Vispy Doctor of Ormax is a veteran of the consumer knowledge business. He spoke with Tanvi Shukla about the Indian advertising industry, branding strategies.
Vispy Doctor of Ormax is a veteran of the consumer knowledge business. His company has been in qualitative research since 1985. Ormax's clients pan across 14 countries and include brands such as Cadbury's, Thums-up, Asian Paints and AOL. He spoke with Tanvi Shukla about the Indian advertising industry, branding strategies and future plans.
What does Ormax offer to its clients?
We study consumer behaviour, perceptions and attitude towards brands and provide insightful data on the target audience to our clients. It takes us about six weeks to carry out a study but then it could vary depending on the nature of work.
You were behind the famous 'Mera wala Cream' campaign fore Asian Paints. How did you conceptualise it?
At that time, all paint companies used to offer around 40 shades of paints. Asian Paints came out with 150 shade cards and wanted to find out how the consumers would react to that. In our study, many respondents said that despite myriad of options, they still never found the shade they wanted.
"Mera wala shade nahi milta hai' was actually a line from that report. And so Asian Paints discarded those shade cards and instead came out with special machines to make the exact shade that the consumer would ask for.
Do you think consumers today are loyal to specific brands?
I believe brand loyalty is an irrational state of affairs. Either people have rational reasons to stick to a brand or if they have other options, they'll switch. There are people who always travel by Air India despite numerous problems. Post the worms controversy, we carried out a study for Cadbury's and found out that people believed Cadbury's was not at fault and although they could have switched to other brands, they had decided to give Cadbury another chance.
But there aren't many such examples. Lack of faith in brand loyalty is what is making advertisers go for short-term tactical advertising.
Could you explain it with some examples?
Brand inertia happens when you continue using a product because you don't have much choice or are too lazy to try anything else. For example, for years people used Iodex and it had become a common name in households. When Moov came along, consumers readily switched over to the new brand. Taking this as brand loyalty can be dangerous for companies. Such misunderstandings will make them believe that "nothing will touch my brand".
Why are so many companies going for re-branding and designing?
A brand is reflected by its positioning and imagery. Most of the brands that are now re-branding or going through an image change came into existence when positioning and imagery didn't really matter. But today if they don't focus on these aspects, they will be overtaken by others.
Media space has become very crowded and noisy. Companies need to focus on symbols, names, colours and positioning to stand out and ensure brand recall.
They are increasingly putting in more money for research and development in branding. Acronyms are the worst form of naming and UTI's new name was much needed. Today, Jumbo King is the only branded vada pav seller but tomorrow if five more pop up, Jumbo King will have to push harder to be different and that is where branding will come in.
How do you perceive the advertising industry in India? What are the visible trends?
I can talk about a trend that is not catching up in the Indian advertising fraternity and that is making advertisements relevant to the target audience.
A lot of money is being wasted simply to appeal to the client, his five friends and other ad agencies. There are so many community-specific ads that don't really work with the masses. By now, they (advertising agencies) should have gone beyond this.
It is a very distressing trend. Each mind is creating ads for minds like his own but he is not the target audience. There is a lack of brand differentiation.
Ad agencies may laugh at the ads that Proctor & Gamble and Paras Pharmaceuticals come out with, but they result in better sales. That is what is needed: one message with one approach which will ensure that viewers don't forget the ad or the brand.
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