Hector Beverages’ Paper Boat: Diffusing Innovation Through “Drinks And Memories”- Interview With Ashwini Deshpande

Ashwini Deshpande,Co-Founder, Elephant

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HECTOR BEVERAGES’ PAPER BOAT: DIFFUSING INNOVATIONTHROUGH “DRINKS AND MEMORIES”

A 1989 graduate of National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India

Ashwini is the Co-Founder of Elephant, India’s largest independent

integrated design consultancy with offices in India & Singapore. The

Economic Times - Brand Equity has ranked Elephant as No. 1 among all the

Design Agencies in IndiaET CASES

May 2015

InterviewedbyDr. Nagendra V. Chowdary

InterviewwithAshwini Deshpande

Ref. CB-1-0014B

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Interview with Ashwini Deshpande Hector Beverages’ Paper Boat: Diffusing Innovation through “Drinks and Memories”

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1. What were the triggers for you to have embraced the field of design as a professionat a time when it was still a social stigma, at least for women? What has been the roleof your alma mater, National Institute of Design?

Though I grew up in a small town called Aurangabad in the seventies & eighties, myparents had raised us with fair exposure & freedom. I was highly inclined towards art,creativity, advertising & visual story telling in school. I was also good at academics. WhenI decided to pursue education other than the conventional one, my parents were verysupportive. Though I wasn’t fully aware of what a designer does as a career and there wasnobody to find out from, the prospect of going through the professional design educationat the most premier institute seemed very exciting.

SOCIETAL ACCEPTANCE TOWARDS AWOMAN IN THE PROFESSION FOR

DESIGN IS PROBABLY GREATER THAN AMAN CHOOSING THE SAME.

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In the eighties, when I trained to be a designer, design was not an established professionor business. So there was no question of social stigma. There was curiosity, but no negativity.The issue was lack of awareness that “design” could be a profession and would havebright career prospects.

To be fair, societal acceptance towards a woman in the profession for design is probablygreater than a man choosing the same. Because design is considered a creative activity,and as women are naturally considered to have a better creative flair, there has neverbeen an issue of non-acceptance.

I am an equalist and I do not subscribe to gender comparisons because I have never facedany critical bias (either ways) in my career spanning 26 years.

2. Interestingly, many of the Indian design outfits are run by women as of 2015 (SaritaSunder of Trapeze; Gopika Chowfla of Gopika Chowfla Design; Chaiti Mehta of ChaitiMehta Design; Smita Rajgopal of Smitten; Shanoo Bhatia of Eureka Moments; RuchitaMadhok of Kahani Designworks; Divya Thakur of Design Temple; Bhavika Shah ofBeyondesign, etc.). Having seen the evolution and revolution of Indian design canvass

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Hector Beverages’ Paper Boat: Diffusing Innovation through “Drinks and Memories” Interview with Ashwini Deshpande

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from close quarters, how do you read this for all those aspiring to make design as acareer choice?

(While all these designers & their companies are well known and are doing very well, theyare not exactly my contemporaries. Most of them started years later and most of themoperate as boutique design offices.)

Elephant was started in 1989. Our dream was always bigger. We wanted to corporatizedesign practice in India with a global outlook. We are the largest, oldest independentmulti-disciplinary design consulting company with offices in Pune, Delhi & Singapore. Wedefined our mission as making a “positive difference”. That helped us eliminate thesuperficial and focus on the core strength of making design relevant to Indian businesses.The Economic Times - Brand Equity has ranked us as No. 1 in their Design Agency rankingsfor 2012–2014.

Design is a nascent profession in India. It is still to prove itself as a tool for better business.There are very few documented case studies to understand the impact of design on bottomlines for Indian businesses. So I believe design professionals still need to work hard tospread awareness and demonstrate the value design thinking brings to a boardroom andto an annual report if it has to become a sustainable profession.

On the other hand, there are dozens of design institutes opening doors to thousands ofaspirants without reasonable focus on relevant curriculum or faculty. This usually resultsinto a dissatisfied design graduate who is either compelled to pick a job in theever-expansive digital domain where the designer is distanced from the user and there islittle chance for design to make an impact by innovation or differentiation. He/she justoccupies a replaceable seat. Some other bright minds get misguided to hurriedly subscribeto the so-called “cool” and churn out a westerner’s version of “Indian” for objects that aredesirable, but not needed. Many of them also go overseas for further education, which inmy opinion may or may not be relevant to Indian requirements. All these are lostopportunities for the Indian economy.

If one has to make a career as a designer in India, relevance and alignment to real peopleliving real lives is most necessary.

Don’t become a designer because it’s a cool/creative profession. Do it if you want to makea positive difference to the society.

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3. How has been the journey at Elephant? What have been your challenges as a designentrepreneur and how could you overcome them?

Initial years were the times of License Raj. There was no need for Indian businesses toimprove or differentiate, as they did not face global competition. So it was very difficult tomake anyone understand the value design would add.

Some of the operational challenges faced at the start sound rather trivial now. The firsttask was to explain to our Chartered Accountant what our business was going to be. Thenext and even tougher part was to explain the same thing to a Bank Manager who was notconvinced we needed a current account since any income seemed a remote possibility tohim considering design as a business. The third one that hounded us for a long time was toget a telephone connection (in the early nineties).

But none of these could match up to the challenge that we faced in explaining to some ofour early clients why we needed to charge “design fees” since no advertising or technologyagency had ever charged it as a separate component.

Once the liberalization process started in mid-nineties, Indian manufacturers started facingthe heat in India as well as overseas. They realized the shortfalls in quality, finish, materials& functionality of their offerings. They needed differentiated products and they neededdistinct branding. Design could help them.

DESIGN THINKING IS A STRATEGIC TOOLTHAT CAN BE APPLIED AT EVERY STAGE

OF DECISION MAKING, BE IT VALUESYSTEMS FOR ORGANIZATIONS OR WORK

CULTURE DEFINITION OR THE MOSTOBVIOUS, THE DESIGN OF OBJECTS OR

SERVICES.

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”””””Service-oriented companies like the telecom & financial institutions also started perceivingthe need for customer orientation through differentiated experience building and designthinking provided the necessary user-focus.

Post-2000, when the Indian economy started emerging, many global MNCs sensed theneed to develop products, services & brands for India. Elephant was very well-placed totake care of these needs with strong experience of the business & cultural environment inthe Indian context. There has been no looking back since.

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4. In one of your interviews, you said, “design is an investment”. What does this meanfor companies, products and brands, especially for those who control the marketingbudgets and conjure strategy road maps?

In my opinion, time & financial investments on design & development are far morefundamental in nature and give long term, sustainable rewards. So I am against budgetsthat count design & development costs as expenses from marketing budgets. They needto be equated with capital investments with a view to diverse long-term returns. Marketingwell-designed products & services may form the last leg, but would certainly not be theonly purpose.

5. What according to you is a great product design? In an Economic Times’ interview(August 28th 2012), you were quoted, “The biggest obstacle is that we have nomeasurement tools for design success stories”. Is there any progress thence?

It has taken long for design fraternity to understand the value of their work and it may takeeven longer for them to communicate it in a credible manner. In fact, I have heard someonesay “design is too important to leave it to designers”.

We have probably traveled some distance, but still do not have standardized tools tomeasure the business success brought about by design intervention.

6. Why do you think product design is important for a product’s sustainable success?How should firms go about integrating product design decisions into their strategicframeworks?

Product design is not about designing an object after the decision to manufacture thatobject has been taken. Product design intervention needs to be brought in at the time ofstrategic discussions on purpose of the organization. That purpose needs to guide whatkind audiences would be addressed and that in turn would help decide what products orservices should be developed. For example, if the purpose of the organization is to worktowards sustainable planet, it cascades into certain kind of technologies, materials &processes that will act as framework for designing. Design thinking is a strategic tool thatcan be applied at every stage of decision making, be it value systems for organizations orwork culture definition or the most obvious, the design of objects or services.

7. Which are the Global and Indian products that you consider have been known fortheir product and packaging designs (from across several product categories, includingelectronics, automobiles, watches, etc.)? What’s the DNA of those companies thatput product design at the forefront?

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There are some legendary brands like Dyson & Braun that deployed product design astheir differentiating tool by focusing on users & their unmet needs.

Swatch converted watches into lifestyle accessories for the young & playful by aligningthem with aspirations, by discarding the convention.

BMW focused on the driving experience beyond the technology jargon to create a tribe ofdelighted owners who enjoy driving their machines.

No conversation about innovation in product, packaging & retail design can be completewithout discussing Apple. But much has been said about it everywhere.

Closer home, Symphony has been at the forefront of air-coolers for more than 25 seasons,relentlessly developing better products that use lesser space, lesser power, give moreefficient cooling, look elegant to suit today’s homes and have far greater functionality.Today, Symphony is the world’s largest air-cooler company that reaches more than 60countries. Elephant has been the proud design partner of Symphony for more than 25years.

The one common trait of all these companies is their unflinching faith in the power ofdesign thinking for developing products and their ability to question the conventionalmethods.

PAPER BOAT IS A RESULT OF AN AMAZINGINSIGHT THAT URBAN YOUTH CRAVE FORSOMETHING THAT IS SIMPLE, DELIGHTFUL& NON-TRANSACTIONAL… JUST LIKE HOWLIFE WAS AS A CHILD. SO THEY ARE NOTJUST DRINKS, BUT POOLS OF MEMORIES

ONE CAN TAKE A DIP INTO.

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”””””8. Why do you think, Indian products for long, haven’t been known/appreciated for

their unique product/packaging designs? Do you think it’s time for Indian companies(like Elephant) to stamp their presence? What would it take for Indian product/packagedesign firms to be at the forefront of packaging innovation stable?

There are a few reasons for Indian products & brands being relatively unknown outsideIndia. Firstly, the journey (and need) for innovation starts only after you perfect themanufacturing capabilities. Most Indian companies still struggle with turning out a perfectlyfinished product.

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It is only when you get the quality right that you can think of creating differentiated productsby deploying design intervention.

Second reason is the fact that design is a fairly established profession in the developedcountries. Design companies have existed for over 60 or more years. In India there are nolarge scale, impactful design companies barring a few, like Elephant that have existed forabout 25 years with sustainable growth. I believe we are well on our way to stamp ourpresence through the work we do for global companies like P&G, Nissan, etc. There aresome more design companies who are also doing impactful work. When they start acquiringsome scale & sustainability, Indian design would be in a far better place globally.

9. What is the relationship between product/packaging design and brand building? Doyou think product/packaging designs have the power to offer brand experience beyondthe existential convenience? Can you illustrate the relationship betweenproduct/packaging designs and brand experience with some examples?

At Elephant, we don’t look at product, packaging or brand as disjointed components. Welook at a unified experience for the user. Our aim is to make it more meaningful for theuser through better functionality & form using appropriate materials and technologies.

As mentioned earlier, Symphony is a great example of combining the entire experiencebeyond product design. Many of the Britannia products like Tiger or Marie Gold have awell-created presence that includes portfolio harmonizing, product design, packaging &branding by Elephant. Yes. We do design cookies too

10. Hector Beverages’ Paper Boat has caught the imagination of Indian consumers withits uniquely fresh value proposition. What according to you are the compelling andcaptivating innovations that have enabled it to create a new and successful category(of that of ethnic beverage)?

It is a well-known fact that we carry a limbic imprint of certain preferences in our brains.These are results of what we experience from childhood combined with generations gettingexposed to certain kind of food, climate and culture.

Paper Boat is a result of an amazing insight that urban youth crave for something that issimple, delightful & non-transactional… just like how life was as a child. So they are notjust drinks, but pools of memories one can take a dip into.

The success of this brand lies in the combination of apt naming, very differentiatedpackaging & the superb recipes that taste identical to that drink served back home bymothers & grandmothers.

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11. Was there any difference in the brief given to you by Hector Beverages (when comparedto the brief that you normally receive from other companies) that enabled you tocome up with such an innovative design for the pack?

I think the biggest difference was that the brief was independent of competition, categorybenchmarks, etc. It was purely based on human insights & had no references of whatexisted in the market. It was clearly a Blue Ocean brief. We did not have to focus ondifferentiation because we were not looking at what existed. This liberation from marketbenchmarks helped us think fresh, new and come up with something that matched thepassion of Hector team.

12. If you have to single out one aspect (among all the aspects that you had to take intoaccount) in deciding Paper Boat’s package design, what would that be?

Desire for Simplicity

13. Do you think there is a shelf life for this design i.e., whether a time will come whenthe design of the Paper Boat pack has to be revised or updated?

The point in change is to stay aligned with the audience while being true to the brandessence.

Like any other FMCG product, paper boat pack will also have a cycle of refresh as andwhen. But it is too early in the life of this brand to say when and what may need to change.

14. If given an option, are there any changes that you would like to make to the pack’sdesign?

Since its launch, there have been small refinements & changes. We have changed theshape of pouch to stand better at the shelf & feel better grip. Cap has recently beenchanged for better functionality along with more delightful look & feel. When Iced Teasgot introduced in the range, we decided to launch them in brown paper like pouches unlikethe whites of fruit-based drinks. So the evolution is ongoing. But I don’t see us doingrevolutionary changes yet.

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Source: http://www.elephantdesign.com/

Source: http://www.elephantdesign.com/cms/Corporate-Branding/Corporate-Branding.aspx

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Source: http://www.elephantdesign.com/cms/Product-Design/Product-Design.aspx

Source: http://www.elephantdesign.com/cms/Packaging-Design/Packaging-Design.aspx

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Source: http://www.elephantdesign.com/cms/Retail%20Design/Retail%20Design.aspx

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Hector Beverages’ Paper Boat: Diffusing Innovation Through “Drinks And Memories”- Interview With Ashwini Deshpande