In a branding exercise that has been in the pipeline for the past one year, the company has positioned the AFL brand as a `total movement solutions provider' in the market. This marks a determined bid of the erstwhile Air Freight Ltd. to bring the new corporate identity -- AFL -- and its wider portfolio of services, in the spotlight.

In phase one of the brand-building campaign AFL has kicked off a direct marketing initiative that will reach out to over 10,000 corporates across the country; a press campaign that supports the DM initiative; and the sponsorship and organisation of a host of events like the forthcoming conference on supply chain management in Calcutta. The company has allocated Rs 5 crore to beexpended during the first phase of the campaign.

Why

According to Cyrus Guzdar CMD AFL Limited: ``As recently as 1992 most of our products like corporate travel, air cargo, domestic express etc were treated as commodities and each attracted a dedicated set of clientele.'' However, with the changing complexion of the market, AFL realised that the distinctions between services have blurred. Instead, outsourcing total movement solutions was becoming the order of the day.

For example, in the case of distributing Godrej and Boyce locks, AFL Logistics takes care of a gamut of movement functions including octroi management, transportation, order-execution and delivery.``Hence it made eminent sense to bring the different products under a common umbrella, viz AFL,'' says Guzdar.

There was one other concern. So far, the only visible face of the company was DHL, the brand under which AFL provides international cargo services in collaboration with US-based DHL International. However with AFL's tie up withother world majors like FX Coughlin for logistics and Carlson Wagonlit for travel, it was time for AFL to step into the limelight-and not just hide in DHL's shadow.

Using Ogilvy Consulting's Sampson Tyrell model, a DNA mapping of the brand attributes vis-a-vis the service attributes was executed.

The result: while the company already possessed intangibles like trust and partnership, others like speed, movement, efficiency, technology and network had to be acquired. To that end the company has put into place an investment of close to Rs 200-crore on investment in IT and infrastructure.

In terms of a new name, market research firm Indica found that AFL -- an acronym of the company's original name Air Freight Limited -- was the most acceptable.

The communication

DM was the obvious choice when it came to communicating all the internal changes to the end consumer -- who is typically, a corporate. ``We are looking at the corporate end of the market hence a product-led, retail strategy was not theright route,'' explains Guzdar.

Then again AFL Logistics was chosen as the campaign leit motif because the division covers the entire universe of the company's products and hence could showcase AFL's capabilities best.

The ad campaign -- with the tagline ``where movement is a science'' -- has been designed to support the DM effort. Since the company is selling a concept, the mailers and the ad-campaign created by Ambience Advertising take the demonstrative route. The five ad and mailers series illustrate the entire supply chain management process for individual company clients like McDonalds, Philips, Godrej & Boyce from among the 20 large corporate clients of AFL.

In yet another DM burst which is expected to take off in May, the company intends to continue with the testimonial route. Pertinently, the DHL brand will continued to be advertised as before-including on television.

Although most of the preparations to unleash the new campaign were through as far back as March last year, the launch wasdelayed for over a year on account of ``adverse market conditions'' explain company sources.

Now that the AFL blitz is out in the open, the ambitions are tumbling out of the box too: the company aims to nearly double its turnover to Rs 1,000-crore by 2002. ``We want to emerge as a world-class integrated logistics solutions provider eventually,'' says Guzdar. With the AFL identity in place, at least one of the company's goals -- integration -- is well on track. u