Storm the Norm

by Anisha Motwani

  Hence the customer was drinking stale tea, at least eight months old, and no efforts were being made by any player to preserve the product in any manner.

  It is important to note that the companies that owned brands rarely, if ever, grew the teas they marketed, and this was even more so for the loose tea players.

  And so Tata Tea discovered its unique competitive advantage. Why not pack the tea at the gardens it owned and then sell it ‘garden fresh’ to the consumer? It was an unmet need of the consumer and a clear differentiator in the market place.

  For the first time in the country, tea was packed on the estates where it was grown.

  And was born, Tata Tea’s brand promise—garden fresh tea. The pack itself, of course, was green.

  A packaging innovation, the use of polypacks over cartons, which were the industry norm, helped enhance this brand promise. Polypacks, which are laminates of polyester and polythene have very high barrier properties to keep both air and moisture out.

  Product innovation

  In line with Darbari Seth’s fourth tenet, a conscious decision was taken not to blend this tea. Unlike regular blended teas in the market which were sieved and had uniform grains, Tata Tea was made of a combination of big and small grains. The small grains gave the tea strength or ‘kadakpan’, while the bigger grains gave it ‘khushboo’ or aroma. Mystically, what Seth didn’t know then was that years later, this very tenet would form the core brand proposition for brand Tata Tea Premium—promise of a mix of badi and choti patti (leaf) which gave a balance of strength and aroma in every cup of tea.

  Evolution of the visual identity of Tata Tea and the introduction of Tata Tea Premium

  Another of Darbari’s tenets said that the company would bear no extra cost behind marketing—which meant no investment behind manpower, excessive trade spends or even advertising. It was simple: the brand had to prove itself to command investment.

  Sweet-spot pricing

  Thanks to state-of-the-art machinery from Japan and a handful of workers at the gardens, tea was now packed into branded Tata Tea packets which were then transported along with Tata Salt and distributed further through a third party distributor.

  Because of the lean cost structure and removal of supply chain layers such as auctioning and blending, packets of Tata Tea were available to the end consumer at prices that were marginally above those of the ‘loose’ teas they were purchasing and significantly lower than those of packet tea players. The brand had already found a way of addressing the clear gap in the customer requirement of ‘freshness’.

  It was only a matter of time before the consumer bought into this brand. After all, any consumer, anywhere in the world, would prefer fresh food products at a reasonable price. There was a surge in demand and Tata Tea became a significant player, soon eating into the share of Unilever as well as of the loose teas.

  By now, the brand had become so significant that the retailer community expressed its desire for the brand to advertise. The local (kirana) trade in India is built on wafer-thin margins where traders make money on volume. Hence, when the local trade accepts you, it means that you are their asset. And this community was telling the brand that it needed to advertise for it (the retailer community) to take pride in selling more of it.

  The inadvertent brand journey along the 4 Ps, for a brand that was not meant to be

  Packaging at source to retain freshness; polypacks instead of cartons to keep air and moisture out.

  Product: Non-blended tea that retained its strength and aroma.

  Proposition: Garden fresh tea.

  Price: Strategically positioned between loose tea and branded teas. The brand was thus ready to command investment and the fifth P, ‘Promotion’, was a natural outcome.

  By 1987, having proved itself in the market, Tata Tea had by now earned its right to spend on advertising. That is when advertising and creative agency, Ogilvy & Mather, went on to create the first Tata Tea TV advertisement. The film featured Amjad Khan as the protagonist educating a young lady about how Tata Tea was freshly packed at source with freshness sealed into every packet. This was followed in a few years by a piece of communication which became one of most iconic ad films of the decade. This film featured Anu Agarwal in a ‘tea’ rendition of the superhit Bollywood song, ‘Jumma Chumma de de’, where a group of men with tea cups in their hands demanded a cup of ‘taazgi’ or freshness and Anu Agarwal promised that with a packet of Tata Tea.

  At a time when Unilever was positioned on strong emotional credentials of being a family drink cuing bonding and togetherness, Tata Tea went on to create a new segment for tea—one that desired freshness. This ‘unique’ feature became so fundamental to the brand that even today it comprises its core equity.

  High quality tea, low trade spends, competitive pricing and a differentiated and unique proposition of freshness resulted in Tata Tea’s ascent to fame. Having changed the dynamics of the tea market in India, Tata Tea’s flagship brand, Tata Tea Premium, saw phenomenal growth from 1986 until 1999.

  Running out of breath

  But by its very nature, an advantage only remains competitive so long as it is unique. Tata Tea soon saw competition catch up and erode its erstwhile competitive advantage.

  The tea trade is one with low entry barriers, so local businessman could buy good quality tea from the auctions, pack it in pouches and begin to sell—all at highly competitive prices. The crash in commodity prices made it even more lucrative for new players to enter. By now, most packs in the market were green and promised freshness. The polypack packaging was no longer a differentiator either.

  Trade and consumer promotions started eroding market share

  By the end of the 1990s the market saw a mushrooming of ‘local’ brands, each operating in its respective geography. Typically, local players operated in a specific area and they quickly understood that tea in India is sold at the recommendation of the retailer. Hence, incentivizing the retailer (who also happened to be in his close network) to sell was a sure shot path to success. This was also the time that the stainless steel industry was going through a boom—making stainless steel items (with high perceived value) very reasonable to procure. These made for attractive free items, luring the consumer into their franchise.

  In a sense, history repeated itself with local players doing to Tata Tea what Tata Tea had done to the industry a decade earlier. This was not good news for the brand—for the first time since inception, the brand shrank by 4 per cent in 1999. After a decade or so of phenomenal growth, Tata Tea clearly needed to stop and rejuvenate itself.

  The business environment was challenging, no doubt. And yet again it was time for change.

  In former managing director and chief executive officer (MD and CEO), Harish Bhat’s book, Tata Log, he mentions: ‘A pioneer has to find the way around challenges that appear insurmountable because he is attempting to scale a peak that has never been done before.’

  And a breath of fresh air

  Along with the dawn of the new millennium, came a ray of hope.

  In 2000, under the leadership of R. Krishna Kumar, Tata Tea became one of the first Indian companies to acquire a company overseas, a company that was much bigger than itself. This was in line with Krishna Kumar’s belief that ‘if you want to be a strong player, you can’t not be a global player’.

  Tata Tea acquired Tetley, a heritage British brand with a presence around the world—and with that, it found its place on the world map.

  Tetley, the market leader in the UK and Canada among others, had a distinguished history of innovations to its credit, including the original teabag and the drawstring bag. Tata Tea, with this acquisition could leverage Tetley’s expertise in marketing and innovation, in its quest to become a global player. While the mood in the economy was good, brand Tata Tea continued to shrink and the brand ended FY 2001 at 11 per cent market share. It was clear that the garden fresh story and the original pack which had stayed the same since inception had run their co
urse.

  Up until 2001, Tata Tea operated with only one brand and that was ‘Tata Tea Premium’, tasked with addressing all segments of the market. But that was an approach not suited for the Indian tea market.

  Tea in some ways mirrors the multifaceted culture of India—with differences in grain sizes, tea colour, taste, method of preparing tea and so on. But with diversity also comes complexity, and to paint a canvas as wide as the Indian market, one colour just wasn’t enough.

  In the words of Sushant Dash, vice president marketing, India:

  The biggest challenge the brand faced was that it needed to compete at both ends of the spectrum with the likes of Red Label at the upper end and Taaza and local brands at the economy end. Hence, it was important to move from a single brand offering to a portfolio of offerings that catered to various price points and value segments in the market.

  Portfolio brand strategy

  And so began the journey of building a portfolio, one brand at a time.

  Unique consumer insights from across the country coupled with tea expertise led to the creation of several brands in the three-four years that followed. This was a crucial period in the expansion of the brand.

  Geographical segmentation

  Tea preferences across the country weren’t uniform. In Bihar, for example, bolder-grain teas were consumed and considered superior. But knowledge of tea dictated that bolder-grain teas were in fact inferior teas and least preferred in the hierarchy because they took longer to release colour and taste. Unlike other markets, housewives here would first add water and sugar—a process by which the sugar would get caramelized giving a unique flavour to the tea. This flavour compensated for the lack of delivery of the bolder grains. This realization allowed for an offering that could cater to a consumer need at a lower cost. And thus was launched Tata Tea Danapur Leaf—a yellow-coloured pack which promised the goodness of bold grains.

  In some parts of the country like Maharashtra and Orissa, consumers had a preference for ‘dust’ tea—dust tea was fine tea and consumers of dust liked their tea thick and strong. To address this need, Tata Tea Premium Dust was launched in a red pack, the colour red connoted strength and was differentiated from the original green pack. Today Tata Tea Premium Dust defines the tea market in Orissa and enjoys dominant market share—the only other presence in the market is local players, who, of course, come in red packs.

  As the variants of Tata Tea Premium grew, so did the footprint of the brand.

  Affluence-based segmentation

  Premium

  But it was not enough to grow in different markets. It was also important to grow across different consumer segments—by now Tata Tea Premium operated in the ‘popular’/mid segment of the market while lacking a presence in the upper and lower segments.

  Extensive research was undertaken to understand in detail the tea consumption habits amongst the higher socio-economic classification (SEC), urban audience. And research said that these consumers desired something that was very fundamental to tea—aroma. Aroma was the signifier of a superior cup of tea. At that time, it was a habit amongst some consumers to buy CTC tea (CTC stands for crush, tear and curl: a method of processing black tea) and mix it with orthodox tea or long-leaf tea (Unlike CTC tea, orthodox leaves are manufactured through a more gentle process, thereby allowing them to retain more aroma and flavour). CTC offered a strong full cup and the orthodox added a unique flavour or aroma. And that, right there, was an opportunity for consumer delight.

  This led to the birth of one of the few successful innovations in the tea category—Tata Tea Gold. The brand was differentiated by the presence of orthodox long leaves (15 per cent), and enjoyed a unique packaging which allowed for the pack to stand on the shelf and a clutter-breaking name.

  The Tata Tea Gold launch was a huge success. The brand was stocked out within two months of launch. It became a 2 per cent share brand within two years of launch, and, a decade later, it is now the face of the Tata Tea portfolio in the eastern parts of the country.

  In 2013, brands like Taj Mahal, Taaza and a host of locals have launched long-leaf variants with 15 per cent long leaf—ten years too late.

  Economy

  At the same time, Tata Tea also owned ‘Agni’, a brand that the company had launched in 1998 to address the economy segment. Agni stood for strength and came in a red pack with the brand name written in Hindi. It was launched with a lot of fanfare and had Sridevi as its brand ambassador. It grew rapidly but declined just as fast. As soon as investments behind advertising were stopped, the brand became undifferentiated from the plethora of local brands. Neither trade nor consumers saw any reason to buy into the brand. By 2004, Agni was struggling to find a foothold and Tata Tea was debating if it should withdraw the brand.

  Strategic revival of the Agni brand by leveraging the equity of ‘Tata’

  A strong presence in the large economy segment of the market was important for Tata Tea as it provided an opportunity for bringing a large number of consumers of loose and local teas into the Tata Tea franchise. And so instead of closing down a brand that was struggling to survive, fresh life was infused into it. Agni was transitioned under the Tata Tea mother brand in 2005. It was rebranded Tata Tea Agni. Another smart business tactic deployed to make the brand aspirational for the economy segment was to transition the nomenclature from Hindi to English while retaining its bright red colour. The Tata Tea name gave Agni the required differentiation from the local brands. Importantly, it gave trade a reason to stock Agni. That was a turning point for the brand with it breaking all previous sales records in the post transition period. Today, Tata Tea Agni is the only successful national branded player in the economy segment.

  Tata Tea started with a single brand offering and became a portfolio of brands, each addressing a distinct segment of the market with a relevant consumer proposition. It was now a portfolio in the true sense and it flourished.

  From volume leadership to thought leadership

  By 2007, the company had seen great success in tea and was now a global player. Along with volume and turnover, even ambition became larger.

  However, tea was perceived as a beverage for ‘older people’—youth didn’t seem to engage with tea and so the immediate task was to appeal to this segment which had been excluded from all marketing plans so far.

  In the legendary words of the then MD and CEO Percy Singanporia, ‘With the limited growth potential of a single beverage brand play, it was evident earlier that growth utilizing the same business model in adjacent beverage space was an accelerator. Other than that the decision to look at youth oriented and fast growth new age beverages was the next definitive milestone.’ In line with Percy’s vision, youth couldn’t be left out of the Tata Tea story anymore.

  It is these very constraints that pushed the team to, for the first time, stop applying the lens of tea to the world and instead broaden its perspective and look at everything afresh—from a perspective that transcended gender, income, age, habit and any kind of segmentation that conventional marketing wisdom dictated. And thus was born one of the most iconic campaigns in the history of Indian advertising—‘Jaago Re’.

  Jaago Re campaign

  Conceived by creative agency Lowe Lintas & partners, it was an idea that was exciting and challenging. The possibilities were infinite.

  Tea, with a penetration of more than 90 per cent, is consumed by millions of Indians several times a day. In that sense tea is a leveller; everybody drinks it, for the same reason—to wake up.

  Jaago Re was conceived with the objective of making Tata Tea the agent of social change, broadening the role of tea from a beverage that facilitated physical awakening to one that also brought about mental and social awakening. That allowed for it to bring under its fold not only the older age group that currently consumed tea but also youth, who, in some senses, represented the restless generation ‘X’. Youth who wanted social and societal change were also the consumers of tomorrow. Jaago Re managed to genera
te appeal across segments because of the cheeky manner in which it pointed the finger inwards on key social issues.

  In his address to Tata Tea employees, ex MD and CEO Harish Bhat said: ‘When Tata Tea embarked on the journey of Jaago Re, we took a big leap of faith. We wanted to make a humble cup of tea an enabler of social change by “awakening” people to be the change that they wanted to see.’

  Jaago Re touched upon issues like corruption, bribery and voting well before they became topical.

  In a nutshell, with Jaago Re Tata Tea broke all the rules. In a category which is considered old and boring, Tata Tea created advertising that was tongue-in-cheek and edgy. In a category that was associated only with physical awakening, Tata Tea introduced a new dimension—one of social awakening. When people were blaming each other, Tata Tea pointed the finger inwards. But it was not enough only to voice all this. The brand had to walk the talk which has always been core to the Tata value system. And with that thought, in 2009, ahead of the Indian general elections, Jaago Re facilitated over six lakh voter registrations through Jaagore.com.This at a time when social media was still at a nascent stage and had yet not become a buzzword in the Indian context like it is today.

  At each stage where the brand faced a challenge—market entry, difficult commodity environment, stagnation in business—it reinvented itself and changed the rules of the game altogether. This reinvention happened at various stages through different levers—marketing mix, disruptive packaging, new product innovation based on consumer insight, and communication.