Yardley & Katrina - imperfectly perfect !

Yardley as a brand is one of the oldest in the world .Established in 1770, with its classic promise of exquisite beauty, lingering fragrance of English Lavender and English Rose, it has everlastingly enthralled men and women alike with it’s well-mannered, old world charisma, so pleasing yet indefinable…. Yardley in India and its roping in of Katrina Kaif seems to have raised many a blogger eyebrows but I insist that I have to write a piece on it as well.. So here I go…

The London bred Katrina, who will be the first Asian celebrity endorser of the age old brand, is supposed to have sophistication, eyebrow-raising magic weaved into her, poise, and some English royalty like refinement that makes her a perfect choice .. a perfect marriage when one sees it all of a sudden…or is it not?

Katrina has in the past endorsed brands like Pantene shampoo, Slice juice, Oil of Olay, Kodak and Panasonic and now she is seen selling Yardley. If it gives the impression of being an expected choice then I guess the Yardley guys {WIPRO is its new owner,.. to be precise Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting (WCCL)}haven’t done some home work before the actual marriage took place…

The reason for the flop show as I see it are as follows..

1) The actress has lend her name and face to an umpteen number of brands and her face has got so diluted , that this new one even fails to register… Yardley and the mere mention of Katrina's name will NOT have fans flock to stores to purchase the stuff….her name and face still will be associated with other brands that she is with…. Remember the rule.. Thou shall not employ a celebrity, who is there, everywhere.

2) They say, thou shall not engage a celebrity because everyone else is behind him/her…. Here again the brand owners have coined a huge jumbo-bumbo in support of their reason to choose the lady which sounds so very same, clichéd and heard for ages. In fact, the reality that Katrina was chosen for Yardley had raised some positive interest but the actual ads make me think otherwise.

3) Katrina connect with the brand for sure (the London connection and the connection with the youth) and her persona and the brands match but, it is not only the gelling between the brand and the celebrity that matters, it is also about the equal weightage given to both so that the star do not eat on the brand (vampire effect) … here alas, due to poor execution (plus other factors), Katrina remains but not the brand…

4) Yardley is in an attempt to build up on its aspirational brand position.. (A brand that people think is a very high quality brand, which will give them a higher position in society if they buy it is called an Aspirational brand) this ad but is a vain and poor attempt in that direction.. It doesn’t give the premium feel, the first step to achieve aspirational equity , even for people who have used the original Yardley for years now…. As my friend from London says, In spite of this ad, IF the guys who already know Yardley buys it, it would be a miracle……

5) Before aspirational positioning, brands should think of achievable positioning … Wipro already holds Santhoor and in its category it has some real good locus of positioning.. Yardley first have to find its locus, know the people who are there, get their permission and then fit in.. A Katrina may not be required (or may be) which depends on what you see in that locus.. The brand is more important, it existing charm is, and not the face that will today launch a million ships, and tomorrow forget into oblivion…

Some right media planning by Zenith Optimedia Mumbai, is taking it to the right people in some right dose and cheers for them , but for the lazy execution, thumbs down to Situations advertising Mumbai, the agency that made it .....

The rest is said and hence, I rest my case..

Foot note:- Hard work never killed anyone, but why chance it?

CelebTrack- the game of endorser ranking!!!

Percept talent management and Hansa research has done it again – their second leg of the survey tracking India's most powerful celebrities which they call as Celeb Track….

CelebTrack first phase in April 2009, happened with inputs from 6,000 people, rated celebrities on attributes like media presence,physique, popularity, power of persuasion and exposure had put Amitabh Bachan as the most powerful celebrity in India scoring high in most of the attributes that was studied…

Now Celeb Track second phase has come out with the results and MS Dhoni has taken over others as the most liked celebrity in India ,thanks partly due to the survey which happened soon after IPL and partly due to the lackluster show by his other team mates and the over exposure of celebs like SRK ….Dhoni has pushed Shah Rukh Khan to the second place and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan to the third. Amitabh Bachchan and Sachin Tendulkar have moved down many places compared to the last round of survey….

Ahem !

Well ….for the uninitiated, the research measured more than 400 celebrities across the country to generate a celebrity power score (CPS) by ranking them on the above said parameters .

The main facets of the latest study goes like this …

“Among the male actors, Shah Rukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan feature in that order in the power list. Among the female actors, it is Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Katrina Kaif, Priyanka Chopra, Hema Malini and Kareena Kapoor. Among cricketers, the list includes MS Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid.

According to the wave 2 (phase 2)of the study, Salman Khan, Sachin Tendulkar, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Sania Mirza top their respective genres as the most recognised stars. In terms of likeability, Amitabh Bachchan replaces Salman Khan. The latter scores low on persuasion, exposure and image parameters. In terms of popularity, cricketers score among the classes while actors score higher among the masses.

The top five most persuasive stars are Amitabh Bachchan among male actors, Yuvraj Singh among cricketers, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan among female actors and Sania Mirza among other sports personalities. Higher classes and men get more influenced by the top ten stars, while the masses get more influenced by women, the study suggests.

While Sachin Tendulkar falls below Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh in terms of power of persuasion, he still holds on for products needing maturity and stature, such as financial products.

The respondents did not wish to read more about Rakhi Sawant, Mallika Sherawat and Sreesanth, while they wished to read more about celebrities such as Aishwarya Rai, Akshay Kumar and Sachin Tendulkar”

I wouldn’t agree with the rakhi thing here ( lol) but for sure sree santh I know more and enough.. Please stop glorifying the lil lad media folks!!!!..

Now brands can make informed and learned decisions, as per the percept team who is behind this work, and no longer the big brands who bet huge money on stars have to rely on gut feeling and anecdotal learning. Also, celebrities can yardstick themselves in comparison with their viewers and for that reason price their participation with brands.

Males and the ones of the higher SEC’s seems to be liking the cricketers more than the cinema stars but then cricket in India seems to be revolving around Dhoni, Tendulkar and Yuvaraj . And for me one shocker is the study fact which says that most people have heard most of the cricketers names but wouldn’t connect their faces with names.. if that is the case, what would happen to an Abhinav Bindra?

I mean people would have for sure heard the name but if they don’t know that he is HE when they se him on screen, will the brands that he endorse benefit?

It's all a game.. I mean the whole game of a celebrity choice…. Marketers, their agencies (like Percept) often ignore the key factors in the choice of the celebrity whom they select with fanfare and with all the logic of "his persona matching with our brands" et al….

Is the audience traits vis-à-vis persuasibility of the endorser taken care off?

Is there a study on the Monopoly of Communication source and its influence, Messages that is conveyed and its compatibility with the the belief /opinions/values of the receiver and the extent to which the Source is believed to have, expertise status/objectivity in the area of endorsement done?

Remember Rahul Dravid was a failure when he came for Bank of Baroda, so was Sania Mirza when she came for HP.. Dhoni and Mysore sandal is a classic case…

And in any case the risk of the celebrity becoming a scoundrel overnight threatens brands,,, not that it happens often but when it happens as percept would know it would be Horrible Mess…. Hansie Cronje was the key celebrity endorsers for Siyaram's J.Hampstead brand of clothing when he got caught in the max fixing scandal…..The campaign featuring Cronje had been running on the print, electronic and outdoor media and Siyaram and its advertising agency, Percept, watched in consternation and utter sadness as their celebrity endorser turned into an internationally detested sportsman during the night. Now that is quite an extreme case and let God forbid.. But the point is .. is it a safe bet to hang a brands future (entirely)to another brand whose brand value is quite volatile?

Having said that let me also add (quickly) that some study and some statistics is good... as the good old saying goes ,'something is better than nothing'!!!

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Airtel to Bharti...Jingoism rules !!!

When you stand for what you believe in you can change the world ......says the new Airtel ad….



It is a cool ad to watch no doubt and bit tickling the INDIANNESS in all of us but a closer analysis gives a feel of jingoism with which a brand, facing competition ( Airtel is still the market leader with a major percent of the share and closely followed by Reliance and Vodafone) launching a tirade ,proclaiming its Indian tag with a clear hint that the others are foreign or videshi and hence un trustable. Jingoism is good to hear and even wonderful to live in but odd to take on in your life. The implication that Vodafone is a videshi and so to keep away from it is simply a deplorable concept, not only because the ad comes in English (a videshi language) and the tie up with Wal-Mart (videshi again) that Bharti is so proud of but also because of the fact that old style, Ambassador car like be Indian, buy Indian nonsense will not make brands, any longer.

“Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it” said George Bernard Shaw, and even that is not evident here where the typical Indianness to feel proud of the golden past because the present is bad, is evident… and in any case what did Airtel and Bharti for that matter give back to India and to its people to be proud of? To stand for and change their world?

It is good that big brands and first movers in a market slowly change their communication from we are also there to totally owning up their category. Heinz when it says have ketch up the world knows what they mean, they don’t have to say Heinz ketch up, same with Maggi… owning up the category is but a risk and you need to have the confidence of the category leader to be doing that, not just the fear and fright of an also player who is afraid of the other players and hence resort to jingoism. Airtel did start that journey but novelty suddenly gets lost to no mans land... ( see them here) with the famous “Deewarein gir jaati hain, faasle mit jaate hain, jahan do baatein ho jaati hain (Barriers break when people talk).” campaign which all said an done made some impact but lost that sheen with its agency change and this new one (Percept…. I am told) is nowhere taking the brand to the category leadership and that too when history is full of blood bath of leaders (read it as first movers who created the category) but lost out battered and badly bruised when others over ran them with innovation and better communication.

To quote Samuel Johnson, “Patriotism is the last resort of a scoundrel” and I seem to with difficulty agreeing with that statement when I see this ad. I agree that it is just my viewpoint and there may be many for whom this ad had engulfed them as a tour de force and evoked the Indian in them, for many this ad is would have been simply marvelous, still some would be completely taken over by patriotic emotions but for me it is plain jingoism born out of celebrated ignorance and a confused brand in the crossroads of its journey to leadership. Alas the agency, who should be the parent who should take the kid to the path, seems to be more confused.....