With its flagship Pulsar brand crossing the 2-crore sales milestone, Bajaj Auto has sustained leadership in India’s performance motorcycle segment. At the same time, the company has seen a strong quarter for its EV brand Chetak and is aiming to shake up the electric three-wheeler space with its new Bajaj GoGo. Sumeet Narang, president, marketing, Bajaj Auto, speaks to Geetika Srivastava about how Bajaj is balancing its commuter and premium portfolios, the enduring appeal of the Pulsar, and why value-driven marketing is key to standing out in a complex, price-sensitive market. Edited excerpts:
Pulsar has been a game-changer in its category. What factors determine its continued success?
Pulsar created the entire sports segment in the two-wheeler industry about 24 years back when we launched the Pulsar 150 and the 180. Since then to now, it’s been the unchallenged market leader in the performance motorcycle segment. What has really helped us achieve that is the fact that we have always been very true to what the Pulsar brand’s promise has been, whether it is in our marketing or brand experience or product. So while we have a wide range of Pulsar bikes today, we have made sure that there is one brand interpretation, which is that of Pulsar: core to its promise of providing a thrilling, high-adrenaline riding experience. Power and performance have been a part and parcel of that.
Give us a glimpse of its allied marketing initiatives.
The riding character of the Pulsar is very different from any other sports bike. We have kept that consistent, whether we are selling a 125 cc or a 400 cc Pulsar. Secondly, we have taken this whole energy, rush, adrenaline around the Pulsar brand and incorporated it in every experience. We have gone about arranging Pulsar Manias — a Pulsar fest — in close to 80-90 cities. Here, customers get to interact up close with our products and they see professionals who bring out the best in the Pulsars in the form of stunt shows. There are engagements for customers where they get to ride the bikes not only as test drives but also as part of Pulsar games. We make sure that this is as close to Pulsar equity as advertising would be. We operate Pulsar across CCs and we have 3 key platforms – There are the classic Pulsars; the N series, which is all about technology and the next generation; and the NS series (“naked sports” as the name goes), which is all about high-performing, sporty Pulsars. Across these platforms, the Pulsar attitude remains the same.
You have a diverse portfolio. How do you balance marketing efforts across these varied segments to maintain brand consistency while appealing to distinct consumer groups?
A lot of the credit would go to my marketing team as well as agency partners who are able to handle our diverse range of products. We operate across the two-wheeler segment as well as the three-wheeler category. Within both these segments, we are operating ICE engines, CNG and electric. In terms of cubic capacities, our range extends from 100 cc to 2,500 cc. In terms of pricing, it would be from sub-Rs 1 lakh to upwards of 25 lakh. That is the width and complexity of products that we manage at Bajaj Auto. Whether it is our three-wheeler business, Bajaj motorcycles, Chetak electric business or our Pro-Biking business, we have specific business units that handle each of them. Within the marketing team, there are specific categories that work on each of these different brands and they bring in the uniqueness. At the same time, we have extremely capable functional marketing verticals, which maintain synergy across media, influencer marketing, insights, or digital marketing verticals. Working along with the category teams, they identify touch points, practices and platforms that are most relevant to that particular segment. For instance, the way we will do digital marketing for our Triumph range of products will be extremely different from the way we do for Freedom. That is led by a deep understanding of our consumers that the category teams lead.
How do you rate your performance so far in the EV segment? What role does marketing play in driving consumer adoption of your EV offerings like the Chetak?
The electric segment is doing extremely well. Today, it is largely present in the scooter space in two-wheelers. For us it has been an amazing year, where we have been market leaders this quarter in the segment with Chetak. The product has played a very big role. We launched new ranges, which helped get us the right price points as well as the right features. At the same time, marketing has played a very strong role in building the brand Chetak. On one side, it has been bringing in the brand love of Chetak that people have had for several decades. At the same time, marketing has worked on positioning Chetak within the electric segment on a differentiation of solidity and reliability. This is what we articulate in our marketing as “fully life-proof”. Indian riding conditions are extremely tough, there are bad and busy roads, waterlogging, etc. but whatever the condition might be, Chetak stands up to them. So, Chetak has been differentiated on this aspect of being a very solid, reliable electric scooter which addresses some major barriers that customers would have been experiencing with newer brands of electric scooters in the market. Barriers like “It looks quite nice and futuristic, but will it take on my everyday usage?”, “Can I trust it?”, or “Does it have a strong backup of service and sales?”. Now, Chetak is backed by a network of 3,500 sales and service points, which is a huge sense of comfort and reliability for customers.
How is Bajaj Auto planning to expand its dealer network and after-sales service to cater to the high-value segment? How do you balance your focus on the premium segment with traditional strength in the commuter segment?
Our approach of having different business units comes in handy. Each network of ours is true to the brand. While the Bajaj brand motorcycles are sold through one channel, KTM sells through its own channels – there are about 450 exclusive KTM stores. Triumph, that we launched about 18 months back, has already got over 150 showrooms and the number is growing rapidly. It has its own network and service shops. Similarly, Chetak is present in close to 300 exclusive showrooms and in other select Bajaj showrooms, it has also got its own exclusive workshops. This allows us to tailor-make the customer experience to each of these verticals. We have a very different set of customers. For instance, at Triumph workshops we service 800, 1200 and 2500 cc bikes and we accordingly have a particular quality of technicians with relevant experience. This is very different from what you would get at a KTM, which addresses a lot of youngsters who come there for very quick work to be done on their bikes. Each vertical works with its own customer experience goals, trying to deliver different values of customer experience to that particular vertical.
What was the core insight or gap in the market that led to the development of the Bajaj GoGo e-auto? Where does it fit in your current market strategy?
We are quite neck-to-neck while competing for the number 1 spot in the electric three-wheeler space. It has been a fantastic year that we have had, where we have grown and come extremely close, within a striking distance of the market leader in the category. GoGo is supposed to take us even further. Functionally, we noticed a gap for a three-wheeler which can pack in the reliability, solidity and trust that a Bajaj brand can bring in, and yet be extremely progressive when it comes to its features and the technology. We see that the three-wheeler is woven into the fabric of any market as a mobility solution. Therefore, we see GoGo not only delivering on a product like this to the operator but also as a very endearing and progressive way of travel for the end customers. That’s where we could sense that there is a gap in which we can launch a brand, and that’s where GoGo came in. We also identified that one of the biggest concerns that operators have of moving to electric three-wheelers is the anxiety of the range. The moment they are out of range, it’s the end of their earning for the day. GoGo comes with a best-in-class range of 251 kms on a single charge, which takes care of a full-day usage for heavy users. It has features like LED lights, reverse park assist, and hill-hold. It is a very versatile machine.