Chat Bhandaar | Advertising & Marketing Blog

7 Pillars of a Business

A strong foundation is the key to any successful business. Your vision, your commitment, your purpose – all form the basis for an organisation. They are the all-important pillars, the most essential part of any building. In his groundbreaking Arthashastra, Chanakya a.k.a. Kautilya lists seven pillars for an organisation.

“The king, the minister, the country, the fortified city, the treasury, the army and the ally are the constituent elements of the state”.

Let us now take a closer look at each of them:

1. THE KING (The Leader)
All great organisations have great leaders. The leader is the visionary, the captain, the man who guides the organisation. In today’s corporate world we call him the Director, CEO, etc. Without him we will loose direction.

2. THE MINISTER (The Manager)
The manager is the person who runs the show – the second-in-command of an organisation. He is also the person whom you can depend upon in the absence of the leader. He is the man who is always in action. An extra ordinary leader and an efficient manager together bring into existence a remarkable organisation.

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TATA NANO: Failure Due to Perception

Many said it is not possible, others laughed and some even challenged the idea. As the world watched TATA did succeeded in delivering what was promised a car which costs INR 100000 or $2000 car or simply called as NANO. The motoring world took lessons from it to announce their own such projects including Volkswagen UP and small car project by Renault.

When Ferdinand Porsche was asked to develop Volkswagen (“people’s car” in German) which was capable of transporting two adults and three children, and would be available to citizens for about the price of a small motorcycle, the result was Volkswagen Beetle, which became the largest selling car and the most adorable family car for almost more than 50 years and literally became a cult figure, on the other hand NANO which too was supposed to be a peoples car, almost available at the price of an motorcycle yet could not achieve the same success. The failure of NANO as a product has many interesting factors, let’s take a closer look at the some of them.

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It Came, It Saw and It Conquered

Micromax in a span of merely five years, has metamorphosed itself from a company know initially as a vendor selling Chinese handsets to a conglomerate with offices in nine countries in addition to 23 across India, manufacturing mobile, data cards, smart-phones tablet – and now TV – giving big multinationals a run for their money.

Micromax currently leads the tablet market in India well ahead of giants like Apple, Samsung, Sony and Motorola, with a healthy growth y-o-y to become third largest mobile player. It has now forayed into home entertainment with flat panel Television sets and home theatre systems.

With this new division, Micromax is expecting to repeat the mobile phenomenon, a task which might seem uphill but when it comes to Micromax one can expect the unexpected. Given to the fact it has beaten the multinationals in the tablet market with a whooping share of 18.4 per cent as compared to 13.3 and 12.3 per cent market share enjoyed by Samsung and Apple respectively.

In branded handset market Micromax enjoys a healthy 8 per cent market share behind Nokia and Samsung and is currently 12^th largest manufacturer shipping four million handsets worldwide as in 2011. The figures are quite impressive and showcase its strength.

For a late entrant like Micromax, let’s explore key to its success!

When Micromax started its journey in 2008, the branded handset market was dominated by big players read Nokia, RIM, Samsung and Sony Erricson, while as other players like Motorola, Panasonic and Sharp to name a few, had either made an exit or were back on the drawing boards working on revamping their strategies. Even home-grown companies like Spice had launched few handsets but was nowhere close to making a dent in the market.

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Idea mobility!!!!!….. An Idea can change your life………

Idea Cellular has again come up with a new campaign which aims to showcase its strong network across India. The creative designed and executed by love-Lintas continues to further strengthen the brand. Before the actual release one minute TVC on 1-December, Idea created a buzz with four teaser films on 29^th December.

The beautifully created and executed film, with a hummable jingle shows people from various parts of the country humming ‘Honey Bunny’, which was picked by them when it was played on a phone, which belongs to a backpacker who has travelled across the country introducing people he has met to the ringtone and thereby popularising it.

The TVC which aims to showcase Idea’s connectivity succeeds in it as well.

It has been an interesting, ride for the telecom brand owned by Aditya Birla Group, which rose from being a brand with virtually no identity, to the number four private telecom player after Airtel, Reliance and Vodafone. With a presence in 17 circles and almost 98,441,714 subscribers, Idea has done it in a non traditional way: its marketing has stayed away from category codes while its advertising has bordered on the idiosyncratic: taking on matters of grave social or political importance and spinning them into a telecom story.

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The Rise and Rise of L.G Electronics in India!

India has always been a lucrative market for the MNC due to its size, population and spends habit. With the end of licence raj in 90’s Indian consumers is being wooed by every company on the planet from consumer durables to FMCG to electronics with its products. Lucky Gold star (L.G) as we know it is one of the companies which established it’s shop in India after the end of licence raj in 90’s, and is enjoying a healthy market share, while competing with other electronics giants. The Journey of L.G had its own up & downs but the success it enjoys today is very much due to the strategies in marketing or communication adopted by the group from time to time which has propelled its growth.

LG started its operation in 1947, when its founder Koo In-Hwoi started Lak-Hui (pronounced as Lucky) Chemicals. In 1952 it became the first Korean company to manufacture plastic. The group established another company known as Goldstar Co. Ltd to manufacture radio sets competing with other brands like Murphy, Philips among others. In 1958 both the companies were merged under to form Lucky-Goldstar.

During the licence raj, and with the start of colour-television in India post 1982, there was a tremendous increase in demand for television sets in India. As the state owned broadcast company started beaming sponsored programmes more and more consumers were looking to buy television sets which was a good sign for MNC’s, but the then existing policies did not allow the vendors to establish or sell their brands directly resulting in many JV and new companies. Groups like Toshiba joined hands with Videocon, JVC entered Indian market with Onida and BPL which had the licence to manufacture television set choose Sanyo. The then unknown company L.G joined hands with an India consumer electronics company Bestavision, but the JV failed like many others due to financial aspects as the Indian partner was not financially strong. It tried again in the mid-1990s, this time with the CK Birla group, but this failed, too for some unknown reasons.

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Mindtree’s new brand identity – a confidence towards future or threat from the past ?

MindTree Limited, originally incorporated as Mindtree Consulting Private Limited, is a mid-sized international information technology (IT) consulting and implementation company. It operates in two units: Product engineering Services and IT Services. Stated in the year 1999 by 10 industry professionals from Cambridge Technology Partners, Lucent Technologies, and Wipro, company made remarkable growth in a short span and surpassed USD 100 million in revenues in April 2006. In 2007, MindTree went Public and called for an IPO thereby becoming the First Indian Listed IT company. By 2011, Mindtree ranked #18 in Indian IT companies and overall #445 in Fortune India 500 list.

On January 28, 2011, Ashook Soota, one of the co-founders and Executive Chairman sent a mail to media that he has requested the MindTree Board to release him by March 31 as an employee and also as executive chairman and member of the MindTree Board. The Board accepted his resignation.

Ashok Soota, one of the icons of the Indian IT industry had a major role in Mindtree’s success story. There are very few people who can claim to have succeeded both as a CEO and as an entrepreneur. Ashok Soota is one of them. He became a CEO when he was just 34 years old, and went on to lead Wipro Infotech from a Rs 7- crore company in 1984 (when he joined) to a Rs 1,000- crore giant in 1999 (when he left to found MindTree Consulting). Soota’s entrepreneurial run at MindTree was a proven success, but he was not ready to rest on his laurels.

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And the Boss said!!!!! Let’s do some Branding……..

In today’s times Branding has become an essential and important aspect for companies and individuals to showcase their products, services & strengths to the consumers. What is termed as Branding or Marketing (in many companies & groups) is generally handled by some specialist from the trade also known as Marcom (Marketing Communication), Corporate Communications or Products Managers and so on. These guys are specialist because they are supposed to know the 5 elements of Branding, which makes these guys important.

And the boss said!!! A very strange callout you must be wondering why so?

Before we dig into it, leys understand the term branding and its legacy. The term branding which laterally evolved from the term brand and is used to identify one seller’s good or services as a distinct from the other sellers. The brand has certain attributes associated with it and is not just the Name, Logo or design which is usually termed as a brand. Brand means how an end user associates with the company. Sounds confusing? Not to worry will cover it in our next article.

The term branding is an extension of the term brand and has a very interesting history behind it. Branding began in the past as a way to identify one person’s cattle from another and it was achieved by the means of Hot iron Stamp. The cattle owned by one particular individual was marked the practice which might sound barbaric was a need of an hour as it was to protect the precious livestock from theft.

Over the years the practice evolved and was used by corporations to identify their products in the market and the process evolved with every step. As corporations started becoming bigger and bigger and eventually started to venture out in other markets as well as add to the fact that new mediums like Electronic, Internet along with the traditional media vehicle available, there was a need felt to improve the communication techniques to reach out to more consumers, and to beat the competitor in his or her own turf. Universities started offering it as a subject in for students to learn and understand it.

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LUCK!!!!!!!………. IT WORKS IN CREATIVE WORLD AS WELL

Ever wondered why Google is so popular?, or when while shopping for laptop why do we check names like DELL or SONY first and not HCL or ACER ?, when it comes to shoes why do we prefer WOODLAND rather than REDTAPE or REDCHIEF.

No the answer is not that DELL, SONY, Google or WOODLAND are brands, so are the others as well, the correct answer would be these are Iconic Brands and have established itself in the market.

If you Google for “WHAT ARE ICONIC BRAND” it will give you different links explaining that what the term means and how different agencies have helped to create it or rather how the agencies have actually created it.

This might sound true for many but the fact is that Iconic Brands just happen or they are bound to happen, Apple was to be an Iconic brand and Macintosh was the flagship product which was different from the other products sold at that time made it happen. SONY was an ordinary and small electronic company like many others which actually made history by using semiconductors chips (Transistors) for radio thus making it more portable resulting in an Ionic Brand. The Big Agencies associated with these Iconic Brands was a case of being at the right place at the right time.

Confused?

Say if Instead of XYZ Agency which was responsible for Macintosh, it would have been ABC Agency would it have stopped APPLE from becoming Iconic Brand?

Was it a great copy written by some big Copywriter which made you switch or choose GMAIL?

NIKE is a Brand because of “JUST DO IT”

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Airtel Second successful innings with Friendship!!!!!

Airtel recently launched ad campaign is an extension to its last ad campaign which revolved around friendship. Earlier communication was all about friendship while as the latest one speaks about its attributes that is sharing among friends or friendship is all about sharing. The latest communication ‘Jo mera hai woh tera hai’ from the company complements the earlier one which said ‘Har ek friend zaroori hota hai’.

‘Har ek friend zaroori hota hai’ & ‘Jo mera hai woh tera hai’ created by Taproot India is different from the earlier campaign ‘Dil jo chaahe paas laaye’ created by JWT.

The campaign has at its centre a 65 second Television commercial and a whooping 105 second long commercial released online (You Tube). The ad coupled with brilliant picturization, excellent score & upbeat mood is literally creating quite a buzz on digital and electronic spaces.

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NDTV VS TAM: a billion dollar suit !

Indian Broadcaster giant NDTV (New Delhi Television Limited) recently filed a lawsuit against The Nielsen Company worth billions. It claims that Nielsen Company subsidiary in India (Nielsen (India) Private Limited) has been manipulating TV ratings and viewership data in favor of TV channels who willing or unwilling pay bribes to its officials for manipulating data in their favor.

NDTV in their lawsuit claims that it had repeatedly experienced revenue losses due to rampant corruption in television viewership data published by TAM, a joint venture between by Nielsen and Kantar, for last eight years & despite several assurances from the company nothing was done to stop the practice of publishing corrupt TAM data or to fix it. It further claims that the low sample size of TAM further adds to its vows.

What is this TAM and how does it affect Broadcaster?

TAM which stands for Television Audience Monitoring is a methodology for determining ratings for various programs based on the viewership for that particular program telecasted. It is actually a market research which is done to judge the response in television Industry. As in any market research it is conducted by sampling certain areas. The data is filtered and the results are shared with the respective companies and advertisers, based on which advertising rates are decided by the company. The same kind of exercise is conducted by many marketing research companies for vendors from different fraternity like FMCG etc.

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Marketing Mishap: Kellogg’s – a failure of a brand

Kellogg’s was founded as the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company on February 19, 1906, by Will Keith Kellogg & his brother John Harvey Kellogg in Battle Creek, Michigan, United States. The company produced and marketed the hugely successful Kellogg’s Toasted Corn Flakes and was renamed the Kellogg Company in 1922.

From 1969 to 1977, Kellogg’s acquired various small businesses including Salad Foods, Fearn International, Mrs. Smith’s Pies, Eggo, and Pure Packed Foods and emerged as the market leaders in the ready-to-eat segment in the US and apart from U.S its products were being sold in more than 180 countries around the world. Kellogg’s became a name to reckon with throughout the world.

Kellogg’s was in fact known as the company that introduced the concept of Corn flakes as a breakfast throughout the world. It even introduced its products in the market where corn flakes has never been very popular as breakfast and converted them into a corn flake eating nations over a long period of time. Kellogg’s had proven that with right kind of marketing strategies and approach, markets could be tamed and molded the way corporations wanted.

In the late 80’s, Kellogg’s was riding on the success and was commanding a staggering 40 per cent of the US ready-to-eat market from its cereal products alone and with a yearly sales of $ 6 billion with 20 plants in 18 countries.

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Cadbury Gems repositioning to Target Adults with a new tagline

Cadbury is India’s largest chocolate maker and enjoys a healthy market share of more than 70% closely followed by Nestle which has a market share of 20%. The big two names in the chocolate market together enjoy more than 90% of the market while as the rest of the players, that is, Campco, Amul enjoy the rest. Cadbury commands the market with some great products like Dairy Milk, Five-star, Bourneville, and éclairs which are enjoyed by all.

Cadbury had decided to re-position another of its brand Gems which so far had appealed to kids only. Cadbury which has successfully re-positioned its other products in the past decided to target adults as well, complemented by the campaign with a tagline “Raho Umarless”, which en-courage’s consumers to enjoy regardless of the age.

The campaign to reposition Gems is meant just to increase sales or is it something else?

Chocolates as we know have an interesting history and it have been eaten regularly for pleasure as well as for medicinal values. Europeans have used it for its aphrodisiac effect as well as an energy provider and it was eaten by soldiers during Spanish civil war as well as during World wars.

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Stealing ghostwritten content a worst nightmare & perhaps the best-Kept Secret!

A Ghostwrites is a person who writes books, articles, reports, content or any other text & it is officially credited to another person. A person who ghost writes is paid for his or her efforts but cannot claim any credit for it. Celebrities, political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies, articles or written materials even sometimes for writing songs and lyrics for popular music genres.

The Ghostwriters have gained importance & ghostwriting has been a common and acceptable practice in the publishing industry for years. In fact, it is more popular today than ever, with many of today’s bestselling books having been ghostwritten. It is simply not cheating as the writer gets his share of the pie as he or she is paid around $ 25,000 per book. The ghost writing in fact is an established industry in the west.

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Can Google+ dethrone Facebook?

A social networking service is an online platform which mainly focuses on assisting individuals who share common interest, activities backgrounds or real life connections to build social relations.

With the start of the computing age a potential for computer networking to facilitate a form of computer-mediated social interaction was suggested and it resulted in online services like BBS (bulletin board services) ARPANET & LISTSERV. The computing world which was still in the infancy was trying to establish itself was experimenting with the newer concepts, which would fail often resulting in a setback to the computing industry.

Early social networking on the World Wide Web began in the form of comprehensive online communities such as Theglobe.com, Geocities and Tripod. Many of these early communities focused on bringing people together to interact with each other through chat rooms, & to encourage users to share individual information and ideas via personal WebPages free or inexpensive web space. Some communities such as Classmates.com took a different approach by having people link to each other via email addresses.

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Honda: a tough journey ahead

Three decades back when Honda entered the Indian market it partnered with a dominant player from the bicycle industry read Hero Cycles who had led a cycle revolution in India. Such was an Impact of Hero that the other players like Altas, BSA could not be compared with the giant.

Honda partnership with Hero was equally important for both the players as Honda was partnering with a group which had good understanding of the market dynamics and who could have been better than Hero; which had grown under the able management of Mr. Munjal who had made Hero cycle a house hold name and had a good understanding of Market & especially the rural & urban market. Hero which had tried to enter the automobile sector with series of mopeds needed a partner like Honda to grow and capture the market, thus Hero Honda was born.

The J.V between the players had its own challenges as the motor cycle market was still in infancy and was largely dominated by Enfield, Rajdoot & Yezdi. Scooter was widely accepted & had emerged as a choicest mode of transportation for the individuals from the middle income group, and Bajaj was selling more number of scoters than the other players including the motor-cycle vendors.

The biggest challenge was to woo these customers from scooter towards motor cycle, as the motor cycle was more of a flamboyant thing & had its major fan-following among the Young Un-married Indians who would like to ape the reel heroes.

At the same time two other major players Suzuki & Yamaha entered Indian market through a JV with TVS & Rajdoot and launched 100cc two stroke bike in India. Bajaj was initially not interested but soon it also joined the bandwagon with the launch of Kinetic Honda India’s first gearless scooter a J.V between Honda & Kinetic which made a small dent in the scooter market in metro cities. Bajaj entered into a J.V with Kawasaki thus Kawasaki Bajaj was born. Read the rest of this entry »

Window shopping for Ideas during pitches: A permanent issue?

The relation between the advertising agency and the client is a very delicate one, and instead of acting as an equal opportunity partners in growth, the clients always feel that they have an upper hand and can always take the agency for granted. The typical mood of an individual from the client side is that since I am paying for a job so I can literally do anything and will always get away with it. These results in a peculiar situation where the agency feel cheated as the idea presented at the time of account pitching by them has been stolen by the rival company and the they feel helpless about it.

This issue of stolen idea is also felt by media agencies as well, the difference being in case creative agencies a particular aspect of the creative is stolen while for the media agencies it is the strategies which get picked up. The loss for the agency is more than just a loss of a media plan but it reflects theft of approach, strategy and the reason behind using the particular media vehicle which results in huge losses for the agency, in terms of the efforts exerted by the agency in terms of the man-hours spent for the plan.

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Rest in Peace – Daewoo Motors India Limited

Daewoo Motors India Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Korean automobile major Daewoo Motor’s entry in the Indian passenger car market was marked as a major mile stone in India. It was big step post liberalization & Indian car market was open for the big giants from the automotive world. The market leader and the undisputed king of the Indian roads (Maruti Suzuki) was already riding on the success of its existing products including some of the best sellers like Zen, 800 & esteem. From early 80 till the mid of nineties Maruti enjoyed a complete monopoly and the only player which had attempted to eat into Maruti share was Tata Motors Limited (Formerly Tata Engineering & Locomotive Company Limited – TELCO) with Tata Serria & Tata Estate but had failed in the market.

Tata Sierra (Telco Sierra)

When the Indian market was made open, big giants started studying Indian Market. Few companies like Ford, Honda entered into a joint venture with Mahindra & Mahindra and Shriram group respectively. PAL (Premiere Automobile limited) entered into joint venture with Fiat and French car giant Purgoet to produce cars in India.

Daewoo Motors choose to go alone like the big daddy of the automobile world (General Motors) and started construction of its plant in the Greater Noida region in NCR. Daewoo decided to launch its premium product Cielo, which was competing with Maruti Esteem, the only sedan available at the time.

Daewoo was known world over as an aggressive company, and it started its operation in the same way in India. Since the company was unknown in this part of the world it launched a big campaign to showcase its strength and create a strong brand in India. While the others players were still working out on the details Daewoo had started series of promotional activities.

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Star News Rebrands with a call that “Everything is the same except the name”

Star News and its associate channels that are Star Ananda and Star Majha will be renamed as ABP News, ABP Ananda and ABP Majha, respectively from today onwards (June 1^st, 2012), ending a long association between Rupert Murdoch controlled STAR and ABP (Ananda Bazaar Patrika) Group, who had joined hands to launch a news channel after Star TV & NDTV parted there ways in 2004.

The Indian Television Industry has seen many up & down since its inception in late seventies. The Indian television industry space was generally controlled by the state owned broadcaster (Door Darshan) and was an undisputed leader till 1990.

: Rupert Murdoch of STAR (Satellite Television Asian Region)

When the world was curious to know the outcome of another war in the Middle East, in the beginning of 1990, between the only superpower USA and Iraq, CNN a news company un-known in India started broadcasting the live footage across the Indian skies 24 X 7, and caught everyone’s attention. People started installing dish antenna over their rooftop to catch the glimpse of the latest happening in the Middle East. This was particularly led by the NRI who had to vacate Middle East due to the ongoing war. It was more of an interest in the technology rather than interest in the news, but never the less it led to the opening of the Indian skies and eventuality the end of monopoly for Door-Darshan. Soon the other big players of the broadcast Industry started beaming its signals across the subcontinent. Rupert Murdoch’s Sky television officially launched itself in India as STAR Plus, which also had BBC (News), Prime Sports & MTV under its bouquet. STAR which literally meant Satellite Television Asian Region was well received by the Indian audience, and ‘in case you are not watching Satellite Television meant you are not fashionable enough’. Zee TV from the Essel Group was among the first television channels to launch a Hindi content channel in India.

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Celebrity equally requires a brand for own promotion

In the present scenario with so many brands trying to outsell each other the motif behind branding may be seen as an attempt to amalgamate different activities to win customer preference and to make them buy the product. The Impact of celebrity endorsement on the overall brand is a significant one. Marketers do acknowledge the power of celebrity endorsement in winning over the customer, but all is not hunky-dork; celebrities too after all are a brand and they also require a platform to showcase & promote them. The fact which works out for the brand or a product works equally for the celebrity as well.

A celebrity irrespective of the fact whether he or she is from sports or movie Fraternity is a brand in itself, which can be compared to any other MNC brand or for that matter any home-grown brand. The rules to successful marketing for which are applicable on the brands are equally applicable on the celebrities as well. When we say rules it means

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Limca making a shift or extending its brand promise, from ‘Taazgi’ to ‘Pyaas’?

Limca has recently changed its brand promise from earlier ‘Taazgi’ to ‘Pyaas’ with Kareena Kapoor as Brand Ambassador. The shift form ‘Taazgi’ to ‘Pyaas’ is aimed to re-conquer the young college going T.G who swear by Cola’s.

With Kareena Kapoor as brand ambassador and using cricket in the backdrop (The television commercial features actor Kareena Kapoor, who is seen urging a youngster to aim higher in life. With a tagline ‘Pyaas Badhao’) is aimed at College students & young executives alike. In India Cricket & Bollywood are the two things which sell, and a potent mix of both is sure to create ripples in the market.

But is Limica really changing its brand promise?

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The Success Saga of Unsung Heroes… Satyamev Jayate!

The OOH Campaign Executed by Star TV for Promotion of the Show

Satyamev Jayate, which marks debut of the perfectionists Khan (Aamir Khan) on the Idiot Box, on Sunday at 11 AM & was aired in 8 different languages on Star T.V network as well as on Door-Darshan (State Owned Television Company). Satyamev Jayate a talk show more on the likes of Ophera Winphrey Show & Zindighi Live aired on IBN7. The first episode of Satyamev Jayate appears to have gathered enough eye-balls to call it a success. The producer & Aamir seemed to have all the details placed in order to wake up people on other-wise lazy Sunday. One must appreciate the hard work put by Mr. Khan and the team for the show.

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Advertising agency also require Advertising

Do Advertising Agencies require advertising or Branding Agencies require Branding at all?

Yes, advertising agencies also do require advertising. The agency (marketing or advertising) is a brand and like any other brand it also requires to showcase its self to a different individuals. Lets Analysis the aspects of it along with understanding what Advertising is all about.

A form of communication used to encourage or persuade a viewers, readers or listeners to continue or take some new action. Which eventuality results in a buy is what Advertising is all about. Communication for a certain product without any sale does not make any sense at all. Advertising messages are usually paid for by the companies and viewed via various traditional media; mass media such as newspaper, magazines, television commercial, radio advertisement, outdoor advertising or direct mail; or new media such as blogs and websites and text messages.

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Ponds toothpaste a failure owning to brand perception

Unilever Limited earlier called as Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL), a subsidiary of the Anglo-Dutch conglomerate which owns 51% stake in it. Unilever has acquired a remarkable repute as one of best-managed companies in the country. Despite being the subsidiary of an MNC, Hindustan Lever Limited was professed to be more of an Indian corporation than a multinational one; because of the techniques by which it was managing its operation in India. In fact Hindustan Lever Limited operated with more autonomy than other subsidiaries of Unilever.

The company was founded by lever brother’s way back in 1885 in England & entered India in 1888. The first product it brought was a laundry Soap called ‘Sunlight’. In 1930, the company merged with ‘Margarine Unie’ (a Netherlands based company), thus Unilever was incorporated. In 1931, Unilever set up its first Indian subsidiary to produce Vanaspati, the Hindustan Vanaspati Manufacturing Company. This was followed by the establishment of Lever Brothers India Ltd. in 1933 and United Traders Ltd. in 1935, for the distribution of personal products. In November 1956, the three Indian subsidiaries merged to form HLL.

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Celebrity endorsements – does it help?

The three kings of bolly-wood Aamir, Salman & Shrakuh endorse three different soft drink brands. While Salman vouches for Thumps Up, Aamir swears by Coke and till not long back Sharukh & Pepsi were synonymous. The Big B of the Industry Amitabh Bachan endorses more than 20 different brands. Even the newcomers like Ranbeer Kapoor & Sonakshi Sinha are endorsing certain brands.

How does it matter as to what toothpaste Ms. Sinha uses or which mobile handset Mr. Khiladi is endorsing?

Have you ever wondered that the particular toot-paste, which you use or a jam which you have with your bread, has come to you because some-one in your home is a big fan of Sharukh or Juhi Chawla. Welcome to the world of Celebrity endorsements.

Advertisers have been using well known personalities from the world of entertainment and sports to endorse their brands. As celebrity endorsement increased over the years, advertising evolved the concept of brand ambassador.

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Once KING of the Indian Roads is now a history !

: 1955 Morris Oxford Series III was launched in India in 1957 as Ambassador Mark I

The Rise and Fall of Ambassador

Ambassador the car with a British legacy was the first car to be made in India. Ambassador was born in 1958. Its design was based on British car model – Morris Oxford; build by Morris Motor Co at oxford United Kingdom. Ambassador borrowed not the design but technology as well from Morris.

Hindustan Motors Limited (HM), India’s pioneering automobile manufacturing company and Flagship Company of the C.K. Birla Group, was established before Indian independence, in 1942 by B.M. Birla. When the Birla’s wanted a new model to replace their already old Hindustan models based on Morris Oxford Series II (aka Hindustan Landmaster), they scouted for the then-new Morris Oxford Series III. Thus an Indianised version was launched by Hindustan Motors launched in 1958.

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Changing face of Indian advertising mascots

Air India’s Maharaja which came into existence in the year 1946 and the Amul girl in 1967 are the mascots which captured the hearts of one and all in India. These mascots caught the attention of the consumers as they were charming and connected well with the consumers. Indian corporate have also seen few other mascots like Fido the cool swanky doodle of 7 Up, doughboy the sweet little butler of Godrej Pillsbury, Gattu who build brand Asian Paint, Chintamani who endorsed ICICI, Sunny who is creating magic with Sunfeast. The success of these mascots can be qualified by, the increase in the brand value of these brands consumer connect.

Decline of mascot power
The Indian market grew at a fast pace in nineties everything from pencils to cars, salt to luxury goods required an advertising campaign this was the time when we saw emergence of celebrity advertising and mascots lost their appeal. We also lived in a time when there was no argument regarding the fact that a celebrity can make or break a brand. The pampering and recognition given to the celebrity in the marketing of the product in some cases was even greater than the product itself. The advertising world, during this time strongly believed that the celebrities transfer their success, personality, status and power to the brand. They attributed reasons for the growth of celebrity endorsements to:
• Create great brand awareness for product
• Sustaining the brand image
• Stimulating and reviving brands
• Product association

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No Pesky Messages from Today !

In recent years, SMS Marketing had picked up a lot as it is the only means of Direct Advertising which was relatively cheaper, and cost-effective. SMS Marketing was one of the newest and fastest growing types of marketing because if offers low cost, high return on investment, and places promotions and updates in the pockets of potential customers. It is similar to email in cost, but offers much higher response rates as most mobile phone users open and view text messages. The other reason for this being better than email marketing is that the user cannot mark SMS as span or there no junk/bulk options as in the case of email.

This mode of advertising was really advantageous to Advertiser, however, it had proved irritating and annoying to masses of the society. The major part of the society wanted to block these messages, but the technological advancement of SMS Marketing companies had overlooked the previous Do-Not-Disturb facility and the users unwillingy get these messages.

However, with effect from today, that is, September 27, 2011, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has laid new guidelines to telecom companies and has implemented Do-Not-Disturb facility wherein a user can fully or partially block these messages.

The new guidelines of TRAI also restricts the individual user to send more than 3000 SMS per mobile per month including the free and paid SMS’s. This is a disadvantage for the youth.

However, this implementation will definitively show a extensive use of Email Marketing, though there are couple of disadvantages of the same.

Choosing The Right Advertising Message. . .

Some says Creativity is important, some says Advertising Spent is important. We agree that Advertising without Creativity is like a glass without wine, but simultaneously one has to agree that both glass and wine do not go isolated, they are always enjoyed when they are together. On the same lines, a successful advertising campaign should be backed by a strategy where Creativity & Advertising spent go hand in hand.

We have tried to prove this through examples chosen from the book “Marketing Management” written by World’s Renowned Marketing Specialist “Philip Kotler”.

Before going further we would like to share William Bernbach’s observation: “The facts are not enough…. Don’t forget Shakespeare used some pretty hackneyed plots, yet his message came through with great execution.”

The first example taken here is of Taco Bell. Taco Bell is a division of US based Yum! Brands. In 1994, Taco Bell ranked fourth in fast food chains and its revenues were sagging. Then in the year 1997, the chain introduced television spots with a talking chihuahua. This hungry little dog became very famous for his statement, “Yo Quiero Taco Bell,” which meant “I want some taco bell”. This was an invitation to an emotional response, which struck a chord with the chain’s 18 to 35-year-old customers and spawned an array of chihuahua merchandise such as T-shirts, magnets, hats and talking dolls-and increased revenues for Taco Bell. The little pooch pushed Taco Bell’s sales up to 4.3 per cent in 1997, and the chain ended the year with $4.5 Billion (Approx. 15,500 Crores Indian Rupees) in sales. Taco Bell thereafter spent nearly about $200 Million and planned a longed life for this popular campaign, thought the company managed to run the campaign the year 2000 only. Unwillingly, the company had to stopped the campaign, the rumors were that “the dog died” which were false, and there were some other reasons.

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Importance of Strategy & Planning in Brand Marketing

The story of Nintendo’s decline and the raise of Sony’s Play station illustrates the importance of strategic planning. Managers at Sony formulated and implement strategies that have made Play station to be the best player in the video console business while Nintendo’s, managers failed to respond to increased competition and changing customer expectation. Satoru Iwata is analysing the situation and considering strategies that can ignite growth and revive the declining company.

Every company is concerned with strategy. Japan’s Fuji Photo Film Company developed a strategy of being a low cost provider to compete with Kodak. Fuji’s relentless internal cost cutting enabled the company to offer customers lower prices and gradually again market share over the giant US firm, McDonald’s devised a new strategy of downsizing its menu items in response to charges in the environment. Supersize French fries and drink were eliminated to counter public accusation that the fast food icon was responsible for Americans expanding waistlines and growing health problems. In the auto industry, PSA Peugot Citrocin SA adopted a strategy of being a fierce product innovator coming out with 25 new models between the 1999 to 2002. Strategic blunders can hurt a company. Consider Mattel, which has suffered in recent years by losing sight of its core business and trying to compete as a maker of computer games.

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Advertising –The art continues

Advertising adds a personality to the business and its product. The advent of modern technologies has made the rural population more techs –savvy than the urban population. Advertising, by painting on the walls, to spread messages are no more appreciated. Today with the penetration of mobile phones, cable television, with a better research technique in advertising, it follows the right strategies and initiatives to deliver the right message to the right consumer.

The small villages and towns that ones thought to be just a dot on the map are attracting attention of MNC’s. Television advertising which still holds a major share in spite the growth of internet and other media is the most leisure and preferred activity and so every ones first choice is still the television advertising.

Newspaper advertising is one of the most common forms of print advertising which has been effective for small businesses as well as services which targets the community through readership and circulation. The main disadvantage is that it gets cluttered and gets lost with the competitors ads. Magazine is a better form of print advertising as the readers are in a relaxed state of mind ,they can even save your ad and return as many times as they wish, to your printed ad.

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Creativity differentiates your Brand !

Vast arrays of advertising campaigns come and go but only few of them strike the target audience and stay back on top of their mind. As an advertiser, if you want your advertising campaign to stay on top of your audience’s mind you should know the right tool and strategy to impress or affect your target group.

Having a deep understanding of consumer behaviourism helps an advertising campaign to a great extent. As an advertiser, you should be able to analyse, understand and study your target group and also figure out what they like and what they don’t. After the usual psychological analysis of your target group, the next step is how to stay on top of your audience’s mind. With cut-throat competition in the market, it’s a bit challenging effort to stay on top of your target audience’s mind. You should be able to differentiate your Brand from other competitors in the market. For this you also need to understand the behaviour of your competitors. Understanding competitor’s behaviour requires a great deal of research and survey and you need a dedicated team to make all these into reality. After a meticulous survey and analysis of your competitors, its time to come up with a creative ad campaign which will allure your target group at the first go. And the best tool that can differentiate your brand from your competitors is the amount of creativity you install in the ad campaign. Yes, creativity speaks it all and only creativity speaks. If you are able to present your ad campaign with a creative feel, look and theme, it sure strikes your target group.

To sum up, creativity is a big demand for any advertising campaign in the market. Creativity is the only fascinating approach through which you can flaunt about your product or service to your niche target group as well as to your competitors.

How various types of advertising function ?

Advertising is a marketing tool that promotes your product, brand or service to the target audience. Advertising is also considered as a brand communicator which figures out the best points of a particular product or service and talks about it to the targeted audience.

Let us have a look at the various forms of advertising:

Outdoor Advertising/ OOH Advertising

Outdoor Advertising also known as OOH Advertising is that type of promotion which is carried out of home. Examples of Outdoor Advertising include kiosks, digital signage, billboards, sky-scrapers, hoardings etc. All these mediums of OOH Advertising promote your brand or service to the targeted audience.

Airport Advertising

Some of the best places for outdoor advertising include the roads and spaces. One often gets too see big hoardings at airports. These large hoardings differ from other outdoor hoardings. However, it’s an open fact that the larger ad space you occupy, the better exposure your brand or service gets. And that’s how the cookies crumble in Airport Advertising. Most of the brands and companies take help of Airport Advertising because of this plus factor.

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Business to Business Advertising Tools

Advertising has a broadened meaning. For brands, advertising means creating a buzz or awareness to the target group about its existence in the market. For business holders advertising means to promote more and more business ideas or tools with other business holders. For service providers, advertising means providing information about the particular service and its benefits to the target group. In this blog let us discuss about Business to business advertising and some means of B2B advertising.

Business is either B2B i.e. business to business or B2C i.e. Business to customer. For B2B marketing, advertising can play an important role in a successful sales effort. A proper advertising campaign can help you develop leads that you can follow up with emails or phone calls. There are various avenues of B2B Advertising. In this blog let us discuss about some of them.

Direct mail ads- This type of advertising provides a favorable response from the target group in terms of reach and impact. Sending direct mail to the potential customers also provides traceable responses. With a defined list of direct mails, you can gain a more engaging business experience from your target group.

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Pursuit of the best advertising techniques & strategies !

Any business practice (be it brand oriented or service related one) is in pursuit of new ideas, strategies and techniques of promotion. Promotion keeps the string attached of the brand/service business. In order to stay in the loop of the marketing affairs, a promotion practice is mandatory for every brand or service. The pursuit of best advertising techniques automatically comes up for each and every brand that makes its presence in the market. From a mundane tool of promotion to a full-fledged marketing practice, brand advertising has so far changed the outlook of brand advertisers thereby ensuring them greater revenue for their ad-spends through each and every campaign.

Today’s marketing scenario has gone through a complete makeover. Enhanced by the implementation of new-age media, brand marketing is a much improved practice implemented through hi-tech media by implementing the best available resources. Despite the very fact that modern advertising is much updated than conventional practices, the pursuit for better than the best advertising techniques & strategies never comes to a halt. Through each medium, advertisers ensure complete reachability of the brand messages to target customers.

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Changing face of Advertising in India

Think of any brand which is available in the market place since a long period of time. Compare the old advertisements of the brand with the new ones. What change do you observe? A complete makeover right? That is the trend of advertising in contemporary India- renovated and renewed. The following paragraphs will throw some light on some famous trends of advertising about various brands whose presence has seasoned in due course of time.

Generates quick and effective response to customers

What makes an ad campaign successful is the response from the target audience. In order to gain positive response from customers, advertisers have to provide the brand message in such a way that customers find it easy to access and comprehend. advertisers who display their ads through broadcast media have to consider some additional factors such as clarity of sound or musical composition (jingles) associated with the advertised brands for example television and radio commercials which require audio visual features to deliver the brand communication.

Positive message encouraging customers to adopt the brand

Modern ads mostly provide positive brand message thereby encouraging the buying motive of customers. In fact in today’s world of aggressive competition, it is important to create a positive image about a brand to its audiences so that they are encouraged to adopt the product. Anything which is done with goodwill is well appreciated and lasts long. So, while framing the brand message, advertisers should ensure that it provides a positive impact on customers.

Widespread usage of rich technology & media

Modern advertising uses rich technology & media while devising any ad campaign. The widespread usage of such enriched technology & media has resulted in providing an effective brand communication on customers. The induction of rich technology in brand advertising has resulted in providing a rich brand communication to customers at large.

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