All businesses operate within an environment of stiff competition. One of the most important aspect of competition arises from the fact that the consumer is becoming much more informed and demanding. With a plethora of options available to him, majority of the buying decisions are being driven by benefits, and hence there is an immense pressure on value creation and delivery. To survive in the hyper competitive markets, brands are repositioning themselves to fit into the aspiration level of the consumers. Brand loyalty is no more about tried and tested brand name and market presence. It has shifted its platform to the benefits they offer to the consumer in terms of cost and innovations. These brands are constantly competing against other established players and the new entrants i.e. “startups”. Since the competition is gorier now, the way this battle is being fought is also transforming as this is the need of the hour.
The eye to eye section covers the critical evaluation of the behavior of luxury brands in the domestic market and further emphasis on native marketing is being given in our perspective section. The perspective section also touches upon digital marketing and various tools under its portfolio. In the Vartalaap section, we bring to you Mr. Tanmaya Singh, Marketing Head-Commercial Vehicles at Tata motors. He has given great insights regarding his career at Tata Motors and how he cleared tbe fast-track exams to reach the the position that he currently holds. He is very enthusiastic about the automobile industry and advises this generation of B-school students to be very sure about the sector they want to work in. Also,our young leaders and marketers were in the industry for two months as a part of their summer internship programme and we have tried to capture the internship experience of few of them to give practical insights to our readers. This edition also talks about how the campaign of Dove failed and faced criticism when they tried to leverage on “beauty” for their propaganda.
Through this edition we have tried to bring across various aspects of hyper competition; how it is impacting the industry and how industry is responding to it by using various strategies to stay alive and meaningful. The cover story emphasizes on how this hyper competitive scenario is pushing the market players to transform and As always, we have the catch and miss advertisecome up with disruptive strategies to gain more ments of the month and the fun corner to mind boggle you. We hope you enjoy the read and do market share. write back to us. Cheers! Team Markathon
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january 2017
Andar Ki Baat
Perspective
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Crowd Source and Native Marketing Geetika Misra & Zenith Thakur | IIFT
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Disruptive Digital Technologies in Marketing Jatin Panchal|JBIMS Mumbai
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Hypercompetition & Startups Himanshu Chugh|IIM Shillong
Cover Story
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Disruptive Hypercomptition
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Andar Ki Baat SpeciaLs
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Internship Experiences
23 Industry Gyan from the biggest companies
Logoistic
Kodak Arnav Khanna | IIM Shillong
AD-dicted
Catch & Miss advertisements of the month Ravitej Vadlamani & Suman Sourav | IIM Shillong
Top 5 reads of the month Articles which you just 31 cannot afford to miss
Marketing Gyan
Aditya Gaur | IIM Shillong
Eye 2 Eye
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january 2017
Are luxury brands striking the right chord in India?
Vartalaap Mr. Tanmaya Singh
Marketing Head-Commercial Vehicles,Tata Motors
17 Pratibha Mittal
Deepika S
IIIM Shillong
TAPMI
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Interviewed By:
Jab They Failed 29 DOVE: (Stop Choosing) Beautiful Raghav Dhanuka | IIM Shillong
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Fun Corner
33
Updates
To get the brain tickling Aditya Gaur | IIM Shillong
Fresh from the Marketing World Suman Sourav | IIM Shillong
Archita Singh | IIM Shillong IIM Shillong
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and desires of consumers and fulfills them “(as given by Philip Kotler) and has evolved into “an art of reaching your audiences with the information they are interested in consuming and are eager to share” (by David Scott”). In the internet-guided disruption, marketers
Crowd Source and
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Native Marketing
Two of the many shades of Content Marketing trends!
By geetika misra, zentih thakur iift
“People do not buy products and services. They buy relations, stories and magic”
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ntroduction
Brian Solis, Digital Analyst has captured the recent rapid revolution in a beautiful term of Digital Darwinism which states that technology and society has been evolving faster than the ability to adapt and lead. In this era, the organizations must either adapt or die merciless death. Marketing arena, thankfully, is keeping itself abreast and is continuously evolving. Observed from an enthusiast view, it has ceased to cater to its classical definition of “a science that identifies the needs
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you build an interesting story around your brand and you guide the consumer’s brain by providing the content rather than giving them the room of going online and searching through which they might get exposed to a competitor’s presence. It not only helps in Consumer Retention rather it also expands the base as the “Targeted Tribe”
are increasingly using Digital Marketing techniques to capture the attention of the option overloaded spoilt consumer and according to a recent survey by Smart Insights for the “Toprated digital marketing techniques 2017”, the top position was bagged by Content Marketing which has become so popular that Seth Godin remarks that “Content marketing is the only marketing that is left” .If poetically put forward, Content is the king and Marketing is the queen who together run the household.
will share the content with others which in turn creates a positive Word-Of-Mouth(WOM) for your brand.
Content Marketing can be defined as a practice of creating, publishing and sharing meaningful content in the form of blogs, videos, and info graphics with the “relevant target audience” in order to create a positive stir in the market regarding your product or service. It is all about delivering the right message, to the right person, via the right medium, at the right place and at the right time. The rise in importance of Content Marketing can be attributed to various factors such as 81% of shopper’s research online before setting a foot in a store and consumers, on an average, have started spending 79 days conducting online research before buying. According to experts, content marketing helps
CROWDSOURCING CONTENT
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Content Marketing itself is an umbrella term for various techniques which can be employed for digitally conquering the valuable audience. In this article, we will have a peek at the unexplored terms of the game which are slowly gathering marketers’ attention and have the capability of being the next-big-thing. MARKETING
For a content marketing enthusiast, it is imperative for him to keep bombarding the target audience with creative ideas and anecdotes to keep the buzz going on. But in real life, it becomes difficult when you reach the zenith of research and have lost the cutting edge (39 % of the marketers indicate that coming up with ideas is difficult in a phase when they need approximately 268 ideas per year) needed due to lack of creativity and failure to gauge the ever-evolving expectations of the consumers. An answer to the problem lies when the brand gives the reins of its Brand Building to its consumers and asks for inputs. This
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perspective practice leads to the emergence of novel concept of “Crowdsourcing Content Marketing” wherein when an organization looks outside its own employees for creative ideas and problem solving. For marketers, crowdsourcing may involve inviting your network of prospects and customers to contribute their insights or expertise in the form of a blog article, social shares, a poll, an interview, etc. It is similar to a situation where you “let your audience get involved by handing out the microphone at a conference”
outcome. This concept has been successfully employed by brands like Doritos through “Crash the Super Bowl” to receive comedic videos from customers and rewarding them in turn. It has not only created some memorable content but an iconic Brand Positioning. Lays also banked upon this strategy through “Do us a flavor” contest which led to immense consumer involvement and retention but also diversification in offerings. In India, Colgate used this technique to
The advantages of this concept can be combined in many ways1. Your relevant content is made at a faster pace because of involvement of people who actually matter that too with an added advantage of “more the merrier” which helps the content creator get around the “writer’s block” problem. 2. According to Seth Godin, people at the end would like to get remembered and missed when they are gone. Hence a short fame of 15 minutes (provided through the content generated by them for brand) is highly appreciated and the brand that is able to provide such fame garners an automatic loyalty and interest. 3. Guarantees expansion of audience base and increased social engagement as people who write will publicize the matter themselves for self-fame which in turn will popularize the brand. 4. According to subject experts, 60% of the consumers rely on their immediate crowd for brand-related info gathering rather than relying on the celebrities. Hence a Brand Lift is a popular
for Visible White through the Shine Song giving Shradda Sharma (a consumer) a quick fame and also brand building through considerable online views.
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In the hindsight, there are few catches to this attractive technique such as1. Case of serious questionable ownership where even if crowd members do not object to the use of their information, a competitor can easily “lift” that information and develop it. Once such duplication is discovered, one or both parties will need to retract their crowd source-originated items from the marketplace. 2. The content generated may not always be of high quality as people involved are no market and subject experts. 3. High probability of market risk in case of some survey conducted to gauge the customer intention may lead to derailment as the competitors may utilize this for creating negative waves or diversion through fake entries.
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perspective Conclusively, crowdsourcing which reduces the effort and cost-time involvement from the brands’ end may backlash if not properly monitored. Hence, a favorable synergy (opposite to completely giving up the reins to consumer) between professional creators and customers must be obtained on a digital platform.
ing or promoted listings on Google and Bing etc. Well, if you have observed these then you have pretty much found out the definition of Native Marketing. Now you must be thinking as to what was the need of Native Marketing. Well before 2001, the Click Through Rates (CTR) on Traditional
NATIVE ADVERTISING
Digital ads used to be pretty high. But after 2001, the CTR started declining sharply till 2008 and since then, it has gradually drifted towards zero. This was the prime reason to coin Native Marketing.
Ever since the term Native Marketing has been coined, it has caused lot of confusion in the minds of marketers. It is often thought as the synonym of content marketing. Because of this confusion, many marketers haven’t put much efforts in understanding the actual meaning and benefits of Native Marketing. To put in simple words, Native marketing is defined as the method of presenting online media without disrupting the user experience. The ads follow the layout and functionality of a website in which it is placed. Let’s put in a different way. You must have seen recommended links at the bottom of a news page saying “Around the Web” or say some sponsored links/suggested reading/viewing on LinkedIn or Twitter which look like exactly the same as the content you are read-
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But since the birth of Native Marketing, it hasn’t become much popular. A survey conducted by Copyblogger says that almost 50% of the marketers have no idea about the Native Advertising. 24% said they are hardly familiar with it while another 24% said they are somewhat knowledgeable. The surprising part was that just 3% Marketers were very knowledgeable about Native Advertising. In the beginning of the article, we have talked about the Content Marketing so now let’s understand the difference between the Native Advertising and Content Marketing.
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perspective With Content Marketing, the companies deliver to their own channels like emails, own blog sites, own social media channels etc. whereas in case of Native Advertising, companies leverage someone else’s channel over their own.
c) Also, 97% of mobile media buyers report that native ads were very or somewhat effective at achieving branding goals. 4. Since Native ads are part of the content on site pages on which they appear, so they appear as content and not ads. The adblocking software can easily deal with banner and pop-up ads but Native ads will always slip through. This means it has a higher potential to have a much greater reach. If someone is having direct access to the complete audience via email etc. then in that case Native Advertising may not be needed. Most of the brands or companies are not in that position and that’s where Native ads can be valuable. Unlike Content Marketing, Native advertising is not that focused on product promotion.
Now the million-dollar question is why one must give importance to understanding and using the Native Advertising? The simple answer is Native Ads get attention. Let’s have a look at the benefits. 1. It can be assumed that if we add more blinding banners it may make a site more profitable but that happens at the expense of user experience. The benefit of using native advertising is that you don’t have to choose between user experience and earning money. Native ads promote engaging content along with stories which suits the readers without changing the form and function of the website. 2. Content Marketers are increasingly showing their interests in Native Advertising as it is assumed to be a better method of building trust and engagement with prospective customers as compared to the traditional ads. 3. According to a study by Sharethrough and IPG Media, a) 25% more consumers look at the native ad placements compared to the traditional banner ads. This help in increasing the number of clicks and leading to higher number of conversions. b) Native ads registered 18% higher lift in purchase intent than banner ads.
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As reported by Business Insider, the budget for native ads was $4.7billion in 2013 and is expected to reach $21 billion in 2018 as more marketers will get to know its benefits. Another report by emarketer stated that in 2015, native advertising was already provided by 73% of online publishers and another 17% planning to opt for it. It was also found out that 32% of consumers were open to sharing a native ad with their friends, family and colleagues. In contrast to it, only 19% of consumers were ready to share the traditional banner ads. To summarize, Native advertising doesn’t disrupt the user experience and acts as an add on in providing information in a similar format to other content on the site. It helps the users to engage more than they would have with a banner ad. The figures quoted by emarketer in 2015 are quite impressive and the trend is expected to continue in the coming years. So, if one wants an optimal yield for their marketing strategies, Native Advertising is the way. Conclusively, in the dynamic Marketing world, Content Marketing is about building a long-term relationship rather than having a one-night stand and for that we have to constantly shock and rock the consumer to keep the things interesting between brand and audience and Crowdsource and Native might prove to be helpful buddies in near future.
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Disruptive Digital Technologies in Marketing By Jatin Panchal JAMNALAL BAJAJ INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES
Change is the new constant. The confluence of people & technology has given rise to myriad possibilities of addressing the issues of mankind sustainability. There is a tectonic shift in technology that the world is experiencing today. Large or small organizations, rich or poor economies are witnessing the impact of a massive digital transformation. So, what do we mean when we say digital transformation or impact through digital initiatives or investments? The Y2K generation witnessed the realization of
The world has witnessed the power of internet too. The terminology Internet of Things (IoT) is extensively used by organizations to its advantage to drive digital transformation strategies worldwide. Let us take a pause here to think – What is really significant about IoT as a technology? What I term it as just another means of connectivity (to the internet). As we have seen before the connectivity of devices with Bluetooth, Zigbee (short distance connectivity protocols) creating a mesh of devices (endpoints which would be people in marketing) to make them communicable. Connectivity with Internet brings you the advantage of distance, complemented by the perils of being hacked! Apparently, there are pros and cons to technology. Let me clear few things first. IoT or Digital technologies are not only limited to creating websites and social media pages. In fact, digital initiatives are focused more towards capturing & analysing vast data that is generated from people, products, process, applications or operations that are analysed to generate insights that make faster, accurate and unbiased (data driven) results.
Moore’s law, defining technological growth on a time scale. The advent of telephones, television, automobiles, personal computers, and mobile phones have been the hallmark of technological innovations in the last two centuries.
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Well, let me share an experience I had while attending a Smart Products exhibition in the US. Imagine every appliance in your house is connected to the Internet (Internet of Things) right from your weighing scale in the bathroom, to your refrigerator, microwave, coffee machine, wash-
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perspective ing machine etc. Now, when you check your weight on the weighing scale (say it is overweight), it records your weight and sends it to all the appliances in your house. After the bath, when you go for the breakfast, your refrigerator (which has an inbuilt camera) will prompt that since you are overweight, you cannot eat high fat items like cheese, milk, cake etc. kept in the refrigerator (an appliance that cares about your health). Now, based on the low fat items in the refrigerator, your microwave will prompt you that it can prepare say 15 recipes (available from internet) that are recommended for healthy eating. So now you have appliances around that will take care about your health, monitor you daily schedules, living patterns and adjust to give you a personalized experience.
credit card and will do an direct auto debit to your account. Sounds spooky? Well, that’s the power of technology for you and indeed this is the future Smart Home! This is how the day to day products are going digital and data generated from such products are used
Today, wearables have become a style statement. Mobile phones have been the classical example of a smart device (most often wearable since it tracks all your day to day activities), but with rapid technological advancements, we have wearables that are available as watches, wrist bands, head bands, rings etc. that tracks your daily routine along with the medical and health profile. A coffee machine which is connected to your smart wearable (keeping a track on your activities) knows when you wake up and prepares a coffee just the way you like it, a refrigerator with an inbuilt camera that keeps an eye on the inventories inside and helps you prepare order list so that it will be ordered automatically (with your consent) and delivered at your door step by a nearest retail store. And guess how would
The answer is through ‘DATA’. Every business measures some key performance indicators (KPIs) by which they predict the outcomes of their business like profit & loss, revenues, customer satisfaction, productivity, efficiency etc. So when it comes to measuring the returns from implementing digital strategies, it is different from traditional ROI calculation techniques. With conventional offline marketing strategies, the data of consumers was not available, but to measure ROI on digital strategies, analysing data plays a crucial role.
to drive decisions which leads to customized & focused marketing for every consumer resulting in saving unnecessary marketing efforts and optimize the sales engine. Measuring ROI on digital initiatives can be challenging
in cohesion. Data generated from these process are analysed to improve productivity, reduce waste, optimize process etc. Even in case of smart products, capturing information like usability, time of operation, field failure data, and warranty data will help measure customer satisfaction levels (which in turn will drive revenue), improved aftermarket sales will lead to customer longevity (stickiness).
eventually measured. The data from these apps is used by companies to predict customer behaviours as in when and what will they buy next!
However, if you look at business like OLA & UBER which are 100% application based quantify their earnings by no. of rides booked, cancelled, time of rides, frequency of rides, customer scores and rating etc. Moreover, e-commerce companies are promoting offers on app based purchases which clearly Let me highlight some cases from the industry. In a manufacturing setup (talking about Industrie indicates that factors like trust, customer engage4.0*), it calls for connected manufacturing where ment, and application usage are on the high which different functions like purchase, finance, quality, can be HR, production, supply chain & logistics are working
by OEMs to understand their customer’s behaviour, usage patterns and suggest products that suit their style and need. This will be a more focused marketing strategy that will be very specific to their customers. Consider an example of banking sector which is one of the fastest in the race to adopt digital technologies. Be it e-banking or ATMs, digital adoption by banks and consumers have changed the definition of banking. Today, banking is no longer a ‘trip to the branch’. So what are the impacts of going digital? Well, for customers, it is ease of banking, faster transactions, and for banks it is engaged & satisfied customers, improved reach (24x7 service), customized banking depending on different users, improved sales and much more. Mobile banking has led to improved customer satisfaction, primarily due to digital offerings (1). Similarly, linking Aadhar no with bank accounts and e-filing has fasten the tax filing process, resulting in improved experience & faster transactions. What we just experienced was an impact of going digital. So what you as a consumer will get out of using such appliances or services? Ease, Comfort, Quality Lifestyle, Satisfaction and much more. So, the BIG question, how do we measure the impacts, the returns that we achieve by investing in digital technologies / initiatives?
you do the payment? Well, need not worry, the refrigerator company has a tie-up with the payment gateway company that will be integrated with your
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Today, in the retail sector, where there are so many options available for consumers, the BIG retail chains thrive on the consumer data to find answers to business questions. Retail companies have developed & deployed human behaviour models based on consumer spend data, consumer’s sentiment for particular brand, age group, family composition, lifestyle etc. They are investing in creating data based model
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The vast explosion of data certainly has made the consumer more informed, but is also assisting the companies to make more informed decisions in terms of investment in new products, time to market, understanding behavioural patterns and much more. In the world of digital, it is not the fittest, but it is the survival of fastest. Siloed approach has hindered the measurement of digital impact, but defining right metrics, capturing relevant data & performing data analysis that drive business outcomes will alleviate the ROI measurement. The business that can implement such a process are here to reap rich benefits.
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in the disruption through entrepreneurship. Now the current scenario looks like an ocean
Hyper Competition
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& Startups
Hyper competition, startups and digital marketing
By himanshu chugh IIM Shillong
“When Startups deal with Hyper-competition... They need something to Lean on”
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ntroduction
Innovation has contributed in rapid growth of emerging markets. The newer brands have identified the latent needs of the customer and are providing an affordable solution to satisfy these needs. Emerging markets have become a lucrative destination for startups, be it local or global. The major reason for this has been the aspirations of the middle class and demands of young consumers. Also, the national policy makers have introduced economic reforms which have assisted
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full of some big sharks, and then there are baby fishes who aspire to snatch the same pie – All thanks to this entrepreneurship environment. Since this Pie is limited and the sharks won’t give away their share so easily, these startups have come up with new ways to deal with the challenges. And these challenges are growing day by day because everything is so dynamic, courtesy –The Irrational consumer. Though we might be the fans of classic marketing, but if startups have to compete, they surely need to lean on something which is much more cost effective, collaborative and has a vast outreach. It’s like a long distance relationship, you need to make your presence felt without physically being there. You need to develop that connect with your consumers, you need to pamper them and obviously you need to address their grievances in the best possible way. It’s a relief that your consumer is actually not your bae. That makes the task a little easier and the solution a little more practical. So the panacea to this problem lies in technology. Data analytics – a child of technology is giving the business opportunities to understand consumer needs, preference and behavior. All this is helping start-ups in careful positioning of their brands and giving rich experience to a diverse consumer base. To create a unique identity in the mind of the consumers, start-ups are investing time in product Innovation and differentiation, which is surely giving them a competitive advantage in the market. But what makes them create a real impact is one of the fanciest tool - Digital marketing. It is helping these startups to reach to their target audience in a cost effective and rapid way. Inbound marketing tools are being used by start-ups to create and distribute quality con-
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tent to gain interest of audience in their products/services. Some of these tools are Social Media Marketing is used to engage customers on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest etc. These platforms help the brand build a voice. It has become a means of communication between the brand and customers. Visibility of the brand increases. Relevant content posted on the platform helps the brand connect with its target audience. This type of marketing is both paid and organic. Search Engine Marketing is used to place highly searched keywords in the company’s website in order to improve the website’s rank in search engine. Content Marketing is a strategic marketing technique focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain target audience. It helps in brand awareness and builds an identity of a trusted expert. Corporate Blogging is a process of creating content that addresses industry updates, best practices and company news. It is majorly about brands sharing headlines of newly posted blogs on social network to improve traffic to their pages to enhance overall visibility of business. Video Marketing, in this type of marketing a video is used as a
powerful rich media source to connect with the audience. Email Marketing helps in strengthening the relationship with customer. Company asks customers to sign up for newsletters so they can be repeatedly reminded about new products, launches, and other deals being offered by the company on a regular basis. It encourages customer loyalty, and can offer amazing benefits to customers if they choose to become a subscriber. Google AdSense marketing is an advertising platform that allows website operators to mon-
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perspective ing a video is considered to be a powerful rich media content used for connecting with audience. Outbound marketing are tools used by start-up to tell customers about their product and services and they can be broadly classified as
Referral Marketing, a third party drives sale for the company because of their trusted relation. It helps the business to focus on interested customer and ensure their satisfaction Mobile advertising, in which promotional messages are sent on customer’s mobile through apps push notification or SMS. It is also an effective way to acquire and maintain customer data. It allows to reach highly targeted audience. Location based marketing is a strategy that uses a mobile or desktop device’s location to alert the device owner about an offering from a near-by business. Now that we have understood some of these tools, we need to relate them to how they are
Email Marketing helps in strengthening the relationship with customer. Company ask customers to sign up for newsletters so they can be repeatedly reminded about new products, launches, and other deals being offered by the company on a regular basis. It encourages customer loyalty, and can offer amazing benefits to customers if they choose to become a subscriber. Google Adsense marketing is an advertising platform that allows website operators to monetize their sites by running contextually relevant Google ads, generating revenue based on clicks or impressions. Affiliate marketing, a third party drives sale for the company in return for commission. It is a lowrisk, pay for performance marketing strategy being used. Think of few start – ups and you will be able to relate to what they Lean on Zomato – Content and Social Media Marketing FlipKart – Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing Groupon- Email Marketing Oyo – Location based Marketing You can keep on thinking of these names and they will be related to these tools in some way or the other. “Hyper competition, startups and digital marketing” is what makes the whole show interesting and fun.
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Disrupting Cover Story the Hypercompetition Hyper-competition is a crucial marketing trend which has been hindering marketers in their efforts to sustain market share leadership. Being an extremely volatile market, how MARKETING can we know that we should prepare for the consequences of BUDGET this trend once it occurs? Richard D’Aveni, Professor of Strategy at Dartmouth, who coined the term hyper-competition, stated that “We are in a hypercompetitive marketplace if we find ourselves challenged by innovative but aggressive or even predatory competitors. And if the barriers to market entry are low or marginal, these competitors can effortlessly and rapidly move into your market. Their entrance just as quickly wears away or even negates whatever competitive advantage you may have shaped for your brand or brands.” Economic globalization is commoditizing products and services at an increasing rate. Imitation is becoming pervasive. Quality is no longer the exclusive domain of a few market leaders. If you are competing on convenience and price, you have already lost (Take Amazon for example, they don’t want to make money right now, they just want to capture the market share and they can afford to operate in such a way). Entry barriers have tumbled in most markets, leaving the door open to a downpour of potential competitors. Today, it has become nearly impossible to cultivate a stronghold reasonably safe from attack. Businesses toil hard to supply high-quality, well-engineered,
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products and services, yet the discovery that their capability to arrest the value they generate and deliver to customers is clasped by competitive pricing. Managers try cost-cutting and leanmanufacturing to increase margins, but these enhancements are short lived as competitors continually squeeze their pricing power away. How should a firm overcome these challenges? Why are the tried and tested USPs like value and price to benefits insufficient? And to where should the executives lead their firms? Why do the conventional Competitive Strategies fail? In the commercial golden-era long past, the period of over-utilisation and large-profits earnings could be measured in decades. Investors could believe to earn above-market yields by recognising companies with good, exploitive, competitive advantages. (Warren Buffett’s investment strategy over the past 50 years fits this characterization in many ways.) Managers could term their corporate strategy as prolonging the period of exploitation and improving their ability to exploit their competitive advantage. In the current scenario, the period of exploitation is at best calculated in months, not years — let alone decades. The suppression of the competitive cycle
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has transformed mere competition into hypercompetition. Investment policies dependent on long-term exploitation of competitive advantages are lost. And the executives functioning in these companies can no longer expect to deliver strong outcomes merely by exploiting a competitive advantage. The key for managing the modern hyper-competitive market is not to emphasis on extending the period of exploitation, but to practice selfrenewal in order to continuously redefine the terms of competition. How to succeed in the age of Hyper-competition Focus: Competitive advantages arise from what we focus on. Focus is our assurance to reaching a goal in a certain way. (How we decide to act in order to create a brand that makes the finest Tshirts that people can wear at the office too). And this is only by capitalising our resources—time, effort, and money—on a specific set of activities so that we can create competitive advantages along the way. It applies to both people and businesses. What excites us? What makes us perform better? And what do people want from us, tells us how we should invest our resources. We have to begin by
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deciding on what we should focus. But figuring it out is an ongoing process. You don’t design this. You just do things and perceive what works and what doesn’t work for you. Consistency: Evolving in a hypercompetitive atmosphere doesn’t happen overnight. It demands time to build skills, reputation, and trust. And that requires a consistent focus from the firm. We certainly don’t know what the end result will be. But we must pick a direction and focus on it with consistency. Hyper competition makes it less possible to figure out competitive advantages that last. Change happens too fast now days. In this situation, many people think about giving up. But the firms who make it to the other side have one thing in common; they maintain a consistent focus on where they can win. Long Term Strategy: Companies who fail, don’t make a choice. They don’t commit. One day they have one strategy and the next day thy come up with another strategy. They’re only looking for shortterm gains. But if we want to be in the long-term game, we need to make consistent and reinforcing choices. What is it that makes us irreplaceable? We need to figure it out first and then act accordingly. What will make us outperform our competitors will be built overtime, not in a few months. In this context, conventional strategies are being challenged. Aiming growth at all costs, the merciless tussle for market share, and the hunt of lasting competitive advantage are notions of the past. There is not any magical formula for success. Nevertheless, most long-lasting businesses appear to certain principles. They reinvent their business continuously. They do not wait to be
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in distress to pursue the next potential market, even if this means forfeiting what formerly made their business so prosperous. These firms also adopt an economic model unattractive to their competitors i.e. they turn their specific characteristics into assets, and turn their opponents’ strengths into liabilities. They also use intangible dimensions as differentiators, such as a specific culture, building an emotional link with customers or a specific mission, as these resources are very hard to emulate. Achieving Supremacy in Hypercompetition The time has come for firms to self-disrupt in order to make room for competitive innovation and those who fail to do so will face disruption by a competitor. Is it difficult to change the competitive environment? Many markets are disrupted by external factors outside the control of the companies in the industry. But then again sometimes, creative firms can develop strategies of disruption, especially where they can cultivate the power of advancing technologies and markets. Take the example of Kirin, the company had dominated the stable Japanese beer industry for more than three decades until the mid-1980s, with a seemingly invincible market share. Then, their rival firm Asahi introduced a dry beer in 1987 that was such a hit that it set off a competition in new product introduction. The trend to introduce new beer rose from less than one per year between 1964 and 1984 to a flood of eight per year from 1985 to 1993. Kirin’s market share continued to grind down and Asahi’s rose rapidly; Asahi was far superior at playing in the new atmosphere it had created. Asahi changed an equilibrium environment to a hypercompetitive, disequilibrium market in the beer industry in Japan. Some more examples include the hypercompetitive disequilibrium that was triggered by the
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rise of Japanese automobile industry. The U.S. automakers, intent on comparatively oligopolistic competition among the Big Three, were stunned by the arrival of Japanese competitors who didn’t play by their rules. The major booksellers such as Barnes & Noble and Borders were suddenly awakened by a little upstart called Amazon.com, which threatened to turn their
managers try adapting one viewpoint which guides their strategic thinking —whether it may be Porter’s five-force model, Prahalad and Hamel’s focus on leveraging and layering core competencies, or the use of D’Aveni’s hypercompetitive strategies. Many managers have tried to use them all simultaneously. Some have become cynical with their chosen
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strength in real estate and geographic presence into a liability. We have seen that if the challenger is good at disruption, it can renovate a more stable environment into increasing disequilibrium. In contrast, only one clever empire builder is needed to stabilize this chaos. Achieving strategic supremacy does not mean only having control over the environment, but it also includes the paradigm used for the creation of wealth. Diverse rules or norms of competition create profits otherwise in each environment. In an environment which is in equilibrium, the dominant firms can profit by shutting down rivals and using their power over buyers and suppliers to draw monopoly profits. In the environments of fluctuating equilibrium in the market, the dominating firms utilize their core competencies to profit from customers looking to use these unique competencies. The progression of one’s business strategy has always been a quest for a general theory that describes success and failure. Practically, many
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model(s) because it doesn’t seem to work. Others argue that strategy is based only on creating steady industry structures, but discovered that achieving stability (while desirable) is difficult when external disruptions due to rising globalization or knowledge intensity are uncontrollable. Every popular strategic model is really a different way to create wealth and strategic dominance. The disenchantment has occurred because practitioners and theorists have not acknowledged these differences and have not agreed that when is it appropriate to use each model. Furthermore, because competitors and customers won’t be pleased to maintain the current environment, the fight to achieve supremacy is continuous. By analysing the pattern of turbulence in the current competitive atmosphere, managers and firms can develop better strategies that will lead to and help maintaining a strategic supremacy in the hypercompetitive market.
IIM Shillong
april-may 2017
VARTALAAP
At a very young age, he has been able to reach at such a position and is the youngest member to hold this designation. Mr. Tanmaya Singh has done his MBA from SIBM Pune post which he worked for JLR. He has cleared the Internal Fasttrack Exam twice and now heads the marketing of Commercial Vehicles at Tata Motors.
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april-may 2017
Choose wisely and dont just be chosen
been. In 2016, I cleared another Fast Track exam and was put into a team of four to five people who were handling the Impact Project. This project is about the high volume and high velocity initiatives, which was very challenging. I joined Tata Motors in 2010 as a Man- I worked on the impact project for six agement Trainee. Tata Motors has given months and then with the restructuring me a lot of opportunities, my first proj- at Tata Motors, I have been appointed ect was in the cars division, it was a the Marketing Head of Passenger Vesales project in the Sumos and Safaris hicles which include the buses and the of the world. I was then moved to an as- vans. I take great pride in saying that I signment in JLR India Operations in the am the youngest member at Tata Motors product management profile. I desired to hold such a position. Tata Motors as a for a profile which gave me a longer conglomerate has diverse functions and scope and a lot of learning opportuni- roles. People usually switch jobs and ties, I was then offered a role in JLR as roles, but at Tata Motors, every equity the Marketing Manager. JLR at that time was encashable here itself, in the last was a startup in the country and I was five to six years I have switched across the third person in the marketing team. five roles which has given me immense It was a great opportunity working in a learning. marketing role and my boss was my major source of inspiration. He was young and a management graduate from IIM Markathon: What are the major chalAhmedabad so the learnings were expo- lenges that you face on everyday basis nential. Post that I had the opportunity in the company ? to clear the Internal Fast Track exams where I again had the chance to work on JLR China project. I found it impor- I think a lot of us face this challenge in tant to take a plant rotation post this our careers- when we join the companies because I was sure I want to work in the as Management Trainees we learn more automobile industry in the long run and about the operational side of the busithis stint was important to understand ness. However, there are other things this sector from the grassroot level. Af- apart from this that are good for the ter spending about six to seven months business and should be done. So managon the shop floor, I came back to handle ing the two is a challenge that I face. I the Pan India Marketing Manager profile always take up projects which are not for commercial vehicles- buses which at mandatory and keep myself occupied. I that time was about 4000-5000 crore struggle to manage my time sometimes, business and this is how my profile has but over the years I have learnt to manMarkathon: How has the journey been in Tata Motors so far? What according to you is the most engaging part of your role?
An Interview with Mr. Tanmaya Singh
Tata Motors
vartalaap
Marketing HeadCommercial Vehicles
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vartalaap
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vartalaap
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age my time better although I feel there In different divisions, we have different is still a long way to go. loyalty programs in which we reward a lot of customers. What is impressive is our ability to connect with customers Markathon: In the current hyper-compet- across geographies, complexities and itive scenario, what distinguishes Tata segments. For example, as a company we Motors from its competitors? are market leaders in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Karnataka. We have done When we talk about Tata Motors, we talk a lot of local initiatives like Race with about a company which is made of a lot Desh in Tamil Nadu, we also had a loyof flavors. On the International Business alty group for Nano, for Jaguar we have front, we take great pride in the Jaguar Jaguar Exclusive Club, for Landrover we Land Rover. The car business is also do- have Landrover Academy. There are a lot ing really well and then we have the Com- of followers for Safari. So we have a lot of mercial Vehicles segment where we are these programs across various segments undisputed leaders. So the type of chal- although they change according to geoglenge that Tata Motors faces is the inter- raphies because the way a person from nal challenge of managing so many di- Rajasthan would look at a vehicle would visions and functions. When the market be very different from how a person from is so dynamic and the competition is so Tamil Nadu sees it. aggressive, as market leaders you have to perform well in every front. So there is competition from all sides while you Markathon: With product life cycle beremain the common factor. All the divi- coming narrow due to hyper-competition, sions are very different from each other. what is the panacea for a product to surOn one side you have this sudden digital vive and have long lasting impact in marmedia war when it comes to cars, where- ket? as in case of trucks, you have no social media but product engineering plays a major role, when you move to JLR, you Fundamentally, the narrowing of Prodhave to concentrate on technology. The uct Life Cycle is a major challenge that diversity of challenges and the ability to all the companies are facing but there manage them and apply those learnings are also huge exceptions to the same. A in different areas is what distinguishes classic example of the same is Coca Cola, us from rest of the competitors. apart from label and logo changes not much has changed but they have been able to remain the market leaders for over 100 years. If you look at automobiles, the life of the product is about We all want to get into 7-8 years, the ability to change the how a customer looks at the Marketing, but those initial years of Sales way product defines the Product Life are of utmost importance for your career. Cycle. Earlier, a Maruti remained in a family for about 10-15 years, nowadays in a family of four, every person has his/her own car and they preMarkathon: What has been one of the fer changing it every 4-5 years. So as a most special initiative by Tata Motors to company, our focus should be on how we create a loyal customer base? can approach the customer again after
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those 4-5 years when he is reconsider- pride in it and learn to cater to the cusing a purchase. We cannot go back to tomers in every part of India. him with the same product, hence we need to learn how to communicate about those changes in the product to the cus- Markathon: Students who are aiming to build their tomers. So with narcareer in row PLC and rapid With narrow PLC and rapid purchase marketing purchase patterns, patterns, how we differentaite in terms of will be dealhow are we differentiating in terms value added benefits, makes or breaks a ing with the challengof value added bendeal. es to outefits to the customperform in ers is what makes these markets driven by hyper competior breaks a deal in the long run. Apart from that the ability to manage the ma- tion, how should they gear up in these turity stage well also plays a major role, 2 years of B School to emerge as strong for example WagonR by Maruti has sur- marketers? vived for very long in the market because they were able to handle the maturity For a B-school student it is of utmost importance to first narrow down on the stage well. sector that you want to work in. Placement is a two way process where you Markathon: India is a diverse country, also choose a company and coming from how do various regional beliefs and ge- a good B-school you should always pick ographies impact the state of competi- and choose your sector and the company. The biggest mental block among us tiveness? is that we want to start with marketing but those initial years of sales are In case of automotive industry, the rea- very important to understand the marson why people purchase products is ket very well. In terms of selecting the very different across geographies. While role, take the liberty of choosing the a person in Punjab may purchase a car role which challenges you. Right out of because it reflects the social status campus you are bubbling with ideas and also, a person for Ola in Maharashtra or in the initial few years you have more a family person in Karnataka has a dif- energy to structure your career, so take ferent purpose for purchasing a vehicle. that opportunity. Compensation should In the north, people may upgrade for a be second or third on your list because model but not for a variant because it compensation will eventually happen if is the model which is seen in the soci- you are doing things right and switchety and not the variant. Whereas, the ing jobs will eventually get you there. people in the south may spend more for But, working for a sector you really have an upgrade in the variant because they passion for will take you places. Anothknow that the car is for themselves. In er point to be considered is that always the west, people prefer SUVs because of choose a sector which is growing really fast because it will offer you much more the weekend getaways. So some vehicles which may not sell opportunities. So a dynamic company in one state sell like hotcakes in other and a dynamic sector should always be states because the regional beliefs are looked at first and then the role/compenso diverse. Hence, we must appreciate sation because at entry level you have the diversity of the country and take the liberty to move across functions.
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eye2eye
april-may 2017
eye2eye
july 2015
Are Luxury brands striking the right chord in India?
Pratibha Mittal IIM Shillong
deepika s tapmi
Who in the world would not like to have Ostrich Hermes Kelly limited edition bag ‘bhagwati’ from Zindagi naa milegi dobara? Well, Nobody, maybe because of one simple reason. We all desire to indulge in luxury and hence adore luxury brands. In spite of higher pricing due to import duties and taxes, India is witnessing high growth in the market of luxury brands, especially in the segment of electronics, personal care, luxury travel, fine dining and luxury cars. Rising disposable income of people, high internet penetration leading to better exposure and awareness about luxury brands are some of the reasons. It hasn’t been long when luxury brands were considered to be meant only for upper class in tier 1 cities. The brands are picking the chords right by bridging the gap between the mid-market and luxury segments, which makes an entry point for new customers to luxury segment. According to Kotak Wealth Report 2016, 45% of the total luxury market revenue in India comes from new and smaller towns. The luxury brands have understood the need to collaborate with local partners in India, to have to better reach and understanding of the market. One of the examples is the successful collaboration of Christian Louboutin with top Indian Designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee in 2016. Gone are those days when luxury brands were associated only with high level of price, quality and rarity. Now luxury brands are more about the experience. Harley-Davidson not only has a forum for bike possessors to interact, and share their zeal for biking, but also conducts a live rock music concert event to celebrate Harley values. The luxury brands build emotional connection with customers by things as simple as heightening senses. Both Rolls Royce and Eton shirts impregnate its products with appropriate smells to build the connection.
Luxury brands, with high intangibles to price value and low utility to price value, are more about experience than financial value. Indian luxury segment is growing at 25% CAGR against the back drop of global market growing at 4% on average since last 10 years. Further, India is home to the fourth largest population of HNIs – target segment of luxury brands, in Asia pacific region. These reasons along with the wave of FDI deregulation, economic growth etc., have positioned India as a target segment for many international brands. Despite India’s huge potential, most of the luxury brand players face serious growth concerns and make money with great effort. That is because, mainly western players don’t seem to understand Indian consumers and are targeting old money elite, which constitutes frequent abroad travelers who end up purchasing goods from a wide range of collections available abroad. Furthermore, players’ presence is mainly restricted to flamboyant shopping malls in Tier 1 cities, whereas 44% of HNIs live in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. Further, by choosing to market at global level instead of marketing at local level, they failed to understand basic consumer differences such as the flamboyant nature of Punjabi customers, the reserved nature of Gujarat customers etc. To tap the Indian market, brands should start focusing on online presence to capture Tier 2 and Tier 3 customers (mainly HNIs) as online penetration across these cities has made them largest consumer of online fashion retail segment. In addition, using localization strategies or a collaboration with Indian designers to add Indian touch will boom the industry growth. Further, marking brand differentiation and brand loyalty, brands can offer personalization services by customizing the products based on customer requirements.
By arnav khanna IIM Shillong It is one of the most famous brand amongst management graduates (not because we like photography or something!) because of its famous story. The story of its unfortunate fall. This story has been transformed into cases to give us strategic insights and learnings on success and failure. Coming back to the main topic, its logo. This logo has seen a lot of years and has gradually evolved with time. 1907 The first logo The company started in 1880 in America, better known as Eastman Kodak Company. Its first logo was introduced in 1907. It was a very simplistic design wherein the designers integrated the initials of the company name in a circle. The purpose of the logo was mere identification of the brand and no further impact was thought out. 1930 Landscape shape with colours Since the company was associated with photography, its logo looked a bit plain. It experimented with colours and came up with its signature red and yellow. Landscape look of the logo gave it an impressive modern look as against its old logo. The yellow colour was then registered as a non-traditional trademark for Kodak, better known as trade dress, as consumers could easily identify it among other brands . 1960 Triangular Shape Keeping the colour combination same, the company changed the logo to a triangular shape. It was a new and unique difference from the current logo. The logo retained the red for the letters and yellow for he background. 1971 Stylish Changes With the times changing the company changed the logo once again. This time returning back to the landscape inside a square shape, also known as box shape. The box had thick red boundaries outside the square and broad yellow boundaries inside the red square. The signers also carved out a yellow arrow to make the logo more stylish. 1987 Changes in font The font edges were removed to arrive at a more contemporary look. Instead of the earlier serif font. The designers used sans serif font to establish the logo worldwide. 2006 The Modern new look The company redesigned its box logo to get a new logo with no rectangular or square box. The existing logo features the company name in custom-mde typeface. The letters are in red to express possession, love and life. The letters were placed in yellow bars giving it a new look.
ilever was founded in 1930 by the merger of Dutch Mar-
Topic for the next issue: “Digital marketing is all about numbers and does not gaurantee actual engagement with the brand beyond those views,likes and shares.” Your opinion (view/counterview) is invited. Word limit is 250-300. Last date of sending entries is 25th June 2017. Include your picture (JPEG format) with the entry. Winners will receive a prize money of Rs. 500 each!
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internship experiences
april-may 2017
INTERNSHIP EXPERIENCES
arnav khanna
SWAMI DAYAL MEHROTRA
Profile- Sales (Modern Trade)
Profile: Sales (General Trade)
Nature of Work- To analyse reasons related to a Nature of Work: To optimise the distribution model problem identified in a region for child care brands Results achieved- During the course of my internship, I came up with various factors for analysing the problems. It was based on extensive market research, involving several visits to MT stores. I also did a comparative analysis between different regions to get a detailed account of reasoning. Finally, I suggested the recommendation to overcome those problems based on my analysis
Results Achieved: Initially the scope of my project was not very well defined. It started with problem definition. After covering three cities, visiting the markets and talking to the distributors, I had to break down the problem and look it from a fresh perspective. The analyses was done to find out the various causes and prioritize them on the basis of impact. My final recommendation involved a distribution model structure as well as the processes which need to be Learnings: My skills in the field of data analysis have checked while conducting sale with the distributors been improved. Extensive market experience gave me real insights into the working of an FMCG prod- Learnings: The experience gave me the real picture ucts market, how products work and what really of what the field work looks like. It also gave me a gets sold. I got to learn about the national level retail very good description of marketing in a company and distribution channels of my company which is and what role does sales play in it. This was my first unique in itself looking at product offering and suc- corporate experience and it familiarised various cessful penetration practices followed in the corporate and simplified the overall the business scenario for me.
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internship experiences
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INTERNSHIP EXPERIENCES
NIKITA YADAV
KSHITIJ ARORA
Profile: Sales
Profile: Sales department for the Modern Trade channel.
Nature of work:My project at Titan Company was to identify top 30 locations for new market expansion in North India for the Titan Eyeplus by optimising parameters like demographics, rental and sales potential, which would generate a revenue of 10 Cr over the next two years. My role as an Intern was majorly of business development, wherein I was on the field working the markets and generating franchisee leads. A typical day comprised of market visits, wherein I would visit the major retail shops and optical stores in a market to gather data like the walk-ins, conversion rates, average ticket values etc.I would look for commercial properties available, do a feasibility analysis and maintain ROI sheets for the same.
Nature of work One of my projects was to analyse market share, share of shelf, investment levels and competition’s offers and activities for various stores covered under the modern trade channel with major focus on Nivea’s top categories of APC, Deo, Body lotions and Nivea For Men Facewash and hence, to identify stores lagging behind through a benchmarking exercise and suggest actionable for improvement of market share in those stores. This project was majorly data analytics and demanded a working knowledge of MS – Excel and basics of statistics. Beyond processing data, it required a thorough analysis to interpret results efficiently .
Results achieved: By the completion of my project, I was able to develop a model, for an overall analysis of market shares for the entire modern trade covering at least 10,000 stores. Using this model, I was able to recognise Results achieved:I successfully converted two fran- which chain of the modern retail channel gave better returns on the investment and gave recommendations chisees to open Eyeplus stores which are expected based on what kind of investment works better for which to generate a total revenue of over 1.75 Cr per year chain.
for the company.
Learnings:The key takeaways from my internship were the in-depth understanding of the retail industry and the business model of the Titan Eyeplus stores.
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Learnings: My internship was a window into the hypercompetitive market of FMCG and right from deciphering the sacred abbreviations of Modern Trade to brainstorming on how to process data to find something concrete, my internship was a power-packed learning experience.
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INTERNSHIP EXPERIENCES
NAYNA JAIN
NAVLEEN VEDI
internship experiences
april-may 2017
INTERNSHIP EXPERIENCES
CHENNUPATI HARIKA
SAMEERA BOINAPALLI
Profile: Global Campaign Services Profile: Sales and Marketing Nature of work: Key Focus of project was to formulate a pricing strategy for a newly launched GSK Probiotic product. To achieve the same, following were the methodologies: 1.Primary Research: The main aim was to analyse the perception about competitor brands in a particular product segment i.e. Probiotics. Various offerings and schemes offered by the competitors were also analysed through the research. Field research was conducted to know the perception of two different set of people – Health Care Practitioners and retailers. 2.Secondary Research: It consisted of analysis of the sales data provided by the IMS that helped to understand the impact created on competitors’ product sales due to their price change. Impact Created: All the primary and the secondary analysis helped the company understand various points that need to be considered to finalise the future price point. This further led us to identify the optimal price increase for the GSK product. Major Learnings: 1.The in depth knowledge about pharmaceutical industry and the marketing regulations around it. 2.The practical application of various pricing techniques 3.Understood the dynamics of a new product launch and the methods that are adopted to increase the penetration within the market.
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Nature of Work: Being an intern with the Trade Marketing and Distribution function of ITC, I had to work on a range enhancement strategy for ITC’s food portfolio. Unlike other exploratory projects assigned to numerous fellow interns, my project dealt with a live problem that required me to benchmark the competition, find gaps in the system along with scope for range billing in retail outlets. One of the many things that sets ITC apart is the freedom the company provides one to test and pilot one’s ideas.
Nature of work :The project involved analysing data and developing models that can improve the click through rate (CTR) for Google and its advertisers and thereby their revenue. The scope also extended to implementing the models on involved stakeholders to measure the improvement in efficiency and quality of output.
Impact Created: What I did was not just about creating a strategy but also implementing it and delivering value. Every small move that we, as interns, make also creates a ripple effect and any recommendation when replicated on a larger scale eventually creates a huge impact on the overall business achievement. Always keeping this thought in mind, this FMCG giant values the work done by any intern and provides all the support when it comes to execution.
Impact created : Could develop industry wise client insights and build templates based on them, to standardize the process of creation of ads, take lesser time and make ads of better quality. In a nut shell, developed best practices to achieve CTR improvement. The project deliverables could be scaled across the organisation, and can further be used not just by the team worked for, but others across geographies/sectors and teams. Also, the models developed reduced the vendor (one of the stakeholders) turnaround time (time for creation of ads for clients) by 24.3% and helped streamlining of processes.
Learnings: In a nut shell, I couldn’t have wished for a better place to work in. The past two months have been extremely wonderful in terms of leaning. This program helped me in getting immense clarity on how important it is to experience the field first before any strategy is thought of. There can be a huge difference in what the recommended strategy is expected to deliver and what the ground realities are. Understanding this gap and trying to fill them by continuously improving is the key here.
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Profile: Strategy and Planning role in Idea Enterprise Services. Nature of work : Idea Enterprise Services(IES) caters to the B2B part of Idea Cellular. In addition to voice and data, IES has a wide portfolio of Business solutions like Audio Conferencing, Toll-free, Work Force Tracking, IVR and many more.
Results achieved :20 enterprises have been identified Results achieved :Improvement in stakeholder efficiency by Idea as Top strategic accounts based on the potential by 24.3% in 3 weeks. they hold. Impact created : My first project involved performing “Field Value Assessments” for these Accounts. It involved collecting all relevant data about these accounts like organization structures, decision making authorities, the mode of purchase the competitors’ presence etc by means of primary surveys, secondary research and client meetings.My Second project was “Alliance Partner Tie – ups”. The business model of IES involves carrying out desking activities in various enterprises to promote and sell Idea connections. In order to increase the footfall at the Idea desks, we planned to provide value-added benefits to customers at Idea desks. For which I got on-board variLearnings : Apart from watching as an insider, the im- ous Alliance partners like Richfeel, Metropolis etc. mensity of Google’s capability and the scale it can influence as a company; role and product (AdWords tools Learnings :The experience has been amazing, as I was etc.) related knowledge has been developed. The more completely given the autonomy to spearhead the “Alliimportant lessons have been from experiencing Google’s ance Partner Tie – ups” program. Right from cold calling culture, the company’s style of working, understanding to deal making, this internship made me experience it all. the underlying reasons behind its success.
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AD-dicted AD-dicted
PRODUCT: Coca Cola
december april-may 2013 2017 By ravitej vadlamani IIM Shillong
PRODUCT: Brooke Bond Red Label
CATCH
AKSHAY SETH IIM Shillong
IIM Shillong
POSITIONING: A Boy who Girls Like
YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=f2sYXaZnZXE CONCEPT: The ad opens with a boy playing a game on a console. His older brother walks into the room with a bottle of Coke and two glasses in hand. As he opens the bottle, the boy playing on the console is disturbed and leaves the controller to get the drink. His brother teases him though, by placing the bottle on top of a shelf. The boy struggles to reach it and his brother has now taken control of the controller. Another scene shows the older brother shake a bottle of Coke and leave it for his younger brother on a table. The young boy appears and quickly opens it, only for the drink to spray all over his shirt. The last shot shows the boy at a ground, as he picks up his coke bottle to drink, it’s snatched by a group of three bullies, then boy’s older brother appears and gets the bottle back for him. He hands the bottle to his younger brother. As the boy drinks it, the older brother smiles, and then jokingly pushes the bottle against his mouth, only to make him spill it.The younger brother smiles too and the film signs off with Coca-Cola’s ‘Taste the feeling’ brand message.
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CREATIVE AGENCY: Ogilvy & Mather YouTube Link: : https://www.youtube.com/ watch?time_continue=6&v=55vy4bX0Mws
MISS
VERDICT: Catch Markathon believes that advertisement beautifully captures the relationship between two brothers. The advertisement is high on the humour quotient and with the positioning of the product being “Taste the feeling”, the advertisement associates the brand to the feeling of ‘unspoken’ but obvious love which exists between two brothers. This advertisement succeeds in positioning the brand with the feeling of well being in a family and is a must watch.
MARKATHON
april-may 2017
By Suman sourav
POSITIONING: Taste the Feeling CREATIVE AGECY: McCann Worldgroup India
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CONCEPT: Ad film shows a boy play-making tea with a tea toy set that is usually associated as a toy meant for girls. The narration starts by saying, “He loves to make tea, but that doesn’t make him a girl” and then goes on to end with “It just makes him a boy that girl’s like.” The ad has several closeups of the play-toys trying to emphasize that the game can be played by anybody, it doesn’t matter that it’s a boy or girl. VERDICT: Miss Markathon believes that as a two-part ad film, this particular ad was crafted to give out a special message on Women’s Day. While it is clear that the ad was trying to insist that children shouldn’t be restricted from doing anything based on stereotypical ideas of gender-specific activities, the ad falls into the trap of melodrama. “A boy girls like” is not exactly a coherent identity. Men or boys shouldn’t be held back from doing stuff forcibly associated with just women because that would make them likable to women. But because these jobs are everyone’s responsibility and not a girl or a woman’s burden. The idea was noble and effective, but the execution was not rightly projected. The ad tries to urge people who believe in this message to join their conversation on ‘#unstereotype,’ but the film fails to deliver the message correctly.
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jab they failed
april-may 2017
april-may 2017
jab they failed
Jab They Failed Raghav Dhanuka IIM Shillong
Dove: (Stop Choosing) Beautiful
Two years ago, Dove launched a campaign where it set up two signs above parallel doors across 5 cities around the globe, including Delhi and Shanghai, to explore the different cultural influences affecting the choices made by women. The sign above one door read “Beautiful” whereas the other one read “Average”. A camera was setup to record and analyze the reaction of women to the signs and the doors that they chose to enter through and the results were used to comment on the perception of women on their self-beauty (inner or physical?) The company had also surveyed 6400 women about their concept of beauty and while 96% in UK and 56% in India felt they didn’t perceive themselves as beautiful, 80% felt that every woman was beautiful in some aspect.
door and feel great about their choice and the narrative ends with Dove asking you to “Choose Beautiful”. Dove says that feeling beautiful is one of the many choices that women should be empowered to make for themselves apart from careers and families and this was an attempt to motivate them and inspire confidence and happiness in them.
The #ChooseBeautiful brand column on Dove’s website says:“We don’t have to wait for a new trend, or magazine, or person to come along and give us permission to start feeling beautiful. We’re women. We’re powerful. We can choose beautiful for ourselves. It’s not anyone’s right, but our own.”This camWhile some women paign comes a decade weren’t concerned with after the launch of the their choices, others revolutionary camstopped and paused for paign for “Real Beaua moment before finally ty” which strived to deciding on where they celebrate the natural stood. While an Ameridifferences in women can woman later told and to empower them Dove in the survey “Am to appreciate and enI choosing because of courage their innerwhat’s constantly bombarded at me and what I’m be- beauty and instill self-confidence. ing told that I should accept? Or am I choosing because that’s what I really believe?” another woman who walked Although that campaign was no doubt a successful one through the Average door mentioned that beauty was out in that it sparked a new wave of opinions and attitudinal of reach for her. differences towards women, it is time they act more “realistic’ and re-think that strategy instead of building upon that campaign and turning it into something downright While towards the end of the video women who had preposterous and irrational.This campaign totally contrawalked through the “Beauty” door describe having felt tri- dicts the message conveyed by the “Real Beauty” camumphant after making that choice there were others who paign which was meant to make women independent and after continuously opting for the “Average” door finally liberate them from the strangles of differences in beauty decided to take the other route and later felt special about by making them pass through the door of ‘test’ and by lait. Many women who had taken the “Average” route re- beling them. One may question whether everything boils gretted or pondered upon their choice. In short, many down to physical beauty and the video starts appearing women walking through the average door feel bad about synthetic accentuated by the histrionics. themselves (or their decision) and of course towards the There can be multiple reasons for a woman’s decision to climax there are women who walk through the Beautiful enter a particular door and even if it may not be staged,
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things are never so binary. Moreover, how can a brand like Dove be so superficial in its attempt to confront women with such an absurd option of walking through these doors. Dove has had a history of experimenting with women and their self-shame, (including one where they advise women to love their armpits) and perhaps it is time they move onto something else or reflect seriously upon the nature, purpose and impact of their work beyond the bottom-line figures. What about the girl who refused to walk through either door and who turned back and walked away? Speaking of reality, society deems a lady who considers herself beautiful ‘a vain dandy’ and rather encourages one who thinks she is average.
brand couldn’t be more manipulative given the fact the parent company (HUL) runs other products such as Fair and Lovely and Axe whose sole mantra is sexualizing and objectifying women. Who is to be blamed, the women or the sexist society? Dove blames the former for their present condition (if at all it exists.)
How can the problem be the solution to itself? How can a cosmetics manufacturer suggest every woman to appreciate their self-beauty? Why do we have to choose between such vague and materialistic choices? Is average the opposite of Beauty? Why can’t one be “not beautiful”? Why is beauty so essential? Isn’t beauty but an obligation and a materialistic desire with no real purpose? Isn’t beauty an eternal pressure and a race against your own? Why can’t women be witty, ethical, loving, caring, studious, smart, intelligent, why is beauty so paramount? Why should you put them in a box and label them as either “Average or Beautiful”? How could Dove exist if the women truly believed in the message lying at the heart of the campaign? Perhaps there will be different opinions on this campaign, but out verdict is “Fail” and we believe that the
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1)
It's not the marketing message that counts - it's disrupting people's habits
Branding discussions often focus on positioning and market segments. If a brand is not selling as well as it could, the assumption is that it must not be reaching its target audience with the right message. But, does the positioning of a brand really counts? Link: - https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2016/mar/08/marketing-psychology-brand-messagedisrupting-habits
2)
Is Streaming the Next Step for Brands?
Live streaming has officially taken off. YouTube has joined the foray along with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat, all fighting to be the go-to platform for live content. So, Is streaming the next step for Brands? Link:- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/advertising-week/is-streaming-the-next-ste_b_14746078.html
3)
Celebrity-backed fashion labels strike a big chord
There is a big chunk of consumers in India who are influenced by celebrities and the number of brands in this special category is limited. So, taking cues from international celebrities, Indian celebrities are increasingly launching their own clothing and accessories brands. Link :- http://www.livemint.com/Consumer/uhBCZvMWKcE4vjs6c8ztHL/Celebrities-association-withfashion-labels-see-a-surge-in-I.htmlcms?from=mdr
4)
Three Critical Mistakes Digital Businesses Make With Content
The world is drowning in content. What kind of approach can help the high quality digital content to not end up on losing side?
Link :- http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/three-critical-mistakes-digital-businesses-make-withcontent?sf53049057=1
5)
Why Starbucks thinks ‘being everywhere’ works against the brand
It would be easy for people to forget that Starbucks still source, roast and deliver the highest quality coffee that anyone can get anywhere in the world. And so Starbucks have to remind customers of that and that’s the opportunity with the Reserve brand. Link :- https://www.marketingweek.com/2017/03/10/starbucks-everywhere-works-brand/
By Suman Sourav | IIM Shillong Amazon India launches sportswear brand Under Armour in India
Myntra launches its lifestyle brand Roadster’s retail store
As part of its growth strategy, Amazon India has signed up as the exclusive retail channel for US-based sportswear brand Under Armour. The online retailer indicated that the brand would be sold by key sellers on the Amazon India platform. The brand will start retailing in Amazon India with core apparel, footwear, and other offerings and expand the catalog eventually. With this growth strategy, Amazon is looking to get differentiation in their offering, and the platform is not looking at physical retail of any of the brands selling exclusively on the channel.
Myntra, in association with one of its retail franchise partners on March 16, 2017, launched the first retail store for its lifestyle brand, Roadster, in Bengaluru. The new store is all set to enthrall visitors with a host of unique features and an integrated Omnichannel experience. The store promises a brand experience like never before, true to Myntra’s mission of using technology to democratize fashion and lifestyle. The innovative use of technology in the store to enhance the brand experience depicts the future of retail.
McDonald’s undergoes brand transformation with new stores and menu
Nike to launch high-tech hijab for female Muslim athletes
Fast food chain McDonald’s is changing its menu and store design to bring in a younger, mobile and more health-conscious clientele to its restaurants. The newly launched stores serve the new healthy menu comprising soups and salads along with burgers and fries. McDonald’s redesigned their outlets which will have at least two digital kiosks to order and pay, table service using RFID or radio identification tags. It is very clear that as a consumer brand McDonald’s wants to evolve because consumers are evolving very rapidly.
Nike Inc. will launch a hijab for female Muslim athletes early next year, becoming the first major sports apparel maker to offer a traditional Islamic head scarf designed specifically for competition. The hijab has evolved into a symbol of diversity that Nike has embraced. Nike is planning to encourage a whole new generation to pursue sports without the feeling of limitation because of modesty or dress-code. Nike has always been an innovator; this launch will be one extra addition in their innovationbased products profile.
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digi-tally
april-may 2017
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Articles are invited
“Best Article”: GEETIKA MISRA| IIFT She 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 anything related to the world of marketing but it should be an original work that is not published 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 25th June, 2017. Please send your entries marked as <ARTICLE NAME>_<SENDERS’ NAME(S)>_<INSTITUTE> to markathon.iims@gmail.com.
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