Webalue.com Communications » Branding News

Bajaj confirms what we predicted 3 months ago

Meheer Thakare — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:43:16 +0000

The Bajaj Logo

Three Months after we first predicted a potential change in the Brand strategy of Bajaj Auto Ltd [BAL] on account of plunging market shares and changing Brand Values, the company has finally taken their changing strategies public.

On Wednesday, 9^th of December 2009, Rajiv Bajaj, the Managing Director, BAL, announced that the company was all set to bid adieu to its Scooter segment to focus on motorcycle market. Bajaj Auto Limited has seen its scooter volumes drop to barely a couple of hundreds, per month. The company, which dominated the scooter market with geared brands like Chetak and Super, suffered in the 1990s with the upcoming trend of motorcycles in the market that were not only more stylish and appealing but they also offered greater mileage.

Read our previous analysis on BALs changing brand values here.

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Why AOL Rebranding process may not succeed?

Meheer Thakare — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 07:08:11 +0000

Corporate re-branding is sometimes seen as an inevitable exercise while it appears to be a normal practice for global trendsetters moving away or making alterations to their brands. AOL, a longer version of American Online is an American company that provides internet services and social media networking. The internet company has announced its ongoing process of re-branding itself. AOL will spin-off from Time Warner which has been operating it since the year 2000. The merger between AOL and Time Warner, was a destined ill-fated journey on account of bad advisory. Finally, AOL shares will start trading independently from early December 2009 in NYSE.

Aol. New Corporate Logos

Trading as a separate identity called for a new corporate identity to help revive the company’s tail spin journey. As a part of the re-branding process, its brand, ‘AOL’ will now be symbolized as ‘Aol.’ with an essential dot in the end. A view master, a high heeled shoe and a kissing couple are but few background features that are set to be replaced with some other weird backgrounds like, a gold fish, some four abstract scrawls and an obscene hand gesture. The logos were designed by Wolff Olins, the agency that came up with the logo of London 2012 Olympic Games.

Commenting on the Re-branding process, Tim Armstrong, the chairman and chief executive of AOL, said the branding was “uniquely dynamic”, while his marketing team added: “The identity … is a platform for expression and creativity reflecting the content, products and services Aol offers.” Yes, we at Webalue.com, agree to some extent but there are larger issues that ought to be attended. I formed three easy interconnected steps for Aol. To follow,

Step 1. Global Brand: Let’s face it. We all know AOL has been trying to establish itself as a global brand. The company has yet failed to shed off, ‘American Online’ as a spot on alternative to ‘AOL’. Non-U.S countries have thus not proved to be as profitable to the company.

Step 2. Being Global, Acting Local: AOL will need to kick off major campaigns, to integrate its brand within foreign cultures. Until the day, these cultures (or countries) adopt AOL into their lives, this company aint going anywhere. In emerging countries like India, where Internet usage has been achieving record growth year-on-year, AOL has a great opportunity. But a major chunk of the market would rather opt for Yahoo or Rediff.com (an Indian portal). AOL is still largely perceived to be American Online, which straight away disassociates non-US consumers.

Step 3. Cultural Dimensions: (This one’s funny) How many times a year do we come across companies committing cultural blunders. Some brand names sound offensive in some countries, while other logos find themselves emitting wrong gestures and signals. Well, here we go again. ‘AOL’ (oops.. or should I say, ‘Aol.’) is all set to be a classic cultural blunder in ITALY. One of their new logo background, has a rock-concert-like hand gesture (See in the Image above) which in Italy indicates a man whose wife has been unfaithful. (Gulp…!!!) Hope Aol(dot) addresses this before launch in Italy.

Apart from these 3 steps, there is another concern that I feel is worth a review. The company recently announced a major lay-off of over 1/3 workforce accounting to cost-cutting measures. This could have well been a gist of actions taken during the AOL-Time Warner’s bad divorce. But, it might have left a bad scar on the retained employees of Aol-dot. As a new company, establishing new and some changed brand values, it is important for the management and the employees to bond together and work as team. Cost-cutting may have been essential, but the timing could have well been wrong. On the flip-side, though it is also possible that the management has foreseen this internal branding risk and would have wanted to leave all negativity with AOL while starting afresh with Aol-dot.

We’ll keep a watch on ‘Aol.’, and keep you updated. So, do we think this company is all-set to take up new highs? Well… uhhh.. Nope not yet. Unless ofcourse if it looks up into addressing the above mentioned 3 steps in one way or the other.

Update (11th December’ 2009)

Shares of the newly independent AOL Inc. (Aol.) opened at $23.39 on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday as the Internet company officially separated from media giant Time Warner Inc. (TWX) AOL (oops… Aol.) shares slid after opening, recently trading at $23.09, giving the company a market value of $2.44 billion.

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A Decade of Best Global Brands

Lata Vijaybaskar — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:58:23 +0000

Interbrand has come out with the best global brands this decade. www.interbrand.com (Click Here). As can be seen Coca-cola has been the numero uno for the last decade. Even the second third and fourth positions have been relatively stable throughout the decade. While some brands like Ford and Citi have taken a dip Toyota has maintained and grown thanks to its Prius model. Of course Citi and American Express have been the worst hit by the global financial crisis but surprisingly a luxury brand like Louis Vuitton has been in the top. Even the industry trend analysis points to a growth in the luxury goods sector in this times of economic crisis too.

So have a look and enjoy the success of these brands that are so much a part of our lives!

Top ten Brands for 2009 in brief
1. Coca-Cola 68,734 ($m)
2. IBM 60,211 ($m)
3. Microsoft 56,647 ($m)
4. GE 47,777 ($m)
5. Nokia 34,864 ($m)
6. McDonald’s 32,275 ($m)
7. Google 31,980 ($m)
8. Toyota 31,330 ($m)
9. Intel 30,636 ($m)
10. Disney 28,447 ($m)

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What may have Prompted Yahoo! to invest in $ 100 million branding campaign?

Meheer Thakare — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:20:25 +0000

The Big Three Brands of Internet Google, Yahoo and MSN have always been in the news dominantly on comparative basis. The internecine war for more exposure and consumer acquisition has lasted for years. Today is no exception. The newly appointed CEO (January, 2009), Ms Carol Bartz on behalf of Yahoo has announced a $100 million global branding campaign to revamp Yahoo’s brand. But what calls for such a high profile campaign, which incidentally happens to be the biggest in the 14 yr old company history?

Google is a completely innovation centric company, with an internal focus on increasing Advertising revenue. There is no doubt that it is the undisputed winner in Search field. Backed by an excellent Search Engine and several other innovative non-search initiatives, the company manages to stay in news and thus in consumer’s mind when they think Search. The company’s recent upgrade to Translation plug-in has been making Wow rounds all over.

MSN, on the other hand, of recent has managed to slightly revive through the $100 million budget to build awareness of its new brand of search engine, Bing. Bing raised a wave of advertisements and conversations over the Internet and has only benefitted by the hype in terms of increased market share. Unlike Google though, MSN is a much more perfect competitor for Yahoo, with both the companies locking horns in practically every content-based and mobile-services industry. If MSN has Hotmail, Yahoo has ‘Y! Mail’. If MSN has a Web Messenger, Yahoos’ got to have one.

With so much going on at MSN and Google, Yahoo had been over shadowed and nudged away into the corner. Several studies have revealed that consumers (especially the ones who would not strongly recommend a brand to their networks but still like to use it) have a tendency to easily switch brands. According to a recent New York Times report, the company’s market share has been steadily declining and giving in space to MSN’s aggressive marketing. Ms Bartz at Yahoo may have sensed this and thus decided to ring Landor Associates (a renowned consulting firm) to form up a strategy to revitalise the brand, ‘Yahoo’.

What is interesting about this campaign is that Yahoo has decided to attack and differentiate themselves from both MSN and Google indirectly if not directly in the campaign. Firstly, the $100 million dollar budget (which matches MSNs budget for BING) talks to MSN face-to-face, communicating, “Hey you (MSN), If you can spend, so can we. “ And secondly of course its CEO Ms Bartz stating, “They aren’t us and we aren’t them” when prompted with a comparison proving Google’s domination on Search.

About the Campaign (As reported by the NY Times)

Yahoo’s new tagline, “It’s Y!ou,” with Yahoo’s classic exclamation point stuck between the “Y” and the “ou,” is intended to echo changes in its leading products, like its home page, mail and search services, which have become easier to personalize.

“Yahoo has evolved over the last 14 years as the Internet has evolved,” said Ms. Bartz on Tuesday, when the company unveiled its campaign during events for Advertising Week. She also added that Yahoo would continue to work on making it easier for users to combine information about the world, long a staple of Yahoo. “More and more we are going to focus on the ‘you’ side,” she said.

The marketing campaign, which will include television, billboards, print and online components, has a number of related catchphrases all meant to emphasize the message, including “The Internet is under new management, yours,” and “The Internet has a new personality, yours.”

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Adobe Acquires Omniture for US$1.8 Billion

Meheer Thakare — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:38:12 +0000

On 15th of September, Adobe announced that it will acquire the Web analytics giant Omniture in a deal that Us $1.8 billion. In this article, we look forward to come up with a brief branding preview of the consequences of this acquisition. Starting with Adobe,

What has ‘Adobe’ the Brand and Company achieved?

Adobe has a mission to revolutionize how the world engages with ideas and information. Many of the company’s cutting edge software and technologies have changed the way businesses conduct their day-to-day operations. Its market comprises of Business, creative and mobile software solutions

- Operations in 40 Countries, with 2008 revenue ranging up to US$ 3.58 billion.

- Adobe applications are used in 98% of internet-enabled computers around the globe.

- Adobe Reader software is distributed in 26 languages on 10 different platforms.

- About a million professionals use adobe worldwide, including, Creative professionals; publishers, syndicators and merchandisers; enterprises; knowledge workers; and application developers.

What has “Omniture” the brand and the company achieved?

Omniture has achieved great strength to its brand name by acquiring a range of different start-ups that add value to its consumers. Its market mainly consists of Web Analytics and Online business optimization software.

- Operates in 20 countries, with 2008 revenues ranging up to US$ 295.6 million.

- Serves to more than 5000 companies worldwide including Fortune 100 companies and e-retailers.

- Clients list includes companies like Ford, HP, Paypal, Samsung, etc

- Over 17,000 servers in global data centers, capturing more than 1 trillion digital transactions per quarter.

More on the acquisition can be found here.

The combination of both the companies will increase the value Adobe delivers to customers. It further exapnds Adobes Mission to revolutionize how the world engages with ideas and information. For designers, developers and online marketers, an integrated workflow—with optimization capabilities embedded in the creation tools of Omniture— will streamline the creation and delivery of relevant content and applications. This optimization will enable advertisers, advertising agencies, publishers and e-tailers to realize greater ROI from their digital media investments and improve their end users’ experiences.

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Food giant Bunge re-brands its ‘Dalda’ Brand of refined edible oil

Meheer Thakare — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 09:55:57 +0000

: Dalda Old Logo

There was a time, when a jar of ‘Dalda’ vanaspati ghee was a part of almost every Indian household. Eventually though, some aggressive marketing campaigns from brands like ‘Sunflower’ diverted the Indian consumer into a much more health conscious state, causing ‘Dalda’ market shares to drop down heavily. But now the brand is about to get a complete makeover, with new packaging, new health proposition and brand new Logo.

Bunge India Pvt Ltd, recently re-launched its ‘Dalda’ brand of refined edible oil and has announced its plans to aggressively market its new range of products nationally. The campaigns are expected to start regionally, first in Kolkata followed by Delhi. Founded in 1818, Bunge, headquartered in NY, United States, is a leading agribusiness and food company with integrated operations that circle the globe, stretching from the farm field to the retail shelf.

Addressing a Press conference, Adhiraj Sarin, MD, Bunge India said that the company had decided to provide a new identity for the brand, ‘Dalda’, which was once synonymous to hydrogenated cooking mediums or ‘Vanaspati Ghee’ perceived to contain heavy fat contents. He quoted, ‘We are re-launching four variety of refined cooking oils under brand name Husband’s Choice (which of course is a sub-brand under ‘Dalda’), keeping in mind the needs of Indian consumers that have changed significantly in the last few years. Our oils are fortified with vitamins A, D and E, and also contains higher level of anti-oxidants’ (Notice how he talks about the contents of their new products? That’s how companies re-position themselves through press conferences.)

Well, we wish Dalda good luck with its re-branding processes and hope to keep our eye on this brand

: The New Dalda Logo

History of the Dalda Brand

The Dalda name has Dutch roots. It was imported by a Dutch company, Dada & Co. In the early 1930’s when Hindustan Vanaspati Manufacturing Co (today’s Hindustan Lever Limited) wanted to start manufacturing Vanaspati locally, Dada & Co, insisted that the branded product should reflect their name. Hindustan Lever, in a bid to establish their ownership of the brand managed to prevail and introduced the ‘L’ for Lever into the name. The production and marketing of this new cooking medium was so successful that before long Dalda became a household name.

In 2003, Bunge Ltd, acquired Dalda from Hindustan Lever Limited and has been hadling its operations through its 100% subsidiary Bunge India Pvt Ltd.

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