Storm the Norm

by Anisha Motwani

  With the launch of Saffola Oats and Masala Oats, both sweet and savoury variants, Saffola moved out of the kitchen closet right on to the breakfast table.

  ‘Today consumers have firmly accepted Saffola’s health credentials’, says Sanjay Gupta, head marketing (wellness and youth). ‘We no longer need to put effort into that. We are here to work on giving a great “taste” to consumers now. In a healthy and convenient form.’ For the busy household, a pair of scissors seems to be the only kitchen tool needed for a nutritious breakfast. A ₹15 pack of Saffola Masala Oats is opened and an appetizing breakfast follows, without sweat and toil in the kitchen.

  In just a few years, Saffola Oats is finally the crowning achievement for the brand teams after a decade-long experiment in the food category.

  ‘Sweatless results’ is what the Indian man really wants, says Govind Pandey, president, McCann Erickson India, the company that handles Saffola’s promotion. ‘Not that we endorse this, but we understand this. This is a man like you and me—we all are in the same boat. Watching our waistlines, eating carefully through the week, celebrating cheat-days on the weekend, worrying, stressing, procrastinating and occasionally actually visiting the gym.’

  Saffolalife: Giving a higher purpose to the idea of care

  The Indian man is unique—he does not think much of heart care unless he has been diagnosed with a problem. But equally unique is Saffola’s approach to this mission, reminding the Indian family in many small and big ways about the need to be proactive about heart health. Saffola’s methodology defies all known practices. The brand has always kept social consciousness firmly above profits and heart health above all corporate machinations. In 1991, Saffola created The Healthy Heart Foundation and in 2006 the non-profit artery of Saffolalife.

  Interestingly, Saffola offers expensive cholesterol tests and ‘know-your-heart’s-age’ tests instead of discounts and coupons, not just to users but also to non-users. This is a brand that engages selflessly with consumers living in denial about their heart health on occasions such as World Heart Day. This is a brand that expects nothing in return except a greater awareness of heart disease. It is this culture of giving to the consumers that accounts for the luminous halo around brand Saffola. ‘Saffola has always had an aura that is much larger than the size of the brand,’ says MD and CEO Saugata Gupta. ‘It will never behave like a brand looking for short-term rewards or cashing in on any trends.’

  Creating Heart Awareness

  One big step, selflessly executed, has been the appropriation of World Heart Day by Saffola. Free cholesterol and heart-age tests have been designed to bring in the consumers who are in denial about how their lifestyle affects their heart health. When someone takes a free test to check their heart age, they take the first step into the world of Saffola, not by spending money, but by availing of an expensive test for free.

  This unique culture also stems from the way things are done at Marico. It’s never been a trader company at heart or a commodity supplier. The company has been built by creating brands that offered clear value to the consumer. ‘Saffola, Parachute and Kaya are the three great brands that we have built,’ says Harsh Mariwala. ‘And not just Saffola but each brand has been given a focus, a niche that rewards the consumer and rewards us.’

  The rewards have come—slowly but steadily. If in the 1970s and 1980s heart health was a tiny niche, in 2014 the heart business is more than booming. The new generations are keenly aware of the repercussions of a sedentary life, desk-bound careers, obesity and diabetes. In this environment, Saffola has reached out to the newly conscious consumers with quiet dignity.

  Jumping on to the bandwagon, competitors have feebly tried to muscle in to the heart space and challenge Saffola. But no one has lasted in the race so far. Govind Pandey of McCann Erickson says: ‘Unlike the competition, we are here for a larger purpose and our products are intelligent interventions in the service of the larger purpose. We will never digress from that.’ It is this larger purpose that has firmly kept doctors and medical experts believing in the brand, vouching for it and recommending it. This is the core equity of the brand that can never be usurped by competitors without the patience and tenacity to build up such a support network.

  ‘We welcome competition though,’ says Sanjay Gupta. ‘Competitors claiming a share of the heart market will only bring more choice to the consumers. Because when faced with competition, we only reach higher and figure out better solutions for our consumers.’

  What Saffola wants perhaps is to replace the traditionally known red heart in people’s minds with the Saffola heart—a heart that’s much more visible today, with a heartbeat that can be heard across the country. It’s a unique heart that speaks honestly and urgently, a heart that celebrates life in all its failings and triumphs. Saffola is a brand which made strategic shifts that have transformed it without ever compromising on the core, a brand that has moved from fear to care, from heart health to heart health and convenience, from a kitchen shelf brand to a dining table brand, from proposition to purpose—encouraging a new, aware and awakened way of life.

  ‘We want more people to be aware and awake—heart trouble is not something you should take lightly,’ says Mr Mariwala. ‘Whatever happens, Saffola will always be there to nudge more people into caring for their heart, and not ignoring its beat.’

  All of Saffola’s hard work has hardly been wasted on the consumer as awareness of heart health has dramatically improved over the past few decades. It is not a rare sight to see a vendor selling the Gujarati staple ‘thepla’ cooked in Saffola oil or even a chikki in Lonavla made of Saffola oil, a health guarantee of sorts.

  Saffola trivia

  Curiously enough, even though Saffola was launched around 1965, an avid collector of old magazines discovered possibly one of the first print advertisements of Saffola in a 1962 issue of Femina magazine. Conflicting history aside, the ad is relevant for one key reason. The essence of the communication message hasn’t changed till 2014.

  CHANGING INDIA, CHANGING ‘TIMES’

  ‘If the world would only stop for us, so that we could all grow old together, what a pleasant state of things might ensue, but it refuses to halt for a moment: it declines to accept age and idleness in lieu of vigour and industry.’

  These words appeared in The Times of India on 25 May 1857 in the context of the Mutiny. In the century and a half between that time and the present, while much water has flown down the Ganges, the paper has continued to reflect the essence of these words.

  India has changed in this time, not once but many times over, with the Mughal Empire and the British Raj both passing from glittering acmes into history’s dusty pages. During this tumultuous period, The Times of India has acted as the chronicler and harbinger of change and in recent times, as its enabler.

  A slice of history

  The newspaper came into being on 3 November 1838 with an early focus on mercantile news. In keeping with the dynamic environment of its readers, the paper too has changed. Beginning with its name. When the passage quoted earlier appeared in the paper in 1857, it was called The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce. In its journey, it absorbed other publications such as The Bombay Standard and The Daily Telegraph and Courier. In 1861, the paper was renamed The Times of India (TOI).

  Over the next eight decades, the paper expanded its coverage dramatically. As India changed hands, so did the TOI, passing from its British owners into Indian hands in 1946. For a period of over thirty years, beginning with the 1950s, the brand continued to deepen its relationship with readers. New editions of the paper came into being in Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Lucknow and Patna. The focus was on political coverage and keeping the reader informed on national developments. The tone was conservative, in line with the mood of the country.

  Infusion of new thought

  The next phase of changes, and major ones at that, came in the 1980s with India beginning to take its first, somewhat tentative steps towards liberalization. Thrift b
egan to give way to a new wave of consumerism and the youth got their share of political space. The TOI was the first media brand to gauge the changing mood of advertisers, who began looking for channels to give significant pan-India exposure to their products and services, especially in key urban centres.

  The brand began to change the rules of the game in a series of actions that would transform the Indian newspaper industry. Up to this point in time, the entire strategy of newspapers had been focused on increasing circulation and then pitching the higher numbers to advertisers as the sole reason for them to pay more. However, given that the cover price of one copy of a newspaper was less than the cost of producing it, this strategy ensured that any increase in circulation would eventually burden the system. Moving away from this hidebound practice, the TOI began focusing the attention of the advertiser on the value it gave him, by way of the quality of readership more than numbers. The thrust was on presenting an advertiser with the most relevant audience for his brand. For example, for a car brand it was important to target an upwardly mobile middle class family and the TOI’s promise was to deliver just that.

  The thought faced initial resistance from advertisers and media agencies who were comfortable with the time-honoured strategy based on circulation numbers, which they perceived as tangible, as compared to the concept of value. The innovative strategy was tested in 1986–7, when the TOI announced a massive increase in advertising rates, ranging from 25 to 50 per cent. Based on a clear understanding of the market’s potential to pay, the rate hikes survived the initial storm and over time were accepted by industry. This acceptance was because the new pricing was based on a clear rationale which also offered value to advertisers. The result: this was the first in a series of steps that were aimed at eventually enhancing profitability.

  Mastermind: The game changer

  The newspaper industry in India had been pricing advertising space in a manner that it merely covered costs with a small profit margin. The TOI objective in its new pricing strategy was to enhance profitability, while ensuring that the rate at which the advertiser paid was in correlation to the value he gained from the publication. The company took a hard look at its entire portfolio and based its strategy on its strengths across brands and markets.

  This included other brands within the company such as Navbharat Times (NBT), Maharashtra Times and The Economic Times (ET). Seen in isolation, each brand had its strong and weak regions with no national pattern. Also, each brand was sold separately, with combo rates being the exception rather than the norm.

  The new pricing strategy was based on the idea of presenting all these hitherto isolated brands in a single, more attractive matrix of rates to the advertiser—the Mastermind. It was not a mere rate card but India’s first advertising-solutions package. Advertisers could choose from a variety of combinations. New editions were packaged with established ones and made available at irresistible prices. It was a win–win situation for both advertisers and the brand. The former could extend his reach at a nominal cost while new editions got a share of revenue and moved to profitability faster.

  The result: The Times Group was able to leverage its multiple brands across markets, much to the dismay of competitors that were strong in their regional citadels but had virtually no national presence. This unique reach of the group gave an impetus to the TOI’s Delhi edition, vis-a-vis Hindustan Times (HT). For an advertiser in Delhi, the prospect of having his ad also carried in the TOI’s Mumbai edition at an attractive rate was a tremendous incentive. Advertising volumes shot skyward and soon a pattern was established, with competition hiking rates on the heels of any rate hike by the TOI, thus growing the industry itself.

  More for less

  In the early 1990s, rising literacy coupled with low newspaper penetration presented another opportunity. The plan was to reduce the cover price in a bid to grow circulation, with the reduced circulation revenue being offset by higher advertising revenue as a consequence of the brand delivering a larger number of readers. This contradicted the earlier trend, which had been to chase both circulation and advertising revenue. With this move, the TOI showed its willingness to sacrifice one for a big leap in the other.

  Emboldened by a successful experiment with the ET, this strategy— termed Invitation Pricing—was tried out in Delhi in 1994. Both the TOI and HT were at ₹2.90, when the TOI decided to drop its cover price to ₹1.50. This was an immense risk because it was accompanied by an increase in supplements such as Education Times and Ascent. The brand was running the risk of potentially reducing its revenue and increasing cost simultaneously. The bold experiment of Invitation Pricing, coupled with product enhancement, saw the TOI’s circulation move skyward. The result: In circulation terms, the TOI in Delhi grow by 138 per cent between 1995 and 2000. The TOI’s Bangalore and Pune editions attained leadership positions, the former’s circulation growing by a dramatic 780 per cent.

  The contrarian thinking of the TOI was also reflected in the shift from the predecided advertising space measure of column centimetre to square centimetre. While the former varied from broadsheet to tabloid and from brand to brand, the latter made sure that the advertiser got precisely what he paid for.

  June 2003 saw the TOI taking another giant leap with the introduction of the combo offer for readers. In a first, the TOI and NBT were offered at a special price of ₹75. This meant that the NBT reader could now get the TOI at a small additional sum, giving a family a complete package. Before the offer, the TOI and HT were neck-and-neck in Delhi at about 4.5 lakh copies while NBT was at 2 lakh copies. The result: The combo offer saw the TOI increase circulation by 2 lakh copies, by selling to NBT households, while the latter’s circulation also went up by a lakh copies—all in a period of just one year. In July 2003, the combo offer was replicated, with the TOI and ET being offered at the same attractive price of ₹75. The response was overwhelming.

  Enhancing reader experience

  To justify the increase in advertising rates, the TOI had to deliver the most relevant audience, which meant reaching out to younger, more affluent readers with a higher inclination to spend. Consciously taking up the challenge in the early 1990s, the brand moved away from the earlier focus on politics and prioritized the task of giving the reader a sense of optimism each morning.

  There was strong emphasis on local content with city editions reflecting the local character of their region while being true to the brand. Proximity to the reader increased with the brand now covering local cultural events, touching activities in schools, colleges, malls and market places and sprinkling useful news digests in different sections. Pages were added for sports, business and entertainment, infographics and fun-to-know news were introduced. Stories became short and crisp, typography and design also improved. With editions launched in Hyderabad, Pune and Kolkata, the TOI was truly a national paper in every sense of the word by the end of the millennium.

  The process of product enhancement was continuous. Adding a new dimension were city-centric lifestyle supplements, such as the Delhi Times and Bombay Times, introduced in 1994. They had an uninhibited focus on the good life, celebrities and Bollywood, and also made space for fine dining, art and exciting happenings in the city. In May 2002, the TOI arrived in a slimmer form, in line with international newspaper formats. Early 2003 saw the brand’s constant urge to innovate being manifested in another dramatic transformation—the TOI’s Delhi edition became the first mainline daily in the world to go all colour. This was a path-breaking decision at the time as the investment in colour printing facilities was nearly thrice that of black and white. But the brand’s logic was simple: why should a newspaper be dull and boring when the world around was so colourful? Beyond the paper, the colour theme of Krishna and his friends playing Holi, painted on the TOI’s Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg office, became a symbol of the 165-year old brand’s youthfulness.

  The brand also became more irreverent. Political news became easier to access with innovations such as branding electoral n
ews as ‘Dance of Democracy’. Today, the paper offers between twenty and thirty-two pages of news, views, information, entertainment and more. Extensive use of cartoons and caricatures helps cheer up the reader. The impact is seen in the numbers: the Indian Readership Survey (IRS 2012 Q4) gives the TOI over 7.6 million readers across India, making it India’s leading English daily.

  Dance of Democracy

  The activist brand

  Over time, the focus of the brand evolved from merely informing the reader to empowering her. The mood of the country was buoyant, a vast middle-class was thrusting ahead, desiring to be unleashed towards the future and seeking its effort to be acknowledged.

  The TOI, with its finger on the pulse of its readers, launched a series of city-centric campaigns. Each campaign was tailor-made to the city’s needs and aspirations. While Chalo Dilli celebrated the capital’s coming of age with symbols such as the Metro and the upcoming Commonwealth Games; Mission Mumbai highlighted the angst of a city neglected by its policymakers. Similarly, Kolkata Rising, Now Lucknow, etc., captured the imagination of readers across cities. City-centric initiatives culminated in a festival, a veritable riot of music, art and theatre that had readers in raptures.

  The brand took a strongly activist turn in 2007 with Lead India. Understanding the vacuum in the country’s political leadership, the initiative urged public-spirited citizens to come forward and fill the gap. The thrust of the initiative was on inducting younger people from nonpolitical background into the arena of governance. The initiative received over 35,000 entries and had citizens abuzz, culminating in a televized final selection round.

  Another example was Teach India, which gave educated Indians an opportunity to dedicate a part of their time to teaching less privileged citizens, especially children. The idea was based on education being a great socio-economic leveller and the enabling tool for children from a modest economic background to attain career parity. The brand took a tremendous risk in the 2008 Aman ki Asha initiative which propagated friendship at grassroots level between India and Pakistan. The initiative tried to drive home the thought that friendship at citizen level could help overcome the frosty relations between the governments of the two nations.