KOCHI: If Kerala had just one or two brands about 15 years back - V-Guard and AVT, the last decade or so saw the emergence of a handful of national brands such as Eastern, Muthoot Finance, Mini Muthoot, Manappuram, Joy Alukkas, Josco, Federal Bank and South Indian Bank, among others. Anil James, chief executive officer of ‘Red Earth’, a creative and brand building firm, believes the branding scenario has undergone a sea change in the last 10 years, and more and more brands from Kerala will come out into prominence in coming years.
Red Earth was created by spinning off a separate division from ‘Exodus Communications Pvt Ltd’, a 25-year-old Kochi-based advertising and media buying company which has been confining itself to the role of media strategy and media planning for clients, exclusively to cater to branding. “Branding has become a specialised service, and hence the separate entity,” explains James, who is also the MD of Exodus. ‘Create, engage, inspire’, is Red Earth’s motto.
“Companies should treat the money spent on branding as an investment and not as an expenditure. We, for instance, would want only to work with clients who treat their spent on branding as investment,” says James.Red Earth, he says, has creative directors with a combined experience of 40 years, and the firm will be harnessing their expertise in advertising to build brands here. James sees small brands becoming big, some brands vanishing without a trace, and some brands which have the potential to make it big but not doing will with no proper brand guidance.
Already, Red Earth has clinched the contracts for Honda two-wheelers, Sunny Diamonds, and the pipeline of contracts is set to grow in coming months.“We are at a stage when the global brands are entering our markets at the same as their are available in New York, Milan or Paris. The challenge for the local brands is to fight these global brands and carve a niche for themselves here,” says James.
Kochi a hub for soft-skill jobs:
The Red Earth chief executive believes immense scope for Kochi to become a hub for soft-skill jobs such as creative works, advertising and branding jobs, in addition to the brand created for arts via the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. “As more brands emerge from Kerala, I strongly feel, Kochi will also, in the process, become a hub for soft-skilled jobs for branding and creative firms. The advent of TV, digital platforms and social media mean there will be serious competition for such branding business,” he reckons.
With the advent of internet and digital communication platforms, many national creative agencies would also look to allow its staff to work from locations such as Kochi. There are many Malayalees working in creative and advertising fields in cities like Bengaluru and Mumbai. It is possible that the growing cosmopolitan status of Kochi would lure these professionals back to their hometown in Kerala.