Rejuvenating brands through design

Brands, like people, grow old and risk becoming irrelevant or less desirable unless they rejuvenate themselves continuously.

Trends change, fashions change; and a brand that does not change with the times ends up looking as out of place in consumer’s lives as bell bottoms are in a world of skinny jeans!!

Consumers are defining their selves through brands and their aspirations; their self-images are formed by the set of brands they consume. So, Samsung and not Videocon, FastTrack not Titan, Peter England and not Double Bull are choices made, to become symbols of self-expression.  Brands, therefore, need to mirror the consumer’s aspirations and needs.

When we worked on the Dabur rejuvenation, we reinvented an over 125 year old brand to make Ayurveda relevant to a younger Indian and lift it from the ‘brown’ ingestible powders and pills to other contemporary categories in foods and skin care. Himalaya followed in creating a more contemporary face of Ayurveda. As the younger Indian is looking to negotiate with tradition – a conclusion born out by behaviour:  through the cocktails and dance in the evening and the traditional wedding in the morning or the touching of feet of elders in the family and being on first name basis with their international bosses; both these brands have made space for themselves in the Indian consumers’ lives and shelves as they themselves have negotiated tradition as brands.

Another powerful brand – Vicco – has missed the boat entirely. It appears old and dated and its fortunes are reflected in its low market shares. In 30 years, it hasn’t changed much and its traditional roots do not appeal today. Nonetheless, it has great brand equity (PE firms take note) and a good rejuvenation exercise can make it a powerhouse once more to take on Dabur and Himalaya head –on.

While logos play an important role in how a brand is perceived, packaging can be an equally powerful tool to make brands contemporary.

Packaging, much more than advertising, is what causes conversions. It is what consumers pay for, and dictates actual brand experience closely. Fastrack has broken the mould on classic, elegant watches and has a very strong and distinctive brand personality. The difference between a Titan and a Fastrack is not just in the design of the watches. It is in the attitude and personality of the wearer as well.

The packaging plays a very strong role in driving this brand experience further. Fastrack packaging is a tin – that is not the traditional flip top box. At the very outset – it challenges convention. Secondly, it evokes a rugged and raw world, which is also part of the brand’s personality. Thirdly it borrows from the world of liquor (it looks like a cut off container of a whiskey bottle) – lending an edgier aspect to the brand.

In category after category, particularly in the FMCG product categories; packaging can play a very important role in building the brand.

See the two images below of Fem Hand Soap and Santoor Hand Soap – a structure we created as far back as 2005.  The Santoor packaging caused a disruption in a low engagement category (as compared to skin care) to drive sales and market shares.

The rub off of such packaging also impacted the parent brand – Santoor Soap positively. In some categories, packaging can drive innovations. The zip lock bag for namkeens or rice/ dal/ atta; the easy squeeze tube for glue, the hand pump for shampoos/ moisturisers, liquid soaps – all add to the functionality of the product and can add significant value to consumers. They are willing to pay more for this.

Categories such as tooth brushes – which are generally very low engagement categories after purchase see a disproportionate engagement during purchase. Here the product and the packaging win the day. The colour, the brightness, the shape are all features that directly lead to conversion. The behaviour at the time of purchase is almost similar to one of buying a ‘dinky’ car.  The role of product design and packaging in winning market shares is very significant.

In an era of highly cluttered media spaces and pressures on cutting costs and advertising budgets, marketers need to discover the power of design in building brands. There are true market opportunities to be tapped. The rewards are just waiting to be reaped.

Alpana Parida
President, DY Works

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

Beyond logo

India Inc is finding compelling reasons to invest in corporate identity.
Arijit Barman / Business Standard Mumbai July 25, 2011, 0:49 IST

When the Burmans of Dabur approached DMA Yellow Works, now DY Works,  for a makeover of their corporate identity and brand, they wanted to actually drop the Banyan Tree from their logo. But DMA persuaded the promoters to rejuvenate the tree; tweaked the font and through a series of interventions that saw newer packaging, product extensions and communication, galvanised a more holistic change.

It took a survey of 10,000 people across the country for Sanjeev Goenka to step out of his father’s shadow and create a legacy of his own. He also wanted his new group corporate identity — RP-Sanjiv Goenka — to reflect the clear demarcation of the business empire between him and elder brother Harsh. “I had been wondering whether staying together could lead to a potential confusion between my son and nephew,” he candidly explains with heir apparent Shashwat next to him.

Anil Ambani group rebrands: stocks surge; ad gurus split

DNA, 1st January 2011, Arcopol Chaudhuri MUMBAI

Four years after embarking on a rebranding exercise, the Anil Ambani group has retweaked its masthead, emphasising on 'Reliance' and erasing 'ADAG'.

So, R-ADAG now is just the 'Reliance Group' very similar to the name of elder brother Mukesh's empire. That was enough grist for the stock market mill: talk was this could mean a bigger deal between the brothers, which lifted shares of the group.

"It's possible the market is reading the new branding as reconciliation between the brothers," Jayesh Shroff of SBI Funds Management told Bloomberg.

Sanjay Behl, group head of branding and marketing at the company told newswires it was an attempt to consolidate all companies of the group under a single 'iconic' brand.

Behl told Dow Jones while Reliance Mobile will be called just Reliance, its 3G service will be called Reliance 3G and its GSM service Reliance GSM. Among the bigger brands, BIG TV will become Reliance Digital TV and BIG Pictures will become Reliance Pictures.

But the redesign, by Bonsey Design of Singapore, has experts divided Anand Halve, co-founder, Chlorophyll Brand Consultancy said he is not sure how the logo change will pan out.

Referring to previous incidents of logo changes such as that of Airtel, Godrej, Videocon, he said that branding makeovers are 'very expensive non-exercises'.

"I'd like to know what the new logo means for Reliance, besides a change in visiting cards, office stationery and letterheads. The brand has to change, not the logo alone. For an average Joe buying a Reliance CDMA connection in, say, Kanpur, there is just one company. It's Reliance - he isn't sure and probably doesn't even take sides to choose if it's Anil's or Mukesh's. But it may get the investor community excited."

Halve said there are many family-owned corporate businesses which have strategically retained or changed their name, depending on how profitable group companies were. "Bajaj Auto and Bajaj Electricals, K Raheja Group, Aditya Birla Group are some examples where company nomenclature has been strategically decided."

He said it must have taken a great salesman to make Anil Ambani drop the ADAG from the title of his group.

But Alpana Parida, president of DMA, a strategic branding and design firm feels that the ADAG' tag had diluted the strength of Reliance.

"By dropping it now, Anil is going back to the basics. It makes his group look stronger. It doesn't look like ADAG is something under an umbrella of Reliance. It makes ADAG the umbrella itself. Hence, just the title, Reliance."

Parida also believes there must have been some communication between the two brothers before deriding on the title that was announced on Thursday "Rebranding can often help rejuvenate the group. We did it with Dabur; globally Johnny Walker has also benefited from it. In the case of Reliance, there will be some confusion but the advantage will be Anil Ambani's."

Meanwhile, the group's stocks had a field day: shares of Reliance Communications and Reliance Broadcast Network rose 4.99% each, while Reliance Infrastructure popped 4% on Friday Other listed entities of the group surged between 1.8% and 2.6%.

The group's market capitalisation was up Rs. 3,741 crore to Rs. 113,026 crore on Friday.

Fairever - Rebranding

Wow ... our design for Fairever recently appeared on television ... great going.



For more on packaging design >

Thums Up - Rebranding

DMA Yellow Works creates the new identity for India's most popular cola - Thums Up. The challenge was to improve on overtly masculine identity that was missing out on style and coherent message throw.

The new design retains the essence of this well recognized cola. The identity was create to exude power, yet make the brand more contemporary

The earlier tag line added too much clutter and dominated the brand.

This was remedied in the new design. The typography selected also makes the tagline more readable.

As for the results, the following news clip sums it up ...

From Media News Line - 20th Feb 2009 ...

According to Kashmira Chadha, Director Marketing, Coca-Cola India, “The latest ‘Thums Up communication for 2009 takes the whole idea of “I Will Do Anything For My Thunder” attitude of the Indian male to the next level by adding a layer of fun and playfulness to it. The Thums Up drinker indulges in adrenalin pumping action to get a bottle of his favourite soft drink Thums Up because he loves to do it and not because he has to. To bring out this thought to life, Akshay Kumar will be seen in a twin avatar, playing a game to get a bottle of his favorite Soft Drink – Thums Up. To further enhance the appeal and connect with consumers, the Thums Up logo too has been contemporized. The sharper edges are added to the ‘Thumb’ in the Thums Up sign to bring out the core masculine values of brand Thums Up more prominently.”

About The New Thums Up Logo

The new Thums Up logo unit has been contemporized in line with the latest global design trend of simplicity & clean look. The sharper edges are added to the ‘Thumb’ in the Thums Up sign to bring out the core masculine values of brand Thums Up more prominently. The new Logo has been designed by DMA Brand Consultants Pvt Ltd (Now DMA Yellow Works ) and takes its inspiration from the “Eagle’s Wings” to enhance the visibility and dynamism of the brand Thums Up.

Links -

1. Read the original story at - Media Newsline 
2. Thums Up Website 
3. Rebrand your cola at DMA Yellow Works 

Air India - Rebranding

Kansai Nerolac Brand Architecture