For that all-embracing brand

Corporate houses these days are into unrelated areas. How can a brand create that common thread?

Since Independence, a majority of enterprises in India continue to be family-owned businesses which began as one business, founded by one or two family members.

Over the years, many of these enterprises continued to stay in the same business and grew.

Those who could correctly feel the pulse of market dynamics, the gradual impact of globalisation and international trends, were able to build their brands effectively and sustain their market shares.

Very few deep-pocket companies took the risk of diversifying into new businesses. If they did, then most looked at a common value stream, while a few took the plunge into a non-connected or disparate business.

 

From the branding point of view, disparate businesses within a group pose a huge challenge in creating and building a common brand identity which conveys a lineage of intrinsic strengths.

 

This problem would not arise in the case of a group of companies that form part of an easily discernible value chain.

 

An easy-to-discern value chain offers ease in brand building and supporting communication mediums.

 

Take, for instance, a group which began by manufacturing steel coils, went on to making sheet metal products, then diversified into bus bodies and then eventually assembling buses.

 

But if you are a group of companies which has come up in the food sector and you suddenly decide to get into building power plants, it becomes difficult to link that business to a perceived core competence related to the food sector.

 

Customers to whom one is pitching in the power sector may ask on what basis or grounds will your new business deliver, when your strengths lie in another sector or sectors.

Smart movers

It is apparent that at the turn of the millennium, to take benefit of an emerging economy and a growing market like India, an increasing number of companies or groups are responding to the temptation of foraying into disparate businesses from their eagerness to either de-risk, enhance revenues and consequently their profitability or all of these.

 

For instance, Mahindra & Mahindra began in the automotive sector, made a name for itself and some years ago, under the leadership of Anand Mahindra, took the plunge into other non-automotive sectors which today include aviation and software.

 

Another example is the North India-based Anand Group which stuck to the automotive industry for years through its myriad joint-ventures and forayed into the luxury hospitality sector in the recent past.

 

This would have been unimaginable perhaps ten or more years ago. But true today in India and obvious from the very diverse patterns of most emerging businesses.

 

A cluster of disparate businesses within a group makes it very difficult for brand-builders and corporate communicators to identify and project a common brand identity.

 

And after that common thread has been found, how does one weave it through the parent brand and then through all the other different brands under that?

 

Mahindra & Mahindra managed to do this cleverly through a unified “Rise” brand positioning for which it engaged New York-based advertising agency Strawberry Frog.

 

Anand Mahindra was quoted in a Knowledge@Wharton article as saying “We are attempting to unify different businesses that share the Mahindra brand, and offer a compelling value proposition.”

 

Once conceived and executed, everything was thrown behind “Rise” to take things forward. That this creativity had challenges once it was executed is evident from the quote of an expat employee in the same article, who said “many people internally are worried about what the new program means for them and their businesses.”

Innovation, the link

Identifying a common thread requires great thought and patience. Ideally speaking, a large chunk of the creative direction should be driven from inside the company while the nitty-gritties can be outsourced.

 

Since no one else than a person working in the company or Group can understand the DNA better, the chief brand officer or corporate communicator should be able to provide key direction to the entire process.

 

And if the common thread is found, it could still be in danger of being clichéd or confusing. There may be other key determinants which one may not think of.

 

Quality could be identified as a common thread. But one may say that in the 21st century and an emerging, extremely competitive market such as India, quality is a hygiene factor; a given. On the other hand, innovation could be accepted as a common thread which could connect all businesses.

 

Once the common thread is identified, a key methodology which would take it forward would be the messaging.

 

Messaging, if communicated intelligently, informs with clarity what binds the businesses and gives a group of companies a distinction in the mind of the market.

 

Again, high creativity is important. It could comprise a key message in the form of a slogan, tagline or a positioning statement which could be further elaborated on in different places.

Effective communication

Web sites are a crucial and effective medium for conveying the messaging of the common thread and other key components for groups possessing disparate businesses. But this requires deftness and high levels of thinking, creativity and clarity.

 

Great care has to be taken to ensure that the objective does not fail, or else the Web site will become a cause of greater confusion than the powerful tool of clarity that it is supposed to be.

 

As many Indian enterprises hurry to grab unconnected business opportunities to enlarge their basket of sustenance, it is critical to be aware of the difficulties they will face in building a common identity and projecting unity in diversity.

 

To be able to do so successfully calls for courage to take bold decisions and not pay lip service to the immense creativity that is required.

 

(My article published in the 19th August 2013 edition of The Hindu Business Line newspaper on the Op-Ed page)

 

Copyright © Tarun Dalaya