changed its logo completely.

Just look at the NEW logo of airtel

airtel-logo-1

And now look at the Old one

Airtel-logo

Which one is more attractive??

  • The capital A has been replaced in the logo
  • The red color is the prominent color in the new logo. Red color is for heritage, energy and passion.
  • The lowercase is to signify humility.
  • The font wants to showcase a dynamic force of “unparalleled energy”.
  • Competitive Advantage: The new logo looks very similar to that of Vodafone and Videocon. Even the color and background makes it similar to Vodafone.
  • Earlier Airtel’s logo was un-understandable by the people who don’t understand english, as the word Airtel was a part of Logo. Now, the logo provides global advantage.

Now watch the New and Old TV ads of Airtel…

New Ad with New LOGO, caption and tune

Ad with old LOGO and tune

Which one is more appealing??

  • The new commercials feature foreign models. It makes Airtel a global brand.
  • The second Ad is the old one. The ad is very inspiring that correlates the past of telecomm industry with India
     

Now listen the New and Old Airtel Tunes

The latest Airtel TUNE

Airtel NEW Signature tune

The Previous Tune

The old sizzling Music

Which one is more pleasing??

 

For the rebranding of Airtel’s  new logo company has spent Rs. 300 Crores. The new identity of the brand will be transparent all across India, Shri Lanka, Bangladesh, Africa and Seychelles.

Airtel with the new LOGO also  has introduced a new positioning statement -- Dil jo chahe pass laye and what’s more, it even has a new JINGLE which is of course made by tweaking the old one and making it more techno. And let me say something – the old jingle was miles ahead. Melodic and pleasing.

Whatever rebranding Airtel is doing under the supervision of JWT, but as per me it is not going to effect Indian market favorably. In my eyes the old logo was more catchy and old tune was more pleasing and melodious. And as the airtel is endorsing only the foreign models in its Ads, it may adversely effect the brand image. If airtel would have created another Ad similar to the Ad shown above the ‘Ad with old LOGO and tune’, it would have impacted the Indian market positively. India is known for its tradition and culture, so endorsing Indian models, showing Indian roads and buildings could prove to be more effective in the Indian market.

But, yes ofcourse the reframed Ad Campaign is significant in the Global Space and yes it will definitely bring advantage to the company on International Levels.

A complete Ad.. including new logo with animation and music.

I usually says that Innovation has no bounds. Innovation always bring some positive results. And same is the case here that everyone can feel and smell the innovation in the reframed branding strategy of Airtel. Though its effect in India is under suspicion yet its significance on the Multinational Levels can’t be underestimated.