Branding and Packaging in the Dairy Category: India vis-à-vis International markets

The role of advertising for fast moving consumer categories ends after creating awareness for a product. In today’s cluttered media space where advertisers are constantly fighting for recall and top of mind awareness for their brands, whether the customer decides to buy a product of a certain brand or not, is more often than not decided on the aisles of the modern retail store or the local kirana store where she actually gets to see, touch and feel the product (packaging). And not at the time that she is exposed to the TV commercial or the press ad. Yet, packaging is still to get its due in the Indian scenario.The dairy category in India however has seen some interesting developments in recent times that are indicative of a new trend.

Branding in the dairy category in India

Over the years with the advent of modern retail, Indian brands have been focusing more than before on the packaging of their products so as to lure the fickle consumer.Dairy is one such category that has been seeing innovations in packaging. Amul and Nestle ruled the roost for a good many years. But with the arrival of other local, national, and international brands like Britannia, Mother Dairy, Go, Danone, Kraft, etc. the competition has stiffened. All brands are fighting for shelf and mind space. Blue and Yellow colours seem to be predominant in the category with most brands belonging to one or the other colour palette.  Internationally, the entire colour palette has been used for the dairy category. Primarily since dairy products there are available in a lot more formats, flavours and varieties than they are in India, the ingredient story is built on the pack very prominently. With the arrival of these newer formats in India, the pack graphic design scene will surely see changes here as well.

‘Go’ as a branding case study is interesting. When it came in with its new packaging, it immediately cut the clutter with its bold logotype and imagery in an otherwise sedate looking category. Interestingly, for its non-traditional dairy products like flavored yogurts and various cheese spreads among others, it went with the name ‘Go’ which is nothing but an extension of the mother brand ‘Gowardhan’. The brand architecture was designed smartly so that the new child brand gained from the equity of the mother brand but at the same time had a distinct identity of its own since it very clearly targeted a different consumer set than brand Gowardhan did.

"Innovate or Die is the Mantra"

7 Nov 2013, Print Week India

On the first day of Print Fair, Alpana Parida of D Y Works stressed the necessity of innovation for the printing businesses to survive.
In her presentation 'Printing Industry - The Next', for more than 60 delegates in the audience, Parida showcased how it is important for any business to define itself. Citing the example of Kodak, Parida said, "When a business is defined in relation to the technology, they tend to fail as the technology matures and advances," said Parida.




She shared an instance where a manufacturer of printed bags, when they found no value addition in the jobs being produced, started making security envelopes for banks. "Today, he is not just a printer but a security solution provider," added Parida.

Parida highlighted the fact that there is very little integration between the three important aspects of a job namely substrates, design and printing. She said that there has to be a synergy between these three to bring about innovative concepts that would make the printed products more relevant in a world where print seems to be on a decline.

Parida observed few industry trends such as decline of personalised printing, move towards sustainability, down-gauging of packaging,  functional packages, making packaging to work harder namely as point of sale etc.

"Change is the only constant; the sooner we learn and plan accordingly, it is better for our business," concluded Parida.

PrintWeek India, in collaboration with Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan Mumbai, is hosting ‘Print Fair’, a five-day event to showcase the depth and breadth of top print work and print ideas in India. The show runs from 6 to 10 November at the Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai.

By Rushikesh Aravkar

Alpana Parida is President of DY Works , a leading brand strategy and design firm

Black is the new white! How this traditionally dirty colour is the ‘in’ thing in the cleaning segment.

"Bure nazar walk tera muh kala" is probably the first Hindi phrase we learned in school. Culturally Indian's refer to black as an unclean colour.

For a people obsessed with purity, black has variously represented shame, uncleanliness, ugliness, illegal wealth, demonic roots, inappropriate actions or adulterations in your favorite pulses.

In contrast, "White" has been the standard bearer of being clean.Whether it is the colour of the mythical animal transports of the Hindu pantheon, to the description of your state of mind when your conscience is clean; white is the irrefutable colour of cleansing. From detergents to toilet cleaners, the quest for the "Whitest White" seems to the marketers Holy Grail.

In this black and white world enters a new (more western) paradigm of "Black=Clear".

 If your brand does not want to cheat its customers, then it will be in black. Some of the new platforms for black that are being dialed up include - simplicity and greater potency. 

Here are some examples of the same -
 

The other area where we see a more generous use of black is in the display of colour.

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While one can argue that black is a "macho" colour, you wouldn't readily associate it with candles. While "a light in the dark" would be something that you could also allude to, however, the brand has been overly generous with black, to their credit.

Devatanu Banerjee
VP - Retail & New Media
DY Works

Cuticura soap structure and carton design done by DY Works

DY Works
Contact: Mumbai:+91-022-40406767 Delhi:-1-91 11 26548089
Website: www.dyworks.in

MTR Foods - New Look

DY Works, VP - Strategy comments on the new look of MTR Food and MTR packaging redesign.

DARWIN'S PACKAGING

In today’s ‘Darwin’s world’ of change, there are only two choices: adapt or perish.
Rekha Pamani-Gulati, Director - Business Development, DY Works, shares her thoughts on change and adaptation in the world of ‘Darwin’s Packaging’

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With marketers and advertisers launching ICBM’s (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) at every juncture in our lives  – media, outdoor, internet and so on – how does a brand stand the test of time and not get overshadowed by the new kid on the block?
That brand has to be Spencerian!  (Herbert Spencer incidentally coined the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’)
Creating a Brand World and owning a Brand Language has increasingly become more relevant to brand survival - Packaging and graphic design is one of the most important extensions and expressions of this.
Consumers buy packs, hold and flirt with packs and take them home - they always did and they always will – it’s no wonder that some brands are continuously repackaging themselves to look better, convey their benefits better, to stand out against the clutter, to be recognized and ultimately to be picked up!
Packaging & Design makes promises to its consumers. This could be through structure, closures, dispensing mechanisms, messaging hierarchy, refill packs, multiple skus, variants, brand extensions and graphic elements that become synonymous with that brand or product. They convey a message and fulfill a need.

Antiquity Blue Whisky – created a revolution in its space as a trendsetter – possibly the first bottle globally where the neck of the bottle was designed as the spine of the bottle. Noticeable and not replicable!
Cadbury Dairy milk promised safety sealed new packaging post its worm scare from one supplier – consumers were reassured with that new quality packaged promise seal.
Skincare cosmetics are introducing more textures and sensorials to the substrates being used.
Gold and Global packaging standards are being adopted and reinvented.
Resealable, Reusable and Recyclable packs are the order of the day – ‘be sustainable or die ‘ will be the future mantra.

The first chapter in Anand Halve’s book Darwin’s Brands (not to mention the front cover of the book) showcases Thums Up – a brand that has stood its ground and over time adapted cleverly to counter the plethora of imagery that we are bombarded with. This is in a sense an addendum to that topic!
The brand line ‘Taste the Thunder’ captured the experience while the visual complimented the concept – today Thums Up continues to hold its ground next to the other colas.
Opening Happiness or the drink of the New Generation have not displaced this Indian stalwart – its trademark Thumb has been contemporized, the visual vocabulary of the brand has been extended and the brand continues to remain true to its core – more dum/more power!

Initially available only in glass bottles – over time has extended to pvc bottles and cans – adopting the very need of the changing consumer needs and trends and reinterpreting thunder. The thunderous shadow, which held the design back rather than propelling it forward has been contemporized yet not alienated the core users, the refinement of the hand silhouette from a workman like to a more youthful thumbprint and a refinement of the typeface from archaic to modern has made the brand and the pack more assertive and taken it to a modern space making it more relevant.

Packaging has and will always be the moment of truth…. “The silent salesman has become the vociferous shelf shouter!”

Third Wave of Packaging

Packaging is no longer design, it is communication. This article tries to map the evolution of packaging design over three distinct phases.
Third Wave of Packaging

Contributed by Dharamraj Ullagadi, ACD - DY Works

Premium sachet collection in the techno world of Clear Shampoo

Brand Task:
To redesign sachets for Clear making it premium, contemporary and sleek, in line with the new bottle designs. The new bottle design apparently, is a clear winner as per the research for the global re-launch.
It has to be ensured that the sachets have a futuristic look and good shelf throw which is currently missing ,with respect to the bottle and design adaptation
Brand Solution:
DY Works suggested a clutter breaking square structure which would help the sachet position itself differently from the others in the category
DY Works used the mnemonic and the bands as per the bottles but gave it a distinct identity of its own which ensured the required impact without losing the brand architecture
The design was done ensuring that sachet was in line with the bottles in terms of appearance and perception being technologically advanced, up-market and sophisticated with a touch of elegance
The BOP was also developed with great precision and emphasis was on laying out all the content systematically The variants can be identified with the different colored mnemonic

Power of 100 lemons lead to one clean swoosh

Brand Task:
A re-launch after 5 years for Vim bar by offering a strong consumer proposition of Faster Degreasing with the existing technology/formula.
Boost the product through more authoritative packaging graphics which communicate the proposition to the consumers

Brand Solution:
We revived the branding logo and extended the unit of single lime to a row of stacked limes, depicting the empowered impact of lime
The impactful swoosh further enforced by the power of lime portrayed through the strong rays of lime entering the vessel & acting as the most impactful degreasing ingredient.
The potent swoosh connoting the cleaning power of the brand in just one stroke with no efforts and consuming the least amount of time.
We have used  fresher and more vibrant greens (color) as compared to the current pack going under re-designing as the entire pack, right from visuals to color to text needs to be extremely obtrude and power driven.

How Packaging communicates a Brand Refresh

I had a journalist from Business Standard call me to ask - why do you think they have done this hoarding - in a plaintive voice. She had already asked many marketers, brand strategists and other sundry thinkers; and no one seemed to be able to give her an answer.
I confessed to being stupefied myself! What I told her is that when Fair & Lovely radically changed their packaging, they needed to tell the consumer about the change.
When Rin changed to Surf,consumers needed to know of this seminal change. But when 5 Star changed to more-of-the-same-5 Star, there seems no need whatsoever. Indeed, if you put the old and the new packs side by side, you really have to play the "Find the Differences" game.

New packaging rejuvenates brands. Makes them fresher, younger and more relevant.They make the competition look old and not 'with it'.' It is also an opportunity to correct old flaws and build great brand assets.The new 5 Star packaging under-whelms - specifically on two counts.
The first:The logo covers only about half the pack. This is an impulse category - and it has to shout out to consumers. The entire real estate of the pack could have been used for the branding. And dwarfed other wannabes on the retail shelf

The second:The cross-section of the 5 Star bar has been dropped to show some drippy caramel. Consumers want to know what a product looks like when they are asked to put it in their mouths. Whether toothpaste, biscuits or chocolates. The cross-section is critical to cuing the unique 5 Star experience. Dropping it is dangerous.Brands - like people, grow old, atrophy and die - unless continually rejuvenated. A pack change is the most visible aspect of brand rejuvenation and is an opportunity to appeal to younger consumers entering the market. "New 5 Star packaging underwhelms "
Those readers of this column old enough to remember the launch of the ICICI bank will remember it as the challenger brand that shook up the bureaucratic world of banking. From long lines in a crowded sweltering branch, and endless waiting for a peon to carry your cheque from one cubicle to another before a withdrawal could be made, there came a banking experience so customer friendly and literally so much cooler, that an inertia-prone, low-priority decision of choosing your bank and going through the hassle of transferring your bank account, suddenly became top priority. That was some 20 plus years ago.The same bank has grown in size and done very well. But today, the service and ambience it offers is hygiene for the industry. And the same challenger brand appears old and fuddy duddy to the younger consumer. It is time for ICICI to rejuvenate the visible face of the brand. Otherwise, it could see its share eroded to challengers offering a fresher experience.

When Dabur embarked on a rejuvenation exercise close to a decade ago, it faced the same problem. How does a hundred-year-old brand become relevant to a younger India? And so, the old banyan tree was replaced with a younger fresher tree, the iconic Vatika packaging single handedly redefined hair oil as a category and over time a slew of old and new products made the brand relevant to the Gen X consumers. The rejuvenation helped Dabur stand up and be counted. And the rest as they say is history

Alpana Parida is currently President of DY Works (erstwhile DMA Branding) and was previously marketing and merchandising head for Tanishq. The author can be reached alpana@dyworks.in

Domex : The Master Blaster

Brand Task:
The HUL Domex team wanted to communicate its new product feature i.e it turns from white to green during usage. This new product feature leads to perceptions of efficacy in the minds of the consumer.
To make the pack more engaging and informative, but not cluttering the packaging.
Brand Solution:
DY Works studied the product (toilet cleaner) category and found out that Domex is the most de-cluttered pack in the category. However the messaging hierarchy was amiss and communication cues were weak.
Some insights that DY Works gathered from the consumer research were implemented for the packing graphics as well .Like the brand identity and the core pack color (blue) were retained as the consumers identify with it. Further we decided to showcase graphically the Indian and western style commode which was clutter breaking in itself for the category.
We explicitly worked on the layout of the pack ensuring a systematic messaging hierarchy and to be able to highlight the new product feature via an active green formula (nomenclature) depicted by scientific mnemonic which works well with the imagery of the brand, ensuring its core claim of killing all germs dead.
We followed a balanced approach in designing the pack since there was a need to communicate the functional benefits upfront and thus it was a mixture of core facts and aesthetics.

Contact: Mumbai:+91-022-40406767 Delhi:-1-91 11 26548089 

Website: www.dmayellowworks.com