Afew days ago popular stand-up comedian, Varun Grover tweeted a picture of twelve variants of Maniarr’s khakhra: “Baroda you

are crazy! Chocolate, Vanilla, Pizza, Noodles, Manchurian etc. flavored Khakharas. (Not com-plaining.)” He missed Maniarr’s mango version of what is fairly of-ten referred to as an Indian tortilla. Retweets, favourites and khakhra lovers’ confessions and testimoni-als followed. In social media metric terms, the engagement this tweet got was perhaps at par with that of a pho-to of a kitten he tweeted a day later. It’s a fact universally acknowledged that cats rule the internet. So, that is indeed an accomplishment for the khakhra.

The flattened, chapati-like cracker made with wheat f lour is a staple snack in Gujarati and Jain homes, usually devoured at break-fast and with afternoon tea. It’s also a must-have in survival packs on foreign tours in Swiss Alps. To put it simply, khakhra is to the two communities what tea biscuit is to the Brits. However, an engineer and businessman from Rajkot in Gujarat wants to make khakhra as ubiquitous and habitual as biscuits like Good Day and even Parle G, in India. “Khakhra is not just a Gujarati snack anymore,” says family-run company, HSM Foods International’s managing director, Sanjay Maniar.

The company began operations in

2001, after Maniar, an en-gineer by profession, em-

ployed 25 women to make handmade khakhras in a village outside Gujarat’s fourth largest city. Back then every khakhra pro-duced was destined for foreign shores, for the Indian diaspora, which is eternally starved of a

taste of home, whether it’s theplas,parathas, Punjabi music or Raj/Rahul from Karan Johar produc-tions.

As demand rose, Maniar, who made lathe machines, designed ma-chines to make smaller khakhras the shape of an iPhone 6, which are

manned by 350 women. Then he turned his focus to the domestic market that accounts for 80% of Maniarr’s business today. 7 lakh khakhras, in flavors from the tradi-tional sada and methi to seemingly bizarre variations like chocolate, vanilla, and mango, come out of the facility every day. Neatly stacked and packaged in vacuum-sealed, garba-and-go packs (pardon the pun), priced competitively at `15 for a 45gm pack. Thus making HSM Foods, a company with a turnover of `25 crore in 2015-16, perhaps the world’s biggest manufacturer of khakhras. A title Maniar accepts with tongue firmly in cheek; he says, “It’s like kabbadi”, when you

are the only country playing, you are the biggest. Nonetheless, to put things in perspective, FMCG major Marico’s 7-year-old, heavily mar-keted product, Saffola Masala Oats, competing in the savory snack and breakfast cereal market, crossed `100 crore in FY16.

HSM Foods operates in a highly unorganised segment. Khakhras we usually consume come in plastic bags with a price sticker slapped on it. No label. No brand. The few branded

khakhra makers that do exist en-joy iconic status and a loyal fan base, but are, at the end of the day, mainly community brands. For

instance, Ahmedabad’s Induben Khakhrawala, a veritable paradise

for khakhra aficionados. Meanwhile companies like Haldiram’s, Chedda’s, Jabsons and Thims, have been selling khakhras along with other regional food specialties in a more organised fashion. None, however, it seems, have Maniar’s taste for experimenta-tion, evident in his decision to ditch the traditional gol khakhra, and launch eccentric flavors. He tells us his competition aren’t the 300 scat-tered and small manufacturing units in places like Nalasopara in Mumbai’s outskirts, churning out khakhras in 10X20 rooms. India’s `26,000 crore over-all biscuit market, dominated by the likes of Britannia, ITC, Parle Foods and Mondelez, is what he’s after.

“Khakhra is not our cup of tea, bis-cuits are,” he states in what would seem a counter-intuitive declara-tion when taken out of context. At the moment though, his goal to make khakhra a national snack is also overly ambitious, considering a supply shortage, which prompted Maniar to stop all advertising, mainly ads in regional newspapers, and begin night production runs. Distribution and marketing is where regional foods makers and brands like Maniarr’s stumble most often.

Continued on Pg 4 >>

I Dream Of KhakhraCan the humble khakhra take on biscuits and become a national snack? By Delshad Irani

Khakhra is not just a Gujarati snack anymore

Sanjay Maniar,HSM Foods

International

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RA If you’ve got the Uber app

on your phone, and deploy it hourly whether on a trip around town, or a quick

ride round the block, you are what the cab service con-siders its early major-ity. Which means you are not really the target audience for its online video driven ad cam-paign, its first major effort of this sort in the country. An ad blitz appears an odd choice for a brand that gets a lot of (mostly favourable) word of mouth and which has grown via peer recommendation, a model that’s worked across the globe. It has run driver focused campaigns in markets like the US, France and the UK, but has been s hor t o n

what most of the world recog-nises and acknowledges as advertising. Let’s just say it is in no danger of dislodging

the FMCG, auto or tech giants for the

‘adver tiser of the year’ s w e e p -s t a k e s . B u t a s A s h w i n Dias, gen-

eral manag-er, Uber India

points out, “There was a need to go beyond

our early majority. This should help bui ld vi ra l it y loops in other seg-ments and com-munities.”Expansion is key for t he br a nd

that’s current-ly present

across 28 cities in India and has approximately 400,000 driver partners. And such expansion invariably calls for a focused advertising campaign. According to Ajay Kelkar, COO, Hansa Cequity, “Without a brand differenti-ated positioning, you don’t get customer choice. And to get that you need to crack multi-media in a big way.” With exist-ing evolved customers likely to check out other options, the brand’s best bet is to bring new users into the fold. As Kelkar puts it, “The lifetime value of a new user is extremely high. If you don’t get them at the outset, it will get more expensive going forward.”

That translates into a differ-ent sort of customer for the brand, some of whom may still use their phones mainly for out-landish purposes like actually making calls. In Uber’s films, contemporary advertising’s most ubiquitous trope is mer-cifully absent: the tech-savvy millennial clicking selfies in the backseat. Instead you have grandparents getting ready to wish their grandchild a happy birthday at midnight in per-son; a newly married middle class Sikh couple who escape the vagaries of load shedding by hiring an air conditioned cab and a driver who drops his child off to school before get-ting back to his job with Uber.

Continued on Pg 4 >>

There was a need

to go beyond our early majority. The

campaign should help build virality loops in other segments and

communitiesAshwin Dias

On Pg3

SECOND BITE’S THE CHARM?Nestle’s premium chocolate play

Everybody In The PoolWill the app that drives India’s young, well-heeled executives, their parents, and friends work for Bharat as well? By Ravi Balakrishnan

THE ECONOMIC TIMES SEPTEMBER 28-OCTOBER 04, 2016 � WEST

CCI NG 3.5 Product: ETMumbaiBS PubDate: 28-09-2016 Zone: BrandEquityWest Edition: 1 Page: BEWFP User: sandeep.dutta Time: 09-24-2016 01:15 Color: CMYK

You don’t need anecdotes to know Lego is a brand whose mere mention brings a smile to most faces. We’ll give you one anyway: On 16th September, Scott Kerr, ED - strategy & insights, at Time Inc, posted a Tweet picture. It carried the text of an e-mail from 7-year-old Luka Apps to Team Lego. Luka had lost Jay ZX from his newly bought Ninjago kit (a line of Lego sets based on the Ninja theme), during a shopping excursion. He had used all his Christmas money to buy the set, and was sorry to have brought the minifigures along with him, despite his father’s disapproval. Luka ear-nestly asked Team Lego if they could send a replacement, promising he will never take them out of home again.

Richard from Team Lego responded to Luka in a long e-mail, the crux of which was that Luka’s problem was dis-cussed with ’Sensei Wu’ (The Gandalf/Dumbledore of Ninjago). His honesty was appreciated and therefore, Team Lego rewarded him with extra Lego goodies along with the lost minifigure. Kerr captioned the picture with the suggestion that the ‘Lego customer ser-vice department should run the world’. 66,000 people liked the tweet and 34000 retweeted it at the time of going to print. Fun fact: This story is almost

four years old. It was first published by itv.com on 7th January’13. Ever since, it invariably gets spotted afresh and shared, thus growing love for the brand.

But then, what when people are not feeling the love? Several ‘think pieces’ suggest negative posts get more trac-tion than positive ones. Which is why the social media team on the brand becomes all the more important.

On paper, Lego’s social media RoI is measured on four metrics: 1) direct sales, 2) brand affinity building, 3) marketing efficiency, and 4) ability to mitigate risks. But Lars Silberbauer Anderson, global senior director of social media and video at Lego, ad-mits that ultimately a social media strategy focuses “more on minimis-ing damage than driving sales.”

What’s been the toughest crisis his team has handled so far? “Depends on which day you ask.” “You need to have done your homework and

built internal processes so that when a situation arises, you can turn them

on,” he tells us, in a quick chat during Cannes Lions’16.

That’s not all. Anderson shares some techniques used by his team that several

global brands can draw lessons from:

24/7 But No Night Shifts Lego has a consolidated social media team that handles real-time operations across platforms for 40 to 50 markets. The team comprises 30 people (only). “Members are divided into smaller

units spread across different regions. All of them work eight hours during the day. No night shifts. When it’s logout time for one unit, the other one in a different time-zone takes over. All regions are under everyone’s mandate, just in a different slot during the 24-hour cycle.”

[Nothing] Lost in Translation When people speak multiple languages

within one time-zone, how does each regional unit handle this diversity? “My team has 15 different nationalities. It’s difficult to find a language no one speaks, in fact. Each unit is culturally diverse. So, for instance, Germans based in Europe handover to Germans based in the US at the end of their shift. Just because we’re a Danish company doesn’t mean we have to do every-thing from the Danish mindset,” says Anderson.

Push ‘Play’, Not Sales A lot of global players use social media to engage and entertain. Some brands, however, just want to get to the point: Sales. Anderson notes that both are equally important. “Everything we do needs to drive sales. That’s how you measure KPIs.” He also highlights how everything is about creating

value for the consumer. “You use social media to start a relationship and hope that at some point there will be a trans-action. But aiming for an immediate transaction will make it a short-term relationship.” When they’re not busy doing damage-control, team Lego Social engages people into building and creating stories by giving them more ideas to play.”

Social, No Less Than Traditional Anderson believes in measuring social media RoI against traditional media. “You should know the cost of a million impressions on social versus a banner ad versus an ad via another medium. Similarly, it’s important to compare reach metrics on TV versus YouTube: the cost of getting a kid to see one min-ute of content.” Measurement isn’t simple for traditional media, but devel-oping comparable metrics is a good step in the direction of understanding the real value of each medium.

Free From Basics @FacebookLego isn’t dwelling too much on the birdie rumoured to be up for grabs. “On Twitter we mostly have a corpo-rate account and some local market accounts. Twitter is not growing glob-ally. So, our emphasis is not there. YouTube is big for us - as a search en-gine for fun videos and a tool for deeper engagement. Facebook is where the parents are. But we don’t have indi-vidual pages for each market on FB ei-ther. If there’s a country-specific post, we refine the targeting to reach select audience on that region’s page itself,” he explains.

Now we know how 30 odd people man-age the expectations of kids and parents the world over. No child’s play, this.

shephali.bhatt@timesgroup.com

WHY ‘EVERYTHING IS AWESOME’ ABOUT LEGO’S SOCIAL BRICKS DENMARK’S PLASTIC TOY MANUFACTURING BRAND’S TINY SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM HAS FIVE

BIG LESSONS FOR GLOBAL BRANDS. BY SHEPHALI BHATT

Everyone has a Lego story Lars Silberbauer Anderson is Danish. “If you’re born in Denmark, you’ll obviously have memories of the Legoland.” Anderson still finds time to play Lego Technic (a line of Lego interconnecting plastic rods and parts to make advanced mod-els). “Every Christmas I bring big Lego sets home. I think I was better at playing with Lego when I was a kid though. Kids have better imagination - they can plan a rocketship to Mars, play with dinosaurs. My brother’s kids get upset with me if their Legoman (that would be me) arrives in the house without a Lego set.”

More Alarm Clocks For Clark, Less For Proctor

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Last Thursday evening IST, we received an important news from GroupM. It an-nounced the appointment

of ex-GroupM North America CEO Kelly Clark as the media investment group’s global CEO.

Simultaneously, GroupM an-nounced that its global president of last four years, Dominic Proctor, was stepping down from his role and will be involved with WPP on some strategic proj-ects hereon. Now, both Clark and Proctor are WPP lifers. Clark started his career at J Walter Thompson 28 years ago. Proctor joined the same agency just two years before him. Proctor was also pivotal in the launch of Mindshare Worldwide (GroupM’s biggest me-dia agency network) 19 years ago.

Interestingly, Clark had ended his North A m e r i c a s t i nt i n November last year to get into an advisory role with GroupM. He want-ed to spend more time with his wife and three children, he had told trade media at that time. Then what made him change his mind to take up a more demanding role? As a response to this query, GroupM said that he did take some time off to spend with his family. “At the time he stepped down from being the CEO for North America, we did also say that he would lend transitional and stra-tegic support. He remained highly engaged with the business and now he’s ready to come back full-time for this exciting opportunity.”

Clark will report directly to WPP chief Sir Martin Sorrell while working “in close concert” with Irwin Gotlieb, global chairman of

GroupM. Gotlieb and Clark have worked together over many years in the past. “I’ve seen him reliably deliver the results that are our re-sponsibility to our stakeholders,” the global chairman tells us.

We hear that Clark is known among his peers and subordinates

as someone who’s great with clients, can

walk the talk on numbers, and keep his team inspired amidst tumultu-ous times. Media

agencies need to up their game on data-

and-analytics-led strate-gies while ensuring it doesn’t spook the clients away. Clark, we hear, does that pretty well. Not to mention he comes with a global exposure having led GroupM of-fices across continents.

A logical derivation would be that Clark is in fact replacing Proctor. International trade media has alluded to it as well. But GroupM maintains: “There’s no

backfill for the global president role at this time.”

Meanwhile, we ask Proctor what’s the one thing he’ll miss the most about his presidentship at GroupM. “I think almost everybody who leaves senior roles after many years will say that they will miss their colleagues the most. It’s a people’s business. In my case, I will still be in WPP so I can still stay in touch and cast a shadow,” he says. He’s also glad that there will be “a few less alarm clocks” to deal with now. No respite from alarm clocks for Clark though. The world of media reviews and procurement beckons.

shephali.bhatt@timesgroup.com

After years of being cold, distant and formal in communication and everything else, the BFSI sector began to tentatively push some emotional buttons in its ads, a little over a decade

back. And then kept at it, mashing those buttons with what felt like manic intensity. They promised to be better than our best friends, claimed kinship with us, played tunes as their ATMs sucked in our cards with glacial slowness — the muzak doing little to mask the machine’s alarming chugs and whirs — and sometimes even decked their sprawling offices out in decid-edly festive colours.

But did these cosmetic changes reflect a fundamental shift in how the sector behaved? More often than not, no. The customer facing side of BFSI still fills us with cold dread. There are end-less forms to fill and multiple levels of KYC procedure and questioning, bureaucratic nightmares that would make the erst-while Stasi’s head spin.

And so IDFC’s new campaign from McCann Worldgroup is likely to get props right out the gate just for pok-ing fun at the tropes of the category. Through the campaign, officious bankers are so busy trying to be the customer’s designated BFF, banking gets left by the wayside. #Banking Nibhao, IDFC says, by way of terse sign off.

It’s a classic challenger brand strategy, and one quite appropriate for IDFC, the youngest bank in an extremely overcrowded mar-ket. Given it would be time consuming, expensive and well-nigh impossible to replicate the infrastructure of

India’s biggest and finest, chal-lengers like DBS and IDFC

are left with one option: to disrupt the market and fight satraps with a hopefully more rel-evant offering. IDFC believes the industry is

poised for disruption: as opposed to a single account,

people will use multiple servic-e s to meet different needs.

The campaign is the culmination of a lot of effort behind the scenes. For instance,

infrastructure that allows the setting up of an account in just four minutes.

Or instituting a week long waiver of transactions in the event of a lost card. Or micro-ATMs in rural ar-eas to meet the needs of a segment

that’s typically underserved. Says Dr Rajiv Lall, founder MD & CEO,

IDFC bank, “It’s what people have called the prepaid mo-ment of banking. For telecom to become a mass business, it had to drive the cost of ser-vice down to the point where a small prepaid card customer would be profitable. The bank-ing industry is precisely on that path. Though the value

per customer declines, the scale grows exponentially.” And so ATMs that operate out of kirana stores, meeting the needs of the lo-cal community.

To communicate these features demanded a different sort of messaging. Says Partha Sinha, vice chairman and managing direc-tor, McCann Worldgroup, “Customers were with the old banks because of legacy and not genuine love. So, when the banks tried to turn that into a relationship, it began sound-ing fake.” Lall disagrees about the campaign being combative, believing it is “Sardonic humour, a lighthearted take on our lived ex-perience of banking. We don’t really want to have this experience any more and this is our effort to change it.”

While the campaign gains props for its tenor, the marketing experts we spoke to wondered if IDFC would be as successful at communicating what it has on offer as it has been speaking of what the established banks lack. Says Ajay Kakar, CMO, Adita Birla group, “I see two possible entry points to a potential customer’s wallet; Earn the Trust, or Earn a Trial.” Given trust is the preserve of legacy brands, newer entrants have been focusing on the trials: for instance offering enhanced returns. He says, “IDFC seems to have adopted a ‘notice me’ strategy through its launch campaign. You get a glimpse of the Pepsi vs Coke days, with a communication that takes a potshot at established players, exaggerating and mimicking their promis-es, sometimes using all too familiar sound-ing words and phrases. This strategy may attract attention, though briefly. I expect phase 2 will earn a trial by making strong and unique rational offerings.”

The goal is simple: to get more people to sign up. Lall says the bank has been picking up 25,000 customers a month. The proof of whether IDFC can live up to its own Banking Nibhao tagline will be if it achieves its stated goal of one and a half million customers by the end of the fiscal. And that — Lall’s pro-testations notwithstanding — with a target painted on it, thanks to its aggressively draw-ing attention to the polite hypocrisies of the industry it operates in.

ravi.balakrishnan@timesgroup.com

What does the new leadership

structure at GroupM mean for the media

network and the two WPP lifers. By

Shephali Bhatt

Why be a friend, when you can be a banker, asks IDFC in its latest campaign. By Ravi Balakrishnan

Adidas and Under Armour are challenging NikeNike’s competitors are gaining on the athletic apparel giant.The brand is facing unprecedented headwinds spurred by Adidas and Under Armour making progress, according to analysts at Morgan Stanley. “Adidas’ resurgence, Under Armour’s basketball gains, and the weak US athletic apparel environ-ment remain headwinds for Nike,” the analysts write.Nike’s earnings per share growth

has stalled. Inventories are starting to pile up, indicating that Nike isn’t clearing out all the merchandise it is making.Meanwhile, Nike’s competitors are gaining share. During the Olympics, Adidas and Under Armour shares rose far more than Nike stock.While Nike’s $30 billion in annual revenues far surpasses Adidas ($18 billion) and Under Armour ($3.96 billion), this chart from Morgan

Stanley illustrates how Nike is losing share in footwear and clothing.

(Source: businessinsider.com)

Kelly Clark

Dominic Proctor

Talk Less Bank More

The films are a sardonic

lighthearted take on our lived expe-rience of banking

Rajiv Lall

THE ECONOMIC TIMES SEPTEMBER 28-OCTOBER 04, 2016 2

CCI NG 3.5 Product: ETMumbaiBS PubDate: 28-09-2016 Zone: BrandEquityWest Edition: 1 Page: BEWPG2 User: sandeep.dutta Time: 09-24-2016 01:13 Color: CMYK

Jokes apart, comedy can be a seri-ous business. Ask SonyLIV, the OTT (over the top content) plat-form of Sony Pictures Networks

India, which is having a laughter riot with The Kapil Sharma Show.

The comedy programme on SonyLIV’s app, website and YouTube has made it the third most viewed content online, se-curing over 300 million views and count-ing; a feat matched only by Dhanush’s ‘Kolaveri Di’ and Yo Yo Honey Singh’s cover version of ‘Dheere dheere se meri zindagi’.

“We take comedy seriously,” says Uday Sodhi, executive vice president and head digital business at Sony Pictures Networks India. Comedy on digital has been one of the most pre-ferred genres by the audiences, he says. And the reason they are opting for it on LIV is that the platform offers more than the TV show does: ‘Undekha Tadka’ a behind the scenes, outtake reel is immensely popular.

SonyLIV has many firsts to its cred-it—first OTT player, starting in 2013, first to launch original web series with #LoveBytes, first to come up with an award winning social brand film #LIVThisDiwali, first to release short films around Independence called Azaad, first to do digital movie pre-miers—it’s the comedy show which made it hog the limelight.

However Sodhi stops short of attribut-ing all of the apps 24 million or so down-loads to the comedy show. He contends it’s a mix of comedy, sports and original web series.

“The focus is not really on how many downloads, but app activations,” he says. The focus lies around driving viewer-ship and engagement, he adds, point-ing to the latest tie-up with Bollywood director Vikram Bhatt to launch a 104-part web series of short stories. The OTT player has also beefed up its sports arsenal by streaming tourna-ments such as UEFA Euro 2016, Caribbean Premier League, International Champions Cup, Premier Futsal League and the ATP Rogers Cup.

While Sodhi attributes the success of LIV to a healthy mix of content across football, tennis, Bollywood, Hollywood and original web series, marketing and branding experts are clear that it’s the Midas touch of Kapil Sharma at work.

“Color’s loss was an accidental gain by Sony,” avers marketing expert Harish

Bijoor, pointing to the tiff which the en-tertainment channel had with the ce-lebrity comedian and which led to him moving to Sony.

“Kapil Sharma gave back LIV its mojo,” he adds. While in past Sony had a couple of decent comedy shows such as Comedy Circus, Kapil’s show has

nailed it for the channel, he says. The challenge for LIV, contends Bijoor, is to maintain the competi-tive edge that the comedy show has provided to the OTT player. “It’s the mo-mentum which has to be maintained.”

There are other issues which the OTT players in

India have to grapple with to achieve success. The most important being cus-tomer experience.

Customer experience is largely be-yond the control of an OTT player and

is dependent upon the telecom ecosys-tem of the country, says Frank D’Souza, leader, media & entertainment at PwC India. Indian telecom players and ser-vice providers need to move a distance to reach the global standards which fa-cilitate a viewing experience which is normally associated with a good OTT platform, he adds.

The other issues that OTT players have to contend with, points out D’Souza, is the ability to be able to monetize.

“Getting subscription models going in an environment where consumers are used to free content is extremely diffi-cult,” he says. Advertising based revenue models are also a challenge, reflected by the fact that though consumption of content and data has migrated from tra-ditional medium to the digital medium worldwide, data clearly indicates that advertisers have been slow to move from the traditional medium to digital plat-forms, he points out.

But what about Netflix? Can it pose achallenge to Indian players? D’Souzadoesn’t think so. “Netflix is not differ-ently placed than most Indian playersin respect of the challenge that OTTplayers face in India,” he says. Whileglobal trends do indicate that consum-ers want to be seen as being global, consumption patterns and tastes tend to be largely local. Just like any other media offering, says D’Souza, each player would need to determine its core strengths and target customer.

Sodhi, for his part, is aware of the chal-lenges as well as his target consumers:millennials. He maintains that LIV spe-cialises in localised content and has the freemium model which suits the taste and choice of the digital millennials. “That is our strength,” he says, addingthat there is a space for every player in the ecosystem and there are dedicated audiences for each of them.

rajiv.singh@timesgroup.com

Last week, Facebook con-fessed to advertisers what they and the ad world knew all along about videos on the platform. That the social net-work giants’ video metrics are not as clear cut as many would like.

Here’s the disclosure, clari-fied again by Facebook’s VP, business and market-ing partnerships, David Fischer: “About a month ago, we found an error in the way we calculate one of the video metrics on our dashboard – average duration of video viewed. The metric should have reflected the total time spent watching a video di-vided by the total number of people who played the video. But it didn’t – it reflected the total time spent watching a video divided by only the number of “views” of a video (that is, when the video was watched for three or more seconds). And so the miscal-culation overstated this met-ric. While this is only one of the many metrics marketers look at, we take any mistake seriously.”

Facebook’s standard reply to the press on the issue was: “This error has been fixed, it did not impact billing, and we have notified our part-ners both through our prod-uct dashboards and via sales and publisher outreach. We also renamed the metric to make it clearer what we measure. This metric is one of many our partners use to assess their video cam-paigns.” What was called “Average Duration of Video Viewed” is now “Average Watch Time”

But that wasn’t enough to assuage the concerns of agencies and advertisers. Some of whose thoughts we’ve highlighted here. The bottom line, however, is that nothing really changes. As Saurabh Kanwar, the founder of Flarepath, says, without mincing words, “Nobody is really giving a f***.” Except, he points out, the case for YouTube just got stronger. delshad.irani@timesgroup.com

Second Bite’s The Charm?Nestle’s premium play in chocolates Alpino will soon hit the market in a version 2.0. Will it be scooped up by the Indian consumer this time? By Amit Bapna

Nikhil Chand, who heads the chocolate and confectionery portfolio for Nestle in India has been with the Swiss-major for over 18 years, most of which have been in the

chocolates business. BE meets him for an exclusive preview of the upcoming re-freshed launch Alpino, Nestle’s sole local offering in the premium chocolate space that is soon going to hit the market. Chand has worked in various countries including Russia, Ukraine and Brazil, before coming back to head the portfolio in India last year with some of those learnings. The Russian chocolate market is a highly penetrated and segmented, not just by price but even by gender. Chocolate sales see a huge surge on 8th March, Women’s Day for example, almost matching Christmas sales. Nestle

acquired a local up-market chocolate brand Komiflo, that has been targeted at women, in par-ticular. Elsewhere, in Japan, Nestle a couple of years back launched KitKat Chocolatory that are branded speciality shops which serve as ex perientia l -cum-sales outlets

(currently 8) and that have helped perch the brand in a uniquely premium position locally. At these upmarket outlets, con-sumers can customise their Kitkat chocolates to flavours that they many not find elsewhere: some

unique to Japan flavours in-clude sublime bitter, spe-

cial Sakura green tea and special chilli. Even while India is

leagues away from that level of maturity or sophistication, the players in the cat-egory are placing bets on the consumer’s increasing proclivity to savour a premium offering, whether branded or through ar-tisanal handcrafted pieces. Nestle in India is betting on premiumising its chocolate range even as its flagship brands KitKat and Munch rule in the niche wafer-choc-olate segment. It had launched Alpino in late 2013 amidst much fanfare and market-ing spends to capture the premium-end of the market. The trials did not translate into enough repeat purchases which forced the company back to the drawing board. Come October, Alpino will hit the market just in time for the festive season with a new formulation and packaging.

So what exactly did not work? Shares Chand, “Alpino needed tweaking at mul-tiple levels, which included flavour profile as well as marketing-mix.” The consumer clearly wanted more than what he was get-ting from an existing premium product. As Neeraj Bassi, chief strategy officer, Cheil Communications points out, “launching a premium chocolate is not as difficult, as the build-up of volumes post the launch.” To him the launch communication (for Alpino) did a good job of generating initial trials but the brand failed to give consum-ers a relevant cue for consumption.

The dichotomy of the consumer of India, unlike many other markets, is that she lives multiple lives. For her even the pre-mium buy has to be layered with a value-

interpretation to make her a repeat customer. Which is why brand

consultant Santosh Desai’s fa-mous example of the affluent housewife feeling happy when she gets her free dhania and hari-mirch accompanying the bagful of vegetables,

remains a timeless interpretation of the Indian consumer’s complexity. And then there are the snags in the premium edible space and more so in chocolates posed by hot tropical climate and a cold chain that

still leaves a lot to be desired. As per the industry figures, current-

ly the premium segment comprises one third of the overall chocolate market, with the rest accounted for by the mainstream and the mass market. The good news

is that the premium chocolate segment is showing hyper-

growth trends, albeit on a lower base, which makes most category players look at it with anticipation. After all, keeping the play in the ̀ 5 and ̀ 10 SKU may give the brands vol-ume but at the cost of margins.

So while Ferrero continues with its pre-mium play, larger brands Mondelez and ITC are also setting sights on this market and its growth potential. ITC, for instance, has launched its premium offering Fabell that is currently being distributed via its premium hotels only. The segmentation in this space can be on the matrix of self-con-sumption, sharing occasions the formal gifting. These are the three key pillars in Nestle’s road-map; all these occasions are big in their own right, according to Chand. Accordingly, the refreshed bonbons will be launched in 3 SKUs – pack of two at ̀ 40, box of five at ̀ 100 and box of ten bonbons at MRP of ̀ 250. In addition, for the even more discerning chocolate connoisseurs, Nestle would be importing a range of chocolate tablets and bars from Europe in three vari-ants under Alpino brand which it plans to sell only through the top 4000 retail outlets in the country. The four SKUs would help make the portfolio complete for now in the premium chocolate offering, he adds.

Even as the product formulation and packaging are being given a new coat, the third element being redone is brand-ing and communication. The previous core thought ‘to love is to share’ is being given a wider rendition, expanding be-yond just a husband-wife interpretation. Says Chand, “Consumers liked it but we wanted to soften it a bit.” According to Ambi M G Parameswaran, brand strate-gist and founder, Brand-Building.com, the premium tag cannot come from clever

The Reworked Ps

Product

Promotion

Packaging` ` `250

Premium chocolate segment is showing hy-per-growth trends, mak-ing most players look at it with anticipation

Global trends do indicate that con-sumers want to be seen as being global, consump-tion patterns and tastes tend to be largely local

advertising alone but a combination of a unique product (not a me too), some unique ingredients (may be), interesting packag-ing, and a nice brand story. The last time Nestle had a nice story, but the product was not the centrepiece, he adds. Agrees Chand and says, “In premium and in chocolates category, the hero has to be the product.” The brand is consciously keeping TV out of the media-mix, and is looking at print and digital. The BTL plan would comprise bespoke chocolate tasting events for influ-encers, geo-targeting within cities specifi-cally, as well as sampling through ecom-merce, in-store and shop in shop presence. The brand is clearly picking its battles.

As a marketer working on a compet-ing brand points out on condition of ano-nymity, “Nestle has been historically a reluctant player in the chocolate space.” As the Swiss major gets ready to give the Indian consumer a renovated variety of the crunchy chocolaty bonbons in the next

few weeks, maybe its time for them to discard all the reluctance and go

the whole hog.amit.bapna@timesgroup.com

Facebook. Un-Friend?

Dentsu, Japan’s

Tadashi Ishii

Dentsu Scandal

FACEBOOK’S VIDEO METRIC FIASCO WAS EMBARRASS-ING BUT DOESN’T CHANGE A THING. BY DELSHAD IRANI & SHEPHALI BHATT

How Kapil Sharma Made Sony LIV LOLSonyLIV plans to ride on the momentum generated by comedian Kapil Sharma to disrupt the OTT space. By Rajiv Singh

Mahesh Murthy

In premium and in chocolates category, the hero has to be the productNikhil ChandGM, Chocolate and Confectionery, Nestle India

Alpino’s Launch Campaign (2013)

Facebook’s ‘My Bad!’

Sachin Bhatia

Sameer Pitalwalla

THE ECONOMIC TIMES SEPTEMBER 28-OCTOBER 04, 2016 3

CCI NG 3.5 Product: ETMumbaiBS PubDate: 28-09-2016 Zone: BrandEquityWest Edition: 1 Page: BEWPG3 User: sandeep.dutta Time: 09-24-2016 01:13 Color: CMYK

Wednesday mornings have been eventful for the last three and a half years now. Some more than the others, because of one of our most awaited col-umns: Bawdy Copy. There are times when I have envisaged slipping a brand journey piece into the column given the kind of traction it gets every single time. Last Wednesday, I thought about that again when an item about an independ-ent agency trying to poach from another indie caught the in-dustry’s fancy.

I was busy on the phone dealing with a personal emergency. I hung up to see, I kid you not, 16 mes-sages across Twitter DMs, Fa-cebook Messenger, and What-sApp, asking me about the two parties involved. One of them had guessed the names and said that there was a time the creative lot used to go to each other’s offices for lunch, drop in at their houses for dinner. Everybody was friends with everybody else, barring only a few. It used to be a big, happy family.

Then what changed, I asked. “You changed it,” was the reply. “You, with your constant rankings, stacking us up against each other, making us feel a lot more important than we actually were - that just made some of us resort to such pettiness.”

Of course, the allegation w a s n ’ t against me, but the trade m e d i a a s such. And I just listened without re-taliating, be-c a u s e t h e

tone wasn’t accusatory. It was just highlighting a change in human behaviour the moment you bring glory in as one of the incentives.

Now bear with a little anec-dote, if you will. The studious ones might be able to relate to it. Throughout my school and college life, I was surrounded by lovely friends who were ex-ceptionally bright at academ-ics. We were great buddies but highly competitive at the same time. We always wanted to

beat each other at studies - no matter how dense the camara-derie was. When the 10th CBSE Board results were out, I got to know that I had topped. Later, I found out the girl who stood second, once my seat partner and a good friend, was just one mark behind me. I felt bad when I heard that, she was devastated - but because we were friends, she could tell me how exactly she felt.

We never blamed the ranking system for what made us feel that way, we rose above it. She did most of it by letting go, and moving on with life and our friendship. (She was any day more hard-working and de-serving of the top rank than I was, let this be known).

Now back to the ad world: I remember once Anil Nair of Law & Kenneth Saatchi & Saatchi had told me how sometimes he checks with Happy Creative’s Kartik Iyer before pitching for some clients the latter must have dealt with in some capacity.

I have seen several admen congratulate the less-oft-written about Ideas@work

team for doing simple but beautiful work on Rustomjee time and again.

I can guarantee more than half the industry proudly says that Happy Creative Services built Flipkart into the brand it is today.

I know people who openly ap-plaud CLA’s Raj Kurup for tak-ing a stand against freeloading of ideas by clients and asking for a pitch fee instead.

I remember myself appreci-ating Famous Innovations’ Raj Kamble for not entering at Cannes Lions this year and us-ing that money to get 10 of his team members to attend the event instead.

There’s rivalry in the indus-try, and a lot of muck for sure. But it is always up to individu-als to rise above that. When I interact with your fraternity, I feel that most of you can. I was resisting throwing the ‘Be like Bill’ meme in here, but some of you need to ‘Be like my School Friend’. If there are issues, talk to each other, not of each other to others. That’s not going to take anyone, anywhere good.

shephali.bhatt

@timesgroup.com

Or at least be more mature, dealing with critiques, lost pitches etc By Shephali Bhatt

Why Some Agencies Need To Grow Up

Byearis onposiandtionwougenco-an

ThOnSiondaawswie

Forye

MBAWDY COPY

fl ting

A Pitch For TalentFierce competition is brew-

ing between these two indies,

we hear. One of them recently

bagged a slew of accounts and

in short order, the agency head

was approached for a friendly

chat by the founder of a rival

indie. Acquisition was definitely

on the agenda, but perhaps not

the sort of acquisition you are

thinking about, dear reader. As it

turns out, the conversation may

just have been more than slightly

motivated by self-interest. The

winning agency soon found

some of its key personnel be-

ing approached by the HR of its

rival. We are guessing the rival

concluded the staffers were the

secret sauce responsible for the

agency’s success at pitches and so

decided to make a pitch for them

instead. If there’s a moral to this

story it is keep your friends close,

your enemies closer, and your

key staffers the closest of all.

AN

IRB

AN

BO

RA

BENDING THE MARKETING RULEBOOKThe rise of Patanjali has been remark-able: with a staggering CAGR of over 80%, it has grown in sales from ̀ 450 crore to `5000 crore in just four years, and is aim-ing to double its revenues to ̀ 10,000 crore in this fiscal. Unlike typical growth strat-egies that involve product extensions and phased expansions, Patanjali seem to be growing in an apparently “all over the place” manner. The swadeshi-driven, baba-endorsed brand has challenged the thought processes of many MBAs and management gurus, and has forced tra-ditional consumer product companies back to the drawing board. A slew of imitators ranging from Sri Sri Ravi Shankar to Ram Rahim are attempting to jump onto the consumer products bandwagon.

The principles Patanjali has been built on are as remarkable as its growth. They force industry participants to redraw mental boundaries, adjust or abandon conventional frameworks. While there is a tendency to associate the brand’s success with yoga, Ayurveda, or its saffron-clad brand ambassador, con-versations with many insiders who have been involved with the firm in different capacities suggest that the business has been built around five counter-principles of brand management, overlooked by con-ventional managers:

1. Find Your Brand’s InfinityBrand managers are often blindsided by keywords that sound intuitive but mean little. A case in point is brand equity. While the term has become an integral part of marketing conversation, few ac-tually think about what it encompasses

and whether it helps or hinders market-ing. The term “equity” is particularly ap-pealing in this era of assigning financial value to everything. A number of meth-odologies attempt to convert the notional value of brands into a measurable asset that can figure in financial statements, in accordance with generally accepted ac-counting principles. However, Patanjali has exposed this fallacy by showcasing that brands have unlimited potential that can be leveraged across numerous categories over time. Attempts to put a financial value based on a brand’s cur-

rent strategy might severely under-estimate its true potential, irrespective of the accounting methodology. Instead of chasing brand equity, marketers should be chasing brand infinity and executing strategies to build un-limited potential. With existing products such as Patanjali pasta,

and plans to launch ‘Swadeshi’ Jeans, it has proved that brand equity is a mis-nomer and marketers who rely on it are staring at a mirage whose label has been cleverly branded.

2. Find Your Brand’s ZeroMarketers also believe in the power of free products and services, using them to attract prospects and convert them into paying customers. However, the cost of providing these to customers is often non-zero, because of which there is no guaran-tee that these strategies will pay off.

Instead, Patanjali has taken the ‘power of zero’ to another level by building per-manence into its promotional system. It provides free Ayurvedic consultation at more than 1,500 Patanjali exclusive stores. These lead to increased footfall

and repeat purchases, but also create markets for FMCG products and pro-vide below the line marketing opportu-nities for local yoga events and maga-zine subscriptions. The free service engine runs at all times and the firm does not directly bear the ‘cost of zero.’ Although, consultation is free for cus-tomers, Patanjali charges its store own-ers, about ̀ 10,000 – ̀ 15,000 per month for trained doctors. As a result, the brand is able to find its zero at no cost, something most marketers struggle to accomplish.

3. Build your Brand’s FactoryPatanjali has shown that crafting a

brand is quite different from structuring a branded business. It might be useful to instead consider it a design and engi-neering task. Much like an engineer op-timises the features of a product by add-ing and subtracting ingredients, a brand manager should optimise the values embodied in a brand’s associations by adding the appropriate and deleting the redundant. Brand building should rise above the superficial and naïve world of colours, logos, visuals, and music and migrate towards a scientific world of outcome-based design.

More important, a firm has to decide the legs on which its branded business would

stand. Patanjali’s branded business has strong legs that go far beyond the cha-risma of its ambassador. It is anchored in its extensive manufacturing facilities in Uttarakhand, ultra-competitive pricing, strong retail infrastructure, and a band-wagon of believers.

4. Build Believers Not PromotersToday, it has become fashionable to track how much customers like your brand using metrics such as customer satisfaction or net promoter scores. An assumption that is typically unveri-fied, is that a brand’s franchise can be extended through word of mouth from those who have had a positive experi-ence. This chase for promoters has driv-en brands to over invest in customer-facing operations which may or may not have the desired effect on bottom line. Patanjali, on the other hand, has been built on a foundation of believers. It all started in 2003, when the Astha chan-nel began airing Baba Ramdev’s yoga sessions. This was supplemented by yoga camps, free consultations, and ex-tensive point of sale promotions. Now, with an established brand foundation and large product portfolio, Patanjali has emerged as one of the largest adver-tisers in India. It is building an army of believers directly, rather than pinning its hope on promoters who may or may not exist and whose behavior may be unpredictable.

In addition, Patanajali sells through exclusive franchise stores and provides zero credit. Contrary to industry prac-tice, every product is paid in advance by the franchised store owners. This works out because the supply chain members: distributors, store owners, and custom-

ers are all ardent fans of the brand, its ambassadors, yoga, Ayurveda, and theswadeshi concept. This base of believersprevents brand encroachment, enables favorable credit terms, and creates a mo-tivated internal workforce and externalcollaborators such as swadeshi-drivenFuture Group’s Kishore Biyani.

5. Ride the Wave, not the RipplesMost marketers begin with the ideathat customers are different. Electronicretailing, and the ability to track indi-vidual behavior has actively promotedthe idea of a ‘segment of one’. The ad-dition of big data and analytics has brought hyper-segmentation to a cre-scendo. Patanjali shows us that some-where along the way, marketers havebegun underweighting the similaritiesamong people. These may be more im-portant and powerful from a market-ing perspective. People have commonambitions, fears, beliefs, and concerns.Brands that understand and cater tothose are able to dominate. We can buildmore powerful brands through aggre-gation rather than segregation.

Maybe it’s time to drop the keyword-driven thinking and shun the worldof mission, vision, values, and equity. Instead, Patanjali suggests it is better to focus on: (a) making a coherent prod-uct market selection, (b) identifying the basis for competition, and (c) relatingthese two to the income statement of a branded business.

The authors are Piyush Kumar,Associate Professor of Marketingat the University of Georgia, USA.

& Deepak Gandotra, Marketing Manager at Flipkart. Views ex-

pressed are personal.

Patanjali has been built on five counter-principles of brand man-agement

ByInvitation

The overarching theme ac-cording to Uber and its agen-cy BBH is empowerment. As Russell Barrett, chief cre-ative officer and managing partner at BBH puts it, “I can now leave a place at 2 am and get a cab. That’s empower-ment.” Inspiration came from consumer and driver stories about how the brand has af-fected culture and society.

The campaign ambitiously aims to target both potential customers as well as driver partners. Arvind Krishnan, managing director, BBH says, “We wanted a unifying idea that works on both sides. People don’t care about a ser-vice but they care about their destination. We are successful if we stand for something that helps people move forward.” The films are just the first salvo; Uber and BBH promise a campaign, that doesn’t repli-cate elements across different media but tries to tell stories relevant to each of these.

What will be missing though are some of the most obvious category pegs. For instance, price. Rejected, because that makes the relationship with the brand very transactional. Or safety. Not specifically ad-dressed because as Dias puts it, “We can go and say we do XYZ on safety. But we have a whole bunch of features in app that people use for vari-ous things, safety included.” Barrett adds, “The ad with the old couple does touch on it, in a subtle way. I have a father that age and getting him into an Uber late at night, is a safety story in a different sense.”

What’s not missing is some-thing the introverts among us would consider a night-mare scenario. The film for Uber Pool features a talkative aunty who instantly tries matchmaking with a series of intrusive questions addressed at a hapless young man who happens to be sharing the cab with her and her daughter. We just had to ask why the ad highlights the reason many of us — including this writer— have never opted for a pool or share option. Dias says, “We wanted each of our films to have a different emotion. That was a lighter film. It wouldn’t have been interesting if you just had four guys in a car and they don’t talk.”

What Uber hopes for from the campaign is to broaden its customer base and for its driv-ers (and potential drivers) to be left with a sense of valida-tion and respect. Running

parallel with the campaign is an increased focus on reward-ing and recognising the best talent in its partner pool with #Uberfivestar driver, an op-tion that’s been incorporated into the app.

Marketing experts are un-

sure if the campaign ticks all the boxes. While Kelkar be-lieves the campaign should succeed in drawing new us-ers in, Karthik Srinivasan, national lead, Social@Ogilvy observes, “This is more of a brand building campaign than one geared at customer acquisition. It represents the view of people who have already used Uber.” But this category, like airlines, is one where brand preference is subservient to convenience. “It all boils down to time slots and availability,” he says. He recommends highlighting more direct benefits for cus-tomers. Something like the `6 per km campaign from Ola hammers the message home better than a fuzzy video.

As has been proven by nu-merous otherwise ad averse tech companies, nothing suc-ceeds in attracting Indian consumers or users better than advertising. Uber, with its desire to empower both driver partners and new cus-tomers, has a more than usu-ally ambitious goal. However, considering its Facebook page is mostly full of irate users venting — admittedly a com-mon feature across most busi-ness pages — they certainly don’t seem short on empow-erment. Perhaps compassion would have been a better peg.

ravi.balakrishnan

@timesgroup.com

Essentially what brands like Lijjat did with papad; Aashirvaad did with atta; Bisleri did with water; and now what Maniar is attempting to do with khakhra, is make a brand out of a commodity, according to Future Group’s Devendra Chawla. He be-lieves Maniar could succeed and take the snack food market by storm in 10-15 years if the company gets supply of a consistently good quality, hygienic, and well-packaged product, and its distribution in place, and backs it up with high-decibel marketing. Because as much as we love our nim-boo refreshers, aam ras (which Hector Beverage’s has successfully branded with Paper Boat), paan (another on the verge of a branding revolution) and khakhra; today, Indians are also looking for quality with convenience in their increasingly time-strapped, busy lives. While we may be experi-menting more and becoming ever so eager to try new regional foods and

flavours, between life and Facebook there just isn’t enough time and in-clination to go get, for instance, your once favourite after-meal mint – paan.

Chawla says, these foods that are Indians’ natural, familiar tastes, “are not Pokemon. Don’t expect con-sumers to go looking for it anymore. They must be within arm’s length,” ie on store shelves, or Amazon where Maniarr’s combo-packs are avail-able. “Today paratha is no more Punjabi. Dosa and idli is not South Indian. Food culture travels,” says Chawla, who believes the market is ripe for companies who can take traditional foods and drinks and reinvent the experience for the new Indian masses.

In the context of technology-based startups, Professor Jagdish Sheth, the Charles H Kellstadt Professor of Marketing at Emory University Goizueta Business School, recently told BE, “…just like businesses that

turned unorganised sectors into organised ones profited, anything routine that you do, I turn into an app and then I make money. It’s that simple.” Making Maniarr’s khakhras a national snack might not be that simple. Far from it. But it’s possible. Lending a helping hand

is the Narendra Modi-led govern-ment, which in May this year issued instructions to all ministries to in-clude “certain healthy, light and nu-tritious snacks” in their canteens. On the list of suggested food items is the humble khakhra.

delshad.irani@timesgroup.com

Continued from Page 1 >>

Continued from Page 1 >>

Everybody In The Pool

Make For India3 ways in which Uber is customising for the market

1. CASH PAYMENTS: The team practically fought to get this implemented since the global Uber model dispenses with the hassle of juggling with cash and change. In India, it was necessary given low digital penetration and an unfamil-iarity with non-cash based payment options. And, of course, it’s likely to help as Uber expands the reach of its services to more towns and draws in a different audience. Uber Auto is being piloted in a couple of cities.

2. IN APP HELP BUTTON: A quick way to connect people in case of a security issue or concern.

3. UBER DOST: A referral programme which rewards people once the drivers they’ve referred complete a certain quantum of rides. “People have set up small businesses just around helping others get on board,” says Uber’s Dias.

THE MARKETING ENGINE DRIVING PATANJALI APPEARS AS FLEXIBLE AND ROBUST AS THE BABA HIMSELF

I Dream Of Khakhra

Uber’s new campaign

Regn.No.MAHENG/2002/6711Volume 15 Issue No. 39Published for the Proprietors, Bennett Coleman & Company Ltd. by R. Krishnamurthyat The Times Of India Building, Dr. D.N.Road, Mumbai 400 001Tel. No. (022) 6635 3535, 2273 3535, Fax- (022)-2273 1144 and printed by him at (1) The Times of India Suburban Press, Akurli Road, Western Express Highway, Kandivili (E), Mumbai 400 101. Tel. No. (022) 28872324, 28872930,Fax- (022) 28874230 (2) The Times of India Print City, Plot No. 4, T.T.C. Industrial Area, Thane Belapur Road, Airoli, Navi Mumbai-400708 and (3) TIMES PRESS, Plot No. 5A, Road No. 1, IDA Nacharam Ranga Reddy District, Hyderabad-500076. Editor: Ravi Balakrishnan(Responsible for selection of news under PRB Act). © All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written permission of the Publisher is prohibited.

THE ECONOMIC TIMES SEPTEMBER 28-OCTOBER 04, 2016 4

CCI NG 3.5 Product: ETMumbaiBS PubDate: 28-09-2016 Zone: BrandEquityWest Edition: 1 Page: BEWBP User: sandeep.dutta Time: 09-24-2016 01:12 Color: CMYK