Markathon October 2012

Marketing Magazine of IIM Shillong

Volume4 | Issue4

Cover Story

Bringing Home the Milky Way

Interview with Mr. Robert Holdheim Managing Director of Edelman, India

October 12

MARKATHON

FROM TEAM MARKATHON Dear Readers, Recently media has created a buzz around government announcement of allowing FDI in multi brand in India.

The 1991 liberalization saw the entry of many foreign players in India. That served Indian economy well for all we know while the apprehensions from various political parties were enormous at that time. The situation is not very different even today since it seems that the nation is divided in its opinion on the repercussions of such policy. Only time will unveil the motives of the policy, be it for the improvement of the Indian economy or the play of politics.

Cover Story

With so much said on the foreign companies entering India, there was a man who created an Indian brand to give every Indian the taste of India.

Yes you have guessed it right. The man is none other than the most admired Dr. Verghese Kurien (19212012), founding chairman of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF). He was responsible for the creation and success of the famous Amul brand of dairy products under his extraordinary and dynamic leadership.

Markathon pays its tribute to Dr. Kurien, rightly called the father of the white revolution in India. This edition’s cover story talks about the Indian dairy industry. It examines the growth prospects and the challenges of this industry. The cover story looks into three key players namely GCMMF, KCMMF (Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing) and TNCMPF (Tamil Nadu Cooperative Milk Producers) and narrows down to analyze the success story of GCMMF uncovering its marketing mix and distribution channels.

The launch of “corporate speaks” in our previous edition of September 2012 has been well received by both students and corporates. This month we have Ms. Milana Jagadeesh, Team Leader for France Certification at Cerner Corporation, PGSEM (Batch 2010) Student, IIM B and Dr. Preeti Krishnan Lyndem, Visiting Faculty, Marketing Area, IIM B speaking on the effectiveness of the creativity in advertisements. They explain where to a draw line between creativity and advertisement since

these as much as they complement each other, they may repel too.

Moving on, this month’s vartalaap features a prominent business personality, Mr. Robert Holdheim from the world of Public Relations. Mr. Holdheim, the CEO and Managing Director, India at Edelman is a veteran of Edelman’s Frankfurt, London and NY offices. Having handled important accounts like UPS, Samsung, Tenneco and Corning, he has worked on corporate positioning, Business-to-Business product marketing and crisis management, to name a few. Mr. Holdheim has vast experience in Public Relations and Media Communications and shares interesting insights about this industry and its contribution to business.

With each new edition, markathon has always strived to move one step forward. From this month, markathon is proud to go green. Henceforth, the winning participants for perspective, E2E and silent voice would be receiving e-certificates thus saving paper.

As always, we will try to improvise and ascertain that together we will learn and together we will grow.

Do send in your feedback/suggestions to markathon.iims@gmail.com Happy Reading

Team Markathon THE MARKATHON TEAM Editors G S N Aditya Piyush Agarwal Mayur Jain Sowmya R Swati Nidiganti Umang Kulshrestha

Creative Designers Priya Kumari Agrawal Rushika Sabnis

markathon |october 2012

CONTENTS FEATURED ARTICLES PERSPECTIVES MOVING TOWARDS “STEALTH MARKETING”: A EUPHEMISM FOR MANIPULATION LIFTING THE VEIL FROM UNDERCOVER MARKETING PRACTICES ESHA GUPTA | TAPMI

REGIONAL PLAYERS GIVING THE NATIONAL BRANDS A RUN FOR THEIR MONEY MOHAMMED SHAHBAAZ | IIM INDORE CORPORATE SPEAKS CURSE OF THE CLICKER AND THE CLIO: ADVERTISEMENT CREATIVITY VS. EFFECTIVENESS MS. MILANA JAGADEESH,TEAM LEADER FOR FRANCE CERTIFICATION AT CERNER CORPORATION, PGSEM (BATCH 2010) STUDENT, IIM B DR. PREETI KRISHNAN LYNDE,VISITING FACULTY, MARKETING , IIM B

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COVER STORY BRINGING HOME THE MILKY WAY SHUBHI|PADMA|SHIPRA|IIM S

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VARTALAAP MR. ROBERT HOLDHEIM MANAGING DIRECTOR OF EDELMAN, INDIA

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WAR ZONE EYE 2 EYE “BRAND GENERICIDE: A BOON OR A BANE?” Payal Pathak |XIM B| Rohit V Tiwari |WELINGKAR INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT SILENT VOICE GOOGLE +

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SPECIALS ADDICTED UMANG KULSHRESTHA & G S N ADITYA | IIM S BOOK MARK SOWMYA R | IIM S BRAND STORY SWATI NIDIGANTI | IIM S

UPDATES MAYUR JAIN | IIM S

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perspective perspective

markathon| |october august 2012 2011 markathon

Moving towards “Stealth Marketing”: A Euphemism for Manipulation - Lifting the veil from Undercover Marketing Practices Esha gupta | tapmi

“Excuse me sir,” a young man asks you as you pass by him. “Would you mind taking a picture for us?” and holds out a shiny new camera phone. “Just one picture? We’re on our honeymoon.” You agree. “You say to yourself, “This thing is pretty cool.” you hand him back the phone and it’s not until you are halfway home that you realize that neither of them was wearing the wedding Ring.

In July, 2002, the Sony-Ericsson Corporation hired 60 actors to travel to various cities across the country posing as tourists and ask people passing by to take their picture with the new T68i cell phone. SonyEricsson did not set up any promotional materials at the sites, and the actors were instructed not to introduce themselves as representatives of the company. The initiative called “fake tourists” reached a large number of people and the national media attention.

Since wary and cynical viewers are bombarded with an ever-increasing number of advertising messages, they immediately tend to put up their defences as they detect they are being sold something. A 2005 study by Jansen and Resnick illustrates this risk.

Consumers were shown multiple sets of Internet search results, some of which were labelled advertising. Although the search results substantively were the same, consumers rated the unlabeled search results as more relevant than the labelled results.

Marketers must therefore rely on more subtle methods of communicating a message to their consumers. Also In 2003 Nielson study concluded that young men between 18 and 34 years were watching 7.7% less prime-time TV than a year and adding to it is the ad-skipping ability of personal television recorders

(PVRs) or digital video recorders (DVRs). These devices are termed as Commercial Killers. Therefore here is increased emphasis on stealth advertising Martin and Smith (2008) define stealth marketing as “the use of surreptitious marketing practices that fail to disclose or reveal the true relationship with the company that produces or sponsors the marketing message”.

Stealth marketing techniques are intended to promote the brand to audience’s subconscious.

It attempts to present a new product or service by cleverly creating and spreading “buzz” in an obtuse manner and catch people at their most vulnerable moment. Commercial Alert, a U.S. based consumer protection organization, requested the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to undertake an investigation of companies that conduct stealth marketing. It argued that by failing to disclose that they have been enlisted to promote products/services, stealth marketers are fundamentally fraudulent and misleading. Even Canadian Marketing Association (CMA) states that marketers should avoid Stealth marketing (also called undercover marketing) initiatives which portray

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perspective perspective vmarketers’ agents as acting independently and without compensation when they are not.

“A line is crossed, I think, when you go outside of those normal boundaries and start to deceive people in ways that they are, where they are totally unwitting to what's going on.”

-By Malcolm Gladwell, The British-Canadian Journalist and the author of the Bestselling book-The Tipping Point

Below is an attempt to throw some light on the different types of tactics which fall under the big umbrella of Stealth marketing Viral marketing The term “viral marketing” was coined by venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson in 1996 when he described the marketing strategy of the free e-mail service Hotmail whereby each e-mail sent arrived with the appended message “Get your private, free email from Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com” along with the sender’s implicit recommendation. It refers to a promotion technique that uses the existing social networks in order to increase brand awareness. Using different approaches, viral marketing encourages customers to recommend a certain brand to their acquaintances spreading the message through a viral process, similar to the proliferation of pathological viruses. By generating word-of-mouth publicity to create “authentic” experiences, viral marketing attempts to harness the strongest of all consumer triggers—

markathon markathon | october | august2012 2011 the personal recommendation. Receiving a personal recommendation via e-mail from someone you know is by far more credible than an anonymous e-mail.

Dr. Pepper used it to surreptitiously hype a new product to unsuspecting customers. The new product is a milk-based soft drink with such flavours as “Chocolate Insanity” and “Pina Colada Chaos.” The company also recruited young adults with popular blogs. The main task was to spread the word about the new product by developing a “blogging network,” whereby the new product was hyped by the young recruits who shared their enthusiasm about the product via their respective blogs and linking to the company’s site without disclosing their assignments.

Brand Pushers Brand pushers are hired novice actors and actresses who approach unsuspecting people in real-life situations by personally slipping commercial messages in trendy bars, music stores, and tourist hot spots.

These actors must come off as genuine by being personable, approachable, and attractive, but not too attractive to be believable. Their main task is to act nice and slide the brand under the prospect’s nose.

This tends to create a chain of influence by exposing a product or service to a few trendsetters who in turn influence hundreds more. They are required to maintain utter secrecy about their occupations by signing confidentiality agreements that prohibit them from divulging their secret assignments.

The music industry also uses clandestine marketing initiatives by planting hip-looking guys as “fake shoppers” in a music store where they chat about a great new artist in the presence of unsuspecting store customers. By overhearing the chat, the real customers are inclined to buy the talked-about CD. Similarly, in 2001, Italian scooter maker Piaggio hired young, good-looking recruits to ride around Los Angeles and Houston on its colourful, stylish Vespa

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perspective perspective scooters and park them in places-to-be-seen around town. While the paid drivers did not attempt to sell the scooters, their main task was to create buzz and a cool image. Brand pusher actually represents a clever reincarnation of an old technique. The genesis of this tactic can be traced to the 1920s when Macy’s

markathon | august2012 2011 markathon | october actress Kathleen Turner discussed her struggle with rheumatoid arthritis on ABC’s Good Morning America and CNN, respectively. While she did not mention any specific company or brand, she referred viewers to a web site co-sponsored by Amgen Inc. and Wyeth, which market Enbrel, a drug that battles that medical condition.

Since FDA requirements stipulate that all drug advertising messages should include cautions about a medication and spell out the anticipated side effects they were hurriedly mentioned at the end of the message by an announcer in a low monotone voice.

By using stealthy celebrity endorsements, drug companies tend to directly flout FDA requirements by skipping the side effects altogether.

Bait and Tease Marketing

reportedly attempted to unload a large inventory of unsold long white gloves. The retailer hired 25 welldressed women to don the gloves on the subway.

Riders were bemused and asked the women about the gloves. It took the retailer only a few weeks to sell all the gloves.

It is the strategy of getting people interested in something that later is revealed to be something quite different. In July 2002, Mercedes-Benz spent $7.9 million to produce a mock trailer for a fictional movie as a ploy to promote its product. The mock trailer was for a fictional movie called Lucky Star. The actionpacked trailer depicted Oscar-winning actor Benicio Del Toro being chased by the authorities and making pulse-pumping escapes in a Mercedes SL 500.To project a sense of authenticity, the carmaker

Celebrity Marketing It is a term used when the paid celebrity endorsements are made to look like unpaid testimonials. Some celebrities are hired by large pharmaceutical companies to discuss their medical ailments and mention specific drugs while they are casually chatting with a talk-show host on the air masquerading it as a candid interview.

In March 2002, when Lauren Bacall was interviewed by Matt Lauer, the co-host of the Today show, she mentioned that one of her friends is partially blind due to an eye disease called macular degeneration. Ms. Bacall referred to a new drug, Visudyne, which treated the ailment. She in fact was paid by the maker of Visudyne to plug the brand. In August 2002,

Lauren Bacall in an interview with Matt Lauer on the "Today" program

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perspective perspective persuaded movie theatre chains to run the mock trailer during the trailers slot of movie previews rather than being shown along with other commercials. At the end of the 60-second TV and movie “trailer,” viewers were invited to visit a Lucky Star web site. The main objective of the campaign was to create a nation-wide “buzz” through word-of-mouth and media coverage. Below is a scene of the movie Product placement This type of stealth marketing strategy refers to the

embedding of logos and brands in TV shows, movies, video games and music videos. It increased considerably after the placement of Reese’s Pieces in the E.T. movie. As per a research the program ‘The Biggest Loser’ has had the most number of occurrences of Product placements

markathon | august2012 2011 markathon | october numerous times. In September 2002, Electronic Arts, of the world’s biggest producers of video games signed contracts to receive more than $2 million for including McDonald’s and Intel in its games. Below are the images showing Coca-cola being placed strategically in the famous American Idol show and Subway being placed in a Video game.

Despite high-profile recent controversies about the practices, the legal literature is devoid of any systematic analysis of the problem that stealth marketing presents. As Justice Brandeis said,

“Sunlight is . . . the best of disinfectants, “so unmasking stealth marketing seems like an ideal way to curb such untoward behaviour by marketers. After all

“Fraud is fraud; a harmless-sounding name such as “Stealth marketing” doesn’t change that”

By Gary Ruskin, Executive Director Commercial Art While brands embedded in movies or television programs are received by the viewer passively, the effect of brands placed in video games is much more intense and Unlike movies, video games are played

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perspective

markathon | october 2012

Regional players giving the National brands a run for their money Mohammed Shahbaaz | IIM Indore ‘Think global and act local’ is a marketing mantra every big brand knows, but what if your prime competitors are regional players who act locally by default. The table tells the story of some of the top performing regional players across various categories in India.

The regional players also compete by catering to a lower price segment. MD of Ahmedabad based Liverpool Retail India, Kailash Gupta, says, “National brands retail at a mark-up of around three times, which is channelized into branding. We pass this on to the customer while retaining net margins of 8-10%.”

The regional players are proving to be more than a handful for the National brands. Companies like Prakash Snacks have outperformed FMCG majors ITC, Perfetti and Parle in the snacks category.

The regional players gain price advantage by investing lower in mass advertising and transportation. The lower cost also helps these brands to incentivize the retailers to push their products.

According to Booz & Co By 2020, Maharashtra's GDP will exceed that of Greece, Belgium, and Switzerland, and Uttar Pradesh will have a bigger economy than Singapore or Denmark. So being a regional player of just Maharashtra or Gujarat could be realistic and profitable. Let’s try and analyse who enjoys the advantage in this David vs. Goliath battle.

Distribution strategy has also been an important tool for regional players. For example a lot of regional players in the FMCG space tend to service the socioeconomic-class C and D retail outlets which the national brands find difficult to service. "They use the same distribution channels as national players," says Pradeep Kashyap, Founder of MART, "The difference is in their ability to service and fill a local need more effectively."

India is a diverse and fragmented nation, a significant advantage for regional brands. An apt example is that of coffee. Most south Indians prefer to have filter coffee, which is why Nescafe, doesn’t find too many takers in the South.

The national players often are unable to connect with the local issues and aspirations. This is where the regional brands stay ahead in marketing. The new Indian middle class also plays an important role here.

With growing prosperity, middle class Indians no longer feel the need to associate with global names. A local brand name appeals better to the consumers of the region as compared to a brand name in an alien language.

IPL dividing the nation into regions has also provided the regional players with a great marketing opportunity. It is much more suitable for a local brand to associate with the regional team than for a national brand which would risk facing desertion from fans of other teams.

Emerging social media trends are also supporting the regional players. In markets where the internet penetration is high the use of social networking sites to search local business has reached 67%. The regional players hold a distinct advantage here. Firstly it is easier to maintain a Facebook page for limited number of locations. Secondly the regional players are able to connect better to the consumers through branding based on regional events. Most national brands have 100% web presence but when a ‘local web test’ i.e. a Google search with the ‘brand’+ ‘product category’ + ‘geographic location’ is performed the presence falls to below 10%.

Some National Players like HUL have retaliated by launching region specific brands of their own. For example HUL launched Ruby, a tea brand specifically for the Karnataka. It also has region-specific soap brands. However round one of this Cat-n-Mouse chase has gone to the regional players.

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markathon | october 2012

Category

Snacks

Company

Success Story

Differentiating factor

Prakash snacks

Prakash sancks has grown at over 50% since it's in 2003 and promises a turnover of Rs. 400 cr. This fiscal

Pakash snacks targeted lower income neighborhoods and slums where the nationa brands could not reach owing to their higher margins

Shaving cream Vi John

Targeted the barber shop Higherst selling as customer , for WoM shaving cream in India publicity and social proof

Tea

Wagh Bakri

It has a share of almost 50% of branded tea in Gujarat Lower price and localized marketing market and 7% of Indian market

K P Nambooris

Products are prices within the reach of common man in keeping with the Targeting revenues of company tradition.

Rs.200 cr in the next Consumers repose five years while immense faith in growing at 15% CAGR Namboodris who are known to use traditional herbs

Oral care

Candies/ Jams Mapros

The high furit juice content of Mapros crushes and squashes -45% as compared to 25% of rivals Revenues of Rs.100 cr. Kissan. Since Panchagini, While growing at a there home location CAGR of 32% accounts for over 70% of countries strwberry production, they were able to forge exclusive partnerships with farmers

Spices

Knowledge of local consumer preferences Employs over 1000 helped them arrive at a people and has a perfect blend of tradition turnover of Rs. 330 cr. and technology, creating the best flavor

Shakti Masala

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Corporate Speaks

markathon |october 2012

Curse of the Clicker and the Clio: Advertisement Creativity vs.

Effectiveness Ms. Milana Jagadeesh Team Leader for France Certification at Cerner Corporation, PGSEM (Batch 2010) Student, IIM B

Dr. Preeti Krishnan Lyndem Visiting Faculty, Marketing Area Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

Companies are falling prey to the curse of the television clicker and the curse of the Clio awards in an attempt to keep audience glued to their advertisements and secure awards for their communication strategies. But are they really creating a positive impact on their brands through these advertisements? This article examines the dilemma between advertisement creativity and effectiveness, and recommends strategic steps to break free from the curses and ensure overall success for a brand How often has it been that we have watched a superbly creative or an extremely bizarre advertisement on television that has a high recall value? The only problem here is that we seem to recall the advertisement but are unable to recall the brand associated with this advertisement. In other cases we seem to recall the brand associated with the advertisement but find absolutely no relevance of the advertisement to the brand. In scenarios like these whom should we blame, the audience who are so engrossed in the advertisement that they fail to recognize the brand or the company that is failing to achieve the desired result despite having a creative advertisement. There are even scenarios where brands have a high level of awareness but have negative association owing to the bizarre and graphic nature of the advertisements, which do not suit the brand’s identity?

In the race to differentiate, advertisers are often losing vision and deviating and falling prey to the curse of the clicker (remote-control) and the curse of the Clio awards.

Curse of the Clicker Today every product category is manufactured by thousands of brands and this has resulted in an overwhelming media clutter. The number of advertisements that grace our screen is just mind boggling and it is not humanely possible to remember each of these brands while making a purchase decision. Consumers are no longer interested in advertisements that are aired on TV and make a quick reach to the remote the minute they see a commercial break. In such a situation, companies have to churn out advertisements that will hold the attention of the consumer and ensure they see,

register and recognize the brand while making a purchase decision. In the bargain, companies are focusing on ads that rely on eye popping graphics or bizarre themes rather than creating ads that will differentiate their brand from the rest and help the company generate profits through sales. What results in most of the cases is a brand with high recognition and recall value but with negative associations in the minds of the consumers.

A classic example of this curse would be the JK White Cement advertisement that shows a young woman coming out a swimming pool (see Picture 1). No one could guess that it was an advertisement for Cement until they saw the JK White Cement logo at the end of the advertisements. This ad was considered distasteful and had absolutely no relevance to the product in any way. It was clearly made to capture the attention of the consumer and prevent them from switching channels. The result was negative brand association or a negative brand image in the minds of the consumers. The brand managed to garner some awareness but in a very sarcastic and distasteful way that is not desired out of an advertisement campaign.

Picture1: Clip from JK White Cement TV Advert 12 10

Corporate Speaks Another advertisement on similar lines (Picture 2) shows an old woman transforming into a dog upon consuming this cotton candy that transforms into a bubble gum in your mouth after saying, “Kisne kaha ki mein insaan hoon (Who said that I was human)?”

Many struggle to remember the name of the brand associated with the advertisement. The advertisement recall is very high, however the struggle to recall which bubble gum brand it belonged to is an

markathon |october 2012 to garner a high recall value. While the theme of ‘Ramesh Suresh’ appears silly, vague and mildly bizarre, the advertisement does seem to convey a message of getting lost in the taste of Five Star. Such creativity has not managed to annoy the viewer and has led to campaign effectiveness.

The same applies to the latest Cadbury Gem’s “Raho Umarless” campaign (Picture 4). The Gems advertisement sends out a message that greed sees no age but the visuals of a woman being thrown into midair by a fountain of Gems or the same woman greedily stuffing a handful of Gems into her mouth seems quite bizarre (in a funny way) and perhaps construed as inappropriate or scary to some viewers.

Nevertheless, for the target viewers (especially the older consumers) the commercial managed to create a high level of awareness and liking, along with positive associations in their minds.

Picture2: Clip from Big Babol Fili Folly Gum TV Advert indication of creativity overriding advertisement effectiveness. What is the point in creating an advertisement that is created to stand out from the rest of the crowd, when people do not even register the brand being represented? Some viewers even narrated their incredulity when they first saw this advertisement, so much so that they did not even bother paying attention to the brand – so, all creative advertisements do not guarantee that viewers would pay attention to it.

However, not all brands fall prey to the curse of the clicker. Cadbury’s Five Star commercial (Picture 3) has managed to achieve high brand awareness. One has to just mention ‘Ramesh Suresh’ and most target audience knows that it is the Five Star advertisement.

The Five Star sub-brand from Cadbury’s has managed

Picture 3: Clip from Cadbury’s Five Star ‘Ramesh Suresh’ TV Advert

Picture 4: Clip from Gems ‘Raho Umarless’ TV Advert Such creative advertising has several advantages.

First, it grabs the attention of the viewer, thereby, persuading them not to turn their attention away from the advertisement. Second, creative advertising when well executed can garner high brand recall.

Third, the content of creative advertisements tends to trigger word of mouth marketing much quicker than less creative advertisement.

However, creative advertising also brings in several disadvantages. Such advertisements can generate initial curiosity and interest among the viewers, but such impact is only in the short term. Over time, the fun element of the advertisement becomes too familiar and annoying to viewers. Further, ‘advertisement recall’ is many times higher than actual ‘brand recall’ (the latter being a more

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Corporate Speaks important metric to evaluate campaign success). If the creativity is of bad taste or does not match the product category or brand identity, the brand image can be negatively impacted in terms of fostering negative associations in the minds of the consumers.

This would be detrimental to the strength of the brand.

Curse of the Clio Many times we come across advertisements that are so creative and pleasing that we get extremely engrossed in the advertisement and hardly pay attention to the brand. It is quite challenging to create advertisements that are creative and effective at the same time and often advertisers are carried away by the prospects of winning awards for creativity, that they lose track of context. This is the Curse of the Clio and many top brands are subject to this curse.

Advertisements that fall within this category are individually very creative and thought-provoking but have no relevance to the brands they are promoting.

Often consumers view the advertisement and rave about the creativity that went behind making it.

However, they are left wondering about the relevance of the advertisement to the brand. The advertisement and the brand seem to be disconnected and like the Curse of the Clicker, even the curse of the Clio does not differentiate the brand with respect to the brand’s value proposition. More emphasis is given to creativity than relevance of the advertisement. The final end result is that the advertising campaign wins awards and acclaims but does nothing for the brand, thereby, defeating the whole purpose of the advertisement.

Burger King was known for its bizarre and vaguely disturbing advertisements for the last couple of years which includes the Subservient Chicken and Sir Mix-alot versus Spongebob and the restaurant was represented by a man in a huge, grotesque smiling mask. Crispin Porter plus Bogusky, the creative and strategic ad agency behind all these advertisements, won many awards for the Burger King campaigns.

2004’s “Wake up with the King” campaign, positioned the restaurant’s mascot as a home intruder (Picture 5). Through this the agency did a great job injecting youthful energy into the brand in a somewhat odd way. When Burger King was taking risks with its

markathon |october 2012 adventurous campaigns, McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Subway were progressing not through creative advertising but by introducing new items on their menus. Their advertising campaigns were more informative than creative. Though the Burger King’s campaigns appeared to be rejuvenating the brand, they were not doing anything to keep its customers hooked on to it by offering new and exciting product options like McDonald’s. Burger King managed to garner attention through shock value of its ad campaigns, which initially won it several accolades and awards but fizzled out eventually because the products did not match up to the creative advertising.

Picture 5: Clip from Burger King’s ‘Wake Up with The King’ TV Advert United Colors of Benetton (‘Benetton’) got into a controversy with its “Death Row Visits” campaign (Picture 6)which featured interviews and photos with death row inmates in a magazine. It was an attempt to show that the killers who were condemned to death were also people just like us. Though having won the International Clio award, such creativity did not go down well with the government or people because for every few pages in the magazine, stood out a bright green logo with white lettering that read “United Colors of Benetton”. The magazine featuring these interviews was sponsored by Benetton and they called it a catalog though it did not look like one from any angle. The death penalty magazine outraged the public who accused Benetton of glamorizing the convicts while ignoring their crimes calling the death row images as ‘terribly insensitive”. They were also accused of fraud for sneaking to the prisons posed as journalists. The only answer that Benetton had for the entire outcry was that they were trying to spark a

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Corporate Speaks

Picture 6: Clip from UCB’s ‘Death Row Visits’ Magazine Campaign debate about capital punishment. What started out as an attempt at creativity to build their brand finally landed the company with a lawsuit and donations of up to $50,000 had to be made to the Missouri Crime Victims Compensation Fund and caused a lot of emotional anguish for those who lost their loved ones to these murderers.

Breaking the Curses It has been found that the advertisements that won awards such as the IPA, Effies, and Cannes Lion scored high on three criteria, namely, Enjoyment, Involvement, and Different from other advertisements. They, however, scored low on the other categories such as ‘Comprehensibility’ and ‘Relevance’.

This clearly shows that creativity is highly valued in any advertisement campaign as it invokes enjoyment and involvement but advertisers should draw the fine line between creativity and relevance. Advertisers should not pursue creativity at the expense of other dimensions. Advertisements, be they eye-popping or award winning in creativity should always ensure that the advertisement leaves behind memories that can be uniquely associated with the brand. The brand should form the core of the advertising strategy and the creative ideas should revolve around the brand in such a way that the consumers are able to identify the brand as a core element of the advertisement.

The problem also lies with the communication gap between the companies and their ad agencies.

Companies often approach the ad agencies with the demand that the advertisements have to be creative, they need to stand out or the ads need to be different

markathon |october 2012 when in reality the products that need to be endorsed are not that unique or exciting in nature. Companies should emphasize first on advertisements that will work and not make creativity the first priority. This sends out a wrong message to the ad agencies that the companies give first priority to creativity even before effectiveness. Creative ads are so entertaining and funny that people forget to pay attention to what is being advertised and companies, unfortunately, lose a lot of money making a highly entertaining but an ineffective advertisement.

Further, many advertisements discount authenticity in the name of creativity. Some of the advertisements are quite unbelievable to the average consumer that no amount of creativity can do wonders for the brand.

When ad makers show a girl at a café having Cheetos instead of a drink, the ad clearly lacks authenticity and you are left wondering why on earth would someone go to a café and have Cheetos. Advertisement believability is paramount.

The advertisements should be clear about their target segment and communicate to them in a clear way rather than creating a generic advert that does not reach out to the target segment. For example, the latest campaigns of Five Star and Gems are targeting the adult audience. However, these brands also target the younger kids for whom these recent campaigns can be irrelevant and confusing.

It would also be wise to invest some time and money in testing out the creative advertisements with a focus group before rolling it out for general viewing to gauge the effectiveness of the advertisement. This could save the company a lot of money and would give them a better understanding of the comprehensible nature of their advertisements by interacting with the focus groups. This will give the companies pointers on how to make creative and effective ads that appeal to the senses of the consumers and influence their purchase decision in a positive way.

In conclusion, the decision of creativity versus effectiveness is not of making a mutually exclusive choice. It is one of striking the right balance between the two with particular focus on having a positive impact on the focal brand.

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cover story: Bringing home the milky way

markathon |october 2012

Cover Story

Bringing Home the Milky Way Shubhi | Padma | Shipra | IIM S

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cover story: Bringing home the milky way

Indian Dairy Industry India is the largest producer of milk in the world accounting for over one-sixth of the world’s total milk production. Dairy industry holds crucial importance in India. It constitutes an important segment in the rural economy and contributes significantly toward the socio-economic development of the country. It is of significant importance that almost 100% of the total milk produced is consumed domestically.

Besides it is also the largest producer and consumer of dairy products.

The dairy products primarily comprise of milk, butter, ghee, cheese, cream, curd, yogurt, dairy whiteners, traditional sweets, chilled desserts and spreadable fats. Dairy products are not only a source of inexpensive nutrition to millions in India, but they are also the only acceptable animal protein to a large segment of the vegetarian population.

Policy The total amount of milk produced has more than tripled from 23 million tonnes back in 1973 to 74.70 million tonnes 26 years later in 1998.

Milk production in India has increased from 84.4 million tonnes in 200-01 to 121.8 million tonnes in 2010-2011, and is anticipated to 127.3 million tonnes for FY13. Per capita milk availability has also increased significantly from 222gram/ person to 281 gram/ person during the same period, also pointing to the increased affordability. As per a study conducted by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) in November 2011, the dairy

markathon |october 2012 industry in India is likely to reach about Rs 5 lakh crore by 2015 due to the rapid increase in domestic demand for milk and milk-based products. The study says that milk production is likely to reach about 190 million tonnes per annum in 2015 from current level of about 123 million tonnes per annum.

This escalation in production was a consequence of the White Revolution.

The unorganized sector dominates the Indian Dairy industry, its share being about 85 per-cent of the total market. About 80 million rural families across India are engaged in dairy production. Also, over half of the total milk produced is consumed by the rural market alone.

Dairy products form an intrinsic component of the traditional Indian food. About 60 per-cent of milk produced is consumed in its original form, while the rest is processed to make butter, ghee, sweets etc. for consumption purposes.

However, lack of fodder resulting in low yield from cattle coupled with lack of trained and skilled dairy farm labor, lack of appropriate infrastructure like cold storage facilities etc. are some of the key problems which are likely to affect the retail consumption of milk. These may also lead to escalation in the milk prices in the domestic market.

The Indian government is set to protect the domestic dairy industry. It has imposed regulations and tariffs which hinders the entrance of foreign players to enter the Indian market. In case the government decides to ease such regulations, domestic dairy industry provides a multi-billion dollar potential to foreign companies.

Competitive Landscape We shall analyze the Indian dairy market by taking the manufacturers/ packagers of dairy products as the industry players.

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cover story: Bringing home the milky way The Indian dairy market is fairly concentrated. Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (GCMMF) is the leading player in the Indian dairy market. It generates a 34.1% share of the market's value.

KCMMF (Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing) and TNCMPF (Tamil Nadu Cooperative Milk Producers) hold another 9.8% and 9.7% of the market respectively.

The industry offers almost no barriers to entry as a small enterprise, however in order to cater to the mass market the consumer companies must be large and should have some level of integration. Forward Integration, common practice in the industry provides farmers with opportunities such as the access to larger markets and capital items such as packaging and processing by the co-operatives. A wide range of substitutes exist for dairy products which can be used by the consumers in case of excessive price rise of dairy products. Apart from this, rivalry among the industry players is strong, most operating diverse dairy portfolios.

Major Industry Players GCMMF is a dairy product cooperative and is engaged in the marketing and distribution of dairy products which includes milk powder, butter, ghee, cheese, ice GCMMF (Gujarat Cooperative cream and baby Milk Marketing Federation milk. It sells its Ltd) products largely under the brand name of “Amul”. It offers a range of fresh, UHT and low fat milk products apart from cheeses, flavored milk and yogurts under this name. Additionally, under the brand name of “Nutramul”, the company markets a malt chocolate drink.

The product lines of the company includes spreads, cheese, ethnic sweets, UHT milk, milk for infants, milk powders, sweetened condensed milk, fresh milk, curd, ice creams, chocolate and confectionery, brown beverages, milk drinks and health beverages. The

markathon |october 2012 company markets its products through dairy and icecream distributors, as well as online website. Products of GCMMF are also exported to the US, the Gulf countries and Singapore.

Kerala Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (KCMMF) is engaged in the manufacturing and marketing of milk and milk derivatives. Its product portfolio includes milk (fat free milk, toned milk, pasteurized flavored milk); ice cream (available in a range of flavors); curd (butter milk, curd and sweetened curd); cattle feed; beverages (flavored health drinks); and sweets (cream roll). The company manufactures these products, and markets them through a chain of 5,200 retail outlets across Kerala.

Tamil Nadu Cooperative Milk Producers' Federation (TCMPF) is an India-based dairy co-operative society.

The company produces and markets milk and other milk-derived dairy products. The company runs 12 cooperative unions 15 dairy plants in Tamil Nadu, India.

TCMPF produces and markets a wide range of dairy products, such as skim milk powder, sweets, butter, cheese, yoghurt, table butter, flavored milk, ice-

cream, UHT standardized KCMMF (Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing)

TNCMPF (Tamil Nadu Cooperative Milk Producers)

milk, and butter milk. The company markets its products under the flagship brand Aavin.

The Gentle Giant: GCMMF With a massive muscle power, with a legendary leader, crystal clear vision Amul (under the GCMMF) leads the market. The brand is loved and adored by all. Delving deeper we analyze the marketing mix of the company which marks -The Taste of India.

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cover story: Bringing home the milky way

markathon |october 2012

Product Amul follows umbrella branding strategy. Amul is the common brand for most product categories

Ice Cream

Paneer Dahi

Ghee

produced by various unions. By insisting on an umbrella brand, GCMMF not only skillfully avoided inter-union conflicts but also created an opportunity for the union members to cooperate in developing products.

Brand

Description

Products

Amul Milk

It is one among the most hygienic liquid milk available in market.

Amul is synonymous with butter in India.

Margarine is a commonly known butter substitute and is prepared exclusively from vegetable oils and fat.

Cheese is a good source of Calcium and milk protein.

These are standardized, long life milk.

Amul Gold, Amul Taaza

Bread Spreads

Cheese

UHT Milk

Beverage Range

Amul PRO

Amul Butter, Amul Lite

Amul Processed Cheese Amul Gold Milk, Amul Taaza, Amul Calci Amul Kool Flavoured Milk, Amul Kool CafĂŠ

These are easy to use, delicious drinks that refreshes immediately with the goodness of milk.

It is malt based milk Amul PRO additive(consumed by directly adding milk) and

Milk Powder

a very tasty drink.

Amul Ice Creams are made from fresh milk and superior fruits and nuts.

It is equivalent to Cream Cottage Cheese.

These curd products are made from pasteurized, toned milk.

Ghee is a source of energy and provides vitality to the human body.

These are milk powders.

It is malted beverage(brown beverage).

Mithai Range

These are sweets.

Mithai Mate Chocolates

It is sweetened, condensed milk.

Amul chocolates are made with goodness of rich creamy milk and delicious cocoa.

It is low fat cream

Pouch Butter Milk

Amul Malai Paneer Amul Masti Dahi Amul Ghee

Amul Spray, Amulya, Sagar Skimmed Milk Powder milk Nutramul

Nutramul

Fresh Cream

Amul Ice Creams

Amul Shrikhand, Amul Gulab Jamun, Amul Basundi Amul Mithai Mate Amul Chocolate, Amul Chocozoo Amul Fresh Cream

It is pasteurised butter Amul Pouch milk that meets PFA Butter Milk standards.

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cover story: Bringing home the milky way

Price AMUL’s business strategy is driven by its twin objectives of:

markathon |october 2012 inclusive of several elements such as cost of milk, labor cost, processing cost, packaging cost, advertising cost, transportation cost, sales promotion cost, taxes etc. In order to ensure that most returns from sales went to the producers, the intermediaries have to operate very effectively and on razor thin margins.

This turns out to be a blessing in disguise – the operations remained very “lean” and started to provide cost based advantage to the entire network.

Today Amul is a symbol of many things. Of a promise to member farmers who are assured a guaranteed purchase of all the milk that they produce at predetermined prices. Of high-quality products sold at reasonable prices to consumers.

 

Long-term, sustainable growth to its member farmers Value proposition to a large customer base by providing milk and other dairy products at a low price.

At the time Amul was formed, consumers had limited purchasing power, and modest consumption levels of milk and other dairy products. Thus, Amul adopted a low-cost price strategy to make its products affordable and attractive to consumers by guaranteeing them value for money. Despite competition in the high value dairy product segments from firms such as Hindustan Lever, Nestle and Britannia, GCMMF ensures that the product mix and the sequence in which Amul introduces its products is consistent with the core philosophy of providing dairy products at basic, affordable price to appeal the common masses.

Amul is known for its unwavering quality as all its products come with high quality standards. The products are all fairly priced, not cheap or competitive, but fair. Prices are decided

by GCMMF. GCMMF prefers a lower price with emphasis on efficiency in advertising. The price is

Promotion To be fresh, innovative and simple, Amul religiously follows these parameters for its promotion. Enjoying top of the mind recall, most customers demand for Amul butter without a second thought.     

The core values associated with Amul are: Provide the best quality products Value for money Generating a loyal customer base Social Responsibility

The umbrella branding has worked wonders for the brand. Local promotions in the form of Below the Line (BTL) is a major contributor to Amuls’ image.

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cover story: Bringing home the milky way

markathon |october 2012

Scholarships like ‘Amul Vidya Shree’ and the ‘Amul Vidya Bhushan’ helps 10,000 deserving students across the country. The Amul food festival is another example of community development carried out by Amul.

‘Advergaming’ – a combination of advertising and gaming to demonstrate its working to the customers by creating a virtual parlor. The process of sourcing could be under considerable threat, as the line of business across generations is likely to change.

Dr. Kurien via his legendary vision could picture it. A 150-min commercial outlining the core purpose and highlighting Amul’s role in the society, Manthan became a pioneer of merchandizing.

The title track continues to run on television even after 3 decades.

Place Amul plans to open a store in every nook and cranny of India by 2020, according to Mr. BM Vyas of the GCMMF. Amul chocolates are sold as point of sale products at several grocery stores. A potential exists for distribution via: Amul preferred outlets: Focused at milk, butter and ice-creams, especially targeting college canteens Amul Ice Cream Parlors: Even though the investment is higher, the reach is higher target being families

F(P)unnily enough the polka dot girl continues to teach us taking things a lighter vein. The hoarding with a tagline (still functional) “Utterly, Butterly Delicious Amul” was put up in 1967. Multiple marketing books emphasize on the fact that a brand communicates values; this has been personified by the Amul girl. However ban of hoardings and the wide use of the English language have limited the audience to which Amul reaches out.

The Taste of India, created the much needed Halo effect which was conspicuous by its absence for the Indian Brands.

A showcase of Indian talent, collaboration for corporate positioning it is a statement of immense power, made us proud to be Indians. Affordable chocolates, pizza , ice-cream, Amul does it all, has been doing it consistently for the ‘Aam Aadmi’.

Topical advertisements link a brand to the trending news; Amul creates a wider impact when the public memory is fresh. Amul experimented with

Amul Railway Parlors: With the trust enjoyed by the Brand name throughout India these outlets are a smart way to capture attention Amul Kiosks: Increasing the reach of Amul products even in the wake of competition Around 300 parlors are already supported and 4,500 Amul preferred outlets already exist in the country. In the ice-cream segment Amul enjoys a 38% market share due to its wide reaching network.

Opportunities and Challenges Opportunities

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cover story: Bringing home the milky way The Indian dairy industry has some inherent strength which opens up a number of opportunities in this sector. India with the largest dairy cattle base in the world, the cultural inclination towards keeping cows which makes it a household practice is prevalent.

There is a huge demand for milk and milk products in organized retail. Since, this sector is largely fragmented and unorganized in nature; large dairies have realized the need to implement backward integration. Large corporates are also looking forward to develop large herd farms to achieve economies of scale. Also, a large part of Indian population is lactovegetarians, for whom the only major source of protein is milk/ milk products.

Challenges There are a number of threats that the industry faces today owing to rapid urbanization, unclear government policies in certain critical areas and lack of incentives. Absence of distribution and pricing policy, non-existence of fodder policy, lack of control on the growth of unproductive cattle and others lead to a general lack of inducement. The challenges also lie in providing for adequate green fodder for the cattle and keeping the low quality animals away from accessing high value resources. Reducing costs is also a major challenge, which if achieved, will create further opportunities for investors.

Marketing the Milk An inadequate basic infrastructure for basic procurement and transport is conspicuous by its

markathon |october 2012 absence. Marketing of milk is not done professionally (other than Amul) and lack of professional management of brands if any.

The unregulated sector forming the majority provides ample opportunity to a marketer. However malpractices abound as well especially adulteration.

Many intermediaries eat in to the profits of the producers and dictate pricing policies as well.

Producers’ bargaining power suffers because of the perishability of milk. On the other hand, it will be next to impossible to market their milk in the absence of these market intermediaries. The growth of dairy cooperatives suffers payment issues, decision making powers are confusing, and however, the co-operative laws have inhibited leadership efforts, professional management and the free functioning of the cooperatives.

Conclusion The infrastructure for milk collection, processing, packaging, pricing and marketing needs to be improved to benefit more and more small farmers. By reducing the number of middlemen between producer and consumer, the consumer price payment share to the producer can be increased. In other words, bridging the gap between the producer and the consumer can increase the producer’s share.

Furthermore, the future issues in dairy product marketing are with quality, product development, infrastructure support development, and global marketing. Indian dairy industry is rearing to go.

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vartalaap

markathon|october 2012

An Interview with Mr. Robert Holdheim Managing Director of Edelman, India

Mr. Robert Holdheim, the CEO and Managing Director, India at Edelman is a veteran of Edelman’s Frankfurt, London and NY offices. Having handled important accounts like UPS, Samsung, Tenneco and Corning, he has worked on corporate positioning, Business-to-Business product marketing and crisis management, to name a few. A BA from Cornell University and an MA from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Mr. Holdheim has a vast

experience in Public Relations and Media Communications and shares interesting insights about this industry and its contribution to business.

21

Vartalaap

Markathon: Compared to your experience in Europe and America, would you say Indian firms give enough emphasis to PR activities? What according to you are the reasons for this difference?

markathon|october 2012

Markathon: What advantage does a PR firm provide vis - a - vis internal PR teams of an organization?

Mr. Holdheim: In a specific situation because the PR firm is involved for a broader client base and different Mr. Holdheim: That comes under the question of how types of activities, it is an experience thing. Many of the you define PR activities. I would say that given the people in the inside job are purely focused on the media current definition of PR in India I wouldn’t probably give relations and as such because it is commoditized their it much focus either. PR in India now is somewhere whole measurement is in terms of metrics; how many where US or Europe were sometime back when it was pounds of clippings etc, not even looking at what is the purely media focus related. That makes it something kind of value those clippings get to the organization. I like a commodity and when a market is commoditized, think the important part is to figure out to what extend it gets pushed down and down and it purely becomes a does the PR activity contribute to business objective pricing game. And in the Indian market cost is anyways and not just communications objective. If you say your very important, since it is much more overvalued. So I objective is to set few metrics like pounds of clippings, think, most Indian firms consider then you are basically setting PR as exclusively media relations an internal performance and in that sense it is measurement system which “In the Indian market cost is very commoditized and it is purely doesn’t add to the health of treated as a cost factor and not the business at all. I would important, since it is much more as a profit factor, not even as say that in India in-house overvalued. So I think, most Indian firms contributing to profit center jobs were viewed higher consider PR as exclusively media which makes it play a fairly than agency jobs. But I minor role. Though it would say now working relations and in that sense it is changed in US and Europe in an agency can give commoditized and it is purely treated as and it is also changing in you somewhat a cost factor and not as a profit factor, India and we are one of broader exposure not even as contributing to profit center the firms who are than what an in pitching that change. house job can offer which makes it play a fairly minor role.”

But when you look at a because some of broader definition of the functions we PR, there are firms do are not done who are giving it more in the importance, giving us a communications larger budget and asking department of the us to get involved in areas companies. So the where we weren’t working communications people, say from marketing background, have much previously. more to learn from a PR firm like ours.

So to round it up I think Indian companies do not give Markathon: Can you list few of the things that you do much importance to PR but the problem is that they which the internal marketing or communications team have too narrow a definition of PR that they don’t have an understanding of what a broader definition could doesn’t do? offer them.

Mr. Holdheim: Digital communication is a classic one.

Another is crisis management which automatically gets

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Vartalaap

markathon|october 2012

pushed up to the CEO’s office. Another is marketing communications, product communications, it is not just informing about your offering but it is more like an integrated marketing approach. To explain it is 10 sec, imagine four concentric circles. These are four channels that we see. At the center of these circles you have content and you have search. And each circle runs a different channel through which it can push the content. One is traditional media such as newspaper, Television, broadcast. Then we come to the hybrid media which forms the blogs. This is digital media but hybrid. Third is social media, twitter, facebook. And the fourth is owned media, things like your own website.

From our perspective, content is the basis of the program and is pushed through any or all four of the channels. And all four of those channels should be addressed. So while digital communications in India is seen as a job of the advertising firms, what they are pushing out is very different than what we are pushing out. So in my premise, create content and push it up through all possible channels, each of these channels is linked to a somewhere else within the corporation and that puts us in touch with different budgets as well as different target audiences within the firm.

engage with the right people. When we launch a product or do a press release, you would hope that we get it on paper and somebody would be reading that paper, that is how it used to work previously. Now, you have to think about throwing a rock into a river and get a ripple effect. So before launching, let us say we are launching a PC or a laptop or something that plays music. Let us say we have a piece of hardware, we will look for a platform through which we can communicate to people. Let us say the platform is music, we target young audiences who can be targeted through music.

Now we look into influence within that platform and influencers today is no longer government people or things like that. In this case it maybe a rock band. So we take the piece of hardware, go to the rock band, we give it to them, we let them play with it, listen to it and then they start tweeting about it. And then each of them has their own following and all. While this whole process is going on we film it and then we put that film of these famous guys talking about our product on youtube. So what you are seeing is the concept of ripple effect. So at each stage the influencer reaches out to their direct target audience and so on and you can measure that and you can talk about that.

Markathon: Edelman has recently launched two new tools to identify and recognise who is influential on a particular topic on blogosphere and twitter. How authentic is such information and how effective, in your opinion, are such tools?

Now to get back the question, where tools at blog level come in is that they are much more useful, not in identifying influencers but in confirming that the influencers we have identified are the right people.

Because these tools measure various factors like how often you interact with people, not just posting. They give you an influencer score which basically allows you to say that convincing people through this person that your product is good is much more likely to happen than finding out through other person who has a much lower score. So we have these incredibly useful tools just to confirm that the influencer we are engaging with are indeed effective and it will be beneficial communicating through them.

Mr. Holdheim: Everything about social media is new, so we are trying to figure out what metrics have we measured, have we best reached the right people, on the foot side of all this is that we don’t know which people have influence and which don’t and you don’t want to spend your time talking to the wrong people.

Now take my premise that PR today is about engagement and not just about media relations, but public engagement which includes engagement with different stakeholders. Let me take an example, the difference between PR and advertising has been that advertising is a one way medium of communication, it is about conversations, engaging with the audience.

Obviously social media is an incredible tool in advancing that concept. Now how do you figure out how to

Markathon: Can you share with us some of the challenging and interesting tasks/projects which you undertook at Edelman.

Mr. Holdheim: I started in this industry long time ago in the early 90’s in Europe. In the mid 90’s I was in London

23

Vartalaap

then I left for 10 years when I was marketing consumer products. Then when I came back in 2006, the entire industry had changed. So what we were doing was much more strategic. For example, when I came back the first client that I took up was a professional services firm. They basically were considered at the top of their industry but they were essentially interchangeable with 3-4 other firms. So basically everybody knew them but nobody could differentiate them from anyone of the others. So the assignment was to develop a plan which would elevate them from being one of 4-5 to being the one, you know to make them the McKinsey or Goldman Sachs, where they stood out in their industry. I love that work, it was challenging, it was strategic, it involved working with absolute top of the organization specifically the CEO. It allowed us to start with a clean slate and think what can we do to create an impact.

What channels can we use, they allowed us to be really creative and look at almost anything to have an impact on the perception of the people of that firm. That was a good one.

Another good one, is the work we do in US on behalf of the Dove brand, the campaign for real beauty. And what I love about it is that it starts with a direct engagement with the consumer base via digital. It starts out with bringing in inputs directly from your consumer and then develops into a platform which has social and CSR elements. It has elements in product marketing, then advertising comes in and then follows a long behind PR. So you have a fully integrated plan based on a big platform which gives you opportunity to engage directly with the customer, to engage with the organization, to engage with media and just about any stakeholder, all integrated into a single platform. That’s what I love about it.

markathon|october 2012

see it and get influenced by it. Through social media you are directly connecting with the people you seek to influence and as long as you play by the rule and you do it correctly, it is also accepted. You know instead of pretending that you are someone else, then spam, then that backfires on you. But here is an opportunity to connect directly with the stakeholders and use their influence on others. Social media is a dream to Public Relations. What is Public Relations? Public Relations is basically communicating to different stakeholder groups with specially customized messages. Now when ad agencies use social media it tends to be more advertising messages, more push messages, where as PR is about developing conversations with the stakeholders. The people should be talking about you, online or anyways. Lot of clients are very nervous, they say we don’t want to be there so we are not going to look at it. The point is not looking at it doesn’t mean it’s not there. People are talking about you anyways, the choice is not about whether you want to be there or not, it about what do you want people to talk about, either it can be a quality conversation or can be something random without any inputs from your end. I strongly believe that it is absolutely necessary for companies to be there on social media.

Markathon: PR still being in a stage where it is misinterpreted by many, what would be your message to people aspiring to be a part of this industry?

Mr. Holdheim: From a PR guy’s perspective, I would say that whatever you do, keep in mind the business objective, not the communication objective. If business objective is to sell product, then communication needs to support that objective. An awful lot of people think of PR and media relations as an end in itself, but if this doesn’t align with business objective then why do it.

Markathon: After the facebook IPO came out, a lot of people didn’t realize the ROI on spending in social media. Do you think spending in social media is important or you can engage the way you want without spending on social media?

Mr. Holdheim: I find social media a lot more buying for the buck than advertising. Advertising is basically popping up an ad and hoping that people are going to

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markathon |october 2012 markathon | june 2011

war zone | eye 2 eye

“Genericide cannot possibly be derogatory as every company seeks to dominate its category.”

Brand Genericide-a term conceived by marketers to denote the process whereby a brand or a registered trademark starts defining an entire product category to such an extent that it loses the privileges of trademark protection-can be very Payal Pathak distressing for parent XIMB companies. It is understandable that the “cide” suffix denoting death does add a sinister edge to the entire affair. A case in point would be what happened to Hormel Foods’ trademarked square canned ham “Spam” that was eventually hijacked to mean any unsolicited email and now forms a part of urban lexicon. But what remains not so evident is the opportunity that this consequence of the sheer popularity of the trademarked product and brand recall present to the company. Microsoft’s search engine “Bing” was launched with the objective that someday, this nomenclature may stand to be tantamount to Web Search à la Google. In other words, planned genericide has already made an entrance in the arena of branding strategies. Common sense dictates that brand genericide befalls those brands whose names have become so deeply intertwined with popular culture that the name and product category have merged. This cannot possibly be derogatory as every company seeks to dominate its category. However, the oft proven fact standing out in stark contrast to the brand popularity is the inertia that such commanding brands exhibit wherein they do not feel the need to highlight the distinguishing features of their products. It is here that the solution to Brand Genericide lies. As wildly successful companies like Apple, with its “I” range of gadgets, every single of which were pre-empted by Apple’s predecessors, have demonstrated, their success mantra lies in fretting over details, continuously innovating to bring out subtle yet vital changes and building a brand strategy to communicate such differentiators to the target market.

“The Xerox (and not Photocopy) didn’t come out well.” “I was so thirsty, that even a bottle of Bisleri (and not packaged drinking water) could not quench my thirst.” “The Band-aid (and not Bandage) came off Rohit V Tiwari within just a few minutes Welingkar Institute of after I had applied it.” Have Management you ever found yourself If yes, you’d better know that by speaking sentences like these, you may be touching the raw nerve of the concerned companies- in this case, Xerox, Bayer (aspirin) and Johnson & Johnson (band-aid)- all of which have been a victim of Brand Genericide.

A brand turns generic when it becomes synonymous with a general class of product or service and people start using it as a common noun or a verb. The fact that their brand names are being recognized and used by millions around the world is something that any organization would be proud of. However, ‘too much of a good thing’ can spell trouble in this case, as the trade name becomes so common that it ceases to exist as a brand name. No organization would want its products to become too popular for people to start using its trademark colloquially. For the company which strives to maintain the distinctiveness and uniqueness of its brands, brand genericide can cost dear, both in terms of revenue and reputation. As Wendy Lomax, Professor of Brand Marketing at Kingston University puts it, “If Guinness are spending £10m on a single advert, the last thing they want is for people to be using the word Guinness to mean any kind of stout.”

No wonder then, that organizations make a conscious effort to ensure their products don’t become generic. So the next time your friend flaunts his brand new tablet, get your facts right before you remark “Wow!!!This iPad seems slicker.”

Topic for the next issues Eye to Eye: “With Samsung and Apple starting it again, does comparative advertising help increase business?”

“No organization would want its products to become too popular for people to start using its trademark colloquially.”

“Brand Genericide: A Boon or a Bane?”

Your opinion (view/counterview) is invited. Word limit is 250-300. Last date of sending entries is 15th October, 2012. Include your picture (JPEG format) with the entry.

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markathon | october markathon | april 2012

war zone | silent voice

Silent Voice

LAST MONTH’S RESULTS Theme: “Google +”

WINNER: MANDAR SONAVANE | Great Lakes Institute of Management Congratulations!!! He/She receives a cash prize of Rs 500!

HONORARY MENTION

Divya Priyanka| Welinkars, Mumbai

NEXT THEME FOR SILENT VOICE: “Maruti Alto 800” LAST DATE OF SENDING THE PRINT AD: 15th October, 2012 EMAIL ID: markathon.iims@gmail.com Send your entry in JPEG format named as SilentVoice_<Your Name>_<Institute>only.

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specials | ADdicted

markathon||october january 2012 2012 markathon

Ad-dicted Umang Kulshrestha | IIM S

GSN Aditya | IIM s

PRODUCT # 1: Micromax Ninja

PRODUCT # 2: Jabong.com

POSITIONING: Why Y?

POSITIONING: Delivering lifestyle

TARGET AUDIENCE: Youth

TARGET AUDIENCE: Brand Conscious Urbanites

AD AGENCY: Lowe Lintas

AD AGENCY: Salt Brand Solutions, India

CONCEPT:

CONCEPT:

The TV Commercial opens with a girl mocking a man telling him “Itna bhi nhi pata, Uncle” when soon she herself is made fun of by her friends for having an outdated phone with a small screen but all the points thereafter that her friends tease her which revolve around one and only point and i.e. the small, compact shape of the phone such that it might improve her concentration, prevents others form viewing the messages, and so subsequently was cheap too etc.

The Ad shows a wife accusing Jabong.com for turning her husband into a shopping fanatic. Much to her dismay, her husband has turned the house into one huge sports room thanks to Jabong.com. The Ad shows how Jabong.com has helped him find a wide array of sportswear and sports equipment with relative ease. It also conveys that it has free door delivery and a free-return-policy.

VERDICT:

Most importantly, the Ad depicts that it’s not just women, but even men can be crazy about shopping.

Catch/Miss- Miss

VERDICT:

Firstly, the ad begins at a different note which does not really have much relation to phone. The fact that lady flaunts her knowledge mocking people was concluded on the phone she had rather the small screen, compact phone she owned which to me nowhere correlates to the relativity tried to portray at the end suggesting the use of Micromax Ninja so as to get better speed with an android 2.3 and a 1 GHz processor. Of course not to forget screen size of 10.1 and 8.9 in Ninja 4 and 3.5 respectively with fairly cheap price also not really fall coherent into all the portrayal of what exactly was the definition of cheap to argue the same on her previous phone which (if you notice) also seems to have a decent size not like the really old style of phones.

Catch/Miss- Catch This month saw the launch of TVCs from three online retail portals which are Flipkart, Tradeus and Jabong.com. All the Ads are conveying the same core message of “Convenience of online stores”. Flipkart’s Ads have been very successful over the past. The new Ad continues the theme of “Kids playing the role of Adults” and it continues to appeal to the audiences.

However, Jabong.com’s latest Ad scores over the others simply because it is very funny and crisp. Also, Jabong.com does not burden the viewer by displaying diverse product ranges. It is simply directed at the sports and apparel segment for men.

YOUTUBE LINK:

Simply put, it is very well focused despite retaining the humour element.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAS04YwFoGw

YOUTUBE LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhDOIOKx9Es&fe ature=relmfu

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specials | bookmark

markathon | october 2012

Predictably Irrational (The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions)

- Dan ariely

Harper Collins Publications | Price Rs.236

Review by SOWMYA R Observe the two designs above. Clearly, the orange circle on the right is bigger than the one on the left right? Look closely and you will realize they are the exact same size, and what makes them look different are the circles around! Often our decisions are based on our perceived relative advantage of one thing over another. Dan terms this decoy strategy. Think Decoy, think Tom Sawyer’s shrewd method of getting his friends to paint his fence, by making them believe it was a privilege to do so !

Predictably Irrational is a delightfully engaging book that rationalizes the irrational decisions and actions we take by exploring some fundamental aspects of the human psyche.

Summary Why does the word FREE! evoke a surge of excitement within us? Why does a costlier medicine seem more effective in alleviating pain? Why does working for a cause get more efforts than working for cash? What we call perceived value, behavioural economists term “the placebo effect” . In the words of Dan, this is the age of modern democracy, where the issue is not a lack of opportunity but a dizzying abundance of it. While some of us may choose conformity over non-conformity in our selections, some others may wish to be different

from the crowd. But irrespective of this difference in our personalities, each of us is as predictably irrational as the other in our decisions!

Organization and Insights Organized into 13 chapters, the book is essentially a narration of a series of behavioural experiments conducted across various groups in various settings.

Each experiment unravels a pattern, of the influences and hidden forces that shape our decision making.

It would not be justice to reduce these wonderful experiments to a few sentences in this review. Instead I will attempt to discuss certain key insights the book provides. It is up to you to take these as pointers for you as a marketer, warnings to take heed of as a consumer or just a guide to take better decisions as a person.

The Fallacy of Demand The basis of conventional economics is that supply of goods should match the demand for them, and demand is the driver for any new business, product or process.

But what if this very basis was flawed? This is better explained through the concept of “Arbitrary Coherence” , i.e the consumer decides both present and future price based on an arbitrary initial price. This can be extended

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for the features we look for while buying or the place we buy it from as well.

The Ikea Effect It is an interesting phenomenon that states that “pride of ownership is inversely proportional to the ease of use of that product”. While taking ownership of responsibility is difficult for us, we often assume ownership for items even before we own them, and this virtual ownership is greatly influenced by advertising.

When was the last time you used a product for 30-days and returned it despite having a 30-day money back offer? Probably never, because you get accustomed to it or perceive the return as a loss!

Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde Why do we behave differently under different circumstances? Our behaviour is governed by emotions and emotions are at times not under our control! How many times have you purchased something only to realize you never needed it in the first place? Emotional trigger is like speaking under the influence of a heavy dose of alcohol and the influencer of our irrational decisions that are oh-so-predictable!

The book discusses these and the influence of many more factors ranging from arousal, expectations, character, choices and procrastination to the conflict of social norms vs market norms on our everyday decisions.

Verdict: 5/5 The verdict is fairly predictable. It is a page-turner that makes you question the very foundations on which you base your decisions. It is a book for everyone, a pleasure to read and a strong reminder of how irrational humans are. As I said, it is up to you to decide how you want to use the lessons gained from the bookto become a better manager, a better marketer, an informed shopper, or most importantly a wiser person.

Bottom-line It is not every day that you get to read a book that mirrors not just your life but the lives of those around you! Is it really worth a read, and as good as I claim it to be, or am I just being predictably irrational to justify my choice of this book? Well, you have to read it to find out, don’t you?!!

Happy Reading!!

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Brand Story: Intel Swati nidiganti | IIM S Many years ago, few would have cared to know the microprocessor inside your computer and the engine inside your car, even though both are undoubtedly the most important part of the overall system. This has been the saga of industrial brands struggling to study the demand derived from the end consumers. Intel revolutionized the industrial markets by stimulating demand at the end consumer level.

Started in 1968, Intel’s core business challenge was to replace the bulky magnetic memory with smaller, better performing and less energy consuming semiconductor memory. It was later in 1971 that Intel created its first microprocessor chip 4004, soon followed by the 8008. The turning point came in 1981 when Intel’s 8088 was selected for IBM’s first PC. As the PC market gained momentum, Intel shifted focus from memory to processors and made ICs its primary business. That initiated series of innovation in the form of 286, 386, 486, Pentium, Celeron, and so on.

Named among the top ten brands with the likes of Coca Cola, Disney and McDonald’s, Intel transformed from being a product to a brand in 1990’s with the launch of its widely famous ‘Intel Inside’ program. In order to properly communicate the benefits of the processor to PC buyers and build long-term brand equity, Intel’s focus shifted from being PC manufacturers to the end consumers, while raising awareness of its name. Dennis Carter, the marketing manager of Intel, spearheaded the Intel Inside coop marketing program. The heart of the program was an incentive-based cooperative

advertising program. Intel would create a co-op fund where it would take a percentage of the purchase price of processors and put it in a pool for advertising funds.

Available to all computer makers, it offered to cooperatively share advertising costs for PC print ads that included the Intel logo. For PC manufacturers, it not only gave a cushion for their advertising expenses but also acted as an assurance that their systems were powered by the latest technology. Launched in 1991, by the end of that year, 300 PC OEMs had signed on to support the program.

Once the OEM program was underway, Intel went ahead with the entire branding and advertising exercise like any other consumer company. A new logo was designed and print advertisements were launched to explain its significance to the customers. Television advertisements using state-of-the-art special effects were released for the first time, with emphasis on speed, power and affordability. Sonic branding was used and the unique five tone melody helped build a strong brand recall in the customers’ mind even to date.

In 2008, Intel took the campaign a step forward and shifted focus from traditional media such as television and print to newer media such as the Internet.

Intel's innovative marketing helped increase awareness of the PC and paved the way for computers to become more common in homes, emerging as a business, entertainment and education tool. For a product which the consumer hasn’t seen or touched, it is an achievement indeed!

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markathon | October markathon | march 2012

specials | updates

BRAND LAUNCH

like BMW and Audi. The car is first in its segment which is called as sports tourer rather than the

Apple launched iPhone 5

normal hatchback because the car offers the size of

Apple introduced its 6th model in the iPhone line up named as iPhone 5 which is definitely better than the previous version in terms of bigger display, enhanced camera, improved battery and

a compact car but the power similar to that of a SUV. The target segment is the young professionals who want power and ruggedness in a compact luxury model.

thinnest form ever. The charm and excitement is slightly on the lower side this time unlike the launch

of

previous

versions

because

the

competition was never that intense. Some of the competitors are now able to offer few better features at much competitive prices.

Nokia unveils Lumia windows 8 platform

920

based

on

BRAND WATCH Cavin Care ropes in Parineeti Chopra as brand ambassador for ‘Spinz’ Being embodied as contemporary girl of today Cavin Care, personal care brand has appointed Parineeti as the brand ambassador of its deodorant

‘Most innovative smart phone ever’ as claimed by

brand. Parineeti Chopra, the emerging youth icon

Nokia, is the first smart phone using Windows

as the brand ambassador justifies the correlation

Phone 8 as its operating System. The phone looks

between the brand’s value and her style, attitude

promising as it has some unique features like

and appeal.

wireless

charging,

advanced

floating

lens

technology, augmented reality apps etc. Although chances to give a dent to market leaders such as Samsung and Apple are bleak but still eyes are curious to see if the magic can happen.

Sonata Unveils touch screen watches After watching breakthrough innovation in mobile handset segment, it’s time for watches. “Sonata”, the brand under Titan industries launched its first

Renault launches new sedan, the Scala

ever touch screen wrist watch under its super fibre ocean series. The most crucial proposition is its

Renault version of Sunny from Nissan is launched

introductory price which puts it within the reach of

as Scala in the C segment of Sedans to take on Cars

major chunk of Indian consumers. The watch

like Ford Fiesta, Hyundai Verna, and Nissan Sunny

comes at a starting price point of INR 1499.

etc. The Renault Scala has both petrol and diesel versions and is in the price range of 6.99 lakhs to 9.57 Lakhs (ex-showroom Delhi).

Mercedes Compact proposition in India

car,

a

unique

Akshay Kumar as the brand ambassador for ‘Sparx’ from Relaxo Age still doesn’t seem to be the hindering factor for Akshay Kumar who is still perceived as an iconic youth of India and probably this is the reason

The long awaited B-class from Mercedes-Benz has

Relaxo has signed Akshay Kumar to further

been launched by the company to take on its rivals

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markathon | October markathon | march 2012

specials | updates

intensify its association with the youth target

declared to be the media agency of the year. The

segment. Through the 40 sec TV commercial where

title seems to be bagged for its work in Unilever

the celebrity is endorsing the foot wear, Relaxo is

brands such as Kissan, Rin and Bru. In the same

showcasing style and youthfulness with Sparx.

festival, Taproot was allotted second place for

Walmart to open stores in next 12-18 months After the big ticket reforms announced by the Government

which

includes

permission

independent agency of the year.

Career360 aims to become complete career magazine

largest

of

Career360 which wants to become the largest

investment up to 51% in multi brand retail from

career counsellor in India is expanding to reach out

multinational retailers, Walmart is proactive

to more students by leveraging its content after its

enough to open stores in states which allow the

integration with digital initiatives. The company

investment. The company expects to continue its

currently has two portals, one for engineering

current partnership with Bharti enterprise to

college aspirants and other for students who wish

execute its plan for the future.

to study abroad.

MEDIA

AD WATCH

Samsung starts a satirical campaign against iPhone

Havells releases two new ads for wires and geysers

Samsung has launched a direct attack on iPhone 5

Havells has come up with 2 TV commercials one for

customers through its latest ad. The offering with

its sub-brand “Statdard” and other for its geysers

many attributes like bigger screen, NFC etc. seeks

both

to convince customers, that Galaxy S3 is better

communication solutions provider, Lowe Lintas.

than iPhone 5. The strapline in the ad is “The next

The standard wires ad emphasis on the capacity of

big thing is already here”. Even the ad ends with

the wire to handle overload situations whereas the

the statement from an iPhone lover who out of

geyser ad showcases that the geyser consumes

irritation boastfully claims to wait for the next

very less energy even if it is switched on for entire

iPhone to have these outstanding features of

day.

Galaxy S3.

Click here to watch

Mindshare, the big winner at Spikes Asia 2012 In Spikes Asia 2012, the advertising festival held few days back in Singapore Mindshare India was

of

which

are

created

by

integrated

Click here to watch Click here to watch

Toyota Etios Liva’s brand new world To make the competition more intense in the compact car segment where almost all the players are fighting to share the pie, Toyota has come up

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specials | updates

with “Brand New world” for its only hatchback in India, “Etios Liva”. The experience of riding the car

Click here to watch

unpacking new things every day.

Kurkure extends the product range with “Kurkure Puffcorn”

Click here to watch

In order to remain at forefront of product

is compared with entering a new world which is

innovation, Pepsico has expanded the range of

Pepsi’s new T-20 world cup advertisement With the bang, Pepsi has launched its TVC covering top cricket players along with the Bollywood star Ranbir Kapoor who is quite famous after his block buster movie “Barfi”. The T-20 game is portrayed as the game without respect where the sole motto

Kurkure to ‘Puffcorn’. The company has rightly targeted the kids segment through the TV commercial where the kid is shown applying notorious tactic to grab the packet of Kurkure puffcorm from his friend.

Click here to watch

is to defeat the opponent which is reinforced with the ending comment “baja ke aana” from Ranbir.

Articles are invited “Best Article”: Esha gupta | tapmi He/She receives a cash prize of Rs.1000 & a letter of appreciation We are inviting articles from all the B-schools and corporates of India. The articles can be specific to the regular sections of Markathon which includes:  Perspective: Articles related to development of latest trends in marketing arena.  Productolysis: Analysis of a product from the point of view of marketing.  Strategic Analysis: A complete analysis of the marketing strategy of any company or an event.

Apart from above, out of the box views related to marketing are also welcome. The best entry will receive a letter of appreciation and a cash prize of Rs 1000/-. The format of the file should be MS Word doc/docx.

We’re inviting photographs of interesting promotional events/advertisements/hoardings/banners etc. you might have come across in your daily life for our new section “The 4th P”.

Send your self-clicked photographs in JPEG format only.

The last date of receiving all entries is 15th October 2012. Please send your entries marked as <ARTICLE NAME>_<SENDERS’ NAMES>_<INSTITUTE> to markathon.iims@gmail.com.

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

Š Team Markathon, IIM Shillong