Interesting lesson from challenger brands - Himalaya Face Wash

Having worked on some global brands which not only have a rich heritage but are a learning school by themselves, one sometimes tend to be dismissive of communication from new or if I may call them challenger brands. But scratch the surface and these brands have great learning too. Because as Avis car rental said it beautifully a few decades ago "We try harder"

A few weeks ago I came across two commercials from Himalaya Men's Face Wash. Now Himalaya as a brand positioned itself more as a herbal brand but somewhere down the line Herbal became a mere footnote. And at the first glance the two commercials seemed to be more of the same old formula (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gLff2u8HlA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHfFmzfSukU). Introduce a problem, incomes the brand as a saviour, few seconds pack shot, end of story. I had dismissed the commercials as such.

Imagine my surprise therefore when interacting with some students and youngsters who have just finished education I found the commercials had a good recall and more importantly an empathy. And therein was my lesson. Sometimes it is not the thinking or the uniqueness of the idea or even a great insight which works, its just identification with the TG which is enough.

It would be right to assume that the product is aimed at 20-35 year old professional. But psychographically the communication is aimed at a youngster who is seeking/worried about a new job, wanting to make an impression at the work place and finding his place in the big bad corporate world. And it is this bulls eye psychographic which has done the trick.

The formula is old and tried a few hundred times but its ingredients are bang on. The problem definition in both commercials identifies totally with the TG. Getting rejected at a campus interview is a final year student's biggest nightmare. Boss tending to ignore you is any beginners worst fear. And the little touches added to it....your mother or girlfriend not telling you your problems....beautiful.

Also the execution is perfect. The protagonist is not the alpha male. He is a good looking next door neighbour person. The setting is not too outlandish or way aspirational. It is a modern office that could exist even in the smaller cities. So the communication is not Mumbai or Delhi centric, it is any town in India centric. These details have made a big impact. And the touch of girlfriend is perfect. It is a reality in India's small towns too...and importantly, it is aspirational.

As I have said in my earlier posts also, Himalaya has not stumbled on some great insight but they have found a great stimulus which tickles the TG in the right places. Sometimes we forget that it is basics like this which can make or break a communication.

But my grouse with the brand still remains? When they started maybe 15-20 years ago, they had a strong herbal positioning with some memorable advertising. At that time, maybe it was too niche. Why give it up now when herbal and all things natural are fast becoming a rage? Or I am missing something, somewhere? If anyone knows, please enlighten me.

How social media changed Diwali communication

Undoubtedly Diwali is the biggest festival in India. It is also the time when Indians go all out to shop. Be it buying electronics or durables or gold or jewellery or clothes....Diwali makes or breaks lot of brands and categories. Of late Diwali has become famous for offers. Many consumers delay buying just to grab some good Diwali offers. And top of the heap in the charge of the offer brigade were durables.

But this Diwali, something changed. Sure the offers were there. The freebies continued. But some FMCG brands went and build beautiful bonds with Diwali theme. I am not talking about usual culprits like Cadbury Celebrations which for almost a decade has been unleashing some terrific Diwali related gifting excuses. They did the same this year too.

What changed was brands like Nestle Kitkat, Pepsi and Kurkure using the occasion of Diwali to weave beautiful stories around the spirit of Diwali. If you haven't seen them then do watch the same
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6493771657497976552#editor/target=post;postID=8533123562776098219
http://www.collegeokplease.com/techtainment/har-diwali-gharwali-diwali-honi-chahiye/244

So what happened?

The answer I think is simple. Social Media. Three points.

First was the luxury of building and sustaining the emotions. With creative free from a 30 sec or a 60 sec format, the thinking changed from making a TV commercial to communicating a story. #GharwaliDiwali worked because the build up was something that millions of young Indians, away from their parents could identify with. The guilt of ignoring your parents could not have been communicated with a 30 sec framework constraining the creative. #FreedomfromDuration is the biggest gift that Social Media has given to the creative types.

Second was availability of new media channels at your fingertips. With smart phones, accessibility to new messages and brand communication has literally come to your finger tips. Yes, I am talking about the power of viral but more importantly I am talking about the concept of sharing a message or communication which touches you. You saw the film, were moved by it, wanted to share it with your friends, your family....and did that immediately. And you could relive it again and again.

Third was the opportunity to really go 360 degree. Usually brands would keep 80% of its media budget for TV. Now with social media, these brands have taken the huge risk of avoiding TV almost completely. Yet the films have had their audiences. And audiences which matter. So media money could go into promotions like Kitkat #MyDiwaliBreak twitter contest and celebrity twitter promotion. Though frankly on this front the effort still seems half hearted and not yet there.

Would Kitkat and Pepsi or Kurkure done the same without social media? Possibly they could have, but imagine doing a film as strong as #GharwaliDiwali in one minute or imagine the multiplier effect of #MyDiwaliBreak without social media.

What these campaigns have achieved is allowed emotional bonding to dethrone the plethora of offers that Diwali throws at you. Emotion tugging at your heartstrings and not offers tugging at your pockets, has again become the king.

 

In defence of Flipkart

First a disclaimer. I have been an ardent user of Flipkart for the last few years. For almost anything, I first login to Flipkart before checking the offers on other ecommerce sites. But I am not a blind fan too. If I find a better offer at other site, I do not hesitate to buy from there. So in the past few years I have experienced almost all the ecommerce sites, Snapdeal, Jabong, eBay, Amazon, Myntra......

Thus it was with some anticipation that I was looking forward to the Big Billion Day. I had some things on my mind, nothing big in electronics or household items but mainly lots of personal care items.

I logged in around 10:30 after having seen the ads in the newspapers and had no problems logging in. Maybe because I used the iPad app. I chose the items, saw that a decent discount ranging from 10% to 60% was being offered on all the items( it helped that I knew the MRP of the products) and added 10 items to my cart. After adjusting quantities etc which took a little more time than usual, I paid with my credit card and the act was done. Yes! I did not get the customary email or SMS confirming the order, but the order was showing in the "My order" column.

Post that I did try to indulge by looking at some of the crazy deals like Samsung Galaxy Tab for Rs 1390 or the 16GB pendrive for Rs 1. But just could not find the same. So I gave up.

A bit later while on Facebook and Twitter I started seeing some posts criticising the sale. Basically there were 2 types of posts. One was from disgruntled users who could not login or could not find the deals. And they have the right to be disgruntled. Server crashing or heavy user interface cannot be the reason in today's day and time that a company like Flipkart can offer as an excuse. They created a hype, they built up expectations and they failed to match it with their technology. Even though I did not have a similar experience, I do believe that there were many who did go through a lot of pain.

But it was the second type of grouse that perplexed me. This was some people who were complaining that Flipkart had raised prices of some items in the past few days and was had now reduced them to show massive discounts. And there was an article http://missionsharingknowledge.com/flipkarts-the-big-billion-day-a-pricing-scam/
which actually highlighted this with some impressive charts and examples.

But I have a fundamental question? What did Flipkart gain by increasing the price in the last few days and then decreasing it today? The sole parameter of discount comparison is against MRP. So lets take a hypothetical case......a printer has a MRP of Rs 5000 and it was being sold for Rs 4000 till last week and 2 days ago its price was raised to Rs 4500. Today it is being sold for Rs 4000. Flipkart will shout saying a discount of Rs 1000, not Rs 500, correct? So what's the deal? Why this big brouhaha?

I simply cannot understand the logic of this article or what people have understood about this article. From what I have seen all the prices have been benchmarked against MRP. Unless someone is implying that in the last few days Flipkart increased the price to beyond MRP. Again something which is not allowed by Indian laws and which will be foolhardy for a ecommerce company to indulge in.

There were some more grudges about offers expiring within minutes of the sale opening but that's a fact of life. There were crazy deals on some items and the ads mentioned in small print that these were on limited stock. Don't we face the same the moment IRCTC opens the booking for the festive season travel or holiday season travel? All tickets get booked in minutes. Nothing illegal about that. Unethical, maybe, but show me one ecommerce site or even a brand which does not use the fine print to it's advantage.

So what's the gripe all about? Is it a case of sour grapes? Is it a case of competition employing dirty tricks? I don't know.

What I know is that Flipkart is not a lala Indian company. I have experienced their customer service and systems and they have left no stone unturned in trying to give the customer a good experience. It would be really foolhardy for a company which is in the service sector and already has a turnover of USD billion to resort to such cheap gimmicks.

My only gripe. I am still awaiting email confirmation of my order!