On Great Branding Ideas...

Taking the discussion on corporate brands and their communication solution further I want to talk about the notion of the Branding Idea. Stephen King mentioned it first but I haven't seen much understanding of this concept beyond that. When the brand is the corporation, it needs more than advertising, a visual metaphor that can not only go across a host of media vehicles but also captures the identity of the organization in a well understood metaphor. Probably the ML Bull and the Singapore girl are the best recognized examples of such an approach, not to forget our very own Maharaja. They all capture the personality of a service brand and serve as a guideline for all frontline staff.

However a lesser known concept of a branding idea is one where the proposition or the promise of the brand is captured in a metaphor. I have been fortunate to work on two such exercises for not-for-profits and although i cannot share the specifics of strategy, the Janaagraha idea captures the idea of participatory democracy while the VoteIndia idea is about political reforms. I see the LeadIndia logo drawing heavily from this idea that was developed by my creative colleagues about 3 years ago.

And to round it off here is another highly successful example of a branding idea that focuses more on the promise than the personality of the brand i.e. BPCL's Pure for Sure. It is an area of personal passion for me so you will see much more on the subject of branding ideas. Treat this one as a bit of a primer.

The Rajeev Cluster!

Icons are defined as ideas that are a symbol of their times and 'Iconic Brands' as well perform the same role in our consumption driven society. It probably requires the benefit of hindsight to distinguish the real icons of an era and doing it for the recent past is always tricky given how much of the real substance of certain brands is really drenched in hype...when every second brand is claiming to be the spirit of new India, which ones will realy be remembered 20 years from now remains to be seen

Here is taking a shot at a few icons from the 1980s- I think the central event of the decade was the coming to power of Rajeev Gandhi, who despite all his flaws brought a refreshingly modern world-view to India and for a couple of years we were all enrolled in it till he lapsed back into the politics of the past...i think at his best he represented youth, progressiveness, professionalism, a world-class standard of doing things and by being that repositioned the past (mostly to do with his mother and her coterie) as regressive, feudal and dated. And riding on that spirit were three brands which did exactly the same repositioning to the respective incumbents in those categories. The icons for the 80s in my opinion would be Maruti, Hero Honda and Titan - b rands that actually did a Rajeev Gandhi on Ambassador, Bajaj Sccoters and HMT. Only Bajaj, of the incumbents, has been able to reinvent itself and among the icons Titan has probably lost a lot of its iconic appeal by continuing to did deeper into a category fast losing its relevance. If one were to conjecture on the iconic brands of the 1990s, what would they be?

Any guesses?

A Brand Ambassador called NRN

In an earlier post on Infosys i had mentioned how the leadership in the last few years has not shown an understanding of the Infy difference the way NRN used to. They have been extremely competent business managers delivering great results but no different from the guys at TCS or Wipro or Cognizant... Last evening, after a long time, saw NRN in action on CNBC and he spoke about the rupee appreciation in a manner only he can. Despite IT companies losing millions of dollars, he defended the appreciation of the rupee as a sign of the strengthening of the Indian economy and how our imports will become cheaper and therefore the overall good it represents for the country. This is what separates him from the rest- whether it is taking a stand on the IIM quota issue, or suggesting that IT companies should be taxed by governement or questioning intentions of ex-prime ministers... he has always taken a clear stand and operated from a place of conviction rather than convenience.

And that has been the Infy difference- not in terms of business model or culture as much as the ideology that it represented. Coming from the middle class background, NRN somehow showed the opportunistic middle class how not be emasculated and be a stand for a few things irrespective of the stakes involved....

Dying to see some of that spunk in the current leadership as well!

A 'release' rather than a 'launch'!

Trying to conjecture on what is behind this iPhone frenzy and what does it say about the future of marketing/promotion?

My feeling is that in categories with very high rate of innovation, the template for marketing increasingly follows that of film promotions, where you maximize returns in a short span through a sensational build-up of curiosity. Mr. Jobs introduced the trailer to iPhone 6 months back and since then with selective dissemination of information/rumor/trivia etc. the audience has been kept sufficiently appetized. Now, the off-take needs to be maximized before a Nokia or a Motorola introduces the next great thing in mobiles and therefore all the hype and the mega-event of the release.

Incidentally, films are also seeing an interesting phenomenon. A recent Economist study shows how the highest grosser these days are grossing much higher amounts in much shorter time compared to say 8-10 years ago. People do not remember the movie 3 years down the line but consistently the record for gross collection is getting broken in successive years.

According to Shekhar Kapur, the day is not far when a movie will be launched as an event on the net - say Steven Spielberg's next big movie will be available for a download between 12am and 3am on XYZ date against a payment of K dollars- which will reduce the distribution cost to zero, eliminate any loss due to piracy etc. and curiosity of the early adopter will ensure that people across the globe will get online and download it.

With the explosion of creativity in category after category, this phenomena is only going to get accentuated as a brand's ability to be the in-thing is only as long or short as the launch of the next innovation. And personal gadgets (Faith Popcorn calls them 'accessible luxury'), in particular, have become central definers of personal identity leading people to heightened levels of desperation to acquire them to live up to their self image of being with-it!

Brand Buildup!

The frenzy around the recent launches of the iPhone and Harry Potter book provide exciting ossibilities for brands. Personally, at one level, i cannot fathom what makes people queue up three days in advance to buy their piece of the phone or the book, but to each his own. I've queued up outside my son's school at 4am to get the admission form, waited in a stampedesque queue for 4 hours at Tirupati...

However, both iPhone and Harry Potter are aimed at the elite and if people at that level in the society can put themselves through so much to get their hands on the brand, it says something about the sources of personal identity.

It completely alters the hierarchy in the consumer-brand relationship--as marketers we are trained to earn our consumers but when the consumer has to earn the brand, one can only gape at the power of these ingenious marketers!

Some Research on Quali Research!

For the believers of quali research, it's been getting increasingly difficult (particulary in India) withdemanding respondent criteria from clients, shortage of genuine research talent and extremely suspect field work. The fact that most clients feel comfortable with the tangibility of numbers makes the task of convicing them about the validity of findings even more challenging. The proverbial 'searching under the lampost for keys not because you lost them their but because that where the light is' phenomena is inescapable in the research context.

Two relatively recent works propose a couple of interesting directions quali research could take. Firstly Doug Holt's How Brand Become Icons?, looks at the cultural role brand play and in the process some become symbols of their times in a society a la Beetle, Coke, Bud, Apple etc. The other very interesting work is by Dr. Clotaire Rapaille called the Culture Code and recommends a semiotic/psychoanalytic approach to uncovering the hidden codes and symbols at the heart of a category. Both these books put enormous emphasis on the societal/cultural aspects in which the brand or the category is rooted and going into lives of the consumers to uncover the meaninsg they attach to using these products.

Both these methods require very high level of skill and specialization and focus on going deeper rather than broader in terms of understanding a phenomena. Both the methods require talking to a select few respondents and going beyond the superficial or spontaneous responses.

Doug Holts recommends studying the societal conflicts that define a certain time period and peg the brand as a reconciliation of that conflict while Dr. Rapaille's methodology belives in going deeper into the lifescripts of consumers and getting them in touch with their earliest memories and associations with that brand/category.

Both are extremely compelling arguments that make enormous sense in explaining a lot of the complexity behind how people interact with brand s and why some become more successful than others. However, the execution of this kind of research (including interpretations) is complex and demands qualifications that very few quali researchers lay claim to.

However, I see it as the future of research as the easy gains that come in a high growth economy dwindle and brands would need to pull off something extraordinary in order to justify their premiums. It is agreat opportunity for research firms to decommoditize themselves and occupy a place that is as valued as any upstream consultant's.

The question is - how many are up to it?...afterall easy gains are easy gains for all and god is the enemy of great!

Being the Brand!

Can a corporation/a brand, in these complex and dynamic times with short managerial tenures realistically aim for long range strategic planning and 5-10 year objectives with roadmaps? Can they hope to get some where that is clearly articulated way down into the future or do they have to decide and be in that space from day one? Are great brand built as a result of getting somewhere or being someone?

I am deeply sceptical of long-term planning lead approaches...do we even know what course our life will take 3 months down the line (provided we are playing a dynamic game)....

The only approach for corporations would be to discover and articulate 'a way of being' for themselves that inspires them to be at their best. Lets look at a few illustrations of the way of being- Apple is being creative all the time across all its functions- whether it is designing a pc or launching a new product like ipod or conceptualizing its retail experience, TATA is about being responsible, Reliance is about being wealthcreating... the more consistently a corporation is being itself across all its activities (and communication is just the front end) the greater its chance of achieving true uniqueness...so now the question arises how does a brand discover its way of being! Can you look at the most powerful, iconic brands and distinguish a consistent way of being?

Watch out for more on this as this space unfolds...

The Halo Effect

It's been a while! Need to be more regular with this baby.

After a long time stumbled upon a great management book called the Halo Effect, which critically analyses the claims of scientific rigour and empirical evidence iconic management books like Built to Last and Good to Great make.

Personally, i have always felt the discomfort in the absoluteness with which these books dish out recipes for success. Built to Last was still important from the point of view of uncovering a blind spot in Corporate Brand Building and the significant role for a corporate ideology in it. However, in my opinion the findings and recommendations of G2G are motherhood at best and force-fits at worst.

The Halo Effect, for me has been another addition in a series of readings i have found useful over the last year or so starting from Mintzberg's Rise and fall of Strategic Planning to The Witch Doctors to a lot of writing from David Maister. These have all questioned the simplistic, formulaic management writing and emphasised the need for multiple perspectives and thinking on the feet.

As an advisor to companies, it has resonated with my idea of the role i need to play as not a person with answers but as a person with multiple perspectives and empathetic listening. We are there to act as mirrors to our clients and reflect back what is occurring from the outside as a result of their actions so that they can readjust their organizational functioning in line with what they wish to be seen as.

Unfortunately there is also a school which believes that clients are buying a consultant's conviction rather than advice...which leads to the salesman in them take over the advisor.

The Halo Effect is a must read for anyone wanting to know how little we know and how complex real-world management is for anyone to zero in on a magic pill for guaranteed success!

Synchronicity!

Stumbled upon this very clearly written blog by David Maister on the woes of advertising which takes the discussion on the future of marketing further. Whose baby will marketing be, is a question urgently begging an answer... particularly when the company is the brand- shoudn't CEO be the chief marketing officer?

Future of Advertising- Inevitable or Probable?

Happened to meet two passionate advertising people in the last couple of days and was surprised to find how out of touch with reality they were on the relevance, stature and potential of advertising as a strategic brand building tool. Having been an ex-advertising professional, and a passionate one at that, I have been witnessing the gradual decline of it on all the above mentioned parameters. Therefore, this blogpost is just a summary of a number of trends that have been documented in many places which have lead to the marginalization of advertising in the world of management.

No.1- we are living in the service economy so no amount of advertising is going to make up for a shoddy frontline job. The key brand communication tool for most of the brands built in the last 10 years has been the frontliner- be it an Infy, or an NDTV or a Jet or an HDFC/ICICI. HR is new marketing.

No.2- the rise of the company brand. Sony, Apple, Samsung, Dell, Nokia...the list goes on. Single line FMCG (Surf, Tide, Coke etc.) is going to be a rarity and people will first buy the company brand before a choosing a product band in that context. ipod works till Apple does. Ask a car buyer about buying a Palio or an Optra-- the woes of Fiat and GM have enormous bearing on the purchase decision. Even FMCG companies are reducing the portfolio and emphasizing the company brand (J&J, Nestle). And company brands get built by their financial performance, by the management philosophy, by their HR practices etc. CEO is the new brand manager.

No.3- Advertising will thrive, but more as a BPO and not as a strategic arm. CEOs do not even have time for their internal marketing departments, forget ad- agencies. Those hoping that 'great creative' is going to put them back on the CEOs table are trying to lispstick on an elephant...

No.4- Ad agencies have contributed to their problems by not investing enough in their people and attracting the kind of talent that today goes to any consulting job. Their central identity is in the creative function and the best creative talent is moving out of agencies to far more exciting options. However, the deeper issue that makes it even more difficult to fix is one of integrity. I don't intent to sound like a moral science teacher but the level of workability (because people do not have any respect for their word) is pathetically low in most ad firms.

Personally, in my post grad days i used to dream of being a part of another creative revolution of the Bernbach kind and got enrolled every time the head of an agency spoke about reinventing the agency in a manner that reinvents the industry.

Frankly, i have become a bit skeptical of any such claims, not so much because i do not trust their resolve, but more importantly because i always get surprised at how mis-diagnosed the disease remains.

Now what do i tell this girl doing her B.Com when she asks me for tips on building a career in advertising?

The Modern Indian Holy Trinity

Looking at Aamir, Rehman and Sachin, I have always wondered about the striking parallels between them. The post 90s generation has been lucky to have these three absolutely world-class performers setting new standards in each of the three uniting passions of this nation.

All of them have somewhere reinforced our faith in our abilities to take on the best in the world in our respctive fields. Their single minded, almost obsessive devotion to their respective crafts, the extremely private existence beyond their profession, and an unbelievable refusal to succumb to any of the power/celebrity temptations of their success is something which has natural resonance with most of us.

Isn't it interesting how even physically these three guys are remarkably similar with their short height, curly locks and baby faces? Wonder if there is a common archetype at the heart of it all!

When a nation is on an economic upswing, its ascendancy is also felt across other fields like cuture, sports and entertainment.

Today, the Indian soft power has something more to offer beyond yoga, henna and tandoori chicken as Rehman breaks all language barriers to take Indian music to different parts of the world. Sachin's fearless strokeplay provided the confidence in our players to take on the likes of Australia and Pakistan and our cricket witnessed its gloden-est period ever with the likes of Dravid, Ganguly, Laxman and Kumble forming the kernel of a fairly successful outfit. Aamir demonstrated that being a super-star and being an outstanding actor were not mutually exclusive (fans of Shahrukh and Amitabh may disagree, but my strong views on their acting skills will be the subject of another blog).

While Rehman and Sachin have managed to have stable marriages, Aamir's divorce after nearly a decade of marriage continues to be looked at as one sour note in an otherwise clean celebrity life, by quite a few of his fans.

These three guys emerged towards the late 80s early 90s and have consistently provided us all with one sublime performance after another. From the looks of it, while Rehman and Aamir continue to reinvent themselves, Sachin is still searching for some direction for the next phase of his career. It will be of interest to see if these guys reinvent themselves in a manner that is befitting their stature. If i were to risk some crystal gazing, I see an opportunity for Rehman to outdo a certain Reshammiya to emerge as the first truly global rock star out of India; Sachin clearly has role models in Gavaskar and Vijay Amritraj to build a great career beyond playing cricket and Aamir most certainly is a director to look forward to.

Hopefully, there is still lots more magic left with these maestros for a few more decades of pure joy.

Life and Times...

This could be a blasphemous assertion for some, but I feel that ToI is another iconic Indian brand that does not get celebrated enough. In my opinion it is also an iconic youth brand! One can (perhaps rightly) have a moral/ethical take on some of their practices in blurring the lines between marketing and journalism, but as far as the marketing story goes, it is the stuff legends are made of.

Here is a 160 year old brand, which till about 15 years ago was struggling on all counts- small business, category under threat from 24 hour news channels, management mired in investigations, and perceptions of an outdated brand.

And under those testing circumstances, it demonstrates prescience of a rare kind in betting on the younger, modern India and goes on to reinvent the whole business and takes on the lions share (according to some estimates, ToI's profits are nearly 5 times the next 4 competitors put together!) of that growth.

Not only the growth, but even on parameters like customer service, operational efficiency, and sheer cosmopolitanism of the product, ToI has no alternative as of today. Its content is most usable and visually it is the most appealing. It also doesn't come across has having an agenda of its own and lets you be comfortable in the place you are by putting up most sides of the story. I will be surprised if there is any other newspaper brand in the world that has demonstrated marketing prowess of the kind ToI has. There is a lot of savvy hard work behind the creation of this juggernaught and unfortunately I have seen only ToI bashers but hardly anyone who recognizes the monumental marketing achievement of that brand.

All the criticism about them may be valid. Yep, the journalism is passion-less (even on Cricket ;0)), and occasionally some initiative may violate our puritanical sensibilities, but one needs to give the devil its due on these counts.

And till I see an alternative that is even remotely as successful as ToI, I am hesitant to put the blame of reducing journalistic standards at the doorsteps of ToI alone. I feel somewhere we see our own idealized self in a brand like ToI- refined, modern, youthful, liberal, ambiguous on politics, highly materialistic etc.
As someone sagely put it- a newspaper is the nation having a conversation with itself.

Infosys & the Curse of the Incumbent

Infosys has truly been an iconic brand for the 1990s...one of the defining metaphors for what our country went through as it shed its socialist past and embraced capitalism. To use Douglas Holt's thesis, brand Infosys provided a dramatic reconciliation for the ideological conflict the nation was going through. While a nations of so many underprivileged people naturally resonated with the idea of socialism and central role for government, the 1991 crisis exposed the vulnerability of that model. On the other hand, while the success of capitalism was unmistakable, our society was still suspicious of unbridled capitalism.

Infosys emerged as a brand which was highly competitive, global, high technology and yet humane, socially responsible and authentic. Like JN TATA almost a hundred years ago, it was difficult to say whether NarayanMurthy was a socialist or a capitalist. He reinvented the archetype for the new century. In a way, in the 1990s, he was more TATA than the TATAs.

Moreover, with their middle class educational upbringing, the management made the dream beliveable 'for the rest of us'.

However, the last 3 years have been relatively tepid as far as Infy's masterful performances are concerned. It has been a while since one got to see a bold visionary move that this brand had been so good at in the past. Whether it is putting the value of the human capital on the balance sheet or the generous wealth sharing or the breathtaking campus or taking bold stands on various issues...the new Infy seems to be far more conservative and self-centred.

And the impression one gets is of an extremely efficient execution machine delivering great stock market performance but losing touch with its soul. The CEOs after NRN have also been more managers/strategists than visionaries.

Probably they see themselves now as incumbents rather than challengers and thus the need to preserve status-quo rather than invent new paradigms....

At times their efforts at making a difference have looked publicity stunts rather than authentic expressions of care. Case in point being the one crore donation for Kashmir earthquake a day after announcing quarterly profits of over 600 crores.

It is a brand that has been the pride of this nation and one hopes it continues to play the progressive role it provided through the 1990s in inspiring Indian corporates towards greater transparency and equitable wealth-sharing. That was the Infosys difference and definitely something that all of us who want to see standard-setting global corporations emerge out of India, would want preserved.

The challenger in Infosys probably needs to be rekindled!

10 Baby Steps- a look-back

It's been nearly 5 months since I took the baby steps and although the discipline of regular posting is still missing, I am happy about clocking 10 posts. I feel a few thinsg going for it are that there is an overall subject matter coherence to the blog. The OFIs are in the areas of technology, quality of writing, particularly making it a bit lighter and fun (brands are actually far more poetic and fun than my writing style suggests) and more original and provocative thinking.

But for anyone thinking/planning/mulling about blogging, only one piece of advice- 'get-on-the-court'. Read this pragmatic piece by Penelope Trunk on how to kick-off. Probably the best one I've read on the subject.

On how it feels at this juncture- well, i am a bit surprised occasionally about where my mind takes me when I actually start writing...nothing new there but definitely builds confidence. Intuitively, a few things have fallen in place in giving this blog a definitive focus and character. It has also become the number one item in google search when my name is googled (that definitely surprised me)! Should build traffic as old friends and acquaintances try to figure out what I am upto.

This entry is more like a pause for breath, just after the warm ups in an aerobics session. The game has not even started and here i am feeling a little smug about the whole thing...! ;0)

Unreasonable India

The last few years of economic growth in India have been remarkable.World over there is acknowledgment of its stature as a force to reckon with. There is also great deal of appreciation of the foundational strengths of the India story i.e. democracy, freedom of press, vibrant private sector, domestic consumption, a knowledge/service competence etc. All this, coupled with the fact that literacy and productivity have been on the rise along with a slowing population growth, there have been few contrarian voices to the Indian fairy tale. However, in this euphoria, one may have lost sight of some of the harsher realities that lie beneath this gloss. Like our cricket team, we may not be present to the real gap that will prevent us from becoming a world-beater.

Besides areas like primary education, stunting & undernourishment and infrastructure which have been discussed ad-nauseaum, India also stares at a growing HIV epidemic, crumbling institutions like judiciary and police, archaic labor and agricultural policies, and massive shortfalls in power availability. Moreover, the gap between the haves and the havenots represents a potential show-stopper as bulk of the Indian growth has come through sectors which require skilled manpower like IT. In purely numerical terms private sector only accounts for less than 5 percent of our labor pool. How do we expect the other 95% of ordinary, unskilled people to move up the chain? Where are the poverty busting ideas that will provide them a piece of the action?

By not acknowledging this aspect of India, we may be headed for a socio-political revolution of the kind we do not want. Even if that were not a case, how do we hope to sustain the growth momentum without deepening the foundations on which it rests?

The vibrant, rapidly upgrading, almost globally competitive private sector has an opportunity to play a much bigger role in this context. It has an opportunity to articulate a unique point of view to world about what progress and development really mean.

We have an opportunity to articulate and execute a vision for India that leverages the best of the Oriental and Occidental wisdom. Can the Indian story be about creating a model society which preserves all the affection, social support, compassion associated with it and yet delivers globally competitive performance withing a liberal, democratic, secular framework?

Identifying what needs to be done is the easier part. Breaking through our old paradigms to do things differently will be often tough, awkward, annoying and sometimes even frightening and completely unpleasant. It will cause a lot of disruption and discomfort in the short-run and will require enormous discipline.

The worst we can do is to underestimate the challenge. Given some of our cultural tendencies of celebrating early, hypocrisy and complacency, we may need much more than hope and optimism to create the resolve internally to see this thing through. We will have to look at ourselves in the mirror and ask whether we have the will to change as a nation in an atmosphere of relative calm, or should we wait for another crisis of the 1991 kind to get us off the chair?

Do we have the courage to stick to new ways of doing things and resist the short-term temptations? Many fine-lines will have to be walked simultaneously-- How do we preserve the democratic, inclusive traditions and yet instill a strong bias for action?

How do we maintain the affection and compassion in our society yet set deliver demanding standards? How do we create the small victories that keep frustrations at bay and yet remain aligned to the goal?

For India to achieve things that the world never thought were possible, it will have to be extremely demanding and unreasonable with itself. To reach the zenith called Incredible India, it will have to deal with a brutal and tortuous climb that begins at a base-camp called Unreasonable India. Are we up to it?

On Self-fulfilling Prophesies

How often have you heard a marketer complain that his/her category is low-involvement, has matured and is declining, all ideas have been tried before and so on and so forth. It is like saying give me the ideal conditions of a new and exciting category, which consumer is keen to utilize and then I will justify my MBA degree and high salary by showing you profitable growth. The moment you tell yourself that my category is on death-bed is the moment it goes on the death-bed. It is this conversation in the mind about the category that needs to be killed because it has the potential of truly killing the category, way before its time has come.

What stops most marketers from seeing the exciting possibilities that inherently resides in every category? What stops marketers of steel getting excited about the construction possibilities in Steel or doing designer products (like Magpie), what stops tea marketers from making it as exciting as coffee, and in fact I would go a step beyond and say why not make even an atta or a detergent as exciting for the consumer to get involved in.

I am always inspired by two examples from India which demonstrated the amount of life residing in a category long after the market leaders had given up on it.

Rekitt Benckiser had been selling powder blue for over 5 decades and enjoyed a 90% of share in a Rs. 50cr. Category. Consumer on the other hand had no choice but kept putting up with the patchy bluing that Robin Blue offered. In comes Ujala- a liquid blue which spreads evenly and delivers a higher degree of whiteness. Moreover it shows great gumption and bets the company on this product by spending more than even the colas on advertising it nationally with its legendary jingle ‘Aaya naya Ujala, Chaar Boondon Waala. And you have the category expanding to Rs. 300cr. With Ujala commanding a 70% share of this expanded pool. A rare example of an Indian company showing an MNC the way to market.

The second example, that most of us are familiar with- Scooters. Long after Bajaj gave up on Scooters, Honda launches Activa and sells over a million scooters in 4 years. Couldn’t Bajaj have exploited this potential almost ten years ago had it not chosen to be wedded to its archaic Chetak brand of scooter-making?

The moment a marketer gets into a complaint about its business, rather than feeling passionately for it, it is the beginning of the end. When we become less involved in the business, it becomes low involvement for the consumer, when we stop innovating and improving the delivery of the benefit our product embodies, it stops growing, the day we conclude that just because an experiment failed in the past, it will never work in the future, we have limited the potential of our impact. Most FMCG marketers and even some in durables are caught in this vicious cycle of inaction due to a complaint and that inaction perpetuating the situation for the marketer to turn back and say, I told you so.

Now, will the real marketer please stand up!

Reliable Service vs. Breathtaking Experience

We in India have been particularly used to such customer abuse from the likes of Railways or Indian Airlines as well as a Reliance Mobile or a PSU bank, that when a brand like Jet Airways happened in our midst almost 10 years ago, most couldn’t believe that Indians could have pulled off something as world-class as that. Probably it was the only truly world-class act out of India in a long-long time (actually, can’t think of anything at all).

But then a Kingfisher comes along and takes service to the new level of an experience. With its passion red colors, sensuously decked up flight crew, in-flight entertainment, the reading-material etc. Kingfisher seems to have repositioned Jet as a reliable but boring, devoid of personality, kind of brand. Jet, which for years, looked unassailable seems to have been outdone by a player who had no prior experience in running a service business and from day one has got its act right with hardly any lose ends. Moreover, they have taken customer care to new heights with staff walking around with printers that generate the boarding pass, a person at the arrival guiding you to the right conveyor belt, and now we hear of a helicopter service to take you to the Airport directly from the office district.

This is a wake up call for all the emerging service businesses like banking, retail, cinemas etc where delivering reliable service itself is a challenge and once they get it, it’s almost like climbing mount-Everest and their imagination stops working. So you have a host of me-too banks (ICICI and HDFC look like clones of each other), every mall which is a replica of the other, and all our lovely low cost airlines which are still struggling to get the basics right.

And yet if there is one thing to be learnt from a Kingfisher it is this. Even of you are taking on a competitor as venerable as Jet, there are massive chinks in the armor that can be exploited and almost overnight, thought leadership be snatched away. New service businesses have no option but to conceptualize their offering as an experience from day one and give it that unique character beyond just dependable service. They have to embody rich and textured personalities (not just almost robotic delivery of service) and it have the *&^% to even offend a few sensibilities. Only then can we create truly memorable experiences like a Disney, Virgin or a Starbucks in our midst. So will the ITCs, Oberois, Leelas of the world take a cue!

Yashraj Films-truly a banner brand

The first true banner brand in the hindi film industry has emerged in the form of Yashraj. A brand which subsumes under it every director, music director or actor brands there were. Nobody remembers who directed Salaam Namaste or even Bunty aur Bubli (except the hardcore Bollywood buffs. All they care about is that when it is Yashraj you can expect some lovely feel-good, progressive, rich and happy fair.

Besides the obvious commercial success, there are a couple of things that are worth celebrating about the Yashraj way. Number one- it is probably the only production house in India which has consistently pushed the boundaries without totally abandoning the shores when it comes to female portrayals.

It has with every film shown us a female portrayal that the Indian woman could identify with and yet it stayed a couple of steps ahead of the times by showing them 7the possibility of what they could be at their best- whether it is Rani in B&B, or PZ in Veer Zaara or in Salaam Namastey, or Aishwarya in D2. Even going back in time Silisila, Chandni, Vijay, Trishul, Deewar- almost all Yash Chopra films have done justice to the myriad facets of the Indian woman without resorting to stereo types.

The other incredible dimension of this success has been the total blackout of media that the production house has stuck to. Aditya Chopra’s was last captured on film about 10 years ago. Nobody knows what the guy looks like. Moreover, no one is allowed to cover Yashraj Studios from inside. The brand has been built through the most substantial way of all i.e. by delivering actual BO results. For those accusing them of peddling the personality ethic through the shiny happy people in their movies, I feel there is more character to Yashraj than the likes of an RGV or Vishesh filkms.

The Moral of the World Cup Story

India's debacle in the world cup did not come as a total suprise to most astute readers of the game. The story before we thrashed West Indies in India, was much the same. Our South Africa tour was a testimony to the ever widening gap between what we call cricket and what the likes of SA and Australia play. However, in a larger context, the cricketing India could serve as a metaphor for what lies in store for the so called econonomic power-house India, which everyone seems to be celebrating. We are waiting for a day not too soon when one defining moment or event (like the Bangaladesh match) will expose how superficial growth story is. It will open up for us the shallow foundations on which we have been celebrating the coming of age of the Indian economy. We do not seem to realize how small we are in terms of size and more importantly in terms of standards, which the developed economies and the likes of China are setting for themselves. It may be worthwhile to stop the posturing and the celebrations and put our heads down and get back to work and not look up for a few years till the outside world starts acknowledging that the stuff coming out of India is for real and it is built on sustainable foundations. Otherwise, we may have a few stars (with a lot of world-records) but fall woefully short of getting the cup once again.

Locating India

On the whole, Eklavya is a disappointment but to acknowledge a positive-- the mesmerising use of the physical location of a Rajasthani Haveli/fort in the plot. Don't often see the structure so seamlessly blended into the narrative and taking it to a new level. Another place where it was done brilliantly was in the song 'Tu hi re' from the film Bombay where the ruins of a fort on the coastline really added to the pathos and longing in the song.

Great to see some confidence being shown in some Indian locations. Our directors have been discovering everything - from Switzerland, Ausralia Manhattan to Korea off late- except India.

Although Maniratnam's films always manage to integrate the Indian geography into the story and provide snapshots of the potential of others in the way he picturises songs. As my cousin once said- India bhi foreign jaisa dikhne lagat hai uski film mein.

I am sure we are going to see the many Indias that we have been told about for years as our cinema comes of age and develops the self confidence as well as respect for its audience. Afterall, if we can do our bump & grind routines with 50 extras on the streets of London, we surely can do with some world-class acting and cinematography in the havelis, forts, gullies, and even the slums of India.

What does a company need most- vision, values, mission, direction...

Another response to a David Maister (www.davidmaister.com/blog) query which too k me into thoughts i had never had--
If we look at it as sequence of events in the life of a company before a virtuous cycle sets in reinforcing each element-- I would say a business gets created by identifying a need i.e. customers in the market. It then becomes a company when a set of like minded people come and stay together around that need (although it could happen the other way round also with a group of like minded people figuring out a business to be in a la Sony) so shared values (or culture) keeps these people together... and this can become an enduring company if it looks at its business with a sense of contribution i.e. a purpose beyond making money. And it will become a visionary company if it develops a strong sense of direction early on in its life rather than being subject to environmental forces and opportunistic behavior.
In my consulting I have tried to study most of my clients with the Built to Last framework where Vision is a combination of values, purpose and a long term goal.
What I have found most often is the presence of a value system which is the glue keeping it all together. What is most often lacking is a sense of purpose and direction.
The growing Indian economy keeps this virtuous cycle in place and the core team sticks together trying out every new opportunity that comes up in the environment but there is no real sense of strategy and trade-offs that seems to exist.

One hypothesis I have is that most strategic calls get taken by a sense of identity that the management has of itself (this is our kind of opportunity and that is not) rather than any serious analysis of market opportunity or competencies (they come into play only when they desire excellence which is very often not the case). So, if as a consultant I can help clients become more self-aware by putting them in touch with their core values then an entity may emerge over a period of time that is differentiated in the market by what we call organizational culture.
One may wish to give them a long-term strategy articulating in great detail on a quarterly basis what they should be doing..however it is likely to get thrown out of the window the moment first unpredictable event takes place in the environment. And environment is only getting more unpredictable.
So, for an established organization I would focus most on discovering core values and illustrating it with actions/trade offs/rules etc.
for a new start up, i would focus on understanding the nature of the market opportunity.
Ultimately, it is all about finding, articulating and sharpening a difference you can preserve and at various life stages of a company, these would be my priorities.

Whether you say you can...

Was writing on David Maister's blog about whether 'being interested in people' is a necessary managerial trait and can it be acquired. The dominant opinion seems to be that either you have the attitude or don't, and acquiring it is nearly impossible.

i had an opinion to the contrary and wrote an elaborate one on that but while writing it opened up to me that Ratan Tata is probably the best example we have of a manager/leader who is a recluse and yet extremely effective.

My mind boggles at what he has achieved in terms of turning around a group whose complexity and diversity is unimaginable and he has done it by adhereing to a rigidly ethical value system in an environment in which everything is up for grabs and norms are anything that can be bent. And he has done all that after the age of 55, till which time he was more or less written off as a leader within and outside the group. Can there be a more vivid example of someone learning the skills, developing the attitudes when the situation mattered. Won't we do the same when a situation leaves us with no escape route.

Which brings you to another basic inquiry - are we born with certain fixed wiring or do we develop attitudes and preferences as life goes along which are capable of being challenged if the context changes. Also, if we are born with them, how do we discover them. IS it just a function of being good at those things or of enjoying doing certain things?

HAven't we seen that we can be good at a lot of things that we do not particularly enjoy doing and similarly there are things which become boring the moment certain accountability is introduced into it. If you enjoy movies does that necessarily make you a good critic or a movie maker?

So what does that mean for corporations and the conversations they have about themselves- we cannot beat the multinationals? We cannot do top end stuff? Our competence is only in commodities? By saying this they have started blieving it, and behaving in line with it, and obviously the results are reinforcing it.

I am reminded of a beautiful Zen conversation- when a Zen master was asked whether he knew how to play a violin, he replied- I don't know. I have never tried.

Baby Step One

Finally I get around to overcoming my intertia to start building my blog.... thanks to Rajeev, my first boss (always a strong influence) and now a good friend.. He said something quite important yesterday--in writing quality is directly proportional to quantity...and that somewhere struck a chord in me...so here is a first attempt at quantity in the hope that quality will follow.

Honestly speaking, as a consultant in the brand building space, I do have to write original stuff quite a lot..every day you are trying to give form to this abstraction called brand which the owners of the abstraction themselves do not have a coherent point of view on... my job most often is to give it some shape and form and draw some boundaries in which a company can focus on building its reputation and thus its brand... now i need to probably treat my blog as a client and everyday provide it with those contours that over a period of time develop into a well-defined entity..

What can this entity be?

Well it will be about the work I do primarily and the worlds I encounter as a part of that life. It will also be about interesting dimensions of brand building that seem to go unnoticed or rather not celebrated enough. It will also be about the ridiculousness of the buttoned up corporate life (hasn't enough already been said) but I need to put my two bits as well...

So the effort wil be to constantly question and demolish the 'ways of being' corporations have invented for themselves and hopefully in that journey we will doscover some timeless principles to live by...

Have been reading two books by Henry Mintzberg off late- Strategy Safari and Strategy Bites Back-- highly recommend both althought reading the former will more or less ensure that you have read most of the second one as well--there is a lot of repeatition.

He looks at various schools of strategy making like the vision school or the positioning school or the core-competence school etc. and critiques them by highlighting the results they have achived and their limitations as well...

I hope to attempt something similar in the brand building space.

And i invite anyone with a passion for brands to help develop this community...


...and ignore the incoherence till i find my voice!

Babysteps

Watch this space...