markathon march 2014

Head of Marketing Division,Itz Cash Card

MARKATHONMarketing Magazine of IIM Shillong Volume 5 | Issue 9

March 2014

Vartalaap with Mr. Mudit Bhatnagar

The Markathon TeamEditors

Senior Team :Ashok A | Kamalpreet Singh Saluja | Pallavi |

Prateek Gaurav | Shashank S Tomar | Swikruti Panda Junior Team :

Amit Sonwani | B Ushashree | Nishant Prakash | Ramanathan K | Varsha Poddar |

Yash B. Bhambhwani

Creative Designers

Senior Team :Sushree Tripathy | Vaibhav Annam

Junior Team :Malini Aishwarya B | Swati Pamnani

From The Editorproducers of popular American television series Breaking Bad. In this edition of Vartalaap, Mr Mudit Bhatnagar from Itz Cash Card Ltd will take us through the secrets of consumer experience enhancement in the banking sec-tor. Mr Bhatnagar will also give us insights into the role of digital marketing in the banking sector. And finally, we have our specials to satisfy your marketing cravings, for some time at least! We look at the revolution that Bisleri has been in Brand Story. We also try to see what went wrong with Onida Candy in Jab They Failed. After examining the era of watchfulness that Face-book has brought about in our Radical Thoughts section, our Fun Corner section tests you on the various online campaigns aided by Facebook. Finally we look at India’s remarkable attempts in Brand Activation. We also take this opportunity to bid adieu to our senior club members who have guided us in this noble quest and we wish them the best of luck! So sit back, get that cup of coffee and have a won-derful time as we take you through yet another marketing spin.

Cheers.

We celebrated love in the last edition of Mar-kathon. Facebook took it a tad too seriously and acquired Whatsapp in late February for a whopping $19 billion. This of course led to a spate of debate on social media, blogs, televisions and what not. While some term this move by Facebook as suicidal, others call it a strategic victory which holds a lot of promise. How this pans out for either parties remains to be seen. But it definitely is something to keep us marketers on our toes. With the Lok Sabha elections just around the corner, campaigning by the parties has become rigorous to say the least. For the first time, BJP and Congress find themselves terrified of another political party. Packed with a lot of action, drama, promises made and accusa-tions hurled, this election season promises to be a terrific fight. Get your voting cards ready and make sure you cast your vote. Let me take you through a small tour of what’s in store for you this time!The cover story “What’s new at your door? “, takes us through the evolution of trade practises. It looks at the game changing strategies that e-commerce sites are ex-ploring after the initial success. It also looks at the various challenges faced by this industry now and what all steps the e-commerce giants can take to overcome these chal-lenges. The perspectives this month explore some of the recent trends in marketing in different spheres. We get to dig deep into the marketing efforts behind election cam-paigning and how different leaders have strived to build a brand for themselves. We then take a break from elec-tions and look at the various strategies adopted by the

IIM Shillong3MARKATHON

Markathon january 2014

ContentsPerspectivesMarketing BadVenkat Iyer | IIM Trichy

The Reality Of Election Campaign StrategyAnkit Agarwal | IMT G

What’s new at your Door?Amit Sonwani & Heena Motwani | IIM Shillong

VartalaapMr. Mudit BhatnagarHead of Marketing DivisionItz Cash Card

Eye 2 EyeChildren in Advertising:emotionally manipulative or just plain , simple slice of life?Anmol Dhupar | IMT G & Mudita Bhandari | Great Lakes

Silent VoiceJabong.comAkshatha Hegde | MICASpecials

AddictedSwati Pamnani & Yash B. Bhambhwani | IIM Shillong

Brand StoryNishant Prakash | IIM Shillong

Fun CornerMalini Aishwarya B | IIM Shillong

IshtihaarRamanathan K | IIM Shillong

Jab They FailedB Ushashree | IIM Shillong

Radical ThoughtsVarsha Poddar | IIM Shillong

UpdatesAmit Sonwani | IIM Shillong

Events - War of BrandsVarsha Poddar | IIM Shillong

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BY Venkat IyerIIM Trichy

‘Breaking Bad’ was one of the biggest successes in American Television history. But was just the content the main reason behind the high TV ratings that it racked up? A closer analysis would see how Vince Gilligan, the producer adapted well known marketing techniques to promote his product.

A strong Value Proposition

‘Drugs’, ‘Violence’ and ‘Drama’ are the main offerings that the series gave its audience. Over a period of 5 sea-sons, it offered not one, but a variety of different themes with parallel storylines that added value to the series as a whole.

The family sequence involving the White family was pure drama while the drug cartel storyline was a contemporary western. The “Jessie Pinkman” angle added to the drama and the debauchery while Saul Goodman was purely hu-mour. All of these together gave it the look of a caper, but maintaining the core of the series that was drama.

A Broad Segmentation

Going in line with the value proposition, the content ca-tered to a broad range of audience. The age group of 16-25 was hooked on purely because of the thrill associated and it also being similar to a ‘western’ with the drug cartel and the mafia angle associated with it. It appealed to the age group of 25-40 too because of the high element of drama that was involved with the White family, Hank and Marie and also the physically challenged son.

Extremely Successful Differentiation

There were allegations that the series was very similar to ‘Weeds’, another series that ran in parallel and had the el-ements of drug peddling too. But the producers of Break-ing Bad offered the customers more, they added action, drama, convoluted plots and even dark humour to clearly differentiate this series from anything that was remotely similar. Not just on content, but the acting and screenplay was something remarkable. Various dialogues from the series (“I am the danger”, “I am the one who knocks”) are now popular legends.

Brand Consistency

The now famous green montage with the words Breaking and Bad that appear as chemical names (Br and Ba) and the same theme applied to every character in the credits roll really added to the brand consistency. With the suc-cess of the show, there released campaigns where people

Marketing Bad

march 2014perspective

s e t their social media names with the same font, thus acting as a tremendous buzz media for the product. The famous ‘ted-dy bear’, the music used (contemporary western, indie and blues), the hat (Walter White), usage of certain words by key characters (a female dog), all added to enhancing the overall brand value that was consistent throughout the five seasons.

Successful PartnershipsAfter the end of season two, Breaking Bad producer Vince Gilligan announced a partnership with Netflix, the online streaming service. This move not just cut down on illegal online streaming, but it also ensured that the power of the


march 2014

buyer (the TV channel AMC) was curtailed. This move enabled it to charge higher royal-ties and this was one of the sole reasons how it managed to complete a full set of five seasons.

Retro MarketingThe basis of retro mar-keting lies in giving the consumer less and keep them wanting for more. Breaking bad went for just 5 seasons and com-pleted the series when the popularity was at its highest. This ensured that the buzz around the series lasted even after the offi-cial completion, enabling a

record after-sales purchase by customers which included merchandise, TV interviews and perpetuity rights for TV and DVD. This move was instrumental in order to collect enough capital for yet another season. Breaking bad, thus was not just a masterpiece of a series but also a lesson in marketing. Be it the way the protag-onist changed colours from white to grey as the series progressed or be it the marked love-hate relationship between the characters, the producers always kept the loyal consumer hooked and at the same time diversified into new plots, thus penetrating the market even further. Breaking bad started as a cash cow, remained a cash cow and finished as one and there lay its success.

perspective


perspective march 2014

By Ankit AgrawalIMTG

POLITICS AT ITS BEST

The curiosity, debate, excitement, and the zeal have broken all the records in the hall of Indian political history. Everyone in the township has suddenly start-ed talking about political leaders and their parties as a debate. The political party’s strategies have taken the shape of more direct approach and have intensi-fied. It barely matters whether you are a small kid, a youth, or an old-aged, everyone wants to be part of the political system and express opinions.We must appreciate the vision of two personalities; first Mark Zuckerberg the founder of Facebook who has simply integrated all the parts of the universe into one entity coined as “Social Networking.” The second personality we must admire is the founder of Aam Admi Party (AAP) Mr. Arvind Kejriwal for the buzz his party has successfully created in the minds of people of India and the rest of the world by changing the definition of “Indian Politics” merely in a span of a year. The brand and the credibility established by AAP have undoubtedly set a shocking tremor to all the political parties

and surprised most of the critics, corporates, media, and the people of India. AAP after crushing Congress in state election like peanuts is now a challenger for BJP in Lok Sabha election. Owing to this

fact, all parties haverevamped their political strategies to connect with voter’s heart for their survival and victory in upcoming Lok Sabha election. At the end, what remains a dirty fact is each party gambles to win election by offering various incentives in different forms based on their own USP and agenda.

COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

Every political party sells their brand by promising to work claim for clean governance, better India, growing econo-my, and the welfare of the people. Unfortunately, in re-cent years story depicts different behavior where most of the people feel deprived of equality and justice what we call in Hindi as “insaaf.” To fulfill this promises party builds robust manifesto for their better positioning .This action assists politician and their leaders to align their commu-nication activities to introduce a certain level of discipline and standardization in the management of their external presentation.

The communication messages in the form of political ral-lies, campaign, meetings and other initiatives makes

The Reality of Election Campaign Strategy

Highlight the success, Conceal the failure

They are thinking to save the Party…

We are thinking to save the Nation

- Mr. Narendra Modi

Modi as PM will be disaster for India…

- Dr. Manmohan Singh



stronger impact in the minds of the audience and lasts for longer duration provided the source has higher credibility else there is a popular line in Hindi “Raat gayi baat gayi.” Consequently, political leaders and assigned spokesper-sons try hard to justify public demands and concerns by mixing emotional content and tone in their speeches to gain trust of people towards their party (brand). These three elements when combined together have re-sulted well in Indian politics that forms the basis of Brand Management. The new element we must add in political branding is “Creativity” that AAP has adopted despite of stronger opposition parties and less media support.If we recall our powerful marketing tools, the rivals un-derestimated the Porter’s five forces theory by consider-ing new rivals as underdog and smart strategy adopted by AAP helped them to conquer Capital of India that shook the entire political system demanding for better India cor-rupt free nation.

AAP MARKETING STRATEGY

The Indian political parties mainly followed traditional ways to connect with people. Their main marketing strat-egies included media appearance, political rally speeches, and print ads. In addition to this corruption and lack of justice has created a gap between government and pub-lic. Ultimately, the outburst of these frustration lead to the emergence of new political party AAP in India. Since birth, AAP has been very creative in their brand building process by focusing more on non-traditional methods of branding due to limited funds. The declaration of fund amount and name, announcement of no further funds acceptance after target completion, social media net-work, dharna, and local area public meetings certainly helped in their brand establishment. The other factors which have highly contributed to AAP is the Mr. Kejri-wal credentials of being honest man fighting against corruption, RTI implementation credibility, and associa-tion with Anna Hazare movement. Their agenda to form political party has influenced not only middle class soci-ety but also NRI, youth, celebrities, and big corporates

to extend their support, which adds life to this emerging party.

COMMON STRATEGIES

The most common strategy, which these political parties have followed, is by avoiding disclosure of their prime candidate name. The basic idea of embracing this strategy is to avoid voters and media negative reaction and com-ments. The recent instances are when BJP hesitated to name their Chief Minister candidate for Delhi election at early stage and later nominated Dr. Harshvardhan against the critic’s expectation of Mr. Vijay Goel as CM nominee [1]. Congress follows the same trend by not revealing their candidate name for Prime Minister and sighting negative reaction of the voters towards their party finally ended the controversy by announcing Mr. Rahul Gandhi not to be face of Prime Ministerial candidate.Second strategy, cleverly formulated by political parties, is incentives in the form of subsidies. Every common man strives for “Roti, Kapda, Aur Makaan” to satisfy family needs. To facilitate this BJP announced rice at Rs.1/kg,wheat at Rs. 2/kg making “Roti sasti” for people belong ing to below poverty line who are the big chunks of vote share to them. The central government too followed the same trend to shape good will. The controversies of AAP free water and reduction in electricity charges leading to cheaper house (Makaan) expenses attracted headlines in the media to catch the attention of Delhi voters. However, these incentives declaration are for the public benefits but we must differentiate that most of this big incentives pass grants during election period only. The other point-of-parity strategy for parties is associa-tion with big celebrities especially music artist, Bollywood stars, and leaders. The Bollywood star Salman Khan meet-ing Mr. Modi, famous music artist and singe Kailash Khersupporting AAP movement has been the important trend in brand building process. Recently, AAP decision to use Music as a platform to connect with people and penetrate in rural areas for Lok Sabha election is an evergreen mar-keting tool to promote brand backed by renowned artist.

Emergence of #AAP has made 2014 poll trick-ier. There are strong chances that India and China will start outperforming the US in next few years, says Jim O’Neill, former Chairman, Goldman Sachs.



The strategy paid off when these artists got ready to per-form at free cost and no support from AAP funds that have set another benchmark for brand building exercises.

DIFFERENTIATION STRATEGIES

In general, Indian political system has focused mainly on traditional ways to brand their image but arrival of AAP has shifted the complete paradigm of politics. AAP right from the beginning has played the strategy to maintain transparency in their system. Their agenda and struggletowards their ambition sets a fresh image in the eyes of public giving new hope of justice and equality. The end of VIP culture, declaration of donation list, no security, easy access to their political party leaders are the major con-tributor to build trust and credibility. The outcome was the highest percentage of votes registered in Delhi con-stituency history with big chunk of votes going in favor ofAAP party.On other side, the BJP has set new wave of hope by an-nouncing Mr. Modi as PM candidate at an early stage known for its action oriented leadership style. The devel-opment of Gujrat and his personality acts as a trademark for his credibility and party. The BJP thought on ending In-come tax, claim of better economy and jobs, anti-congress votes, and AAP infant in politics is assisting them to claim power and establish their brand in upcoming Lok Sabha election.On the other hand, Congress seems to be losing hope all the way with corruption and lack of governance charges. The brand image has taken such a giant hit finding difficult to find the ground. Party seems to be lost completely in all

aspects and it can be witness by two incidents when Mr. Manmohan Singh who does not comment generally said, “Modi as PM will be disastrous for India” appears to be surprising statement from Congress party leader. The other incident when party officially declared Mr. Rahul Gandhi will not compete for election. This strategy clearly demonstrates an attempt to save their image, as this time neither agenda nor manifesto will create magic in people heart like NREGA scheme. The best tactic they deployed to negate the negative image by extending unconditional support to AAP for forming government in Delhi for the welfare of the society.

PIECE OF UNDERSTANDING

Every political leader and party has some pros and cons in their leadership style and they will continue to formu-late their tactics to highlight party success, agenda, and welfare of the society by hiding their failures through in-novative election campaign. On the other side, the emer-gence of AAP has definitely raised the level of politics by setting new trends for election funding and has amplified the interest of many groups and communities. Overall, as a result new methods of branding and social media cam-paign adopted by parties have set a new benchmark in Indian politics.

Note: All the views expressed in this article are opinions formed based on observations.

“ “

It’s an old adage in the world of Marketing that the ‘Customer is King’. Over the span of years the effectiveness of this statement has been proved

repeatedly. The businesses that were able to adjust themselves as per the needs and demands to the customer have thrived in the marketplace and those that could not have perished. The marketing mix has constantly been evolving to suit the customer needs and will continue to do so in order to achieve cus-tomer loyalty for every product or service. The ad-vent of technological advancements have played a major role in these rapid changes in the market-ing mix. The path breaking innovations like the use of analytics have made it possible for companies to gauge the customers’ needs more deeply and create products suiting them. It has helped them to decide the best pricing strategies which will lure most cus-tomers into buying their products and attract most customers by selecting the best medium of promo-tion which provides maximum visibility of the target segments. In the latest turn of events the world has seen a drastic change in the way companies have started to reach out to the customers and the way the prod-uct has been reaching the customers i.e. the chan-nel of distribution. The market has evolved from traditional distribution channel of manufactures, C&F agents, distributors, retailers to modern trade and from that to E-tailing. If we try and gauge into why these changes have happened, we would zero down to a single point which is to provide custom-ers the ease of purchase. Let us take a look back into the stages of evolution. For most of the items of daily

use people preferred to buy from the nearest shop. The differentiating factor was the distance from the customers. Then came the concept of home delivery where retailers started delivering products to cus-tomers’ place of choice. This technique was adopted in every nook and corner of the world. The next big change was the rise of modern trade, i.e. keeping all the products which anyone might require under one roof so that he does not require to travel here and there for different products. This idea became the founding stone of one of the largest businesses on earth at present Walmart, Tesco, Kroger, Target, Car-refour etc. These retailers have since then became the biggest players in the consumer markets. The next big change came after the rise if internet which was e-commerce which saw the rise of companies like Amazon and eBay which have joined the list of successful organisations if we talk in terms of market capitalization. The world has not seen very dramatic change since then and in this article we will try to explore more towards the changes in future. The e-retailing companies like Amazon, eBay etc. have used Information technology to a great advan-tage for capturing the consumer behaviour and pitch-ing the right products in front of the eyes of the con-sumer. India’s e-Commerce market was worth about $2.5 billion in 2009, it went up to $6.3 billion in 2011 and to $16 billion in 2013 and is expected to touch whopping $56 billion by 2023 which will be 6.5 per cent of the total retail market. Since all companies in this field are almost equally placed and follow simi-lar methods of sourcing and delivering, the price has not been much of a differentiator. The selection of


cover story march 2014

Cover Story ByAmit Sonwani

&Heena

Motwani IIM Shillong

What’s new at your door?

e-commerce retailor by the customer is mainly done on the basis of quality of delivery that they are able to provide. The customer generally chooses the site based on their delivery locations and speed of deliv-ery. For any e-commerce player, winning the trust of customer is very important because it leads to repeat sales from the customer. Over time, coverage of loca-tions of delivery by the e-commerce firms have al-most been the same. So, the competitive advantage is thus decided on the basis of speed of delivery. This has given rise to the concept of same day delivery. This concept came into prominence in the past year and in the last few months we have seen most of the players in the market announcing same day de-livery schemes. Amazon was the first player in India to launch this service with an additional payment of Rs.99 for same day delivery and Rs.69 for delivery in two days. Flipkart has started this service with an ad-ditional payment of Rs.90 for customers availing it. Snapdeal and Tradus are also providing this service in the key cities of India. eBay also entered into this sphere by launching ‘9 hour delivery’ scheme which is available without any additional charges to be paid for the service. The same day delivery services are changing custom-er behaviour and in a market where customer loyalty is difficult to achieve, this helps the e-retailers build that loyalty, create brand awareness which ultimate-ly will result in higher sales for them. But same day delivery is no way a cheap service for these retail-ers. It comes in with high expense in an attempt to reduce the delivery costs. To attain efficiency in this model the retailers would need to work with logistics

companies and use technology with perfection. Cer-tain key areas where the maximum attention would be required for making this service would be enhanc-ing real time inventory management-to keep track of location of SKUs; optimized fulfilment systems which distribution centre can satisfy the order keeping in mind the proximity to the customers, current inven-tory levels and staff capacity for selecting the ordered items and packing them and developing reliable and robust logistics partners which can satisfy the prom-ise of same day delivery. The players would also be required to invest a lot in marketing the service and spreading the word and at the same time attract-ing more customers to the online purchase channel. There still remains a question whether or not the cus-tomers will accept this service and respond positively, because it causes an extra burden on their pockets, but one thing is for sure that whoever implements it at the cheapest rates across all segments will defi-nitely make a big leap in the race of winning over the customers. If we look at the impact of this service in the market, the biggest impact would be on logistics industry and it would not be wrong to assume that Government’s postal service may come into picture given that their reach is much higher than any private logistics service provider. Amazon is also pilot test-ing drones for same day delivery in the United States. With all this seriousness that e-retailers have shown in this service it seems that this would become a dif-ferentiator in the near future. The immense success of e-retailing has made the big retailers venture into this arena and offer their products online. This move of theirs gives them an added advantage of using their brick and mortar stores to deliver products quickly and efficiently. This is also referred to by many as Omni-Channel retail-ing which integrates the multiple channels of sales using IT tools. The retailers use the sensor data gen-erated from sales, location data and demographic data from social media to make marketing decisions by knowing the factors that act as the key influencers for purchase and accordingly include them in their strategy. This has enhanced the ways customer is be-ing serviced. By allowing them to either order online and pickup from the store or get delivery to home di-rectly, the time to get the product is greatly reduced. Big retailers like Walmart, Carrefour and Tesco are now using this approach to make the most out of their potential customers.Innovations are not only coming from the west but



Same Day Delivery !



home-grown retail chains have also come up with ex-citing ideas which might change the face of retailing forever. The best example to illustrate this would def-initely be the ambitious venture of the Kishore Biyani led Future Group’s Big Bazaar Direct. This innovative concept aims at capitalizing on the mind share which Big Bazaar has in the Indian market. It would be dif-ficult to find anyone unaware of Big Bazaar in the urban area of India but there might be few who are unable to visit the stores because of the location of the store. It is this section of customers that Big Ba-zaar Direct will try to capture. The idea is very simple. BBD invites people to become a franchisee by pay-ing an amount of Rs.3,00,000. So, the people living in different localities become the franchisees. When a customer calls, the local franchise visits customers home, takes order from the catalogue of products that Big Bazaar offers on a tablet which is then trans-ferred to the back end and receipt is delivered to cus-tomers via SMS. After this process Big Bazaar delivers the order to the customer in 3-7 days. The concept is developed on the insight from the Indian market that there is still a need of human intervention in e-commerce in India where people are unaware and also afraid of using internet for placing orders. This service gives them assurance that they will have someone to catch hold of if anything goes wrong of which most middle class Indian customers are gener-ally sceptical. Big Bazaar Direct serves customers by providing them the discounts and deals which Big Ba-zaar offers at their home and the franchisees by giv-ing them an opportunity to gain commission on each sale they make by simply going door-to-door without investing heavy amounts in any form, be it working capital or means for delivering like any vehicle. The advantage for Big Bazaar would be leveraging the contacts which local franchise may provide and in-creased opportunity to serve the customers whom they cannot serve through their physical stores. Ac-

cording to the CEO, Mr. Biyani, if this concept which they refer to as aided e-commerce takes off, it may well go on a road to surpass the mother brand Big Bazaar whose current scale of operations is over Rs. 11,000 crore with presence in 93 cities and 60 rural localities serving 300 million customers annually. It will also increase their reach from 35-40% to 70% of the Indian population. This may turn to be a suc-cess story primarily because of two reasons. Firstly, there are many educated unemployed people who cannot manage a very large sum for starting their own venture and they may find this to be an ideal opportunity to earn a good living and for Big Bazaar to get the right work-force. Secondly, Indian custom-ers love brands when they are affordable and provide more value, which is what Big Bazaar does and hence would welcome this service.Another interesting retailing proposition has been put forward by Infrastructure developer and finan-cial service provider Sahara Group in form of Sahara Q-Shop. Sahara is investing over Rs. 3000 crore to de-velop a direct to home delivery of products through its huge existing workforce of 6.5 lakh personnel who are engaged in selling of financial products of the company to over 7 crore customers. This is also an interesting way in which a business is trying to reach its customer. Thus we see that how reaching out to the customers always remains a top priority for the businesses and how it has evolved over time. This trend has not only been limited to the products

Fig: Big Bazaar Direct Order System



ers. Like in the banking sector, new service of open-ing an account via aided internet use is introduced. ICICI Bank is the first bank to introduce such a ser-vice with its Tab banking through which any cus-tomer can open an account in ICICI by just calling a customer service representative who will come over to customer’s residence to collect all the information required and complete the formalities thus remov-ing all the hassles associated with the conventional method. The whole idea behind service is again to make the services available to customer where they are and removing the need of physical branches which in the long run increases reach and reduces the infrastructural requirements thereby cutting costs substantially. Clearly, the scenario in the marketplace is changing with more attempts being directed towards mak-ing the purchase more convenient for the user by bringing the market itself to the customers. The way forward for business will be to go beyond the usual keeping in mind the affinity of people for “more at my door”, even if it looks improbable to succeed. Who would have thought that sales of apparel, that is con-sidered to be a purchase completely on touch and feel would be so successful through the online chan-nel? Even same day delivery is a risky proposition be-cause of the aforementioned reasons but again it is something which might actually change the game in e-retailing. The importance of brands will increase as the customers would look to shop products on the basis of the perceptions and brand image since most of the ordering would be done online. Technology is going to be the driver of changes in the coming time and all these innovations discussed would be suc-cessful only and only when we have the right tech-nology at the right places and in the right hands. The importance of real time consumer data and analytics will lead the way for delivering excellent services and instant gratification of customers. Logistics and last mile delivery will be an important differentiator. But this urge of established players going lengths to at-tract customer will pose a great threat to small retail-ers whose markets are being cannibalised. The single biggest point of advantage which they had which they had was that connect, reach, reach and relation-ship difficult for the bigger modern trade and e-com-merce channels, will be lost as the divide between different channels continues to phase away. To sus-tain these challenges it would be imperative for the

small retailers also to think out of the box and save themselves from this threat to their existence. And the interesting thing to see here would be the ‘JU-GAAD’ which they will come up with to counter this threat. There have been instances where they have faced such a challenge and have brought something ingenious to drive away the threat. To sum it up, the dynamics and composition of the players present in the last-mile are set to change and the biggest ben-eficiary of this change will definitely be the customer who will see himself becoming the Emperor from the king.

CUSTOMER IS THE KING

vartalaap


vartalaap march 2014

VARTALAAPAn Interview with

Mr Mudit Bhatnagar

Mudit Bhatnagar heads the marketing division of ‘Itz Cash Card’ that revolutionized the paradigm of electronic payment solu-tions in India. He is at the helm of three key verticals of Market-ing, CRM & Communication of the Multi Purpose Payment So-lutions. He has a total of 15 years of experience and has been previously associated with esteemed companies like DHFL, HDFC Bank Ltd., Shoppers’ Stop holding prime positions. He is the driv-ing force behind the company’s brand architecture, persona and the brand promise across multiple touch points. Over these years he has won numerous awards for his companies like Marketer of the Year, Brand of the Year, Indira Super Achiever Award and more.

“The processes involved in managing the customer in-teraction, engagement and experience better becomes the prime responsibility of any prudent marketer.”

Head of Marketing

division

Itz Cash Card



erating the same interest, if not more, when we con-duct any other retail activity. ATM’s – have moved on from just being “cash dispensing machines” to “mini bank” – wherein in those 2 minutes how does one “create a shopper experience “ via visual merchan-dising to communicate what more the said franchi-see has to offer or how easy can financial transac-tions be. The challenge is to create curiosity – and also increase the number of visits of the customers to ATM’s so that actual, visits to the bank branches reduce for “day to day transactions”, which today can be done through any non bank channel or simply put a direct channel. The said enhancement involved of-fering a user an “ambience” which perhaps wasn’t heard of in the country – from designer look, to fresh and fragrant ambience and even music. However the “key aspect” was to make the check-in to check –out process very seamless.

Markathon: How was the transition from a retail officer in Shopper’s Stop in 2002 to Marketing and communications in Banking? How do you think this industry has evolved post 2002?

I would say just the product offering / services change, customers more or less change and maybe remain the same. Today it is the “share of time” which ev-eryone is looking for and not just the share of wallet. So for me it was more of a smooth transition from analysing not just share of wallet and “wardrobe” to “financial habits”.

Need of the hour is to de-mystify the BFSI space and create an environment wherein people find it easy to transact independently and also seek financial inde-

Markathon: Itz Cash Card Ltd recently tied up with RW Promotions to help low income groups through rural activation. What were the challenges you faced during this campaign and how did you over-come them?

I would address/ answer this question in 2 parts – communication (why & what) and secondly reach (how?). This is a perennial challenge faced across industry – understanding the behaviour, responsive-ness to mediums and then speaking to them in the manner they are most comfortable. So if “financial literacy” is the medium to speak with such a TG – then the medium of communication chosen was the one which will really get us 10 minutes of their time rather than using the regular mass mediums avail-able.

So going back to grass roots helps and traditional en-gagement techniques like “street plays/ one on one interaction” at key congregation points (within the en-catchment) has helped a lot in our case. This calls for a lot of impeccable planning like key areas, lan-guage, timings etc – but at the end does deliver bet-ter and also with the presence of “distribution net-work” in the near vicinity helps awareness translate into an action.

Markathon: How was your experience during the consumer experience enhancement in ATMs? Ac-cording to you, what is the role of retail ambience in banking today?How does one make the entire consumer experience of doing a financial transaction “non-boring” is of ut-most importance today. If I may say, it has to be gen-

vartalaap

The same applies to the banking industry as well – “your bank at the click, or a tap” is the new mantra.

Markathon: Do you think Banks today are giving adequate importance to Marketing? What advice would you give marketers interested in this field? Absolutely, considering all the points I have men-tioned especially in question no. 4 – BFSI players will continue to invest in all aspects of “customer touch point management and experience”. Understanding the customer behaviour using data analytics makes the product / service offering more effective and rel-evant plus also eases the communication challeng-es that are faced while engaging with a diverse TG across the length & breadth of the country. My only advice is always to “KEEP IT SHORT AND SWEET” for the end user to understand and offer what can make their lives simpler



pendence as per their Lifestyle.

Markathon: Banking has transitioned from brick and mortar to the internet and now most of the banking seems to happen over the phone. What is the marketer’s role here? Particularly, how can you position your service to be different advantage in a vast sea of largely undifferentiated competitors?

A marketer’s role has transformed over the years from just being a “communication person” to acting as a catalyst between the end user, associates and partners and the said entity. So every customer touch point and the quality of experience the customer gets is a marketer’s responsibility. The processes involved in managing the customer interaction, engagement and experience better becomes the prime responsi-bility of any prudent marketer. The cycle starts from the “brand promise to the delivery of the promise and finally consistency in delivering the said prom-ise”.Markathon: How has Itz Cash Card employed digi-tal marketing as more than an “engagement tool”? How relevant do you think digital marketing is in the Banking Industry?

ItzCash‘s business model revolves around a “less cash world” and utilising digital & electronic medi-ums of financial transactions more effective, conve-nient, secure and transparent. Hence the activity of just engaging needs to culminate into actual transac-tions which cover all the said aspects before. Plus it has result into what is very commonly called “repeat purchase” and every time the experience has to be better than the last one.

BRAND PROMISE

DELIVERY

CONSISTENCY IN DELIVERING THE

PROMISE

KEEP IT SHORT SWEET

& SIMPLE


eye2eye december 2013 eye2eye march 2014

Children in advertising: emotionally manipulative or just plain, simple slice of life?”

anmol dhuparimt ghaziabad

There is something inherently char-ismatic and pure about children in advertisements that everyone

can feel the innocence these angelic faces carry and the power they possess to persuade. It’s the creative insight that uses the profound sentimental feelings to convey the message. The clever marketers fill the gap between persuasion and manipulation, hitting directly on the emo-tional appeal or argumentum ad passiones, of the people they target. It ups the recall value, but more prominently the effect it has on the psychological-level results in the target trusting more of the brand. Using Children is the sure-short way to build trust and so, many brands have succeeded in the same. For instance, “Tyaari Jeet ki” campaign by Bournvita, storytelling campaign by Voltas, influential campaign by Lifebuoy -Help a Child, kids buying and selling for Flipkart, children choosing between flavors of ice candies to re-flect different premium options under LIC’s Jeevan Saral Policy, Daag Ache Hai campaign by Surf Excel, are mere examples of successful ads that were able to influence decision makers. Nielsen IAG has it, from 6000 TV com-mercials tracked in 2010 in the US, the 1200 commercials that starred children were 9% more remembered and 14% more liked than ads without children. Research have shown that people are not ruled by their intellect, but by their emotions. In fact, virtually every decision a person takes is governed by a very subconscious but universal need: feeling good about oneself. So the first sale is al-ways made to the right-part of the brain responsible for creativity, emotions and artistic ability, and then the intel-lectual left brain buys in. This practice has its own critiques one of them being Dr. Jitendra Nagpal sen.psychiatrist Moolchand-Medicity-Delhi, who believes that its like child labor. In our opinion featuring Children helps companies avoid boring cliché’ methods, and can never be just plain,simple slice of life.

mudita bhandarigreat lakes, chennai

We all are well aware of the fact that we are living in a commer-cialised world. Children are used in advertising to connect to the emotions of the parents. It is emotionally manipulative as parents are moved by the presence of the kid in the advertisement. There is no limit to corporate greed. Big corporations make kids promote their brand by working in their ads because children rep-resent innocence and ultimately leave the audience with a positive impression about the brand as a whole. The truth of the brand is concealed behind the innocence of the kid. This is wrong because children are not aware of what they are doing. They are not able to judge the can-didacy in their statements as they lack knowledge and judgement about the brand at that point of time. Children are used in the ad to trigger the weak, affectionate side of the parents. Parents can compromise with their needs but would never want to cut short on their kid’s requirements. These ads become even more lucrative with the presence of children. It makes the parent ponder over the neces-sity of the product for their children, directly for children such as cerelac, Johnson baby products, kinderjoy and in-direct such as car so that the whole family can go out with the whole family. In such acts kid acts as an influencer. It would be wrong to call it unethical or completely wrong. Though the consumer needs to be a bit more conscious so as to make a prudent decision and not to fall in the trap put by the big corporate to do nothing else but to earn, ‘Hard Money’.

Topic for the next issue: “Should Nokia support Android on its new phone series? ” Your opinion (view/counterview) is invited. Word limit is 250-300. Last date of sending entries is 22nd Mar, 2014. Include your

picture (JPEG format) with the entry. Winners will receive a prize money of Rs. 500 each!


Congratulations!!! Vivek receives a cash prize of Rs 1000!

silent voice december 2013 silent voice march 2014

Theme: Jabong.com

Last month’s resultsWINNERAkshatha Hegde | MICA

THEME FOR NEXT SILENT VOICE: TIME Coaching ClassesLAST DATE OF SENDING THE PRINT AD: 22nd March, 2014

EMAIL ID: [email protected] Send your entry in JPEG format named as SilentVoice_<Your Name>_<Institute>only.

honorary mentionVivek Unnikrishnan | National Institute of Agricultural Marketing

CATCHRMISS

AD-dicted december 2013


BY Yash BhambhwaniIIM Shillong

PRODUCT: Park Avenue - Beer Shampoo

POSITIONING: Cheers to man hair

CREATIVE AGENCY:Publicis South Asia

YouTube Link: h t t p : / / w w w . y o u t u b e . c o m /watch?v=BGI5oAYl2J4

CONCEPT:

Ever heard the term man hair? If you want to hear the term continuously and

annoy yourself, go ahead and watch the advertisement for the Park Avenue Beer Shampoo at the above link. Though the shampoo is specially made for men, it’s not the first or the only company manufacturing shampoo for men. Continuously repeating the term and knocking the customers mind is not what is going to get them the required sales. The advertisement emphasizes on the fact that the shampoo is specially made for men which is contradicted by the display of activities like blow dry-ing the man’s long hair which is no longer considered macho.

VERDICT: Miss

Though modern times have accepted men-specific prod-ucts, men shy away from using products that are adver-tised in a manner that might invite mockery. The display of the product in stores is the only thing that can pos-sibly attract customers, for those who are not aware the beer shampoo is displayed in a fake bucket filled with ice which is coherent with the manly image of the sham-poo. From Markathon’s point of view the advertisement is a miss and is not capable of capturing a man’s atten-tion and converting him into a potential customer.

BY Swati PamnaniIIM Shillong

PRODUCT: ICICI Tab Banking

POSITIONING: Khayal Apka

CREATIVE AGENCY: Ogilvy & Mather

YouTube Link:h t t p : / / w w w . y o u t u b e . c o m /watch?v=Cmw8BFs0tqc

CONCEPT:

Mindful of internet’s growing trend, ICICI Bank has de-veloped a mobile strategy to the otherwise tedious pro-cess of opening a new bank account: Tab Banking. The TVC informing about this service opens with Amitabh Bachchan, engaged in kite flying with young boys. An ex-ecutive from ICICI bank is seated one storey below await-ing him. When asked what’s going on, Bachchan explains that the man has come there to set up his bank account so that he doesn’t have to go the bank. TVC proceeds with Bachchan concentrating on his kite, and after cut-ting it, says that “, “If I had to go the bank then how I would get this yellow one (kite)?” He then goes to ex-ecutive, completes some basic formality & is informed that they are done. . Bachchan runs back to the terrace and VO says, ‘With ICICI Tab Banking, you can now open a savings account from home, so that you have time for the more important things in life’. TVC concludes with Bachchan receiving an SMS, ‘Thank you for choosing ICICI bank’ and exclaiming, ‘Ye hota hai khayal rakhna’.

VERDICT: Catch

Evidently, the idea is to convey that lengthy procedures at banks needn’t take away one’s leisure time. Incorporating Mr. Bachchan in the film makes this segmentation perfect being the fact that he is a superstar who is super busy. The ad drives awareness about Tab Banking and positioning it as a comfortable and fast service and also reinforcing the bank’s promise of putting the consumer first and making banking convenient.

AD-dicted march 2014 brand story

IIM Shillong IIM Shillong19MARKATHON

brand story march 2014

Brand Story Nishant Prakash | IIM Shillong

Over 780 million people across the world lack access to clean drinking water; 510 million of those are from

the South, West and Central Asia. What’s bewildering is the fact that amidst such circumstances, there are more than 100 brands vying for the Multi-Billion Dollar bottled water market in India alone; and when you talk about bottled-water, there is one brand that has become almost synonymous with the product – Bisleri.Though bottled water was already a well-known entity in the Western countries back in the early 1900s, it was in 1965 that Bisleri launched the same for the first time in In-dia. Not many current consumers know that before Parle bought the brand from its original owners (Felice Bisleri), the Italian company was struggling to market the concept and wanted to exit the industry; and look where they are now – the current market leader in India expects to clock an astonishing Rs. 1000 Crore in annual revenues by 2015. But the journey has had its fair share of ups and downs.Back in 1969 when Parle first acquired Bisleri, it was only the country’s elite who had access to the then glass-bottled product. Like many industry-first brands, the big-gest problem in front of the owners was to market their product and to woo potential customers. Given that their product was colourless, tasteless and odourless, there wasn’t much to advertise. Post its launch, it took almost two decades for the brand to connect with their current target group and there were some major changes along the way – first, the move to PET bottles in mid 80s and then the launch of the more “affordable” 500-ml variant established Bisleri as a brand to reckon with – the latter in fact led to an increase of almost 400% in sales in 1995. Till the late 90s, the brand faced little to no competition with only regional players sharing the large pie of avail-able revenues. But perhaps it was Bisleri’s astonishing growth story that ultimately attracted the likes of Coca Cola (Kinley) and Pepsi (Aquafina) to the market. Sadly for them, Bisleri wasn’t giving up! It instead panned out to capture the Bulk Segment of the market with the launch of its 12-lt and 20-lt variants. This is one segment that the Cola giants are struggling to tap into till date and one that is of immense importance given the water scarcity issues plaguing so many households across different cities.Apart from the financial muscle, another front where Aquafina and Kinley seemed to have an upper hand over Bisleri was in distribution. Both brands enjoyed a ready-made availabil-ity of the biggest distribution channels any brand can hope for. Recognizing this, Bisleri started to expand its own network, adding

more than 150,000 retail outlets between 1995 and 2003.Another aspect that augments Bisleri’s efforts is its abil-ity to hit the right chord with its consumers through its advertisements. All product launches and changes are backed up by aggressive print and TV campaigns and the brand leaves no stones unturned in projecting its core identity as a ‘Pure and Safe’ mineral water brand. Adver-tising a product which up until a few decades ago was deemed ‘unsellable’ is something that the brand has mas-tered to perfection. Perhaps one of the first instances one can recall of Bisleri being on advertisement hoardings was when it was promoting its breakthrough ‘tamper-proof seal’ – with a tagline reading ‘There is just one Bisleri’, the campaign not only accentuated the brand’s image but also made the consumers question the purity of its com-petitors by showing them how easily the conventionally sealed bottles could be refilled with unsafe water.However, the Pure and Safe image was something that even its rival brand Kinley was quick to harp on with its ‘Boond Boond me Vishwaas’ campaign. Consequently, Bisleri started making efforts to distinguish itself from the pack. The first of such efforts was a campaign that tried to bring in the ‘fun-element’ – ads showing a Bikini-clad model (with parts of her body shielded by a Bisleri bottle carrying a ‘Play Safe’ message) went viral. But perhaps the simplest and most effective way the brand managed to differentiate itself from the others was when it changed its packaging from Blue to Green – a move that might seem of little significance to many but one that makes perfect sense given that most consumers don’t ask for a particular brand of water while buying it, because all of them ‘seem’ alike; while launch of products like ‘Mountain Water’ or a 200-ml cup variant did a great job in expanding Bisleri’s portfolio, it is this simple shift in design that shows how carefully crafted its marketing strategies are. In an industry with cut-throat competition and two ma-jor rivals ready to pounce, Bisleri has managed to differ-entiate itself and become a household name. As quoted by Mr. Tushar Trivedi, founder of bottledwaterindia.org (a provider of water treatment plants and mineral water plants), “Demand of Water would never go down and wa-ter would never be out of business”. For Bisleri’s sake, we

hope this is true. Although one segment that we would love to see it make its mark is Flavoured Water – something that would definitely shake up the soft drinks market and would make for inter-esting case studies for marketing enthusiasts like us


fun corner march 2014

Fun Corner Malini Aishwarya BatchuIIM Shillong

Guess the brands that have carried ouT these successful online marketing campaigns

a. The brand produced

successful video content by putting

their associate stories on youtube to bring the personality of

the firm to the forefront.

b.This airline company uses a

twitter account to solve its custoemrs prob-lems instantly. just send

them a tweet about what’s happening and you get quick responses and satisfaction . The company managed to soothe hard feelings and

impress people at the worst moments.

d. put up Pictures of

Products & Peo-ple on Instagram

to to tell stories and give the business a

visual personal-ity.

h. has a very playful

Twitter account that highlights new

products,responds to us-ers comments, and deftly

incorporates puns, pickup lines and one-liners into

their feed.

f. this airlines went

viral with a spec-tacularly awesome & heartwarming video

of lavish gift-giv-ing featuring

Santa.

e. this energy drink manufactur-ing firm focuses on

the lifestyle they want to be associated with on their Facebook Page. The

brand’s Page is full of photos and videos of high octane sport-

ing events, all sponsored by firm and are the second most popular brand on Facebook with almost

40 million fans.

g. Over 3.8 million people

across 14 countries submitted their ideas for the next flavor for

this famous potato chips manufacturing firm through a Facebook

app created by them.

c. this firm launched a campaign encourag-

ing cereal consumption with new recipes from ce-

lebrity chefs and crazy con-coctions . The campaign had a

large social presence with dedicated Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinter-

est and Tumblr pages. The brand took the social campaign into the

real world as well by hosting a “cereal pop art” exhibit at the Wine & Food Festival

in NYC.

ANSWERSa.Walmart |

b.Delta Airlinesc. General Mills |

d.Starbuckse.RedBull | f.WestJet

Airlinesg.Frito Lay |

h.Oreo

ishtihaar


ishtihaar march 2014

RAMANATHAN K | IIM Shillong

In a cluttered media world brands and agencies alike are turning to brand activation as a means to cut through the noise. The objective of any brand activation is to make their brands active in their markets, building reputations along with results. Some unique brand activation strat-egies that are exclusively adopted for India will be dis-cussed here.

HUL’s Roti Reminder ActivationKumbh Mela is the largest congregation on earth where all big marketers are vying to boost their reputation and sales. One such unique activation strategy adopted by HUL’s Lifebuoy is the ‘Roti reminder’ . They tied up with more than 100 dhabas and hotels and all the rotis that were served were stamped ‘Lifebuoy se haath dhoye kya?’ (Have you washed your hands with Lifebuoy?) The insight that a reminder at the right time can go a long way to ensure this habit is followed for a lifetime was the crux of this idea. It reached more than 2.5 million people and the best part is was done with a very minimal cost. Bingo Indian Railways AdLike HUL, Bingo’s method was even more cost effective but managed a 32% volume increase sales during their promo. The target audience was the great Indian middle class and how better can a brand reach them than through Indian Railways? They tied up with Indian railways and used their public address system at their stations. Peo-ple waiting at stations were eager to know the latest updates about their respective trains, and were all ears whenever there was an announcement in progress. Bingo

announced in the same tone and manner that railways do and told people all their train is delayed because the engine driver is munching on a pack of Bingo! Premium Salted, which has 25% extra chips and the train will depart once the driver finishes it. This simple yet innovative idea made sure they broke the clutter and remained them at the right time to munch on to their favourite bingo chips while waiting for their train.Ghajini- Rab Ne Bana Di JodiDuring the release of both of these movies, Aamir Khan tied up with leading multiplexes across the country where SRK starrer Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi was released. All the ush-ers, ticket sellers and people working in the theatres were given the buzz-cut that Aamir sported in Ghajini. People will go to watch Rab Ne...but saw these Aamir’s Ghajini prototypes everywhere in the theatres. This simple yet effective move ensured that Aamir’s movie rode on the attention of Shahrukh’s Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi! What we can all learn from such strategies is that you don’t need to spend hefty amounts to reach to your TG. It is such creative ideas that not only will reap tangible benefits for your brand but also will never fail to capture the consumers’ mind and hearts

Ishtihaar

ONIDA CANDYAspiring “Apple” of Television


jab they failed march 2014

Jab They Failed

b ushashree | IIM Shillong

In May 1999, Onida came out with a unique product, a 14-inch CTV set nicknamed Candy. Candy came in four colors - Berry Blue, Mint Green, Lemon Yellow and Cherry Red-and was priced at Rs. 9,990 (a high at that time). Candy was Onida’s attempt to shed its “21-inch Company” im-age by entering into 14-inch and 20 inch segments. The product idea seemed good enough. At a time when all television sets were either black or grey, Candy had been launched to bring a dash of colour in this market. Its dis-tinctive feature – a pair of wireless headphones to enjoy the TV experience definitely was an eye-catcher too. The television was launched in the backdrop of the World Cup (set to start that summer) to project it as ‘cute, funky, nifty, little product.’ It was also proposed as an ideal tele-vision set to listen to cricket commentary loudly without disturbing others in the house. Keeping this in mind, On-ida spared no expense in its Marketing efforts to launch Candy. Its hoardings and banners were put up in prime locations in the city. Just before the World Cup, Candy was launched nationally. Onida sold almost 4,000 Candy sets in the first month of its launch in Mumbai before the world cup. Dealers in Calcutta, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka also received a good response. Onida had big plans for Candy but could not sustain the initial success. Somewhere around 2002-2003 it was quietly laid to rest. The main reason for its failure was possibly an in-correct segmentation. Though Candy was a very different product, Onida could not create a sustainable differentia-tion. It was introduced to differentiate an already ailing Onida in the overcrowded TV market. Despite its features being youth oriented, it was getting projected as a second TV in the house and was competing with 10 other brands which had entered the Indian market since 1995. Instead of projecting it as a vibrant and youthful brand, Candy’s positioning seemed very confused – for whom is Candy actually? Somehow the four colour variants weren’t enough to create an image of a vibrant brand. Struggling amidst weak positioning, Onida further diluted the brand by launching a 20 inch variant. Candy’s pricing was another villain in its story. Candy TV was priced at a premium of 40% over the mar-ket average. While the initial buzz prompted people to buy the product, it failed to sustain its image over time

and sales fell. Many people felt its colours were too dull to pay a premium. Even though Candy was launched to take the television market by a storm with its aesthetics and design pretty much like what APPLE did in the comput-er industry, it failed to do so. In hindsight, it didn’t really have that great aesthetics to begin with. It also failed to introduce revolutionary new features to justify its premi-um price and thus failed to cement its place in the market. Our take on it? Candy should have employed ef-fective communication targeted towards the youth. In-stead of competing for the place of second-television-in-house, it should have created a new segment for itself. It should have further sustained this segment by intro-ducing new features catering to the youth similar to the wireless headphones and by positioning itself differently rather than “a colourful TV”. Thus with the right commu-nication and features to justify its premium price, Onida Candy could have done well. It was a fresh product idea at that time but wasn’t executed well enough

march 2014


Varsha Poddar | IIM Shillong

Hello there, Big Brother!“What’s on your mind?” Facebook has completed a decade of asking us this question in one form or the other. The growth of Facebook and its coming of age from being a college intranet of sorts to being home to the virtual lives of billions of people is something we are all familiar with. It is as much part of every household’s dinner table conversation as Facebook itself is. In fact, given its acquisition of WhatsApp, almost all conversations of the virtual world are ef-fectively taking place via Facebook.The extent and reach of Facebook’s influence in to-day’s time is Orwellian, quite literally. In his book 1984, George Orwell wrote of a society that was constantly being watched by an omniscient, gov-ernment-backed Big Brother. This certainly is true of Facebook as it has access to the personal data of its users. Orwell’s Big Brother was also responsible for a sinister brainwashing of the people who lived in the futuristic society of 1984 (he wrote the book in 1949). Anyone who escaped the mental makeovers and retained their original individuality was incrimi-nated for a ‘thought crime’.

Perhaps 30 years behind in its arrival, but Orwell’s 1984 has arrived, and it is clothed in the deep blue of Zuckerberg’s Facebook. Marketers have often been criticised for furthering the cause of consumerism and bringing about marked consumption patterns

easily identifiable as trends in different time frames. Social networking sites, spearheaded by Facebook, have brought about a certain pattern in the way peo-ple project themselves in their virtual lives.These statements would perhaps guarantee one to be classified as a naysayer to the revolution that social media is touted to be, but there has been an undeni-able change not only in the medium through which people communicate but also in how they commu-nicate. And while one would think that Facebook’s constant inquisitiveness about what is on people’s minds would have inspired them to be original, what we’ve observed in the past decade is more and more people coming close to being just additional bricks in the wall. A wall that marketers find most useful to mount as now suddenly, their customers and their in-built inclinations to chase after the most popular trends have been cloned on the internet.And there it is, that is how we have it – an Orwellian scenario where most persons have been induced to using sarcasm, to being forcefully witty, to sharing memes to reflect their subscription to ideologies that are popularly doing the rounds. And that is how we have an economy of thriving ‘check-ins’, of booming hash-tag events and of sleek smart-phones clothed in snazzy smart-phone covers so that the ‘selfies’ in front of bathroom mirrors can capture duckfaces and half-eaten apples alike.Marketers can dangle the carrots of snob appeal all they like in front of their consumers because Big Brother is watching, and he approves!

Radical Thoughts

radical thoughts march 2014


updates december 2013 updates march 2014

Brand LaunchNews from Auto Expo-2014: Value offerings unveiled by leading car-makers

The 12th Auto Expo saw a series of launches from leading automobile manufac-turers to increase their market share in the Indian market. Market leader Maruti Suzuki unveiled hatchback Celerio, which brings the convenience of an auto-matic transmission on to an entry-level vehicle. Tata Motors also introduced two models- the sedan Zest and hatchback Bolt in the most competitive segment of the market. Honda Cars India Ltd. (HCIL) today unveiled its Mid-size Stylish MPV Honda Mobilio and the all-new, 3rd generation Honda Jazz .The Mobilio features sporty styling and a spacious cabin, which can seat seven occupants in three-row configuration while 3rd-Gen Jazz is a revamped model of the premium hatch.

By Amit SonwaniIIM Shillong

Brand Watch

Sony launches hybrid laptops

Japanese technology giant Sony unveiled a range of C Flip priced Rs. 94,990 on-wards to cash in on the growing consumer preference for new smart form factors. A hybrid, also called 2-in-1, is a device which can be used both as a laptop and a tablet. The form factor is gaining acceptance among consumers who are looking for productivity and mobility in a single device. The company has introduced 13, 14 and 15-inch variants of the device priced between Rs. 94,990 and Rs 1,19,990.

Tata Chemicals launches Swach water purifier on occasion of 75th an-niversary

Tata Chemicals launched two variants of Tata Swach Silver reverse osmosis (RO) water purifiers - Platina and Ultima. The products, the Tata Swach Pla-tina Silver RO water purifier and the Tata Swach Ultima RO+UV water purifier would be available at all leading outlets for Rs 13,999 and Rs 16,999 respec-tively. Both models have special Silver Safety to ensure their long life, com-plete the spectrum of offerings addressing total water purification for house-holds along with non-electric gravity based water purifiers by Tata Swach.

Panasonic set for Single-brand Retail in India

Japanese electronics giant Panasonic along with its fully owned subsidiary Anchor Electricals has filed a single-brand retail application to open compa-ny-owned outlets to sell its range of LED light fixtures and other lighting de-cor products, becoming the first global electronics brand to opt for its fully-owned and operated stores through the single-brand retail route. Having a chain of own stores is part of the company’s plans to capture market in India.

Louis Philippe plans exclusive jeans stores; targets 30 stores in 3 years

Louis Phillipe, leading menswear brand from the house of Aditya Birla Nuvo Ltd., is planning to launch exclusive jeans stores. Louis Phillipe launched its jeans brand - LP Jeans last year and has seen encouraging response from the consumers. The company


updates december 2013 updates march 2014

expects this segment to be a growth driver in future and is therefore looking to expand its presence by opening 10 ex-clusive LP Jeans stores this year and about 30 odd stores over next three years.fully-owned and operated stores through the single-brand retail route. Having a chain of own stores is part of the company’s plans to capture market in India.

MediaAsian Paints: Speechless, real time on Twitter

Going speechless is a rare thing, especially when one is on social media. How-ever, following its television campaign featuring brand ambassador Saif Ali Khan and Soha Ali Khan, Asian Paints Royale Aspira rolled out a digital cam-paign on February 3, naming it #speechless. The two-day campaign, conceptu-alised by Contract Advertising, was launched with a mime video encouraging users to tweet about what made them go speechless. The users were asked to tweet using the hashtag #speechless on the @asianpaints Twitter page.

Creativeland Asia to handle Mercedes-Benz’ digital media account

Mercedes-Benz India has announced the appointment of Creativeland Asia as its agency partner. The agen-cy’s mandate will include digital creative and digital media duties. The team will work on developing a fresh digi-tal strategy for the brand in the days ahead. The development comes on the back of a multi-agency pitch held ear-lier this year. Creativeland Asia recently parted ways with Audi India, a business it had been handling since 2010.

Ad WatchChevrolet brings in Yami Gautam as brand ambassador for Beat Facelift

Chevrolet has come up with a very peppy and light advertisement for its 2014 facelift version of Beat. The ad featuring Yami Gautam who finds it difficult to grab attention of her friend who is enamoured by the stylish Beat. The 47 second commercial successfully demonstrates features of the car and emphasizes on the styling which makes even Yami Gautam submit to it. The background score of “Kya khoob lagti ho” also matches perfectly with the desired communication. Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj4FCw1Gwxw

Har ghar amul ghar

It can be said that this is one of the cutest ads in recent time. How beautifully AMUL has screened a typical young family and its morning challenges. The beauty is in how the child learns from it, as the time passes. The ad subtly shows how Amul is consumed throughout the day by everybody and is a part of everyone’s daily life. The ad does wonderfully well to remind most of us of our childhood and connects instantly. Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_I1omigDRU

Samsung rolls out ad for Galaxy Grand-2

Galaxy Grand 2 has begun its journey with an advertisement showing all the great features which the phone carries. The ad clip opens with the elder brother taking the younger to an exciting journey where they encounter many memo-rable incidents and capture those with their grand phone.Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xB_eWW5ttaM


VARSHA PODDAR | IIM Shillong

February and the start of March saw the Marketing Club of IIM Shillong host War of Brands - an online event that focused on participants’ abilities to repre-sent popular brands, defend them and ambush their strongest competitors. The event saw participation from business schools across the country and com-prised three rounds. The first round required participants to come up with print-ads for brands such as Zandu Balm, Arnab Gos-wami, MDH masale, Manchester United, Tintin, Yash Raj Films and a few more. Brands are open-ended constructs that are owned by the customers, really, and can be subject to a number of interpretations which was evident in the myriad nature of entries we received, where the bizarre, creative, brilliant and out-of-the-box intermingled freely.A Chinese proverb when translated says, “You will never lose a battle if you know your own situation as well as that of the enemy.” The second round pitched competitor brands on a one-on-one battle where the teams were assigned with the task of opposing / us-ing ambush strategies against rival brands. And so it

was that an interesting melange of counter-ads for Zandu Balm came from the other assigned brand - Amrutanjan, and Arnab Goswami met his match in Rajdeep Sardesai, Tintin had to battle Asterix, Man-chester United were pitched against Chelsea, and so on.The third and final round was an online debate of sorts where teams had to actively engage in mean-ingful commentary on rival brands’ entires on the facebook page of Markathon. The teams were given four days to attack, retaliate, counter-attack and so on and so forth on the Markathon facebook page which resembled a battlefield thanks to the terrific show put up by the participants.Based on the performance of these three rounds, the winning team emerged from IMT Ghaziabad. They had commendably defended the turf of Amrutanjan pain-relief balm. The runners up were team Arnab Goswami from IIM Shillong, who came up with cre-ative concepts that subtly ambushed their competi-tors

WAR OF BRANDS

events march 2014

Articles Are invited“Best Article”: Venkat Iyer | IIM Trichy

He receives a cash prize of Rs.1000 & a letter of appreciation

We are inviting articles from all the B-schools of India. The articles can be absolutely any-thing related to the world of marketing but it should be an original work that is not pub-lished elsewhere. The articles can be specific to the regular sections of Markathon which

includes: •Perspective: Articles related to development of latest trends in marketing arena.•Productolysis: Analysis of a product from the point of view of marketing.•Strategic Analysis: A complete analysis of marketing strategy of any company or an event.

Apart from above, out of the box views related to marketing are also welcome. The best entry will receive a letter of appreciation and a cash prize of Rs 1000/-. The format of the file

should be MS Word doc/docx.

The last date of receiving all entries is 22nd March, 2014. Please send your entries marked as <ARTICLE NAME>_<SENDERS’ NAME(S)>_<INSTITUTE> to [email protected].


bidding adieu march 2014

Bidding Adieu

- Senior Marketing Club Signing Off

markathon march 2014

Documents