User trial?
Improve repeat rate?
Build consumption?
Create brand preference?
These are pieces of work that I have done across my career, either with some organization or as an independent consultant.
Indian Men Like to Shop! How to Make a White Linen Club Shirt the Equivalent of the LBD
Summary and key points:
Indian men’s tastes are evolving. This has brought in many new brands. More brand differentiation will be required to win. Hence, consumer understanding and tracking segments is critical at this point.
The Aditya Birla Group textile brands: This is the category that I have probably had the longest association with (about 20 yrs) , starting with developing branding for Birla Cellulosic at Quadra Advisory, when Shunu Sen was called in to provide strategic assistance. Then at mConsult, my team worked on the Linen Club brand of men’s pure linen fabrics and onward to my work as an independent consultant with acrylic fibre and yarn.
The category of men’s wear and luxury is clearly booming and getting more complex with many new brands chasing the boom. It is no longer as simple as using price bands to distinguish brands and relying upon smart sourcing to turn a profit.
The Linen Club Brand Strategy project was a comprehensive development of the Branding Strategy and Marketing Plan. While the business had grown organically through its EBO partners, the brand team wanted to have a clear Brand Strategy to drive higher growth and prepare for emerging competition from other Indian and Chinese brands. They wanted to know what the central marketing team should invest in to create brand preference and equity.
Along with Mr. Thomas Varghese’s marketing team, we dived into learning how men shop! We rummaged through their wardrobes and stared at them in-store. In-depth qualitative assessment gave exciting insight into the consumer purchase journey. It was interesting to see the interaction with the spouse vs. the interaction with friends during the shopping experience. We found out how a man chooses what to wear! To a corporate presentation/ a press meet/ family function…… In addition to the in-depth qualitative understanding across markets, we carried out an extensive quantitative habits & practices study which helped answer the question “How many types of Indian men are there?” We, of course, then found what the key attributes were that drove their brand choices. Just the interplay of demographics, i.e. SEC , city type and region, threw up very different attitudes to dressing. Bringing in psychographic parameters added additional layers.
All the learning was taken into the intensive Brand Visioning Workshop which was among the most fun ones I have run. With the able support of Abhinav and Shruti, we had a large cross-functional group in the session, including external partners. The wide variety of participants added to the richness of output as well as the experience. We had multiple apparel segments represented amongst the participants themselves.
The Linen Club target consumer pen portrait emerged from all this, as did the brand positioning statement. This sat at the heart of the strategy. The “emerging affluent male who is waking up to the finer things in life and seeking advice on the same” is a segment that throws up varied activation platforms.
How to ensure every guy in the target segment here has at least one Linen Club white in his wardrobe?
How can the brand assist in developing socialising skills for these men?
How should the store interior be designed to drive camaraderie?
What other category partnerships will help surround this consumer?
Of course, we went on to define the business nuts and bolts: the store performance metrics (EBO vs. MBO), the overall Communication plan, Consumer Initiatives and Budgets.
I am sure today, with the 15+ apparel and luxury brands the group has acquired, they must have now developed a much more layered segmentation of the Indian male to map all of them. But the first one is always such great fun.
All Super-Rich women are not the same.
Defining segments within a consumer universe which is barely a million.
Consumer and Brand Understanding across the precious jewellery spectrum:
There is gold and then there is diamond jewellery. There are super-rich, well-travelled shoppers and then there are the large festive buys from the traditional families. While they all involve high levels of spending, I re-learned the lesson of segmentation even within premium buyers. And the challenge of persuading those scattered across pockets of India, who are not easily “visible” to marketers.
My exciting introduction to it happened at mConsult when we first dived into consumer understanding of the luxury buyer back in around 2006. De Beers was preparing to promote Forevermark in India. These were times when brands were still wondering if there were enough luxury consumers in India to warrant marketing efforts (Atmosphere, the brand of fine silk furnishings, also asked the same question of Quadra Advisory when we did the market entry strategy for them in India). The answer was yes, of course. We did need to answer the question about what was this super-premium consumer’s purchase journey was. What were the relevant touchpoints, and what factors drove brand choice? At the time, the media challenge was that their habits were very similar to those of mass consumers. Today, the challenge is that there is a lot of diversity and it is a challenge to find these consumers in a place where you can deliver impact.
The work on Zoya, the premium diamond jewellery brand came over 10 years later. The consumer outlook was very different, but the challenges of accessing this segment remained. The task was to interrogate and define how Zoya was going to be different from Tanishq. With Arif Padiath, the business head of Zoya, we dived into understanding consumers who were not merely rich, but super-rich. The 75 in-depth consumer interviews of super-rich women in Mumbai and Delhi that I did myself were exhausting and exhilarating. We discovered that there are several types of rich women! It was very interesting to discover which demographics and psychographics truly differentiated between brand choices.
Given the nature of the TG, we couldn’t do any quantitative segmentation so we had to visualise.
The Zoya brand team and I segmented and chose the target consumer, articulated the brand positioning and defined the roster of marketing initiatives. I came to appreciate the huge difference in the cost per sq. ft., as well as the service SOPs in a luxury store versus the merely premium. As I love to do, I stayed involved in the execution of brand and store initiatives until they shored up the internal marketing team. The “Craftsman” TVC that was created truly captured the essence of the brand.
From two stores then, to a dozen today is quite a number for such a premium offering. I feel great pride in seeing the strategic pillars that the brand continues to use even today.
Brand Valuation of Mysore Sandal
I have always had a soft corner for PSU brands (more about Khadi and Doordarshan in later write-ups). There is just so much potential for them if they could properly harness it! My teammates Munish and Alaap were equally enthusiastic as they joined me in charging at windmills.
The MD of KSDL, an IAS officer, said in the bid briefing meetings, “These FMCG majors keep coming to us with offers for the brand. While we have no wish to sell, I would certainly like to know what the right price is, since there seems to be such a range of offers. And while you are at it, tell us what would make the brand even more valuable in the future. What should we do, and with which products? You know, will people completely stop buying soap and switch to body wash and other fancy personal care products?”
The marketing strategy for a legacy brand such as this is something any brand manager would love to sink her teeth into. So we sank our teeth into household purchase panel data, TGI, as well as retail audit data for each state in the South and the rest of the country. We saw retail metrics by subcategory of soaps, by store type, and town class. We compared consumer metrics from TGI versus the HH panel and actually got a consistent picture across both, which was a relief and a delight.
The new triers-versus-lapsers analyses within the HH panel, by category of soap, showed us the powerful insights data can reveal. What kind of consumer stays with the brand, and who moves out? From which competing brand are we managing to lure consumers?
We were able to define marketing objectives for each state individually and target consumer segments. With this clarity, we were able to focus our qualitative consumer immersions on well-defined profiles. The 45-year-old housewife in Jayanagar versus the young woman entering the workforce in Chennai versus men in Hyderabad. Brand managers are well aware of the power of such consumer immersions. It was gratifying to see the new understanding it brought to people who had been with the brand for decades. We pored over Brand World collages and product groupings to distill learnings that we could use in decision-making.
I also remember this project for one of the best Brand Visioning workshops that I have run. Colleagues looked at us with scepticism, wondering how it would go in a roomful of PSU managers who had never participated in such an exercise. I realised the meaning of the phrase “Trust the Process.” All the credit goes to the 20-strong KSDL team who came in with no preconceived notions, followed our instructions to the T, and filled out exercise formats painstakingly without overthinking. The result was a brand positioning statement I still look back on with pride. Even 15 years since, it is one of the best we crafted, right down to the brand personality, which brands don’t focus enough on.
We then looked at Brand Architecture to identify which SKUs should be used for the valuation exercise. Aided by the commercial team’s costing sheets, we calculated the brand value using three standard methods:
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Replacement Cost / Category Spend Benchmark Method:
The MS brand generated revenue with very low marketing investment. If we had to support it at category-average levels, what would it cost? -
Earnings Split / Price Premium Benchmark Method:
MS, at the time, operated at a price premium within the segment of the toilet soaps category in which it operated. Hence, the incremental margin it made versus if it operated at the prevailing price of a similar product. -
New Product Launch Benchmark:
This was the forward-looking view, where we also looked at the potential to generate new revenues under the same brand name, increasing topline, while at the same time adding to brand equity. Alternate scenarios were modeled, assuming extensions into relevant segments and categories.
The final value range that we arrived at for Mysore Sandal was one that we would have been comfortable paying if we ourselves wanted to acquire the brand, and we could see how money could be made from it. I was certainly more confident about it than I would be about some recent valuations I have seen quoted in public media for D2C FMCG brands. Of course, clearly, there is something my colleagues and I are missing, probably because we are not familiar with those brand metrics and consumer equity. We are, however, not surprised when we come across news of 3,000+ startup brands that have closed shop in recent years.
​A. Nouvdiet Satva and Getrim – The introduction of health food category in India before it was fashionable (2006)
Nouveau Dietetique, like many of our consulting clients, was owned by third-generation entrepreneurs who were product experts. They were food technologists who understood the science behind the product but were unfamiliar with how to “market” it. And while the overseas-educated promoters were aware of the growing health trend in other markets, they were unsure if India was ready for such products. And by this, we mean ready for the taste of such products, as well as the price.
Healthy food is another category I have had the good fortune to see at this nascent stage as well as 15 years later. And I could look at it from a qualitative as well as a quantitative perspective.
TGI data gave us the opportunity to identify segments that were more inclined to consume such products – for those of you who recall it, this was a time of low-GI rice, low-fat butter and ice cream, as well as oats upma. And we were able to identify behavioural traits of these early triers, as well as size the segment.
Twenty years ago, consumers actively felt bad about being on a diet for reasons of health or weight loss. They were embarrassed to tell other people, who typically ribbed them about it. They felt miserable about giving up favourite foods. It was not socially desirable to be seen
as being particular about dietary requirements, unlike today, where pursuing a healthy lifestyle is a very desirable choice.
“I don’t like being the only one out to dinner who is ordering soup and salad.”
“I don’t like creating additional work for the kitchen because I need foods without oil or sugar.”
Very different from now, where vegan and keto menus are differentiators in restaurants.
This was when we discovered that people are willing to replace food items that are less enjoyable but not those they love. “If I really feel like eating biryani, I want a proper biryani! Not a ‘healthy’ version that has had all the fun taken out of it. I would rather go without.” They needed assurance of taste, and indeed all sensorial aspects.
Consumers were given sample products to consume – chocolates, meal replacement powders, etc. We had them play back what they felt about the taste of the product itself and what they felt about consuming the product.
With all this in mind, we crafted the Brand ID – a proprietary tool to articulate brand positioning.
The founders had several alternate product ideas and formats that they could pursue. So we mapped a possible portfolio across the entire spectrum of what people had to forgo vs. what they could choose to forgo. We crafted the Brand Architecture for the portfolio, based on the distance of each product from the core positioning platform. Which ones could be brand extensions versus which needed to be part of another brand entirely.
Then, using all the diverse specialist units within the group at the time, we created the go-to-market plan, slicing and dicing to fit a start-up budget from a family business.
We ran the pitch and found a creative agency that did complete justice to the brief and developed brand identity, packaging, and communication that would make your mouth water.
And the brand was in business.
B. Nutraceuticals in India 15 Years Later – The Study We Did on New-Age Brands Like Oziva and Kapiva vs. Heritage Ones Like Baidyanath and Dabur
In the health-conscious boom during and post COVID, many digital-first brands emerged. Everyone was actively looking for ways to boost immunity and be healthy. On this fast track towards “wellness” stood various nutraceuticals, all based on natural or herbal ingredients, many promising the “goodness of Ayurveda”. Each one has a slew of products, much like the spices category, that fall into three groupings:
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Single-ingredient – Omega-3, Vitamin B12 / D tablets.
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General Mixes – Multivitamin, Immunity Booster.
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Specialized, and perhaps proprietary, formulations, usually around specific therapy areas – women’s health, managing diabetes, and anti-ageing.
My fellow marketers and I were very curious about exactly how consumers make their brand choices — what drives preference for one brand versus another, what creates credibility for one brand versus another, and what sources of information they accessed to read up about products. What were their reactions to all the content pieces, the blogs that digital marketers are constantly urging us to write?
Our collaborator, a young and hungry agency called Research Services Bureau went out on their own initiative to speak with a strong base size of ecommerce consumers in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore who had purchase whatever they considered “health supplements” within the past 6 months. In addition, they set up in depth interviews with recent buyers of these digital first brands so I could interview them.
What we found about the D2C brands we looked at was what has been stated in multiple thought pieces on digital marketing
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We are still in a village, albeit a virtual one: Consumers go by Word of mouth from peers and influencers. And whom do I trust? Well, anyone really, if that person seems presentable and vaguely believable.
The questions that puzzled us about brand equity were,
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Which brands had more awareness than others? None. Each brand’s performance marketing basis their budgets had netted some trial. Nothing came anywhere close to the old established brands in the category, which of course was to be expected. Perhaps this is why products that ran out of funds to push price discounts have been unable to sustain.
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What had preference? None. No brand had any specific associations of identity, any hero product(except melts) or indeed benefit area. Which on reviewing whatever communication we could access, was not really surprising. If all of it looks the same and promises similar discounts, what can the consumer play back? No brand owned a consumer segment, a consumption occasion, even any ingredient or feature. Laddered emotional benefits would be farther away
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What got credibility? Nothing much. People did not really register any information about clinical trials or tests that were quoted.
So, consumers tried a generally healthy sounding product which claimed to have only natural ingredients so at least it would do no harm. If someone known has tried it, it must be OK.
What I have been unable to understand was the outlook for repeat buys which is what determines lasting value. Consumers seemed undecided about whether the product did any good which is an ongoing challenge for general health or skin care products. How do you really track the impact over a large period of time that is required to bring about any significant change. If the taste experience was positive, they would stay on with the product, else would respond to the next piece of performance marketing that came along.
For many consumers who were not the very determined health seekers, after the initial enthusiasm waned, they dropped off the wagon and averted their eyes from the product on the shelf. After a while, in a clean up, they would cluck over the best buy date and discard the product. I have been unable to come across any buyers of niche and expensive products like collagen or seaweed based products which perhaps have created their islands of devout followers.
So, the big question is what happens next? Which of these brands will go on to become a super brand? I assume that would depend on
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Who has managed to get bought by a large industry player or a flush investor?
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Who has enough funding to be left standing when all others have died?
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Who has managed to garner a larger portion of the more commonly purchased products – aloe vera and jamun juice? Apple cider vinegar?
Industry majors who have acquired some of these brands of course are very familiar with the marketing playbook. It would be an interesting watch to see what alternate brand positioning platforms they create for future health wars.