The College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Pookot in Wayanad district of Kerala, has recently launched two products in the market – ‘Cow Urine’ and ‘Panchagavya’ – targeted at the organic farming sector.
The neatly packed ‘Cow Urine’ is, well, just that – cow’s urine. Panchagavya, though, is a cocktail of milk, ghee, curd, cow urine and, hold your breath (literally)…………….cow dung.
One can safely say the veterinary college now has two strong brands in its arsenal - no pun intended!
“Cow’s urine is meant to improve the plant resistance while Panchagavya will help the growth of favourable soil bacteria and thereby improve soil fertility,” said a college official. Apparently, the two products can help reduce the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers to a great extent.
The product quality is ensured by collecting the first urine of the cow every day. It’s not clear how one would figure out which is the cow’s first urine of the day. What if the cow gets up in the middle of the night to pee? Would someone be sitting backstage and monitoring the cows? The official promised to loo…….k into the matter.
The veterinary college seems to have worked out a marketing strategy for its flagshit brands; well…..I mean flagship brands. Starting with the 4 Pees!
The first pee - the product - is clear though. The colour might not be, but the product is. We are told it is to look like water. Looks like a clear attempt to segment without pigment.
The second pee – price – aims at the m’ass market. The maximum retail pee is pegged at Rs.5 per litre. Panchagavya, the milky shit, is to be sold for Rs.50 per litre.
Not much info has been provided about the third pee – place – how the urinal and shit are to be distributed. Dispensed directly from the source, probably.
The fourth pee – Promotion – is being worked out. The college doesn’t have sufficient money to advertise in the mass media and hence may resort to below the line promotion – in line with the product’s origin! Would the two products generate any word of mouth publicity? Doubtful with the all the stink.
As of now the college doesn’t have plans to export the two products. The urine isn’t going foreign; at least not yet.
If you peep (damn my pun again) further, you hear the college claiming that cow pee can be an important ingredient in many ayurvedic medicines. Apparently, it can be used in the treatment of major ailments like peptic ulcer, certain type of cancer, live ailments, asthma etc. It’s not clear whether those suffering from the diseases might prefer the pee over peaceful death!
But one thing is certain. Morarji Desai would have turned in his grave……and smiled!
However, the official warned that their brand - Cow Urine - cannot be used for pharmaceutical applications. Why? For pharmaceutical use, it has to be produced under the strict supervision of an ayurvedic doctor, the official added.
Supervised? I wonder how one could supervise cow peeing. Sit in a chair 24x7 and watch the waterfall?
We could keep talking about these two products till the cows come home but let me sign off.
You probably are pissed. I have to, too!
Friday, November 23, 2012
Wednesday, November 07, 2012
Mind your own business. Define it deftly.
Bottlenecks are at the top, as the old saying goes. Most problems afflicting businesses start right up there – at the top!
I don’t mean the management or the entrepreneur who runs the business, though they are the chief captains of crime, in most cases. I am talking about how most businesses are defined, if they are defined at all. And how wrongly they end up being defined, when they do get defined.
The late Theodore Levitt said it so eloquently fifty two years ago in his path-breaking (and one of my favourite) article in the Harvard Business Review titled ‘Marketing Myopia’.
Pity most respected businessmen and revered MBA’s have the foggiest when it comes to defining what business they are actually in.
Last week I had to give a speech on Marketing at the Sivakasi Chapter of Young Entrepreneurs School, a unit of the Tamil Nadu Chamber of Commerce. A big chunk of the audience was entrepreneurs who owned match box manufacturing units. Sivakasi accounts for 90% of India’s match box production. It also accounts for 90% of India’s fireworks manufacturing. Reason why Sivakasi is affectionately referred to as ‘Kutti Japan’! (Little Japan).
Post the speech, during the open session, most match box manufacturers had a few questions to ask: ‘Why is our business not growing as much?’ ‘Why are we stagnating?’ ‘How do we grow as fast as we once did?’
I posed Levitt’s classic question: “What business are you in?’
The answer was on expected lines. ‘We are in the match box business’.
I then explained why the match box business was stagnating – increasing usage of lighters to light cigarettes, automatic gas stove lighters, induction stoves, lack of time, space and interest to light puja lamps, increasing use of emergency lamps that obviates the need for candles etc.,
Match box consumption is bound to come down though it might not die completely, is what I said. And then continued, “Get ready to face lesser sales and be prepared to take most of the blame.”
Obviously aghast, they retorted ‘How can we be blamed if the need for match boxes goes down due to technology and other reasons.”
I replied, “Because you have got your business definition all wrong. You guys are not in the match box business. You never were.”
Having got their attention, I espoused Levitt’s theory.
“Business should not be defined by the products that you make; but by the needs that you satisfy. You are not in the match boxes business. You are in the business of lighting flames. If you had defined it as such, you would have been the first to come out with cigarette lighters; you would have pioneered automatic gas lighters; you would have brought out innovations like ‘Home Lites’ did.”
“The product is just the means to satisfy a need. The need in itself had to be clearly articulated and should have guided the business that you were in.”
“Since you defined your business as making match boxes, you stayed put there. And failed to realize what was happening or foresee what might happen. So now that the consumers are moving slowly out of match boxes, you realize your business is stagnating. Even worse, you still fail to realize why.”
“Business must be viewed as a customer-satisfying process. Not a goods producing process. This is because product are temporary; but needs are permanent. A market definition, that’s why, is superior to product definition.”
“PepsiCo, for instance, is not in the beverages business. If they had defined it as such they would have stagnated long time ago. They realized they are in the business of quenching thirst. Reason why they didn’t stop with colas and came out with a range of thirst quenchers – orange drinks, lemon drinks, juices, mineral water and, amazingly though perfectly appropriate, vodka and wine!”
“They didn’t stop there. They moved into Quick Service Restaurants through YUM Restaurants – Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell, A&E, and Long John Silvers. And for good measure they even moved into salty snacks – through Frito Lay.”
“Pepsi was in the business of quenching thirst. And the clear articulation of that definition led them to one success after another.”
When I finished, I was ready to face an onslaught of angry outburst from the entrepreneurs. Here I was telling rich, successful and experienced businessmen at their face that they were wrong.
But I was humbled when they nodded and said they accepted and were willing to take the blame. I was deeply touched by the applause when I sat down.
Did I light a spark in the minds of the match box manufacturers? I hope I did. Would they redefine their business and light up Sivakasi again? I wish they do!
I don’t mean the management or the entrepreneur who runs the business, though they are the chief captains of crime, in most cases. I am talking about how most businesses are defined, if they are defined at all. And how wrongly they end up being defined, when they do get defined.
The late Theodore Levitt said it so eloquently fifty two years ago in his path-breaking (and one of my favourite) article in the Harvard Business Review titled ‘Marketing Myopia’.
Pity most respected businessmen and revered MBA’s have the foggiest when it comes to defining what business they are actually in.
Last week I had to give a speech on Marketing at the Sivakasi Chapter of Young Entrepreneurs School, a unit of the Tamil Nadu Chamber of Commerce. A big chunk of the audience was entrepreneurs who owned match box manufacturing units. Sivakasi accounts for 90% of India’s match box production. It also accounts for 90% of India’s fireworks manufacturing. Reason why Sivakasi is affectionately referred to as ‘Kutti Japan’! (Little Japan).
Post the speech, during the open session, most match box manufacturers had a few questions to ask: ‘Why is our business not growing as much?’ ‘Why are we stagnating?’ ‘How do we grow as fast as we once did?’
I posed Levitt’s classic question: “What business are you in?’
The answer was on expected lines. ‘We are in the match box business’.
I then explained why the match box business was stagnating – increasing usage of lighters to light cigarettes, automatic gas stove lighters, induction stoves, lack of time, space and interest to light puja lamps, increasing use of emergency lamps that obviates the need for candles etc.,
Match box consumption is bound to come down though it might not die completely, is what I said. And then continued, “Get ready to face lesser sales and be prepared to take most of the blame.”
Obviously aghast, they retorted ‘How can we be blamed if the need for match boxes goes down due to technology and other reasons.”
I replied, “Because you have got your business definition all wrong. You guys are not in the match box business. You never were.”
Having got their attention, I espoused Levitt’s theory.
“Business should not be defined by the products that you make; but by the needs that you satisfy. You are not in the match boxes business. You are in the business of lighting flames. If you had defined it as such, you would have been the first to come out with cigarette lighters; you would have pioneered automatic gas lighters; you would have brought out innovations like ‘Home Lites’ did.”
“The product is just the means to satisfy a need. The need in itself had to be clearly articulated and should have guided the business that you were in.”
“Since you defined your business as making match boxes, you stayed put there. And failed to realize what was happening or foresee what might happen. So now that the consumers are moving slowly out of match boxes, you realize your business is stagnating. Even worse, you still fail to realize why.”
“Business must be viewed as a customer-satisfying process. Not a goods producing process. This is because product are temporary; but needs are permanent. A market definition, that’s why, is superior to product definition.”
“PepsiCo, for instance, is not in the beverages business. If they had defined it as such they would have stagnated long time ago. They realized they are in the business of quenching thirst. Reason why they didn’t stop with colas and came out with a range of thirst quenchers – orange drinks, lemon drinks, juices, mineral water and, amazingly though perfectly appropriate, vodka and wine!”
“They didn’t stop there. They moved into Quick Service Restaurants through YUM Restaurants – Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell, A&E, and Long John Silvers. And for good measure they even moved into salty snacks – through Frito Lay.”
“Pepsi was in the business of quenching thirst. And the clear articulation of that definition led them to one success after another.”
When I finished, I was ready to face an onslaught of angry outburst from the entrepreneurs. Here I was telling rich, successful and experienced businessmen at their face that they were wrong.
But I was humbled when they nodded and said they accepted and were willing to take the blame. I was deeply touched by the applause when I sat down.
Did I light a spark in the minds of the match box manufacturers? I hope I did. Would they redefine their business and light up Sivakasi again? I wish they do!
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Fast girls. Fast times. Fastrack.
I have a problem.
It all started with Fastrack; more with their latest ads. I saw two of them in the recent past. One, where a girl wakes up one morning from God-knows-where having spent the night with devil-knows-whom and wears her stuff on the way to who-knows-to-who-else!
And there is this other ad where a girl’s hand can’t but park itself on the wrong end of men’s spine!
I am not here to hold the moral candle and rant about the degrading standards of probity or the deplorable dilution of chastity among youth. No Sir. That’s not a subject I prefer to discuss in public; my views on the same notwithstanding.
Nor am I going to write about the falling standards of advertising and its blatant attempt at using sex and nocturnal overtones to titillate the viewers and arouse their interest in the brand; among arousing other things! This is a subject matter of another discussion. Though, I do recall having written about this in one of my previous columns.
This piece is about the advertising strategy of Fastrack. This is about the brand personality as has been portrayed in its advertising. This is about my views on the same; and my wish to get your comments on it as well.
Agreed there are quite a few flirtatious, frivolous and fun-seeking girls who are extremely promiscuous, highly inflammable, perennially resorting to offshore drilling and possessing a flesh fetish that would put a hyena to shame!
Agreed there might be a frightening few who, shall we say, take a more horizontal view of life, seeking the pleasure of vertical limits!
Agreed it is becoming more common nowadays to see a few girls who pledge their chastity and put their probity on ‘Aadi sale’ and not feel too worked up about it.
My point is this. Would a girl like to be seen that way by others? Would she care less about how others view her? Would she say ‘Yes, I am laying my cards on the table (pun intended) and yes I am a girl of low virtue and lower standards?
Wouldn’t a girl mind being termed that way in public even if she is one in private?
I believe a girl might want to have fun but not be in the spotlight for that reason. I think a girl might screw around but not have her name screwed for that reason.
By presenting the positioning in this manner, isn’t Fastrack telling its customers, ‘if you are that kind of a girl here is your opportunity to flaunt who you are’?
By portraying that personality, isn’t Fastrack telling the user, ‘hey, you are like this and go tell the world you are like that’?
Don’t consumers buy the brand’s image and advertising more than buying the brand? Isn’t the physical buying of the brand just a reflection of their having bought into the brand’s image? Aren’t image brands the badges customers wear on their selves to tell the world who they are?
When one wear a Nike, isn’t he trying to tell the world he has an attitude?
When one drives a Pulsar, isn’t he revealing to everyone he is stylish?
When one drinks Mountain Dew, isn’t he communicating to all and sundry that he is adventurous?
Isn’t this what branding all about?
If so…………..by wearing Fastrack wouldn’t a girl be telling the world she is frivolous, fun-loving and flirtatious? Wouldn’t she be telling the guys she can be outsourced? Wouldn’t she also be saying she is an FMCG product – Fast Moving Carefree Girl!
Maybe, I should go ask a few girls what they think about this piece. Maybe, I should pose these questions to a few girls who wear Fastrack.
If they take offense and fight, well that I can manage. But what if they construe it as an invite, and even worse accept?
You see, that’s my problem!
It all started with Fastrack; more with their latest ads. I saw two of them in the recent past. One, where a girl wakes up one morning from God-knows-where having spent the night with devil-knows-whom and wears her stuff on the way to who-knows-to-who-else!
And there is this other ad where a girl’s hand can’t but park itself on the wrong end of men’s spine!
I am not here to hold the moral candle and rant about the degrading standards of probity or the deplorable dilution of chastity among youth. No Sir. That’s not a subject I prefer to discuss in public; my views on the same notwithstanding.
Nor am I going to write about the falling standards of advertising and its blatant attempt at using sex and nocturnal overtones to titillate the viewers and arouse their interest in the brand; among arousing other things! This is a subject matter of another discussion. Though, I do recall having written about this in one of my previous columns.
This piece is about the advertising strategy of Fastrack. This is about the brand personality as has been portrayed in its advertising. This is about my views on the same; and my wish to get your comments on it as well.
Agreed there are quite a few flirtatious, frivolous and fun-seeking girls who are extremely promiscuous, highly inflammable, perennially resorting to offshore drilling and possessing a flesh fetish that would put a hyena to shame!
Agreed there might be a frightening few who, shall we say, take a more horizontal view of life, seeking the pleasure of vertical limits!
Agreed it is becoming more common nowadays to see a few girls who pledge their chastity and put their probity on ‘Aadi sale’ and not feel too worked up about it.
My point is this. Would a girl like to be seen that way by others? Would she care less about how others view her? Would she say ‘Yes, I am laying my cards on the table (pun intended) and yes I am a girl of low virtue and lower standards?
Wouldn’t a girl mind being termed that way in public even if she is one in private?
I believe a girl might want to have fun but not be in the spotlight for that reason. I think a girl might screw around but not have her name screwed for that reason.
By presenting the positioning in this manner, isn’t Fastrack telling its customers, ‘if you are that kind of a girl here is your opportunity to flaunt who you are’?
By portraying that personality, isn’t Fastrack telling the user, ‘hey, you are like this and go tell the world you are like that’?
Don’t consumers buy the brand’s image and advertising more than buying the brand? Isn’t the physical buying of the brand just a reflection of their having bought into the brand’s image? Aren’t image brands the badges customers wear on their selves to tell the world who they are?
When one wear a Nike, isn’t he trying to tell the world he has an attitude?
When one drives a Pulsar, isn’t he revealing to everyone he is stylish?
When one drinks Mountain Dew, isn’t he communicating to all and sundry that he is adventurous?
Isn’t this what branding all about?
If so…………..by wearing Fastrack wouldn’t a girl be telling the world she is frivolous, fun-loving and flirtatious? Wouldn’t she be telling the guys she can be outsourced? Wouldn’t she also be saying she is an FMCG product – Fast Moving Carefree Girl!
Maybe, I should go ask a few girls what they think about this piece. Maybe, I should pose these questions to a few girls who wear Fastrack.
If they take offense and fight, well that I can manage. But what if they construe it as an invite, and even worse accept?
You see, that’s my problem!
Friday, April 06, 2012
…and why not theatres?
Continuing from where I left……let’s talk about theatres now. Think of any theatre in your city.
Now……here is your question. What comes to your mind first when you think of it?
Nothing, right!
If you were the theatre owner, would you be worried? You better be. You just realized your brand means nothing to the consumer. Even worse, your brand means nothing to you!
The problem is theatres are not positioned. They lack a personality.
Why should theatres be positioned you ask? Isn’t the theatre positioned by the film that is running currently you argue? And because the films keep changing and there is a new movie all the time, should theatres be positioned at all you elaborate? Is it even possible to position a theatre, far less build a personality, you dispute?
In other words, what you are telling me and yourself is that you would invest crores of money building a theatre and spend lakhs of money maintaining it and let your fortune, future and fate decided by a stupid film that runs it. Isn’t that thought as much scary as it is stupid?
Wouldn’t you rather build a theatre keeping in mind the target audience you wish to attract by studying the location, the characteristics of the neighbourhood and the accessibility etc? And then follow it by playing only films that suit your target audience? Thereby telling the world, loud and clear, what kind of theatre you have; and what kind of experience they can expect?
Imagine this. You are building a theatre in a predominantly residential neighborhood. You position your theatre as ‘wholesome family fun’. Imagine every facet of design – from entrance to exit, from façade to restrooms, from seating to parking – every little detail is conceived, created and caressed with your target audience in mind – the family. You play only family movies; seating is designed in threes, fours or fives – decided by the size of the family. Even the food and snacks are sold in combo or family packs. Special restrooms designed for kids. Maybe even nappy changing rooms; breast-feeding facility for moms. Put simply, a theatrical version of McDonald’s.
And when you do that, you are doing a few things first, and right. To begin with, your target audience knows who you are. They wouldn’t care much about the film since they know what to expect. Which means you depend less on the film you run to define your success, and depend more on your theatre to defend your fortune? A far better way of doing business, you would agree.
If you own a multiplex, it gets even better. Imagine you have a 3-theatre complex. Dedicate each theatre to a certain target group. Like a portfolio of brands that has made companies like P&G invincible. Pantene, Head & Shoulders and Rejoice – three shampoos yet addressing three different audiences with three different positionings.
Make one theatre target kids – play only animations, adventure etc. Have rough flooring to take the abuse of young legs; restrooms whose urinals suit the size of the user; small serving of food and snacks among other things; maybe even video arcades on the side.
Position the second theatre for, say, couples; screen only love stories and romantic comedies. Have seats for two; armrest that folds so one could freely hold their partner’s hands, among other things! Maybe, even sell Unwanted 72 tablets along with popcorn and Pepsi!
How about a third theatre for young adults – action movies, adult comedies and more. Have more legroom maybe; a separate smoking section…you figure out the rest.
Am sure you are getting the picture!
You would realize you are not only branding your theatre but building a strong personality for it as well.
And not just that. Theatres will then become the next powerful advertising medium. When you showcase specific audiences, marketers are bound to follow by pouring tons of advertising money - prior to the movie, during intermission and all inside the complex – to reach their specific target audience!
Theatres have ceased to be film-watching devices long ago. Today, they are seen sources of entertainment; providers of experience.
Owners have failed to realize this and theatres are a dying breed. Multiplexes have been, erroneously, considered a whiff of fresh air that has come to revive movie-going experience. Without a proper positioning and personality, they are just oxygen cylinders to prolong the agony.
It’s time to redefine things. In fact, it’s time to define things! It’s time theatre owners give themselves a new lease of life. Positioning theaters and building an appropriate personality is a good starting point!
Let the show begin!
Now……here is your question. What comes to your mind first when you think of it?
Nothing, right!
If you were the theatre owner, would you be worried? You better be. You just realized your brand means nothing to the consumer. Even worse, your brand means nothing to you!
The problem is theatres are not positioned. They lack a personality.
Why should theatres be positioned you ask? Isn’t the theatre positioned by the film that is running currently you argue? And because the films keep changing and there is a new movie all the time, should theatres be positioned at all you elaborate? Is it even possible to position a theatre, far less build a personality, you dispute?
In other words, what you are telling me and yourself is that you would invest crores of money building a theatre and spend lakhs of money maintaining it and let your fortune, future and fate decided by a stupid film that runs it. Isn’t that thought as much scary as it is stupid?
Wouldn’t you rather build a theatre keeping in mind the target audience you wish to attract by studying the location, the characteristics of the neighbourhood and the accessibility etc? And then follow it by playing only films that suit your target audience? Thereby telling the world, loud and clear, what kind of theatre you have; and what kind of experience they can expect?
Imagine this. You are building a theatre in a predominantly residential neighborhood. You position your theatre as ‘wholesome family fun’. Imagine every facet of design – from entrance to exit, from façade to restrooms, from seating to parking – every little detail is conceived, created and caressed with your target audience in mind – the family. You play only family movies; seating is designed in threes, fours or fives – decided by the size of the family. Even the food and snacks are sold in combo or family packs. Special restrooms designed for kids. Maybe even nappy changing rooms; breast-feeding facility for moms. Put simply, a theatrical version of McDonald’s.
And when you do that, you are doing a few things first, and right. To begin with, your target audience knows who you are. They wouldn’t care much about the film since they know what to expect. Which means you depend less on the film you run to define your success, and depend more on your theatre to defend your fortune? A far better way of doing business, you would agree.
If you own a multiplex, it gets even better. Imagine you have a 3-theatre complex. Dedicate each theatre to a certain target group. Like a portfolio of brands that has made companies like P&G invincible. Pantene, Head & Shoulders and Rejoice – three shampoos yet addressing three different audiences with three different positionings.
Make one theatre target kids – play only animations, adventure etc. Have rough flooring to take the abuse of young legs; restrooms whose urinals suit the size of the user; small serving of food and snacks among other things; maybe even video arcades on the side.
Position the second theatre for, say, couples; screen only love stories and romantic comedies. Have seats for two; armrest that folds so one could freely hold their partner’s hands, among other things! Maybe, even sell Unwanted 72 tablets along with popcorn and Pepsi!
How about a third theatre for young adults – action movies, adult comedies and more. Have more legroom maybe; a separate smoking section…you figure out the rest.
Am sure you are getting the picture!
You would realize you are not only branding your theatre but building a strong personality for it as well.
And not just that. Theatres will then become the next powerful advertising medium. When you showcase specific audiences, marketers are bound to follow by pouring tons of advertising money - prior to the movie, during intermission and all inside the complex – to reach their specific target audience!
Theatres have ceased to be film-watching devices long ago. Today, they are seen sources of entertainment; providers of experience.
Owners have failed to realize this and theatres are a dying breed. Multiplexes have been, erroneously, considered a whiff of fresh air that has come to revive movie-going experience. Without a proper positioning and personality, they are just oxygen cylinders to prolong the agony.
It’s time to redefine things. In fact, it’s time to define things! It’s time theatre owners give themselves a new lease of life. Positioning theaters and building an appropriate personality is a good starting point!
Let the show begin!
Sunday, March 04, 2012
Preachers don’t practice!
There are doctors who don’t exercise!
There are policemen who don’t wear helmets!
And then there are B-Schools who don’t practice branding!
Why do the preachers of branding don’t practice it? Take the all-important facet of branding i.e., Positioning. How many B-Schools have actually positioned themselves? Here is a simple exercise. Think of any B-school; what comes to your mind when you thought of that name.
Yup, nothing!
Should B-schools position themselves? Why not? And why shouldn’t they? They are selling a product; they are trying to differentiate themselves from one another; with increasing competition and the fickle nature of their rankings that seem to change every year, they need to stand for something in the student consumer minds. Read positioning!
If everything in life – products, places and people – can and should be positioned, why shouldn’t B-Schools?
Close Up means freshness.
Goa means beaches.
Rajinikanth means style.
Isn’t the whole objective of branding to make a product positioned on a workable and ownable platform and make it preferred over the generic? Doesn’t this apply to anything? Then why not B-schools? Or for that matter anything that can be marketed and merchandised?
B-Schools have become just a glorified commodity. Like mineral water. A category patronized and purchased for its generic benefits. Just as it is in the mineral water category, the B-school category has varying image and price point levels. The top tier schools – the IIMs - form the first leg. Call it the Evian and Perrier club. What’s the difference between Evian and Perrier? As much difference as you can find among the various IIM’s!
Then you have the second-tier schools. Name them the Aqua Fina and Kinley club. How is Aqua Fina different from Kinley? The same way XLRI is different from a FMS!
And the bottom rack of B-schools is filled with dime-a-dozen - a la the Bisleris. One as good or as same as the other. How do you differentiate one B-school from the other on this rack? Exactly the way you differentiate one Chinese face from the other. You don’t; and can’t!
You might remind me about Engineering, Arts & Sciences and Medical colleges not positioned themselves either. You might ask why I don’t accuse them as well.
What right do I have to ask them to execute branding and position themselves, when the preachers themselves don’t practice it?
There are policemen who don’t wear helmets!
And then there are B-Schools who don’t practice branding!
Why do the preachers of branding don’t practice it? Take the all-important facet of branding i.e., Positioning. How many B-Schools have actually positioned themselves? Here is a simple exercise. Think of any B-school; what comes to your mind when you thought of that name.
Yup, nothing!
Should B-schools position themselves? Why not? And why shouldn’t they? They are selling a product; they are trying to differentiate themselves from one another; with increasing competition and the fickle nature of their rankings that seem to change every year, they need to stand for something in the student consumer minds. Read positioning!
If everything in life – products, places and people – can and should be positioned, why shouldn’t B-Schools?
Close Up means freshness.
Goa means beaches.
Rajinikanth means style.
Isn’t the whole objective of branding to make a product positioned on a workable and ownable platform and make it preferred over the generic? Doesn’t this apply to anything? Then why not B-schools? Or for that matter anything that can be marketed and merchandised?
B-Schools have become just a glorified commodity. Like mineral water. A category patronized and purchased for its generic benefits. Just as it is in the mineral water category, the B-school category has varying image and price point levels. The top tier schools – the IIMs - form the first leg. Call it the Evian and Perrier club. What’s the difference between Evian and Perrier? As much difference as you can find among the various IIM’s!
Then you have the second-tier schools. Name them the Aqua Fina and Kinley club. How is Aqua Fina different from Kinley? The same way XLRI is different from a FMS!
And the bottom rack of B-schools is filled with dime-a-dozen - a la the Bisleris. One as good or as same as the other. How do you differentiate one B-school from the other on this rack? Exactly the way you differentiate one Chinese face from the other. You don’t; and can’t!
You might remind me about Engineering, Arts & Sciences and Medical colleges not positioned themselves either. You might ask why I don’t accuse them as well.
What right do I have to ask them to execute branding and position themselves, when the preachers themselves don’t practice it?
Saturday, January 28, 2012
It's payback time!
Hindu Muslim clashes be damned…for a while. For now, the fun and focus is the Hindu TOI war! Boy, is the Maha Vishnu of Mount Road taking the Times of India for a roaring ride or what.
No one expected The Hindu to react the way they did. Agreed the TOI sledged The Hindu first. The Hindu, surprisingly, reacted by making a few changes to their paper - content, style, presentation etc., something I even talked about here earlier.
But I didn’t expect The Hindu to come out with a hard-hitting campaign to retaliate TOI’s sledge. Damn; here is a brand that had never even advertised once in their 135+ year lifetime; far less taking a competitor head on.
Should The Hindu have reacted like this? Have they reacted right? And what next?
Before I continue, a few caveats are in order. I subscribe to both the papers. Though I admit I read The Hindu first. I am not a big fan of this paper anymore. I think it is left leaning, anti-BJP and Jayalalitha and losing its neutrality a bit, and shows a soft corner for Congress though not much of late. But when it comes to quality, writing style, use of the English language and depth of coverage, The Hindu stands tall and unrivaled. TOI is not even a shadow of an English paper, far less being comparable to The Hindu. Truth be told, TOI is at best a glorified vernacular; a daily film magazine; and a dignified porn pamphlet.
So, one day, the TOI takes on The Hindu accusing it of putting the readers to sleep – by their choice of news, the lush language they use and their aversion towards anything sensational. The Hindu reacted by adding a few new genre of supplements, adding a certain kinds of news that they had never covered earlier and eased their headlines a wee bit, without dilution of its famed richness.
And then, has come this Hindu Kolaveri!
My initial reaction, when told The Hindu has come out with a series of ads to counter TOI, was ‘disbelief’ and ‘why did they?’ I still believe The Hindu shouldn’t have even legitimized TOI with a retort. Maybe The Hindu’s research, assuming they did one, led them to believe seeds of suspicion being planted in the minds of young adults by the TOI campaign. Maybe The Hindu decided to react – lest they lose a whole generation of new readers who would end up growing with TOI. So, yes The Hindu probably was justified partly, am still reluctant to be whole hearted here, to take on TOI.
That aside, the choice of target audience for The Hindu’s campaign, I should say, was bang on. Young adults – who are increasingly being gleaned away by sensationalism and trivia at the cost of sense and knowledge. One could see a distinct degradation of the English language in the mouths of the young, the lack of depth of knowledge in their heads and a misunderstanding of what’s important for their jobs, careers and lives. I am the least bit being philosophical or judgmental. I am only worried these traits would affect the young adults’ chances of survival in these competitive times.
And therein lay the crux of The Hindu’s campaign. It is talking to a generation that’s growing up soaking nuisance masquerading as news and nonsense dressed up as current affairs, and choosing a paper that glorifies it. The Hindu’s campaign has been spot on. Readers of TOI are losers and hollow!
But then, one of the cardinal mistakes of marketing is to tell the target he or she is wrong. Even worse, term them idiots. The Hindu campaign, in a blatant way, does just that. Would that intimidate the TOI reader?
But then, I don’t think this Hindu campaign aims at weaning away the TOI reader. Maybe it shouldn’t either. The TOI audience is different from the Hindu’s. But what Hindu’s campaign does, and what I think The Hindu should continue to do, is to put the fear of God among the undecided and paint a picture in their minds the perils of preferring a newspaper that personifies hollowness and utter lack of depth. If that can be achieved, a whole new generation of users would feel cool and sensible to pick The Hindu. That would arrest the growth of TOI in the South. Which incidentally is where I think this campaign would have most of its effect. I doubt if the North, where The Hindu has been traditionally weak at best and non-existent at worst, would ever witness a shift in preferences.
Now what next? For starters, I expect TOI to take The Hindu to the court. The viewer could easily pick up the dumb characters in the ads mouthing ‘TIMES OF INDIA’; the beep sounds notwithstanding. It’s for the courts to decide if this can be termed disparagement.
And TOI will react. After all it’s the largest English daily. They might resort to statistics – how they are the largest newspaper, how they grown the most among the youth, how the who’s who is reading it etc. Such a campaign would be hopelessly weak to say the least. TOI, true to its true sensational style, would try and hit The Hindu below the belt. That’s the only place the TOI can ever be good at!
Also note that everyone in the ad voices TOI. So TOI can come out with a campaign quoting that and saying how they are the No.1 brand among the 18 to 35 or whatever. Feeble response, if it were to be.
At the end of the day, The Hindu has been provoked and woken up. As the old Tamil saying goes: The wrath of the quiet sadhu when awakened will shake the forest.
This Sadhu has gone one step further: He has brutally raped TOI and thrown it into the gutter, where it rightly belongs. And I love it!
No one expected The Hindu to react the way they did. Agreed the TOI sledged The Hindu first. The Hindu, surprisingly, reacted by making a few changes to their paper - content, style, presentation etc., something I even talked about here earlier.
But I didn’t expect The Hindu to come out with a hard-hitting campaign to retaliate TOI’s sledge. Damn; here is a brand that had never even advertised once in their 135+ year lifetime; far less taking a competitor head on.
Should The Hindu have reacted like this? Have they reacted right? And what next?
Before I continue, a few caveats are in order. I subscribe to both the papers. Though I admit I read The Hindu first. I am not a big fan of this paper anymore. I think it is left leaning, anti-BJP and Jayalalitha and losing its neutrality a bit, and shows a soft corner for Congress though not much of late. But when it comes to quality, writing style, use of the English language and depth of coverage, The Hindu stands tall and unrivaled. TOI is not even a shadow of an English paper, far less being comparable to The Hindu. Truth be told, TOI is at best a glorified vernacular; a daily film magazine; and a dignified porn pamphlet.
So, one day, the TOI takes on The Hindu accusing it of putting the readers to sleep – by their choice of news, the lush language they use and their aversion towards anything sensational. The Hindu reacted by adding a few new genre of supplements, adding a certain kinds of news that they had never covered earlier and eased their headlines a wee bit, without dilution of its famed richness.
And then, has come this Hindu Kolaveri!
My initial reaction, when told The Hindu has come out with a series of ads to counter TOI, was ‘disbelief’ and ‘why did they?’ I still believe The Hindu shouldn’t have even legitimized TOI with a retort. Maybe The Hindu’s research, assuming they did one, led them to believe seeds of suspicion being planted in the minds of young adults by the TOI campaign. Maybe The Hindu decided to react – lest they lose a whole generation of new readers who would end up growing with TOI. So, yes The Hindu probably was justified partly, am still reluctant to be whole hearted here, to take on TOI.
That aside, the choice of target audience for The Hindu’s campaign, I should say, was bang on. Young adults – who are increasingly being gleaned away by sensationalism and trivia at the cost of sense and knowledge. One could see a distinct degradation of the English language in the mouths of the young, the lack of depth of knowledge in their heads and a misunderstanding of what’s important for their jobs, careers and lives. I am the least bit being philosophical or judgmental. I am only worried these traits would affect the young adults’ chances of survival in these competitive times.
And therein lay the crux of The Hindu’s campaign. It is talking to a generation that’s growing up soaking nuisance masquerading as news and nonsense dressed up as current affairs, and choosing a paper that glorifies it. The Hindu’s campaign has been spot on. Readers of TOI are losers and hollow!
But then, one of the cardinal mistakes of marketing is to tell the target he or she is wrong. Even worse, term them idiots. The Hindu campaign, in a blatant way, does just that. Would that intimidate the TOI reader?
But then, I don’t think this Hindu campaign aims at weaning away the TOI reader. Maybe it shouldn’t either. The TOI audience is different from the Hindu’s. But what Hindu’s campaign does, and what I think The Hindu should continue to do, is to put the fear of God among the undecided and paint a picture in their minds the perils of preferring a newspaper that personifies hollowness and utter lack of depth. If that can be achieved, a whole new generation of users would feel cool and sensible to pick The Hindu. That would arrest the growth of TOI in the South. Which incidentally is where I think this campaign would have most of its effect. I doubt if the North, where The Hindu has been traditionally weak at best and non-existent at worst, would ever witness a shift in preferences.
Now what next? For starters, I expect TOI to take The Hindu to the court. The viewer could easily pick up the dumb characters in the ads mouthing ‘TIMES OF INDIA’; the beep sounds notwithstanding. It’s for the courts to decide if this can be termed disparagement.
And TOI will react. After all it’s the largest English daily. They might resort to statistics – how they are the largest newspaper, how they grown the most among the youth, how the who’s who is reading it etc. Such a campaign would be hopelessly weak to say the least. TOI, true to its true sensational style, would try and hit The Hindu below the belt. That’s the only place the TOI can ever be good at!
Also note that everyone in the ad voices TOI. So TOI can come out with a campaign quoting that and saying how they are the No.1 brand among the 18 to 35 or whatever. Feeble response, if it were to be.
At the end of the day, The Hindu has been provoked and woken up. As the old Tamil saying goes: The wrath of the quiet sadhu when awakened will shake the forest.
This Sadhu has gone one step further: He has brutally raped TOI and thrown it into the gutter, where it rightly belongs. And I love it!
Friday, January 13, 2012
Marketing Lessons: Govinda Goooooooovinda!
Marketing is amazingly easy to learn. And learn from unexpected sources too - people, products, places....and hell, even from places of worship!
Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam (TTD). How about learning some marketing from the world’s richest Temple authority – the BCCI of Hindu temples, so to speak!
You know the colossal crowds in Tirupathi Temple every single day. The titanic turnout is a sight to behold – provided you aren’t one among the crowd and only sight it from a distance! From sinners to sincere devotees; from people who come with a request to people who return to payback, Tirupathi is one cosmic ecosystem in itself! While the crowds are a testimony to Tirupathi’s brand pull, it also serves as a turn off!
So, what do you do as a marketer? Simple; you open new branches! When your shop gets huge crowds in a city, you open new outlets. And when it keeps growing, you expand across to other cities. So you get more walk-ins; they go back contended, having consumed your brand; word of mouth spreads; and voila, you increase your revenues!
TTD is doing precisely that. It’s planning to build Venkateswara Temples at various places across the country. New distribution outlets – allow me to say so – are to come up at Navi Mumbai, Kanyakumari and New Delhi. Plans are also afoot to convert the guesthouse and rooms at the TTD’s Chennai Information centre in T.Nagar and convert it into a full-fledged Temple....another branch that is.
Thus, increased footfalls and enhanced market share too!
Now how do you augment revenue – not from new customers but from existing ones? Simple, you go hi-tech, partner with professionals, take the e-route and profit from your existing customers....when they bow in the temple. Literally!
TTD has tied up with MSTC Ltd., the public sector trading house known for facilitating electronic auction of commodities and products – coal, manganese, scrap etc., - to profitably dispose of the huge stock of 471 tonnes of hair, offered by lakhs of devotees.
Raw hair, in general, is cleaned and categorized by local buyers and finds a huge market abroad, mostly for manufacture of wigs. So far, TTD had been selling hair through the traditional auction route. The Internet based e-auction has completely changed the rules of the game. The last sale was effected at a hair-raising (pardon my pun) Rs.133 crore (at approximately Rs. 2,824 a kg). This was 27% higher than the reserve price of Rs. 105 crores set earlier.
And this is set to swell. The last auction did not see foreign users participating directly. But MSTC is hopeful that they would soon take direct interest, raising the hair....I mean the proceeds!
This is just the tip of the icebergian hair growth! TTD is contemplating using the services of MSTC to auction the tonnes of silver and gold that devotees are only too happy to drop in the Temple’s humongous hundis everyday! Read revenues!
And there’s more. The Temple also gets, from its patrons, pots of provisions everyday - grapes, fresh fruits, dry fruits etc., worth Rs. 300–400 crores a year. They are to be auctioned too. The coffers are set to swell.
I think TTD could do much more. How about official Tirupathi memorabilia sold through authorized TTD outlets in and around the Temple? How about selling official Venkateswara merchandise around the country by exploring the franchisee route? How about banded Tirupathi Laddus sold through stores across the country using the distribution might of a company like Levers or ITC? How about Tirupathi and Venkateswara branded screen savers, ring tones, caller tunes.....you name it!
Yedukundala vaada Govinda Goooooooovinda!
Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam (TTD). How about learning some marketing from the world’s richest Temple authority – the BCCI of Hindu temples, so to speak!
You know the colossal crowds in Tirupathi Temple every single day. The titanic turnout is a sight to behold – provided you aren’t one among the crowd and only sight it from a distance! From sinners to sincere devotees; from people who come with a request to people who return to payback, Tirupathi is one cosmic ecosystem in itself! While the crowds are a testimony to Tirupathi’s brand pull, it also serves as a turn off!
So, what do you do as a marketer? Simple; you open new branches! When your shop gets huge crowds in a city, you open new outlets. And when it keeps growing, you expand across to other cities. So you get more walk-ins; they go back contended, having consumed your brand; word of mouth spreads; and voila, you increase your revenues!
TTD is doing precisely that. It’s planning to build Venkateswara Temples at various places across the country. New distribution outlets – allow me to say so – are to come up at Navi Mumbai, Kanyakumari and New Delhi. Plans are also afoot to convert the guesthouse and rooms at the TTD’s Chennai Information centre in T.Nagar and convert it into a full-fledged Temple....another branch that is.
Thus, increased footfalls and enhanced market share too!
Now how do you augment revenue – not from new customers but from existing ones? Simple, you go hi-tech, partner with professionals, take the e-route and profit from your existing customers....when they bow in the temple. Literally!
TTD has tied up with MSTC Ltd., the public sector trading house known for facilitating electronic auction of commodities and products – coal, manganese, scrap etc., - to profitably dispose of the huge stock of 471 tonnes of hair, offered by lakhs of devotees.
Raw hair, in general, is cleaned and categorized by local buyers and finds a huge market abroad, mostly for manufacture of wigs. So far, TTD had been selling hair through the traditional auction route. The Internet based e-auction has completely changed the rules of the game. The last sale was effected at a hair-raising (pardon my pun) Rs.133 crore (at approximately Rs. 2,824 a kg). This was 27% higher than the reserve price of Rs. 105 crores set earlier.
And this is set to swell. The last auction did not see foreign users participating directly. But MSTC is hopeful that they would soon take direct interest, raising the hair....I mean the proceeds!
This is just the tip of the icebergian hair growth! TTD is contemplating using the services of MSTC to auction the tonnes of silver and gold that devotees are only too happy to drop in the Temple’s humongous hundis everyday! Read revenues!
And there’s more. The Temple also gets, from its patrons, pots of provisions everyday - grapes, fresh fruits, dry fruits etc., worth Rs. 300–400 crores a year. They are to be auctioned too. The coffers are set to swell.
I think TTD could do much more. How about official Tirupathi memorabilia sold through authorized TTD outlets in and around the Temple? How about selling official Venkateswara merchandise around the country by exploring the franchisee route? How about banded Tirupathi Laddus sold through stores across the country using the distribution might of a company like Levers or ITC? How about Tirupathi and Venkateswara branded screen savers, ring tones, caller tunes.....you name it!
Yedukundala vaada Govinda Goooooooovinda!
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Recycled celebrities
There seems to be a sudden dearth of celebrities to endorse brands. Then what explains even competing brands signing up erstwhile celebrities of their competitors?
Fiama di Wills has signed up the same grandma who not too long ago was extolling the virtues of Hamam Nalangu Maavu brand. Never mind she is not a popular actress; and ignore the fact that the much-hyped Hamam variant bit the dust. Has India run out of grandmas?
What about the case of Sachin being signed up by Coke. This cola bottle sized celebrity was seen endorsing Pepsi for more than a decade. Now that you put a Coke in his hand, is the general public supposed to forget Pepsi? Every time and in every Coke commercial if the average consumer sees Sachin with a cola in his hand, wouldn’t he be thinking Pepsi? Even if most of us suffer from short-term memory loss.
The new addition to this madness is my favourite company (if you know what I mean) Hindustan Unilever. They have signed up actress Asin to make their Fair & Lovely even fairer!
Who are they kidding? Asin for half a decade was applying Fairever on her face or so she claimed in all Fairever advertising. Today, she gets up on the wrong side of the bed and has started applying Fair & Lovely. And wants us to follow suit. Excuse me?
Using celebrities in itself is fraught with risk. Remember Accenture’s predicament? Having tied themselves intricately with Tiger Woods, they were left high and dry when Tiger Woods was found flirting with 19th after every 18-hole golf game!
Now, why would any sensible marketer (never mind if it’s an oxymoron) ever use their competitor’s celebrity?
Is this country bereft of celebrities? Or, are marketers bereft of common sense?
Fiama di Wills has signed up the same grandma who not too long ago was extolling the virtues of Hamam Nalangu Maavu brand. Never mind she is not a popular actress; and ignore the fact that the much-hyped Hamam variant bit the dust. Has India run out of grandmas?
What about the case of Sachin being signed up by Coke. This cola bottle sized celebrity was seen endorsing Pepsi for more than a decade. Now that you put a Coke in his hand, is the general public supposed to forget Pepsi? Every time and in every Coke commercial if the average consumer sees Sachin with a cola in his hand, wouldn’t he be thinking Pepsi? Even if most of us suffer from short-term memory loss.
The new addition to this madness is my favourite company (if you know what I mean) Hindustan Unilever. They have signed up actress Asin to make their Fair & Lovely even fairer!
Who are they kidding? Asin for half a decade was applying Fairever on her face or so she claimed in all Fairever advertising. Today, she gets up on the wrong side of the bed and has started applying Fair & Lovely. And wants us to follow suit. Excuse me?
Using celebrities in itself is fraught with risk. Remember Accenture’s predicament? Having tied themselves intricately with Tiger Woods, they were left high and dry when Tiger Woods was found flirting with 19th after every 18-hole golf game!
Now, why would any sensible marketer (never mind if it’s an oxymoron) ever use their competitor’s celebrity?
Is this country bereft of celebrities? Or, are marketers bereft of common sense?
Friday, November 25, 2011
Does advertising work?
The citizens of Madras, over the past few days, have been witness to David taking on Goliath. Times of India (never mind it’s a Goliath elsewhere) has been trying to take The Hindu head on with a series of ads that has a sleeping man in everyday situations of Madras with a screaming line: Is the morning news putting you to sleep? Wake up to the Times of India.
Is the campaign working? Has the ad woken up the citizens of Madras to the perils of sleeping with The Hindu and moving to the Times of India instead?
We would know once the next round of INS data comes in.
But The Hindu certainly seemed to have woken up! Readers of The Hindu – the venerable Maha Vishnu of Mount Road – have been waking up to a change. A change in the kind of news one gets to read in The Hindu.
No, The Hindu’s impeccable language and unimpeachable use of the English language haven’t changed. Not definitely the absolute trustworthiness of its news reporting. Nor its unbelievable depth of coverage. These and other hallmarks of world class journalism that one could find only in The Hindu, hasn’t changed one iota.
But the kind of news The Hindu has added to its repertoire certainly has. ‘Why this Kolaveridi’ song (that everyone is raving about) was analyzed threadbare in The Hindu. And guess where? On prime real estate…..the front page! Never in my life have I, or for that matter millions of loyal Hindu readers, seen anything remotely similar in the first page of our morning master.
A few days back there was a complete postmortem of the decline of Kingfisher airlines……front page piece again.
There have been more changes too. The kind of headlines The Hindu now uses. The kind of news from Page 2 through the last. You could see and smell change - albeit some of them minor. The Hindu is racier now, so to speak. Funnier now, so to add. The Hindu is seeing change, to say the least!
So, coming back to the question, yes, advertising does work. Though quite not in the way TOI might have expected to! It has woken up a sleeping giant and probably getting ready to get crushed!
It’s time for Times of India to wake up……to a marauding Hindu!
Is the campaign working? Has the ad woken up the citizens of Madras to the perils of sleeping with The Hindu and moving to the Times of India instead?
We would know once the next round of INS data comes in.
But The Hindu certainly seemed to have woken up! Readers of The Hindu – the venerable Maha Vishnu of Mount Road – have been waking up to a change. A change in the kind of news one gets to read in The Hindu.
No, The Hindu’s impeccable language and unimpeachable use of the English language haven’t changed. Not definitely the absolute trustworthiness of its news reporting. Nor its unbelievable depth of coverage. These and other hallmarks of world class journalism that one could find only in The Hindu, hasn’t changed one iota.
But the kind of news The Hindu has added to its repertoire certainly has. ‘Why this Kolaveridi’ song (that everyone is raving about) was analyzed threadbare in The Hindu. And guess where? On prime real estate…..the front page! Never in my life have I, or for that matter millions of loyal Hindu readers, seen anything remotely similar in the first page of our morning master.
A few days back there was a complete postmortem of the decline of Kingfisher airlines……front page piece again.
There have been more changes too. The kind of headlines The Hindu now uses. The kind of news from Page 2 through the last. You could see and smell change - albeit some of them minor. The Hindu is racier now, so to speak. Funnier now, so to add. The Hindu is seeing change, to say the least!
So, coming back to the question, yes, advertising does work. Though quite not in the way TOI might have expected to! It has woken up a sleeping giant and probably getting ready to get crushed!
It’s time for Times of India to wake up……to a marauding Hindu!
Friday, November 11, 2011
11.11.11
Marketers are excellent exploiters of sentiments, we know. But there are times when they exceed themselves and go to ridiculous extents. The latest is this brouhaha happening across the Indian marketing landscape today. I am talking about the 11.11.11 syndrome.
Agreed it’s a unique date and all that. But it’s just the eleventh such unique date this decade. Every Tom, Dick, Harry and his marketing uncle are onto this bandwagon. Take today’s newspaper. It’s awash with advertisements extolling the virtues of this date and giving 11.11.11 offers.
A bank says its opening 111 branches today. Which one? I don’t remember.
Some vacation package company is offering some 11 days stay with 11 day something else thrown with another 11 something into the package. What exactly is the package? And which vacation company? No idea.
And there is this premium hotel charging some 11.11.11 rate for those who stay in their rooms today. What offer and which hotel? It went over my head and had gone past my senses and I don’t remember.
Another something brand is offering another 11 something with another 11 and one more 11 to boot. Which one and what is the offer? Don’t even bother asking. I have the foggiest.
See, this is the problem. The problem of plenty. The pitfalls of a dozen brands offering something similar. So, which brand is offering which? No one knows. And even worse, no customer seems to care.
It’s like spotting a fully-tonsured friend of yours in Tirupathi. Well neigh impossible since everyone looks the same. It’s like looking at Chinese faces. Everyone looks similar!
And so is every brand today - across every category - offering something spectacularly similar. I couldn’t find one brand which stands out today nor could I spot one offer that claimed attention. It was just a plain wallpaper effect!
I have a small piece of advice to all these brands that tried riding this 11.11.11 thing. Analyze the offer performance vis-à-vis campaign objectives. Do an honest post-launch evaluation. Check if your brand achieved even a semblance of salience and a modicum of success. The findings will help you 13 months from now.
When 12.12.12 dawns on us!
Agreed it’s a unique date and all that. But it’s just the eleventh such unique date this decade. Every Tom, Dick, Harry and his marketing uncle are onto this bandwagon. Take today’s newspaper. It’s awash with advertisements extolling the virtues of this date and giving 11.11.11 offers.
A bank says its opening 111 branches today. Which one? I don’t remember.
Some vacation package company is offering some 11 days stay with 11 day something else thrown with another 11 something into the package. What exactly is the package? And which vacation company? No idea.
And there is this premium hotel charging some 11.11.11 rate for those who stay in their rooms today. What offer and which hotel? It went over my head and had gone past my senses and I don’t remember.
Another something brand is offering another 11 something with another 11 and one more 11 to boot. Which one and what is the offer? Don’t even bother asking. I have the foggiest.
See, this is the problem. The problem of plenty. The pitfalls of a dozen brands offering something similar. So, which brand is offering which? No one knows. And even worse, no customer seems to care.
It’s like spotting a fully-tonsured friend of yours in Tirupathi. Well neigh impossible since everyone looks the same. It’s like looking at Chinese faces. Everyone looks similar!
And so is every brand today - across every category - offering something spectacularly similar. I couldn’t find one brand which stands out today nor could I spot one offer that claimed attention. It was just a plain wallpaper effect!
I have a small piece of advice to all these brands that tried riding this 11.11.11 thing. Analyze the offer performance vis-à-vis campaign objectives. Do an honest post-launch evaluation. Check if your brand achieved even a semblance of salience and a modicum of success. The findings will help you 13 months from now.
When 12.12.12 dawns on us!
Thursday, November 03, 2011
The best way to fight…..is to run away!
Many a battle has been won fighting the enemy face to face. It might work in warfare. But it seldom does in the marketing world. More so when you are up against an enemy, who is more entrenched than you are, more experienced than you have been and with more arsenal than you could muster.
So, how do we fight such an enemy in the battlefield?
Simple; you just shift the battlefield. Move the ground to another plane; move in against the enemy’s weakness; pitch yourself in an arena which is least contested and, more importantly, launch an attack in that part of the marketplace that is least conceived; and least expected!
Emami realized taking on Fair & Lovely would leave them battered and bruised; not to talk of them ending up dark and diabolical. So, they took the easier way out. They ran away from that battlefield; and shifted the battleground to men’s fairness. And launched Fair & Handsome.
Two things happened: It was a virgin territory that Emami literally created for itself. And two, HUL just couldn’t react. And even when they did, it was too late, too little and too stupid. Fair & Lovely Men’s Active - their reply, was feeble, frivolous and fantastically stupid that the brand’s advertising only heightened the guys’ need to use a male fairness cream – precisely the platform Fair & Handsome had taken earlier and owns now!
Too many brands get this wrong. They think the best way to take the bigger enemy is facing them ‘heads on’. No one wins by fighting harder. You win by fighting smarter. By running away from the competitor’s strength and moving him away from his area of strength.
The old clichéd question holds well all the time: How do you play Vishwanathan Anand? By playing a game other than chess!
The moral of the story: Next time you have to fight a big competitor, just run away…….and shift the battleground. Force your stronger competitor to lose his strength by taking him on in a new arena; a neutral territory. Where you are as strong. Even Stevens!
Here, is another wonderful exhibition of a brand fighting the leader by moving the battlefield. Watch this video. Enjoy and get enlightened on the art of running away from a battlefield…….only to win it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9zcs1dg8qo
P.S: Thank you Ms. Aarthi for sending me this link from Germany and providing me with the necessary grist for this edition of my blog mill.
So, how do we fight such an enemy in the battlefield?
Simple; you just shift the battlefield. Move the ground to another plane; move in against the enemy’s weakness; pitch yourself in an arena which is least contested and, more importantly, launch an attack in that part of the marketplace that is least conceived; and least expected!
Emami realized taking on Fair & Lovely would leave them battered and bruised; not to talk of them ending up dark and diabolical. So, they took the easier way out. They ran away from that battlefield; and shifted the battleground to men’s fairness. And launched Fair & Handsome.
Two things happened: It was a virgin territory that Emami literally created for itself. And two, HUL just couldn’t react. And even when they did, it was too late, too little and too stupid. Fair & Lovely Men’s Active - their reply, was feeble, frivolous and fantastically stupid that the brand’s advertising only heightened the guys’ need to use a male fairness cream – precisely the platform Fair & Handsome had taken earlier and owns now!
Too many brands get this wrong. They think the best way to take the bigger enemy is facing them ‘heads on’. No one wins by fighting harder. You win by fighting smarter. By running away from the competitor’s strength and moving him away from his area of strength.
The old clichéd question holds well all the time: How do you play Vishwanathan Anand? By playing a game other than chess!
The moral of the story: Next time you have to fight a big competitor, just run away…….and shift the battleground. Force your stronger competitor to lose his strength by taking him on in a new arena; a neutral territory. Where you are as strong. Even Stevens!
Here, is another wonderful exhibition of a brand fighting the leader by moving the battlefield. Watch this video. Enjoy and get enlightened on the art of running away from a battlefield…….only to win it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9zcs1dg8qo
P.S: Thank you Ms. Aarthi for sending me this link from Germany and providing me with the necessary grist for this edition of my blog mill.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Literally lateral !
One of the many joys of collecting articles, notes, reading materials etc., and filing them under different folders is finding something when you least expect it. As is this discovery today – an old but interesting list of questions that requires you to think laterally if you wish to solve them.
There are five questions here. Don’t look at the answers immediately after each question but try answering all of them and then scroll down for the answers.
Good luck!
1. A woman had two sons who were born on the same hour of the same day of the same year. But they were not twins. How could this be so?
2. A murderer is condemned to death. He has to choose between three rooms. The first is full of raging fires, the second is full of assassins with loaded guns, and the third is full of lions that haven’t eaten in three years. Which room is safest for him?
3. Can you name three consecutive days without using the words Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday? (or day names in any other language)
4. A man is wearing black shoes, socks, trousers, coat, gloves and ski mask. He is walking down a back street, with all the street lamps of. A black car is coming towards him with its light off, but somehow he manages to stop in time. How did the driver see the man?
5. Why is it better to have round manhole covers than square ones? (This is logical than lateral, but it is a good puzzle that can be solved by lateral thinking techniques. It is supposedly used as an interview question by a leading software company for prospective employees.)
Here, are the answers….
1. They were two of a set of triplets (or quadruplets). This simple puzzle stumps many people. They try outlandish solutions involving test-tube babies or surrogate moms. Why does the brain search for complex solutions when there is a much simpler one available?
2. The third. Lions that have not eaten in three years are dead!
3. Sure you can. Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow!
4. It was day time.
5. A square manhole cover can be turned and dropped down the diagonal of the manhole. A round manhole cannot be dropped down a manhole. So for safety and practicality, all manhole covers should be round.
There are five questions here. Don’t look at the answers immediately after each question but try answering all of them and then scroll down for the answers.
Good luck!
1. A woman had two sons who were born on the same hour of the same day of the same year. But they were not twins. How could this be so?
2. A murderer is condemned to death. He has to choose between three rooms. The first is full of raging fires, the second is full of assassins with loaded guns, and the third is full of lions that haven’t eaten in three years. Which room is safest for him?
3. Can you name three consecutive days without using the words Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday? (or day names in any other language)
4. A man is wearing black shoes, socks, trousers, coat, gloves and ski mask. He is walking down a back street, with all the street lamps of. A black car is coming towards him with its light off, but somehow he manages to stop in time. How did the driver see the man?
5. Why is it better to have round manhole covers than square ones? (This is logical than lateral, but it is a good puzzle that can be solved by lateral thinking techniques. It is supposedly used as an interview question by a leading software company for prospective employees.)
Here, are the answers….
1. They were two of a set of triplets (or quadruplets). This simple puzzle stumps many people. They try outlandish solutions involving test-tube babies or surrogate moms. Why does the brain search for complex solutions when there is a much simpler one available?
2. The third. Lions that have not eaten in three years are dead!
3. Sure you can. Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow!
4. It was day time.
5. A square manhole cover can be turned and dropped down the diagonal of the manhole. A round manhole cannot be dropped down a manhole. So for safety and practicality, all manhole covers should be round.
Saturday, October 01, 2011
Fly the bad times
One of the many wonderful things about beer is its ability to wake up dozing brains and shake up dormant thinking. One more reason why I think beer is god’s gift to mankind!
But this article is not about beer. This is not even about someone having beer. This is about a beer that had one too many. Brand extensions, that is.
I am talking about Kingfisher Airlines. This strong beer brand had painstakingly frothed up enough sales to become the leader. And what does its princely owner, Mr. Mallya, do? He extends its name to an airline he launches with much fanfare.
Why name an airline Kingfisher to fly high. A few Kingfisher bottles would have done that happily! Never mind.
Kingfisher is ‘the king of good times’. Kingfisher Airlines is ‘fun in the sky’. Screw No.1.
And then Mr. Mallya goes out and buys Air Deccan – an extremely successful low cost airline till then – for around Rs.1,000 crores and renames it Kingfisher Red. Why? Maybe he wanted multiples! Who said men can’t?
Kingfisher Class is the premium airline. Kingfisher Red is the low cost one. Clearly distinctive offerings; to satisfy the flying urge of a growing nation. Another of those marketing theories preached in all business schools and academic books with disastrous results.
But the consumer has other plans. He looks at things a wee bit differently. Kingfisher is beer. He found Kingfisher Airlines a bit too strong to his liking. Even worse, Kingfisher is premium. And when you dilute that by extending the name to a low cost product – even if it’s an airline - the consumer is not willing to gulp any of it.
Need proof? Accumulated losses of Kingfisher Airlines are a staggering Rs. 5,000 crores and its total debt a stunning Rs. 6,000 crores. If I am not mistaken, that’s a lot of money and a lot of losses. Enough to give a spectacular hangover!
Before you say all airlines are bleeding, I would like to point out two things: One, in a capital intensive industry like airlines, I agree it takes times to break even. Yet, Spice Jet, Indigo and Go Air are on the ascent and can see light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Two, Jet Airways used to be profitable till they too were bitten by the extension bug and launched Jet Lite, Jet Connect apart from its flagship Jet Airways. And flew into turbulence ever since. That nasty cold called extension causing the sneeze again!
Coming back to Kingfisher, Mr. Mallya has now decided to kill Kingfisher Red and focus only on the premium Kingfisher Class. So, what about the Rs.1,000 crores he spent on Air Deccan? Swept under the carpet. What about the killing of a successful low-cost airline concept? Flushed down the toilet.
Importantly, what has all this done to the premium Kingfisher brand image? Royally screwed…….. Mallya style!
But this article is not about beer. This is not even about someone having beer. This is about a beer that had one too many. Brand extensions, that is.
I am talking about Kingfisher Airlines. This strong beer brand had painstakingly frothed up enough sales to become the leader. And what does its princely owner, Mr. Mallya, do? He extends its name to an airline he launches with much fanfare.
Why name an airline Kingfisher to fly high. A few Kingfisher bottles would have done that happily! Never mind.
Kingfisher is ‘the king of good times’. Kingfisher Airlines is ‘fun in the sky’. Screw No.1.
And then Mr. Mallya goes out and buys Air Deccan – an extremely successful low cost airline till then – for around Rs.1,000 crores and renames it Kingfisher Red. Why? Maybe he wanted multiples! Who said men can’t?
Kingfisher Class is the premium airline. Kingfisher Red is the low cost one. Clearly distinctive offerings; to satisfy the flying urge of a growing nation. Another of those marketing theories preached in all business schools and academic books with disastrous results.
But the consumer has other plans. He looks at things a wee bit differently. Kingfisher is beer. He found Kingfisher Airlines a bit too strong to his liking. Even worse, Kingfisher is premium. And when you dilute that by extending the name to a low cost product – even if it’s an airline - the consumer is not willing to gulp any of it.
Need proof? Accumulated losses of Kingfisher Airlines are a staggering Rs. 5,000 crores and its total debt a stunning Rs. 6,000 crores. If I am not mistaken, that’s a lot of money and a lot of losses. Enough to give a spectacular hangover!
Before you say all airlines are bleeding, I would like to point out two things: One, in a capital intensive industry like airlines, I agree it takes times to break even. Yet, Spice Jet, Indigo and Go Air are on the ascent and can see light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Two, Jet Airways used to be profitable till they too were bitten by the extension bug and launched Jet Lite, Jet Connect apart from its flagship Jet Airways. And flew into turbulence ever since. That nasty cold called extension causing the sneeze again!
Coming back to Kingfisher, Mr. Mallya has now decided to kill Kingfisher Red and focus only on the premium Kingfisher Class. So, what about the Rs.1,000 crores he spent on Air Deccan? Swept under the carpet. What about the killing of a successful low-cost airline concept? Flushed down the toilet.
Importantly, what has all this done to the premium Kingfisher brand image? Royally screwed…….. Mallya style!
Sunday, September 11, 2011
A quick look at a fast food brand
I had wanted to write about successful marketing companies for some time now. Not chronicling their history as much as sharing their secrets of success sprinkled with a few trivia and tidbits. While reading the Fortune magazine today, I spotted one such company that I thought could kick start this series. McDonald’s!
Though quintessentially American, McDonald’s has grown to be a 33,000 restaurant colossus spanning 118 countries with annual turnover of $77.4 billion. Of which, U.S contributes just $24.1 billion. The gargantuan size of the brand could be gauged by its turnover being more than KFC, Subway, Burger King, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell combined! Not bad for a company whose first day sales from its first restaurant in 1955 were a mere $366.12.
64 million people in 118 countries eat at its restaurants every single day! 80% of McDonald’s are operated by independent owners. Read franchisees.
Though the company had a successful first fifty years or so, the brand was stagnating by the turn of the century. To make matters worse, was the sudden demise of their then CEO and his replacement too having to resign since been diagnosed with cancer. During those troubled times stepped in Jim Skinner its current CEO who had started his career in 1962 working in a McDonald’s kitchen. In fact, this is one of the many reasons for the company’s success. Most of its top execs have worked on the shop floor and hence know the pulse of the consumer.
Skinner is a hands-on CEO who perennially checks on his restaurants and delegates powers lower down to make sure the giant organization doesn’t turn bureaucratic. Skinner is obsessed with satisfying customers, even if it comes at the expense of his own ideas and preferences. A few years ago the company did extensive research on new coffee-cup lids and came out with a version that customers liked but Skinner didn’t. Instead of overruling the research, like most CEO’s would have, Skinner approved the new design and, in the process, came up with his own solution: he keeps a stash of the old lids on hand when he drinks coffee!
McDonald’s is renowned for its spotless service delivered day in and day out. Not an easy task considering it has more than 1.7 million employees across the world. How do they manage? Training; and training in their own facility called Hamburger University near their headquarters at Oak Brook, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago. This sprawling 130,000-square-foot training facility trains McDonald's employees in the various aspects of restaurant management. More than 80,000 restaurant managers, mid-managers and franchisees have graduated from this facility majoring in Burgers and with an elective in French fries!
The other fascinating facet of McDonald’s is the speed with which it delivers its food. While the category is fast food, McDonald’s is even faster! R&D is constantly egged by marketing to come up with new dishes and it constantly does. But if the new product overly complicates the kitchen and slows deliveries, the product is not launched; period. This always doesn’t endear Skinner to his finance department. But he always sides with marketing and dismisses those objections with a simple comment: “I want to remind you that it’s harder to make money than it is to count it!”
As a side dish, pun intended, though not McDonald’s doing but symptomatic of its towering presence and influence, its Big Mac serves not just hungry mouths but eager economists too. Through the Big Mac Index! Developed by The Economist magazine a quarter century ago, the Big Mac index uses the price of McDonald's burger in different countries to construct an informal (but surprisingly accurate) indicator of real exchange rate.
India, which makes a debut in the index this week, was found to have one of the most undervalued currencies vis-a-vis the dollar - even more than the Chinese Yuan. That is some fast food for thought!
McDonald has been growing at more than 5% in U.S and much more across the world. In a slow economy, that’s speedy growth from a fascinating fast food company!
CEO Skinner is now 66 years old and people keep asking him when he is going to retire. His response: ‘When I run out of my old coffee-cup lids’!
Though quintessentially American, McDonald’s has grown to be a 33,000 restaurant colossus spanning 118 countries with annual turnover of $77.4 billion. Of which, U.S contributes just $24.1 billion. The gargantuan size of the brand could be gauged by its turnover being more than KFC, Subway, Burger King, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell combined! Not bad for a company whose first day sales from its first restaurant in 1955 were a mere $366.12.
64 million people in 118 countries eat at its restaurants every single day! 80% of McDonald’s are operated by independent owners. Read franchisees.
Though the company had a successful first fifty years or so, the brand was stagnating by the turn of the century. To make matters worse, was the sudden demise of their then CEO and his replacement too having to resign since been diagnosed with cancer. During those troubled times stepped in Jim Skinner its current CEO who had started his career in 1962 working in a McDonald’s kitchen. In fact, this is one of the many reasons for the company’s success. Most of its top execs have worked on the shop floor and hence know the pulse of the consumer.
Skinner is a hands-on CEO who perennially checks on his restaurants and delegates powers lower down to make sure the giant organization doesn’t turn bureaucratic. Skinner is obsessed with satisfying customers, even if it comes at the expense of his own ideas and preferences. A few years ago the company did extensive research on new coffee-cup lids and came out with a version that customers liked but Skinner didn’t. Instead of overruling the research, like most CEO’s would have, Skinner approved the new design and, in the process, came up with his own solution: he keeps a stash of the old lids on hand when he drinks coffee!
McDonald’s is renowned for its spotless service delivered day in and day out. Not an easy task considering it has more than 1.7 million employees across the world. How do they manage? Training; and training in their own facility called Hamburger University near their headquarters at Oak Brook, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago. This sprawling 130,000-square-foot training facility trains McDonald's employees in the various aspects of restaurant management. More than 80,000 restaurant managers, mid-managers and franchisees have graduated from this facility majoring in Burgers and with an elective in French fries!
The other fascinating facet of McDonald’s is the speed with which it delivers its food. While the category is fast food, McDonald’s is even faster! R&D is constantly egged by marketing to come up with new dishes and it constantly does. But if the new product overly complicates the kitchen and slows deliveries, the product is not launched; period. This always doesn’t endear Skinner to his finance department. But he always sides with marketing and dismisses those objections with a simple comment: “I want to remind you that it’s harder to make money than it is to count it!”
As a side dish, pun intended, though not McDonald’s doing but symptomatic of its towering presence and influence, its Big Mac serves not just hungry mouths but eager economists too. Through the Big Mac Index! Developed by The Economist magazine a quarter century ago, the Big Mac index uses the price of McDonald's burger in different countries to construct an informal (but surprisingly accurate) indicator of real exchange rate.
India, which makes a debut in the index this week, was found to have one of the most undervalued currencies vis-a-vis the dollar - even more than the Chinese Yuan. That is some fast food for thought!
McDonald has been growing at more than 5% in U.S and much more across the world. In a slow economy, that’s speedy growth from a fascinating fast food company!
CEO Skinner is now 66 years old and people keep asking him when he is going to retire. His response: ‘When I run out of my old coffee-cup lids’!
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Team Anna and Brand Promotion
Before I start, this piece is not about corruption in India or my joining the anti-corruption crusade. Not that I am for corruption. Since I don’t have the opportunity to make money through corruption, I am against it! Never mind that…
I am talking here about Team Anna’s campaign. Since it is being termed a campaign and is seeing a ground swell of support, I like to explore it through the prism of marketing to gauge its impact and glean some learning.
The campaign, anti-corruption, is a strong product, yes. But that alone doesn’t explain its success. The marketplace of this country is littered with good products floundering and failing due to bad marketing. But Team Anna’s hasn’t and is flourishing and flowering. And therein lie a few lessons for us marketers. Simple lessons fundamental in nature but then that’s what marketing is, has been and always should be.
First, the target audience of the campaign; the single most stunning reason for its spectacular success: the middle class of India. You see, the rich of this country are few in numbers and don’t open their mouths. And the poor though large in size don’t have a voice. The middle class - the tax-paying public, the law abiding citizens of this country who have put up with this corrupt system for way too long – they represent a huge segment. Team Anna got their segmentation right. Targeting, bang on. And positioning, picture perfect!
Economics-wise, there was pent up demand among this segment and a growing need for an anti-corruption product. Team Anna provided it. The product was accepted by the target with glee and latched up with joy.
The next key is the product’s distribution strategy. Team Anna chose the perfect market to launch their product – New Delhi; in the heart of the country amidst the citadels of power; giving it ample scope to be covered by media – from New Delhi to Navi Mumbai, from Patna to Pudukottai. The product took off in its launch market, and with growing demand elsewhere, it moved seamlessly to the nooks and corners of this country. Word of mouth helped; public relations supported it; and the target audience became the product’s distribution channel as well. Putting even brands like Amway and Tupperware to shame!
As is the case with any other brand, Team Anna now just has to make sure the audience stays with the campaign. In other words, make the audience stay brand loyal. Here, promotion will play a crucial part. And that’s been impeccable so far. Not advertisements; but powerful public relations and a fantastic ground-level initiative – Team Anna’s ‘Fast unto death’. That was a masterstroke. This country supports the meek and stands behind the weak. Fasting was the equivalent of a finely-conducted marketing event or a well-orchestrated sponsorship. Team Anna’s fasting act not only got it ground-level encouragement but media-led support too. Add to it the creative collaterals like Team Anna T-shirts, caps, banners and the grand Indian flag as backdrop have all ensured the success of this promotion campaign.
With a clear STP, comprehensive 4Ps all the campaign now needs is innovative ideas to keep the flame alive. The programme needs legs, as would any brand promotion. If Team Anna could ensure that…….this campaign, apart from its resounding success, would result in something after all to this great nation.
Now, are there any other marketing lessons here? One more, among many. It’s the danger and diabolically twin-edged sword called ‘comparative advertising’. Team Anna’s chief competitor – the Congress Government – had been doing its best to make this campaign a success. By belittling them; by releasing ads against the Jan Lokpal propagated by Team Anna; by discrediting the brand and through it the product, this Government has made sure they shot themselves in the foot and given this campaign a shot in its arm. Just like Rin found out when it tried to screw Tide with comparative advertising and ended up only promoting Tide!
Now, enough of all this marketing talk. As a simple Indian, who do you think will win? This campaign? Team Anna? A strong Lokpal?
I wish it is India!
I am talking here about Team Anna’s campaign. Since it is being termed a campaign and is seeing a ground swell of support, I like to explore it through the prism of marketing to gauge its impact and glean some learning.
The campaign, anti-corruption, is a strong product, yes. But that alone doesn’t explain its success. The marketplace of this country is littered with good products floundering and failing due to bad marketing. But Team Anna’s hasn’t and is flourishing and flowering. And therein lie a few lessons for us marketers. Simple lessons fundamental in nature but then that’s what marketing is, has been and always should be.
First, the target audience of the campaign; the single most stunning reason for its spectacular success: the middle class of India. You see, the rich of this country are few in numbers and don’t open their mouths. And the poor though large in size don’t have a voice. The middle class - the tax-paying public, the law abiding citizens of this country who have put up with this corrupt system for way too long – they represent a huge segment. Team Anna got their segmentation right. Targeting, bang on. And positioning, picture perfect!
Economics-wise, there was pent up demand among this segment and a growing need for an anti-corruption product. Team Anna provided it. The product was accepted by the target with glee and latched up with joy.
The next key is the product’s distribution strategy. Team Anna chose the perfect market to launch their product – New Delhi; in the heart of the country amidst the citadels of power; giving it ample scope to be covered by media – from New Delhi to Navi Mumbai, from Patna to Pudukottai. The product took off in its launch market, and with growing demand elsewhere, it moved seamlessly to the nooks and corners of this country. Word of mouth helped; public relations supported it; and the target audience became the product’s distribution channel as well. Putting even brands like Amway and Tupperware to shame!
As is the case with any other brand, Team Anna now just has to make sure the audience stays with the campaign. In other words, make the audience stay brand loyal. Here, promotion will play a crucial part. And that’s been impeccable so far. Not advertisements; but powerful public relations and a fantastic ground-level initiative – Team Anna’s ‘Fast unto death’. That was a masterstroke. This country supports the meek and stands behind the weak. Fasting was the equivalent of a finely-conducted marketing event or a well-orchestrated sponsorship. Team Anna’s fasting act not only got it ground-level encouragement but media-led support too. Add to it the creative collaterals like Team Anna T-shirts, caps, banners and the grand Indian flag as backdrop have all ensured the success of this promotion campaign.
With a clear STP, comprehensive 4Ps all the campaign now needs is innovative ideas to keep the flame alive. The programme needs legs, as would any brand promotion. If Team Anna could ensure that…….this campaign, apart from its resounding success, would result in something after all to this great nation.
Now, are there any other marketing lessons here? One more, among many. It’s the danger and diabolically twin-edged sword called ‘comparative advertising’. Team Anna’s chief competitor – the Congress Government – had been doing its best to make this campaign a success. By belittling them; by releasing ads against the Jan Lokpal propagated by Team Anna; by discrediting the brand and through it the product, this Government has made sure they shot themselves in the foot and given this campaign a shot in its arm. Just like Rin found out when it tried to screw Tide with comparative advertising and ended up only promoting Tide!
Now, enough of all this marketing talk. As a simple Indian, who do you think will win? This campaign? Team Anna? A strong Lokpal?
I wish it is India!
Sunday, August 07, 2011
Brand India!
The
world’s business press is going gaga on a success story called India; how
we have grown in the last decade; how we could get to be the top 3 economies of
the world soon and so on. I am proud and all that, as much as you are.
Yet,
as a marketer, graciously allow me to claim so please, I was always
worried about how as a nation we had a bigger problem to confront. Our economy has
been largely demand-led. It’s the internal consumption economy of ours that has
been driving our growth; nothing wrong with that. But for us to grow in stature
and lead the world we need to grow strongly through exports and, more
importantly, we need to conquer world markets with Made-in-India brands.
Put
simply, we need Indian brands, in more than a few categories, rule the world. I
always wondered if I would ever get to see in my lifetime, Made-in-India
brands dotting the top sellers list across the world
Unfortunately, to start making world-beating brands we had to correct years of a deprived
image that India has had; a third-world country with third rated facilities that
had rotten and could stand up only to raise a begging bowl at the World Bank or
the IMF.
Students
of International Marketing would know the term, Country-of-origin effect. COE is
any influence that the country of manufacture, assembly or design has on a
consumer’s positive or negative perception of a product. A company competing in
global markets today manufactures products worldwide; when the customer becomes
aware of the country of origin, there is the possibility that the place of
manufacture will affect product or brand image. Consumers tend to have
stereotypes about products and countries that have been formed by experience,
hearsay and myth; English tea, French perfume, Chinese silk, Italian leather,
German beer, Russian vodka, Jamaican rum to name a few.
Given
this, and with an image like what we had, I used to think what we should do to
make Indian brands big in world markets.
I wondered how, if at all, we could rectify this image crisis.
Now,
I see the seeds of change being sown; slowly yet surely. Not through an
advertising campaign to change world’s view about us; not by a Public Relations
initiative to rectify fallen image; but from an unexpected source. Human
trafficking!
Don’t
get me wrong. I am not talking about flesh fetish here as much as export of the
gray kind: Indian talent and intellect!
MasterCard,
Pepsi, Citibank, Reckitt Benckiser, Motorola, Deutsche Bank, Vodafone and
McKinsey….Do you know all these MNCs are or were headed by Indians?
Do
you know, ever since Kraft bought Cadbury’s, it has picked 21 top crew
from Cadbury’s India operations and has sent them to head its different
divisions across the world?
Time
magazine says CEOs are India’s leading
export!
And
therein lays a trickle that is waiting to grow into a torrent. Indian talent is
now global property. Indian intellect is leading giant corporations. Added to
it our, the now clichéd, software prowess, India would begin to be seen hi-tech,
talent rich and intelligence endowed. In other words, the perfect launching pad
for the world to see us in a different light.
Hopefully,
in the near future, just as Swiss cheese, German engineering, Japanese
miniaturization….it would be time to add a new Country-of-origin effect: Indian
intellect!
Now
is the time for Indian manufacturers to enter categories that require intellect
and talent: packaged software, publishing, education, low-cost engineering,
pharmaceuticals, R&D, space exploration and the works. Now is the time to
build Made-in-India brands. I know our companies will. And I also know the
world will begin to accept them with glee.
I
am confident, now more than ever, I will see Indian brands rule the
world…in my lifetime.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Woman’s wear down….and Funfills!
Found
two contrasting news items in the business press last week. Two different news pertaining
to two different companies yet with one underlying theme – sheer stupidity!
The
first news item was about Blackberry’s, the clothing company. They have decided
to pull down their woman’s wear. No damn it, not in the sexual sense of the
phrase! But Blackberry’s have realized that its woman’s range – which is sold
in the same brand name as their men’s – is not doing well, and have decided to kill
its woman’s range and pull it off the market.
They
should have never launched their woman’s wear in the same name as their men’s
in the first place. Guess, I might be accused of being sexist and male
chauvinist but I am talking about the stupidity of their brand extension and in
their erroneous, and now proved fatalistic belief, in thinking the men and
woman’s wear can be sold with the same brand name. A stupidity that had
afflicted ColorPlus before with the same disastrous result. ColorPlus woman is
going down too. Women, pardon the pun please!
And
about the other news item, Cavinkare has decided to launch a new brand of confectionery called Funfills. No problem with that. Only that, it is to be
called Chinnis’ Funfills.
What
is Chinnis?
Yup,
masalas! A range of masalas – for the South Indian kitchens.
And
what is it now? Chinnis Funfills.
Excuse
me, but can someone tell me if they will ever buy Aachi Chocolates, MTR
Chicklets, Sakthi Lollipops, MDH Mints or Everest Éclairs?
So
why would anyone buy Chinnis Funfills? Except if you are part of Cavinkare’s marketing department; who then would have to take every goddamn
piece back from the market when it, and it will, fail and have to eat their own confectionery, their own words and their own stupid branding strategy.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Change is (not) here!
There is change. And there is going to be no change!
The change I am referring to, as is evident on the screen, is in this blog – relaunched; hopefully rejuvenated. Yet another of my unflinching attempts to start afresh; to start anew; to be constant, consistent and customary. Will I keep my word this time? I want to. I will. I hope!
But the change I wish to talk about is ‘change’ that is not going to be around. As you would know, RBI will withdraw 25 paisa coins from the market starting today! These coins will not be in circulation and can’t be used as legal tender for payment. Soaring metal prices and rising inflation have made these coins unviable, they say. Change is here, ironically, by not being there anymore!
Wonder what it means to us marketers. Here are a few possibilities and pitfalls. Feel free to add to this list.
What happens to sachet brands that are priced at Rs. 1.75 or Rs.2.25? Either they have to move their prices backwards, say to Rs. 1.50 (which would squeeze their profits) or move up to Rs. 2 (which might pit them against their closest premium brand jeopardizing their market share).
A favourite price promotion resorted to by many sachet and low-priced brands was ’25 paisa off’. Not any more, I suppose.
Lower SKU brands like 20 gm talc packs, toothpastes, shampoos etc., now have to jump 50 paisa at a time, when they wish to increase their prices. Would it not make them think twice about increasing prices from now on?
What about Bata? They obviously can’t continue to price their products like they normally do, say Rs.1095.95! God bless their souls (my pun be damned!)
Forget marketing for a minute. The bigger problem in all this, as I see, is among the small-scale philanthropists among us. Let them not think of sparing their change on beggars. Lest they wish to get them….thrown back at their kind faces!
The change I am referring to, as is evident on the screen, is in this blog – relaunched; hopefully rejuvenated. Yet another of my unflinching attempts to start afresh; to start anew; to be constant, consistent and customary. Will I keep my word this time? I want to. I will. I hope!
But the change I wish to talk about is ‘change’ that is not going to be around. As you would know, RBI will withdraw 25 paisa coins from the market starting today! These coins will not be in circulation and can’t be used as legal tender for payment. Soaring metal prices and rising inflation have made these coins unviable, they say. Change is here, ironically, by not being there anymore!
Wonder what it means to us marketers. Here are a few possibilities and pitfalls. Feel free to add to this list.
What happens to sachet brands that are priced at Rs. 1.75 or Rs.2.25? Either they have to move their prices backwards, say to Rs. 1.50 (which would squeeze their profits) or move up to Rs. 2 (which might pit them against their closest premium brand jeopardizing their market share).
A favourite price promotion resorted to by many sachet and low-priced brands was ’25 paisa off’. Not any more, I suppose.
Lower SKU brands like 20 gm talc packs, toothpastes, shampoos etc., now have to jump 50 paisa at a time, when they wish to increase their prices. Would it not make them think twice about increasing prices from now on?
What about Bata? They obviously can’t continue to price their products like they normally do, say Rs.1095.95! God bless their souls (my pun be damned!)
Forget marketing for a minute. The bigger problem in all this, as I see, is among the small-scale philanthropists among us. Let them not think of sparing their change on beggars. Lest they wish to get them….thrown back at their kind faces!
Friday, February 18, 2011
Kerala!
My plane was on its descent to Kochi airport when it hit me. No, not a bird hit but a realization. I was going back to Kerala after a gap of almost twelve long years. A state I had visited more than a handful of times in the mid 90’s.
Looking through the window, this time I could see tall buildings, wider roads and much more traffic than I had ever seen in the city. But what amazed me was the lush greenery the city had maintained; even enhanced.
Getting off the plane that early morning and walking towards the terminal in a refreshingly cool 19 degree temperature was a surreal experience. Surrounded by greenery, a railway track at the end of the runway with an express train chugging along it and watching the airport built in typical Kerala style – which in itself was built by a Private-Public partnership – was just plain unreal.
If all that didn’t mesmerize me enough, the drive to the city certainly did. Yes, the city had grown but seemed it hadn’t. The urban city seemed to maintain its rural character and rustic charm. Rivers meandering through the city, well-maintained banks and boardwalks, a green canopy wherever you saw….the city was testimony to the successful marketing of Kerala as a terrific tourism destination.
Kerala is a classic marketing case study on the power of using marketing to promote a piece of geography as a tourist destination. Here, sample a few facts that prove what well-organized tourism and well-planned marketing could do to country and its people - something Kerala has been able to perfectly plan and professionally pan out.
Kerala is the fastest growing tourist destination in the country with over 4 lakh international and 64 lakh domestic tourist arrivals every year.
The tourism sector alone accounts for more than Rs.1,000 crore investment every single year and provides employment to more than a million Mallus!
The state generates close to Rs.13,000 revenues from tourist arrivals every year. (A figure Tamil Nadu government is able to generate by only selling liquour!)
Foreign exchange earnings of the state amount to around Rs. 1,550 crores a year.
No wonder National Geographic Traveler magazine rates Kerala ‘one of the ten paradises on earth’ and ’50 places of a lifetime’!
The same evening, on the way back, I asked my car driver to take a different route to the airport than the one he had taken in the morning. Not that I had expected to see anything different. It was still the same: greenery, canals, streams, tons of foreigners and thousands of tourists infesting the city like ants would sugar!
I was still pondering over all this as I got on to my flight; amazed how a state could not only market itself better but also get geared to its marketing push and live up to the promise offered to its customers.
As the plane took off and Kochi became nothing but thousands of bulbs and lingering lights through the window, I just leaned back and realized: here is one of the few brands that could actually live up to its baseline…
God’s own country!
Looking through the window, this time I could see tall buildings, wider roads and much more traffic than I had ever seen in the city. But what amazed me was the lush greenery the city had maintained; even enhanced.
Getting off the plane that early morning and walking towards the terminal in a refreshingly cool 19 degree temperature was a surreal experience. Surrounded by greenery, a railway track at the end of the runway with an express train chugging along it and watching the airport built in typical Kerala style – which in itself was built by a Private-Public partnership – was just plain unreal.
If all that didn’t mesmerize me enough, the drive to the city certainly did. Yes, the city had grown but seemed it hadn’t. The urban city seemed to maintain its rural character and rustic charm. Rivers meandering through the city, well-maintained banks and boardwalks, a green canopy wherever you saw….the city was testimony to the successful marketing of Kerala as a terrific tourism destination.
Kerala is a classic marketing case study on the power of using marketing to promote a piece of geography as a tourist destination. Here, sample a few facts that prove what well-organized tourism and well-planned marketing could do to country and its people - something Kerala has been able to perfectly plan and professionally pan out.
Kerala is the fastest growing tourist destination in the country with over 4 lakh international and 64 lakh domestic tourist arrivals every year.
The tourism sector alone accounts for more than Rs.1,000 crore investment every single year and provides employment to more than a million Mallus!
The state generates close to Rs.13,000 revenues from tourist arrivals every year. (A figure Tamil Nadu government is able to generate by only selling liquour!)
Foreign exchange earnings of the state amount to around Rs. 1,550 crores a year.
No wonder National Geographic Traveler magazine rates Kerala ‘one of the ten paradises on earth’ and ’50 places of a lifetime’!
The same evening, on the way back, I asked my car driver to take a different route to the airport than the one he had taken in the morning. Not that I had expected to see anything different. It was still the same: greenery, canals, streams, tons of foreigners and thousands of tourists infesting the city like ants would sugar!
I was still pondering over all this as I got on to my flight; amazed how a state could not only market itself better but also get geared to its marketing push and live up to the promise offered to its customers.
As the plane took off and Kochi became nothing but thousands of bulbs and lingering lights through the window, I just leaned back and realized: here is one of the few brands that could actually live up to its baseline…
God’s own country!
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Human Branding!
Branding sure has come of age, in India. Forget whether we have learnt the intricacies of it. Ignore if we have become adept in executing it. Never mind if we have or not mastered the art of it in its highest form. Yet, we have reached the supreme form of branding - branding humans!
I am talking about body shopping! No, am not referring to Naidu Hall, but am talking about the IPL auction. That was human branding at its very best. People buying and selling humans – cricketers they may be, but humans – as if they were packaged goods.
Hello branding!
Amazing, the circus that happened last weekend and sadly I didn’t watch it on TV and caught up with it only through the newspapers. Boy, what an exhibition of brands, branding, buying, selling, pricing, value offers and more. Here are a few things that stood out to me in that brand bazaar.
There were brands that were bought for its sheer badge value. Never mind if the brand was worth it in the first place. Yuvraj Singh for $1.8 million was a joke. I mean he is (was!) a good cricketer and all that but that man has a serious attitude problem. Probably he was paid more for his attitude than for his acumen. Then there was Irfan Pathan going for $1.9 million. Delhi Dare Devils has paid the price of BMW for a Nano!
And there were brands that have gone on SALE. I mean, take the sad case of Michael Hussey – Mr. Cricket to those who know him and I am one too – and he has been sold for a mere $425,000. Contrast that with Robin Uthappa – who went for $2.1 million. Atrocious! The other SALE item was Shaun Marsh – a delicate, dashing and dangerous opening batsman - who was bought by Kings XI for a mere $400,000. That’s Aadi thallupidi to me! And guys; watch out for a guy called Clint McKay bought by Mumbai Indians for a laughable $110,000.
There were a few lessons for consumers in this auction. Never spend mountains of money on one or two players. Kolkata Knight Riders has spent close to $4.5 million on just two – Gautam Gambhir and Yusuf Pathan. One injury, one bad season or a few wrong umpiring decisions and the game is over for KKR. Along with it their season’s hopes! The proverbial don’t-put-all-your-eggs-in-one-basket works everywhere. But luckily for KKR, they have had a few big-ticket items at small prices. Brad Haddin at $325,000 was a damn steal.
Contrast that with the approach of Chennai Super Kings. CSK spent $8.6 million on 18 players! They have not paid exorbitantly to any one individual – minus Dhoni and Raina - yet have managed to pick up strong utility players who can collectively win matches for them. To me, what works for CSK is their belief in building a core team – that plays together for years so they could spend time together, build a bond and play as a team. It’s the only team that pretty much looks the same as the previous years’. That to me is a big plus. Other teams are going to take time to build camaraderie and spirit, but by the time they do it, if they manage to do it all, IPL 4 would be over! CSK has got it bang on: Build a core team Nurture a cohesive culture. And watch productivity soar. Smart HR policy at work!
If there is one other thing that stood out to me – that looked different from the principles of branding – it is the absolute lack of emotion in purchases. Brands are largely bought by the heart and rarely by the head. In contrast, this IPL was bereft of emotion. Royal Challengers weren’t carried away by Rahul Dravid and he was instead carried away by Rajasthan Royals at less than half his base price. The delectable Laxman was not picked by his own hometown. And Ganguly lost his place and pride. Rationality ruled; emotion expired!
Will all these brands – bought and sold - deliver? Therein lies another big lesson for marketers. Perform, and watch your professional fee pump up. Saurabh Tiwary’s base price was a mere $40,000 in 2008; his current pick-up price is $1.6 million. R. Ashwin’s base price two years ago was $30,000 and his current selling price is $850,000. Under promise and over deliver and the consumer would not only hold your brand to dear life, but will even allow you to pick the price you want from his or her pocket!
As an aside: Ironically, this is my 100th post. Glad I have scored a century even if I had taken four long years to score it. Guess I have played like Rahul Dravid! I know I lack his flair; I have not played by the book like he does. And importantly, I lack his divine grace, incredible amount of concentration and unbelievable levels of determination. Yet, in my own way, I have managed to score a century! And that I know is only because of you.
Thank you, my friend, for reading!
I am talking about body shopping! No, am not referring to Naidu Hall, but am talking about the IPL auction. That was human branding at its very best. People buying and selling humans – cricketers they may be, but humans – as if they were packaged goods.
Hello branding!
Amazing, the circus that happened last weekend and sadly I didn’t watch it on TV and caught up with it only through the newspapers. Boy, what an exhibition of brands, branding, buying, selling, pricing, value offers and more. Here are a few things that stood out to me in that brand bazaar.
There were brands that were bought for its sheer badge value. Never mind if the brand was worth it in the first place. Yuvraj Singh for $1.8 million was a joke. I mean he is (was!) a good cricketer and all that but that man has a serious attitude problem. Probably he was paid more for his attitude than for his acumen. Then there was Irfan Pathan going for $1.9 million. Delhi Dare Devils has paid the price of BMW for a Nano!
And there were brands that have gone on SALE. I mean, take the sad case of Michael Hussey – Mr. Cricket to those who know him and I am one too – and he has been sold for a mere $425,000. Contrast that with Robin Uthappa – who went for $2.1 million. Atrocious! The other SALE item was Shaun Marsh – a delicate, dashing and dangerous opening batsman - who was bought by Kings XI for a mere $400,000. That’s Aadi thallupidi to me! And guys; watch out for a guy called Clint McKay bought by Mumbai Indians for a laughable $110,000.
There were a few lessons for consumers in this auction. Never spend mountains of money on one or two players. Kolkata Knight Riders has spent close to $4.5 million on just two – Gautam Gambhir and Yusuf Pathan. One injury, one bad season or a few wrong umpiring decisions and the game is over for KKR. Along with it their season’s hopes! The proverbial don’t-put-all-your-eggs-in-one-basket works everywhere. But luckily for KKR, they have had a few big-ticket items at small prices. Brad Haddin at $325,000 was a damn steal.
Contrast that with the approach of Chennai Super Kings. CSK spent $8.6 million on 18 players! They have not paid exorbitantly to any one individual – minus Dhoni and Raina - yet have managed to pick up strong utility players who can collectively win matches for them. To me, what works for CSK is their belief in building a core team – that plays together for years so they could spend time together, build a bond and play as a team. It’s the only team that pretty much looks the same as the previous years’. That to me is a big plus. Other teams are going to take time to build camaraderie and spirit, but by the time they do it, if they manage to do it all, IPL 4 would be over! CSK has got it bang on: Build a core team Nurture a cohesive culture. And watch productivity soar. Smart HR policy at work!
If there is one other thing that stood out to me – that looked different from the principles of branding – it is the absolute lack of emotion in purchases. Brands are largely bought by the heart and rarely by the head. In contrast, this IPL was bereft of emotion. Royal Challengers weren’t carried away by Rahul Dravid and he was instead carried away by Rajasthan Royals at less than half his base price. The delectable Laxman was not picked by his own hometown. And Ganguly lost his place and pride. Rationality ruled; emotion expired!
Will all these brands – bought and sold - deliver? Therein lies another big lesson for marketers. Perform, and watch your professional fee pump up. Saurabh Tiwary’s base price was a mere $40,000 in 2008; his current pick-up price is $1.6 million. R. Ashwin’s base price two years ago was $30,000 and his current selling price is $850,000. Under promise and over deliver and the consumer would not only hold your brand to dear life, but will even allow you to pick the price you want from his or her pocket!
As an aside: Ironically, this is my 100th post. Glad I have scored a century even if I had taken four long years to score it. Guess I have played like Rahul Dravid! I know I lack his flair; I have not played by the book like he does. And importantly, I lack his divine grace, incredible amount of concentration and unbelievable levels of determination. Yet, in my own way, I have managed to score a century! And that I know is only because of you.
Thank you, my friend, for reading!
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