The marketing campaigns that Indian companies have come up with recently are proving that Indian marketeers are using all of their creativity to woo customers to start noticing their products and services. Having said all that, there is a lot to be learnt from marketing campaigns of organisations across the globe. This month’s cover story looks at various marketing campaigns across the globe and what can be learnt from them. ‘Vartalaap’ our corporate conversation column brings to you an interview with Mr. Prashant Parameswaran, Head of Consumer Insights at General Mills. He shares his views on the importance of collecting information from customers and how he has ensured that innovation is brought in his organization. In this edition’s ‘Brand story’ we see the success story of Micromax which has been creating ripples in the mobile industry and is giving a difficult time to organisations like Samsung. We see what went behind the growth of this company and what can be learnt from Micromax for all our budding entrepreneurs’ ventures. The ‘Radical Thoughts’ column this month is about the amalgamation of mobile marketing and social media monitoring. The penetration of smart phones in the world will soon outstrip that of laptops & desktops. And how is the growth of mobiles going to help everyone? Well, mobile marketing is the answer because it’s going to be huge. That’s why companies like InMobi are the next big thing
because they can target these mobile platforms & help the big companies of this time & age reach out directly to their customers. We see how all of this will change the way marketing will be done in the future. The updates section will as always keep you abreast with the recent happenings in the marketing world. Lastly we would like to thank all the contributors for Markathon. With so many exciting stuffs lined up for you, flip through the pages of the November Edition of Markathon and let us know your comments and feedback by writing back to markathon.iims@gmail.com.
Cheers! 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
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Contents Perspectives Echo Amazom: A Future Changing Product? Satwik Arora | Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai Digital Marketing: Not a Fad to Fade Away Ajay Singla | IIM Raipur
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Marketing Campaigns that Indian Marketeers Can Learn From Vinay Jain | IIM Shillong
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Vartalaap
Mr. Prashant Parameswaran Marketing Manager | Convenient Meal Solutions, General Mills
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Eye 2 Eye
Baba Ramdev-Yogi by choice, entrepreneur by chance. Really? Abhinav Singh | MJPRU, Bareilly & Ajay Singla | IIM Raipur
Silent Voice
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AD-dicted Ansul Jindal & Kasturi Guha Thakurta | IIM Shillong
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Brand Story Sumit Bedi| IIM Shillong
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Fun Corner Sagar Riaz | IIM Shillong
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Radical Thoughts Mohammed Fahd | IIM Shillong
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Updates Cheena Pasrija | IIM Shillong
20 Introducing Team Markathon 2015-17
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Maggi Returns Parikrama | IIM Ahmedabad
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perspective
ECHO Amazon A Future Changing Product? By Satwik Arora Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai
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here has always been a space for innovation in the marketplace for various products as people want to be updated with time and be in the race to use the latest gadgets. Let it be jumping from their I-phone 5 to I-phone 5c/6 or making a new account to any social media site that is gaining popularity, people want to go with the flow. The latest hit in town, a part of gossips among the tech savvy people is Amazon’s latest product “ECHO”- part speaker, part voice activated personal assistant for the home leaving some with scratching heads wondering what Amazon is thinking right now. Just like Siri, this cylindrical device will help you at your home in your daily tasks and will work on voice commands to play music, read news, search anything on Wikipedia, tell you the weather, set alarms, remember shopping lists and even tell jokes to your family. It’s a 9inch tall device and responds to the word “Alexa”. There are programs similar to echo on smartphone devices that fulfill the same needs of a tech crazy person like Siri by Apple, Google talk by Google and Microsoft’s Cortana to provide information asked by them. These applications are not so outdated that Amazon can be a success with introducing this product as the consumers may or may not be a part of this innovation.
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perspective CAN ECHO BE THE FUTURE? With the current specifications, obviously there is nothing that can be pointed towards the next big thing in technology but are there any scopes for improvement? If the product is coupled up with home smart automation which enables voice to control the lights and temperatures- Echo could be the future. According to Steve Beck of management consultancy firm cg42, voice command smart home automation could be the future. It makes sense that Amazon is trying to put a tangible product and sensors in the home as its competitors Google is already doing it with its Nest Smart thermostat and smoke detectors. Also Apple is trying with its home-kit platform too, so developers can build some apps that can work together with the products which we call in today’s term “Technology Convergence” in marketing. How can it be a future:Shopping Any household would want to save its time on shopping the daily things and the sudden requirements that needs to be purchased going to the retail stores or even going to pick up their smartphones, ordering online. Now the future will be to shop with voice commands, all possible with ECHO as the product could take Amazon from one click purchase to no- click purchase. It is just one cloud based software upgrade away from taking it to the next level. Just give voice command like “Alexa- I want to purchase Samsung Note 5” and boom your credit card will be charged and the package is on its way. While eating food you realize the salt, butter and juices are nowhere in the stock you keep in your fridge, thus you can command Alexa to order them online. Lights and Temperatures Going to the office you do not wish to keep the lights and AC’s on as obviously the bill is counting but many times our human brain cannot handle each and every task to save the cash. ECHO can be a savior in such cases when it automatically senses no presence in the household or is set a timer that switches off and on the electricity supply according to the time slot fixed. Technology going to that level will be a delight to use. Theft Sensing theft activities by face recognition and automatically locking the house to make it more secure can be some add-ons that can be suggested to help Amazon take the industry to a next level. There can be an option to sense any such activity in the household and auto-
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matically playing a siren with calling to the nearest police station informing about the same. All these features will help Amazon to bring a big innovation in the tech world and be able to market themselves on a large share with respect to the competitors having a differentiation difficult to imitate. CURRENT STRATEGY Smart home industry is a growing market and Amazon knows it but this move can be a disguise for the company being a bit too early for the market to absorb. There may be a large customer base who may not be eager to join but now it is late and better not to back off but try. That is why:Amazon is distributing limited number of devices in the market so as to know the response of people on the product. A test market to a selected number of customers so as to identify the flaws in the product and whether to continue with the production or not. Amazon is well aware that the future for smart homes industry is really a profitable sector to be in and also ECHO has a great potential to bring into some revolution in that space but currently will be limited to its listening and speaking capabilities. The price point of Amazon Echo signals an even bigger push from the company to grow its Prime Membership. The device will cost $99 for Amazon’s Prime Members for a limited time and $199 for the non-members. Consider the steep discount for the members it is an incentive to make their membership program grow and to make the current members loyal to the ecosystem. Also if you want ECHO and not a member, you now have to sign up. Another strategy of Amazon is to introduce the invite system for the purchase which is a new thing they have started. You have to put in a request for the purchase of the product and once the request is being rectified, the person will be notified for the purchase. It has two advantages, firstly, it is a beta testing to know about the potential customers of the product. Secondly, it will develop a huge demand for the product as the product won’t be available in the market so easily. It may be said though it is an attractive product to enjoy a new technology and put hands on but it is an early call to tell whether it will be a success or not because people may or may not accept the product as per the expectations of the firm. Also if the limited pieces and invitation strategy works for them then they would surely target large customer base with maybe new add-ons.
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perspective
Digital Marketing Not a fad to fade away By Ajay Singla IIM Raipur
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igital marketing is not just a fad which will fade away with span of time�
More than three billion population is internet user which forms around 40% of the world population. Internet has influenced all spheres of life. Be it banks, hospitals, corporate offices or any other field, all are do minated by internet. In such a scenario, how can marketing remain away from shackles of internet. There is no business currently which can think of going global without digital marketing. Talking in narrow terms, no business can even think of growing and surviving the huge competition without digital marketing. Such is the charisma of digital marketing which has mesmerized every business organization. Digital marketing is actually nothing but marketing of products and services using digital technologies. It encompasses creating brands, customer values and increasing sales through the digital channels. Digital channels includes internet, Television, radio etc. Internet comprises the most significant medium of digital marketing. There is a great scope for creativity and innovation in digital marketing which has brought about a revolution in the
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marketing arena. A lot of start-ups take birth every day. About 80% of them use digital medium to market themselves which points towards the potential of digital marketing. Digital marketing is not just a fad which will fade away with span of time. It has become a part and parcel of corporate arena. You write the name of one commodity you desire and the web page will come up with numberless links escorting towards different sellers. Digital marketing has not just facilitated business organizations but have also made the life of the customers very easy. Ice bucket challenge is a prominent example of pinnacle of digital marketing where Indian celebrities take on the challenge and made the campaign viral within a couple of hours. Social sites like facebook, whatsapp, twitter etc. has made the job very easy. Digital marketing can reach the places where traditional marketing could not think of. To reach 50 million customers, it took radio 38 years; television took
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perspective
13 years while Internet took just 4 years to reach even more number of customers. Such a high population of internet users has increased created the wide base for digital marketing. Digital marketing is a very effective medium of communication to the customers. Through digital platform, the companies are able to collect good amount of information about its customers. So behavioral advertising is possible where digital marketing can be customized according to customers’ requirements. The cost involved in digital marketing is also very less compared to traditional marketing. You never know when a small advertisement goes viral within a small span of time. It gives almost equal opportunity to the small businesses to create an identity in corporate world. Digital marketing works at real time. You market your products through digital platform and you get instant feedbacks about the feasibility from the customers. Thanks to the digital marketing that every day so many startups take birth and survive. Competition among the businesses is very strong and growing at compound rate. In such a scenario, there is a great chance that the customers tend to ignore the efforts made through digital marketing. Feedback mechanism does not prove a boon always. One grave negative feedback and you start losing your customers very rapidly. So one should be very much careful at digital platform for marketing the products because here is the place where you can’t hide the things easily which you have shown earlier willingly. The present government of India is making a wonderful use of digital marketing to market various public related facilities and amenities. Apart from this, Indian tourism is growing by leaps and bounds thanks to the digital marketing strategy adopted by Indian tourism industry worldwide. Marketing of tourism industry at such a large scale could never be possible without digital marketing. Marketing of socially beneficial schemes of government of India like Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Jan Dhan Yojna etc.
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digitally has played an important role in their success. Big campaigns like Digital India, Make in India, Skill India etc. could never be launched in India had there be no digital marketing. The current trends overtly speaks that digital marketing is a must for the businesses. Without effective digital marketing strategy, it’s very hard for the business to grow. Digital marketing should be implemented strategically with a well-defined set of plans and procedures. Going for digital marketing without any material plan is like a shot in the dark. First of all, the market should be segmented and a particular market segment should be targeted for digital marketing. Continuous follow up is necessary to ensure the desired outcome out of digital marketing. Digital marketing has a huge scope for businesses to grow, develop and shine. It depends on the corporates themselves how they handle the steering wheel of digital marketing. A planned digital marketing approach, a correct strategy and a right stroke are enough to take the business to the sky.
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cover story
november 2015
Cover Story Marketing Campaigns that Indian Marketeers can learn from
By
Vinay Jain
IIM Shillong
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he marketing campaigns that we see nowadays in India are really creative and are more than just advertising and sales promotion campaigns. Ask your dad, he will tell you that the marketing campaigns during his time weren’t even half as cool and engaging they are now. We might feel proud believing that the Indian marketers are stepping up the game in the field of marketing with their innovative ideas. Sorry to say this but we would be wrong in believing so. The marketing campaigns that were launched in the other countries will not only blow your minds but also make you ask yourself that why such campaigns aren’t being implemented in our country. Let us take a look at the campaigns that I have been talking about: Skyfall The marketing of an Indian movie includes actors walking into TV shows, calling a press conference, attending the talk shows of Cricket matches or launching Games at most. These may do the trick but are really expensive and not innovative and hence doesn’t attract as much attention. What Skyfall did in association with Coca-Cola was something that needs to be appreciated. They gave away free tickets to people. How is giving away free tickets creative? The catch here was the way they gave those tickets. They had to prove that they too are as good as James Bond, they literally had to! They were given 70 seconds to reach a different floor of the mall to get free tickets with a set of obstacles in between which did make many people fall on their face. The successful ones got their tickets and both Coca-Cola and Skyfall got their publicity for a very meagre expense.
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cover story
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Volkswagen Since, social marketing is the cool thing now, all Indian firms are trying to capitalize on it. Ads like Jaago Re! By TATA Tea are all over the place now and also widely appreciated because it is for a social cause. Volkswagen has taken social marketing to another level by its Campaign in a theatre in Hong kong where an ad starts with a person driving a car and only the road view can be seen from the driver’s point of view. All the people in the theatre look at this like any other ad shown in the theatre. Then, a location based broadcaster was used to send a text based message to all the people in the theatre all at once. Everyone in the theatre look at their phone and the next instant the person driving the car in the ad crashes into a tree with a loud bang. Everyone in the theatre is left shocked for a few seconds. Then the screen flashes “Mobile use is now the leading cause of death behind the wheel”. This was another cost effective and creative way of spreading your message.
Coca-Cola Friendly Twist Coca-Cola is said to have few of the most creative campaigns of marketing their drink. One such campaign is the ‘Friendly Twist’ campaign that they used on the first day of college. As a usual first day scene in any college, the freshmen year students were all sitting alone listening to music, texting on their phone, just looking around. Amidst all this there was a refrigerator containing bottles of Coca-Cola which can be drunk for free. Obviously, most of the students went to get for themselves a bottle of Coca-Cola. The catch here was that these bottles didn’t have the usual caps and weren’t getting opened by any of the students. Only after sometime did the students realise that these could be only opened by another bottle where both the caps were to be connected and then twisted to open both the bottles. The trick here was that to open a bottle a student will have to talk to another student and will end up socializing with people around him. The campaign was a big hit and couldn’t have gotten a better response from across the globe. The Smoking Kid Everyone is aware of the famous ‘Gutka Mukesh’ anti-smoking campaign that is shown before the start of every movie in the theatre and sometimes even on TV. A lot of us only find it funny and not something that compels us to stop smoking. The Thai health
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november 2015 and were stuck at only advertising and celebrity campaigns. Although we are happy with the progress, recently Ola came up with an Innovative campaign in Chennai where boats were used by Ola to rescue and distribute food to the people stranded in water because of the cyclones. We can only hope that our Marketing campaigns also get recognized internationally for its innovativeness and creativity in the future.
promotion foundation wanted to make sure that people quit smoking and they commissioned Ogilvy to come up with a campaign that made sure that happened. Ogilvy came up with a master campaign which made every smoker realise what a big mistake smoking was. The video starts with people smoking all over the place some old, some college students, some even school kids. When all of a sudden two small kids go to the smokers and ask for a lighter. The smoker is shocked looking at such small kids and gives all sorts of reasons as to why the kid shouldn’t smoke stating reasons like “Cigarettes contain poison”, “it leads to cancer”, “you look old when you smoke”, “if you smoke you die faster, don’t you want to live and play?”. The kid replies to them “if it’s so bad, why are you smoking?” and then hands them a paper asking them to take care of themselves too and reminding them to quit smoking. This campaign received a lot of appreciation from smokers and Non-smokers equally. Why is this happening? The Indian audience is not as such developed and mature as compared to the common population in the other countries shown in the above campaigns. We still have people here fighting daily for three meals a day therefore the thirst for new marketing campaigns is definitely not on their list. Also, the marketing managers of the country didn’t really take the marketing campaigns to the ground level
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vartalaap
november 2015
VARTALAAP An Interview with Mr. Prashant Parameswaran
Mr. Prashant Parameswaran, Marketing Manager Convenient Meal Solutions, General Mills is an Experienced Marketing professional with over 15 years in Consumer Insights in leading MNCs spanning areas such as Innovation, Brand Marketing and Business Strategy across markets in Asia, Middle East and Africa. He is an expert in the field of getting consumer insights and has given direction to many programs in his organization to make innovation systematic
Marketing Manager
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Convenient Meal Solutions, General Mills IIM Shillong
vartalaap
november 2015
Markathon: Considering your diverse work experience with FMCG, we would like to get an understanding from you, what are these firms doing to penetrate into the rural markets and what better could they do?
The third and the most important thing to take care of, is the distribution network. Your products should be available to the consumer at the end and I think all companies that are successful in the rural markets have a strong distribution channel. So I think these are the little things that the companies usually do to enter the rural markets.
If you really look at rural India, it is first of all very important to understand from a ‘need’ point of view what works in rural villages or small towns in India. If I have a product that sells well in the urban India then I need to understand whether the same product will work well in rural India or not, because a rural consumer is ready, they do have aspirations and emerging needs and we need to find out is ways to fulfill those needs. Another big challenge for marketers or in fact the biggest challenge that every FMCG company has to face, is how to reach these consumers and to tell them about your products. Raising brand awareness amongst this consumer base is another challenge in itself because the media penetration in such areas is very low. Most of them either don’t have radios & Televisions or satellite connections. But one thing that is changing is the mobile penetration and I think
There are a couple of things that we are doing: Number one, we are actively observing the conversations and engagement that happens on the digital platform. As there are a lot of conversations that happen on the social media, there is currently huge need for something known as ‘social media listening’. It is currently very important for marketers to follow what is trending in social media.
Marketing on digital space is was different than marketing on traditonal media - here consumers have the option to skip
different companies are and should take advantage of this shifting scenario because marketers at the end have to send across their message to the consumer. They should come up with as innovative campaigns as possible to reach their customers. They can come up with mobile campaigns or could leverage upon the ‘melas’ that happen in or around these villages.
Second, marketing on the digital space is way different than other traditional channels. Digital space is an altogether different space and unlike other medias, consumers more or less have the option to skip advertisements and that is why you need to focus on content. You need to generate content, which the consumers would be interested in watching.
“In general mills what we do differently is the way we interact with our customers”
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Markathon: What is your take on the changing digital marketing space? What new marketing initiatives is General mills planning to take on this medium?
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products they use. The last part, which is very important, is that it is not just the responsibility of a marketer to come up with new ideas. It can come from any department or domain of the firm and I think it is our duty to create a platform where all employees of the firm can contribute. Markathon: You have said that your professional goal is to build a “Consumer First” culture in organizations. Please elaborate on this goal and it’s significance
You need to talk to your consumer on continuous basis, not only when you need something out of them
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Lastly, Another thing that you need to understand is how to advertise on different medias, now if we talk about Google Display network (GDN), which includes channels like twitter, Facebook, YouTube and what not. This enables you to have different campaign on different mediums and at the same time allows you to integrate your brand on all these mediums. We are using Google tools like SQL tools and trying to retarget our consumers with the help of ‘ad words’ and ‘ad sense’. For E.g. If someone is searching on YouTube ‘butter chicken’, our advertisement in relation to that product should display on his screen. We are emphasizing on targeting our customers in such ways. Although we plan on taking Baby steps for now, as digital marketing is an altogether new media and unlike the traditional media, all of us are trying to learn from our little experiences.
Markathon: How do you think should companies motivate their marketers to innovate constantly, considering you have initiated & led many programs in your career to drive innovation? We believe that whenever you want to take a decision, see if it makes sense for your consumer. I think I think it’s not just about motivating the employees; every organization should build an intuitive ability it’s about the excitement to uncover something, over the time, to answer what will work and what which is a lot more powerful. For e.g. in general mills will not work and we shouldn’t always rely for all our what we do differently is the way we interact with answers on insights from a market survey. For every our customers. It is not just a simple step but an en- marketing problem that comes our way, our approach tire process that can’t be easily replicated by oth- shouldn’t be just go and do market survey. And that ers. So we start by identifying ‘jobs to be done’ and intuitive ability would come by continuously interact‘needs’. So if I want to start something in a field of ing with the consumers and knowing them so well, says ‘snacking’, then I go out and understand what that at a point of time you will be in sync with their are the different needs of consumers in this space. thought process. An organization needs to ensure And out of these, which is that particular need I want that the only interaction it has with its consumer is to fulfill, or which is that need that has the maximum not transactional. You need to talk to your consumer opportunity. Accordingly I work on that one particu- on continuous basis, not only when you need somelar need. So I think as far as innovation is concerned, thing out of them. you need to understand what is that you really need to work on rather than going out in the market and Markathon: You have also worked with Nielson’s figuring out what should I make new. and since startups are the next big thing in India, The second important thing is to engage with the what market research techniques can startups use to consumers. In today’s world it is very important to get consumer insights as they don’t have big budgets talk to your consumer and we ‘at General mills’, do like MNCs for such expenditure? a lot to ensure we engage and understand our consumers. A lot of the innovations for our products It is not always necessary to have that kind of money came because we understood, how our consumers to really try and understand something. It could be cook , what goes on in their kitchen and what kind of done at a very basic level by engaging with your con-
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vartalaap
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sumers, interacting and even observing them. As a startup you can always go stand in a mall, observe what people are buying etc. I think first and foremost is seeking information is very very expensive, you need to understand what are your challenges? Say you have some limitations when it comes to investment but that doesn’t stop you from getting the information that you want. Yes, it might be limited and might not be as much as you want but you will get information that you can use, that is point number 1. Number 2 is that there is so much information available on social media space where
niques, a lot happening in the neuro-marketing space where people are trying to understand the impact of various stimuli on the human brain. These technologies are expensive and hence they will take some time for becoming the technique used by everyone but the good thing is people are looking beyond the traditional methods. Surveys are going to be there, they are important. The questions is how much we will use the other techniques as well. As an industry, Market research has been investing a lot in technology thinking about how they can get better information at a faster pace. Markathon: What would you suggest to all the budding marketeers who want to make a career in this field?
people are talking about their needs, talking about what they want and people are monitoring that. Today you think about any startup, say Uber, it became big not because of only information right, it became big because the founder experienced some problem and thought that there can be a solution to this problem. He uncovered an unmet need without any market research at all. This was the information that Uber worked upon, you don’t always have to do conventional market research to get valuable information. However, as you grow as an organistion you do need a lot of information but it is a gradual process. I am not of the belief that you need a lot of information to uncover a need. Markathon: Are there any newer technologies that organizations are using for market research other than the traditional surveys and interviews etc.? Technology is picking up and even usage of technology in collecting information is picking up. Today, people not only want accurate information but they also want faster information. A lot of investment is going on technologies which help collect the information faster. Number 2 is that there are also evolved tech-
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I can talk about my experiences, the most important thing that has helped me is listening. It is important to observe, listen to what is happening around you rather than forming a particular bias in your mind. You should learn about the environment with respect to engaging with the consumers. Talk to consumers, look at what is happening in their lives, and look at how they are living. I think it is important that you spend a lot of time interacting with the consumers and putting that extra effort to know your consumers in and out. The second thing that has helped me a lot is looking at some of the other brands which have made it big. What has been their approach, what did they do, you might see some patterns which you can follow as a marketer. It is important to have that thirst to know more about the things that other brands are doing. Also, I always am more interested in the how than the what. I like knowing how they uncovered something rather than what they did after uncovering it. From a competitor’s point of view you should always ask yourself that what you have done, can that also be done by your competition? Can you do something which your competition cannot? It is always important to ask these questions and never should you follow your competitor blindly. The last thing I would suggest is that everyone should push their limits and go that extra mile to make yourselves stand out.
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Interviwed by: Cheena Pasrija & Vinay Jain IIM Shillong
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eye2eye
november 2015
Baba Ramdev-Yogi by choice, entrepreneur by chance. Really? Ajay Singla IIM Raipur
Abhinav Singh MJPRU, Bareilly “It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.” This famous quote suits yoga guru Baba Ramdev. If you want to learn about Brand success, then Baba Ramdev is the right person. He spends nothing on advertising and marketing but has built an FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) empire in just three and half years. According to a Senior Congress leader, Baba is an entrepreneur, not a yoga guru. Today, Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali is sweeping away everything in its path. The product quality is the best in breed. For the last decade, Baba told us the evils of MNCs, the corruption of corporates, the exploitation of farmers. By doing this, he left us on our own to explore his products. This was brilliant. He created an environment where we wanted to see if the alternative to the above mentioned evils was usable. I think Patanjali Ayurveda was a startup that displayed as good a content marketing strategy as anyone ever before. According to a Times of India report, for fiscal 2014. Patanjali Ayurveda clocked a turnover of about 1200 crore, up from about Rs 850 crore a year earlier and Rs 450 crore in fiscal 2012, company filings and industry sources said. Baba Ramdev understands that building a business means hiring the best. So Ramdev’s Patanjali group of companies do not hire “Digital Ninjas” but hard core experts in the field which includes Masters in Science, Biology. Big retailers like Reliance Retail, Big Bazaar are also stocking Ramdev’s FMCG products. Now Baba has launched Patanjali Atta Noodles, contain no lead or MSG. “Jhat pat pakao, aur befikr khao” is the catchline of Patanjali Noodles. A great entrepreneur is one who embraces the latest technology for his business and Baba Ramdev has done just that. Taking advantage of the e-commerce boom, one can also buy his products online at websites. I hope to see Baba Ramdev speaking to IIM graduates at some business seminar soon. There is no denying that the man has a sharp business mind.
After completing the study of yoga and Sanskrit, Baba Ramdev renounced all the worldly pleasures and became a saint by choice to serve the humanity. He desires to make the country healthy and disease free. So he founded the Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust where research activities are conducted to discover the healing powers of yoga and Ayurveda. The objective of Baba Ramdev is not to earn money but to help people. Aastha channel started broadcasting the yoga sessions of Baba Ramdev in morning slot. These yoga sessions became very popular among the general public and RamDev came to known as yog guru. Baba Ramdev formed Patanjali Ayurved in 1997. The first products of Patanjali Ayurved were Aloe Vera Oil and Amla Juice. Amla juice was started to help the loss driven farmers producing amla. Baba Ramdev was quite aware of the benefits of amla for health. So he started making amla juice and promoted it among the general public. Soon Amla juice became traffic builder for Patanjali Ayurved. Thus Baba Ramdev started emerging as an entrepreneur by chance. Fortunately, it didn’t take much time to make Patanjali Ayurved reach to the heights in FMCG promoted by Baba Ramdev. To give healthy food to children, he introduced corn flakes. Recently, to provide healthy noodles, he introduced Atta noodles. He is planning to introduce power booster free from any side effects for children. The idea behind such products is not to make profits, but to provide healthy products to the people. Going by the same approach, today Patanjali product mix constitutes soaps, shampoos, dental care, balms, skin creams, biscuits, ghee, juices, honey, atta, mustard oil, masala, sugar and much more and gives tough competition to top FMCG giants. Clearly Baba Ramdev has become a successful entrepreneur without having any intention to do so.
Topic for the next issue: “Snapdeal bears brunt of Amir Khan’s statement, intolerant India or flipside of celebrity endorsement?” Your opinion (view/counterview) is invited. Word limit is 250-300. Last date of sending entries is 10th December 2015. Include your picture (JPEG format) with the entry. Winners will receive a prize money of Rs. 500 each!
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silent voice
december november 2015 2013
Last Month’s Results WINNER Parikrama || IIM Ahmedabad
THEME FOR NEXT SILENT VOICE: Modi’s Internation Visits LAST DATE OF SENDING THE PRINT AD: 10th December, 2015 EMAIL ID: markathon.iims@gmail.com Send your entry in JPEG format named as SilentVoice_<Your Name>_<Institute>only.
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Theme: Maggi Returns
Congratulations!!! Vivek receives a cash prize of Rs 1000!
AD-dicted AD-dicted
december november 2013 2015
By Kasturi Guha Thakurta IIM Shillong PRODUCT: OLX Bech De Campaign
By Ansul Jindal IIM Shillong PRODUCT: Intex LED 5010 FHD TV Commercial
POSITIONING: Keemat bhi, kuch keemti bhi
POSITIONING: Color and sound in perfect Harmony
CREATIVE AGECY: Mullen Lowe Lintas
CREATIVE AGENCY: August Communications
CATCH
YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=fCE3jR3FSdQ CONCEPT: This time again OLX released this heartwarming ad under its Aadhe Tere Aadhe Mere campaign. It suggests sharing of dreams to make your loved ones happy. The ad shows a story of a married couple. One day when the husband fails to pick his wife from her workplace, she realizes that she is so much depended on her husband for every day travelling need to and fro her workplace. When the husband realizes this, he sells their bigger car to buy two smaller cars for each of them. This way, the husband gives his wife her independence back.
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VERDICT: Catch OLX has taken an emotional route and weaved a real good story which will connect with many working couples. It shows the expression of love and respect for the wife. OLX has also managed to successfully focus on car buying and selling in this ad. The concept that bigger is not always better has been successfully shown by OLX. The background song makes this ad even more appealing. Markathon thinks that this ad will definitely create a positive impact for the brand.
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YouTube Link:: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=CYiO67R_Tfk
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CONCEPT: The ad shows an orchestra playing violins as the conductor waves his stick and directs the musicians. As tunes play loud through the violins, bright and bold colours are shown to pop out of the ground. The ad moves forward and a lot of other musicians join in with instruments like the sitar and trumpet. The ad is set in the picturesque location of ancient Europe but even the backdrop fails to add to the quality of the ad. As the music grows louder and faster, the colour jumps higher into the sky in perfect sync with each other. The ad ends with the statement â&#x20AC;&#x153;Colour and sound in perfect harmonyâ&#x20AC;?. VERDICT: Miss Markathon believes that the ad fails to stay with you for a long time. Though set in a beautiful location, it does not create much difference to make the product stand out. Nothing much is said in the ad about the product features. The viewers are left with a lot of questions about the product, its uses and features. Also in the age where advertisements are evolving and becoming all the more thoughtful, this ad fails to evoke strong feelings in the viewers, making it an ad easy to forget
IIM Shillong
brand story
november 2015
Brand Story Sumit Bedi | IIM Shillong
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icromax, a well-known brand in the Indian smartphone market has been a big game changer in India. Micromax started as an IT software company in the year 2000 pivoted its business and entered the mobile phone market in early 2008. It came up with its first offering named X1i, a mobile handset that had a month long battery life. The first handset was not very successful but it set the ball rolling for Micromax to ride the smartphone wave that started across the globe. Micromax innovated a new way to capture the Indian market. They focused on the rural India rather than urban India in the early years of their operations. They became the third largest company in the mobile phone industry by offering affordable phones with great features. In early 2011, Micromax shifted its focus to the urban areas. They made their presence felt to the urban consumer by making Akshay Kumar and Twinkle Khanna its brand ambassadors. They made unique TV commercials that featured Akshay Kumar’s stupid laughter and Twinkle Khanna’s twinkle. These initial add campaigns were a success. The mobile phone sales started to increase but all was not rosy for Micromax. The increased sales brought an additional challenge of after sales service. Micromax was criticized for having poor after sales service but the sales remained high because of the unique proposition that is great product features at affordable pricing. Also, Micromax was perceived as a cheap brand in the eyes of the urban consumer. Micromax slowly built on its after sales capability and also focused sharply on its product offerings. It challenged the big brands like Samsung and Apple by bringing in the new canvas series in market. The canvas provided all the similar features as any high-end smartphone but at fraction of the price. Micromax again stunned the world by bringing in Hugh Jackman as its brand ambassador in the mid-2013. The new canvas series and Hugh Jackman stunt brought great
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gains for Micromax. It became the number 2-smartphone seller in India in August 2013. Micromax did not stop there and continued to capture greater share in the Indian market. It went on to become the largest smartphone seller in India in Q2, 2014 replacing Samsung. Along with the innovative ad campaigns and great product launces Micromax has been bold enough to take on Apple and Samsung for their high prices. “I can afford this phone 4 sure” advertisement makes it quite clear. Micromax also took on Smasung with its “Why Y?” add campaign where it ridiculed the Samsung Galaxy Y for smaller screen and high price. Micromax is still has the winning mindset. It has no intention of stopping. The Roobaroo: Micomax Unit Anthem was intended to make people emotionally connect to the brand on the occasion of Independence Day. Micromax wants to penetrate deeper in the Indian market and that to at affordable prices. It teamed up with Google to launch the Android One in India. Android One enabled Micromax to provide affordable android devices to even larger number of Indian consumers. Micromax wants to have even better pricing for its product and hence it has set up its own manufacturing plant in Uttrakhand, India. It used to source its products from Chinese manufactures till date. Micromax is a great success story in India. It has become the market leader in smartphones from being an underdog in just 4 years but it has no time to relax. The entry of Chinese smartphone manufactures like Gionee and Xiaomi in India has marked a beginning of new era in the Indian smartphone markets. The market will be more competitive and also more dynamic. Micromax will have to come up with great new initiative and product line to maintain its lead.
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fun corner
november 2015
F u n Co r n er
Sagar Riaz IIM Shillong
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radical thoughts
november aug 2014 2015
Radical Thoughts Mohammed Fahd | IIM Shillong
The Amalgamation of Mobile Marketing “The 21st century is a digital book.” Incredibly true words stated by the character of Agent Jasper Sitwell in the popular Marvel movie Captain America: The Winter Soldier. However, while Hydra had taught the rogue SHIELD how to read this book in the movie, real world organisations have learnt it on their own & utilise it in a rather less sinister manner. The penetration of smart phones in the world will soon outstrip that of laptops & desktops. In fact, in many developing countries such as India a huge chunk of the population has already gained access to a smart phone, a large part of which never even owned a fixed landline phone. Thus, a large market has made itself available & with most of them being active on social media websites, every large company is looking for an efficient way to track & understand what these new customers, combined with their old ones, want & what they are saying about them. The contents of interest in this digital book are being made available on these social media websites & with the rise of mobile marketing a larger market is now available for marketers both to learn from & to provide to. So how are modern companies embracing the feedback they receive? Well, the process they employ is relatively straightforward. A number of social media monitoring systems have been developed with every new system being more sophisticated than the previous one. However, they are also being integrated with Voice of Customer (VOC) data. This integration of social media with VOC data provides much more
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information as stated by Bruce Temkin, managing partner of the Temkin Group, “Companies are moving from just listening to their customers’ moods to figuring out how to respond. It’s one thing to know what people are saying about you, but it’s another thing to know how to react and engage your customers.” This trend is now becoming apparent with more & more social media monitoring companies merging or acquiring traditional VOC companies. And how is the growth of mobiles going to help everyone? Well, mobile marketing is the answer because it’s going to be huge. That’s why companies like InMobi are the next big thing because they can target these mobile platforms & help the big companies of this time & age reach out directly to their customers. As stated by GMR Marketing’s Senior Vice-President, Bryan Rasch, “Smartphones and tablets are taking over, as we get past more than fifty percent of people having smartphones, we’re getting into the meat of consumerism, in which people will have a device that allows them to have a richer engagement with content. This presents lots of opportunities for retailers to introduce a full-blown mobile program.” Additionally, the campaigns can be even more successful if integrated with other channels, such as local & social. Moreover, geolocation tools are emerging as an increasingly popular way to provide consumers customised information about a company’s products. Thus, the 21st century & especially the last 2 years have provided a relative breakthrough for marketers to use the inter-connected world to their advantage & with technology advancements providing more & more insights, let’s hope that any further advances don’t go the rogue SHIELD/Hydra way!
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updates
december november 2015 2013
Updates Cheena Pasrija | IIM Shillong
Brand Launch Brand Medimix to be launched in Sri Lanka FMCG player Cholayil Private Ltd today declared dispatch of Medimix cleansers in Sri Lanka. Chennai-headquartered organization’s items are presently accessible in 26 abroad countries, other than the Indian business sector. Pradeep Cholayil, managing director, Cholayil P Ltd said Sri Lanka expansion is part of company’s overall strategy to expand Medimix brand in international markets.
Hyundai to launch Genesis- the new Gobal luxury brand for the Company The Hyundai Motor Company has declared an all-new worldwide extravagance brand – Genesis – that will convey ‘human-focused’ extravagance through a scope of new models that element “the most astounding gauges of execution, design and innovation”. Genesis will look to create a new meaning of luxury, that will provide a nuave platform for future mobility centered around people. By anticipating human needs at every touch point, Genesis models will embody four key aspects: human-focused innovation, refined and balanced performance, athletic elegance in design and hassle-free customer experience” says Hyundai.
Brand Watch Study shows Amul as the most meaningful brand in India According to the study conducted by Havas Media, Amul has emerged as the most meaningful brand in the country. The other players in the race were Cadbury, Google, Britannia, Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), Microsoft, Intel, HP, Parle and Samsung. While Goballly Samsung, Google and Nestle emerged as the top rankers. Meaningful brands in the Havas’ metric of measuring brand strength. It claims that it showcases how qual-
Disney looking forward to building a Brand in India After a not so great start in the country, Disney India which a part of the American conglomerate Walt Disney Co. has a slew of movies lined up for the year 2016. The films have big names like Aamir Khan, Ranbir Kapoor and Ashutosh Gowarikar attached to it and it is estimated that these 3 films alone are riding 450 crore on its shoulders. The Walt Disney Co., which set foot in India in 2004, additionally has a vicinity in the Indian market through its auxiliary, UTV Motion Pictures. Disney even has a controlling stake in UTV Motion Pictures.
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updates
december 2013 november 2015
Media Media should be blamed for Modi shaming India in London Prime Minister Narendra Modi faced some sharp questions at a press conference in London, which were quite different from those he is used to being asked in India. The way our anchors gush over Modi on Social Media, one can’t even point the finger at him for not tending to a solitary question and answer session after expecting office. Both online and offline, our standard media straightforwardly derided those giving back their honors. Most recently, some of the big names of Media have been exposed. Its high time our media stops showing larger than life picture and starts asking pertinent questions to the Prime Minister so that the country does not have to feel the shame ever again.
Ad Watch HARLEY-DAVIDSON - Inner Child Harley Davidson has come up with an extremely powerful advertisement that highlights the internal freedom and innocence of a human being. It showcases the journey of a man to meet his inner child. The concluding tagline sums it all: “Whatever is in you, is out there.” Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1NYIYd54JQ
Articles are invited
“Best Article”: Satwik Arora | Great lakes Institute of Management, Chennai 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 December, 2015. Please send your entries marked as <ARTICLE NAME>_<SENDERS’ NAME(S)>_<INSTITUTE> to markathon.iims@ gmail.com.
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updates Team Markathon
december 2013 november 2015
INTRODUCING TEAM MARKATHON 2015-17
Harsha Daga
Shubham Shukla
Piyush Jain
Sharad Srinivasan
Akshay Seth
Astha Kabra
Daksh Bhagat
Are You All Ready For IIM Shillongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Most Awaited Event? Coming Soon
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