Global brands battle for local market

Giant dummy bottles of Sunsilk shampoo are on display in Dhaka (top left); A successful campaign for Nokia. The “Lost in Translation” campaign targeted the local people using common rhetoric to promote Nokia handset. The ad slogan reads: 'If you don't have it you will regret ’ (bottom left); Aly Zaker, MD of Asiatic JWT (top right); Gousul Shaon, GM of Grey Dhaka (middle right) & Ashraf Kaiser, CEO of Benchmark (bottme right)

You can't miss them. Ten foot high coloured plastic shampoo bottles have been sprouting up at road junctions and prime points throughout the country as part of one of the largest advertising campaigns the country has ever seen.
And if by any chance you do avoid the dummy yellow, orange, black and blue bottles of Sunsilk shampoo, there are always the more than half a million billboards, the newspaper adverts, and radio and TV spots, all imploring women to use the product under the slogan, 'Life can't wait.'
Bangladesh is not alone in being subjected to the blitz of shampoo bottles, from Latin America to Thailand, Unilever, the multinational behind Sunsilk, has relaunched the brand in 15 countries.
Yet, while a decade or so ago Bangladesh may have been seen as an afterthought in such a campaign, the sustained period of economic growth has turned the country into a valuable market for multinationals, with customers they are prepared to battle for.
Aly Zaker, managing director of Asiatic JWT, said the market started growing in the late '80s, when the open market economy became established and people began to have a little cash to spare to spend on non essential products.
“Then it was fueled by the fast moving consumer goods sector FMCGs, items such as shampoo and toothpaste. Producers started targeting people form all classes, even the poor rural women,” said Aly.
He said FMCG producers then started selling shampoo and toothpaste in mini sachets, a move that stimulated the advertising market by introducing competition between companies.
“The idea of consumerism had started in Bangladesh and this caused the growth of the ad market,” said Aly, adding that the criteria of consumerism is a demand for non essential goods supported by enough money in the pocket to buy them, as well as a competition by producers to reach the consumers.
Since the mid 90s the speed of growth has picked up with an advertising market worth around Tk150 crore in 1996-97, now estimated to be worth between Tk 1000-1200 crore a year.
In the past few years the power of competition in driving the advertising market has been best demonstrated by the country's mobile phone operators who are now by far the country's largest advertising spenders. According to research published in the magazine of Bangladesh Brand Forum, last year five of the top six advertisers were mobile operators with Grameenphone the country's largest spender.
“As the telecom market expanded in recent years and competition with other operators increases day by day, Grameenphone has to spend more on adverts,” said Talat Kamal, Grameenphone's communication manager.
Such growth has not gone unnoticed outside of the country and international ad agencies have been eager to enter the market, either by opening branches or affiliating with local agencies.
For example in March Ogilvy and Mather, a high profile international ad agency, merged with local agency Marka and started direct operations in the country.
“As the Bangladeshi market has grown in recent years, with its huge population, we were very keen to start operating in the market,” said Miles Young, chairman of Ogilvy and Mather.
Fahima Choudhury, managing partner of Ogilvy and Mather Communications, said global partnerships helped bring new investment, new ideas and new jobs to the country.
Indeed most of the country's top ad agencies are now affiliated with international agencies; Asiatic with JWT, Adcomm with Low, Unitrend with Mccann Ericsson, and Benchmark with TBWA.
Ashraf Kaiser, CEO of Benchmark, terms these affiliations as part of a business strategy and said such affiliation is lucrative for both sides, as foreign agencies are eager to operate in local market and at the same time the local agencies are getting multinational clients.
Kaiser also said Benchmark will become a global partner of New York- based international ad agency TBWA this month.
But it is not just in size that the Bangladeshi market has developed. The country is now producing talented professionals able to hold their own on the international stage.
Grey Dhaka, a global partner of Grey international, won an Asia Pacific Effie award, in February for its successful campaign for Nokia, the world's number one mobile handset maker.
The “Lost in Translation” campaign targeted the local people using common rhetoric to promote low priced handsets with a Bengali keypad.
“We tried to campaign in local voice with the insight of a true Bengali at heart,” said Gousul Alam Shaon, General Manager of Grey.
“Getting a prestigious award and bringing success to the country, is really inspiring,” he added.
There have been other examples of attempts to promote international brands using a local voice, such as Close Up toothpaste, Wheel soap and Coca Cola. The Coca Cola ad was made in Dhaka's traditional local accent, popular at the time. Most recently multinational GSK used a local campaign for its malted health drink, Boost.
But not all multinationals are so keen to adapt, fearing that different campaigns in different countries could corrupt the value of a global brand. There are also clear economies of scale in using the same material in several markets.
In marked contrast to the Nokia adverts, Sunsilk's campaign is now running across three continents with only slight variations. For example in South Asia Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra replaces Colombian singer Sakira as one of the brands icons.
In other words you will have to travel a long, long way to escape those ten foot high plastic bottles.

[email protected]