The Amul Story

Consumer Behaviour

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Submitted By: Aakanksha Aggarwal Deepa Patra Rahul Kumar Sharma Shanky Saha

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With reference to the consumer and his behavior, why do brands go in for umbrella branding?

Umbrella Branding

Umbrella Branding Brands are often extended beyond their original categories to include new product categories. Research has proved that the success of brand extension depends on the transfer of parent brand awareness and associations to the extension. The transfer of these quality perceptions is the key in umbrella branding. An umbrella brand is a brand that covers diverse kinds of products, which are more or less related. It applies also to any company that is identified only by its brand and history. It is contrasted with individual branding in which each product in a portfolio is given a unique identity and brand name. The Confederation of Indian Industry's second FMCG (fast moving consumer goods)

conclave in 2003 almost declared that umbrella branding was the way to go in a competitive market environment. In an interesting anecdote, R S Sodhi, GM Marketing (Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation l), compared the umbrella brand and individual brands to an Indian family, where in umbrella brands - like the Indian family, the father is the head, looking over the children. When they grow up and become independent, they hold the umbrella for the family. Individual brands on the other hand are like a western family, who grow up fast and leave the father behind. Amuls strategy of using umbrella branding has really paid off. Amuls advertising and marketing spend has never exceeded 1% of its revenues.
The Amul Story, FC!

Most other food companies spend 6-7% of revenues on advertising and marketing. They (GCMMF) are not big spenders compared to Britannia or Nestle. Despite a limited budget, Amuls creativesin the form of billboards or the Taste of India campaignhave always managed to evoke a larger-than-life brand feel, consistency and spirit of Indian culture in a contemporary way. The basic story is as follows, consumers are uncertain about the quality of both the old product and the new one, but they have some experience with the old product. Both products are experience goods, and the old product will be purchased again after the new one is introduced. When a firm brands a new product, it is, in effect, doing two things: it is claiming that the old and the new products are both of good quality, and it is inviting consumers to pool their experience with the two products to infer the quality of both. Umbrella branding is a standard business practice for products with experience good attributes. The main reason why umbrella branding works is that consumers make inferences from the characteristics observed in one product to the characteristics of others. Perhaps most important is that consumers can draw inferences from experience about the quality of a product sold under the same umbrella brand. For instance, if a consumer has a negative experience with a product, she may be less inclined to buy another product of the same brand. A firm can thus try to link the expected quality of one product to the customers experience with another product.1 If this is the case, an umbrella brand carries information. Or, as Richard Branson, founder of Virgin, puts it, consumers understand that all the values that apply to one product good service, style, quality, value and fair dealing apply to others. Umbrella branding can increase
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the scope of a firm and be an incentive to provide high quality. A high quality product is assumed to satisfy the needs of consumers, whereas a low quality product breaks down or does not work properly with a certain probability. Hence, after experiencing the product consumers only imperfectly observe the quality of the product. This is the feature of many products such as cosmetics and many services such as maintenance or financial services. Also, for goods such as consumer electronics and household durables an important aspect is their reliability. Here, an inter-temporal link may not be provided through repeat purchase but through word-of-mouth.

The Amul Story, FC!

Personality

Amuls typical customers are of the age group 7 to 50 years. This reflects that it includes children, youngsters and older people. On the basis of price, it would be the upper middle class and middle class families who would be going in for Amul products. Going by the print ads of Amul, people interested in Amul products would be educated. The reason being that they read the papers everyday or are aware of the current events happening in the world. It is due to this, that they will be able to relate to the print ads released by Amul. The typical personality would also be health conscious towards his/her own health and that of the family. We can take the example of housewives or mothers. They are the ones who usually decide on the brands of food products to be consumed in the family. For their kids they would prefer Amul as it is quite a vibrant brand and pays attention to the health aspect as well. The other brand that the customer would be interested in is Mother Dairy. It has been Amuls rival for a while now. They deal in milk products as Amul.

Describe the typical personality of a person who would be buying or preferring a brand like Amul. Which other brands would he most likely prefer?

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Mascot

Some businesses create mascots to market their brand and increase brand awareness. Using mascots as marketing tools can be an effective way to follow a consistent marketing theme from campaign to campaign. Increased brand awareness can result in higher sales or retention of customers.

Why do brands use mascots or trade characters?

A mascot serves as a real-life character that promotes a brand, product or company. It serves as an identifiable character that consumers associate with a brand. Images of the mascot trigger an association with the brand, which can encourage consumers to buy a product or service. Its purpose, like the purpose of other advertisements, is to increase sales or company visibility.

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Whether advertising at a global or local level, finding the right public face is critical for a company to add value to its business. Most mascots provide a fun, light-hearted way to get an organization or company noticed in festivals, parades, sporting events, schools, store openings, civic events and even the media. Kids love mascots, and consumers easily remember them. Two important issues need to be considered while using a mascot. One - will the use of the mascot help accentuate the brand personality and help in sharper consumer association with brand values? In short, will it ensure recall and differentiation? Two - how will the mascot be infused with the right spirit so that it can be used innovatively in various communication, promotions and consumer engagement efforts? Let us consider the personality of Ronald McDonald to answer these questions. The highly successful advertising campaign continues to draw in parents who succumb to the pleas of their young children for a Happy Meal or other treats from McDonald's. Many of the restaurants are decorated with a life-size statue of the clown, holding out his hand to greet customers at the entrance where children queue up to shake hands with him. Sometimes the figure is sitting on a bench allowing children to sit next to him or on his lap. In television commercials, Ronald inhabits a fantasy world called McDonaldland and has adventures with his friends - Grimace, Hamburglar, Birdie the Early Bird, and The Fry Kids. In recent years however, the somewhat 'childish' McDonaldland premise has been largely phased out, and Ronald is instead shown acting more 'grown-up' with kids in their everyday lives. In this age of expensive brand ambassadors, mascots provide a creative, sustainable, low-cost model for communicating a brand's values and personifying the
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company's desired image. The other advantage is that as mascots are created and owned by the companies, switching loyalties, which is a frequent incidence with celebrity endorsers, can be ruled out. For example, Aamir Khan starred in the first Pepsi commercial aired in India, but today he is a brand ambassador for Coke. Can you think of Gattu and Goody, the Nerolac tiger, swapping places? The world over, more and more businesses are finding out what a corporate mascot can do for them - businesses as diverse as computer companies (Tux the penguin is the face of Linux), car makers (the Toyota chicken), real estate agents, drug companies, and many more. Also, more and more sporting clubs are finding out about the entertainment and marketing value of their own mascot character. In Australia, the Sydney rugby league competition had three mascots in 1984, now all 20 clubs have mascots. There are mascots in shopping centres, some of which have a massive following. A bird mascot, Pete the Parrot in a Sydney shopping centre (Casula Mall) has ten thousand kids in his fan club. When people hear the word "mascot," they often think of a human dressed up as a furry creature, such as the popular San Diego Chicken. However, real people can be mascots as well. Subway restaurants used a real-life customer, Jared Fogle, to head the restaurant's advertising campaign for years. Mascots are not always of the human variety, either. Many colleges use animal mascots to promote their brand, such as the University of Georgia's bulldog Uga.

The Amul Story, FC!

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Humour is an essential part of the communication of this brand. Why? Give two or more examples of brands following the same concept and attach samples of their advertisements.
Humour
'Humour' in the dictionary means a quality - being amusing or comic but in advertising it is serious business. In advertising, humour is more than just making a bunch of people laugh. Some of the best brands in India have leveraged humour to such an extent that the viewers look forward for newness in humour each time they see a new commercial from that brand. To illustrate, Fevicol has been one of those brands which have used humour so intelligently and subtly that it remains in people's minds. Here again one needs to closely view the product and the category before applying humour to sell your product. According to David Ogilvy 30 per cent of advertising is based on humour. Humour sells if used creatively with a strong idea and great execution. Claude Hopkins, the father of modern advertising had a different view on this. He was of the opinion that people don't buy from clowns. But in India over the last two decades humour has been drawing lot of attention for communicating a product. Also the conventional wisdom of thinking among our people is that when you buy products it should deliver some value and benefits. These could be nutritious for a health beverage, labour saving for a washing machine or a dishwasher.

The Amul Story, FC!

With more and more channels mushrooming, clutter has become a significant problem for most brands. Hence to beat the clutter and break the ice, humour has been used by many brands to answer the problem. Over a period of time humour has been proved to be one of the best techniques to keep the customer laughing and grab his attention with some sticky and creative idea. The proof of the pudding for any humour based on advertising remains in forcing the audience watch, laugh and most importantly is able to recall the brand easily. Brands must ensure that if they are using humour to sell a product then the connect and the equity of the brand should not be diluted. According to some research humorous ads are recalled fast and easily and it also elevates the consumer's happiness and mood. Finally humour captures the viewer's attention, cuts through the ad clutter and enhances recall. If not crafted properly humour can also backfire at times. It sometimes so happens that a joke in an advertisement is so powerful that the consumer tends to forget the brand. Hence it is important that there should be a strong connect between the product and the humour that you are trying to convey. The Pizza world ad showing a hosepipe being used to cool off someone who just had a spicy pizza is a good and relevant example which connects with the brand and really communicates that when you ask for a spicy pizza we deliver it with full pride. Understanding the nuances of the brand and the audience is very important. Overindulgence of humour can put down the audience and the brand if not executed in the right taste. The Amul undergarments ads which tried to use humour and sex to sell their brand never went off well with many consumers. The brand did get some publicity due to controversy but did not win the hearts of the target audience. Hence it is important to
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base your joke on the core values of the product and the service proposition the brand is offering. No product connect means no effectiveness. All these results in huge wastage of the marketing budget. Types of Humour in Advertising: Using a comedian: Here instead of building humour in the advertising one can use a comedian actor to promote the brand. One's choice of comedian has to match the values of the brand. One of the most memorable advertisements that have used a comedian well has been Charlie Chaplin for Cherry Blossom shoe polish. The most recent one in this space using an Indian comedian which has been noticeable and successful is Domino's Pizza which has plugged in Paresh Raval very cleverly. Capitalizing on the current topics : Use the current hot topic in all walks of life which is funny, sticky, memorable and controversial. Amul Butter has been doing these for several years. The advertising deployed has been very humorous and are always based on the current topics with a tongue-incheek approach. People never get fatigued watching the Amul ads. People eagerly wait for what Amul Butter outdoor campaigns by constantly looking at the prime hoarding points where Amul butter is visible. Strong idea based humour: Here the strong creative idea is carefully blended with subtle humour. The case in example is Fevicol. The powerful idea with humour helps in beating the clutter. Centre Shock electric gum is another good example where a strong advertising idea (Idea sprung up from the product) with the help of humour helped in translating into a great piece of campaign. Saint Goblin glass is another wonderful example of how humour has been used subtly. The restaurant advertisement (where the water is thrown)

The Amul Story, FC!

created by the company is so refreshing that one never gets bored of viewing it. Using the right type humour in advertising will be determined by clearly defining your objectives and positioning of your product. This, supported with a strong idea will further help you to create good advertising which can be sticky and memorable for a long time. Humour will help if it is relevant: Mostly humour is used in products which is low in investment and which has high impulse purchase. (Candy, beer and mosquito repellents). One cannot totally generalize this, as consumer durable products have also used humour effectively. Humour may not work in category like condoms, sanitary napkins as these products need to explain the benefits of the product more clearly. Similarly cars and diamonds may also not use humour as the decision process to purchase is long. Who can forget the Amul Butter Girl? We have all at some point looked at the chubby-cheeked, round-eyed girl with the red polka dotted dress winking at us through the billboards and chuckled. The longest running advertising campaign (holds a Guiness World Record) has still not lost its charm and we hope it stays that way. Originally used for Amul Butter, the mascot is now also used for other Amul products like chocolates and milk as well today. Even today the Amul mascot has remained the same and so has the tagline Utterly Butterly Delicious. What is it about this ad that even after almost 30 odd years it still is popular among people? The answer would lie in the fact that the Amul ads focus on current events and news. The humorous take on the events and regular updates is what makes them very popular. They use billboards where the Amul girl jovially comments on the current affairs
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of the country. The puns made in these advertisements hit the right chord with the audience. The X-factor of the Amul girl (keep it consistentis it the amul baby or the amul girl?) is the fact that it was made in a way that every housewife of India is charmed by the 4-year-old girl eating butter. Butter is an essential part of breakfast in almost every household and people do discuss the current affairs on the dining table and Amul manages to capture these moments by showcasing the connection in their advertising. It is topical. Amul has been a social observer. Now that the summer heat is scorching high, we can see hoardings declaring, Beat the heat. Just Eat. Amul The Cool Butter. They have also made one on the Reliance issue saying, From Bye Bye To Bhai Bhai. Amul The Cool Butter. The tongue in cheek remarks about the issues, the puns made is what connects the product with the audience. The Amul Girl, not just brings business to the corporation but has also been spreading smiles. Amuls sales figures are always jumping. It has created many job opportunities for people. Amul was also responsible for what is called White Revolution. The Amul Girl has dealt with all the possible contemporary issues-be it politics, sports, entertainment, social issues, crime etc. The Amul Girl has always had something to say about every issue thats puzzling the nation. The magic of these advertisements lie in the catchy one-liners. It does not fail to grab peoples attention. And who doesnt love a little humor, anyway? Amul advertisements on the back of the butter covers are funny and catchy. These ads are not just a source of entertainment though; they also make us aware of the events going on around us, making us think about it.
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The Amul Story, FC!