Maintaining the envy

The latest issue of Outlook Business has an article titled "Resurrecting the Devil". This article talks about Onida and the position taken regarding the usage of devil and the tag line "owners pride, neighbours envy".

In course of the article, during the discussion on the decision by Onida to discontinue the devil, advertising consultant Gopi Kukde has been quoted as the devil being an idea and as such cannot get old.

The stance of Mr. Mirchandani is that with television being a commodity today, owning one is no longer an envy evoking event. Hence, the devil and the "envy" is not relevant today.

The way I see it, the discussion is not about the devil character or tv being a commodity. It is about ownership of an idea in the consumer mindspace.

Obama owns the word "change". Similary, Onida owns the word "pride" and more so the word "envy". Even today, more than a decade of the first envy advertising launch, a majority of todays buyers (30 to 45 year olds) would remember "owners pride, neighbours envy" and immediately associate it with Onida. This association is an envy of other electronics companies. How many of them can claim such a recall and association?

I find it disappointing that Onida is letting this association go to waste. If I believe Mr. Mirchandani, and I do so, television is a commodity. Fair enough. So ownership is not a cause for envy.

I would suggest that the Onida guys then seek out what would cause the envy in today's world. Somewhere in the article, there is a passing mention of Onida losing out on service. In today's world, where every house has a television set, some even more than one, the numbers game have set in big time. Each TV brand has lakhs of customers. Each customer is just a "customer id" to the TV brand.

In this scenario, if a company can treat customers on a more personalized level. That would sure cause envy.

Lets take Onida. I think a lot of customers would still have a functioning Onida TV. If Onida can trace these customers out and create a process of felicitating them and maybe even replace the TV sets with a LCD or LED TV. Keep communicating with them so that the neighbourhood is aware. That would create envy. And Onida can still claim ownership to the "envy" word.

How much would it cost? A TV ad costs around 3 to 5 crores. The mileage and ownership of envy word is worth not doing one such ad and still it would not cost 3 crores to create a "carnival" to replace the Onida TV sets.