"opportunity To Be The First Mover In Digital Is Immense" - Reliance Adag

[Arun 795]

Saturday, August 30, 2008 04:23 IST

DNA Money

Reliance ADAG has been one of the most active brands in the country over the past few years. Whether for its ambitious growth plans or controversies surrounding it, no brand perhaps fared better than it when it came to grabbing the limelight.

DNA Money’s Nirmal John caught up with Girish Shah, head of branding, Reliance ADAG, for a perspective on the brand’s evolution over the years and its future course. Excerpts from the interview:

Reliance ADAG is into a varied set of services. How do you ensure that the brand speaks a unified language across the board?

For any large, diversified brand appealing to different consumer communities, it is very important to operate within a strategic framework, which directs its positioning, communication delivery and the brands look and feel. Organisations have their own protocols to manage this. At Reliance ADA Group, we have a very elaborate and a stringent process, which we call the Reliance brand guidelines protocol — both at the group level and at the individual vertical level — where there are certain sets of guidelines that dictate the use of the brand. How its look and feel needs to be executed by the substrata, by the media vehicles and what are the advertising guidelines that drive the tonality of the communication are among the elements of the marketing mix. We also have a brand patrol team, which consists of what we call ‘brand missionaries’ who monitor the brand to ensure executions are in line with the guidelines. At the end of the day, a mutual fund or a life insurance policy or a prepaid pack, all fulfil different sets of consumer needs, but the overall halo of the Reliance ADA Group’s mother brand remains sacrosanct.

Do you see any parallel with other global firms in terms of handling such a large number of brands?

See, at the Reliance ADA Group, we manage our brands like we would a consumer product. At the end of the day, our brand needs to have the elasticity and stretch as we need to communicate to a 15-year-old as well as to a 45-year-old. Internationally, the way a Unilever or a Reckitt Benckiser manages its brand portfolio and the systems and processes it implements, would be an interesting comparison. Also, we can draw parallels with media and entertainment brands of Time Warner and News Corp.

Reliance has been through a lot of negative publicity. How do you ensure that the brand stays above such issues?

Every brand worth its salt goes through challenges. All I would like to leave as a thought is that the numbers speak for themselves —the fact that we have over 100 million customers and 11 million shareholders; the fact that in a short span of over two years, the Reliance ADA group brand has moved up from no 13 to no 3 in the buzziest brand survey and up to number 2 among India’s most valuable brands by the 4Ps survey, gives a sense of pride and achievement and makes us believe that as long as you have a loyal and well-engaged set of consumers who believe in your brand and see it as enabling part of their lives, a brand can ride through any crest or trough.

Reliance is becoming a global enterprise with more and more ventures outside the country. How is this panning out in terms of building a brand abroad?

I think, consistency is critical in any brand’s growth. Geographies are incidental. The brand needs to communicate the same sense of values and drive an identical personality across the geographies it operates in. However, it must keep in mind the local aspect of communication. It needs to keep finer nuances of ethos and value systems, which drive communication platforms in countries other than ours and also doesn’t compromise on the brand’s core values. The brand should deliver the same set of benefits, but the way it articulates those benefits are areas where one should look for localisation.

How important is digital media for Reliance’s brand-building efforts?

We are uniquely poised to straddle the traditional mediums of communications as well as effectively use the new media. At the end of the day, a television spot, a radio spot or a hoarding is not enough to excite and entertain consumers when he already has so many other mediums of entertainment. Therefore, vehicles of advertising need to be more evolved and interactive as they are today. With mobile penetration at 25%, savvy and younger consumers are more comfortable with digital mediums as a source of entertainment and information. Hence, digital is the ideal platform to engage them as they are spending a lot more time there. We were the first to leverage what we call the ARBT— the caller ring back tunes that you hear on mobiles. During the Union Budget, we partnered with gaming and youth portal Zapak and put up a blog and microsite on the budget in a format that appealed to the youth. This also included a game woven around the budget. We have been using newer forms of media aggressively and will continue to use them, whether they are blogs or viral campaigns. Of our total marketing spends, the share of digital would move to about 20-25% within two to three years, depending on how we are able to evaluate return on investment. We see this medium exploding in the next few years and the opportunity to be the first mover is immense.

What are the lessons from the foray of the Reliance brand into rural India?

Seventy percent of India is still rural, but at the end of day, we are dealing with consumers. It’s only that they speak different languages. They have aspirations, needs, wants and desires like all of us in urban markets. Only thing is, they might want to own a mobile phone instead of an iPod at this point of time. The rapid penetration of FMCG brands, e-choupals and the strong growths seen in telecom and micro-financing is a case in point on the large rural market opportunity. However, the brand messaging, tonality and imagery should be in line with aspirations and appeal to rural consumers, yet it should be single-minded.

Brand makeovers have been the order of the day of late…

Brand makeovers need to be holistic and not superficial, in my view. Just changing a typeface or a logo is not enough. The change needs to go deep within the organisation and touch employees and functions. Otherwise it becomes just a communication change at a superficial level with the core remaining unchanged. The physical attributes of a brand, i.e its personality and the essence of the brand are crucial and need to be integrated between the past and the future direction that you want the brand to take post makeover, to ensure that there is no alienation.