Luck and Marketing!

Ya that’s what I have been thinking for some time now! Luck and marketing, how far are they connected. I mean isn’t all the marketing strategies that are formed well researched, the why do they fail. On the contrary some of the unplanned strategies have actually gone to become a huge success.
What will you rely on while strategizing the marketing plan, a market research? My experience with market research showed how people doing market research on ground have actually fudged data so that they can increase the number of questionnaires filled and get paid more.
The next tool, would be experience! I know one can rely on their experience, but human nature(CBB) is as difficult to predict as mother nature.
Then of course there is our SWOT analysis, which definitely is a winner in our case.
But when we see all this a strategy seems more like a plan on paper to show the top management.
In the end it depends on the consumer’s behavior, market conditions, nature, government, etc and none of these are predictable.
Do you agree?!

Rejoy

Social Networking Site (SNS)!

I am doing my summers for a SNS, just helping out the marketing team, so that some pressure is reduced from them and in course I also learn something from it.
I used to think that people are done with SNS, people are less and less interested in SNS as they exhaust all the utilities available on the website. But here is Reliance developing another SNS(BigAdda), is there a market, is there a scope?! Well…surprise… surprise! SNS are also like any product if you don’t keep reinventing, it tends to be less and less popular and in course of time fade away. BigAdda is not just another SNS it is much more then it…its your private space, its a video player, a music player and many more…SNS are going from just connecting like-minded people to becoming a place of entertainment. A one-stop –shop for almost everything that’s available on the net. I had been to another internationally number one SNS, MySpace. MySpace had everything from profiler to music to videos even a classifieds section! I mean with such a huge gamut been covered I sit and wonder, ‘someday even these crowd puller option would be done with, then what?! My guess is as good as yours!
Where is the internet leading us and where do we want to go?!

Rejoy (PG - 1, 2006-2008)

Brands

Brands are about you, not me

Brands are about people not products.

Brands are about the customers and not companies.

A great brand is one that you want to live your life by, one that you trust and hang on to when everything aroun you is changing, one that articulates the type of person uou are or want to be, one that enables yoou to do what you couldn't otherwise achieve.

Forget what used to happen, today it is what brands do for the people that matters much more, how they reflect and engage them, how they define thier aspiration and enable them to do more. Powerful brands can drive success in the competitive and financial markets, and indeed become he organization's most valuable assaets.

Yet there are few great brands around.
Most brands are still labels, relying too strongly on the brand names and logos, and focused too heavily on the companies and product that they help identify. They are articulated through superficial starplines and deliverd through generic service. They make promises that their companies struggle to deliver, often failing to even attract attention, and rarely gaining the trust of the special customers.

Powerful brands have the ability to cut through the noise and competetiveness of the markets and to engage and retain the best customers in a way that delivers superior financial results in the short and long term.

.....Posted by... BhArTeNdRa SiNgH

Sometime back I read about this concept in Brand equity called Time Value of advertising. How more and more advertising is being developed focusing on how the product can save you time. The housewife of today being a working mother would rather order in Pizza than slog in the kitchen. This would ensure that she get some quality time with her family. Similarly take Instant Coffee, the housewife of yesteryear would have been thought of as lazy if she used a product like that, now she is just considered smart.We can see this phenomenon everywhere this generation would rather buy readymade clothes than go to the darji,they would rather use the low cost airlines ( proof is how well the airlines are doing) and pay a little extra than use transport that takes longer.

This concept makes a lot of sense in today's fast paced busy world. Using time as a positioning platform is smart. There are so many service parameters also designed around time, 1 minute for a MacDonalds Burger and 30 mins delivery of pizza. If I put myself in the position as a consumer I too would consider time as value for me. Time versus money tradeoff is skewed heavily towards time where the new generation Indian consumer does not mind spending money and lots of it too save time.Thus, we can see how trends are changing.We need to be quick enough to keep pace with it.

Chriselle B- PG Batch 2

Brand extensions:

A brand is probably the most important business asset; it may be valued at 5-50% of the total value of the company or even above in some cases.
Brand management has become quite a complex issue today and as brands get bigger and more important, there is a tendency to milk more out of the star performing brands.

However brand extensions do have their pitfalls and may jeopardize a company’s competitive position, it can lead to clutter, confuse a consumer thereby affecting his choice.

Some Examples:

Colgate recently tried experimenting with ready to eat meal products!!!

Levis attempting an equally ludicrous proposition by seeking entry into men’s suits

But brand extensions do have a positive side to them, It is cheaper to extend a brand rather than create a new brand , it is less risk and more cost effective.

DAVID TAYLOR states in brandstretch that 'brand extensions are typically 23% more successful, 34% cheaper and 61% better at driving a repeat purchase' .

When considering brand extensions the following questions must be considered:

Where to extend
What to extend
How to extend

Therefore clarity of thought, consistency, thorough risk analysis, benefits offered and value created all need to ensure that the extension fits the business objectives.

Some Examples Of companies that have embraced brand extension rather successfully are:

BMW: A brand well known for its premium priced saloon cars immediately saw an opportunity in the high growth Sports Utility Vehicle segment and launched the X series SUV.

Another equally good example for brand extension is Virgin which also happens to be one of the most diverse brands in the world, with respect to travel virgin has its flagship Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Express for the discount traveler, Virgin Blue in Australia and also operates two UK rail franchises and sells tour packages through Virgin Holidays.

In the fast changing markets today extensions are simply the moving centre of gravity of business as both the market and the customers advance.

Excerpts taken from Marketing Genius, BrandStretch

NIKHIL SHARMA (E BIZ)

Does Marketing create or satisfy demand?

In today’s age when you have a marketer for every conceivable and inconceivable need, should marketers aim only at SATISFYING needs? Marketing Guru Philip Kotler defines marketing as meeting needs profitably and says that it deals with identifying and meeting human and social needs. In the 21^st century when you have marketers selling you a piece of land on moon and even in the virtual world, (and YES people are buying!!!) should the definition of marketing be confined only to meeting and SATISFYING needs OR rather be expanded to one which CREATES demand and new markets for the company.

Let us try and understand this using example of the much hyped Apple iPod. Do people really need a portable digital music player? If you want music on the go there are the Walkmans and Discmans and if you thought chugging the cassettes and CD’s were a passé, you have your mobile phone which are MP3 capable and have expandable memory. Just when you thought that customers wanted an all in one mobile phone, you have Apple coming up with massive Ad campaign promoting their portable music player, the iPod. Did it sell??? Oh boy, Steve Jobs was laughing all his way to the bank.

This makes me think was Apple satisfying a latent need or was it creating a demand for its products? A research had indicated that people didn’t want to carry multiple devices for music, photography and calls. They wanted an all in one solution. If Apple was to go by this finding, iPod wouldn’t have seen the light of the day. So what made iPod sell? – A carefully executed marketing strategy by some of the best marketers in the world. The launch of the iPod was a true show of the marketing ingenuity of Apple – a revolutionary click wheel design made available in funky colours secured the iPod’s place in the ‘must haves’ list of everyone. They also provided a range of services along with the product like the podcasts and iTunes to make the ostensibly difficult task of synchronising the device with the PC a breeze. And Apple didn’t stop there, like all great brands with continuous product innovations iPod cut flab and then came the iPod Nano. Men, women and children everyone wanted to flaunt their iPods, iPod clones started showing up and Apple even started promoting it as the perfect corporate gift!!! A product which was thought to not have a market went on to be the top industry grosser. Of course iPod was lucky to have come from a company like Apple which is known for its innovation and futuristic designs. But one cannot ignore the fact that Apple was able to CREATE a market for iPods in a generation which was moving towards the unification of devices.

Leading management guru Peter Drucker once said: “There will always, one can assume, be need for some selling. But the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him so well that it sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy. All that should be needed then is to make the product or service available.” At first I thought this was too idealistic to be true. But didn’t Apple create a product that fit so well for us (or rather they made it seems so!!!) that they literally CREATED a demand for their products. No wonder Steve Jobs has been dubiously credited of being able to talk his way to people’s wallet.

Probably it is time to rewrite the definition of marketing to make it more inclusive!!!

Posted by: Rocky Paul

WHAT IS A GREAT BRAND???

Great brands sell & sell repeatedly generating an ever increasing & sustainable revenue and profit stream and they do this continually dealing value for customers and customers through being relevant and differentiated.

Great brands are great business that has pricing power and staying power they don’t rent volume for short term gains .Great brands make people feel good about the decisions they make .They stand for something that is important to consumers and every action reinforces what the brand stands for. Great brands become icons or symbols against which every other brand is interpreted. Great brands energies people and galvanize action

Brands have to earn trust of their consumer’s everyday in some cases several times a day. Great brands are made by the people who understand the intrinsic value of the brand as a business. Organizing for stability is not a good plan in this environment organizing for change is and brands that think and act like insurgents in this environment giving people reasons to vote for them will win.

Brand Equity and brand value is not about intention or attitude it is about preference and usage.

Great brands understand that!!!!!

(Excerpts from Vinita Bali’s Interview)

Posted by:- NAMRATA.S.BAHIRSHETH

PGDBM

On the Brandwagon

“Can you imagine a world without brands?” enquires the recent ad for Zeiss. The commercial shows a puzzled man jogging by a billboard with a nameless shampoo bottle. Next, a waiter displays a blank labelled wine bottle with exaggerated flourish to a miserable couple at a dinner table. These faintly eerie scenes can’t help but make you wonder…what would the world be without brands? Confusion, chaos.

Branding has been described as carving the company name or slogan into the minds of potential customers. Today branding is such a powerful force that hardly anything goes unbranded. Commodities that were earlier considered too basic to be differentiated in the minds of consumers are now successfully branded. Some people mocked when a cement company featured Perizaad Zorabian in its advertisements. The campaign, however, proved to be very successful. Today no one bats an eyelid at heavy advertising for cement, ceramic tiles, wheatflour or salt.

TCS today is launching its $10million global branding campaign to differentiate its services from the usual, cheap cost efficient image that Indian IT companies suffer from. Their tagline would be ‘Experience Certainty’ and through this campaign they hope to compete with IBM and Accenture in bagging challenging assignments.

What do brands mean for the consumer? You may hear complaints during casual shopping conversation about the number of brands flooding the market and the confusion it creates. But I think consumers are secretly pleased. They love being offered so many choices and feel powerful with the choices they make. Companies are bending over backwards in an effort to satisfy them and instill trust.

Many consumers form an identity based on the choices of brands they make, and this shapes their lifestyle. As lives become more rushed, brands simplify decisions and reduce risks. Satisfied customers choose the products again. This loyalty results in predictability of demand for the firms. This loyalty also translates into a willingness to pay a higher price. A brand is thus an invaluable asset for a firm.

Companies that can reap the benefits however, are the ones that have well planned and executed brand strategy and brand management programs. But at the end of the day, the truly successful ones are those that deliver on their brand promise. After all, as David Ogilvy put it “The consumer’s no idiot...she’s your wife!”

Posted By : Neha Deshmukh

The Seven Ages of the Woman Shoppper

This is about an article which had appeared in The Times of India written by Damodar Mall & Deepa Soman - Senior Marketing Professionals. I liked the article quite a lot because it tries to classify and understand a species which no one has ever understood!!! I am quite sure the writers have given there opinions after years of research and experience in the field which is quite reflected through their work. But then woman being a species who are known to change at the drop of a hat the topic is open to discussions and deliberations. (Woman readers please forgive me for taking this liberty!!!)

The writers have divided women into 7 categories depending on her role, status in the family, education, exposure and economic independence.
Invisible Women: She is oblivious to the whole concept of shopping. She is the one who typically just accepts what her husband or guardian gets home. She hardly ever steps out of her home and relies on her husband for all her needs. She is unaware of the mechanics of shopping etc.
List Woman: She just keeps a list of what provisions in the household needs replenishment but the budgeting, comparative trade-offs and brand choice is a male prerogative.
Budget Woman: She believes in thrift, buying in wholesale, bargaining and buying only what she needs. Anxiety and overstepping her budget is her prime concerns
Value Woman: She likes to save from her monthly budget and then gives into personal indulgences from what is 'her rightful income'.
Independent Woman: She is the one who takes tuitions at her place and earns a small amount for her personal needs. She doesn't bother her husband in the daily shopping and uses the cash where she feels is proper.
Ally Woman: She works in the office like the husband and earn a good salary like him. They both shop together at the new age retail format. Smart display and good promotions lure them to try new exotic variety of goods etc. She is on an equal footing as her husband and enjoys the companionship in the shopping.
Next Generation Woman: She handles the whole of the shopping. She is the prime decision maker when it comes what should form the part of the diet of the family, clothes, cosmetics etc. Whether the family has to go into a change in diet, change to healthier branded oil, sugar substitutes to cut down on the sugar intake, or cholesterol free low fat food stuff etc.

It would be wrong to say that the invisible woman has gone invisible in todays scenario. All these different kinds of woman do exist in different walks of life in different parts our country. The challenge of the marketeer is to cater to a very diverse kind of shoppers among the woman shoppers itself.
I hope this article was an interesting read for all of you. I know after reading this article you may feel like you know women better, but then like some of our professors say understanding women is an ongoing process, the more you understand the more questions it throws up.

Rocky Paul

(If you want to read the complete article, you can see it on the epaper version of The Times of India. The link to the article is http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Daily/Skins/EVAL/navigator.asp and please navigate to the 31st March 2007, Saturday page 21 bottom centre)

The Power of Loyalty

The Function of every business is to get and keep customers. Consequently it is also the function of every employee of every business of to do the same .Knowing how to keep existing customers happy is key to a company’s continued success. Studies have also proven that it is much more expensive to attract a new customer to a business than to keep an existing one.

To build a customer loyalty here are six universal points….

1. Create a demanding customer: - Creating one means that if your customers were to go to your competition they would not just expect but demand the same level of service that they get from you. Anything less from the competition reinforces that the customer made the right choice to do business with you.
2. Find out if you are doing a good job:- Your customers are not likely to tell you if there are any problems. Numerous studies have shown that complaining customers do not complain TARP(technical Assistance Research Program ) survey found out that an avg business only hears from 4% of unhappy customers. The other 96% don’t complain at least not to the places they did business. The ultimate goal should be to try & find any problems before the customer complains.
3. Make the customers believe they have taken a good decision:-Educate & reinforce that they have made a good choice. If the company does something different from the competition they should inform the customers about it.
4. Guarantee products & services :- Personally stand behind everything you do. Customers do not do business with a company they do business with people who represent the company. If a customer has a problem and you are the person that received it ;it is the responsibility of the person to see it through. Do not just push it off to someone else. You may not take the finale decision but you are there at the end when it is made.
5. Appreciate the people :- Recognise that there may be others in the buying process that should be made to be feel appreciated. Do not forget to show appreciation for these people as well.
6. Thank your customers :- Do not forget to say thanks … It can be face to face over the phone or via written thank you notes…Customers like to feel appreciated.

These will help you retain customer loyalty and creating moments of magic.

Source : Business World - Ted Lewitt, Marketing professor - Harvard Business School.

Namrata Bahirsheth

PGDBM

Welingkar Institute Of Management Development and Research.

A word as useless as 'planning' in marketing!!

People say that marketing is about closely planning your every move, studying the market and then launching the product.

Marketing is defined as, knowing what a customer wants and giving it to them, how true is this, i mean how true, not much... see for example coke, did it come to India with a special India flavour or did it come here and then produce a regional flavour?? There are 'n' number of examples to support this. Marketing is more of a game of intuition, and less of set theories and planned moves. If a particular marketing move made by a company was successful in a particular market, why wouldn’t all the companies follow the same moves and benefit from the same strategy?? Why does one thing that works for 'a' company completely fails when it come to another company?? There are no answers to these questions. It is as good as explaining the universe to the cows grazing on the fields.

One can do a hundred market researches and a thousand products testing, take census instead of sampling... but can’t guarantee that the strategy employed and derived after such a heavy fact finding affair will certainly be successful in the market. Markets can’t be predicted! No one can! You never know, the small spot on the top of the 'I' of your brand name could play a spoiler for the product.

Marketing is all about intuition in the end!

Rejoy

Once upon a marketing......

Marketing is fun, its happening, its the ‘in’ thing! you cant beat it with any thing! even finance needs marketing, after all they need the money to count. HR needs marketing and so does operations. i mean what is the world without marketing. Know your ‘consumers’ and give them what they want, we very nearly play god! everything that is anything to anybody needs marketing to be where it is or to reach where it needs to be.
Its like a puzzle that never ends, once cracked, you move on to level two. never does monotony enter here, sorry we are too busy, please come later! or there are other departments next door! ha haaaaa
I love Marketing and i know every marketing student who is a true blue marketing student will agree to this!
Rejoy