Reliance Petrochemicals asked Mudra to design a Promotion campaign for its Rs .93-crore convertible debentures issue in 1988. Little did either party realise that they were on the verge of making advertising history Mudra, then still among the more unconventional agencies, decided it would adopt a radically different approach to the job.
The bourses were choc-a-bloc with a bewildering mix of new issues. Each preceded by what seemed a standard-format advertisements; the average investor was hard-pressed to tell one from another. True, the name "Reliance" did have a stand-out magnetic quality of its own. But around that time, the hitherto snow-white Ambani image was already beginning to show some stains. The ad-men felt the need to bolster the corporate name with another, equally potent, catchword. They found it in 'Khazana". The word, loosely translated as: 'Treasure Trove", mirrored every investor's ultimate fantasy. The "Reliance Khazana" was launched amid the sort of fanfare normally associated with the re-lease of a new toilet soap. Brand-Marketing had arrived on the stock markets. .
Today, with the benefit of hindsight, you may well wonder why it took so long coming. After all, brands have been around almost as long as commerce itself. Every businessman knows what brands are all about. Brands are distinctive, colourful. They are guiding lights in a world of complexity and multiple choice. They are symbols, whose possession confers a certain distinction on the owners. Brands do not merge indistinguishably into their environment—they stand out, even dominate it. Says B C Madappa, director of Corporate Voice (an MAA subsidiary): "A brand is not only a name...it is also the visual element, the prumonic. “ This has made them invaluable for a number of reasons, and they have been used, with a high percentage of success, to sell a vast variety of products. So why not share and debenture issues? Because, a couple of decades ago, such "vulgar" terms as "buy" and "sell" were rarely ever used in connection with public/rights issues. The investor’s community was small and its members were part of the Indian elite. They didn't "buy" issues—they attained a sufficient station in life to be able to "participate" in issues. You had to do the same if you wanted to join the group.
The consequence of this issue/ buyer relationship was that the buyer was made to feel that he was being entitled to a privilege, rather than simply purchasing issues. This changed early in the last decade, when the lure of the fast buck brought the middle class to the stock exchange. It quickly be-came known that anybody could invest in stocks. Canny entrepreneurs cashed in on this sentiment to mop up ready cash by launching issues for almost any project they could dream of. The investors' community swelled from the thousands to the lakhs as tales of easy millions made on the trading floors hit the headlines with astonishing regularity. Everybody wanted a piece of the action. Soon, there were so many investors, so many brokers and so many issues to pick from that new entrants began to get confused. Few knew how to read a corporate balance sheet. Fewer still understood the implications of the facts and figures (small-) printed on the prospectuses that were flooding the market.
Nitin Kotak, corporate manager (money market operations) for Classic Financial points out that since the Reserve Bank directives regulate fixed deposits, many features are common. This confusion brought branding to the bourses. Reliance Petrochem's example has been emulated so often over the last two years that it has no become a matter of course for companies to "brand" their public issues. Deepak Fertilisers "Deepak Mahadhan", Larsen and Toubro's "L&T Vision" Apollo Tyres' "Swarna Ganga", Usha Rectifier's "Usha Lakshmi", Bindal Agro Chemicals' "Oswal Goldmine", Modern Woollens' "Modern Magnetism" and Classic Financials "Safety Shield" each caught the imagination of the investing public. Of course, not everybody agrees branding financial issues is a good idea. Navin Suchanti, deputy managing director of Press-man, doesn't think brands 'achieve any meaningful purpose. "In an issue, an investor looks for security, stability and growth of his investment—none of these aspects is explained in the brands used." But the fact that so many large and solid corporations have gone in for branding should serve as ample proof of the need for brands.
Incidentally, it is no coincidence that all these were mega-issuers. As K Ravi, the man behind Mudra's "Khazana" experiment, puts it: "Branding should be attempted only for large issues; creating a brand costs a lot of money". The final result usually justifies the cost. The brands make the issues distinct where, in the old days, they would have been generic. They buzzwords and catchphrases projected the "personality" of the company concerned. They gave the average investor something simple and tangible to cling on to. But branded public issues, just longevity and reliability of the as branded soaps, don't always company making the issue, succeed. In 1989, DCL Polyester labelled its equity share issue, like rates of return, liquid and added, for extra good measure, a punch line: "Fashion for yourself an aura. It didn't work. Many thought the company, promotional campaign was in aid of a new fashion magazine! In branding terms, no one feature synthesises the underlying reputation, and personifies everything.