Bajaj will not have the name on its bikes

Bajaj Pulsar will be Pulsar and Bajaj Discover will be Discover henceforth

Bajaj mulls with dropping of its name on brands
It is announced that come April, Bajaj products will have the Bajaj name abolished. The ancestral name Bajaj from the company's flagship products, its showrooms as well as its service centers will drop the name Bajaj.

There is more to subtly promoting the brand itself as a product and the company aims to do without their family name to its products.

By April 'Hamara Bajaj' could well be split into 'Hamara Pulsar' or 'Hamara Discover'. The man who would be behind the change will be Bajaj Auto Managing Director Rajiv Bajaj.

Bajaj Auto is touted as the country's second largest two-wheeler maker with market share of Rs. 37,800 crores is looking to bring some major changes after the 3-way split in the company.

The dropping of Bajaj name will be a step to re-brandize the products without the name. Bajaj name enjoyed a pride place in 1 in 6 households in India for over 50 years. It is no wonder a big challenge now that the products, showrooms and the service centers will strip off Bajaj from their names.

The Auto major has been mulling with overhauling the distribution network and renaming its touch points as Pulsar or Discover. The two bikes have changed the way India motorbikes and the company wants to further capitalize on the craze (call it aggressive marketing strategy). The company admits of updating its dealers and consumer touch points of the Bajaj name dropping idea.



An international retail design agency Fitch is in charge of the transition and the changeover procedure. Fitch has a history of working with Aditya Birla Group, ADAG (Reliance), Tata, Boeing, Vodafone and Microsoft in almost similar capacities.

In fact Bajaj's idea was earlier aggressively taken up by consumer companies including, ITC/Procter & Gamble and Hindustan Unilever. As for auto companies, most companies depend too much on the family names (take Tata or Mahindra or even the down south company TVS) and there are none so far.

Rajiv Bajaj was quoted of saying, "actually I don't want that name. We have already started the process so today on a Pulsar. The Bajaj name is seen only on the engine. The same is the case with the Discover. Our three wheeler has Bajaj in small font while the initial 'RE' is in much bigger font. One day, we will drop the Bajaj name from there also completely."



German Volkswagen and Toyota of Japan have adopted the strategy successfully with their many brands promoted minus the company name. Bajaj mulls to repeat their success here in India.

The premier bike brand from Bajaj, Pulsar which is 9 years old has had a success that no other bike brand enjoys in India. The company believes that Pulsar will have the sporty performance bike image strengthened without having to bank on Bajaj name. In fact Pulsar added value to the Bajaj. So there is no need to make anyone believe that the Pulsar or a Boxer come from Bajaj. It has been well established that Pulsar or a Discover come from Bajaj now they don't need a promotion like that, the managing director believes.
While this transformation exercise will cost Rs. 21 crores for the company it will involve 600+ dealers and 1000+ service centers. But the company will make sure that the next generation products that are in pipeline for 2011 launch including the KTM and Kawasaki will come out with the same strategy.