Manmeet Sabharwal's Blog

From past few days we have been seeing ads of Mahindra scooters on TV.Initially it was Rodeo then came Duro.

Mahindra 2 Wheelers(Business Unit) has 3 products in its stable.Flyte being the third apart from the above two.

Mahindra had actually acquired Kinetic in 2008.Flyte was originally a Kinetic product which has been retained.I liked the Rodeo ad very much.The rodeo has been positioned as a power scooter.It is shown as an alternative to a motorcycle which is assumed to be powerful.

A few years back scooters were the obvious choice in India but the things changed when Bikes became the favorites Honda Activa and few other scooterettes could only survive.Honda is the clear market leader right now with about 60% market share and there is no clear number 2 in the scooter market which is set to grow in coming years(scooter market in India is expected to grow more than 25% in the next 3-5 years).With Mahindra coming into the picture the things might become interesting.

To further check the 3 product offerings,i visited the Mahindra 2 wheelers website.After browsing through all the three products i was confused.

Just have a look at the picture below which i created from their website(click to enlarge in a new window).

There is no major difference in any of the offerings as far as engine,CC,Horse Power or torque is concerned.The price range is also the same. In fact Duro and Flyte are very very nearly priced.All 3 are gearless.

Now after browsing a bit more for the products i found that there are some minor differences in the  features.

So the Main difference is the Positioning.

Rodeo is positioned as the Power Scooter.Duro is positioned as all season,all in one scooter with a tagline,”Chale apne dum(power) par”.Whereas Mahindra has no ad for Flyte as such but Kinetic positioned it as a good powerful scooter for females.Bipasha Basu was the brand ambassador for it.So Flyte is a scooter for females.See the Rodeo Commercial here or in the  TV Ads Showcase.

So the technical specifications are more or less same and the shapes and features are also quite similar,so what was the need for three different brands? Rodeo or Flyte alone could have done it ?

Can just Positioning your products differently (without actual product differences ) enough to take on the market ?

Now when we think about the above two questions one more brand comes to my mind i.e. Maruti.Maruti also have done something similar over the years.Swift,Estilo,Wagon R,Ritz all are more or less similar.Alto and 800 were a bit different in power and price.

This is called Line Filling in marketing terms.When a firm lengthen its product line by adding more items within the present range,it is known as Line Filling.
Why a company go for line filling ? Won’t it cause brand cannibalization ?
The reasons companies go for line filling are Incremental Profits,Satisfy Dealers who complain about lost sales because of missing items in the line,Utilize existing capacity,try to become a full-line company or try to plug holes to keep the competitors away.

Does Mahindra really need to do this ? Or what else can be the reason for 3 similar products in the same price range ?

Can Positioning alone help without actual product differences ?

What Say ?