We don’t want to justify that our product is better than the competition: Anil Bajaj

Celebrating 25 years of the iconic tag line ‘Give Me Red’, Eveready Industries India Limited (EIIL) has unveiled its new logo, symbolising more power and freedom to the youth. Standing true to the ethos of ‘Give Me Red’, the newly released version portrays enthusiasm, clubbing new age thoughts and values to reach out to its target audience. 

Launched in the early nineties, the ‘Give Me Red’ campaign connected with the youth and became a youth slogan, with an appeal that continues to be etched in the minds of people even today. 

In the mid-70s and mid 80s, Eveready had roped in a few celebrities for its campaigns, then from the 80s to the late 90s, the brand had the consumer as the celebrity, where it kept a youth image. In 2004, Amitabh Bachchan came on board as brand ambassador and continued for about three years. Akshay Kumar has been the Eveready brand ambassador for the last 8 years. 

Speaking on the occasion, Amritanshu Khaitan, Managing Director, Eveready Industries India, said, “The brand Eveready is synonymous with power and energy. Over the years, the brand has evolved to address the needs of young India and speak their language. 25 years of ‘Give Me Red’ is a milestone which we are extremely proud of. It reiterates our commitment to ensuring that every Eveready product is trustworthy, reliable and authentic.” 

Emphasising on the refreshed avatar for Give Me Red, Anil Bajaj, Senior Vice President – Marketing and Sales, Eveready Industries India, stated, “Even today through our product offerings, we want to better people’s lives, be it through DigiLED technology in our flashlights, 100% brass flashlights, or the best in class Lumens/ Watt for our LED bulb range. The unique designs and features in our appliances are few of the many technological advances brought to India in our endeavour to give cutting edge solutions to our consumers.” 

He further added, “In its current avatar of GMR - Infinite power meets vibrancy and new age thinking. Red “infinity” symbolises limitless energy, power, enthusiasm and stamina – the very core of the Give Me Red ethos.” 

In an interaction with Adgully, Anil Bajaj speaks at length about the objective behind the logo change, marketing strategy, evolution of the battery market in India, and more. Excerpts: 

What is the significance of the new logo change?
Logo change is part of life. You keep changing the visuals, the look and feel and the way you communicate to the consumer. More important is the strength or the ethos for what the brand stands for and what does ‘Give Me Red’ do for Eveready. ‘Give Me Red’ brings to life the energy the passion the youthfulness and dynamism of the youth. It communicates how the consumers of India are benefitting from Eveready. How do Eveready products bring a change in their lives is something we try to bring out through the ‘Give Me Red campaign. It is very difficult to explain to people what they use our products for. The consumer puts our product into a remote and forgets. Without that product though how will the consumer change the channel on the TV? 

You are not able to see without a torch in rural India, where electrification is still a big challenge. That is where Eveready is making a positive change in the lives of consumers. How to bring that into the foray is the challenge. That is why the ‘Give Me Red’ campaign communicates life before Red and life after Red. In the last 25 years, we would have changed the logo six to seven times, but that was just an exercise to add dynamism and make our brand contemporary and fit with the times. The cat jumping through 9 represents the 9 lives. You might have noticed that sometimes the battery shuts off and you are banging the remote and the battery comes back to life. So the battery coming back to life was something that people related to again and again. 

Will there be a campaign along with the logo change? Who is your creative agency?
No, we have not worked on a new film immediately. In the last 25 years there have been temptations to change the campaign. Every time a new creative director came, he said ‘I want to change it’, and every time a new product manager comes, he says ‘I want to change it’. We take stock and say, if you want to change, are we getting something better? Rediffusion has been our creative agency for 40+ years. They also designed the ‘Give Me Red’ campaign. 

Battery technology has gone through major shifts. What are the product offerings by Eveready?
The products that we are offering are the best that the consumer can ask for and what the consumer can afford to pay for. We don’t talk about the technology of the product, because we don’t want to make any claims that competitors can easily say themselves. We don’t want to justify that our product is better than the competition. In the ‘Give Me Red’ campaign we have never said ‘I am better for you’. We have communicated that we are the best choice for the consumer and can do for them something that no other competitor can. 

How is digital placed in your marketing strategy?
You must understand why digital has come out in a big way. Yesterday consumers were listening on radio – I am referring to the early 70s and late 80s – then radio was the main medium of touching base with the outside world. There was no television then. In the early 80s TV came in and by mid-90s TV took a big leap with colour TV coming in. Radio disappeared and then you had your Walkmans and private music systems, but even all those disappeared subsequently. With mobile phones penetrating India the way it has for the last 7-8 years, mobile telephony has penetrated much more than television. Therefore the consumer interaction through the mobile on the online platform is increasing. It has a long way to go, but online is increasingly becoming important. Since the consumer is interacting with your brand online, you have to reach out to them online. Our online spends 5 years were zero. Today, our spends are 3x times more than what they were 2 years ago. 

What about your distribution network on e-commerce platforms?
Certainly, we are one of the best when it comes to online e-commerce platforms. 

What is your market share?
We have 55+ per cent market share, 65 per cent value share and 75 per cent mind share of the consumer. Toys are the 5th highest category in consumer batteries in India, accounting for 7-8 per cent of the consumption. In the alkaline battery category, Eveready has a 50 per cent share. 

What is your urban-rural growth share?
For us, the rural portfolio was always very strong because of our torch and battery business. Now, with our products shifting to urban, today our urban-rural divide would be almost 50-50. Now, increasingly our focus is on the lighting business and on the home appliances business. As more people are coming into the fold of electrification, the lighting business will go up. The strength and name of Eveready and our value for money products are helping us grow the business in this category. In the urban phase, the appliance and lighting business is helping us grow in urban India. 

When I say lighting business, there are two parts to it. One is consumer lighting or the LED bulbs and the batons where consumers are upgrading from GLS bulbs to LED bulbs. The other space is professional lighting, which is for small offices, establishments, and street lighting. That is one area where we are foraying into and taking baby steps to establish our foothold. 

We are not looking into large format batteries – like lithium or the car battery segment. We keep reviewing these opportunities from time to time, but as of now we don’t have any intent of going into that particular segment. 

We keep adding newer categories to grow our top line, recently we got into the confectionary business, which marks our packaged foods industries, called Jollies, and we have launched fruit juice or Fruit Jollies. We started from the month of February onwards. Last month, we have gone pan-India with the products. Priced at Re 1, the fruit chew has three variants – strawberry, orange and kachch aam. 

You review the products on two fronts – one is the brand fit and the other is the distribution – so battery, torches, lighting and appliances are very good on the brand fit. Battery, torches, tea and Jollies Fruit juice and a large part of lighting are a very good fit on distribution as well, because the outlets that we are going to are the same outlets. On my confectionary base, 80 per cent of battery outlets are selling confectionaries as well. The only outlets that we don’t service yet are the ‘paan’ outlets, where ITC has a very high footprint. 

How has the battery industry evolved? What are the need gaps that need to be addressed?
Battery has been a very stable industry for the last 10-15 years. The equipment has changed. Earlier, there were a large number of torches and transistors that were using batteries. Today, there are a large numbers of remotes that are using the batteries. The consumption pattern has changed, but the industry is at a 2-3 per cent growth pattern. CAGR would be about 3 per cent. That is why we have forayed into the lighting and appliance business that are at a higher growth pace for us, the category itself might not be growth but because of our distribution strength and our brand strength that we bring to the table we are able to grow our lighting footprint.