Wills was in the cigarettes business for over three decades. It was one of the hottest selling cigarette brands in India from the ITC stables. The ‘Made for Each Other’ line had been so closely tied to the brand that it gave the brand very high recall. In terms of visuals, Wills conjured up images of a couple-young and sporty (now)- in perfect harmony. The brand’s advertising had always been driven by the projected lifestyle of the user. The Wills advertisements portrayed the couple in their moments of pleasure and happiness. In fact, if one removed the Wills cigarette pack from the advertisement, it could easily pass off as an advertisement for a brand of casual wear.
Wills people always wore pastels – semantically balanced with the pack of cigarettes. Wills all along invested in brand property, not creating associations around the product it sold or its attributes, but around the typical Wills smoker – what he looked like, what activities he enjoyed, how he or she carried himself or herself, what their moment of happiness together were all about. Over time, Wills cultivated an image which was not product dominated but user oriented. It signified a polished, sporty, educated user image profile.
Globally, the cigarette industry was under strong pressure. Along with red meat, the cigarette industry seemed to be racing downhill. With pressures from social and health activist groups, mounting worldwide, cigarette marketing and manufacturing was being subjected to harsh regulations. The campaign against cigarette smoking made making many people quit the habit.
Also, cigarette smoking was no longer macho. No more do stars in the cinema world relied on cigarettes to exude confidence and charm. In fact, in India, they were no longer allowed to do so, giving cartoonists, cynics and cigarette addicts much grist for their mills. Gone were the days of Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando or Gregory Peck smoking their favourite brands to convey a style which stole the hearts of many. Nonsmoking was in. It was the health wave which was descending on the globe. For the new health conscious youth, cigarettes were no longer a symbol of either power or machismo.
Relying on the tremendous equity of the Wills brand, ITC launched Wills Sportswear in July 2000. The brand conveyed comfort, bright colours, typical Wills user activities, and an aura of spottiness.
The result
Within two weeks of launch, the stocks at New Delhi’s Wills Sport outlet completely vanished. So phenomenal was the response that the company actually had to stop advertising. It demonstrated the power of a brand. If extended with care, a brand can draw from its equity to push a product which is far removed for its original category.
Cigarettes are not in any way similar to apparels. Wills association with sports has been age old. The brand always appeared on shirts that the Indian cricket team wore.
Also, the brand has to its credit the ‘Wills Book of Cricket’ which records the celebrated moments in Indian cricket history. Taking a cue from its heritage, the Wills Sport advertisement ran with head lines like ‘soccer’, ‘goal keeper’, ‘warm up’, ‘team spirit’, ‘rely’.
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One of its early ads showed a visual of a young, urban, educated and smart man in a typical hitting-the-ball situation against the backdrop of (not playfield) an urban square with pigeons sitting on the pavement and people on the railings looking at the man. The ad copy ran ‘fibre to fashion’ as its headline, and a message reading, “A unique Wills sport philosophy that involves selecting the right grade of fibre, impeccable garment construction, comfort engineered fits and trend-spotting, to stay in touch with world fashion…ensuring that every single stitch adds to the joy of stretch – bend – jumping living’. The signoff read: ‘Introducing Wills Sport, for men and women. Active relaxed
wear that plays along with you!”
The brand communication and physical campaign used the sports lingo against the backdrop of a typical urban setting with typical urban people, both men and women. For instance, the ad with the headline ‘rely’ shows a woman crossing the street in a hurry (virtually running), while speaking on her cell phone and a young man passing on a
packet to her (also on the move). The body text read “Work wear gets into stride as Wills Sport introduces professional chic. Streamlined fits, flat fronts and neat pleats make a compelling presentation. In polyester/viscose/spandex that stretches beautifully from nine to five and beyond”. The brand urged its intended audience to ‘be a sport’.
The Wills Sport campaign beautifully leveraged Wills brands sports associations into the apparel category by drawing a parallel between sports and modern living. The apparels are not designed as sportswear. Rather, they are demonstrated to have properties which would make the sport easy and joyful. But mind you, the sports here is not sports in the dictionary sense of the term. Rather, it is living in the modern environment-a jet set life style. The brand found a great connect with the people whose internal dreams to excel in sports perhaps could not be realized, the ones who appreciated sports only in their drawing rooms and office discussion, for their lives left very little time for actual ‘sporting’ The brand subliminally provided them with an option to be sportsmen at last (!) and satisfy their much suppressed desires and urges, if not at a playfield, at the workplace. In fact, sportsmanship just got extended way beyond its traditional boundaries!
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