Marico ad- one of the best headlines i have seen

AWESOME headline.. took me a couple of readings to interpret it... please comment if u understood it...

Reality show TRPs- farce of one-upmanship

Television Rating Points (TRP) wars have been started in India from the time the K serials took centre stage and General Entertainment channels became a business of big bucks. Advertisers flocked to these channels to get a handsome return on investment, at least based on the eyeballs these serials and channels attracted. Only cricket could over power the TRPs of these serials which had religious followings. TRPs became a part of general lexicon only after people came to know about it from newspapers.

With the launch of a slew of reality shows, and with celebrities riding the shows with huge budgets and sponsors, naturally the TRPs are going to play a role in deciding the winner. It being the only way to determine the ad rates which have reached exorbitant levels with Bollywood star power at the helm of affairs of these shows. Every week we have TRPs of shows stating the celebrity winner of the week. Just the way fate of each of these Bollywood stars change every Friday and you are as good as your last hit, similarly your television show is also as god as your last TRP.

The latest example of this is the ad in national dailies by Sony TV about KBC getting higher TRPs than Big Boss 4. It is understandable that Sony would use these ratings as a barometer to get higher ad rates from advertisers. But what is the use of saying it in print. Does the audience going to change its viewing just because KBC has higher ratings? The customer is too smart to fall for such self congratulatory messages.

The only rationale that seems from this communication is to bring about a perception among the general viewers and advertisers that our channel garners higher ratings because of this show which will have a spill over effect on its other shows. Quite wishful thinking I must say.

The new ‘pull & push’ marketing

It should not come as a surprise that the company called ‘the CEO factory’ and which aspiring marketer would give an arm or leg to work for has come up with a new theory. Not in research or a white paper but in implementation and thought-process. The new ‘push’ marketing concept which takes marketing application one step further. HUL- the house of brands.

Consumer engagement has been the buzz word of late in marketing circles. To break away from the clutter, companies have been engaging customers through different and unique touch points, more so with the acceptance of social networking sites amongst the young who are at a impressionable age. Read this from one of the GMs of HUL “The push is through traditional, one-way messaging to consumers through TV and other traditional ad media. The pull is through inviting consumers to engage with the brand and experience the Axe effect. Digital is the new focus as it offers brilliant scope of engaging with the consumers and having great conversations.” This is regarding the competition in the deodorant category where all the brands are following the ‘girl getting seduced by the fragrance’ theme.

This can be interpreted in different ways. One- HUL is going beyond the price competition. In the short term, obviously there would be sales promotions but in the long run, the brands which engage the customer will benefit and give long term opportunities for profits. I think HUL has read the Indian market and consumer very well. They have realized that in the growing economy, there will be growth but growth can be sustained and with profitability with strong brand building, not through the traditional ways but in different ways making the consumer feel the brand through experiential marketing.

There is so much competition that the pull effect seems negligible with no special difference between products/ services. So the objective of ad is to push the product, in your face, to win over the competition. A zero sum game.

Thus with the push undergoing a change, pull has become even more customer-centric and a two way process compared to the earlier passive one way. The new pull, rather than just saying good things about you, lets users experience it first hand and then buy the product/ service. As mentioned earlier, customer engagement would be easier with social networking sites for the young target audience but reaching the un-tech savvy customers would be the real marketing challenge.

Channels need celebrities or celebrities need channels?

This question does not have any absolute answers. Television may never be as glamorous as the 72mm silver screen. The television stars may never be as comparable to the recognition that a movie star gets. Be it in terms of money or adulation or success. But one thing is for sure, the current movie superstars may like or not, they cannot ignore the potential of their presence on television.

The pioneer for this scenario is the eternal Indian megastar Amitabh Bachchan who transformed the way movie stars look at television. Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) though a desi version of the American hit show ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’, back Amitabh Bachchan back in the reckoning and also started a genre of reality shows on Indian television where there’s no looking back. The success of Amitab Bachchan sparked off a slew of shows involving movie celebrities such as Anupam Kher and Manisha Koirala in ‘Sawaal Dus Crore ka’ and Govinda in ‘Jeeto Chappar phad ke’. Though not even half as successful as KBC, it did not deter television producers from trying out new formats and shows involving celebrities.

Gone were the days when movie celebrities lead a secret personal life with information coming through on a handful of gossip magazines. With no blogs, facebook, twitter or news channels, the only way people got to see their favourite superstars was in movies. Thus to maintain the aura and inquisitiveness, movie stars desisted from TV, and rightly so. From the present generation, I guess only Aamir Khan has that interest among viewers since he does only movies.

Times are changing and so should people. With so much information society, actors have to be in the public domain to build a fan following. Now if Amitabh Bachchan can be on TV, why not the others. Thus we had bollywood badshah Shah Ruch Khan hosting the second season of KBC. It was also successful in its own right. ‘kya aap paanchvi pass se tez hai’ followed it, again hosted by SRK. People openly accepted the movie stars giving channels better TRPs. Akshay Kumar jumped on the bandwagon with the desi version of Fear Factor, Khatron Ke Khiladi (KKK)’. Shilpa Shetty hosted the Big Boss followed by Arshad Warsi in its second season. Amitabh Bachchan returned after a gap in television with the season three of Big Boss. Salma hosted Dus Ka Dum for Sony last year and now hosts the fourth season of Big Boss. And Priyanka Chopra taking over from Akshay Kumar in KKK3. In the interim, Abhishek Bachchan too unsuccessfully tried his hand at reality TV with Bingo Nite

Channels say that the stars attract viewers, which is right but I beg to differ on the pint that it increases viewer ship of its other shows since viewers want to know more about the channels. It bring sup a question that ‘people watch channels or do they watch the show’? for examples, KBC 4 is being telecast now on Sony compared to Star Plus earlier. And it has got a great opening. Thus it proves that people watch the show rather than the channel.

The other question is the amount of money the celebrities charge. AB, SRK and Salman Khan are rumoured to be charging an eight figure amount per episode. Analysts wonder if the channels even manage to break-even with those kinds of expenses. Not matter the amounts of ad time they spend with premium ad rates, it is difficult to recover the costs. The need of the hour according to channels is to differentiate the content with a celebrity show to add to the product mix. For the celebrities though, it’s a win-win situation. Not only do they get phenomenal compensation but also increase their popularity among viewers and acting as a springboard to promote their upcoming movies.

From the current scenario, it seems that channels need celebrities more than the other way round with celebrities laughing all the way to the bank.

The Currency War

The world is gradually moving out of recession with the emerging economies doing it quickly while the developed world on the rise as well albeit a bit slowly. However the recovery has been much faster than expected due to the cohesive action, unprecedented before, of all central bankers. Some economists though are skeptical of the recovery and fear a double dip recession though not as difficult as the one in 2008-09.

On the contrary, currently the developed world's central banks are moving at varying speeds and intensity to respond to a weak recovery so as to reduce the risks of a global deflation and restrain their currencies from rising against those of their trading partners. They all are working through indirect ways to spur growth. Initially it was the fiscal action, now it is monetary action. Currency bring used to gain cost advantage over other countries.

The currencies being kept artificially low to make exports lucrative. China is the best example of a country who has managed to keep the yuan artificially low. During the boom years, no one bothered but now with growth difficult, every one is walking down the same path. Brazil is doing it so is Japan. The US can’t do it because it’s the global currency and its strength depends as much on its economic policies as on the other world currencies.

Central bankers elsewhere are strongly indicating that they are preparing to reduce interest rates to reflate their economies at a time when fiscal policy has started to reduce to follow fiscal prudence. Developed economies such as those in Western Europe have to go in for austerity measures to survive. So currency weakening seems to be the best solution.

This solution though is a very short term measure. Fundamentals will not be the reason for recovery which will be artificial and fragile. Though the attempt by the US, Japan and Europe to pressurize china to let its currency--widely regarded as undervalued--rise faster.

If exchange-rate policy is being used for growth, then it would inhibit the global imbalances in trade highly favoured for export-oriented China and consumption addicted developed markets.

With low interest rates, money is flowing in emerging markets such as India, China and Brazil who have stared to increase interest rates for fear of inflation. This excess flow of funds is upping their stock indices and putting upward pressure on their currency. Thus the actions by countries to restrict funds inflow and keep their currency appreciation under control. This is resulting in currency wars by all countries throwing the effects of globalization out of the window. This isn’t going to make the situation any better. It will just delay the inevitable.

We are the Blackberry boys- the next cool anthem

Vodafone does it again. They just seamlessly continue with awesome communications through their TVCs. It is a combined effort of marketing and advertising creative. Without the other, things would not have been the way they are. Vodafone is easily the brand with the highest recall. Its pioneering advertisements have given them an edge over not only its immediate competitors but also in the advertising clutter.

The Vodafone pug became the most prized property amongst children of the affluent classes. Although the pug belonged to Hutch, its transfer to Vodafone hasn’t been noticed as much. Then came the phenomenal Zoozoos which catapulted creative innovation to stratospheric levels. Lately Vodafone’s campaign targeting the pre-paid users with Rs. 4 plans and the lovable parsi parrot too had a high recall. Immediately its competitors followed suit and launched low cost plans just like the way they launched Value-added services usage ads after Zoozoos.

So Vodafone thinks first which then becomes the norm to follow. Its latest ad ‘We Are the Blackberry Boys’ is on the way to becoming the next cool anthem amongst college going kids for whom it is targeted. A very good case of two good brands coming together was benefiting the other. The marketing acumen was to target the youngsters to use internet on the phone which gives more revenues to the service providers. The problem was about the perception that Blackberry phones are used only by working professionals and businessman who want to check emails and are constantly on the move. By targeting the affluent youngsters who have the disposable income, the market pie has increased. This has been aided by the urge for people to update their social networking accounts like twitter or facebook frequently.

The ad is a clutter breaker and although being in English, is appropriately targeted. The ad at first seems to be a foreign Blackberry-Vodafone ad telecast in India but it should be no surprise to anyone that it is indeed made by Ogilvy India for the Indian audiences. On the contrary, I wouldn’t be surprised if the ad is played in the developed markets and wins an award or two at advertising festivals.

Why Johnny can’t Brand- Rediscovering the Lost Art of the Big Idea

Too much theory and not enough reality is an obstructive force that keeps Johnny from developing a good brand. Nothing can summarize it better than this book ‘Why Johnny can’t Brand- Rediscovering the Lost Art of the Big Idea’ by Bill Schley & Carl Nichols, Jr. According to them, marketing jargon such as brand charisma, brand chronicles, brand ethos, brand karma among a host of other brand adjectives can be obtained only if your product/ service has a real idea, an unique idea or as they decide to call it, ‘the Dominant Selling Idea DSI. The ‘one’ specialty which separates you fro competition.

The book gives us some insight into the thought process that the brand titans of the yesteryears such as David Ogilvy or Rosser Reeves followed to give cult status to the brands they made. They are known as the Granite pages since they have to be chiseled in stone for its posterity.

Granite page 1: Number 1 is holy

As famously said by the ‘Positioning gurus’, “Its better to be first than it is to be better”. The authors highlight the importance of being first in the minds of the consumer. The human mind always remembers the first. So if you want to be remembered, be a first in whatever you do. If you are not first, create a specialty where you are first. A specialty which has to be Superlative S (in attribute or benefit), Important I (to the customer), Believable B (as in coming from the company and with a ‘reason why’), Memorable M (a campaign that has a high recall value and an emotional connect to the product when the communication is seen) and Tangible T (can be measured by the customer when experiencing the product/ service).

Granite page 2:

‘The Positioning Paradox’ is that the power of your message is directly proportional to how simple you can make it and how few words and images cane be used to say it. Don’t tell all the attributes or benefits at one go. The human mind as a capacity to remember just one thing from a communication. No point trying to bombard them with a plethora of reasons why your product is good. The best thing has to be highlighted. The narrower your focus, the wider your message goes.

Granite page 3: Credibility or believability:

This is in sync with the law of line extension. Same brands name with a different category. It doesn’t work. Xerox was successful in photo copier but not in PCs.

Granite page 4: Make me an offer I can’t refuse

The eight emotion evoking metaphors related to human heart must be used directly or indirectly. They are- Happier, smarter, healthier, richer, safer, secure, attractive and successful. Craft a core message upfront. Give him something that he wants first. Details can be shared later when he is interested.

Granite page 5: People remember what they feel.

The reason is that the power, clarity and endurance of memory is directly proportional to the amount of emotion attached to it. We all remember our first date, when we won the world cup or life changing events in our personal life. If we can attach a memory to our product, you have a winner on your hands. Eg. The Cadbury’s campaign of ‘Kuch meetha ho jaye’ for all festivals.

Granite page 6: Trust isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.

Thus we now have more focus on PR than advertising although advertising can never go out of business since PR has a limited scope and difficult to implement. People respect news coming from a third party than the source itself.

As mentioned above, the SIBMT make a DSI. The DSI is a fusion of your brand name with a number 1 specialty in the customer’s mind. E.g. ‘the best search engine’ is a specialty. ‘Google is the best search engine is a DSI

Thus the name is what matters for a customer. As famously said, ‘Companies manufacture products. Customers buy Brands’. But the category and specialty come before a brand.

The buying process starts with the industry followed by the category, then the specialty, then the number 1 in specialty and then the brand.

The practical application after reading this book is the ultimate DSI test: for any brand you see, start applying the test. Following are the things to consider. (1) Is the message S, I, B? (2) Can I substitute the name of the brand with its competitor in the ad or is it a specialty only I can boast of? (3) In the ad, is the product a star or is it in the background?

Now after all this about DSI, we need to know how to go about knowing or analyzing data to find that DSI. There are some templates given by the authors.

1. Pre-emptive DSI- this generally applies for a company which has launched a new product in the market unknown to the market. E.g. an i-phone. Although there are other business phones, an i-phone separates itself from the Blackberrys, Androids and Communicators of the world.
2. Magic ingredient DSI- this is like the gold dust where you start to own a name in the minds of the prospect through your communication. E.g. saasta for Big Bazaar.
3. Sleeping beauty DSI- this is a classic case of a feature present in all competitions products but no one knows about it. You are the first one to start boasting about it. E.g. Shell started proclaiming that it has a chemical which improves performance of the car. Although all gasolines have that chemical. But people started to believe only Shell
4. 2 in one DSI: you combine two individual specialties and make a new one. E.g. Mahindra Xylo which is a combination of a sedan and a SUV.
5. Spin DSI: it is like repositioning.
6. Pure original DSI: this is the most difficult and is done only when there is an invention. This happens more in technology-intensive companies who bring technology to differentiate.

DSI as said above is a combination of SIBMT. But that is to formulate a DSI. How about communicating it. The DSI Star as it is called here, comprises of 5 units. The brand name. An unique ownable specialty. The DSI tagline. Key visual in terms of logo or identity and the DSI level performance which is equivalent to the tangible aspect.

Brand name is the most essential since it is the first thing that registers in the mind of the consumer and separates it from competition, literally.

The unique ownable specialty forms the core of the DSI star and has to be superlative. However it should be in such a way that the competition cannot be able to copy it easily. Thus you specialty should not be in terms of cost or technology which can be easily copied. E.g. launch of a 3D TV can be unique but if the competition immediately launches it, you lose your uniqueness.

The Tagline needs to complement the specialty. It cannot be generic. E.g. Deutsche bank’s tagline of ‘Passion to Perform’ can be for a car as well or even an educational institution. HSBC banks tagline ‘the world’s local bank’ talks of its intense distribution capability and understanding of the cultures.

Key visual refers to the eye catching element of human nature. The McDonald’s man stands for its uniqueness. The Bull in the logo of Merrill Lynch tells you about the bullish nature of its banking performance although it didn’t save it from the economic catastrophe of 2008.

DSI level performance is the actual test at the hands of the consumer. Whether you are true to your communication of being the best for a particular attribute or benefit.

The latter part of the book then tells you about how to go about finding the DSI through interviews internally and from external sources. To find that one unique specialty that differentiates you from competition.

SMS marketing- excruciatingly irritating

A couple of years back when tariffs for cell phones was falling off a cliff although not as much as 1 paise per second, we had irritating calls selling us credit cards, loans, insurance products and mutual funds. The matter was taken up in court and we had the ‘Do not disturb’ registration made mandatory by the apex court for all telecom service providers. Now this calling has been replaced by SMSes. The purpose? The same. Selling you everything (from every manner of business: insurance companies, realtors, bars and restaurants, neighbourhood grocers, stockbrokers, gyms, and schools) that can be sold under the sun, right from apparels costing a few hundred to houses running in crores. It is supposed to be not as irritating as calls. But does it make a difference to an end customer. For him, sitting in do-or-die meeting with a client, receiving a message selling you a watch which is 40 percent off is frustrating to say the least.

I am just wondering whether the concept of target market still exists. Because the nature of these messages targeting people who are nowhere close to the prospective candidate is alarming. Imagine a BPO employee receiving a message to buy property worth a couple of crores in central Mumbai would be blasphemous. However the reason put forth by media planners, if there is any planning done for this, is the cost attached to reach a sizeable amount of people.

When we compare other media vehicles, according to Lodestar UM, a media buying agency, the cost to reach 1,000 people via print is, on average, Rs180 for an ad sized 100 column cm. Via a 30-second television advertisement, reaching 1,000 people costs Rs25. whereas to reach a 1000 people via these SMSes is roughly Rs. 30. The average response rate to these SMSes is roughly 1%, and even less for realtors—low, but acceptable for such inexpensive advertising, and higher than an Internet banner ad’s average of 0.5% for click-throughs.

There are not many companies who specialize in this. The sheer ease of sending these messages and a per-SMS price that has plummeted in near-suicidal manner over the last two years, have combined to yank this industry into overdrive.

The largest sender of such SMSes is ValueFirst Messaging Pvt. Ltd, and its chief executive officer estimates that 150 million marketing messages—of both spam and non-spam variety- is sent every day in India. Around 30% of these are promotional SMSes. The remaining would then be service messages—SMSes that the receiver has opted to get, such as bank account activity alerts.

Nowadays, the margins are very thin which will soon result in consolidation. From an SMS costing Rs1.50; the margin, per SMS, is now often a solitary paisa, and sometimes less. Economies of scale are the reason for survival of some of these companies like ValueFirst Messaging.

As this marketing becomes old, the regulators will come into focus and a do not disturb registry would soon spring up here. And people are not going to buy a home or take a loan for a car or buy a mutual fund based on an SMS. It isn’t impulsive buying. Although it’s just an informative medium, it would do more harm than gain.

The ‘key number’ conundrum- to put or not to put

For the uninitiated (i.e. people who do not work in an advertising agency), a key number is the name of the advertising agency written on a print ad in a newspaper or magazine. It acts as an identification tool for the agency to generate new business where prospective clients would go to an agency after getting impressed by the creative. However with the advent of afaqs and exchange4media, you get a complete details of which agency is handling which client. Thus you see a lot of ads (that too full page or half page without the key number). The question now arises is how important is the key number and has it lost its sell-by date?

In the good old days of advertising where there were a handful of agencies in India with 15% commission, the clients were wooing the agencies. The tables have turned. Now, the agencies are wooing clients and the commissions are coming down with each passing day. The bargaining power now lies with the clients. If the client says that they want to increase the logo size or the phone number should be more easily readable, the agency has to follow suit. The biggest of agencies in India are under pressure from the client. Thus many times the creative is influenced heavily by the client where the creative team is in complete disagreement and the result is no key number. This means that the agency wants to say that it does not own the creative. It is sort of a silent protest from the agency for the client. But does it really matter? The client wants to sell their product or service. They are not concerned about their creative. A shift in behaviour is also due to the fact that the client doesn’t see any value addition from the account management or planning.

An analogy can be drawn towards a luxury or premium product company wanting to launch a medium priced or low priced product. Without wanting to make the upmarket customer feel like buying a mass product, brands are launched under new names. Thus by not writing a key number, the agency in effect means that it does not agree to the creative. Yet it has to release the ad because of commercial reasons. An offset of this shift in power is the increase in number of scam ads. That is the only way the creative guys can let loose their creative juices.

Pioneering effort by Ogilvy India with the Vodafone TVC campaign:

The zoozoos were one of the most successful TVC campaigns in a long time. Generally you had a couple or more ads for a particular brand of products. With the zoozoos, Vodafone and Ogilvy India went ahead and made 30 ads for showcasing the Value added services (VAS) campaign in 2009. they were the talk of the town during IPL 2. Come IPL3 and the zoozoos are back but they have lost the zing.

One thing thought noticeable is that some other brands too have followed suit with a number of ads. Tata Docomo with its caller tune variety of ads, Airtel with Sharman Joshi and Idea with Abhishek Bachchan. All three were for the Value added services. The difference would be in Docomo ads which were particularly for the caller back tunes where the caller listens to the tune set by him rather than the tune set by the person called. Maxx mobile too followed it with Mahendra Singh Dhoni but in a small way where they too had a series of ads though not in the same quantity.

The scale for each campaign though could be different. The zoozoos must have cost a bomb for production. The Airtel ads too would have cost more. Similar would have been the case for Docomo. Idea’s campaign though was different. It has Abhishek Bachchan sitting in one position with his traditional peon and the attractive secretary mouthing different dialogues each time. The setting was same every time except the dialogues. It was a very cost effective way of producing a series of ads.

Thus Ogilvy India has stayed true to its reputation of being one of the best agencies and the most innovative as well.

Usage of children in endorsements:

The rule of advertising is to use celebrity or people in ads who relate to the target audience. E.g. A sportsman would endorse a sports shoes not a filmstar. The rule doesn’t hold in the continuously changing market in India. Especially if it involves children. There was a time when children were used in ads only for children’s products such as nutrition category (Bournvita, Chyawanprash) or ice creams (Amul or Kwality) or chocolates (Cadbury).

As time progressed children were used more and more in ads for products not bought for them but were for household consumption such as consumer durables (Airconditoners, refrigerators, television, Audio systems) or food (Maggi, type of masala). Pester power was considered to be the weapon then. Things have not changed. Pester power still remains but the thought process behind using children for an array or products/ services has changed. Nowadays children are used for all types of product/ service categories. Aviation, banks (Axis bank, IDBI bank, Kotak bank), Cars (Volkswagen, Maruti), insurance (ICICI Pru, HDFC Standard Life, Metlife, Max newyork), detergent (Rin, Ariel, Tide, Wheel), oral care (Colgate, Pepsodent), tourism (Mahindra resorts), real estate (almost all ads in print media such as Lodha, DLF, HDIL), mutual funds, retail (big bazaar), Textile (Raymonds), telecommunications (Vodafone), oil and gas(Jaypee), cement, steel to name a few companies. You name a category and children are used. The rationale being that research has shown ads with children having more recall value than its ads of competitors without children. Children are endearing to all of us. This could be the reason for the high recall.

Communication is all about the message rather than the characters involved. The effectiveness of an ad is in understanding the way to reach the target audience and knowing the idea to make the target audience relate to the message and thus the product/ service. This has been understood by the Indian advertising industry.

Thus we see the latest offering from Metlife fixed income plan where we see the grand son blackmailing his grandmother for buying stuff and relating it to fixed income from financial products. A child in an ad who does not know what insurance means.

IPL- truck load of brands

“Break The Clutter”. One of the first things a client asks when an agency presents a concept for a TVC is whether the ad will stand out on its own by breaking the clutter of other brands on TV. Whether it has a recall factor by ways of a celebrity or a jingle or just a completely new way of dissipating information (ala zoozoos). Frequently we hear the agency saying that this ad breaks the clutter but it rarely does because when the agency presents the commercial to the client in the clients’ boardroom with all the speaker sound at its peak, complete silence and everyone in rapt attention focused on the screen. With so much attention, any averagely good ad would seem good. The real litmus test starts when the viewer has the remote in his hand with options available to change channels during program breaks.

IPL 3.0 currently being aired on TV has all the mass product/ service companies hopping on to the bandwagon showcasing their wares. The official sponsors of the event are DLF, Vodafone, Hero Honda, Fly Kingfisher, Citi, Karbonn Mobiles and Maxx Mobiles. Thus we have a sponsor name for each event in the match e.g. DLF Maximum, Citi Moment of success, Karbonn Kamaal catch, Maxx Mobile strategic timeout just like we have Hyderabadi Biryani and Kashmiri Pulav. The commentators use these phrases as if they are getting paid to mouth them as frequently as they can. Whenever the MRF blimp is shown, the commentators say a very uniform line which seems that they are given a script to read out. It goes like this “MRF blimp. At the forefront of technology. The first to get the blimp in India”. Thus there are 8 official sponsors.

SET MAX which broadcasts the tournament and has paid a mammoth amount for the telecast rights also has its own set advertisers. The cola Majors, Pepsi and Coca Cola, Consumer durable majors such as LG, Samsung, Videocon, Godrej, Sony, Whirlpool, telecom service providers Vodafone, Idea, DoCoMo, Aircel, Airtel and the latest entrant Videocon, Mobile handset manufacturers Videocon, Karbonn mobile, Maxx mobile and Micromax. Apart from these, some others such as Hyundai i10, Kent water purifiers, Vaseline, Metlife insurance and Havells. Whats more, now there are ads between balls compared to between overs earlier. There is no place in the stadium without ads plastered. The boundary roped, boundary boards, stadium walls, the playing field, the stumps, umpire’s attire, third umpire display board, the sight screen. The total tally thus is 21 plus 8 i.e. 29 With such a huge number how does one expect to break the clutter?

The zoozoos are back but the fizz is missing

IPL 2009 in South Africa was as much remembered for the miraculous comeback of Deccan Chargers to win the trophy as for the adorable cute looking Zoozoos. They took the advertising industry by storm. Everyone took notice and was the talk of the town. They were the ultimate examples of clutter breaking advertisements.

The zoozoos are back this time too during the IPL. However they don’t seem to have had an effect of a similar kind. The reasons are many. For one, the novelty factor has eroded. Last time, they were like a breath of fresh air. This time, they were expected. Secondly, there is viewer fatigue. Third but the most important reason which could have overcome the other reasons is the zoozoo creatives themselves. None of the ads this time have been outright funny. The only exception could be the ‘jobs on your mobile’ ad where one of the zoozoo acts as cannon gunpowder fired by other zoozoo who is the boss. People can relate to it because it is a real life situation where no subordinate likes his boss.

Judging from the type of work on display with regards to the creatives, I can presume that Ogilvy did not want to continue with the zoozoos. Knowing the high standards of creativity, they would have wanted to come up with something new. The client Vodafone though would have insisted to continue with zoozoos to leverage on their popularity. This is again an example of the power the client has over the agency. If the best advertising agency in the country has to submit to the pressures of the client, you can guess what the situation must be for other agencies.

Why Screenagers are a Marketers nightmare

Screenagers continuously move from screen to screen and they have plethora of content to look at. The attention span is less since they so not know what they want. The are as capricious as any spoilt child. This is a set of people who are not awed by technology but see it as a natural evolution. They thrive on technology and they are the ideal choice fro new technology products.

But as they say, every coin has two sides or rather it is like a two-edged sword. They will immediately throw away a bad product or an un-user friendly product.

Screenagers tend to be an extremely well-informed lot which enables them to see and switch from one thing to the other with great accuracy and immediacy. In a sense, their ability to process large amounts of information simultaneously is rather staggering. Even the speed with which they switch between screens is constantly rising. One screen that is facing an erosion of sorts is the oldest screen of them all, TV.

The attention spans of these people are at their lowest when they are watching television, while it’s extremely high when they are on the Internet or on the mobile. I think the 15 second advertisement will soon be history. With multiscreens comes the multitasking behaviour, which crunches attention span to five seconds or less. That is all the time we as marketers will have to communicate our message, our positioning and make an impression. TV will have to interact with the other screens and that advertising ideas need to remain alive in that scenario.

Given that they are the prime target audience for numerous brands, marketers suddenly find themselves chasing shadows. They don’t like their screens being filled up with sales pitches, they have short attention spans and time is always at a premium. If they are in a car they have no time to stare at hoardings since they are busy with one or the other screen. One of the big challenges as a marketer is to find non-intrusive ways to access them.

SMS blasts are hugely ineffective and irritatingly intrusive. The internet media was saved by Google’s search engine discovery — which led to the birth of data marketing . We need its equivalents for mobile phones, gaming consoles, etc. marketers need to pull up their socks to tap this difficult market. While mobile and the internet as media are being increasingly consumed, the time spent in communication for these screens is less compared to the Television.

A lot of interaction across screens are visual led, rather than information intensive, communication targeted at consumers particularly on the Internet and mobile phones need to be of the same nature. Unfortunately, that is not happening.

Integration of these 3 screens is the most essential for success and to understand the want of these screenagers. If we treat each screen as a different world, we have lost at the first step itself.

Catch them young is the way forward since they are at a very Impressionable years. Not just these screenagers, but the general population is moving towards digital too. Mobiles are the answer to get near the populace since that gadget is with almost everyone and is available 24x7.

The truth though is that as of now nobody knows how to deal with this situation. For years marketers and agencies have agonized over the remote and today the remote seems like a dream compared to the nightmare that multiscreening is. Because at the end of the day, the problem is how do you reach a Milind Patil, a twenty-something from one of the four metros who stares into his phone screen every now and again either messaging or reading messages.

Creative Brief for Zoozoos

Being an advertising professional in the Client Servicing department, i give creative briefs day-in and day-out. For a change, i thought let me reverse the process. Following is my attempt to give a creative brief which can result in the creative product "Zoozoos"

Creative brief:

1. Who are we? What are we advertising?

Vodafone is a Multinational company operating in 31 countries and is the second largest telecom service provider in India in terms of revenues and subscribers after Bharti-Airtel. Over the years, Vodafone Essar, under the Hutch brand, has been named the ‘Most Respected Telecom Company’, the ‘Best Mobile Service in the country’ and the ‘Most Creative and Most Effective Advertiser of the Year. They believe in innovation and thus want to promote their Value-Added Services (VAS).

Voice has become commoditized and has ceased to be a tool for differentiation. Thus there is a need to develop alternative revenue streams for the telecom service providers. This is even more necessary due to the continuous entry of new players bringing down tariffs in the process reducing revenues for telecom service providers from voice.

There is stiff competition among the players resulting in one of the lowest tariff regimes ever. All operators are spending huge amounts on promotions and brand building. TV has been the preferred media for the ad spend accounting for more than 50 %

There are three categories of VAS applications

1. Entertainment- e.g. Jokes, Bollywood Ring-tones & games
2. Information- e.g. news alerts, stock market alerts, movie tickets,
3. Mobile commerce- e.g. mobile banking or mobile payments

Objective: to create awareness about the VAS applications and induce trial.

2. Target group: VAS applications are available for people of all age groups, right from exam results for a 20 year old to devotional songs for the old.

Thus age group is 20 onwards for both, men and women, married or single.

Media habit: TV and print majorly for people above 25. College going students nowadays are exposed to high degree of social networking sits such as facebook, orkut, twitter.

(Both men and women)

Top level executives: 40 years and above

Requirements with VAS applications- high speed internet connectivity. Major users of email on the phone. High income and high spenders

Mid level executives 30- 40 years

Requirements: high speed internet connectivity. Are technologically comfortable and hence use VAS applications such as mobile banking and information search apart from email. Medium income, high spending

Young professionals between age group of 22-30: tech savvy, early adopters, high spenders on technology due to either being single or experimental in attitude.

Youth from 15 – 22 years who are studying: early adopters but spending is constrained due to dependence on parents for income. Entertainment focus, affinity for social networking and peer communication. Peers act as strong influencers

We need to get away from the pug as it belonged to Hutch.

3. Competitive framework:

Primary competitors: Airtel (1^st Leader), RCom (3^rd Challengers) in terms of subscribers. BSNL (4th), Idea Cellular (5th), Aircel, Tata DoCoMo, MTNL follow.

(As per the figures of Quarterly reports for the quarter ended June 2009)

Secondary competitors in CDMA segment: Tata Indicom

Over the years, telecom players have used celebrities. Airtel has Shah Rukh Khan as its brand ambassador. RCom has Hrithik Roshan, BSNL has Deepika Padukone, Idea has Abhishek Bachchan, Aircel has Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Vodafone does not have a brand ambassador.

Airtel has over the years gone from tangible aspects in its communication to the intangible. Most notable of which is the bridging boundaries ad “There is no war or barrier that can keep us apart, if only we talk to each other”. The signature Airtel tune by AR Rahman has a very high recall.

RCom started with ‘karlo duniya mutti mein” and initiating the tariff wars not only in terms of voice price but also handsets. Presently it is running the Hrithik Roshan ads for promoting its GSM service.

Idea cellular started off slow but its “Sirji” campaign bought it into the limelight along with the ‘walk when you talk” ad. It has always experimented with social issues.

Aircel was a regional player in south but went national with Dhoni as its brand ambassador.

4. How is the brand perceived before the communication?

‘Happy-To-Help’ campaign. Customer service was never the focus of telcos. In an increasingly tough environment, Vodafone wanted to cater to this untapped issue which is so integral to service companies yet wasn’t a focus. Telcos wanted to increase number of subscribers as it allowed them greater reach and economies of scale. It also allowed them to ask for more ‘spectrum’ with the increase in number of subscribers.

Thus the ‘Happy to Help’ campaign was evolved to give the customers what was missing. This campaign was implemented across 45 offices and 4000+ Vodafone stores and mini stores involving over 10000 employees. The communication was through employee signing off emails and service calls with ‘Happy to help’ message, the cute little girl and the pug became synonymous with ‘helping each other’.

5. Insights: Consumer insight: mobile phones today have moved beyond their fundamental role of communications and have graduated to become an extension of the persona of the user. All are witnessing an era when users buy mobile phones not just to be in touch, but to express themselves, their attitude, feelings & interests. Customers continuously want more from their phone. E.g. Your caller tune signifies your personality trait or your mood

6. Core proposition?

Intangible: Fun with the cell phone.

7. Tone

Vodafone-Essar is among the top 2 players and thus it is a leader. Vodafone ads have always been clutter breakers right from the hutch boy and pug to the ‘Happy to help’ girl and the pug.

8. How do you want the brand to be perceived post the new brand communication?

Go beyond the connectivity, low cost and voice clarity aspects. Value-added services should be the growth driver for Vodafone. Volvo has top-of-the-mind recall when we say ‘safety’ or Bajaj has top-of-the-mind recall for scooters, Vodafone should be top-of-the-mind recall for Value added services.

Understanding Mark-to-Market (M2M) Accounting rules:

Mark-to-market accounting rules have been at the fore front of assault of accountants since the downfall of investment bank Lehman Brothers and the subsequent financial and economic crisis. They have been partly held responsible for the book losses made by the banks, at a time when without it, the losses would not have been visible and given more time for banks to come out of the unholy mess it finds itself in at the present juncture. The other side of the debate is in favour of M2M rules who feel it is an appropriate way to value assets of banks and investment banks too.

Mark-to-Market, as is self explanatory, means the valuation of a particular asset class be arrived at, not based on its historical value, but based on its present market value. Thus the book value of an asset will be different at majority of times from its market value since it would be a function of demand-supply mismatch and other macro-economic factors.

This is the crux of the problem. The crisis, whose signs were visible in May 2008 following the takeover of investment bank Bear Stearns, precipitated into a full blown crisis post September 2008. pundits blamed the M2M rules for the exaggerated loses shown by the banks since they had to mark-to-market the assets which were at an all time low due to the bubble bursting and CDS liability on majority of banks.

Consider a bank with all different types of securities which include bonds, stocks, commodities, hedged currencies and other simple instruments such as fixed deposits, mortgages and credit card loans. The values of these instruments change everyday due to the various selling and buying happening in the market.

Post September 2008, the credit markets froze and there was the liquidity crunch. There were a lot of sellers wanting to sell their doubtful derivative instruments but they did not find any takers. This resulted in the valuation of majority of instruments especially bonds and derivatives taking a beating. They were sold at fire sale prices to distressed investors wanting to buy at discounted prices. Thus the banks had to book losses for instruments which were on its books and post losses. Thus the emperor was without clothes and M2M was blamed for it.

Franklin Roosevelt suspended it in 1938, and the end of the great depression started. Between then and 2007 there were no panics or depressions. But when FASB 157, a statement from the Federal Accounting Standards Board, went into effect in 2007, reintroducing mark-to-market accounting, look at what has happened.

Emotional communication from a technology company

A first impression when one reads this headline is that it is either for an insurance company since a insurance companies are one of the highest spenders after FMCG and telecom at present or it is for a may be it is for a healthcare giant such as Fortis or Apollo or Wockhardt to name a few. But most people would say it is for an insurance company.

Why would a technology company like Siemens put up advertisement with a headline meant for a product/ service for the end consumer? The body cop talks of energy efficient technology and IT solutions which are used in hospitals. Thus it is a business-to-business service. How is it related to the end consumer? Is the consumer going to check what IT solutions and equipments the hospital has before getting admitted?

I think the marketing managers are thinking of something more than the obvious. They are trying to increase the brand equity of Siemens as a brand for the end consumer although their product/ service is not directly sold to them. Just like how IBM talks of green and environment consciousness, Siemens too wants to tread that path. They want to be known as a ‘caring’ company not only for the environment but also the people through its clean technology. It wants to attract the best of employees.

If one really wants to think out-of-the-box and try to read too much between the lines, then may be Siemens wants to get into insurance or healthcare sector. And this is an attempt to sow the seeds in that direction.

Difficulty in catching the attention of the youth in this cluttered market:

Self reference criteria (SRC) has been one of the major reasons for companies failing when they have decided to open businesses in different countries with different culture and socio-economic and infrastructural parameters. Be it Wal-mart in South America or Kellogg’s when it launched in India (it failed since cornflakes are eaten with cold milk in the US and Indian people drink hot milk) thinking of India as the country with half a billion population of middle class ready for consumerism. But they failed since the Indian population behaved in a different way from the way a developing country population has in history.

A week back I met my school friends after a ling time. Some of them were working fro IT companies, some in manufacturing, some in finance and some in services. While we were talking, I mentioned about the broking firms such as Motilal Oswal and Angel broking. They were not aware of it. I asked them in astonishment that did they not see so many ads in TV or print about these companies. And they casually brushed it off saying who watches ads in TV or who reads newspapers. They never read magazines. The marketer in me suddenly woke up and I started to read between the lines. These young people do not read newspapers. They change channel during commercial breaks. They have a very small attention span and like all people while growing up, are restless.

How is it possible then for marketers to catch their attention and build a loyalty? These people, as per the latest fad, are heavily into social networking. A lot ha been said about the future of advertising being on social networking and this is the place to be. I am a bit skeptical about it. It seems to be a passing phase. Once the novelty factor wears off, social networks would also be just ‘one of the media’.

This is a self reference criteria which I am looking at. But I don’t think I would be totally off the mark. The general behavior of the youth seems to be like that. Thus it seems that it would get increasingly difficult to get returns for your advertising spends on mass media. It would require more a focused approach especially if the product/ service is for this young audience.

Love-Hate relationship between the ‘Creative’ and ‘Servicing’ in an ad agency

As the famous saying goes “Women- you can’t live with ‘em, you can’t live without ‘em”. Don’t jump to the conclusion that I am a Male Chauvinist. It’s just that I want to draw an analogy with the advertising world. Creatives and Client Servicing can’t stand each other but they can’t help it. Because without the other, neither of them can do anything. There is a Love-Hate relationship between the two. The occasions when the creative and servicing has agreed are far and few.

But without the servicing guys, the creative won’t have the client to work for and without the creatives, the servicing won’t have any one to do the creatives for. An advertising agency should be creative because that is what advertising is for. Creativity should, therefore, ideally take precedence over other things. Alas ‘ideal’ things never happen. In an ultra competitive environment where the client calls the shots and has all the bargaining power over agencies, except for the top 3-5 agencies, the client has to be taken care of. Thus it becomes a tight rope walk for the servicing guys. Neither can they offend the creatives nor can they say ‘no’ to the client for a particular rendition of the creative. And this is where the love-hate relationship blossoms (with a tinge of sarcasm).

Creatives complain that the servicing guys do not know how to sell the creative to the client. Servicing guys say that the creatives are not able to give what the client wants according to the brief. Let’s make an attempt to understand both the sides. Advertising is a service which is offered to the client. To be more precise, a ‘creative’ service. Advertising helps to promote the product of the client in a creative manner which the client himself cannot do. Thus it is outsourced to a specialist which is the ‘advertising agency’.

The process starts first with understand the needs/ wants of the client. Servicing does that for the agency. The process is then continued with the creative rendition by the creatives which is facilitated by the ‘creative brief’ by the servicing. The marketing brief of the client is transferred into the creative brief. Thus the end product does not just have to be creative but also in sync with the marketing objective of the client. The creatives have to be made aware that we are not in an art competition where the best creativity is praised. The creativity has to result in sales for the client or brand building. If the creative isn’t in sync with the objectives, how can the servicing sell it? On the contrary, the servicing guys too need to be able to convince the client that the creative rendition is the apt for the set objective.

This however is a very subjective issue and varies with each client, each servicing guy and each creative. Thus the love-hate relationship will continue to be there.

How do we define ‘luxury’ for a marketer?

For any product/ service which has become a success, the natural progression is towards becoming a luxury product which becomes a source of pride or show-off for the user. This helps the company charge a premium for that particular product. The important question is that what can be defined as a luxury? Is it a tangible or intangible quality?

Luxury can be categorized in three types- accessible, aspirational and absolute. As we go from accessible luxury to aspirational luxury, the product/ service qualities become tangible and intangibly high, the price increases, the premiumness increases, the promotion becomes more focused and the distribution becomes exclusive.

As the name suggests, accessible luxury means the product has just the right amount of differentiation to charge a premium. Accessible luxury is for a product which a person normaly uses quite often. The consumer uses this accessible luxury to just satisfy his materialistic wants. E.g. a lower middle class family going to a multiplex once a month to watch a Rs. 200 per ticket movie is accessible luxury or in terms of a FMCg product, buying a Hide & Seek biscuit over a Parle G.

Aspirational luxury has the highest number of products falling in this category. This is for the upper middle class who have the means to continuously increase their standard of living. They are the most materialistic in nature. E.g. a family renovating their house with a decorative false ceiling and having a refurbished modular kitchen which is done once a decade. This type of luxury works best for consumer durables, cars, apparels, vacations and hospitality. E.g. a dinner at a five star hotel once a fortnight or a branded jeans like Levis or branded shoes like Nike, Reebok or Woodland. Slightly higher on the aspirational radar would be brands such as Mercedes or BMW.

Absolute luxury is absolutely absolute. There is no comparison. Very few own it. Very few dare to think of it. A Rolls Royce or a Private jet like the Gulfstream. Designer apparels by internationally acclaimed designers such as Dolce Gabbana or designer shoes by Jimmy Choo. Absolute luxury is difficult for brands to achieve if it has fallen ever in aspirational luxury let alone accessible luxury category. Absolute luxury show set the user distinctly apart from the crowd.

Finally, as we go from accessible to absolute luxury, the tangible part decreases and the intangible part increases in value.