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Can¶t say about Nestle S.A. but Nestle India may be going through its most schizophrenic phase ever. Appointing a

creative consultant called ³Scarecrow´ simply takes the cake ± made with Nestle MILKMAID, perhaps, now that the

Company is into confectionary, when news as interviews last came in! What does Nestle India want to scare? The birds

off its corporate logo? Sounds a bit like the forest department in a country or the environment ministry appointing

³AXE´ or better still ³PODU´, which among our tribal communities is short for slash & burn! The public sector may wellbe excused for not estimating the image impact, such as we pardon our tribal brethren for not

connecting podu cultivation to overall environmental degradation. But brand sensitive Nestle?

Hands off and hats off, of course, if this has the nod of the bosses in Vevey. Because, if the best ad agencies of the

world aligned with the Company globally cannot solve Nestle India¶s creative problems, well, then welcome

³Scarecrow´! It was the company¶s pride once that if you took roughly 35 Nestle brands to a country and factored in

about 85 years of Nestle operations in 145 nations, Nestle India would always have close to half a million brand

marketing experiences to bank on at any given time.

Clearly not enough for India! Basis the recent census, that¶s only 0.00036 ideas per capita. Too few, in the local

company¶s view, in this viral age of social networking that¶s taken mass customisation simply, or not so simply, todizzying heights altogether. No? Parti cularly when compared to a promised investment of a staggering Rs.19/ - per

capita planned for next year! Can¶t make a co-relation? Well, all Nestle India has to do is raise prices by a mere 5

paise per product it sells in India and hold it for a year t o be able to fund the so called bullish investments it promises

to make in the coming year in ³ factories, capacity increases and new technologies´. For this it needs µScarecrow¶?

More likely a scare to take it out of deep ennui set around a myth ± an old Indian rope trick that has transcended into

a rope-a-dope trick ± that the Indian consumer of Nestle is reluctant to pay 5 paise more per person per day for the

exquisite products it buys from the Company, because of no other reason than that s/he is an odd kettle of fish! (Now

there¶s a new visual that the Company may consider once the birds have flown leaving the local Indian counterpart an

empty nester!).

But seriously, is ³Scarecrow´ expected to brood over a full fledged marketing services department that I inherited and

a full fledged advertising unit that I created and a full fledged Communication Department that I launched for the first

time in the history of the Company in India? Or is it going to impart soaring lessons to a once battle ready adult

mother bird that appears to have regressed into a fledgling? If it does not scare that bird and its chicks away in the

first place«squawk!

So, what¶s the brief going to be? Please help our advertising to take wing without scaring the pants of our blue ey ed

trainees, wet behind the ears, because our communication induction programme is just not in place! See, how we

cannot spell confectionery right! (Aside: is that confectionery or confectionary, man?) And that milk factory we have

up North in what¶s that place, Monga or Moga , please check out the correct place with our production manager, will

you ? Well, what can we do to increase sale of powder milk among the farmers there who supply us liquid milk in the

first place? They are a rich lot you know«How ab out painting every farmer¶s house blue with the Nestle EVERYDAY

logo? Great idea!

You know outdoor is cheap in the hinterland and we are a bit tight on budgets. But no worries, we¶ll protect your 15%,

okay? Or will that be 2% for your creatives on all medi a spends and remaining 13% to the AOR who will buy the

media? But because the walls of farmers¶ houses cost nothing in media terms, well, you¶ll just have to give us the

designs and we will get it painted ourselves«but, of course, the logos are with us!«Th at¶s right! But you can give it a

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great slogan, no? Just make sure it¶s in the local language«Punjabi or Gurumukhi or whatever«find out from the

Nestle CERELAC guys «they are doing this all the time, in 16 Indian languages«so, if you have a great slogan fo r

powder milk or dahi we can take the campaign all-India. Oh, no no, not dahi «that will have to be in Marathi«are there

any farmers in Pune whose derelict walls we can paint? «or near the factory«there¶s bound to be prosperous farmers

thereabouts«oh, but that¶s a co-packer «so, forget it«.or, wait, we¶ll get back to you on that later «ok?

Also, could you audit our ads for us, too? You know, compile all the ads on a disc«this I need urgently«Vevey¶s asking

for it«so can you do it quickly «no , no «don¶t cont act our aligned agencies for this «it can take ages «and will never

come«you just buy it off the market ..yes, yes, Ad Index will do «buy off our ads and tell them not to put the Ad

Index logo on it«or take it out ..how long will this take? Really urgent, this! Top priority, theek hai ?

Just avoid that Cup-o-Noodles ad in it «that¶s right «ha ha «imagine a couple of kids carrying hot water in flasks to

eat instant noodles on a picnic in a jungle«Are they going on a t rek or are they going on a noodle eating t rip? I mean,

where¶s the convenience? Why wouldn¶t they just carry hot food instead «if they can carry hot water«Then there¶s

that splash in the end in really dirty brown mucky water in the jungle with Cup -o-Noodl es in hand « the cues are

totally wrong «so forget that ad «just compile the rest..

Speaking of MAGGI«it¶s just MAGGI, o.k., not Nestle MAGGI «never make that mistake.. Why? I¶ll tell you why « in

fact, why don¶t I come over and make a presentation of our brand architecture, the worldwide standardi sation of

colors, logos, categories, brand names, descriptors, and the birds in a nest«little nest, you know«that¶s what Nestle

means«in German«or is it F rench?«well, you know Switzerland is a big country «I mean, it¶s a small country

geographically but is hugely influenced by its neighbouring countries«that¶s right , neutral during the war and all

that«you know the history«400 years of peace«impressive , hahn ? ..achha , so we¶ll send you there for a junket if you

do good work «ahem«ahem«perhaps organise a w.w. seminar at Rive Reine«how would you like that?

But we also need this name for a new MAGGI flavour we are launching «so, you have to conduct that contest «of

course , response will be huge «we did that many years ago when we launched MAGGI only«..we as ked for names

«huge response«and then we called the brand MAGGI ..after Jules Maggi, founding father «very creative it was !

Now, you handle this contest«no no, TOMATO TANG kahan chalega «in fact , nahin chala «it cannibalises our ketchup

sales «but you don¶t have to come up with a brand name .. yaar «that will come « woh ayega «we have more than

35000 brands around the world and still counting « tum sirf contest ke entries handle karo « samjhe «ya, ok, we¶ll pay

per prospect«per hit , if you like«

What ? Sevian in soya milk « kya abhi jaga hai ya soya«..woh soya project kab ka soya hua hai «was shut down ages

ago, man« bahut laphda tha , boss! But keep generating ideas «who knows what may work«No no no , this Deepika

NESCAFE thing «don¶t touch ..so what if she is not doi ng the brand ambassador thing as defined in your classic promo

books, bhaiya « woh sab chhodo « bhool jao your MBA tembia «I tell you don¶t fix what¶s working «all the hip gyration

during coffee preparation«its doing wonders« of course we lose sales in the summer months ..but we pick it up in the

winter months, na «so business as usual« hai ki nahin «

Then we have the press «you know very nosey« chirp chirp «we use them only for product launches«current-

news walla funda« taaza front page «full page we could afford in the past « ab quarter chalata

hai«paua«kuchh strip shrip « kuchh arcane publications«and we use T.V. for regular advertising ..trp trp «and we don¶t

care for edits«paid or not « I know, I know«totally lost opportunity«we really wanted to slip some news out about

how unhygienic is the daily milk supply in our cities and how mother¶s ought to turant switch to Nestle tetra PURE

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MILK«well, what to do« there was this chap here earlier , in my place, so headstrong«he wouldn¶t do it and he

wouldn¶t allow anyone else to do it either« saala bad a saadhu ban ta tha «he put out a Press Policy that stopped

everyone and anyone from talking µofficially¶ to the press except himself and his boss, the Market

Head«real chalu.. Real duffer, if you ask me« added no value for 8 years «so we asked him to quit «and true to form

we took his nest away «you know, this house« the Company had loaned him money to buy a house«so, he built it

..and just when he was ready to move in , with his family« da baangg ! we had him put in his papers«so he builds the

nest and we get to lay eggs in it«serves him right!

Communication was in a mess then« much better now« we allow more people in the Company to talk to the

Press«didn¶t you read how one junior guy told this national newspaper off when it tried to pry into our Nutrition

Programme in colleges.. ³we cannot give you details of our programme because it will adversely impact the

competitive position of our Company´, he was quoted«solid, boss« kya maara «then he resigned , of course« pata

nahin kyon «must have got a higher package elsewhere for his amazing communication effort« about our strategic

CSR«we have a reputation for that ..HBR padho, sab samajh jaoge ! It¶s nothing short of a miracle what we have done

in Punjab. You can organise a media visit there«yes, yes, another good idea!

So, don¶t worry about this controversy that ³Scarecrow´ will scare away the Nestle birds in its logo«we¶ll fix the guy

who started this «Incidentally, how did the press get to know that ³Scarecrow´ has been ap pointed Nestle creative

consultant? Oh, you squawked, did you? Well, don¶t do it again «without my written permission, ok«we have a Nestle

India Press Policy, you know«its our NIPPle contract«allows us to show just as much as we like« no more, no less.. al l

in writing, proof read by me«Next time media wallahs call, on a slow news day, just avoid, or direct them to me.

And yes, before you go, you can look after our in-house magazine, VARTALAP«yes Nestle VARTAPLAP, but with a

small Nestle on top, or on the si de«not too big..HQ is very sensitive about associating the world wide NESTLE bird -

nest visual id with every this or that publication«but we use it discreetly, sort of, because we so value internal

communications«or should that be communication