The "Generation-X" keeps us marketers on our toes.

They seem to be embracing change at such a rapid speed that as soon as we get a whiff of a trend, they have already moved on to the next! It is a challenge to get in step with the "youth" (though I don't think they call themselves that) - but with 45 per cent of the country's population estimated to be below age 19, its critical that we learn their lingo - and fast. In my experience, what works for capturing this segment is a complete product design for Gen X. Be innovative - set the trend itself by being creative instead of trying to figure out what's cool today - because by the time you have figured that out, it may no longer be cool; be entertaining in your communication strategy. I have found that bold humour (but not risqu) works best with this target audience. There was a time, not so long ago, when a funky and colourful ad campaign with liberal dosages of "hinglish" was enough to classify you as talking to the youth. But it worked when it was a new thing. Today, it's hardly clutter breaking. There was also a time when a tie-up with MTV could do the trick for you. And MTV still remains a good window to the teenager, but it alone cannot propel you into their world. Making your advertising young and cool sounding has now become a hygiene factor something that's a minimum requirement but certainly not enough. The bigger trick lies in conceiving special Gen-X products that are in tune with their lifestyles. To truly create a Gen-X brand personality, you must start from the drawing board itself. Your product concept, design, features - all should be tailored specifically to this target segment. I will use as a case study, our experience with our scooterette "Kinetic Zing" - what we did to position it as a desirable two-

wheeler for the 16-21 aged buyers. Our brand tracks show that we have succeeded in this - with the brand personality being captured as "youthful", "fun" and "aspirational".

The "scooterette" is a smaller and lighter sibling of the full scooter. These are essentially urban vehicles, popular in mini metros and cities with large student populations. It would typically be a student's first-ever vehicle that you acquire upon passing from class X and entering junior college. You no longer go to school in a school bus. You go to college, to tuitions and activities, to movies and parties with your friends. So you need your own vehicle. It should be easy to ride and it should be cool to be seen on it! Standard specifications are 65cc engine, electric-start and gearless transmission. This is the segment that we wanted to enter. Kinetic, of course, has strong brand equity in gearless scooters - which we have pioneered. When we created the Zing, we never lost sight of our target audience. The Zing was designed for the Gen-X from the word go. The primary objective of Zing was clearly defined as meeting the transportation needs of the college going teenager - whether a boy or a girl. It was designed to be trendy looking with clean, sharp lines (carefully balanced to avoid specifically feminine or masculine appeal - it incorporates cues of prettiness as well as aggressiveness without clear overtones of either); to be light and peppy in performance (compact but not puny), priced at an easy-toconvince-your-parents value price; and fuel efficient (55 Kmpl) to be pocket-money friendly. Even the brand name Kinetic Zing was frozen after a lot of deliberation (other names considered were Breeze, Tango, Viva). The colour palette consisted of an electric-blue, a passion-pink and a flaming-red in addition to the usual black and silver. (As an aside, the brighter colours did not really take off; the Gen-X seems to prefer conservative blacks and silvers). Even our logo is specially designed to have a youthful look. The Zing got off to a very good start in the market. We

launched it in August 2002, and by March 2003, we had cornered a cool 20 per cent market share. But we needed to do something special for the months of April- July - considered the most crucial from a sales point of view as the "pre-college opening" turns large numbers of teenagers into king customers. With this in mind, we created a special variant of the Zing called the Zing Rockin' Series. The Zing Rockin' Series was innovative - it offered a host of neverbefore features that were bang on target for the Gen X. It had special attractive dual-tone colour schemes, and an under seat charge point as well as holder for a mobile phone, an FM radio and a cola-can holder. Such features and innovations have never been offered on a two-wheeler before, and it was successful in attracting the Gen X - as they all have mobile phones now, and FM radio is a craze among them. Now that we had our custom designed Gen-X vehicle ready, the next step was to devise the marketing strategy for the summer. I will share some of our research with you that helped me to decide on the direction of the positioning. Our research has shown that the teenager, at a very broad level, can be classified into two types of mindsets - the style seeker and the functionality seeker. The Style seeker is the carefree bird who enjoys life with no strings attached, and seeks freedom of expression in all activities - whether by himself or with friends. The functionality seeker sees himself as a mature individual who enjoys life responsibly and weighs pros-cons and trade offs concerned in all aspects. For example, the style seekers like their independence, and being able to make their own rules. Their view on newfound college life is about having a good time with their friends. The functionality seekers appreciate the lighter side as well as realise the seriousness - they try to learn the value of time and money and to balance between fun and work. In their purchasing decisions, the Style seekers look for status and fun focusing on aesthetic and appeal enhancing aspects, while the functionality seekers look for value and utility, focusing on functionally beneficial aspects. Now the numbers. Among the youth, according to our research, the style seekers vastly outnumber the functionality seekers - 71 per cent to 29 per cent. So then, the job is to talk to the Style seekers. As long as your

product delivers utility and is priced at a good value-formoney, the functionality seekers will go for it anyway - and if it doesn't provide utility and VFM, then advertising is not going to influence their rational buying process. Coming to our target audience then, the Style seekers want a positive rub-off on his image by associating with a particular brand. They talk about things like "my vehicle should look stylish," "it should be in fashion today," "it should create an impression on others," "it should be popular," "it should be new and different," "it should make me feel proud" and so on. Based on this, we created a summer marketing campaign that included a television campaign and a cool event/contest as a good way of creating some interactive buzz in the city and driving traffic into dealerships. I find that television and events are the best platforms to talk to the youth. Press is not as effective (perhaps they don't read newspapers at this age!) and I have found that contrary to popular perception, Internet is more effective for marketing to older executives than teenagers. For the Zing Rockin', we conceptualised a contest the around the product with give-aways of free movie tickets and parties with a film star. We used Karishma Kapoor and Mahima Chowdhary for this contest that ran across twelve cities over a span of two months. We got thousands of participants in each centre, and the movie halls and discotheques we booked were full. The next was the TV commercial. I believe that for this category, humour and entertainment make a TV campaign successful. I think that instead of sentimental, dreamy or simply enjoyable advertising, a marketer should use bold, provocative and clutter-busting creative concepts to get active scores. Conceptualise your communication to make sure it creates an impact, rather than searching to establish emotional connect. After you've made your product active, you need to make your communication active too. With its unique features, the Zing would completely reposition other scooterettes as has-beens. Instead of taking a classic brand stand of saying we have these attributes, we decided to say that no one else has such-and-such. The idea we used was to create dissonance by saying 'Baaki sab ki hawa nikaal de". Then we took it literal - to mean that anyone without a Zing

Rockin' will feel deflated. We blew up the 'hawa nikaal de' connotation, and this hugely helped the communication in standing out. When you actually show what it feels like when kisi ki hawa nikal jaaye, the impact is that much more. And we've managed that in this ad. If you've seen the ad, it was bold and funny, slightly over the top but definitely entertaining. It made you laugh, and it really stood out. And it worked. Some stills from the ad: So this is my recipe for creating a brand personality for Generation X. Design your product for their needs and preferences. Be innovative. And in your communication, be entertaining, humorous, bold and aspirational.

Questions to ponder >What are the indispensable constituents of an advertising campaign thats aimed at generation X? > If your product category is function-driven, what approach will you take to appeal to the style-seeking generation X? >How will you use entertainment to design a creative for your product?

Brand Architecture Did you know that FMCG giant Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) owns 110 brands with 850 types of packing for its various products? When yo go in any ordinary kirana store or in a big super market, 8 out of 10 products you select will be HLLs products. An obvious question that will come in your mind, How HLL has succeeded in building such strong brands? How could they manage such diversed brands operating in different market context? When HLL started operating in India, the Prime importance was to create strong brands by developing clear, insightful identities and brand building programs that makes an impact on the consumers mind. Not only HLL but virtually all firms have multiple brands and they manage them as a team to work together and to help each other and to avoid getting in each others way. Brand Architecture is the vehicle by which the brand team functions as a unit to create synergy, clarity and leverage. So if you think of each brand of a company as a football player, Brand architecture assumes a coachs role by placing each player at the right position and making them function as a team rather than a collection of players. So lets define Brand Architecture and understand the concept with some examples. Brand architecture is an organizing structure of brand portfolio that specifies the brand roles and relationship among the brands and different product market context. It is mainly defined by the three major dimensions viz. Portfolio roles, Product market context roles and the Portfolio structure. Brand portfolio: Brand architecture involves the management of brand portfolio. Brand portfolio includes all the types of brand viz. Brands and subbrands as well as co-brands with other firms.for ex. The brand portfolio of Hindustan Lever Ltd. Consisting of 110 brands with 950 of different types of packs which are operating under different market context like healthcare, personal care, breverages, etc. The decision parameters are should one or more brands be added or deleted? A brand portfolio can be strengthen by the addition of brand keeping in view the portfolio perspective. Similarly brands can be deleted by identifying the superfluous brands which are contributing nothing to the brand portfolio.when Prudent toothpaste was launched by Parle, it was not able to

create sifficient customer base in the oral care business so Parle had dumped Prudent brand for its brand portfoilo management. Portfolio roles: -For building effective brand architecture it is necessary to identify the portfolio roles of each brand. It provides a tool to take more system view of the brand portfolio and includes a strategic brand, a linchpin brand, a silver bullet brands and a cash cow brand. Strategic brands: A strategic brand or a megabrand is a currently dominating brand that represents a meaningful future level of sales and profit. For ex: Slate is a strategic brand for Levis, TATA consultancy services (TCS) is a strategic brand of TATA group of cos. because the vision of the firm is to move beyond traditional steel and automobile business.

Linchpin brands: A linchpin brand unlike strategic brand not necessarily represents a meaningful future level of sales and profit but it is a leverage point of a major business area. It indirectly influences a business by providing a basis for customer loyalty. For ex. Park Avenue, a brand extension of Raymonds launched in mid-eighties.It is a linchpin brand for Raymonds because it has extended the Raymonss credibility in different businesses from ready to- wear trousers to mens toileteries. Silver bullet: A silver bullet is a brand or subbrand that positively influence the image of another brand.it can be a powerful force in creating, changing and maintaining a brand image.for ex. When IBM ThinkPad was launched it has provided a significant boast in public perception of the IBM brand. Another ex. is the Positioning of Forhanss Fiouride as having branded feature of being foamy rather than just protect gums and teeth. It has served to make credible claim that Forhans had achieved another breakthrough in oral care industry. Cash cow brand: Strategic, Linchpin and Silver bullet brands involves investments and active management for fulfilling their strategic mission. The cash cow brands on contrast does not require any investment because it has a significant loyal customer base. The role of a cash cow brand is to generate marginal resources that can be invested in other brands, which will help for future growth and vitality of brand portfolio. For ex; Nivea cream the core product of Nivea, a brand that has been extended to variety of skin care and related products.

Product market context roles: -For deciding effective brand architecture, the product market context roles of the group of brands must be well defined and coordinated. There are four steps of product market context roles that work together to define a specific offering and these are: a) Endorser and subbrands roles: An endorser brand is an established brand that provides credibility and substance to the offering. Endorser brands usually represents organizations rather than products because organizational associations such as innovation, leadership and trust are particularly relevant in endorsement context for ex. Nestea and Nescafe create associations with its mother brand Nestle and Mcchicken, Mcburgers, Mctikki, etc. from Mcdonalds. Tata has 80 different companies operating in seven business sectors, which are endorsed under the megabrand TATA. The subbrands on the other hand stretches endorser brands that add associations, a brand personality or any other quality which creates brand identity of it for ex. Nestles Cerelac, Gillettes Sensor and Cadburys Bournvita. The understanding and use of endorser brand and subbrands is a key in achieving clarity, synergy and leverage in the brand portfolio. b) Benefit brands: The benefit brand is a brand which offers either features, component ingredients or services which becomes the unique selling proposition (USP) of offering. for ex. Gillette diversifieds oral B has a branded feature which shows the time to replace the toothbrush, Dietcoke, Dabur amla, and Neem & Margo soaps have branded component and gradient and American express, Life insurance corporation (LIC) and Taj group of hotels have the branded services associated with their names.

c) Co-Brands: Co- branding occurs when brands from different organizations combine to create an offering in which each plays a driver role. The impact of cobranding can be greater than expected when the associations of each brand are strong and complementary. A research study of Kodak showed that for a fictional entertainment device 20% of the prospect said that they would buy the product under the Kodak name and 20% would buy the device under Sony name, but 80% would

buy the product if it carries both the names.other ex. Are TVS Suzuki, Colgate Palmolive and Dabon (joint venture between Dabur and Bongrain international of France). d) Driver role: Driver role is an extent to which a brand drives the purchase decision and defines the use experience. brand with a driver role will have some level of loyalty. Brand architecture involves selecting the set of brands to be assigned a major driver role; those brands will have priority in brand building. A driver brand is usually a masterbrand or subbrands but endorser and second and third level sub brands can have some driver roles.for ex. Cadburys has two subbrands Dairymilk and Bournvita, which have the major driver roles for selling. Another ex. Is Nirma tikia and Nirma washing powder, which is operating in the market with value for money as its major driving role. Brand portfolio structure: The brands in the portfolio have a relationship with each other. Brand architecture also involves designing a structure of all the brands, which will provide clarity to the customer rather than complexity and confusion. It must provide a sense of order, purpose and direction to the organization. Three approaches can be utilized to present the portfolio structure. Brand groupings: A brand grouping is a logical grouping of brands that have meaningful characteristics in common. The groups provide logic to the brand portfolio and help its growth overtime for ex. in case of Johnson and Johnson Ltd.,the brand grouping can be made using following characteristics. Segment( Infant Care and Intimate Feminine Care) Product (Healthcare and Pharmaceuticles) Design (Classic and Contemporary) . Brand hierarchy trees: Sometimes the brand portfolio structure can be captured by brand hierarchy trees. The brand hierarchy tree structure looks like an organization chart with both horizontal and vertical dimensions. The horizontal dimensions reflect the subbrands and endorsed brands that reside under a brand umbrella. The vertical dimension captures the number of brands and subbrands that are needed for different segments of the market. For ex. Colgate, the

hierarchy tree for the Colgate oral care shows that Colgate name covers toothpaste, toothbrush, dental floss and other oral hygiene products. Again under toothbrush it has brands like plus, precision, classic, youth and colour change. Under Colgate plus toothbrush it has brands like diamond head and "the wild ones". The brand hierarchy tree presentation provides perspective to help evaluate the brand architecture. A successful brand architecture makes a range of offerings both to the customers and to those inside the organisation. Having a logical hierarchy structure among subbrands helps generate the clarity.

Brand range: Brand architecture also involves deciding the range of portfolio brands. It throws light on the some issues like how far a brand (Megabrand or subbrand) should be stretched horizontally in the brand hierarchy tree? How far should they be stretched vertically in to the different markets? The brand range can be described for each brand in the portfolio that spans product classes or has the potential to do so. The above issues must be analyzed by organizations by distinguishing between the brands in its role as an endorser and master brand and recognize that subbrands and co- brands can play a key role in leveraging brands. So in nutshell, for any firm the objectives behind designing and maintaining an efective brand architecture are: Create effective and powerful brands. Understand the portfolio roles of each brand (strategic, silverbullet, linchpin and cashcow) and allocate the brand building resources in that manner. Create synergy between brands by enhancing visibility, creating and reinforcing associations and cost efficiencies. Advance clarity of product offering to the customers and organization. Leveraging the brand equity by proper brand and line extensions exercise. Provide a platform for future growth option to the organisation. By Santosh S. Bhavsar of J.B.I.M.S.