I have moved
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Dear Patrons,Finally I have given in to my friends' persistent advice to move my blog to Wordpress. Blogger vs Wordpress debate had been going for too long and I admit that Wordpress surely has many advantages over Blogger. Fortunately I have been able to import all my posts and comments at the new address.
I have moved my Marketing blog to following URL:
http://www.jasginder.com/bizblog
I have brought my technology, marketing and finance blogs under single blog - Business blog. Please update your Blogroll and bookmarks (if any!).
Labels: Launch, New Address, Rebranding
posted by Jas @ 12:03 AM,
,
DLF - The entertainment's daddy
Sunday, April 13, 2008
After the much hyped about auction of players by BCCI and then selling the title sponsorship to DLF and media rights to Sony, here comes another high decibel advert for Indian Premier League (IPL). Famous or say notorious now by the the title - ManoRanjan ka baap - IPL (Entertainment's daddy - IPL) this advert is a big hit. The 75-second TVC which will run all through the 44 days of IPL and is directed by Rajesh Krishnan of Soda Films. DLF IPL kicks off at 4 pm on 18 April.
StoryBoard
The ad starts with a lady delivering twins but the irony is that the father of the kids is unknown. The twins are named as 'Ranjan' and 'Mano'. During the next eight years, it’s become the norm for people such as the local pujari (priest), kiranawala (small shop owner) and chapris (roadside romeos) to torment the kids with the question, “Kab aayega tumhara baap?”, and to tease their mother lecherously.
Tired with all this, the three lead a hopeless life. One day the mother thinks its enough and decides to jump in a well; but suddenly the bells in the temple ring and the kids holler for their mother, saying, “Maaaaa! Baaaapppuuuu!” in a typical Rajesh Khanna style. The mother knows that the wait is over. She puts red sindoor in her hair and enters the house. The scene is hilarious as the voiceover says: “Aa gaya Mano-Ranjan ka baap (father). DLF Indian Premier League. Sirf Max par.”
The best part is that if you are watching the advert for the first time, you won't get any idea of what is going to happen. The names are spelt as Ranjan Mano, with only once going as "Mano Ranjan". Its not easy to hold on to the idea when you know you have got a winning ad coming out.
Going by the public appeal, this is one of the most funny and clever commercials currently on air. Its a simple idea, executed really well. Ads like this more often than not, go wrong in the execution phase, but this one is bang on the target. That filmi eighties kind of look and dialogs from Indian cinema, perfectly suit this ad.
Rediff wrote that , ‘An industry source said BCCI had allocated roughly Rs 100 crore as its (IPL) advertising budget,’. And aptly mentioned by Adholik, normally with such high bugdets, creativity goes for a toss, because its easy to get all the stars with such money and have them sing and dance, shoot it on camera and call it an ad. But thankfully, things din't become figurative over here.
"The campaign projects IPL more than a sport. It redefines the entertainment by taking this sport to a new level," said Max VP marketing T Gangadhar. The radio campaign has a different treatment as it is a listener's medium. Out-of-home (OOH) hoardings displaying the IPL event have been erected in 150 towns. Besides the channel will have on-ground promotional activity across India as the tournament approaches.
"Males were always skewed towards cricket but with a 360 degree approach our attempt is to get the entire family to view IPL as the matches are scheduled for prime time," added Gangadhar. The biggest challenge is to predict the viewership, admits CD Mitra, CEO, Optimum Media Solutions: "It is a big gamble for all those who have invested in it and also for those who haven't. For most programmes the value and money is preceded by some evaluation. But in case of IPL the variations of prediction are very large."
StoryBoard
The ad starts with a lady delivering twins but the irony is that the father of the kids is unknown. The twins are named as 'Ranjan' and 'Mano'. During the next eight years, it’s become the norm for people such as the local pujari (priest), kiranawala (small shop owner) and chapris (roadside romeos) to torment the kids with the question, “Kab aayega tumhara baap?”, and to tease their mother lecherously.
Tired with all this, the three lead a hopeless life. One day the mother thinks its enough and decides to jump in a well; but suddenly the bells in the temple ring and the kids holler for their mother, saying, “Maaaaa! Baaaapppuuuu!” in a typical Rajesh Khanna style. The mother knows that the wait is over. She puts red sindoor in her hair and enters the house. The scene is hilarious as the voiceover says: “Aa gaya Mano-Ranjan ka baap (father). DLF Indian Premier League. Sirf Max par.”The best part is that if you are watching the advert for the first time, you won't get any idea of what is going to happen. The names are spelt as Ranjan Mano, with only once going as "Mano Ranjan". Its not easy to hold on to the idea when you know you have got a winning ad coming out.
Going by the public appeal, this is one of the most funny and clever commercials currently on air. Its a simple idea, executed really well. Ads like this more often than not, go wrong in the execution phase, but this one is bang on the target. That filmi eighties kind of look and dialogs from Indian cinema, perfectly suit this ad.
Rediff wrote that , ‘An industry source said BCCI had allocated roughly Rs 100 crore as its (IPL) advertising budget,’. And aptly mentioned by Adholik, normally with such high bugdets, creativity goes for a toss, because its easy to get all the stars with such money and have them sing and dance, shoot it on camera and call it an ad. But thankfully, things din't become figurative over here.
"The campaign projects IPL more than a sport. It redefines the entertainment by taking this sport to a new level," said Max VP marketing T Gangadhar. The radio campaign has a different treatment as it is a listener's medium. Out-of-home (OOH) hoardings displaying the IPL event have been erected in 150 towns. Besides the channel will have on-ground promotional activity across India as the tournament approaches.
"Males were always skewed towards cricket but with a 360 degree approach our attempt is to get the entire family to view IPL as the matches are scheduled for prime time," added Gangadhar. The biggest challenge is to predict the viewership, admits CD Mitra, CEO, Optimum Media Solutions: "It is a big gamble for all those who have invested in it and also for those who haven't. For most programmes the value and money is preceded by some evaluation. But in case of IPL the variations of prediction are very large."
Labels: Brands, Funny, Launch, TVC
posted by Jas @ 8:39 PM,
,
Motorola - is climax coming?
Sunday, February 03, 2008
When a company announces that it is going to do away with one of its key business units it is definite to impact the stock price in exchange. And if the stock rises by something like over 10% then it surely rings a bell (and in case you haven't noticed, even the trade volume is high). It doesn’t take much of analysis to understand that Motorola had been doing badly in handset business. Its only ticket to cash registers was Razr, except for that one model, rest all just came and were lost in clutter. After grabbing world market share of 23% in 2006 on momentum led by its Razr phone, the company has lost nearly half that as rivals outpaced it with successful new products. So it was not surprising to see Motorola slip to number three spot behind market leader Nokia and now runner up Samsung.
I personally feel that Motorola has been too laidback, they are trying to catch the market based on some engineering innovations and aren’t really able to connect to the normal consumer who can give them volumes. Nokia relies on design innovations rather than engineering innovations in the electronic part. The ease of operation and sturdiness has been two main selling points of Nokia. If you have used Nokia once, you can use almost all Nokia phones as they are similar on usage, unlike other phones which are difficult to learn and the interface change with the handset.
Motorola has come up with another model W230. Looks like the handset was launched after a careful gap analysis of features and market need. With features like expandable memory upto 2GB,MP3 player,FM with recording, large phonebook memory and USB1.1 data connectivity, its loaded with features; I felt the handset was priced quite aggressively at Rs.3,400. The ad for the set is again a very typical of Moto phones with TG of middle class. It’s targeted at youth and boils down to the same word - Attitude. But it is actually a nice ad than the earlier one where father loses his head!
Labels: Brands, Business, Launch, TVC
posted by Jas @ 2:21 PM,
,
User generated advertising
Friday, December 07, 2007
From plain (textual) word of mouth advertising, it got refined to viral advertising and now with user generated content being on a steep rise on the internet, it wasn't too far that a firm would come up user generated advertising campaigns. Here below is an example of such a campaign. The project was to make an advertising campaign for a gel pen brand Pentel-EnerGel Deluxe
The video may not give you a well planned, enacted and executed ad campaign, but looking at the mode of medium and target audience; it really strikes aptly. Rather than the stress on its abilities the campaign uses them as a metaphor to associate the word - expression with the product.
The video may not give you a well planned, enacted and executed ad campaign, but looking at the mode of medium and target audience; it really strikes aptly. Rather than the stress on its abilities the campaign uses them as a metaphor to associate the word - expression with the product.
Labels: Launch, Marketing Practices, New Trends
posted by Jas @ 2:48 AM,
,
Cadbury India repeats innovation success
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, Mumbai, India
Creative Directors: Anup Chitnis, Rensil D'silva, Piyush Pandey
They did it with Perk about a decade back and they have done it again with 'Ulta Perk' now. Cadbury brought the chocolate coated wafer category to the Indian cocoa confectionary market with launch of its highly successful brand - Perk, then popularized by brand ambassador Priety Zinta.
Perk was launched in the market in 1995 and has seen consistent growth through the years. The cocoa confectionary wafer market is around 35 % of the total chocolate market and has been growing at around 13% annually. Perk has been one of the best sellers in impulse buy market. Priced at Rs5 these days for regular size and at Rs10 for 'Bada Perk' (Bigger Perk), the Perk set the trend for Nestle's Kit Kat and Munch to be followed.Cadbury has come up with a new innovative product line extension now, by having wafer on outside and chocolate inside. Lucratively priced at Rs.5; the new concept is surely going to pull many consumers. According to Cadbury, extensive consumer research and testing has been undertaken to determine the product taste, format and the communication campaign. ‘Ulta Perk’ has been test marketed in the South Markets – Tamil Nadu & Karnataka (South of India) for over 6 months and has received excellent response from the consumers.
Even the advertisements are really interesting ones. The problem with these impulse buys is that in starting, a good amount of money needs to be pumped in marketing activities before a significant return can be achieved. And Even after you have done, you still need to keep pumping a decent money to make it rememberable on impulse. The TVC is featured below while the print adverts take on the mantra of situations in a totally opposite context than it would be normally. Like man chasing a dog up a tree, a fly complaining about a man in its food, a balloon playing with a child floating in air etc; all going with the tagline -"Cadbury's reverse bar. Wafer outside, chocolate inside."
What is best part for Cadbury is that its a festive time in India and according to the recent urban practices, people have started giving dry fruits and confectionery items instead of traditional sweets / mithai. So in assortment packages, which by the way are quite popular from Cadbury, may be having few Ulta Perks embedded adding to sampling opportunity. This may soon give it desirable sales, provided the taste and texture is nice.
Sources: Cadbury India website, Ads of the World
Labels: Brands, Business, Launch, TVC
posted by Jas @ 3:35 PM,
,
Scintillating Fragrances
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
A twenty thousand euro dress, two thousand hairdo, 24carat diamond set jeweled in platinum... still your dress-up wont be complete without that subtle or expressive élan by virtue of a fragrance. How many times has just a sniff of it changed our mood? or made us float in air, brim with confidence or just bring a smile with closed eyes!
With such a stake they don't command a cost based price, but get based on perceived price. It becomes a high involvement and in many cases the highest. As such it becomes a marketer's dream turf. Some reach the zenith and other get branded for life in nadir.Idea always is to make the customer move to non rational purchase, make it go through heart and not mind. Once its done then it paves a huge path for extraordinary profit, changing of brand name to a symbol or an icon.
Chanel No.5 has been such a brand that has ruled now for almost a century (it came out in 1921) and is still fresh. Coco Chanel had once commissioned Ernest Beaux to make six perfumes, which were labeled No. 1, No. 2, etc. through No. 6. It was bottle No.5 that was to Chanel's liking and became the chosen formula. No. 5 is famous for being the first perfume to heavily rely on synthetic floral aldehydes as a top note. Before synthetics, perfume either had to be applied very heavily before going out to ensure that the fragrance would last, or frequently throughout the night. The expensive manufacturing process of No.5 had made it to be the most expensive perfume at that time; which still holds true.
The cost to marketer for maintaining such a brand? The following 180 seconds commercial for television broadcast and cinema advertisement was made at whopping budget of $42 million USD which was financed exclusively by Chanel.
The cost to marketer for maintaining such a brand? The following 180 seconds commercial for television broadcast and cinema advertisement was made at whopping budget of $42 million USD which was financed exclusively by Chanel.
Now Keira Knightley is all set appear as the new face of Chanel,to launch an advertising campaign to promote the fragrance Coco Mademoiselle. Keira has replaced star model Kate Moss as the latest face of the firm. Chanel had earlier decided to abandon Kate Moss from its promotional campaigns after her drug scandal.
The second brand that has been catching my eye is the range of Bulgari (BVLGARI) which has come up with innovative designs of packing or 'vials'. The packing of perfumeries is amazing to eyes and the olfactory organs of our body. I in particular liked the product on my right. An impressive packing, then the usage leads to a complete experience of having this perfume for self. Quoting from wiki, The company was founded in 1884 in Rome, Italy. The current flagship store was opened in 1905 by Bulgari with the help of his two sons (Costantino and Giorgio) and the store quickly became a place where the world's rich and famous came for the unique, high quality jewelry designs combining Greek and Roman art. Although the company made a name for itself with jewelry, today it is a recognized luxury brand that markets several product lines including watches, handbags, fragrances, accessories, and hotels.Labels: Brand Endorsement, Launch, TVC
posted by Jas @ 11:07 PM,
,
RAZR2 launched in India
Friday, August 24, 2007
I have covered the RAZR2 in my technology blog, here is the post. Motorola launched it on 23rd August in India.
Labels: Launch
posted by Jas @ 3:43 PM,
,
Pepsodent Center Fresh
Thursday, August 23, 2007
What I had discussed in that post was that the product was per se heading for a failure just because it was positioned in a wrong way; launching the gel-fluoride combo in gel segment.
Now Levers may have come up with the combo in fluoride segment due to just failure of Close
For me the ideal ad campaign would have been where the mother stresses the benefits of paste and the younger one(s) excited at freshness aspect and they are shown at peace preferably physically too e.g. younger one giving a hug and both oozing the happiness and energy or both giving a high five etc. But the current campaign is decent enough.
Now we know that the sales margin would have been higher for the product in initial months making it reach the shelves of good amount of retailers, and going by the plain Pepsodent packing or retailer pursuing, some buyers would have picked it only to find the new combo at home. Now the job is for the product innovation guys, if they have the product made good the sales registers would start ticking! This stage was the one that the gel one would not have reached.
Labels: Launch
posted by Jas @ 6:12 PM,
,
Selling new product launches to retailer
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Whenever a new product is launched, its felt that the burden of success is on marketing. If the campaign is well structured, well executed, and the time, effort, competition and logistics are taken care of, then the consumer need becomes the only significant driver, no? Well you may say that if you have not been to the ground. Coz all said and done, the last leg of new launch is in hands of the salesman who is working with the retailers. He is the man who will make your new product reach the hands of consumer, but then he has a 'catalyst' - retailer.
But here comes the problem, normally when there is a launch the retailer is quite skeptical of buying it, leave alone placing it. The older brands are doing well, he is having his share of margin, so why buy something from these salesmen which doesn't have a reputation yet? At same time the dilemma for salesman is that unless the product reaches shelves, how will it move?
Solution? Higher retailer margin, promotional schemes for retailers, larger credit period etc. Smaller brands may even have to place it for free wherein the retailer pays them after the sale of any SKU. But even with established brands, sometimes they won't buy the newer product. Its not that consumer wont buy the product, it hasn't reached its hands yet. But if you try selling the retailer, you will meet the exact excuse. Underlying problem is that its the retailer's mindset that the product wont move / consumer wont buy and hence he will not place it.
Some other times you will see that you manage to sell the product to retailer assuring that he buys for this month and see the sales, vouching for the high sales of your other brands. Many times its another of a cheaper on pocket version or smaller SKU or maybe a smart but big packing. Say the product is a hit too, but after few months the retailer will get skeptical as he finds that his returns are lessening. I will take case of Pepsico coming out with Uncle Chips' promotions. Say the margins on both Ruffles and Uncle Chips is 10% (assumption on my part). The retailer's returns will lessen here. Reason is that the volume a retailer can buy from you is fixed, so his earlier returns on selling 10 packets of Ruffles will be much higher than that he gets by selling 10 packets of Uncle Chips of same volume (mind it, not grammage). Until the margin compensates for the loss, be doubly assured he will cry in next coming month ends (sales guys will understand this pain!)
But the story doesn't end here, if the margin is lower for the retailer then its most probably lower for the manufacturer too. But the company district sales head will settle the equation by pushing the sales targets, which again puts the salesmen in tougher position. The more the newer product eats into the sales of its predecessor instead of competition, lower will be the market share in terms of value while the volume share may show a different picture. Instead of this I have seen quite few companies being more comfortable with just volume share.
Labels: Launch
posted by Jas @ 7:25 PM,
,
Bingo! by ITC
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
If you are an Indian who has an access to TV then there is no doubt you would have gone through the ad-space bombardment by "Bingo" snacks. After venturing into biscuits and Pasta food segment, Bingo is the third attempt by ITC to enter into the Rs 20 billion fast-moving branded snack market. The market has been growing at an impressive 30% rate and has already made Pepsi gain its double figure growth rates in last two years. Kurkure, the only second Indian brand where an MNC developed a product for Indian market and then took it abroad based on its huge success, has already shown the preference of Indian taste. Not to be shunned by market, ITC has poured in months of research of consumer behavior and consumption habits insights. Its team of people, according to the strategist (the Strategy supplement of Economic Times), had visited all over India to come up with these research results.
The adverts, done by O&M, are being perceived by many as irritatingly boring. Some feel that these are worst TVCs done by ITC as there is no entertainment factor. Irritating - Yes, but these adverts arent that boring. The idea of any advert is not to be entertaining, it may become one as a consequence, but the aim is to get the person buy the product. Now with heavy bombardment of these ads ITC has made sure everyone knows about the brand Bingo, and that too not as just another local snack maker's but from some respectable name. The quality of ad execution does make an imprint. One may not like the ads but when one goes to marketplace, then a string of Bingo's is sure to catch attention. Then one can remember the Mad Angles from the TVC and connect to present visual. And then is when this TVC does a goal.
Ready to eat food segment is an impulse buy segment, so top of the mind recall is very necessary. And with such advertising, it surely will get more first time testers. At second step comes the consuming experience, if the snacks are able to hold back the consumer for a next consumption, the cycle gets complete. Now how will consumers respond to the taste is yet to be seen. So lets see if Bingo will go the Sunfeast biscuits way up or the Pasta way down.
The adverts, done by O&M, are being perceived by many as irritatingly boring. Some feel that these are worst TVCs done by ITC as there is no entertainment factor. Irritating - Yes, but these adverts arent that boring. The idea of any advert is not to be entertaining, it may become one as a consequence, but the aim is to get the person buy the product. Now with heavy bombardment of these ads ITC has made sure everyone knows about the brand Bingo, and that too not as just another local snack maker's but from some respectable name. The quality of ad execution does make an imprint. One may not like the ads but when one goes to marketplace, then a string of Bingo's is sure to catch attention. Then one can remember the Mad Angles from the TVC and connect to present visual. And then is when this TVC does a goal.
Ready to eat food segment is an impulse buy segment, so top of the mind recall is very necessary. And with such advertising, it surely will get more first time testers. At second step comes the consuming experience, if the snacks are able to hold back the consumer for a next consumption, the cycle gets complete. Now how will consumers respond to the taste is yet to be seen. So lets see if Bingo will go the Sunfeast biscuits way up or the Pasta way down.
posted by Jas @ 11:30 PM,
,
