BRAND

FATIGUE
Case Study ONIDA

INTRODUCTION

Brand Fatigue can be explained as

personal loss of interest or
perceived value in a brand.

When brand fatigue sets in

creativity suffers and so does the
sales.

Some companies get bored with

their own brands. You can see this
happening to products which have
been on the shelves for many
years.

Today, I am presenting the typical

case study of Onida televisions.

ONIDA EARLY STORY

Onida, a leading television brand, is still

well known for its brand mascot - The
Onida Devil and its punch line Neighbors
Envy, Owners Pride. In the 1980s when
owning a television set was considered a
luxury, Onida launched its advertising
campaign on the platform of envy, to
promote its television range. A greenhorned devil with a long pointed tail was
the spokesperson in all its ad campaigns
till the 1990s. The Devil helped Onida
gain substantial market share and brand
recall among the customers and become
one of the top three television brands in
the country. In 1998, Mirc Electronics
(the owner of Onida brand) decided to
abandon the Onida Devil in its
communication campaigns as they felt
that the brand mascot no longer
appealed to the Indian consumer. A
classic case of brand fatigue..

er over a decade now the brand is suffering.

Onida withdrew the mascot citing the same
at they have given now. The explanation give
that Indian consumers no longer find Devil, w
Envy, relevant. So they scrapped the famous
ghbor's Envy, Owners Pride together wit
ever since it changed the tagline and mascot,
er found a powerful positioning .
ars of drifting around, Onida brought back the
much fanfare in 2004. Media and brand enthu
the move and eagerly awaited the Devil in a
odern avatar. But the comeback was damp
brand suffered heavily due to ownership issue
company. There was no brand promotion or
ct launches worth talking about since 2004.
re were launches, promotions were not suffici

Why Onida as a Brand is Ailing?

Internal management Problems:
One of the main reasons for this is the fight between
the brothers : Gulu and Sonu Mirchandani and their
brother -in- law Vijay Mansukhani over the control of
the Onida group. The fight has severely eroded the
share of the brand and even the marketing of Onida.
Onida was staging a recovery after the successful relaunch of the brand and the return of the Devil. But
the family feud has made things difficult for the
brand.
Frequent change in Advertising:
What is interesting about Onida is the branding. The
creative duty of the brand has partly moved from one
marketing agency to another i.e. from Rediffusion to
McCann Erickson. But as usual, when the agency
changes, the entire brand elements changes. For
Onida, the change till now unfortunately is always for
the worse.
When O&M took the brand from Avenues, the famous
tagline Neighbors Envy, Owners Pride and the Devil
was taken off. The brand suffered for almost 10 years
and has never recovered since .

The change of agency from O&M to

Reinfusion again changed things
and Devil returned in a new avatar
and a new tagline Nothing but the
truth has now come into
existence. The new arrangement is
not making things better. In 2007,
Onida launched a new campaign for
its A/C and with a new tagline It
can change your life. Now the new
campaign for the air conditioner
features a new Devil and the
tagline has again changed to
Experience the desire. Onida
which already is in deep trouble is
moving on to further confusion with
an unnecessary change in the
positioning strategy. The brand has
not been able to consolidate the
earlier theme based on Truth.
Even before establishing it, the
brand has repositioned again.

THE FOLLOWING FACTORS HAVE DILUTED ONIDAS BRAND

EQUITY:

Onida is proving to be a case

study about How to Mess up
a wonderful brand .As a
marketer, the ownership of the
brand should be with the
Company and not the agency.
But what is seen is that the
brand managers outsource the
strategy to the ad- agency.
Things are consistent till the
agency handles the account.
But when the agency moves
on, the new agency resist
continuing the existing
strategy since it was crafted by
the competitor. So whatever be

Comparison with competitors :Market characteristics

The consumer goods market in India is of USD 4.87
Billion.
Around 45 companies cater to this market. Onida is
having a very small share of this market.
In the Indian market space, Brand loyalty is giving way
to value-for-price contest.
There is an intense competition on price.
The companies are Companies focusing on product
differentiation, value added offerings and exchange
offers. The MNCs like LG, Sony, Samsung, Phillips and
Videocon command a high market share.These brands
score high on following factors:

Onida is now in one of the most difficult times. The

brand needs to come out with a product that will
change the game. Changing the mascot is secondary
at this point of time.
Marketing Mix:
Onida is facing a marketing problem along with
branding problem. Everything is fine with the brand.
People recognize the brand. The issue is on a larger
perspective. It needs to concentrate on its entire
marketing mix not just the brand elements. Onida
needs to convince the consumers that its products are
better designed and technologically superior. It is
about managing perception .Features can be copied
by competitors easily but changing perception is a
difficult task.