Case View with Ashwini Deshpande, the Co-Founder of Elephant, India's largest independent integrated design consultancy

1. Ashwini Deshpande,Co-Founder, Elephant
CASE VIEW ON
HECTOR BEVERAGES’ PAPER BOAT: DIFFUSING INNOVATION
THROUGH “DRINKS AND MEMORIES”
A 1989 graduate of National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India
Ashwini is the Co-Founder of Elephant, India’s largest independent
integrated design consultancy with offices in India & Singapore. The
EconomicTimes - Brand Equity has ranked Elephant as No. 1 among all the
Design Agencies in India
ET CASES
May 2015
Interviewed
by
Dr. Nagendra V. Chowdary
Interview
with
Ashwini Deshpande
Ref. CB-1-0014B

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Interview with Ashwini Deshpande Hector Beverages’ Paper Boat: Diffusing Innovation through “Drinks and Memories”
ET CASES
1. What were the triggers for you to have embraced the field of design as a profession
at a time when it was still a social stigma, at least for women? What has been the role
of your alma mater, National Institute of Design?
Though I grew up in a small town called Aurangabad in the seventies & eighties, my
parents had raised us with fair exposure & freedom. I was highly inclined towards art,
creativity, advertising & visual story telling in school. I was also good at academics. When
I decided to pursue education other than the conventional one, my parents were very
supportive. Though I wasn’t fully aware of what a designer does as a career and there was
nobody to find out from, the prospect of going through the professional design education
at the most premier institute seemed very exciting.
SOCIETAL ACCEPTANCE TOWARDS A
WOMAN IN THE PROFESSION FOR
DESIGN IS PROBABLY GREATER THAN A
MAN CHOOSING THE SAME.
“““““
”””””
In the eighties, when I trained to be a designer, design was not an established profession
or business. So there was no question of social stigma. There was curiosity, but no negativity.
The issue was lack of awareness that “design” could be a profession and would have
bright career prospects.
To be fair, societal acceptance towards a woman in the profession for design is probably
greater than a man choosing the same. Because design is considered a creative activity,
and as women are naturally considered to have a better creative flair, there has never
been an issue of non-acceptance.
I am an equalist and I do not subscribe to gender comparisons because I have never faced
any critical bias (either ways) in my career spanning 26 years.
2. Interestingly, many of the Indian design outfits are run by women as of 2015 (Sarita
Sunder of Trapeze; Gopika Chowfla of Gopika Chowfla Design; Chaiti Mehta of Chaiti
Mehta Design; Smita Rajgopal of Smitten; Shanoo Bhatia of Eureka Moments; Ruchita
Madhok of Kahani Designworks; Divya Thakur of Design Temple; Bhavika Shah of
Beyondesign, etc.). Having seen the evolution and revolution of Indian design canvass

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Hector Beverages’ Paper Boat: Diffusing Innovation through “Drinks and Memories” Interview with Ashwini Deshpande
ET CASES
from close quarters, how do you read this for all those aspiring to make design as a
career choice?
(While all these designers & their companies are well known and are doing very well, they
are not exactly my contemporaries. Most of them started years later and most of them
operate as boutique design offices.)
Elephant was started in 1989. Our dream was always bigger. We wanted to corporatize
design practice in India with a global outlook. We are the largest, oldest independent
multi-disciplinary design consulting company with offices in Pune, Delhi & Singapore. We
defined our mission as making a “positive difference”. That helped us eliminate the
superficial and focus on the core strength of making design relevant to Indian businesses.
The Economic Times - Brand Equity has ranked us as No. 1 in their Design Agency rankings
for 2012–2014.
Design is a nascent profession in India. It is still to prove itself as a tool for better business.
There are very few documented case studies to understand the impact of design on bottom
lines for Indian businesses. So I believe design professionals still need to work hard to
spread awareness and demonstrate the value design thinking brings to a boardroom and
to an annual report if it has to become a sustainable profession.
On the other hand, there are dozens of design institutes opening doors to thousands of
aspirants without reasonable focus on relevant curriculum or faculty. This usually results
into a dissatisfied design graduate who is either compelled to pick a job in the
ever-expansive digital domain where the designer is distanced from the user and there is
little chance for design to make an impact by innovation or differentiation. He/she just
occupies a replaceable seat. Some other bright minds get misguided to hurriedly subscribe
to the so-called “cool” and churn out a westerner’s version of “Indian” for objects that are
desirable, but not needed. Many of them also go overseas for further education, which in
my opinion may or may not be relevant to Indian requirements. All these are lost
opportunities for the Indian economy.
If one has to make a career as a designer in India, relevance and alignment to real people
living real lives is most necessary.
Don’t become a designer because it’s a cool/creative profession. Do it if you want to make
a positive difference to the society.

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Interview with Ashwini Deshpande Hector Beverages’ Paper Boat: Diffusing Innovation through “Drinks and Memories”
ET CASES
3. How has been the journey at Elephant? What have been your challenges as a design
entrepreneur and how could you overcome them?
Initial years were the times of License Raj. There was no need for Indian businesses to
improve or differentiate, as they did not face global competition. So it was very difficult to
make anyone understand the value design would add.
Some of the operational challenges faced at the start sound rather trivial now. The first
task was to explain to our Chartered Accountant what our business was going to be. The
next and even tougher part was to explain the same thing to a Bank Manager who was not
convinced we needed a current account since any income seemed a remote possibility to
him considering design as a business. The third one that hounded us for a long time was to
get a telephone connection (in the early nineties).
But none of these could match up to the challenge that we faced in explaining to some of
our early clients why we needed to charge “design fees” since no advertising or technology
agency had ever charged it as a separate component.
Once the liberalization process started in mid-nineties, Indian manufacturers started facing
the heat in India as well as overseas. They realized the shortfalls in quality, finish, materials
& functionality of their offerings. They needed differentiated products and they needed
distinct branding. Design could help them.
DESIGN THINKING IS A STRATEGIC TOOL
THAT CAN BE APPLIED AT EVERY STAGE
OF DECISION MAKING, BE IT VALUE
SYSTEMS FOR ORGANIZATIONS OR WORK
CULTURE DEFINITION OR THE MOST
OBVIOUS, THE DESIGN OF OBJECTS OR
SERVICES.
“““““
”””””Service-oriented companies like the telecom & financial institutions also started perceiving
the need for customer orientation through differentiated experience building and design
thinking provided the necessary user-focus.
Post-2000, when the Indian economy started emerging, many global MNCs sensed the
need to develop products, services & brands for India. Elephant was very well-placed to
take care of these needs with strong experience of the business & cultural environment in
the Indian context. There has been no looking back since.

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Hector Beverages’ Paper Boat: Diffusing Innovation through “Drinks and Memories” Interview with Ashwini Deshpande
ET CASES
4. In one of your interviews, you said, “design is an investment”. What does this mean
for companies, products and brands, especially for those who control the marketing
budgets and conjure strategy road maps?
In my opinion, time & financial investments on design & development are far more
fundamental in nature and give long term, sustainable rewards. So I am against budgets
that count design & development costs as expenses from marketing budgets. They need
to be equated with capital investments with a view to diverse long-term returns. Marketing
well-designed products & services may form the last leg, but would certainly not be the
only purpose.
5. What according to you is a great product design? In an Economic Times’ interview
(August 28th
2012), you were quoted, “The biggest obstacle is that we have no
measurement tools for design success stories”. Is there any progress thence?
It has taken long for design fraternity to understand the value of their work and it may take
even longer for them to communicate it in a credible manner. In fact, I have heard someone
say “design is too important to leave it to designers”.
We have probably traveled some distance, but still do not have standardized tools to
measure the business success brought about by design intervention.
6. Why do you think product design is important for a product’s sustainable success?
How should firms go about integrating product design decisions into their strategic
frameworks?
Product design is not about designing an object after the decision to manufacture that
object has been taken. Product design intervention needs to be brought in at the time of
strategic discussions on purpose of the organization. That purpose needs to guide what
kind audiences would be addressed and that in turn would help decide what products or
services should be developed. For example, if the purpose of the organization is to work
towards sustainable planet, it cascades into certain kind of technologies, materials &
processes that will act as framework for designing. Design thinking is a strategic tool that
can be applied at every stage of decision making, be it value systems for organizations or
work culture definition or the most obvious, the design of objects or services.
7. Which are the Global and Indian products that you consider have been known for
their product and packaging designs (from across several product categories, including
electronics, automobiles, watches, etc.)? What’s the DNA of those companies that
put product design at the forefront?

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Interview with Ashwini Deshpande Hector Beverages’ Paper Boat: Diffusing Innovation through “Drinks and Memories”
ET CASES
There are some legendary brands like Dyson & Braun that deployed product design as
their differentiating tool by focusing on users & their unmet needs.
Swatch converted watches into lifestyle accessories for the young & playful by aligning
them with aspirations, by discarding the convention.
BMW focused on the driving experience beyond the technology jargon to create a tribe of
delighted owners who enjoy driving their machines.
No conversation about innovation in product, packaging & retail design can be complete
without discussing Apple. But much has been said about it everywhere.
Closer home, Symphony has been at the forefront of air-coolers for more than 25 seasons,
relentlessly developing better products that use lesser space, lesser power, give more
efficient cooling, look elegant to suit today’s homes and have far greater functionality.
Today, Symphony is the world’s largest air-cooler company that reaches more than 60
countries. Elephant has been the proud design partner of Symphony for more than 25
years.
The one common trait of all these companies is their unflinching faith in the power of
design thinking for developing products and their ability to question the conventional
methods.
PAPER BOAT IS A RESULT OF AN AMAZING
INSIGHT THAT URBAN YOUTH CRAVE FOR
SOMETHING THAT IS SIMPLE, DELIGHTFUL
& NON-TRANSACTIONAL… JUST LIKE HOW
LIFE WAS AS A CHILD. SO THEY ARE NOT
JUST DRINKS, BUT POOLS OF MEMORIES
ONE CAN TAKE A DIP INTO.
“““““
”””””8. Why do you think, Indian products for long, haven’t been known/appreciated for
their unique product/packaging designs? Do you think it’s time for Indian companies
(like Elephant) to stamp their presence? What would it take for Indian product/package
design firms to be at the forefront of packaging innovation stable?
There are a few reasons for Indian products & brands being relatively unknown outside
India. Firstly, the journey (and need) for innovation starts only after you perfect the
manufacturing capabilities. Most Indian companies still struggle with turning out a perfectly
finished product.

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Hector Beverages’ Paper Boat: Diffusing Innovation through “Drinks and Memories” Interview with Ashwini Deshpande
ET CASES
It is only when you get the quality right that you can think of creating differentiated products
by deploying design intervention.
Second reason is the fact that design is a fairly established profession in the developed
countries. Design companies have existed for over 60 or more years. In India there are no
large scale, impactful design companies barring a few, like Elephant that have existed for
about 25 years with sustainable growth. I believe we are well on our way to stamp our
presence through the work we do for global companies like P&G, Nissan, etc. There are
some more design companies who are also doing impactful work. When they start acquiring
some scale & sustainability, Indian design would be in a far better place globally.
9. What is the relationship between product/packaging design and brand building? Do
you think product/packaging designs have the power to offer brand experience beyond
the existential convenience? Can you illustrate the relationship between
product/packaging designs and brand experience with some examples?
At Elephant, we don’t look at product, packaging or brand as disjointed components. We
look at a unified experience for the user. Our aim is to make it more meaningful for the
user through better functionality & form using appropriate materials and technologies.
As mentioned earlier, Symphony is a great example of combining the entire experience
beyond product design. Many of the Britannia products like Tiger or Marie Gold have a
well-created presence that includes portfolio harmonizing, product design, packaging &
branding by Elephant. Yes. We do design cookies too 
10. Hector Beverages’ Paper Boat has caught the imagination of Indian consumers with
its uniquely fresh value proposition. What according to you are the compelling and
captivating innovations that have enabled it to create a new and successful category
(of that of ethnic beverage)?
It is a well-known fact that we carry a limbic imprint of certain preferences in our brains.
These are results of what we experience from childhood combined with generations getting
exposed to certain kind of food, climate and culture.
Paper Boat is a result of an amazing insight that urban youth crave for something that is
simple, delightful & non-transactional… just like how life was as a child. So they are not
just drinks, but pools of memories one can take a dip into.
The success of this brand lies in the combination of apt naming, very differentiated
packaging & the superb recipes that taste identical to that drink served back home by
mothers & grandmothers.

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Interview with Ashwini Deshpande Hector Beverages’ Paper Boat: Diffusing Innovation through “Drinks and Memories”
ET CASES
11. Was there any difference in the brief given to you by Hector Beverages (when compared
to the brief that you normally receive from other companies) that enabled you to
come up with such an innovative design for the pack?
I think the biggest difference was that the brief was independent of competition, category
benchmarks, etc. It was purely based on human insights & had no references of what
existed in the market. It was clearly a Blue Ocean brief. We did not have to focus on
differentiation because we were not looking at what existed. This liberation from market
benchmarks helped us think fresh, new and come up with something that matched the
passion of Hector team.
12. If you have to single out one aspect (among all the aspects that you had to take into
account) in deciding Paper Boat’s package design, what would that be?
Desire for Simplicity
13. Do you think there is a shelf life for this design i.e., whether a time will come when
the design of the Paper Boat pack has to be revised or updated?
The point in change is to stay aligned with the audience while being true to the brand
essence.
Like any other FMCG product, paper boat pack will also have a cycle of refresh as and
when. But it is too early in the life of this brand to say when and what may need to change.
14. If given an option, are there any changes that you would like to make to the pack’s
design?
Since its launch, there have been small refinements & changes. We have changed the
shape of pouch to stand better at the shelf & feel better grip. Cap has recently been
changed for better functionality along with more delightful look & feel. When Iced Teas
got introduced in the range, we decided to launch them in brown paper like pouches unlike
the whites of fruit-based drinks. So the evolution is ongoing. But I don’t see us doing
revolutionary changes yet.

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Hector Beverages’ Paper Boat: Diffusing Innovation through “Drinks and Memories” Interview with Ashwini Deshpande
ET CASES
Source: http://www.elephantdesign.com/
Source: http://www.elephantdesign.com/cms/Corporate-Branding/Corporate-Branding.aspx

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Interview with Ashwini Deshpande Hector Beverages’ Paper Boat: Diffusing Innovation through “Drinks and Memories”
ET CASES
Source: http://www.elephantdesign.com/cms/Product-Design/Product-Design.aspx
Source: http://www.elephantdesign.com/cms/Packaging-Design/Packaging-Design.aspx

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Hector Beverages’ Paper Boat: Diffusing Innovation through “Drinks and Memories” Interview with Ashwini Deshpande
ET CASES
Source: http://www.elephantdesign.com/cms/Retail%20Design/Retail%20Design.aspx