STRATCOMPLAN is no variant of the Health beverage COMPLAN; but is certainly a health supplement for us marketers who operate in difficult and declining volume/Market share situations.
Marketing Strategy or evolving one is nothing new for any Brand Management Team. Once the strategy is clear, between the Client and the Agency, evolving a Brand Plan is only a matter of detail. However, very often we find panic b buttons are pressed when the mix does not work of the plans go awry. In the resulting anxiety, core brand values and the organisational strengths are overlooked and new campaigns are created which don’t work.
Result – additional decline in volume and market shares and further panic. This is when STRATCOMPLAN works. Quite simply, STRATCOMPLAN stands for how to combine MARKETING STRATEGIES INTO A COMPREHENSIVE MARKETING ACTION PLAN THAT FITS IN WITHIN THE ORGANISATIONAL CONSTRAINTS.
The five axioms of STRATCOMPLAN are:
1) THE ORGANISATION IS A REALITY.
2) WE START MIDSTREAM.
3) LACK OF IDEAL CONDITIONS.
4) FORGET - NOT THE CORE BRAND VALUES AND
5) LOOK BEYOND CLASSICAL MARKETING/ADVERTISING ROUTE.
Thus STRATCOMPLAN may be defined as a time bound marketing methodology for a reckoning period and is a part of the overall Business Strategy marketing and related activities.
ORGANISATION IS A REALITY
With aggressive competition and the mounting warfare in the market place; we have not only witnessed a sharp decline of brands one considered strong – PROMISE, CIBACA, NIVEA, HORLICKS, WATCHES, CUTICURA, etc. but also corporations like TOMCO. Even giants such as COLGATE and SURF were under severe pressure at some stage. However, COLGATE and SURF bounced back in the nick of time thanks to resources not being a constraint and a CORPORATE PHILOSOPHY OF INVESTMENT SPENDING. But more often than not, all organisations are not in the league of LEVERS or a COLGATE and therefore volumes or there the accruals are important to find the resources to plough back. Here is where the first AXIOM Viz., that the ORGANISATION IS A REALITY come into fore.
When volumes decline, automatically this has an impact on the turnover and the MARGINS. Therefore, it is imperative that for the overall ORGANISATIONAL HEALTH this be corrected first. Unless it is a single product company you have a portfolio and it is important to look at the BRAND or the variant that can respond the fastest.
WE START MIDSTREAM
Seldom do we start with a new brand before launch or with a clean slate. The brands are usually taken over at some stage of their life cycle with their equity or its erosion thereof. Neither the American philosophy of selling off tottering brands is our Corporate Culture at present. Even if it were, tottering brands are unlikely to find suitors in our country. Given this reality, the success lies in careful evaluation of the relative strengths of the brands in the portfolio and converting them into a virtue or a money-spinner. It is worthwhile learning from CIBA-GEIGY effectively using their toothbrushes to expand the market penetration of toothpastes. Through adequate theme and scheme support to CIBACA brushes, the paste has managed to cling onto market shares in the wake of high audibility levels of competing toothpastes.
Another example is that of MILKMAID using the recipe route successfully for usage expansion and arresting its decline. MILKMAID is a premium full cream sweetened milk and was traditionally promoted as a milk substitute. Till the early 80’s when many parts of India was milk short, the going was good for the brand purely as a milk substitute/tea – coffee whitener. In fact in States like Mizoram, the brands turnover used to exceed the combined brand turnover of many reputed companies. However, in the 80’s with the success of OPERATION FLOOD and free availability of both whole and skimmed milk powders, MILKMAID was no more required as a MESSY & EXPENSIVE milk substitute and by 1983 the brand started declining. This was when the strength of the brand was skilfully exploited to reposition the same as a CONVENIENT CULINARY INGREDIENT with the theme “COOKING WITH MILKMAID”. In fact, as expensive milk substitute in culinary terms became a value for money ingredient. It entered new homes through this cooking route and is growing in value terms even today, despite significant price increases.
LACK OF IDEAL CONDITIONS
Ideal conditions are a utopia which exist only in the classrooms of the premiere’ Management Institutes and these days in not so premiere’ Institutions as well. Once out of the Institutes and on the hot seat this reality dawns on even the most hard core and idealist. The case in point is the TOMCO brands where the unreasonable overheads and the militant labor brought down the entire Empire. This was despite the capabilities of the Tata Administrative Services teams with strong equity such as HAMAM, MOTI, SUPER 501, O K, and REVEL. Although TOMCO’s turnover was significant, this low productivity of its militant labor and field force and the resultant high wage bills were slapped on to the brands. The result was overhead charge that the brands could not carry. This was despite growth in value and volume sales. Moral being however good be the marketing team, what lack of IDEAL CONDITIONS, could lead to.
Also, it is not uncommon to find organizations; wherein the support functions like FINANCE do the back seat driving through absorption costing procedures when it becomes literally impossible to revive brands under pressure or launch new ones. For most of the time in these circumstances; the Brand Management team struggle to find resources to break even rather than spending their time and energies in marketing activities. This is perhaps why; organisations following the absorption costing procedures never became active players in the consumer products business, despite their several attempts. One notable exception was WIPRO who shifted to standard and MARGINAL COSTINGS even before their entry into consumer products activity in a high way.
Last but not least is the operational freedom available to the team and its leader. The success and proliferation of the number of headhunters provide a better explanation as to why many of the so-called professional organisations are constantly on the look out for the same positions.
FORGET NOT-THE CORE BRAND VALUES
Forgetting the core values is a typical syndrome when panic buttons are pushed. Sometimes this happens out of sheer boredom with the current creative with the assumption that since it is boring to me so it must be to the consumer as well. And of course, not to mention the recently hired whiz-kid wanting to refurbish the good old brand. Whatever be the reason, the gainer is not the brand or the organisations.
Classic example that comes to the mind is that of PROMISE which moved away from the CLOVE OIL U S P to one of EXTRA FRESH. Fortunately, after two new commercials and almost 40 million rupees down the road the brand is back with the good old CLOVE OIL PROMISE. Similar was the fate of PONDS when it was extended toothpastes, which had to be ultimately withdrawn. On the contrary, WHEEL was well exploited by LEVERS from bars to powders to counter NIRMA. For that matter CLOSE UP was persisted with for a decade and a half due to the inherently strong core value and we witnessed a super success story, which took the COLGATE bull by its horn.
Of course, one must hasten to add that we have a fairly long and envious list of strong brands which have been around for many decades such as ANACIN, DABUR, PEARS, AMUL, PARLE, WOODWARDS AND READER’S DIGEST, to name a few. These are still going strong which reiterates the point that the Marketers have not forgotten the importance of the core values sometimes to defy the product life cycle parameters. In fact, this has been well bought out by Readers Digest in their supplement WHAT’S BEHIND THE NAME in February and March 2003.
LOOK BEYOND THE CLASSICAL MARKETING AND ADVERTISING ROUTE.
While there is no alternative to theme advertising for brand building, this may not always be affordable. Even when it is affordable if the field dynamics are not understood, results in sub optimisation. Fresh in the memory are Lipton’s, TREE TOP, Cadbury’s biscuits, RCI’s BINACA toothpaste. On the contrary, ZANDU and DABUR have skilfully and effectively exploited the distribution route to initially float brands like ZANDU BALM and NATURE CARE ISABGOL and once accruals start ticking in, supporting them with theme as well.
We have also seen through CIBACA example how competition activity can be overcome during a resource crunch through innovation. It should not be forgotten that field dynamics are as important.
THEREFORE THROUGH STRATCOMPLAN IT IS NOT HEADS YOU WIN AND TAILS I LOSE; BUT IT IS WIN - WIN ALL THE WAY.
Marketing Strategy or evolving one is nothing new for any Brand Management Team. Once the strategy is clear, between the Client and the Agency, evolving a Brand Plan is only a matter of detail. However, very often we find panic b buttons are pressed when the mix does not work of the plans go awry. In the resulting anxiety, core brand values and the organisational strengths are overlooked and new campaigns are created which don’t work.
Result – additional decline in volume and market shares and further panic. This is when STRATCOMPLAN works. Quite simply, STRATCOMPLAN stands for how to combine MARKETING STRATEGIES INTO A COMPREHENSIVE MARKETING ACTION PLAN THAT FITS IN WITHIN THE ORGANISATIONAL CONSTRAINTS.
The five axioms of STRATCOMPLAN are:
1) THE ORGANISATION IS A REALITY.
2) WE START MIDSTREAM.
3) LACK OF IDEAL CONDITIONS.
4) FORGET - NOT THE CORE BRAND VALUES AND
5) LOOK BEYOND CLASSICAL MARKETING/ADVERTISING ROUTE.
Thus STRATCOMPLAN may be defined as a time bound marketing methodology for a reckoning period and is a part of the overall Business Strategy marketing and related activities.
ORGANISATION IS A REALITY
With aggressive competition and the mounting warfare in the market place; we have not only witnessed a sharp decline of brands one considered strong – PROMISE, CIBACA, NIVEA, HORLICKS, WATCHES, CUTICURA, etc. but also corporations like TOMCO. Even giants such as COLGATE and SURF were under severe pressure at some stage. However, COLGATE and SURF bounced back in the nick of time thanks to resources not being a constraint and a CORPORATE PHILOSOPHY OF INVESTMENT SPENDING. But more often than not, all organisations are not in the league of LEVERS or a COLGATE and therefore volumes or there the accruals are important to find the resources to plough back. Here is where the first AXIOM Viz., that the ORGANISATION IS A REALITY come into fore.
When volumes decline, automatically this has an impact on the turnover and the MARGINS. Therefore, it is imperative that for the overall ORGANISATIONAL HEALTH this be corrected first. Unless it is a single product company you have a portfolio and it is important to look at the BRAND or the variant that can respond the fastest.
WE START MIDSTREAM
Seldom do we start with a new brand before launch or with a clean slate. The brands are usually taken over at some stage of their life cycle with their equity or its erosion thereof. Neither the American philosophy of selling off tottering brands is our Corporate Culture at present. Even if it were, tottering brands are unlikely to find suitors in our country. Given this reality, the success lies in careful evaluation of the relative strengths of the brands in the portfolio and converting them into a virtue or a money-spinner. It is worthwhile learning from CIBA-GEIGY effectively using their toothbrushes to expand the market penetration of toothpastes. Through adequate theme and scheme support to CIBACA brushes, the paste has managed to cling onto market shares in the wake of high audibility levels of competing toothpastes.
Another example is that of MILKMAID using the recipe route successfully for usage expansion and arresting its decline. MILKMAID is a premium full cream sweetened milk and was traditionally promoted as a milk substitute. Till the early 80’s when many parts of India was milk short, the going was good for the brand purely as a milk substitute/tea – coffee whitener. In fact in States like Mizoram, the brands turnover used to exceed the combined brand turnover of many reputed companies. However, in the 80’s with the success of OPERATION FLOOD and free availability of both whole and skimmed milk powders, MILKMAID was no more required as a MESSY & EXPENSIVE milk substitute and by 1983 the brand started declining. This was when the strength of the brand was skilfully exploited to reposition the same as a CONVENIENT CULINARY INGREDIENT with the theme “COOKING WITH MILKMAID”. In fact, as expensive milk substitute in culinary terms became a value for money ingredient. It entered new homes through this cooking route and is growing in value terms even today, despite significant price increases.
LACK OF IDEAL CONDITIONS
Ideal conditions are a utopia which exist only in the classrooms of the premiere’ Management Institutes and these days in not so premiere’ Institutions as well. Once out of the Institutes and on the hot seat this reality dawns on even the most hard core and idealist. The case in point is the TOMCO brands where the unreasonable overheads and the militant labor brought down the entire Empire. This was despite the capabilities of the Tata Administrative Services teams with strong equity such as HAMAM, MOTI, SUPER 501, O K, and REVEL. Although TOMCO’s turnover was significant, this low productivity of its militant labor and field force and the resultant high wage bills were slapped on to the brands. The result was overhead charge that the brands could not carry. This was despite growth in value and volume sales. Moral being however good be the marketing team, what lack of IDEAL CONDITIONS, could lead to.
Also, it is not uncommon to find organizations; wherein the support functions like FINANCE do the back seat driving through absorption costing procedures when it becomes literally impossible to revive brands under pressure or launch new ones. For most of the time in these circumstances; the Brand Management team struggle to find resources to break even rather than spending their time and energies in marketing activities. This is perhaps why; organisations following the absorption costing procedures never became active players in the consumer products business, despite their several attempts. One notable exception was WIPRO who shifted to standard and MARGINAL COSTINGS even before their entry into consumer products activity in a high way.
Last but not least is the operational freedom available to the team and its leader. The success and proliferation of the number of headhunters provide a better explanation as to why many of the so-called professional organisations are constantly on the look out for the same positions.
FORGET NOT-THE CORE BRAND VALUES
Forgetting the core values is a typical syndrome when panic buttons are pushed. Sometimes this happens out of sheer boredom with the current creative with the assumption that since it is boring to me so it must be to the consumer as well. And of course, not to mention the recently hired whiz-kid wanting to refurbish the good old brand. Whatever be the reason, the gainer is not the brand or the organisations.
Classic example that comes to the mind is that of PROMISE which moved away from the CLOVE OIL U S P to one of EXTRA FRESH. Fortunately, after two new commercials and almost 40 million rupees down the road the brand is back with the good old CLOVE OIL PROMISE. Similar was the fate of PONDS when it was extended toothpastes, which had to be ultimately withdrawn. On the contrary, WHEEL was well exploited by LEVERS from bars to powders to counter NIRMA. For that matter CLOSE UP was persisted with for a decade and a half due to the inherently strong core value and we witnessed a super success story, which took the COLGATE bull by its horn.
Of course, one must hasten to add that we have a fairly long and envious list of strong brands which have been around for many decades such as ANACIN, DABUR, PEARS, AMUL, PARLE, WOODWARDS AND READER’S DIGEST, to name a few. These are still going strong which reiterates the point that the Marketers have not forgotten the importance of the core values sometimes to defy the product life cycle parameters. In fact, this has been well bought out by Readers Digest in their supplement WHAT’S BEHIND THE NAME in February and March 2003.
LOOK BEYOND THE CLASSICAL MARKETING AND ADVERTISING ROUTE.
While there is no alternative to theme advertising for brand building, this may not always be affordable. Even when it is affordable if the field dynamics are not understood, results in sub optimisation. Fresh in the memory are Lipton’s, TREE TOP, Cadbury’s biscuits, RCI’s BINACA toothpaste. On the contrary, ZANDU and DABUR have skilfully and effectively exploited the distribution route to initially float brands like ZANDU BALM and NATURE CARE ISABGOL and once accruals start ticking in, supporting them with theme as well.
We have also seen through CIBACA example how competition activity can be overcome during a resource crunch through innovation. It should not be forgotten that field dynamics are as important.
THEREFORE THROUGH STRATCOMPLAN IT IS NOT HEADS YOU WIN AND TAILS I LOSE; BUT IT IS WIN - WIN ALL THE WAY.
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