Anil Ambani's recipe for success
Four months ago, Anil Ambani hired€ Nielsen, the market research
agency, with a mandate to conduct research on how stakeholders and customers responded to the "Reliance" brand.the group will revamp signages in hundreds of Reliance Webworld retail outlets across the country, rework creatives for television and print, change the stationery and visiting cards of thousands of employees in various ADA companies and, of course, come out with an aggressive corporate campaign with a new punch line "Think Bigger", all across the country. The deadline for a complete roll out is expected to be in the next three months.
That's surely ambitious. And to ensure that everything moves smoothly, the group has set up a "brand council" consisting of marketing and brand professionals from various group companies as well as some senior executives of the group who have spearheaded the new brand
identity.
It has also taken external help. The group hired the US-based brand strategy outfit, Profit, with renowned brand guru David Aaker offering critical advice. And at the downstream level, it also hooked up with UK design house Landor (which also designed the "Indian" brand logo for Indian Airlines) to execute the design for the new logo.
So what necessitated the great brand identity makeover? After all, Reliance has been a solid brand, time-tested through the last three decades and has become a household name. The answer lies in the changing nature of Reliance ADA's
businesses.After the split, the Anil Ambani group now straddles businesses that are clearly focused on the customer and more at the retail level - mobile phones, power, financial services and insurance.The existing brand identity and logo was a powerful corporate brand conceived in a business scenario where the undivided group was largely into B2B businesses such as oil and gas and petrochemicals.But with the group split, it was felt that the nature of Reliance ADA's businesses demanded a more customer-friendly approach and also a brand identity, which could relate more to people and at the grassroots level.
So, it was felt that there was a need to create a distinct identity even while using the same name "Reliance". And that, it needed to break the clutter of existing and competing brands that were already there in the market.
There are other close Ambani watchers who, however, have a different view. They aver that more than being a brand trying to get close to its customers, the rebranding is an attempt by Anil Ambani to emerge from the shadows of his brother Mukesh.Whatever the reasons, the jury is still out on one of the most ambitious brand identity makeovers. And its success will depend not just on the external manifestation, but also its very ethos: importantly, on how quickly Anil Ambani and his team can make an organisational transformation from a traditionally manufacturing and commodity giant to a customer-friendly and services-focused conglomerate.