Markathon January 2013 by Markathon IIM Shillong

January 13

Marketing Magazine of IIM Shillong

Volume 4 | Issue 7

COVER STORY

Consumer Behaviour During Festive Times

Mr. Karthik Venkat Founder and Sales & Distribution Head of eSparSha

FROM TEAM MARKATHON Dear Readers, We are waking up to a brand new year, and as we reflect on the year that was, 2012 was a year most of us would never forget! Even as December 21, 2012 went by uneventfully, inhuman atrocities like that inflicted on the girl whose only innocent crime was to take a bus home have been touted to be the end of humanity. Markathon pays tribute to the brave girl! On another sad note, the cricketing legend called Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar retired from One day format of the game, much to the despair of thousands of fans who worshipped him as the God of Cricket. A fan aptly quotes “The Mayans were right after all, without Sachin the world has truly ended!” The year also saw some major happenings in the world of Politics, with Obama and Modi retaining their thrones, the Kasab trial finally coming to a close, and the E-citizens making their voices heard when posting on Facebook became a supposedly punishable offence. For us in the field of business, it was indeed an end of an era with Mr. Ratan Tata passing on the reigns of Tata Empire to youngster Mr. Cyrus Mistry. Only time will tell how well he fits into the big man’s shoes! That said we have all come to the consensus that “this too shall pass” and are waiting to ring in the coming year. It is once again that time of the year where festive discounts and sales are at their peak, and customers make a beeline to the stores, be it offline or with the growing popularity of e-tailing, online stores. Team Markathon has a brilliant analysis of the impact of festivals and special occasions on consumer behavior in this month’s cover story. We bring you detailed insights into the exact reasons behind this trend. The cover story also compares and contrasts the strategies used by Indian vis-à-vis global companies. In our Vartalaap for this month we have with us young Mr. Karthik Venkat, Founder of eSparSha online merchandiser. Karthik started eSparSha with his friends who shared similar passion to do something of their own after graduating from MNNIT Allahabad. He heads

the Sales and Distribution division of eSparSha and shares insights about online retailing and the genesis of eSparSha. To make the New Year’s edition as special as your coming year, we have incorporated all the special sections in this month’s magazine. We are hopeful that the read will be enjoyable, interesting as well as insightful this time too! As always, do send in your feedback/suggestions to markathon.iims@gmail.com. Sit back and enjoy this issue! Happy Reading!

Team Markathon

THE MARKATHON TEAM Editors G S N Aditya Piyush Agarwal Mayur Jain Sowmya R Swati Nidiganti Umang Kulshrestha Ashok A Kamalpreet Singh Saluja Pallavi Prateek Gaurav Shashank S. Tomar Swikruti Panda

Creative Designers Priya Kumari Agrawal Rushika Sabnis Sushree L. Tripathy Vaibhav Annam

markathon |january 2013

CONTENTS FEATURED ARTICLES PERSPECTIVES MAKEMYTRIP.COM AND ITS SUCCESSFUL TRIP PRITOM KUMAR GOGOI | NMIMS MUMBAI CEMENTING THE PYRAMID AT ITS BOTTOM DHRUV TALWAR | SIBM PUNE

COVER STORY CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR DURING FESTIVE TIMES KAMAL, SUSHREE, VAIBHAV | IIM S

VARTALAAP MR. KARTHIK VENKAT FOUNDER AND SALES & DISTRIBUTION HEAD OF ESPARSHA

WAR ZONE EYE 2 EYE RELIGION BASED MARKETING: MARKETING BLISS OR A SOCIAL BANE? STELLA MINZ | NIAEM,HYDERABAD ; SHIVAM SHEKHAR | MDI, GURGAON SILENT VOICE OLD MONK RELOADED (FICTIONAL)

SPECIALS ADDICTED SWIKRUTI PANDA & SUSHREE TRIPATHY | IIM S

BOOKMARK PALLAVI | IIM S

BRAND STORY SHASHANK TOMAR | IIM S

FUN CORNER KAMAL SALUJA | IIM S

RADICAL THOUGHTS ASHOK A | IIM S

EVENT GODSELLERS 2.0 | MARKETING CLUB

UPDATES PRATEEK | IIM S

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makemytrip.com and its successful trip by Pritom kumar gogoi | nmims Makemytrip is like the “Amazon.com” of the online travel booking industry. The website of Started by Makemytrip or MMT attracts more than 4.5 Deep Kalra in million unique visits every month. 12,000 flight Apr 2000 in tickets, 1000 hotel room nights and 200 US holiday packages nights are booked on the site each day. One out of every twelve Launched in New Delhi in domestic flights from India was booked Sept 2005 through MMT in 2009. Gross bookings and net revenues in MMT have grown at a CAGR FY2011: of 45% and 51% respectively since FY2008.

Industry characteristics Online travel agencies operate in an industry of perishable goods where every empty seat in an aeroplane after take-off is a product unsold and thus wasted. Similarly

others 10%

cleartrip 18%

yatra 24%

makemyt rip 48%

growth of the airline industry, hospitality industry, railways, and penetration of internet, mobile phones, credit/debit cards and internet banking. India was introduced only travel to the concept of planning and booking travel company in Asia in early 2000 with the launch of MMT. Currently, win the prestigious "Red MMT, yatra.com and cleartrip.com dominate the Herring Asia 100" $12 billion Indian travel portal industry. Online award in 2006 medium already account for 20% of all airline tickets sold in India. To understand the Won “Best passenger agent” critical success factors in this industry it is from Air Canada, important to understand the behaviour of Singapore airlines customers while they but a product online. and many more A few key differences between online buying Listed on behaviour and non-online buying behaviour are NASDAQ as given below. revenue $196mn and profit $8.9mn

MMYT in 2010

Online purchase of product/service

Attracting first time customers more difficult Secure payment a key deterrent All products available at same place Customers don’t know or see the face of seller

Internet plays an unimportant role Retaining customers more difficult Secure payment is not an issue Products available at different places

Non-online purchase of product/service

every empty room in a hotel perishes continuously with every passing minute. Like amazon.com and flipkart.com which bring goods to the doorstep of customers, online travel agencies bring the service of booking tickets/hotel rooms etc. to the doorsteps of customers at a reasonable price. Its growth is directly linked to the

Internet connection or internet-enabled phone a prerequisite

20 offices all over Indian and 2 offices in the US

Customers see the face and may know the seller

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Customer characteristics

factors.

Broadly, the customers in this industry can be two categories: personal travel & tourism and business travel which together form about 80% of India’s travel and tourism industry. Rising per capita income, increase in business travel, rising trend of holidaying by Indians, rising trend of adventure tourism, young population etc. have given a boost to this sector. But the characteristics of customers using online travel agencies are widely from the others. When it comes to Indian customers, it varies even more.

The triangle below shows the hierarchy of needs of a customer who prefers to book tickets/hotels over the counter and has never used online booking service.

Key Characteristics of Indian Customers

touch and feel

price convenience add-on benefits

•Short lead-time for booking holidays (1-2 months) and booking travel tickets (15-20 days) •Short holiday duration (10-15 days) •High importance to confirmed bookings/reservations •Specific needs (e.g., dietary) because of their social/religious background •Urge to plan each activity in the itinerary well in advance; flight booking (2 way), hotel booking, sites to visit, things to buy etc. •No specific language problems: many Indians speak English and Hindi •Preference for familiar Indian food •Limited travel or tour budget and highly price conscious •Preference to travel in group of 3 or more •Preference to carry big luggage

In the first generation which started in late 1990s, the main objective of an online travel portal was to provide a platform for customers to book tickets online and charge a certain fee per booking. It was mostly restricted to flight and train ticket bookings. But with increasing competition, deteriorating airline industry, low online rail ticket bookings, the online travel industry had to diversify into car rentals, hotel bookings, etc. This led to second generation of the online travel industry. But this was not the end. With increasing competition and low usage of online booking facilities among the masses led them to offer more than just the ticket or the hotel room. They faced challenges also The triangle below shows the hierarchy of needs of a from company-owned portals, portals for bus seat customer who prefers to book his/her tickets or hotels bookings etc. These OTAs started offering various online after he/she has finalised his/her date, place and holiday packages and other incentives to lure the mode of travel. These customers are attracted more masses. Currently makemytrip and yatra.com even towards convenience and add-on benefits than price provide customized solutions to draw different and other customer categories like children, Makemytrip, yatra.com provide convenience corporate customers, marriage parties etc. conve by providing one-stop-shop and saves time nience Inorder to provide additional benefits to its Add-on benefits

Price

Holiday packages, bundled products, tour advice, special discounts

Helps choose the desired price by displaying all options in a single window

Others w

customers, makemytrip and yatra.com had to depend on different technologies and this led to a spat of acquisitions in a span of 2-3 years. MakeMyTrip.com is the pioneer that

Which airline to travel, which train to board, which hotel to stay at etc.

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started the entire online travel revolution in India.

Maintaining inventory of hotel rooms, flight/train seats, tour packages

Pricing each individual product at a reasonable rate

It introduced the concept of candid hotel pictures and

Bundle a few products together and do bundle pricing

The figures below show the transformation towards advanced products and innovative promotional initiatives used by makemytrip. The differentiation factor in MMT lies in the advanced products and various add-on benefits and promotions that it uses to draw and retain customers. These have been discussed in

Customized travel solutions

actual guest reviews to sell hotel rooms. In its initial few years, it mostly targeted the metro male in the age group of 25-45 years, households with monthly income of over Rs. 30,000, families which were Internet-savvy, deal hunters, and early adopters (inclination to try new things).

Deals

Air/train/bu s tickets Hotel bookings

Discounts/s pecial prices

Add-on benefits and incentives

holidaycumshopping card

MICE

Advanced products and promotional initiatives

Basic products and promotional initiatives Travelong car rentals/taxi booking

yatramiles Holiday packages

Affiliate marketing

B2B/visa services

Searchbook-pay

detail below. Makemytrip was the first online travel company in India to offer its services through the internet, telephone, retail and mobile phones. More than 40% of MakeMyTripâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 3.5 million customers are repeat clients.

Viral marketing MakeMyTrip.com revolutionised the international travel market with its campaign of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Hamne Toda Vaada Toh

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Pay Only Aadha”. They offered to refund half of the money to a traveller who wasn't completely satisfied with his/her international holiday. It turned out to be a huge success. Another successful campaign to lure prospective customers was “Train Ke Daam Mein Plane Ke Mazein”. Apart from such viral campaigns, MMT relied on various cash-back schemes on flight tickets, hotel bookings, holiday packages to promote its products. Its ‘Low Airfare Guarantee’ campaign went viral and was viewed by 60,000 unique visitors and was forwarded by 5,000 viewers. It also notched 76,000 page views. Niche marketing As a means to draw customers who travelled, met, holidayed or stayed in group, MMT started MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions). This mostly targets the population comprising of student groups travelling on excursion, family tours, family gatherings, marriages, groups meeting for a conference, road shows etc. It provides end-to-end customised travel solutions to them. Technology upgradation MakeMyTrip made three major acquisitions; it bought stakes in Le Travenues Technology (Aug 2011), which operates leading travel Meta search engine www.ixigo.com, the Singapore-based Luxury Tours & Travel (Feb 2011) and Delhi based My Guest House Accommodations (2011), a portal focusing on budget accommodation in India. This helped it to penetrate newer markets and increase their customer base.

To improve its operational efficiency, Makemytrip tied up with SiteMinder, a channel manager, to achieve two-way booking connectivity with the huge reservation. Real-time inventory was listed on MakeMyTrip and, in turn, bookings from this site were delivered automatically back into hotels’ PMS and CRSs, providing a seamless, two-way connection and bringing great benefits to hoteliers keen to reach bigger online audiences. MMT did not stop just at providing online tickets and other add-on benefits, it went ahead to help its customers find some company while on travel. It launched a social application called Tripalong, which connects users' LinkedIn and Facebook accounts to post information on the user's travel. Users had to enter the details of their flights on Tripalong. It then integrated his/her social networks and maps of his/her travel itinerary to connect with friends while travelling and were notified if they were ‘intersecting’ with members from their social network (who were also Tripalong members). Users could also make new friends on Tripalong based on their profiles and interests.

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perspective Mobile booking Most recently makeMyTrip.com provided customers with the facility of searching, booking and paying for their air tickets using their mobile phone – even with a non GPRS-enabled instrument. This eliminated the need for a computer or an internet connection. This offer of 'search-book-pay' SMS service for flight ticketing revolutionized the online market. MakeMyTrip launched its mobile apps for Android devices and iPhone and an upgraded HTML mobile site for smartphones. Mobile transactions made through MakeMyTrip apps are supported by all modes of payment – Credit Card and Debit Cards of all major banks as well as NetBanking. In addition to the regular features, the App also provides alerts on updated flight schedules. The app provides additional travel-solutions as well and can view booking details, make cancellations, request e-tickets and even track refunds. Online wallet system MMT also launched “zero cancellation charge policy” which allows customers to reimburse fares, with cancellation charges retained with MakeMyTrip as an egift voucher. This ensured loyalty and also offered to generate incremental revenues in case the coupon was not used. The customer who cancelled had to use

markathon|november 2012 markathon|january 2013 MakeMyTrip to buy the next ticket, and the coupon was valid only for six months Redcarpet service RedCarpet is MakeMyTrip's new concierge service initiative to complement the Corporate Travel Program. It is suitable for frequent First and Business class fliers. The benefits include membership miles, complimentary travel insurance, verification of booking over phone, complimentary transfers from/to airport and so on. Loyalty points MMT gives loyalty points to its loyal customers. Previously, users were only earning and redeeming on flights. MMT now allows its customers to use their loyalty points for other services – such as buying petrol, shopping, banking etc. MMT also plans to partner with the Future Group (Big Bazaar, Central etc.) to enable users to redeem points while shopping. It is clear that MMT has revolutionised the Indian online travel industry and others like cleartrip and yatra have followed it its footsteps. With increasing internet penetration and advanced data transfer services, we can only hope to see MMT rise and rise in the years to come.

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Cementing the pyramid at its bottom Dhruv talwar | sibm pune

There may be a fortune at the bottom of the pyramid. But for those consumers who earn less than a dollar a day and the companies that would market to them, the path to success isn't always clear. In this essay, the authors have attempted to present their understanding of the topic of discussion, i.e. ‘bottom of the pyramid’, while discussing in brief the salient features of Mexican cement major Cemex’s strategy to target this section of the population. THE FUSS ABOUT ‘BOTTOM OF THE PYRAMID’ Renowned academicians from around the world believe that the main issue, or the bone-of-contention, pertaining to ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’ (BoP) is scalability. The logic behind the “fortune at the bottom of the pyramid,” is that although the very poor may not have much disposable income, but there are so many to serve. Companies can offer goods or services at relatively low prices because they can potentially sell large volumes. Thus for any bottom-ofthe-pyramid solution to be sustainable, it will need to scale up efficiently and effectively. The authors shall now discuss the classic “four p's” framework: product, pricing, promotion and placement, with regards to the bottom of the pyramid. Product: In terms of products, the question revolves around designing goods that people living in poverty

need, versus what their stated desires are. When you ask people at the bottom of the pyramid, ‘What product would you really like?’ they talk about things like TVs and gold coins, things that are completely aspirational (as has been highlighted in the results of a recent Monitor Group survey). They are not talking about health care, clean drinking water and so on. Many companies are starting to taste success by taking a more observational approach to front-end product research. Pricing: What to charge for products quickly becomes a moot issue when the customer barely earns enough to subsist. The most successful social enterprises have built operational efficiency into their business model to keep costs down. For example, many socially conscious hospitals keep costs low in general wards by subsidizing them with fees charged for semiprivate and private patient rooms. Promotion: As consumers at the bottom of the pyramid often balk at paying for the services many social enterprises offer, promotion is considered to be integral to the process. For example, providers of clean drinking water have had a hard time convincing people to pay

perspective perspective even a nominal amount when well water — though contaminated — is available for free. Water Health International, a social enterprise backed by the Acumen Fund, used theater troupes, which often travel through India's rural areas, to dramatize the benefits of clean water. The actors showed villagers well water under a microscope, bringing into focus the organisms in the untreated water. Consequently, sales went up four- or five-fold in those villages.

markathon|november markathon|january 2013 2012 second option was to expand the market in Mexico by developing new segments that previously were thought of as difficult to cultivate.

Placement: The most vexing challenge to building a sustainable social enterprise, is finding the right distribution channels. For example - Servel, a maker of kerosene stoves, designed a more environmentally friendly stove that was also less prone to explosion and only had to be replaced twice a year, rather than the usual six times. While the product has many takers now, at first its sales were slow because the company hadn't incentivized its dealer network properly; they preferred to sell more of the inferior product.

Therefore, in late 2006, Cemex launched a program called Patrimonio Hoy, which roughly translates as “net worth today”. It organizes low-income families into groups that self-finance and manage home-building projects with the technical assistance of Cemex professionals and architects. Beyond technical assistance, through Patrimonio Hoy, Mexicans living in CEMEX’S STRATEGY: PATRIMONIO HOY the United States can directly pay for construction In 2006, top executives at Cemex – one of the materials that will be delivered from world’s largest players in the cement, readyCemex’s network of more than 20,000 mix and concrete markets worldwide, distributors to their families’ were thinking about alternative construction projects in Mexico. The common consensus was to avenues to strengthen the company’s expand the market in Mexico The company had initially set out to competitive advantage and maintain by developing new segments study the auto-construction”market – its remarkable growth. Mexico was that previously were thought of the do-it-yourself home building Cemex’s original and largest market. as difficult to cultivate. business that dominates Mexico’s Though the company had grown far transitional countryside, where farming no beyond Mexico, Cemex’s strategy in longer yields even subsistence incomes. the local market still had significant impact on its overall performance. The company put its faith in Hector Ureta, an Unfortunately, in recent years the Mexican market urban planner by training who believed the company had been growing very slowly. Two options seemed to had to radically alter its business model to achieve new hold promise for raising revenue in the Mexican market. sales in marginal neighbourhoods.The common The first option was to integrate horizontally, consensus was to expand the market in Mexico by diversifying into other products and services; a broader developing new segments that previously were thought product portfolio would serve as a hedge against the of as difficult to cultivate. cyclicality of the cement business, stabilizing the company’s Under Ureta’s revenue leadership, stream. The Cemex found

perspective perspective out more than it bargained for, by shaping a global model for reaching consumers and clients in previously ignored neighbourhoods in the underdeveloped nations around the world So How Does It Work? Would-be homebuilders pay about $14 a week, for 70 weeks – so as to pay for the consultations and inspections by Cemex staff architects, and scheduled deliveries of materials divided into building phases that cover the 70 weeks. All building materials are kept at stable prices through the life of the construction project, shielding Cemex’s “partners” from sudden price hikes and supply shortages common on the open market. Also, if the partners run into shallow employment periods, they can bank their materials for a while. Partners found that they were building homes faster, and generally cheaper, than they could on their

own. Cemex is basically putting building materials in customers’ hands, on terms tailored to the way they work and build. In return, the company saw its lowincome partners burst a stereotype of the irresponsible poor: 99.2 percent of the $42 million worth of materials that Cemex has distributed is being paid for on time, according to the company. Also, Cemex pays its partners to show their neighbours how Patrimonio Hoy works – talk about word-of-mouth publicity!

markathon|november markathon|january 2012 2013 What Made It Work? Cemex used a grassroots approach. For months it studied

“We had to leave the Cemex attitude behind. We dropped the ego that would have us say ‘We’re from Cemex, and we’re here to help’”

communities’ first-hand, almost anonymously. This yielded priceless data on how and why people of little means build homes the way they did. None of this was easy. It took unusual patience from upper management to allow the unconventional market study to occur. Its authors had to push back against almost daily calls from some company executives to end the investigation, which was conducted much like an anthropological field study. The company’s chief executives held fast in its support, however. They reasoned that the unusual times Cemex was living through called for maverick business methods. “We had to leave the Cemex attitude behind. We dropped the ego that would have us say ‘We’re from Cemex, and we’re here to help’” Ureta recognized the markets potential: As many as half of Mexico’s population lived on less than $2 per day, according to the United Nations. Yet, despite this severe economic backwardness – this segment continued to buy fired mud bricks and iron rebar, and cement for its cinder blocks – they just weren’t buying directly from Cemex. Ureta assigned 10 professionals – architects, salespeople, and construction experts – to live in different poor neighbourhoods for nearly a year. They were ordered not to offer advice on home building, and not to jump in when they saw construction techniques their college education told them should never work. It was not easy at first because Cemex was not seeing things from the rural people’s point of view, because its professionals were going with pre-conceived notions of how things ought to be done. However, in the end, what Cemex got was a sustainable, ethical business that was good for them and offered their customers a dignified way to achieve the dream of having a home.

cover story | Consumer behaviour during festive times

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Cyber Monday

Kamal | Sushree | Vaibhav | IIM S 10 12

cover story cover story | | Consumer behaviour during festive times Festive seasons are highly anticipated by marketers and retailers all over the world. With busy schedules of most working individuals, holidays have become an ideal time for consumers to shop. Whether it is the Diwali season in India, the Easter holidays in USA or the Eid holidays in Middle-East countries, a large increase in sales during these periods is a common phenomenon. The interesting question here is, do people shop more during the festive season because they have ample spare time or do they shop because of the huge discounts and attractive deals offered by retailers. In fact, both reasons are correct, but the latter seems to be more fitting in today’s world. Nowadays, people are more brand-conscious and they want to purchase the best quality products at the lowest possible price. Therefore, they expect good deals on their preferred brands during festive seasons and do not mind waiting until then to make their purchases. Boxing Day and its Impact In Commonwealth countries such as Britain, Canada and Australia, Boxing Day is a day that has become synonymous with shopping. For those who might be unaware, Boxing Day is the day after Christmas day and is primarily known as a shopping holiday. It is a time where shops have sales, often with dramatic

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price reductions. For many merchants, Boxing Day has become the day of the year with the greatest revenue. In the UK in 2009, it was estimated that up to 12 million shoppers appeared at the Boxing Day sales and in Australia in 2011, $1 billion was spent on Boxing Day, with another $14 billion across the summer sale period. Many retailers open very early (typically 5 am or even earlier) and offer massive deals and stock-clearing sales to draw people to their stores. It is very common for long queues to form early in the morning, hours before the opening of shops holding the big sales. Having lived in Australia for the last six years, I have also been a part of these long queues a couple of times. Last year, I joined the queue outside Myer, a popular Australian multi-brand retailer, at 3am to buy a G-Star pair of jeans. The pair of jeans with a retail price of AU$300 were discounted to a bargain price of AU$99. Similar discounts were offered on clothing, home ware and consumer electronics goods. To create excitement among customers, most retailers start distributing Boxing Day sale catalogues a month before the Boxing Day. Another marketing strategy employed by retailers is to have attractive names for the Boxing Day sales. For example, Myer publicises its Boxing Day sale as ‘Stocktake Sale’ and David jones, another popular retailer publicises it as ‘Bargain Bonanza’.

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cover story cover story | | Consumer behaviour during festive times Online retailers such as Amazon have cashed in on the recent consumer electronics technology craze in a big way. Amazon reported that Christmas Day and Boxing Day sales from its website have grown by 263 per cent over the last five years. The digital revolution has

certainly played a part in this growth and Christmas Day has become its biggest day of the year for MP3 and Kindle Book downloads, as many people buy content for their new devices that they had just received. A recent research study conducted by from Experian and IMRG states that UK consumers will spend a total of 375 million hours shopping online in December 2012 with 17 million of these on Boxing Day alone. The study also indicates that Christmas 2012 will be the biggest and busiest ever for online retailers in the UK.

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Friday, it aimed at persuading people to shop online. Black Friday, the Friday following Thanksgiving, marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season in the United States. Americans went back to office the next Monday, fresh out of a window shopping hangover and having access to high speed internet, and marketers saw this as an opportunity to promote online shopping and cash in on the Black Friday savings of customers. Through aggressive sales and promotion efforts, e-commerce players made huge sales on that single day of the year. Although it wasn’t the busiest online shopping day of the year back when it first started, it was the 12th biggest online sales day in history. A Shop.org press release in 2005 read “Cyber Monday Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year” and the ball hasn’t stopped rolling ever since. Each year, Cyber Monday ranks as one of the heaviest shopping days of the holiday season. In 2006, the online spending on Cyber Monday increased by 25% to $608 million, 21% to $733 million in 2007, and 15% to $846 million in 2008. In 2009, it was the 2nd heaviest spending day of the season amounting to $877 million. Seven years later, the day has become something of an amalgam, wherein retailers offer a host of special offers and discounts at both their brickand-mortar setups, as well as on their respective websites.

Christmas sales for Flipkart, India’s largest online book retailer last year were 10 times the figure in 2010 and a similar trend is expected for this year’s Christmas sales. Snapdeals, a discount coupon site has seen a 75% monthly sales growth during the current Christmas season versus a 45% jump earlier in the year. Most retailers consider Boxing Day a very important indicator of the year to come and how willing people are actually to spend. Online Frenzy for Shopping – Cyber Monday Revolutionizing the world of online shopping was a concept that took birth in 2005 and fast caught up in popular culture as ‘Cyber Monday’. A marketing term coined by Shop.org for the first Monday after Black

Cyber Monday 2012, held on the auspicious day of 12/12/12, was the largest online sales day of all time topping off at sales worth $1.98 Billion. The effect of the online rage crept into Black Friday as online sales from physical stores amounting to $1.3 billion. This

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cover story cover story | | Consumer behaviour during festive times brings the total to a whopping $3.28 billion. The most astonishing aspect of Cyber Monday 2012 is the proportion of it that took place through only two devices, the iPhone and iPad, which represented approximately 66% of all mobile sales. The day started off in the US to compete with the Black Friday shopping extravaganza that follows Thanksgiving but the tradition has now crossed the Atlantic. In order to keep pace with this growing trend, retailers have stepped up their game around multiple channel shopping and West End retailers are using different ways to interact with and reach shoppers using services like click and collect and vouchers that can be redeemed online and in stores. Data from sites like comScore show a general trend that Cyber Monday online sales have been motivated by considerable buying activity from consumer work locations. After returning from the long Thanksgiving weekend with a lot of holiday shopping still ahead of them, there is a tendency for consumers to continue their holiday shopping from their workplaces either to take advantage of the numerous deals being offered by retailers on that day or to buy gifts in private, this day has become an annual ritual for Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s online holiday shoppers. Gradually, Boxing Day and Black Friday are spreading over a few more days to thin out the herd in stores. Cyber Day, however, is not planning to move over to more than a dayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s span. Although sales usually reach their peak later in mid-December when deals and discounts are even more attractive, Cyber Monday has its fair share of success. The smart coinage of the

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term has made its way into pop culture and gets customers to pay attention to it. While some experts put off the day as just another marketing gimmick or a display of rampant consumerism, it has successfully created a culture year after year where consumers are attracted to shopping online, playing on the festive mood in place and creating a buzz around it. India â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Tradition turned into Opportunity? One of the greatest challenges faced by Marketers in India is that of understanding consumer behaviour and pattern in the country. Indians are generally

perceived to be people guided greatly by emotions. Compared to our western counterparts, we tend to attach sentiments in all walks of our life. Also, because of vast demographical diversity, not all segments of people in our society exhibit a similar trend of purchase. Sometimes, even when a product generates positive vibes from the consumers during its trial stage (alpha or beta stage), actual launch of the product is accompanied by negative consumer reception leaving manufactures no other choice but to pull the product out from the market (example Pepsi Blue). Taking all these factors into consideration, it becomes increasingly difficult to predict what our customers want and what would be the outcome of the launch of a new product. A large number of festivals are celebrated across the length and breadth of our nation owing to our rich and varied heritage. Heritage is about special sense of belonging and of continuity. The five benefits for heritage events are authenticity, belonging, spectacle, games and rituals. Joy, celebration and excess may

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cover story cover story | | Consumer behaviour during festive times dominate at such events rather than learning. Such motivations dominate festival consumption. Owing to our traditions, we spend heavily on various things like apparels, sweets, customary gifts, vehicles and electronic equipment. It is believed that God would be pleased by such acts. Nothing can be said about God being happy but it sure is a time which Marketers look forward to with great gusto. Advertisers find these festive times as an amazing and massive opportunity to garner revenue by increasing sales. Companies and stores offer various schemes for durables and non-durables to attract a large pool of consumers. “The pick-up momentum can be assessed only during the festival season” says Mr Ravinder Zutshi, Deputy Managing Director at Samsung India. Of late, the usual trend that has been observed around the festive seasons is that of sky rocketing sales. A shopping mall, on an average day, expects close to 7000 footfalls on weekdays and 12000 to 15000 on weekends (the figure is around 25000 on weekdays and 40000 to 45000 on weekends for bigger malls). During a festive season, this figure shoots up by three to four times. Jewellery shops are buzzing around with activity in these times. Automobile sales are at a yearly high. The major shopping windows of the Indian consumers can be identified as: Festival

Shopping Window

Diwali

Winter ( Around OctoberNovember)

Dussehra

Early Winter (Usually in October)

Christmas and New Year

Last week in December

Hindu(Indian) New Year

Summer (Around April)

markathon|january 2013 markathon|month 2013

Gifts are an integral part of a festival like Diwali and New Year’s. Traditionally, sweets and calendars had been the most common gift items associated with festivities. But in recent times, people have started looking for something different a token of festive spirit. Of late, electronic items like mobile phones, iPods, iPads, laptops and DSLR cameras, silk sarees, kitchen appliances, PC games are increasingly becoming popular gift items. Because of ease of access of these commodities on the internet, online sales reportedly shoot up by around 300% during festive times. “Whether it is chocolates, wines, or plasma TVs, the trend extensively points towards luxury shopping, an emerging concept in the Indian market”, says Devyani Raman of the “Leading Brands of the World”. A trend that has been extensively observed in recent times is occurrence of shopping festivals. Shopping festivals are organized by certain shopping malls or institutions in order to get customers and sellers together. One of the very famous examples of such a fest is “The Great Indian Shopping Festival”(GISF), organized by the Future Group (which owns the very famous Big Bazaar). Such events are preluded by intense advertising campaigns and witness participation of a huge number of brands. The GISF offers around a whopping 1000 brands. “It is a unique event in India with celebrations and offers in across the country and forms one of the most ambitious marketing and consumer initiatives of Future Group. The festival brings in fabulous offers, bumper prizes and gifts and great entertainment, to make shopping experience exciting for the entire family”, says Mr Kishore Biyani, CEO of the Future Group. Another such event is the “Grand Kerala Shopping Festival” (GKSF), scheduled between December 2012 and January 2013 and organized by the government of Kerala. The main

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cover story cover story | | Consumer behaviour during festive times

aim of GKSF is to endorse and develop commerce, trade and industrial sector of Kerala using the brand value of Kerala Tourism. To make the state of Kerala an international shopping destination is the objective of this 48 days shopping fiesta, which starts this December. The recently concluded Great Online Shopping Festival, promoted by Google, is yet another example of such a festival. The Great Online Shopping Festival or GOSF was touted to be the Cyber Monday for Indian consumers By now, it is well established that the number of consumers who spend money increases during concentrated few periods in a year. Though Marketers must go all out to attract maximum number of people, a few things must be kept in mind. Brand image is a very important determining criterion for the amount of offers which can be given. It has been observed that inability to target the right segment of the customers has led to the erosion of brand equity of a lot of companies. A very common example is that of TV industry. During festive seasons, enormous discounts offered on TV sets have resulted in mismatch of intended and recipient audience. This was followed by dilution of many brands. Another important factor to be considered is the time and amount of promotion a company wants to invest in. Firstly, advertising costs are not meagre and thus promotions must be started only with a certainty of a break-even point. Secondly, there is a chance that a negative perception of the brand is created because of excessive

markathon|january markathon|month2013 2013

advertising. Going by personal experience, it is sometimes very annoying to be flooded with advertisements of a product which you do not want to purchase at all. The general feedback on the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Great Online Shopping Festivalâ&#x20AC;? was negative across social networking portals. Netizens and the Twitteratis had cried foul over the deals provided by most of the participating sites, claiming the actual discounts werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t up to expectations. However the real problem was the confusion caused by having too many discounts running at the same time. There were even miscellaneous problems such as transactions failing or coupons being inactive or invalid which caused great ire to customers. Take Away Though consumer spending depends primarily on income and savings generated, festivals (traditional and shopping ones alike) have evoked a positive response in terms reception by people. A festival not only provides a platform for consumers to choose from the amazing array of products available at attractive offers, they also help a brand assess its brand equity. Marketers get a chance to experiment with newer ways of garnering attention. At the end of it all, it is not the company which offers maximum discounts and offers that is successful, but it is that brand which arouses the maximum brand sentiment and attachment by using the most innovative and efficient ways that leads the market.

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cover vartalaap story |

markathon|january 2013

An Interview with Mr. Karthik Venkat Founder and Sales and Distribution Head of eSparSha

Mr. Karthik Venkat is the Founder of the online merchandise provider eSparSha. After completing his graduation from Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Karthik started eSparSha with his friends who shared similar passion to do something different. He heads the Sales and Distribution division of eSparSha and shares insights about online retailing and the genesis of eSparSha. Mr. Karthik is the perfect inspiration for all the young budding entrepreneurs who fear to walk out of the comforts of a well-paying job.

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vartalaap cover story | Markathon: How did the idea of eSparSha first strike you? How did your journey start?

markathon|january 2013 coming back, work late night for this company, building the website, making contacts, discussing with people, brainstorming. We had the chance to continue the same way, but the realized outcome might not be that great. So we decided that we should just go out and explore it completely. Let us work full time on it, give our complete potential and then see how it turns out. So we finally decided that it is high time, we should have a dedicated office and team to take the company to the next level. That is how the entire thing came out to be.

Mr. Karthik: Immediately after graduation, I was a business analyst in an MNC, providing analyses for credit cards and debit cards. From the beginning, I was very curious about numbers, giving analysis, providing conclusions. Though I did my graduation in electronics I had more interest in quantitative analytics over the core semiconductor job. Though the work had become the regular kind of work, we go talk, slog on for 7 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 9hrs. We were just doing copy paste, making excel sheet, taking data, and Markathon: What are the major challenges you have the work was not that attractive. I felt probably I was faced in developing business for eSparSha? How did capable of doing something different than sitting in you overcome them? the office and doing these mundane tasks. At that Mr. Karthik: During the entire journey till date, I particular stage I started exploring other particularly feel that building a team is a opportunities. I was also looking at my difficult task for a start-up. The founders friends working in other MNCs will always have a very strong passion and software companies. Most of Building a team is a for the company. They will be them were not satisfied with the difficult task for a startworking for 24 hours. They wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t kind of job they were doing. So up. The founders will mind working on it as long as they rather than switching job, I always have a very can, because it is their own thought probably we should do strong passion for the company and they have to protect something different. We company. Having it. Having someone in the team should start of our own company. someone in the team with the same amount of passion is First we thought, we should start with the same amount of very difficult. We have to bring a very our company after five years, when passion is very difficult good team for the same which we do we have a good amount of capital, have right now. Here, everyone has the good amount of network. But that only same amount of passion to take the delays the process so we thought letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s company to new heights. Every day we try start now. Next was what kind of to spend one on one session with our product, how we should start the employees and exchange views and company. First thing we explored ideas about the progress of the were IIT and AIEEE. Other thing we company. As the team grew up we realized was, there is a huge gap in between divided the company and split into teams, responsible customers and manufacturers in customized for finance, sales, and operations. The co-ordination apparel segment. We did some market research, between various teams was a challenge. The third checking out various colleges, various companies thing is competition. Every day one or the other who are already there in the market. We interacted company comes up with customized T-shirts; with a few merchants and probable customers. I tried competition in this customized sector is very high. it out for three months and later was joined with couple of friends, who had the same passion to dream Markathon: Being an online retailer in an already big and have an own company. We discussed about cluttered industry with many big and small players, the idea, the observations from the basic market how do you build trust among clients? research. For the initial 6-12 months, we were Mr. Karthik: Building trust is one of the major tasks at working part time, in the morning we would be hand for a company like eSparSha. The biggest trust working on our regular jobs and in the evening after

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vartalaap cover story |

markathon|january 2013

factor among customers is the quality of us in terms of his passion and determination. We service delivered. Maintaining transparency is the key. drew inspiration from others like Ratan Tata and In the manufacturing segment, there will definitely Narayana Murthy. be certain issues. If out of 100%, 95% things turn up Markathon: Do you think the entry of FDI in multi well, 5% of the things do not turn up well and we are brand retailing will have any impact on the future of not able to meet deadlines in those cases. But, we online retailing where eSparSha is operating? need to keep our customer updated. In a nutshell, maintaining a proper transparency and updating them Mr. Karthik: I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see any negative effect with FDI. about the things that went wrong and making Currently we are dealing customized apparels, most of necessary corrective measures, we can keep things in the apparel exports happen from India, China, control. After the product is delivered, feedback Bangladesh and Pakistan and these go out to the is taken, asking for any kind of improvements we can Western countries. Brands like Adidas, Reebok and make. Any updates we are coming up with, is Levis get their products made here and then export it conveyed to the customers. Ensuring the quality is the to various countries. With FDI, may be we get more key. Once the customer gets the assured quality he avenues to showcase our products. Also I feel this will not think much and will be more than happy. We might improve the efficiency of the distribution have done it for some colleges where if we do network in India. So, the productivity will definitely one event for a particular college, we increase, suppliers will become educated also get orders for other event from but again this is a very debatable topic, the same college. The other one will and we need to see at what cost this obviously think that they can see the If you have an idea, efficiency is achieved, to what extent live sample, and if we provide there is no right time the local industries are affected by the quality, we can also get them on to start anything; entry of foreign players. board. Once the customer places an today is the best time Markathon: What is your message to the order, we stick to the commitments to start off. You budding entrepreneurs who are currently made. In case of delay, we inform always need two pursuing their management at premium them so the customer feels that things to work institutes? they are updated and the passion and patience problems were inevitable. This Mr. Karthik: Combining theoretical informed level helps us not to lose knowledge gained during MBA with practical thought the trust. We have something like an automated process you can reach out a successful combination. updating, where order status is sent intermittently. Grasp as much knowledge as possible and then try to We also have 24 hours customer support, where the apply it practically. For instance, one can pick up a customer can enquire about the status of his order. topic from his curriculum, say sales and distribution channels or operations, and then apply it to a Markathon: Is there any person or organization you particular company, maybe do a market research or have drawn inspiration from while laying the so. Ideas need not be too big. Try to pick up genuine foundations of or during the operation of eSparSha? problems; the problems we all face during our day to Mr. Karthik: Before starting up this company, we day activities. If the problem is genuine and you are spoke to a lot of retailers and manufacturers. We proposing an efficient solution everyone will be all drew broad inspiration from the inefficiency of other ears to you. It is always good to keep an eye on things players. For example, if you have a lot of happening around. You should be open to manufacturing capacity but lack coordination in order opportunities and ideas, visualize them and to deliver merchandise. So, we are trying to employ implement them. If you have an idea, there is no right proper quality check schemes like we have assigned a time to start anything; today is the best time to start QC (Qualtiy Check) for every manufacturing unit. Like off. You always need two things to work - passion and all others, we also drew inspiration from some of the patience. All the very best! success stories. Steve Jobs was an inspiration for all of

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war zone | eye 2 eye

markathon | january 2013

Business of the business is to make business. If I were to tell you that a sandwich without onion and beet in it will cost you as much as one including them, you will probably wonder if I am trying to cheat you. But if I call it a Jain sandwich, suddenly you might even be willing to pay a Stella Minz NIAEM, Hyderabad premium for it. That’s the power of religion in marketing. Baba Ramdev’s business is worth about Rs 1100 crore. Sri Sathya Sai baba’s trust dwarfs Baba Ramdev’s taking by conservative estimates. Sabarimala temple makes over Rs 100 crore by selling prasadam and through donations in one season. Spiritual outfits which sell everything from soap to sandalwood are sitting on a consumer market ready to explode. The simple conclusion, Indians blow money on wellness, spirituality and religion and one who can take this an opportunity to bloom is wise. “The devotional market is the next big thing after Bollywood,” said Rajiv K Sanghvi, founder of Vistaas Digital Media Private Limited which owns the DivineIndia.com with Shemaroo, the Bollywood content house. The website Divine India has religious content from across the country and has nearly 50,000 paid subscribers. The site provides members with access to videos of over 1,500 holy shrines and live content from 60 popular pilgrimages of all religions in India. A one year subscription can cost up to Rs 1,200 ($ 21) in India. Need of the hour is to stretch our imagination a bit and the day isn’t far when we would have companies helping Indians living abroad to disperse ashes of their dead parents in the Ganges sitting in their New Jersey apartment. Well, what are you waiting for? There’s the market. Pray to the heavens and build products.

Somebody once said “Religion is everything and everything is religion“; don’t know if he was thinking of including “marketing” in the list of everything when he mentioned that. But, the fact that Religion and Marketing both are about faith and at the end of the day both are Shivam Shekhar about serving (manipulating) MDI, Gurgaon the common man does not get said enough. I, not much excited about visiting holy places, but have been dragged along with my family to a couple of them. Be it Tirupati in the South or Vaishno Devi kissing the northern hills, you might not be able to have a proper darshan due to the rush but the furore laid out during the journey says that indeed Marketers can sell anything even the Gods. The epitome of marketing religion, which is superficially a temple today is Iskcon, one such temple that seems to have segmented the devotees on the demographics of income and has positioned itself for the up-market, otherwise how do you expect a common man to buy incense, flowers, prasad basket present at such high price points, though similar products of average quality are also available at cheaper prices. They coerce us to believe that God loves those who love to spend on him. (BTW, you can also buy a sweatshirt saying “I love Krishna” and Radha-Krishna confectionary cakes at Iskcon!!) Companies use Brand laddering to appeal to the emotions of customer because physiological needs might douse but emotions will always ensure loyalty. Religion offers this to the marketers on a platter, since religion has a high emotional quotient for believers, hence a loyal base. They say marketing is all about meeting the needs and wants; here the marketers have sabotaged one. Worshipping, something that was equal to all despite of prevalent disparities, is now just becoming segmented, courtesy Marketing!

Companies use Brand laddering to appeal to the emotions of customer as emotions will always ensure loyalty

Indians blow money on wellness, spirituality and religion and one who can take this an opportunity to bloom is wise

Religion based marketing: marketing Bliss or a Social Bane?

Topic for the next issue’s Eye to Eye: “Aman ki asha: a plain marketing gimmick or a conviction for happy denouement” Your opinion (view/counterview) is invited. Word limit is 250-300. Last date of sending entries is 15th January, 2013. Include your picture (JPEG format) with the entry.

markathon markathon | january | april 2013 2012

war war zone zone | | silent silent voice voice

Silent Voice

LAST MONTH’S RESULTS Theme: “Old Monk Reloaded (Fictional)”

WINNER: TEAM AVANTE GARDE | XIME BANGALORE Congratulations!!! Fahd Malik and Rishav Dugar receive a cash prize of INR 500!

HONORARY MENTION Team Blitzkrieg |Abhilash Pandey | Prabal Walia | IIM Calcutta

NEXT THEME FOR SILENT VOICE: “iPad mini” LAST DATE OF SENDING THE PRINT AD: 15th January, 2013 EMAIL ID: markathon.iims@gmail.com Send your entry in JPEG format named as SilentVoice_<Your Name>_<Institute>only. 2215

markathon | january 2013

specials | ADdicted

Ad-dicted Swikruti panda | IIM S

sushree Tripathy | iim s

PRODUCT: Snickers

PRODUCT: Café Coffee Day

POSITIONING: “Hungry? Grab a SNICKERS- Hunger Achhe Achhon Ko Badal Deta Hai”

POSITIONING: “Sit Down: A lot can happen over coffee”

AD AGENCY: R K Swamy BBDO Pvt. Ltd.

CREATIVE AGENCY: Creativeland Asia, India

CONCEPT:

The “Captain Rekha” ad is launched as part of the “You’re not you when you’re hungry” campaign. The idea is drawn from the fact that hunger has telling emotional side effects. Director Imtiaz Ali executes the theme by turning one of the gang of young cricketers moving in a car, into the Bollywood Diva Rekha, talking erratically, trying to look annoyed out of hunger. The audience is left agape till one of the guy in front seat explicitly says that hunger caused the catastrophe. As if the audience could bear more of the misfit celeb usage, 90s beauty Urmila drops in yet another white damsel attire to leave everyone grappling the strange association.

At a time when there is too much of standing up on issues every day, Café Coffee Day, through its first television commercial ever, takes the stance to ‘Sit Down’ to talk over and resolve issues, preferably over a cup of coffee. It shows a group of young Indians, which is also their targeted market, being fed up of the constant agitations and how they feel that sitting down to talk, for love and for peace would make things better. It also embeds well the use of social media with #sitdown tags flashing throughout.

VERDICT:

CCD’s first TVC in 16 year is part of a 360 degree ad campaign by Creativeland Asia. The positioning is a smart move as the concept of ‘sitdownism’ to start conversations goes perfect in the setting of having coffee with friends. Hence, the ad tries to create a buzz around the experience of the store rather than the quality of coffee or the menu. It is fresh, fun, entertaining and uses a catchy jingle sung by youngsters that CCD goers across India can relate to. Plans to launch a social media campaign with the use of #sitdown tags are underway. The ad film is branded smartly interweaving the products into the narrative and is indicative of the huge potential of café culture in India.

Catch/Miss- Miss The ad had targeted the sporty youth of India by offering a wholesome candy bar, which as an attribute itself could have been differentiating enough. Snickers tried to cash on high brand recall, supposedly earned by the two dazzling beauties in the usual avatar, people would love to see them in, foregoing everything, from message (hunger-satiation) to brand personality. Today audience is intelligent enough to grab a witty message passed in a simple subtle way, but is least tolerant when a brand forgets itself in desperation to catch eyeballs by mere celebrity usage and more so when the way they are used is least what the brand stands for.

VERDICT: Catch/Miss- Catch

YouTube Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46BDzyoBSnY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kBh0k9W3pk

specials | bookmark

markathon | january 2013

The company of the future Meeting the management challenges of the communications revolution

-Frances Cairncross Review by Pallavi HBS Press| Price Rs.225

Can you imagine a job more complex than managing a business? Not so long ago, at least it was clear what the job entailed. But not anymore! The reason: the evolution of the internet and an accompanying cluster of new technologies for handling and transmitting information. Summary In her book the author, Ms Frances Cairncross discusses how internet will affect every aspect of the business, both internal and external. Internally, she says, "almost every business process involves information in some form: an instruction, plan, advertisement, blueprint or set of accounts" while the factors of external environment are those of the growing opportunities for collaboration and teamwork that the internet technologies provide, the importance of teams, retreat of geographical distance as a barrier and the emergence of new technologies are both driving down costs and increasing the speed. Among the themes that the book explores, is how the internet technologies will shape the way businesses view the customers today. Customers matter—but some matter more than others. It is common knowledge that acquiring new customers often costs more than making extra sales to existing ones. This is why companies must build loyalty and trust with reliability and good service. Using technology will not just widen their reach by finding new markets, but will also seek to deepen existing relationships. They must use this opportunity to offer their most profitable customers special deals and to make them feel part of an elite “club”. It may so happen that some companies will even seek to “fire” unprofitable customers by curtailing affordability / access. All these changes will no doubt transform the ways the companies function but these transformations may be too subtle for people to notice while it happens. Cairncross points out that

merely adopting the technology to automate the work that they do is not where its impact is greatest. The main revolution will involve enabling companies to first do familiar tasks in new ways and then move on to doing new tasks in the increasingly familiar way. Organization The book starts with ten rules for survival, in which the author gives the first glimpses of what changes lay ahead with the advent of internet technologies. This is followed by ten chapters covering various aspects of the business ranging from knowledge management, customer and brands to corporate structure and, how they will be affected with the introduction of new technologies. Hurried readers can also cut corners by reading the first and final chapters, which give a sense of the material in the intermediate chapters. That may whet their appetites enough to persuade them to digest what lies between. Verdict: 4/5 No manager should be deceived by the 2000-2001 collapse of technology companies and stocks and subsequent surplus of high-tech investment into thinking that the influence of such changes has been exaggerated. Its profitability was oversold but not its significance. The book captures this essence. Bottom-line It is a well-written compilation useful to anyone who hasn't been following the new thinking closely. The book is rigorous but readable with a staid sense of history and relevant real life examples strewn all over. A good read, for not just anyone, but everyone because like it or not, internet technology is touching all aspects of business today no matter which part you belong to.

specials | brand story

markathon|january 2013

GOOD DAY: FOR BRITANNIA AND FOR US! SHASHANK TOMAR | IIM S The largest and fastest growing brand of Britannia, ruling with a two-third market share in the indulgence segment valued at Rs 3,300 crore, estimated to be an Rs 1,500 crore brand by AC Nielsen and holding the place of second largest biscuit brand in the country in terms of sales value, that is the brand which is making our days good since a long time now after being launched in 1986: The Britannia Good Day! Good Day was created to bridge the gap between biscuits and cookies and this could not be replicated by any other biscuit company in the Indian market for long. It started with entry of Britannia in the indulgence biscuits market in 1986 when the common populace of India was subjected to functional glucose biscuits at tea-time breaks and cream biscuits on special occasions. Britannia spotted this gap and launched nationwide packed cookies and aptly named it as ‘Good Day’, which was positioned above Britannia’s glucose offering. It also ensured that its richness and indulgence was accessible to the masses. The brand’s offerings were targeted at all age groups of the market. According to Sunil Alagh, the former MD of Britannia Industries, “The brand name ‘Good Day’ was selected purely on the basis of instinct. Going with the ‘gut feel' the team also came up with the ‘Have a Good Day' campaign which immediately stuck a chord with the audience. Started with the Orange Delite and Coconut Crunch variants Good Day failed to appease the consumers’ palates until Good day Butter turned out to be a game changer. The present portfolio consists of Butter, Cashew, Rich Butter (Butter and Cashew), Choconut, Butter Scotch, Honey & Raisin and Chocolate Chips. Britannia used Umbrella branding strategy by extending the Good Day brand name to offer products in the nascent small cakes organized market in January 2000. Along with the high brand equity, the established distribution network was an advantage

over Mongini’s, a major player having 40% market share in the small cakes segment. Apart from the functional benefits of the product, the key attributes to the success of Good Day have been its widespread distribution and its innovative communication strategy. Good Day is believed to be the most consumed biscuit by passengers travelling via trains and buses in India. Its availability ranges from the corner panwalas to multi-brand outlets in malls. The premium packaging and different color schemes for different variants of the brand are also key features of the brand. Britannia’s communication has always revolved around the central theme of warmth and family values. The remarkable “Iska to ho gaya Good day” campaign in 2008 did wonders by making it a common lingo and a way of life. Be it the uncontrollable expression of the ticket collector's happiness and joy that is stimulated by consumption of the cookie or the million cricket fans screaming and proclaiming "Ho gaya re Good Day" in IPL, the campaign was a huge success, and the phrase still continues to be the tagline of the brand. As the brand celebrates 25 years in 2012, McCann Erickson conceptualized a campaign, that attempted to remind consumers of the brand’s ‘large-heartedness’ and reignited the role that Good Day plays in the lives of Indians by highlighting the joy of giving. With the growing potential of Bottom of Pyramid, Britannia also launched the pocket pack SKU at Rs. 5 to increase the penetration in the underbelly of the market. Good Day is set to face intense competition, with Parle's 20-20 building an 18% share in the cookie market over three years, reducing Good Day’s share from 33% to 28%. However, the brand equity of Good Day backed by Britannia’s unparalleled innovation in products and significant market reach, the brand is estimated to continue to rule the cookies segment in the years to come, offering many more “Good days” to its consumers’ unending delight!

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specials||Fun FunCorner Corner specials

markathon|september 2012 markathon|january 2013 2012

Fun corner KAMAL SALUJA | IIM S

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specials||Fun FunCorner Corner specials

markathon|september 2012 markathon|january 2013 2012

ACROSS 2. This Indian city, also known as the Detroit of Asia, is on the way to become the world's largest Auto hub by 2016

8. This American corporation has agreed to acquire Marketing Software Firm Eloqua for $871 Million in December 2012

5. This company’s recent Twitter campaign backfired when critics used the #SpreadTheCheer hashtag to bash the brand

9. The airline that gave away $9 flight tickets on twitter to celebrate the 9th anniversary of its maiden flight

6. This company is the former owner of Columbia Pictures, the famous American production studio 10. Unconventional marketing intended maximum results from minimal resources

get

11. This beer is amongst Singapore's top ten most valuable brands 12. The Australian state to launch 'The Best Job in the World' marketing campaign 13. Field of marketing research that studies consumers' sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective response to marketing stimuli 15. A single instance of an online advertisement being displayed

14. Company that made the first ever device to be marketed as a 'smartphone' 16. More than 8 million people tuned in to watch Felix Baumgartner jump from the middle of the earth's stratosphere live on YouTube. Name the company that sponsored this event 17. This multinational operates 'Family Mobile', a mobile network in the United Kingdom

Have Fun Solving!

18. The artist behind the most watched video on youtube till date

14. Ericsson

13. Neuromarketing

9.Virgin

12. Queensland

8. Oracle

11. Tiger

7. Burberry

10. Guerrilla

4.Psychographic

6.Coca Cola

3. Prometheus

5. Starbucks

1. Facebook

2. Chennai

DOWN

ACROSS

ANSWERS

7. Romeo Beckham, the 10-year-old son of football star David Beckham is making his modelling debut in this fashion house's Spring/Summer 2013 campaign

16. Red Bull 4. A term that describes consumers or audience members on the basis of psychological characteristics initially determined by standardized tests

15. Impressions

3. This movie's successful marketing campaign included a fictional TED Talk

17. Ikea

1. The video campaign “The Things that Connect Us” was launched by ________

18. PSY

Down

19. Jabong

19. This ecommerce portal received the highest traffic of any ecommerce site in India in 2012

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specials | radical thoughts

markathon | january 2013

Sensuality in Ads - To be or not to be? Ashok A | IIM S "Hello?" "You snore." "And you steal all the covers. What time did you leave?" "Six-thirty. You looked like a toppled Greek statue lying there. Only some tourist had swiped your fig leaf. I was tempted to wake you up." "I miss you already." "You're going to miss something else. Have you looked in the bathroom yet?" "Why?" "I took your bottle of Paco Rabanne cologne." "What on earth are you going to do with it…give it to a secret lover you've got stashed away in San Francisco?" "I'm going to take some and rub it on my body when I go to bed tonight. And then I'm going to remember every little thing about you…and last night." "Do you know what your voice is doing to me? "You aren't the only one with imagination. I've got to go; they're calling my flight. I'll be back Tuesday. Can I bring you anything?"

"My Paco Rabanne. And a fig leaf." Paco Rabanne - A cologne for men. What is remembered is up to you. (Ad is given below) The above dialogue belonged to a two-page ad for Paco Rabanne Cologne. In the print ad was, a man sitting up, sheets up to his waist, talking on the phone. The dialogue flows down the page on the other side of the ad. It’s subtle and sensuous, isn’t it? When this ad came out, sales of the cologne went up 25 percent and this ad was voted the best magazine ad in the year 1981. But in a country like India which is still very conservative, the receptivity of such ads is a huge question. More than the concern about receptivity, it is the question of negative criticism and opposition such ads would generate. The above ad was made in 1981. Now we are in 21st century, still there is a hullabaloo surrounding the use of the sensuality in ads. Note that I use the word ‘sensuality’ and not sexuality. In majority, sensuality is accepted in the West. One of the prime reasons for this can be

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specials | radical thoughts

attributed to great artists of the modern era. When Picasso painted “Two Women Running On the Beach” it was seen as a monument of freedom and the conventions of the Victorian Age were thrown off everywhere from Hollywood to normal streets. In this Picasso’s joyous painting, women who resemble Greek mythological maenads run in loose dresses, hair flowing freely and holding hands leaving the whole world alone (Picture Given). Many similar paintings and art forms helped people enjoy and accept sensuality. But we cannot miss out on talking about our style of art and our ancestors’ understanding of sensuality. India is a land which had a book written on Love, Kamasutra and there are paintings and sculptures which celebrated sensuality; Ajanta Cave paintings, Sculptures of Mamallapuram Shore Temple and Konark Sun Temple to name a few. But of late, the society went in for a change and started viewing sensuality as obscene and provocative. Historians state that westerners when they started exploring the ancient Indian history they were quite amazed and this inspired free love movements and this led to sensuality being accepted as a form of beauty. But India became a prudish and conservative embodying the Victorian sensibilities that were being abandoned even in the countries of origin. This argument clearly opposes the view of some critics who argue that

markathon | january 2013 sensuality does not fit into Indian culture. At this juncture, I would like to say why I argue this issue of sensuality in ads with such seriousness. There are lots of products which cannot be advertised without a tinge of sensuality in them. For example, Fragrance ads, Lingerie ads etc. You might have noticed that there are not many ads for Lingerie on TV. But the brand ‘Triumph’ made a TV ad for its Lingerie quite intelligently. But there are lot many products which failed to gain the necessary awareness just because they could not go above the line as they cannot be advertised without sensuality in them. I would argue that Sensuality in right places and right proportions could create huge visibility for the brand. But making such ads can backfire if not used properly. David Ogilvy, legendary Ad man and one of the proponents of sensuality in advertisements, once himself confessed that he had failed using a sensual advertisement for advertising a Cooking stove. So the main question here is about the relevance of such ads. Skimpy outfits or sensuous laughs are not going to sell Noodles. Advertisements reflect the mores of the society but do not influence them. That is why we can see many explicit materials in Literature such as

Magazines and novels but not in advertisements. It is time Indians become receptive to such advertisements and government less regulating and treat them as sensual creativity rather than as provocative visuals.

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Intra B school event | GodSellers War of brands 2.0

markathon|november markathon|january 2013 2012 2012

GODsellers 2.0

The much anticipated second edition of the intra collegiate event â&#x20AC;&#x153;GodSellersâ&#x20AC;? saw amazing reception from the students of IIM Shillong. The event was a platform for participants to showcase their marketing skills in a real market setup by using the most unique and innovative methods. The event was also the first attempt by IIM Shillong to foster links with local colleges in Shillong as NIFT Shillong was invited to the event. 30 14

markathon 2013 markathon||january march 2012

specials||updates updates specials

BRAND LAUNCH iPad mini, iPad4 launched in India The smaller version of the iPad, the iPad mini with a 7.9 inch display was launched in India at a price bracket of 21900 to 41900. The fourth avatar for iPad was also introduced to consumers at storage capacity of 16 GB, 32GB and 64GB. Apple is currently working on launching the Apple TV in India.

Godrej Aer: A fresh start Godrej forayed into the growing air care market with its latest offering-Godrej Aer. The strong brand name will help in creating brand recall and brand-connect. AmbiPur which is credited of creating the air care segment in India was offered through a joint venture between Godrej and Sara Lee. But in mid July 2010 P&G bought Ambi Pur from Godrej-Sara Lee for $468 million.

Arvind to introduce Billabong to India Arvind Lifestyle plans to give Indians a feel of global surf wear brand by acquiring the distribution rights of Billabong- the leading sportswear brand which is positioned on surfing lifestyle. The growing youth population and increasing disposable income make India an ideal destination for the sports brand.

BRAND WATCH Tata Tion: Gone with the Wind The non-carbonated drink from the stable of Tata has been taken off the shelves as it could not connect with the consumers. The taste was the biggest disappointment for the consumers followed by the price. Moreover, the confused positioning of the product did not help the cause of Tion either as a result of which it could not define its target consumers.

L’Oreal acquires Urban Decay The French giant in beauty and cosmetic products bought Los Angeles based Urban Decay in a deal worth

$300-400 million. Urban Decay which shot to fame after denying to test on animals and promoted as the 100% vegan beauty brand reported sales of close to 130 million in the period 2011-2012.

Viacom18 to start Nick Jr. in India Viacom18, the 50:50 joint venture between Viacom Inc. and Network18 plans to entertain children in age group 2-6 years and their mothers through their latest offering called Nick Jr. This is their third channel in India after Nick and Sonic.

MEDIA Kurkure ropes in celebrities to launch new TV ad campaign

PepsiCo’s Kurkure plans to air its new TV campaign featuring Parineeti Chopra, Kunal Kapoor, Boman Irani and Farida Jalal. The brand which so far featured one celebrity has brought in a gamut of stars to endorse its product. The whole idea behind this campaign is to stretch the reach of the brand beyond the housewife theme as exhibited by the previous ads.

Bisleri Launches “Kiss to Drink” Campaign Bisleri launched its 500 ml offering with hope of entering the personal space of consumers. The SKU priced at Rs. 10 aims to encourage individual purchase and usage and allays the fear of multiple usages as 500 ml is considered appropriate for single consumer. Bisleri came up with this concept after learning that people abstain from putting their lips on bottle fearing multiple usages.

Ogilvy and Mather wins Effie 2012 Ogilvy and Mather won the coveted Agency of the Year Award organized by The Advertising Club. They also took home the Grand Effie for their” Kuch Meetha Ho Jaaye” Campaign for Cadbury Dairy Milk. Cadbury was adjudged the Client of the Year at the award show.

markathon markathon||january march 2013 2012

specials || updates updates specials

AD Watch Café Coffee Day – Sit down Ad Feeling the heat of Starbucks’s entry in India, CCD launched its Sit Down TVC to connect with the youth. The ad tries to connect with the youth and encourages them to sit and enjoy their emotions of life at CCD. Click Here To Watch

Rado Ad The ad featuring Hrithik Roshan appeals to the Indian alpha male who tries to squeeze out time for party from his busy schedule. The ad tries to connect with people

who strive for perfection and value performance and luxury. Click Here To Watch

Domino’s Pizza The pizza giant has extended its menu by offering the cheese boloroni pizza. The tagline emphasizes the emotion of enjoying the pizza slowly reliving the moments of joy. With this new offering, dominos has tried to tempt the dripping cheese loving youth population segment. Click Here To Watch

Articles are invited “Best Article”: Pritom Kumar Gogoi | NMIMS He/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 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 the 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. We’re inviting photographs of interesting promotional events/advertisements/hoardings/banners etc. you might have come across in your daily life for our new section “The 4th P”. Send your self-clicked photographs in JPEG format only. The last date of receiving all entries is 15th January 2013. Please send your entries marked as <ARTICLE NAME>_<SENDERS’ NAMES>_<INSTITUTE> to markathon.iims@gmail.com.

Please send in your comments/feedback to: markathon.iims@gmail.com Visit: www.iims-markathon.blogspot.in

ÂŠ Team Markathon, IIM Shillong