The last time we talked about Positioning of a brand, it was for the KKR brand. It was the team that had won the wooden spoon in IPL 2009 tournament and still continues to be a big brand. But this line of thought brought us to another big brand, that of DC or Deccan Chargers who have the dubious distinction of paving the way for KKR by winning the wooden spoon in IPL 2008.
But the way they position themselves is a lot different.
They do not have a glamorous owner and they are not associated with a glamorous brand ambassador. Not surprisingly, their brand valuation has been lower than most other teams.
In the first IPL, DC were the star studded, being positioned as such, considering it made the costly purchase in Andrew Symonds and boasted of the presence of hard hitters in Gibbs, Afridi and Gilchrist apart from Symonds. In the initial years, the brand was more focussed on individual players and not the team.
Deccan Chargers' latest ads, on the other hand, be it McDowells or Idea, show it as a team of friends who play together and win together. In the parlance of brand positioning, it tells us the following three things:
- Deccan Chargers win in IPL 2009 did not do much for its individual players, but created a distinct team identity.
- There is no single player in the team that can position the team brand on its own.
- It is the only brand which has got foreign players which act as better brand ambassadors than their Indian counterparts. However, these foreign players can never carry an ad alone in the Indian waters.
We believe that Deccan Chargers have a lot of work to do with regards to their brand, and not just on the field. May be, the next time we sit down to evaluate them, they will have worked harder as a team and make a turnaround like they did from IPL 2008 to IPL 2009.
