Brands have Emotionale

A visiting faculty to my college, Sumit Roy, gave us this powerful statement, which opened my mind to better understand the difference between a brand and a product. Anything that can be put on to a paper and floated around is what a product is. But when it comes to a brand, it is a far greater and closer to heart feeling that people carry towards the brands in their home. It is this feeling that people possess which leads to big words like brand loyalty and cults. The higher order attachment is actually the defining moment in the journey between a brand and its consumer.

Honestly, this is nothing new and people across the management verticals talk about this is ways more than one; basically there is nothing new that I can add here. But there is a critical part of this brand-consumer association which more often than not is the first level of this relation- we call it the brand experience and until recent, this was the biggest area of focus for retailers and brand to concentrate on. Everything that a brand put across to the consumer across all the mediums has a uniformity in terms of content and tone. The visuals and merchandise are in sync with all this. Lastly, it is about a sentiment a person has, an unfulfilled need at times, which a brand experience satisfies.

Brand retail- both as brand shops or Shop- in- shop (SIS) have their own charm. Walk into a Nike or Adidas store and even if you are not a hard core sports freak, you start feeling like one. Shelves full of shoes, jerseys, sports goods and accessories suddenly channel a rush of adrenaline. Spot a Federer or Bolt on the wall or just a face in the crowd out for a run on an empty road inspires one to just grab a pair right there to cherish that dream to get into shape. The sight of a man dressed in crisp formals at an Arrow or Raymond’s section builds the aspiration to make that impression in the meeting room. At the perfumery or the cosmetics section, all brands have testers for people to try it on and then decide what suits them in what kind of a look. Not to forget, at each stage, you have a personalized attendant to show you more options, recommend better products and even in case you are hell bent not to take his words seriously; no one hates if that person shares you a compliment. Feels like magic isn’t it?

Retail is a refined art. It is designed to stimulate your senses in every possible way. Attractive colours and themes on the displays, bright interiors with immaculately put up shelves with neatly arranged wares and smiling sales persons. Even the air within the store is pepped up with aroma candles and oils to make the people feel wanted and cared. Say for the look, an Apple store is expected to be in all white with the silver coloured machines and the staff in black Tees. A Samsung Smart Café or a Mercedes Benz showroom will look the same all across. It is all a part of giving you that distinguished brand experience. The entire affair with the look and feel is so great that clients hire specialized agencies as the people who will build this experience. These are the people who specialize in areas like retail window displays, the look for a season or festival as well as the overall retail design to catch our eye.

No matter what; this aspect of the retail experience is something which I believe cannot be easily duplicated in an online retail environment.  The convenience of shopping sitting in your lazy chair just does not have the charm of walking around in the isles, trying on stuff in a trail room to see how it fits you or at times, make you feel that you are shopping against surfing sites for the best deals. I agree that brands are putting in something very close to the SIS kind of arrangements on sites like Myntra, Flipkart and Jabong, but even with the banners and livery visible on the screen, it sincerely does not inspire the same sentiments. How can holding a pair of Ferrari Puma shoes in your hand be compared to seeing it online? How does one gauge the power dressing rush coming from an Arrow shirt by seeing some firang model wearing it unless you can touch the fabric?

It is good to know that brands are taking cognisance of this and keeping a distinction about what it sells through an online SIS as compared to its own online portals and physical outlets. They are ensuring that their products through a multi-brand online retailer is more aimed at brand penetration through these channels and maintaining a watch on the degree of discounts being offered to ensure there is no cannibalization. For all the pricing games and wars which happen every day on the online ecommerce retailers, there is much need to respect the sanctity towards loyalists through the traditional channels.   

Consumers live by experience. Comfortable, easy-to-use, convenient and ergonomic are what products are designed to be. Brands have a higher order of satisfaction- it is the aura, imagery, style and the ‘feeling-good’ factor added in. This is what makes brands, the emotions it invokes and wins consumers for life. 

Online retail in India- Still a long way to the top

11.11.2014 was an exciting day for online retail and shopping enthusiasts. After an impressive opening at the NYSE, Alibaba and Jack Ma have been in the headlines for all the right reasons. The Singles Day sale on 11^th November was like a show of its might and abilities to deliver and grow year on year. The numbers are simply mind boggling- $9.3 billion in sales with 278 million orders shipped in 24 hours. The figure is a significant rise from 150 million orders shipped last year, which again was a massive improvement from a year ago. It has shown exponential growth in sales and traffic over the past six years. Surely enough, the Chinese dragon is making its presence felt around the globe.

While all this was happening in China, on the very same day, Snapdeal and Amazon were looking at causing a few ripples in the Indian market. Snapdeal Savings Day was being heavily advertised for four days preceding the sale. To keep the shoppers interested, they put up a listing of all the range of products which would be up for grabs on the day and complete with hourly and limited time sale across categories. It seemed to be a well charted approach with special discounts or cashbacks on use of certain cards or modes of payment.

Parallel to them was the Amazon Appiness Sale- an exclusive sale for its mobile app customers and targeted towards increasing the number of mobile based internet users shopping via its app. But this also had a lot of attractive offerings like the chance to win 11 months of free shopping worth Rs 11,000 each month if one buys through the application.

Both the retailers seemed to have their marketing hats on and trying to ride in the mass wave of consumerism that has set in India. But coming hot on the heels of Flipkart Big Billion Day debacle, as an enthusiast and online buyer, I was really interested in how these two giants fared in comparison. With not much to buy available under the ‘Sale’ tag, I was happy to just a spectator and gather information and understanding. Sadly, the reports were not really encouraging.

Snapdeal Savings Day went on much the same way as Flipkart. The social media channels were buzzing about problems right from site not opening to payment gateways unable to check out orders. Comparisons came up rapidly to the extent where people commented that even the while Flipkart managed to get consumers up to some basic levels, the Snapdeal site was unable to meet this. As for Amazon, the social media pages were filled with more of customer complaints rather than anyone talking of the joy of shopping. While the reports in newspapers focussed on another online disaster caused by Snapdeal, the Amazon offer was possibly lost even for the media. The bottom line was clear in both cases: Snapdeal possibly lost more than gained and Amazon failed to build on the buzz.

In my opinion, the online shopping scenario in India is heavily dispersed across retailers who sell in specific categories and then the big ones who have everything under one roof. In the current boom, customers are actually spoilt for choice and thereby there are even retailers like Junglee (used to be the Indian brand by Amazon) which have got into the mode of a search engine for retail to give you the best deals. Sadly, it is too early for people to have formed loyalties and majority of the population sways to the retailer where the prices are lowest for the day. It is hardly surprising that in case of a flash sale, the number of users multiply exponentially and the support structures are collapsing. Also, it is not viable to maintain a backend in terms of inventory, servers and payment gateways for the flash sale volumes for all other days of the year.

Not to mention, physical retailers have been crying foul towards flash sales riding on predatory pricing strategies. Since the online retailers have no direct arrangements with the manufacturers of durables; LG, Samsung, Videocon, Sony and Panasonic forbid their trade partners to sell their products with deep discounts during flash sales on e-retailers, while to buyers of the products are termed not eligible for after-sales service or warranty. I have had one experience where my product was not even handled by an authorised service as it was an exclusive online product.

I guess on an overall, online retailers have to introspect into what they are offering and what they need to make this wave sustain in the long term rather than more of flash sales and heavier discounts.

a)      Market Size: Online retail is on a boom and is looking at exponential growth. But all put together, it accounts for a fraction of total of physical retail sales in India. The number of categories is today limited and growing, but it has many miles to travel before replacing the traditional formats to a significant degree anytime soon.

b)      Deliveries: Last year I was proud to awe my brother with the record 2 days for a standard book delivery by Flipkart. This year the same has been extended to 5 days. My friend over two weeks has been fighting over apologies and no responses after a wrong book was delivered to him. Another one reported of a delivery boy who fainted on the road due to fatigue and overload of pending deliveries over Diwali. All these are just signs of the lack of robustness in the delivery mechanism which needs an urgent shot in the arm.  

c)       Revenues: Every sale so far has had huge spends on media, investment in inventory and delivery and heavy discounts. This is driving the top line of the sales chart- but what about the bottom line? How far can it be ignored? It is known that everyone in this business run in debt, but is this how things will run for ever?

In every business, there has to be a consolidation phase before the next big step. I believe its time it was attended to as well if we do dream to see someone to be India’s answer to Alibaba. 

A for Apple

It is possibly the very first letter to object association one might learn as a toddler. Once a part of your life, it rarely happens to leave you. It keeps coming back as a part of a fruit plate or a pie on your table, an appletini or just a glass of juice, Adam’s apple and also the apple that got Newton to propose the concept of gravity and possibly change the way the world then was. I guess the world today has another apple to add to the list.

Yesterday was the launch of Apple iPhone 6 and for some reason it was an event which was the talk of the town. Business and news channels were following it, alerts were being circulated on news apps and almost every newsprint had it as a front page news the next morning. So Apple launches a much awaited iPhone 6 with two variants and announced Apple watch to hit the markets in 2015. To me, it seems like Apple and Samsung are gonna fight a technology supremacy war while the Xiaomi and Micromax take over the world.

Ask me, I’m not excited as the first reviews I read do not promise anything earth shattering. Experts are actually critical of post-Jobs Apple entering the large screen market; something Jobs was vocally against. Also since I’m not so much an Apple or iPhone freak (my only Apple asset to date is an iPod). If I compare the specs, Samsung seems much more in control. But for the world Apple definitely seems to strike a chord with its apparent brand equity. As an Indian stand-up Apoorv Gupta had in his act; ‘…for some the excitement of an iPhone launch is no less than the birth of a younger sibling in the family…’

Apple since its inception has been associated with innovation and more often than not, it has stuck to its roots. Apple and Microsoft started a few years apart as assemblers of computer hardware. All thought out the 80’s, Apple was holding out on its own as the IBM-Microsoft combine rolled on. But once the home PC market was established in the early 90’s, Microsoft with Windows virtually took over the whole world by storm and entered almost every household. Apple on the other hand was a niche for high end graphics and processing. The association of Steve Jobs with George Lucas and Pixar is well documented.  The Mac’s were usually considered a richly engineered and expensive computing experience.

The complete excitement around the brand I believe started off with the iPod. Apple surged ahead in the market with a product which had a far refined under interface compared to the rest- which were more of USB devices with playback capabilities. The fact that you could create a playlist, a touch pad to change tracks or control volume made the iPod desirable even though no FM radio, the high cost and the fact that you needed iTunes to transfer music or make playlists. I believe this instilled the confidence that Apple rides on as they went ahead with the iPod Touch, iPad, and iPhones.  If the product is ground breaking- people will buy.

I’m really not sure if Apple iPhone 6 and the Apple watch will be a resounding success; I really don’t see superiority in terms of technical specs as yet. I also know of people who have had massive software related problems with their iPhone 5 models. Apple has had its fair share of product failures- the PDA called Newton is one I recall having seen. But there is one thing that no one has so far complaint; it is the quality of the product and its design features. This is not just limited to the phones from Apple but is true universally for all the products apple has in the market.

If Apple as a brand needs to be defined, it would quite simply be a benchmark. Pick an area of your choice and in every category that Apple is present, it is considered a gold standard. And this is not limited just to products: it expands across every possible contact point with its customers. Apple products in a retail space have a presence unlike any other. Its dealer outlets bear an overwhelming use of white which actually makes its products appear in all the grandeur. The jewel case packaging, white accessories, carry cases- just about everything distinguishes itself from the rest and is more often than not copied to a fair extent.

An area where I get a lot of requests is how Apple communicates. Again, this also has the use of white to a high extent with a play between black & white being dominant. The font that Apple uses is also a well-rounded and without serifs type face, which definitely has a fun but not frivolous appeal. It is not funny the number of times clients show us an Apple ad or a product brochure and say, “I want something like this… simple, clean and yet creative”.

To sum it all, we may or may not actually purchase an Apple product, but they have in many ways set new standards. It likes to maintain its place of exclusivity by comparatively higher pricing- but definitely make an impact on desirability. It is a statement through its design and specification. The fact will always remain- Apple will always be ‘The Apple’ of the eye.  

Mobi-Wars: The attack of the clones

The cycle of who gains supremacy in the mobile phone handset market has taken a fantastic turn and this time Samsung; the world leader in terms of market share, is on the receiving end this time. On terms of sheer numbers, China and India are the largest markets for mobile handsets and local companies from both countries: Xiaomi and Micromax, have taken control as market leaders respectively. While both markets are fast upgrading to smart phones, the erstwhile leaders: Samsung and Apple are headed towards choppy waters.

Xiaomi; the new king of the market in China is just 4 years old and direct entrant with Android based smart phones. Its MIUI firmware was dubbed to be an aping of Samsung and Apple, but its flagship Mi series has definitely caught the frenzy of people. With over 10Mn Mi-2 models sold in 11 months leading up to September ’13, Xiaomi has captured the Chinese and East Asian markets in a serious and rapid. The company is unknown in Europe or the Americas- but its sales from Chinese mainland and parts of East Asia are good enough to make it the 5^th largest smart phone vendor in the world.

Xiaomi is a case study in itself of how a goal oriented approach of a company which began with no manufacturing or sourcing avenues has risen to take up a gigantic shape. To gauge why this is something worth knowing, just put in perspective the following; Made in China: Cheap and unreliable. Though 90% of electronics vendors are from China but have contracts with bigger players who invest in their facilities and so the manufacturing is closed door and customised to their needs. As many as 85% vendors rejected the offer to associate with Xiaomi. So how do you win against such odds?

Founder Lei Jun, who was an already established entrepreneur and billionaire from his previous ventures in the 1990’s, hired a set of executives from Google, Motorola and Microsoft. Their efforts in developing the MIUI Android platform ensured newer capabilities every week. A strong feedback loop from beta users and other customers helped them evolve faster and at lower cost. A tie up for touchscreens with Sharp Japan in 2011 was a boost at a time when business with post Fukushima Japan was at its lowest. The faith by Qualcomm in the MIUI platform and the assembler of Apple; Foxconn agreed to set up assembly for Xiaomi.

Someone might argue that you can capture a market if you have a product at an affordable price; in Xiaomi’s case- roughly half of what an Apple or Samsung sells. But unless there is a decent level of quality offered, no one can succeed in a mature market where consumers are informed. From the launch of its first phone in August 2011, Xiaomi surged past Apple by end of 2013 and had Samsung under its heel by August 2014- yes, just 3 years.

The story in neighbouring India with Micromax is equally enthralling though. It started off as a software company in 2000 and got into mobile phones only by 2010, much the same as Xiaomi. While the urban Indian was spoilt for choice with Samsung, Nokia, LG and Blackberry, Micromax went after the bottom of the pyramid. Its co-founder, Rahul Sharma was inspired to counteract the power outages in rural India. Micromax X1 was the first phone launched with a battery capacity of 30 days.

This was a time when some 26 mobile phone brands came into India in a span of 12 months with a similar model of manufacturing hubs in China and aim to capture the low spending-high volume end of Indian market. But Micromax made a distinction for itself by offering Indians not a low end Nokia or Samsung look alike sporting a T9 keypad but the experience of a QWERTY and dual SIM options. While rural was a focus, Bling- a swivel QWERTY phone with Swarovski crystals and a mirror became an instant hit with urban women. Bling was one of Micromax's highest selling models. It was also high on experimenting with the Android platform and came up with the Canvas phablet range in 2011.

Micromax did everything right when it came to marketing itself and can be a great example of the bottom-to-top approach. Hiring Akshay Kumar as its brand ambassador, sponsoring cricket tournaments etc. built awareness for the brand across consumer bands, while a slow and steady build-up of ground network of retailers and service centres built market visibility. The carrot they offered; better margins than anyone else. If the Apple and Samsung’s of the world were out of the pocket range and the Nokia and Blackberry empires was crumbling under the Android wave, Micromax was one of the better known so called low end look- alike and do-alike in the market which enjoyed the retailer push and cost a third of a Samsung of the same specifications.  

When Canvas was launched, the advertising was one with an international look which was boasted then by Samsung and LG. This was a stage when the brand built an image suggesting that it could offer the functionality of a bigger brand at a smaller price tag. But the use of international star like Huge Jackman in its ads gave a sign that Micromax meant business and washed away its me-too perception in the market. With the launch of their assembly unit at Uttarakhand in 2013, the ‘Made in China’ tag is also soon to be cleared off its phones.

The two Asian giants are likely to encounter each other head on very soon. Micromax has gone global with Russia and SAARC, while Xiaomi after East Asia has entered India. Xiaomi’s launch on Flipkart saw its sticks wiped off the shelf in under a minute- which kind of talks of its level of awareness in India already. But one thing is for sure; even if Samsung might refute the survey figures and claims to have not lost its market share, the brands once termed the clones have attacked and the ground is set for them to assume clear leadership soon. 

Roti, Kapda aur Mobile

If I wanted to sum up the changing fabric of India over the last 20-25 years, this is what I would say.  While roti and kapda have been popular political slogans right from the 60’s as basic and essential needs for a population, mobiles have become a key requirement for people. And why not; calling rates in India are cheaper than in comparison to any place in the world, handsets and even smartphones are available within budget and tower penetration has been improving. One big reason for this is the advantage of a large population base; the numbers compensate for operating revenues.

Mobile phones have changed the way India has functioned over the last 20 years of its existence in India. It started off as a luxury which only the super-rich could afford. No ordinary Indian could afford a handset resembling a brick costing above Rs 5000 and paying Rs 16 the moment they said hello. But this was an era when number of networks were few and competition had not set in yet. Orange

The first winds of change came in from Reliance which came in with its captive low cost handsets and lowest calling rates for the day. They targeted corporates and roped in the biggest names with their massive employee strengths to come through with corporate offers that gave them scale as well as steady clientele.

The next boom came around early 2000s when Airtel was launched and came in with a sweeping offer of free SMS every month. This was revolutionary in terms that mobile phones unlike fixed lines were no longer for voice alone and SMS was the choice of communication which was most analogous to an internet messenger. And as always, even at times when a call would cost Rs 1, an SMS was free.

This coinciding with cheaper handsets entering the market which set the trend for mobile phone rising higher in the must have list. Finally, when TRAI scrapped the free SMS schemes and limited discounting, some felt was there scope to innovate beyond calls and SMS at 50p. Enter Tata Docomo and its game changer per second billing. In reality, this is not discounting at all… in fact this is expensive that what other players offered; but the perception of value won the game.

Running parallel to this was the handset market with Indian market flooded with low cost options through joint ventures with East Asian companies. Between 2008 and 2010; there were a total of 26 handset companies which entered India. Everyone had a phone; the maid, the watchman. The neighbourhood vegetable vendor now took orders on the mobile phone and delivered on the door step. You could now call a taxi cab as the driver had a phone. STD calls were now dropping as migrants could call their relatives in rural India at places where power and water may be a problem, but telephone networks were always present.

During this time, I used to avidly follow the blog of an ex-Nokia guy; Tomi Ahonen. In my view, he was among the first guys who had predicted how the mobile phone screen would be the next big thing. At first, the idea seemed a distant dream considering India was still in the WAP days with abysmal subscriptions. But how right he was. In the next few years, the personal space of the telephone screen was doubling faster than the traditional computers and with the advent of smart phones is almost looking to replace takeover the market completely. Mobile based internet access has been increasing ever since. Today there is more revenue being generated through mobile based internet services as compared SMS. Just a few numbers- 185Mn mobile internet users in India alone. It kind of justifies the reason why an internet platform like facebook has bought a small mobile social App like Whatsapp. 

Blackberry was considered a serious business phone until BBM became a college hangout. It was now a scenario where a business person carried a top of the line Blackberry and a collegian had a low end model with almost every functionality as the top end. Dedicated widgets for applications were a rage when launched. But all this was just a phase as we see it today.

The rules of the game have changed and the biggest game changer has been Android. The open software platform and Apps for android rendered Symbian as an ancient relic and Android, Windows and iOS became the mobile softwares by choice. Today, it is not surprising for me to find people from modest backgrounds flaunt a high end phone as a combined effort of low tariffs, cheaper handsets and a host of free Apps to cater to everyone. It is astonishing to find that globally, 24% of all internet access is through Android (phones and tablets), 18% is iOS (all devices including PC) and Windows is only 9% (all devices including PC).

Where will we go next is anyone’s guess. But one thing is for sure, what is the ordered of the day, will be a page in history soon. What Motorola and Nokia were once; Samsung and iPhone are today. Mobile technology is changing so rapidly that the jump from iPhone 4 to iPhone 5 has been about 6 months. Mobile phones are now a need and it won’t be long when nomophobia (phobia of having no mobile connectivity) will be as prevalent as common cold.

In Pursuit of Excellence

Possibly the first thumb rule a person is taught through any kind of teaching; formal or informal, try to do the best at whatever you try your hand at. Then it might be sports, academic or building your hobbies. Knowingly or unknowingly, we all do become slaves of the rat race called the pursuit of excellence

People across the world have built their reputation of excellence in almost anything you will find on the planet. A French Wine to Italian Leather, a Persian carpet, a Cuban cigar, the production efficiency theories from Japan or even the Marketing practices out of US. Each one has held its own unique association- a matter of pride. So who can carry the accolades as a country known for its engineering excellence? Of course, Germany!

German Engineering- take any car brand, Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen… and by now
you already have a shiny car before your eyes. Each one has defined themselves to a high level of aspiration- no matter where you are. Germans take pride in the fact that they can create master pieces when it comes to machines.

But here comes the flip side of it. Sometimes this pride can become a passion and become the reason for downfall. The Pursuit of Excellence can actually become the most dangerous cause of self destruction. I just came across two examples where the tides just turned from bad to worse when excellence became the operative word rather than what the need of the hour was.

Take for instance the Tanks in World War II. Search the net and you will find a lot of people saying that the German Panther and Tiger tanks were superior in terms of specifications compared to an American Sherman or a Russian T-34. But major tank battles like the Battle of Kursk saw Germany actually lose out to supposedly inferior competition. How did this happen?

The American Sherman was more like an offshoot of the road truck, simple adaptation prepared for war. The T-34 was a hasty production and was coming off production lines that made farm equipments. But the German tanks were designed war machines. Engineering marvels- master pieces that took time to make. They had power trains that can draw the awe of an engineering brain any day.

But when the average life of a tank was down to 150 kms on a battle field, the Panthers and Tigers were simply outnumbered. Inch by inch, the Allies just got closer as the Germans suffered in their cause to excel in their work.

Well this is certainly not the only example where pride became the reason for losing out in the bigger race.

Let’s talk about Motorola- a Company boasting its Six Sigma standards. The Black Belts becoming consultant to organizations throughout the business circles. Motorola actually has a university dedicated for Six Sigma. But sadly, this became a passion that they just could not get rid of.

Motorola became a world leader in Analog Telephony and Communications in the late 90s. No one could match the sound quality of a Motorola. It’s a Walkie- Talkie... oh... must be a Motorola. It’s a Pager, Must be Motorola.

But the times were about to change. Cellular technology was taking the World over by storm. Transition from Analog to Digital should ideally have suited the leaders much better than the followers. But it certainly didn’t happen. Motorola never became a leader in Mobile Phones. The Six Sigma in sound was no more a priority. The big shift in technology got in something called Short Messaging Service. So while Motorola was busy creating the Crystal Sound technology, Nokia came out with robust models for every country and flooded the markets.

Samsung got a camera into a phone; Kodak did not bother to add a phone chip to its Camera. Today, Kodak looks at shutting down its Camera Film Rolls manufacturing as globally more pictures are now taken on a mobile phone camera.

Bottom Line….. In Pursuit of Excellence cannot be a Goal if it is not the need of the hour.

People did focus to the last digit accuracy in Pursuit of Excellence - what they missed while they played with a Vernier, was the competition going past them by the meters.