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Transcript of Mark Avenue Edition July 2012
Mark Avenue A MONTHLY MAGAZINE FROM MERCUR i
Also Jaa(r)go(n) re Accessing Rural India Fresh on TV
Inside
Suspense Marketing Underdog Branding Story Branding
Content Matters
i
Going The WOM way
July 2012
INSIDE
Content Marketing By Deepak Sudhakar
ARTICLE 04
Goin the WOM way By A.K.Ashish
ARTICLE 06
Story Branding By Nandini Ramani
PERSPECTIVE 08
Jaa(r)go(n) re By A.K.Ashish
JARGON 16
Underdog Branding By Ashok Kumar
ARTICLE 10
Suspense Marketing By Rahul J
COVER STORY 11
The Rural Marketing By Akanksha Pandey
PERSPECTIVE 13
Fresh on Tv By A.K.Ashish
TVCS 16
From the Editor Dear Reader,
Mercur-I, the Marketing Club of IIM Indore, strives to bring the best-in-class articles for you which we
hope you will definitely enjoy reading. The articles have been chosen to be contemporary, novel and
relevant to the world we have built around ourselves in these B-Schools.
With the increasing awareness levels of the Customers, it would not be a great idea to keep buzzing them
about our products. How about impressing them by providing information which would be useful to them.
This innovative method of Providing the customers with ‘Content’ would be dealth with in the artcile
‘Content Marketing’. Can Word of Mouth be created? Probably Yes, and the article ‘Going the WOM
way’ deals with the factors that could be responsible for creating a positive Word of Mouth.
Learn about the Companies capitalizing their Underdog stories in ‘Underdog Branding’. Are consumers
bound to believe in whatever a Brand promises. Is it this belief that brings them for purchase or is it the
correlation of the Brand’s promise with their lives. The article ‘Story Branding’ takes a sneak peak into
the second option. The use of Complex Jargon while communicating creates a professional image. Do we
actually know about what some of the Jargons mean. Jaa(r)go(n) re provides you with some of the
worthwhile Jargons used in Marketing.
Happy Reading.
Ashish & Ashok
Article
t is known by many names: Branded
Content, Custom Publishing or Branded
Media to name a few. However, content
marketing is probably the most
appropriate jargon. But what really is
content marketing? Official definition of
content marketing would go something
like this:
“Content marketing is a marketing
technique of creating and distributing
relevant and valuable content to attract,
acquire, and engage a clearly defined
and understood target audience - with
the objective of driving profitable
customer action.”
Lets face it... People are tired of looking
at the same old meaningless
ads/promotional campaigns done by
companies aimed at creating brand
awareness and brand recall. These days
customers are adept at ignoring print
advertisements, tv ads and even online
advertising.
This is where content marketing comes
in. Content Marketing works on the
principle that if you spread great content
and information, customers will come to
you. It is the art of communicating with
your customers and prospects without
selling. Instead of pitching your products
or services,
you are delivering information that
makes your buyer more intelligent. The
essence of this content strategy is the
belief that if we, as businesses, deliver
consistent, ongoing valuable information
to buyers, they ultimately reward us with
their business and loyalty.
Content marketing is very much different
from traditional “interruption” marketing
such as television commercials or direct
mail. Instead it uses medium like blogs,
video tutorials, email newsletters, white
papers, free reports etc to spread quality
and trustworthy information.
by Deepak Sudhakar
I
July 2012 MARK AVENUE 4
Content Marketing
This type of marketing is especially
popular in the online advertising and B2B
marketing. Start-ups or small companies
use this method to market themselves.
Moreover, even large companies like
P&G, Microsoft, Cisco Systems and John
Deere.
Mint.com, a personal finance start-up
was launched in 2006 and had to
compete with established companies like
Quicken. However, three years since it
became the market leader in online
personal finance and sold to Intuit for
$170 million. The key reason for Mint’s
success was its aggressively intelligent
content strategy. Unlike the half-hearted,
months-between-updates blogs that
most businesses keep, Mint’s blog
“MintLife” was a core part of the
company’s operation. Mint dedicated
significant resources to its blog, including
a full time editorial staff and a slew of
freelance contributors.
It invested time in social news sites like
Reddit and Digg, and after months of
seeing consistent, quality Mint content,
readers in those communities began
trusting Mint as high quality, reliable,
and cool to share. Eventually, those users
turned into Mint customers, even
advocating Mint in their personal
networks.
Another example of a company which
effectively used content marketing is
American Express. Amex launched
OpenForum.com focussed on targeting
budding entrepreneurs. Open Forum
offers tools for small businesses, many of
which have tie-ins with Amex products,
but the site is also dedicated to hosting
insightful and engaging content about
the many facets of running a business.
It’s a hybrid advertising/guest
blogging/in-house editorial operation,
and it’s fostering a community around
the topic of running a business. All of the
conversations and content in the
community live under the American
Express flag.
Its high time companies start realizing
that customers are more interested in
quality content through marketing.
Besides if you think about it, marketing is
not just about attracting customers, but
really about attracting the right
customers. Content marketing is
definitely one way one to do so.
July 2012 MARK AVENUE 5
The author is a PGP2 participant at IIM Indore.
You can reach him at [email protected]
Article
ou know Mrs.Parvati, we have
bought an Onida DVD player and I and
my family are having great time watching
films on it”. These words which have
been uttered by her neighbour Mrs.Tulsi
in their regular afternoon chat have not
been allowing Mrs.Laxmi to sleep for the
entire night. Next day she went to the
shop dragging along her husband and
bought an Onida DVD player, even
neglecting Mr.Shahrukh Khan who has
been telling for the past 2 months that
the products of Samsung are the best of
all. Such is the power of “Word of
Mouth”, popularly known as WOM.
According to McKinsey report, word of
mouth is the primary factor behind 20 to
50 percent of all purchasing decisions. Its
influence is greatest when consumers
are buying a product for the first time or
when products are relatively expensive,
factors that tend to make people
conduct more research, seek more
opinions, and deliberate longer than
they otherwise would.
Can “Word of Mouth” actually be
created? The answer is a perfect “Yes”.
This is what most of the major
companies are focusing on. The
marketers are striving to create an
advocacy for their products via their
customers.
Customers would advocate our products
only when their experiences are high in
saliency and meaning, which would
enable them to enter the realm of
emotions and personal significance.
Now, this calls for a necessity for the
marketers to not only deliver the
intended meaning of their product but
also actualize that meaning at as many
touch points as possible.
While there have been several “easy”
ways suggested to create WOM, it has
been found that there are primarily 8
factors which make the customers talk
about our product offline.
By A.K.Ashish
“Y
July 2012 MARK AVENUE 6
Going the WOM way
Consumer experiences
marked by rituals have an everlasting
impact as they make their experiences
more meaningful.
With the changing lifestyle,
Exclusivity is one of the major factors
which consumers are looking for in their
purchases.
The past activities which
demonstrate the concern of the Company
towards its customers, like special offers
catering to specific needs of the customer
will lead to idolizing of the company.
These experiences would eventually
become a part of folklore tales which tell
the consumers about what the Company
stands for.
Appealing to relevant inner
senses of Consumers makes their
experience special and increases their
inclination to talk about it. This is
particularly significant in hotel industries
where ambience plays a significant role in
customer satisfaction.
Customers often associate
themselves with the icons represented by
the brands. They start looking at these
signs and symbols from being mere
product identifiers to components of
identity.
It is of human tendency to
become a part of a tribe. Companies
capitalize on this nature of Tribalism to
create a loyal and vocally supportive
group for their brand. Apple has done this
for Mac users and hence has gained one
of the most supportive groups for its
brand.
A proper person speaking
about a product at a proper time will have
a significant impact on consumers than
that of the Endorsement done by a
celebrity. This confirms the relevance of
the consumer experience.
Finally, the connection
between “What we are”, “What we think
we are” and “what people think we are”
should be as close as possible. The larger
is the Continuity and Integrity of these 3
factors the greater is the probability to
enjoy WOM.
Reference:
“Conversation Capital” –
By Bertrand Cesvet
July 2012 MARK AVENUE 7
The author is a PGP2 participant at IIM Indore.
You can reach him at [email protected]
Perspective
he purpose of every advertiser has
always been to cut through all the clutter
in order to garner the attention of
his/her audience. However, studies have
shown that amongst the claims of
doctors, teachers, lawyers, journalists,
stockbrokers and advertisers, those of
advertisers are least likely to be believed
by people. This is primarily because
advertising is seen as an activity that is
primarily driven by self-interest, which
seeks to sell a product by making certain
claims about it no matter what the
actuality of the product is. This
eventually results in companies spending
a great deal on advertising, but the
corresponding advertising not being
successful as people have tuned
themselves to ignoring or disbelieving
everything they hear about a product in
its ads.
Enter Storybranding. Storybranding is an
approach to creating powerful brands
which involves selling a story that deeply
resonates with people such as “Think
Different”, “Umeed wali asha, sunshine
wali dhoop” or “Don’t be evil” in contrast
to selling the product itself. When you
learn to tell a story that the audience
deeply identifies with, there is no need
to sell the product. Says Scott Bedbury,
Chief Marketing Officer, Nike and
Starbucks, “A brand is a story that
connects with something very deep.
Companies that manifest this sensibility
invoke something very powerful.”
A story has been defined as a character
attempting to overcome an obstacle, by
Jim Signorelli, author of Storybranding:
Creating stand out brands by the Power
of Story. Research has shown that our
brains are hard wired to better accept
messages delivered through stories as
opposed to other mediums of delivering
a message.
Most marketing consists of telling the
end consumer what the product is all
about and how it can affect their lives in
a positive manner. But look into the
greatest success stories of all times, and
you see that people don’t really buy in to
what you do or how you do it, but into
why you do it. When an organization
builds a brand, it builds a thread of
integrity and consistency which is
reflected in each and every one of its
actions. Take for example Apple, which is
renowned for its culture of innovation.
People buy into this idea of innovation,
of thinking different, which is why Apple
is the organization with the largest
market cap today. There were
computers, MP3 players and tablets
before Apple came into the picture, but
these never attained mass appeal.
By Nandini Ramani
T
July 2012 MARK AVENUE 8
Storybranding
In the classic marketing theory of the
diffusion of innovation, the early adopters
are the ones who initially try out a product
but for it to attain mass appeal the early
majority (34%) and late majority (34%)
need to buy in to the product. And in order
for the product to attain mass appeal,
people need to buy in to its brand. A brand
story is the fundamental expression of what
your brand is all about, it is the reason
behind the company’s various actions.
The buy in to a brand story extends beyond
customers buying the product of an
organization. It also engenders employee
loyalty, with employees genuinely being
engaged with the company. As a result of
this, they are far more motivated and
productive. This is something clearly
manifested in the example of Google, which
has built a brand of powerful ethics with its
“Don’t be Evil” story. When it was faced
with the option of continuing in China
(which represented a huge market) and
giving in to the censorship demands of the
government, it chose instead to stick to its
ideals and withdraw from China. This is an
example of remarkable consistency in the
actions of an organization, by which it
adheres to its brand values.
The buy in to a brand story extends beyond
customers buying the product of an
organization. It also engenders employee
loyalty, with employees genuinely being
engaged with the company. As a result of
this, they are far more motivated and
productive. This is something clearly
manifested in the example of Google, which
has built a brand of powerful ethics with its
“Don’t be Evil” story. When it was faced
with the option of continuing in China
(which represented a huge market) and
giving in to the censorship demands of the
government, it chose instead to stick to its
ideals and withdraw from China. This is an
example of remarkable consistency in the
actions of an organization, by which it
adheres to its brand values.
Of course, the brand story need not
necessarily be one of exemplary virtue or
radical innovation either. It can be anything
your audience identifies with. For example,
Kraft has launched its granola bar MilkBite
with a mascot named Mel, who suffers
from low self-esteem. The mascot has an
identity crisis as to whether he is a milk bar
or a granola bar. And through the journey
of Mel, the product story is told. An
emotional connect is developed by the
compassion that onlookers feel for Mel.
Storybranding is also perhaps the reason
why more companies than ever before
indulge in Corporate Social Responsibility
today. As competition increases, it becomes
more and more important for organizations
to have positive associations in the minds
of people. And a positive association such
as contributing to environmental
sustainability by recycling old phones can
send out a better message than several
spots of ad spend.
July 2012 MARK AVENUE 9
The author is a PGP2 participant at IIM Indore.
You can reach him at [email protected]
References: Marketing Management: A South Asian perspective by Philip Kotler, Kevin Lane Keller, Abraham Joshi, Mithileshwar
Article
Underdog brands are brands that have
started from humble beginnings and
have fought their way up. People are
inspired by underdog biographies. They
want to see the disadvantaged winning.
This belief may be because of the
passion and determination many of us
share to win. But the question is
“Whether it is sellable proposition?”
Some of the top brands like Apple and
HP constantly talk about their garage
beginnings. Hewlett-Packard recently
bought, and has a whole section on its
Web site dedicated to, the garage in
which it started. It is now a historical
landmark. Adidas's "Impossible Is
Nothing" campaign emphasized the
underdog stories of famous athletes. This
trend first caught the attention of
researchers in 2008 presidential
elections in U.S. Both Obama and
McCain portrayed themselves as the
underdogs. As HBS professor Anat
Keinan explains, "Today, underdog brand
biographies are being used by both large
and small companies and across
categories, including food and
beverages, technology, airlines, and
automobiles. Even large corporations,
such as Apple and Google, are careful to
retain their underdog roots in their
brand biographies."
The concept of underdog branding
becomes all the more powerful during
tough times. They give hope to people. It
is particularly relevant in the present
scenario when people face adversaries in
the form of inflation, weak economy and
possible downgrade from the investment
cadre. However, the concept does not
seem to work when underdog brands are
bought by large corporations as in the
case of Snapple. The connection with the
consumer is gone. Apart from this, there
are certain categories in which
product/service quality can’t be
compromised. Pharma industry, hospitals
are examples of this exception
Andrew Namiccolo, founder of Seven
Story Learning, gives organizations a 3-
step guide to develop the underdog
brand story. First is to begin with
founder’s story or origin story as many a
times people buy a product not because
of its attributes but because of the
person behind the product. Second it to
frame the current underdog status
against powerful adversaries. Third is to
share stories about the organizations
continued dedication and enthusiasm.
Underdog branding, as a new form of
branding, is gaining wide acceptance. It
is ideal for small companies having the
will to make it big.
By K. Ashok Kumar
SEPTEMBER 2011 MARK AVENUE
Underdog Branding
The author is a PGP2 participant at IIM Indore.
You can reach him at [email protected]
July 2012 MARK AVENUE
10
Cover Story
What is most annoying before you go for
a movie? A friend coming up to you and
saying, “Dude! I heard that Hrithik
Roshan dies in the movie”. What a
spoiler! But does that destroy your
suspense? Maybe not! Maybe you want
to know how Hrithik would die in the
movie. And, to your pleasant surprise,
you find out that he comes back from a
near death experience to lift a monster
villain and hang him to death before
succumbing to injuries! His aatma will
now live on... If you think you’ll have
tears in your eyes when a movie ends
like this, please don’t read any further.
Otherwise, read on!
How often have you heard Marketing
Gurus tell that flow of information is key
to the field of Marketing? Making what
the customer wants by taking his opinion
and demands into consideration is one
crude way of looking at marketing. But
there are these organizations that thrive
on marketing plans that make
Information Asymmetry, the name of the
game. And they call this Information
Asymmetry – Suspense! That brings us to
a new model – The Pyramid of
Expectation!
Not providing the complete picture is
what keeps you hooked. Discovering a
product, and unravelling its mysteries, is
such a rich experience that it ties you
emotionally into it for years to come.
Anticipation is tied into expectation
Suspense begins with expectation. If I
don’t expect anything, then I have
nothing to anticipate. But if I expect
something, then I anticipate it, and woes
betide anyone who fails at delivering on
expectations. So it is required then
that my expectations are correctly
managed, motivated or manipulated, in
order to increase my levels of
anticipation, and therefore, my
experience.
So, is it good to build expectation? That
depends on how awesome you think
your product is. If you set the bar high
and end up doing the high jump below
the bar, you will land on concrete and
not the sand!
Expectation is best when the end is not
known
As we know, a few times a year when
Apple is getting ready with a product
launch, they leak a little bit of
information which subsequently gets the
rumour mill going.
By Rahul J
July 2012 MARK AVENUE
11
Suspense/Mystery marketing
The rumour mill creates mockups, ideas
and conspiracy theories all around this
stuff, and stock begins to rise like an eagle
as the world braces itself for the latest
Apple innovation. Yet no one knows what
this latest innovation is. They’re all caught
up in suspense.
What do you do when you don’t know the
story? You build the story! This is what’s
happening with Apple – people don’t know
the end (the product) so they go off in 100
directions and create all new and
wonderful ideas which in turn keep the
buzz up and the shares rising.
The beauty of a campaign driven by
customers is that, they know they could be
wrong. They are acknowledging that “I was
expecting something that you didn’t
promise.” So if Apple doesn’t do exactly
what they had in their mind, they are
emotionally prepared for it, and don’t feel
disappointed because Apple broke a
promise – the promise didn’t exist.
The only promise Apple inherently makes is
Innovation. This is Apple’s core offering; it
doesn’t matter what it makes, but the day
Apple fails to innovate, the fruit will start
tasting sour.
The trick of mystery is all in what you
don’t see
How much can companies play with this
concept? Can they tell very little to their
audience and expect them to buy their
product? Let us consider an Indian example
- Mahindra’s XUV5oo. The company kick
started its campaign calling it India’s first
Global SUV. No one knew what that was –
people were ignorant of an Indian Global
SUV. But the company started leaking bits
and pieces of information online. With
some hype here and there, a PR campaign
kicked off with fan sites trying to imagine
what the product would be like. And with
increasing amount of information, it
became intelligence when teaser snaps
came online and interviews to Auto
magazines started setting expectations
high. The PR had gathered so much
momentum that with increasing delay, the
expectations and mystery around the
product grew. And when they did launch
the car, intelligence became intent. The
challenge lies in sustaining this intent. And
sustain it will, only if your core offering –
the product – is good. Otherwise, the buzz
that was created will quickly change
direction and attack you; the fall will be
doubly quick than the rise.
The industry that pioneered suspense
marketing actually is the movie industry.
The eye-popping trailers and video leaks
give enough fodder for people to believe
that a special product awaits them. But for
far too long, Indian cinema has been
following up good trailers, off-screen
controversies and online video leaks with a
blatantly stupid movie. The suspense has
been destroyed far too often for the
consumer to bear. Companies have found
the hard way that suspense/mystery
campaigns are double-edged swords unless
your core offering is really good. Hopefully,
Indian cinema will take a cue and shift their
energy towards what they’re really
supposed to be doing – make good movies.
July 2012 MARK AVENUE 12
The author is a PGP2 participant at IIM Indore.
You can reach him at [email protected]
Perspective
Introduction to the Rural market
The 742 million people strong rural
segment, which was not willing to spend
much baring on a few necessities has
finally loosened its purse-strings for
discretionary items too. The buying
capacity of this segment of population
(rural community) has been estimated to
be a whopping $25 billion, a large part
coming from the overall growth in
economy. This huge figure will catch by
surprise anyone who has not kept pace
with the development, the way India’s
rural market has done. The other factors
for this boom in rural economy are a
marked increase in the rural income due
to agrarian prosperity, large inflow of
investments for rural development
programs and increase in demand due to
forever increasing population. Also,
increase in literacy and education level
and increased contact with urban
counterparts due to development of a
wide communication network are some
of the factors attributable to the growing
demand of this segment of population.
Be it increased awareness, buying
capacity, technology or telephonic
penetration, change in spending habit
has definitely been for the good for
companies who were facing stagnation in
so called developed urban markets. The
saturation level may not be absolute but
tapping the urban market with a high
profit margin has certainly become
difficult. The difficulty comes not only
from the increased competition there
but also from the higher awareness level
of consumer who wants his product to
be continuously upgraded. Fulfilling this
forever growing demand for product
enhancement and upgradation needs a
lot of investment which for lack of
increased margins will have a negative
impact of profitability.
Interestingly, this scenario in urban
market has made Brand managers and
creative agencies more thoughtful of
how to catch the rural segment’s fancy
and market the product among these
742 million people. Consumers may be
consumers at the end of day but the
aspirations, beliefs, attitudes and needs
of India’s dichotomous rural and urban
markets are vastly different. This
difference calls for separate marketing
strategies to be developed to suit these
two completely different segment
behaviours.
Coming on to the other aspects of this
segment besides its size and huge buying
capacity, we find a number of interesting
facts.
By Akanksha Pandey
July 2012 MARK AVENUE
13
The Opportunities and challenges in accessing Rural India
Rural segment has emerged as the fastest
growing segment in Mobile sector. While
the subscriber base is set to grow by 35%,
sale of handsets is expected to increase by
19%. LIC sold more than 50% policies last
year to this segment. The segment gives
the FMCG industry a business of almost Rs.
65,000 Cr and is the largest consumer of
smaller SKUs (on price points of 5, 10),
sachets and most economy brand products.
60% Rediffmail sign-ups last year belonged
to the smaller towns. Lastly, 42 million rural
households avail banking services as
compared to 27 million urban households.
The list may not be exhaustive but gives a
very clear indication of the growth this
segment is witnessing. Needless to say ,
these factors make rural market immensely
attractive for FMCGs, durables, mobile
operators , services and every other kind of
industry.
The different strategies which have
emerged as a result of this rural boom are
location specific promotions and
activations, 'Bundling of inputs' a
marketing strategy, in which several related
items are sold to the consumer , including
arrangements of credit, after-sale service,
and so on , Management of demand i.e.
continuous market research of buyer's
needs and problems at various levels for
continuous product improvements for a
sustainable market performance,
developmental marketing, presenting USPs
framed as catchy phrases and selection of
sales force from the educated unemployed
villagers.
It should be recognised here that though
the potential exists, there are a number of
challenges a typical marketer will have to
come across while trying to gain access to
rural mind space. Rural marketing can
particularly be an expensive, time-
consuming affair because of several listed
problems. Barter system – exchange of
goods for goods which is still quite
prevalent in rural India, a major obstacle in
rural marketing. Underdeveloped people
and underdeveloped markets – though the
development has been rapid, it has been
restricted to a small area leaving vast areas
still untouched. Lack of proper physical
communication facilities – although mobile
penetration figures look promising, for
sales and marketing to function well, all –
season physical connectivity is very much a
necessity. Many villages are still facing the
problem of well connecting roads and
become inaccessible during monsoon etc.
Inadequate Media coverage for rural
communication- a TV still not forms a part
of their daily routine, although they may
own it. Many language and Dialects – The
language may vary from village to village
and therefore, a communication strategy to
reach maximum number of people is a big
question .Other factors - Natural calamities
and Market conditions (demand, supply
and price). Drought or too much rains, lack
of proper storage facilities, transport, Long
chain of middlemen etc are some of the
issues which have to be tackled by anyone
entering these markets.
Apart from lifestyle and infrastructural
challenges, there are a number of
challenges a marketer has to face in front of
rural consumers too.
July 2012 MARK AVENUE 14
The Traditional mind of rural India is not
open to accepting and reacting to new
ideas. Agricultural income is still mostly
invested in gold ornaments and
weddings. 75% rural consumers are still
illiterate or semi-literate and therefore do
not persuade new thinking.
But still, there is no denying of the
potentially huge purchasing power of this
segment, the segment which comprises of
742 million individuals. 742 million people,
whose usage of FMCG products or durables
does not amount to even 10 % of their
urban counterparts. Connectivity has
resulted in awareness, a raging interest in
brands, and a latent desire to consume and
possess what the urban consumer has. The
key is for brands to realize that the
aspiration levels are going higher in the
rural segment. The new emerging rural
consumer will be more brands conscious
and also cost conscious. It will be a task for
brands to overcome challenges and reach
out to this new age rural consumer. Also,
rural markets are laggards in picking up
new products. This will also help companies
to phase their marketing efforts to reach
maximum number of people. This will also
help to sell inventories of products already
tried and tested in urban markets.
July 2012 MARK AVENUE 15
The author is a PGP2 participant at IIM Indore.
You can reach him at [email protected]
Jargon
Brand Chain : The brand chain begins
where the classic supply chain ends. While
the supply chain is made up of value-adding
inputs leading to the product, the brand
chain begins with product development and
heads toward the customer. Through brand
platforms and programs it delivers multiple
forms of downstream value. The brand
chain consists of creative brand interactions
between customer and company, customer
and product, and between customers
themselves.
Ambient Marketing : Signs, posters
and other promotional material, often in
unusual and unexpected places, inside a
shopping centre or retail outlet to generate
customer interest and stimulate purchasing.
Peer-to-Peer Brands: Brands
powered by users that arise, grow and
mutate within a shared product or brand
context. Peer-to-peer brands generate layers
of meaning through common focus and/or
passion. They serve customer agendas, but
may open doors for new product and brand
platforms. Market spaces of P2P brands
include open source software, product
customizations, automobile aftermarkets,
modding, and software extensions. Peer-to-
peer brands are brand additive.Brands
designed to be extensible via peer-to-peer
architectures can gain market advantage
over traditional top-down, close-end brands.
Bait and Switch Pricing :
Advertising an item at an unrealistically low
price as ""bait"" to lure customers to a store
or selling place and then attempting to steer
them to a higher-priced item
Brand Hacks : Customers hack brands.
It’s their way of pumping meaning into a
brand that doesn’t measure up. In this
process, customers add content and context
that the brand originator overlooked. They
effectively redirect a brand in this manner,
migrating it into new value domains,
sometimes far beyond the original brand
vision. New brand strategies encourage(and
thrive upon) brand hacks. For these reasons,
a primary mission of the brand is to cultivate
brand hacks.
Jaa(r)go(n) Re
July 2012 MARK AVENUE 16
Fresh on TV
July 2012 MARK AVENUE 17
Kitna Deti Hai
Maruti Suzuki as a part of its campaign ‘Kitna deti
hai’ launched a TVC.
In this TVC, Maruti Suzuki has focused on one of its
USPs, its mileage. Amelia Johnson, an aviation
pioneer, lands in Mumbai, she's interviewed and asked
about her aircraft. She says, 'It's a super marine, with
300 horsepower radial engine and the a 1000-mile
range... A member of the audience interrupts her to
ask, 'Kitna deti hai'. The question is then translated
Vodafone’s Delight
Vodafone came up with a new TVC bringing back
its ‘Delights’ Campaign
“The TVC communicates that any customer who visits
the Vodafone stores would get a gift for sure. It shows
a boy nervously ringing the bell of an old man's house
to hand over a few mails. The old man presents an
Britannia Bourbon has come out with a television campaign to promote its latest offering.
“The TVC opens with a motorcycle pulling up
outside a house, late in the evening. A guy drops a
girl off after a date, and the young man is hoping for
more. The girl, reading his mind, invites him over for
Britannia’s Bourbon
to Johnson, who's left stunned - she doesn't have an answer. The film ends with a voiceover that says, "For
a country obsessed with mileage, Maruti Suzuki makes India's most fuel efficient cars."
apple to the boy after receiving the mails. The boy looks happy and confused all at once. His curiosity
rises and he visits the old man's house repeatedly. Each time, the old man gives him something to take
home, be it a pen or a mouth organ. The story ends with a smile on the old man's face, born of bringing
the young man joy with each gift. The last frame of the film announces that a Vodafone customer will get a
gift on visiting its stores.”
‘coffee’. Seated inside the house awaiting the girl, he checks his breath and his hair. He is stumped when
an old lady approaches him with a tray. She introduces herself as the girl’s grandmother, and offers him
Bourbon Cappuccino biscuits. The voice over says, “Bitter cappuccino on the inside; sweet, sugary
biscuit on the outside”.
Reference: Campaignindia.com
July 2012 MARK AVENUE 18
500
The best two
articles will win a
cash prize of
each
competition
Indian Institute of Management Indore