Marque Magazine - February'23 Edition

MARQUE

THE MARKETING CLUB OF IIM ROHTAK Edition 55

FROM THE EDITOR

Welcome to the very special edition of Marque magazine. I am delighted that the marketing club has been given the chance to use its monthly publication as a forum for all young marketing enthusiasts who want to express their opinions on a variety of themes. It brings me great pleasure to write this letter as Editor of this one-of-a-kind issue of the magazine.

The theme of January's edition revolves around marketing in nudge theory, AI and ML in marketing, socio-cultural aspects of marketing, and much more.

I extend my warmest gratitude to all the authors for their interest, enthusiasm, and well-documented submissions of excellent articles and participation in this magazine’s building. I firmly believe that no matter how your magazine is delivered; either at your doorstep or to your computer, printed on glossy stock or on cheap tabloid paper, appearing on your iPad or your cell phone screen, it is still the work of an editorial team for a discerning audience, a beautiful and meaningful package of ideas, words and images put together by a group of experts for its readers.

While technology efficiently delivers new stories to our desktops, lap- tops, and mobile devices, magazines are all about context –how ideas and images are presented in relation to one another and spanning a broader perspective. We, the editors, will always strive to keep you engaged.

The Influence of Nudge Theory on Marketing

Author: Tanisha Jain Delhi Technological University

In a company, management deals with several different tangents, from purchase, operations, and finance to final consumer marketing. In between these various processes, the one constant thing is ‘man.’ While, within an organization, there is human resource or simply put, ‘employees ’ Outside the organization, there are consumers who are the ultimate reason for a company’s success Understanding the consumers and their behavior is the key to a successful marketing strategy This forms the basic foundation of nudge marketing

What is Nudge Marketing?

Nudge marketing is a type of marketing that is based on behavioral economics It is where psychology meets economics Nudging is a concept where marketers attempt to carefully understand the psyche of various consumers and their buying behavior With this, they design selling techniques that aim to manipulate consumers’ purchase decisions

The term "nudge" was coined by economist Richard Thaler, who also received the prestigious Nobel Prize for his contribution to behavioral economics. He defined nudge theory as "choice architecture that alters people's behavior predictably.”

When we enter a market, nudges are present all around us from big showrooms to small shopkeepers. We’ve been victims of seller nudging techniques for centuries. A very simple example to understand the concept is: when we go to any fast-food joint and order, say, a burger. The counter service person would ask, “would you like fries with that?” That’s a gentle nudge. When given the option, we are more likely to buy fries as well

Examples of Nudge Theory in Everyday Marketing:

E-commerce websites generally add symbols to suggest that a particular product is ‘the most

popular among customers.’ This catches the eye and gives a subtle suggestion that since everyone is liking the product, it would be a perfect choice for them.

Often marketers follow the concept of “the Default option,” which is another nudge Say, for example, a streaming platform has different plans, “basic, premium, and gold ” The platform puts premium as a default option Default options are pre-set actions that would automatically be considered if the decision-maker does not specify anything Generally, default options are set as something that would be in favor of the company and consumers tend to choose that

Sometimes, in digital marketing, details of premium plans are mentioned on the left while standard plans are on the right This is known as ‘the anchoring effect ’ Through this, marketers take advantage of consumer psychology, which suggests that customers are more likely to favor the option they read about first

Another nudge that is frequently utilized in both marketing, as well as finance, is "the decoy effect " It is a phenomenon where consumers are presented with a less-attractive third option, ‘the decoy’ to make them choose between the other two alternatives For example, a small drink would cost ₹ 100, a medium-sized drink is ₹250, and a third option for a large drink costs ₹300 The company doesn’t expect consumers to buy the large option, but this would nudge the consumers to buy the second most expensive item on the menu which is the medium drink.

Several organizations also use nudges as a social marketing strategy to establish good habits and positive behavior in their customers. For instance, it is often seen that there is an extra charge for a plastic carry bag by big retail chains, this is done to minimize plastic consumption because many customers would rather not pay the extra fee. Some stores would place their healthy food options more prominently than the unhealthy ones, this slight nudge can help people adopt good eating habits.

Designing Nudges that have the Maximum Impact

A few factors need to be considered while developing nudges for one's organization.

According to Richard Thaler in his theory, he mentions that nudges should never be misleading and the consumer should always have the final say. Nudges are just to influence a decision but they should not be harmful and always be in the best interest of the consumers.

To develop a nudge strategy, one should keep in mind the target audience. When the company knows who they are marketing to, they can choose the words and phrases that will resonate with them the most By and large, consumers choose companies that have social proof markers such as ‘bestseller’, ‘most popular’, ‘top recommended’, and so on

The marketers can also highlight the unique selling point (USP) of the product. The product's unique selling point is something that distinguishes it from the competition. The use of such messages can nudge them to buy that company’s product offering. The final step in creating the most effective strategy is to test the nudges Check if the nudges are working and make changes according to how the consumer behaves

In nudge marketing, the most important thing to remember is that "even the slightest nudge can have the biggest influence " Nudges aim to make customers' decision-making process easier When applied wisely, they can be the most cost-effective kind of marketing As they say, "The consumer is God, understand them and one will rule the market!"

The Game of Efficiency: Contextual vs Behavioral Advertising

Author: Nobarun Shome Choudhury

K J Somaiya Institute of Management

Having a conversation with your friend on your intentions to buy a new headset and the next thing you see is advertisements and product recommendations of earphones/headsets everywhere over the internet Sounds a familiar instance right?

This might seem magical and so resourceful but what goes behind creating this “magic” is something very scary To provide such customized recommendations, brands keep an eye on the online behaviour of their potential clients. Using third party cookies, brands try to sneak into each and every act of people online, ranging from websites visited, products viewed to even purchases made. Such processes to push relevant advertisements are called Behavioural Advertising, where the individuals are fed the ads which align with their online searches. Many of the giants like Meta, Amazon, Google also seek permissions such as audio and media access, which can lead to a breach of individual privacy. With information attained through such access, one is fed with ads of higher precision.

Diving into a bit more depth of the kind of decision aids, a standard classification that prevails is how interactive the aid is. What also matters is the characteristics of the consumer and what type of decision-making style they might have Broadly, one way to classify consumers is to understand whether they are maximizers, who want to maximize the quality of the decision they are making and look for near perfection, even at the cost of a significant amount of time and effort, or whether they are satisficers, who are satisfied by a good enough match, and do not want to expend much energy into the search for perfection

The Google Fiasco

Google got into a lot of trouble related to privacy when Sundar Pichai and his team had to appear in front of US Judiciary Committee as a part of Congressional hearing The entire team of google

was asked questions related to their policies on privacy and customer information gathering and ethical practices with the obtained informaton Most of the answers of Pichai revolved around the fact that, Google gets information about customers, based upon the type of permissions given by them This statement definitely leaves room for doubt and fails to explain to what extent/ are details of an individual exposed to the internet

“OK Google”, the voice assistant of Google operates on taking voice commands from users and searches the internet for options Google claims that on giving audio permission, the voice assistant becomes active on listening to the wake phrase “OK Google” and does not record anything else that we say before the command But with multiple news articles, media coverages and people talking openly about being shown ads when they talk about something related near their phones, shows the unclear lines of regulations that exist surrounding privacy and how it is of much larger concern.

Welcome to a cookieless world

Netizens, as the term suggests are habitual users of the internet who are highly aware of their privacy and how to safeguard it. The rising awareness on data privacy from leading news platforms, social media, judiciary etc. have made people understand how they can securely make sure that they do not leave behind crucial data to be openly exploited.

This changing ecosystem has made life a complete mess for marketeers, who relied on data through cookies to target their TGs The entire internet boom in India which happened after the introduction of Jio, made ease of doing business, an easily achievable feature for businesses, especially the start-ups, as reaching customers became easy because of lower internet package charges, higher bandwidth, easily accessible public data through cookies etc People rejecting

cookies is taking away one of the highest prized possessions that the internet boom had to offer. It feels like going back to the pre-fast internet phase, where brands had to struggle to find and target the potential customers. This calls for stern actions which can be a possibility through Contextual advertising.

Back to the basics

With the rising awareness on privacy and reduction in the use of cookies from third party platforms, brands need to move to alternate solutions and not just focus on just reaching the TG Equal importance needs to be given to factors such as relevant content, creativity, positioning, relevance in use etc Such initiatives gives rise to the ace factor named contextual advertising, which was the go-to strategy for any brand before cookies took over Contextual advertising involves showing ads that are contextually relevant to the content a user is consuming This focuses on creating a feeling of need by running relevant ads, such that visitors when visiting a particular platform searching for particular products or services are shown ads which correlate with the content of the platform giving the brand a higher opportunity to connect with the visitors

The New Dawn – Contextual Advertising

A neuroanalytics study on contextual ad effectiveness by GumGum (a contextual intelligence company) and Spark Neuro (a neuroanalytics company) did closed group experimentation using proprietary computer vision and natural language processing technology to found out contextual advertising fared against behavioural advertising. The main point in focus was to understand how an ad’s contextual relevance impacts consumers’ emotion and attention.

from quality of content to somehow reaching eyeballs But now, /brands and agencies need to not just focus on reaching the right TG but also bind them by impactful and meaningful content This allows room for creativity and marketing to come together to produce content that can reach and stay with the TG

What do (A)I think?

Author: Chirag Goel Xavier Institute of Management (XIMB), Bhubaneswar

Artificial Intelligence and Automation tools & services are assisting in the transformation of everything, from marketing data collecting and processing, to HR onboarding. While AI and automation have huge value in terms of internal time and cost savings, there is one area where AI may deliver even greater, more meaningful results: customer experience. We live in the twenty-first century, and technology has taken control of both our professional and personal life. It has caused businesses to reconsider their strategy and embrace a new era of service quality.

Artificial Intelligence in Marketing

AI marketing is a technique for enhancing the consumer experience via the use of technology. It can also be used to improve marketing campaigns' return on investment To obtain insight into their target audience, organisations use big data analytics, machine learning, and other procedures They establish more effective client touch points with these insights AI eliminates most of the guesswork involved in client interactions, whether it is for email marketing or giving customer service

extraordinary customer experience. AI customer relationship management and customer data platform software’s have made it accessible to businesses without the exorbitant expenses traditionally associated with the technology. But what about the customers?

Benefits for Customers:

#1: Convenience

Customer satisfaction is based on convenience, as any customer will tell you. Many brands are moving to AI technology that can provide proactive service that saves customers time and effort. Amazon, for example, uses interactive Chatbots that helps in providing real-time assistance The chatbot delivers information such as current state of a customer’s order(s) or estimated time of arrival and even register complaints via the portal on the application with pre-set options to choose from Michelin, meanwhile, utilises AI to predict when a customer's tyres need to be replaced As a result, one of AI's primary advantages is its ability to properly use data to provide proactive service

#2: Personalised Services

Hyper-personalization blends AI and real-time data to deliver information tailored to a customer's individual needs It enables tailored experiences that are also considerably faster and more convenient than traditional methods of dealing with businesses, such as sitting on hold for a call or scrolling through pages to locate the information you need. Ai is helping to minimise pain spots in the client journey, in addition to providing a more personalised experience.

#3: Targeted offers

Artificial Intelligence continues to rise in popularity among marketers as well as business executives, and has become an indispensable tool for brands that want to create a hyper-personalized,

When big data and behavioural psychology are integrated, AI can successfully target customers and drive them to purchase using the knowledge obtained from these sources. Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to predict human behaviour.

Marketers may use behavioural psychologists' personality measures to better understand the underlying causes behind people's decisions. Brands can send customised communications that motivate and persuade people to act by combining demographics collected on potential customers with psychological profiles produced through behavioural research This helps the customers find either exactly what they were looking for or what they would have needed It helps save effort and time and also gives a feeling of being understood by a brand

#4: Deeper engagement

Once a brand has gained a customer, it must make every effort to keep that customer engaged Running exciting social media competitions, providing clients with intriguing video content, or keeping them interested throughout a customer experience are all ways to increase customer engagement For example, TGI Fridays, a multinational restaurant and bar business, has improved its customers' experience by investing heavily in AI When someone tweeted about TGI Fridays, booked a reservation online, cancelled a reservation, or paid with a credit card, the restaurant chain has attempted to use that information to improve an individual's experience with the brand. This type of interaction allows customer reviews to get through using NLP.

#5: Answers on all platforms

It's predictable that people choose to interact via instant messaging or their preferred social media platform. Organisations must be able to respond to them whether they contact brands via Instagram Messenger or WhatsApp audio. By using Conversational AI to automate customer support across all channels, brands can provide a tailored and comprehensive experience for each engagement while remaining true to their voice and tone. Additionally, the replies can be made more interesting by including complements such as movies, carousels, buttons, or forms

#6: Perpetual Availability

Because of the increasing speed and connectivity of the Internet, we now expect everything to be 'immediate' Millennials don't have a lot of patience As a result, organisations must assure high availability in order to provide support Chatbots powered by AI are quite useful They have sophisticated talks nonstop, 24 hours a day, seven days a week Customers can talk to chatbots at any time, and there are no time

constraints on how long they can talk to them. With Chatbots, there are no provisions for vacations, sickness, or frustration. While a human agent may become frustrated or give up trying to solve a problem, this will not happen with technology. A company may rely on trained Chatbots to serve consumers regardless of time or other constraints

#7:

Increased Privacy and Security

On digital channels, ensuring secure transactions and protecting clients' data is an essential component of the service A security incident management policy, data isolation, and data protection in conformity with privacy and auditing standards are all important components of providing effective service When it comes to ensuring the detection and proper handling of risks, incorporating Artificial Intelligence becomes critical Brands that incorporate the feature have an upper hand in customer retention and increased brand reputation

Conclusion

With artificial intelligence and machine learning, it's time for a reality check. There's no turning back to the old methods of providing customer service. Businesses want AI-enabled solutions to anticipate client needs before they ask. For those that use AI in their customer care, it will undoubtedly improve the game. It is no longer an option, but rather a requirement for a customercentric organisation. AI-assisted customer service will boost efficiency, boost engagement, minimise reliance, and pave the door for new ways to outperform the competition Consumers that deal with AI more frequently are more positive about it

According to a Genpact study, customers are more than three times as likely to think that AI is improving their rather than making it worse with younger consumers more than twice as likely to say it's having a positive influence As a result of technical advancements and younger consumers who are expected to prefer more involvement with AI rather than less, AI is poised to transform the consumer experience

Social & Cultural Sensitivity in Modern Advertisements

Author: S Vasudevan Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI)

Advertisements must be created in such a way that influences the buyer to go for their product and the required satisfaction is created for the money being spent. Brands often spend huge sums of money on various marketing agencies for creating big-budget advertisements to stimulate the demand for their product Global brands spent a whopping $493 billion dollars on advertising

Expenditure of Indian brands in the “Advertising” space

Since we have understood the importance of advertisements and the benefits accruing to the businesses because of advertising, let us move to the main issue which is to be answered urgently by many brands and that is, the level of social and ng followed in all these tunately, due to cutthroat craze for launching new en, brands tend to forget rules or traditions while t. They need to understand yal of a nation’s culture or to bring them any revenue. y, they tend to lose their value which might hamper ntly. When brands face the he losses are estimated at

A survey depicting possible consequences of offensive advertising

Moving on, let us now see how social and cultural values can be managed in advertisements of the brands First and foremost, the majority of the brands tend to downgrade social values and traditions in their advertisements in the name of “Progressiveness” and most of them (brands) have failed terribly in these experiments in the forms of ads Therefore, to manage these values, the brands must have to draw a clear line between “Progressive values” and “Social, cultural and religious values” This can be rectified by understanding the prospective market’s social and cultural values and to the extent to which progressive values can be comfortably depicted to the public

Next, brands at times improperly portray certain values which may not be accepted positively by the public, to avoid this they must study the local culture and its ethos and values. This can be in form of deploying someone aware of the local traditions and cultures while filming the ads or collecting necessary information through the form of a survey. As discussed earlier, the brands tend to be in a hurry because of which the net result is deficient. Also, by engaging a local partner, the wrong interpretation of the culture can be eliminated.

A diverse menu of McDonald’s compliant with the social and cultural values of the host country

Moving on, brands tend to stereotype many issues ranging from gender stereotypes to racial or ethnic discrimination. Flawed advertising which mocks stereotyping of sensitive issues brings in a lot of bad reputation which may damage their brand image beyond repair, brands tend to forget ethics in advertising to promote their product which results in stereotyping. They even tend to ignore the minority population of consumers to cater to the majority consumers, they can be managed effectively by bringing in the values of inclusion and diversity in their ads

After knowing about certain blunders which brands commit by degrading social and cultural values, let us know what the brands can do to manage social and cultural values, firstly they might have to thoroughly research the market and learn about all the traditions and their tolerance to progressiveness Also, when brands advertise in the print media, they must be careful in picking the images since wrong interpretation may cost the brand

Also, the government can play a role in helping manage the social and cultural values in the advertisements, it can promote a business environment which has a low tolerance towards advertisements which degrade their culture with all access to freedom of speech and expression. Awards must be announced to those advertisements which perfectly depict the values, also brands must be sensitised about the expectation of the government and the public from them when it comes to the promotion of their brand This can make the brands aware of their goals and objectives in the country

MARQUING OMENTS T H E

MARQUING OMENTS T H E

#BUZZFEED

Adani Group Hindenburg Row!

On January 24, short-seller Hindenburg Research, located in New York, released a report on the Adani Organization of Companies, accusing the group of committing in decades-long stock manipulation and accounting fraud. According to The Adani Group's response to the group, the report is "a vicious combination of selected falsehoods and outdated, unsubstantiated and debunked charges." On January 25, India's largest-ever secondary share offering was scheduled to begin with the sale of shares of Adani Enterprises, the conglomerate's flagship company and provider of ports to energy. The corporation nonetheless launched the FPO despite the findings. After navigating the early bumps, the Follow-On Public Offering (FPO) was subscribed to entirely on January 31. However, within a day, the business announced it had cancelled its FPO and would return investors' funds.

The market capitalization of the Adani group companies fell precipitously by Rs 9.5 lakh crore on Monday as shares of the majority of the group companies ended down. Six of the ten Adani group firms finished Monday's trading session in the red, with Adani Transmission losing 10% At the same time, the shares of Adani Total Gas, Adani Power, Adani Green Energy, and Adani Wilmar all fell by 5%. In just eight trading sessions, the market capitalization of the Adani group's shares has almost halved. The market value increase after January 2020 was astonishing, much like the current decline.

Adani Group companies lost almost Rs 9 lakh crore in market capitalization over the seven trading sessions from January 24 to February 3. From Rs 19.2 lakh crore on January 24, the day Hindenburg Research made its study public, to Rs 10 lakh crore on February 3, the Adani Group's total market value decreased.

#BUZZFEED

Ranbir Kapoor & Oppo Reno 8T Smartphone

LiA video of Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor hurling a fan's phone while the man tried to take a selfie with the Brahmastra actor went viral just a few days ago. The video quickly went viral on social media, and Kapoor came under fire for being so impolite to a fan who only wanted a photo with the actor What if, however, there were a flaw and the actor hadn't actually thrown the fan's phone in a fit of rage?

The actor only did this as a publicity stunt to promote the Oppo Reno 8T smartphone, which will officially launch in a few days. For those who don't know, Kapoor has been a brand ambassador for Oppo for a while and has previously been spotted promoting the Oppo Reno smartphone.

MARQUE-THEMARKETINGCLUB

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT ROHTAK

marketingclub@iimrohtak.ac.in

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the stake holders of IIM Rohtak.

EDITOR : Soumika Paul, Ivanna

DESIGN : Rajan Mittal

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