I have always admired the Tatas. They are truly the only Indian corporate to be truly global in nature. Recently, the Tata brand was selected as the third most trusted brand across the globe.
While I applaud the management at the group to run the whole empire smoothly and responsibly, what I have come to observe off late is that it is the marketing aspect of the group which makes it stand apart from others.
The Tatas have been great at identifying the product differentiators and have been able to come up with simple yet great methods to communicate it to the people - especially in businesses where the product is sold directly to the consumers. Tatas have always been able to come up with products with some unique point(s) directly relevant to the Indian audience. At times, their point of differentiation is so appealing and so effectively communicated that inspite of the product being mediocre, the Tatas have been able to get good sales. I would like to mention some of their products:
1. Tata DoCoMo: Being one of the last ones to enter the Indian GSM telecom network, it needed something great to penetrate the already clogged telecom market. The product was the same yet their strategy of charging 1 paise per second and effectively implemented advertising campaign made the whole market change their pricing strategies. That no doubt led to a price war but the brand was effectively reinforced amongst the mass audience.
Similar thing has now been done again by the Tatas. Instead of talking of their product, it has now come up with a simple strategy to be emphatic to the audience towards the customer care related issues. This point of differentiation though common was not taken up by anyone and Tatas have effectively, yet again , been able to communicate these to the audience through the Ranbir Kapoor stand-up comedy campaign. Simple but highly effective.
2. Tata Nano : Branded as the cheapest car in the world and endorsed by none other than Ratan Tata himself, this differentiation (of being cheapest) has stayed with the audience inspite of very little promotion effort by the company. The awe generated during launch was more than sufficient to leave a mark upon the audience.
3. Tata Salt: The old campaign of the Tatas of having Iodine as the differentiating factor was again very effective to build the brand image. So, even in a simple and a pretty undistinguished product like salt, the tatas came up with a good distinguishing factor.
4. Tata Swach : Here, they used the trust commanded by brand name Tata as the point of distinction used very effectively to compete with the network of HUL (Pureit).
Thus, while their products may sometimes not be with great features, I feel that it is their marketing effort that really sets Tatas apart. They are able to know the Indian audience very well and develop strategies that effectively identifies a point of distinction relevant to the masses and communicate it to them. Thus, marketing has been one of the most important pillars on which the success of Tatas can be attributed to.
While I applaud the management at the group to run the whole empire smoothly and responsibly, what I have come to observe off late is that it is the marketing aspect of the group which makes it stand apart from others.
The Tatas have been great at identifying the product differentiators and have been able to come up with simple yet great methods to communicate it to the people - especially in businesses where the product is sold directly to the consumers. Tatas have always been able to come up with products with some unique point(s) directly relevant to the Indian audience. At times, their point of differentiation is so appealing and so effectively communicated that inspite of the product being mediocre, the Tatas have been able to get good sales. I would like to mention some of their products:
1. Tata DoCoMo: Being one of the last ones to enter the Indian GSM telecom network, it needed something great to penetrate the already clogged telecom market. The product was the same yet their strategy of charging 1 paise per second and effectively implemented advertising campaign made the whole market change their pricing strategies. That no doubt led to a price war but the brand was effectively reinforced amongst the mass audience.
Similar thing has now been done again by the Tatas. Instead of talking of their product, it has now come up with a simple strategy to be emphatic to the audience towards the customer care related issues. This point of differentiation though common was not taken up by anyone and Tatas have effectively, yet again , been able to communicate these to the audience through the Ranbir Kapoor stand-up comedy campaign. Simple but highly effective.
2. Tata Nano : Branded as the cheapest car in the world and endorsed by none other than Ratan Tata himself, this differentiation (of being cheapest) has stayed with the audience inspite of very little promotion effort by the company. The awe generated during launch was more than sufficient to leave a mark upon the audience.
3. Tata Salt: The old campaign of the Tatas of having Iodine as the differentiating factor was again very effective to build the brand image. So, even in a simple and a pretty undistinguished product like salt, the tatas came up with a good distinguishing factor.
4. Tata Swach : Here, they used the trust commanded by brand name Tata as the point of distinction used very effectively to compete with the network of HUL (Pureit).
Thus, while their products may sometimes not be with great features, I feel that it is their marketing effort that really sets Tatas apart. They are able to know the Indian audience very well and develop strategies that effectively identifies a point of distinction relevant to the masses and communicate it to them. Thus, marketing has been one of the most important pillars on which the success of Tatas can be attributed to.
