Jas Business Blog

My last post on eau de perfume had received quite many hits from India and quite a few lot even had a discussion it with me personally. What surprised me most was the interest level of people in these brands, even the mild ones. India being a climatically rough country does not hold itself in a very right perspective for milder tones of perfumeries. One can remember that when an Indian wears a perfume in some public function, one can smell it easily before one can see the person wearing it! Most of our scents scream rather than talk. And in case you have tried a mild one you will know that it won’t last even few hours and only person who can appreciate it then will be only you at the max.

But no, some people have worn these; others have tried it or at least appreciated it; and with India booming on the world tourism that actually comes as the by product. Not only are Indians thronging for packages to the tourist places all over the world, even the major names in this market are coming to India to have a promising Indian buyers. The north especially is targeted as they are the heavy spenders on personal grooming and not to forget the show offs. With money has come the need to maintain social status as most of the Indians care more about their image in society rather than one’s own individuality. But the younger generation is talking more and more of its personal yet private space and these are the consumers that look for something different, they may be happier experimenting for self rather than for others. (Such exuberance reminds me of Sushmita Sen than anybody else). But all in all they are all welcome customers for the fragrance giants who are looking at India as a high potential market. Fragrances are proving increasingly popular in India, as the population continues to increase its expenditure on increasingly sophisticated personal care products containing greater amounts of fragrance (check your consumption basket!)

A fortnight back I had gone to Hyderabad Central for a weekend hang out; I must say I was surprised to see the range and abundance of some of the best fragrances over there (first floor towards front exit). Even the latest ones could be seen lavishly exhibited there.

As for me I was taken aloft by Chanel’s Allure Sport. This Eau de Toilette is a 2005 Fifi award winner, and is really refreshing. It starts with a ‘fresh’ and fruity note and is really refreshing but then with time you can have it changed to base note quite fast. But make sure you are trying Allure Sport and not plain Allure Homme as latter is more like feminine scents of Allure range. So in case you end up buying latter one, you know, “I warned you!”

Allure Sport
Top Notes Aldehydes, Mandarin, Orange, Aquatic Note
Middle Notes Black Pepper, Neroli, Cedar
Base Notes Tonka, Vetiver, Amber, White Musk

In case the top note, middle or base note sound as jargon to you, let me explain what I have learned about scents. A fragrance is composed of three different ‘layers’ of scent called notes. It has top notes, which you smell as soon as you apply the fragrance; you have mid notes, which you smell in about 10 to 45 minutes depending on the fragrance, and then there are base notes, that stay on the longest, say hours. So when I said early in this post that we Indians wear screaming scents, it means we tend to choose fragrances with strong base notes.

Adobe released its Q3 earnings yesterday, amid all the eyeballs set on it it gave investors the earliest possible look as to how healthy the technology industry have been in Q3. The next-earliest major tech company to report earnings, as Utility Belt reports, is Oracle (ORCL), which releases its results on Thursday – but aside from that, no other big players is coming in until Intel (INTC) and Yahoo (YHOO) share their numbers on October 16.

With Q1 earnings of $649.4 million, Q2 at $745.6 million and Q3 at 851.7; Adobe sure is laughing its success of Creative Suite and Acrobat success. According to Bruce the company is poised to break the $3 billion revenue mark, and they’re positioned to achieve double-digit growth well into the future. Looking forward to the fourth quarter, Adobe said it expects revenue of $860 million to $890 million.

And according to him a majority of corporate customers still haven’t upgraded, which is surely a good sign for future revenue from CS3. The fact that the suites are doing better than the individual products shouls sound like a song to Adobe’s ears. Though the ability of Microsoft to wreck havoc on its revenue sources still troubles Adobe, still its happy as it has not rested on its prior success but is still thriving ahead to deliver better features to its users. No doubt more than 98.5 percent of people with computers have Flash player installed, and more than 90 percent of people with computers upgrade their player within a year of a new release*. Even Microsoft’s own MSN site has a lot of Flash on it,Bruce pointed out, demonstrating that Silverlight (Microsoft’s new competitor to Flash) is not yet there. Knowing there is a competition, still being miles ahead of it really should result in some nice strategic planning.

Being an ardent performer, Adobe is doing customer research on big customers who have not yet moved. Considering this information the company is gathering, and the fact that CS2 had performed for a long long time after its release, it seems CS3 will also go on to rake in revenues for a long long time. The next quarter will be an interesting one when most of the European and American firms will set aside their budgets for new product buying and upgrades. It would be interesting to watch the division of individual packages to suite buyers.

A list of few happenings at Adobe -
March – launched its Creative Suite 3 product line
May – announced that it has agreed to buy privately held media software company – Scene7
June – unveiled its Visual Communicator 3 software, designed to create video broadcasts
July - introduced its FrameMaker 8 software
Sep – announced the release of its Font Folio 11 software
and announced a tie up with BEA Systems Inc. (BEAS)

Sources:
Adobe website
Utility Belt
RTT News

Few years back I read a report detailing how HLL was considering to change its then green colored leaves logo to something that was closer to its mother brand Unilever, which itself was undergoing a plastic surgery for fresh image in consumer mind. Now HLL has changed to HUL, company board deciding to use the word Hindustan (with reports that its probably only occurrence in world that Unilever has allowed a local name). After each advertisement of a Lever’s product you can see the new ‘vitality’ filled sign of Unilever with Hindustan Unilever written below it. This branding fo corporate identity along with the brand makes sense for the obvious. But is it just because of changing corporate image or is due to higher competition in market? Is it that HUL now wants to leverage its larger than life corporate image and add the benefit to its brands?

In case you are ready to negate the argument then have a look at other happenings. Check the FMCG battlefield where the goriest of battles have been fought – soft drink industry. After the Pepsi ads you would now see the branding of PepsiCo. Post liberalization PepsiCo was allowed to use its international brand name in India (earlier it had to use ‘Lehar’ alongside), but since then it hasnt done any branding. Infact I was surprised to see the name PepsiCo used in US instead of Pepsi as the corporate name 3 years back, and here in India nobody had heard about PepsiCo! PepsiCo India even has its own website now, which I once tried to find helplessly 2 yrs back (for assignment purpose). The impact may have been because of pesticide issue.

Coke too has worked a lot for its corporate image with McCann Erickson, with Prasoon Joshi coming up with new ad line “Boond boond khushi khushi” or “Little drops of joy“. He was the one who changed Coca Cola’s fortune with hugely popular “Thanda matlab Coca Cola“. According to Joshi,

In a growing, constantly changing market like India, a brand needs to have an emotional connect. In small-town India, which is the next big market, marketers are constantly trying to find the right lingo that will guarantee the right connection. Boond Boond Khushi Khushi is their connect with the brand. One isn’t supposed to look at the drops in isolation, but see them as drops of a larger vision, aimed at mutual growth and development. Boond Boond Khushi Khushi will refresh the consumer on an everyday basis. We are not saying that Coca-Cola cause miracles. What is very real about it is that we don’t claim to transform lives but simply envelop a moment with joy.

The entire campaign, “Little Drops of Joy”, is based on moments of joy in the daily lives of consumers. The TVC portrays how little drops of Coca-Cola transform drab moments of life to a more cheerful one. One of these commercial opens with the shot of a couple, walking on the road and fighting over daily chores. Suddenly, drops of Coca-Cola engulf them and the boy spots a beautiful dress on a mannequin and decides to buy it for the girl in order to pacify her. The second section of the commercial shows an old Parsi lady in a pensive mood. Again, the bubbles appear and immediately the old lady spots her friend in a car and they go out. In the end the message appears: “Coca Cola India — Boond Boond Khushi Khushi.” If you ask me, my point will be that big things give you excitement but its the small things that make you feel happy and contended, hence crucial for branding.

Also, as part of its re-positioning strategy, Coca-Cola has revealed its five-pillar growth strategy, that of 5 Ps -

The company is testing a foray into dairy-based products as well as introducing in India energy drink major Glaceau’s brands that it recently acquired for $ 4.1 billion. This is in response to shift of Indian consumer towards healthy drinking habits. Pepsi had beaten Coke on this with its Tropicana range of juices. and with report of Pepsico India Holdings Pvt. Ltd., being close to purchasing a juice brand in India, the battle is surely gonna hot up

Now Keira Knightley is all set appear as the new face of Chanel,to launch an advertising campaign to promote the fragrance Coco Mademoiselle. Keira has replaced star model Kate Moss as the latest face of the firm. Chanel had earlier decided to abandon Kate Moss from its promotional campaigns after her drug scandal.

The second brand that has been catching my eye is the range of Bulgari (BVLGARI) which has come up with innovative designs of packing or ‘vials’. The packing of perfumeries is amazing to eyes and the olfactory organs of our body. I in particular liked the product on my right. An impressive packing, then the usage leads to a complete experience of having this perfume for self. Quoting from wiki, The company was founded in 1884 in Rome, Italy. The current flagship store was opened in 1905 by Bulgari with the help of his two sons (Costantino and Giorgio) and the store quickly became a place where the world’s rich and famous came for the unique, high quality jewelry designs combining Greek and Roman art. Although the company made a name for itself with jewelry, today it is a recognized luxury brand that markets several product lines including watches, handbags, fragrances, accessories, and hotels.

In Adobe we used to feel that almost every hardware job can be done in ‘soft’ way i.e. a software can replace almost any hardware. And I must point it out that if you start thinking, it’d be very hard to justify ‘almost’ here.

And today I struck upon this gold, Navizon, while browsing through the internet wormholes. Frustrated by low performance of GPS in congested cities, Houri and his fa wireless positioning system that works on Pocket PC PDAs by triangulating signals from Wi-Fi access points and GSM cellular towers which means in lay man term that it finds out the current position of gadget holder by location information sent by three different WiFi or GSM signals.

All the user needs to do is to load the software on a Pocket PC with built-in GPS and, ideally, both Wi-Fi and cellular phone functionality. wi-fiplanet.com explains the functionality as.

“As you walk around your city, the device receives broadcast signals from Wi-Fi access points – hotspots, home Wi-Fi networks, company WLANs, Navizon adds cell towers to the mix. The Navizon software takes signal strength measurements from the built-in Wi-Fi and/or cellular radios – at three different locations for each AP or tower detected. Since Navizon knows its own location from the Pocket PC’s GPS, the readings of signal strength are enough, using sophisticated algorithms, to triangulate the position of each AP or tower. The software then records those locations. The Navizon software does all of this automatically. Once the software has built a database of local AP and tower locations, it can accurately calculate its position by triangulating from three or more of them – again by measuring signal strength and applying proprietary algorithms. It works even when GPS doesn’t”

Registering as a user at the Navizon site, which one can do for free and without downloading any software, gives access to the Google Maps the Navizon software uses. One can now define a region by clicking at opposite corners of an imaginary rectangle and see a display of all the known APs and towers in that area. Their locations show up as map pins – red for GSM, green for Wi-Fi.

MSNBC has already said that Microsoft is also planning a similar system of positioning, by recording the position of every address on a giant map, it had created a positioning system that would make it possible for anyone with a WiFi-enabled laptop computer to identify their location to within 30.5 meters.

With GPS systems giving low performance, this methodology for positioning may soon be in vogue.