Wondeful Tonight

A Dent on Brand ‘Australia’

Australia is considered to be one of the most sought after nations by many Asian students who aspire to pursue their higher education; or has this been a statement of the past in view of the horrific incidents that have taken place in a period of less than a month. Two separate barbarous attacks in less than a month on four innocent souls, where one is proving to be fatal and to top it off both attacks were on Indians. Boy! This definitely leaves a scar on Australia not only as a destination for further studies but also as a tourist location.

Let us look at this situation from the point of view of a marketer, and you would definitely emphasize on the attitudinal change of people particularly students towards Brand Australia and hence their resultant behavioural alterations that takes route from the change in attitude. The country down under had, quite a few years ago, grabbed my attention when I was in pursuit of a good university to do my M.B.A. and it had appealed so well to me that I had considered going there which did not happen due to financial constraints. The attributes that drew me closer to choosing Australia included reasonable cost of living, fewer people meaning less competition, flexible class sessions and many more; all this led into an attitude formation of Australia (which is considered as the attitude object - product) which promised to paint a rosy picture for my future endeavours. Many of my friends, who had formed the same attitudes and had the money to fly there, did end up in the land down under and are studying hence are the successful buyers. This attitude towards Australia remained intact until the recent attacks which has done nothing but dented the Brand equity (the sum total of all the attributes) of Australia; at least in India whether or not it has the same influence elsewhere.

Marketers hope to change the attitude of a consumer who favours a competitor’s brand and thereby form a favourable attitude towards their products, through various change strategies that are available to them. The attitudinal change, if has not been achieved right, then there is a chance of a negative impact on one’s brand. What the Australian goons (racists) have done is that they have forced many of us to change our brand beliefs about Australia thus forcing us into behaving in a different manner choosing from other nations (competitors) to be a better destination for either studies or vacations. Albeit, efforts from the country to try and re-establish the same attitudes in people that it had earlier so successfully achieved have started; with a policeman flying to India to brief prospective students on "safety strategy tips" which was never done prior to the attacks.

I sure as hell want to listen to Andrew Symmonds’ comments on his countrymen’s Racial Vilification. Hope Shravan Kumar undergoes a miraculous recovery and hope there still exists something called as harmony in this world which seems to have vanished.

The Impact of Viral marketing

A very simple and sweet way of elucidating the kind of benefit a marketer can enjoy, in using a marketing devise called Viral Marketing to sell a product which is as basic as a Soap.

A Witty Quote

“I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination.”

- David Ogilvy

Virgin Mobile featuring Dimple Aunty

“The all new vJazz Phone from Virgin Mobile. Get unlimited music download for 1 year, absolutely free!”

This is exactly what ‘Virgin Mobile’ wants to sell through its humorous and catchy advertisement that has gotten many of us youngsters enjoying watching these kinds of commercials. Virgin mobile has aired a series of advertisements to promote its products and this commercial is one of those that is broadcasted to endorse one of the value added services that Virgin offers – the VAS of downloading music from phone instantly. The commercial however portrays a positioning of both the product at sale as well as the VAS on offer with the tagline “Think Hatke” which is wacky and very unique easily differentiating their communication from competitors.

The use of the girl Shalu’s mother – Dimple Aunty as a strict mother who is concerned of her daughter’s exams warning the guy Vicky about the same, instantly gives consent to both the kids to go watch a movie to avoid an apprehensive encounter with Vicky and is hilarious to the fact that today’s younger generation will go all out to get their way. In all this, the subtle use of music by Vicky to impress Dimple aunty enables Virgin to communicate what it intends to, through this Ad and that is the fact, that consumers can get free unlimited music downloads with Virgin Mobile. Whether or not this Ad has had an impact on the sales of VM (Virgin Mobile) would be a million dollar question considering stiff communication competition from Vodafone's Zoozoo.

DHL - Customer Delight Personified

A guy dressed in a yellow sweat shirt, starts to climb a cliff that seems to look similar to the Everest whilst battling the snowfall, slips and still doesn’t give up, continues to climb the Herculean Mountain keeps us wondering as to why he is doing so. We see him finally reach the top with the guy reaching for a package that is yellow in colour and hands it over to a small boy of Tibet origin that has the label of – DHL Express on it, allowing us to realize that he is an employee of DHL who would go anywhere the buyer of DHL’s service wants him to deliver the ‘courier’.

DHL has positioned itself as a courier service firm that covers any and every geographic region that is present on planet earth and through this Ad they are trying to communicate this message that DHL would – Go the extra mile to deliver its service. This is again shown in the Ad where the employee continues his journey elsewhere to deliver another package in a completely different region.

Coming up next is one of my most favourite Ads in recent times and its inference - Virgin Mobile's latest commercial featuring Dimple Aunty.

Shaadi.com

A matrimonial service company, in India? This was a startling question asked by many traditionally bound-orthodox Indians, but Indians today are opening up to newer changes and better options and one among these revolutionary changes that India saw was Shaadi.com, one of the leading Matrimony service companies in India. People believe it to be a tedious task and a risky affair to find good brides or grooms, and this is what Shaadi.com looks to simplify by rendering a networking service between the bride to be and the groom to be.

The commercial here is very relevant to what the service company is intending to position itself as, and that is, it communicates to the youngsters who want a perfect life partner that Shaadi.com would enable them to find their better halves as per their wants and likings. This can be seen in the Ad, where the groom decides to get married and falls in a dilemma of choosing from three options – the first one who is very traditional, homely and listens to whatever her parents say, second is a girl who is too modern and gets drunk which turns the guy off, and the last one is too rich and spoilt by her dad. The guy seems to dislike all of them, however in the end there is a girl who is portrayed to know exactly what the guy wants and seems to be understanding and a perfect match for him. This concept of finding a best life partner for you based on your likings and desires is defined well in the tagline – Find happiness at Shaadi.com.

As promised earlier the next two posts would also cover similar analysis on commercials featuring service offerings. 

Dissecting some Ads

As part of one of our courseworks at class, I had to perform a qualitative analysis on how certain service companies have communicated through T.V. Ads of their service offering, positioning and also the content of the Ad. The Ads that I opted for entailed - Virgin Mobile (Telecommunication Service Firm), Shaadi.com (Matrimonial Web portal Service Firm) and DHL (Courier Service Company). The next few posts would encompass the details of the study.

India Decides – And the winner is...

Rahul Gandhi!!! Yes, yes, it might be surprising for you to see me naming him the winner, when it was clearly Dr. Man Mohan Singh who was the one who emerged victorious in winning back the crown as the Prime Minister for the second consecutive time which only happened some decades ago when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was repeatedly named Prime Minister for two terms consecutively. Most of the credit for UPA’s (United Progressive Alliance) win, in my opinion must be bestowed to Mr. Rahul Gandhi simply because of his excellent promotional campaigns that he so ardently conducted with utmost enthusiasm which any young voter would be impressed by and this is the same reason why I have named him this year’s true winner of the general elections.

In his campaign his statement to his younger admirers was – `There is a work that my father had started, a dream he had dreamt. I come to you today saying... allow me to turn that dream into reality’. This itself had the adrenaline of the youth rushing towards incorporating the same and spreading the message which eventually resulted in the Congress sweeping the seats of the state of Uttar Pradesh. This immaculate politician needs to be present in the cabinet of ministers thereby leading our nation to prosperity, much in vain of Mr. Singh’s efforts to persuade Rahul to join in.

It is quite a disheartening end to the elections for the BJP with Mr. L.K Advani’s efforts drained and his long awaited dream of leading India is given a full stop. With Advani’s resignation on the horizon, the party must recoup and counterfeit a strategy adopted by the UPA which is to inculcate in their party a young promoter like Rahul. Agreed, Varun has won with 192,000 votes but the party’s promotional campaigns have been hurt with a minor part of the Muslim voters casting their vote for BJP.

Neuromarketing – A Scientifically Driven Marketing Technique

If you look up for the meaning of this new science called neuromarketing on the net, Wikipedia would give you a definition which would sound like this - Neuromarketing is a new field of marketing that studies consumers' sensor motor, cognitive, and affective response to marketing stimuli. This definition though is significant does not offer the essence of its applicability. Neuromarketing is a brand new break-through that attempts to understand, analyze and interpret not only the consumption behaviour portrayed by end consumers but also informs marketers about the reasoning for such behaviour.

Linking this concept to my previous post on Planogram would enable us in understanding how consumers give preference to neatly designed and arranged products on the shelves of retail outlets, why buyers sight initially products that are placed on their left and then scan through the right side of the displays and many such neurologically driven questions. The Anatomy of the NEW creative mind and its four components as depicted in the image are the main highlights around which the concept of Neuromarketing works.

There is the analytical brain which quite obviously analyses the brands, numbers (prices), promo-offers, etc. and then there is the curious mind that looks for closure on anything that is interestingly put across by the marketer, say for instance a teaser ad, or trying out a new brand, etc. Then we have the expressive brain doing the bargaining, information seeking through inquisitive questions, hence marketers need to be able to speak anything and everything that hovers around the product offered for sale. The sensual brain component seeks to satisfy all sensory organs (senses), hence marketers (retailers) stress on persuading buyers to visit their outlets where they can touch, feel, smell and even taste the products. All these components of a buyer’s brain start working as soon as he walks into the retail store, hence marketers must start employing people who are well-versed in neuro science and also understand the concept of buyer behaviour.

Planogramming - A synonym for visual merchandising

After having dwelled on displays and themed displays, in particular, in my earlier post I thought it would be fitting to write on a concept that effectively enhances the embillishment of a retail store and an operational aspect on which I worked on during my internship at SPAR-Max Hypermarket - Planogramming in Retail. It came as quite a startling revelation to me that most of the conceptual terms that we use in our retail classes are not renowned in the practical retail world. A very busy manager of mine had instructed me to work on the planogram of the edible oils and fats section and I was dumbstruck as to what that meant. Realizing that it would create a non-cozy environment, during my early days as an intern if I asked for its meaning then from the manager itself, I went ahead with some web based research for the answer and found out that Planogram is a synonym for Visual Merchandising.

Much to my relief that I had gotten an answer, I started working on the procedure of developing an effective Plano (as they call it) which had certain steps to be followed. Though planogram softwares are available, retailers are still resistant to this change and follow the traditional excel sheet format to work out all their operations. After having designed a Plano for the edible oils and fats section, my manager was happy with my work who was always very difficult to convince. This success is completely credited to those excel sheets that facilitated the sales analysis calculations and the ultimate design of the plano. A planogram is a part of the overall display strategy of a retailer who wants consumers to better visualize brands that are slow moving than brands that are fast moving.

My manager had exclaimed - " A plano is a sequential arrangement of SKUs (stock keeping units), so as to differentiate products in terms of colours, brands, packaging, size and even prices. For instance heavier products are placed on bottom shelves so as to assist consumers in lifting them and placing them on trollies". From this and also from observing consumers visiting and shopping at the outlet, I infered that Vision of consumers in fact plays a huge role in point of purchase. This fact is better explained by another concept called 'Neuromarketing' which will be exemplified and described in my next post. Like I have depicted earlier that retailers follow themed displays, there is also provision for them to undertake themed planograms wherein more shelf space, which has a better visual display, is given to products that follow EDLP (Every Day Low Pricing) - a concept largely followed by Big Bazaar.

A better understanding on how Visual merchandizing and Displays enhance consumer attention would be well-explained in the next post.

Themed Displays in Retail

There would be little success to taste for retailers if all that they planned, organised and implemented is not pulled off effectively with proper display of products in their stores. It is a basic nitty-grittial factor that retail companies must have in their blue print to have visual displays that grab the attention of the consumers. In the recent present, companies are following a new concept known as Themed Display, which simply means the use of a central theme which would revolve around a subject matter. Let us take an instance, many retail companies world over decorate, beautify, embellish and adorn their stores with colours, santa dolls, christmas tress, etc. that symbolize Christmas during the festive season of the month of december that would quite naturally entice consumers into converting their footfalls into footprints (window shopping into actually buying).

It is important to notice that many retailers in India have taken to the concept of Themed Displays with most or all of their themes focused on the festivals celebrated which is again sub-classified into regionwise themes like stores at Assam would be ornamented with the theme of Lohri during the festival of Lohri and the same with other areas too. Themed Displays are the way to go! for retailers these days.

Angel and Demon consumers

“The consumer is always right.” Isn’t that a cliché that every marketer is familiar with? However, these days most marketers have discovered a new truth which exemplifies some consumers as being way, way wrong as in being unprofitable. Incidentally, these marketers have classified the profitable and unprofitable consumers as angel and demon consumers. This is a strategy specifically drawn on the research of consultant Larry Seldon who prescribes companies must see themselves as portfolios of consumers, not product lines and hence grade consumers as angels and demons.

Angel customers are profitable to firms, in that they are more compatible and reliable, less bargain hungry, brand loyal and far less cynical of the product or service being sold. Demon consumers on the other hand are the exact opposite of the angels - who buy products, apply for rebates, return the purchases, and then buy them back at returned-merchandise discounts. They also flip the goods at a profit on e-bay, eventually eating up on the sales and profits leading to the dejection of the firms.

This needs to be effectively handled with minimal fuss and without damaging the reputation from both the angels’ and the demons’ perspectives. Firms must draw their customer data and sort their profiles into the good (Angels) and the bad (Demons). Marketers must know their angels and hence stock more merchandise and provide best service to them vis-a-vis the demons who tend to get spoilt by the plethora of promotional and buy back offers that are made available to them. Endorsing the same concept to the marketers it is important for us to mention – Marketers Beware – of the Demons.

World's Costliest Ad

World's most expensive Ad not only in terms of the money spent (six million dollars), but also with respect to the time (3 months) and patience (606 takes). No graphic images, no camera tricks - All Real Captured in Reel.

A Classic - Rasputin

A 1978 track that got many of our parents to hit the discotheques and boogie. The song represents a semi-biography whose central focal point was Grigori Rasputin, a friend and advisor of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and it variously sensationalizes Rasputin as a playboy, mystical healer, and political demiurge.

All of this, probably did not make much sense to the then music lovers of India albeit this track exposed them to a new era of western disco numbers that nudged people into freeing their arms and legs and dance. A good way to increase footfalls into a discotheque - play unique but acceptable music tracks. 
 

Marketing "Tricks" in Politics

Spreading its tentacles like the ultimate under water predator, Marketing justifies its comparison to an Octopus which is agile enough to squeeze into the narrowest of places similar to the presence of marketing in rural and remote corners of this vivaciously wide nation called INDIA, establishing its dominance in almost all facets of business, it now has set its eye on the hottest topic of recent days – POLITICS.

Has marketing been able to create a foot hold for itself in politics? The answer is plain and simple and it’s a Crispy YES, well….. I already see readers laughing off this very gutsy statement of mine, these quite familiar reactions that I generally receive when I start off with this topic anywhere. Now let me try adding some sense into this statement and bring to light my defense may be you’ll agree to it or you might just rubbish the entire idea, but stick on till the end before you pass your comments.

Before we start of, let me request all you learned guys to turn off your prejudice and listen me out with an open mind. How would you sell something to a consumer of the lower strata of the society, the answers simple - a TV Commercial or probably a jingle or say a celebrity endorsement – cashing in on the fan following of the celebrity or even some road shows boasting off about your USP…. Let’s now look at what is happening in the arena of politics, not the mud slashing that happens against parties, lets focus on the election campaigns.

Day 1 : You open your newspaper on a lazy Sunday morning hoping to find something interesting but all you see is a large 8x10 ‘tasveer’ of Salman zooming around the city clueless for a candidate from Mumbai ensuring a large gathering or as we call it audience or eyeballs .. Isn’t this what we marketing enthusiasts call celebrity endorsement and on a macro level publicity?

Moving on to Day 2 : You are in your car driving back to home, stuck in the daily traffic, you try to settle down for some funky bollywood number over the radio, you turn it on and you hear a radio artist miming the iconic BIG B advising u to choose one political party over the other , it’s even followed by a peppy number from one of your favorite movie remixed, revamped, renovated singing praises for a particular political party – and all we learned ones we call them Radio Jingles.

Day 3 : Laying around you find yourself texting someone dearest, you have popped a question and your waiting for reply, the prolonged waiting is broken when you mobile phone shimmers for having an SMS, you hurry and open the same , you find your local assembly candidate candidly pleading for your valuable vote. For all you techies isn’t this E-Marketing

The list just goes on to how marketing has now become an integral part of politics, be it the freebies that you are entitled while attending a local political gathering or be it the visual merchandising that parties widely use, like the poster or the street danglers, the enormous life size cut outs of politicians, I guess I have been able to sensitize all you guys on to how politicians are just marketers who can sell their ideologies and dreams to the TG i.e., all of us. Well it wouldn’t be a surprise if I even see a political parties signing on Event Management companies to professionalize their election campaigns… it seems like some sectors is gonna see a spike in their revenues.

Guest Author

Generic Brands

Let me begin by confessing that yes, brands have become synonymous to the product range that they once endorsed which in turn announces the importance and strength of a brand and their recall among the TG , this very statement of mine fuels my future discussion on to a strangest phenomena of numerous companies who once sowed the seed of a successful brand and watered the same with patience, efforts and money but failed to taste the fruits of the same. In general the phenomena I am trying to endorse is Generic Brands, and companies failing to capitalize on the visible success of the same.

To name a few, lets begin with the Classic; XEROX which replaced the noun photocopier from the dictionaries of most of middle class Indian (can’t declare much about other nations). The success of any brand in such fashion has always been gone in vain coz masters of such brands have miserably failed to sustain the edge that these brands created, Xerox gradually loosing out market share to Canon photocopiers is a evidence in this context.

Another contender joining the league of such brands in the Indian context is the well know disinfectant Dettol, the brand not only once enjoyed domination in the market but also commanded monopoly, bearing all signs of a generic brand, Reckitt Benekiser the company that owned the brand gradually slipped into a phase of complacency blinded by the persistent success of the brand the creator of one of the iconic brand shuts itself from the market dynamics that was brewing only to realize that it now had company in the form of Savlon from Novartis .. is this a common phenomena that all successful brand have to result in or is this is just failure of companies to look into the future and constantly nurture its brands. ??? Only time will answer our sophisticated yet inescapable questions.

Guest Author

Zoozoo – Totally Unanimated

Some feel they look like aliens, some say that they come across as the best animated cartoon Ad characters that Ogilvy has produced, but will you be stunned if someone told you they are neither and that they are actually played out by human beings? Well, here’s the stunner they are in fact human beings wearing specially prepared fabrics which gives the more believable animated look. Another interesting part of this Ad series is that there are an approximate number of 25 advertisements that are shot for the second season of IPL with the aim of broadcasting on an average one ad for each day of the IPL.

A concept which is completely Indian needed a name which was catchy, memorable, simple to pronounce and out came the name Zoozoo. When Ogilvy’s creative director Rajiv Rao was faced with the question as to who will pull of the direction of such a tedious task, his mind answered ‘Nirvana films’. With Prakash Varma as the director of this amazingly brilliant ad campaign and the idea of having simple sets for the ad shoot was enough for Zoozoo to gain successful inroads into the Ad world. Click here to view one.

Visually, the ‘size’ of the characters was a trick: the creatures look smaller than they actually are on screen, to portray a different world of sorts. For this, the speed of shooting was altered: Nirvana shot it in a high-speed format to make them look the size that they do. All this had been accomplished at a production cost that was minimal. Way to go Zoozoo!!!