Saving money, raising market cap through art

Y Siva Sankar in Bombay

For companies keen on saving money through cost-cuts, enhancing market capitalisation, turnover, shareholder value and bottomline, redesign guru Shombit Sen Gupta has a piece of advice: "Forget USP. Embrace ESI."

ESI, decodes the painter who emigrated to France in 1973 and made Paris the base for his global-scale "symbolic management consulting" practice, is emotional surplus identity. (USP = unique selling proposition).

Gupta "created" the "concept" of ESI. Shining ESI (formerly Shining Strategic Identity), the "multi-cultural company" he chairs, has helped Indian corporates like Wipro, Britannia and Lakme to reposition their corporate identity and re-articulate their corporate values.

ESI played a role in enhancing Wipro Corporation's turnover (from $273 million in 1997 to $532 million in 2000), and market cap (from $0.3 billion to $13.3 billion in June 2000). "Our logo, comprising the unique rainbow flower and words 'Wipro -- Applying Thought', is a result of Shombit's ability to create a visual identity, which strikes an instant chord with the masses," says Wipro's chairman Azim Hasham Premji in a testimonial.

Shining has provided symbolic management consultancy services to over a hundred companies the world over. These include Unilever, Nestle, Procter & Gamble, Danone and Schweppes, and created over 1,200 brands since 1985.

Gupta, 46, is on a tour of India to sensitise Indian corporates to his creation.

"ESI harmonises form, colour and symbol to reach the emotional subconscious of the people so that they have an extra (surplus) craving, an emotional attachment for corporations and brands," says Gupta.

According to him, electronics giant Philips lost out to Sony in the global marketplace because the latter had ESI. Ditto for IBM that was overtaken by Microsoft. "Companies that don't have ESI end up spending a lot of money on advertising which, however, doesn't help."

Agrees Dr Ashok S Ganguly, former chairman, Hindustan Lever and former director, Unilever. "The e-millennium will go beyond USP to capture and convey the emotional context of a proposition."

Gupta is, in fact, convinced that the concept of USP is no longer relevant to today's businesses. "Most of the management consultants of the world lack the capacity to analyse the subconscious attitude of human nature. They have no clue to customising the product for the masses in such a manner that it can start appealing at the subconscious level.

They, thus, fail to move on from mass production to mass customisation. The management consultants just fine-tune the productivity of a corporation either for supply chain or finance engineering -- a very organisational aspect that is not relevant to the desired end of customers/consumers. This dogmatic 'pyramidal vertical integration' in industry was very relevant to the USP concept. In this age of product uniformity and shorter product life-cycles, it is no longer valid."

In other words, advertising agencies will have to reinvent themselves. "Whether they like it or not, traditional, conventional advertising will become obsolete," says Gupta. "Ideally a brand should appeal to young people below 35 so that the brand itself remains young."

But isn't the age-old Lifebuoy bath soap considered a great brand? "Oh yes, it is. People may not realise it, but Lifebuoy has ESI that has sustained it for such a long time. Its fragrance lingers in mind. It is economical, too. During my poverty-ridden early years in Calcutta, Lifebuoy was my soap. It is very popular in rural areas. Whenever I am in India, I use Lifebuoy. The fragrance sends me down memory lane. I'm emotionally attached to Lifebuoy. That is the power of ESI."

Ganguly says it took him two years to fully comprehend what initially seemed a vague concept. "We use the consumer's knowledge of smell, sight and sound in order to find what the consumer finds attractive. Why do we close our eyes sometimes when we listen to music? The concept of emotional surplus is what attracts you to a brand or service of a person; a subliminal assessment of the thing or the person you are going to spend time with, or the shirt you are going to buy or a particular bus you are going to take. That is not captured by the traditional marketing competence. I'd not totally decry USP. ESI is a new dimension of USP. If you look at the dimensions of the USP, they are material in nature. ESI is a dimension beyond materialism."

Elaborating, Ganguly, 65, now chairman of Technology Network India and ICI India, says: "ESI is relevant to all human activity. Commerce is an important constituent of human activity. Commercial products and services are good vehicles to deliver emotional surplus." "It is more communicable in the Internet-driven world. I'm in constant touch via e-mail with my friends the world over, which I couldn't do five years ago. If I'm in touch with them at my age, I cannot be exchanging rubbish -- what we exchange is emotional surplus.

"I've just finished reading John Case's marvellous book on Indian history. He has written on 5,000 years of Indian history in about 550 pages. Obviously, you can find a million things wrong with it. But one thing that is right with it is that you can put your feet up, read the 550 pages, and travel from the Harappan civilisation to Mr Vajpayee's weak knee. It's amazing he was able to do that. You can be critical -- 'He should have written 20 volumes'. But how many people have the time to read 20 volumes? Therefore, he has, I think, created an emotional surplus on a very dry subject. I think it's a very powerful concept."

Gupta says talks with a few large and medium companies in India are at an advanced stage for ESI initiatives. "We are currently working with Bombay Dyeing, Wipro, Britannia, Vam Organics and Haldia Petrochemicals," he informs.

Sagar Sen Gupta, managing director, Shining ESI-India, says that the response from the new economy leaders to his firm's campaign for ESI has been encouraging. "The average age of CEOs these days is 35. Unlike in the past when every new idea was greeted with scepticism, they have an open mind on new concepts and practices."

Shombit Sen Gupta says that all companies should have CEOs, "not chief executive officers, but chief emotional officers."

Although he does not prefer to confine himself to a few sectors, Gupta says he foresees immense scope for ESI initiatives in information technology, banking and insurance industries. "I'm open to the idea of working with government."

Can ESI help the divestment-inclined government to refurbish public sector units that are likely to be privatised? "I'm not an image-builder. So if the idea is to make ailing PSUs look attractive for prospective buyers, then no. Our experience at Haldia has proved that we can adapt the ESI concept to PSUs….I'd always wondered why Indian Airlines, which is a PSU, calls its flights IC-this or IC-that."

Changing perceptions in emerging economies is easier, says Gupta. "Emerging economies have greater adaptability, and are ideally placed to adopt new paradigms as they do not have rigid structures of the old economy. A paradigm shift is now taking place in the business model, from the machine to the mind."

Gupta says a typical ESI exercise for corporate identity, brand repositioning, new branding will involve exhaustive interactions with management, employees, shareholders, customers, suppliers, distributors, dealers, suppliers and consumers. The exercise may span six months to one year and its impact could be gauged over a five-year timeframe. "My challenge is to link art with commerce."

Photo: Jewella C Miranda; collage: Rajesh Karkera

ALSO SEE:

November 6, 1997: Interview with Shombit Sen Gupta in rediff.com

EXTERNAL LINKS:

Shining Identity

Net Icon Value Creation

Money

Tell us what you think of this report