We’ve seen 40-50% y-o-y growth in the last 6-8 quarters:Gunjan Srivastava

Bosch Household Appliances has launched a new marketing campaign – ‘No Damage’ – for their latest range of washing machines. The new ad campaign is based on the universal insight that most consumers are concerned about their expensive and new clothes being damaged during the washing cycle in a machine. Therefore, they prefer hand washing or dry cleaning their valuable clothes to prevent the damage and preserve their clothes for a longer duration.

Bosch’s new TV campaign has been conceptualised, created and executed by BBDO Singapore, with an effective media strategy recommended by Mediacom.

Based on customer behaviour, the TVC gives a twist to household woes in a humorous yet charming way.

The TVC informs about the Variodrum Technology in Bosch’s washing machines that has a unique droplet wave technology on the drum that helps combat a rough wash. As the drum spins in one direction, the flat side of the paddle inside the drum provides gentle cleaning for fine textiles. In the opposite direction, the steep side of the paddle ensures intensive cleaning for heavily-soiled garments. The wave-droplet design overall improves cleaning performance by providing additional surface contact with soiled garments in both directions for an ideal wash. All in all not damaging them.

The TVC, which went on air initially in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, went pan India from the first week of July. The approach has been focused on targeting general entertainment channels, news channels & movie channels to create the needed impact and reach for the campaign.

This campaign will also be supported with print in leading dailies, digital (social media, YouTube, online banners), OOH, ads in cinema theatres, innovative point of sale material at shopfloor.

Commenting on the launch of Bosch’s ad campaign, Gunjan Srivastava, MD & CEO, BSH Household Appliances Manufacturing, said, “With the extensive customer research conducted, we realised that most customers do not prefer using washing machines to wash their new and expensive clothes as they fear spoiling them. As pioneers in the home appliances industry, Bosch addressed this very problem and came up with our new range of washing machines to solve the issue. This is Bosch’s way of trying to make the customers life stress free and simple with no compromise on quality or performance. We, therefore, made a connection with the consumers to ensure them that our German technology based washing machines provide extensive care to their clothes.”

He added, “Based on customer behaviour, we have given a twist to household woes in a humorous yet charming way. We are confident this new campaign will resound with our customers.”

Watch the TVC:
https://youtu.be/ecKTKRRwKOk

Client speak

Gunjan Srivastava, MD & CEO, BSH Household Appliances Manufacturing

What is the insight behind the campaign?
The concept & insight was based on a validated consumer study that revealed that people would rather hand wash or dry clean their new and expensive clothes than entrust them to a washing machine for fear of spoiling them. The campaign set out to convey the benefit of ‘no damage’ to reassure consumers that the new range of Bosch washing machines with the unique Variodrum wave droplet design was capable of washing their clothes gently, but thoroughly, even after frequent washes.

Rational and concept behind launching the new ad and marketing campaign?
We thought this ‘trust issue’ that people had with washing machines had interesting creative possibilities. Keeping the central theme of ‘no damage’, we worked backwards and constructed various relevant and relatable family scenarios, one of which is what you see.

What was the creative brief shared with the agency, BBDO Singapore?
The brief given to the agency was to bring alive the proposition and idea of ‘No Damage’ to new and expensive clothes. And highlight a creative set-up wherein this tested insight around ‘No Damage’ comes in the forefront. This was intentionally done so that the brand can create a unique positioning story within the category and in turn deposition our competition who usually focus on the hygiene category codes across advertising.

How has Bosch been performing? What have been its revenues in the last financial year?
In the last 6-8 quarters, our growth has been clocking about 40-50 per cent year on year and we are gaining market share and growing faster than the market in all categories we are present in.

How has the household appliances sector been performing in India in terms of annual growth figures?
This will have to qualify as an estimate; 8-10 per cent in value year on year.

You have come up with a range of appliances like washing machine, fridge, ovens, etc.? Which of these are the highest growth drivers for Bosch?
Washing machine has been the biggest contributor amongst the others, but we have seen growth in all the categories. The growth has been in high double digits.

What is the next area of growth that Bosch is focusing on? What are your expansion plans for the Tier 2 and 3 as well as rural markets?
We are currently focusing on our top 200 cities and in the next 2-3 years we want take this to 300 cities. We have a clear strategy of expanding our exclusive brand stores for both Bosch and Siemens from 60 to 200 in the next two years across all metros.

What is your marketing budget for the forthcoming festive season? What plans have you drawn up for the festive season?
We are planning to continue our ‘No Damage’ campaign. We are also planning to do festival-related campaigns for all categories. We will be investing more than industry standards for our campaigns.

What is the future growth roadmap for Bosch?
Our future road map includes being a leading player by 2025. Our short term goal is to have high double digit growth in the next two years.

Who do you consider to be your closest competitor? And what are the strategies undertaken to stay ahead of them?
We do not have one specific competition as we are present in various categories. The competition differs from category to category. We look at the consumer needs and the market needs to provide the best to our customers.

Bosch has a certain perception around the brand or the brand image. Do you plan to move out of that image and engage a more mass kind of a TG?
Bosch brand stands for credibility, trust, durability, strong performance and quality. We would like to reinforce that we are a German engineered company which believes in providing the best for its consumer. We would like be the company who consumer finds a strong friend in.

When was the last time you had released a campaign?
We had launched the last TV campaign in 2012. We have been doing print campaigns every year.

Agency speak

Ravi Eshwar, Creative Director, BBDO SG

What is the creative insight behind the campaign?
Our approach here was very simple. We wanted to showcase a moment between a husband and wife, which was centered around some level of humour and interplay between them to land our proposition of ‘No Damage’. And through this process showcase how the woman of the house is the one who is most aware of what’s right her home and family. And in turn reinforce the point that the husband and wife’s relationship is one of equals.

Please take us through the process from creative ideation to the final execution of the videos.
The creative ideation process threw up multiple creative zones to explore around ‘No Damage’. But before eradicating anything out of the list, we put the creative executions to test to evaluate areas of improvement and which creative space bought alive our proposition in the best possible way. Once we narrowed down on this basis the consumer’s validation, the fun kicked in identifying the right directors and photographers to work with to make our creative concept look beautiful in the execution. And what you see today across the market is an outcome of this entire exercise.