It’s the month of March and the only thing on everybody’s mind is the ICC Cricket World cup 2015. This is something really important for every Indian who watches cricket and which is almost everyone. India surprised everyone by being one of the top contenders especially after its abysmal performance before the world cup in the tri-series between India, Australia and England. Anticipating this excitement for the world cup we gave the topic as ‘India vs Pakistan’ for this month’s Silent Voice and got some really good posters depicting the excitement. Apart from all this cricketing extravaganza, the Indian Union Budget was something everybody was anxious about since it would decide what kind of strategies every organization is going to make for the next financial year. Also this month’s cover story talks about the mirage of rationality where consumers think that they take decisions based on some logic and reason but in reality they take decisions based on no real reason. We have also covered the failure of Cosmopolitan’s Yoghurt in the Jab They Failed section where we show what went wrong and what could have been done to prevent that failure. The Vartalaap section this month features an interaction with Sudipta Sen Gupta, Senior General Manager of Carlsberg India covering her journey across various companies like CocaCola, Compaq, Café Coffee Day, Nirula’s, Del Monte foods and now Carlsberg India. The magazine also features an article introducing the concept of ‘Brand Exchange’ and how it can improve the marketing in all the industries
and another article shows how selling products to women has evolved over time emphasizing on the strategies used by different companies to do this. Ishtihaar of this month shows how organizations have been using animals to market their products innovatively and leaving a mark in the minds of the target audience. Apart from these we have the monthlies ‘Updates’ and ‘Addicted’ to keep you updated on the latest happenings in the field of marketing. So without any further ado start reading. Do provide us with your valuable comments and feedback by writing to us at markathon.iims@gmail.com Happy Reading! Team Markathon
The Markathon Team Editors
Cheena Pasrija | Gautam Gopal | Mohammad Fahd | Sumit Bedi | Vinay Jain
Creative Designers Ansul Jindal | Kasturi Guha Thakurta | Sagar Riaz
Markathon
march 2015
Contents Perspectives Brand Exchange Measuring Marketing Factors Chirag Mahajan | Delhi School of Economics
1
More Than Just Making it Pink Surabhi Sharma | IMT Ghaziabad
3 Specials
MIRAGE OF IRRATIONALITY
5
Cheena Pasrija | IIM Shillong
Vartalaap
Ms. Sudipta Sen Gupta Senior General Manager | Carlsberg India Pvt. Ltd
9
Eye 2 Eye
Flash Sale Marketing Strategy of the Smart Phone Maker a Good or Bad Strategy? Aditya Kansal | IIM Shillong & Akanksha Kirti | IIM Kozhikode
Silent Voice
17
AD-dicted Ansul Jindal & Kasturi Guha Thakurta | IIM Shillong
18
Fun Corner Sagar Riaz | IIM Shillong
19
Ishtihaar Gautam Gopal | IIM Shillong
20
Jab They Failed Vinay Jain | IIM Shillong
21
Updates Cheena Pasrija | IIM Shillong
15
19
16
India vs Pakistan: World Cup 2015 Anurag Ghosh & Karan Gupta | Delhi School of Economics
6 12
MARKATHON
20
IIM Shillong
march 2015
perspective
Brand Exchange Measuring Marketing Factors The Changing Ways of Marketing By Chirag Mahajan Delhi School of Economics
CMO(Chief Marketing Officer) of an organization comes to office in a hurry and calls for an urgent meeting to respond to a 3% decrease in BV( Brand Value) at Brand-Exchange due to low customer interaction by the brand at social-media platforms as compared to the industry standards in past few weeks. Thus, it was decided to add more resources to the Customer Relation Management Team. Gone are the days when marketing used to be a try n test function. Today, Marketing is no longer a spending department as it was considered to be but it has emerged as most spend-conscious departments due to conservative approach to fund allocation these days. Marketing platforms, like the financial instruments, are nowadays seen as a fixed-return based investment options. Resultoriented marketing plan and monitoring has increased the scope of marketing function to realize the cost of efforts being put into brand communication and the pitch of voice created in the audience through them. Today’s trend is not only marketing your portfolio efficiently at various available platforms but also measuring the efficiency of your marketing campaigns or plans and taking corrective measures. Organizations are very particular about the returns on their marketing spends and are investing on building spend analysis dashboards which helps the marketing team to closely monitor the KPIs( Key Performance Indicators) of the their marketing Spend. Also, companies are engaging Brand Consulting firms to identify the factors at which they need to be highly agile in order to sustain in the industry of their operation. To anticipate the future of current trends (i.e subjective analysis for brand assessment), consider the following questions: How does Unilever benchmark a campaign for a product on real-time basis with 10 competitors? How much are Unilever’s current activities adding to its brand equity? On what communication factors does Unilever lag and by how much w.r.t industry standards?
MARKATHON
1
IIM Shillong
march 2015
perspective Qualitative research and measurement by brand consulting firms brings subjectivity and variation to the answers of above questions. There is no option to realtime tracking of brand equities and ROIs. Neither are there are any listed measurable marketing sub-units nor any ranking mechanism to score brand engagements given by Sir Kotler. Thus, current trend and disabilities will lead to the establishment of a central Brand Assessment body which can set marketing standards and define rating mechanism of activities for quantitative analysis of Brands. This body can also act as an exchange facilitator where brands are traded on their brand values rather than the stock values. Like a stock exchange gives a good insight about the financial health of stocks, quantitative analysis of Brand activities by an exchange will lead to: • Better brand-informed customers, • Better tracking of campaigns, • Defined marketing benchmarks, • New innovation in marketing function, • Better recognition for marketing efforts, • New marketing-dimensions, and • Tough competition among the brands. Brand Exchange will monitor and rate the brands on real-time basis on the following factors:
is created in campaigns compared to the cost of running the campaigns. -Social Media Engagement Indicator: Measure the cost efficiency of engagement levels of the social media campaigns. -Incremental Sale Indicator: Measures how cost effective your marketing campaigns are at increasing the sale numbers. -Cost per Lead Indicator: Measures the effectiveness of marketing campaigns at generating leads for each dollar spent on that campaign.
-Marketing Strategy Index: Brand’s marketing plans rated on tactics employed to achieve the organizational goals. -Innovation Index: Capability of brand to innovate in its marketing strategies at a constant pace. -Agility Index: Capability to respond to the changes in the operating environment. -Leadership & Management Index: Clarity of communication and the degree of trust leaders bring for brand.
The rating on all the above factors will give a cumulative Brand Value (BV) score to every brand. Such rating on real-time basis would allow the brands to adapt and perform at the highest potentials at every second of the day. For example, if a company gets low score of agility index, it will hurriedly look on the parameters controlling it, say it is technology adoption at a low pace, to take measures to increase the rate of adoption and also take measures to gauge emerging trends in the industry. It may change the course of campaign if it monitors low ROIs.
Detailed Marketing Factors:
Brand Exchange, which monitors, rates and facilitates exchange on brand values, will set the tone for today’s emerging trends in the marketing function.
-Return on Investment (ROI) Indicator: Measures how much marketing wealth (sales, brand equity, credibility)
MARKATHON
2
IIM Shillong
march 2015
perspective
Marketing for Women More Than Just Making it Pink By Surabhi Sharma IMT Ghaziabad
Let’s talk numbers first. In 85% of the households, women are the primary decision-makers for consumer goods. They take 75% of the decisions of buying new homes and 81% of the decisions about groceries. They influence at least 80% of all household spending. Hence, neglecting them will ensure a huge sales loss. Suddenly women oriented marketing campaigns seem important? And why shouldn’t they? Marketing to women is not about just “making it pink”. It is more than that. There is no “one-size-fits-all” for women. Similarly, each woman is an individual and has unique needs. It is up to the marketers who can strike the right chord to grab the attention of women. Most of the firms have realised this fact and hence, we see a recent surge of ad campaigns focusing on women empowerment. The advertisements have shifted from beauty queens to greying grannies and senseless secretaries to smart and independent women. Hence, the term “fem-vertising” comes into picture. Even though some of the firms are a newbie in the current trend, Dove pioneered this movement ten years ago through its “Campaign for Real Beauty” in 2004. For this campaign, Dove came out with ads featuring women with different body sizes
MARKATHON
3
in contrast to usual lingerie-clad made-up models. Since then it had been consistently focused on its target audience with other campaigns like “The Dove Movement for Self-Esteem”, 2010, etc. CoverGirl also launched its #GirlsCan ad featuring celebrity spokeswomen discussing and rejecting the limitations that they had to face as young girls. CoverGirl continues its efforts with a pledge to donate $5 million over 5 years to non-profit organizations that help women to “break barriers and blaze trails”. The question that arises here is – at what point does the urge to really “create an impact on the society” turns into a manipulative strategy? The marketing world has never been black and white. The viral success of the women oriented marketing campaigns has lead to a wave of copycats. At this point of time, the real measure of the genuineness of such campaigns will be to see what the brand is offering. Is a brand actually helping in women empowerment or is it just following the current trend? For example the “looking confident” and “feeling beautiful” ads of Dove and Pantene aren’t really bringing out the social picture. Let’s take Dove’s campaign - “Movement for Self-
IIM Shillong
march 2015
perspective
Esteem”. Dove supported this campaign with a survey. According to it, only 4% of women worldwide considered that they are beautiful. Among 1,200 girls in the age group of 10-17years, around 11% felt comfortable using the word “beautiful” to describe their appearances. Interesting fact about the survey is, it doesn’t give the % of girls who would use words like smart, talented, fierce, independent, etc. to describe themselves. We don’t see anything empowering in the campaign. On the other hand, we have the “Like a Girl” campaign by P&G’s Always brand. Always is a brand that caters to products for girls’ puberty and it has come up with the campaign that explored an issue closely related to the pubescent girls. Moreover, it has been investing in educational materials relating to young women. So it is something very innate to the brand and it is clearly not following the trend rather it has made one. HelloFlo provides care packages of pads, tampons and other self-care items for girls in puberty and post-partum women. It launched two viral ads, Camp Gyno and First Moon Party. The best part about these brands is that their pro-girl message is genuinely aligned with their products. Consider the “Chime for Change” campaign by Gucci and its partner Catapult. It is supported by celebrities and creates mini-documentaries for projects worth funding for education, health and justice for girls and women. As of today, the campaign has raised $4.4 million to fund greater than 260 projects in 81 countries, across 87 non-profit partners. It has also rescued 75 sex trafficking victims and provided them with shelter, gave healthcare and education to 5,000 patients in Afghanistan, continuous schooling to 655 children in Brazil and many more milestones. Now this is something you call a real women oriented marketing campaign.
MARKATHON
As vigil consumers, we need to see the difference between the portrayed efforts and the real picture. As far as the organizations are concerned, they need to match their outside image with their inside efforts and sincerely work towards the goal that they seem to expose to the world. Their message for the world should be more authentic rather than being a mere formulaic selling strategy. As it has been rightly said, if your audience cannot see your convictions positively represented in your marketing campaign, they won’t back your cause. And as an organization, you will be lost in the illusion of “making it pink”.
4
IIM Shillong
cover story
march 2015
Cover Story “Mirage of Irrationality” Absolute rationality is a mirage or a myth. “Rationality is nothing but conforming to the beliefs which are based or was formed in accordance with reason and logic.” Humans always strive to be rational but in many cases the foundations or the yardsticks MARKETING which they employ to implement rationality is not BUDGET rational in itself. We have heard, many a times, that consumers are irrational, but many a times when we address the issue of consumer irrationality we are talking about how the subconscious and peripheral routes of our brain are playing a role in our judgment and perceptions. This is something we all are aware of, but what if I tell you that while taking most of our decisions, although we are striving to be rational we end up being irrational? Let us start with a fundamental observation: most
By
Cheena Pasrija
IIM Shillong
sounds better than the previous one. Everything is relative, and that’s the point. Like an airplane landing in the dark, we want runway lights on either side of us, guiding us to the place where we can touch down our wheels. So where does irrationality start to play a part here? How can we use theory of relativity to market a prod-
uct to our end consumer? The answer is almost everywhere. As it has been discussed, our consumers are irrational and we can use this irrationality to our benefit. We need to understand that people identify ‘value’ in a relative term and if we could provide them with those relative yardsticks, we could try and manage the value of our product in customers’ mind. The Economist, for example, applied it brilliantly. In one of their advertisements, the offers they gave to the customers were:Economist.com subscription- US $59.00 Print subscription- US $125.00 people do not know what they want unless they Print and web subscription- US $125.00 see its context. Consumers do not know what kind If you look at these offers carefully, the first offerof racing bike they want –until they see a champion the internet subscription for $59 – might seem reain Tour de France ratcheting the gears on a particu- sonable to many. The second option- the $125 print lar model. We do not know the kind of speaker sys- subscription – might seem a bit expensive, but still tem we want, until we hear a set of speakers which reasonable. But then the third option- a print and In-
MARKATHON
5
IIM Shillong
cover story
march 2015
ternet subscription for $125. The marketing wizards know something important about human behavior: humans rarely choose things in absolute terms. They have an internal value meter that tells them how much things are worth. They focus on the relative advantage of one thing over the other, and estimate value accordingly. In case of Economist, people may have not known whether the internet-only subscription at $59 was a better deal than the print-only option at $125. But it could be interpreted certainly that the print and internet option for $125 was better than print only option at $125. In fact the customer deduce that in the combination package, the internet subscription is free. As a result when 100 students of MIT Sloan were exposed to this, the following options was chosenInternet-only subscription for $59- 16 students Print-only subscription for $125- zero students Print and internet subscription for $125- 84 students
the decoy here). So once we removed the decoy, there was nothing for the students to measure the value proposition. Another example for Decoy effect is the high priced entries on the menu of the restaurants. They are used to boost revenue for the restaurant- even if no one buys them. This is because even if people won’t generally buy the most expensive dish on the menu, they will order the second most expensive dish. Let us talk about the “Anchor” effect. The ‘Anchor’ effect works on the great law of human action, that in order to make a man covet a thing, it is only necessary to make it difficult to attain it. The price-quality perception is formulated this way. Price acts as a constraint in achieving that product thus making it desirable. Thus many luxury chains have very few exclusive outlets setting a constraint through price and availability. An example of this can be interpreted by a story. A pearl king once discovered black pearls on the island of Saint- Tropez. The pearls had no inhibit selling quality- they were gunmetal grey, about the Now when the advertisement was changed in the size of musket balls, and had very little demand. But following way that the middle option was removed:- the pearl king applied this law, along with the law of Economist.com subscription(Internet-only – US ‘imprinting’. Our first impressions about a product $59.00 defines our perception about the product. The pearl Print & Web subscription – US $125.00 Au Contraire! This time, 68 of the students chose the internet-only option for $59, up from 16 before. And only 32 chose the combination subscription for $125, down from 84 before. Now let’s understand why this happens. This is known as “Decoy” effect, where you place an artificial option in the minds of the consumer so that while working on the lines of theory of relativity, it places the role of enhancing the value perception of other options. So the students at MIT Sloan were influenced by the mere presence of the print-only option (which was
MARKATHON
6
IIM Shillong
cover story
march 2015
king commissioned full page advertisements, which ran in the glossiest of magazines. There strings of Tahitian black pearls glowed, set among a spray of diamonds, rubies and emeralds. Thus the pearl king ‘’anchored’’ the black pearls to the finest gems in the world- and the prices followed forever. Now comes the concept of “Arbitrary Coherence” which proves why black pearls are still expensive and perceived to be rare. The basic idea of arbitrary coherence is- although initial prices are “arbitrary”, once those prices are established in our minds, they will shape not only present prices but also future prices. They create a perception in our mind that forms a product placement in our mind which do not leaves our mind easily. Thus the black pearls, as they were perceived to precious and expensive in the beginning, might always be perceived so. Another concept is ‘Hyperbolic Discounting’. It is related to our subjective perception of time, and to the way the brain parses current and future pleasureseeking - waiting for an hour right now is more painful than our perception of waiting for an hour in the future. Here is an example of how Hyperbolic Discounting works. You go to your car dealer for a model which has a sound system you liked. He says it will take 3 days to get that exact model, but you can drive away right now with one that has a better sound system and costs $100 more. Most buyers will choose to pay a little more and take their new car now. However, if the dealer said that no car is available right now, and he can get the model you want in 23 days, but a model costing $100 more with a better sound sys-
MARKATHON
tem in 20 days, most buyers will choose to wait the 23 days and get the exact model they want. This is hyperbolic discounting at work. Rational consumers with consistent inter-temporal evaluation should treat the trade “$100 for an attractive but unneeded accessory versus 3 days” the same whether it is executed right now or executed in 20 days. Now comes the issue of biasness and rationality. How our mind chooses to be rational and irrational, according to our convenience. You could see two very rational people fighting over their favorite actors, sport stars or movies because then emotions take over our rationality. Bringing the theory of relativity again in picture, suppose we have to run two errands. The first is to buy a new pen, and the second is to buy a suit for work. At an office supply store, you find a nice pen for $25. You are all set to buy it when you remember that the same pen is on sale for $18 at another store 15 minutes away. Most of us would take that trip to save that $7. Now on the second task - you are shopping for suit. You find a luxurious gray pinstripe suit for $455 and decide to buy it, then another customer whispers in your ear that the exact same suit is on sale for only $448 at another store, just 15 minutes away. Now for this you won’t make the 15 minute trip. A reduction of $7 is $7 whether it is in any product. Again it could be ascertained that absolute rationality is a myth. So we can see that consumers are rarely rational. Consumer perceptions could be manipulated. The parameters which are employed to formulate such perceptions are not very rational. So let us take some
7
IIM Shillong
cover story
march 2015
close down our options to good and bad. In fact, we want to have narrow choices but we should be made to feel like we have made the decision with rationality and after considering a lot of choices. Unlike the predictions of most marketing models of consumer behavior, consumers are not that rational in their decision making. But their irrational behavior is systematic and predictable rather than being random or senseless. For instance, consumers will even sacrifice their personal needs for image in public eye-the reverse-herd effect, choosing to be different to be seen as being different, even if they give importance to what others are doing. So marketing strategy should be based on the actual behavior of people. Behavioral economics is a behavior-first tool for marketing with how consumers are, not how they say they are.
other phenomena which will consolidate our hyMARKETING pothesis are:BUDGET How social norms play a role in shaping our behav-
ior and our ideas about rewards and incentives. If you notice we are many a times happy to do things, even if we are not paid to do them. We would prefer doing favors for others and respected for it, than being paid for them. Two sets of norms majorly dictate the consumer behavior – social norms (implicit rules of social interaction) and market norms (explicit and hard transactional business rules). One need to learn to understand these norms, differentiate amongst the two and balance them. For example, the incentive you will provide the consumers to spread the word of mouth to their friends can’t be monetary, this breaks the social norms. Interactions with friends and spreading word of mouth should be facilitated through free rewards like free coffee coupons and should be appreciated. Always prefer social norms where possible rather than create new market norms with financial incentives or fines – as they do not give good results and have a tendency to backfire. Motivate your customers through coupons, points and gifts but not the usual monetary incentives. Giving too many options to consumers do not make a lot of sense. There is an optimum amount of choices which will enable large purchases. We as consumers claim that we love choices but actually we don’t. On the other hand we love to preserve options, even at the cost of energy, time and money and many times it does not make sense. So companies need to give us minimum choices so that we can make a decision,
MARKATHON
8
IIM Shillong
vartalaap
march 2015
VARTALAAP An Interview with Ms. Sudipta Sen Gupta
Ms. Sudipta Sen Gupta has industry experience of 18 years in Strategy, Marketing and Saes in global companies like Coca Cola, Del Monte, Compaq, Cafe Coffee Day and many more. Currently, she is the Senior General Manager in Carlberg India Pvt. Ltd. where her role is to manage the Brand Portfolio and profitability of Carlsberg, Tuborg and other brands through ATL/BTL initiatives. “It’s all about reformulating the market offering which is done by adding new services, economic benefits and relational benefits”
Carlsberg India Pvt. Ltd.
MARKATHON
9
Senior General Manager
IIM Shillong
vartalaap
march 2015
Markathon: One of your specialties is ATL and BTL, but in a country like India where advertising for products like alcohol isn’t permitted, ATL can still be done by surrogate advertising. But how do you think BTL can be done? Actually the truth is that brand extensions are allowed in ATL which is TV, digital, out of home, hoardings so on. It is actually easier to BTL advertisement and communication. As per Indian laws in the AlcoBev industry, at point of sale you are allowed to show products, you are allowed to show drinking, you are allowed to show consumption shots, you are allowed to say beer. So a lot of our efforts, time and budgets go to BTL marketing especially at points of sale whether it is off trade or on trade. Off trades are your traditional outlets where you buy and take it to your home or to the place where it will be consumed and on trade is where consume in premise like restaurants, lounges etc. As per Indian laws you are allowed to Advertise in BTL. Markathon: Why is it that Carlsberg India doesn’t have ads like the poker test or why is it that they don’t have a tie up with Indian DJs like they had with Axwell? I mean since direct advertising isn’t allowed these might have a really big impact on the target market.
ket and that is the success of many global brands. We recognize that India as a market is different and hence it needs its own communication. Secondly, laws in India are not the same as laws everywhere else so we can’t simply take global pieces of communication and use them in the Indian market. Having said that from time to time we do take a few things from the global ads. There used to be an advertisement of Carlsberg’s association with the English Premier League, it was called the ride commercial. We took out the bottles and the drinking shots and replaced them with Carlsberg club glasses which is the brand extension and we played it in India on Star Sports during the English Premier League matches. As far as Axwell is concerned he has been associated with Tuborg actually because that is the brand associated with music. Tuborg doesn’t associate with only one artist but uses music as a platform and from time to time various artists have been associated with Tuborg. If you see in the Indian music industry, the way music is consumed, you will see it is majorly film music. Ya, though there is growing interest in EDM, international music, rock music still Bollywood or rather film music continues to dominate the Indian scene. To be relevant in the Indian market we have chosen to be associated with the popular, contemporary mostly film music rather than the international rock. Moreover, there are select events with which we tie up. Tuborg has been associated with Sunburn consecutively for three years. Last year we shifted from Sunburn to Supersonic.
There are a lot of activities conducted globally, not all can be conducted in India because India has semi dark market conditions as pointed out by you in your earlier question so something like the poker ad we Markathon: You must have seen the Budweiser Ad can’t advertise in India because it shows beer, it around the dog and the horse which talks about shows drinking. We have to adapt to the local mar- friendship, so don’t you think the Indian audience
MARKATHON
10
IIM Shillong
vartalaap
march 2015
is mature enough to understand and connect with cause people are willing to pay a premium for a betsuch ads? It also doesn’t show a bottle but talks ter cup of coffee and ambience, what do you think about friendship and having a good time with your will be the future of CCD in your experience? friends which is what Tuborg is all about. Actually, when it is a growing market, like it is for cofActually I do not. It’s not about the maturity of Indian fee in India this is not an issue to be worried about. audiences. Having worked in the Indian market for Yes, the initial days were hard because coffee wasn’t last two decades, what one recognizes is that Indian as accepted as it is before but CCD changed this and audience love the human element and there is noth- it has the first mover’s advantage. It doesn’t necesing wrong with an ad showing an animal trying to dis- sarily go away just because there are competitors in play a human emotion. In fact Vodafone has done it the market place. In fact, the more café players come successfully but only after years of existence in the in to the picture, the bigger the pie grows. There is Indian market, only after years of communication nothing wrong with having competition, competition showcasing the human element. So there is a stage is good, healthy and keeps a brand on its toes. Also, of life in which a brand can take that step. We believe it brings back focus from any other form of beverage that our brands are in there nascent stages infancy in or hangout to coffee drinking and café culture. First terms of brand growth, so we would not take those of all, I would like to destroy the notion that competition is bad for a business, it is very good for a business steps immediately. if you do not lose your way. I believe that CCD hasn’t Markathon: Please tell us in brief how was the ex- lost its way, it’s still the largest with 2000 outlets. Any perience with CCD especially since you were there market whether it’s a product or a service, CCD is a right from the beginning when it had only 14 cafes food service brand has economy, mass or masstige in Bangalore to over 500 cafes both nationally and and a premium end and it grows slowly. What started internationally. What all marketing challenges did off with an economy brand with small coffee shops, where you get coffees for Rs 10 developed into a you have to face? masstige market, so while the economy market still My stint with CCD which was almost 6 years long existed the masstige market grew because CCD made was one of the most rewarding and enjoyable stints it grow. It is quite understandable that over the last that a marketer could possibly have because when 15 years, the market has also evolved the premium you are in a team handling a global brand not all the end has emerged. Sooner or later super premium mandatories are laid down, how the brand is? What end will emerge but all of that will not happen siit does? What it thinks? What it will say? What it will multaneously. CCD is undoubtedly a big player with not say? With CCD, I got an opportunity of creating a a major chunk of the masstige market and CCD also brand from the scratch. That doesn’t mean that the foresaw that there would be an entry in the super 14 cafes weren’t branded but the brand didn’t have premium segment as a result CCD refurbished its ima distinct character. The opportunity that I got was to age, logo and interiors and also came up with a predo a massive consumer market survey and through mium chain of its own called the coffee day lounges. that get some initial ideas as to what kind of a brand? They exist in select cities and they are doing very well What kind of an offering? What kind of a benefit? and of course the competitors have prospered if they Was the consumer looking forward to and who was have done the right things like Starbucks have done. the consumer? I was given the opportunity to craft If they have done the wrong things like Barista, they not just the marketing strategy but also be a part of have lost out. If they have created a niche for themthe team that crafted the business strategy which in- selves they may not grow as fast but still present and cluded the vision for the brand and the company. A doing reasonably well like Costa Coffee but at the mission to be an affordable and a popular chain not same time CCD has not ceased to grow. Just as Starnecessarily the biggest but certainly the most loved. bucks is America’s export to the world, CCD is India’s With that mission in mind the brand strategy flowed. with presence not just in Asia but also in Europe. CCD has cafes in Vienna which is known as the cafe capiMarkathon: Continuing with that, as Starbucks and tal of the world with more cafes per Square Km than other players have entered, CCD is losing its market anywhere else in the world. share and also the market has become mature be-
MARKATHON
11
IIM Shillong
vartalaap
march 2015
Markathon: Both Nirula and Fieldfreshfoods were nate cuisines, and packaged fruits like tinned pinein the food industry but catering to different audi- apples. So each of these categories cater to different ence. What was the strategy in both these cases? audiences. Did they have any similarities? For example fruit drinks cater to the young adult, ketchups and sauces catered to the younger generaActually Nirula’s and Del Monte which was the brand tion like children and teenagers. Alternate cuisine that brought Fieldfreshfoods in the Indian market catered to the housewives segment. And the packaren’t very similar because Nirula’s is similar to CCD aged fruit was for institutional players for example because it’s a quick service restaurant, the space is the toppings on Dominos Pizzas were from Del Moncalled food service where you have a product but te. So you had very different audiences for each catyou also have a service and the service aspect is big- egory, so category management role had to do with ger. I would say Nirula’s experience was a little more scoping the market, finding the market potential, similar to CCD than with Del Monte. Fieldfreshfoods giving a volume target to the sales team and supis actually a joint venture between a MNC called porting them in achieving these targets. It is more Del Monte and the Bharti group. So Bharti Group’s like a business role rather than just a pure marketing FMCG venture is Field fresh foods. Del Monte sells role. packaged products which was also an interesting experience in itself. That was also the time I handled Are you looking to come up with a new brand other category management so whether it was with CCD than the Carlsberg beer and the Tuborg beer which or Nirula’s, there was one mother brand and many is popular in the international market, for example sub brands. For Example in CCD, I also handled the Baltika which is really popular in Russia? Or will consumer products business which is packaged cof- you be focusing on these two brands at the mofee, mugs, T-Shirts and all of those that you can buy ment and think about looking at other brands later when you are at a café. In Nirula’s of course it was to when you become the market leader? do with strategy and marketing, I also handled the institutional sales side of it. So Nirula’s used to sell You are right, there is always a stage in the life when food and CCD was my client at that time. We sold one introduces more and more brands. You may the sandwiches, samosas to CCD because they didn’t have read recently that Unilever with 400 brands make those. Later, they went on to have their own has figured out that aren’t able to do justice to all kitchen but initially they sourced food from vendors of them and decided to discontinue a few of their like Nirula’s. Del Monte was pure play FMCG so there brands. Similarly in India, many MNCs have flounwere four categories. And this is the time when I dered when they introduced too many brands at came in contact with the term and the profile of cat- the same time because every brand is like a baby, egory management. It is like an end to end business it needs to be nurtured through its days of infancy management for different categories. So there was so that it is strong enough to stand on its own feet, the fruit drinks category, ketchups and sauces, alter- only then can you remove the support. We want to
MARKATHON
12
IIM Shillong
vartalaap
march 2015
create strong brands and we want to make sure that Carlsberg is strong in the premium segment and Tuborg is strong in the mainstream and the mainstream segment. When that job is done or seems to be well on its way to be done, only then we will look at launching new brands. Globally we have 500 brands, some of them are local brands. Baltika for example is available practically only in Russia and it is a strong local brand over there, so it makes sense to sell Baltika in Russia. If we want to introduce it in India, we will have to start from the scratch, does it make sense? Is there space for it? Does the consumer need it? Or should we look at related categories because apart from beer Carlsberg also does siders which is not exactly beer, it is fruit based can be made from apples, pears, Raspberries, Strawberries etc. Carlsberg also has a brand called Grimbergen which is a dark ale, also wheat beer. So there are many brands in the portfolio to choose from. We just don’t want to launch brands for the heck of it. We want to time it well and select a brand which caters to the needs of the Indian market not just any successful foreign brand.
not there for beer brands. Moreover talking about the life-cycle of TG of Tuborg, we are looking at a medium length life cycle which is 6 years (not 10 years). It is not about age but attitude, although our target group for Tuborg is between 23-29, still anyone who has seen early success in life will be out TG for Carlsberg , so such things depends on the attitude and mental state as well. Having said that we have observed that people change their beer brands also according to occasions. For the last 10 occasions if we observe, we might find people who have experimented with more than 7 brands. So we are aware that this inter-changeability exists and therefore what we are looking for is going for the right brand. Markathon: As you have worked in such a diverse profile, we would like to know how a marketing strategy changes in accordance to whether it is a product or a service.
There is a fundamental difference between marketing/managing a brand which is a product vis-à-vis a service. To start with, marketing a product is easier as Markathon: In a market like alcohol, which is similar compared to a service. There are 4 main differences to cigarettes, the person does not leave the brand which are present between a product and a service. even if his pay scale increases because he is used to Firstly, a product is tangible, a service is not so while the taste. Right now you are introducing Tuborg to marketing a service, a brand would like to make it the young segment of India, so don’t you think this tangible it, for. E.g. Dominos would like to make its trend might continue and they might not shift to delivery tangible with a 30 minute guarantee delivCarlsberg even when they start earning quite more? ery. Second difference is homogeneity, products are homogenous or standardized generally, and services Actually cigarettes and alco-bev are not similar. Cig- are not. Thus you would like to standardize your proarettes are addictive, alcohol is not. So you do not cesses like McDonald’s does. Now comes another get addicted to the taste in the alcohol as you do in challenge for marketing, whether it is possible to tobacco segment. There is a high level of stickiness standardize your processes or not. If it is possible for towards the brands in the tobacco section which is you to standardize your products then market it like
MARKATHON
13
IIM Shillong
vartalaap
march 2015
McDonald’s otherwise do it as Main-land china does. Next difference is that the production and consumption are happening at the same time. While in the case of a product, a product is manufactured, then supplied and then consumed, in case of a service, the production and consumption takes place at the same time. Here a service is generated just because there is demand which is has been generated. Thus there is equal participation from the demand side. So you have to pull that demand and then engage it, while ensuring the quality of the service and product. Last but not the least, products have indicators of quality like something would be written on the label, the way you present the product and the place where you present the product provides direct cues to the consumer about the quality of the product. There are no such direct cues about the quality of the service, before a service is experienced. For eg- When doing a research for café-coffee day we observed that one of the indicator for cafes on highways is the neatness of the washroom. If a customer finds the washroom neat, he perceives the quality of the restaurant to be good. He thinks that the food prepare would be fresh and hygienic. So you need to promote quality using these indirect cues. Thus these are the 4 major difference between a service and a product. Markathon: What would be your suggestions to the, for People who want to make a career in brand management? Usually all brand managers succeed in their own unique way, although if I were to point out some commonalities amongst many good brand managers then they would be – first of all, they all are good listeners. Listening teaches us more than talking. You learn more by talking to your stakeholders- your consumers, colleagues, and your sales people tell you much more about your brand than you could think of, in your cabin. Interacting directly with all your channel partners and devising a good feedback mechanism is a very good listening tool. So I would say listening is a very important tool. So the second characteristic, which may surprise some of you is being very number driven. Brand management is not just about being creative, it also about being methodical. If one is managing a huge brand, one would get a huge no. of brand measures- whether it is behavioral, whether it is attitudinal and whether it is market share data or the distribution data. One needs to take information from all of these and take the right decision. So
MARKATHON
one should be good with nos. if one is scared of nos. , it might be extremely difficult to be a good brand manager. The third quality is risk taking ability, a lot of brand managers are following trends and trying to decode trends, but if you are only following trends then you are not setting one of your own. In order to differentiate your brand from the others, one might have to take educated guesses at time, which could take your brand to the next level. Markathon: Other than price, what are the factors which could reflect quality in a segment where product differentiation is not much possible? For a product like beer we say there are two moment of truth, the first moment of truth is when you encounter the packaging, the second moment of truth is when you accept that bottle, purchase it and drink it. So let’s take one step at a time, the first cue of quality is your packaging. When we spoke to our consumers both Tuborg and Carlsberg, consumers appreciated their packaging but for difference reasons. For Tuborg It was more on functional benefits like easy opening and comfortable grip and the other on aesthetic benefits like the golden embossing and the look. For Carlsberg we have a small label, because premium products don’t shout out, they speak subtly. It has a gold band which again speaks of premiumness. So after this, it is the product experience which will act as an indicator for quality. And that is why for beer, we understand that chilling is required to enhance the product experience. Beer tastes best when it is chilled. So instead of just counting on the dealers chilling experience we would provide our own chilling experience. Other thing is the ingredients you put in, although every product segment looks like a segment where no differentiation exists, that is never the case. There are always certain secret ingredients. Carlsberg green for an example is an exception where we use only Malt, Carlsberg and Carlsberg Elephant use a diff types of hops, which provide it a bit of an aroma and an extra bitter taste. Although people might not understand such nittygritties but they will feel the difference in taste. They will get a more rich and crisp taste. So these are the tools which would help a brand to reflect quality.
14
IIM Shillong
eye2eye
march 2015
Flash Sale marketing strategy of the smartphone makers a good or bad strategy? Akanksha Kirti IIM, Kozhikode
Aditya Kansal IIM Shillong
“Apple Store iPhone 6 Queue Update: A flash sale is generally an internet Fans Already Lining Up Weeks Ahead facilitated promotional activity that of Sept. 19, 2014 Launch in NYC, UK, is offered to both existing and potenTokyo” tial customers for an extremely short I am sure many of us could have empathized with this period of time. These sales are typically for inventory-reheadline of an article on latinpost.com, published on Sept strictive packaged programs spread over a specified time 11, 2014 and wished for means to subvert this ordeal. period and offering tremendous discounts. Mostly the Flash sales of smartphones saves customers to go through flash sales are executed online and require the customer the same by adopting online business model and thus, to make the full payment at time of booking. Once purprovides equal opportunity for all to purchase at set stan- chased, they are generally non-cancellable, and may also dard prices. It enables direct consumer connect and trans- be non-transferrable. fers cost advantage to customers. However, its efficacy as One of the other things bugging the customer is that in marketing strategy can’t be adjudged without considering flash sales it is generally one merchandise per person sellers’ interests and challenges. which is not fair as in some cases the person might want Flash sales are mainly facilitated through “online only” to buy two or three items for his own personal use. This business models with the help of established e-commerce causes the hoarding of items and then selling it on othcompanies. Thus, it enables brands to enter into interna- er platforms like E-bay and OLX for a premium. This can tional waters by reliance upon e-commerce robust dis- dilute the brand image. The whole concept of flash sale tribution network and bypassing complex infrastructural boils down to a kind of lottery system wherein the one and geographical challenges. This way they could remain with ultra-fast internet gets the opportunity to buy the lean and achieve exponential growth within short time product. This causes frustration and dissatisfaction among span. customers who really wants to buy the products and can Flash sales can also be seen as a splendid promotion tac- be potential loyal customers for the brand. tics as it leverages wide gap between demand and supply. Looking from the other side of the coin i.e. from the venThis germinates into involvement of lottery factor which dors’ perspective they need to have excellent infrastrucinstills greater yearn among customers to grab it as they ture to facilitate such huge amount of traffic generated feel like a winner after owning the one. Free publicity and and prevent situations like break-down of Flipkart during buzz is created around the brand without actually incur- these flash sales. In short term, it is good as it creates a ring commercial expenses to promote it. Flash Sales also buzz but in the long run, it brings down the company’s eliminate ‘Country of origin’ taboo and consumers per- image. It will be perceived as a company which is small in ceive it as a spectacular example of innovation with great scale with its products being labelled as cheap and with demand. limited capacities. Apart from that, it prohibits Counterfeit Branding (which With all this the company might be losing on some valucould jeopardize company’s hard-earned Brand Equity) as able customers as it is able to cater to only a meagre proit is sold through standard online partners only. This also portion of its potential customers as the gap between helps a company to gain foothold in the long run, as for supply and demand is huge. example, Xiaomi’s new handsets are not as aggressively priced. Nonetheless, they attract many customers due to their popularity and reputation earned through flash sale of cheaper smartphones. Topic for the next issue: “Cash Back offers by sites like Paytm and other Wallet companies, a good or bad strategy?” Your opinion (view/counterview) is invited. Word limit is 250-300. Last date of sending entries is 10th April 2015. Include your picture (JPEG format) with the entry. Winners will receive a prize money of Rs. 500 each!
MARKATHON
15
IIM Shillong
silent voice
december march 2015 2013
Last month’s results WINNER Anurag Ghosh, Karan Gupta || Delhi School of Economics
honorary mention Krisha Perira || Welingkar, Mumbai
Theme: India vs Pakistan, World Cup 2015
Congratulations!!! Vivek receives a cash prize of Rs 1000!
THEME FOR NEXT SILENT VOICE: Anushka Sharma, the reason behind Team India’s Loss at World Cup 2015 LAST DATE OF SENDING THE PRINT AD: 10th April, 2015 EMAIL ID: markathon.iims@gmail.com Send your entry in JPEG format named as SilentVoice_<Your Name>_<Institute>only.
MARKATHON
16
IIM Shillong
AD-dicted AD-dicted
december march 2013 2015
By Kasturi Guha Thakurta By Ansul Jindal IIM Shillong IIM Shillong PRODUCT: Micromax Canvas Selfie PRODUCT: World Cup 2015- Mauka Series
POSITIONING: Mauka Mauka CREATIVE AGECY: Bubblewrap productions
POSITIONING: Now every selfie will be a perfect selfie!
CATCH
CREATIVE AGENCY: Lowe Lintas & Partners
YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXTnBMfh1xo CONCEPT: A man from Pakistan has been saving up his firecrackers to burst them when his home country finally beats India in the world cup match. Although India had won the last match against Pakistan the man is still travelling with his firecrackers still searching for a ‘mauka’ (chance) to see India beaten. The man in question is from the ‘mauka mauka’ ads that have gone viral on the internet with response videos coming from Pakistan and UAE. Also people are predicting the end of the ad. The lyricist of the song coined the term ‘Mauka’. “World cup is a chance that comes once in four years and Pakistan has been waiting for a win for the last 20 years. The only time when Indians burst more firecrackers than Diwali is during a world cup match. In India, we don’t care if we win the world cup but the sentiment is that we shouldn’t lose to Pakistan. VERDICT: Catch Markathon give the verdict as Catch because Promotional campaigns are meant to attract attention and Star Sports’ Mauka Campaign definitely succeeds in doing so. The fight enjoyed by India and Pakistan is not hidden from anyone and the first ad released by the broadcaster is able to allure the eye balls. The jingle, ‘Mauka mauka’ adds more enthusiasm to the campaign, making it a delight to watch. Given it is the ICC World Cup, the sports broadcaster’s strategy to highlight the India matches through its intelligent and quirky campaigns has really worked. In fact, such has been the success of the campaign that hastags such as #maukapechauka or #wontgiveitback are trending on social media platforms. Hence this ads goes to a catch verdict without saying..
MARKATHON
R
YouTube Link:: https://www.youtube.com watch?v=csbNTyyTwcU
CONCEPT: Micromax has rolled out its new ad to showcase its latest offering: the Micromax Canvas Selfie with its in-built beauty enhancing feature. The film shows a woman descending down an elevator and taking a selfie. Unhappy with the selfie, the woman looks into the phone disappointingly and the camera zooms into the phone screen. The still image springs to life and she is shown perched on a conveyer belt with a staff of beauticians attending her. By the time she reaches the end of the belt, she has already been attended by many beauticians and she looks perfect. The camera zooms back out of the phone, and the woman looks happy to see her perfect selfie. The film ends with a super of the product window showing the features with a tagline Canvas selfie CAN Instaglam.
MISS
VERDICT: Miss Micromax used the selfie rage to tap women. While the idea may come across as witty and perfectly timed when the nation is basking on the selfie rage, we think we have seen better ways to target the female segment. This ad, yet again, focuses on the physical appearance of women where as we think that the new age woman will have other important reasons to buy a phone other than beautifying herself. This ad comes across as just another fairness cream ad to sell phones!
17
IIM Shillong
fun corner
march 2015
F u n Co r n er
MARKATHON
18
Sagar Riaz IIM Shillong
IIM Shillong
ishtihaar
march 2015
Ishtihaar GAutam Gopal IIM Shillong
S
“Animals” The best friends of brands
ince ages pets have always been a synonym of faith and loyalty to humans. Companies and brands were nimble enough to trap this sense of emotion and went on to plan their promotions around them. Having said, the first promotion which comes to one’s mind are the various advertising campaigns of Hutch which eventually became Vodafone. Where a pug (dog) had been used to represent the network. The promotion went on to become a huge success and the “pug” became a synonym to the brand. Using animals in the promotions of the brand helps companies to correlate brand and consumer sentiments for that particular animal. The sense of compassion which the consumer has towards that animal plays as a psychological advantage for the company. Another heavy weight example is of Fevicol, which is a product that signifies the strength of fixing things together. To represent the strength, the company uses “elephant “which is synonymous to strength, the company had designed its logo around elephant itself.
value of cow, as the product is a milk based product. By virtue of this advertisement the product raised sentiments among its customers towards the happiness quotient and a reason to celebrate the happiness. Above are examples of a gamut of promotional campaigns used by various products wherein the company used various animals to raise the sentiments of the targeted customers and connect them with the quality of the animals used in their promotional campaign. If we observe the above mentioned brand promotions, other than Dairymilk’s promotional which featured Amitabh Bachchan in its brand promotions. All other promotions are successful ventures, without any big name being associated with them. Animals used in the advertisements were the central characters around which the campaigns revolved, in a way they were the brand ambassadors for the products. All these promotional were inexpensive method of brand promotion through which the brand managed to create a great consumer base. These methodologies of promotions where marketers use the existing natural resources, to create the brand image around the character used in the brand promotional have revolutionized the brand promotion in the market. It has given others a reason to ponder about promoting their brand apart from being endorsed by celebrities and still manage to create the same level of brand promotion among the customers. Many companies with hit punchlines have various animals in them to promote their brand such as “Chota Hathi – Tata Ace “, “Kyunki Cheetah bhi peeta hai – Mountain Dew “ etc. There are many such commercials which have started using animals to make a difference in their marketing.
Dairymilk came out with an advertisement where Radha (cow) becoming Miss Palampur which represented the
MARKATHON
19
IIM Shillong
jab they failed
march 2015
Jab They Failed Cosmopolitan Yogurt
Vinay Jain IIM Shillong
C
osmopolitan-the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear this word is a magazine cover with some pretty model or actress on it. Now this is the kind of perception about Cosmopolitan that people have. There’s a reason as to why women love this magazine so much, it is because of its popular content which are dating tips, relationship advice, sex tips, fashion, health, beauty related advice and celebrity news. Now, what if we tell you that Cosmopolitan launched a yoghurt in 1999 called ‘Cosmopolitan Yoghurt’? Most of you wouldn’t believe it because it seems a very bizarre idea for a Magazine to launch a yoghurt with its own name. The first question that comes to your mind is why would Cosmopolitan do that? Apparently, they thought that Yoghurt is mainly consumed by women and they needed to associate this brand with anything and everything popular with women. Hence they came up with “Cosmopolitan Yoghurt” marketed as the sexier way to health. Now, there was another main reason as to why they thought of coming up with this product. According to a survey, 65% of the Cosmopolitan readers had admitted to using edibles in their bedroom when they got intimate with their partners. Taking cue from this insight, they decided to link ‘edible’ and ‘bedroom’ so they came up with a healthy edible product with a name that was synonymous with Sex. They believed that the brand image of ‘Cosmopolitan’ would be enough for the yoghurt to sell, at least to its loyal readers. The result was – they fell flat on their face. Cosmopolitan Yoghurt failed miserably. After a period of just 18 months, the product was withdrawn from the market and not many people were unhappy about this. It’s after this that Cosmopolitan realized that they should focus on their magazine rather than such irrational products. But let us look at the reasons for the failure of ‘Cosmopolitan Yoghurt’. Apart from the obvious reason that they made a vague connection between the edibles and sex, they forgot that the kind of edibles that
MARKATHON
were used for intimacy in the bedroom (Chocolates, fruits, cream) weren’t products like yoghurt and cheese. The yoghurt was also priced higher than the regular yoghurts in the markets because Cosmopolitan yoghurt was being sold as sophisticated and aspirational in nature, the belief was people would be willing to pay a premium to be associated with it which definitely wasn’t the case. The company believed so much in the product and the brand cosmopolitan that they didn’t even promote their new yoghurt in the market. They thought that piggybacking on Cosmopolitan would be enough to make the customers aware about the product. Most of the people in UK didn’t even know about the launch of the brand and hence the abysmal performance of the brand shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone. Conclusions: ‘Cosmopolitan Yoghurt’ is a classic case of failure of Brand extension. Brand extension is a good strategy if the product that you are launching is of some value to the potential market, just because the parent brand has a strong brand image doesn’t guarantee that the product will be a hit as was clearly seen in the case of ‘Cosmopolitan Yoghurt’. Maggi is an example of how brand extension can be done successfully, though a product of Nestle, Maggi has such a strong image in India that a lot of products are being launched under the brand name Maggi. But the point that has to be noted here is that all the products that were launched under Maggi after noodles were related like the ketchup, pasta, soup, Bhuna masala and many more and created value for its target market. Therefore a company also needs to make sure that there is a proper connection between the parent brand and the new product, also the promotion should make it clear that it is associated with the parent brand which was clearly not done in the case of Cosmopolitan Yoghurt and hence it paid the price.
20
IIM Shillong
updates Brand Launch
december march 2015 2013 By Cheena Pasrija IIM Shillong General Motors India launches updated version of Captiva General Motors India has come up with an updated version of its sports utility vehicle Captiva priced at 27.36 lakh. India President and Managing Director Arvind Saxena was extremely enthusiastic with the launch and told that it was in line with the Companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s business plan of capturing the SUV market in India and significantly growing its market share. The model comes with the manual and automatic versions with the difference in price of around 2 lakhs.
Flipkart set to launch its own smartphone Indian online retailer giant, Flipkart, is about to launch its own smartphones. It has been in talks for a while with many chipset vendors and has finally decided to go ahead with its plans. Flipkart was in talks with Intel, Media Tek and Qualcomm for almost two years. According to sources, the successful launch of the Moto G on Flipkart was the last straw on the camelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s back and the company was convinced about the decision. The firm has zeroed down on the launch of two smartphones
Brand Watch Facebook comes out with new rules regarding what can be posted Facebook has banned certain content from its social network as the internet company strives to prohibit controversial posts like support for certain militant groups, nudity etc. without damaging its status as the word wide hub to share information online. Mirach files 400 million $ defamation suit against Sahara Despite the fact that the Supreme Court has given Sahara Group an augmentation to bring subsidizes up to safeguard its imprisoned boss Subrata Roy, US-based Mirach Capital Group has documented a $400 million slander claim against the Sahara Group. Blaming Mirach Capital for duping and fraud in the fizzled $ 2.05 billion advance course of action, Sahara had said a month ago that it is taking legal action against the US-based firm. Ex TCS CEO appointed as new COO of Wipro Wipro Ltd has appointed Abid Ali Neemuchwalaas the COO and the group president of the Company with effect from 1st April 2015. The former TCS CEO will be heading the service lines of global infrastructure services, business process services, business application services and advanced technology solutions.
MARKATHON
21
IIM Shillong
updates
december 2013 march 2015
Media A new application that changes static photos into animations Moju is an application for iOS which can change stationery pictures into animated and living memories. The app is a landmark and is an Instagram-like social network that goes beyond static photography. It essentially merges a series of JPEG images (minimum of two photos) to create the animation which comes out to be similar to an animated GIF. Twitter purchases Periscope, embraces live streaming Twitter has acquired Periscope, a startup that’s working on a livestreaming application for mobiles. There were reports last week that the deal had taken place but it was only this week that the two parties made it public. The transaction details haven’t been revealed by the companies.
Ad Watch Snapdeal strikes emotional chord with ‘Dil ki Deal’ Snapdeal, an online marketplace, has announced the launch of its new brand campaign ‘Dil Ki Deal’ featuring actor Aamir Khan. Conceptualised by Leo Burnett, this campaign marks a shift from Snapdeal’s earlier communication around the value a consumer derives by shopping on the platform. The brand is now positioning itself to build an emotional connect with customers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAJsD6XNUrs
Articles are invited
“Best Article”: Chirag Mahajan | Delhi School of Economics He receives a cash prize of Rs.1000 & a letter of appreciation We are inviting articles from all the B-schools of India. The articles can be absolutely anything related to the world of marketing but it should be an original work that is not published elsewhere. The articles can be specific to the regular sections of Markathon which includes: •Perspective: Articles related to development of latest trends in marketing arena. •Productolysis: Analysis of a product from the point of view of marketing. •Strategic Analysis: A complete analysis of marketing strategy of any company or an event. Apart from above, out of the box views related to marketing are also welcome. The best entry will receive a letter of appreciation and a cash prize of Rs 1000/-. The format of the file should be MS Word doc/docx. The last date of receiving all entries is 10th April, 2015. Please send your entries marked as <ARTICLE NAME>_<SENDERS’ NAME(S)>_<INSTITUTE> to markathon.iims@gmail.com.
MARKATHON
22
IIM Shillong