Opinion: Why Maruti Suzuki desperately needs to have some fun

I have really loved Maruti Suzuki’s marketing campaigns. ‘Ki kara? petrol khatam hi nahi hunda’ and ‘India comes home in a Maruti Suzuki’ are my favourites. Even the ‘Kitna deti hai’ campaign was memorable. The new ‘No. 1’ campaign, though, has me worried.

Not because the headline – No. 1 makers of SUVs – isn’t true; that’s a fact. But because the products are missing the mark on every other statement the advertisement makes. No. 1 makers of goosebumps, No. 1 makers of woah views and No.1 makers of memories all seem like hurdles the products are tripping over. 

Exclamations of ‘woah’, feeling goosebumps and having fond memories are all emotional experiences. They aren’t results of rationality: something Maruti has most often smothered its products with. But before you say this is what sells, the showroom floor tells a different story. Ready availability and massive benefits or discounts up to Rs 2 lakh for the Jimny are already the case. 

Instead of selling the original 3-door Jimny, the company tried to rationalise it by lengthening it and adding two more doors. And when you drive it, you’ll see the engine desperately trying to achieve the much-cherished fuel efficiency. 

As a result, it falls off that rational-emotional tightrope. Performance is far from goosebump-inducing, the added length distorts the cute-as-a-button proportions and four doors rob it of that fun irreverence to practicality. And it’s still cramped, while efficiency is far from good. 

Yes, I know, I’m pining once more for the 3-door Jimny, but that’s a fun vehicle. Which would sell. Case in point, the Thar: two doors, four seats, a thirsty petrol and a 4x2 drivetrain. Heck, I even wrote earlier about a less serious 4x2 Jimny, which, oddly enough, would also bring in some rationality – more city-friendly, more affordable and more efficient. 

Even the Ignis could have stood on an emotional platform, offered with fewer and only high-end variants, fun features and loads of real – and money-making – customisations. Maruti missed the boat with the Swift too. Instead of a Swift Sport, we got a rational and affordable LXi. It could easily have been the Mini for this segment: fun and flippant, instead of frugal and all too familiar. 

For some cars, Maruti needs to invert its small margins-big volumes formula. It needs to understand not all its products need to be rational; some can and should be emotional only. Perhaps in the past it was difficult for Maruti to do so, but today, with the YOLO effect clearly influencing car purchases, and with its separate Nexa dealerships selling distinct cars, it can easily do it. And it must.

The Jimny is still young, there’s a new Swift coming and Maruti has a localised 1.0 direct-injection turbo-petrol. Come on Maruti, for a few in your stable, go with your heart, bring out the ‘3-Doors’ and ‘Sports’. That’s what gets the goosebumps going.