By this time everyone who had anything to say must have already said it. In this quick-fire world, people tweet their entire blog posts / thoughts as 140 characters. I didn’t participate much in such discussions, but I still have a few things to say. I think I should’ve been quicker, but hey! Better now than never! This is not someone’s wedding that I shall speak up in the stipulated time or hold my peace!

Yes, I am talking about the ToI Vs Hindu fight which is all over the place now!

First, a bit of history.

The Hindu has been having its own struggles for quite a while. Having handled the some brands from that stable (albeit briefly), I believe that they had way too many issues to fight against and TOI was not even in the radar then. Back then, people used to read Hindu publications to improve their English. Many a south Indian has been able to manage cracking CAT and other related exams by reading Hindu editorials apart from their other reading material. Hindu held the pride of place there. Over time, with the advent of technology, the human laziness crept in somewhere. Hindu was at one point filled with spelling errors, grammatical blunders and what not! But the paper still had some integrity left in it. Although at some point it became a bit of anti-establishment, some point it became a Congress stooge. At least, that was the impression that I was left with. With the brand pretty close to my heart, I did feel a bit odd when my own intellect questioned a lot of stuff from The Hindu press.

Things got worse with the family linen being washed in public. Between N Ram, Malini Parthasarathy & the entire editorial board there was a huge family problem which was very publicly fought. The worst part was the open letters by the members of the board which got published in all rival newspapers. Open letters got a new meaning altogether!

Editorial instability, lack of direction, family feud dogged The Hindu. No amount of fresh ‘layout’ changes could help. After all, the content started taking a beating. The Hindu is a serious newspaper and is supposed to remain so. That was its strength. And that was a strength which was losing its power with all the hullaballoo around the senior management & family.

But The Hindu is a tradition. Coffee & this newspaper is a must combination for all locations where the paper was available and given a choice, I would go back to it even today. Sadly, The Hindu doesn’t publish in Mumbai. And even if it did, would it have the same charm? I don’t have the answer.

Enter TOI.

TOI is not a serious newspaper. At least in my mind! It is a frivolous, bordering on yellow journalism kind of a publication. Front page news yesterday was ‘Bus Driver mowing down people’ replete with pictures. The paper thrives on scams, death & bollywood.

While it is true that Scams are important to be highlighted, deaths to be announced & Bollywood to be covered, the publication lacks the editorial strength. The Op-ed pieces there are good, but somewhere the line of seriousness is always crossed. Breaking News is key!

Can it be blamed? Chicken & egg story. They will claim that they provide what is read by the man on the road. If Bollywood claims it, we can pardon it. But a newspaper cannot do that. My opinion of course!

And when TOI entered the Madras market, they tried to change the culture. Page 3 happened. I never knew till TOI & DC entered the Madras market that such low neckline, short skirt, LBD toting PYTs roam around the streets of Chennai till these papers started publishing pictures of them in big sizes!

I read somewhere that you can win over a country not by wars, but by infiltrating (read polluting) their culture. TOI & DC did exactly that in my opinion. Hindu’s page 3 was about the city. I think it still is. The page 3 used to cover information about the city, changes happening, things of value and things that matter. Boring shit it was. TOI and DC made it glamorous. Partly visible bosoms, neatly waxed legs, funky jewelery! Whoa! Tamilians buy gold jewelery. Seriously! Oxidised Silver was made fashion by these papers! There obviously was a clash of sensibilities.

Hindu still sells largest in TN. South Indians are boring people. They believe in smaller scams which are not of national interest. Worried more about Mullaiperiyar than Chikni Chameli and Hrithik Roshan’s shaved chest (Do South Indian men shave their bodies?). And more worried about their exams (or their ward’s exams) than the name of Beti B.

TOI called it boring. TOI called it yawn worthy. TOI called it sleepy! And how!

HINDU responded

Sleeping Lion woke up. After nearly 2 months. War footing for Hindu is 2 months of time! They didn’t do it quickly. They made TOI spend all their money and then came up with this campaign.

Now folks here are my two cents.

a.       TOI & DC cater to a different market. Not the serious ‘news’ reader. They believe in volumes and started a price war by selling a year’s subscription for 99 bucks. Everyone bought it because one month’s newspaper at the raddhiwala will fetch Rs.8/9 per kilo. Good investment. Their news was also of that kind. With a pinch of salt, the average householder let the paper enter his household. Period.

b.      Hindu didn’t reduce the rates. Held on and still holding on. Of course, they need to really whip up their editorial team and screw the s&*% out of them to get a good newspaper going. But they cater to serious newsreaders. Hindu WAS the opinion maker in the south. They need to get that position back if they need to be in serious business.

c.       The campaign from both is frivolous. TOI poked fun at a serious newspaper calling it boring. Hindu responded with a ‘screw you’ kind of campaign by calling TOI what they are… frivolous. Tit for tat! As an aside TOI’s launch campaign was also frivolous. Day in life of Chennai was replete with films, fist fights, water fights and a folk song based on a film song. JWT (and Senthil) won awards and accolades, but little did they realize that they were setting the tone albeit unconsciously for the future. And this was just one of those occasions when the big brother of Chennai publishing industry tapped on the head and said ‘shut up’.

d.      You can’t change TOI. The Hindu should not change from its ‘old’. The last few years are but a blip in a tradition which The Hindu should remember and hold on to. Else the brand will face a slow but eventual death.

e.      Fond hope that the new CEO Arun Anant would bring in some change. He has a huge challenge in hand. Feuding family, bad ‘recent’ history, outgoing strongman, new editorial board being called ‘inexperienced’ very publicly by family members. Feces has already hit the roof. Clean-up is not going to be easy. I sincerely hope he is given a free hand to take things to a logical direction.

Just a couple of points about the TOI Vs Hindu campaigns

1.       TOI took a bold step. To call seriousness a.k.a boring the way they did. Very cheeky. Appreciable campaign and ran it for quite a while in the TN markets. Good media usage and viral potential which was also exploited well.

2.       However, biased as it may sound, I liked the Hindu campaign very well. To hit where it hurts most. The readers. The Hindu campaign did show some steel by calling the bluff on the reader rather than on the newspaper. To call them ‘dumb’ requires a lot of guts. To say ‘Read the other newspapers and you will also become dumb’ is not an easy task.

I remember seeing home videos of American idiots who didn’t know the difference between Iran or Pakistan, Sikhs or Muslims, couldn’t point Washington in their own map, but wanted to bomb Iran because they have WMD. Because Bush said so!

The Hindu campaign is a great take-off from there and I guess puts the message across not so softly or subtly!

After all, all is fair in love and war. There obviously is no love here

Incoming search terms:

• toi vs hindu

Related posts:

1. Slow death of a giant For many TamBrahms like me there was a point in...
2. A hard look at my media habits Many a times when we marketers are in the process...
3. Unlikely Heroes Disclaimer: I have oft repeated that I don’t write about...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I have also worked on some brands from ‘The Hindu’ family briefly during my stint at Ammirati Puris Lintas. The brand and the group have been very close to my heart.

Unfortunately, the group is facing a very slow cancerous death. I can see it! The editorial in the mainline daily is not as it used to be. And the change has unfortunately been to the worst. While many used to refer to the Hindu as a boring newspaper, there were also anecdotes doing the rounds back then about how the publication was a stickler for correctness of information before it gets printed. People used to joke that if you are pronounced dead on ‘The Hindu’ then you are actually dead. Else there is at least a fighting chance.

There are two other papers (worth this blog mention) apart from The Indian Express, in what used to be citadel of The Hindu. ToI & Deccan Chronicle. They have cornered a fair bit of space by doing one or more of the following:

• Yearly subscription for Rs.99/- (Beat that! We would buy that paper purely for waste paper purposes) That makes your entry absolutely easy and you are the second paper at least for Raddhiwala / Pazhaya paper purposes. (Pardon my inclusion of vernacular terms, but it gives the authenticity to the point that I was trying to make).
• Making Madras sound like Bombay by introducing a Page 3 culture. Generation X, Y, Z, ZA and whatever thrives on gossip. They are more likely to pick the ‘second paper’ for the juice in the morning than the ‘Oh! So boring national news where some minister has surreptitiously consumed 800 Crores of taxpayer’s money’. I am not saying that they are irresponsible. Without them Anna Hazare would still be a village headman rather than a national icon. However, this generation is not the kind which would prioritize something like national interest over Trisha or Sneha (or are they passé? I think it should be Tamannah / Tapsi?). Maybe I am wrong, but that’s the feeling I am left with.
• Editorial content based on ‘flavour of the day’. Scoop. It doesn’t matter if the printed word is true, partially true, pinch of truth or a complete figment of some journalist’s imagination. There is a requirement for trial by media in our corrupt society, but some of them take it way too far.

And The Hindu has not been any less in helping their competition. The group today is suffering from many types of malignant cancer.

• Their family feud has been one of the worst cases of dirty linen being washed in public. There are people from the family with a clear divide who have spoken to other media houses about their family fights and it has in one way become a national exhibition.
• Blind in terms of polarity. The publication has not been a neutral entity for quite a while. There was a time when the publication was known for its anti establishment stand. Today they are almost seen like a Congress DMK combine newspaper. Much of the 2G scam was soft pedaled in The Hindu, which I believe was a disaster in waiting.
• Not moving with the Times (certainly not a pun). Their editorial IS (let’s face it) boring. Their writing style doesn’t make good reading for today’s audiences. The publication gives a feeling of talking from a pedestal still which leaves much to desire. No wonder TOI is taking a huge dig at The Hindu. Watch the TVC here. A boringly long 65 seconder echoing the boring newspaper.

• And what did The Hindu come up to promote itself? This?

Too bad, they thought that South was their bastion forever. They bloody well have to do better than this! They never had felt the need to advertise for a long time. But today, when they have to, they didn’t know what the brand stands for. Solution: Throw a few adjectives, show a few Tams (and TamBrahms) doing their daily morning chores and voila! We have the Hindu Ad. Shame!

For old times’ sake, I hope these guys come up with something to end their feud and focus on the brand which Mr. Kasturi Iyengar started around the same time as Coke. Not the same genre but similar legacy!

Incoming search terms:

• brand recall through television advertising in india
• recall advertising search terms
• hindu ad is in bad taste
• examples of recalling brands
• coke brand life cycle
• advertisement and brand recall
• brand recall from advertising
• brand advertising image recall
• average brand ad recall
• advertisements and brand recall

Related posts:

1. Tit for Tat Warning: Long post. Very close to my heart and hence…...
2. A hard look at my media habits Many a times when we marketers are in the process...
3. Beware – Your competitor is from your category. NOT! A few years back, while at B-School, I was introduced...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

For instance, one of the biggest competitors of Indian Railways was ‘low cost airlines’. People who can afford to travel second or third A/C would rather spend a thousand Rupees more and fly to their destination. For the simple reason that they would end up saving a lot of travel time; this can be used for business or recreation as the case may be. Simple concept!

I have also heard of another concept propounded by Coke – especially in developing markets like India & China. They called it ‘Share of throat’. They realized pretty early that their biggest competition was not Pepsi in these markets but other natural, home-grown remedies to thirst – like tender coconut, buttermilk etc. Their biggest job was to convert these consumers to coke. I believe that was one of the key reasons for a Rs.5/- SKU, which was not common in most developed markets.

Coming back to the inspiration for this article – radio spots that I heard over the last few days & recent TVCs that I’ve seen.

Diwali Season has begun and every brand is roaring its heart out to reach for the customer’s pocket. And these are times when one brand understands who their real competitor is.

A few examples:

Cadbury’s Celebrations. Click here to listen to the spot.

Simple concept. Khushiyaan Baato. Share the happiness. Don’t think about meeting your old friend / boss / neighbor or whoever. Just go and meet them. Make them happy and you shall find happiness.

Pretty much straight forward. I will mind my own business kind of a spot, which is in line with its campaign in other media including TV.

Here’s the next one: World Gold Council. Click here to listen to the spot.

You can figure out who their competitor is! The electronic goods industry! Whoa! WGC actually thinks that Samsung, LG, Onida, Apple and other electronic goods manufacturers as competition. They’ve taken them head on to let us know how quickly these goods depreciate in value and how Gold can appreciate! Good idea. I will corner that corner of the pocket which was meant for the LED TV that the consumer felt the need for at his home!

And here’s the next. Morphy Richards.

I would have ideally liked to feature Croma’s Radio spot which believes a Gym Membership is competition, but couldn’t find it. But here’s the Morphy Richards TVC:

It looks like marketers have woken up to the concept of ‘Share of Wallet’ and are trying to poach from every other corner to get a bit of action for themselves! Competition is not within your category anymore. It has spread far and wide. What else can explain Gold fighting with Appliances fighting with Chinaware & Gym Memberships?

Marketers of today are fighting varied challenges.

• Competition is not just from within the category.
• Inflation & broader economy is making the size of the wallet smaller.
• Pricing has become a decision point with the consumer being spoilt with choice. More effort required by Marketing & Sales to get the same amount of revenues.
• Brand loyalty is almost a thing of past. Samsung is the new Sony. Korea is the new Japan.

Two eyes are just not enough. Look around. See the patterns and if you can’t see that almost invisible spear travelling at high speeds coming towards you, you may well be dead!

Incoming search terms:

• brand recall of pepsi
• cadbury celebrations competitors
• coke rs 5 radio spot
• sales jargon share of wallet

Related posts:

1. The War of the Wallet on Afaqs! My article The War of the Wallet on Afaqs! Incoming...
2. Slow death of a giant For many TamBrahms like me there was a point in...
3. Steve Jobs – I respect, love, adore and miss you Do I write a customary RIP? Do I write an...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

For many, these guys might look like the morons of the marketing world. To be honest, I have felt that way a few years back. And then it dawned into me that there is a very deep sense in what these guys do. Especially, after I happened to interact with some of the consumers. I must admit however that this is not based on any structured research. But Prof. Malay Chaudhuri (who taught me Market Research in campus) once told, “The best sample size for a research sometimes is 1”. I tend to agree with him.

When was the last time you bought salt? Do you remember what brand you bought? Can you remember the last occasion when you bought ‘rock salt’ or ‘powdered salt’ which didn’t carry a brand name and was packed in newspaper by your friendly neighborhood Kirana store?

Anil, Lion, Idhayam, Jeyam, Sakthi Masala, Gold Winner – You may not have heard these names outside Tamil Nadu. But within the state, these are names which the woman of the house swears by. These are brands, which I have learnt to admire lately for their ingenuity. A simple comparison between these two concepts shows that these marketers have borrowed generously from the Salt phenomenon and have executed seamlessly to taste success (pun intended).

Packaging started playing an important part in both these phenomena. Having the words ‘A trusted name’ would make a lot of difference in reaching out to large number of people. With packaging playing an integral part of brand building, they didn’t let go of their South Indian-ness and added a lot of color, brightness and attractiveness to it.

Once common salt became a ‘branded item’ and ceased to be a ‘kirana store’ buy, these brands started innovating concepts with respect to Salt. For instance, my salt is ‘whiter’ than the competition, OR one pinch of my salt is better than a spoonful of the other and so on.

Not the kind to be left behind, these smart marketers found once concept after another. I believe there is a ‘Z’ Technology to clean Tur Dal. Wow! It sure is something like the PUF which was in every refrigerator, but was made famous by Godrej.

There is a Urad Dal brand which claims that Idlys made with this brand is more ‘fuller’ than the others. I am yet to figure out how, but the brands are just hitting the right nerves.

There is another ingenious attempt. The brand is Lion Honey. Lion is a brand under which the company peddles ‘dates’, ‘date syrup’, honey, oats and many other food items. He was the first to attempt positioning Honey as a substitute for Sugar. The brand had their TVCs running which had honey replaced in almost every sugar usage including honey being mixed with milk, during cooking etc. This was also tried by a larger brand at a later date – Dabur – featuring Big B & MSD.

These brands have grown multi-fold that they can afford large advertising budgets. Today, almost all these brands feature celebrities (read film stars) and have well produced TVCs backed by a very impressive on-air presence.

Branding of essential commodities such as sugar, salt, pulses, spices etc, does the same job as branding any other product, say, T-shirts. It takes the pain out of buying. The consumer gets to choose amongst the many brands available and is able to make the purchase with a confidence that the product would be free of malicious content, adulteration etc.

Branding commodities help in achieving a straight line supply chain, thus making availability easy and the pricing affordable. By adding more value to the product (not just as a brand) but in say nutritional value much as iodized salt did to the salt industry, health is certainly a platform that the consumers would benefit on.

And moving up in the chain, branding helps create higher value for these products. This ensures that the manufacturer and the farmers who actually cultivate these items are benefited immensely.

As a consumer I have always been hit by their communication every time I get in front of the idiot box (especially with my mother around). And when I do look at it from a Marketers’ perspective, things fall in place.

• Branding essential commodities may just be a category starter
• Branding essential commodities adds its own value to the consumer, manufacturer, supplier and the economy alike.
• It is absolutely fine to copy a strategy as said by the legendary Sam Walton. Just be sure that the execution is better. Or at least, ensure that the execution appeals to the sensibilities of your target audience.

So when you enjoy your meal the next time (especially the South Indian meal), you can rest assured that a marketer has touched your life and your tummy .

Incoming search terms:

• brand recall commercial
• commercial with brand recall
• recent commercial brand recall

Related posts:

1. Tit for Tat Warning: Long post. Very close to my heart and hence…...
2. Beware – Your competitor is from your category. NOT! A few years back, while at B-School, I was introduced...
3. A hard look at my media habits Many a times when we marketers are in the process...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I used to live in a place called Mambalam Road, which was once an integral part of a thriving industry. Film Hoardings.

There used to be two large players in this market with the largest being J P Krishna. Almost every single hoarding in the state for all large banners Tamil Film banners including AVM, Satya and Devar used J P Krishna’s services. The speciality? These hoardings were hand painted and will look so real and beautiful. And it used to be a sight to watch these painters at work because being a film fan I used to get to see the posters / photographs before many others. Also, the size used to amaze me. 40ft hoarding will be actually hand painted. WOW!

Come to think of it, that was all they did for promoting a film other than PR. Those were not the days of TV promos because there were only 2 channels. DD local and DD National . Moreover, the film industry wasn’t run by professionals. They were just the creative kind and all they could think of, was film making. So the rest of the departments including marketing weren’t their greatest strength.

I am amazed at the speed with which the Movie Marketing Industry has taken over the Movie Making Industry in current times.

Nowadays, a movie budget includes the marketing budget and the number is substantial enough to ensure that enough visibility is garnered in the first weekend itself. Considering that 50% or more collections for a movie happens in the first weekend (or maybe the first 2 weekends), it is important to have a very high intensity burst and the marketing functions for these film houses do the job brilliantly.

Icing on the cake? They actually employ advertising agencies and they get really creative in promoting a movie. With many aces up their sleeve, I thought it would be worth discussing a few here.

PR – This is something that goes on an overdrive before a movie release. We Indians are suckers for celebrity secrets and the problem is that the movie marketers know it. So before the release of a film, you would end up knowing almost every dirty secret (of which I would assume that more than 60% would be fabricated) will be shared with the publications with enough pictures. Sometimes, not sharing any detail of the film will be the PR activity itself. And many times, it would be some controversy. Take the case of Raavan. The film was mired with enough controversies to ensure that enough people spoke about it. Starting from Junior AB claiming to have done a stunt and some swimmer from Bangalore claiming to have performed the stunt to Senior AB launching a desperate attack on Mani to say that the Hindi edit wasn’t great, PR was on an overdrive. Maybe it is this overdrive that cost the film dear, but the function did its job beautifully. Unfortunate that the strategy didn’t work.

Trailors – With the idiot box taking over as one of the largest modes of promoting a product / service, it meant that the 30 second cut of the film must be so slick that you would want to endure 3 hours of the same thing. So the idiot box edits are nothing short of awesome to make you want to watch the film.

Reality Shows – The world today is nothing short of The Truman Show. With reality shows garnering more TRPs and GRPs than your favorite serials movie houses started connecting with these shows to promote their films. After all, this would mean that they get to promote the film for half hour (or one hour in some cases) in the given channel. So you can find the key cast of a film participating in a reality show just to ensure that their film gets talked about.

Online – Starting from a full fledged website for a film (example: www.idiotsacademy.com) to taking over the twitter accounts of key members of the cast, the online promotions side of the movie house has its hands full. Sonam Kapoor just before the launch of Aisha started sharing images from the film in the pretext of finding out how she looks with everyone. The good looker that she was, the film did get a positive opening owing to her strategy of sharing images through Twitter. Every film today has a Facebook page too. Social media today forms a key part of every film’s marketing strategy.

Just to be sure that we don’t leave out… Print happens too!

However, it is refreshing to see that movie marketing has taken a leaf out of advertising for products and indulge in creative and innovative ways to promote. Furthermore, these campaigns get considered for Advertising awards. The campaigns for Paa & 3 Idiots won accolades at Emvies for innovative usage of the media.

Film stars go to any length (figuratively and literally) to promote their movies. One of the Emvie winner ‘3 Idiots’ got it for Aamir travelling the length and breadth of the country many times in disguise and the competition was to identify him. This kind of made the character blend with the masses, thus ensuring larger audience for the film.

This certainly is a category where the bar is always high and is raised further with each large project. The film making business is creative and to advertise that you would again get creative. Sounds like the second level dream of Fischer in Inception.

Would certainly be fun…

Incoming search terms:

• brand recall by ooh
• new updates in rural marketing

Related posts:

1. A hard look at my media habits Many a times when we marketers are in the process...
2. Samiksha – Panel Discussion at NITIE It was a pleasant surprise to receive an invitation from...
3. Soft Porn – Bring it on I remember ‘Advertising’ classes by Santosh Sood during my IMT...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Living in Bombay brings its own idiosyncrasies. One of them is the various modes of public transport. No. I am not talking about trains. The reference points here are the Black-Yellow Taxis and Autos. The germ behind the movement is very simple. Three advertising professionals (Jaidev Rupani, Rachna Brar and Abhilash Krishnan) just decided to take the issue in their hands when they were facing the constant ‘nays’ by these ‘service providers’. Adding fuel to fire, a few weeks back the public transport system came under the mercy of the auto and taxi drivers when they decided to go on a strike demanding a fare hike.

Dubbed Meter Jam and designed like a reverse auction, Meter Jam is a reverse strike. While the taxis and autos be plying the road, the idea was to motivate the common man NOT to take either of these modes.

The movement appealed to the sentiments of the public because everyone has been affected by the ridiculous ways of these operators. It was initially promoted only through Social Networking Sites (SNS). But Six Degrees of Separation led this to become a national movement. Well almost!

To add fuel to the fire, news papers (read ‘tabloids’) picked up this cause and fanning it decently. With Mumbai Mirror starting it and Mid-day following right behind, the rest of the publications didn’t want to be left behind and covered it sufficiently. They actually interviewed the union heads and asked if they were afraid! PR picked up steam and the trio was nothing less than celebrities giving interviews to every channel / newspaper.

It has reached a peak and if you search for Meter Jam today, you would find the press articles before the actual site.

Meter Jam was held (or upheld) on the August 12, 2010. There are mixed reports on how successful the reverse strike was, but I felt the roads to be relatively easy to navigate. There were lesser number of black-yellow vehicles on the road and I personally offered a ride to a few colleagues on my way back.

The movement needed a mainstream support like that of PR for it to be known amongst a larger audience. It is absolutely true that it is not possible to build or retain brand salience only through Facebook and Twitter. It may be a very good starting point. Few reasons:

• The SNS user is looking at a quick bang. You don’t see a topic trending beyond say, 8 hours?!
• There still is a large audience outside SNS. Take me for instance. I have been bitten by the IT Policy bug and I don’t have connectivity to any social media (irrespective of the fact that I use them for official purposes too).
• The relevance of SNS may get restricted to a finite set of audience because amongst your connections / friends / followers, it is not a guarantee that everyone would be moved by your appeal. Striking the right chord at least for a movement should be more than just SNS.

The other one was a media sponsored movement along with an NGO of high repute. The NDTV Greenathon, which the channel conducts on its Flagship NDTV 24×7 every year, is generally a great success. The entire package is 360 degree in approach. The event is well promoted in all the channels owned or is part of the NDTV bouquet. The event is also taken on to other media including online. Today it is possible to connect with your favorite news personality through their website. They have their own social networking platform which is also activated during the Greenathon, which is conducted over a period of 24 hours.

Adding glamour is the presence of Bollywood personalities every year. They have some film start co-hosting it for the entire period, thus ensuring enough eye-balls for the key time-bands at least. The event is generally tied up with TERI and is in support of providing basic amenities in far flung villages of India. Some reasons why it almost always is a hit:

• Promoted by a large news channel, thus ensuring enough reach and visibility for the event.
• Presence of a celebrities (which Meter Jam lacked).
• 360 degree in approach thus ensuring a larger reach and awareness for the event.
• Sufficiently sponsored. With a lot of money going into running this ‘on air, on ground, online’ event, reaching and making it a success is not a great difficulty.
• Having a well known NGO brings in its own set of audience and credibility.

By bringing a serious issue out in the open, social movements take its own course to spread, propagate and in hopefully making this world a better place. However, not all such movements get to see as many reams of paper or footage time. Building a brand like ‘Jaago Re’ cost the Tata Group 2 years and sufficient funds to push the thought through. Even then, we had a key market like Bombay registering 34% votes in the general elections.

Though these social movements become large brands, effectiveness still depends on the buyer of the concept. Pity this is not a product / service.

Incoming search terms:

• branding social movements
• social movement as a brand
• social movements as brands

Related posts:

1. A hard look at my media habits Many a times when we marketers are in the process...
2. Tit for Tat Warning: Long post. Very close to my heart and hence…...
3. Samiksha – Panel Discussion at NITIE It was a pleasant surprise to receive an invitation from...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Two of the largest telecom companies moved their creative agency.

Airtel moves from Rediffusion to JWT

Reliance moves to Grey

Is there a signal? Some observations:

Problem 1: Both brands have not had a great ‘last few campaigns’. Personally, I think it is because Airtel & Reliance have been trying to say too many things and somewhere down the line, barring the signature tune, there was nothing that connected the many communication pieces that was coming out of these behemoths.

Airtel had a campaign with SRK based on his life story and how he is connected with his friends. Loosely made TV based campaign, which was doing nothing to the brand. Their earlier messages were clear and crisp in terms of communicating the brand objectives / values to the consumer. The SRK commercial didn’t connect well.

Reliance on the other hand brought in Hrithik. I am still unable to make sense out of the TVCs made by Reliance using Hrithik. This proved to be a classic case of lazy communication by bringing in a celebrity. The opening up of the GSM platform for Reliance was a tremendous opportunity, which I think was not utilized properly by the brand team.

Problem 2:  The relationships have either gone sour between the agency and the marketers. With Airtel, the relationship is since inception of the brand. This kind of long relationship would obviously bring some moments where one takes another for granted. It could be from the client’s side or the agency’s side. Either ways, the relationship would obviously suffer. Having been the agency since the beginning is a tremendous advantage for Rediffusion, but alas, it is not meant to continue.

With Reliance the account was with Mudra for a long time (again since inception if I am right) although the brand seems to have flirted with Cartwheel for a short while. But it is better for them to settle down with an agency properly with a long term view else the sufferer will be the brand.

Familiarity breeds contempt seems to have happened in either cases.

Problem 3: I also believe that there has been a churn at the client’s end in both these cases. Chandru alias Chandrasekhar of Airtel quit the telco very recently. And there is very little clarity (at least in media) about the person who has taken over the mandate.

Reliance marketing team also seems to have gone through a churn. I know for a fact that they are in the process of getting their marketing head on board. Internally there has been a churn which seems to have ailed these brands.

Problem 4: Intense competition. Tata Docomo, Idea, Uninor, Videocon, Virgin and many more have started digging deep into their pockets to start communicating. New regulations including Number Portability is not helping the cause and is building immense pressure on all the brands to maintain market share.

Problem 5: Highly fragmented customers. Starting from a Rs.10/- recharge to a VAS customer with an average billing of about INR4000-5000 per month makes it difficult to maintain the consistency. Also, both these brands have tried to communicate more than one message at the same time. Typically the brand ambassadors or the messaging style / guideline for each message is very different thus creating dichotomy. On the other hand, though the brand communicates different kinds of services Vodafone has at least managed to create a property which could be milked for 3 years in a row. And all their messages followed the same route, thus bringing in some consistency with respect to the different kind of customers and the kind of messages sent across.

I sincerely hope that both these brands will correct themselves on these parameters and many more that I may have left out. It is important to get the act right here because continuous errors on this front will expedite the brand’s demise. I wouldn’t want to see either of these brands in the twilight zone. Probably the change of guard is just the first result of a wake-up call.

Incoming search terms:

• brand recall of airtel
• Airtel wake up call
• brand recall vodafone
• airtel brand recall
• airtel rural marketing

Related posts:

1. Tit for Tat Warning: Long post. Very close to my heart and hence…...
2. Samiksha – Panel Discussion at NITIE It was a pleasant surprise to receive an invitation from...
3. Unlikely Heroes Disclaimer: I have oft repeated that I don’t write about...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I am trying my best to live up to this commitment. Just a disclaimer! As a policy I don’t write about the category I work for. And since I am attempting a category I have never worked for, I expect this to be challenging. So if there are errors, please do highlight.

BMW – Bayerische Motoren Werke

BMW - Yum

The hallmark of German engineering, BMW is a brand that I admire a lot. Despite the early alleged Nazi connections, BMW as a brand has been able to shake it off and still prove to be amongst the top automobile manufacturers in the world.

Let us take a look at their brand positioning statement: SHEER DRIVING PLEASURE.

Close your eyes and imagine sitting behind the wheel of a BMW. You can see the blue and white roundel logo on the steering wheel. You are now cruising on a highway at a speed of 200 kmph and all you can hear inside is the mild music that you have played on the music system.

Now open your eyes and read this line again: SHEER DRIVING PLEASURE.

BMW Driving Pleasure

Okay! I have made the point. You are a consumer (or a potential consumer) and all that BMW wants to leave you with is the ultimate driving experience. The joy of making that travel by yourself. The fun in sharing this experience. The happiness in driving. The delight of stepping on the gas. The ecstasy in reaching that top speed again.

This brand is JOY. The PLEASURE. The ELATION in the act of driving.

All that you have read till now is for you as a consumer.

Cut to the PR World now. Please read these reports:

Hindu Business Line
Business Wire India
The Hindu

I can see it screaming on my face that BMW is a luxury car. A couple of more reports:

Business Standard Motoring
India Today

Another key message that I get is that they are the largest in the luxury car segment.

What has the positioning been to say, the journalists?

I would tend to believe that the positioning statement for the journalists is: “A successful luxury car company” or better still, “The number 1 luxury car company in India”.

While the reader of the message (the consumer) gets reinforced on one more different facet about the brand viz., STABILITY.

Because a luxury car is an expensive proposition and is an involved purchase decision, there is a fair bit of importance given to the stability of the organization that sells the vehicle. So, by reinforcing on a regular basis that BMW is the number 1 luxury car company in India, the brand is just cementing its place in the consumer’s mind.

Why should a brand do that?

A consumer buys it for a stated benefit. It could be the ultimate driving pleasure (BMW), but the journalist is interested in understanding the stability of the company and the business it has achieved. By proving the stability, the brand is passing a subtle message to the consumer that they are dealing with a stable entity.

So, YOU as a customer are left with:

Here’s BMW – a car that is a sheer pleasure to drive, a joy to own and is from a stable company.

Isn’t that a winning proposition?

JOY of travel

And I wanted to leave you with JOY. And don’t forget to search for GINA. Happy driving.

Incoming search terms:

• Bayerische Motoren Werke
• bayerisch motoren werke
• bmw joy ad
• Bayerische Motorenwerke
• Bayern Motor Werke
• bmw brand recall
• bmw logo sheer driving pleasure
• bmw logo png sheer driving pleasure logo png
• bmw nazi
• bmw joy

Related posts:

1. Tit for Tat Warning: Long post. Very close to my heart and hence…...
2. Beware – Your competitor is from your category. NOT! A few years back, while at B-School, I was introduced...
3. Slow death of a giant For many TamBrahms like me there was a point in...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I am just unable to think of any advertisements apart from milk products from Aavin or Amul, uniforms by S Kumars or shoes by Bata. Maybe there were more, but can’t think of any more. Even Horlicks and Complan used to advertise to the mother with the message being good health for children.

Somewhere down the line the ‘line’ actually disappeared. Today every product can be targeted at children and they are!

I believe that it started with the retail revolution. We all would have seen the following even unfold in front of our eyes some time or the other.

Dad, mom and a young kid of about 4 to 5 years old visit the supermarket for buying provisions for the month. Generally kids are very inquisitive. But today’s kids are even more because the parents are genuinely unable to spend too much time with the child since both work! The little brat who is in control of neither parent runs around the store and pulls the store down for the big bar of chocolate. He is seen running away from the clutches of the mother and making enough noise to attract the attention of the fellow shoppers and the store attendants. Embarrassed, the mom hands him the chocolate from the counter just to keep the brat quiet.

What the parent calls ‘embarrassment’ is euphemistically referred to by the marketer as ‘Pester Power’.

Recently seven marketing companies (Hindustan Unilever, Coca-Cola India Inc, General Mills India, Kellogg India, Nestle India, Mars International India and PepsiCo India Holdings) have taken a conscious decision to promote a healthy and active lifestyle for children. Cadbury’s India has also committed to join the gang soon. These marketers have gone forward in signing a self regulation in which the main commitment is to not advertise any food and beverage products to children under the age of 12.

It is common sense that advertising unhealthy food products purely on its taste unmindful of the harmful effects that it may have on the child during its later years is not done. For instance excessive chocolate with high caffeine content results in an unhealthy child. So does that change the way these products get consumed going forward?

Children will be children and will continue to be adamant. They will still fight for that chocolate, but by not advertising such products during programmes targeted at children, one would expect that the kid wouldn’t know of it. So far so good! It is true that today’s children have much more opportunities to learn about a lot of things which we as children wouldn’t have heard about. Internet for instance, is a wealthy resource for children to learn anything under the sun.

So is this regulation going to change the world? Maybe not! But I am sure it is a step in the right direction. Few points that come to my mind:

For Kids & Parents

• By not exposing kids below the age of 12 (at least by these seven marketers) to advertising which doesn’t cater to them, it would help in reducing their role as ‘influencers’ in unrelated categories.
• I know of children who would ask for products where the advertisement is more appealing to them, irrespective of their worth. By stopping exposure of such ads to these children, we may reduce these instances
• The ads may not target the children, but even exposure otherwise can be harmful. For instance, it is very unhealthy for kids to get used to soda / Pepsi / Coke. But featuring children in these ads and exposing children to these products at young age would mean lack of health during later years. This may go down in numbers now.

For Marketers

• Products like ‘Happy Meal’ by McDonalds targeted at children may have to stop. However, McDonalds is yet to sign any such self-regulation.
• I am wondering what some product categories like Toothpastes for instance will do. They may have to change some product lines, some brand extensions may go out of the window, and a whole lot of advertising will change.
• Will this force (on a moral front) other marketers to do get into a self regulation? I am just being a devil’s advocate here. These marketers have done all they could to spoil the health of the kid and are now professing self-regulation. At one end it does sound like the USA imposing emission control on countries like India & China.

In any case, pester power may lose its power but will continue to stay.

Incoming search terms:

• today every product can be targeted at children and they are! it started with the retail revolution today’s kids are even more because the parents are genuinely unable to spend too much time with the child since both work! the little brat who is in cont
• advertise of pester power of hul in youtube
• pester power in india
• pester power in indian retailing

Related posts:

1. Soft Porn – Bring it on I remember ‘Advertising’ classes by Santosh Sood during my IMT...
2. Featured in 4Ps magazine Over the weekend the latest issue of 4Ps would have...
3. Beware – Your competitor is from your category. NOT! A few years back, while at B-School, I was introduced...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

My first brush with Rural Marketing was when I was working with Lintas. A colleague of mine used to handle a brand called TAFE (Tractors and Farm Equipments). And as part of the job, this guy used to travel across the country for at least 8 months in a year. His job? Conducting events across the country called Krishi Ratna. I am not sure if TAFE still does these events, but it used to be a brilliant learning experience for my colleague. And in the four months that he was back in Chennai, he used to document the whole event. I happened to learn a lot from him. It was amazing. I just want to share a small run-down on the event.

Krishi Ratna – is a farmers event which was conceived by Lintas for TAFE. The event constituted a three day fair in villages of varying sizes. The fair will have events like Tractor Race, seed sowing competition, harvesting competition etc., which would basically use all equipments manufactured by TAFE. Of course, there will be fun events like astrology, puppet show etc, which would keep the interest for other folks. To me this event was a complete rural activity which bridged the gap between the product and the consumer beautifully.

My early experiences of rural marketing and advertising used to be predominantly outdoor. Painting of walls was the first thing that people would do to promote a product or offering. This actually is a spillover from the painting of walls in cities. Political parties use this well! However, innovation in even such small activities was evident from the stable of HUL many years back.

Painting the walls was a regular affair. But the importance of community building was felt even 15 years back. HUL went around villages and connected with the village heads just to ensure that their rural connect was complete. They offered to lay tiles on the stairs leading to the village pond. The village pond is a community place and having tiles there would make the place look good and clean, hence permissions were never a problem. The only rider is the fact that the tiles will always have some HUL brand or the other featured prominently. Mostly ‘Lifebuoy’. Brilliant strategy and very workable as a rural marketing initiative.

Today, there are companies which specialize in Rural Marketing. One such example (I just stumbled upon them and do not vouch for them in any way) is RC&M. Almost every large agency worth its salt today has a Rural Marketing Division. Linterland, Ogilvy Activation, Anugrah Madison, Mart being a few known names. Starting from launching of a brand to market development, such agencies offer all kinds of marketing services. When it comes to Rural Marketing now, varied tools like digital screens, animation etc are also used. With professional script writers and film makers working on each of these projects, marketing here is a very different ball game.

These agencies work on lead generation, market expansion, sampling, research and many other activities which help promoting a product / service in the hinterlands.

I was surprised to learn that the clientele included some illustrious names like Citi, ICICI, HDFC amongst financial services. Schneider Electric – an organization which I thought would probably not bother with rural India has also conducted events and lead generation programmes. Some usual suspects include all telecom companies including Airtel, Reliance, Tata Indicom and Idea. Another key area of work for Rural Marketing companies is in creating a distribution chain. It is very possible that many firms do not possess the prowess to set up a distribution network for their products. These companies which have operated in these markets for a while, by virtue of knowing them outside in, help set up a distribution network including building a demand for the product by sampling, C&F strength and retail presence.

RMAI stands for Rural Marketing Association of India. The association offers list of events in immediate future, resources like local magicians, script writers, books and reference guides etc. They also provide training programs and offer career guidance in rural marketing initiatives. RMAI Corporate Awards 2010 incidentally would be conducted on November 26, 2010 at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. It is very impressive that they have a very resourceful site. There is a lot more to Rural Marketing than I thought and knew about before embarking on this post. Certainly, there is a lot more that one gets to learn when one attempts to write.

Incoming search terms:

• when was use the rural marketing
• rural marketing tafe
• rural marketing events
• rural marketing companies in chennai
• rural marketing blogs
• rural marketing blog
• learnings of rural marketing
• use of events in rural marketing
• tafe tractors wall paintings
• tafe tractors blog

Related posts:

1. Slow death of a giant For many TamBrahms like me there was a point in...
2. Tit for Tat Warning: Long post. Very close to my heart and hence…...
3. Marketing Strategy – Sessions IV & V Here are the slides for my classroom lecture sessions at...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.