The guy is going overseas and the girl rues over how it might not be possible to access him at all times like the good old days when he was still in India. To which, the guy says, “I will be connected to you all the time honey. I have a Blackberry after all.”

Quite surprising this. Thus far, the Blackberry (BB) has been perceived to be a business phone. Some of the words that come to mind when one thinks of a BB are serious, official and boring. Definitely, fun is not one of them.

Perhaps, the advertisement is not so surprising when we consider this. The potential smart phone market in India is huge. What with the proliferation of social networking, the number of teenagers accessing the mobile web has been growing at an alarming rate. While LG, Samsung and Nokia have been active in the low end smart phones market to attract school and college going kids, the high end smart phones have not exactly tried targeting this segment as yet. Also, if one goes by the news item here, BB is facing serious competition from the Google and Apple smart phones. That Google and Apple themselves are fighting a fierce battle against each other in the smart phone category is a different story for a different day.

No wonder BB is attempting to expand and redefine its market. The most inexpensive BB costs around INR 13,000, and is devoid only of such features as the 3G. But, thinking of it a little more, there are still some gaps here:

• BB still looks a boring phone when compared to an Apple iPhone which has a strong brand name behind it, has the ‘fun’ and ‘social’ tags attached to it and has clearly etched the image of an aspirational phone in the minds of even people who are not tech savvy. An interesting article here analyses the positives of the Apple brand and the various campaigns undertaken to promote iPhone 4.
• It is still not geeky enough when compared to an Android device which has the blessings of open source software that can be tweaked to customize the phone to the user’s needs.
• And, it is not inexpensive enough to compete with the LGs and the Samsungs catering to the younger crowd.

However, what the BB does have is that strong enterprise brand attached to it, and also complete functionality when it comes to the business user. It is also quite hassle free to use from a social perspective. In other words, it strikes a fine balance between the official and the personal. On the other hand, colleagues of mine who have used competing brands such as the Android are of the opinion that these are phones are not that business efficient when compared to the BB.

If BB is looking at expanding its market, it requires an end to end image makeover. Just a few advertisements featuring a girlfriend-boyfriend duo might not do the trick.

Remember, it is perhaps the phone which the target segment’s parents use. So, targeting the younger, more vibrant population requires more than just content – a fresher form in terms of color and shape, and a brand name to go with it (perhaps a sub-brand, perhaps a stand-alone brand). These might actually do the trick in shifting the brand association from ‘serious’ to ‘fun’. Who knows, BB might actually end up identifying an altogether new mid-market lying in between the Samsungs and the LGs on one end and the iPhones on the other.

Hrithik Roshan dances beautifully to the fluty Reliance trademark music with a flute in hands, hearing which a number of ‘mouse shaped’ things follow him all the way through the roads of the town and fall from the cliff, into, I assume, the water.

This is the only impression I got when I first saw the advertisement. I kept thinking about that quintessential essence, The Message, all through the night. Initially, I thought the ‘mice’ must be customers, but it didn’t make sense for them to fall down from the cliff. Then, I thought they must be the competitors who are always trying to follow Reliance and end up going nowhere but down finally. I had to see the advertisement once more to ascertain that these were things like “Conditions apply”, “STD” etc. that were falling down – funda being that Reliance’s scheme is straightforward, simple and comes with no strings attached.

This reminded me of an article I had read recently. The article talks about how complex language is weakening brands. Though it focuses on how one should focus on specifics rather than generalities, the point is “Let’s focus on the message, the single point agenda. There is no point in using all our linguistic skills in trying to complicate matters for millions of customers processing thoughts in a multitude of different ways”.

In the past one week, I have seen a slightly modified version of the same Reliance ad. The dancing sequences have been truncated, suddenly the Marketing & Communications team out there seems to have realized that maybe something is wrong after all, the message about what exactly the Pied Piper is trying to do with the mice is not getting across. The advertisement has now been modified with textual insertions on the descriptions of the scheme – 50 paise per call, no conditions attached, same charges for all kinds of calls etc.

I wonder why brands cannot be smarter in being to the face and to the point, rather than try being subtle and use all their ‘business energies’ in setting cryptic crosswords for viewers. The viewer does not like crosswords for advertisements, he actually does not like advertisements. He switches channels and moves on to the next show in the flick of a second. Maybe, here, the creators were riding on Hrithik’s face value to make the ad click. That brings us back to the eternal celebrity endorsement question, “Can you make your brand so dependent on your ambassador that you forget to put forward the benefits of your brand and product and focus instead on the skills (in this case dancing) of the celebrity endorsing it?” If yes is an answer to that, it sounds like a very unhealthy option in my opinion.

To what extent do celebrity endorsements influence potential customers? There are two different aspects to this that come to my mind immediately.

One is about using a product to fulfill an aspiration like

• A shampoo, expecting to have beautiful hair or soft hair or dandruff free hair (endorsed by film stars like Priyanka Chopra, Shilpa Shetty and Kareena Kapoor)
• A face cream or lotion, expecting to look Fair & Lovely
• A soap (for a long time, Lux has been endorsed by beautiful Bollywood actresses)

Here, the impact on the buying behavior is quite apparent and expected too.

The other aspect is more relevant to this post. This is when the product to be purchased is purely, or almost purely functional. For instance, if a person is looking at buying a financial product, say, a mutual fund or a life insurance policy, how much importance does he give to ‘who’ is endorsing the product?

Will I choose to take a housing loan from HDFC Bank as against SBI if, hypothetically speaking, Aamir Khan endorses it. Of course, the fact that someone as famed as Aamir chooses to bank with HDFC might be a tipping point. But, I would also rationally know that Aamir is not part of my sample set really when it comes to housing loans, as, he has perhaps never taken one. I might be able to relate to the advertisement much better if a tie and suit wearing, 25 year old consultant endorses it, for, that is what I am. I might aspire to be as rich as Aamir someday, but that is not the same kind of aspiration as aspiring to have beautiful hair like Shilpa Shetty and a flawless, pearl like complexion like Sonam Kapoor (L’Oreal). In the case of a housing loan, an Aamir Khan has no context with me.

There are real life examples to this kind of endorsement. Aviva Life Insurance signed Sachin Tendulkar as their brand ambassador in 2007. I vaguely remember seeing him in some advertisements, but these days, I do not even see advertisements on Aviva Life on TV, forget Sachin in the ads. However, a quick search on the Aviva website reveals that they have launched an Aviva Sachin Century plan, a unit linked savings cum protection plan. I do suspect that any Tom, Dick or Harry would have sufficed to endorse the Aviva Life advertisement as long as the message was sent across. A child plan endorsed by a normally salaried father who is looking at the benefit from real terms when the child turns 18, a protection plan by a bread winner who does not want his family to suffer lest something happens to him. Doesn’t that represent the target set more rightly when compared to larger than life heroes and crorepati cricket stars endorsing it?

However, an article here states that the trend is on towards celebrity endorsements for financial products. It is a matter of time before we learn how successful these advertisements will be in boosting the sale of the life insurance products and mutual funds they plan to publicize. Will they boost up the revenues of film stars and sports stars further or bring about a realisation of a different kind in the marketing departments of these companies?

The preamble below is for the purpose of readers who might be unfamiliar with the Indian life insurance industry. The actual subject matter of the post starts from Paragraph 2.

Around a decade back, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) enjoyed a monopoly in the life insurance sector. Awareness about insurance was low, life insurance penetration even lower. Then, the markets were opened and competition flooded the market. All was for the good, so to say. Enlightenment about insurance increased by leaps and bounds. But, the idea of risk was still a new concept in the Indian market. Companies had to use the “Tax sop under 80CCC” line to attract customers. People were buying insurance, not with the intention of covering their risks, but to save on tax money. However, they were buying insurance which in itself was a success. And then did the story take a U – turn. A couple of years back, tax sops were revised. It became no longer attractive for people to look towards insurance for saving themselves some tax money as other, more attractive products got added to the list.

Selling insurance is not the same as selling FMCG. More than half the time (definitely more than that), the potential customer is not going to walk up the steps of an insurance firm and buy the product. Maybe (s)he will, in case of motor insurance, which is compulsory. Otherwise, insurance, specifically life, involves a lot of ‘push’.

What is the need of a life insurance customer? Is the customer just interested in risk coverage? Or, does he like believing that he would live for a long time, but his life span increases in a tension free world if he safely insures himself? Or, does he like investing in it like how he would in a Mutual Fund, deriving the primary benefit out of linking it to the market and keeping the risk coverage as a secondary and less important benefit?

Keeping all these in mind, what is the case that insurance companies have taken to the market to sell their wares?

As far back as I can remember, LIC used to toe the “During Life, after life” (‘Vaazhum Bodhum Vazzhkaiku Piragum’ in Tamil) line in their advertisements. One of them portrayed the breadwinner’s untimely demise leaving his family regretting over not insuring his life which could have helped them lead a comfortable life. Though such advertisements did put off the viewer, LIC was jus going the “scare to death” way of increasing its base. It subsequently moved on to toned down versions such as a widow marrying off her only daughter, thanks to the insurance policy that her husband had taken when alive.

The new entrants, if they had any hope, had it in differentiating themselves, for LIC as a brand was known for its reliability. This has led to interesting concepts that these companies have come up with to sell the concept of risk.

ICICI uses the “Jeethe Raho” (Live long) concept where the wife explains to the husband that insurance is not just a ‘death benefit’ tool but a safety model which secures the family’s future as a whole and comes back in a circle to help the person lead a longer, tension – free life.

HDFC says, “Sar Utha Ke Jiyo” (Live with respect) without expecting anyone else’s helping hand for your kids’ education, your old age etc. Their latest advertisement shows a kid who is worried as to who will buy him games if his Papa gets lost and then his Papa says that even if he gets lost, he would buy it for him. This advertisement, somehow, did not go too well with me. It had an irritating effect. Surely, there could be a better way of representing the concept of “Live with respect” than telling a small kid that he would get his games even if his father gets lost.

Aegon Religare, a relatively new entrant in the industry, toes a different strategy altogether. It says that the amount of money you may have insured your life with, today, might not be enough a few years hence because of rising inflation and exponentially increasing prices. Quite unique a concept, it looks at value sales instead of volume sales. I wonder how relevant it is to the Indian market where insurance has not reached a majority of the population yet and where taking an insurance policy itself is a big deal. In such a market, proposing the idea of increasing one’s cover of insurance sounds quite premature, and seems to assume that the target group would be large enough to sustain the company. But, there is definitely hope for such an idea to blossom in the years to come.

Despite all the education and awareness that various advertisements by private life insurers have provided, the Indian consumer still prefers the concept of investment over the concept of risk – cover. Hence, it looks like for many more years to come, companies will have to follow the route of “investment based insurance” to attract customers to their fold.

The war has been on for a long time. Horlicks is a Glaxo brand that moved under the GSK umbrella which was formed out of Glaxo and Smithkline Beecham. Interestingly enough, Complan was brought to India by Glaxo and later taken over by Heinz Foods.   

In the past decade or so, there has been many a tiff between Horlicks and Complan. In 2004, there was a HC directive to Complan to telecast its advertisement after deleting the cup marked ‘H’. The advertisements showed a bigger cup and a smaller cup, marked ‘C’ and ‘H’ respectively.    

Horlicks was initially targeted at older people and used to be positioned as a ‘great family nourisher’. But, with increasing competition, it started introducing new flavors specifically targeting children. Thus began the fire. If Complan claimed that it made kids taller, Horlicks claimed to make kids taller, stronger and sharper.   

The latest from the Horlicks stable has been a comparative advertisement which blatantly shows the Complan packet and claims that Horlicks provides more value for lesser money (INR 128) while Complan provides less value at a far greater price (INR 174).   

Within a few days time, Complan has made a come back with both printed advertisements and TVCs comparing the two drinks, Complan and a blue colored bottle (Horlicks whose name was not shown). It concluded with the Complan Mom asking the ‘blue colored bottle’ Mom, “Do you want to give your kid a sub-standard drink just because it is cheap? Think about it.”   

Seeing the Horlicks advertisement, I was back to the age old question of legality of the advertisement in question. Talking to a few people, I did realize that, whatever be the legality, the point had been conveyed, the damage done. But, Complan has made quite a quick comeback. It has tried to turn its Achilles heel, the price, as rightly aimed at by Horlicks, to its favor. It has strived to reach out to the psyche of those consumers who feel that higher price translates into better quality and lower price inevitably means that the product would be of poor quality.   

I do not think this story is going to end any time soon. There will be more to see. It would be interesting to watch what more than comparative advertising will these two health drink giants come up with to capture significant share of the market. Or, as is the case with all free markets, will a new competitor eat into both their pies while expanding the market size too?

But, this time, it is different. I am not able to write an intro post. As you would have realized by now, I am going round and round in circles without knowing how to take this post forward. That’s ‘cos I am reallllly nervous this time around and no intro post can take me to a comfort zone. Like I told a friend a few days back, I am getting into dangerous territory and am frankly scared about the outcome.

Nevertheless, there is no going back now. I have put this off for too long. And, the subject matter is too close to my heart to procrastinate any further. So here it is, for all of you to read, criticize mainly so that I learn better, and praise in those occasionally extraordinary situations where I seem to be making a wee bit of sense.

I dedicate this blog to FinalsPrep_Marketing (Nice Try) for those innumerable, unforgettable marketing sessions that have nurtured and sustained my love for marketing.