The Marksman - Summer '15

The

MARKSMAN

K J SOMAIYA INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES & RESEARCH VOL. VI | ISSUE I | SUMMER’ 15

Brand Markive: Absolut Vodka >>pg 07

Special Story: Sit Back, Observe, Ambush! >>pg 12

>>pg 15

Hallmark Campaign: #Play With Oreo

Pioneer: Elon Musk >>pg 17

EDITOR’S NOTE Dear Readers, We welcome you all to the much awaited summer edition of our magazine, “The Marksman”. There was a delay in releasing it due to certain unforeseen circumstances as you all would have noticed, nevertheless, this time we have a new section which we hopefully feel will compensate for the delay occurred.

This new section contains the experiences shared by our Marketing committee members during their past two month stint in certain companies such as Groupon, GEP, SBI etc. We hope it will help you to get an overall idea about the company, the profile that our friends are into, the nature of their work and more.

In addition to that, we have a series of other exciting articles lined up for you this month, as always.Our Cover Story talks about FREEBIE MARKETING, the idea behind giving away products and services for free or at a nominal price. This month’s Special Story is about Ambush Marketing built around Flipkart’s #Achakiya campaign. Our Brand Markive talks about “Absolut”, the Vodka Brand which is known for its different flavours originated in Sweden.

In addition to that, we even have our regular yet exciting sections on: Tweets, Bookworm, Buzz, Ad-itude, Squarehead, Hallmark Campaign, FauxPass and Pioneer.

We are extremely glad to inform you that we had received a great response for our call for Articles. After thorough evaluation, we have elected the articles of Gautham Sethuraman from IIFT and Hariprasad Kamath from NMIMS to feature in this month’s issue. We thank all our participants for sending their articles and encourage them to keep writing to us with the same fervour.

Feed back is always welcome and we would appreciate and acknowledge if our readers keep writing to us.

Stay connected with us on www.interfacesimsr.com/the-marksman.

Follow our Facebook page for more updates.

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Contents TWEETS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 03 IT’S ALL ABOUT AD-ITUDE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 05 BRAND MARKive - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 07 COVER STORY: FREEBIE MARKETING - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -09 SPECIAL STORY: SIT BACK, OBSERVE, AMBUSH! - - - - - - - -12 MARKETING FAUX PAS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 14 Hall-MARK CAMPAIGN - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -15 PIONEER - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -17 MARKETING RealTIME - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 19 INTERNS SPEAK - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 23 BOOKWORM - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 26 BUZZ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -34

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THE MARKSMAN

TWEETS That’s how the noodle crumble!

The food safety regulators found out that the amount of Lead in the young India’s so-acclaimed National Food, Maggi Noodles was much more than the highest permissible level. While the walls of media echoed the news for days and weeks, Nestle was a bit too late in its damage control. Appointing a globally renowned name didn’t help much in the cause and currently Nestle is in the process of destroying 27,420 tonnes of Maggi which is worth Rs. 320 crore. FSSAI is overseeing this process taking place at 11 cement factories which is expected to take 40 days. While 3.5 million shelves are believed to offer Maggi, the number of people fuming over this incident is uncountable.

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Graf to Ace up the Graph!

In a rather shocking move, tennis mega star Steffi Graf has been appointed the new brand ambassador for Kerala’s tourism!

Graf is being signed in as the ambassador for the Ayurveda part of the “Visit Kerala” scheme. While general public is having no clue about such a move, the cabinet is reassured of this decision of theirs. God’s own country, as it is fondly called is on its way to improve the state tourism through this whole campaign, of which this move is an important link. 46-year old Graf retired in 1999 and has bagged 22 grand slam single titles. Hope this ‘service’ by Graf ‘aces’ up the tourism sector in ‘straight sets’.

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TWEETS The marketfield-cumbattlefield!

India’s International Yoga Day! 21 June 2015, the longest day of this year embarked another glory upon it after on recommendation of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, United Nations declared it as the International Yoga Day. The PM himself was seen doing yoga at the event in the Indian capital. The Guinness Book of World records says on this day, India has registered two entries against its name, for holding the largest Yoga Class in one day (more than 35,000 people) and for the participation of the largest number of nationalities in a single yoga event (more than 80). The better part of it is about India not only trying to setup its global impact in a soft way, but also about expecting a firm increase in the turnover of this industry born around this Indian-origin art, worth of which is more than 30 billion US dollars, in the United States alone. This is not only a strategic business point but also meets the cultural values at the same time. Bravo!

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The news of de-regulation of diesel prices brought happiness on a lot of faces, including that of all of the people associated with the private players associated with the industry. The oil retailing and marketing industry is one the most influential part of the country’s landscape as it directly plays a role in the freight cost, which indirectly impacts the whole nation’s economy through inflation.

This move which was earlier taken back by the government in 2008, has made the marketplace open for all including the big churners as Reliance Oil, Essar Oil and Shell India. While Reliance has announced about opening the remaining of its retail outlets (around 1000 in number) seeing the dust of the day, other names are busy in expanding the same. One thing is for sure, this market is surely going to become the most interesting-marketing warfare ground in the coming time between the the state owned OMCs (IOCL, BPCL, HPCL) and the private players.

THE MARKSMAN

IT’S ALL ABOUT AD-ITUDE TELEVISION AD Lloyds Bank: Horse Story The iconic black horse of Lloyds Bank is back to feature in its 250 years anniversary celebration advertisement.

This 90-sec ad shows people through different ages in the last 250 years with the black horse right beside them. This ad has been aimed to show that the bank has been by the sides of its customers through thick and thin since 1765 and it will continue to do so in the future.

The ad has been conceptualized and made by the agency adam&eveDDB and was released in the first week of July, 2015 in the United Kingdom.

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IT’S ALL ABOUT AD-ITUDE

PRINT AD PHILIPS: No Way Out for Dust Ogilvy & Mather strikes again with its 3 print ad series for PHILIPS vacuum cleaner CompactGo. The campaign is titled “No Way Out for Dust.” It features 3 scenarios generated completely in 3D depicting an office, a living room and a bedroom. The ads explore the efficiency of the new vacuum cleaner. The series has been shortlisted for the Cannes Lions 2015. The last of the series ads was released in the first week of July, 2015.

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THE MARKSMAN

BRAND MARKive Absolutely Absolut.

“Of course we got drunk!” Semyon said. “It’s okay to get drunk, Anton. If you need to real bad. Only you have to get drunk on vodka.

Cognac and wine – that’s all for the heart.”

“So what’s vodka for?”

“For the soul. If it’s hurting real bad” ― Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch With a plethora of flavoured/non-flavoured, domestic/imported and super/ultrapremium vodkas battling it out in the game of spirits, for the spirit indeed a strong enough brand loyalty becomes vital for the survival of the players.

In this battlefield a Swedish brand has made its presence felt and is the third largest brand of alcoholic spirits in the world. Produced near Ahus in southern Sweden, Absolut is owned

by French group Pernod Ricard who bought it for €5.63 billion in 2008 from the Swedish state. Absolut was established in 1879 by Lars Olsson Smith who introduced fractional distillation under the name "Tiodubbelt Renadt Brännvin" (Tenfold Purified Vodka). Brännvin literally means "burnt wine". The name was changed to "Absolut Rent Brännvin" (Absolutely Pure Vodka) by Smith to market his improved product.

Sold in 126 countries, this venerable brand made its global and U.S debut in 1979 challenged by a competitive market, high price and Swedish origin.

But, who would have thought that a bottle that looked like a 19th century pharmacy bottle would become as iconic as it did. Its bottle-centric advertising approach was the simple, yet genius idea that brought Absolut glory.

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BRAND MARKive The advertisements featured an Absolut bottle shaped object in the centre and the title “ABSOLUT ____.” at the bottom. This original idea for the first Absolut ad, ‘Absolut Perfection’ came from South African art director Geoff Hayes reportedly, in his bathtub! In 1985 Andy Warhol created a work of art for the brand which was the first of the many commissioned artworks for its ad campaigns. Absolut’s art collection is today stored at the Spritmuseum in Stockholm. In 2007, “In an Absolut world” campaign was rolled out about scenarios its target audience would think of as a perfect or “Absolut” reality.

In 2012, it ventured into content based marketing with an incredibly popular music video collaborated with electric dance music trio Swedish House Mafia.

Its ‘experiential strategy’ gets artists to curate club-like events, creating best ever pop-up bars for Absolut.

Having orchestrated its very own creative band it sings stories, thoughts, visions, ideas and the whole world through its smashable element – Its bottle. The simple shape has been used as a canvas to portray youthfulness & vibrancy of its consumers. Limited editions, artistic opportunities and creative promotions through arts, music, fashion, people and all other elements of the contemporary landscape help the brand romance with its consumers in refreshing & exciting ways.

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THE MARKSMAN

COVER STORY Freebie Marketing

“Buy one, Get one free”, “Come try our new flavour at INR 10 only”, “Like our page and get a $5 food coupon absolutely free”, “There’s a free gift inside your cereal box”– are pretty common not only today but were considered an effective marketing tool even centuries ago. So why would a company wish to give away their products for free or at a nominal price? At first, it sounds to be kind of a loss making idea, but in reality, if applied in the right manner, it can prove to earn a tremendous amount of profit and also boost a company’s sales.

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There could be various reasons for undertaking a freebie marketing strategy – it could be to attract new customers or boost the sales of complementary products.

Let us take the example of Procter and Gamble. In the year 2013, P&G hosted an enormous giveaway in New York City. As a part of this, the Company gave away products which were more than 40,000 in number – including their famous brands namely, Gillette, Duracell, Scope, Febreze, Pampers, and Cover Girl. Giving away more than 40,000 freebies! How would it have helped P&G to boost its sales?

First of all, these freebies would lead to many lifelong customers of the products which they received for free. Not just that, the potential that these freebies entail goes way deeper. Free gifts or discounted coupons get customers to behave in a seemingly different way than expected as they in turn make attempts to repay companies for their bigheartedness.

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COVER STORY

COVER STORY

Studies suggest that freebie marketing, results in recipients of such goods to behave in a reciprocal manner and they tend to buy more and more products as they feel indebted towards the company. We often think that by offering a small cup of free ice cream to customers would result in a loss towards the ice cream shop as customers would enter the parlor, pick up a free small scoop and leave. However, this may not be the case, often customers after having tasted the free sample, are likely to purchase a bigger scoop of ice cream. Thus, it would result in an increase in the sales on that particular day as compared to other days “Promise, promise, is the when the scheme large was not functional. sol of an advertisement. “ - Samuel Johnson.

Usually we consider that free products could be of bad quality or the company could be making losses and therefore wishes to get rid of their stock. However, it has been observed, that customers are in fact more than willing to often pay more for products later on which they had earlier received as freebies. This happens because we usually don’t assign values to free products as compared to cheaper products.

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A traditional, yet more effective way of promoting a product even today is word of mouth marketing. It has been noticed that a successful way to get people to say good about one’s product is to give them away for free. Freebies encourage people to talk more about the product.

Freebie marketing is often undertaken to increase the sales of related products which is justified by its alternative name.

Freebie marketing has been famous with an alternative name – the razor and blade business model. The razor and blade model suggests that a product is sold at an extremely low price or given away for free so as to increase the sales of its complementary goods. The credit for introducing this model is given to King Camp Gillette, who founded the world famous razor – Blade Company. It so happened that Gillette came up with an idea of introducing disposable razors as from his own experience he had realized that the blades of a straight razor would get worn easily and would turn out to be useless. So in order to promote, permanent razors he decided to supplement it with easily disposable and cheap blades. And thus by adopting this strategy he could boost the sales of his permanent razors.

THE MARKSMAN

COVER STORY Freebies can be of various types ranging from free samples and free trials to promotional, specialty items and premiums.

Let us have a look at some few successful freebie strategies:

Standard Oil, which has a monopoly in the American Markets decided to give away 8 million

In the early 20th Century, Jell O decided to promote its product by giving away free Jell – O recipes to homemakers who were not aware of this product. And eventually in return, over a period of time the company which once was barely of any worth went on to make $1million annually from their sales.

kerosene lamps for free or at extremely reduced prices in China when it took the decision of expanding its business in China.

The company had lost a lot of money in distributing free kerosene lamps. However, the company gained a lot more than it had invested as Chinese customers began purchasing oil for these lamps from the company itself. And today, China stands to be one of the largest markets for Standard Oil in Asia.

Here’s another story where a freebie product turned out to be an independent product in itself. In the year, 1891 when William Wrigley Jr. started selling soap, he offered to his customer’s baking powder for free as an incentive . However, the baking powder turned out to be a success and was in higher demands as compared to the soap and with this he began selling baking powder independently.

After the baking powder, he used chewing gum as an incentive which again turned out to be a hit among his customers and with this today we have one of the most famous brands - Wrigley’s Chewing Gum.

MARCH 2015

And how can we ever forget the rise of social media? Companies often target their customers through such social media websites for giving out freebies provided their target audience is the youth. They organize contests through such platforms and winners are awarded with free gifts and hampers. In this way, they end up saving time which would have otherwise been wasted behind different age groups having no significance with the product.

So the next time you feel sorry for a company who gives out freebies or consider them loss making, remember, there are a lot of long term future profits associated behind distributing those free gifts or samples.

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Special Story Sit Back, Observe, Ambush!

The art of getting your audience’s attention, the art of knowing what is the one thing that will certainly grab all eyeballs, the art of also knowing, where to draw the line between being cheeky and being shameless. Every day marketers are trying to find newer ways to enter the minds of its audience through various promotions, advertisements and several other campaigns.

One of the most recent instances was seen last month, when Flipkart, Snapdeal, OLX, Amazon, Indian Roots, PaisaBazaar, CouponDunia and PriceBazaar, competed against each other in an ambush marketing war.

It all began with Flipkart’s #AcchaKiya campaign. What was started by Flipkart as a way of reminding customers of the convenience and the better bargains that they would get through online shopping at Flipkart, the campaign took an ugly turn when Snapdeal unleashed a full-frontal attack on to Flipkart’s #AcchaKiya campaign.

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Snapdeal sent a cheeky reply to Flipkart, “Accha Kiya Bataa Diya, #YahaSeKhareedo”, urging the target customers to buy from Snapdeal instead. Soon this became a rage on the Internet, with previous instances of ambush marketing also pushed to the forefront.

This strategy of leveraging on a competitor’s campaign or marketing effort is not something new.

A few years back there was a similar war between Audi and BMW, when Audi launched its A4, teasing BMW on a hoarding, subtly, with the words: Your Move.

BMW answered with a bigger hoarding and an even simpler answer: Checkmate.

An internet war ensued soon, with supporters from both camps creating their own versions of this auto-war.

THE MARKSMAN

SPECIAL STORY But the number of multi-layered replies that the #AcchaKiya campaign got was unprecedented. Post Snapdeal’s reply, a version of the war saw OLX taking a dig at these e-tailers, telling the customers to sell the old stuff to make way for new.

CouponDunia also entered the party with its claim to be the one-stop destination to save money on all the purchases (Kahin Se Bhi Khareedo, #BachaoIdharSe).

PaisaBazaar also came ahead with its #PaisaChahiye campaign, with IndianRoots playing an ambush peacemaker (Ladai Nahi, Shopping Karo, #DesignerKapdeLo), with Amazon with the cherry on top with its “Kahi Nahi Mila? #YahaDekhLo” campaign.

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It is difficult to estimate how well these campaigns work, or how much they help in increasing the company’s sales and revenue.

But one thing is for certain. Companies which take potshots at each other in public are etched in the minds of consumers for a longer period.

So the next time if a company thinks of an advertisement, promotion or any other idea with the aim of boosting sales, it should think of many other possibilities as well. The possibility of the idea not being feasible, the possibility of it not being able to grab attention as desired, and also, the possibility that the campaign that they built and implemented with so much effort, could just be the target of a competitor’s ambush.

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MARKETING FAUX PAS Flipkart’s Gaffe Smartphone buyer from Telangana gets Mangoes Everyone makes mistakes. Usually, we learn from them and move on with our lives, maybe escaping with just a touch of public shaming. But what happens to those companies that make mistakes, repeats those mistakes, never learn from their mistakes.

E-commerce is growing at an unprecedented rate in India. Everyday a new start-up is mushrooming. If the biggest e-commerce player is not able to keep the basics of delivering the right product to the intended customer than what will be the future of this industry.

Earlier this month, another Flipkart customer, this time from Telangana, received two mangoes instead of an order that he placed for an Asus smartphone. According to media reports, he had placed an order for Asus Zenfone 5 – a Flipkart exclusive product – during the mega sale conducted on May 26. The customer was threatened by the Flipkart support team not to take the issue to the social media, failing which would result in the blocking of his order.

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Flipkart later sent him an email saying, “We would like to inform you that your recent replacement order has been cancelled as we have noticed an unwarranted return, which do not comply with our Returns Policy.”

The modus operandi of the eCommerce firms is to simply try and get a lot of new users to try out their platform. The Indian customer is typically vendor-agnostic, and seeks the lowest price for the product of his/her choice. In such a scenario customer experience is the biggest differentiator.

This is not the first such complaint against an e-commerce company in India. Last year, a customer was delivered a soap bar and a brick instead of a Samsung phone he had ordered on Snapdeal.

The e-commerce giants need to improve on customer service to succeed in their future plans. Satisfied customers can be a great asset for the company in the ecommerce space.

THE MARKSMAN

Hall-MARK CAMPAIGN #Play with OREO Ever imagined how creative can a cookie company be? Even its name when spelled as, ‘O.R.E.O’, gives a quick imaginative recall of a tasty ‘round’ shaped cookie! Coming up ahead with brands like Coca cola and McDonald that revolve around the universal themes of happiness and loving, Oreo has presented its coolest concept of playing one’s imagination with the cookie.

This new creative campaign #Play with Oreo, is making huge success globally. It’s launched under the previous ‘Wonderfilled’ platform that entices consumer with the tagline – ‘Wonder if we gave an Oreo to you’.

Following the grand success of the “Twist, Lick and Dunk” ritual, the “Play with Oreo” campaign adds a different and more playful twist to Oreo’s fun side, giving a chance to all little big Oreo fans to experience – a one on one, real life feel- of the world’s number 1. Biscuit brand.

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The official site of Oreo is loaded with beautiful animated commercials, including the new ‘wonderfilled’ commercial for ‘Play with Oreo’ campaign, from The Martin Agency featuring music by French electropop duo Yelle.

On the launch of this campaign, Ms Ola Loutfi – Corporate Affairs Manager at Mondelez International, has commented in a press statement, saying, “As we evolve Oreo’s creative side, the brand is on a mission to inspire imagination in consumers’ everyday lives, showcasing playfulness in more creative ways.”

It is appreciable to note how amazingly the company is trying to encourage people to try & demonstrate unique ways of getting creative with Oreo. It is ready to run a 360 degrees marketing campaign, which includes radio, digital and social media.

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HALL-MARK CAMPAIGN Recently, company tried to engage adults and children, almost the entire day in Beirut, City Mall, inviting all Oreo lovers to make their own innovative Oreo based desserts. They installed a “Play with Oreo” mall booth which consisted of three stations of drawing, cooking and building with Oreo biscuits.

People enjoyed the play and in a way got a chance to taste secret & tasty Oreo recipies of Chef Richard. Company has tied up with The Martin Agency and launched the ‘Brand New School’ of ‘Play with Oreo’ projects - a platform for all Oreo fans to share and celebrate new oreo recipes. (http://brandnewschool.com/projects/playwith-oreo). Kudos to the company’s creative team!

Keeping abuzz with latest trends and happenings in the world, Oreo took advantage of the solar eclipse in #oreo eclipse campaign, which was another creative attempt to push the original #play with oreo campaign. Aligning creativity & playfulness with the brand wagon of Oreo, company is surely going to achieve great heights and accolades in the marketing world.

Well, it’s not over as yet friends. Enter the second phase of the campaign #DoodleIt. It aims to reach out folks across all social media platforms, viz Facebook, twitter, Instagram, PinInterest, Youtube, to share their interesting doodle art around the Oreo cookie to win exciting prizes. The inspiration was picked up by the Oreo graffiti project, wherein artists from all major cities of India were roped in to create wall art inspired from the #Play with Oreo campaign.

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THE MARKSMAN

PIONEER ELON MUSK •

At the age of 12, he sold a video game to a magazine for US$500.

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When he was 24, he and his brother started a web software company with $28,000 which was acquired for $307 million in cash and $34 million in stock options in about 4 years, in 1999.

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Aged at 31, a company which he cofounded and in which he owned the largest share was acquired for stocks of $1.5 billion.

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At 33, he joined as the Chairman of a company which has over $13 billion net worth in 2015.

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Add to that providing the initial concept and funding capital for a company which is now the second largest provider of Solar power in the US; co-founding a venture which deals with Aerospace and has won contracts from NASA; providing the innovative designing of a high-speed transportation system and recently proposing a conceptual supersonic Jet aircraft and much more.

Rest the applauses to hear the name of Elon Musk.

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Born in South Africa in 1971, he has inherited the qualities of his Model mother as well as Engineer father and same is reflected in the fact that he has a doctorate in Design, one in Aerospace Engineering and that in Engineering and Technology from top universities.

Being a renowned leader is a rare quality, so is being an innovator, or being an entrepreneur or being the perfect blend of rare qualities. Musk, possesses all of them. He has not only technically and skillfully but also strategically earned himself the reputation of being “the” name, the name which anybody and everybody applauses and respects.

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PIONEER Looking deep down at this illustrious career, lie the ups and downs of a man who was severely bullied in his childhood and who had to repeatedly believe in his instincts against the virtue of time. He was ignored, untrusted, over-hyped, doubted of but he kept his belief in himself, and his ideas…

And he succeeded.

What more? Well, to add up the flair, he owns a McLaren F1 supercar, a Dassault Falcon 900 aircraft, a series of collectables from the James Bond series and an amalgamation of a red-hot and a super-cool attitude.

When asked if he believes in destiny, he said he believes in some master intelligence architecture….which can be related to basic laws of Physics. How cool that is! When asked about his mantra of success, he said, “Tip#1: Work super hard”. How hot that is!

Apart from having earned himself a fortune, a not-to-be doubted reputation and unmatchable name in the marketplace, he has garnered recognitions from the best of the names, as the best of the names.

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THE MARKSMAN

MARKETING RealTIME Aditya Basrur Asst. Manager – Consumer Products Hotwheels, Fisherprice and HiT in the softlines category. My role is multifaceted as it includes licensing, marketing activation, financial forecasting, new product development as well as Business The two years of MBA were the best two Development. years of my life. The exposure that I got during this period has made me even more I look after 15 top licensees for Mattel on a confident about my abilities. MBA gives you a Pan India level working with them on better understanding of your strengths. building a strategy to create and push Mattel Pitted against 480 students during products (Apparel, Stationary, Accessories, placements makes you realize your true Footwear etc) via various distribution potential. I have always been a marketing channels Online and Offline. enthusiast and speaking on vivid topics has The placement season is the most crucial been a hobby. SIMSR helped me mold my aspect of MBA; hence it’s more important skills and articulate my thoughts in more that you plan it with utmost diligence. appropriate manner. Being a part of multiple Pressure is high due to the competition and activities on campus helped me understand paranoia about the job/company /salary the importance of team work. I have been more often than not hinders the actual focus fortunate to be a part of Interface – the of an individual when it comes to career. Be Flagship marketing committee of SIMSR and very particular about what you want and also lead it in my senior year. The experience where you want to see yourself in the near has only helped me immensely post leaving future. There is one opportunity that you get, make the most of it. The only secret to the confines of the campus. a successful career is getting the perfect job I am currently Assistant Manager – role, the rest (Money/Fame etc) always Consumer Products at Mattel Toys India, follows.

Best of Luck!!  looking after brands such as Barbie,

SUMMER 2015

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MARKETING RealTIME

Niharika Srivastava Marketing Consultant Groupon “The e-commerce industry is booming”, perhaps the most generic statement that one makes or hears about the digital world.

But you really don’t know how dynamic the industry is unless you get to be in one.

Groupon India, is originally a Chicago based company which is present in 48 countries.

Within India it boasts of its presence in 12 cities and continues to grow massively. For those don’t know what Groupon is, I have to say, you are still primitive.

In a world where everything is just one touch away, it has become rather crucial for a business to showcase its presence on the digital media. And due to this clutter, it is not just the mere presence, but the kind of presence that appeals the audience.

Groupon provides an opportunity to services businesses. It aims to help businesses in the category of, Food and Beverages, Salon & Spas, Healthcare, Activities and Travel, to grow by getting them more footfalls Trying to strive in this dearer life, one always seeks to save money wherever possible.

Groupon helps its customer base to exactly do this.

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By listing services in the above mentioned categories at prices lower than usual, gives . customers the incentive to purchase and experience the service through Groupon, which in turn gives businesses a reason to feature themselves with Groupon.

The technical team and sales team are the backbone of Goupon. The sales team is the one which gets these quality deals on the website which the customers go gaga over, making Groupon famous limitlessly. Being a part of the healthcare industry I have not only gained an insight into the functioning of this industry but have also developed skills of being a peoples person.

Doing this job with Groupon is certainly more respectable as you are referred to as marketing consultants. As consultants we understand the business problems and accordingly suggest how Groupon as a tool can help them grow. Being in sales definitely bashes your ego for the good, but it also teaches you to read people and deal with them.

It’s a young company full of young people filled with great enthusiasm and a flexible culture. If Grouponers work hard they always squeeze time out to party hard.

THE MARKSMAN

MARKETING RealTIME

Parth Shah Sr. Executive – Client Servicing Reliance Broadcast Networks Ltd. (BIG 92.7 FM & BIG Magic) MBA is all about getting into the right company and getting the right start for your career. Infrequently we realize the importance of getting the right profile, the right fit for your career to augment. After swinging here and there in a couple of companies, fate finally landed me into Reliance Broadcast Network. Yes, the Right fit for me, at least until now.

It’s never easy to miss the last 3 months of your College Life (I had to start work in February :/), but when you replace it with a scenario where you get to meet & greet Celebrities every now and then, who’d not want the latter! 92.7 BIG FM and BIG MAGIC is what I am working for, not every bloke gets such a glamourous profile, where in the first three months I could be around the likes of Sonakshi Sinha, Deepika Padukone, Anushka Sharma, Shraddha Kapoor (Yes, I have purposely put names of only actresses, but there were a lot of Male actors too, who cares! :P) That was the fun bit, but I was lucky that the Job Profile was very parallel to my penchant.

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It involved a wide range of KRA’s depending on the every Campaign. This broadcasted fun initially, but Oh Boy! It was nowhere near fun! As a Client Servicing personnel, you can’t say No to a Client, for what so ever reason, this was difficult to implant in me as this was my first corporate job.

As a Broadcaster, you have to nurture both, your clients as well as your consumers, in fact, both of them are so compound in nature and so inter linked, that you can ill afford to snub even one of them. But then I guess every business has its own set of rules, and nothing is easy when it comes to minting money.

What makes it bearable is a virtuous Boss and an even better team, who will sustain your role in times of necessity. When you err, which is okay as faults are bound to occur, it’s the Team that helps you resurrect.

It is never all fun and no work, or vice versa, there has to be substantial amount of work that has to be delivered in order to maintain the equilibrium. I would appeal to everyone to have an open mind at work and give your best at work to make a name for yourself, as the work you do, would be your best Identity.

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MARKETING RealTIME Amit Kumar Prasad & Shweta Panikkar Consultant - GEP Graduation done.

Post-Graduation done.

In all probability, our stint with educational institution is over. Sandwiched between them was a professional career of 24-40 months in the corporate world. But the post-MBA corporate experience is by far the most challenging one for us, and likewise for others too. As an MBA, you are inherently expected to perform straightaway just like a duck takes to water.

Consultancy is a lucrative but a very exigent career option. It becomes a mandate to demonstrate qualities such as leadership, socializing, analytical mindset day in day out to stand ahead and apart from the swarm, so to speak. Working for a relatively lean and small consultancy firm, we have had the opportunity to speak up as well as speak out our mind. And this has given a boost to our self-confidence and capabilities too.

Capitalizing on the size of GEP, we seem to know a lot of people here and some also from the top management team. This helps in a variety of ways: 1. You get to know what projects are running 2. You learn ways to fine tune your negotiation skills 3. Networking with diverse and highly qualified people

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More about the company, GEP is a consulting firm that specializes in procurement, outsourcing and Technology.

As consultants we are fairly involved in all the steps of sourcing and procurement namely Internal and external analysis, strategy development, sourcing execution and Implementation, vendor management, negotiations, etc. GEP, being a mid-sized growing firm, it gives us immense opportunity to explore the various facets of consulting and encourages us to take responsibility and be accountable for project related decisions from the initial days itself.

Placements are an accident you yearn to meet up. Sooner and bigger the impact, greater the joy. Going a step back when we were in the final year of MBA and placement season had just commenced, there was anxiety and restlessness in the air, it was one of the most memorable times.

But, it’s imperative to shape yourself up and be extremely geared up because you don’t want to miss being hit by your desired accident. We preach the art of 4P’s which might help during this time – Preparation, Patience, Practical, Perseverance.

Last but not the least, a tiny piece of advice for the upcoming placement season: Apply for the companies that offers profiles suiting your interests, do not fret if you do not get placed in the early placement season, give it your best every single time and someday, you will reach where you deserve to be!

THE MARKSMAN

Intern SPEAK SBI Life

Nikita Goenka

Internship is the time when you can experiment the most. It is much more than a 30-page binder you submit back to the college. It can be a gateway to the industry you are interning for; it can be duration of 60 days when you learning about yourself, it can expand your professional network and also prepare you for further interviews.

There are many misconceptions about the industry like agents providing false information, there being no regulatory body or absence of advisors to clarify terms of policy. Insurance is an industry that had very less acceptability in India and has a huge scope of growth in the future.

SBILife, being the market leader in private insurers, gave a plethora of opportunities explore this industry and benefits from the experience.

During my 2 month internship at SBILife, I realised that the work you do apart from your area of project contributes equally, if not more, to your take-aways. Although my project revolved around market research of customer buying behaviour in digital segment, there were many activities I was given that help me understand the “behindthe-scenes�. In parallel, I worked towards analysing acceptability of a newly launched app and promote maximum usage of it.

SUMMER 2015

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Puma

Ayush Agarwal

Having completed the first year of MBA, I was waiting earnestly with eccentricity to start my internship. Like many others I was clueless about what lay in store for me ahead. Thoughts like ‘will I be made to roam the streets just taking surveys or made to sit’ and become telemarketer were making me ponder and nervous.

Well to my fortune it was neither.

Being in Puma, I was exposed to the intricate details of the world of retail. I got to witness the tremendous amount of hard work behind the most trivial details, right from visual merchandising to customer satisfaction. The project assigned to me was competition analysis for Puma .Initially I stayed in at the store to observe all there was and established a base rate to judge the competitor brands on. Having done that, I visited the other stores in the vicinity, as a customer at times while pretending to be preparing a research paper for my thesis.

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A few store managers did speak to me while the others just shrugged and did not entertain me. It was a great learning experience on way to find information. I thought I had observed everything there was I could. But I couldn't have been more wrong. It was the beginning of the sale period.

As a customer we always wait for sales, but trust me, the picture is not that pretty from the other side of the table. It involves painstaking efforts to maintain a store during sales. There was a time when people went 15 days without a single day off..!! The working hours, straight from morning 10 to 11 in the night, and all this standing all day long with barely any time to have a meal. Yes, it was exasperating and exhausting, but the exposure that one gets in retail in terms of dealing with people and handling inventory is unparalleled. I can easily say that these two months were the most tiring months that I have faced however the most enriching experience I have come across yet.

THE MARKSMAN

Business Of Ideas

Siddharth Bhandarkar

Sales, digital marketing, market research or advertising? Which of these marketing roles do I fit into? What work do I see myself doing? These were the questions I kept asking myself right since the interviews for summer internships began in the first trimester. Having no work experience outside of my father’s business, I needed to explore each of these marketing verticals to understand where my interest and strengths lie. Business Of Ideas(BOI) gave me an opportunity to do just that.

BOI is a media consultancy which was acquired by Reliance Industries Limited(RIL) and now works as a parallel ecosystem to Reliance's in-house marketing team.

SUMMER 2015

I feel the timing for interning at BOI was perfect because I got to be a part of RIL's foray into the telecommunication sector with their first consumer facing division - 'Jio' What was clear from the very first day of internship was that this will be India’s biggest brand launch yet; with ₹ 70,000 Cr already invested in the project.

From writing content & discussing it with Reliance's Media Head, to being a part of agency briefs with the Directors and VPs of India's leading advertising agencies, to meeting up with India’s rising stars, to discussing a complete 360 marketing strategy with the Director of Reliance Jio over a box of Rasgullas; this short stint at BOI gave me an insight into the working of India’s largest private sector company.

Though the two quintessential questions which bothered me through the first year weren’t exactly put to rest, I definitely got some amount of clarity about what I’d enjoy doing after MBA. Then again the process of selfexploration is cease-less anyways…right?

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Bookworm Supermarketwala Damodar Mall How a consumer behaves is very different from how an ‘Indian’ consumer behaves. Why does a young daughter-in-law in a joint family avoid shopping from the family grocer? Why does a fitter in a factory fears shopping in a mall? How has modern retail affected the lives of people, directly and indirectly? All these and many more concerns about consumerism get answered in Damodar Mall’s Supermarketwala.

Damodar Mall is a pioneer in his field, having worked closely with the likes of R.K. Damani of D-Mart and Kishore Biyani of Big Bazaar and is now with Reliance Value Retail. A foreword by Mukesh Ambani and preface by Biyani goes on to prove his mettle. In his debut book, Mall takes you on an enthralling journey about the evolution of the supermarket culture and rise of the consumer class in India seen through his own eyes. For every ‘butt-and-brush’ factor that works in the west, he gives us the ‘elbow push’ factor that can work nowhere but India. Written in an extremely engaging style, the book is full of real-life observations ranging from the shopping carts to dining tables and beyond offering rare insights into the psyche of Indian shoppers and their shopping habits.

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THE MARKSMAN

FEATURED ARTICLES Why Vogue’s ‘My Choice’ film cannot be a catalyst for change

Gautham Sethuraman - IIFT Sian Massey turns up as an assistant referee in a Premier League game in 2011. Andy Murray hires Amélie Mauresmo as coach to replace the legendary Ivan Lendl. Mary Kom overcomes visible and invisible opponents to become a six-time World Champion, and Olympic bronze medallist. Somewhere in a slum in Mumbai, a single mother juggles her career and household chores, and rears her son all by herself. With each passing day, slowly but steadily, we are challenging existing stereotypes and perceptions of “what women cannot do”, and chasing gender equality, although it sometimes appears that we are doing so in a cycle rickshaw.

SUMMER 2015

A few months ago, Vogue India launched a short film 'My Choice' featuring Bollywood actor Deepika Padukone, directed by Homi Adajania as a social awareness initiative for women nationwide.

It is hard to overlook the people involved in this short film. Homi Adjania, who played right into the hands of patriarchy in Cocktail, Deepika Padukone, who battles for women’s rights only when the field is outside of Bollywood. They both work for an industry that is not only replete with sexism, but also thrives on women insecurities. The magazine, Vogue, itself is guilty of objectifying women for decades.

The black and white video features 98 other women in what can be mistaken for a shampoo advertisement if played on mute. A major part of the first minute focuses on an individual taking control of her life and saying, “I choose what I want” as opposed to “I have to live with this”. It talks about being a decision maker vs. a consequence receiver.

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FEATURED ARTICLES But it is from here that the video loses the plot. (Or does it?) From here, the video veers from celebration of independence to advocating narcissism with a degree of entitlement capable of piercing the sky. It is a woman’s choice “to have sex outside of marriage”, Ms Padukone’s voiceover claims.

“Remember you are my choice, I am not your privilege,” she reminds us with a baffling what-is-that-supposed-to-mean addition of “don't be fooled when I come home at 6 p.m.”.

the other. In a country where close to 245 million Indian women lack the basic capability to read and write, female share of non-agricultural wage employment is only 17%, average wage rates are 75 % of men’s wage rates, Vogue chooses to discuss choices in the domain of relationships. It neither acknowledges the role of the other in the relationship nor does it talk about how each of these choices could have a consequence.

Exerting one’s assertiveness to fulfill one’s ambitions can be one’s prerogative, but promiscuity to suit one’s whims is not. If equal rights is what is being advocated here, why are women reduced to lesser beings, incapable of being held to the same standards of personal accountability as men?

One thing we can give the video credit for is that it explains how morality is inherently subjective, and is perceived differently by different people. However, the video does nothing to address pertinent issues such as financial independence, equal pay for equal value-addition in an organisation, standing up against abuse, sharing of domestic responsibilities, everyday sexism or domestic violence.

Instead, it talks about choices in the personal domain, of that of a relationship, where each choice one makes could affect

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It is interesting that all of the women portrayed in this video are attractive.

When Ms Padukone mentions size 15, the image we see on screen is that of a pregnant woman. Would a size 15 be too radical a notion?

All Vogue has managed is to package feminism in a glib manner, much like how women are portrayed in the magazine’s covers, and use the word “choice” to symbolise arrogance and utter disregard, when it could have talked about attaining liberation.

THE MARKSMAN

FEATURED ARTICLES Gender equality is something that can be attained if we teach our sons to treat a woman right. It is achieved by promoting education and professional development for women, and telling them that they are not any less than men. Women need to be given their rightful stake in society, and be involved in the decisions concerning them and their future.

Empowerment can only be fully achieved if it happens in all spheres – economic, political and cultural, and the process cannot be accelerated with short films made by greedy brands looking for easy access into the Indian market.

The language used in the film is too elitist, which is also where the readership of Vogue lies. The words seem to be directed towards a mindset. The film plays right into the hands of niche audience in what can only be seen as a cunning product placement.

Feminism, over the years, has been misconstrued by men mainly because of keyboard warriors who consider using the feminist tag as something fashionable, and continue to confuse it with male-bashing and misandry. The video does everything to reinforce the misconception.

SUMMER 2015

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FEATURED ARTICLES Email Marketing – Alive or Dead?

Hariprasad Kamath - NMIMS Anything which brings business at a very low effort is not dead in marketing. People say that email marketing is very easy to perform. It could be targeted very precisely at a very low cost. Let’s put this premise into perspective with the help of some numbers.

• As of 2015, there are 4.3 billion email accounts worldwide and this number is expected to grow by 6% next year.

There are 2.6 billion email users with an average of 1.7 account per user [1].

• Consumers who receive email messages order 28% more frequently, and spend 83% more on orders [2].

• Above all, for every $1 spent, the average return on email marketing is $44.25 [3]. That’s around 4300% ROI!!

Amid these staggering numbers, a question naturally comes to one’s mind. How is such an old school method an effective tool even now? Well, there are several factors that make it quite effective and popular.

First of all, it can be targeted really well.

Because, email marketing is based on the indication that the customer is interested in the product by signing up for the mailing list or the newsletter.

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Secondly, email marketing is extremely cost effective and simple. Marketers have to pay heavily for printed and television advertisements to get a few eyeballs. It’s very difficult to analyze the results accurately in case of such traditional marketing channels. Comparatively, it’s very simple to execute an email marketing campaign and to analyze the impact that it creates.

Thirdly, it can directly generate leads and new prospects. Traditional marketing media like television or radio requires customers to remember the message that is being delivered at the instance and then make a purchasing decision.

Whereas, email marketing could generate leads from the email that contains the message itself. For example, a customer clicking on the link provided in the email, leading him to the brand’s website. An email can also be forwarded by the customer to other prospective customers, generating higher than the expected reach. Also, messages have a longer timespan because the users can refer back to the email even after a long time. However, since this is the case, the marketers have to be careful in specifying the time span and regions in which their offer is valid.

THE MARKSMAN

FEATURED ARTICLES If the odds are in favor of email marketing, why this topic of whether email marketing is dead or alive come up so frequently? Are companies not seeing the results as they were before? Well, the fact is, email marketing isn’t dead. Rather, it has changed and evolved. And, as they say, change is good.

In addition to the old methods of segmentation and targeting, new disciplines like Conversion Rate Optimization and Behavioral marketing are breathing life into email marketing. Automated marketing software can now connect user behavior to email triggers. This capability can provide impressive results as compared to the spray and pray marketing approach.

SUMMER 2015

Nowadays, email clients are also very intelligent in terms of detecting spam and keeping only the relevant messages in the user’s inbox.

A major evolution in the email marketing is inspired by the smart phones and the social media. Marketers who tend to stick with the same old format for email messages, may not see the same old results anymore because of incompatibility with the mobile devices.

Modern day email messages contain responsive contents like images, video, links to social media accounts and are much better looking. Take a look at the following example of two NYTimes email newsletters:

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FEATURED ARTICLES The first one with a plain unattractive look is the one from 2011. Whereas, on the right side, we can see how it has evolved after 4 years. There are images, better fonts and social media links.

Likewise, marketers will have to make their email templates up to date in order to keep their campaign alive.

However, there’s a catch here. Should the marketers go all out and formulate the strategy around a fully immersive web content or place their bets on a much lighter, mobile-friendly version? One of the strategies which could be adopted is to tune the email messages in order to drive the users to the company’s website or to the social media page, ultimately resulting in a conversion. The numbers are again quite promising! Marketing research shows that over 65% of consumers are inclined to make a purchase in association with a well-planned email campaign [4].

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From a marketer’s perspective, email marketing plays a very important role in personalizing communication across different channels and touchpoints.

According to the National client email report 2015 by Digital marketing Association, 9 out of 10 marketers found email marketing as either “very important” or “important” for their business [5].

As far as we’ve seen, they are not wrong!

Email marketing still has a lot of life in it.

It has the potential to increase the brand awareness, drive the volumes, engage the customers and turn around businesses.

Hence, as marketers, it’s very important to frequently revisit the email marketing strategy and evolve with the technology.

THE MARKSMAN

SquareHead

SUMMER 2015

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BUZZ PUZZLE

ACROSS 1. HUL acquired which Hair Oil Brand recently? (9) 3. Y has been recently named as the Global CEO of company X. EY, PWC, KPMG and X forms the top accounting companies. Identify X (5,6).

5. Name of the iconic business leader who has acquired a stake in "Kaaryah", a fashion portal (5,4).

DOWN 2. Y has been recently named as the Global CEO of company X. EY, PWC, KPMG and X forms the top accounting companies. Identify Y (8).

4. "Kan Khajura Tesan" is the name of which company's mobile based marketing platform in India (3).

6. Name of the e-commerce firm which received funding from YouWeCan Ventures and United Finsec Answers: Across: 1.Indulekha 3.Deloitte 5. Ratan Tata Down: 2.Punit Renjen 4.HUL 6.Edukart

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THE MARKSMAN

Call for ARTICLES CALL FOR ARTICLES JULY 2015 Articles can be sent on any one of the following topics*:

1. Two Minutes of Silence: The Death of A Winning Brand 2. Face the Music: Marketing Opportunities for Music Apps

3. ‘How’sing.Com: Lessons from the Debacle *Please ensure that there is no plagiarism and all references are clearly mentioned.

1. One article can have only one author.

2. Your article should be approximately 800-850 words and MUST be replete with relevant pictures that can be used to enhance the article.

3. Font Type: Gill Sans MT 4. Font Size: 14.

5. Send your article in .doc/.docx format to marksman.simsr@somaiya.edu 6. Subtitle line: Your name_Institute Name_Course Year 7. Kindly name your file as : Your name_Topic The best adjudged article will be given a Winner’s Certificate.

Deadline for the submission of article will be : 20th July, 2015

SUMMER 2015

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The TEAM THE TEAM TWEETS by Abhijit Sharma It’s all about AD-itude by Palak Thakkar Brand MARKive by Kavya Dubey COVER STORY by Minoli Sheth SPECIAL STORY by Sukanya Remesh FAUX PAS by Rishika Saxena HALLMARK CAMPAIGN by Vasundhara Tewari PIONEER by Abhijit Sharma BOOKWORM by Sankalp Thakur SquAreheaD by Vasundhara Tewari BUZZ by Dilip Anantharaman PROOF READ by Disha Shah Abhijit Sharma Dilip Anantharaman DESIGNING by Palak Thakkar Sankalp Thakur PROMOTIONS by Dilip Anantharaman Abhijit Sharma

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To subscribe to "The Marksman", Follow the link:http://interfacesimsr.weebly.com/ the-marksman.html OR drop in a mail/contact us at : interface.newsletter@gmail.com Subject line: Subscribe:Your Name_Institute Name_Course Year Follow us at: http://www.facebook.com/simsr.in terface http://interfacesimsr.weebly.com/ the-marksman.htm Website: http://interfacesimsr.weebly.com/t he-marksman.html The MARKSMAN is the newsletter of INTERFACE, the Marketing Club at K.J. Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research, Mumbai.

Images used in THE MARKSMAN are subject to copyright. THE MARKSMAN does not take any responsibility of any kind of plagiarism in the articles received from students of other colleges.

THE MARKSMAN