Know Your Audience

July 30th, 2011

Next time you go for a movie… take notes. Ages, gender, couples, singles, gang of girls/ boys, families, kids, attire, language and so on. Go through your notes after you have done it for at least four movies. What you have on the four pages in front of you will each be different from the other. Which means Avatar, 3 idiots, Ice Age 3 and 2012 will all have different kinds of people watching it (other than the freaks, who watch all movies).

If you make movies that appeal to your group of supporters, you will get repeat business. If not, you will spend all your time marketing without being able to retain your customers. Rajkumar Hirani made Munnabhai MBBS… his supporters made it a hit, the same people definitely watched Lage raho Munnabhai… it was a super hit. 3 idiots is a super duper hit. I managed to see it recently and my suspicion of it being in the same genre as both the Munnabhai’s was true. In the first two installments it was a rowdy with a heart of gold and in 3 idiots it’s a student with a heart of gold. The story also relies heavily on a supporting cast as in both his earlier films. The story I think was also written with a character in mind. The cinema hall was mostly full of families and couples, as it was for Lage raho Munnabhai. I am damn sure if not all most of the people who were present are the ones who have seen both the previous ones.

A superb cast, a good story and brilliant marketing just added to the films success. Raju Hirani has managed to create successful family entertainers. His supporters would have still watched the movie if the cast would have been different (it could have been successful too). Like wise Priyadarshan is known for making films of a particular genre and his movies have done well at the box office. He also directed a serious movie (Kyon Ki) in between the funny ones, Kyon Ki failed at the box office even though it had a good cast. Abhay Deol is a successful hero in off beat films 1.40 ki last local, Manorama 6 ft under, Dev D, Oye Lucky… we have to wait and watch what happens when he does an out-n-out commercial movie. If Abhay Deol has understood his supporters well he may not do a completely commercial film.

The marketing lesson to be learnt here is KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE, few who have understood their consumers will stick to what they are good at. Some will try different things that may not succeed. The same is true in case of brands; brand managers who understand their consumers well will succeed in their offerings, others fail. You can have the best of products, supported by world class service and brilliant advertising. If your customer does not have the need for the product it still fails.

The key to knowing you audience is DATA. As experts in the field have said success of your marketing campaigns depends 40% on getting your data right, 40% depends on the offer and 20% on creativity. If you don’t know your audience you can’t make the right product/ offer.

Data tells you everything you need to know about your audience how well you use it to you advantage is up to you.

Be it films, food, music, sports, finance, travel, shopping or sex… data never lies and gives immense opportunities and learning’s. The question is ‘are you willing to invest the time and effort to KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE’?

(Written by Naveen Nandan, Group Director – Rapp India, Mumbai)

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The Way Forward For CRM & Loyalty Programs

May 7th, 2011
So, have you met the new guy in town? He’s called Mr. Social and he’s a proud man. His EGO, my friend, is defined as Engage, Grow and Optimize. And we are proud to have him around us. By now, you must have understood whom I am talking about. He is the ever effervescent and mostly spoken about talk of the town Mr. Social Media. Without a doubt Mr. Social Media and his networking abilities has changed the way people connect
and communicate today and will define the future of what we know as CRM.
So how does the age old CRM and its upholder deal with the new age lingua franca. Traditional providers of CRM have been trying hard to fit the social media aspect to their current cog. Grappling with the fundamental question, the CRM guru today wants to understand this medium in its entirety to enable him to reach out to his customers in a faster, better and cheaper way.
The question now is; what does one do to fit in? For starters, let’s look at all the three aspects of this medium and understand the synergetic possibilities of it leaping to become the next big thing overhauling CRM.
Engage
Businesses need to take a cue, that the new meaning of ‘C” in CRM means ‘Community’. It’s the logical next step in evolution of CRM, bringing together loyal customers in focused, domain specific ‘flocks’; who then collectively work as brand ambassadors-cum-spokespeople. These flocks will define the brand image and are relatively the key drivers for success of the brand’s initiative to drive loyalty solutions to its customers. If
businesses are able to effectively manage this social juggernaut, the entire solution will be a well-oiled dependable tool for them to run effective customer centric campaigns. Not to mention the Voice of customers (VOC)/reviews and customer behaviour analysis that help these brands take its image building exercise to the next level and start thinking in a radical manner.
Grow
Today, providers of Web-based customer relationship management (CRM) platforms and
solutions have been working hard to incorporate these new networks and technologies into their services, utilizing the power of cloud to connect and integrate regular CRM tools with major social and micro blogging sites like Twitter, Facebook, tumblr and LinkedIn; creating what has come to be known as social CRM. These sites can
not only provide another way to connect with an audience, but also help provide deep insight into their lives likes and dislikes wants and needs, and also help to connect with potential customers. This trend is exemplified by Apple’s launch of a music based social network, ‘Ping’ on its iTunes platform.
Optimise
Whoever said the world is a small place obviously also relates to the fact that the online
presence of someone is just based on a single degree of separation. It’s all about “I” being the center of all conversation. Remember President Barack Obama discovered he could build a movement and win election thru social media channels. And when Conan O’Brien was shown the door, he decided to host his shows online with active help from social nuts as he refers his followers.
All the above three characteristics exemplify a proactive and honest personalised communication at all times. Today Interactive agencies rarely speak loyalty management. Instead they speak e-CRM as a language. These agencies managing loyalty solutions have exploited the power of social and have used it to the best of what we today term as an engaging and interactive one-to one communication network.
The future as I see it belongs to someone who effectively engages in this domain, grows his network and works towards optimising the medium to its potential. Most businesses I know and interact have a steep understanding of the medium and have already started utilising the social media force as an on-going customer interactive tool. Are you ready to translate your loyalty data to social moolah?

So, have you met the new guy in town? He’s called Mr. Social and he’s a proud man. His EGO, my friend, is defined as Engage, Grow and Optimize. And we are proud to have him around us. By now, you must have understood whom I am talking about. He is the ever effervescent and mostly spoken about talk of the town Mr. Social Media. Without a doubt Mr. Social Media and his networking abilities has changed the way people connect and communicate today and will define the future of what we know as CRM.

So how does the age old CRM and its upholder deal with the new age lingua franca. Traditional providers of CRM have been trying hard to fit the social media aspect to their current cog. Grappling with the fundamental question, the CRM guru today wants to understand this medium in its entirety to enable him to reach out to his customers in a faster, better and cheaper way.

The question now is; what does one do to fit in? For starters, let’s look at all the three aspects of this medium and understand the synergetic possibilities of it leaping to become the next big thing overhauling CRM.

Engage

Businesses need to take a cue, that the new meaning of ‘C” in CRM means ‘Community’. It’s the logical next step in evolution of CRM, bringing together loyal customers in focused, domain specific ‘flocks’; who then collectively work as brand ambassadors-cum-spokespeople. These flocks will define the brand image and are relatively the key drivers for success of the brand’s initiative to drive loyalty solutions to its customers. If businesses are able to effectively manage this social juggernaut, the entire solution will be a well-oiled dependable tool for them to run effective customer centric campaigns. Not to mention the Voice of customers (VOC)/reviews and customer behaviour analysis that help these brands take its image building exercise to the next level and start thinking in a radical manner.

Grow

Today, providers of Web-based customer relationship management (CRM) platforms and solutions have been working hard to incorporate these new networks and technologies into their services, utilizing the power of cloud to connect and integrate regular CRM tools with major social and micro blogging sites like Twitter, Facebook, tumblr and LinkedIn; creating what has come to be known as social CRM. These sites can not only provide another way to connect with an audience, but also help provide deep insight into their lives likes and dislikes wants and needs, and also help to connect with potential customers. This trend is exemplified by Apple’s launch of a music based social network, ‘Ping’ on its iTunes platform.

Optimise

Whoever said the world is a small place obviously also relates to the fact that the online presence of someone is just based on a single degree of separation. It’s all about “I” being the center of all conversation. Remember President Barack Obama discovered he could build a movement and win election thru social media channels. And when Conan O’Brien was shown the door, he decided to host his shows online with active help from social nuts as he refers his followers.

All the above three characteristics exemplify a proactive and honest personalised communication at all times. Today Interactive agencies rarely speak loyalty management. Instead they speak e-CRM as a language. These agencies managing loyalty solutions have exploited the power of social and have used it to the best of what we today term as an engaging and interactive one-to one communication network.

The future as I see it belongs to someone who effectively engages in this domain, grows his network and works towards optimising the medium to its potential. Most businesses I know and interact have a steep understanding of the medium and have already started utilising the social media force as an on-going customer interactive tool. Are you ready to translate your loyalty data to social moolah?

(Manoj Shetty, Head Operations, EBS Interactive India)

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Advertising: Expense Or Investment?

April 22nd, 2011

At the launch event of the book, Draftfcb Ulka Advertising Concepts & Cases Book II, Mr Ravi Kant, Vice Chairman, Tata Motors, observed that advertising needs to be seen as investment and not just as short term expense.

It takes a seasoned marketing professional to view advertising as a long term investment towards building a long term asset for the corporation: a strong brand.

Most senior managers see advertising as a short term expense aimed at building short term sales. No wonder CFOs look at advertising as the first thing to cut in a down turn.  Travel and entertainment come a close second.
Why should advertising be seen as investment, and not as just an expense?
Advertising impact is often not visible when measured through a short term yardstick. So even after a heavy dose of advertising the brand’s sales needle may not move much. Similarly the brand’s image score also may not move up at all. But if it is known that the advertising  that has run addresses key issues faced by the brand,  should it be stopped or continued?

The short term effect of advertising could get masked by heavy competitive activities, price cuts, new brand launches or other any significant economic events like an  interest rate hike.

Prof John Philip Jones has done work on short term effect of advertising, using single source data. But most of his work has been  in consumer goods in developed steady-state markets.  I submit that those rules may not apply in all markets, in all product situations.

Contrast that point of view to that of seeing advertising as investment. If the approach is that of investment, one look at  a short term negative response not from the context of cutting but of getting to the bottom of the problem. And when one probes deeper one may find that the advertising is in fact working well and results will show up soon enough.

The paradigm creates its own images. Which paradigm will drive your vision, advertising as investment or advertising as expense?

(Ambi MG Parameswaran is ED & CEO, Draft FCB+Ulka)

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‘Hey! The Cop Is My Husband!’

April 16th, 2011

Synopsis: The way to convert a safe playing client who buys only boring advertising into a client who buys great advertising is to share examples and success stories from around the world.

There are three kinds of clients (read, buyers of advertising):

  1. One who has heard of a certain Ogilvy, the bloke who said ‘what sells is creative’ and is against all glory because advertising must sell and has a Gandhian repulsion to all things good
  2. One who enjoys the odd good spot on TV and talks about it with great glee but when it comes to his own brand, looks out of the window and says “maybe we should just write ‘50% OFF”
  3. One who knows about advertising as much as the agency. Is update on what is happening and thinks of advertising as a critical almost crucial part of the marketing mix.

What I feel like telling the first one is to read what Ogilvy said once again. ‘What sells is creative’, beg your pardon sir, wouldn’t that mean ‘what is not creative will not sell’. To which my client is likely to say, “You writers no! You know how to play with words”. I suspect he would go home and think a little more about it, still. Exhibit A here is the kind that believes advertising is a mere necessity that need not be taken too seriously. ‘You say what you have to, if the product is good people will buy it.’ Yes, you can debate. Like, with a wall.

Exhibit B. Hopeless in a different way. This type believes, it’s not for him. I dare say, this type is rampant in the FMCG category. So they would talk about the likes of Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ campaign but will be content with a montage of category codes when it comes to their own advertising.

Dear C, I exist for you. You make me think harder. You make the work better. And I know for sure that behind every piece of advertising that I cherish there is a you. You make the other two of your clan bearable.

There’s a Bhojpuri saying that goes, ‘Saiyaanbhayekotwaal’. Simply translated that means, ‘hey! The cop is my husband’. Popular logic says, that can be made possible in two ways. One, you marry a cop. Two, make the one you marry, a cop. Privileges of – ‘Hey! My husband is a cop’ will be the same as those of ‘Hey! The cop is my husband!’, after all.

Not all of us, at all times are going to get a client who makes us think harder or pushes us to create advertising that is less than ordinary. Hence the cop trick.

To begin with, it’s pretty easy. Send that link, your advertising friends sent you, to your client/s. Type A is likely to get suspicious immediately and type B will sigh. Keep at it. Next time you see a stunning piece in a relevant category, send it across again. Maybe this time you can support the creative with results. Type A is likely to call and ask what exactly do you have in mind? Say, ‘nothing really’. Type B will sigh again. Download those Cannes winning films from canneslions.com, put them on a DVD and send it to your client. It makes for a good weekend watch, if nothing else. Show him the scope of creative thinking.

Cut to a meeting sometime in near future. Your client is a little more aware. A little closer to the page you are on. A cop more approving and appreciative.

Carry something you would present to a C type client, even if you have to carry the ‘all the category codes’ options. Present both. You may not see success immediately but you are working at it. He will have things like ‘but this doesn’t work in our category/our country/our market’ to say. You will have another link, another success story to share.

Keep at it. Push logic and not merely the ‘creativity’ or your whims, and one day you will have a ‘kotwaal’. Don’t do this, and the cop will keep reading out the safety guidelines to you.

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Not An Underdog Anymore

April 16th, 2011

There is a very distinct taste to India’s win at the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. It’s the taste of definitiveness rather than surprise. The definitiveness of deciding to do something and making it happen. The big thing about this win is that it went as planned. Underdogs surprise by their wins, leaders reassure by making their plans real. In many ways India’s victory at this cricket tournament underlines the definitiveness that India is no more in the process of arriving at the world stage, it has already arrived.

Events like these have socio cultural significance as they are lived by people at large. The goose bumps that you and I felt sitting in front of our television sets, looking at our national heroes like Sachin crying with joy will get etched in our cultural consciousness. This moment marks a significant milestone in the psychological evolution of our country.

In fact, culturally we Indians are very suspicious of making a big deal about any upcoming event because we are scared that it will attract an evil eye. We like to keep our fingers crossed and not celebrate before the outcome. Historically, our fears have often come true. Whenever India has sat in anticipation of a big win, it has been disappointed. As it was in the Beijing Olympics when we had three boxers in the quarterfinals and the entire country was glued to their television sets.

The flavour of the nation this time around was different. Whether it was the conversations on radio or the facebook updates or the preparations of watching the match with beer and snacks and big screens, they all came with a certain assumption of a positive outcome. Even when India lost its two crucial wickets of Sehwag and Sachin early on in the finals, the tweeter feed and the facebook updates held their confidence in India’s win. India today has a new found belief – the fact that we can live up to our own expectations. That we can prepare for a win and it will happen. No jinxes, no bad luck and no floundering of ability can pull us down.

The definitiveness has been an intrinsic part of India’s performance this time around. Those who have been expected to deliver have delivered in the time of need. The most inconsistent of the players as Yuvraj Singh have delivered with a remarkable consistency winning the match of the series award. Even an out of form Mahendra Singh Dhoni got the job (that he had come down for) done with an unprecedented 91 not out. But more than India’s performance at the finals, India’s run up to the finals, by defeating Australia and Pakistan, the two most formidable teams of the time helped build the assurance factor.

In these times of global uncertainty, where economies are crumpling overnight and the locus of economic power is shifting eastwards, India’s triumph in the game of cricket is yet another assertion of it global significance. Indians have always shone as individuals through their academic and intellectual abilities. Now is the time when we are shining through as a community, as a team that can hold its grit and nerves. India’s intellectual prowess has amply been recognized at the world stage, this win celebrates its psychological prowess. And this is the mark of a leader, not an underdog.

(Dheeraj Sinha is the Regional Planning Director, Bates 141 & Author of ‘Consumer India – Inside The Mind And Wallet’)

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