THE ECONOMIC TIMES, 22 JULY 2009
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T HE G LOBAL B RAND ... F ROM P G 1
“Well, I’m off next week to Europe and South
Asia, so I’ll sound them out in person” said Singh, a trifle defensively. “Good” said Johnson, ushering
Singh back into the thick of the party. “Let’s talk when you get back.”
As the airplane rose into the bright blue sky over
Paris, Singh’s spirits soared with it. She pulled out a laptop to write up her notes on her discussions with
Jacques Dubois, Espoir’s newly appointed marketing head for Europe. Belying her apprehension, the young Frenchman had warmed to the idea. He admitted that Espoir’s archrival, Revlon, had boosted top-of-mind awareness by tying in with movies like the 2002 Bond film, Die Another Day, and he was ready to fight fire with fire.
The announcement that the aircraft was beginning its descent into Kiev’s Boryspil Airport interrupted
Singh. As she leaned forward to look down at the
Dnieper River, she wondered how her old colleague in arms, Vasylko Mazur, the head of Espoir’s operations in Eastern Europe, was faring. They had first met five years ago at a leadership training program in Los
Angeles and had spent some long evenings sampling
California wines and griping about top management attitudes toward developing markets. Singh realized that Mazur had dropped out of sight after taking over as the head of Espoir’s Eastern European operations six months ago. Kiev was glowing green and gold at the end of a perfect summer day. But neither Singh nor Mazur noticed. They had been at each other’s throats from the moment she broached the idea of a global promotion. “Vasylko, you are being entirely unreasonable” said an exasperated Singh. “Me? Or you?” retorted Mazur, puffing furiously at the cigarette that never seemed to leave his lips. “Tasha, you don’t realize how different Eastern Europe is from the rest of the world. Movie-based promotions won’t do anything for my sales. We are in the beauty business, not the movie business.” He tried again to convince
Singh that appointing beauty queens like Miss Russia and Miss Ukraine as brand ambassadors would strike a chord with customers in Eastern Europe, be cost-effective, and also allow him to create a contest-based promotion. “Customers will write in with suggestions for new colors, each beauty queen will pick her favorite, and there will be lots of prizes.”
“I’ve stayed away from beauty contests because they are off brand. The Espoir woman is smart, independent, a risk taker. She doesn’t identify with pageant queens. I’ve chosen colors for the global promotion that will work in Eastern Europe. If you won’t believe me, test-market them yourself, and I’ll be receptive to any changes,” said Singh. “You should hear yourself talk” scoffed Mazur. “Do you remember how we used to mock HQ, saying how little it knew of our countries? You now sound like an HQ person, who can only see the logic of creating a global brand, using a global campaign, and sticking to a global positioning. Very little of that works here! You must let me
handle the market the way I think best. Did a global strategy work for you in India? If it didn’t, how can you try to sell me one now?”
Singh shot back, “We had to launch global colors in
India because our customers started asking why they weren’t available. We used that to segment the market and shift many customers from a local line to a more expensive international range. By the time I left, we were increasingly using global ad campaigns. We modified them sometimes, but they were essentially...”
“That’s not what you used to say” Mazur interrupted, grinding his cigarette into an overflowing ashtray. “In any case, I want no part of your global promotion. It smacks of a narrow vision, and there is no scope to adapt it for this market. Moreover, the promotion will eat into my marketing budget, and I cannot afford that. I will worry about being in sync with the global brand after Espoir has become the market leader in Eastern Europe.”
The weekend at her parents’ farmhouse on the outskirts of Delhi was a welcome break for Singh. Family gossip relegated the tensions of Kiev to the back of her mind. On Monday morning, as she walked briskly into the glass-and-concrete tower that housed Espoir’s India office in the city of Gurgaon, near Delhi, Singh literally bumped into Ravi Narayan, who had taken over from her as the head of South Asia marketing. “Good job on the signage at the airport, Ravi,” she said enthusiastically. “I saw the new backlit signs at JFK and
Charles De Gaulle, and it’s great to see them at Indira
Gandhi International too. How are we doing?”
Narayan replied, “Our market share rose by two points last quarter. However, the market isn’t growing as fast as I thought it would. In addition, competition is getting stiffer since several Asian brands have launched their products in India in the last six months. Local brands are offering large discounts, and direct marketing in cosmetics is catching on. It’s a cruel market.”
“Is that putting pressure on prices?” Singh asked immediately. “No” replied Narayan. “We’ve managed to hold prices until now. In fact, our premium line is doing quite well in the metropolises. Many more department stores have opened in the last 12 months, and that has eased the retailing bottlenecks.”
“What does that mean for us?” asked Singh, all ears now. “I suspect consumer habits are changing faster than we imagine” replied Narayan. Singh said, “That’s why I’ve believed for some time that we can afford to be more global in our approach to markets like India.”
Narayan shot Singh a wary glance. “That’s tricky. A global strategy will resonate in India in some cases, but
I doubt if we will be able to do away with local marketing initiatives. There are large income differences in India, and it all depends on the market you want to tap.”
Three days later, Singh walked into Johnson’s penthouse office suite in Espoir Tower in downtown
Los Angeles. She handed him a box of the champagne-filled truffles from Paris that he loved.
“That means trouble” groaned Johnson in mock despair. “By the way, the Supreme Studios people have been hounding me in your absence.” He popped a chocolate into his mouth and commanded: “Talk.”
“I’ve had mixed reactions to the global promotion.
Dubois was supportive, Mazur hated it, and Narayan was willing to give it a shot” Singh reported.
“Really?” Johnson asked. “I thought India would be the least interested in a Hollywood film-based promo.
Aren’t Bollywood films more popular there?” Singh snorted. “Last year, Bollywood had just one hit while
Hollywood had six hits at the Indian box office. ”
“Interesting” said Johnson. “What’s changed?”
“For one thing, the international studios have improved the dubbing of English movies in local languages” Singh explained. “So tying in with the Diana’s She Devils project makes sense for India — and most of our other markets, too.” “But not everyone agrees?” asked Johnson. “No” sighed Singh. “And of course I see why. Every country head believes his / her country is unique. It’s risky for them to pin their hopes on a global promotion when they’ve never done so before. But what’s the point of doing business in a global marketplace if we don’t leverage the opportunities that globalization presents?”
“Let me play devil’s advocate for a moment.
Most companies I’ve seen try global game plans have failed at them,” cautioned Johnson.
“The global tactics tend to either over standardize or oversimplify, and they discourage local innovation. What’s more, I’m not sure our brand has the same image all over the world. Why should we waste money on a global campaign that may end up confusing our customers?” Johnson added, “There are also organizational issues. Who will take responsibility for the success of the anniversary line after its launch? You? Or the regional heads, who follow your dictates without conviction? The promotion won’t be a success if it proceeds on autopilot.”
“Those issues can be worked out. In fact, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the kind of global-brand team we need to have” said Singh. “But we should go ahead with the movie tie-in. At best, it will reinforce the brand’s equity. At worst, we will learn some lessons about where global promotions don’t work. Since the initiative will boost sales in
North America at least, what do we have to lose?”
“Vasylko Mazur, for one,” said Johnson somberly. “After your visit to Kiev, he wrote to me. He’s pretty upset at the prospect of our trying to control his marketing strategy.” “Are you saying he’s threatened to put in his papers?” asked Singh, startled. “It was more than implied. But look, I only mention it because it raises the larger issue.
How hard should we be pushing a global strategy?”
Excerpted from HBR Case Studies: Marketing through
Minefields, now available in India. Reprinted by permission from Harvard Business Press.
All Rights Reserved.
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Win
T HIS case study nicely brings out challenges that most global companies face today. Why is it necessary to take a brand global, especially one that might not have the same image across? There are several risks with taking a brand global: can result in oversimplification and going with the lowest common denominator (as seems to be the case here); may not take into account individual market appeal; therefore could result in variant performance and lead to a feeling that “it does not work”.
However, the positives of a global brand are many. Firstly, a brand that has the capability of going global operates from a deep consumer insight connected to emotions, which are often transferable across. For example, Johnnie
Walker stands for personal progress,
Special K makes a woman feel special, and Nike appeals to the athlete in everyone.
Apart from this key, taking a brand global ensures consistency of positioning and emotional connect resulting in a unique benefit. In effect, it ensures consistent strategy across markets which help in reducing time and effort at individual market levels, transference of best practices and generates economies of scale from a market introduction point (research costs, execution costs etc.). Truly global brands are adaptable and they respect and embrace local cultural and emotional motifs. This enhances local relevance and works across communication.
Natasha Singh has the right intent on the key challenge: creating a global brand for
Espoir. The hurdle she has to overcome is how to make the strategy relevant to local markets and thus get the buy-in of individual markets. Therefore, there has to be a shared vision for the brand with buy-in from across the markets and it has to take into account local relevance. She also needs to set measurable expectations from the strategy and this could vary from market to market.
In order to do this, she has to clearly delineate between strategy and execution.
Espoir being the choice of a smart, independent, risk-taking (SIR) woman is the core. Every protagonist involved in the consumer execution must bring alive this facet, in a manner that is relevant to each individual market. Ethnicity could enhance involvement but the core values must remain entrenched in the SIR woman. For example, Rahul Dravid enhances the appeal of Mach 3, Kit Kat makes for enjoyable breaks in an Indian manner,
Nike celebrates cricket, and Cadbury’s
Dairy Milk makes moments special through very Indian motifs.
Finally, any strategy is only as good as its execution. A global brand must provide for time and resources for execution. To impose global execution while asking for individual markets to fund does not seem to be great organisational strategy, particularly for a promotion.
Great execution would necessitate whole hearted participation from an individual market and it requires time, patience and effort to get everyone on board. From the case it appears that Espoir’s promotion would help the mass market in North America and Western Europe, not be very effective in Eastern Europe and would help only the premium line in South Asia, while denuding most of the individual markets of their brand building budgets.
Therefore, she could opt for using the promotion in North America and Western Europe as lead markets but this would not support the organisational strategy of creating a “global” brand. Another approach could be to use this execution strategy but allow for each individual market a choice of a relevant movie promotion, which could lead to better buy-in as well as greater relevance.
Anupam Dutta is the managing director of
Kellogg India. In the past,
Dutta has worked with
Cadbury and Diageo. The analysis has been written exclusively for
Brand Equity
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Sanchayeeta Verma joins
Maxus as GM South from Mindshare Insights. She will be based in
Bangalore and will replace Hariharan Vishwanath. Verma has been with Group M since December 2003 and has worked with brands like GSK, Motorola and
Virgin Mobile. In her new role,
Verma will report into Ajit Varghese, CEO, Maxus.
Sanchayeeta Verma
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Minakshi Achan has been elevated to the chief creative officer position at Rediffusion Y&R.
While she continues to be responsible for the creative and business output in Rediffusion
Y&R’s south offices, she will now take on a national role and partner Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar.
Achan has been with Rediffusion Y&R for nearly a decade and successfully headed the creative team in Bangalore before being assigned to lead creative for all the South offices. Prior to Rediffusion, she was with JWT and Leo Burnett and has handled brands like
ING, Standard Chartered and ITC among others.
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Reckitt Benckiser is starting a global digital campaign to address its lack of brand-awareness. On the priority list is the shift to a simpler logo — ‘RB’. The campaign focuses heavily on social media such as Facebook and
LinkedIn and global ad networks. The markets in focus are the US, UK, Brazil, India, Russia and Germany. The two letters will replace the full Reckitt Benckiser name.
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Toning footwear, shoes that promise to do everything from firming up muscles to alleviating back pain, are expected to become a $100 million category this year. Yet, it’s still a category in its infancy. Brands such as MBT, Ryn and FitFlop have earned a cult following, broadening their distribution significantly in the last year or two, and now mainstream brands such as
Reebok and Skechers are getting in on the action.
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When speaking Spanish, especially with an Argentine accent, people tend to say “Pecsi” instead of Pepsi. They have said it like this for years, and Pepsi has responded by launching a campaign changing the second P to a C, believed to be the first such change for the venerable brand.
“Pecsi” is an easier pronunciation given Spanish phonetics, and it sort of comes naturally. According to a recent survey, 25% of the population says it that way. So BBDO Argentina came up with the idea of simply changing
Pepsi to “Pecsi” and launched an integrated campaign to support it.
The motive was clear: to get closer to consumers, by including those who weren’t pronouncing the name of the brand correctly but also by focusing on saving and standing by consumers’ side in a time of crisis. In Argentina, drinking a Pepsi costs one peso less than drinking a Coke. The message: If you drink Pepsi, you save. If you drink Pecsi, you save as well.
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TROPICANA launched mixed fruit variant with the goodness of seven fruits. 100% mixed fruit juice, it contains extracts of apples, oranges, grapes, peach, apricot, passion fruit and lemon. It is priced at Rs 20 for 200ml.
HUGGIES rolled out new variant Huggies
1. Launched for children of 5 month upward, they are available in single packs at Rs 7.
ASPRI Spirits introduces
Nederburg wines to
India. The three variants being brought are Shiraz,
Pinotage and
Sauvignon Blanc.
They come in 750 ml bottles for Rs 2,398.
AMRUTANJAN pain balm re-launched its three variants — Amrutanjan
Pain balm, Amrutanjan
Strong Pain balm and
Amrutanjan Maha Strong pain balm. They are available in 9gm bottles and 1.25gm sachets.
BATA unveiled its monsoon collection of closed shoes, sandals, peep-toes and slip on.
The collection starts from Rs 299 and bags from Rs 699, these are available at all
Bata stores.
The E l e c t r o n i c s M e g a s l o r e