Customer is the King......Gimme a break

Several observers of the Indian market have time and again mentioned that the Indian customer has arrived and so is customer service in terms of exceeding his expectations. I think we still have a long way to go when it comes to serving the customer and genuinely making an effort to retain him. Let me narrate a story. Last week I went to this supermarket, Nilgiris, a100-year old brand that has a loyal clientele. The shop is very congested with narrow aisles flooded with merchandise. I was looking for an after shave for my husband. The after shave brands were all placed at the top of the rack. They were very closely packed and one had to make an effort and at the same time show a lot of caution while removing the preferred one. When I picked up one of the brands, the pack nxt to it fell thud on the floor and smashed inot pieces. Immediately the sales gal came running to look at the damage and informed that it would be billed. I continued with my purchase and very time I picked up something, there was someother product tumbling down. I also picked up a couple of aprons for which the price sticker was missing.

I got to know the price only after the bill was printed out at the billing counter. I pointed out to the manager of the store that the merchandise had to be properly arranged so that one could use single hand to pick up products from the shelves. I was told that I was the only customer who seemed to have a problem. I was in turn advised to ask for an escort at the store. As a matter of fact, this information was nowhere displayed in the store. The manager did not even acknowledge the suggestion or register the compalaint of a customer. I duly paid for the broken bottle of after shave, cursed Nilgiris that I would never visit them again. But does it matter to the retailer? A small percentage of this huge population is sufficient for the retailer to meet his costs and make a decent profit. This apart, I noticed the price on the aprons written with a felt pen in one of the corners of the cloth and barely visible. Is this not a perfect case of hiding information that is vaulable for the customer?

The hype that is created around the buzzwords 'the Indian customer', 'customer service' and 'customer retention' fall apart in the wake of such events. So what next? I would visit a different super market and Nilgiris would continue to 'entice' customers.

The brand that indeed unites the colors

One of the world's most controversial brands is the United Colors of Benetton (UCB). Unlike other companies that makes unrealistic statements about their brands, UCB works the other way around. It believes in taking a stance in the real world instead of using its advertising budget to perpetuate the myth that consumers can be happy by the mere purchase of UCB clothes. Its trademark of colorful jumpers is a part of the visual imagery but not the focus of its print and billboard ads. There are several ads of UCB that truly unite the colors vby showing multiethnic and multicultural models.UCB has also courted controversy by a series of unsettling images-blood covered babies, a dying AIDS patient, a child soldier and several others. The irony is that controversy only served to elevate the brand UCB further.

Absolutly Absolut

Anybody who wants to understand advertising can hardly ignore this advertising history - Absolut Vodka. Generally vodka is beleived to be a Russian (or Ukrainian?) brand. And Absolut being a Swedish Govt. product had to break the convention. There was nothing much to talk about the product. Vodka, being a colorless liquid was packaged in odd-looking medicine bottles and the company wanted to highlight the absolute purity of the brand. The company also had the origins clearly printed on the bottle. The ad agency, TBWA coined a simple two-word formula, "Absolut Perfection" in 1981. The ad also depicted the bottle being shown against a halo. This ad was followed by similar such ads which clebrated the bottle as the hero and with just two words. The rest is advertising history.

The campaign has been running successfully since 1981 even today. More than 1500 print ads have been released. These ads have caught the imagination of hobbyists the world over. Several sites, like ebay, sell these ads. The Absolut campaign is so successful that many artists have featured the Absolut bottle in their ads. For instance Andy Warhol the renowned painter and David Cameron, the fashion photographer. in the Absolut Cameron ad, the model becomes the bottle with the label being transformed on to her dress.

The company sources water from one well, grain from one field and production from only one plant in Sweden even till today. Every year during winter, it creates an Ice Hotel featuring an Absoult bar and invites guests. It also conducts premier exhibitions of the work that features the Absolut bottle. In the US, Absolut Vodka is the No. 1 imported vodka in the premium category and No.1 in the world. This is a perfect example of sheer advertising success.

Have a look at the ads. The hero of each copy is the bottle and the magic created by just two words.

What is a brand?

I have been talking in length about brand positioning and other aspects of branding. But what is a brand? In my opinion, a brand is a distinct identity given to a company's product. It should be visualized and vocalized. It begins with a name being given to the product. may be distinctive font and color. for instance, Cadburys. A symbol can be tagged to the name, like Nike, Reebok, amazon.com. The symbol or the visual identity is called the logo. A lot of reserach goes into selecting the names and logos. Fedex has an arrow depicting moving forward, amazon.com has a smiley signifying service with a smile and an arrow from a to z (amazon) telling customers that it has everything from a to z. A mid-tier IT company in India, MindTree Consulting has its logo painted by a student of the Spastics society, which again signifies the vision of the company.

Of late, companies are trying to add another dimension to the brand. Identifying a distinct smell to the brand. This is a relatively new attempt in the context of branding. Otherwise retailers selling food, flowers have used both visual and nasal appeal to attract the customers.

It is not just products that can be brands. Services, ideas-cruelty against animals, places and even people. When I say people can be brands too, one should not confuse it with brand endorsers, but inherent brand value of the person. For that matter, we are all brands. It is just that companies pay attention to those having a higher networth. Like Madonna, Beckham, Amitabh Bachchan, ..... Branding has assumed such importance today when sportspersons or actors hog the limelight, there are organisations and individuals to market and position these 'brands' right. This has also resulted in the increasing acceptance of political branding.

Finally, let me wind up by stimulating your thinking process- to what extent would companies go in the name of branding? Is the customer at the receiving end of this branding circus?

CCD

CCD- Cafe Coffee Day, thats how the youth market knows this brand. Popularly known as the desi Starbucks, is not just a successful coffee retailing venture but it is a brand that has revolutionised coffee drinking among the young in India. The brand message, the visual identity and the brand itself seems to have contributed to the success. Its message of 'anything can happen over a cup of coffee' has not just been depicted in its promotionla messages but also well captured in movies that have used the brand outlets. The red color gives a very distinct brand image which is uniformly maintained in its brand name and in the decor of the outlets. This supports the resaerch that the colors red and blue have launched several brands ahead of the rest. Pepsi, Coco-Cola for instance. The product, that is the coffee, adhers to the overall image of the brand by keeping up the promise. It has a wide range from Mocha to Espresso to Cold Coffee and others. Cafe Coffee Day is no doubt a youth brand. Well-positioned and well-marketed.

By the way, I have kicked caffeine out of my life. But its worth a visit to CCD to revel in the brand. Coffee anyone?

Always Low Prices

'Always Low Prices' - does it ring a bell? I am sure most of them would get it right, Wal-Mart's iconic tagline. Volumes have been written on Wal-Mart. More or less Wal-Mart seems to have been successful with this positioning in the market. Would it be possible for Wal-Mart to trade up? I mean introduce a new line of merchandise, may be luxury line of clothes or accessories. Is it suicidal for a succesful brand to change its frame of reference in the minds of the customers?

To answer this, one needs to undersatnd brand positioning. Brand positioning is the place a brand occupies in the minds of the customers. Usually on two criteria, say, technology-price, availabilty-quality, etc. Brand managers need to be cautious at the nascent stages of branding to position the brand right. Choose a position which is unexplored. Moov is a classic example of getting its positioning right in the very beginning of its launch. A position which remains unshaken till today. Amrutanjan -for headaches, Zandu Balm for pains and cold and Iodex for ooh, aah, ouch. Nobody thought of the consumer's back. And then came Moov. It targeted women -the category that complains the most of back aches. the positioning worked. Moov continues its piggy ride on the consumer's back and the mind too.

What if positioning fails? Simple, reposition. Now this is the nightmare for brand managers. to make customers think differently about the brand. However there have been successful brand repositioning too. Remmeber Nestle's Milkmaid. It entered the market by claiming to be an alternative for milk, specially for tea and coffee consumption. Very soon Nestle realised that its Milkmaid is used more as an ingredient to make desserts. Nestle repositioned the brand. And Milkmaid, till date does not have a strong rival.

So coming back to where we began, can Wal-Mart reposition itself as a premium brand?