Marketing Magazine of IIM Shillong
Volume 6 | Issue 4
October 2014
MARKATHON
The Myths of Loyalty Programs
Vartalaap with Mr. Ashutosh Tiwari Executive Vice President & Head, International Marketing & Innovation Godrej Consumer Products Limited
From The Editor September ended with an outstanding marketing push “Make in India” from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to hardsell India as a cost competitive global manufacturing hub. While a large part of India and Indians across the world supported it with open arms, there were a few who claimed it to be Mr. Modi’s personal marketing event. Moving ahead, October brought in many bright eyes with Flipkart’s “Big Billion Day” advertisements. The company created huge marketing hype, but its processes failed to deliver up to the expectations. However, the impending bonanza that these ads created, captured huge attention from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and resulted in a marketing success which increased online retail’s penetration into these untapped markets. With lot of marketing activities going around, let us take you through what marketing doze we are offering to you in this edition! Our cover story for the month will bring in a reality check for all the budding marketers who will be/are working on designing in loyalty programs for their customers. It attacks some of the myths that make marketers hesitant in implementing the loyalty schemes to achieve differentiation. Perspectives for this month highlight some of the changing trends in the strategies followed by organizations to capture customer’s mind share. The first article explains how a customer-centric approach has enabled organizations to deliver their promise and how the companies are
drifting towards this philosophy. In the second article, we’ll learn how ecommerce has tapped into the rural areas and is helping rural entrepreneurs to market their offerings. We’ll go through an interesting case of ‘Mitticool Clay Creation’ in this article. For the Vartalaap section, we have with us, Mr. Ashutosh Tiwary, Executive Vice President & Head, International Marketing & Innovation at Godrej Consumer Products Limited. He will take us through the journey of Godrej 2009 re-launch and GoJiyo.com launch from Godrej, along with some personal marketing experiences and learnings. October Specials contain ‘Jab They Failed’ where we have bowled Tommy Hilfiger this time. You’ll see the return of advertorials in ‘Radical Thoughts’ and get a dive into the retailing channels through ‘Ishtihaar’. Addicted brings to you our monthly spoon of advertisements that “Caught” and “Missed”. We also have Updates to keep you updated with recent happenings in the Marketing world. With so much in line waiting for you, wait no more and flip through our latest edition. Do keep us posted about your comments and feedbacks by writing to markathon. iims@gmail.com and we promise we will come back bigger and better, time and again. A big thank you from Team Markathon. Cheers!
The Markathon Team Editors Amit Sonwani | B Ushashree | Nishant Prakash | Ramanathan K | Varsha Poddar | Yash B. Bhambhwani
Creative Designers Malini Aishwarya B | Swati Pamnani
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Contents
Marketing Shift From Firm To Customer Venkatesh KG | GLIM Chennai
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Rural Entrepreneurship Marketing Through Ecommerce Anu Kaushik | Bharathi Vidyapeeth Institute Of Management And Research, New Delhi
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The Myths of a Loyalty Program Yash B.Bhambhwani | IIM Shillong Vartalaap Mr. Ashutosh Tiwari Executive Vice President & Head, International Marketing & Innovation Godrej Consumer Products Limited
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Eye 2 Eye Google Android One: Sure-shot success or an ambitious product? Abhishek Goyal | NMIMS Mumbai & Ravi Singh | SBM, NMIMS Mumbai
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Silent Voice iPhone 6 #bendgate Nirna Nevrekar | Goa Institute of Management
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Specials Addicted Swati Pamnani & Yash B. Bhambhwani | IIM Shillong
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Ishtihaar Ramanathan K | IIM Shillong
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Jab They Failed B Ushashree | IIM Shillong
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Radical Thoughts Varsha Poddar | IIM Shillong
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Updates Amit Sonwani | IIM Shillong
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Events Touchstone 2.0
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MARKETING SHIFT FROM FIRM TO CUSTOMER BY Venkatesh KG Great Lakes Institute Of Management, Chennai
products, providing value added services and positioning their products after evaluating the existing trends, expectations and assessing the distinct features in their competitors’ products and services. There are several instances where the strategy/market position has increased the brand proposition and a few of them have gone wrong disrupting the performance of their brand in the market. I would like to cite a few specimen cases indicating the diverse issues involved: Food & FMCG domain: • McDonalds had never introduced vegetarian options in any nation. To cater to the Indian market, they have introduced vegetarian novelties like Alootiki/ paneer tikki burgers and maintain separate kitchen for veg and nonveg food • Pizza Hut have customised their pizza to Indian market by introducing Indianised flavours like Tandoori paneer and paneer makhni amongst others • Cornflakes is thinner in foreign nations than in India as foreigners have the tradition of consuming flakes with cold milk but in India, we consume with hot milk.Thinner cornflakes were getting reduced to porridge when mixed with hot milk. So they had to introduce thicker cornflakes in India • Cadbury Diary Milk was targeting only youth earlier. But when they positioned their product as a family product by engaging the popular Amitabh Bachchan in their advertisements, sales increased by more than 5% • Chick shampoo of Cavincare targeted rural market by introducing sachets black in colour, having less quantity of shampoo to meet and satisfy and suite rural people’s sentiments and requirements • Apple pricing strategy is skimming followed by penentration. They initially price their products high to target the set of customers who are willing to pay high and get the gadget at the earliest. The moment a new version is released, the previous version of the product cost is re-
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arketing is shifting from mass communication to individual, one to one interaction with the integration of various digital technologies like SMAC. Also marketing strategy is shifting from product push to customer pull strategy. Digital marketing is picking up fast and intense market research is being resorted to by companies on their products to understand customers’ preferences and sentiments before targeting/positioning their products and services. Companies have started having their webpage in various social media platforms and are advertising via social media to reach to a wider segment of customers. Content management has become a crucial aspect in social media marketing as it is the content which delivers the right message to the end users. The number of competitors in each industry is increasing and each is following a different marketing strategy like differentiated pricing, adding unique features to their
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perspective Other Industries:
duced to target customers who are interested in purchasing their product at a lower price. • News feed in social media is so designed such that customers get news feed on the products and services based on customers’ internet search history. • In FMCG sector, companies package their products differently for rural and urban markets. For Rural markets, they target sales with smaller packaging and bright colours, while for urban markets, they come up with larger packets in sober colours.
• Nike, Airtel and Dell have introduced an interactive portal allowing their customers to customise their orders according to their respective requirements • Ericsson, when introduced its high-priced mobile phone in India during 1990s, it targeted the upper class folk by having their advertisement telecasted in a Five Star hotel favoured and frequented by the elite, also the ads had a classy look
As observed, products and services are becoming more and more customer-centric out of mandatory needs and necessities and the products are shifting from mass production to customised production to cater to individual customers’ choices. However there are instances where the strategies opted by some of them didn’t work because of improper assessment of customers’ choices and needs and insufficient marketing research.
Retail domain: • Many players have come up with customer centric loyalty program, membership cards and competitive pricing strategy to enhance their market share • Based on earlier purchase patterns of customers for specific categories of products, select customers often get email and SMS alerts on special offers on their historically preferred products using SMAC technology • The product line-up in modern retail outlets are so designed to keep the essential items at the far end of the row so as to offer better visibility for optional products to end customers
spective
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• Tata Nano: Priced at just rupees one lakh and equipped with all the basic features required for a car, they positioned it as the cheapest car in the world. This hurt the ego of the purchasing people and many of them were unwilling to purchase.So Tata could not achieve their targeted sales figure. Tata Motors, post the initial setback, has decided to upgrade the features and are now positioning it as an Ideal urban car. • McDonald’s “When the U.S. Wins, You win”: McDonald’s came out with a campaign to increase sales that if US wins in 1984 Olympics, the customers would win a “food item”. Gold medal meant Big Mac, silver medal meant fries and bronze a Coke. Soviet Union boycotted it that year, and the U.S. took home 174 medals, including 83 gold leading to unprecedented outgo of freebees. The result indicated that one should not strategize in an
per-
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entity where the end-result is un-predictable. • New blue coke: Because of high competition in the cola industry, Coke introduced sweeter blue coloured coke. However higher sweetness and blue colour associated with the edible items was not welcomed by customers. The reason for the failure was presumably portfolio misfit. • Toilet to Tap: This deals with innovative waste-water recycling in Orange Country, California. Though this project was successful in providing water for irrigational purpose, it was not successful in drinking water segment though it was advertised as the President of the nation drinking this water. This was attributed to the psychological factor, the “yuck’ factor” among the people. Now many companies have started bringing customers into their organization to explain them the stories and also establishing customer advice panel for providing ongoing inputs for new product or service development.
• The products have to be marketed in such a way that by purchasing or using it the ego of consumers is not hit.
• Customers now are relatively better informed and educated on products and services than before, due to the advent of technology and advertisements. Proper planning is vital and has to be done while developing new products so that the promised services match and excel the services provided by competitors.
Takeaway: • Once the product has matured, proper action has to be taken to assess and cater to the latent needs of customers and differentiation has to be conveyed properly. • Sufficient time and money has to be invested on market research to understand the changing customer sentiments. It has to be done not only at one place, but across the target geographical locations. Based on favourable responses, new products can be launched, or existing products redesigned.
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A customer-centric strategy can enable companies to understand the changing customer needs and the price customers are willing to pay, and consistently deliver on their promise to customers. Better assessment and better days!!
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RURAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP MARKETING Through Ecommerce BY ANU KAUSHIK BHARATI VIDYAPEETH INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT AND RESEARCH, NEW DELHI
Moreover, the speedy move of e-Commerce as a genuine business has pulled in a lot of little organizations and goaloriented individuals’ interest. It is renowned in urban region of India as well as famous among rural and private groups who are presently centering more on such technologies and by grasping these opportunities they are trying to create awareness about their products among urban clients. This dynamic change is bringing care to such rustic business visionaries who have limited their source to physical conveyance. Presently they can without much of an effort show and offer their items and diverse pleasantries to the individuals on the web. Giving simplicity in service to clients and offering uniqueness of their products to the world, such rustic ambitious people are progressing and adding qualities to their organizations. Ecommerce Penetration in Rural India With the ascent in use of web and making enthusiasm among people in India, the e-Commerce space has touched the new statures. More people and associations are presently capitalizing in ecommerce to enhance and shape their business. Breaking the conventional promoting methodology which had a standpoint of print media ruled as an initially limited classified service, electronic commerce has changed this long recognized trend to the expediency services for customers.
Ecommerce today is a crucial component which has gotten to be noteworthy piece of smart and quick way of life for a number of inhabitants in India. Nation today is at the edge of computerized transformation. Declining expenses for broadband membership, underpinned by the dispatch of 3G service, web entrance in residential communities and rustic territories have expanded gigantically. This has incited a rising number of “netizens” in urban and rural India, as clear from the report of IAMAI, which has expected that India will have more than 243 million web customers by December 2014. It has additionally expressed that with the advancement from year to year, the improvement in number of sites created by provincial and rural area businesses will further increment to 28%.
Today, numerous organizations are picking up accomplishment through conveying this innovation and to attain their position in the market. Not simply household benefits, moreover globalization of business on a worldwide reason has created enthusiasm for the organizations which confide in “development” through ecommerce. Also, this won’t just improve the trade of firm, however will also give a stupendous stage and an alternate open entryway for creating profits through different channels of distribution.
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A huge 63% of rustic e-commerce ventures have been started by entrepreneurs who show guarantee to ecommerce sector, an assurance by considering the growth and development and with consistent effort they have grabbed a lot of consideration of all huge and small size
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firms as well as funding speculators.
hai, by joining few present day practices of e-commerce, has possessed the capacity to procure profits for his firm. Through internet presence and website, it clearly depicts that the owner is trying to expand business and ecommerce is playing as a source to market the firm effectively across the world. It is not only creating awareness among the people, but his brilliant innovations like clay fridge are enabling him to take orders easily through internet where his physical reach is not possible.
A Case: An attempt has been made to showcase how rustic business visionaries have utilized and aimed to create benefit through ecommerce. By finishing unprecedented strides in mounting firms and delivering jobs over the late decades, they have likewise confronted numerous challenges and difficulties. To that end, an illustration of organization has been considered i.e. www.mitticool.in, which has effectively used ecommerce as a marketing tool for generating awareness among clients about its services and products. A representation about the case is given:
Conclusion: Through above case, the careful investigation delineates that numerous country entrepreneurs today are either arranging or stretching to new markets, dealing with their client base, enhancing their operational adequacy and business limits through productive utilization of technology. This has changed the mind set of individuals living in rustic and urban areas that entrepreneurs are not only aware about such technology but many of them have exploited it to a large extent with their accessible capacities. They have also thought of delivering it prior to their competitors by monitoring changes occurring rapidly in these sets of tools.
Mitticool Clay Creation Dist: Rajkot (Gujarat) India www.mitticool.in Mitticool is enrolled trademark/brandmark of MITTI COOL CLAY CREATIONS, an ISO certified organization. The organization designs and creates a whole run and assortment of earth items for general use in the kitchen like hot plates, cookers, fridges, water filters and other such products of commonplace utilization. It was established by Mansukhbhai Prajapati. He is a pioneer and visionary man who produced a creation like mitticool fridge that did not require electricity or solar power and could be used by many. Mansukhbhai had exposure to the clay tradition and practices since adolescence, as this was his father’s established profession.
It has been said that the urban individuals can undoubtedly utilize the facilities offered by such organizations yet question arises mostly what keeps rural purchaser from asking for online orders to his/her doorstep? One snag could be the nonappearance of online installment instruments like credit/ platinum cards or net-saving money preventing these purchasers from buy. Regardless the circumstances are evolving rapidly, with rustic and residential area firms like mitticool. Numerous others have offered different options to such customers through their sites. Now customer’s mostly rural clients will be more familiar with organization’s product and can easily call for home delivery through a telephonic order where numbers and email address are provided on their websites and product will get deliver according to customer’s convenience, creating rural to rural reach.
Thus, by commercializing these products and now considered as a successful entrepreneur, owner has also created his organization dynamic on online networking and has site for producing business- www.mitticool.in, which was started in 2009 and works till date. The firm has given complete information about the holder, products, their achievements, media updates, request forms & contact details on the site. This allows their customers to contact them for telephonic orders, requesting information that helps them to easily enquire through emails. Also, the association offers its items online through Craftsvilla and Nethaat, where web shopping cart is available for its customers. Additionally, the firm also enthralls demands and requests orders from their Facebook page. Therefore, it is evident that organization has created awareness to customers through ecommerce and capitalized it as one of the effective marketing tool.
Therefore, it is true to say that dipping reliance on retail deals, Ecommerce is playing a crucial role in expanding awareness of the product to comprehend and manage the demand of buyers and has become one of the major marketing tool for the businesses mostly rural entrepreneurs, who with their limited resources are trying to make it big.
Producing great web vicinity has put www.mitticool.in on even hold and equalization with bigger contenders and a fortune by keeping site on first page of search optimization is an alternate commitment to business. Mansukhb-
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Cover Story THE MYTHS OF A LOYALTY PROGRAM
Yash B. Bhambhwani
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position may involve hundreds of hours of expensive staff time to yield a few dozen good prospects of whom a mere handful can be converted into profitable customers. Firms that search for new customers by unsolicited catalog mailings are often delighted if the response rate is any more than just 1 percent. That is, 99 percent of the costs of printing and mailing are a dead loss. It is much cheaper, then, to get more business from existing customers. Firms do this in two ways: Getting customers to buy more when they buy or by getting them to buy more frequently. Getting customers to buy more usually involves some kind of sales promotion such as a bundle with an attractive package price (for example, season subscriptions to theater or concerts) or promotional discounts for quantity purchases. “Buy more” can also involve “upselling” the customer once they have made a decision to buy. Examples of upselling are add-ons such as selling spa services to a hotel guest or getting a firm that has agreed to purchase software to also pay for staff training. The second way to get more business from existing customers is to get them to buy more often. This is where Customer Loyalty Programs are most successful.
MARKETING BUDGET
It was always believed that for a retail outlet the biggest competitive advantage was its location, but with passing time this did not stand true as consumers had a large number of options available. Once location has played its part, retailers end up in a struggle of maintaining low margin and high costs. In such kind of businesses, price wars can’t be avoided. In this business differentiating on basis other than price is a challenge as it requires a lot of innovation and as time passes the price war continues to increase. It is therefore not surprising that many retailers have adopted loyalty programs as a convenient mechanism of meaningful differentiation. Businesses grow by either customer acquisition or by getting more business from their existing customers. Customer acquisition is invariably expensive. For every successful promotional activity (spending money and gaining a new customer) there is a vast amount of wasted promotion. Attendance at a business ex-
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THE EVOLUTION Although various forms of customer loyalty programs have probably been around for millennia, Leadership in the modern form is largely credited to American Airlines AAdvantage program begun in 1981. American’s charismatic CEO, Robert Crandall, moved the airline from thinking about selling tickets to thinking about their relationship with specific customers.
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only superficial differences in service, if an American routing offered a slightly less favourable time or the need to change planes on a cross country flight, good customers would choose a flight from a competing airline. The points awarded by the AAdvantage program were meant to tip the balance towards always flying with American. For each mile flown, a customer would accumulate points. When a threshold was reached, the customer could trade those points for a free trip. The motivation to always travel on American Airlines then became this: for a modest amount of schedule inconvenience, a business traveller could earn points from business trips (paid for by his or her company!) And then use those points for a vacation trip. The motivation was compelling. Crandall noted that the airline business exhibits an All said and done these loyalty programs play a sigextreme form of the “80/20 rule� (that 80 percent of nificant role in the business world today. In spite of profits come from 20 percent of customers). In the all its advantages there exist certain myths about loyairline business more than half of all passengers may alty programs. take only one trip a year, whereas the top 5 percent of customers may buy more than 20 round-trip tick- UNCERTAINTIES, AMBIGUITIES, AND DOUBT The feasibility and profitability of loyalty programs ets a year. After segmenting the market for airline tickets into has been debated highly in marketing literature but leisure travellers and business fliers, Crandall noted there still exists an element of uncertainty, ambiguity that the frequently-flying business customers are and doubt if it is sustainable. delightfully price-insensitive. While leisure travel- A major part of this doubt can be explained through lers are brand disloyal and always search for the best three myths: (1) architecture of shopper reward (size deal, business fliers are concerned primarily about and convexity of rewards), (2) architecture of retailer schedule convenience. The costs of airline tickets are rewards (horizontal competition) and (3) type of rerelatively small compared to the full cost of sending tail sector (frequently versus infrequently purchased an executive on a business trip, especially when the goods). cost of the traveller’s salary are included, and are We discuss each of these myths in turn. very small as compared to the benefit hoped to be earned by taking the trip. American airlines knew SIZE OF THE REWARD from marketing research that some of its best cus- Many grocery stores believe that the size of the retomers were disloyal: Since major airlines offered a ward does not matter when it comes to generating largely generic product flying identical planes with loyalty. Chains like Reliance Fresh, More etc. believe
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october 2014 crease their purchases to reach the next stage-and therefore more and better rewards-in the hierarchy of loyalty classes. The belief that loyalty programs lacking explicit tiered reward structures are ineffective is a myth. It is considered to be a myth because many retailers do not provide tiered loyalty programs but are still successful as they provide tailored offers to loyal customers. This is of more value to them than being a gold or platinum customer.
that their 1% to 2% payback are sufficient to build loyalty. This does not stop them from executing their loyalty programmes. This type of a reward is actually a “thank you” to the customer from the store for the privilege of collecting a loyalty card. Can such small rewards lure a customer to favour one retailer over another? Will the customer show his support by spending a major part in the particular store for 1% to 2% payback? The rewards can be categorized in to two broad categories: a.Turbo charged vouchers: These vouchers provide a particular multiple value at different locations like partner hotels and resorts etc. b.Tailor made coupons: Based on the data collected about the customer we make tailor made coupons for them So, from the perspective of the customer the value of the above loyalty rewards is more than the 1% to 2% payback. This makes them reconsider their decision of switching from one retailer to another. Therefore MARKETING the fact that the total value of the reward is not significant is a myth.
LOYALTY SYSTEMS AND COMPETITION “I am very loyal to my store; I have loyalty cards from various retailers!” In retail of grocery the shoppers hold loyalty cards of multiple retail changes. This poses a challenge to the success of the loyalty program as the share of consumer’s wallet is distributed. Therefore there exists a common belief that the loyalty programme fails in this case. However, it is a myth to believe that loyalty programs are ineffective when consumers hold loyalty cards from multiple stores. Though the customer hold loyalty cards from multiple stores he spends about
CONVEXITY OF REWARDS Convexity of rewards refers to the fact that all loyal customers cannot be treated similarly and so we need a stratified loyalty program for it to thrive. One approach to achieve this convexity in rewards is to create loyalty systems that are tiered. It is often debated that tiered rewards, such as those offered by hotels, airlines, casinos are necessary for loyalty programs to thrive. The idea behind this is that the customer should realize what he is losing if he does not accumulate points at a particular chain. Furthermore, tiered systems can stimulate customers to in-
2/3rd of his budget to purchase items from his favourite store. For the shopper, the dominant store will have an informational advantage over less patronized stores. There also exists an unmentioned cooperation between these retail chains. As observed above that there exists the concept of a favourite store which has the advantage of information availability over the other retailer. Therefore the competitor does not try to attack the customer base of the other retailer as it may attract retaliation from the retailer who is being attacked. The condition for a favourable equilibrium for all loy-
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alty driven retailers is that all players are reasonably satisfied with their current market share. If some retailers want to gain market share at the cost of reducing profitability, this will inflict a price war in the market. This will hurt the profitability, but with a result where the least priced retailer will earn the maximum market share which will benefit the customer but will hurt the market on the whole.
and as the consumer proceeds to different levels it becomes easier for him to accumulate these points. These solutions are being tested in various chains and the results are yet to be analysed. One new recommendation that is being appreciated by the industry is partnerships. In this process the business finds a sponsor to sponsor the loyalty program from which he can accumulate data of prospect customers for his own business and profit. This has been tested and in the time of big data is being seen as a lucrative source of data by companies.
LOYALTY SYSTEMS AND FREQUENTLY/INFREQUENTLY PURCHASED GOODS Many industries including retail believe that if the purchase of the product or service is not frequent by the consumer the loyalty program may not be effective. Considering the example of an airline company, airline companies provide frequent flier miles which can be accumulated and be redeemed for a free travel once a certain amount of flier miles are accumulated. In this case if the consumer is a business traveller who frequently uses the airline, this loyalty program will be successful in gaining this customers loyalty as he believes that he can accumulate sufficient miles to redeem them. In case of irregular flier who probably uses the airline once in a year the target is not achievable and the loyalty program will not affect his decision while making a second purchase. This myth has been found to be true but various businesses have found their way around it. In today’s time these retailers associate with other services where these points can be redeemed. This makes these points more useful for the customer. The other alternative is to provide levels in the loyalty program
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SUMMARY Many retailers are hesitant to adopt loyalty programs as they doubt that it will be sustainable. Retailers also doubt the profitability and returns of these loyalty schemes as they already run on low margins. But as we have proved, these myths not really true, and a variety of these programs can be refined by retailers to achieve differentiation and increased profits. When location, location, location does not suffice to attract customers, a loyalty program that appreciates their loyalty will be
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VARTALAAP An Interview with Mr Ashutosh Tiwari
Ashutosh Tiwari heads International Marketing & Innovation for Godrej Consumer Products Limited : a $1 bn + FMCG arm of the Godrej Group : a $3 bn multi-category conglomerate. He has almost 20 years of global, cross functional experience in business strategy, strategy marketing, brand, innovation and sales across diverse scales and complexity, geographies and categories, lien & corporate roles. He has worked with highly respected global & Indian organisations such as Britannia, J&J Consumer, Sara Lee, Mattel Toys, Godrej Group and Godrej Consumer with compexity ranging from single category to 14 category portfolios. He has helped rejuvenate or build brands like Godrej, Good Knight, HIT, Ambipur, HotWheels, etc. internationally. He helps businesses accelerate value creation & transform P&Ls through insight centered business strategy & construct with the organisation design implications.
Godrej Consumer Products Limited
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Executive Vice President & Head, International Marketing & innovation
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Markathon: What motivated you to pursue an MBA after doing CSE at NIT Warangal? Honestly, I stumbled on to MBA. I was already doing B.Tech in CSE, and I had already been placed. A full year was left, I had already finished my final year project. I really did not know what to do. I was in a lot of clubs like the Debating Club and my friends encouraged me to go for management. I had just given my GRE, but my friends said I should at least try (management). I ended up applying for three institutes, out of which, one exam I did not even appear. The second one I opted out midway because I found it so boring. The third one is what I ended up completing, and once you get selected and you get a good rank, then the pressure starts that how can you leave an offer like this. I had a job with Wipro Systems, I had a good score in GRE, but after I got selected into FMS, I was more like “what is this management all about”. And then I started reading up about it, I started liking Strategy and Marketing as subjects. In reality, however, my Computer Science has helped me as much in my management as my MBA. So, I didn’t see too much of a difference between them fundamentally in terms of problem solving. While management has taught a lot of skills, the aptitude of problem solving still comes from graduation days of CSE. The entire algorithmic approach of tracking down a problem into sub-parts and then putting a solution together or even going bottom-up is an aptitude that forms early. And somehow I found management interest-
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ing and challenging because the same approach can be applied to real life situation in which factors and variables not under your control, are far more than the ones that are under your control. Markathon: The Godrej brand was re-launched in 2009. How did this concept come about? What factors did you have to keep in during the re-launch and what challenges did you face? What we see eternally as re-launching a brand is part of a bigger journey. Godrej had been 110 years old as an enterprise and we knew that the brand was its most valuable asset. But, the brand had never been managed coherently. While the group had always been more consumer-driven, there was a drive to make the brand more strategic and consumer-centric. We felt that some of the capabilities that we were over-indexing the market on, were more on entrepreneurialism or operational excellence. So, without letting go off entrepreneurial spirit or operation excellence, how do we become more strategic and consumer-centric? The best way to do that was through Godrej brand. We started upon a journey which was very business focused, unlike a brand-focused journey that didn’t really start off with like let us reposition the brand or communicate the brand differently. It was more authentic and deep-rooted than that. The whole idea was that how do we build value into the Godrej brand? And how do we then transfer this value of the brand into the actual P&Ls
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october 2014
of the business. This involved working on three parts: consumer and brand, businesses and strategies, as to which of the businesses we will be focusing on, which will build equity and monetize, and the third was internal, related to the culture and employees. That was the kind of beginning of the journey.
not become as huge as it is today). Internet penetration in India that time was close to 9-12%. This, in a country like India, actually translates to almost 3040% at a household level, because in a typical household only 1-2 people come online. So, we thought it is a good idea to create a virtual reality world. It went to break a lot of records and did tremendously well Markathon: Godrej entered the virtual world with as a brand for us. And if I remember correctly, purGoJiyo.com in 2010. In retrospect, how successful chase intentions for Godrej on a scale of 1 to 10, will was this move according to you? What do you think be 9% on a 10 on 10 level for consumers went up is the road ahead for using digital media in market- to 23-24%. This happened among youth because of ing and branding exercises by Indian companies? GoJiyo, and we did not only create a virtual world, we advertised it, created a lot of episodic stories around At that time, one of the biggest challenges for Godrej it. It went on to bag a lot of international awards (was while repositioning itself, was to be more relevant rated one of the top six most innovative social netfor a newer psychographic of consumers in India works of the World, became a case study and many who are more optimistic. According to our research, more). We had a benchmark because of some other around 65% of Indians were attitudinally optimistic properties that we had done earlier. The most sucand half of them, around 35% were behaviorally so. cessful digital property before that was, I think, Gang As we were going around renewing our relationship of Girls. They had around 600000 users, in about 5 with them, there was a big chunk of customers who years. We were like, if we get there, then we have were younger, younger than may be 25, who were done something. What was very funny is the fact not really in the network of Godrej. And we need- that we got 1 billion users. We got 1 million visitors ed to reach out to them. But, we did not necessar- spending an average of 3 mins on the platform, we ily have the product range to start conversing with had 200000 users going inside the world, spending them in a manner that was authentic. That is one of on an average between 35-60 min per person. It was the reasons we said that we need to create a plat- massive. It was valued independently by Dun and form. One of the things when I was on that road that Bradstreet as a 100 crore plus. We never envisaged it I stressed on, was that I was not really in favor of just to a business, it was always envisaged to be a brand general corporate advertising. So, we need to create acquisition property, which has a life of its own. We something that consumers can touch, feel and re- sustained it for about 4 years to come up to a level, ceive rather than just passive communication. It did and now my successor is trying to experiment with not start off with GoJiyo. We figured out that internet certain things to take it to an another level. is obviously becoming huge (by that time mobile had
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vartalaap
october 2014
Markathon: You moved to corporate role in Godrej Consumers after a considerable experience in the FMCG space. What kind of trends have you observed during this shift and how do marketers cater to the different consumer requirements and perceptions in each space?
grapples with.
There are some very interesting things in this business which have got to do with value. How do you create value, how do you create P&L in a business like this, say consumer durables, where most of the consumers want to go to a carpenter to go ahead and get their furniture done. They may come to an exhibition, see your furniture and like it, pick up your catalogue, take a few pictures and then again go back to a carpenter. So, how to create experiences which are irreplaceable? In order to do that, you need to have technology into your products, because our neighborhood carpenter can never incorporate technology. So, Interio started incorporating technology for superior experiences. The other interesting part about this business pertaining to consumers is that, they are increasingly becoming design conscious. While it is still very expensive to do décor for someone, and décor is nothing but taking two different types of designs and make them interact with each other and come up with a coherent design language. So, consumers tend to use a lot of small articles such as curtains etc. in furniture to make it more harmonious, despite different individual pieces being distinct from each other. So, how do you get into those fillers, and bring them to market to help create décor? These are some of the things that this business often
There are lot of innovations that we are doing, going down the pop strata, whether it is Chotukool or smokeless coils, recently we have launched household insecticide, coil card, which has been quite successful for us already. Godrej No. 1 is quite successful, its Go-To-Market strategy is very different from a lot of other products. So, depending upon the category, most of the rural facing brands will tend to have a different activation strategy as compared to others. Having said that, rural and urban aspirations are similar in some ways and distinct in other ways. So, our strategy has been to build strong brands, which appeal for different reasons to different constituencies of rural and urban regions, rather than have different brand for Rural and Urban India, because that clearly doesn’t work. The manner of activating them could be different, but they are essentially the same brands.
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Markathon: What kind of disruptive innovations is Godrej Consumer Durables looking at to cater to the rural market in India? E.g ChotuKool was launched by Godrej in 2006.
Markathon: When you joined Johnson & Johnsons as Senior Product Manager in the women healthcare segment, the Indian market in this segment was undergoing a radical change. What challenges did you face in your role and how did you overcome them?
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vartalaap
Consumers & Market
october 2014
MARKETING STRATEGY
The penetration of sanitary napkins in urban India was 20-22 %. In a place like Mumbai, in a locality like Malaba, which has the crème dala crème of the society, penetration of sanitary napkins was not more than 40%. The reasons were not behavioral, but deep rooted, cultural and emotive. And they had to do with the society’s view of women as well as women’s own view of themselves. That is one of the parts that we started impacting a lot. There was a category development that happened at that point. The second thing was simply bringing down the excess cost of sanitary napkins. In a market where an average sanitary napkin’s cost was Rs. 45-60 at that point of time, J&J brought up a brand called Stayfree Secure which at that point of time cost Rs. 20. Because most of the people who were using home-made napkins were actually not paying anything, hence it was really important to cut down the cost. The third thing was that we started talking to mothers, not just about themselves, but also about their daughters through brands like Carefree which used to hold 15% market share. We started telling that girls at menarche need help and support, but at the same time, mothers want to live their dreams with their daughters. Whatever aspects of life that they could not enjoy, they wanted to give to their daughters. And somewhere exhorting their daughters to go for branded, good quality sanitary napkins became a reflection of their own aspirations. There are two challenges that as a marketer you need to cater to. One is the behavioral aspect, which can be impacted through innovations as well as lowering the costs. Second and the most difficult one is the cultural aspect, the way women
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Business & P&L
think themselves and each other. In several attitude studies, you will find women see this as a matter of shame, which I the part that needs to go away. Markathon: What is the one piece of advice you would give to budding Marketers? The only one advice will be that marketers take marketing too seriously and they do not pay enough attention to business. So, they still think that as a consequence of finding great insights, for example, or in order to delight the consumers, it is enough to do differentiated and relevant communication or design or innovation. But in reality, what they need to think about is that if this is the consumer I need to target, and this is the reason, then how do I design an entire business around it rather than differentiated communication and innovation or even activation for that matter. Most of the businesses, globally and in India, which have been successful, are those which have been wired to a certain type of consumer. So, their entire front end as well as back end strategy has been premeditated on that. Thus, you need to be more of a Strategic Marketer rather than a Consumer Marketer. Consumer Marketer says that I will do certain things to delight a chosen consumer, it is fair, but you can’t go bankrupt doing that. So, strategic marketer choses among different consumers and different offerings, which will be profitable and then engineers an entire business to delight that consumer. This is mistake that most of marketers end up doing. They only think about consumers and market in isolation of the business and P&L
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eye2eye
december october 2013 2014
Google Android One: Sure-shot success or an ambitious product? abhishek goyal nmims mumbai
ravi singh sbm, nmims mumbai
Google Android One offers 1.3 Ghz quad core processor, 5 mp rear and 2 mp front camera, 1 GB RAM, 4 GB ROM, and 4.5 inch screen in addition to latest Android version(4.4 Kitkat) at price points Rs 6499, Rs 6399 and Rs 6299 by Micromax, Karbonn and Spice respectively. Google is looking to differentiate Android One devices through software upgrades, more local languages support and value based pricing. But majority of the target market is not aware or concerned about software upgrades. Moreover, the device partners are themselves competing against Android One phones by already offering similar or better hardware features at almost same price. Also they have plans to launch phones in the Rs 5000-6000 range which will use Android but will be out of Android One programme. In addition, there is tough competition from non-partners’ products like Moto E priced at 7000 and Xiaomi RedMi 1S priced at 6400 with 1.6 Ghz, 8 mp camera and 4.7 inch specifications. The points of differentiation being portrayed by Google are in fact points of parity for the consumer. On the other hand, it is losing on points of parity too. For instance the battery in these devices is 1,700 mAh whereas non Android One devices in the same price range offer 2000 mAh battery backup. The build quality is inferior to Moto E or Xiaomi RedMi 1S. The USP of Unmodified Android technically called as Stock Android has already been taken by Moto E. On the whole, it does not seem to be a sure-shot success with its current value proposition. As of now it seems to be an ambitious project by Sundar Pichai, Senior Vice President, Google.
Google’s Android, propelled by its open source nature and high customizability, has become the most dominant mobile operating system, with an estimated market share of 85% (IDC Q2 2014). Now the internet power house has launched a smartphone with a Quadcore processor, 5 Mega-pixel camera, 2 Mega-pixel front camera, FM Radio on a 4.5-inch FWVGA(480x854p)IPS display along with features like Dual-Sim & preloaded Google Apps - All at a price point of Rs.6399. Google has realised the potential of India to drive the smartphone market, serving as a launch platform for its mass-market devices and softwares – (Google messenger!!). The importance of the market can be gauged by the fact that Sundar Pichai, himself came to India to launch the smartphone. Google has already partnered with Micromax, Karbonn, Spice and chipmaker MediaTek, while hardware manufacturers like HTC, Intex, Lava, Lenovo, Panasonic, Xolo and chipmaker Qualcomm are waiting in line to get a piece of the Android One pie. Android One itself, is like a reference platform where any OEM, such as Micromax or HTC can choose pre-qualified components and software to make their own version of the smartphone. Apart from keeping costs low and reducing time to market, this model enables smaller OEM at expense of larger ones such as Samsung. At this price point and hardware/software feature combination, Android One seems to offer “value for money” and an experience which will help it tap into the aspirations of users in a country where only 14.5% of the Mobile pie is owned by smartphones. Google’s strategy is to capture the exponentially increasing internet user market in Indian and get them on Android early on For Google, Android One seems to fit in as - A sure-shot success formula to reach the next 5 billion smartphone users!!!
Topic for the next issue: “Delivering customer experience in digital marketing - impossible or an avenue for creativity?” Your opinion (view/counterview) is invited. Word limit is 250-300. Last date of sending entries is 2nd Nov 2014. 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 october 2013 2014
Last month’s results WINNER nirna nevrekar | goa institute of management
honorary mention sai sashanka paladugu | Iim shillong
Theme: iPhone 6 # bendgate
Congratulations!!! Vivek receives a cash prize of Rs 1000!
THEME FOR NEXT SILENT VOICE: Chetan Bhagat’s Half Girlfriend LAST DATE OF SENDING THE PRINT AD: 2nd Nov, 2014 EMAIL ID: markathon.iims@gmail.com Send your entry in JPEG format named as SilentVoice_<Your Name>_<Institute>only.
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AD-dicted AD-dicted
PRODUCT: Bookmyshow.com
POSITIONING: Movie dekhne ka mood kahin bhi kar sakta hai
december october 2013 2014 By swati pamnani IIM Shillong
CATCH
POSITIONING: Die Young CREATIVE AGENCY: Grazing Goat pictures
R
CREATIVE AGENCY: Lowe Lintas & Partners YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=QNxq1DAiSUo CONCEPT:
The commercial opens up with a long queue in a cinema hall where an elderly person is shown annoyed with the long wait. He suddenly sees a man in scuba diving outfit, walking towards a counter where there isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t any queue. The man shows his mobile and gets his tickets and walks away. The entire crowd in the hall is amazed to see the scene. Next, a man in bath towel, busy shaving off his beard and some more people like a fashion model, a person getting a tattoo etc. get their printed tickets from the same counter, without having to face the queue. The film then shifts to a river scene, where scuba diver rises up the water, moves to his boat and uses his Bookmyshow app and instantly books his tickets. TVC concludes with a voice-over promoting the ease with which this app can make one book the movie tickets. VERDICT: Catch The idea showed how one can book tickets from anywhere and escape long queues. Today when people are so busy, they cannot afford to waste time in going to a cinema hall/ multiplex, standing in the queue for long for tickets. Now everyone wants an easy and quick service, hence segmentation is perfectly shown. Adding to good visuals and the background music, the TVC could have been made more humorous. Still, the agency has given a catchy commercial doing complete justice to the idea that a movie mood can set in at any time, hence you need a mobile app.
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By yash bhambhwani IIM Shillong PRODUCT: STREAX Hair Color
YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=m0JTMMsG0DY
MISS CONCEPT:
The advertisement industry with passing time seems to be converging to a dead end where creativity seems to be lost. We do accept that there are still a few advertisements out there that grab your attention but most of them have become monotonous. We have picked the product category of hair colour which seems to be advertising continuously on the fact that using it makes you appear young. One of the leading brands in this industry is Streax. The brand has chosen the action cum comedy actor Akshay Kumar as their brand ambassador. In the ad which portrays him as a victim of a bomb explosion situation, there is a forceful attempt by the storywriter to insert humour in the advertisement. During the advertisement Akshay asks the person from the bomb squad to colour his hair before he died in the explosion. Neither was the situation humorous nor did it trigger any reaction from the viewers. The creative agency really needs to work hard in terms of creativity as customers do not tend to consider a brand in their purchase decision cycle until and unless they connect with the advertisement. VERDICT: Miss According to Markathon, the advertisement failed drastically in capturing the consumerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attention and lacked creativity. If the brand plans to capture majority share in the market they have to come up with something interesting that will convert every prospect customer of hair colour in the market to a user of their product.
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ishtihaar
october 2014
Ishtihaar RAMANATHAN K | IIM Shillong
The Way out A question that has been running through my mind for quite some time is, what would be the role of traditional Brick and Mortar (B&M) stores in this E-commerce world? E-retailing, even though it accounts for only 0.4% of the overall market in India, it is poised to grow from a ₹ 12,000 crore business in 2014 to a huge business of ₹ 1, 67,000 crore business in 2020. Today, we are increasingly been attracted, and habituated for various reasons, to online shopping as more and more products/ services are being offered online. Even Cars and houses are now being sold online! With newer phenomenon like showrooming becoming more popular, what could traditional stores do to stay alive and differentiate against these E-commerce players? This is a very important and a pertinent question that every one of us will have to face and answer at one point of time. The question should be analysed from two different perspectives: One from the eye of big brands with huge financial muscle like the Future Group’s Big Bazaar or Infiniti Retail’s Croma stores and the other from individual local mom and pop stores who do not have much financial power. Omni Channel Retailing The companies which fall in the former category have many physical stores all across India and the only way out for such brands to stay afloat is striving towards Omnichannel marketing. As consumers move seamlessly between digital and physical channels, even during the same shopping trip, the lines between online and in-store shopping is getting blurred, and reaching out to consumers through all possible shopping points is becoming imperative. Every marketer should remember that consum-
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ers are no longer entering a particular channel but always are there in the channel interacting with our brands. Omni Channel retailers should get out of thinking in silo about the particular channel and should start focusing on leveraging all the channels to provide a seamless brand experience. Future Group is planning to invest ₹ 100 crore over next 18 months to provide consumers a single view of its many brands across physical and digital channels. This completely now justifies the move by various companies to open up their own e-retail sites and offering Buy Online Pick In-Store (BOPS) option. Apple is known for its BOPS option where the customer can place the order online and collect it from the nearest store within hours after ordering. Customers should be able to shop online and exchange products at any physical stores. A lot of the stores are spending huge amounts infusing a lot technology to provide an easy, convenient and seamless shopping experience. Omni Channel Synergy is THE way out for these retailers to make their B&M stores relevant today. The toughest part is answering the question from the local mom and pop stores’ perspective. With very little financial muscle, for them to stay alive is to tweak their strategy to make it their store relevant to the locality they are serving. The biggest advantage for such stores is the ability of offering customized, personalised service and they should leverage this advantage to enhance the stickiness factor towards their store. With all said, the major takeaway for every marketer should be that physical stores are relevant still in today’s context and henceforth will play an instrumental role in the growth of Omni-channel retailing. Reach me at 8415921950 or mail me in the id ramanathan13@iimshillong.in or ping me in FB ID https://www. facebook.com/ramanathan.kathiresan.5 for sharing your valuable feedback
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jab they failed
october 2014
Jab They Failed TOMMY HILFIGER
b ushashree | IIM Shillong
When Tommy turned Hip-Hop
Revolution or evolution? – it is a classic question brands and businesses are faced with today. Tommy Hilfiger is a well-known fashion brand that decided to take the revolution route which backfired. The brand was started in 1984, in a partnership with Mohan Murjani, an Indian entrepreneur who started Gloria Vanderbilt label, to design a preppy line along the same lines as Ralph Lauren. By late 1980’s Hilfiger found a new partner, Hong Kong knit-maker Silas Chou, and the brand grew steadily over the years. The company went public in 1992 and became even more famous. It was associated with “classic and preppy” and more importantly it was affordable. According to Hilfiger, this made it wearable and hence saleable. By the 1990’s it seemed like Tommy Hilfiger was everywhere. It was clinging to Britney Spears, hanging off Snoop Dogg and draped around Kate Moss. The Tommy logo became synonymous with cool and Hilfiger used it extensively. The Logo was present on every apparel and prominently visible, which is exactly what the consumers wanted. Hilfiger was happy to respond to its popularity among hip-hop musicians and athletes and gradually introduced hip-hop elements in its line. By the close of the decade, however, the line began to fall out of vogue and the sales plateaued. In order to gain relevance again, Hilfiger decided to completely revamp its brand. According to Hilfiger, the idea
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was to be the first in trends. And in 2000, the brand decided to push the envelope further than ever believing that the customers would respond. However, in doing so it moved away from its roots and the brand elements which had initially made it click. The first misconception the brand had was that people didn’t want the Tommy logo anymore. They took it off a lot of stuff and in many places they made it tiny. In other words, they became insecure about the very thing which had propelled them to success earlier. Hilfiger also launched a ‘Red Label’ a logoless sub-brand aimed at the very top of the market. This range included garments in the range of US $7,000 such as patchwork, python-skin trousers. Not only were these items very different from Tommy’s preppy style, they were out of the reach of the average Tommy Hilfiger customer also. Another mistake that Tommy Hilfiger made was to open stores in locations such as London’s Bond Street and Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive. In doing so, Tommy Hilfiger hoped to follow successful Euro-brands such Gucci and Prada which played on exclusivity and style. However, this was never Tommy’s forte. The brand completely shed its personality and tried to revolutionize itself. Needless to say, all these moves failed horribly. Sales plummeted like never before, customers and investors lost faith in the brand. Many of its new stores had to be shut down. Tommy learnt from its mistakes and decided to go back to its roots – “classic with a twist”. The brand was about color, preppy and class. It re-introduced its logo and went back to its colorful and preppy designs. It shut down several stores and entered into a contract with Macy’s, a leading retail giant in US. Sales of Hilfiger clothing have rebounded, according to the designer, and the company is positioning itself to respond to changes in the industry. Every brand has its image and attitude it should never forget or let go of this. Tommy Hilfiger chose to stick to its heritage and not chase trends as it had proved to be catastrophic. Chasing trends is an easy option that comes to businesses naturally but it is dangerous to do so. It’s more important for brands to be consistent. Time and again, it has been proved that a brand should never let go off its formula – its reason for being. Another mistake Tommy did was to compete with irrelevant rivals – brands like Gucci and Luis Vuitton had a different playing field and very different principles. In doing so the brand entered unnecessary and illogical brand extensions which proved to be its bane
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radical thoughts
october aug 2014
Radical Thoughts Varsha Poddar | IIM Shillong
The return of advertorials The journalism ethics of Bennett Coleman & Co, the publishing house that owns The Times of India came under a dubious light when the firm admitted to publishing ‘advertorials’ or articles that looked like normal press coverage but were actually paid for by a party with vested interests. Thereafter, advertorials became a sort of pesky norm that newspaper readers made reluctant peace with. Some newspapers then came clean about it and began to publish separate advertorial sections so that readers could discern between genuine reportage and swayed reviews. However, now, once again advertorials are surreptitiously creeping into a space that had previously been free of any vested-interest broadcasts – social media. Social media holds the power to make content go viral. Sites like buzzfeed, thoughtcatalog, boredpanda, to name a few, and their indian counterparts such as scoopwhoop, allindiabakchod and storypick carry posts that are essentially everyday occurrences boiled down to simple, laundrylist-like content. These are shared over and over again on social networking sites because people connect to them instantly. However, a lot of posts from these sites are actually nothing but advertisements pretending to be normal content.
the standard virality that the site holds. Scoopwhoop also ran posts such as the video “This Hilarious Prank Video Tells You The Difference Between A Good Friend & A Best Friend” which was actually sponsored by Airtel. While marketers are making good use of contentsharing sites such as these as they prove to be more effective and less expensive, social media users are beginning to question the authenticity of the content they consume, much like the newspaper readers did with the advertorials. And as a result, change is on its way – BuzzFeed now displays prominent yellow buttons saying “Promoted by (brand partner)” for its sponsored posts and “Publishing partner” for featured brand pages. While the indian counterparts are yet to take similar steps, it could only be a matter of time before the content consumers once again upend the publishers into telling them clearly if their early morning paper or, in this case, the never-ending lists and trivia they consume are actually meant to manipulate them into more consumerism or not
Take for instance, BuzzFeed’s post “10 Summer Emojis That Should Definitely Exist” which was actually sponsored by Starbucks or “What should you do before summer ends” sponsored by Pepsi. Posts such as there pass as organic as the title and URL give no hint whatsoever that the content is actually an ad. As a result, they gain much more viewership than advertisements that do not masquerade as creative content and often go viral, given
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updates
december october 2013 2014 By Amit Sonwani IIM Shillong
Brand Launch
Reliance Retail opens first cash and carry store in Salem Reliance Retail, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, has announced the opening of its first cash & carry store Reliance Market in Salem at the newly built Reliance Mall. This is the fourth Reliance Market in Tamil Nadu. The Reliance Market store was launched simultaneously alongside the inauguration of the Reliance Mega Mall. The Reliance Market store caters to the needs of not only the local kirana traders but also the traders of nearby towns, small businesses, hotels, restaurants and offices offering a range of regional, national and international brands to its partner members. Coca-Cola Zero launched by Coca-Cola India, initially in top 100 towns Godrej Consumer Products Ltd’s has launched the Protekt range of products comprising of a hand sanitiser, three handwashes and a skin spray mosquito repellent. Known to be effective, the Protekt hand sanitiser is alcohol-free that kills 99.9 per cent germs and creates a germ protection shield which lasts for eight hours. The handwashes are 98 per cent naturally derived formulas packed in recyclable bottles. The Protekt mosquito repellent is a water-based, non-sticky skin-spray called Buzz Off. It has upto 200 sprays and its 50 ml size, which makes it convenient to carry around while travelling. ITC set to make foray in home worship market ITC, the FMCG, tobacco, packaging, paper and hotels conglomerate, is set to plunge into the Rs 6,000-7,000 crore home worship or pooja market with incense products, an extension of its agarbatti business. In a soft launch, it has brought out packaged sambrani or dhuno, dhoops and combo packs of agarbatti stands, diyas and candles, along with its line of Mangaldeep agarbattis. As it did during Ganesh Chaturthi in Maharashtra, ITC will also launch limited edition packs of Mangaldeep agarbattis with pictures of gods and goddesses, which it says are sacred enough to find a place in pooja rooms in millions of homes across the country. It is also eval-
Brand Watch Amazon and Future Group ink deal to sell goods online; starting with apparel The world’s largest online store Amazon and India’s largest listed retailer Future Group have signed a deal to jointly sell goods over the Internet amid growing friction between online and offline retailers over heavy discounting. Future Group will sell more than 45 own labels of apparel initially, followed by in-house brands in the home, electronics and food categories, while the US-headquartered company will handle order fulfillment and customer service for the merchandise on its portal.
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updates
december october 2013 2014 Mahindra & Mahindra ties up with Snapdeal for pre-booking of Scorpio After books, mobiles, sundry electronic items and clothes, now comes a car. E-commerce firm Snapdeal on Thursday started accepting prebookings for the new variant of Mahindra & Mahindra’s (M&M) mainstay SUV Scorpio, making it the first time automobile bookings have debuted on a third-party electronic marketplace in India and marking another maturity milestone for the country’s fledgling e-retail sector.
HUL gets Mumbai vendors to wrap bhelpuri in leaflets featuring Pepsodent ad As part of a marketing campaign by Hindustan Unilever for its oral care brand Pepsodent, India’s largest consumer products firm has tied up with around 48 bhelpuri walas across Mumbai, asking them to wrap their popular roadside snack in leaflets of Pepsodent’s campaign about fighting germs and brushing twice a day. The HUL’s initiative can be considered a part of ‘earned media’, which means creating a buzz by virtue of your own action. At Fortune names 4 Indians including Snapdeal CEO, Micromax co-founder in its ‘40 under 40’ powerful people list Four Indians, including a Harvard University professor and the co-founder of India’s largest online marketplace Snapdeal, have been named by Fortune in its list of the 40 most powerful, influential and important people in business under the age of 40. The Indians on the list are Economics professor at Harvard Raj Chetty, who is ranked 16, Micromax co-founder and CEO Rahul Sharma (ranked 21), Snapdeal Co-Founder and CEO Kunal Bahl (ranked 25) and Twitter’s General counsel and the only woman on the company’s executive team Vijaya Gadde (28).
Ad Watch NSDC Hunar hai to kadar hai Urging the youth to stand up for themselves and earn the respect they always long for as they come of age, NSDC has created a simple yet appealing ad campaign depicting a male protagonist which goes on from being something from nothing through the skill development course offered by the NSDC. Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMEk3-RjEmE Raymond: Adding to the definition of a complete man Raymond’s core brand proposition ‘The Complete Man’ has timeless relevance and has always stayed at the heart of the product ethos. However, the brand expression needs to be constantly evolved in an ever-changing socio-cultural backdrop and in attempt to do so, the brand has come up with a series of new ads. The new thematic brand film with its refreshing insight builds relevance for ‘The Complete Man’ in today’s context. The brand campaign will be supplemented with a series of simple, engaging and impactful product
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updates
december october 2013 2014
proposition films to further enhanceRaymond’s strength in diverse product categories . Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5zba1xYyXI Honda has launched a TVC for its Amaze sedan conceptualised by Soho Square In an attempt to keep the brand on top of the customers mind this Diwali, Honda has brought out advertisement for its entry level sedan, Amaze. The film features a family driving through the crowded streets of Delhi in their Honda Amaze, guided by a map on a tablet. Lost, they make their way through crowded markets and jammed roads, seeking directions along the way. When the family finally reaches its destination (a wedding celebration), a host asks them if they had any difficulty finding the house. After the protagonist says, ‘Not at all’, the voice over says, “India Jaisi amazing jageh ke liye, hum laye hai ek amazing gadi. Honda Amaze. Amazingly Indian” (For an amazing place like India, Honda brings you an amazing car. The Honda Amaze. Amazingly Indian) Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91VK3NS0F38 Snapdeal: Appeal for good deal through TV Stars Snapdeal has launched a campaign to promote its upcoming Diwali bumper sale. The campaign consists of 50 ad films, starring 28 people from the fields of TV and entertainment. The films are in Kannada, Tamil, Marathi, Hindi, Telugu and Bengali. Released on 17 September, they were conceptualised by FCB Ulka. Each film stars a celebrity or an on-screen pair, playing themselves. The films cover two aspects of the sale: the wide range of products and the deals on offer. Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4iJC_qlOf4&list=PLUyVWEAUGgxkkulAJ-WmAesabG1SM42RI
Articles are invited
“Best Article”: Venkatesh KG | GLIM 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 2nd Nov, 2014. Please send your entries marked as <ARTICLE NAME>_<SENDERS’ NAME(S)>_<INSTITUTE> to markathon.iims@gmail.com.
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updates events
december october 2013 2014
TOUCHSTONE 2.0
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IIM Shillong
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Markathon, IIM Shillong