Categories
BookReview

Book Review: Storm the Norm

“Storm-The Norm” by Anisha Motwani tells the story of 20 Indian Brands.

The brands covered are:

  • PVR
  • MakeMyTrip
  • Radio Mirchi
  • Sprite
  • Axis Bank
  • XUV 500
  • Kurkure
  • Honda
  • Sensodyne
  • Idea
  • Ford EcoSport
  • Fiama Di Wills
  • Times of India
  • Cadbury Dairy Milk
  • Saffola
  • Dabur Real
  • Raymond
  • Tata Tea
  • Kissan
  • MTR

I particularly find the creation of brands very interesting-the amount of time,effort,energies,research and money to build a national brand is truly colossal.

Perhaps this explains why once a brand gets established, it becomes difficult to dislodge it and hence investors in companies with marquee brands have an advantage.

The author is successful in bringing “war stories from the sales field” to give the reader a flavor of sales and marketing.

One story that I found especially remarkable was that of Cadbury’s Diary Milk.

The Brand was more than 60 years old with slowing sales and the Company wanted to rejuvenate their brand.

Their research led them to this unique insight:

There is a significant difference in the cultural perspective on happiness between East and West.

In the West, happiness is to be found in personal striving and fulfillment of desires.

In the East, happiness tends to be defined in terms of interpersonal connectedness and social harmony.

Hence most happy occasions in India are collective-festivals,celebrations etc-and are ritually accompanied by sweet (meetha) consumption

Hence the brand shift from chocolate to meetha and their iconic campaign “Kuch Meetha HoJaaye !”

Do buy this book if interested in brands and marketing.

 

Categories
TopClicks

Top Clicks on Alpha Ideas This Week

Here are the most clicked on items this week on Alpha Ideas :

Top 20 Buys & Sells by MFs in May 2017 (AI)

Testing mattresses with Warren Buffett (AI)

Basant Maheshwari on how to spot a multibagger (AI)

Nilesh Shah Ko Gussa Kyon Aaya (AI)

Top 5 Holdings of Amansa (AI)

Top 5 Holdings of Cartica Capital in India (AI)

Ashish Chugh: What is a good management? (AI)

Equity Salesman Vs Equity Analyst (AI)

Ravi Adusumalli : India’s most successful tech investor (ET)

Why India’s loan problem is really bad (Tamal)

Categories
Links

Weekend Mega Linkfest: June 16, 2017

Some off beat reads for the weekend:

How Wells Fargo defrauded more than a million customers (VF)

How the US triggered a massacre in Mexico (Publica)

From Russia with blood (BuzzFeed)

Neel Kashkari is the Fed’s toughest internal critic (Businessweek)

NDTV frauds Vs Freedom (Mediacrooks)

The secret origin story of the iPhone (Verge)

Driving and camping in Scotland (TeamBHP)

Spoof: Hitler rant over “Vegetable Biryani” (Scroll)

Celebrating all things Peru (Nat Geo)

China’s dog meat festival (Forbes)

Fungus turns beetles into killer zombies (Live Science)

Koh-i-noor stories lose their shine (Flipboard)

21 long exposure photos that will blow your socks off (Light Stalking)

23 of the oldest color photos ever taken (Buzzfeed)

Bhojpuri Diary (Ravi Kishan)

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WhatILearntFrom

What I Learnt from Larry Benedict

Larry Benedict is the Founder and CEO of Banyan Equity Management

What I learnt from him:

Don’t put all your money or even most of your money in one idea-even though you think that idea can be a multi-bagger and can make you insanely rich…because you could very well be wrong

From his interview in the Book The Hedge Fund Wizards :

“Since I started in the business, I have seen a number of traders who ended up committing suicide or being homeless.

The one trait they all shared was that they had a gambler’s mentality.

When they were losing, they were always looking for that one trade that would make it all back.

I learned early on that you can’t do that.

This is a business where you have to work. I grind out the returns.

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Cartoon

Cartoon- All is Well