The devil is no more. But brand Onida lives on, albeit in a new avatar. The Rs 1,430-crore Mirc Electronics? new advertising campaign for its popular brand of consumer durables is on air at the moment, but the focus is on young India and particularly Siddharth and Ritu?a yuppy couple, who believe in living and letting others live. The devil and his machinations have been put to rest. Chances are slim that it will be revived again.
?We have to move on with the times,? says G Sundar, chief executive officer, Mirc Electronics. ?The devil had become irrelevant to the present times. We need to take the leap forward.? That?s implicit in the new tagline (Tumko Dekha Toh Yeh Design Aaya) and neat distribution of categories under cook (for microwave ovens), wash (washing machines), chill (air conditioners), theatre (television sets, DVD players), mobile (mobile handsets) etc.
Ironically, this isn?t the only facelift that has been recorded in the consumer durables space in recent times. Archrival Videocon from the Rs 10,105-crore Videocon Industries Ltd also went for a communication overhaul before Onida did. Videocon wished to ?Experience Change?, that it promptly did by changing its logo from silvery grey to translucent green to convey its eco-friendly range of products.
?It also allowed us to have an umbrella brand that could cover our growing business interests in telecom and DTH,? says VN Dhoot, chairman and managing director, Videocon Industries Ltd.
For the record, makeovers in the consumer durables industry kick-started with the Rs 1,350-crore Godrej Appliances undertaking one in 2006. An under Rs 1,000-crore company back then, Godrej Appliances launched Eon clubbing all its premium offerings under this brand. Says Kamal Nandi, vice-president, sales and marketing, Godrej Appliances; ?We wanted to address the young consumer with our design and technologically-superior products. They were feeling a bit alienated because of the 112-legacy of the Godrej brand. We attempted to plug the gap with the sub-brand.? The gamble paid off. Nandi claims that sales have since grown by 25-30% over the past few years.
However, even as consumer durable companies? look to reposition themselves, the question essentially is: Are they doing it to stay relevant in a changed marketplace? The answer to this can be found in the evolution of the consumer durable industry over the past few years. Korean chaebols LG and Samsung are the undisputed leaders in the over Rs 20,000-crore consumer electronics space in India. In the adjoining Rs 15,000-crore appliances category as well, LG is a clear leader followed by Whirlpool, a leading international appliances player, and Godrej.
For Indian companies to break the stranglehold of foreign players there is a need to address a few key branding and marketing issues because as Ravinder Zutshi, deputy managing director, Samsung India explains, ?Consumer durables typically tends to ride high on advertising and marketing spends.? By some accounts, the typical spend is about 3-5% of the company?s annual turnover.
When so much is at stake can companies afford to miss the bus? Not really.
In Onida?s case, for instance, the company wanted to move away from a surfeit of product-based advertising. ?Technology is the language that most players use in the consumer durables space,? explains Sundar of Mirc. This point is reiterated by Kiran Khalap, co-founder and managing director of brand consultancy Chlorophyll.
?Consumers have become very savvy today. Technology focus allows companies to demonstrate how their products are better than others.? This one-upmanship however can get shrill at times, which is the voice, Onida executives wanted to avoid in order to stand out from the rest. Not surprisingly, the current set of Onida adverts highlight how the company?s products can make life easy for a consumer without getting too much into the technology part.
To be sure, there have been companies that have attempted to take this route in the past. Take Whirlpool, for instance. The cheerful banter between Whirlpool mom (played by Amrita Saluja and later Bollywood actor Kajol) and her family was meant to highlight how a company?s products can so easily slide into a consumer?s life. Before this, Videocon attempted this form of advertising in fits and starts, before emphasis on the trade overpowered everything else.
?Traditionally, Videocon has banked on trade in recommending its products to undecided customers,? says R Sridhar, chief executive officer, brand-comm. Print ads bearing a list of the company?s dealers to help prospective customers make their way to the nearest outlet or doling out huge margins to dealers to push its products have always been part of the company?s distribution strategy. And while this did help the company acquire No 3 position in the crucial TV category (minus LCDs) positioned just behind LG and Samsung, it?s again felt the need to up its ante. Onida, for the record, is fourth in the segment.
The present ?Experience Change? campaign, say observers, works at multiple levels. Not only is the company sending the message of being eco-friendly, its print campaign also bears slick images that display a chic set of durables. ?Videocon has always been perceived as being value-for-money. But with these adverts, the company appears keen to shake off that tag as it increasingly assumes international scale and outlook,? sums up a Mumbai-based analyst.