Building brands takes ingenuity, hardwork, economic cost and sometimes luck. We all know how Xerox, FedEx, Kodak and Dalda are generic terms for photocopying, overnight delivery, photography and vanaspati oil. However, one wrong step or negative publicity could dissipate all the goodwill built over the years. Cadburys get worms in their chocolate. Only a belated admission of ineffective packaging and Amitabh Bachchan exhorting the goodness of the good old Dairy Milk Chocolate in new impoved packaging could bring back the customers' trust. Similarly, it took Aamir Khan walking around a bottling plant for Coca Cola to bounce back from the pesticide controversy.
Parle with its Glucon-D branded glucose biscuits knows how to dominate its market – high penetration with distributors at block levels, good margins all around, brand familiarity through smiling baby wrapper, value for money with products priced at rupees two, four and five. Parle brand has an enduring promise that delivers consistent quality to occupy customer's minds. Biggest complement for Parle is when knockoffs like Parlo start making their appearance. This strategy of having brands rather than products that are transient in nature and vary over time has pushed companies like Britannia, Sunfeast and Priyagold into the backseat.
Similarly, Ghari dominates in a world of Rin, Wheel and Nirma. Ghari offers the most visible benefit for a detergent – gives foam and cleans even when washed in hard water. Backed with the familiar jingle on radio and TV, good company support, good margins and distributors present at block levels make it the brand to beat.
For Drishtee selling such blockbuster brands is no problem – loyal customers and therefore large volumes. However, it does not make business sense. Companies do not offer margins, and they do not want a parallel network that will antagonise and provoke their dealer network and they do not see any value benefits teaming up with Drishtee.
For Drishtee, therefore the business motivation to promote alternative brands is great:
- Higher margins
- Build customer dependancy and therefore prempt competition
- Generate own brand building experience and learning
- Experience to later help in introducing Drishtee private labels
It is imperative that we shift from the business of supplying products to managing and building brands. In Mathura we have had fair success in building brands to replace Parle and Ghari. We have worked on our competitive advantage of providing access to unconnected and marginalised rural communities. Through SCM we are giving options to customers to choose. For a product offering comparable benefits, value for money and ease of access plays an important role in swaying customers' brand loyalty.
Of course, changing brand loyalty is not easy and takes time and effort. We all love our brands and unless competing brand offers compelling reasons, we will not switch. Personally, I will go to three different shops to find my favourite cinthol soap but will not buy a lux which is available everywhere. But a in rural market that is starved of choices, this can be done.
However big, marketers are not perfect. Otherwise why Nirma and Chik would be giving stiff competition to HUL's detergents and shampoos. Parle and Ghari do have weaknesses. They have total channel absence in form of distributor vehicle and salesmen in remote villages. Since they are the dominant brands, people have not seen or experienced alternate brands. Biscuits and soaps have bulky cartons and RRPs would prefer these be delivered at their doorstep. For these reasons, RRPs are willing to try new products and brands as long as they have certain promise, novelty and easy reach.
We introduced Sunfeast biscuits as an alternative to Parle. Sunfeast is a relatively new brand and had minimum rural presence with a single distributor for entire Mathura. Luckily it has the same pack sizes and Shah Rukh Khan's endorsement helps. People find the sunfeast biscuits better baked and better tasting. Sunfeast is now an acceptable brand for people.
Nirma was chosen as an alternative to Ghari. Nirma again had no rural presence with Ghari dominating the cake market and Doctor dominating the detergent powder market. Also, we found out that few years ago Nirma was wiped out from the rural market since it did not foam up in hard water. The distributor revealed that Nirma has changed the formulation of its detergent cake and has introduced it as Nirma Popular in yellow colour. That time the cake also weighed more than a similarly priced Ghari. This communication in the filed was reinforced time and again and Nirma made a comeback. Distributor now visits the office and takes payment when we recieve goods.
From the time when Sunfeast biscuits and Nirma were totally missing from the shelves of the RRPs, today these brands are offering stiff competition to the established brands. Drishtee gets better margins and leeway for terms negotiations and customers have more choices.
Going forward we need to turn more fringe and local brands into major brands in our markets. We already have the experience and the confidence. Few suggested steps could be:
- Every division to have a minium number of alternative brands
- Special focus on these brands by AC – Procurement
- 'Focussed selling' by call centre
- Feel and Touch by delivery executive/sales executive
- Free samples
- Targetted sales percentage to come from these alternative brands
- Deemphasis of major brands
We will have more success stories like Sunfeast and Nirma. But the mantra would be the same - differentiated product, focused distribution & sales and strong customer connect built on enduring promise.
Nirdesh Singh
(With inputs from KB Singh, Chief Correspondent – Mathura)