Murugappa on a branding spree

Well if we have ride Hercules cycles,ate Parry Sugar,drank parry agro’s tea /coffee or have a chola insurance then Murugappa has touched our lifes significantly.That’s what group claims  and yes its bet comes true “Bet we have met”.Its true and amazing that a corporate house is into so mauch diversified business.Murugappa a Chennai based conglomerate which is into Engineering, Abrasives, Finance, General Insurance, Cycles, Sugar, Farm Inputs, Fertilizers, Plantations, Bio-products and Nutraceuticals. “Tatas of South” are market leaders in 28 businesses and has manufacturing facilities in nearly 13 states.Hercules  cycles,Parry Sugar,Coromandel and Cholamandalam are so strong in their own business units and almost market leaders.Child brands have become so popular and so strong that people have almost forgotten the parent brand.So after years of sleeping  Murugappa group wake up finally.Murugappa group on a branding spree.It is promoting  the brand with great pomp and show and almost now in order to regain its lost identity.

There is a  classic example where child brand became more popular than parent brand .Coca Cola when it acquired Parle’s Thums up,Limca in 1970 it wanted to downplays the brand but the decision backfired it significantly.Afterwards Coke understood the importance or  the strongness of Thums Up and Limca and promoted it.Positive example of this kind of strategy is HUL where all the products are marketed in one single umbrella and both child and parent band(HUL) have significant mind share on consumers head. The Murugappa group has launched a series of 9 television commercials that seek to establish the link between the parent brand and its sub-brands and products.The ad specially focusses on encounters between people through which the connection with Brand Murugappa is established. Murugappa business card is the common visual property across all the ads.

Now question comes will this strategy work whether it will help parent brand or whether it will downplay the performance of major child brands.Murugappa has to constantly advertise and promote itself in order to strengthen its brand.The ad campaign should not  be done for a short period of time rather it has to constantly come up with innovative ad campaign and also become more visible in all forms of media in order to “Energize life in suprising ways”