Not missing the woods for...

What happens to the sponsorship market when the golfing icon, the world’s first billionaire athlete, decides to take an indefinite break from pro golf in favour of other, more controversial pursuits? Mayhem would be an understatement. Understandably, Tiger Woods has been dumped by Accenture Plc. While some have been supportive, others like Swiss watch maker Tag Heuer plan to spend the next few weeks assessing their relationship with Woods. But the golfer’s fall from grace will, in all probability, hurt the multi billion dollar sponsorship market bad. As Woods continues to get lurid and unrelenting media coverage for his personal demons, the $12 billion a year endorsement industry is aware that their poster boy has more potential to harm than help brands right now. And given the stakes, it seems that the worst sufferer in this entire episode will be the PGA Tour. Not everyone views Woods as a negative asset however. Gillette (a unit of US consumer giant Procter & Gamble) for one does not plan to sever its ties completely with the icon and plans to support Woods’ desire for privacy by limiting his role in marketing programs. Nike (supposed to be Wood’s best known endorsement) goes a step ahead and is standing by Woods; with CEO Phil Knight stating that these indiscretions are but a minor blip. Clearly, not everyone is abandoning Woods, who earns an estimated $100 million a year from endorsements. Sponsors like Electronic Arts Inc, TLC Vision Corp, Upper Deck, Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s NetJet et al plan to stick with Woods. Whoever said golf wasn’t a team sport needs a reality check!

Gyanendra Kashyap

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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While you were sleeping…

Prof Arindam Chaudhuri of IIPM on MF HUSAIN‎

If you are a market leader or a brand with long years of expertise or a trusted name, reassurance advertising that reinforces trust may sometimes work as a great slowdown strategy. We’ve seen a lot of that in recent times. A case in point is ICICI bank, which maintained its leadership position by reinforcing ‘50 years of believing in each other’ – a platform that celebrated its long years of existence, expertise and partnership. Tata Capital, which came in as a new player at the height of slowdown, made the unusual choice driving reassurance at launch when it went with the ‘We’ll only do what’s right for you’ campaign. The importance of driving trust and reassurance in the insecure, volatile climate of a slowdown can’t be over-emphasised. And even far away from the world of commerce, it’s interesting to note that the Congress party has used the reassurance logic when it mentioned the progress made by its government as part of its election strategy.

Then there has been a third category of players who were already faltering on growth or image or relevance, even before the slowdown. The advent of the slowdown gave them the impetus to correct their course. A case in point is Videocon, which came out with its well thought out repositioning strategy that involved a new visual identity and a change in approach to get connected better with today’s consumers. The new positioning line of ‘Experience change’ as well as the ‘Chouw Mouw’ campaign fell in very neatly with the overall attempt to make brand Videocon fresher, younger and more relevant.

So, is re-branding and repositioning every brand’s strategic answer to every slowdown? Looking at the experiences of various marketers, the answer would be that ‘It all depends’. If a man wants to look more modern, then wearing rimless glasses and pink shirts, and parting your hair in a different way is not the only way to go. And the story is the same with brands. Marketing budgets are always tight, and especially during a slowdown, one has to be choosy about how best they can be employed, because every decision takes money away from another. And sometimes there are some high efficacy answers to be found without the need for any drastic repositioning exercise. Thums Up had a record year without any change in its campaign, much less any repositioning. Idea Cellular’s ‘What an idea sirji’ campaign, followed by the ‘Walk when you talk’ campaign not only helped the brand make a turnaround, but also drove saliency and a more youthful image. Similarly, Complan grew despite commanding a price premium in the heart of the slowdown, by its simple choice of driving its irresistible kesar-badam flavour with advertising targeted at kids. And driving its growth message harder by the ‘Twice as fast’ claim.

Once the genuine need for rebranding is established, a slowdown is as good a time as any other to carry it through. Since many advertisers cut back in times of slowdown, consumers tend to pay more attention to the brands that are advertising and what they are saying during a slowdown. The problem comes when brand and agency teams get too trigger-happy and repositioning becomes the easy way out.

At the end of the day, it comes down to good judgment. Marketers who can look objectively at their brands, keep their hand steady and their minds ticking even as the markets slump, will live through the slowdown, and when they wake up the next day, their world will be straight again!

Arvind Sharma is Chairman-Indian Subcontinent, Leo Burnett

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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BALD, BIZARRE, BRILLIANT, BROTHERS!

IIPM fights meltdown, places 2300 students By Education Mail Bureau

“Inseparable” or “truly connected” as they call themselves, the brothers stuck together in the early years of their career but went their own ways in 2001. Raghu came to Bombay to look for jobs and tried to renew previous professional contacts. “I went to MTV; and they rejected me. Then I tried everywhere else and it didn’t happen. I was up sh%t and creek. In Mumbai, I was living with a guy who was living in a room as a PG and hadn’t paid rent for one and a half years,” Raghu seems repentant, though humorously. Rajiv, on the other hand, stayed in Delhi and tried his hands on many things. He was instrumental in the launch of satellite radio WorldSpace in India and the relaunch of Channel V. He also directed ads during this time. But ‘connected’ as they were (and are), they couldn’t stay away from each other for long and Rajiv joined Raghu in Mumbai in the job hunt. And then came, as Raghu reveals, his two most career defining moments. The first defining moment of his life was replying to an ad by Delhi based BBC World Service Trust in 2002. “I landed from Bombay to Delhi with a couple of friends. Rajiv too came with me and we went to the BBC office to drop my resume… The guard stopped me outside and asked me to leave the biodata there. I still remember there was a hut-like wooden structure for the guard to sit and that was stacked up with resumes... I was not in the first list as they went by the who’s who of television. But they called me in the second list, I went there and I got the job...” And while Raghu was working in BBC, he got a call from MTV to join them for Roadies season one. And that was his second defining moment. The ‘inseparable’ Rajiv couldn’t hold back and he too joined MTV. But he didn’t work on Roadies. Instead handled other things like style shows, music videaos, awards et al.

“And that’s when things started happening for us,” Raghu exclaims excitedly. And even since 2003, when Roadies debuted, each season of the show has got double or more TRPs than the previous season. In fact, Roadies, for information, is the longest running reality show of the country. While Raghu is more focused, Rajiv believes more in versatility. And that’s one sharp difference between the two. Perhaps it was versatility which led Rajiv to quit MTV in 2007 to join another production house, which also he quit within a few months to join Colosceum as its first employee. Today, the production house is known too famously for its shows like Splitsvilla, Jai Shri Krishna, et al.

For a man who has quit the television industry thrice in fourteen years, when quizzed about his too frequent job jumps, Rajiv comments, “I know I will quit television again soon. Maybe I will make a movie... that’s one area I have not tried my hands on.” But aren’t chances of failure higher in the movie industry? “Success has been a tricky mistress, but failure is a true friend. Whenever I have failed, I have shot up with new success. And whenever I become successful, I tend to get bored and try the next available thing... so I think it is OK to fail.” Joined at the hip not only to themselves, but also to their jobs (Raghu’s wife Sugandha Garg, an actress, calls him ‘MTV ka Damaad’ colloquially), the two brothers commit to excellence in creativity. But at the cost of even expletives? Raghu recalls one dinner talk his father had with him, “He said ‘I don’t think you should be that rude with the kids; they are nice.’ I snapped back and asked, ‘Why’, and he said ‘Because when you use abusive language, people talk bad about you, and I don’t like that.’ And I realized that I had never thought about what my parents must be going through when people talk bad about me.”

The Occult’s first rightful entrants: the bald, bizarre, brilliant brothers!

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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GM’s India plans…

Karl Slym, MD, GM India

GM car owners in India would certainly be asking this question with dread – Will GM India be fully insulated from the crisis on American soil?” Karl Slym, MD, GM India, seeks to assure them all, including, of course, those who are planning to purchase a new GM car, “We are committed to ensuring that our customers continue to receive a top-notch sales, service, spare parts and warranty coverage experience. Our dealers will also continue to receive all our carlines, while our suppliers will continue to work with us to supply parts and components for our cars, which we will continue to build at our state-of-the-art Talegaon and Halol facilities...” There is no denying that its India operations are fully insulated from what is happening to its parent company but there is an indirect impact on the company. If we go by the words of the suppliers, the picture is entirely different. “Though GM India is not dependent on its parent company, but it will take a hit on its sales on the grounds of brand equity,” said a vendor to the company on conditions of anonymity. As it is, the company hasn’t been doing well for 5-6 months now. GM India saw a yoy sales fall of as high as 11% in May, 13% in April and 26% in March. They have already been slow to innovate on new models as compared to the competition. Moreover, if customers are gripped by the fear factor in a country like India, even the three year warranty with no maintenance cost and service cost cannot make them line up outside GM showrooms. Clearly, GM’s communications department will have its hands full at the moment.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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