fishmarketing / marketing for a chaotic world

Amul Gold - Packaging

2010-08-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

Amul went retro with the redesign for Amul Gold packaging and I think it's amazing.

The iconic Amul Girl is up-front.

Himalayan - Packaging

2008-05-20T09:14:00.000-07:00

Himalayan, the expensive bottled water with the distinctive pink label has changed. Himalayan was bought by Tata Tea recently and the Tata's have completed a rebranding exercise changing the Himalayan logo and packaging along with some other elements of it's identity.

In pure design terms, this new look provides some refreshing visual changes in a cluttered bottled water market. The transparent label, simple imagery and irregular layout are all effective. The shape of the bottle has changed as well from the old square cross-section to a more amorphous rounded form for a more "natural" feel.

Himalayan has managed to differentiate it's look in line with it's premium mineral water image. And that seems like a good idea. This along with the strong associations with customers like star hotels, high-end restaurants, multiplexes works well.

But when you're selling a product as simple as drinking water with just premium imagery and source credibility to back it up, every detail counts. And one detail that Himalayan had got wrong and Tata seems to be continuing to ignore is the bottle. Natural spring / mineral water tastes richer and less bland than purified drinking water, simply because of the fact that in a stream, water carries several taste enhancing minerals which are removed in the purification process [ along with impurities ]. Many batches of Himalayan however have an "off" taste. A faintly fruity, almost coconut like smell emanates from the inside of the bottle. The reason for this is acetaldehyde formation during PET bottling.

"...For bottled water, low acetaldehyde content is quite important, because if nothing masks the aroma, even extremely low concentrations (10-20 parts per billion parts of resin, by weight) of acetaldehyde can produce an off-taste. The thermal and thermooxidative degradation results in poor processibility characteristics and performance of the material..."
wikipedia

Lots of complex sounding technology behind this, which I recognize only because I started my career in bottled beverages. In net effect: Himalayan is trying to make a premium mineral water brand, apparently, without the corresponding investment in packaging technology. I suspect that if your "natural mineral water" tastes worse than normal filtered water, no amount of branding and imagery will be enough to rescue the product.

Canara Bank's re-branding

2008-01-31T20:25:00.000-08:00

The latest among Indian PSUs/Nationalised banks looking for a makeover (after LIC, Axis Bank, Bank of Baroda, SBI, Bank of India etc) is Canara Bank. The re-branding communication is by O&M, and the core message is this : "We change for the ones we care about". The idea is successfully executed through a series of concepts:

1. The south Indian mother who is learning Punjabi in preparation for the arrival of her daughter-in-law etc.
2. A young lady learning about cricket to keep pace with her husband's obsession etc.

The execution of these ads is really good, but the key thing that struck me is whether these banks have actually changed. I have been keeping my eyes open for Canara Bank in the last few weeks and as expected nothing has changed. The re-branding is restricted only to the logo and tagline. The insides of their ATMs and branches are as shabby as ever, and I haven't heard anything new about the quality of their service. Ditto for Axis Bank. Ditto for SBI.

I think re-branding needs to be a complete exercise - which starts from within and then moves outwards. This means that the re-branding needs to start with your people and they way they deal with customers. It then moves to all other brand experience points such as the website, call center, ATMs, branches, billboards etc. Merely changing the visual identity of a brand serves no purpose if the underlying attributes haven't changed.

And so I propose the first law of fishmarketing:
Re-branding is an inside-out process, not merely a change in logo and tag line.

Why dinosaurs die

2008-01-25T11:43:00.000-08:00

People complain that Blogging has given all kinds of individuals access to "push button publishing", everybody has been given a voice irrespective of how talented or effective they are.

I disagree. I think BusinessWeek has done more damage by appointing Assistant Managing Editors like these!

It isn't Bruce Nussbaum's fault really, he doesn't intend to be so. He's just a reporter from a generation ago who's on the internet surrounded by more qualified and more effective communicators. The world's changed quite a bit and the barriers-to-entry have disappeared [ as far as journalism is concerned ]. Bruce's long bio' isn't going to be enough anymore. Nor is BusinessWeek's reputation.

Or maybe Bruce's blog is more about Innovation than Design. In which case he's still way out of his league.

Lessons:

1. Google may be bringing people to your 17th page directly. So your fancy opening flash animation [ or cool domain name / layout ] may not mean anything anymore.

2. Blogging is open to [ almost ] anybody. I don't need contacts in Publishing, just solid content. So your carefully built bio may not mean anything anymore.

3. Brilliant Advertising / Branding never really managed to sell bad products consistently, but today, more than ever before, you need a product that does the talking if you want it to sell. More communication = More audible voices = More Word-of-Mouth.

What would you do if i sang out of tune?

2006-09-04T06:50:00.000-07:00

What would you do if I sang out tune?
Would you stand up and walk out on me?
Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song
I will try not to sing out of key, yeah
Oh, baby I get by with a little help from my friends
By with a little help from my friends.
All I need is my buddies
By with a little help from my friends
I said I'm gonna get by with a little
By with a little help from my friends
Whoa oh oh oh oh
Said I don't know if that's what I'm sure do to, baby
By with a little help from my friends
Said I'm gonna make it with my friends
By with a little help from my friends
Whoa oh I'm gonna keep on trying
By with a little help from my friends
Said I'm gonna keep on trying.

Collaboration and social networks are two of the most important concepts that are driving these, the wonder years of the world wide web, forward. And we've just invited ourselves to the party.

Welcome to fishmarketing.