HOW MUCH YOU SHOULD KNOW vs HOW MUCH YOU KNOW

I realised that top management in most of the organizations spend their more than 80% of time in Product Development / Infrastructure Development / HR Development activities.

But in doing this they might loose out one important part of their organization i.e. consumer development. Irrespective of what you manaufacture or what you sell, where you sell and at what price you sell, the most common factor that exist everywhere is - Satisfying the consumer's demand.

I believe that no customer buy a product rather they buy an aspect of the product, for instance the 'convenience' of a Maggi Noodle or the 'ache removal' property of Moov. So when the consumer is looking at the aspects of your product, don't you think you too should understand the aspect of your consumer or customer.

Savlon & Dettol - Makers of Savlon discovered that the consumer believes that its the stinging feeling of Dettol that gives the indication that it is working well vis-a-vis a Savalon which doesn't work well (since it does not sting).
Crossword - Their logic was that a book lover will buy a book anyway. Selling a book to a non-lover will create a new market and a significant differentiation for Crossword .So they allowed people to sit endlessly in bookshops and browse through books and magazines.

Frankly there is no end to journey of knowing the customer. However beyond a point, more research yield diminishing returns. But gut feel cannot be substitute for research and understanding of customers. So understanding 'how much to know' is critical to business success.

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BRAND

is a combination of experience which a consumer takes off from a product or an entity. Success of any product / service today depends upon its branding / brand management. I believe brand has its presence all around, even we feel to be associate with our friend who has better brand value. 

Brand value changes its ranking from person to person, situation to situation. The brand can be understood as 'credibility' of the product or the service.

We live in a world where everyone is digitally connected. Via blogs, forums, social networking sites, Twitter, text messaging, e-mails and so on and so forth. People can express their experiences and feelings towards your brand and spread the word worldwide in a matter of (nano)seconds. Consumers are very sensitive to these comments. Word of mouth being the strongest medium of effective advertising, it may build up a brand or may spoil it in just few time; in general brand building is a continous process - it has various elements like its logo, its name, its presence, its competition, its manpower and several others.

Many of us misunderstand the brand as product - brand is surely related to product but 'product' and 'brand' are two different entities. Product can be anything that may satisy the need or demand of an individual or group and available in the market. Product is not only the actual item its the experience that is associated with the actual item for instance a chilled Pepsi can be a product but a warm bottle of Pepsi might not serve the need of the consumer. On the other hand 'brand' is a symbolic manifestation of all the elements of the organization / product.

Brand Ambassador - its a well connected person who is used to promote the product. We may say the human representation of a brand is called the brand ambassador of that particular brand. Eg. Today Katrina Kaif is one of the top brand ambassador in India, she represents many brands like Spice Telecom, Slice Aamsutra, Veet, Pantene, Nakshatra. Katrina Kaif has has replaced Aishwarya Rai in Nakshatra Diamonds and also usurped Priyanka Chopra in the Spice Telecom ad. Katrina Kaif has also replaced Sushmita Sen as the brand ambassador of Pantene. In the list of Bollywood Shahrukh Khan endorses maximum brands followed by Mahender Singh Dhoni, Hritik Roshan, Saif Ali Khan.

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IS SOCIAL MEDIA AN EMERGING PLATFORM FOR ADVERTSING?

The concept - Social media is information content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. 

It's a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologue (one to many) into dialog (many to many) and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. 

Social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the online world to form relationships for personal and business. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM). Its the intersection where commerce and common interest meet. Today anyone can create anything and share it instantly at lower cost.

However, the primary objective of social media/networks are to communicate and relate with friends, colleagues, or, in general, people. Because of its popularity and lower cost, it is now seen as a tool for to grow business. And companies are constantly trying to find opportunities that these technologies can bring. Today Social Media is becoming an effective tool of communication - PR and Advertising. I remember few days back somebody mailed me asking if the Soc Med is "Public Relation" or "Advertising", I believe its is the cusp of both. Social Media has a larger base, reach and total penetration than the traditional PR methods. 

For most of the social media, the platforms are still free. Today Blogging can be much more effective than traditional media. If you can create interesting content (videos, useful articles, remarkable statistics etc.), people will want to spread that among their networks and write about your information. 

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CHANGE

CHANGE

Well we were at a coffee table at M.G. Road, a lazy evening, sipping our coffee, sip after sip we thought how bored we are with a stereotype life style…. Start thinking about our lives well wake up!!!! Dress-up!!!! Look for the car keys…..Bike keys… head towards the work …..work the whole day ….well its now late evening, as if married to our work!! Head back to home look again for the keys and rush towards home coz now u remembers Oh!! I have a family too ….. soooo sad we work for the family abut never have time for them than our second wife (we mean the work)

Wish to change all these, thought for a while who have changed and how, is it only we humans or its all the things surrounding us.

We thought why we change, The brand Changes, The media Changes, The climate, our trusts, our assumptions, our friends & enemies too changes over the time, the Life style Changes our daily newspaper change.

Well now we had some energy building up again, ordered one more coffee (too much I guess…. bad for health but good for a change and to boost thought process) hehe he he he just kidding
Sitting at MG road we could see now the change happening before our eyes MMMM the METRO RAILS Construction. And thought who else changed Oops our own Deccan Herald changed, Oh! God how couldI forget my Banker….Canara Bank Changed and my soft drink PEPSI too coool man….

And we discussed for a while why they change and we could figure out few reasons for the change:
1. Out of Box thinking
2. Get out of the stereo typed image.
3. Look younger
4. More respect with the peer groups
5. Attract specific Target groups
6. Keep up with completion

Oh lots of things going through our minds now educate us

Dear audience, please advice if we really need a CHANGE or its just a Gimmick or a BUSINESS TACTICS mmmmm..million dollar QQQ ……. 

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SOME FUNNY ADVT. CLIPPINGS

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IF YOU SAY BRAND MANAGEMENT IS A COSTLY TASK, I SAY ITS A INVESTMENT STRATEGY.

Half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half - John Wannamaker.

I strongly believe that Brand Management is a Risk Management investment. We should recognize the hairline difference between the three terminologies - Sales, Marketing and Branding.
Sales Management is related to the product directly, whereas Marketing & Branding is related to the concept / experience. The overall purpose behind Branding is to trigger the way your target group feel or believe at your offers. Once you do your advertising (or say branding in broader perspective) in an efficient manner, customer will look at you and what happens is the sales in your favor.

Any of your investment can give you either of the two types of returns - Profit or Loss. If it gives profit its called wise investment and else its a costly expenditure. Advertising follow the same guidelines.

Any Marcom should understand that Advertising is not the way to build Brand. The brand starts functioning (developing) at the point of delivery. I trust advertising is a trigger to a customer, this trigger may pull the customer to you but later-on whatever happens is the experience what the customer takes off which vary from person to person, from place to place and from time to time. I might have seen a fantastic creative with an attractive tag lines and offers in an advert which prompted me to try out the offer (product or service, whatever) but later on if the offer is not at par with my expectations or if my experience with the people / system I interacted during the sales process is bad, branding got affected. If the customer is not happy post-sales, he will not get attracted by the creativity of your advertisement or the attractive packaging of the product.

In practical situations, we have seen that Marketing & Sales team is doing a similar kind of jobs because their KRA lies on single term - Revenue! Whereas marketing team should think on broader picture. Like who is my target audience, how can I reach him, what should I communicate to my audience, what special can I offer him, how do I convert my audience loyal to me - these questions can be answered once you know what business you are in, what your competitions are, what is the gap between present available offers in the market and the consumer's expectations. The role of marketing (or advertising) is simply to create and manage brand experiences so that consumers form an emotional connection with your product that will have them coming back to buy further.

Sales is something which is pre-purchase event and marketing is something which has both pre as well as post-purchase activities. Once a customer buys a product the job of salesman is over, if the customer is having some queries or problem with the product the salesman will re-direct the customer to customer care executive (who belongs to marketing team).

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NICE CREATIVES

Yo Tomo Milk-

Axe Towels-Agency: Lowe Mena, Dubai
Creative Director / Copywriter: Clinton Manson
Creative Director / Art Director: Dominic Stallard

Nescafe - Nothing wakes you up as NescafeAdvertising Agency: McCann Erickson, Chile
Creative Director: Rene Moraga

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I AM TOP IN READERSHIP AND CIRCULATION – HOW CAN THE ADVERTISER DARES TO TAKE ME OUT?

Currently (in the era of low economy) whenever I meet my friends from media sales they discuss about no client’s activities, advertisers cutting down their ad budgets, media agencies asking for more discounts. They blame either to the advertiser or to their management for increasing sales pressure or to the media planner for not including their media in the plans or to the buyers asking for more discounts and finally again to their management for not approving the requested discounts!

I feel this time investors (advertisers) are putting efforts on lots of research works to evaluate their investments. Today it might happen that an advertiser will suddenly stop taking a top publications (which they were taking till recent past years) and start investing in a second or may be a lower ranked publications – you might think that they are doing so, due to their reduced ad budgets or their planner going mad, he doesn’t understand anything but the fact might be something else.

I can give an example of my own experience – My client was happy with my media plan where I included no. 1 daily of a state, the plan was infact for 2-3 months, the fourth month I convinced my client to change the plan on trial basis and make an effort to take no. 3 publication (which was having lesser circulation, lesser readership in the target group but was much cheaper). The plan was executed and from fifth month onwards client instructed me to be with no. 3 publication instead of the no. 1! The reason for this change was RoI. The types of inquiries / conversions / foot falls the advertiser was receiving out of no. 1 publication were much costlier than the deliveries from no. 3.

Advertisers Checking Efficacy of Print Ads-
- An advertiser may check deliveries by putting insertions only in single publication and checking out its deliveries.
-- Advertiser may give different offers in his ads in different publications, so that he may judge the response from different publications.
-- Advertiser may mention unique toll free phone number to answer the queries of the customer (pr say the reader of the publication) to track the responses from different publications.
-- Advertisers use creative sense to make reader stop at their ad – 60% of the advertisement should be graphic with a catching headline, healthy text matter to highlight the offer and at last clear & easy contact information.

In present scenario I guess, if a publication is having strong stand in circulation & readership it might not serve the purpose of a media sales executive. Because today on the other hand the advertiser is asking for guarantees on delivery, planner is doubting you because he remembers once you was not able to met his expectations, Buyers are not at all looking at your glossy rate cards but asking you to send a simple excel sheet for special rates and incentive plans.

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PRINT MEDIA Vs INTERNET

There are many reports which indicate that today Internet is an emerging media vehicle. In many developed countries Internet has proved itself several times, in developing countries like India the trend is not contradicting.

Today you can see any big advertiser spending capital on WWW. You may find many articles in magazines about even three digits growth in Internet media vehicle over the period.

But the fact remain intact, whenever an advertiser thinks about advertising – the major vehicle which comes to his mind are still the conventional ones like Print, TV, Radio; Mediums like OOH, Internet, malls, hoardings are still considered as secondary.

Today, in India for any particular market (whether States, Cities or a localities) a media planner can simply count the number of print editions available for his advertising campaign – this print can be Dailies, Magazines or whatever. There are various research / tools / application software available to him for recognizing the portfolio of readers as well. By comparing this portfolio with the target group of the commercial, a media planner organizes his media plan for delivery. Even an efficient planner may forecast the type of response out of his plan. Whereas in case of www its not that easy to comprehend the profile of the user, because usually a website is measured in terms of number of hits – You might get to know from which part of the globe the hits are emerging from, but its difficult to judge even the gender of the person visiting the particular website. Similarly I guess for internet media planning short-listing of individual players is also a hectic task – options are countless!

Therefore planners are continuing to empower in traditional behaviors while simply experimenting on alternatives. Who knows in future we may able to develop mechanism by which a similar or better assortment of internet user be captured and then our future planners can offer much better media plans to their clients which consist of www as well as Print.

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INDIAN ADVERTISING: UPS AND DOWNS

Who else could experience the ongoing downturn in advertising better than a media sales guy, when advertisers are forced to cut down their advertising expenses throughout.

At the start of year 2008, the outlook for advertising and media industry was very glossy. But finally the year ends with crests and troughs for the industry. Last year was the year when a consumer got choices – many new editions of ‘print’ got launched, new channels like 9X, NDTV Imagine, Colors pumped lots of currency into the system as they got heavy advertiser’s support. It was a great year with sports properties such as the Indian Premier League (BCCI’s T20 cricket event), the Zee-promoted Indian Cricket League, F1 and marathons being added to the list.

During the year 2008 :-
- Radio advertising continued to do well.
- Print advertising was the hardest hit due to slowdown and the increase in advertising rates.
- Digital media (Internet, mobile, digital signage) grew the most and will continue to do so as their RoI is far better and easily measurable. Analysts believe digital will grow by over 80% YoY.
- The media industry has been growing in double digits for more than a decade. It grew by over 20% in 2007–08 (Rs 19,700 crore). But in FY09, the growth rate may go down to a single digit (7%-8%).
- For the current fiscal, the hope is from DTH, telecom, education and healthcare segment.

Recently I was going through some data on advertising spends and realized that financial segment has cut advertising budgets (value) by nearly 40%. As per a data, the advertising by Indian banking industry on television has come down by 3% in 2008 Vs 2007, loan related advertising dropped by over 35% and mutual fund is down by more than 80% whereas the Insurance companies increased their spends by 70%! This (increase in advertising spends by Insurance companies) might be due the entry of new players and currently insurance companies are practicing advertising through out the year (may be due to the launch of their new products every now-&-then) and not only during the first three months of the calendar year.

If I am not wrong the financial advertising consists of about 5% of total TV advertising market (of more or less Rs 5000 crore). I realize, Max NY Life Insurance Company is very aggressive in their ad spends for recent past (eg. Max was exclusive telecast sponsor of IPL), ICICI Prudential and Bajaj Allianz also spend significantly in 2008 & even presently.

November 2008 was assumed to be one of the toughest periods for print, here is some data for reference (Volume wise, first 7 days of Nov’08 Vs first 7 days of Oct’08) –
Top Print Categories Variance%
Social ads -43%
Education negligible
Branding -42%
Retail advertising -73%
Real Estate -67%
Auto -52%
Healthcare -18%
Banking -28%
Travel & Tourism -40%
Computer Education 3%
TOTAL -44%

Many of the print media houses, currently taking corrective measures including slashing down their advertising rates. They are bound to take such steps assuming the current terrible impact on advertising can get inferior further – I remember an incidence from my professional experience, few years ago I asked for discount for a particular publication and after a lot of chasing around, the publication finally offered me a discount of mere 7% on their rate card (I was looking at anything above 12%, but the publication refused) and finally I had to dropped the publication out from the media plan, but now the same types of publications are sending their proposals to the media agencies at a discounted rate varying from 30% upto 80% and still they face pressure from media buyers and competition from their rivals!

I believe several national advertisers who were, till 2007-08, were opting for the main section of the newspaper are now thinking of moving towards city-centric supplements (to save the advertising cost); at the same time many magazines have now stopped their city-centric supplements like India Today suspended its health supplement ‘Pink’, Outlook stopped City Limits. There is a real tough time for luxury & lifestyle advertising – luxury / lifestyle is something which is mood driven rather than the need and when consumer’s sentiments get hit, the impact of the hit is felt on such advertising.

But I still feel that recession is not having only the bad impacts, it also improve many situations. When we had enjoyed our past good times, now is the time for us (in which ever industry we are working on) to realize the experiences of past, develop our strategies depending upon past & present experience and hope for a better tomorrow, going forward.

EMLOYERS / EMPLOYEES / ADVERTISERS / MEDIA CONGLOMERATES / CUSTOMERS MAY TAKE RECESSION AS AN OPPORTUNITY
this is the time when -

• Employers will cut short inefficient employees;
• Employees may get recognized in their own companies or opportunities in better organizations;
• Advertisers may put endeavor to check efficiencies of their media vehicles;
• Media houses will do enough brain storming to finalize their offerings to subscribers and advertisers;
• Companies think of cutting down cost of production without compromising on product quality.
• Customers may get expensive items for lesser price.

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WHY IS THE BRAND BUILDING ACTIVITIES STILL ON?

I believe this question is in the mind of all advertising / marcom professionals especially to those who are into Media Sales! I read few business reviews, surely exchange4media and afaqs has contributed a lot to my understanding. Let’s share:- I believe to analyze the question, we need to first think on various parameters where an organization would focus during this difficult period -
1. The first focus what strikes my mind is the concept of ROI.
2. Exploring new methods of generating additional revenues within the domain or entering into a partnering domain (but risk involved in later).
3. Preserving monies and cut short expenses (cost cutting).
4. Maintain, motivate and most important, hire new talents and keep the existing staff under performance observation.
5. Have the first hand touch with your primary customer on regular basis (emphasis on excellent customer service).
6. Don't think holding marketing activities / advertising is the solution to tackle recession.
7. Don't ask your employees to give justification for their salaries - this might de-motivate them very often but management should keep a watch on this.

But what we observe through out is, Managements are cutting short their brand building budgets all over the sectors. What becomes important now is to maintain one’s (media houses) integrity – how to check on integrity? The simplest way to evaluate this is SOV maintenance.

In this marketing-cluttered world, regency of the brand in the mind of the consumer is vital for any brand's health. For a brand that hasn't marketed itself during recession, will face longer recession period for itself. Today’s consumer is very volatile in nature, he forgets what he is using today & jump to your competitor without wasting any time if he finds you not visible; this phenomenon is very obvious for FMCG companies and other companies from electronic to manufacturing & telecom to media are no exceptions to it (even applicable in non-recession days).

Some of the DOs for Sales team during recession -
Brands which increase its advertising activities during a downturn can improve its market share and ROI.Special schemes like early bird allowances, extended financing and generous return policies motivate distributors to stock your product line.In tough times, price cuts (discounted sales) attract more consumer support than promotions.
Marketing staff can spend more time with customers and understand their need to serve better. This will also help building PR which will surely deliver till later stages.It’s been proven that an increase in marketing spend during a recession can gain a long-term advantage for a brand. Conclusion -

Following five points seems to be highly measurable to me during this time:
a. Securing present
b. Planning for future by beating the recessionary difficulties
c. Effective cost efficient marketing
d. Staff planning
e. Remove the stress of decision making whilst still building your brand.

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PRINT MEDIA BIZ TO FACE PRESSURE FOR NEXT 2-3 QUARTERS

The print media industry will continue to face pressure for the next two to three quarters, as per the analysts. Layoffs and salary cuts may become a necessity for many businesses to survive as they have added substantially to their capacities.

Relief on newsprint costDue to the current economic slowdown impacting the print media industry, the Government has announced special customs duty exemptions for the newspaper & magazine publishing industry. Till now, a custom duty of 3% was applicable on newsprint and 5% on lightweight coated paper. A special additional duty of 4 per cent was also levied, which has now been waived.

Newsprint prices, which constitute more than 70% of the cost of producing a newspaper, shot up last year by around 60-65%. The concessions announced by the Finance Ministry includes:
• Full exemption in customs duty on newsprint and glazed newsprint used for printing newspapers
• Full exemption in customs duty on lightweight coated paper used for printing magazines.These exemptions will reduce the price burden to some extent and so too the reduction in imported newsprint prices from its peak.

DAVP rates increased
• Information and Broadcasting ministry came to the rescue of small and medium newspapers by announcing a revised policy of releasing Government advertisements.
• It increased the advertisement quota of the Directorate of Audio Visual Publicity (DAVP) for small papers from 10% to 15% and for medium newspapers from 30% to 35%. Under the new policy, 35 per cent of DAVP advertisements in rupee terms will be given to regional and other language newspapers against the existing limit of 30%.
• Under the new policy, all ministries, departments and subordinate offices of the Government of India can issue tender notices directly to empanelled newspapers at DAVP rates.

Hike in cover price
Print media industry desperately needs to increase their cover price, but the only reason for pegging the cost at ~10% of the cost of production is due to the fear that no one will buy them because rival papers may become cheaper. Hence, they are heavily dependent on advertisng to take care of costs and generate revenue. Recently, many newspapers revised cover prices.

Hindustan, Dainik Jagran and Amar Ujala raised their cover price in Meerut and Dehradun to Rs 3 from Rs 2.50. Similarly, in Bihar and Jharkhand, Dainik Jagran, Prabhat Khabar and Hindustan raised their cover price by 50 paise to Rs 4. The cover price of Hindi dailies in UP and Uttarakhand are expected to go up to Rs 3.50 and those in Rajasthan to Rs 3. English dailies, too, have raised their cover price in many markets, though Delhi seems to be unaffected as of now but for The Hindu which raised the price from Rs 2.50 to Rs 3.

The economic downturn appears to have taken a severe toll on the Indian print media industry. It's bleeding, given the conditions across all platforms. We believe that with dipping Ad revenues due to the slowdown and high cost structure, the print media industry will continue to face pressure for the next two to three quarters. Layoffs and salary cuts may become a necessity for many businesses to survive as they have added substantially to their capacities.

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