Business - Q&A Global CMO Yum!

Moinak Mitra

AT 54, Muktesh ‘Micky’ Pant runs 10 kilometers a day, five days a week; a regimen that would obviously have gone down very well at sportswear giant Reebok Inc, where he served as global chief marketing officer. But the Nainital-born Pant — who became ‘Micky’ in the land of liberty — has been on the fast track even as far as his career goes.

From being one of the founding members of PepsiCo India to assuming the CMO’s mantle at Reebok, Pant has made a mark across categories in the consumer goods space. Now, as global CMO of Yum! Restaurants International, he is in a role that gets increasingly challenging by the day. In a discussion with Moinak Mitra, Pant reflects on the future of food retail, the golden rules of marketing, abbreviated branding and how not to lose your shirt in a bear hug.

You started your career with Unilever India before moving on to Pepsi-Co, then Reebok and now Yum! The offerings have been significantly different, so how do you keep up the momentum?

Time has really flown by. My longest stints were at Unilever for 15 years, and Reebok for 10 years. Each stint was entirely different. But overall, the similarities are greater than the differences. Across various industries, it’s amazing how consumer behaviour is pretty much the same. Even in other verticals, like auto components and durables, the basic principles of marketing are pretty much the same.

That’s why it was easy for me to adjust to a rather specialised business like Yum! — because the principles you learn while selling shampoo apply exactly when you’re selling chicken. The best training you can imagine came from Hindustan Lever. I was fresh out of IIT and got into IIM-Ahmedabad. I was about to go there when Shunu Sen, then the marketing director of Levers, made an offer. He said that I would be wasting two years at IIM, whereas at Levers, my marketing training would take just a year. Shunu Sen is my marketing guru and I agreed. The very next day after taking up the job, I was in Amritsar pushing a handcart selling soaps. I even sold Erasmic shaving cream in Punjab — someone even said that it wasn’t such a challenge selling shaving cream in Punjab since all the women there would use it (laughs).

So Much Pizzazz!

During your days in Reebok, you saw the brand being abbreviated across a signature line to Rbk. Now you have another abbreviated brand in your kitty at Yum! — KFC. Pepsi is changing its Mountain Dew to Mtn Dew. How does abbreviation work in marketing?

For Reebok, we did a deal with JayZ, the rap star, and 50 Cents, and launched a collection. We wanted to be slightly different and so we called it Rbk, an idea that Peter Arnell came up with. So we launched it as a limited collection. It became a big hit because we had a lot of athlete sponsorships, and top athletes like Michael Chang and Andy Roddick were wearing Rbk. We also had the liberty of making it bigger because they were just three letters. Moreover, the kids liked it. The youth understand the SMS lingo. Donna Karen changed the brand to DKNY, United Processors became UPS, Federal Express became FedEx.

One of the top brands in the world — Coca-Cola — has two names. But people refer to it as Coke. Playing with names is a good thing. The biggest problem with a brand is when it begins to age. You’ve got to keep brands young and fresh. Let’s take Apple, for instance. People nowadays don’t call it Apple. Functions create unique branding. So Apple products are called iPods or iPhones. The ‘i’ has become the differentiator and identity for Apple brands. The world’s number one brand, Google, changes its logo everyday, a far cry from my days at Levers when the logo was sacrosanct. So if there’s any rule in marketing, it’s this: there are no rules.

You’re the man behind Reebok’s award-winning ‘Survivor’ and ‘Terry Tate’ campaigns. Adweek also gave you their Interactive Marketer of the Year
award in 2003, and you also bagged two Golden Lions at Cannes. Did you anticipate the success of the campaigns?

Not at all. When we heard the announcement, Peter Arnell and I were in Ireland for the Special Olympics. So we took a jet and flew down to Cannes. And at the last minute, we entered the hall where the awards were given out. To our surprise, it was being handed out by Dan Wieden of Wieden & Kennedy — who has done Nike’s advertising for 40 years. So when he started giving the award, he would not give it (laughs).


Let’s talk about the food business. With food activism being echoed in every corner, how difficult is it nowadays to operate in the food retail business?

It’s been there for 20 years now. Having said that, it is our responsibility to make food healthy, and so we’re eliminating transfats and introducing baked options. Consumers themselves follow the situation very well these days and take precautionary measures. Typically, consumers visit our restaurants once a month and we would definitely like that to go up.

In October, the US division of Yum! Brands placed calories on all company restaurant menu boards. Is the Indian market ready for such proactive measures?

We’ve put up boards, hoardings and menu boards on nutritional information only in some cities in the US. It is definitely the way forward across our ventures globally, with more discerning consumers thronging our outlets.

Some say that quick-service restaurants (QSRs) are the only stable segment in the restaurant business. Why is that so?

QSRs are very stable now and that’s where people are going. People are downtrading from casual dining because QSRs give them value. Thankfully, we have a significant portion of QSRs in our portfolio. The ongoing recession has so far not affected us, but in general, the growth will slow. In a slump, people will only go for more value and QSRs offer just that.

Yum! is present in India through two brands out of the five — A&W All American Food, KFC, Long John Silver’s, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. Are there plans to bring in the other brands? And what’s your retail strategy?

Though there are only two brands in India, we are looking at expanding both the brands rapidly across all markets in the country. Taco Bell is slightly lower priced and high on value. The ‘Why-Pay-More’ menu of Taco Bell, for instance, is extremely popular. We’d love to launch Taco Bell in India since the spice-and-veggie options will be similar, and it will really work for India.

At the same time, it is worth noting that globally, KFC and Pizza Hut are worth $25 billion in systems sales (retail and institutional) every year. In India, these two brands have a footprint in metros and other towns. Growth must be complementary. In India, we’ll go the mall way. We’ll partner with successful malls and would like to have our brands in every one of them, countrywide. Currently, we have 190 outlets in India, which will go up to 340 by 2010.

Given the rise of the internet and mobile, what would be your ideal media mix?

I would say 50% should be online and mobile. Television is the dominant media and will be there everywhere. But every good marketer should be transferring funds online. Outdoor, radio and print are good if there is announcement or news value. But if there’s no new news, those are not good enough. One of the biggest channels of our distribution at Yum! is online.

Finally, what, to your mind, is the most important quality a marketer must possess?

Curiosity. There are no old brands, just tired marketers (laughs). Pepsi is more than a 100-year-old company but it still manages to stay young — look at their ‘Youngistan’ campaign. Indian companies must learn from that. Many Indian brands are getting old, and they should find ways of renewal.