Parity means sameness or equality. In marketing substitution happens when functionality is same. One biggest fact in marketing world is no two products are the same. Marketers opt for product differentiation or price differentiation. Product differentiation is the process of distinguishing a product from others, to make it stand out from other competitive brands for a target market. This involves differentiating it from competitor’s products as well as a firm’s own products. The concept was proposed by Edward Chamberlin in his 1933.

Perceived brand parity relates to the perception among consumers that all major alternatives in a product class are similar. Though high levels of brand parity greatly concern many marketing professionals, very little empirical research has been published on this topic.

The primary goal of a marketing program is to create a customer base that is cognitively brand loyal and insensitive to price competition. However, such a customer base is utopian, very difficult to develop in the absence of perceived differences between major brand substitutes. It is not possible that a customer would be willing to pay a higher price for a particular brand when the major alternatives in a product category are all the same. Even developing a preference for a specific brand may be very difficult when all of the brands in the particular category are seen as being alike.

In the meantime, the competition keeps increasing for any category product. The number of products continually keeps expanding on the shelf which leads to cluttering of shelves. Due to the rise of private labels and smaller retail formats, marketers are forced to think and take increasingly complex decisions about which products to place where and how to properly activate them. Another fact is that sales teams are often not equipped to make the right trade-offs because of the fast changes that take place in the market. As a result, shelves are muddled, promotions are inadequately executed, brands struggle to stand out, and sales productivity ratios stagnate.

Another fact is, customers appear to be insensitive to marketplace information in circumstances of high brand parity. There is a wide gap between perceived brand differences and information search because majority of customers are less receptive to marketing communications. Parity perceptions are high, and customers do not even give advertisers the opportunity to present information which could change the parity perceptions. So battling brand parity gets mystified by its own very existence.

For example, when you go to buy table salt you find these brands along with many other brands on the shelves: Tata salt, Captain Cook, i-shakthi, Aashirvadh, Annapurna, Surya salt, Sambhar salt, Nirma shudh, Patanjali, Akar salt, Catch and Saffola salt it is so confusing which one to buy….salt is one of the most commoditized brands. Tata Salt, which contributes about 19 per cent to the total turnover of the parent company – Tata Chemicals, is aiming at a growth much higher than what it has achieved in the past three years. Expanding its communication from the emotional tagline ‘Desh Ka Namak’ to going functional and proving the purity of the salt, the brand has changed its communication statement with its new advertisement trying to connect emotionally with the customers. The very purpose of advertising is to differentiate the brand in customer’s minds.

Another common item in parity brands belongs to toothpaste category. In India, brand Colgate has been one of the most trusted brands for decades. It is not only the older generation which grew up with Colgate; it is a first brand, even for the young, when it comes to oral care. The brand has faced tough competition from time to time and has fought back effectively to regain its market share. In the 1960s and 1970s, Geoffrey Manners’ Forhans was the challenger brand but it is completely forgotten today. Binaca, which later became Cibaca and finally got taken over by Colgate, was another challenger.

Despite the strong brand and Colgate’s focus on oral care, in the late 1980s Close-Up changed the way toothpaste looked and felt in the mouth. High on freshness ingredients, the red transparent look and the youth-centric approach gave Colgate some sleepless nights at the time. Close-Up gained a significant share of the market, forcing Colgate to launch a similar product and alter its strategies for some time. Unilever also attacked Colgate on the ‘healthy gums’ platform with Pepsodent, thereby attacking on two fronts. Currently, despite Colgate accounting for about 55 per cent share of the toothpaste market, Pepsodent and Close-up are still sneering at its heels with alternating attacks. All three – Colgate, Pesodent and Close-up are challenged by Vicco’s Vajradanti, Patanjali’s Dantkanti and Oral B.

Buyers of parity products which are most often commoditized products see little functional difference among them. Selling a commoditized product with differentiated supplementary services such as after-sales service, packaging differentiation, price differentiation and advertising differentiation can appeal to buyers willing to pay a premium for the convenience. It is indeed a great task for marketers to differentiate parity products.

A jingle is a short tune used in advertising; it contains one or more hooks (it’s a musical idea which often is a short riff, passage or phrase) which helps promote explicitly of a product or service. Jingles are hummable, catchy little slogans. They are typically a form of sound branding. Because we can hum them, they are phrased with catchy words which can be remembered easily. Jingles live a longer life. Though they seem trifling, they are successful at getting us to remember a product, to buy the product and even make us think we need the product to be accepted or successful.

The first jingle was born in 1926 in Minneapolis, Minn. when an a cappella group played a quartet in praise of “Wheaties” – a General Mills breakfast cereal. Executives at General Mills were actually about to withdraw Wheaties from the market, but when they noticed a point in its popularity in the regions where the jingle was aired, they changed their minds. The company decided to air the jingle nationally on the radio, and sales went through the roof. Eighty years later, Wheaties is still a household staple in kitchens across the globe.

Since then, jingles have become an important part of any advertising campaign. Some jingles will never die, and they have become a part of our lives. Effective jingles have the capacity to build tremendous brand equity of a product. A successful jingle promotes a positive image, making the consumer more likely to want to purchase the product.

Music can fulfill several tasks when it is used in advertisements. The appealing and entertaining aspect of music helps making an advertisement more interesting. Captivating jingles can make the commercials attractive and engage attention of viewers. From this point of view music need not necessarily manifest any special affinity with a particular product or service in order to play an effective and useful function. The music functions more as bridge between viewer and advertisement. Another basic attribute of music is to support an advertisements structure and continuity. Music adds dramatic approach to a TV or radio commercial. The narrative of the commercial becomes more meaningful with the music. Jingles are also called ‘Singing commercials’ and they have made a self-contained genre.

Look at the lingering jingle of Nirma washing powder; it is one of the most famous jingles. It’s been years down the line but the jingle of Nirma is still jingling in the ears of Indian People. It was of no importance whether the detergent gave clothes the “Dhood si Safedi” or not. But the feisty and spirited ad made a marvel out of the brand. Think of Nirma and the picture of a little girl twirling around with her white frock cannot be forgotten. This jingle has become so familiar in our minds. Nirma took on the might of giant multinationals and wrote a new chapter in the Indian corporate history!

Jingles have the poetic and emotional appeal; it scores over logical, informational advertisements. I think this happens because music can provide a message without the customer consciously noticing it. For providing rational facts in the same time “mixtures of speech and song provide advertisers with opportunities for both logical and factual appeals. Music can therefore function as a nonverbal identifier for certain groups with different musical taste.

Do you know that in sixties and seventies companies wishing to advertise on Radio used external radio stations like Radio Ceylon and Radio Goa (then Goa was under Portuguese control). Radio Ceylon was a popular station as it aired film songs, which was banned on All India Radio (AIR) because the then Information & Broadcasting Minister Mr. Balkrishna Vishwanath Keskar – who thoroughly disapproved of film music. However, in 1965 when Ms. Indira Gandhi was Information & Broadcasting Minister under the Prime Minister Mr. Lal Bahadur Shastri, she changed things. In 1966, Ms. Indira Gandhi became the Prime Minister and she gave serious attention to the use of Radio as a mass media. In 1967, the government accepted the recommendations of an expert committee under the former Director of AIR – Krishna Chandra Sharma. And ads started broadcasting on radio which further saw a spurt in sweet and melodious radio jingles.

Even today the jingle “tandurasti ki raksha karta hai Lifebuoy, lifebuoy hai jahan tandurusti hai wahan” rings in our ears. Similarly ‘Utterly, Butterly, Delicious AMUL’ was another great success.

In the seventies India witnessed a lot of new agencies being set up, including the Mumbai-based Rediffusion, Trikaya Grey and Chaitra and the Chennai-based R. K. Swamy & Associates. Reliance Group setup Mudra Communications in Ahmedabad. In 1977, Doordarshan started accepting ads. It changed the life of Indian ads radically and brought a qualitative leap in making of ads. I still remember the first TV ad was a still for the Topaz brand of razor blades from the house of Malhotras and the first ad prepared for TV was of Jenson & Nicholson modeled by Dalip Tahil and Maya Alagh arguing over the color of their bedroom. This ad was created by Rediffusion. There were only 3 TV Programs on Doordarshan. I still recall we never got irritated when in between the programs ads were played. The programs were: CHITRAHAAR, PHOOL KHILE HAIN GULSHAN, GULSHAN and Sunday Evening Feature Film. And, due to TV ads, lesser known brands were marketed with ease all over the nation.

And then in early eighties the Hawkins Pressure Cooker jingle sung by Preeti Sagar (My heart is beating, Film Julie singer) the jingle words were “Hawkins ki seeti baji, khushboo hi khushboo udi, Mazedaar, lazzedaar khaana hai tayyar, aji khaana hai tayyar! Murg Musallam, Tomayyto Soup, Matar Pulao, Maaki Daal, Kheer aur Dum Aloooooo Har vyanjan swadisht banaaye, minton mein jhatpat pakaaye Hawkins! Hawkins! Hawkins Pressure Cooker! Every Indian household thought of buying the Hawkins Pressure Cooker.

Alyque Padamsee of Lintas was approached by Lever Brothers to write an ad film for HAMAM. He drafted script showing a bikini model bathing with HAMAM under a waterfall. This idea was absolutely rejected by Lever Brothers considering that Indian housewives are restricted to kitchen, and they rarely go out for a picnic or a movie. Padamsee then made a simple ad “chehre ki sundertaa ko nikharta HAMAM”. See how ads show the transformation in society, its culture and philosophy – time passed and Lever team once again told Alyque Padamsee to write another ad film for a new soap – LIRIL. Alyque took out the old and rejected script from his cupboard, changed the title from HAMAM to LIRIL and rest is the history. Within 10 years the Indian housewife was elated from her mundane surroundings to a more confident and earning woman. The Liril ad showcased the modern and liberated Indian woman to the world. It was the hottest ad in the early 80s. Which showed the LIRIL girl drenched under the falls wearing only bikini? The ad was all about waterfalls, abundant water and the girl splashing about. The background score was “la…la la la laaa..”. The la,la, la notation just went about with a hummable tune. The first Liril ad was a masterpiece of with unmatched caliber; it was a product of Alyque Padamsee’s imagination. It was shot in Kodaikanal at a waterfall a little beyond Guna caves. LIRIL brand became largest selling brand of soap in Luxury Soap Segment. Both men and women used it!

I recall this sweet little jingle of Bajaj Electricals. It seems Bajaj Electricals made a historical success by giving a fight to Philips bulbs with their jingle “Jab mein chhota baccha tha, badi shararat karta tha, meri chori pakdi jaati,…aur roshnee karta Bajaj” the attractiveness of this jingle is haunting. The ad shows a kid hiding and reading comics, then a young man sneaking in room from window and at the last shot of an old man sneaking into the fridge for some sweet.  The changeover in pitch and tone from a childish jangle to the old man’s rattle is so fascinating in this jingle.

Some of the older jingles can still bring a smile on our faces. They are inseparable from our lives. They have become iconic and like diamonds they will remain with us forever.