Leveraging Brand Elements - Amul

Introduction

Amul is one of India’s most trusted brands, ranking 57th overall and leading the F&B sector according to the Brand Trust Report 2011; and voted as the Number 1 Indian brand in Asia-Pacific according to the Hong Kong based ‘Media Magazine’(Refer Appendix). What makes these facts more significant is Amul’s low branding budget as compared to many other leading brands.

Historically, Amul has been associated with the White Revolution and steering India from milk shortage to the largest milk producer in the world; and also of helping farmers through the co-operative model.

The goodwill generated by these activities leads to trust, but cannot be sustained without the brand-building activities undertaken. Amul operates in the dairy category, extending to chocolates and ice-creams. The focus is on Amul butter in this exercise as it has been the flagship product and its brand elements have been used in other categories too.

The main brand elements are:

• Name - Amul, meaning priceless is derived from Amulya, meaning precious in Sanskrit; signifying its superior quality and wholesomeness.
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• Logo - Amul does not use a separate symbol for a logo, but only its name in trademark red stylised font. This has been a constant identifier across product categories and media.
• Tagline - Amul uses a number of taglines for various product categories. As an umbrella brand, it uses the tagline ‘The Taste of India’, consistent with its positioning as a very Indian company.
• Butter – Utterly Butterly Delicious - The most popular tagline for its most popular product category, as ‘Amul’ is usually a prefix for butter in many parts of the country.
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  Ice-creams – Real Milk. Real Ice cream - This tagline is used to stress upon the fact that Amul produces ice-creams while most other manufacturers produce ‘frozen dessert’. The difference is technical based on the origin of fat content and the tagline is part of the effort to educate customers on the difference.

• Jingle - Utterly Butterly Delicious hai yeh Amul.

Carrying the tagline forward, the jingle is a catchy tune that consumers still remember though it is hardly used nowadays in TV or Radio.

Packaging - Amul butter is packed as slabs wrapped in butter paper with an outer box made of cardboard. Single serve packs in small plastic cubes are also available. Some brand extensions like the Amul Lite butter come in plastic tubs too. The packaging contains various other brand elements including the Amul name and logo, slogan and mascot. The butter paper carries the Amul logo while the outer box is in its signature yellow and carries the other brand elements. Mascot - The Amul butter girl. Created almost 45 years ago, the polka-dotted frock clad chubby little girl is one of India’s most successful mascots identified by consumers across generations. This has also differentiated Amul from competitors who predominantly use caricatures of cows.

Topical hoardings - The Amul butter girl was born out of the idea to create topical hoardings put up at prominent locations, which were a humorous take on current affairs. They touched a chord with everyone across the country, being simple observations with clever puns and wordplay that were understood by one and all.

This became a weekly affair that everyone looked forward to, and might soon enter the Guinness book of world records for being the longest running campaign ever. These hoardings underlined the ‘Indian-ness’ of Amul. Some of the Amul Hoardings Analysis of Brand Elements

Memorability

The word Amul is a Sanskrit word meaning precious/priceless. The easy readability and short one-word name, combined with excellent brand equity and marketing initiatives makes it easy to remember. Initially (at inception) targeted at children the brand has a strong recall among people of all genders and across all age groups.

The slogan, Utterly Butterly Delicious is a kind of nonsense verse that rhymes, making it very catchy, especially through the jingle. Mascots assure attention and have high levels of recall. This is true for Amul Moppet too.

Meaningfulness The value proposition conveyed through the word “Amul” signifies the superior quality associated with its products. For almost 45 years, the Utterly Butterly girl has managed to keep her fan following intact. So much so that the ads are now ready to enter the Guinness Book of World Records for being the longest running campaign ever.

This has been possible due to its ability to come with advertisements that highlight a recent trend, news, event, etc. Amul hoarding casts her sometime as the coy, shy Madhuri, a bold sensuous Urmila or simply as herself, dressed in her little polka dotted dress and a red and white bow, holding out her favourite packet of butter. People of all age groups and different segments are able to associate these trends, events, news which makes the brand more meaningful.

Likeability As discussed above, Amul advertisements are able to generate an association with a recent trend, event or news.

The catchy statements add on to the rich visual depictions. The character of an innocent yet mischievous little girl is endearing to all. The human element makes the brand more likeable. Thus, all segments and all age groups are covered through its marketing initiatives (hoardings). The hoardings due to their high visibility and rich visual depiction are able to generate the expected likeability in consumers.

Transferability

The Amul brand, as depicted through its Moppet girl is focused on its butter product.

However, the branding of butter products has had a positive effect on the parent brand (umbrella brand) Amul which has spilled on to its various sub brands as well. Since the advertisement for butter product has in place for about 40 years, extending the Moppet girl to other product categories may not provide any significant benefit. * Adaptability Creating a brand name through association with a character such as the Amul Moppet girl is quite challenging in today’s world, given the high amount of advertising through various channels for all products.

Some of the successful include Hutch, 7 Up, Air-India, etc. The Amul girls has remained constant for 40 years, though changes can be brought in to reflect the times. The Brand logo could be redesigned with different types of variants. Recent trend has been to depict a male character/other supplement characters as well to suit the depicted theme. Appendix Exhibit 1: Campaign Magazine Rankings These rankings were arrived based on 2 main questions asked to 3,322 respondents in 16 Asian- Pacific region. When you think of the following (product or service) category, which is the best brand that comes to your mind? By best, we mean the one that you trust the most or the one that has the best reputation in the (product or service) category. * Apart from the best brand you entered, which brand do you consider to be the second best brand in the (product or service) category?