After launching its first Masterbrand campaign in 2013, the 117-year-old Godrej Group is now back with its second Masterbrand campaign. Shireesh Joshi, Head Strategic Marketing, Godrej Group tells Simran Sabherwal about the learnings from the last campaign, what’s different this time and why Aamir Khan is not a part of the new campaign
Last year, the Godrej Group introduced us to Sam and Meera, a young couple settling down with the help of Godrej products. As the eight TVCs of its first Masterbrand campaign played out, audiences were introduced to eight different products from the Godrej stable. The campaign unfolded as a RomCom series centred around the love, lives and adjustment of a young married couple and their friend, Aamir Khan, in drag. Now back with the second Masterbrand campaign, Shireesh Joshi, Head Strategic Marketing, Godrej Group observes that the first one helped brand Godrej at multiple levels.
“The overall desire to buy Godrej products has gone up and brand Godrej has strengthened across a range of dimensions. Its rating on design, being more personally relevant, insightful, superior performance, quality, trust have gone up. We normally expect these campaigns to drive long term equity, but we started seeing revenue driver impact in the short term,” says Joshi. While air-conditioners and matrix safes grew at a fast rate, Godrej Properties generated significant leads and the Godrej Interio showrooms reported increased footfalls. More importantly, Godrej entered into the consumers’ consideration set in many categories where it wasn’t thought of earlier.
WHAT’S NEW THIS YEAR
Commenting on the new Masterbrand campaign, Joshi says that with eight new products, consumers will realize it’s not a one-off thing they saw from Godrej last year but Godrej is in the regular practice of making such products. The company aims to come back next year, with a campaign that it believes will grow even stronger.
The company has also taken an integrated approach in its campaign, wherein a consumer can enter the campaign at any touch-point and seamlessly move from one touch-point to another. From the television or digital platform, the consumer can give a missed call to 9980899808 after which a menu appears on the mobile screen from where one can interact with products, get brochures or be directed to the nearest store. Joshi says, “A Masterbrand multi-category campaign of this kind is definitely India’s first and utilizing a platform of this nature is unique.” He adds, “It is a permanent number so we can keep popularizing it on multiple channels and you can continue interacting even when the campaign is not on-air. Importantly, it doesn’t matter which ad is on air, when you see the menu, you see all the products and this creates a multiplier effect. We can start marketing brands which do not advertise much.”
While the magnitude of spends is similar to last year, the campaign will focus on regular media and not a high impact property. (The first campaign coincided with IPL last year). While the campaign ran for a couple of months in 2013, the non-impact media plan will go on for four months and between mid-November to mid-March, it will be on-air for four out of the five months. While TV continues to garner the biggest chunk in terms of spends, Digital spends have doubled this year. Joshi says, “Traditionally with consumer products, Digital tends to be around 4-5%. Last year it was around that for us but this year it will be around 7-8%.”
BUILDING ON LEARNINGS
Joshi says the biggest challenge last year was bringing this together under one campaign and its execution. Looking at the takeaways from the first campaign, Joshi says that the basic structure for the campaign, one film per product, was retained as it worked well. He elaborates, “It takes about four-five products to be seen to maximize the Godrej Rating. It jumps up after the first and at four-five it hits a peak. After that also it continues to grow but not as much so we need to ensure that the average viewer gets to see at least four-five products. Our media plan ends up doing that.”
The last campaign placed the couple in an upmarket home with the aim that consumers see the products not just as aspirational, but also relatable. While the home was upmarket, the couple’s behaviour was not. Meera served water to guests herself, and this year it is Meera again who is at the video door-phone when it rings. Joshi says, “We don’t show any behaviour that would not be present in a SEC B or C home. The only thing that is truly SEC A is the home itself. We believe we struck the right balance between aspirational and relatability and have retained that.”
Going a step further, this year the campaign has evolved its messaging to integrate the brand message and Masterbrand line. Each ad reiterates at the start, ‘Godrej Ka Naya Idea’ and ends with bridging the brand line with the Godrej Masterbrand line, ‘Har Idea Se Zindagi Muskuraye’.
Explaining the brief, Steven Mathias, VP & SCD, JWT Mumbai says, “In the last seven years, the Godrej Group has built on its promise towards a brighter living by creating a slew of innovative ideas. The brief was to celebrate and bring to life these thoughtful product ideas and innovations, enhance the homes and lives of today’s young consumer, and add to the brand’s emotive appeal by showcasing the breadth of fresh ideas from within the Group.”
On the absence of Aamir Khan, Joshi said that Godrej invested in Khan and IPL to establish the campaign instantly. “It has worked so beautifully that we think that phase is already done so going forward we felt we didn’t need a celebrity,” says Joshi.
LINKING BACK TO THE PARENT BRAND
With a diverse portfolio, Joshi says the company goes back to the brand pillars of progression, experience, empathy and expression to decide on the product to be showcased. He explains, “We ensure the selection represents a cross section of our divisions so they truly capture the width but also cross-section of consumer involvement. So, we have the one rupee Good Knight Fast Card and also a Godrej property of three to four crores, all sitting in one campaign. What is common to them is not the specific functional category benefit because that varies. Each of them contains an Idea that Makes Life Brighter.” This is represented in a bed which rises vertically to reveal the storage space, or the revolutionary ‘TFT’ molecule technology used in Good Knight Fast Card.
Commenting on the overall Masterbrand campaign, Joshi says, “It has been one of my dream projects as I haven’t come across a case study of this nature where a single brand is advertising across such diverse categories. Within appliances and electronics you can find it, but across properties, electronics, insecticides, furniture there is no brand that is able to straddle so smoothly.” However he adds that the challenge remains in linking back each brand to the Masterbrand. “Even if there is a different audience between what we are focused on and what the business may be focused on, as long as we say the right thing and they are not in conflict with each other, then there is no issue and we ensure that the strategy is complementary,” says Joshi.
On a final note, Joshi says that what the brand gains from the large scale Masterbrand campaign is that instead of making just one ad and advertising it on their own, the entire Godrej scale comes to work for them.
Feedback: simran.sabherwal@exchange4media.com
