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Adaptation of international best practices with unsparing focus on value for money could be a sure-fire guarantee for success of brands in India.
This is how SpiceJet has sought to build its brand in the budget airline sector, according to Mr Neil Raymond Mills, Chief Executive Officer.
LONG JOURNEY
Speaking at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Brand Summit-2011 here on Friday, Mr Mills said that brand building is a long journey assimilating changes on-the-go in the business environment and on the marketing front.
“For us in the airline sector, the competitor doesn't stand still; we also have had to run into CSR (corporate social responsibility) issues.”
Mr Mills was referring into the ‘big polluter' label that the entire aviation sector has come to be stuck with.
It's a struggle for being relevant to the consumer. One is not in business unless one makes oneself relevant to the context.
SpiceJet swears by on-time performance (OTP) and is seeking to raise it to even higher levels. This is a product differentiator that the airline is hoping to capitalise on.
VALUE FOR MONEY
But value for money is what really drives growth in the industry. Only seven to eight million of the 1.2-billion population takes to travel by air; it leaves a tremendous opportunity to those who have the right strategy.
While devising a strategy, one can hardly ignore the compelling case of the country's demographics. The 555 million under the age group of 21 years is deeply brand conscious.
According to Mr Satish Rao, Managing Director, Kohinoor Speciality Foods, now under the McCormick umbrella of the US, brand equity is the net result of all positive and negative features linked to a brand.
BRAND LIFE-CYCLES
Brands are created to ensure legal protection, product differentiation and product positioning. They help a commodity to ‘distinguish itself from competition and stand out of the clutter.'
Brand building goes through different life-cycles in different geographies and, in this respect, the West has matured.
While brand building in emerging market economies is aimed at quality, that in the West has evolved much beyond with focus being now on attributes.
Aspiring brands need to be supported by a strong product differentiator, said Mr C. K. Ranganathan, Chairman and Managing Director, CavinKare.
CAVINKARE SUCCESS
Recounting the success stories of the CavinKare brands, he said that “money (capital) is not an issue, but ideas are”.
Competition can be made to back-off by working on and setting right those very aspects which may have caused one's product to come unstuck in the market.
CavinKare has been uncompromising on the quality front and that explains its success, Mr Ranganathan said.
The company has been receiving ‘amazing response' to its dairy initiative, offering packaged milk with a shelf-life of 100 days. The test-marketing has been a ‘big' success in two districts in Tamil Nadu, he said.
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