Marketing story of the day: 21 gun salute to the power of marketing - Sind Bakery, Karachi Bakery and Pardise Biryani.

Today on a market visit I saw a board that said “Sind Bakery” shop in Secunderabad. This is in direct competition to “Karachi Bakery” the now famous bakery and biscuit brand from Hyderabad.

This led to an interesting discussion with my PhD student Mr. Madhusudan Kota. Kota was of the opinion that Sind was trying to cash on the name Karachi and trying to piggy ride Karachi’s popularity and try to build as me too brand.

Quite an interesting thought but I beg to disagree. Karachi the bakery and biscuit brand has nothing to do with the name KARACHI the port city of Pakistan. It is a long standing bakery that got first established from Mozzamzahi market.

It became known for its fresh mouth-watering puffs, pastries, cakes and biscuits. The story goes that all items are freshly baked and left over food items are distributed to the poor and the needy at the bakery closing time.

It was clever branding, and even more cleverer franchising and giving wings to the brand Karachi that made it a brand to reckon. Sind Bakery will have to create its own market space and not try to hitch a free ride along with Karachi.

Paradise Biryani has now become synonymous with Hyderabad and Hyderabadi biryani. Readers will be surprised to know that brand Paradise is quite a recent phenomenon.

Paradise was the name of a cinema hall and Paradise cafe was a canteen that served the cinema audience snacks during the movie interval.

Fact of the matter is that till late nineties Paradise was quite low in the pecking order as far popularity of Hyderabad biryani was considered. The top draw was Alfa biryani, followed by Garden restaurant biryani, Madina hotel biryani , Shadab hotel biryani and then it was Paradise Biryani.

Where-as all the others remained wedded to traditions, it was Paradise that embraced modern marketing and propelled itself to becoming almost synonymous with Hyderabadi food and became one of the most sought after city attractions to visit. Not bad for a brand that started out as a cinema hall canteen. 21-gun salute to power of marketing.

Caveat Emptor - Marketing lesson for the day - Laser Control 3 blade and Razor!

Marketing story of the day: I am fascinated by marketing. Today (09-05-2018) I bought Laser control 3 razar along with 3 cartridges. At Rs 30/-, I thought it was a great deal. The package said it all. Control three, Triple blade and nice imagery of three cartridges.

When I opened the cartridge at home, I was in for a surprise. There were only two cartridges and one very clear one cartridge space was kept blank. Not very smart. On the front in very small letter written : 2. Buyers beware, Caveat emptor!

Name sake Competitors or Partners Planning for Market Domination!

Marketers always talk of competitors as being fierce and at each other’s throats. There is a saying "everything is fair in war and love". But is not really true. Most of it is only sparring. Check out what is happening on TV.

India Vs South Africa cricket series is playing out in South Africa and all other sports channels will try to divert our attention to their own programmes. They will show any other cricket match that is as close to India vs South Africa match as possible. Not that the viewers get confused easily, but it is par for the course.

Star Sports and Star Cricket are desperately trying to milk their contract with IPL for the next five years. They already have had prelude for the IPL auctions for 2018 season. They will try to prolong the auction process and the aftermath as much as possible. Trying to milk IPL when the Indian national team is playing does not cut much ice with the audience.  But they have nothing to lose and everything to gain, right!

But the TV channels are not really competitors! When one channel takes a commercial break – check out any other similar channel. All of them will be playing commercials. So as far as getting money from the advertisers all of them are on the same platform or frequency!

Most competition simply, is at the vey basic level and it is to get market share. Most companies maintain some sort of a status quo. When a huge controversy erupted in 2006 about presence of pesticide in Indian soft drinks, both Pepsi and Coca-Cola’s CEOs came on the same platform to address a joint press conference!

Yes, you have read it right! Pepsi and Coke on the same platform. And both companies proudly say in their advertisements that the cola wars are on and that they would not even utter each other’s names!

There was lot of back patting in that press conference and both the CEOs in unison were very magnanimous in declaring that their colas are absolutely safe. They finally hinted not so subtly that it is actually the contaminated ground water of India that is responsible for the pesticide in the colas and not their production process or their ingredients! And we continue to patronize the colas! Caveat Emptor!