Brand Owner's Summit: "Brands should focus on 'culture share' and not market share"

At the Brand Owner's Summit, Adani Wilmar's Angshu Mallick presented a quick case study on the company and also imparted some useful brand marketing tips in the process.

At the Brand Owner's Summit held recently in Ahmedabad, Angshu Mallick, chief operating officer, Adani Wilmar made a quick presentation about his brand's success story.

Before going into specifics about his brand, he made a brief statement that served to carry forward a topic from one of the previous day's panel discussions. Dispelling the notion that professional managers are not as committed to the business as owners are, Mallick stated that all the former really need is the space to work, the authority to discharge responsibilities and the freedom to challenge existing processes. "At Adani, professional managers are very lucky as our owners don't interfere in any of our routine activities," he said, eliciting smiles from the audience as they recalled the previous day's heated discussion on the matter.

He began his case study by reminding everyone that Adani Wilmar was the first company to start operations with a port-based (as opposed to hinterland-based) edible oil refinery in 2000, when the edible oil brand Fortune was born.

"We all entered this space worrying about how long we would survive. We just went about selling oil. Not much of strategy was at play back then. 'Produce and sell' was pretty much it," he admitted. While initially, the brand did see an average year on year growth of around 25 per cent per annum, somewhere around 2007-08 it hit a rough patch.

"We found that growth was not coming through and we were under pressure," confessed Mallick, adding that it was then that the authorities thought of re-looking the brand and strategy in a serious manner. As a result of this introspection, Ogilvy India was brought on board around 2008-09.

And ever since, the brand has managed to successfully infiltrate the minds of consumers. How did this happen? According to Mallick, the key is to focus on capturing what he calls 'culture share', as opposed to being blinded by the greed for market share alone. The former, he assured, will lead to the latter, if a brand plays it right.

In today's intensely competitive times, the concept of USP (unique selling proposition) is redundant, he opined. "These days, it is difficult to define a product's uniqueness based on its product characteristics alone. Technology and product innovation can be replicated by competition in no time. Functional differentiation has narrowed," he reasoned, adding, "A brand has to become a part of culture to emerge as an icon today."

Thus, in order to gain market share, a brand has to transcend mere functional benefits and focus on capturing 'share of culture' through its communication. He cited the example of Tata Tea that has successfully moved beyond the functional benefit of waking up consumers (a very literal product proposition) to the cultural benefit of 'awakening' to societal issues (an intangible proposition) through its popular 'Jaago Re' campaign.

Similarly, brand Fortune also tried to transcend the functional benefits of edible oil and become a part of Indian culture by addressing the issue of how, across age groups, people don't eat the right food at the right time, thanks to adverse modern day trends like the rise of junk food options, lack of time for breakfast, reduction in 'family meal time' and skipping meals due to hectic work schedules.

Understanding these societal trends helped Fortune exploit cultural nuances in its communication, and consequently penetrate various geographies, including what Mallick terms a 'difficult market' like Tamil Nadu market (where, with the help of its culture-sensitive advertising, the brand rose to the No. 2 position from the No. 5 spot in a short span of time) and the Kolkata market (where its mustard oil offering garnered some much needed brand preference).

"We decided to get the joy back into eating true home-cooked food. And slowly but surely we started gaining share in every family. If you strive to be a part of the culture, you'll be able to survive the war of brands," he declared.

Adani Wilmar is a joint venture between the Adani Group of India (present in the area of international trading and private infrastructure) and Wilmar International of Singapore (an agri-business group and merchandiser/processor of edible oils).

The event was powered by monster.com, supported by associate sponsor Bestow and dinner sponsor Khushi Advertising.