Don't carry flagship name throughout product portfolio: Trout

NEW DELHI: Global marketing strategist Jack Trout, who is working with the Bajaj Group on its motorcycle re-branding, on Wednesday had a few lessons for the Indian businesses.

Trout, credited with marketing classics such as 'The Battle for your Mind' and 'Marketing Warfare', said there are several Indian groups whose names are identified with product brands - the Bajaj with two-wheeler.

Such groups, while diversifying, need not carry the flagship brand to all the new areas, be it finance, insurance or electricals.

The family businesses, in particular, should have a holding company having different sub-brands under it so that each brand of the company is differentiated.

Giving a global corollary, Trout said Apple is the holding company and it has sub-brands like iPad, iphone and Mac.

He endorsed the Tatas' decision not to add the group name to its Jaguar and Land Rover, which it acquired in the UK.

"Any company, which has successful multi-brand operations and has a number of brands, needs to have a separation," he said at an interactive session organised by the CII.

Trout, with over 40 years of experience in advertising and marketing, said the key lies in differentiation, as he has highlighted in his another best-sellers, 'Differentiate or Die'.

"You have to have a brand in a certain segment, with segregation in terms of price, brand and product attributes," he said.

But then, marketing alone is not enough. The product must also have substance."If the brand product is not good, brand marketing can't do anything," he emphasised.