Tata coffee in Karolbagh...

In the words of Mr. Bijoor himself:

We wanted to launch Tata Coffee in Delhi. We had printed tons of banners to be put out in Karolbagh and to my shock found that Karolbagh was a clutter of banners from many brands and companies. It was too late then and we could not do anything else. An idea struck us. We then got the team to hang all our banners upside down at that location and that stood out pretty well! People looked at our banner specifically for teasing it. They used to point at it saying “Hey, look at that. Those idiots put the banner upside down! Anyways, what is it about? Oh, Tata coffee it seems”. Any recall is good recall. Our banner attracted attention simply because it was upside down!

The Tata Coorg Story...

In the words of Mr. Bijoor himself:

We didn’t want to market Tata Coorg Coffee in the traditional ways as it was expensive. So we decided on a novel approach. We saw that eggs were used by almost every household – infact the reach of eggs in Tamil Nadu, our chosen location, was more than the distribution of newspapers! Taking advantage of this “new medium”, we printed Tata Coorg Pure Coffee on three million eggs and put it back in the normal egg retail channel. The eggs became extremely popular and created a lot of excitement in families which bought these eggs.

In the beginning, they all felt that it was something different with the eggs itself – People started buying the eggs just for the sake of buying them, thereby increasing the revenues of the shopkeepers! They started talking to their neighbours and friends about the “new type of eggs in the market”, thereby getting us the “word-of-mouth” publicity. People got so curious that on one visit to a house I saw two children and their mother watching the egg boil patiently, as if something different would happen to it. The retailers were happy as it created consumer excitement. We also got covered and thus with minimal budgets we were able to reach a large audience and make them aware of the new coffee brand.

Rural Sensitivity - Talcum Powder...

In the words of Mr. Bijoor himself:

As I mentioned just now, 25% of rural women use a talcum powder. We studied how a rural woman uses this talcum powder. We found this:

She pours some of the talcum powder in a handkerchief. She then folds the handkerchief and puts a second layer of powder. She folds it again and pours the third layer of powder on the handkerchief. She then folds and keeps the handkerchief in her blouse. One side of her blouse houses the hankie and the other side hosts the purse.

On a typical Saturday morning she goes to the market to shop. After the heavy shopping, she applies the first layer of powder to freshen up. In the afternoon, after traveling back to her home, she applies the second layer. In the evening, before going for a movie, she applies the third layer of powder. In the process (to a marketers delight), nearly 33% of the powder is wasted. But that's her way of keeping fresh on the run. Smart woman!

So this company (I think he said Fair and Lovely or Ponds, but I am not sure) thought about this and introduced the compact talcum powder box, just like what we have for the urban woman. It was housed in a Nivea-like case made of steel. It had a mirror with extra padding (as a broken mirror meant bad luck) - they even thought about the superstitious aspect! Smart Marketers!

Well, in my view - too smart. The product failed. How come? Well, they didn't take into account where the rural woman used to place the original hankie - in her blouse. In north India (relatively cold), the metal box was cold too and in south India (warmer), the metal got a bit too hot for her use. Result: No one wanted to use the product, just because it was made of metal, which was prone to climate changes. So we need to be careful of all aspects of a product when it is introduced in the rural markets.

The Tata-Kaapi Story...

In the words of Mr. Bijoor himself:

The observation of a South Indian marriage actually struck an idea in my mind. We (he and his team) had observed that in a South Indian marriage, there was considerable time between the serving of the papad and the rest of the food – this was an opportunity! So we started supplying the marriages with papads having Tata Kaapi printed on it along with the bride and bridegroom’s names, something on the lines of “Tata Kaapi wishes X and Y a very happy and prosperous married life”. You should see the impact created. For people who were till then used to the routine of marriage and the menu, suddenly there was something to talk about. It was really exciting because the papads were unique to each marriage and the time frame really spread the word and fame around. The sales of the Kaapi rose tremendously after that.