BRAToSPHERE

Tag: marketing

  • Storm the Norm – Book Review

    After laying my hands on the new kindle paper white, i excitedly paid up for the kindle unlimited subscription with the aim to read up everything possible. Though the collection is limited, there are many interesting non fiction books in the collection.

    I downloaded the allowed 10 books immediately and got reading “Storming the Norm” by Anisha Motwani this one immediately. Being in the marketing profession, reading up on brands and their evolution seemed to the most obvious thing.

    The book explores the way top brands are built through the examples of some top brands that have been built in India. The Brands listed here are classified into neat segments and the mix is across industries varying from FMCG, telecom, automotive, etc..

    Reading the evolution of each of these brands helps the reader understand and learn how a brand is built on consistent communication of a great product, keeping the media and language relevant to the ages.

    The book did not live up to the expectations though. The monotony in explaining history of each of the brands seems more like reading up their wiki page, or the company page of these brands and it gives a feel that it is more of a PR pitch sponsored by each of the brands listed here. No negatives are highlighted about any brand and that builds on the suspicion even more.

    Having said that, the book serves as a good starting point for anyone to read up the history of each of these brands and get a glimpse of the inside workings on building a brand.

    It is a short book, lacking the depth that i was looking forward to. Maybe further detailing the finer nuances of brand building and the difficult choices faced by the people at the help and the reasoning used to arrive at the decision would have helped build further texture. If you’re interested in learning more about brand building, you might also consider exploring materials produced by outdoor marketing companies.

  • Everything in jars

    When I started out blogging about 6 years back now, I had one thing in mind – what is this blog going to be about? After a lot of deliberation and thinking, I could just come up with one thing – whatever runs through my mind. The basic objective of this blog is to let me write, something that I inherently enjoy, and in parallel if it helps others in any which manner (maybe by the occasional laughs alone), I would die a happy man!

    After spending my entire working career till date in FMCG, it is more, but apparent that I should write something about it. I am a marketing person at heart, and am sure would remain so.

    Yesterday morning, in my conversation with A, an interesting insight was revealed. Every FMCG item is now eyeing to come up in a jar. Traditionally only toffees came in a jar and rightly so, it needed some place to be sold out of the pan outlet where it is generally sold from.

    I remember last year in feb, bubblegum sales was not really picking up, and then a new variant was launched in jars. The sales zoomed, much beyond the demand that was estimated. What difference does a simple jar make to a product which remains the same?

    Similarly, parle biscuits. Traditionally parle biscuits are low priced sku’s meant for a quick bite. It was apparent that a Rs. 5/- sku comes in the market. (a 3/- sku is also doing rounds). After the initial launch of this magic figure 5 priced sku too, the visibility aspect of the product was not very high. And as they say in sales (especially in impulse category products like chocolates, biscuits, chips, etc..) “ Jo dikhta hai, who bikta hai!” Parle sales suddenly started zooming upwards, and again just with a small interference – jars! Biscuits in jars you may think? Yes! This is what provokes the retailer in storing ( and displaying) the product in the front.

    Why is this phenomena? And why are companies willing to spend that extra on jars? Simple. More acceptance among the retailers. Higher volumes can offset the marginal price increase that would be borne for the jar.

    Also, the perceived value of the jar among the retailer is much higher than the actual cost of the jar to the company. So, it is a complete win-win situation. The retailer looks at the sku as the inherent products as well as the jar. for instance, if a candy costs Re. 1/-, and the margin to the retailer is 10% i, the company, would have to give him a jar of 100 candies at 90/-. (90.9/- actually depending on mark up or mark down!). The retailer does not see much benefit in selling it, and bargains with me for more in-built frees (like 100+8 free units at the mrp of 100/-) and stuff. Now the same sku, filled in a jar turns the dynamic completely. The retailer now looks at the margin of 10%, and also the price in which he can sell the jar( or maybe how much it would cost hi if he were to buy a jar for his outlet to stock something!). The perceived value of the sku instantly goes up, and there, the salesman has a winning story.

    Also, the company realizes that the jar is like a permanent branding the company manages to get in the retail outlet even after the contents of the jars are empty. I, as a brand manager, would love to see my product jars being filled with other items too and stocked in the outlet – I save huge money on posters and banners, which anyways have a minimal shelf life!

    Of late, many more categories like sunscreen, setwet hair gels, ponds cream, wafer biscuits are all now in their avatar of jars. Would not be too long, before condoms also start selling in jars!

  • >FASTFORWARD – Marketing channel

    >In this ever-changing digital environment, it can often be tough for businesses and marketers to keep up and maintain relevance to consumers. To help this out, google has partnered with The Wharton School to launch Fast.Forward. This site is full of helpful content, including more than 100 videos from leading industry experts — like google CEO, Eric Schmidt — and academics like Jerry Wind, Lauder Professor at The Wharton School, AAAA CEO Nancy Hill, offering their perspectives on the changing world of marketing. If you wanna see some interesting notes about entrepreneur, marketing and success in business and are interested in the Entre Institute, you should try to go here for the reviews.

    it elaborates on how to build community and customer bases in the digital landscape, through extensive videos. The Channel shows communications professionals how they can evolve to cut through the noise and spam, and build loyal audiences with tech savvy people.

    Through short videos from some of the top industry minds the group hopes to challenge marketers to take risks and create better campaigns. For now, the site comes up short as the videos appear to answer questions in a very general manner with few specifics in terms of tactics and strategy. The most promising component of the site appears to be the “Free Tools” section with a list of resources including links to a website optimizer, search insights and 3rd party trends data from Facebook and Twitter. Right now, all of those links are dead.

    The first rule of marketing: test your product.

    As consumers become more and more technologically savvy, businesses and marketers have worked quickly to keep up. As a result, many companies are left questioning what they aren’t doing that they should be, or what they should do next to stay in front of the right people, in the right place, at the right time, in an increasingly digital world. In this context, the utilization of 10 HR management software can significantly enhance organizational efficiency and streamline HR processes.

    A similar initiative by the UK marketing team of google, survival of the fittest already exists in partnership with London Business School.

    More importantly, the videos also take a look at the implications of those changes for marketers and consumers. These experts tackle topics ranging from the importance of innovation and insights, to the new definition of speed. On the flipside, we also have videos from interviews with everyday folks, where we learn about the roles advertising and online content play in their daily lives.

    In addition to the library of videos, the brand channel offers a “barometer” gauging consumer confidence levels and links to free tools designed to help marketers understand the online world a little better, as well as information on the Future of Advertising. A Wharton-led, research-based project, the Future of Advertising aims to explore and address a number of the business and marketing challenges in the current “Advertising Reality”, while developing new models and empirical generalizations for advertising.

    the event section aims to cover major marketing meets and events, coming up with some interesting behind the scenes footage.

    So if you’re interested in hearing what others really think about “advertising”, if you want to check out what’s happening at Advertising Week, or if you have your own opinion that you’d like to voice, check it out.

  • >IDEA to airtel – with the same number

    >Mobile Number Portability (MNP), which has been on the anvil for long will finaly be implemented by the beginning of the next year. It would allow subscribers to retain their mobile telephone number while discarding one service provider for another.

    So, airtel today, wait aircel has come up with pocket internet – SHIFT! Four days and boom I am on a different network. It would take a maximum of 12 days in Jammu & Kashmir, Assam and north eastern circles, though.
    March 20, 2010 is stipulated to be the deadline for this to be implemented all across the country.
    Ofcourse, there would be charges for the shift, and some other formalities, which I guess is completely worth the pain.

    Brand loyalty is on question, and the consumer is the ultimate winner. The fight for ARPU (average revenue per user) is going to get more fiercer, and the telecom is to see some interesting times ahead.

    I so thank TRAI for this initiative, though delayed. I had bought an IDEA sim long back in 2003, when other players were not all that good in network. But boom! What happens, as time passed by, other players came up with good exciting offers, and IDEA was still with the old times.

    NIGHT call free, SMS at 1ps, and so many such offers which my college friends took full advantage with very good returns on the personal front. But I just lagged.

    Why? I did not want to change my number! Now I finally can get out of idea’s hold.

    I guess the next initiative of the government should be to absolve inter state roaming issues too. India is one country, and calling someone from kerala to JnK should be the same, as calling someone in the next room.

    Maybe atleast, TRAI could come up with number portability inter state. So, for a person like me, who would keep shifting states would not have to change the number with every state.

    All this would just increase the churn among the operators, which is at a very high level even now – 4.5 per cent per month in india, which roughly means that more than half India’s over 400 million subscribers change operators in a year.

    All for the good of the consumer!!

  • >Selling Education – Recession Proof Business

    >

    I have been home for the last three months or so, working for a coaching institute here as their part time faculty, teaching the kids extracts from some clep study guides. Now this is something that I really enjoy, right after I completed 10th standard. Giving tuitions to neighboring kids, trying to tutor my younger brother, and also giving gyan to whosoever cares to listen. So, teaching is something that comes naturally, and after a stressful day, spending some time with the students, interacting with them, and learning at the same time gives me a wonderful kick.

    I realize that teaching is no more an honorable role that it was previously. Teachers can build up people, a society or a nation through teaching (Ah! Big talk!), and it goes without doubt saying that teachers are valuable assets in our country. The basic job of a teacher is to inspire and enhance the confidence of the student, and to bring out his/her hidden qualities. Many more basic personality traits like honesty, integrity, ethics, etc… are inspired by a teacher, but here I am just relating to teachers at a coaching institute, and the institute in general.

    One thing that I have been observing for these three months is the mass commoditizing of education, as if it was something to be sold in the market. The commercialization of education, carried out by these coaching institutes, and then the B Schools is altering or disrupting the teaching and learning process itself. Advertising and other commercial activities in order to increase profit just negates all the goods of a nice education. It is like:

    Want an MBA?

    Join our coaching institute. More than half the junta at IIMs presently is from our institute. (How many were regular students? How many of them were actual students at all?)

    We have approved and audited results from the biggest auditory services firm in the country, confirming our
    claims (Okay! I agree to your claims, but what is the percentage of the people who do not make it anywhere?)

    Sitting in the office, I look at despair students with their clueless parents, hanging their big money bags under their vests, trying to look for some information regarding further education. What happens? Are they shown the right path by the counselors present there? Obviously No. Infact, they are marketed some or the other course available at the coaching center.

    Sir, an MBA today gives you the highest ROI, Says one of the ads at the center.

    Cool! Maybe right, but what about the interest of the candidate? Just because the money here is good, a possible excellent scientist is sold off to become a mediocre manager.

    “I think my son should do an M.Tech after engineering? He is very bright in his core subject.” asks the parent (say Mr. Despondar) very curiously.

    The counselor retaliates, “No, An M.tech even in the IITs do not offer you a great salary, sir“, as if it is a sin to do an M.Tech.

    “He should rather try for MS in the US.”

    That is because the counselor realizes that to pursue M.tech the student would have to prepare for GATE, an entrance exam for which they do not provide coaching. So she would be missing out on a possible student.

    “Nah, that would be too expensive. I don’t think I have the funds to send him to the US”, exclaims the parent.

    “Oh! That is okay. Then maybe he could consider CAT”, the counselor replies, cleverly leaving out the information that CAT is for MBA, and not for any technical course.

    The parent is now totally confused – M.Tech, GATE, MS, GRE and now this new bird called CAT. What the hell is this?

    The counselor now starts off, “CAT is for an MBA in the IIMs, sir“

    “They are like the best colleges in india, and gives you huge salary opportunities and opens up wide horizons… blah! Blah!”

    This is because, the center offers training for CAT, and she would get a high commission on admitting a student for CAT.

    After about half an hour of detailed brain washing and hard selling CAT, she manages to convince the parent that CAT is the best thing to have happened to them. The son, all this while has no say, and even now when Mr. Despondar is totally convinced, he gets no chance. Typical Indian middle class, where the parents try pushing all their dreams and decisions on their child – right from the choice of the colour of the bike, to the girl the child gets married to.

    The parent pays the hefty fees of around 20k, emptying his hard earned bulging money bag, and walks out happily and satisfied. As if his son has already made it into the IIMs.

    Now, the student – the son, who was actually interested in going ahead with technical studies, is forced to write CAT. There, the country loses one more potential scientist and there is born one more mismatch citizen who would always crib his life that he is not in a job he loves. Thanks to the coaching center.

    The only mistake being – His dad ended up at an institute which offers CAT coaching and not GATE coaching. Similarly, many a students interested in MBA, end up writing GATE, thanks to TEA.

    p.s.: More posts to continue regarding the same topic – Education at sale.

    Disclaimer: All opinions expressed are personal and my own.