Cosmetic Changes in a Product

Direct consumer contact through setting-up small exclusive stalls in front of malls is an idea which is picking up in the country. In the last few months I have seen many of them in front of the various malls which i have visited across the country. Yesterday I did decide to go into a stall/ exhibition organized by Godrej for the home appliances division. Actually this was my second visit in the first visit none of the people in the stall had any interest in speaking to me , but this time atleast on of the sales guys came up to me to show the appliances. The exhibition as specifically to promote the "Eon" range of home appliances. I was shown all the variety which was there, my interest was in the "Eon" fridge range. My first question - as would be of any consumer was 'what is new in this fridge versus the old versions you have?'. I was told that it had more vents than the older fridge so provided better cooling, for second advantage was i was shown some clips which were put on the freezer, and was told that they could be used to hang poly-packs. The third was that in the frisge there was more space for bottles and one could store 2.5 liter bottles. The seperators were made of plastic and warranty and other stuff. I was expeting the saleman to come up with some thing more about the product, when he brought out a book and asked me to give my name and address.I gave hime my card and went on to watch the movie which was about to start.

But later on reflecting on the experience two things struck me as odd, one was a minor one, on the use of having such stalls in the first place, when you don't have staff or have staff which is inadequately trained to explain the benefits of a new product to a consumer.I though with all the money going in for creating a sub-brand Godrej must be having some thing up its sleeve to corner more market share, I decided to a Google to find out about the product features, and all the information I could get was what the salesman had told me at the stall.I went to the company website to find out more about the new range , but there also couldn't get any additional information. This brings us to the second and more important point, do companies like Godrej expect to attract customers through such cosmetic changes to a product. For me as a consumer I couldn't see even a single compelling reason why I should go and buy the 'Eon" range.

PS: When i opened one of the refrigerators in the stall i found it was stuffed with promotional material, of which i was not given any. How much would it cost for the company to keep the fridge running during the time the stall, runs, and give a chance to the consumer to experience the product in its running condition.

Brand Similarity

Most of our efforts in marketing are directed towards creating and building a brand, through which our customers are able to recognize us and patronize us. And over a period of time we hope to be able to capitalize on the equity we have created through brand extensions. But this was all very true some ten years back, today things are changing very fast, in terms of the media, technology, new product development, competitive initiatives, which are all leading to a scenario of 'brand similarity'.

When with in a product category brands become similar, there is nothing on which a consumer can differentiate them, part from price. I was thinking about the categories in which brands have become similar, but initially found it very difficult, as a marketer it was difficult to for me to believe that brands could be similar, sort of an oxymoron.

But after some thinking i did come up with some examples , but more of them were in the commodity nature,,,,,the context of brand similarity or dissimilarity is the impact that sales promotion would have one the long-terms sales of a brand. In a category were brand dissimilarity exists promotions might have an longer-term impact than in categories where brands are more similar.

Then on a single day i got two good examples, and one from personal experience and other one from the newspaper. First the personal example, I have been planning to purchase a 240 liter two door fridge for quite some time now. And after many days of procrastinating i walked into a consumer durables shop near-by and started my inquiry. A very good salesman from the shop came and showed the various models which were available. Hew showed me three brands Godrej, LG, and some of brand. I asked him the price he said 12990/- for all the three brands. If I wanted a metallic finish i had to pay 1000/- more. I took some literature and came back to the office. I wanted to buy a fridge but was not sure of which brand, all the brand were similar to my mind. I am yet to decide on which one to buy. I read a similar experience of a business standard columnist in choosing between a WagonR and Zen Estilo....

Life for the average marketer is only going to become tougher...............

A good book on Marketing Issues in India

Prof S Ramesh Kumar of IIM Bangalore has written a book Marketing and Branding - The Indian Scenario. The main strength of the book lies in the Indian examples used to illustrate major concepts in marketing. The book is divided into five chapters, the first one is on product and branding, second one on distribution and retail, third on pricing, fourth on psychological dimensions of marketing and last one on promotion and communication. A good read for people interested in marketing issues related to India.

Packaging the 5th P

Packaging though not part of the original 4 Ps , it sure deserves a place in the Indian marketers product mix. Though it is probably in the developing markets that it holds more importance than in the developed markets of the west. In India companies like CavinKare have achieved success in the shampoo markets through the introduction of sachets in the early 1980s, and in fact ushered in the sachet revolution in the country with most the FMCG majors following up with their own sachets. Today one can find anything from coconut oil to tea powder in sachets. The advantage for the consumer is he gets to use a product at a lowered per use cost and easy of trail. There was a time 5-6 years back when the prices of the sachets when combined were cheaper than the bigger packs offered by the same company, now that anomaly has been removed. In my recent train travels I was given pickles by the pantry in sachets, worth 50pcs each, the brand was 'Chinni' again from CavinKare.

More details on Cavinkare at www.cavinkare.com

Tata Ace - Marketing Success?

Tata Ace is one product which I have been eager to talk about for along time. First look at the vehicle will not show anything special about it. It will look like any of the umpteen ubiquitous small transport vehicles which ply around the roads in the country. The only thing different is apparently the fourth wheel which is added to it. Though it looks very commonplace, but it has had phenomenal success in the market place.

To start with a brief about the product, the company Tata Motors calls it the India's first mini truck. The 0.75 tone Mini Truck from Tata is powered by a small and efficient 16bhp 700 cc IDI diesel engine. It is priced between 2.2 Lakhs to 2.35 Lakhs. It is suitable for both rural and urban use. The company has a dedicated website where more information can be got, http://ace.tatamotors.com .

The impact of the launch can be seen from the dip in the sales of the cargo three-wheeler maker, a 9% drop for the six month period April-Jan 2006 in favor of Ace, whose sales grew by 117% .The company has doubled the manufacturing capacity of Ace seeing the market response. It has achieved all this without a pan country presence.

The question which is worth raising is that why could Tata Motors see an opportunity in developing a four-wheel version of the Mini Truck and none of the dominant players could see the opportunity. Is it that market leader become complacent with their existing success and they cannot see beyond their existing products. This would actually be a level lower than even Theodore Levitt's "Marketing Myopia". Now all major players are planning to come up with a four-wheel mini truck and enter the segment in response to the success of Ace.

Indian Market - Is the Elephant running?

The first blog on marketing in India is driven by fact and figures which I have been reading in the newspapers lately. We are in the middle of the festive season, which begins in September with Ganesh Chaturthi and other festivals and runs till end Jan including Christmas and New Year. This is the time where most of the promos, new product launches are packed in and sales people across the country keep their figures crossed to reach their sale targets. But this October we have seen phenomenal sales figures, though the monthly figures are still trickling in , a sample of the sales of few brands and comapnies,

Nokia sold 4 lakh handsets on 19th October, which is it's highest record sales that the company has achieved anywhere in the world. In total all mobile companies put together have added over 6.6 million subscribers in October, compared with a total 1.6 million subscribers in 2000.

Coming to another brand, ALTO of Maruti sold 22,294 units in October, which is a record sales for any model and make in India. The overall industry growth was also very good the mini and compact cars grew by over 19%, vis-à-vis the same period last year,

In the two wheeler segment , most of the motorcycle manufactures have seen good growth in October , most of them have seen a growth of more than 20%. Hero Honda alone has sold over half a million two-wheelers in October, which is record even for the world's No.1 two-wheeler company.

I can go on and on for different brands and segments, but the point is that we are entering a phase of unprecedented growth and challenges for Indian Marketers. The blog will try to bring the readers updated with the latest development and changes in the Indian market place.