Shoe Shine Case

A NEUI' SHINE TO SHOE POLISH

As the lift made its way to the 17th lloor, Madhusudan Rao found himself laoking at the occupants' shoes. There were new shoes, imported shoeis, polished shoes, unpolished shoes.... Rao, who was the marketing manager of swan Shoes, iooked at his own shoes and winced; there has been no time to polish his shoes.

Minutes later, Rao was in the cabin of Anuj lyer, the associate director of Brendsor lndia, the advertising agency which handled the Swan Shoes account. , " The lift is. a great place to study human psychology," said Rao profoundly. "Just about everyone there is restless and tense. I was looking at the shoes in the lift when a tenible thing happened. There was a pair of shoes so well polished that lfelt terrible about my shoes!" he ended with a laugh.

Iyer suneptitiously wiped his shoes on th'e back of his trousers and said, "What a coincidence that you should mention this. I have been working on a new eampaign for the wax polish account we handle for Turner India. lt's an account that brings no joy, because no matter what our advertising effort is, it leaves us dissatisfied," he said.

lyer handied the entire shoe care range for Tumer lndia. Although the campaign for its shoe shampoos had been very successful, the performance of Black & Bright (B&B), the shoe polish brand, had flummoxed lyer. He had tried various tacks during the last 10 years, but advertising just did not bring any significant

change.

The shoe wearing habit, lyer had found, was confined to the big metros and the towns in the northern belt. ln the rural areas of the north, shoes were worn largely in winter. He had also found that the growth in the shoe market was largely in segments which didn't require polishing. Nevertheless, B&B remained a.relevant product, since those who wore leather shoes did need to polish them. "There is no getting away form that," he told Rao.

"To some extent, you must consider that the leather shoes category itself is on...