By Yohan P Chawla
One of the most popular battery brands for long now, Eveready is celebrating 25 years of its iconic presence in India, and the company which for quite some time now has been exhorting consumes to demand its brand with its screaming ‘Give me Red!’ tagline, has now rebranded itself with a new logo. The refreshed look for Eveready Industries India Limited’s brand logo for Eveready, symbolizes more power and freedom to the youth. It was unveiled by Bollywood Actor Akshay Kumar, who has been its Brand Ambassador for eight years running.
Speaking on 25 years of Give Me Red, Amritanshu Khaitan, Managing Director, Eveready Industries India Ltd., said, “The brand EVEREADY is synonymous with power and energy. Over the years, the brand has evolved to address the needs of young India and speak their language. 25 years of ‘Give Me Red’ is a milestone which we are extremely proud of. It reiterates our commitment to ensuring that every Eveready product is trustworthy, reliable and authentic.”
On the sidelines of the rebranding announcement, I caught up with Anil Bajaj, Sr. Vice President – Marketing and Sales, EIIL, to understand how the brand has evolved, along with some consumer insights, and what lies ahead for Eveready, which has now ventured into electrical appliances too.
A 100 Year Old Brand
“The brand Eveready and our company EIIL started in India in the year 1905.” Bajaj said. “It has always been associated with some celebrity for endorsements, and the marketing game has always been on. In 1992 the market of GMR was highly rural because of the consumption patterns. The brass torches, D sized batteries were all being used in rural India. Around mid-90s was the when urban India started using batteries. With the launch of TVs, Walkman and cameras picked up steam, and started urban consumption which led to urban consumers looking for portable power, and that was the time when we had started getting top-of mind recall — If it was batteries, it was Eveready.”
25 years of GMR- Give Me Red
Speaking on GMR’s journey, Bajaj said, “In the last 25 years, 25 times there have been temptations to change ourselves. Every new product manager or new people in the creative team have wanted to express themselves and bring about changes to the brand. It has been a very difficult decision to hold on to give me red, but it has paid off. Whatever we have communicated over the last 25 years, has been under the Give Me Red umbrella and that umbrella has been evolving in the sense that it has been becoming more relevant and it has been connecting with the youth from time to time. We have extended GMR to other product launches under the same umbrella.”
Active across all media
Sharing an interesting insight, Bajaj, said, “Consumer insights have shown 74% plus top of mind recall for Eveready. Ask anyone about Give Me Red today, and they will immediately connect it with Eveready. So these two things have become so synonymous with the category that I don’t need to mention batteries anywhere. The positive rub off from our batteries is coming on to our other products.”
On connecting with the youth, Bajaj said, “We connected with the youth 25 years ago, and ever since, we have been platform-agnostic to make sure that we are visible to the youth wherever they go, keeping ourselves relevant to them. We have a strong online presence, rightly so in the present time, when digital plays a key role in reaching out to the target audience. However, that doesn’t keep us away from the traditional mediums of TV/Print, radio and on-ground, because those are still the largest mediums to spend on, but online will definitely have an increased share in our marketing spends.”
The way forward
Commenting on the way forward for Eveready, Bajaj said, “So far our efforts and revenue generation has been from our battery and torch segment. Increasingly we are trying to focus on our lighting business, if one has access to electricity, use our lighting products, and if one doesn’t have access to electricity, then use our torches and batteries. Either way please use Eveready. Our product portfolio has been widening. Appliances too, should give us a much larger market share in the near future. We have been in the appliances business for about two years now, and we are already in the top 5.
We shall continue to grow confidently.”
