Marque Magazine - November Edition

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 mar keting enthusiasts who want to express their opinions on a va riety of themes. It brings me great pleasure to write this let ter as Editor of this one-of-a-kind issue of the magazine.

The theme of November's edition revolves around the demise of brand loyalty, marketing challenges during high inflation and reces sion times, QR codes & marketing, digital marketing, and much more.

I extend my warmest gratitude to all the authors for their interest, en thusiasm, and well-documented submissions of excellent articles and participation in this magazine’s building. I firmly believe that no mat ter 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 Demise of Brand Loyalty: A Myth or a Reality

Author: Attiso Bhowmick University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Bangalore

A Myth or an Incumbent Necessity?

While the exculpatory zeitgeist of the credulous con jecture on the importance of brand loyalty has obli gated all major brands to secure loyal customers for competitive differentiation, the truth about its reve nue subsistence functions may either be an inflated theory or an undervalued key business metric. As price loyalty becomes more dominant in the high ly fragmented contemporary markets, brand loyalty has indeed assumed a backseat in a few instances. However, there is a plethora of empirical evidence that growing reliance on price promotions is a tran sient phenomenon, incapable of earning the revenue benefits that come with brand loyalty. In this diverse evidence of anecdotal and empirical perspectives, this short article delves deep into the factuality of the current existence of brand loyalty.

What Drives Brand Loyalty?

Brand loyalty had always influenced consumer be haviors and has helped to strategize the perfect mar keting mix for the multifarious products of a com pany. Consumers have become more rational and are seldom influenced by the price competitiveness offered by some brands.

Despite the inherent technological com plexity of contempo rary marketing with fragmented retail, loyalty programs have found widespread acceptance from consumers, as in dicated by empirical surveys. A perspicuous method is to ascertain the relevancy of brand loyalty which can be plausibly derived from consumer statistics observed over time. One of the keys is determining the parameters driving the retail loyalty programs. One such report published by KPMG International highlights the principal reasons for this rising trend. The graph below demonstrates graphically the re sults of the survey sampled from a homogeneous pool of metropolitan respondents.

The data shown offers some valuable insights. The biggest incentive for customers to remain loyal to a brand is good product quality. Value for money is also the second most important parameter. It must be noted that value for money is a different concept than pricing. A consumer is willing to pay a high er sum if he or he is convinced about the getting its worth in the products purchased. Pricing advantages

are merely the numerically lower prices, irrespective of the quality that it affords. Therefore, pricing factors are one of the lowest attributes that drive brand loy alty programs. Pricing advantages offer a company customer loyalty, not brand loyalty. Customer loyalty forces the company to keep lower profit margins and limits the marketing campaigns to only price incen tives. On the other hand, brand loyalty diversifies the marketing portfolio to a product-based and innova tion-based approach. This rational reasoning is not just an invention of logic or a carefully constructed bias based on cherry-picked data, but a reality that has driven the psychology of the consumers.

Who are the Most Loyal Ones?

When the relevance of brand loyalty has been con firmed and backed by empirical evidence, it raises an important question: what section of the demograph ics drives this? Surveys across a heterogeneous group of respondents show us a clearer picture. The follow ing graphs show the demographic statistics related to the drivers of brand loyalty.

The baby boomer generation has been shown to have the highest percentage of brand loyalty and the Gen Z has the lowest. It can be made out from the data that the Gen Z population is one of the most disloyal consumers as far as brands are concerned. However, this is not something that might muffle the popular ity of Gen Z as they have the lowest purchasing pow er among all the demographics. The baby boomers possess the highest earning potential and econom ic purchasing power among all the demographics. They also surprisingly are the largest owners of small businesses.

The survey shows that baby boomers have the high est probability to express brand loyalty. Thus, we can safely conclude that the correct demographics have always preferred brand loyalty over price loyalty. The price sensitivity of the market is caused primarily by gen Z and millennials because they are still young with comparatively lesser wealth and earning po tential. Once they transition to a higher earning po tential demographic, they will also be equally likely to show a higher inclination toward brand loyalty. Personalized marketing campaigns that directly jux tapose with the belief system of the millennials and Gen Z have been shown to increase brand loyalty too.

Final Thoughts

It is very important to comprehend the value, eth ics, and implementing elements concerning brand loyalty. This has tremendous benefits in multifarious sectors like healthcare, FMCG goods, e-commerce platforms, financial services, real estate markets, electronics, and the apparel industry. Companies that have successfully implemented strategies to gain brand loyalty has reported to have higher repurchase ratio, upsell ratios, and customer lifetime value and customer engagement scores in their surveys. How ever, all the efforts to establish a brand value and re inforce brand loyalty can become fruitless when the brand is not adequately marketed and appropriate customer communications are lacking to substan tiate and minimize the number of touchpoints in a customer’s purchase journey. While this brief dis course may have settled the debate on whether the demise of brand loyalty is a myth or a reality, its ac tual impact and implementation still lie in uncharted territory in individual business scenarios.

Marketing Challenges During Inflation and Overlooking Recession

Author: Prachi Khandelwal Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow

Reeling from the after-effects of the Covid 19 crisis and the supply disruption across Europe due to the Russia-Ukraine war, India is currently undergoing in flation at a rate of 6.95 %, per the official data in March 2022. Coupled with the fact that due to the oncoming recession in the United States, the country's economy may be looking at a growth slowdown, if not a reces sion, companies in India need to be on the lookout for a decline in demand. In such turbulent times, one of the first instincts of companies is to start cutting costs to maintain the profit margin, with the market ing budget in front of a line of fire.

There are several reasons for such behaviour:

1. Unlike normal times when customers are open to spending after being influenced by a marketing cam paign, marketers face growing pressure to prevent the demand from dwindling as customers may now be more conservative in their spending.

2. There may be an assumption that all companies will be displaying the same pattern of cutting their mar keting spending; hence, it will not hurt the company.

3. Shareholders and investors grow increasingly con cerned about the company's expenditures and devel op a myopic view towards marketing.

4. There is an increase in customer acquisition costs due to customers taking more time to consider their purchases; hence, the sales cycle becomes longer.

5. Especially during a pandemic or recession, when emotions are high and consumer impression is cru cial, no firm wants to upset or annoy their customers.

While the default strategy in such times is to increase the price and thereby shift the increased costs on in puts to the customer, it is not the only solution. In fact, by increasing prices, the company may lose out on loyal or prospective customers.

Following are some of the approaches that marketers can adapt to shape their marketing strategies as per the current environment:

Understanding the Customer

As the economic condition changes, so do the be haviour exhibited by consumers. As per a survey con ducted by Ipsos, a marketing firm in the USA, "80% of consumers expect to change their shopping habits if inflation persists". Thus, a company must constant ly evaluate consumer psychology to understand what they are experiencing and accordingly anticipate their needs.

In such times, consumers are unaware of the subtle changes they make in their buying patterns, which may significantly impact company performance. This is where marketers come in and help us gain deeper insights into consumer behaviour. They may conduct qualitative research to understand the consumer psy che and get answers to questions that even the latter did not know.

1. Re-targeting

One of the first activities a company engages in as part of its marketing strategy is creating customer segments and targeting those whose needs they want to satisfy. Based on such segmentation, the company frames its marketing communications strategy – ob jectives, positioning, channel, and brand message. However, since consumer behaviour changes with time, companies need to have a much more focused targeting strategy. Since there will be added pressure to control the marketing budget, marketers cannot waste the limited company resources on customers who are no longer relevant.

2. Take Care of the Tone

Though companies need growing sales even during a recession, they can not run campaigns that are blatantly pushing for sales as a recession is a peri od where consumers are highly emotional. While it is imperative to maintain business performance, marketing communications should be sensitive to the ongoing struggles of the common man yet at the same time deliver the brand message and values.

3. Do not let those loyal customers go

During inflation and recession, companies are al ways trying to cut costs; one way to do so is by reduc ing the cost of customer acquisition. It is a known fact that it is easier and cheaper to retain an existing customer rather than acquire a new one. Accord ing to research by Harvard and Deloitte, customer retention techniques are a tried-and-true method employed by top organisations like Samsung and Honeywell to tackle the economic downturn suc cessfully.

4. Think of the Long term

While it may be for a company tempting to pull back on marketing activities and be conservative concerning the same during turbulent times, com panies should also consider the opportunities such times present. Many companies would end up scal ing back to maintain their profits; hence, a company

that maintains consistency in its marketing strategy – branding, communications, positioning - would gain brand equity and leverage the same when things return to normal. This is evident by research on the 1920s and 1921 recession conducted by Roland Vaile and Reavis Cox, businesses that continued to invest in advertising could outperform their ri vals in terms of sales and growth.

Inflation and recession will definitely shape the mar ket conditions for at least the next couple of years. The imperative comes on the marketing team to drive the business positively even during such times and maintain relations with their customers, who will remain with the company through thick and thin. While numerous challenges will be ahead, a strong, consistent, and innovative marketing strat egy will help the company come out of these trying times as a winner.

Under The Scanner: QR Codes & Marketing

Author: Suchismita Dam Xavier Institute of Management (XIMB), Bhubaneswar

“Bhaiyya PayTM hai na? Scan kar ke pay kar lungi” (Hey, do you have PayTM, I will scan and pay)- A ubiquitous phrase heard across India in shops, reg istration kiosks, amongst friends, whenever a mone tary transaction takes place. This simple and almost instant transfer of money has been made possible with the advent of real-time payment techs and the Quick Response Code (QR code), which is the focus of the article.

It would be wrong to think that QR codes are used only as payment gateways, they have become the preferred mode of identification for all types of prod ucts and services. The Indian government has man dated the inclusion of QR codes on Pharmaceutical Ingredients to improve traceability in Supply Chain. Tata Consumer Products also introduced QR codes on its packaging, directing users to its website. L'ore al started a campaign to promote their products to people stuck in traffic jams, which linked a QR code to video ads, and then directed users to D2C web site. Zara enhanced window shopping experience by putting a huge QR code on their glass panel doors in malls, the code allows customers to directly see the 'on-sale' items - literally allowing them to 'Window Shop'!

on their pages.

An influencer can be anyone, from a fashion blog ger on Instagram to a wedding photographer on Pinterest to a Twitter cyber-security professional. Nowadays, influencers use a range of social media platforms to promote or represent brands, including YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

Influencer marketing is gaining popularity as a cost-effective alternative to celebrity endorsements. This form of marketing may prove to be extremely f

All in all QR code has become an import ant tool for marketers to advance their pro motional campaigns, brand awareness, and authentication. Adding a QR code to promotional channels helps in making the Brand's 'Call to Action functional. They can be used for almost anything from simply directing to a Brand's website, contact information, location, app download to promotional offers and many more complex tasks.

The origin of this miraculous product lies in supply chain management. The Denso Wave, a subsidiary of Toyota, developed QR codes to track automobile parts during assembling in 1994. Version 40, the largest possible QR code can contain a whopping 4296 alphanumeric characters!

While it seems that QR code is all set to become the marketeer's communication tool with customers, there are some obvious challenges to the same. The first being its aesthetic, yes seeing a black and white ugly square pattern covering your content is never an ideal situation. This not only deters customers

from scanning it, it might also turn the user away from the Brand. Secondly, with reduced attention spans and an increase in content, QR codes are barely noticeable, even if they are, they are mostly ignored by the customers. Also, QR codes are often static, the information is not updated nor is it personalized for different users.

immediate discounts, Instagramable content, etc.

So, just putting the code on food packaging is not enough if it simply directs the customer to the brand website. This will create little or nil customer engage ment. QR codes if done creatively, have the poten tial to be the next big thing in Marketing. As they have percolated in all spheres like in restaurants for no-contact menus, and feedback portals. They would be great for “Above The Line” Marketing. Imagine waiting at a busy toll booth and suddenly the bill board displays ads for flats on rent, exactly what you were looking for. The ad has a QR code, which you scan and voila! Google maps location of the flat is displayed on your mobile.

Not only is it a great marketing tool, but it also creates various job opportunities for designers and coders to show their talent. Firms will need to collaborate with such QR code creators to boost their campaigns. As we looked at the QR code through our scanner, it is clear that it has a clear and focused, if not a bright future ahead, especially with digitalization being of utmost importance in the coming years.

But not to be deterred, there are innovative solutions available for the above challenges. Designer QR codes are already gaining traction amongst popular brands like Vaseline which used a QR code in the pattern of petroleum jelly, or Taco Bell introducing their gourmet menu via a QR code depicting lem ons, or Louis Vuitton who with designer Takashi Murukami started this trend of custom QR codes. Another trend in the QR market is Dynamic Code. This allows brands to get more personal with cus tomers. Dynamic QR codes can showcase different messages depending on the scan time, scan person, etc. A customized dynamic QR code can increase the scan rate by at least 30% as compared to the mun dane black-and-white QR code.

While designer and dynamic QR codes make it more appealing, brands will have to keep certain factors in mind to truly get measurable results. To do that it is important to understand the consumer journey. Consumers will mostly scan QR codes if they are ac tually looking for some gain point and would want some form of instant gratification. So, while curat ing the landing page/campaign through QR code, it's important for Brands to have a definite goal that they want their customers to reach and for the customers to receive some reward for reaching that goal, like

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Epopon nossis?

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Lionel Messi becomes the Brand Ambassador of Byjus!

“Education for All” - Byju’s social impact arm is focused at promoting equal & fair education.

Earlier this year, Byju’s became the official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 2022 taking place in Qatar. In connection to this, Byju’s announced that they feel Messi would be the perfect fit for their initiative revolving equitable education for all. Messi is humble, reliable, relevant & a powerhouse of talent - all of which perfectly matches the brand values of Byju’s.

Zomato offers Rs. 25 lakh for consumer created ad

Taking in Messi is a strategic decision taken by Byju’s to increase the reach and visibility of the pro gram.

Messi is more than elated to join hands with one of the best Ed-Tech Indian startups for a cause that’s helping millions.

Brand ambassadors can be a big deal for companies especially when they are trying to create a buzz and achieve something huge! We feel that Byju’s has taken the right lane when it comes to this one…

Zomato is proof that they can turn criticism into a super innovative marketing campaign. After con sumers. After consumers expressed their growing boredom with Zomato’s monotonous YouTube and TV ads, some users took to social media to criticize Zomato’s butter chicken ad. However, Zoamto seems to have played its cards well by coming up with a smart idea to help it come up with fun cam paigns while engaging with their customers.

The firm went all out, proclaiming that the ads do suck. So now, it has opened the floor for creative ideas from customers. What was commendable was that, apart from the novel idea, they also shared the feeling with their customers that made them win many hearts.

Byju’s tie-up with Messi comes ahead of the Fifa World Cup that starts later this month in Qatar and will feature Byju’s as an official sponsor. Messi, who plays for Paris Saint-Germain football club based in Paris, and captains the Argentinian football team, also runs his own non-profit organization Leo Messi Foundation, which deals with issues such as healthcare, education and sports.

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King Kohli’s Brand Value, Along With His Form, Bounces Back

Kohli has been in red-hot form in the T20 World Cup which is being held in Australia. The resur gence has led his brand value to have a V-shaped return. According to Advertising consultants, the former Indian cricket captain’s brand value dipped 21% from $237.7 million in 2020 to $185.7 million in 2021. Though many experts deny that his brand value was affected negatively due to the dip in form Kohli endured in the past few years but there is a broad consensus that the strong im pact Kohli is having on the current World Cup would surely help him bag hefty sponsor contracts.

Early results for the resurgence are already positive as reports suggest that King Kohli’s brand One8 has already witnessed a 15% spike since the Ind Vs Pak match. The resurgence would mean that Kohli’s fees for advertisement might balloon again. According to Aviral Jain, Managing Director of Duff & Phelps, the victory for India over Pakistan was unexpected and credited to a cricketer whom few people had predicted would have a successful game. Hope the ex-skipper continues his rich vein of form which helps the Indian team capture the Cup.

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Digital Marketing in this Era

Author: Reshma B Mohandas Institute of Management (MIM), Thiruvananthapuram

Introduction

The power of marketing is realized by all organi zations and hence the firms have started to invest a huge amount to set up a creative and dynamic marketing team that has the potential to lift their business to an elevated level. Since 2000, compa nies have started to experiment and explore dif ferent forms of marketing which can bring brand recollect in the minds of the people. It was during that time when digital marketing got a new phase of popularity and usage. Even though its presence could be traced to the 1980s, it got its strong foot prints by the 2000s. With the big bang of social media utilization, digital marketing created strong roots on the internet web. In 2022, we could say that digital marketing has become an inevitable part of our life.

Current Position

During the covid pandemic, when the world was shut down from physical presence, companies

companies started to strategize new ways to enhance and enrich their business during this unprecedented time. Understanding the hidden opportunity, many mar keters started to invest in digital marketing. Now, ir respective of age and gender people started to look for the things they wanted to have through the in ternet. This has paved the way for digital media an alytics.

Analytics is simply the conversion of data into ac tionable insights. In digital marketing analytics, consumer data is collected and used to derive the actional business information that could be used to plan the future marketing and sales of a unit. There are many digital marketing analytics tools to support marketers to derive the required information. Differ ent types of digital marketing include Content mar keting, Social media marketing, Affiliate marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click advertising (PPC), etc. The digital marketing metrics

are different for each - websites, email, content, etc.

Types of Digital Marketing

1. Content Marketing

It is a type of marketing where the contents are craft ed to address a large group of target customers. The contents are used to give an elaborate idea about the products or services offered to society. It gives the freedom to create content focusing on a niche and special group as well. Few types of content marketing involve blogs, infographics, podcasts, e-books, etc.

2. Social Media Marketing

It uses social media platforms to spread information about the products and services offered. This type of marketing is mainly used by B2C and SaaS com panies. Through this mode, strong relationships be tween collaborators are now increased at a rapid rate which has broadened the business of many firms.

3. Affiliate Marketing

This is a marketing method that creates reve nue at a faster pace. In this method, the firm part ners with other businesses and earns revenue through the traffic generated for the partnered website through us. Most of the blog creators are now using this method to earn an income.

4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is a marketing method that every firm looks into. It is a method in which the traffic of the web site is created through organic or web search es which are done by the users. For the same, the creators of a website try to make the con tent for the site that aligns with the current SEOs.

5. Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

PPC is a process where payment is done by the firms who are involved in PPC. It happens when a user clicks the link created as an advertisement.

DIGITAL MARKETING METRICS

Let’s discuss a few of the digital marketing metrics available: -

I. Digital metrics for websites.

1. Traffic

a. Organic traffic : A visitor who visits a website as a result of unpaid/natural search engine usage is

considered organic traffic.

b. Social traffic : It is a method where the user comes to a website using a social media post/anything similar to that.

c. Direct traffic : Users type the URL to reach the web site.

d. Referral traffic : Users are reaching the website using another website.

e. Paid traffic : Using sponsored content available, us ers reach the website.

2. Site load speed : It is the speed taken to load the web site when a user tries to visit the same. As per the stud ies, 1.3 seconds of the loading time is considered to be the best.

3. Visitor : The number of people who visited the web site.

4. Time spent on page : The amount of time a visitor engages in a site.

II. Digital metrics for content marketing.

1. Engagement rate : The total number of engagements for the content shared through visits, likes, comments, shares, etc.

2. Time spent : Time taken by the visitor to travel through the content.

3. Bounce rate : It is the ratio between the users who have not taken any action towards the content to the to tal number of visitors.

III. Digital metrics for email marketing.

1. Open rate : It is the rate or percentage of users who opened the email.

2. Click-through-rate (CTR): It is the ratio between peo ple who initiated CTA through email to the total num ber of people who opened the email.

3. Bounce rate : It is the ratio between the number of emails returned to the sender to the total number of emails sent.

4. Unsubscribe rate : It is the ratio between the number of users who unsubscribed from the email to the total number of emails sent.

CONCLUSION

A paradigm shift in marketing is witnessed through dig ital marketing. Apart from boosting marketing, it creat ed new job opportunities and careers for many. Without a strong and clear digital marketing strategy, it’s hard to withstand the current competition offered in the mar ket. Hence, it became an unavoidable part of marketing.

ARQUING

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