Monday, February 15, 2010

FfUuNn : Full Marks + Fun

Brand : FfUuNn
Company : Navneet Publications

Ad Agency : Euro Rscg

Brand Analysis Count : 443


FfUuNn is a brand of non-paper stationery products from the publication major Navneet Publications. Navneet is a well known brand in the publications field. The company which formed in 1959 , soon emerged as a major player in the educational books in the Indian market. Later in 1993,the company diversified into paper stationery market through products like notebooks, long books etc.

Ffunn ( Fun) brand launched in 2006 was Navneet's foray into the non-paper stationery products. The brand has gained lot of ground in the last four years.

The Indian stationery market including notebooks , printer/copier papers, scholastic products like geometry boxes , pencil boxes, erasers etc is worth around Rs 10,000 crores ( source). The notebook/paper stationery market is worth around Rs 4500 crore.

Business line gives another set of numbers for the Indian stationery market as on 2007. According to Business Line , the stationery market can be divided into different categories with the following market sizes -
Files and Folders - Rs 220 crores
Writing Instruments - Rs 1215 crores
Desktop Accessories - Rs 90 crores
Glues, Adhesives, tapes etc - Rs 260 crores
Computer Consumables - Rs 1700 crore
The non-paper stationery market is estimated to be around Rs 1500 crores in 2007.

The non-paper stationery market is dominated by brands like Camlin . Natraj is a famous brand in the pencils segment. It is in this market that Navneet launched the Fun brand.

Although the size of the Indian non-paper stationery market is large. , the per unit sales per consumer will be low. Consumers may not buying a pack of pencils but one or two. Since the per unit price is also low, consumers are not that brand loyal and the key is to have the distribution reach and channel support. Brands like Camlin has a generic status in the various categories within this market.

For a challenger brand like Ffun, the brand must own a larger share of mind in the consumer. The brand should also have a fair share of voice inorder to achieve this share of mind. Navneet was investing heavily in building the brand. The brand broke into the market with some smart campaigns.

The best thing that Navneet has done for the non-paper stationery entry was to create a new brand for the category. Navneet could have chosen to extend the corporate brand ( Navneet) into this market hoping to extract the equity of Navneet. Instead, the company took a bold and wise decision to create a new brand.


The next smart act was the selection of the brand name. Navneet was wise enough to choose a brand name which appeal to the target segment ie kids. To take a name such as " FUN " creates a huge leverage interms of brand promotion and communication. The brand created some uniqueness to the brand by coining the brand name as FfUuNn.

The brand interprets itself as Full Marks + Fun. That explains the rather unique name spelling. By combining two important attributes like Fun and Study, FfuUNn created one of the best positioning platforms in the category. Although it sounds good, integrating the two divergent concepts like Fun and Study is not easy.
Luckily for the brand, the agency created some smart campaigns for FfUuNn and the brand had a very very good start in the market.

Watch the campaigns here : Fun Giraffe Fun Sea

Fun is now category brand of Navneet under which the entire range of stationery products are launched . The brand launched its range of colors, erasers, sharpeners and whole lot of products in the category. Again for colors, the brand came out with some very good commercials. Watch it here : Fun colors 1,Fun colors 2 .

FfUuNn is a good brand with some good brand properties. The communication also supports the brand's core positioning. The brand virtually has all the marketing mixes going right for them . It will be interesting to see how this brand going to shake up the stationery market.

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