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Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Brand Update : Peter England is the Beginning of Good Things

In these four years, Peter England has become a Rs 500 crore brand growing more than 30% annually. In the last IPL season, Peter England hit the branding circuit with a bang by sponsoring Chennai Super Kings. The brand also dabbed into suits as well as casual wear in this time. At one point in time, the brand had a campaign featuring Kareeena Kapoor.



2010 is witnessing another beginning for the brand. The brand has roped in the South Indian Actor Siddharth as brand ambassador and is currently running a campaign featuring the celebrity. Along with the brand ambassador, Peter England is also repositioning itself on a new platform. The brand has changed its tagline to " Beginning of Good Things ".

In their press releases, the brand talks about the new positioning. Peter England wants to epitomize confidence that arises out of self belief. The brand wants to remind the users about their inner strength that will arise of self-confidence and Peter England will be the source of that self confidence.

Although the brand's new proposition sounds good and is a sort of laddering up, I surely miss the first campaign of Peter England - The Honest Shirt . That was a campaign that expressed the brand completely. The promise of a Honest Shirt was embraced by consumers because the message was so simple , direct and relevant.

But how ever, the brand got bored with the positioning and moved over to an aspirational " Honestly Impressive " theme. Although the concept was good, it was no where near the original one interms of relevance and simplicity.

To be frank, I did not like the new tagline -Beginning of Good Things ( personal opinion !) . The positioning almost is similar to Cadbury Dairy Milk's Shubh Aarambh theme ( for an auspicious beginning). And theme of self confidence arising out of dress is neither new nor clutter breaking. Its just another campaign and the brand will see its sales going northward because of the smart selection of the celebrity.

Siddharth will make the brand more appealing to youngsters. The flooding of the market by various regional brands/private labels and the trend among youngsters to go for street fashion rather than branded ones is making the lives of brands like Peter England difficult . The popularity of Siddharth among youngsters will bring back lot of them to the brand.

Peter England as a brand will make sense because of the inherent value proposition. As long as the value proposition remains the same, there is no stopping for this brand.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Brand Update : Garnier Goes Beyond Shampoos


A lot of activities are happening for Garnier brand in the Indian market. From a brand focused on shampoo, Garnier has moved into personal care category with a range of products from fairness creams to deodorants.

Garnier earlier had moved to a broader personal care market with a wide range of personal care products for women. Later the brand broke into men's personal care with the launch of Garnier men's fairness creams endorsed by Bollywood hunk John Abraham.The brand also launched Garnier range of deodorants endorsed by the same celebrity.


Now,Garnier is all set to cover the entire shampoo market with the launch of Garnier Kids Shampoo in the Indian market. It is interesting to see how this brand is slowly covering the entire Indian personal care market. The brand is adopting a segment by segment targeting strategy. It consolidated its position in shampoo then moved into men's personal care and now into kid's hair care market.


The launch of Garnier Fructis kid's shampoo is expected to revive the kid's personal care category in India. The kid's hair care market is dominated by HUL's Clinic Plus brand and the other players being Parachute Starz. But recently the activities in this category has been minimal.


The entry of Garnier into the kid's segment may have been to catch them young.The new generation kids have a mind of their own and they are brand conscious. So tapping them with a variant makes sense. Moreover mothers feel that young hair /skin needs special care and adults products may be too strong for the kids.


Garnier's brand strategy of slow systematic growth has been reaping rich rewards. The brand has gained consumer acceptance and retail support across various markets in India.The brand is careful in using the same imagery across various categories. The brand uses a mix of foreign and Indian models for its campaigns and is never fixated on depending on a celebrity face to push the product. The brand although started as a shampoo brand has flexibility to move into various categories. The core brand values of " Green " and the tagline " Take Care " can be used across multiple categories without any dilution to the core brand positioning.


Garnier is wise enough to make maximum advantage of those attributes.