Storm the Norm
Page 1
PRAISE FOR THE BOOK
‘Disrupting what you do today will be a key capability to win tomorrow. Anisha Motwani has put together a lovely collection of brand stories that ‘storm the norm’. The future will belong to leaders and marketers who have the benefit of the experience, wisdom and pointers from this wonderful book. Carry it, read it, annotate it. This book will be the norm!’
—D. Shivakumar, Chairman and CEO,
PepsiCo India Holdings Pvt. Ltd
‘Brands are the most valued and prized possessions in today’s world. Creation of brands is both an art and a science; and a treatise like this that analyses how successful brands have been built in India—seen through the lens of an experienced and successful marketer like Anisha Motwani—is an invaluable read for anyone who has anything to do with business, branding, marketing, advertising or media.’
—Sam Balsara,
Chairman, Madison World
‘Carry this book in your bag and refer to it often if you are looking at storming the norms in your industry. Each story has insights you won’t find anywhere else.’
—Ajay Bijli,
Chairman and Managing Director, PVR Ltd
‘In today’s world everyone seems to be “over-promising and under-delivering”. Lofty claims, promotions and advertising often mislead people. Anisha’s book compiles brands that are examples of true excellence. She helps you understand and learn “how they did it”.’
—Analjit Singh,
Founder and Chairman, Max India Group
‘Developing a successful brand is a challenging but significant process. Anisha Motwani has researched and presented twenty successful brands that show us the value and power of innovative brands in India. As a professor of marketing, I know how important such a work can be for the business world. We can all learn from this timely and worthwhile book.’ —Professor Dipak C. Jain, Director, Sasin Graduate Institute of Business
Administration of Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
Published in Maven by
Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd 2016
7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj
New Delhi 110002
Introduction and edition copyright © Anisha Motwani 2016
‘Storm the Norm’ concept and methodology copyright © Ranjan Malik and
Anisha Motwani 2016
Foreword copyright © Santosh Desai 2016
Afterword copyright © Ranjan Malik 2016
Copyright of the pieces and photographs vests with the respective brands/companies
Disclaimer: The stories have been authored by the respective brands/companies and the views and opinions expressed in this book are their own and the facts are as reported by them, and the publisher and editor are not in any way liable for the same and take no responsibility for the veracity, accuracy and authenticity of the pieces.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 978-81-291-3702-9
First impression 2016
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.
To my father, who left imprints of knowledge and wisdom in my life.
Wherever you are, you’ll always be in my heart.
Success is the consequence of courage, commitment, and competence.
You cannot seek a consequence—it has to be created.
—Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev
CONTENTS
Foreword
Introduction
ENTREPRENEUR
PVR: The multiplex revolution
MakeMyTrip: A journey of countless miles and beyond
The Mirchi story: ‘It’s hot!’
‘Real’ success
CHALLENGER
Tata Tea: The journey of a billion cups
Sprite: What India’s best marketers do differently
Axis Bank: How a challenger brand became the most trusted private sector bank brand
The cheetah-inspired XUV500 prowls the global automotive arena
Kurkure: An ‘item number in the mouth’ that keeps family fun times rolling
The wind beneath the wings: Honda’s dream run in India
Sensodyne: Changing the oral-care landscape in India
The Idea story
Ford EcoSport: The making of a success story
Fiama Di Wills: Challenger to game changer
LEGACY
Cadbury: How a foreign chocolate won Indian hearts
Kissan: Going beyond food
MTR: The story of a legendary brand
Raymond: The story of a complete brand
Saffola: The braveheart brand
The Times of India: Changing India, changing ‘Times’
Afterword
Acknowledgements
FOREWORD
That we live in a world of brands is now a statement of fact and not hyperbole. Brands are all around us, and indeed we have begun to look upon almost everything as a brand. In spite of the undeniable fact that we find the idea of a brand so useful in our everyday lives, and that brands have been around for such a long time in this country, we know little about what makes these brands tick, who the people behind these brands are, and what goes into their making and, sometimes, unmaking. Brands are the building blocks of modern business, intangible assets often more valuable than those of the brick-and-mortar variety, ideas that live on even as products and companies that were once their vehicles pass on.
We read the biographies of great men and women, we devour the stories of business empires and create folk heroes out of figures in popular culture. When we do hear about brands, it is either by way of highly structured case studies or by way of anecdote or sketchy journalistic coverage. When business talks about brands, it displays a peculiar knack for taking a highly interesting subject and burying it knee deep in clichés. What suffers is genuine learning, a process that requires data and past experience, filtered through the lens of nuanced analysis. What is needed is a new way of talking about brands and learning from those who have built something powerful and essential out of the raw material of ideas, insight and rigorous practice.
It is time for us to hear the stories behind brands, for building brands is not merely about business. Brand stories are like detective stories of ideas—they involve a deep understanding of some human truths, they slice open implicit cultural impulses, create products and services that make us experience the world in new ways, act in ways clever and wise, bold and inspired, fail in ways stupid and spectacular, communicate in a dazzling array of forms. In short they tell us about themselves, the people behind them and, above all, about ourselves, those who interact with these brands.
Building brands in India presents challenges of many kinds. An ancient culture with its own codes, an unevenly developed market, a bursting-with-aspiration consumer, diverse competitors and a fragmented media landscape, all add up to complexity of a formidable kind. Growing categories and building leadership positions require a combination of many abilities and doing so consistently is a daunting enterprise.
The stories that follow are handpicked accounts of what went into building some of the most powerful and innovative brands in the country. Given that business in India has tended to look Westwards when it comes to case studies involving brands, indeed there is greater familiarity among Indian practitioners with brands like Apple, Microsoft, Nik
e, Dove and Virgin than with local success stories. This book is a treasure trove of stories about Indian brands that have succeeded in the face of great challenges. Like all good stories, they carry nuggets of wisdom and learning, and, like the truly great stories, they sometimes leave the extraction of this learning to the reader. Covering a diverse range of categories and contexts, they are designed to stimulate thought and promote reflection. The learning lies in stories of both similarity and difference; in some cases readers will find situations that are analogous to the ones they encounter, while in others they will find ideas that help imagine their own context very differently.
Under the able handling of Anisha Motwani, who is both an experienced marketer and an engaged thinker, the book that you are about to read will make it easy to learn from the experience of successful brands; more importantly, it will open new doors in your mind.
Santosh Desai
INTRODUCTION
As human beings, we are born to be curious. We are wired to search for knowledge, ideas and patterns and see how we can use them to better our own world and the world of those around us. As someone passionate about consumer insights and behaviour, I was always intrigued by companies that managed to create strong consumer connections by thinking ahead of their time, by not following the beaten path. As I grew in my career, so did the urge to find out what went on behind the scenes in these organizations. This book is an outcome of harnessing my long journey of curiosity to create a reservoir of success stories that can benefit others who are equally hungry for knowledge.
The idea for the book began with a simple thought. In a diverse, challenging and often unpredictable market like India, a handful of companies are doing an excellent job of attracting consumers and meeting their needs as well as creating business value for themselves. Digging deeper, I realized that most of these companies have done something out of the ordinary and, in the process, they have stormed and shaken up the market, transforming stale categories into vibrant ones.
Some of these are also companies talked about in the media, but most often, the details are sketchy and sporadic. A marketing campaign here, a quote from a senior official there or, sometimes, an interview with the head of the company to seemingly get a preview of what’s cooking inside. But what emerges most often is a snapshot of their market performance or the new launches that are on the way. The whole gamut of thinking and work that is feeding their success engine is seldom examined— what challenges they faced; what internal and external obstacles became stumbling blocks; what decisions were made at key junctures; and what the execution roadmap that paved the way for actual performance was.
It is out of the need to address these very gaps that this book has emerged. I felt that if the wisdom of this handful of companies could be made available to a wider public, it would help many more people, in turn, become winners in their own spheres.
The stories in this book belong to leading businesses and the people that run them. On the face of it, we already recognize them as markers of success in their categories. However, my real interest lay in uncovering the strategies that have been undertaken to help them achieve continuous success. What did they do that was against the expected? How did they storm the norm to create fresh new categories or business models or change consumer habits permanently? And did they do that right from the word go, or did they have to sweat it out to become the powerful influencers they are today?
Interestingly, while going through the chosen businesses, along with Ranjan Malik, an innovation specialist, I discovered that it is possible to put a method on how to learn from these brands, how one can actually storm the norm. We have synthesized this in the form of a framework which you can find in the Afterword. You could go through it after you have read some or all the stories and feel free to use it as a template to storm the norm and succeed in your next big challenge.
Coming back to the book. The first step in the creation of Storm the Norm was to decide which businesses to cover. A structured, rigorous and multi-phased process was adopted to arrive at the set of brands that you see featured in this book. The process began by scanning the marketplace for companies that are successful in India. These could be home grown, multinational or global, but the focus was their operations in India. This turned out to be a huge list. It was then pruned after assessing these companies along various parameters like market share, brand popularity, consumer trust and how action-oriented they had been. Another round followed to eliminate those organizations about which a lot has already been written and whose strategies are widely known. This shortlist was then evaluated to ensure that a diverse mix of industries was represented.
But it was not enough to simply have brands represented across a variety of sectors. I wanted to get stories from businesses operating at differing life stages and with different mindsets. This led to developing a segmentation approach in order to classify businesses based on these aspects. The result? The following three segments emerged:
a)Legacy Businesses: Companies that have been in the country for several years, often decades, and have continued to stay on top of their game by storming the norm and by reinventing and innovating themselves.
b)Challenger Businesses: Companies that have made a significant mark by challenging the leader in their category through innovative products, services and marketing.
c)Entrepreneurial Businesses: Companies that may be big or small, standalone or part of a large corporate, but which stand out for their entrepreneurial spirit—their ability to unlock hidden opportunities, take bold steps and create entirely new categories by themselves.
Each of the final set of brands that made the cut falls into one of these segments. For instance, The Times of India, Saffola, Cadbury Dairy Milk, Raymond, Kissan and MTR Foods are all legacy businesses. On the other hand, Sprite, Axis Bank, Ford EcoSport, Fiama Di Wills, Honda Motors, Idea, Mahindra XUV500, Tata Tea, Sensodyne and Kurkure are all challengers; while PVR, MakeMyTrip, Dabur Real and Radio Mirchi fall under the entrepreneurial segment.
Once the final list was complete, the next step was to contact the businesses and seek permissions for their participation. I have to admit here that I was delighted to have every single company I approached say a resounding yes to joining me in being part of this book.
In order to get the story out, a master framework was designed, that could trigger all the information necessary for stitching up a story. The framework was not a prescriptive template, but rather a guidepost comprising a series of questions to get the teams thinking in the appropriate direction. To elaborate, the framework had questions around how the brand’s journey began, impediments faced during the most critical times for the business, principles and philosophy of the brand, key strategies adopted to beat the competition, innovations that helped leapfrog the business and finally, the results of the all the sweat, toil and hard work.
This framework was then customized based on the segment the brand belonged to. For instance, businesses belonging to the legacy segment were specifically asked to dwell upon how they have managed to reinvent and stay relevant with changing consumer needs and evolving social and cultural norms. Businesses belonging to the challenger segment were asked to share how they took on the established brands in their category. Details on how they thought differently, what disruptive strategies they implemented and how they positioned their brands in order to carve out their own niche were sought from them. Businesses belonging to the entrepreneurial segment were asked to describe how they spotted new opportunities and made the most of them. In other words, what risky decisions they undertook that at that time seemed very bold and perhaps even foolish and how they got consumers to re-evaluate the entire category.
In addition to this, some more customization was done to include questions based on the nature of the industry the particular business was in and some questions exclusive to the brand as well. Only then was the final framework, unique to each brand, shared with the respective brand custodians. Often, this guidepos
t served as a great discussion tool that led to more ideas and more information territories that would make the story compelling and insightful.
All through this phase, I was supported by Pragya Khanna, a creative thinker, hands-on marketer and an expert on branding herself. She contributed wholeheartedly and brought in a lot of insightful perspectives on the approach and methodology for selection of brands and in arriving at the three business segments.
The next critical step was to decide upon how these stories would get written. I was clear that each brand story had to be authored by the people who were behind the wheels of the business, the people who conceptualized and executed game-changing strategies. Only those in the thick of the action would know the inner workings, the events that unfolded, the highs and lows experienced and the interlinkages across various functions in their organization. Only they, and not an outsider, would be able to create a holistic picture of what took place. Each story that you read here is thus a true reflection of the personal experiences of an individual or a team.
This decision has led to a couple of very interesting outcomes. First, what you see in this book are clearly people and business stories and not sterile case studies. There are strategies and tactics outlined for sure, but equally there are anecdotes, experiences and even blunders because that is the reality that precedes success. And like in life, the flow of events is sometimes non-linear and discontinuous.
Second, the narrative is not templated and typecast in some rigid format. Since the individual stories have been crafted by different people, it was felt that the flavour needed to be retained in the final output. Hence each business story has deliberately not been standardized for tone of voice or style of narration. So you will see plenty of writing styles. You will find some to be formal while some a little less so, some written from the point of view of a business team while others written almost as personal experiences. There are also differences in the time span. Some have chosen to sketch their whole journey from inception to date while others have chosen to put their focus on recent efforts only.