Keeping pace with the current industry trend and taking the UltraTech brand to a new pedestal, the group decided to have one national brand. Birla Plus with its very strong presence in the North was a very well known brand. Its tag line 'Har Nirman Ki Jaan' and 'Is cement mein Jaan Hain' had become household phrases. Observes Mr. Puranmalka: "We opted for UltraTech as the national brand because while on the one hand, it gives us the opportunity to strengthen common attributes of a premium brand, scale of operations and the Aditya Birla Group's reputation, it also provides an opportunity to build on the positioning platform of 'expert' and imagery signifying 'progress', 'cutting edge technology' and 'modernity'.

While highlighting the need to present a single and unified brand identity across the country, Mr. Puranmalka stressed the fact that with this change, only the name of Birla Plus was being changed to UltraTech Cement and the core values and fundamentals on which Birla Plus was built will remain the same. "While both the brands have different identities and personalities, the core or the soul of both the brands is the same - i.e., Aditya Birla Group's lineage, superior product quality, premium cachet, trust and reliability. That is not changing and therefore our campaign is centred on the theme of 'Jaan Wahi, Pehcaan Nayi'," says Mr. Puranmalka.

IIndia, the world's largest producer of movies in as many as 10-12 different languages, provides a great opportunity for advertisers to reach the masses. Films are a great entertainment platform for most Indians. Many FMCGs have encashed this opportunity. The in-film branding opportunity was used by UltraTech for the first time ever in the cement industry. The film Chak De India, promoting women's hockey in India, became an all-time hit. In the movie UltraTech was the sponsor of the Indian women's hockey team. UltraTech branding was all over, throughout the movie. 'It was a big gamble we took," says Mr. Puranmalka. "Initially we were sceptical, with many big banners with big stars failing in the recent past. After a lot of deliberation, we decided to go ahead with this gamble and finally Chak De India almost became like a national anthem, with India winning the women's hockey title in reality and our cricket team winning the inaugural 20-20 World Cup."

Measuring effectiveness
"Once the goals are well defined we need to measure the effectiveness of all such initiatives that are undertaken from time to time," says Mr. Puranmalka. "We are research-savvy in our approach. We go into minute details to find out the cause and effect, keeping the larger picture in mind." This is true right from the selection of the brand name UltraTech to ad campaign testing, media effectiveness and so on. Regular Brand Health Monitoring studies are undertaken to understand various critical issues like awareness, usage pattern, equity indices, psycho-economic mix of the target group (TG), etc. Mr. Puranmalka adds: "Recently we initiated and completed a customer satisfaction survey to understand the expectations of customers and benchmark with the best in the industry. Of course there are some insights, which we need to address internally, but overall we are happy with the outcome. The results are very encouraging and you would be glad to know we are steering ahead of competition."

While the economy is growing, timely completion of infrastructure projects has become more challenging. With emerging technologies, one no longer has to maintain huge stocks of cement and allied products, create chaotic environment and increase costs; ready-made concrete is the answer. The company forayed into the ready mix concrete about eight years back. With its first plant commissioned in Hyderabad, ready mix concrete was sold as a brand, 'Birla Ready Mix'. True to its tagline 'concrete on call', the company was able to capture the imagination of customers and service them round the clock. "The concept was new then," says Mr. Puranmalka. "It was more of concept selling than a product. We had to tailor-make our communication around issues in comparison with the site mixed concrete, quality consistency, concrete testing facility, ease of handling, technology, etc. In a very short time Birla Ready Mix Concrete became a generic name. The success of the brand led to the opening of a few more plants in Hyderabad itself and expansion to other states pan-India. With the transition of Birla Plus to UltraTech Cement, even Birla Ready Mix Concrete was rechristened UltraTech Concrete'.

"Our UltraTech concrete plants are present in Mumbai, Pune, Nasik, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Surat, Gurgaon, Noida, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Cochin, Vizag, Ludhiana, Raipur and Kolkata and many more are coming up," says Mr. Puranmalka.

Keeping in tune with the latest technology, UltraTech Concrete offers speciality concrete like UltraTech Fibrecon, a fibre reinforced concrete, UltraTech Free flow, UltraTech colorcon, UltraTech stainless, a corrosion resistant concrete, and UltraTech Thermocon. This wide array of choices will help customers choose the right type of concrete that suits their construction needs.

UltraTech Cement has 11 integrated plants, seven split grinding units and five bulk terminals, including one in Sri Lanka. UltraTech is India's largest exporter of cement and clinker. The total cement capacity of the Aditya Birla Group is 31million tpa.

O.P. Puranmalka: Brand UltraTech
Excerpts from an interview with O.P. Puranmalka, Group Executive President,
Grasim Industries and Chief Marketing Officer, UltraTech Cement Ltd.

Why are you opting for a single national brand?
Cement is an integral part of the Aditya Birla Group's business and a clear focus area. The integration into one national brand is proof of that and a signal of the Group's commitment to take it further. The new beginning with UltraTech Cement as a national brand for the Group will not be a departure from the fundamentals that created Birla Plus. In fact, it will be an acceleration of that.

We would like to present a common and unified brand identity across the country. We have therefore chosen UltraTech Cement as the national brand for the Aditya Birla Group's cement business. Presently, we have two power brands in the country, but they operate in different markets and neither of them is a pan-India brand, in the real sense. While both the brands have different identities and personalities, the core or the soul of both brands is the same, i.e. the Aditya Birla Group's lineage, superior product quality, premium cachet, trust and reliability.

Since the DNA of the brands is same and the core promise of the brands is also similar, we felt that we would be better off with one national brand. With over 25 million tonnes per annum volumes, we now have UltraTech as the single largest cement brand in the country. With a single brand, it is easier to enter the hearts and minds of the consumer. We feel that combining the strengths of the two brands and two teams will have a multiplier effect on the quality of our service and therefore the brand equity.

Why are you not using the “Birla” brand name?
As mentioned earlier, the Aditya Birla Group's lineage is our core strength and the UltraTech brand also has benefited from this association.

While for the product brand name we are not using the "Birla" brand name, but in all our communication, whether to mass media like press, television, outdoor or retail branding, the Aditya Birla Group lineage comes across very strongly.

In fact, that is why we used the Jaan Wahi, Pehchhan Nayi as our campaign theme. It is a change we are making with great care, as we do not wish to jettison the strengths we have currently and move to unchartered territory. The core of Birla Plus' positioning - trust, reliability and the Aditya Birla Group's lineage - will continue in its new avatar, i.e. UltraTech. The change will add and not subtract from the equation.

Will there be financial / economical gains due to the single national brand?
As pointed out earlier, the single national brand exercise is aimed primarily at developing a common and unified brand identity across the country. This exercise is not driven by financial gains.

How different were the two brands and how do you see UltraTech evolving post this transition?
Birla Plus had evolved into a significant brand and it stood for a set of values of simplicity, smartness and reliability. With our campaigns of establishing it as Har Nirmaan Ki Jaan we brought in a bit of gorgeousness and lot of charm into the brand whereas UltraTech Cement was a brand on its own without any history. Our brand track researches suggest that it is probably the fastest growing cement brand in terms of equity and brand awareness.

By combining the soul of Birla Plus with the imagery of UltraTech, the brand will be distinctive and powerful, have distinctive lineage, with clear "technology" perceptions. In other words, we see UltraTech as being truly competitive, differentiated and having a strong and clear equity. The UltraTech brand aims to generate its strength by creating and consistently delivering distinctive performance benefits with compelling emotional benefits found in the brand personality.

Nothing much will change after this brand name change. Birla Plus will now be known as UltraTech cement and that is the only change. The same state-of-the-art technology will continue to provide the same unmatched quality. The same team of efficient technicians will manage these production facilities to provide a world-class product that consumers have been used to all these years. The same committed and dedicated field force will be there in the market to provide the same level of customer care, which has made this product so loved by consumers.

Therefore technically speaking it is not a new brand but only a new name for Birla Plus. Nothing else has changed and hence Jaan Wahi, Pehchaan Nayi.

What is the risk that the premium enjoyed by Birla Plus brand will not be lost in this brand transition?
Since essentially the Jaan of the brand is not changing and we are only giving it a new Pehchaan, we are confident that there will be no dilution in either the volumes or the premium commanded by the brand.

A brand, as perceived by the only legitimate judges - our customers - is the sum of all their interactions with our company. Every place a customer can interact with our company is a touch point, and that touch point affects how we are perceived. A poor experience with one touch point can negate all the brand equity we build in other touch points. The premium is built on the basic characteristics of the brand. This basic character has its origin in the people who own the brand, the internal processes that support the brand and the trade partners who distribute the brand.

As I have said at various points the only thing that will change in this entire process of transformation is the name of the brand and everything else remains the same. The premium quality, the enormous technological backing, a dedicated team of technicians and managers and a commitment to serve the nation was what made Birla Plus so successful. Added to this were a team of dedicated, committed and resourceful trade partners and other service providers. This combination was responsible for placing Birla Plus cement so high in consumers' estimation and that combination is still intact.

Will you have a common team to look after the brand and what will the advantages of that?
With a common team looking after one national brand, we would be in a better position to provide a synergistic, consistent and superior service across the country. A common team has already been put in place internally. These teams are now building on each other's strengths, providing knowledge integration and exploiting synergistic opportunities. We now intend to take this forward to our team of dedicated, committed and resourceful trade partners and other service providers.

What are your major markets and where do you plan to expand?
With this brand transition of Birla Plus to UltraTech, the brand UltraTech Cement enjoys a leadership position in practically all the markets it sells in. It also becomes the single largest cement brand in the country with a pan-India presence. We plan to consolidate our leadership position in these markets and complete the process of transition to UltraTech in the next few months. Certain capacity expansions have already been announced. We will be adding 15 million tonnes capacity in 2008-09.

Ready Mix Concrete is a key focus area for us and we have lined up expansion plans for this business.

How are you going to generate awareness about the brand?
Instead of focusing the brand essence on merely product attributes or brand personality, a conscious effort is being made to focus brand essence on a set of touch points through which the brand can deliver a consistently distinctive and inspiring customer experience.

We have planned a series of product awareness launches across the country over the next couple of months. These ground events will be accompanied by road shows to create awareness about the product amongst consumers and trade partners. We will also organise technical meets with dealers, stockists, retailers, individual house builders, engineers, architects, masons and contractors to reassure them that UltraTech will have the same quality that they have come to expect in a premium product. In addition, a brand new television commercial, an innovative press campaign and creative usage of outdoor media will also be helping spread awareness about the new product.

What kind of marketing spends are envisaged in next few months?
The strength of such brands is matched only by the speed at which they are being built. Given the scope and scale of the brand leverage effort, an attempt has been made to build a much tighter link between corporate strategy and brand strategies. The brand is being seen as an asset that can drive growth and its positioning reflects not only existing markets, but also emerging opportunities.
The spending on the brand is being truly viewed as an investment in a dynamic asset that can be leveraged into new offerings, markets and audiences. The spending on the brand will be enough to communicate the transition and will not be wasteful.

Since Birla Plus cement had developed strong personality dimension, it was decided that UltraTech would appropriately maintain a focus on the core personality elements to ensure that there is no dilution in core equities during the re-naming exercise.

The agency was asked to design communication at all touch points to effectively communicate that the only thing that has changed in this entire process of transformation is the name of the brand and everything else remains the same. Hence the campaign - Jaan Wahi, Pehchaan Nayi.

The brief also ensured that in this process of transition, none of the values or attributes should be lost or diluted. The communication had to be designed in such a manner.

What is the industry scenario for 2008?
The continued emphasis given by the government in the recent past on the development of infrastructure like roads, ports and urban infrastructure like flyovers, etc. means that cement demand will continue to rise. Similarly, developments in the housing (especially rural housing) sector have also added to the growth of the cement market. This is in spite of the fact that the per capita consumption of 110 kgs is below the world average of 356 kgs and far below that of the Asian economies like China and South Korea. This provides a tremendous opportunity and the cement sector is poised for exponential growth. We may witness continued consolidation efforts in the industry.