How well are the brand ambassadors able to drive the “BRAND CAR”?

Recently, I saw a TV commercial in which Amitabh Bachchan was endorsing the latest launch of Force One. Looking at the advertisement the first thought that crossed my mind was how many brands can be associated with Mr. Amitabh Bachchan. I was able to count a number of them and strikingly it was spread across all the sectors. The single brand persona is trying to represent and fulfill the marketer’s need in different projections.

Taking into consideration the Car category in particular, I could recall another car whose brand ambassador was Mr. Bachchan i.e.  Maruti Versa. With best of my knowledge and information Maruti Versa was not able to meet the expectations even after the buzzing advertisement of duo combination of both the Bachchans. Despite of two series of advertisement the brand recall was not much among the customers. Now here comes the question: Is celebrity endorsement working for the segment like cars?

Let us see the rationale for using brand ambassadors vis a vis the outcome achieved by them keeping all other parameters to be constant (such as distribution, availability etc)

Celebrity endorsement in India has been seen in the car segment across various brands. As the number of players in the industry increased there came an important role of advertisements to clearly create and communicate the message of various brands. In order to break the clutter celebrities endorsement started to become an evolving phenomenon.

The primary reasons for using a brand ambassador can be:

1.       Celebrity buzz to launch the product

2.       Reinforce the awareness

3.       Break the clutter

4.       Create positioning  

5.       Define target audience

The driving wheels for communicating these messages can be :
      1. Emotional Connect
      2. Style quotient
      3. Product Attributes                                                             

 

According to SIAM, cars can be classified into the segments as Micro. Mini, Compact, C1, C2, D, E, F. this classification is based on the engine power and the length of the vehicle.

If we look at the number of cars in each of these segments the compact cars are most sought after cars in Indian context. The clutter and the need to advertise is seen maximum in this segment and least in E or F. This segment primarily belongs to the price sensitive and maximum ROI seeking customers. More the differential attributes more is the likeability. Hence companies are trying to break this clutter by being more loud and clear with the help of celebrities. However there exist players who are not pro this new trend and are still holding the flagship of their product attributes or primarily operating in niche segments like D or E or F. Coming back to the compact segment let us examine the trend there.

In this segment there are more than 15 Cars : Ritz, Swift, Estilo, i10, Beat, Aveo UVA, i20, Indica, Vista, Jazz, Polo, Fabia, Palio, Punto, Figo, Etios Liva, Indigo CS, Brio, Micra etc. Maximum number of campaigns in Print and TVCs are launched by these cars. Out of these two media vehicle however print is heavier than TVCs. If a brand recall is done there are only few of the cases where the brand ambassador and the name of the car can be easily recalled. On top of the mind recall is Shahrukh Khan for Hyundai Santro and I10 and latest Ranbir Kapoor for Nissan Micra.

The question which can be raised here is what worked for Hyundai: Shahrukh or the Product. One thing can be definitely said is SRK was able to give the product an initial push or buzz in the mind of the customers by focusing and communicating the rationale as well as the style. The message was aloud, the product was in sync with the expectations set by the communication and hence worked well in the market.

Hyundai Santro 2012 Data not available, Hyundai i20 launched in year 2009

Hyundai Santro is however facing a continuous decline in the sales figures after the year 2007

Hyundai Santro	2004-05 ( launch)	2006-07	2008	2009
	1,03,301	1,63,838	121,163	91,466

The figures clearly state that the initial launch figures of all the three was a decent number. The message from the brand ambassador was communicated well. However the declining sales of Santro Xing are of concern.  The reasons for which can be varied:

1.       Launch of more competitive product in the market

2.       Lack in the supply chain system

3.       Attributes not matching the expectations of the customer

4.       Declining recall of the product vis a vis competitors

5.       Lack in the servicing of the product

Now in this case what role can a celebrity do is not very clear. He can either revive the product by increasing the brand recall (if that is the concern), or help in repositioning the product amongst the TG.

Nissan is trying to follow the footsteps of Hyundai in a similar manner.  Post its launch in July Nissan Micra was able to sell 6000 units in market and till H1 10,000 units have been sold. The overall feel is positive for it till date. Amongst all the other cars from Nissan the opening sales figures of Micra are impressive if compared Nissan 370Z- 4, Nissan Teana- 347, Nissan X trail- 253. This is the very first time that Nissan has come up with the marketing campaign with the brand ambassador.

Some of the other brands which were endorsed by the celebrities are:

Looking at the sales figures at the launch of these models vis a vis the brand which is a head on competitor but not endorsed by any brand ambassador are compared below.

Brand	Launch Sales figure	Latest Sales figures
Fiat Palio Swift	791 (2005-06) 34,463(May-Nov 2005)	3,303(2008) 88,745 (2008) 110,071(2009)
Fiat Punto Maruti Ritz	9000(Jun-Nov 2009) 8,565 (May- June 2009)	8.401(2010) 6,214(June 2010)
Toyota Innova Mahindra Scorpio	32,000(2005) 31,661(2005-06)	42,740(2009) 27,000(2008-09), 3200(March 2010)
Aveo- UVA Honda Jazz	11,523(2007-08), 753 (Sept 2009) 3,069(Jun- July 2009)	434(Jan 2010) 490(Jan 2010)
Etios Liva Ford Figo	3154(2010) 58,000(March-Nov 2010)	Not available 100,000(June 2011)

The figures above are showing the result deviated from the above stated two examples. The brands which have not been endorsed by the celebrities have done fairly well as compared to the endorsed one. The implication of the above observation can be:

1.       Car purchasing is a high involvement product category and hence brand ambassador cannot influence the purchase decision to a great extent

2.       The product attributes are the main attraction and it can be well communicated without an ambassador

3.       Rational rather than emotional aspect works strongly in case of purchase of the car

4.       Economy rather than style quotient weighs higher in decision making

5.       Sustainability/ increment in the sales figure cannot be assured by the brand ambassador e.g. Santro Xing.

6.       An initial attention/ buzz can be created to generate awareness by the brand ambassadors.

One interesting observation when asked from people about their preferences basis the endorser was people know that the brand endorsed and brand possessed by the endorsers is not the same and in such a high involvement product risk of face value cannot be taken.

There are players in India which have till now never used any brand ambassadors for their product. E.g. Honda, Volkswagen and Maruti (except their one model).

Fiat Palio	Sachin Tendulkar	12 crore for 2 years
Fiat Punto	Yuvraj Singh	6 crores
Toyota Innova	Aamir Khan	12 crore ( industry average)
Aveo –Uva	Saif Ali Khan and Rani	6 crores
Etios Liva	A R Rehman	Exact figures not available

Table 1: Fee for endorsing the brands by the celebs

Now here comes the question:  We saw two pretty successful celebrity endorsed cars and five not so successful vis a vis cars not endorsed by any celebrity, how much is the role of a brand ambassador in making a brand successful? The answer to this question is debatable. We also have the success stories of the brands which have never used the brand ambassador is still doing well with their products. Be it the established player like Maruti or a new foreign entrant in the market like Volkswagen or Honda.

 If a brand is able to explain WHY it is there (with or without the brand ambassador) instead of answering WHAT (it is providing) and HOW (it is meeting the requirements), connect with the customer can be strong leading to success. It is because every other brand will answer the What and How easily but in order to distinguish or break the clutter answer to “WHY” is important so that people believe in you.