Anil Madan is Twyford's brand manager and has taken over marketing for the sanitaryware veteran, but with an advertising agency background rather than a bathroom one can he bring a fresh approach to an old problem - why is the consumer so unaware of major bathroom brands?
Twyford, along with Ideal Standard and Armitage Shanks, is one of the few bathroom brands that most people stopped in the street would be able to name - mainly because they've seen it in the pub toilet.
Ok, that's a deliberately harsh assessment but it's close enough to the truth to be a nagging issue for a market worth billions of pounds a year. The likes of Roca and Vitra are huge companies operating across dozens of countries, but even they would be hard pushed to get a flicker of unprompted brand recognition from Joe Public.
And Twyford and Armitage's fame is mainly gained from their presence in commercial outlets like schools, hospitals, sports stadiums and, yes, public houses.
Anil Madan is Twyford's new brand manager and with the promotion of marketing director Anna Burns to a more senior role at parent company Sanitec, he has taken over responsibility for marketing. His background however is as an account manager at a major advertising agency, not bathroom sales, so does he have the credentials to push a major trade brand into a major consumer one?
Q So you're new to the bathroom market?
A I started with Twyford at the beginning of 2009 so I'm actually quite new to the whole bathroom sanitaryware industry and now I've taken over the marketing. Prior to that I spent 19 years working in advertising so that's my background, but in the past seven to 10 years a lot of my clients were in the sanitaryware and merchant arena like Travis Perkins, Saint Gobain, Wolseley, Grohe, so I had a pretty good feel for it.I was an account director so in that capacity I was handling the communication messages for the brands and companies. It wasn't a massive leap from where I was to coming here, but obviously my experience has a lot of breadth to it, so now it's a question of getting deep into one area.
Q What are the main differences?
A It's mainly understanding the nuances of new product development, product management and understanding why launches can't happen when I want because of the technicalities of production like mould making.So I'm asking questions like 'what does the consumer think of this?' when the research to answer the question doesn't exist - so I'm still coming to terms with those things.
Q Do you think it's unusual in this industry to have someone come from a marketing rather than a sales background?
A It was a brave decision for Anna Burns [outgoing marketing director] and Mike Conlon [managing director] to appoint me really, so I have to thank them because I haven't come from the traditional stable. They could have got someone from Ideal Standard or Roca or wherever, but no.I came with some ideas and I wanted to be able to shift perceptions of where we are in the marketplace and the way Twyford Bathrooms is perceived. I've seen descriptions from specifiers saying we're a 'sleeping giant' and that we have an enormous amount of potential if we just shifted a little.And we can do that. I want to be able to communicate to the marketplace our passion for innovation and practical design - a lot of the sentiments that we share with our sister companies in Sanitec - and we need to get that out on a broader basis.
Q How do you plan to do that?
A One of the core audiences I want to talk to over the next few years is specifiers, architects and designers - people who really are responsible for demand generation - and we need to influence them in a much bigger way than we have, we've neglected them I suppose.Traditionally our biggest customer has been the merchant and for the foreseeable future that will remain the case. However, what I want to do in the coming year is move the focus to the architect and designer and shift the perception of what we can offer.When it comes to physically selling product, at the very start of a design project it's a lot easier to influence the decision process of the designer than it is to try to switch the choice of the merchant at the end of it.But to be in a position to influence them, we have to be on their radar and change the way that we're seen by them and that means better advertising, better communication and obviously product.
Q Twyford is a well known brand, but is it known for the right things?
A There's a real brand equity there, absolutely, but we have to turn that around from 'bog standard' to something that would be specified in top hotels, for example. We would like to be seen as the Audi of the sanitaryware market - innovative, design led, aspirational but obtainable. We're never going to be Villeroy & Boch, but we don't really want to be, we are a mass-market brand, as a business we need to sell volume to justify our own existence. But we still want to be able to capture people's imagination, we want people to see a Twyford product and think 'I want that in my bathroom'.
Q Why do you think there aren't more well known bathroom brands in the public eye?
A In many ways, and there's no getting away from it, at its most fundamental sanitaryware is a distress purchase. Also, at a personal level, bathrooms are seen as a retreat where you like to surround yourself with beautiful forms, but it's not like clothes or a car. When you get into a BMW it's an extension of yourself and you're surrounded by the brand and are projecting it for all the world to see. You can't really do that with a sanitaryware brand because its function is a very personal thing. Plus, of course, it's a purchasing decision you only make, on average, every 12-15 years.
Q Do you think too much focus is put on products and not on the overall ergonomics of the bathroom?
A I think that's fair, and that's probably one of the reasons why when talking to the specifier marketplace it's not just a case of saying 'here's some product, shift it'. We need to get into a dialogue and consult with them. One of the sectors we're looking at longer term is hotels and we'd love to get into a position where we can consult with developers on the design rather than just sell product.Traditionally, you're right to say that this market has been dominated by marketeers who come from a sales background. They literally say 'our factories produce X amount, therefore we must sell X'. We need to become much more like proper marketeers and ask what the market wants and needs and sit down and talk to them about it.
Q How important is the independent bathroom studio, as opposed to the merchant?
A The first area to focus on is the market responsible for demand generation - the specifier and the architect - and getting our profile higher there and showing what we're capable of. But the retail area is very important in the sense that we need flagship product for the retail market just as British Airways had Concorde. Independent studios is an area we're going to make some inroads with this year. There are new suites that we will launch in the upper to middle market offering and they're very contemporary in their style, so we think they'll be very popular. But it is a question of prioritising the things that needs to be done.The reality is that if we have our products specified in three and four star hotel chains, prestige apartment complexes and the like, then when people come into contact with them and see them in a retail environment they will want to have Twyford product installed in their bathroom.
