Appropriate Hoarding in Temple Town of Puri

Interesting Hoarding on the Road

Forgotten Brands

It must be true for the other markets also, but I find this a little surprising when I see very good brands languishing in neglect in a market where there is a dearth of good brands. I saw one example yesterday in a shop and that triggered this post. The brand which I am talking about is catch, it use to a quite well-known brand a couple of decades back, but now I do not think many people would think of it is a strong brand. 

A more recent example is a brand in apparels - ColorPlus, it again use to a  very strong brand in cotton apparels , but now today I do not see it occupying the mindshare as it use to 10-12 years back.

One of the reasons is that these two brands were bought over by larger player like Raymonds bought Colour Plus, but then rather than leveraging the brands name , it has left to die, maybe some the internal dynamics of the organization would dictate that or the brand gets lost amidst  the numerous brands that the acquirer has.

The list of the forgotten brands is very long, Uncle Chips, Deccan Airways, Kelvinator...

Nokia will also join the list soon, at least in the mobiles....

Sachets and their role in increasing category penetration

Sachets are perhaps the most important innovation to happen in the Indian market in the recent times. They say that litmus test for a real good innovation is that after it is executed it seems very simple and apparent, that is true for the use of sachets in India. Another reason could be the fact that we are naturally used to buying in smaller quantities be it buying cigarettes in sticks, oil in loose , one just needs to go to the hinter lands to see what can be sold in smaller quantities.

The overall role of small packs in increasing penetration of categories like shampoos in rural India is an old story.

A few days back saw the small packs of Hershey's Syrup. My guess is that this is an adaptation for the Indian market. Will surely promote the trial of the product especially in India where familiarity with the category is low.