Jaquar revisits conventional marketing wisdom about brand extensions with a memorable campaign on IPL this season.
For the brand, the biggest thing to consider was how they could leverage the customer trust they enjoyed to getting into affluent homes and offices with their new product offerings.
Since the brand stands for superior product experiences and unmatched quality, the brand decided to focus on their specialist lighting products for homes, offices, and outdoor spaces, rather than their commodity retail product i.e. the regular LED bulbs or battens.
Consumer acceptance for a ‘new’ brand in lighting was always going to be a challenge, especially in Jaquar’s case, since it’s seen primarily as a bath brand. While people who engaged with the product saw the product superiority, the large masses of potential customers still remained unaware due to a strong association with the bath category.
For the business to leapfrog to a higher level in this category, the issue of brand salience for the category needed to the closed for good. The company decided to take the problem head on and address it through a new campaign.
Sandeep Shukla, Head of Marketing and Communications, Global Operations, Jaquar Group, says, “It’s always an uphill task to shift consumer perception, especially when a brand becomes synonymous with a category. India’s most loved bath brand needed a new identity encapsulation, which our agency Crescent compressed succinctly as Bath +Light. Disruptive communication was the need of the hour, and these 3 films have caught the attention of IPL viewers and I am certain this campaign will be remembered for a long time.”
The ad films have been conceived by a creative shop called Enormous who have worked for Jaquar on a project earlier as well. Talking about the campaign, Ashish Khazanchi, Creative Head, said, “Jaquar is a brand that we have always been extremely proud to work with. This one though was one of the most challenging ever. Most brands have elasticity of equity enough to extend into related and adjacent business. This brand extension was like chalk and cheese. Lighting and water products from the same brand. While the lighting business had done well, the perception and association of the brand with lighting was still a big challenge. We took this very insight and took the perception head on.”
The ‘Yahan kya chal raha hai’ film campaign, tickles audiences with a humorous script and raises awareness among Indian viewers about the company’s foray into lighting products. The current campaign can be seen during India’s most loved and watched program, IPL. The campaign’s media planning is managed by Crescent Communications.
