What went wrong with many global CTV brands in India?

With the exception of a few global colour television brands such as LG and Samsung, not many global television brands have succeeded in establishing a strong foothold in India, said Gulu Mirchandani, managing director, MIRC Electronics, at the National Marketing Summit organised recently by AIMA in Mumbai.

Mirchandani said that certain brands such as Panasonic, Sharp, Grundig (German), Thomson (French) and Konka (Chinese) had not been very successful in India because of their lack of long-term commitment and investment in the brand here. He said that these companies had entered into joint ventures with Indian companies that didn’t share the same philosophy as them.

“Lack of understanding of Indian nuances and mediocre management also contributed to their failure,” said Mirchandani.

Mirchandani added, “Despite this, the share of local brands in the colour television category stood at only 41 per cent in the early 1990s, but the scene seems to be changing now, with local brands coming to the forefront.”

In the early 1990s, the scenario was different in other countries – the share of local brands was much higher. For instance, in South Korea, the local brands had a market share of 90 per cent, in countries such as Japan, 80 per cent. Similarly, in China, the local share was 65-70 per cent and in the UK, 50 per cent.

Mirchandani pointed out that at present, in the Indian tyre industry, unlike globally, local brands dominated with a market share as high as 90 per cent. This, he cited, was because of the uniqueness of Indian roads and better understanding of the conditions on the part of Indian manufacturers.

Talking on the subject of challenges faced by global brands in India, Senthil Chengalvarayan, executive editor, Television Eighteen India, said, “As a brand, CNBC TV18 didn’t make much headway in India when its major policies were decided from outside India. The moment we started formulating our own strategies, the brand got noticed.”

Deepak Sethi, CEO, Solutions QED, who was also one of the speakers, pointed out the success mantra for brands in India: “The marketer must put himself in his TG’s shoes and find the answer to a simple question: Why will the consumer shift to your brand? In the answer lies the solution.”

Sethi added that a marketer must be extremely clear on who his/ her TG is and why his/ her brand is better than the competitor’s. “It’s as basic as that,” he said.

He went on to say that brands such as Bajaj Pulsar, Bajaj CT-100 and M&M’s Scorpio were flying high, whereas brands such as Bajaj Wind, Bajaj Caliber, Hero Honda Ambition and Yamaha’s Libero had bitten the dust. “It is not as though these products were bad; the consumer simply didn’t have any reason to switch to these brands.”

Sethi hinted that the way forward for brands in India was through the route of marketing science. “It’s all about approaching marketing with a scientific orientation, through observations and drawing conclusions,” he concluded.

© 2005 agencyfaqs!