‘The new logo of Give me Red manifests the promise of infinite power’-Anil Bajaj, Sr. VP, Marketing and Sales, Eveready Industries

25 years on and the tagline ‘Give Me Red’ is still going strong for Eveready Industries. A new brand logo, the company is betting big that it’s iconic tagline will continue to resonate with the consumers. Anil Bajaj – Senior Vice President – Marketing and Sales tells us about the brand’s po

by Simran Sabherwal
Published - October 30, 2018
5 minutes To Read
‘The new logo of Give me Red manifests the promise of infinite power’-Anil Bajaj, Sr. VP, Marketing and Sales, Eveready Industries

25 years on and the tagline ‘Give Me Red’ is still going strong for Eveready Industries. A new brand logo, the company is betting big that it’s iconic tagline will continue to resonate with the consumers. Anil Bajaj – Senior Vice President – Marketing and Sales tells us about the brand’s positioning, leveraging actor Akshay Kumar as a brand ambassador, maintaining its leadership position in the battery space and how the move to expand to the the appliances segment has paid off. It is 25 years since the Give Me Red' tagline came into play. How has the tagline and positioning helped brand Eveready? We are celebrating 25 years of the ‘Give Me Red’ tagline with a new logo that signifies more freedom and power to the youth. The tagline has a sturdy association with Eveready and accounts for instantaneous brand recall with the consumers. Moreover, it has been a powerful source of communication with rural and urban consumers in our country. It resonates with a generation – hungry for everything new and on the move. With Give Me Red, Eveready managed to address the requirements of young India. The 25 years’ milestone reiterates our commitment towards our continuous offerings that are reliable, trustworthy and authentic. Eveready was always synonymous with red batteries. However, over the years, we have evolved and made sure to have a positive influence on lives through our products. Give Me Red as the tagline connected well with the urban and rural population, it helped us maintain the industry leaders’ position. The strength, power, positive energy & the legacy of Give Me Red... we plan to pass on all of these and more, to our new businesses namely lighting & appliances. What was the insight behind the rebranding with a new logo? It is important to keep evolving from time to time and keep connecting with the consumer. The youth of today is looking for infinite & never ending power, the power to change his life and the power to change the world around him. Eveready, by way of its products and offerings gives to the consumer the power to make a positive change to his life. The new logo of Give me Red manifests the promise of infinite power. Very few brands have stuck with the same tagline/positioning for such a long period. Was there ever any attempt to change the positioning? Give Me Red signifies more power to the youth. Since it was the most powerful channel of communication that helped us connect very well with the audience, we didn’t feel the need to change our tagline. Give Me Red spoke the language of the consumers we intended to connect with. We have always kept ourselves abreast with the need of the hour through the Give Me Red campaigns. In the early nineties when the MTV culture was introduced, our campaign was also in sync with the youth of that times that connected with the rebellion culture and taken the country by storm then. That was 25 years ago and even today since the youth has more power thanks to accessibility to technology, we are communicating the same power to the youth through Give Me Red, which has also strengthened the brand’s positioning further.

Mr. Anil Bajaj, Sr. VP- Marketing & Sales with actor and brand ambassador Akshay Kumar.

How have you leveraged Akshay Kumar as a brand ambassador? Akshay Kumar is a youth icon and has a rural urban connect thanks to the kind of the movies he has been doing. As a brand ambassador,he could cut through the rural-urban divide and connect with masses and classes alike. We wanted to leverage on this aspect and hence made the decision to appoint Akshay Kumar as our brand ambassador. From the time he has come onboard,he managed to communicate the power and energy to our target audience that Eveready represents. What are the challenges in keeping the brand contemporary and relevant? Eveready has been here for almost 115 years, ever since 1905. Over these years, the brand has had to keep itself abreast with the changing needs of the consumer. The equipments, the way portable power is consumed and the way the consumer consumes the brand has gone through a sea change. Eveready has managed to maintain the leader’s position in the battery segment. Our focus is on adapting technology and making the product relevant to suit the requirements of the end consumer that keeps changing from time to time. What is your media mix? Earlier, television and print had been a big part of your media plans. How has this changed in the advent of Digital? We have had a significant presence on television and print. These mediums or channels have helped us to communicate with the consumer & strengthened our brand. With the wide availability of mobile telephony, increasingly the youth is seeking infotainment on the social media and that is where he is more accessible to communicate with. Eveready has also adapted to this change and is connecting to the masses thru digital. With the advent of digitization, different media platforms are being used to communicate with the end user. What is the size of the batteries industry in India? What is your market share? The battery industry in India is close to Rs.1,400 crores and we have a market share of 55%. It’s been two years since Eveready entered the appliances sector. How has this move worked so far? With an aim to extend our product portfolio, we entered the appliances segment. In this segment, we have a huge product range that comprises of air purifiers, cold press juicers, mixer-grinders, oven, toaster, iron and I must say this category is doing very well.Innovative products and an increased thrust on sales distribution, gives us the confidence to safely bet for this segment to double sales in the coming year and be a significant contributor to both our topline and bottom-line.      

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