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Showing posts with label cement brands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cement brands. Show all posts

Friday, 1 January 2010

Binani Cement : Sadiyon Ke Liye

Posted on 00:53 by Unknown
Corporate Brand : Binani Cement
Agency : By Design India Pvt Ltd

Brand Analysis Count : 436



Binani Cement is one of the mid-sized cement brands in the highly competitive Indian cement industry . Binani cements belongs to to Braj Binani group. The group ventured into cement manufacturing in 1997 . Binani Cements is now a 1900 crore company with significant presence in states like Rajasthan ,Delhi, Punjab , Haryana and Gujarat. The company also has presence in foreign countries like Middle East and China.

Indian cement marketers has long been trying to brand this commodity. Binani is one such player who has taken up branding in a serious manner. The brand is relying on the celebrity power to build its equity. Binani Cement used the cricketing master Sunil Gavaskar to promote its brand during the launch phase in 1997. After a long period of silence, the brand began to invest heavily in brand promotion from 2007.

The brand chose the ever green Amitabh Bachchan as the brand ambassador in 2007. There was lot of buzz during the time big B was chosen to endorse a cement brand.

Binani Cement started using Big B in the television commercials in a dignified manner. This is one of those brands that tried to make use of Bachchan's charisma to the brand's advantage. The ads were laden with subtle humor and according to the reports, Binani cement's sales surged during these campaigns.

Watch the campaigns here : Binani Cement 1, Binani Cement 2

The brand did a smart move by taking advantage of the fact that both the brand and the brand ambassador name starts with B. The cement brand began to call itself Big B. While the brand gains by the association, there were many critics who argued that now Big B will be associated with cement rather than celebrity.

Binani cement has the tagline " Sadiyon Ke liye" which means " for centuries ".

Although the ads featuring Bachchan was well made, I felt that it lacked a punch. The brand lacked a powerful message . I would even say that the brand is not able to convey its brand manthra to the consumers. That may be the reason why those ads did not stick with the consumers.
When trying to brand a commodity, the brand should stand for something significant. It should be either strength , quality , trust , heritage, etc. Although Binani Cement has a good tagline, the emphasis was not there on any significant USP. The brand could have done much better if it had focused on a key strength of the brand and used the celebrity to emphasis that strength. For example Gujarat Ambuja has owned the USP of Strength and Ultratech is taking the positioning as Engineers Choice. So when comparing with these competitors, Binani Cement does not have a clarity in its positioning. It seems that it is trying to derive some strength through association with a celebrity. Such a celebrity dependent positioning strategy is not advisable for the brand . Ideally Binani could have identified its strength and used celebrity to highlight that strength.

To be fair to the brand, it has to be highly appreciated to venture into investing money in building a brand in the commodity space.
Related Brands
Ultratech
Gujarat Ambuja
Read More
Posted in branding commodity, celebrity endorsement, cement brands, corporate brand | No comments

Monday, 26 October 2009

Ambuja Cements : Branding a Commodity

Posted on 04:01 by Unknown
Corporate Brand : Ambuja Cements
Company : Ambuja Cements Ltd ( Holcim Group Company)
Agency : Grey

Brand Analysis Count : 423

Ambuja Cements formerly Gujarat Ambuja is one of India's largest cement brands. The company came into existence in 1984. Ambuja Cements is a classic example of a successful commodity branding.
Indian cement market is different from the rest of the world because the largest segment of buyers of cement in India is the individual home owners rather than the institutions. Although this scenario is witnessing a change due to the boom in the organized realty sector, individual home owners form a significant segment that no cement marketers can ignore.
Although these individuals shell out the money to purchase cement, they are not the decision makers in the buying process.

The intermediaries like the contractors , masons etc take up the role of the influencer/decision makers in the purchase of this product. Since the consumers view this product as a commodity, the involvement of ordinary home owners in the purchase .

Ambuja Cements is one of the companies that realized the potential of brand as a differentiator. Even in the eighties, Ambuja cements started its activities for building the brand. Infact according to Superbrands report, Ambuja cements is the first cement brand to start advertising in television. Ambuja Cements also used the outdoors extensively to reinforce the brand image and enhance brand recall.
Ambuja Cements also focused on influencing the other players in the business like the contractors/masons and engineers through camps and meets.

These initiatives helped Ambuja to charge a premium over other brands. With the competition hotting up from Grasim + Ultratech, Ambuja Cements could hold on to its share because of the brand equity it had created over these years.

While branding the cement commodity,Ambuja Cements concentrated on its core brand promise of " Strength ". All through its campaigns, the brand was very consistent on reinforcing its positioning as the " Strongest " cement . The brand was also very clever in selecting a unique logo.

Commodities are boring products . But for smart marketers, this is also an opportunity to make a difference. Ambuja cements bought in lot of humor to this ( otherwise) boring product. Most of its campaigns are humorous which makes the consumers stick to the advertisements . The ad which I like most is the ad where the brothers ( Boman Irani) try to break the wall which they put up to separate their houses when they were fighting with each other.

Some other ads here : Ambuja 1,
Ambuja 2

These ads reinforce the core positioning of Ambuja as a strong cement. Strength is a very highly relevant attribute as far as customer is concerned.

While branding a commodity, the critical question is whether these ads can influence the consumers to change their commodity mindset towards this category. The answer is definitely affirmative. I have noticed many home owners directly procuring these products for their home construction because they don't trust the contractors. In these scenarios, high brand recall will give the edge for the brands.

Branding can change the perception of consumers towards commodity. The point is to create a compelling reason to do so.

Related Post
Ultratech
Read More
Posted in branding commodity, cement brands, corporate brand | No comments
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