DELHI - 0

Here’s a contemporary example of a product failure despite great advertising and publicity efforts. I am talking of the movie, Delhi-6.
The movie is directed by Mr. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra (Award Winning Director of Rang De Basanti) and the music is by Oscar Winner Mr. Rahman. Cast is good with additional flavors of Hrishi Kapoor and Waheeda Rehman. And not to forget, the Integrated Marketing Communication used has been great too. The best visibility factor has been the PR activities, including participation in Indian Idol.
Despite all these, movie failed badly. It is because the content, the story and the entire concept was pathetic. In a nutshell, the product is not worth. The movie has created so much of expectations and then, the movie failed to live up to those expectations.
Now, if we look at the larger picture, what is the consequence of this classic failure? Well, setting up expectations and not living up to them creates Customer Dissonance. People are irritated and disappointed. Now, they won’t be able to easily believe the director and cast again.
This reminds me of a quote by Mr. David Ogilvy, “Customer is not a moron. She is your wife”. This means that we should give the customers something genuine, that is worth their money and time.

Subliminal Advertising...Demystified

In my previous post, I have introduced Subliminal Advertising to you, but as I have already mentioned, this subject has got a lot of supporters as well as critics too.

Some people think that subliminal advertising has opened an entirely new horizon of reaching the customers. In today’s era, customers are bombarded with all sorts of products and brands. A customer cannot pay heed to all of these advertisements, and as such, the process that dominates is what is called Selective Perception. The later has a sequence including selective exposure, selective attention, selective comprehension and selective retention. This is the way consumers protect themselves from getting overloaded with products and brands. Now, here lies the essence of subliminal advertising. It doesn’t give consumers a chance of implementing selective perception as they are unaware of their exposure to any subliminal message. So, this is actually a great way to register in consumers’ psyche without their involvement.

Now, the critics have a point too. They feel that it is unethical to use subliminal advertising as it compels them to know something, which they may not want to.
A classical example of subliminal advertising is its usage by Republicans in US Presidential campaign in year 2000.

Well, the discussion can go on and on, with no conclusion. What we need to understand is that it’s not always white or black, but there are shades of grey too. It’s all a matter of perception. Each one has his/her own take on everything and so do the supporters and critics of subliminal advertising.

Subliminal Advertising...Unravelled

Subliminal Advertising refers to a form of communication (particularly advertising), wherein a user cannot see the intended message directly. It is something that is not perceived by the conscious mind. Rather, it gets registered in the subconscious psyche of the consumers.  

In the above advertisement, the advertiser has mentioned the price on the visible part of stuffed raw vegetable leaf (that is how it looks like in the above commercial).This won’t be ordinarily noticed by the masses, but then it goes to sunconscious context and may be, can have diverse effects, hopefully positive.

There have been a lot of debate on this concept. I will enunciate on the later in my upcoming posts.

The Cynical Use of Marketing to the unwilling consumer

What do you understand by Sumliminal Advertising? Is it a fact or marketers' myth? What are its implications? And most important, Can it boast up your drowning sales and business?

Well, I will answer all these questions in a short while. Till then, keep thinking...

Change is Good

"Change is Good. Hutch is now ……………."

Well, you all know what is to be filled in the above blank.

 David Ogilvy says, “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar” and really, they have used this concept well in branding Vodafone.

What does a marketer do ???

What do you think the marketers do? Do they dream to achieve their targets or do they work to reach their goal? Before moving ahead in this context, let’s first learn the difference between dreams and goals. Well, dreams require effortless sleep and goals require sleepless effort.

I hope the answer to my former question is simple now.  Marketers can’t afford to dream about reaching their targets. They have to aim high and work towards their goals.

What is the reason for marketers’ existence? Well, the ultimate aim of any business is to make profit, which is directly related to sales as sales means oxygen for all organizations.  Now, how do we achieve sales? Well, a company can sell its products and services to the masses only by attracting them towards their offering, making them purchase and then retain them and compel them to repurchase.  In short, a company can achieve sales by converting customers to consumers. Now, the function of marketing is closest to consumers. As such, a marketer is the one who connect with the consumers, leading to sales.

In the current competitive scenario, consumers are very demanding, making a marketer’s job much tougher. As such, marketers must have fire in the belly, always on toes to identify and grab the upcoming opportunities, in order to reach their goal. Dreaming may catalyze the urge to reach goal, but ultimately it is the achievement of target or goal that counts for a marketer.  

Marketer or Consumer !!!

What do you think the “Marketers” are? Well, a part of answer lies in the question, that is, they are the ones who tend to serve the customers. Looking from a broader perspective, a marketer is the one who caters to consumer need and he can understand those needs only if thinks like a consumer. To find the gap in the market, a marketer has to place himself in customers’ shoes.
Well, you all must be familiar with Mattel’s BARBIE. It’s a fashion doll, manufactured by Mattel Inc. in 1959. Prior to Barbie’s birth, the dolls were the illustrations of infants. One day, Ruth Handler saw her daughter, Barbara giving adult roles to her paper dolls. Handler realized that most kids see adults as their role models and as such, there is a gap in market, wherein they can fit-in adult bodied dolls. She gave the idea to her husband, a co-founder of Mattel Inc. The doll was named after their daughter Barbara. The dolls and the idea were a great success, and till date, they rule the toy market.
The birth and success of Barbie is a lesson for all fledgling marketers like us. We have to remember the stoned fact, "Customer is the King" and we have to give them what they want. Now, the customers won’t ever come to us to tell us their needs, rather we have to identify their wants, but how do we do that? The answer to this complex problem is simple. Marketers have to think like consumers, recognize their problems and come up with solution to their problems in form of their products.

Small things can be turned BIG...

Intel is the master of micro-processors. Well, as the name suggests, these processors are actually small, but the way Intel built it brand, is incredible. It is world’s best manufacturer for the respective product. Along with others factors, great branding strategies (co-branding, etc) communicated by great advertising made the brand what is.

So, what made this small product into a big brand? Well, as Mark Twain says, “Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising." 

WHATEVER !!!

There are moments when we all feel that life is unfair, though such moments are evanescent. Now when we face such situations, while the entire universe seems opposing, what to do? People get into depressions, deteriorate in terms of productivity, but this isn’t the solution. Well, the show must go on, Whatever be the case.
This word reminds me of Nike’s famous Whatever campaign. This is a brilliant example of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC), wherein Nike synchronized both mass media and interactive media (web) for effective communication, and mass reach. They advertised the brand using celebrities, but the ads were incomplete, that is without an ending. For every incomplete advertisement, Nike displayed “Continued at www. whatever.nike.com”, wherein they could choose any of the available five-six endings for the advertisements. This led to great deal of traffic to this so-called Nike’s Whatever site as well as its original site. Sales shot up drastically. In a nutshell, Nike did Whatever to achieve perfect synergy, whether online or offline.
As such, you can well judge the essence of IMC. It can be simply defined as synergy among all modes of communication in order to have a greater reach, delivering uniform message throughout, leaving no space for any ambiguity. It covers a larger population of target customers, thereby enhancing the reach, of uniform message.

Oops! I want a Placement too..

The sub-prime crisis led to the global financial crisis, which affected every sphere of human life and as such, organizations are no exception. Organizations are into cost cutting leading to lay-offs and recruitment freezing. It has become really difficult even for IIT and IIM graduates to get decent job placements.

Marketers are deeply concerned with placements, not for themselves, but for their product. This very process of getting a product placed in an event or a movie is called Product Placement. I can quote a lot of examples in this regard, but I would like to specify the one for Lenovo as I am a bit biased towards it. Lenovo showcased its laptops being used in the latest movie Fashion.

In the current era, where marketers understand the importance of differential advertising, product placement is a great concept. It ensures greater visibility that a regular advertisement, as advertisements may appear monotonous, but when people see a product say in a movie, the impact is better as customers get a feel of the product in a more realistic situation (a general perception of audience). While a customer watches an advertisement, he knows that it is meant to convince him to buy the product. On contratry, when a customer watches a product beibg placed in amovie and used in a better and more real looking way, people could relate to it better. As such, product placement is a form of differential advertising, thats averts bombarding the customers with an array of products.

Everything is Same, Except the Name

Leo Burnett says, Make it Simple. Make it Memorable. Make it Inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.

Well, this funda has been brilliantly used by UTI-Axis Bank.

Did you ever think of this ???

If I say Saawariya, what comes to your mind? It’s possibly Ranbir’s towel dance. This is because this act of Ranbir got much heat among the critics and then the audience too. Similarly, there have been a lot of movies like Page 3, Corporate that grabbed the attention of critics and thereby the masses. The reason lies in general human tendency, which is to get attracted towards negatives than positives. People tend to remember failures, rather than achievements.
I am writing this post as I recently experienced the importance of critics in creating hype, often leading to success of the event. I have been writing a lot on brands and marketing concepts too. Yesterday I tried something different. I picked up a commercial which was not at all appealing to me. I have been a critic to the advertisement and in lieu of this, I got a lot of critics on my criticism of the ad in my post. The traffic has never been such huge, when I used to write only on positive marketing specifics. The post got a lot of attention as it criticized the marketing communication strategies, etc.
As such, I think, generating critics is a great marketing strategy. Marketers can capitalize on it by making the brand a bit controversial for critics, but the bottleneck is that the strategy can have converse effect, if not planned and executed prudently.

You dont just Buy a Bournville...

How many of you have ever tried this so-called Fine Dark Chocolate or how many of you really want to try it? Well, the brand promises credibility in terms of quality as it comes from the umbrella of Cadbury. But what do you think is the value proposition of Bournville, without Cadbury?

I actually failed to understand what is it that the marketers want to communicate through this commercial. May be they have succeeded in associating the chocolate with an aura of mystery that would force a customer to buy this chocolate at least for a trial. If you have got seventy five bucks in your wallet to spare for it, there is a fair possibility of you buying one.

In a broader sense, I feel the marketing communication has been really ineffective. The brand could not connect with the consumers. It says that you have to earn it, what it means by that? Is it boasting of its high cost or probably bullying the consumers. It says that you can eat this only after defeating Aussies in cricket, etc. This implies that you have to have a great occasion to buy or consume this chocolate. If that is the case, I feel it isn’t meant for Indian consumers who find happiness in small achievements, where people do have joyous moments to cherish every 10th day on this land of festivals.The greatest agony is that the brand is not even listed in Cadbury India website. I think it doesn’t provide any emotional appeal to Indians.

Some people may like the ad, but I think it completely missed out on attracting the Indian masses.

 

What does consumer want???

Today I just came across a print ad of Good Knight. I was just wondering how this brand decided on its product offerings, as in how they decided to get into this category of mosquito mats and other insecticide solutions.

Now, India is a country where people do face a problem with mosquitoes. We had mosquito nets and mosquito repellent creams, but still lacked a good household insecticide solution. Good Knight, which is a joint initiative of Godrej, India and Sara Lee Ltd., USA, recognized this costumer need and finally came up with the product that worked wonders for customers as well as the brand.

So, the foundation step in the success of the brand is identification of customer need. Next, the brand positioning was great. The brand was (and is) positioned as a necessity for the family as it guaranteed a sound sleep. The brand name complemented its positioning. As such, Good Knight accounts for 59% of market share in mats category. Also, it diversified into liquid mosquito repellants and coils.

So, the key to the success of brands is identification of customer needs. This one single factor led to the grand success of the Good Knight.

India's first ever diet cereal

Today I came across an advertisement of Kellogg’s K Special, which is a diet cereal. This cereal promises to lower your weight by 2.5 kgs in mere 2 weeks.  This is an entirely new item from the house of Kellogg’s.

Kellogg’s had targeted middle class mothers for its cornflakes category by introducing iron shakti. Again the strategy is a bit similar, targeting middle aged women, but only those belonging to SEC A and B. These are obese women of urban India, who can afford the cereal for Rs. 45/140gms.

Anupam Dutta, Managing Director, Kellogg’s India, says, “In today’s fast-paced environment, women are looking for a simple and tasty solution to their weight management concerns. Kellogg’s understands these concerns and for this reason has decided to introduce the new brand.”

Kellogg’s currently holds 66% share of 60 crores market in India. Now, there are a lot many ways of enhancing the market share for a brand. There can be line as well as brand extension, but what do we call the introduction of K Special cereals???

Well, this is a new category of diet cereals, but it’s still in food category. May be it is a new sub-brand, offering unique attributes and benefits to its consumers, with a totally new targeting and positioning.

NEXT IS WHAT!!!

Marketers are on a constant mission to make their products better and better. Well, its really difficult to say whether the products really look better in terms of its design and other attributes, but in the process of advancement, products definitely become a bit more complicated.

Let’s take the case of IT products. Initially, we had with desktops, which kept on upgrading to advanced and better versions. Now we have laptops. Laptops ruled for a pretty long time, but as marketers kept on maneuvering around the same product, the question that came was “Next is What?”  

Well, different brands do have different answers to this question. HCL answered to it by introducing what is called LEAPTOP. Leaptops look savvy and have attractive features, promising a leap ahead to its customers. LENOVO has something different in store for us. It has recently launched its new ultra light and ultra thin range of notebooks, the S-series, which is called NETBOOK. Netbooks are slim, highly portable, and are particularly meant for net users, who use net while working, travelling, etc.

Customers are looking for more such variants in laptop category as well as other categories. Again the customers have the same question in mind and that is, next is what? Well, whatever comes next, marketers should keep in mind that products should cater to customers' need. Marketers shouldn't make an attempt to create false needs as that may lead to customer dissonance at a later stage, leading to destruction of brand in the long run.

Let's hope to see something better in this league of product variants!!!     

Van Heusen's Signature line or Gajini line

I watched Gajini a few days back. Apart from other things, I felt that Aamir’s formal look was one of the USPs of the movie. I bet now you know the brand I am talking about, it’s Madura Garments’ Van Heusen. Now why do you think that the brand was being promoted through the movie?

Well, the reason is repositioning of the brand. In past few years, Van Heusen has redefined the corporate boardrooms across the nation, but the brand wanted a bit different positioning now. It wanted to communicate the consumers that the brand is no more only into stereotypic formals; rather it has entered a new arena, creating a line that is peppy, cool and at the same time, extremely sophisticated, which perfectly suits young corporates.

Says Mr. Shital Mehta, COO, Van Heusen, “We are proud to partner with Ghajini and style none other than the lead actor, Aamir Khan. The character he plays in the film embodies the values of Van Heusen as a brand, and makes a statement of power so unique, that we didn’t think twice before associating our brand with this movie.”

Van Heusen chose Aamir to promote its brand as Aamir is known for style and perfection, which is the innate trait of this brand. Also, Gajini has been a much awaited movie, and I feel this was the perfect occasion for the brand to launch its special Signature line.

This was a perfect example of repositioning and the brand witnessed tremendous success in its well-planned approach.

Hats off to the marketing minds behind it!!!

 

Brands and Beauties Share Personalities

Well, I sometimes wonder why people prefer different brands within a particular category like cosmetics. The key lies in the fact that every brand has a distinct brand personality and people buy only those brands that match their own personalities. Now the question is how a brand can have a personality.

Well, brands are intentionally given a personality through positioning and then through market communication. The most common way to form a brand personality is to borrow it. Endorsement is one such way.

Now let’s only see the brands associated with our beauty queens. Almost all cosmetic brands want these gorgeous ladies to give their image to the brands as cosmetic consumers want to be like them or match the personalities of these beauties.

L’Oreal has had Aishwarya and Diana Hayden as its endorsees. The brand borrowed the image of being highly sophisticated and elegant from its brand ambassadors. As the brand was expensive, endorsees said you are worth it, which lifted an ordinary woman to the platform of these gorgeous beauty peagent winners.

If we see Olay anti-ageing solutions, Sushmita gives the credit of her youthfulness in her ageing years to Olay that makes the brand highly credible as the brand portrays a lady, known for her beauty and style for years, who is still not affected by ageing, thanks to Olay. So, the TG, who’s middle aged women,  get a feel of trying the product at least once. Similarly Lara Dutta endorses Pantene and Priyanka Chopra will be endorsing Pond’s skincare range.

So, beauties do lend their images to brands, which is one of the prime reason for success of some brands. 

Position of Positioning in brand management

After the segmentation and targeting, its important to do appropriate Positioning. Positioning is a process wherein marketers position thier products in the minds of consumers to create an image for their brand.Right positioning is the oxygen for a burgeoning brand.

Now Bajaj has an array of products under different brand names like Pulsar, Discover,Avenger,etc.These products are more or less similar in terms of mileage,performance, yet have different sellouts. The difference lies in different positioning. Pulsar says it is truly male which is meant for those who are more chauvinistic about flaunting manhood, while Discover is for people who want speed, who are more outgoing and adventurous.These bikes cater to different segments on account of different brand personalities,bestowed by unique positioning of each of these brands.

  

So,the difference lies in positioning and this difference creates different consumer segments with different needs and this is the sole reason for having vareity of similar brands.