Cadbury starts it right, again!

Cadbury Dairy Milk has now launched a new campaign, timing it with the friendship day, “nayi dosti ka shubh aarambh”. The brand has been positioning itself as a symbol of enjoyment/celebration and expression of sweet moments of life through a series of campaigns in the past. In line with that, the current campaign is trying to reinforce the Big Idea of “Auspicious Beginnings”.

The brand has been capturing the moments of life which we all relate to, in their communication. The current campaign showcases the blossoming of friendship between a boy and a girl in an Indian wedding scenario. The quintessential characters used in the wedding reminds someone in the family. The beauty of the campaign is not being “addy” and the idea they touched upon is very extendable as we already have seen numerous “Shubh Aarambh” ads.

Cadbury’s constant push and media spends to occupy the “little moments of life” celebration or the “auspicious beginning of an activity” is showing results in consumer mind share and its increased acceptance in the fridge space!

The brand launched this TVC first on July 13th on facebook, as a special love and gesture towards their growing number of fans. Though the TVC broke on mass media from July 21, it already crossed 5 lakh views on youtube due to its active online audience. The brand is nearing a facebook fan base of a million.

With friendship day round the corner, their objective of asking people to make new friends with this campaign is being supported by an array of on-ground activations and other mass media promo set by the brand. Let’s see how this campaign scores among the target audience.

Advertising and Branding: A mythical connection

Most of us love advertising and like to see new brands being portrayed in a creative way (but not in the middle of a nail biting match) and making place in the prospect’s mind.

There’s a misconception among marketers that advertising builds the brand. It may call for brand awareness, interest and may create a buzz in the marketplace. But it’s not a sole function that builds a brand. There are various elements like Packaging, PR, Sponsorships, Events, Social cause, Social media (latest in the list; not to be missed), Customer Service etc. Building a strong brand requires careful planning and a great deal of long-term investment. At the heart of a successful brand is a great product or service, backed by creatively designed and executed marketing.

Advertising money will certainly go waste if inferior products are promoted. Whatever branding efforts you undertake, it will kill the brand. In fact the quickest way to kill the inferior product is to advertise it. More people will try the product and tell others faster that how bad it is. They are not in the isolated world. The communication platforms are enormous for the customer and it can make or break the brand.

For an effective brand-building, don’t limit the communication with just a commercial. Let there be a channel for the consumer to interact with the brand; be it Facebook, Twitter or Youtube. It will only create an opportunity to learn from the consumer and analyze the effectiveness of brand-building, awareness and satisfaction.

The rebranding saga

Rebranding can be of two types. One is to retain the brand name and give a fresh look to the logo and corporate identity. Two is to completely change the brand name and introduce a new imagery in the minds of existing customers and prospects (This will happen mostly in case of mergers & acquisitions). In both the cases, the fundamental product offering will remain the same.

First of all, the organization should identify the need to re-brand itself. Is it absolutely necessary to change the identity of the brand? The brand, which might have captured a good place in customer’s mind for years, would be hard to change it. There should be a strong reason for changing the brand identity. Many corporates think of re-branding as changing logo, the color codes, some fresh stunning graphics/design elements followed by a TVC campaign and think it’s done. But it is way beyond the things listed here.

The whole organization should gear up for the re-branding exercise. I mean the people who serve the customers on day-to-day basis, the product that satisfy the patrons, the top management who signals the strength of the company etc. The service encounters should really satisfy (delight has become an utopian concept nowadays) the customers and make them believe that the brand has improvised its service which will eventually register the new image in their mind. The word-of-mouth of the customer will do the rest for the brand.

If the bottom line is not changed, then what’s the use of re-branding? The customer is not bothered about the color and type of your logo. It will merely be a cosmetic change without much of an impact.

AIU – Formerly known as AIG

That’s correct. The much maligned AIG brand is now in the process of rebranding itself to make over its bad image. AIG has become hopelessly tarnished after a government bailout and controversy over bonuses issued to executives in the financial-products group which busted its balance sheet.

Its TV ad shows a boy walking into his parents' bedroom in the middle of the night, unable to sleep. It's not because of bad dreams that are keeping him awake.

"I'm worried about this family's financial future," he announces. Don't worry, his dad assures him: "We're with AIG."

The problems for American International Group Inc. these days are many of its current and potential customers are worried about its future.

Conventional wisdom says that AIG brand is tarnished beyond all recognition and it has to be rebranded. But how much is this name change going to cost? Rebranding is a huge business in USA and particularly for the damaged corporations like AIG which has to reinvent itself and gain the confidence of its customers.

Does the name alone would be enough to make over its image problem? I think no. They should change their marketing and use powerful metaphors to gain back the reputation instead of just rebranding.