Around 13 years ago, Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) defined its core purpose inspired by Akio Morita, founder of Sony Corporation. Its tag-line read – “Indians are second to none in the world.” While Sony Corporation represented Japan as the best in the world with its world-class products, M&M wanted to do the same with its products for India.

With this core purpose and global ambitions, M&M grew rapidly to a $7.1-billion automobiles-to-IT conglomerate since its founding in 1945. With businesses expanding to newer geographies (Mahindra Group has a presence in 79 countries around the world), 10 per cent of M&M’s workforce comprised of non-Indian employees. The tag-line no longer suited a global multinational company with customers all around the world. Mahindra chose to reposition itself based on employee, consumer and customer feedback and hired StrawberryFrog, a New York-based global advertising agency.

New branding called Rise

M&M had never communicated through a single brand umbrella across its segments such as aerospace, automotive, farm equipment, IT and logistics. The need for one brand voice spanning geographies was evident in capturing global markets. After a nine month search the company chose ‘Rise’ which the group’s vice chairman and managing director Anand Mahindra believes is not a word but a rallying cry that will give an opportunity to become tomorrow’s company. The word ‘Rise’ was chosen after customers around the world expressed a common desire to rise and to succeed.

Spirit of ‘Rise’ – Three Brand Pillars

Rise is based on three brand pillars –

1. Accepting no limits
2. Alternative thinking
3. Driving positive change

By incorporating Rise into its performance management systems, M&M wants to allow its employees to perform better and succeed. The company plans to spend about Rs 120 crore over three years to promote its new brand positioning.

This case study/article, titled Rise Mahindra Rise – Brand Makeover and Positioning, was originally published at Casestudyinc.com.

Dominant in the telecommunications services market, Bharti Enterprises, the telecom giant has unveiled its vision for 2020. Its latest brand identity attempts to reflect its intent to grow its other businesses such as financial services, retail and agri-business.

New Brand Identity and Brand Essence

In early Novemeber (2008), Bharti Enterprises, the Indian business conglomerate with revenues at over Rs. 30,000 crore, unveiled a new brand logo and brand identity. With its new brand identity, Bharti plans to announce its strategic intent to create a conglomerate of the future. The new brand essence – "Big Transformations through Brave Actions" will drive the company’s core values – empowering people, being flexible, making it happen, openness and transparency and creating a positive impact.

Eighty per cent of the group’s current revenues come from Bharti Airtel (a leading mobile operator – India’s leading integrated telecom company with with over 80 million customers and voted as India’s most innovative company by The Wall Street Journal. In October 2008, GSM player Bharti Airtel outperformed all CDMA players (like Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, HFCL and Shyam Telecom) put together in terms of mobile revenues, net subscriber addition and revenue share. ). The group now wants to focus on its other retail, agri-business and financial services ventures where it has partnerships with other companies like Wal-Mart, Del Monte and Axa. The group is looking at revenues of $10 billion in around two years with non-telecom business generating at least 50 per cent of the revenues.

New Brand Logo

The group also introduced a new fresh and youthful brand logo which the company believes will depict its multi-dimensional character and its strategy to grow with new avenues.

Bharti’s New Brand Logo and its significance


Bharti’s Old Brand Logo

The Bharti Group

The Bharti Enterprises group includes companies like Bharti Airtel (telecommunications services), Bharti Teletech (telecom & allied products company), Telecom Seychelles (telecom services in Seychelles), Bharti Telesoft (VAS products and services to telecom carriers), Bharti Del Monte India (fresh and processed fruits and vegetables), Bharti Retail (multiple consumer friendly format stores in India), Bharti AXA General Insurance, Bharti AXA Life Insurance, Bharti AXA Investment Managers (asset management company), Bharti Learning Systems (end-to-end learning and development solutions organisation), Jersey Airtel (mobile services in Jersey (Channel Islands)), Guernsey Airtel, Bharti Foundation, Bharti Realty (Real Estate Arm).

This case study/article, titled Bharti Gets a Brand Makeover, was originally published at Casestudyinc.com.