it is the finals of the Merchants Cup Quiz. Two teams are tied. A tiebreak round is on. Your competitors have not got the answers to their question. Now it is your turn. The question: ?Three Roses is the name of a brand of which product??
None of you has heard the name before. Your muted discussion concluded that if the name has multiple roses then it must be a brand of perfume. A dissenting whisper suggests that there aren?t any major perfume brands in India, so it must be a brand of some product that uses perfume. Whisky? Possible, but not probable. Tea? Vigorous nods from the team. The answer is given. The quiz master announces that your team has won.
You would never know how wrong you were. No, not in terms of your eventual answer but the logic that drove you to it. Your logic was impeccable; it is just that no one thought of that logic while christening Three Roses.
Three Roses is indeed the name of a brand of tea. Three Roses, the name possibly conjures vivid images: bone china teapots serving light golden yellow liquor; German shepherd and a toddler playing hide and seek; Darjeeling leaves? This picture perfect logic will break into pieces when you know the facts of the case. Three Roses is a brand of dust tea.
Dust tea usually produces dark liquor and strong end cups with very little flavour.
After reading up to this, you may feel like saying ?elementary my dear Watson?. Unfortunately, Mr Holmes never had to work as a brand manager in a multinational company in India. It is very common for them to be very rigid in terms of the timing of a brand launch: it must be in the market by Pongal or Christmas or the chairman?s visit or whatever.
There never is any time for leisurely brand development. In the hurly-burly, the poor brand manager cannot be faulted for being less than careful with, of all things, the imagery associated with his chosen brand name. To him, far more important is whether the big boss (or his wife) has approved the name.
Three Roses is a story of the Seventies. The then Calcutta giant Lipton launched it from its Weston Street headquarters. Lipton had great marketing professionals in its rank. How could they be so careless? Or were they nonchalant? Good questions to which I unfortunately have no answers. All I remember is this delightful culture of the tea crowd, CCFC, rugby, cycle polo. Those were the days, my friend.
Maybe, just maybe ? they knew what Salman Rushdie realised many years later. ?Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth?s marvels, beneath the dust of habit? ? The Satanic Verses.
Why worry about names, Advertising Hai Na?
