What makes some brand associations click?

It’s an uphill task for advertisers and marketers to figure out what works and why, and why not  

                                   

What comes to your mind when I say Titan other than watches?

The same melodious music track that has been played in every commercial of the brand for over 28 years.

 What about Britannia other than the biscuit associations - what comes to your mind?

The music track tin tin da din!  And so the list of associations goes on, some inherent to the design of the brands in question and the other is the role played by advertising agencies who have been consistent with their execution over the years.

Why do associations matter?

Many of the brands are similar to each other and hardly different. And yet marketers and advertising agencies have to ensure that their brands are remembered from the plethora of choices that the consumer has. This is why colours matter. This is why shapes like the Harpic bottle are recalled. This is why the distinct of somewhat a strong smell of the Amrutanjan pain balm is remembered by consumers and the whole world knows if someone has applied it! There is also an important concept that we need to remember here. Associations that are carefully nurtured and built by careful advertising ends up as a brand property and Titan and Britannia clearly have become brand properties that are worth boasting about!

An association can be an early warning symbol

Not all associations however are positive.

Having a reasonable idea of positive associations, we must quickly bring up another thought about a negative association that actually has the potential to hurt a brand. How many of you remember the Toyota Qualis? It was launched in India in the year 2000 with great fanfare and it achieved tremendous acceptance in the Indian market. People were very happy with its size, the ruggedness and ability to transport people and luggage as it had done in Indonesia. However, another phenomenon was making itself apparent at the same time. Any resort, hill station or tourist destination you went to, you found the Toyota Qualis being used as a taxi. Soon you saw the Qualis everywhere as the taxi of choice and then actual users began having second thoughts about the brand. Why would anyone want to buy a taxi for their own use, particularly if the roads are littered with them? The company then came up with the Innova, a superior more expensive product.

Will history repeat itself?

Let me begin by saying that the Innova is a brilliant Toyota vehicle that has taken to Indian roads and Indian markets like a duck takes to water. It is easily Toyota’s largest selling vehicle in India and the Indian consumer instantly took it as a family vehicle and it became the long trip companion. Remember, India still has a united family that goes on pilgrimages, not to forget young families going in groups for trips and holidays. But another development happened in front of our very eyes. Ooty, Kodaikanal, Mysore and Lonavala were full of these same vehicles operating as taxis, not to forget the airports and the Metros which had their fair share of Innovas. As a consultant who worries about brands and their welfare, I wonder if the Innova might end up like the Quails. So here’s a quick research done by some students who were part of our branding program in the form of an association map which points to some warning signs for the brand as many people mention “taxi” as the first association. Of course a small size research like this is merely an indicator of a possible problem but the company must worry about this and probe this in greater detail.

See Brand Association map

How can we use this technique?

This technique is very useful to give you an understanding of what the consumers think and feel about your brand. What is the key association with? Nike with shoes for instance. Which brand do they see as contribution to this brand? Which association is more important and which is less important, is a possible result of this. Nike for instance, had spent millions on their brand’s advertising using the legendary golfer Tiger Woods. But this hardly came out in the research which must have got their antenna up.

Yes, associations are a useful brand management tool. They are not complex and don’t need too much investment. It is a simple but effective tool that many brands and consultants have used with great success. Think about some of the brands that you use and check for associations.

The results might surprise you!

Is Bengaluru a brand?

How this iconic southern city became the ‘software capital of India’

Recently I was part of a panel discussion in a prominent TV channel on Bangalore as a brand. I probably learnt and observed a lot more than I spoke but I thought that it would be appropriate for me to share a few thoughts with you dear friend on the branding of a city. Mind you, branding a city is not a new idea. One of the greatest advertising campaigns of all time is the “I love New York“ campaign created by Jane Maas who is as famous an advertising personality as you might come across. Take a quick look…

So what about Bangalore?

I came to Bangalore in 1980, I am sure none of you were born then, to study at the IIM and continued to live on in this now not so wonderful city. But let me quickly add it is arguably the best city in India at least to live in. But when you are talking about branding, it is about being known for something or better still owning something not only as a place to live in. When I came to Bangalore as it was then known it was first “a pensioner’s paradise” and then the “public sector” city of India, not to forget the “garden city“ tag that it inherited though some cynical editors chose to call it the “garbage city” not so long ago! How times and things change! But the city changed and things moved on from the early nineties as software majors like Infosys and Wipro had their headquarters there. Tom Friedman’s book “The World Is Flat” had Bangalore as its key setting and suddenly Bangalore logically became the software capital of India and was at one point of time the only Indian city that was a brand all over the world. Let me give you a simple example. I have been travelling around the world to watch cricket World Cups. I was in a mall in Johannesburg a day before the India Pakistan World Cup match in which Tendulkar was to show his magic. But before that, in the mall, I literally bumped into a South African gentleman in the mall. He accepted my apologies graciously and asked me where I was from and when I said Bangalore, he looked at me with awe and said “oh software?”. So even someone who is a technophobe like me got branded as a software wizard! So much for the power of branding! Today so much is happening in Bengaluru in the area of startups and entrepreneurship that it is being called the “startup capital of India”.

So what are the learnings?

Yes places can be branded too and we do have a great example in India too of “God’s Own Country” as Kerala has been so effectively and evocatively addressed over the years.

Branding takes time, effort and energy not forgetting the clear strategy and we start by answering the question “what we should be known for?”. Now in the case of Bengaluru it probably happened due to the environment. Bangalore became the software capital of India only partly by intent. The fact that some of the majors like Infosys and Wipro were in Bangalore just made it necessary for the competitors to come there to raid the people of these majors! But if you want to brand yourself as a city against others you need to be clear of what you are offering. How can you be relevant and yet different from your competition is a difficult question that needs to be answered honestly, however difficult it is.

At the risk of repeating, let me tell you that branding is not only advertising. It is just about everything that your city needs to do. It is also about customer experience. While Kerala’s scenic beauty lent itself to the theme line of “God’s Own Country” the state realized even then that its infrastructure did not measure up to the lofty claim. They had to focus on infrastructure and means of reaching the state. If the airport of Cochin had to be improved or renovated, that was an important part of this whole process.

Branding is not only about tourism though most people tend to look at it only from that perspective. Yet today for instance cities and states want to be destinations for investment. You can see almost every state wooing investors from other states to come and invest here in our own state.

My final thought is while branding may have specific needs like tourism or investment there must be a larger objective and that is standing for something that sets it apart and that is not an easy question to answer. Start with research. But remember that branding is a process, not an event, whether it is a person like you or a city like Bengaluru.

Who knows you may end up with another “I love New York” for your city!

 

Why e-commerce ad spends will be runaway success this festive season

E-commerce space took off spectacularly well last Diwali with small as well big e-commerce players in a no holds barred ad spend spree, and if media reports are to be believed both Flipkart and Snapdeal are looking for 1 billion dollar (Rs 6,300 crore) funding each from their current investors. Negotiations have been going on for more than six months now and as per industry sources; they are expected to close the fund raise typically by mid-August or late August, which will be before Diwali. So, with more money coming into the market, it will fuel ad spends during the festive season.

Also reportedly, most of these e-comm portals, including Flipkart, Snapdeal, Jabong and others, reported poor Q1 sales numbers. As a result of this, there will be immense pressure on the top e-tailers to offer good discounts, so that the e-comm players can make the most of it during the Diwali season. 

Media planners and ecommerce players we spoke to said that the ad spends by the e-commerce sector alone could go as high as Rs 1,300 crore in 2015.

Click here to read the report: E-commerce ad spends could go as high as Rs 1,300 crore in 2015

Higher ad spends this festive season is the popular industry opinion

Sam Balsara, Chairman & Managing Director, Madison World said, “Yes I am amazed at the number of dot.com businesses that are coming into the advertising market and they want to advertise with quite decent size budget for start-ups. This is the key and the new phenomenon which kind of began to happen about two years back and is now slightly happening on a wider scale. One of the reasons why most of the growth will happen this year is because of dot.com business. Otherwise there could be de-growth, because last year whatever the growth was, 7-8% was because of the Elections and this year the money is going to go away.”

Nabendu Bhattacharya, MD of Milestone Brandcom highlighted, “I keep on reading reports everyday that the e-comm majors are eyeing for funding. So it is like the flavour of the season and everybody is trying to build their brand and visibility is the key. During Diwali, there is a huge clutter in the market and we have clients, who have started asking us to book the space for the September to the November time frame. Many of these e-comm players work on a weekend module, and all these players would want to move into the Diwali season, when a lot of buying happens for the household. There is a huge demand this time; otherwise, booking space for the festive season from now on is not the typical OOH phenomenon. My belief is that all the advertisers will have a fantastic time this festive season.”

Rajiv Dingra, Founder & CEO, WATConsult feels that the entire 1 billion dollar will go in ad spends alone. He informed that, “In digital, you need a month’s time in advance, so if you need something by Diwali, which is on 11^th November, then you should start working by October 11. So in another 15-20 days, when these players will have their funding in place, we will get to see a lot of pitches happening. In many ways, they may not change their creative agencies so much, but there could be a room for a lot of these individual creative agencies to get projects.”

He further added, “Ecommerce will be an always on function, and it may differ from quarter to quarter, I think the reason where they have reached is because investors have the vision that, come what may, we have to grow the pie, in this case, funding actually becomes irrelevant. It is a market making strategy and they want everyone to buy through e-commerce. As the e-comm system, user base and inventory is built up, people will buy from places where it is available. As this attitude becomes more common place, the pie will grow and they will get more investments. Look at it from the investor’s point of view, I am happy putting, a billion more where I have already invested 2 billion, than investing 10 million, where I have not invested.”

Shamsuddin Jasani, MD, Isobar, said “Absolutely, with Diwali approaching there will be a huge spike in terms of all the e-comm players spending, both in terms of mindset of the consumers, when they would like to spend money in buying things, as well as the e-comm guys, who would like to drive home the point that e-commerce is here to stay. And this Diwali is going to be a blockbuster season and you are going to see records being broken, in terms of sales.”

Echoing similar views, Ramanujam Sridhar, Founder and CEO, Brand-comm feels that there will be more ads spends. “Infact many of these e-comm portals hardly did any kind of advertisements, till they got funding. Funding is all about getting eyeballs and customers, so unless you do advertising, you won’t be able to get that. “I have heard from a lot of these brick and mortar brands and the strong ones infact, that they have been quite concerned about the e-comm sites offering discounts. But all these e-comm sites should try and do advertisements differently; right now it is completely discounts and offer led. The merit of advertising is not in bringing the name of the brand across, but in building an affinity towards the brand. Probably there is pressure from the VCs in getting more sales and footfalls, that is the reason the ads are more discounts led.”

Mobile, digital to benefit more?

Bhattacharya stated that, today advertising is all about being in consumer’s mind space and whoever shouts the most, will win the battle. “Also Diwali for brands is no longer those 2 days when the consumers will be at home, it starts much before that. So placements on the way to office, near the malls will be very important, also apps are turning to be a huge rage. Today, investors don’t mind spending money, but they will like to know, what will be the return of their investments- in terms of the sales and the leads.”

Dingra is of the opinion that, since today it is all about creating the buzz, so lot of mobile impact innovations will get leverage, brands like InMobi and Vserv could get business, because mobile is where these e-comm players are all going. Since Diwali communication is mostly about being visual, ad spends will happen over a lot of mobile-led ad networks and video led ad networks.

According to Sridhar, a lot of these e-commerce brands are now using YouTube for their promotions. The recent one was Myntra’s Anouk ‘Bold is Beautiful’ and since they chose the topic of homosexuality, it helped them to grab eyeballs and the video became viral. So I think we will see more brands using YouTube now on for their advertising.

 

Go digital

Want a career in marketing? Plump for digital marketing, advise Prasun Chaudhuri and  

Avijit Chatterjee

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You must have seen those pop up ads (“Big Chillout Sales”, “Rocking Deals”, “How to Make Money Driving” and so on) on your smartphone screen. Ever wondered who is responsible for the ads? And who posts those notices about study centres in your Gmail inbox, Facebook page or on Twitter just after you’ve sought some career advice via the email?
This is the work of digital marketing professionals — a new breed of people who promote products or brands on one or more forms of the electronic media.

Rimjhim Ray — who co-founded Unmarketeer, an integrated creative and digital marketing company in Mumbai — is a primary example of a digital marketer. Her work is to create the most appropriate promotional campaign for new media channels, namely, the social media and mobile phones.
 “I can measure how these campaigns are being viewed, and what content works and doesn’t work — typically in real time,” she says.

How does Ray find out what might interest one of India’s 600 million users of smartphones, tablets, notebooks or personal computers (PC)? “We listen to what people are saying,” she says.

It is relatively easy to spot what people are talking about in the digital world, what they love or hate, as you learn about them from their public profiles. So you can find out what a teenage audience likes or where a 25-year-old upwardly mobile woman is going for a holiday, all from Internet queries or searches.

Analysts source the information and pass it to creative teams that design campaigns based on what's trending. “You use videos, interactive banners, social media posts, mobile phone games and animations to hook the audience. There’s an immense variety here,” Ray says.

The variety attracts young people to the field. “If you look at the placement records of top tech and B-schools you’ll find that youngsters look for novelty, challenges and the excitement of creating a new world order,” says Prapti Banerjee, a director at Blippar India, a global marketing and advertising agency.

The burgeoning field covers a range of activities — marketing in the social media, search engine optimization, web and mobile applications, data mining and so on. As Ramabhadran AP, senior vice-president, Manipal Global Education Services, puts it, “Every product is available online today — from a toothbrush to a house. So a person can choose his or her area of work from a wide variety of options.”

Digital marketing is exploding the world over, especially in the developed world. “But only 19 per cent of Indians are active Internet users — we haven’t even touched the tip of the iceberg,” exclaims Banerjee. According to the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), an industry body, digital advertisement spending in India grew by 30 per cent to Rs 2,750 crore in 2014 and is expected to grow phenomenally in the next few years.

“The growth trajectory shows that this is gradually becoming the mainstay of marketing,” says Nilotpal Chakravarti, associate vice-president, IAMAI. Agrees Shivan Bhargava, group president (skills and careers), NIIT. “These days no marketing strategy is complete without digital marketing. Almost all companies use it to build their brands and generate sales. The best thing about digital marketing is that it is specifically targeted, easily traceable and cost effective compared to television and print media ads,” he says.

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The situation reminds experts of early 2000 when the IT industry was at its peak. “A similar momentum exists today in this field,” says Pradeep Chopra who heads Digital Vidya, a New Delhi-based digital marketing training institute. “Every week we get calls from leading agencies wishing to hire trained people.” Bhargava estimates that over 1.5 lakhs jobs will be created by 2016.

The online revolution happened so fast in India that there’s an acute dearth of talent, feels Raghu Chaitanya, an assistant professor at MICA, the Ahmedabad-based institute of strategic marketing and communication. “We were the first in India to introduce specialisation in digital communication management (DCM),” he says.

Although having a background in IT, which helps in the back-end of the digital ecosystem, offers a slight advantage in the field, a complete understanding of marketing fundamentals will help a professional do well, he believes. MICA has been approached by a large number of recruiters from the digital media — such as Google, Amazon and Cognizant Technologies  — in recent years.

At the managerial level, skills in both technology and marketing help to integrate traditional campaigns with the digital world, says Anthony Quigley, co-founder, Digital Marketing Institute, UK. “Marketing through mobile phones is in crying need of appropriate professionals,” he says.

To meet the rising demand one needs to groom the right talent to come up with innovative ideas, says Sudeep Sen of Teamlease, the Bangalore-based recruitment firm. 

However, few good institutes exist to train people and one must be wary of fly-by-night operators capitalising on the demand, warns Ramabhadran of Manipal Education. “These institutes offer shallow courses to dupe students,” he says.
For all the hoopla, not all are gung ho about digital marketing. Ramanujam Sridhar, head of Brand-comm, the brand consulting company, believes that it is “one of the main cogs” in the marketing of any brand, but not “all” about marketing or communication.

Some also caution those wannabe digital marketers who believe the field is all glamour and fun.
It’s not just about a few posts here and there, stresses Vismaya Jain, a student of MICA, who recently interned with a top company. “Multiple analytical tools are involved, metrics to be benchmarked and ‘likes’ to be measured. Extensive strategies are employed and plans are made weeks in advance.”

Besides, entry level salaries are still lower than those offered in similar roles in the traditional marketing domain. Yet the “huge potential and scope for big things” in the near future draws Jain and thousands of other youngsters towards this new profession.

LEARNING CURVE

• MICA, Ahmedabad: mica.ac.in/academic-programmes/digital-marketing
• IIM-Bangalore: iimb.ernet.in/pgp/courses
• Manipal Global: manipalglobal.com/Digital_Marketing?
• NIIT: niitimperia.com/digital-marketing-programs
• Digital Vidya: digitalvidya.com
• Digital Marketing Institute, UK: digitalmarketinginstitute.com/uk/courses
• Calcutta Media Institute:  

http://cmi.net.in/ programs/post-graduate-program-in-digital-marketing-management/
• Coursera: coursera.org/specializations/digital-marketing

WORK ZONE

E-commerce, advertising, media, marketing, social media, banking, insurance, consumer products, telecom, entertainment

MOOLAH MATTERS

Entry level: Rs 4 lakh to Rs 5 lakh
Mid-level: Rs 5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh
Senior level: Rs 6 lakh to Rs 8 lakh
Source: TeamLease Services

HOT SKILLS

Technical: Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Mobile phone Marketing, Application (or, app) Marketing, Data Analytics
Non-technical: Creative thinking, Communicating, Photo0editing, Commercial Awareness

How an MBA student can be a brand

It is important to think of the future and that means thinking about what direction you will take

A marketing career seems something that you could give an arm and a leg for if reports are to be believed. It is all about glamour, travel, commercials being shot in New Zealand and celebrity shoots with Priyanka Chopra! Well while some of it may be true it may include van trips in UP with the salesman selling detergents. To sum up marketing can mean travel not only to exotic places, strange food, and dusty roads but it could also give you an opportunity to meet new people, learn different languages and customs but more significantly grow faster and earn more than some of your classmates at management school.

Who should get into marketing?

Before we understand your suitability for marketing it is first important to debug some classic myths about marketing and its people.

Myth no 1.

Marketing people are smooth talking, chain smoking, and beer guzzling people.... what a clanger that is! Marketing people or the smarter ones think before they speak. They are hardly the hail fellow, well met but people who have strong relationships with their clients and partners like dealers.

Myth no2.

Marketing is sales. Hardly, marketing is about branding, advertising, distribution, pricing, market research and a whole lot more.

So if you are to be successful in marketing, you need to be interested in products, people and their behaviour. You must be willing to travel, definitely from your home town and be open to different people, languages, food and cultures.

You must be a good communicator who is constantly willing to learn and make mistakes. Your mind must be constantly alert to new opportunities and behaviour changes. Why are people buying more and more stuff online today is one such question that must interest you.

So what must you do?

If you are a first year student, it would help if you did your projects, internships and just about everything in marketing. Be a part of social media groups of the community. Read the business sections of the newspapers and definitely the trade web sites like exchange4media and Agencyfaqs. Definitely do your two month summer project in marketing.

In the second year do a specialisation in marketing which will give you an understanding of the whole process - sales management, brand management, advertising, distribution and product management definitely and certainly market research. Audit courses if you find yourself unable to do everything that the institute offers. Push your student representatives to do marketing seminars and workshops.

You are what you know

I hate talking about myself but I must make a point here. In my two years at management school I took it upon myself to read every book on advertising that was there in the IIM Bangalore library and testimony to that is the power of my spectacles! But seriously today you are more fortunately placed. Everything that you need to know is on the tip of your fingers thanks to Google. And yet a word of caution is in order here. Not everything you read on the net is gospel truth. Anyone can post an opinion online and often some people have an agenda. So sift through information, ask questions in class and during guest lectures and read text books as they are more reliable.

What do you want to do?

I was clear I wanted to do advertising. I was in love with that. Nothing else mattered. So my choice was simple. Yours may not be so simple. You need to research, speak to your teachers, the guest faculty and your seniors to understand the job market place. Where do the opportunities exist? Is it sales or is it logistics thanks to the Flipkarts of the world. Is it analytics which points you to the direction of market research? Remember that these are important choices. But in management school look for a combination of subjects which will help your career and don’t be fixated with a specialization. Choose carefully. So consumer behaviour for instance would be attractive to me as it would help me in my marketing career even if it meant I sacrificed another course in a different stream.

Be inspired

All around us are words of wisdom and success stories of people who have been there done that. Try to understand their life paths and career choices. David Ogilvy was a cook before he became the greatest copywriter of his time. Remember too that every experience, every learning will have some value somewhere. Make the most of your two years at management school and soon enough you will provide value to your employer and those around you.

Welcome to the world of ideas and innovation!