Volume XXXVIII • Number  9 • September  2008

Rebranding: An Emerging Brand Marketing Strategy (Trends, Issues and Challenges)

This paper provides an analysis of the elements of rebranding, rebranding examples, and mistakes made in rebranding to determine if the rebranding process is successful. It’s the latest trend in corporate America and its happening on a regular basis. “Rebranding” is being used extensively by companies. Branding is critical to product identification and is a key factor in differentiating a product from its competition. A company’s brand is not what the company says it is but rather what others perceive it to be. When the brand no longer reflects the valuation of products and services, then rebranding is essential to the continued success of the company. Rebranding occurs when a product or service developed with one brand, company or product affiliation is marketed or distributed with a new and different identity. It is usually more than simply a change in the brand’s logo and should involve radical changes to the brand name, image, marketing strategy and advertising themes.

Reasons for rebranding include a change in services offered by the company, a change in products offered by a company, a new product launch, an acquisition or merger of companies, a name change or a change in the marketplace. Key elements in the rebranding process should include adequate research, leadership engagement, organization-wide involvement, communication, training, brand launch events, and evaluation and control. Using these key elements led to successful rebranding efforts for companies such as Country Music Television (CMT), AT&T, Pitney Bowes, and General Electric. Using them unsuccessfully led to rebranding failures for New Coke, United Airlines, and USDA Rural Development. Several mistakes need to be avoided when implementing rebranding. If a company can successfully avoid key mistakes, and if the company implements the key elements of the rebranding process, then rebranding can be a success. When mistakes are made and the key elements are not followed, the chance of rebranding success diminishes rapidly.

M.Saeed
Professor
Minot State University
North Dakota
USA
 

Entrepreneurial Marketing–An Emerging Concept: A Study of Arambagh Hatcheries Limited (A Poultry Farm Company) in West Bengal

The purpose of this article is to examine the concept of Entrepreneurial Marketing (EM). This concept needs a marketer to be innovative, risk-taking and proactive in performing managerial responsibility. It is an ongoing struggle among firms to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage in resources. In EM, the competitive interplay among firms reflects in marketplace positions that show the relative efficiency and effectiveness of each entrant. Here, the firms that are in disadvantaged positions can learn where they need to acquire additional resources or to use existing resources more efficiently and effectively. These firms come at the same level and/ or leapfrog their advantaged firms by better management of existing resources i.e. by acquisitions, imitation, substitution or innovation. It entails six core dimensions that have been identified and explored in the article. Its advantages and potential deserve its bright prospects. Resource leveraging and entrepreneurial marketing relationship have been adequately and appropriately highlighted. This is being taught as a complete course in Wharton University, USA and a paper in Harvard University, USA. Organizations like eBay, Virgin Group etc are practicing this in reality.
The Kolkata-based B.K. Roy Group, which owns Arambagh Hatcheries Limited, has always dealt in broilers. The company reassembled a good old chicken farm for the most part, ever since it was founded in 1973. The small, 5,000-bird poultry farm in Arambagh, started by Mr. Roy, seemed to be in protracted incubation. Till the 90s, it dealt only in day-old chicks and stayed small. But a little social engineering thereafter saw them grow about as fast as the broilers they breed. Since its inception, Arambagh has been fighting many odds. A recession in 1992-93 was a real body blow. It turned out, however, to be a turning point as well. From a Rs 8 crore company in 1990, it has grown to a Rs 200 crore organisation now. It had just a couple of retail outlets till 1994, now it has 150 and 3000 employees. Conclusions have been drawn pointing out the need for more researches on this area for its potential to develop competitive advantage on sustainable basis.

Green–Trust & Distrust

In 1970’s the word “Green” grabbed the attention of Industrialists and others. Green is coined in Europe to refer to a particular politics and lifestyle. Green Marketing is a combination of “Social Marketing Concept” and “Ecological Marketing Concept”. The concept is famous in United Kingdom and some other countries, but it is unfamiliar in the international business environment due to the lack of universal consistent meaning.Green marketing incorporates a broad range of activities, including product modification, changes to production process, packaging changes, and also changing advertising strategies.

J.Murugesan
Head,PG Department of Commerce
Vidyasagar College of Arts & Science
Udumalpet,Tamil Nadu
murugu_j@rediffmail.com
 

Analyzing Growth of Cellular Telecom Sector and Understanding Consumer's Preferences and Choices on the Use of Cellphone

The Indian telecom sector has emerged as the fastest growing telecom market in the world. With more affordable services, increased penetration and a supportive government along with regular fall in tariffs in the sector has brought significant changes in number of consumers and usage of cellular telecom services. However, with galloping achievements, there are few challenges too, to be overcome by the Indian telecom industry to ride high on the next growth wave.
Among the fastest growing sector of the economy the Indian telecom sector continued to maintain its growth during the year as one of the key sectors responsible for the economy’s impressive performance. The sector has been growing in the range of 20 to 40 percent during the last three years (2002-05). The telecom sector is getting more sops from the government, which will help it in growing faster more to align with objective of achieving the goal of reaching 250 million subscribers and a tele-density of 22% by 2007, reducing urban and rural disparities.

The need to have effective supply chain is inevitable for success in consumer durables industry. This study delves into the role of retailers and indicates the causes of bullwhip effect, variables contributing to customer satisfaction and resulting in customer attrition at the retailer’s end in consumer durables supply chain. The findings are based on the survey of 50 retailers dealing in CTVs, Mobile Phones and Refrigerators in New Delhi and Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh. The paper also deals with the initiatives and strategies adopted by LG Electronics in enhancing their supply chain efficiency and effectiveness. The study findings have some important implications for marketers in consumer durables industry.

Brand Loyalty of Women Consumers With Respect to FMCGs

Marketing starts with the determination of consumers wants and ends with the satisfaction of those wants. Every company must be organized totally around the marketing function, anticipating, stimulating and meeting customer’s requirements. Advertising in India has grown in a spectacular manner throughout the last two decades and has scaled new peaks during the last ten years in terms of size, range and quality. Over the years, there has also been a substantial expansion in the media. Everything the purchaser gets in exchange for his money is the product. Product has its personality. Four elements surround the product concept viz., branding, packing and labeling product warranty and service.
Branding is an essential part of marketing sub-function of selling. Every manufacturer feels the need of identifying his goods with some definite symbol, mark or slogan, so that his goods catch the attention of the customers. Branding is invariably used to introduce “Product differentiation” in the market, to single out a product from its rivals. This paper highlights the brand loyalty of women consumers in respect of eight categories of FMCGs that are commonly used by both urban and rural consumers.

S.Rajalakshmi
Scholar
Vellalar College for Women
Erode,Tamil Nadu
 

The e-Tail Option - From Brick and Mortar to Wish and Click

Huge population, increasing per capita income and changing consumer habits have culminated in the booming of the retail sector in India. Retail sector is expected to grow at GDP of 7% by 2010 and enlarge its market share to $280 billion from its present level of $200 billion (2007). Thanks to an expanding economy and technology orientation, consumer spending in India is expected to grow rapidly, making India’s $300 billion annual retail market to swell to $637 billion a by 2015. An email address and a website have become a necessity and not a mere accessory. e-Tailing usually comprises of online-retailers and online-auctions. As per the report released by Internet & Mobile Association of India and IMRB International, the total online transactions in India stood at Rs.7080 crore (approx $1.75 billion) for 2006-07 and is expected to grow by 30% to touch Rs.9210 crore (approx $2.15 billion) by 2001-07.

e-Tailing is just not about building a pretty website loaded with beautiful pictures of your brand. It is about integrating business plan, revenue models, potential alliances, supply chain and e-Commerce initiatives. Reasons for retailers to use e-medium can be attributed to lack of real estate costs, no inventory hassles, and better interactions with customers. These are the areas where the majority of new e-biz players are scoring hits against their brick and mortar counterparts, offering the customer, as they do, new methods of buying, customizing and most importantly getting low prices. What e-tail sector is experiencing today is certainly the tip of the ice berg. Today it might be a mere Rs 12 crore industry, but its growth potential is not possible to put into figures against the industry’s size or growth. It is expected to log in as much as Rs.1000 crore in the next five years. Further fillip to e-Tailing is given with increased Internet penetration.
This paper tries to present e-tailing scenario in India with future growth prospects and also identifies constraints faced in sustaining a successful e-Tail business models.