After a deep dive into the initial journey of brand Asian Paints from ’Impish Gattu to Incredible Gumption’, now let’s enjoy the sequel to the story, which I am sure will amaze you, seeing the colourful brand dancing, hopping & leaping ahead.
A close look at the journey of sprightly moving brand, Asian Paints shows that the brand has extreme dexterity to unearth every opportunity that could be hidden anywhere and cast its shadow over it with lightning speed.
Once the mascot Gattu was axed from the identity of the brand, it underwent a rebranding exercise, wherein a new corporate identity was unveiled. The brand had a new look, with Asian Paints written in yellow and red, which had vertical lines of alphabets in the new logo imitating a brushstroke. Each product carried an image of the sheet of paint, blue in colour flowing down. This was seen on the packs and tins of all different products, bringing in uniformity and making them belong to one family umbrella.
Metaphorically, I would say that the brushes of Asian Paints are soaked deep into the ink of culture & changing times and splashed up bright with enticing strokes.
After this rebranding, the promotion strategy moved from advertising individual brands like Apcolite, Ace, Apex etc. to building Asian Paints into a corporate brand, with an upmarket, modern image – the reason for which the exit of Gattu happened. Few brands from the portfolio of Asian Paints, were given the status of sub-brands. A couple of them that had specific roles to perform were left independent, such as ‘Tractor’, which had really high recall and equity, and ‘Utsav’, which played the role in upgrading users of chunna, cement paint etc. and bringing them within the fold of Asian Paints.
Such conscious moves by Asian Paints, where it shed off its traditional image and elevated itself from individual brand level to family and corporate brand level, set the tone of direction for its gigantic future growth. The brand started occupying space all around, like a joyous being on the dance floor – moving vertically up and down, swaying horizontally left and right and twirling around but never losing the connect with the centre, the core, and continuously strengthening bond with the audience.
Leap into services & solutions
The brand primarily known as the manufacturer and seller of decorative paints to people who grew up in the 70s-80s era, also expanded to the fast-growing decorative coatings segment in the early 2000s. In its vertical sway , Asian Paints tapped its feet backwards and entered into manufacturing of chemicals that are the raw materials to paint manufacturing process. A great value enhancing diversification.
With its laser focus on future, the brand started eyeing the diagonal moves as well, at all different angles. In its next big act, Asian Paints ventured into the services & solutions segment.
The brisk moves taken by the brand in the product segment, and success achieved, opened new arenas of growth. With Ezycolour, it offers a wide range of home-improvement consultancy, which covers colour, décor and even Vastu inspired solutions that have interestingly been termed ‘Colour Shastra’. With SmartCare, it offers a whole bunch of services relating to waterproofing.
The solutions side of the business moved Asian Paints story to surfaces beyond walls, with metal and wood finishes as new offerings. Whichever the surface be, whether inside the house or outside, the brand shows its performance and leaves a smiling mark on the face of customer.
Asian Paints identified the pain points in customers’ lives and focused on their new expectations by creating products under sub-brands that catered to each need.
Learnings so far:
The vision and close connect with the core plays a very important role in the success of the brand
The vision sets the direction for future and core gives the strength to move ahead.
The vision & core together build up the brand and prevent it from getting diluted.
Once a corporation gets big with numerous & diversified products, presence at different hierarchy levels of brand architecture becomes essential. Presence at individual brand level to higher up at family brand level to even higher up at corporate brand level as is seen in Asian Paints. Products and brands at each level have a specific role to perform. When the structure of corporation gets complex, then dividing the corporation into different levels, streamlines and results in smooth sail ahead.
The growth & success of Asian Paints from walls to different surfaces, from products to solutions & services is the outcome of strategic planning and implementation on brand architecture.
Proper study of the value chain and value enhancing integrations hold the key to success and growth.
Leap from Paint to Colour
Asian Paints success story has many firsts to its credit, but the most strategic was its association with FITCH, world’s leading brand & retail consultancy in 2008. Together, an in-depth research was conducted on all stakeholders to understand the market and competition, and map the current and future customer journeys. Research findings showed that, ironically, despite the abundant presence of colours in Indian culture, Indian customers were not comfortable with the use of colour while decorating their homes. Thus, the biggest challenge for Asian Paints, as identified by FITCH, was to encourage consumers to get more confident with colour, and to provide them with a solution that was personal, appealing, easy and relevant.
Out there, the joyously dancing brand Asian Paints found a new space to show its movement forwards. A bold step ahead, taking its colours closer to the customers in a way that opened a whole gamut of experience for them – ‘Colour’ from Asian Paints, the innovative Experience store was launched in 2009, first one being in Bandra West, Mumbai.
This was a huge leap in Asian Paints' marketing strategy, leading to a new positioning with a new meaning from paint to colour. The Colour stores do not sell paints. Therefore, to consider Colour store as an entity in the retail set-up is like undermining its stature. These stores perform a bigger role of offering an inspirational and educational colour experience, by opening up new possibilities of colour and its power to transform different corners of the house and even alter the mood of people residing therein. The ‘Choose Your Finish’ zone of the store provides highly interactive experience, where consumers can play with colour blocks to explore combinations and touch and feel the different finishes. At the Colour Chef bar, colours can be mixed and matched to gain a personalised solution. This unique experiential set-up led to increasing the consumer confidence in using all types of colours and succeeded in taking the brand ahead into the colour consultancy space and further as décor expert.
The strong presence of this flagship signature store ‘Colour’ located in Mumbai is accompanied by an integrated web of channels, covering the entire country and all different customer segments. These are AP Homes, Colour Ideas stores, Colour World, Ezy colour consultancy, Beautifulhomes.com, and Colour with Asian Paints mobile application. Thus, we find the brand standing close to the customer, offline & online. Asian Paints' branding strategy touched all different corners.
Asian Paints’ story was changing. It was moving like a whirlwind, enveloping everything that meant colour. And the world around was also changing rapidly. Different product offerings from different competitors were expanding the category & increasing the expectations of customers. In a category where, at one time, just having variety in shades was a novelty, a stream of innovative launches has become a norm. Today, the industry that consists of eco-friendly, odour free, dust & water resistant and laminated paints, has reached market size valued at approximately $2 billion, growing at a CAGR of 12% to 13%. With 39% share in 2020, Asian Paints was leading the organized decorative market segment. As a company with an innovative spirit and strong consumer-focus, Asian paints has been the market leader in paints since 1967. Looking at the revenue trajectory in May, 2021, Berger’s revenue in Q4 grew 15.3% on a two-year CAGR basis, very close to Asian Paints’ 15.7%., reflecting the dominance of both these brands in the decorative paints industry.
Learnings so far:
Research forms the backbone of marketing strategies
The launch of ‘Colour’ experience store was a strategic move to take the brand beyond a meaning which was associated to a particular category of paints only. New meaning of Colour widened the horizon of growth. Process of repositioning of the brand started. It led to laddering up towards higher values as the term Colour gets associated with Happiness. This new meaning of the brand doesn’t restrict it to any one category, but opens up avenues of growth in different directions. Asian Paints' branding strategy showcases it to be a visionary brand.
Innovations and revolutionary steps by the leading brand leads to growth for the entire category and all marketers of the category get the gains. Also with new launches, new value propositions get laid out which benefit the customers.
With the concept of experience store, consumer buying behaviour & decision-making journey changed. In the traditional consumer buying behaviour, experience with product came in post-purchase stage leading to satisfied or dissatisfied customers based on the performance of product. Experience stores are providing the experience with the product prior to purchase. Customers happy with this experience, when go into buying the product, they tend to remain happy & satisfied post-purchase also. Thus, these experience stores result in higher percentage of satisfied, non-complaining customers. It’s a win-win proposition both for the marketer and the customer.
Integrative strategies are value enhancing both for the marketer and the customer. As seen in this Asian Paints story, the brand went for all kinds of integrations - forward, backward, channel, which resulted in its growth by leaps & bounds.
Reinvention
With the poised entry of Asian Paints into the home décor segment, new exciting avenues opened for the brand. The repositioning of the brand brought it into the gambit of consideration of a new target segment, that of interior décor consumers in the home, retail and commercial space across India. To establish connect with the new target segment and become a strong entity in their choice set, the brand had to undergo a reinvention exercise.
A new logo was revealed in 2012 which, in the form of a flowing ribbon, gave shape to the new identity ‘ap’, depicting more meaning & personalisation for the new customers’ modern and trendy lifestyle. “The wordmark from the previous logo is kept intact but the flowing ribbon highlights the easy flow, smoothness, dynamism and new vista of possibility that the brand’s solutions and offerings will provide”, commented Amit Syngle, the then Vice-President Sales and Marketing (now MD & CEO).
Along with being meaningful, the shape & colours make it likeable & memorable too. Name Asian Paints shortened to ‘ap’, will make this brand element easily transferable to other non-paint categories over time. The shape, colours, style & flow of the ribbon logo make it appear adaptable to the changing times & culture. And of course brands get their brand elements legally registered, making them protectable.
This was the second major makeover of the brand within a short span. First one was with the exit of iconic Gattu in 2002. Such makeovers speak loud of the invigorating journey of the brand and the paradigm shifts.
Post this reinvention, the brand very confidently moved towards premiumisation, technological innovations and futuristic brand building, and started taking bigger strides in different corners of home and in different directions of the marketplace.
Asian Paints' marketing strategy galloped on to the path of acquisitions to make the brand grow in newer areas. It acquired Sleek International in 2013 to move to kitchen solutions and Ess Ess in 2014 for its entry in bathroom products.
Despite achieving path-breaking growth, Asian Paints always remained connected to its roots, not forgetting where it came from and all those who contributed in its journey. When renowned cartoonist R.K. Laxman, who was also the creator of Asian Paints’ mascot Gattu, passed away in 2015, brand paid tribute to the legendary cartoonist with a poster featuring Gattu in the frame.
While talking about the reinvention of Asian Paints, it becomes important to throw some light on one of its competitors, Kansai Nerolac Paints, which also adopted a fresh look in 2020, its centenary year. “Colours that Care” was the new positioning unveiled and promoted through a campaign titled ‘Aaj Careful toh Kal Colourful’, establishing the context with the Covid time, focusing on responsible behaviour towards sustainable and bright future.
Nerolac ads always had a vey catchy jingle, ‘Jab ghar ki raunak badhani ho’ and also had strong celebrity presence of Shah Rukh Khan. Do you remember any ads of Asian Paints with a jingle which lingers on? Hardly. But it always had memorable ads which directly focused on change like ‘Mera wala blue’ and ‘Har ghar kuchh kehta hai’. Celebrity route is also not regular with Asian Paints ads, except for Saif Ali Khan’s strong association with brand Royale. And more recently, Deepika Padukone, Ranbir Kapoor for its new launches.
On the celebrity front also, Asian Paints' branding strategy broke away from the routine and created webisodes titled ‘Where the heart is.’ Beautiful homes of celebrities are explored with the celebrities themselves giving a tour & narrating their experience of building it. The big message in each episode is how a home reflects the personality & attitude of the people living in it. In March 2021, the fourth season of the series began with special focus on family and relationships as seen through the lens of celebrity homes. This is an innovative & engaging way to communicate and strengthen the positioning of the brand in the minds of the customers.
Expanding product portfolio & market segments
Continuous movement, tapping its feet on every beat, placing its mark on every possible contour is the philosophy which gets exhibited by observing the Asian Paints journey. The company operates in 16 countries and services consumers in over 65 countries. The brand has been extremely agile in filling all need gaps, widening its base by touching upon all different target segments.
Asian Paints did not just introduce customers to the concept of exterior house protection, but even launched an exterior paint brand, Ultima Protek, with the value proposition of being anti-algal, crack-resistant and with water-proofing and anti-fading capabilities. Ultima Protek has multiple variants attending to varied weather conditions of different regions of India. This dual-coating exterior paint, positioned as the best performing anti-ageing system for exterior walls, even offers a 10-year durability warranty & has a Teflon surface. Rightfully advertised as ‘lamination wala paint’.
Market for exterior paints picked up with customers giving importance to outside walls as well. Competitors expanded the market further, with new products and new benefits. Nerolac launched ‘Suraksha’ in this space.
Also, amidst the flurry of launches from the house of Asian Paints, came in Royale Atmos. This brand brought indoor pollution to the attention of the customers, with a new piece of knowledge of this being five times more harmful than outdoor pollution. Asian Paints projected Royale Atmos as the solution. The communication message around the proposition of safer and healthier paints held relevance for a highly polluted country like India.
How could Asian Paints ignore the biggest segment of customers who wish to showcase their status in an affordable way. For such value seeking customers, Tractor Sparc Emulsion was launched as ‘Budget wala paint’, providing rich finish within a limited budget. Around a similar proposition, the range was extended to Tractor Emulsion Shyne for interior and Ace Shyne for exterior walls. “Shyne jo dikhe mehengi” was the campaign message for shiny, long lasting paint that looks expensive but is not necessarily so.
In a similar language of value to customers, a new entrant JSW paints took a different route altogether of ‘any colour, one cost’, in a category where variable prices for different colours was the norm. JSW boasts its offering of 1808 shades and all at one single price. Will this mark a new turn in this ever-expansive category of paints? Yet to be seen.
Also, yet to be seen is Asian Paints foray into a completely new & cluttered area of hygiene products and how it fares therein. Looking to the strong growth prospects of this sector during & post-Covid, Asian Paints has launched hand and surface sanitisers and even announced the launch of floor and toilet cleaners. This definitely is a turn of Asian Paints' story into the unknown. Except for some synergy between paints and hand sanitisers on raw materials used, this diversification by the brand is totally into a non-core business.
Asian Paints, in its long glorious journey, never lost its steam and kept its popularity intact. As a modern brand with a global outlook, it marched forward and climbed on to the digital with ease, further adding to its glamour & appeal. It has established a strong web presence. Digital millennials looking for expert advice can log on to Asian Paints.com and, for those not digitally savvy, Happy Painting guide by Asian Paints is available. The humorous ‘Nahi bhaiya aisa nahi hai’ ad series showcase the brand’s ease of services for both the segments.
Asian Paints was way ahead on innovations & embracing technology. It made huge investments in 3D visualization technology for the ‘Asian Paints Homes Stores’ and for its kitchen business. Adding fun to the imagination of customers, it introduced ‘Colour with Asian Paints’ colour visualizer & added ease with wall painting app. The journey from being trustworthy and popular to now also being contemporary and modern, speaks big about the brand. It was the top ranked Indian company in the "Forbes Most Innovative company List" in 2017.
Learnings so far:
With the entry of Asian Paints into the consultancy services & solutions, into kitchen, bathroom accessories and the décor segment, its frame of reference completely changed. New target markets & new set of competitors opened up for which brand had to establish new Points of parity (POP) & Points of differentiation (POD). This repositioning, change of image requires rebranding leading to complete reinvention.
Rebranding brings in new identity to fit into the new segments and connect with the new target audience.
As covered in the first part of this brand’s story, out of the 6 criteria considered essential for the success of brand elements, 3 criteria of likeability, memorability & meaningfulness were getting fulfilled with the old identity of the brand mascot Gattu. The new identity with the new ‘ribbon logo’ and Asian Paints shortened to ‘ap’ fulfils all 6 criteria as mentioned in the story above.
Instead of being contented with the linear growth, when brand aims at exponential growth, it starts covering all the 4 quadrants of growth matrix as given by Ansoff. Such brands are seen on market penetration, product development, market development and diversification strategies.
Extensions & diversifications into related and non-related categories becomes easier for high equity brands.
To gain success in non-related categories, it is important that the meaning of the brand does not get associated with a particular category. Instead of attribute and category based, meaning should be based on higher values. Meaning of the brand, definition of the business should be broadened with changing time. Strategic laddering up is required.
Growth through acquisition mode leads to horizontal integration, as the number of players and competitors get reduced in the market.
Value based brands remain connected to their roots throughout their journey, which builds a reputable image.
At the highest level of brand equity building pyramid, question posed by the customer to the brand is, ‘What about you & me?’ If a consumer brand is built that people would trust for their most crucial decisions, would look up to it for advice, as is the case of Asian Paints’ consultancy on home décor, then a great relationship has definitely got established. And brand gains loyal customers.
Changing with time, adapting to new technologies & platforms indicates dynamism, which is imperative for growth
Leaping ahead but with human connect
The human side of Asian Paints has kept the trust standing true for a long time. There have been many encounters with the human side of this brand during its journey.
Asian Paints, joined hands with art foundation St+art India for 'Donate A Wall' initiative, in 2017. Under this, city dwellers were asked to donate a wall that would be painted by Asian Paints at no cost, narrating beautiful stories. The objective of this initiative was to brighten up the city and raise the spirit.
Mahim Junction in Mumbai was beautified as a tribute to 'Heroes of Mumbai’, and like this, many walls in different cities were given life with colours and stories.
When COVID struck in 2020, it became a real testing ground to find the human side of brands. Businesses of brands across the globe got hit by the pandemic and Asian Paints was no exception. But truly exceptional was the step taken by this brand, when it gave salary hikes, instead of layoffs or pay cuts, during Covid-19 lockdown to boost the morale of its employees. This kind human gesture of Asian Paints won the hearts of so many and it achieved immense goodwill.
Asian Paints also faced demand destruction, leading to fewer sales and less revenues during COVID. But due to this one simple act of kindness and display of true leadership, the share price of Asian Paints took a jump of 2% to Rs. 1,554 on May 15, 2020 when salary hikes were announced, reached close to Rs. 2,410 by March 19, 2021, and is at Rs. 3,112 as on 22nd July, 2021.
Amidst the covid-19 outbreak, Asian Paints brought back its popular ad of 2007, ‘Har Ghar Kuchh Kehta Hai’, with a more sensitive and inspiring appeal ‘Har Ghar Chup Chap Se Kehta Hai’. Made with real home videos, it showed how people across the country are creating their own special moments in their homes. Thus, during the tough times, inspiring to relive the happiness and joy around homes. Also, reminding people of staying home and being safe.
Being into a contact-intensive sector, Asian Paints could have faced the major brunt with the onset of Covid, but its quick response with the introduction of branded services such as safe painting and sanitization kept the wheels running.
It partnered with the game show, Kaun Banega Crorepati, where it’s specially curated service San Assure+, contributed in maintaining a high level of safety & sanitization on the set. Also, the brand was associated with the initiative to transform the homes of contestants with the philosophy of #PeopleAddColour.
Asian Paints has been a category disruptor as it believes & showcases that the brand is not only about walls, but it is about the space between the walls too, where the emotions & relations reside.
In the words of Amit Syngle, MD & CEO Asian Paints, “one of the strong things which we have kind of seen is that whatever be the situation, staying glued to your stakeholders very strongly - be it your customer, your retailer, your influencers or your employees - is important. As long as you've got your ears tuned to what the stakeholders are saying, you're taking the right path.”
Such rich philosophy makes Asian Paints, a brand that has a global outlook but is still “Indian at heart”.
Now further to be seen is, the brand Asian Paints, which is never parched for creativity, what is going to be its Next Big Frontier.
In a snip:
Invaluable mantras which sustained Asian Paints' success story even during pandemic
__________________________________________________________________________________
References:
https://www.financialexpress.com/archive/asian-paints-india/48144/
https://www.asianpaints.com.bd/services/colour-ideas-store.html
https://www.statista.com/statistics/914573/india-paints-industry-market-share-by-company/
http://brandingsource.blogspot.com/2012/10/new-logo-asian-paints.html
https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/catalyst/gattu-makes-a-difference/article6886688.ece
https://www.afaqs.com/news/mktg/asian-paints-and-start-india-transform-cityscapes one-wall-at-a-time
Comentarios