Markathon August 2018 by Markathon IIM Shillong

Hello readers! We are pleased to welcome those who are ready to take this wonderful journey of Markathon ahead. We have increased the number of our club members to take our club to new heights with more enthusiasm, fun and creativity. We have introduced our creative sparks in our subsequent page. With the students living their experience of life at an IIM with their hectic schedule including competitions, workshops, podiums, live projects and of course academics, we want you all to take a break and enjoy this edition of our magazine with great insights from the world of marketing. is month’s cover story talks about the “Impact of celebrity endorsements on consumers’ brand perception”. With an imminent change in this aspect in the recent years, it has become more and more important for brands to choose the right celebrities for their brand. e magazine also comprises an interesting perspective by Ms Priyanka Bhatia and Ms Shilpi Saha from SIBM Bangalore connecting two unique parts of topics, Arti cial intelligence and Consumer Behaviour. Arti cial intelligence in marketing has been the talk of the hour for some time now and its implementation in Consumer behaviour

gives a unique shape to it. Another perspective is Product-o-lysis by Ms Manali Chakrabarty and Omprakash Jha from IIM Raipur. e magazine also includes a debatable topic where we have asked “Does advertising promote excessive consumerism?” and Mr Kunal Ahirwal from IIM Vishakhapatnam has taken a stand for the topic by deriving unique insights from the meat and dairy industry whereas Ms Shivani Bhosale from SIIB is against the topic by backing it with strong examples. is month’s ‘Brand Story’ talks about the complete story of an American brand “Steinway & Sons”. e ‘AD-dicted’ section covers an ad-analysis of two recent advertisements on whether they performed well as well as intended. Our digital marketing section ‘Digigyaan’ talks about the “Rising in uence of social media inuencers” which is in-line with our discussion through the cover story. is month’s Logoistic depicts the evolution of Google’s logo. Also, the ve must-reads and updates are back for readers to enjoy. We would like to thank all the entries of Perspective and Eye2Eye. We would also like to thank our readers as they are the ones who push us to do better in every edition. We also look forward to your feedback and suggestions. Happy Reading!! Team Markathon

August 2018

perspective

Will the customer be “King” no more? Shilpi Saha & Priyanka Bhatia SIBM Bengaluru

“German retailers, centuries ago, taught the world that, the customer is the king. For centuries now, marketers have spent all their time, money and resources in pleasing the multi-faceted king and how!” Yet today, in the technological era, the customer himself is under the siege of the internet. Having too much of informa on and a mul tude of choices isn’t exactly what Midas had planned when e-commerce took over our en re genera on. While it s ll holds its ground ﬁrmly in the ever-gyra ng world of marke ng, the “king” is certainly advised by an army of search engines, algorithms, social media inﬂuencers and now, a bevy of faceless, voice assistants.

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August 2018

Perspective Never before has a customer been faced with the kind of products, sellers and dynamics that try to cater to his needs, make him aware of his needs or even create new ones for him. Now, with compe on increasing by the minute and oceans becoming red-er, marketers have to be at the forefront of the changing environment, embrace the technological swings that may come to direct the consumer’s buying behaviour and ﬁnd newer ways to stay relevant.

is these digital footprints of the consumers that gave the marketers insights about the interests, a tudes and awareness levels of the consumers viz-a-viz the integrated communica on that the companies try to send out, meaning that the interac on was with the consumer directly.

Having said that, with technology steadily taking over every medium, brands and companies not only have to adapt to the fast-paced technical advances but also con nue to have a ﬁrm hold on the fort of conven onal customer reten on prac ces through tradi onal channels.

and alter the considera on set of products that the consumer will ul mately choose from. Although, these assistants are designed to follow simple instrucons like replenishment of past goods purchased or answer basic queries, they may not be able to make purchase decisions on the behalf of the customer.

Integra ng communica ons across various channels is a real problem today and yet, it also serves as a tool to keep a uniﬁed image of their brands that may be more capable of holding consumer mind shares. With the awareness levels rising and a enon spans shrinking, can virtual assistants, search bots and intelligent so wares help marketers in keeping brands alive and kicking?

Purchasing Today

Advent of AI

As consumers, we are surrounded by the intelligent search engines, trying to sell us various products and services by way of recommenda ons, priority results and paid adverts. We may or may not be aware of their presence but every me we interact with the internet, we leave our digital footprints behind which become the basis of these intelligent algorithms to subtly nudge us into viewing certain products based on our online behaviour. So far, it

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With the involvement of voice assistants like Alexa and Siri, companies aim to set foot inside this door

Having said that, controlling the consumer’s op ons is a very powerful way of inﬂuencing their purchase decisions. Modern purchasing is built on the idea that there is a plethora of choices and even in the most mundane of situa ons, these choices are not exhausve of all possibili es. And the funny part is that we, as consumers, do not even ques on the limita ons of this evoked set that is being served to us. We never ask why a certain dish in a restaurant is a “chef’s recommenda on” or why only a certain product is made to sit on the display. These menus, displays or even pop up collec ons on our apps, are all ways to upstream a marketer’s business goals in order to serve our needs. As a user of Alexa, Amazon’s voice assistant which comes embedded in Amazon Echo, a consumer may not even think twice before saying “I ran out of tooth

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August 2018

Perspective paste, Alexa, please order toothpaste”, hence, becoming dependant on the assistant to determine the evoked set of choices. Instead of giving the consumer more number of choices, thereby providing convenience of decision making, these choices are actually ‘distrac ons’ from the total set of op ons available. Amazon projects the usage of Alexa as ‘empowering the customer with convenience and choices’ while shouldn’t a truly empowering set of choices contain all op ons without an upstreaming of certain brands that beneﬁt the seller indirectly?

incen vizing you from making them.

In other words, these technological conveniences subtly align your needs as a consumer with the business interests of the sellers that they are affiliated to. For a first- me purchase on amazon, Alexa doesn’t decide for you, instead shows you ‘Amazon recommended’ products before the rest, thereby cashing in on lower a en on span and the low involvement nature of the products to align your purchases with their profits.

Contras ngly, in e-commerce the ‘moment of truth’ for the marketer is fragmented into two diﬀerent parts. One, where the customer pays for the product that he/she selected and added to the cart earlier, o en called as the purchase conversion. Unl the customer makes the payment, the product could remain in the cart [the evoked set equivalent in this case], forever and not make a diﬀerence to the consumer at all.

E-commerce vs. Retail or is it?

For years now, retailers have been focussing on store designs and placing the most popular products towards the end of the stores so that you spend as much me as you can in reaching them and making impulse purchases all along the way. Apps and websites today, are built no diﬀerently. It makes certain choices the ‘des na on’ for you to reach while hurriedly completing some ac ons like agreeing to subscribe to a newsle er or allowing no ﬁca ons to be sent to you, thus making certain choices ‘inconvenient’ for you and dis-

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Essen ally, this point is where the experience of e-shopping diverges in behaviour from the convenonal aisle-shopping. Marketers have always tried to inﬂuence their consumers to very last second ll they make that split-second decision of picking up a product from the rack, leaving behind the rest. All the eﬀorts of branding and promo ons boil down to that one instant of selec on, rejec on or being unno ced. `

The second moment is when the customer receives the product and decides on whether or not to keep it. For most online retailers today, the biggest problem is to make successful purchases that do not end up in returns or cancella ons. Flipkart spends a bomb on accommoda ng returns and exchanges and so do the rest. While the customer is viewing the product on the site, all marke ng ac vi es can come into play to ensure that it is added to the cart and gets paid for. But once the product reaches the

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August 2018

Perspective consumer, there really isn’t much that can be done, except for superior product quality which also doesn’t always work, to ensure that it doesn’t bounce back to seller, cos ng everyone in the chain. In this aspect, the brick and mortar stores have an edge that e-commerce is yet to counter, the advantage of tangibility and a singular moment of truth, that the rela onship building in these channels yields be er conversions and could be the one thing that helps them survive the aggressive customer acquisi on strategies of e-commerce giants. The mom and pop stores may, eventually, ﬁnd themselves le with only two op ons- to either innovate for survival or to collaborate with e-commerce in such a way that their interests are upheld as well.

What can the offline stores do that Alexa or Amazon can’t? Firstly, offering a great experience of buying, something that Apple has done incredibly well. Right from the moment the consumer walks-in through their doors, ll they walk out with or without an Apple product, the staff, the interiors, the merchandising and visual appeal are all aimed at solely providing a unique experience of luxury and technology. The other thing that these mom and pop stores can do, is to form communi es of like-minded consumers who can influence other people around them and may also encourage reverse-showrooming or webrooming [where customers browse through the online sourc-

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es, gather informa on and make the purchase from the store that they trust or are the nearest to], in their favour. A successful example of this is what Ikea has planned to do in Hyderabad, India, where they plan to u lise the locals’ love for food to bring them to their oﬄine store in order to gain an opportunity of making the consumer aware, spend more me with the products and increase the trialability. These user experiences help in genera ng large amounts of data that e-commerce needs all the me for their selec ve targe ng and retarge ng. This is one of the major reasons why Amazon acquired Wholefoods- to get access to consumer data and minute purchase ac vi es.

The Marke ng Kaleidoscope The present-day marketplace is undergoing a major paradigm shi , with the opening up of new possibili es thanks to the rise of Ar ﬁcial Intelligence and growing number of channels to reach the customer. And Amazon isn’t the only one to have iden ﬁed the poten al in the future of selling through the use of AI. Microso is gearing up for the launch of its equivalent of Echo, equipped with its own voice assistant, Cortana and Apple is coming up with its own sound device as well. Looking forward, will we see a shi in the marketer’s a en on from the consumer to the peripherals of the consumer, such as the voice assistants or search engines? In the tussle between mul ple channels, the

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August 2018

Perspective Conclusion:

wave of technology that only seems to get bigger, is the consumer somewhere lost? Do we s ll have the complete freedom to choose what we buy or are we, with or without consent, being nudged into buying certain products and aﬃlia ng to certain brands?

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In the light of the changes that technological advancements have brought about, and con nue to bring, it is clear that the consumer cannot be completely eliminated from the equa on. However, the claims that these AI assistants and engines will help in ‘empowering’ the consumer are in fact contrary to what is actually happening. While consumers work out the ni y-gri es of the trade-off between convenience and le ng themselves be exposed to and influenced by the Amazons of the world, we think that brands will have to keep finding newer ways to stay relevant and connected to their consumers, albeit keeping Alexas and Cortanas in mind. The customer may not exactly be de-throned but a ques on by Spike Jonze comes to mind, “Is ar ficial intelligence less than our intelligence?” or are we to be played with at the hands (read voices) of technology and marketers alike, under the facade of convenience and familiarity?

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August 2018

Perspective

Pulse Candy: From Paan Shops to the Heart of the Nation Manali Chakrabarty Omprakash Jha IIM Raipur Lovingly termed by fans as ‘masala bomb’, the kachhaaam ﬂavoured candy with a heart of aamchur became the ‘Pulse’ of a na on of 1.2 billion people in less than six months. This was no less than a miracle for it was achieved with zero marke ng and adver sing spend. Shashank Surana, VP – New Product Development, DS Group, summed up the gist of its phenomenal success with the statement, “Because it sets you pulse racing.” Launched in the hard-boiled candy segment, Pulse aimed to capitalize on the confec onary segment having 14% year-on-year growth. With raw mango cap-

mango was generally consumed with something with a tangy taste. Be it a slice of raw mango or other eatables made out of it, a dash of spice with it was a given. DS Group, the owners of the Pulse brand, wanted to capitalize on it.

Pulse of India – Touching the right Chord The right solu on for Pulse turned out to be a candy with hard-boiled, raw-mango flavored outside with a spicy powdered inside. Pulse successfully strung at the heart of the Indians by zeroing in on the flavor loved universally throughout the na on – kachha aam. Sprinkled with a dash of aamchur in the centre, Pulse had innova vely found the right age-old formula loved by Indians across all demographics and income groups. In a market highly skewed towards children, Pulse managed to change the dynamics with its innova ve flavor and distribu on network. The USP of Pulse lay in the tangy flavored aamchur core which took the consumers to the peak of their candy-ea ng experience.

Shubh Aarambh – Launching it Right

turing 26% of the segment and mango flavor coming a close second at 24%, kachha aam seemed to be the flavor of choice for Pulse candy. However, the makers wanted to innovate the flavor which had already become a part of the mainstream market. In India, raw

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Although the company had Pan-India demographics in mind, it followed a wise and calculated launching strategy. Gujrat and Rajasthan had been tradi onally known for their tangy palate and Pulse righ ully iden ﬁed so by launching it in those markets ﬁrst. The brand was an immediate success and the company took no me in expanding the presence of the brand across the na on.

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August 2018

Perspective The Digital Marke ng

The demand turned out to be highest in the markets known for their spicy and tangy food – Maharashtra, UP, Delhi, Telangana and not to men on, Gujrat and Maharashtra.

Digital word-of-mouth helped for fy the posi on of Pulse in the mind of its consumers. With memes and online posts making Pulse viral, the adver sing spend required by the company for its digital marke ng strategy became minimal. Pulse succeeded in maximizing its social media reach and crea ng a strong online presence.

Pricing Innova vely – Value in Making During the me of launch of Pulse, 86% of candies in the market were priced at Rs. 0.50. In a unique pricing strategy, DS group decide to go along with the pricing of Re. 1 per candy jus fying it with a weight of 4 gram where an average candy in the market weighed anything between 2 – 2.5 grams. The candy was visibly large and lasted for around ﬁve minutes which gave Pulse an edge above other candies in the market pu ng the price diﬀerence in the background.

The customers were enthralled by the ﬂavor of the candy and loved taking the discussions online increasing the digital presence of the brand,. The ul mate promo onal tagline – ‘Pulse of India’ was suggested by online users as well showing the reach and presence of the brand across online community.

Reaching the Right Audience The makers of the Pulse candy u lized their extensive distribu on network of their other products like Rajnigandha and ensured that Pulse candy was available in every nook and corner of the target ci es. Capitalizing on their strong distribu on network in the paan shops and smoking corners, Pulse found a unique set of audience in daily smokers. The smokers were regular buyers of candies and DS Group ensured that they were provided with a Pulse candy by the retailer when they asked for one. This resulted in incremental sales of Pulse candies for smokers tended to buy in bulk, o en buying more than ten candies at a me. The smokers also turned out to be valuable inﬂuencers and reached a wide consumer audience base through their strong word-of-mouth marke ng.

Magic of Penniless Marke ng In addi on to the strong distribu on network of DS group, Word-of-Mouth marke ng played a pivotal role in making the candy a 100-crore confec onary brand in less than a year. People who consumed Pulse candy proved to be a loyal base providing a strong network for word-of-mouth communica on. The candy was also used an exchange currency in mul ple retail shops and paan outlets which led to the consumers acquiring a taste of the ﬂavor leading to intended purchases later on resul ng in increase in sales.

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August 2018

Perspective Unique Packaging

Conclusion

Pulse packaged the candy in fluorescent green colored wrappers which ensured that they would be easily spo ed by the customers. The electric blue color caught the customer’s a rac on while helping it to dis nguish itself from other similar candies. With people s ll hooked on to the refreshing flavor of kachha aam, Pulse introduced another Indian flavor in the market – amrood – topped with kaala namak. The guava candy market another success in DS Group’s confec onary segment.

Pulse Candy is one of those rare instances where product overshadows the marke ng gimmicks. While other companies have tried to get in the game with similar products and ﬂavors, none of them have managed to capture the perfect balance of raw mango and the sharp tanginess that lies in crux of the essence of Pulse candy. Innovaveness makes or breaks the success of a product. No be er tes mony to the fact than the phenomenal 100-crore success of the Pulse candy.

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August 2018

Cover Story

IMPACT OF CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS Cover Story ON CONSUMERS’ BRAND PERCEPTION No brand enjoys popular personality in its introductory stage. All brands start from scratch and it becomes

essen al for them to get no ced and build their posi ve image in the minds of consumers. Consumers perceive the brand majorly on the basis of how it is portrayed. The brand image formed in the eyes of MARKETING consumers explains what they feel about the brand, and it is largely inﬂuenced by the kind of celebrity enBUDGET dorsements that par cular brand resorts to. Such an associa on with celebri es gives the brand its unique charm, personality, fame, glamour and aspira onal value. Managers usually go for celebrity endorsements for their products with the agenda of gaining consumers’ a en on, PR coverage, convincing clients and instant credibility. There is also no denying to the fact that celebri es refresh the brand image and add new dimensions to it. Celebrity endorsements give brands a touch of glamour and the hope that a famous face will provide added appeal and name recogni on in a crowded market. In the ba le for the mind, great marketers get the customer excited by showing him/her a known face, and an eﬀec ve demand is created. In other words, it helps increase the recall value of the brand. Celebrity endorsement strategy has become an

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Cover Story important component of marke ng communica on for ﬁrms in today’s compe ve environment. Most of the mes, an ad which includes a celebrity is tesmonial in nature, wherein the celebrity is watched saying “I use and trust this product, when are you going to start using?” Since, masses all over the world blindly follow what their star icons do, they tend to imitate their consuming habits too.

August 2018 maintaining a en on and in crea ng favorable associa ons leading to posi ve brand knowledge and dis nct brand images.

Companies usually go for celebrity endorsements to boost their presence in rural markets. Rural people, owing to loca onal and educa onal constraints, are usually unaware of features, quality and poten al usage of the products. It becomes a challenge for marIn a survey, respondents were asked which adver se- keters to cater to this segment of people. Marketers ments a ract them more, celebrity endorsed or non- understand how rural people tend to get influenced celebrity endorsed. 162 respondents out of 200 an- by their favourite actors on screen. They associate swered celebrity endorsed adver sements, and only quality of the product with celebri es. If a product 38 voted in favor of non-celebrity adver sements. is being endorsed by a celebrity, it qualifies their This clearly conveys that former possesses the qual- standards of quality and they perceive the brand and ity of a rac ng more viewers. its products as promising and high-toned. In order to capitalize on this underlying opportunity in rural markets, marketers engage celebri es to endorse their brands and set the minds of the consumers in their favor. A piece of research states that the Indian target auMost of the mes, the strategy of celebrity endorsedience of age group 15-30 gets influenced first by ments is also adopted to generate a new demand cricketers, then for the product or Bollywood stars change the mindfollowed by music, set of the existfes vals and food ing consumers. (Hindu Business For example, un l Line, 2003). recent mes, fairness creams were Another research thought to be for conducted by Inwomen by large terna onal College number of people. of Manitoba (ICM) So, companies like interviewed a ranGarnier and Emami dom sample of spent millions in 1,000 adults aged crea ng a market 18+. Interviews of male purchasers were conducted before launching across the counfairness creams for try and the results men like “Fair and Handsome”. They hired celebri es have been weighed to the profile of all adults. One like John Abraham and Shah Rukh Khan to endorse third (32%) of those surveyed say that celebrity enthe products, realizing that no unfamiliar face would dorsement makes them feel more posi ve towards succeed in actually changing the tradi onal mindset retailers. This rises to 59% among 18-24 year olds. of the people. It is also known from the NPD Group Research that less than 1% of images that consumers see daily (30 Another example of successful celebrity endorseof 3,156) reach their conscious behavior. Thus, celebment is the most remembered Nirma adver sement. rity endorsement has become a popular approach Nirma, an Indian detergent and soap brand, was in the branding process both in terms of gaining and endorsed by Bollywood sensa on of those mes,

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Cover Story

August 2018

Sonali Bendre. The ad was highly appreciated and is remembered even today. While Sonali endorsed the bathing soap, Hrithik Roshan was seen endorsing Nirma Ac ve detergent. It can be said that Hrithik was engaged only to a ract consumer a en on and inﬂuence them to purchase the product, as there was clearly no celebrity and product match. Market-

post-Bachchan Parker’s sales have increased by about 30 per cent. Brands like Tata Sky TV and Parker Pens have also been beneﬁ ed big me owing to Bollywood superstars Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan being their endorsers respec vely. Interna onally as well, big brands like Reebok, Adidas etc resort to celebrity endorsements quite o en. Major factors which s mulate companies to engage in celebrity endorsements are: • A racts a en on: Celebri es break the clu er of ads and help in making the ad no ceable and thus, a rac ng a en on of the viewers. • Mass appeal: Star icons have followers in large masses. Companies are able to make a mass appeal through celebri es and reach out to prospec ve consumers who would buy the product because it has been endorsed by the prominent personali es.

ers have well understood the posi ve impact celebrity endorsements bring to their brands. Many experts are of the view that celebrity endorsements directly hit the top line i.e. prove frui ul for the company’s primary objec ve of increasing turnover. Companies engage popular star faces to endorse

• Establishes credibility: Involvement of celebri es in a way gives a quality approval to the brand’s products. This very clearly helps in establishing credibility . • Psychographic connect: Celebri es are loved and adored by their fans and marketers tend to capitalize on these feelings. People develop a psychographic connect with the brand when they see their favourite celebri es on screen endorsing the product. their products hoping to generate higher revenues or help revamping the posi oning of their products in the market. Indian Titan Watches used a leading Bollywood icon Amir Khan to endorse the brand. The campaign helped Titan achieve a growth of 45% in volume sales and 52% in value. According to Pooja Jain, Director, Luxor Wri ng Instruments Ltd. (LWIL),

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• Builds brand image: When a public ﬁgure’s name gets a ached to a par cular brand, the image of the brand boosts up. Consumers start perceiving the brand as a very well established and a credible name. Due to these promising reasons, in US, about 20% of ads feature celebri es (Solomon, 2009), and in many other countries of the world such as Japan and Ger

Cover Story

August 2018

many, the percentage is expected to be even higher. HUL leads the Indian FMCG market with the maximum number of Rs 2000-crore plus brands. Five of MARKETING the company’s brands, have done amazingly well in BUDGET sales and have topped the 2016 charts. Lifebuoy – the country’s largest soap brand; Surf, Wheel and Rin – all three detergent brands; and Fair & Lovely – the largest selling fairness cream in India, have a common feature tp their success stories i.e. celebrity endorsement. Although Lifebuoy had always been posi oned as an independent successful soap brand, it was yet endorsed by the famous cricketer Yuvraj Singh which resulted in a boost in the brand sales. Surf, Rin and Wheel being endorsed by various celebri es from Jackie Shroff to Salman Khan over the years, have proved to be evergreen and successful brands of HUL. Fair & Lovely too, has always been endorsed by famous actresses, currently being Yami Gautam. The significance of choosing the celebrity is also immense as people need to feel connected and must be influenced while viewing the adver sement. The appearance or personality of the celebrity chosen must be in sync with that of the product. Any uncanny representa on may affect the brand in the most undesired way. Devendra Garg, Former VicePresident (Marke ng), Dabur India Ltd quotes, “A

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celebrity does help in increasing brand sales, but only if he/she is selected carefully and used eﬀecvely. The personality of the brand and the celebrity have to complement each other and the selecon of the celebrity is, therefore, very important.” From the abovemen oned stats and data, it is clear that celebrity endorsement is recognized as a poten ally potent tool in business communica ons, with celebri es viewed as more powerful than anonymous models and campaigns tending to verbalize the meaning of the celebrity in rela on to the brand. However, since every proposi on has two sides, this too invites cri cism. Cri cs opine that brands should have their own iden ty to do well in the markets. Dependency on celebrity endorsements is an approach in which people are befooled and not a true picture of a brand is depicted. For a brand to actually do well in business markets, it must stand out on its own in terms of quality, compe ve prices, features, variants and consumer sa sfac on. This anyway does not aﬀect marketers’ decisions of relying on to celebri es endorsing their products, because their goal of a rac ng consumers and building a favorable brand percep on in their minds seems to be accomplished that way.

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Vartalaap

August 2018

An Interview with Samar Singh Sheikhawat Mr. Samar Singh Sheikhawat is a veteran business management leader who has over 28 years of experience in the industry. He has run P&L func ons as a part of management commi ees for over a decade and handled Marke ng and Sales across mul ple industries. Mr. Sheikhawat has worked with companies like Spencer’s Retail Ltd., Pepsico, Dabur India Ltd. and Energiser Ba ery Company amongst others. Through his sharply deﬁned strategic approach he has strengthened consumer preferences and delivered sustained growth on revenue & proﬁtability and powered sustained business leadership.

United Breweries

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Former Chief Marketing Of cer

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Vartalaap

August 2018

“ There is no one reality, there Markathon: Working for about three-decade in the industry, you have witnessed the industry’s marketing and sales strategy evolve. What are some of the changes that have excited you the most? Having not just worked in sales and marketing, I have also been a part of the management committee for P&L of the organization that I have worked in, both at Spencer’s and then at UB. After the economy had opened up in 1991, all the well-known brands from developed countries and other parts of the world arrived in India. We grew up without the television in our homes and then we had black and white TVs and today you can’t even think of having grown up without colour television. There were only two brands of cars available, the Ambassador and the Fiat and now look at the number of car brands. We didn’t have mobiles or pager phones; computers were something you would have heard about but not seen. So obviously, there has been an enormous change in terms of the sheer number of brands, goods and services that are now existing in India. Another point to make is the whole wave of technology that’s coming around, starting from mobile telephones to pagers then to the rst internet boom that happened and then the dot-com bust that followed 15-20 years ago, the rise of arti cial technology and machine learning and robotics etc. So, obviously there are a lot of visible changes but I think the key thing that I see is, when I started off, money was the most valuable commodity and time was something you had. So, we spent the time to save money. For example, you went by bus or train. 30 years later today, time is the most valuable commodity and you spend

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“

are multiple realities

money to save time. When I was growing up, everyone had time and no one had money. Today everyone has money, no one has any time, which is why we travel by air, which is why you make mobile phones your primary medium of communication. So, I think technology has changed enormously, apart from that there are many changes in terms of messaging, in terms of how the consumers are approached, they evaluate, they buy and sell, they pay, how the products are delivered to them. I mean who would have thought that someone would come and deliver products at your home, ordered by your phone. The media industry is one of the industries which have been most in uenced by technology and technological disruptions. They would use a technology in the lms, and that would be available in real in two-three years of time. I mean I remember a lm called, Minority Report by Tom Cruise wherein he threw one screen here and there and this technology became real in 3 years’ time. So one can see a lot of technologies in terms of bendable keyboards and keyboards being implanted in all sorts of stuff. So the base of technology has increased dramatically. And today it has increased so dramatically that even people in the IT Industry, who live eat, breathe and sleep technology every day, are struggling to reinvent themselves. Companies like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, are in the business of technology and are the best. Yet TCS is updating and reinventing themselves. My current favourite story is of a radio presenter in the United States who had throat cancer and had lost his voice and he was going to lose his entire livelihood and his job

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Vartalaap because his job was to be a radio presenter. Fortunately, they had recordings of many of his talks and speeches. So using AI they reconstructed every possible vocabulary sound that he can speak or use and he corrects them, to set them to his own voice using AI and if it was slightly up he would keep adjusting it until it sounds was exactly like what he would have spoken. I mean that is a great example of how technology can bene t. But remember every technology can be used for good or bad. The same nuclear power that can power homes and be a fuel can also be used to make bombs. So that’s the choice that humanity has to use technology for good or for bad Markathon: In contrast to Nielsen’s report which covers only the retail sector and says there has been a rise in FMCG sales, Kantar World panel (global consumer research rm) has reported a 3% drop in overall FMCG volumes in the quarter ended June. This shows that there is a de nite shift in consumer’s consumption pattern from unbranded to branded goods. In this case, what challenges does a new company in a market face while positioning its product?

August 2018 on delivery when she buys online. She uses her earned money from singing to buy these 1000 rupees cloth. She saves so that she can buy a high-end guitar. That whole thing about the experience versus possession. The guitar is a possession and she could have gone to buy a cheaper guitar but why the high-end Fender. Because of experience. So I have an equal number of young urban consumers who are actually spending less on brand and more on private label. On the other hand, the people moving from lower socioeconomic category to higher are typically buying more brands. People moving from the smaller cities to the bigger cities typically tend to buy more brand. People who have been in bigger cities all their life feels for an instance that it is not worth spending 4000 rupees on a pair of Levi’s jeans when I can get something which is exactly to their speci cation online by just sitting at the comfort of their homes. They don’t need to get into a car, have problems in parking then go try in the changing room come back and then pay four times the money. So there is no singular reality in this country. Many trends are happening and it’s a dynamic mix. There are many India. There is India, a Bharat, a Hindustan, there is an India that lives in cities and then there is an India that lives in villages. There is no easy answer and there is no single trend. It depends on the industry, geography, socioeconomic category, gender, age group and many other factors.

That’s a little simplistic to comment on because rst, are thesestudy referring tothe same country,sametimeperiod,thesamecategoryofgood. TherearemanyIndia’stocaterandgeneralisingit wouldbeaproblem.ThereisnosingleIndia.There multiple India. There are multiple threads. Markathon: In that case can we say that My daughter used to be the one who only as long as the companies are addressing brought branded clothes some year back. the needs of the customers, any new entrants in the market is good to go?

But remember every technology can be used for good or bad But now she earning her own money and she refuses to spend more than a thousand rupees for any item of clothing. I see the clothes she buys, she has understood her body type, the colours that t in, material that complements her and she pays cash

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There is always space for someone who is a differentiator. How will a brand be different from the others. Sometimes even if you are not a differentiator and even if you are a me too it is ne. As long as you are lighter, slimmer, cheaper, faster, bigger, stronger or heavier. Let me take an example of kids who believe they don’t need to learn driving because of availability of Ola or Uber. But even between Ola and Uber, one might have a preference. There are some people who will

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Vartalaap

August 2018

only go by Uber and some will only go by Ola and of course, there would be some people who would say I don’t care, whosoever gives me the cheapest rate. So it is not a simple answer and is sort of a complex to answer. There are multiple truth and not one single truth but yes if you are a new entrant you need to be a differentiator of some kind. Either give the same product at the lower price or give a better product at the same price. So, for instance, I just bought a new mobile phone Samsung Galaxy S9. The OnePlus 6 gives exactly the same feature that Samsung Galaxy S9 gives. Exactly down to the teeth and it is 20000 rupees cheaper. So for every person like me who says I am willing to pay that 20000 extra because it is a Samsung and I have been with Samsung for 10 years, there are other sets of people who would say that I don’t care if it is OnePlus because it is 20000 cheaper. They wouldn’t mind if OnePlus is unknown compared to Samsung. Now if you are a new entrant in mobile telephone you will have to consider both customers. And you can choose to serve only one. For instance, will you prefer a Xiaomi phone or an Apple iPhone? One would choose iPhone if one could afford it. If money were no criteria one would de nitely buy the iPhone. But because of money constraint, one buys a Xiaomi because she/he might feel that even a Xiaomi serves their purpose. Once they could afford an iPhone they would go and buy it. It is the same person just with a little more cash. If I was Xiaomi I would have lost you. If I was Apple I would

have welcome you. So there is no one reality, there is multiple reality. Markathon: Coming to very speci c, Liquor industry is facing a lot of challenges like a liquor sales ban, shrinking store network and threatening stagnant demand in warm, tropical country, 52 new beer brands debuted last year. What are the strategies that marketers are using to surpass the regulatory hurdles that the Indian liquor market is currently facing, bring the new customer and bring in revenues? Regulatory hurdles are fact of life in any business that you have, perhaps a little more in alcohol and even more in the tobacco industry. The legislation in the tobacco industry is much stricter than in alcohol. There in many parts of the world, you can’t even have a brand or a label on tobacco products and it is all white packed. The store shrinkage is not a reality any more. More stores have opened up than that have shut down during the highway ban. As far as beer is considered there are two great enablers in India. Number one, India is a hot country and beer is a hot country drink because it is drunk cold. When I meet my counterparts from overseas, I tell them there are three seasons in India, hot, hotter and hottest. We hardly have any winter, a little bit in the north. So technical beer industry has a great potential for a hot country like India.

There is no singular reality in this country. Many trends are happening and it’s a dynamic mix. There are many India. There are many India. There is India, a Bharat, a Hindustan, there is an India that lives in cities and then there is an India that lives in villages. There is no easy answer and there is no single trend.

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Next enabler for the beer industry in India is

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August 2018

Vartalaap

of goods get sold India’s youth popbecause simply ulation. Yet beer they are availindustry is such a able. So an insmall industry crease in availBecause people in ability, increase this country drink in access, liberalto get buzzed, to ism, promotion get drunk and to through social get that kick. It is media, through cheaper and easier Hollywood and to get drunk on Indian movies, the spirits than it through adveris on beers. Which tisement, change is why the spirin family strucits industry in Inture to more dia is much larger nuclear families, than the beer inurbanisation & dustry. Globally it modern education. is the other way round, people largely drink for freshness and not to get buzzed or get a Everything has contributed to the loosening kick. But it is a fact of life. up of attitude. Even in the case of inter-caste But looking at the new thing of demograph- marriages, they were looked down upon in ic, warm country, rapid urbanization, let’s my parent’s generation, in my generation, in face it, today it is getting socially accept- my marketing team half of us married out of caste and the able to drink than other half of us it was earlier. And within the caste. therefore these new brands are In my daughter’s getting launched. generation, they will have love Markathon: How marriages if they did marketers plan to get margo about changing the perception of consumers and ried. Some are not marrying they are just slowly removing the stigma attached to cohabitating. If they are getting married they are getting married in later stages of drinking? their lives. If they are getting married they By increasing its availability and having are choosing not to have children. If they more and more outlet opened up, the ac- are having children they are having chilcess has become easier. The number of dren later. Therefore, we see many changbrands and good has gone up. India is still es in trends occurring and alcohol cona very nascent consumer market. A lot sumption is just a bi-product of the same.

We see many changes in trends occurring and alcohol consumption is just a bi-product of the same.

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eye2eye

August 2018

Advertisement Leads to Excessive Consumerism Kunal Ahirwal IIM Visakhapatnam

Shivani Bhosale SIIB

The answer is a resounding YES! Adver sing is an essen al vitamin without which a business cannot ﬂourish. However, adver sing works on a subtler level to transform the a tudes and ethics of people. Adver sing as an art brilliantly leverages the tendency of human to follow the group or to give-in to tempta ons.

Adver sing, has a basic func on consumer awareness for availability of a product, its features and how it can improve the living standards of customers. But today, with increasing demand, advancement in technology and ever growing compe on marketers discovered it is not just important to iden fy the need and fulfil it but it’s equally necessary to create an arficial need to have a substan al demand for their products. Also today’s consumers, due to their increasing purchase power and changing lifestyle want more for fulfilment of their needs. Wait, “needs”? We need to think over it. The industry develops products either based on customer demand or an cipa ng the future demand based on various other factors. With me, industry focused on wants, which may or may not be a basic necessity or need of the consumer.

Out of thousands available examples, I have chosen the example of animal farms to illustrate my point. The animal farms, and the Meat and Dairy industry has properly used adver sing to promote their businesses, meanwhile excellently manipula ng the minds of the consumers. It is verily the effect of adver sing that the produc on and consump on of meat has increased by many folds in the previous decade. One may argue that it is the human sense of gra fica on that makes one indulge in ea ng meat. But facts and figures suggest something else. I’ve witnessed vegetarians gradually turning into non-vegetarians, thanks to the tantalising and irresis ble adver sements launched by KFC, McDonalds, and the likes. It’s an art to present an act of cruelty and promote the idea of ea ng animals by desensi zing the masses with respect to the back-door misery and torture. The adver sing expense of KFC each year is about $238 million (TNS Media Intelligence report). It is adver sing which is really pushing the message that humans have the right to gra fica on, hence giving a rise to demand for fulfilment.

Thus ads were aimed at communica ng not just the features but also to create a desire/willingness forthe product by giving the product a personality. Thus sales became more dependent on the adver sing done. Adver sements have the power to persuade the consumer through the highly strategized ads and promo on done. Thus genera ng demand for a product which otherwise a customer won’t insist for. As ads have the power, customers too have the power of freedom to choose. It’s the consumer’s responsibility to check usefulness of the value delivered for oneself. As vulnerability to ads increases, it’s high me that the marketers as well the youth themselves take the responsibility to check the adverse effect of ads on their minds and life. The point of difference lies in the extent of power exercised to influence the other end. An effecve adver sement can generate a good demand but we should not forget that an alert customer can make or break the demand too! in 1930 by the merger of Dutch Margarine producer Margarine Unie and Bri sh soap maker Lever Brothers. From that moment on Unilever has gone on to become one of the largest producers and

It is truly an effort for these industries to keep consumers unaware of the abysmal condi ons in which animals live. Not to forget, the horrific effects of these foods on human health and our planet. But animals are helpless as the increasing consumerism has forced even the governments to promote these industries by offering jobs and subsidies for the sake of mee ng demand, and genera ng employment.

Topic for the next issue: “Conversational Commerce: Artificial Intelligence Vs Human Touch?” Your opinion (view/counterview) is invited. Word limit is 250-300. Last date of sending entries is 30th September 2018. Include your picture (JPEG format) with the entry. Winners will receive a prize money of Rs. 750 each!

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Logoistic

August 2018

Google was started as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while con nuing PhD in 1996 at Stanford University. Many won’t believe about its star ng name “BackRub”. It had indexed 75 million URLs and its crawler had downloaded 30 million pages. The important thing about the logo of Google its colorfulness which becomes an important way of branding on internet. Larry Page created a computerized version of le er of Google by using free graphic programs GIMP. The First logo of Google in 1998. This logo according would be considered as Ugly according to present standard. The official version was written where first “G” and “L” were both green. There was also a slight 3D shadowing in logo. Ruth Kedar, the graphic designer responsible for its development men oned about the itera ons that happened for Google. Innovated in September 1998 . They wanted to begin with a pattern that was recognized and accepted as the primary color chart taught across world. While choosing the color, they were having a vision of using primary colors but instead of using a pa ern, they used secondary color on “L”. The reason a ributed was to reiterate the idea that Google doesn’t follow rules and believes in innova on and pushing the boundary of acceptability is the in the heart of Google. The previous logo was used only for once and later it was changed by changing the the color of first “G” to blue and placing an extra exclamaon at the end. They brought this but later changed as it resembled its compe tor Yahoo! Logo from May 1999 to May 2010. Later they started simplifying and changed it to “Catull typeface” and kept it flat. This was the longest serving logo for the company while star ng from May 1999 to May 2010 Icon from 2010 to 2013: In 2010, they came up with a logo which showed a reduced projec on than the previous logo and a change in yellow color and made it more fla ening. From 2015: The breakthrough happened in 2015, when it created with font Sans-serif. There was a lack of shadow and the logo had high contrast of colors giving it touch of new generaon. In fact, many companies in silicon valley use this font now. From 2015: Google has maintained its predecessor and used a version of “G” which is stylized and Google uses it for apps and other func ons.

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AD-dicted AD-dicted

COMPANY: PARLE POSITIONING: #YouAreMyParleG CREATIVE AGENCY: Taproot Dentsu

december August 2013 2018 By rishi ahuja IIM Shillong

YouTube Link: : h ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tClxF 27xloQ&feature=youtu.be

YouTube Link: h ps://youtu.be/7TKVyeUHICQ Concept: There are moments between a brother and a sister, and what special occasion then Rakshabandhan. This ad tries to cover some of those moments. It starts with a house where siblings in the backyard. The brother can be seen irrita ng his younger sister throughout the ad and the young girl has no op on but to complain to her mother. The mother can beseen yelling at the elder brother in the background but he is a stubborn and mischievous boy. He enjoys annoying his younger sibling. But he becomes extremely sad and lonely when he comes to know that the younger girl fractured her leg and cannot move. A er spending the whole day alone, the boy ﬁnally ﬁnds a source of happiness for her sister. The Parle G biscuits, which they share in a playful way.

CATCH

Verdict: Catch Parle G tries to foster nostalgia among the viewers and make them realise that Parle G is not just a biscuit but an emo on as it has been a part of our lives for years. The campaign #YouAreMyParleG a empts to celebrate relaonships with people whom we value the most and have a strong bond, like we have with Parle G. This campaign has a refreshing jingle which reinforces that like that special person in our life, Parle G will always be there for us, no ma er what happens. A unique thing done here was that they sourced stories from the people and portrayed it beau fully. Markathon thinks this is a CATCH as the ad clearly stands out and is a great step to revitalize the old, iconic brand we know.

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By gaurav lakhani IIM Shillong PRODUCT: GO Chocolate Cheese POSITIONING: A rac on Towards New Product

MISS Concept: Cheese slices were personiﬁed as humans at an amusement park. A plain cheese slice portraying as a human character dives in to the pool of chocolate. As soon as it jumps into the pool, a cheese portraying as a girl is shown interested in the guy and yells “chocolate” a er seeing the guy dipped in chocolate. The girl judges the man on the outer appearances and gets a racted toward the guy at last. Verdict: Miss This adver sement is from GO Cheese as part of launching their new product which is chocolate cheese. Markathon believes that there was a lot of expecta on on their new product according to their past adver sements. Unfortunately, this ad couldn’t garner the interest from the audience and commensurately the impact was not evident. From the star ng, ad couldn’t make a emo onal connect and a cliched concept is shown in whole adver sement. Girl ge ng a racted towards the outer appearance of guy failed badly and contradictly showed the exact scenario of what is happening presently in the society. Even the end was quite random and even the whole anima on couldn’t help the ad. Markathon believes that a rac on by the outer appearance is a outdated way of trying to attract people for your product. They could come up with a much be er strategy to launch their important product.

IIM Shillong

Brand Story

August 2018

Brand Story Kratgya gupta IIM Shillong

STEINWAY & SONS “AN AMERICAN STORY”

“I love knowing that something I created will s ll be making music long a er I am gone.” JÜRGEN ABELBECK STEINWAY ARTISAN, 36 YEARS From the company whose founda on was laid down by Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg by secretly building a fortepiano in the kitchen of his house in Germany to a company which now stands as the market leader in the piano manufacturing industry. This is the story of the German piano manufacturing company Steinway & Sons. The company which currently holds 126 patents and more than eighty percent market share in the high-end grand piano market. There are more than 7 billion brands that exist in the world, that are trying their best to get into the minds of the customer. In such fierce compe on, the only thing that will differen ates a brand is its sense of purpose, which it shares with its employees and all its stakeholders. Steinway is the company that does this well, this piano manufacturing company from its very incep on had that great sense of purpose. Almost all companies know what they do, but very few know why they do it and Steinway is one of the companies that knows its why well, which makes this brand unique. The company and its employees takes immense pride in the work they do. They don’t manufacture piano they build it. The company firmly believes in the fact that great job is always a product of passion and precision. And that’s precisely the core value of the company “When precision meets passion.” which made Steinway & Sons one of the brands that reached the pinnacle of marke ng success. The main reason for such massive success in the ability of the company to connect its vision with the belief its people. The brand has always set great marke ng examples; the company never talks about the specifica ons of its piano but the work that has been put to beau fully handcra it. One of the most excep onal cases of marke ng is when it collaborated with the luxury car manufacturer BMW to create a special edi on BMW Individual which featured a design that corresponds to the fine Steinway pianos. All the successful brands are the ones that connect people with emo ons, like Nike which associates its brand

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image by paying tribute to great athletes, Steinway did the same and made this possible by associa ng its brand image with some of the greatest pianists of the era and crea ng a legacy that it calls Steinway ar sts. The company has proudly showcased all its Steinway artists and how exactly they feel about owning a Steinway piano at the Steinway museum hall located in Germany. The reason why this brand stands where it stands today is because of its marke ng technique; the brand does not focus on personal selling. It markets its instruments by collaborating with music schools and musicians. There are now more than 200 all Steinway schools and more than 2000 Steinway ar sts, who make this massive customer base with a market share as significant as eighty percent. Despite such significant market share the company did face challenges, as not everything went as they planned. During the 1950’s the company faced s ff compe on from its only major rival Yamaha. The price proposi on at which Yamaha offered its pianos because of its mechanized manufacturing process helped it gain cost leadership advantage for some me. Which resulted in Steinway losing groundsand a decline in its market share, to handle this Steinway decided to outsource the manufacturing of its midrange pianos to China and launched itself in the mid-range piano segment in 1992 with its Essex and Boston range of pianos that gave tough compe on to Yamaha and get ahead in the race it started. Steinway is among the companies that are great at targe ng customers. The company exactly knows what customer segment to focus and how to get them on board. Hence a er leaving a mark on the concert pianists and the music schools market segment, it started with Steinway Halls where young budding pianists got a chance to showcase their passion for music and needless to say get their hands on the instruments that are an epitome of passion and precision. This well planned marke ng strategy worked really well for the company and it no longer had customers, it had followers. Nothing could have completed this ar cle better than a quote by a Steinway Ar san himself, precisely reflec ng the passion with which he worked on building this great instrument of expression.

IIM Shillong

Digigyan

August 2018

Rising In uence of Social Media In uencers Riya Sarkar IIM Shillong

If you have watched the short dark comedy known as Ingrid Goes West, a low budget movie that mostly flew under the mainstream radar, you must have an idea of what I am talking about. For others, the movie is about a young woman by the name of Ingrid who develops an obsession for the Instagramfamous blogger Taylor and starts mimicking her every move. While the events depicted in the movie seems exaggerated in some parts, they are in fact, much closer to reality than you would like to believe. Influencer marke ng is a growing trend used by companies where they iden fy, engage and support individuals who use different social media pla orms to create a dialogue with the company’s consumers. Tradi onally, people usually associate influencer marke ng with celebrity appearance on TV or billboards on the highway. With technology and media becoming more advanced, companies now have more op ons to choose from when it comes to marke ng their product. Companies now approach people, who promote their products through branded content on their personal social media accounts like Instagram, Twi er, Snapchat, and YouTube. The influencers promote these brands by crea ng content that is based on their personal lives, which makes them more relatable to the average consumer. Now more than ever, consumers are looking up to other consumers instead of just celebri es to make their purchasing decisions. When Lilly Singh first started her YouTube channel back in 2010, she was just like any other person trying to express what’s on her mind through social media. 8 years and 2.7 billion-plus YouTube views later, she has an es mated net worth of $16 million and has been ranked first by Forbes as the most influen al person in the entertainment category in 2017. She is leading a long line of influencers who have started with very few followers and have gained more than a million followers in a ma er of only a few months.

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The reach of this people is only increasing day to day and this opens new channels for companies to interact with their customers more organically, directly and in a way, which can be scaled. The biggest advantage that these inﬂuencers bring to the table is that with their help companies can target niche audiences which have earlier been unreachable, unlike tradi onal marke ng which targets mostly mass audiences. For example, if you are a pet brand looking to pair up with inﬂuencers, then you’ll be partnering with pet Instagrammers and bloggers and these people will already have an audience who are interested in buying pet products. This makes your chances of reaching the

right audience much higher and less vague. Another benefit that the companies receive from social media marke ng is that there is no issue of ad blockers. When successful, influencer marke ng results in an “editorial” product that ad blockers mostly stay away from. The key performance indicators that marketers should focus on while measuring the success of social media campaigns are – Engagement, Reach, Leads and Conversions. Engagement is hands down the most important area out of the above-men oned ones. Engagement measures the number of likes, shares, comments, brand men ons, profile visits and ac ve tags that a par cular post receives. Having a large reach but very poor engagement is bad because this would mean that the content isn’t relatable enough and failed to resonate with the audience. On websites like Facebook and Twi er, engagement plays an extremely

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Digigyan

August 2018 actual number of buyers which the inﬂuencer has ac-quired through his content. Measuring this KPI would help the content creator understand which areas to focus more me and from where the best leads are coming from. The goal of measuring KPIs isn’t just jus fying the marketing strategy but to help improve it.

significant role in deciding how many people actually see your content as these sites view engagement as a sign of quality and popularity. Reach is calculated using the number of followers a par cular account has, the number of mes a post shows up in someone’s newsfeed or meline and account traffic data. Genera ng lead is very important for any influencer as it is easy to get caught up in the number of likes and shares that the post is ge ng but if those aren’t conver ng into poten al new sales then either the pla orm isn’t the best fit or the content isn’t actually engaging the buyer’s persona.Lastly, no strategy is complete without measuring the

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Social media influencers help brands create an image and develop a line of communica on to encourage customer loyalty. The brand does run the risk of ge ng burned as it doesn’t have direct control over the online conversa on the influencers have with their audience and the influencer might do something embarrassing or offensive. To counter this, technology has been developed to iden fy and track influencers’ relevance to a brand or organiza on. There are various useful websites like Klout, which provides a score for influencers by taking various metrics into considera on for determining good influencers. Addi onally, one can also look into websites like Mavrck, an all-in-one influencer pla orm, and Revfluence, which contains a massive database of influencers. To conclude, it is advisable for companies to take their me to find out if the influencer who matches their brand, is able to deliver an authen c message to the target audience and if they are being upfront about it.

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By vishal gupta | IIM Shillong Vodafone-Idea join hands

Vodafone-Idea join hands The two major telecom in India, Vodafone and Idea have joined hands earlier this month. The new combined en ty boasts of the largest ac ve subscriber base of 408 million and the largest chunk of revenue market share of 32.2%. The largest merger in this sector has now intensiﬁed the compe on leaving four major telcos- Vodafone Idea ltd, Bhara Airtel, Reliance Jio and the state owned BSNL. This deal is seen as a posi ve move for India as it brings it in line with what most mature markets as far as compe on is concerned.

Micromax a empts a comeback with its ‘YU’ brand The homegrown player, Micromax looks to regain its hold in the Indian market with ‘YU’, which is a hundred percent subsidiary of Micromax. Vikas Jain, Cofounder, said that the Indian market has undergone a massive transforma on as it moved from low connec vity to one of the highest data consuming countries globally. He acknowledges the role of Reliance JIO in this change. Hence, the company went back to consumers and has come back with new devices to match their needs. The new device ‘YU ACE’ priced at Rs. 5999 will be exclusively sold online as it a empts to ‘democra se technology for masses.’

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Coca-Cola plans to take over Costa Coca-Cola is planning to acquire the Costa Coffee chain which is currently owned by Whitbread. This is a strategical move taken keeping in mind the plumme ng sales of the fizzy drink segment that are high in sugar content as the millennials are becoming more health conscious. Coca-Cola is looking to diversify its product por olio away from sugary drinks, just as the rival brand Pepsi has done by purchasing SodaStream. Besides Hot Beverages is one of those segments where Coca-Cola does not have a global brand and is banking on Costa to give them a strong pla orm. ITC forays to enter milkbased beverage segment Witnessing the beverage giants, including Pepsi and Coca-Cola diversifying away from tradi onal soda and high calorie drinks, the Kolkata based cigare es-tocookies maker ITC plans to foray into ready to drink, milk based beverage with the product range- Sunfeast Wonderz. Unlike the existing products in the market, which are made up of ar ficial flavours, ITC has decided to use real fruit pulp for its beverages. As per a research conducted by Mintel, milk products accounted for 39% of dairy drink introduc ons in India in the first half of 2017, up from just 20% in 2012.

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IIM Shillong

August 2018

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