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.

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!!!