BrandAnthem Insights

Internal Brand Engagement - Turn Employees Into Brand Ambassadors, Not Automatons

noreply@blogger.com (Pratap Kumar Pattanayak) — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 19:26:00 +0000

In the push for companies to take up branding as an important management practice, branding consultancies have laid strong emphasis on the aspect of brand behavior

In fact, most consultants seem to highlight brand behavior as the most important component of branding as it is the axis on which brand image and reputation is directly hinged on.
According to the 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer, 62% of respondents across 20 countries said that they trust companies less now than they did a year ago. And this reflects directly on the behavior of companies.
The critical question: can branding consultants sufficiently handle brand behavior aspects by managing the complex nature of a company’s management? Or is it a rhetorical fad that sounds exotic and appealing but is beyond brand consultant’s area of expertise?
Internal brand engagement is key. Employees are the most significant feature of a corporate brand and therefore, the values of the brand must be linked to the corporate culture so that it reflects those values to the external stakeholders. Corporate behavior is therefore reflected through employee behavior. Particularly in service brands, the people who work for the organization are the brand.
This raises serious questions on how an organization can enact it successfully. Which department will manage this function? Will the human resources strategy be aligned to the brand values? Do brand consultants have the tools and the know-how to enhance an organization’s HR strategy and practice so that it achieves cohesiveness in brand vision and behavior?
Companies need to develop employees into knowledgeable brand ambassadors. To be successful, brands need to be more than rhetoric, but reflect the real experience of working for the organization. As anyone who has worked in a customer-facing role can attest, not only is the customer always right, but employees have to smile, even if they are feeling frustrated. Customers, of course, want to deal with real people, not automatons.
Brands are also forced to reconcile their corporate culture and employee behavior with other brands, whether they’re being thrust together through a merger or acquisition, or competing against a brand in the same category. The difficulty of developing a cohesive and unified corporate behavior is even more pronounced in the case of mergers when two companies decide to merge or unite through acquisition or strategic alliance. Employees of the companies that merge are humans who are driven by their shared culture and individual personalities.
There will be inevitable differences in decision-making styles, leadership and employee integration. A shift in leadership style can often lead to top talent leaving as they may object to the change. Employee collaboration and teamwork become difficult if the cultural background of the two merging companies is inconsistent with each other.
Given the constraints for time during mergers, companies cannot afford the time for detailed cultural diagnosis. In such a context, can a new vision run deep enough to overcome existing differences? Can the organization successfully engage its employees in the new vision and culture? Can the new organization meet the stakeholder’s image of what this company should be? More importantly, can brand consultants ensure a smooth flow of the corporate vision to the new or the dominant brand culture?
Another area that directly reflects corporate reputation, especially manifested through a company’s brand behavior, is its corporate governance. The variety and complexity of sustainability related risks contribute to the difficulty of building and maintaining corporate reputation successfully. What must be considered: legal and regulatory compliance, human rights, environmental management, supply chain issues by way of labor standards and practices, government regulations by way of anti corruption and public sector procurement.
All these aspects are reflected through brand behavior and a single inappropriate action can cause severe reputational damage. How competent are brand consultants to advice companies on aligning their corporate governance to their behavior?
As more mergers and acquisitions take place, as more complex management of human capital strategies are being adopted, and as more stringent forms of corporate governance comes into practice, brand behavior becomes the single most visible aspect of how well a company takes its reputation seriously.
It therefore becomes imperative for brand consultants to develop specialized areas of expertise that encompasses critical management concerns that reflect on the reputation of their client’s corporate brand. If they don’t, they might as well call it a day!
This is particularly pronounced in these times when people tend to lose their trust in businesses to do anything ethically and every initiative that companies make to improve their reputation is being looked at with cynicism. The way companies behave will have to be looked at with much more critical understanding so that business decision makers can rely on the expertise of brand consultants to develop strategies that truly reflect their brand and protect their reputation in a sustainable manner.

Author-Fermi Kuruvilla
Ferrm is a brand consultant working in India and the Arab Gulf states. He is a partner at C&C Consultants and can be reached at fkuruvilla@cncconsultants.com

Marketing Through Smart Phones:The QR Code Advantage

noreply@blogger.com (Pratap Kumar Pattanayak) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 11:43:00 +0000

An average Indian smartphone user spends about two-and-half hours a day on the handset, dedicating more time to entertainment and internet activities than to voice calls and text messages, says a survey.According to a Nielsen-Informate Mobile Intelligence survey, Indian smartphone user spends 72 per cent of the time on activities such as gaming, entertainment, applications (apps) and internet related content.The remaining 28 per cent of the time is used for voice calls and text messaging, it added.India’s rapidly growing mobile user base presents marketers and businesses with an opportunity to improve the precision with which they reach out to the new Indian consumer. In a cluttered media landscape smartphones are a boon when it is used as a media vehicle. There are many apps available which may act as catlayst to improve the consumer experience. QR Code is one such significant application which can transform the realtime consumer experience. A QR Code (it stands for "Quick Response") is a mobile phone readable barcode that's been big in Japan forever, broke into Europe & US a while back, and is now getting traction in India.In its simplest sense think "print based hypertext link" - simply encode a URL into the QR Code and then point a mobile phone (or other camera-enabled mobile) at it. If the device has had QR Code decoding software installed on it, it will fire up its browser and go straight to that URL. But it doesn't stop there - a QR Code can also contain a phone number, an SMS message, V-Card data or just plain alphanumeric text, and the scanning device will respond by opening up the correct application to handle the encoded data appropriately courtesy of the FNC1 Application Identifiers that are embedded in the encoded data. The technical specifications for a QR Code are set down in the ISO-18004 standard so they are the same all over the world, and the only significant variations from one QR code to another (apart from the data it contains) is the number of modules required to store the data. A Version 1 QR Code is a 21x21 array of data elements with the array increasing in size by 4 modules for each increase in version number. The largest standard QR Code is a Version 40 symbol that 177x177 modules in size and can hold up 4296 characters of alphanumeric data (theoretically) compared to 25 characters for a Version 1 QR Code. While there is still a lot of scope for improvement, the resolution of average present-day camera-enabled portable devices is such that the size of the data modules (dots) on a QR Code of Version 5 or above (37x37) presents a real risk of incorrect decoding of the symbol by the device. When creating a QR Code intended for use with mobile phones and PDA's it's best to stick to Version 4 or lower, and a QR Code symbol of at least 2cm (0.85inches) across. To make things a bit more robust, the QR Code also contains its own error correction data, internal orientation calibration and self-alignment markers. In this way it doesn't matter whether the QR code is upside down or wrapped around a curved surface, the message will still get through. BrandAnthem highly recommends its client for going for QR Code embedded communication. Even we are embedding the QR Code in clients visiting cards for a real time experience(Please see the below image) There are many success stories when QR Code influenced purchase decissions. TESCO used the QR Code for its advantage in Korea(See the video link).

As we see the future of India moving towards smart phones, we believe marketers to implement QR Code strategy as a communication plan through smart phones.

Hospital Branding:Emotional based Positioning or Technological Advantage Positioning

noreply@blogger.com (Pratap Kumar Pattanayak) — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 10:47:00 +0000

This blog I'm writing is based on BrandAnthem's recent pitch for an upcoming hospital which belong to a major real estate group. Though we have lost the pitch but the lesson will be remembered in the long run.
For the purpose of presentation we have done thorough analysis of the recent situation in the health care industry, specially in the scenario of big hospitals like Apollo, Max, Fortis etc. Our research has shown that most of the hospitals position as maximum number of hospitals,maximum number of beds, care,technology. The big gap is missing emotions.
Now ask a simple question: have you ever been to a hospital with the expectation that those guys will take care of you just like they are your mother.On the contrary you will feel...this hopital going to steal my money for unnecessary tests which is not required.
Our pitch emphasized that the new hospital should position it self as a center where staffs are emotionally connected with the patients(just like Munna Bhai MBBS), where its not the being profitable but its the empathy which will be the core etho. A hospital where a old lady feel that its a home away from home, a hospital where the mother goes through labour pain, her child learns rhyme from the staff, a hospital where staffs are selected on the basis of their desire to serve people and get connected rather than being competing for the number of surgeries they have done.
Unfortunately the founders daughter did not like the concept. She asked me why you are positioning it based on Empathy instead of positioning it as a hospital which is equipped by latest technology(and they spent million on this). My answer was since most of the hospitals positioned as a technology driven health care centers its time to differentiate your hospital as an Empathy Driven Hospital equipped with latest technologies. I also suggested that since this hospital belong to one of the largest groups in Asia pacific, so by deafault people will percieve it to be equipped with latest technologies.

In the principle of brand positioning the first exercise is to do the POP(Points of Parity)Vs.POD(Points of Differentiation) analysis. You have to position the brand based on combining the competetive offering(in this case technology) and highlight the competetive differentiation(in this case Empathy). But unfortunately the founder's daughter along with top management which consist of prominent doctors did not like the concept.

Business Innovation: Branding by Tata Steel

noreply@blogger.com (Pratap Kumar Pattanayak) — Thu, 12 May 2011 20:08:00 +0000

Soon after Indian steel industry freed from regulatory controls in 1991, all controls on pricing and distribution were removed. So Indian steel industry got the competetive edge and companies became more market focussed. Globalized outlook of customers, put pressure on steel manufacturers to add value, and incresing information savvy made the market prone to competition.

Tata Steel, established in 1907 by J.N.Tata commenced its production in the year 1911. The opening of economy made the steel industry face huge glut that affected the profit margins of the companies significantly. The Industry was staring at inefficient operations, excess capacity, project delays and a big steel plan mindset. The concept of serving the customer was hardly practiced. In order to beat the ups and downs in the industry and to face emerging competition, Tata Steel started a branding exercise to achieve revenue stability and an ability to charge premium prices. It realsied that the old way of selling steel is no more a winning proposition and aggressively positioned its products as superior brands to reckon with.

The company launched many internal campaigns in the 1990s for the employees to identify with and align themselves to the objectives of customer service and product. The company set up a branding task force to explore the possibility of branding its steel products. This task force was divided along three functions-market development,order generation, and order fulfillment.The entire sales and marketing team was overhauled and brought on a par with the best practices of the top global steel companies. The changes were carried out with respect to three crucial elements-product,distribution and service.

Inorder to decommoditise steel, the company launched product brands in the identified markets. It realised that the premium on branded products was higher than the non-branded ones. In order to assure the market about the authenticity of products, the brands/names were embossed on them. During this time brands like Tata Shaktee, Tata Tiscon was launched.

To support the branding effort, Tata Steel launched Retail Value Management(RVM) in the year 2002 a model which was usually adopted by FMCG companies. Under the RVM initiative aggressive market mapping,education of traders, and idea generation were undertaken.

In the brand journey of Tata Steel, the simplicity of rules permeated across profit centres. These rules were uniform and measurable and pertained to the brand and channel service partners.Some of the rules are:

1.The field should adhere to brand guidelines in terms of logo, colour scheme, by-line, positioning, and ad campaigns.
2.The brand will be sold only through an authorised service partner.
3.The brand will be positioned as a premium product over all other players.
4.The retailer shops should adhere to the brand guidelines.
Tata Steel shows us how an initiative in branding could organise a market.

.

Successful Brand Identity Design Process: Bridging the Left & Right Brainer Thinking Process

noreply@blogger.com (Pratap Kumar Pattanayak) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 14:14:00 +0000

Theres a lot of time my marketer friends in the marcom department of companies told me they are going for a logo revamp or a new logo and sometimes our friends in competing agencies said the same thing...that they are designing a new logo. Being curious i've asked them how do you go ahead with this kind of project.....what is the approach and the process involved. The answer was quite vague, and disheartening. Those who are marketers/in the marcom department go with the philosophy of Kotler/Al Ries theory of positioning and come about with a draft plan like the target audience profiling, the colors, heritage, so on and so forth. Going through this brief the designers come out with XYZ design with punch lines to match it. But have you ever asked your target audience whether they like it or not??? Now here is the classic example of brand identity design where some what left brainer marketers try to collide with the right brainer consumer.

At BrandAnthem being a new marketing communication agency we do not want to be critique to others, but simultaneously we want to claim that we have a process laid down for a logo design, which we follow very seriously. This blog describes that process in detail.

Its a fact that as marketing professionals we are left brain thinkers as we analyze, segment, disseminate, define a particular situation......and its true for the logo design also. We see brand as a complex structure where we try to add definition all the time. But for customers its always a right brain thinking works. They are less complicated in their thinking process. They are dominated by the right brainor ingredients which are love,hate,passion etc. And they take always the visual perception and like it or reject it without going much into detail of it. For customers brands that are acceptable are those which are most clear, striking, as well as very strong rather than those brands which are very complex.

So you can design successful brand identity by simplifying your brands special difference rather than adding layers and layers of it and making it very complex. Brands that could be interpreted in a very few words are more successful that other brands.

Instead of defining brands through verbal, we suggest our clients to define their brands visually. Because when you think about it many of the ways to influence the customer is visual oriented, and many of the mediums used are visual medium. Our process of bridging the left brain and right brain thinking prevents us defining the brand identity with more verbal oriented and maximise the visual orientation.

HOW DOES MARKETING WITH ONLINE VIDEO WORK?

noreply@blogger.com (Pratap Kumar Pattanayak) — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 17:27:00 +0000

There are six concepts that you must remember market your videos:
1. Create ads that work as content
2. It's all about dialogues/conversation
3. Ideas come from everywhere, so keep an open mind.
4. Connect the dots to create a meaningful campaign
5. Make feedback public
6. Give emphasize on metrics.

The Internet Usage Landscape in India

noreply@blogger.com (Pratap Kumar Pattanayak) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 13:46:00 +0000

The recent survey conducted by IMRB and IAMAI on the internet penetration and online usage pattern in India across more than 31 cities and metros provides valuable insights which could be used for marketing strategies:

As per the research Nearly 25% of Indian population stays in cities. Out of which 32% of them are PC literate. Of the PC literate population, 72% claim to have used internet. Of these claimed users, 73% are actively using internet (have used internet in past 1 month)

Internet usage growth trajectory:

Given the continuous growth of internet users over the years, the smaller towns have overtaken top 8 metros in internet usage. Internet has reached to remote masses in urban India.

Internet Access Points

Various Purposes of Accessing Internet

INDIAN COFFEE SHOPS: IT’S ONLY COFFEE VS. MORE THAN COFFEE

noreply@blogger.com (Pratap Kumar Pattanayak) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 08:08:00 +0000

Caffe Coffee Day, Costa Coffee, Barista........when it means coffee it reminds us those three coffee retail stores. I’m trying to remember certain associations with those three coffee shops. Tried to think a lot about those stores.............didn’t get any significant association to remember apart from coffee. A coffee shop is about coffee and will remain all about coffee. So how to differentiate? And how to build the brand, when there is no loyalty to your menue.

In todays competetive edge the differentiation between Coffee Shops could not be established based on significant product offerings. It’s the experience while having a cup of coffee in a store that could make the difference. A coffee shop is all about coffee and so a consumer will drop inside with the expectation of having good coffee only. Now the point of winning a customer is less significant than turning the customer into a loyal customer. Winning customer is easier and it depends on the presence and visiblity of your stores at strategic location. But the challenge is to make things possible such that one customer makes your store as the most preferred place. in the building of retail brands, you have to create awareness and attract peoples favorable attention. You need opinion leaders who naturally endorse your product.

Consider the story of Starbucks and compare it with Cafe Coffee Day, or Costa Coffee. StarBucks has a customer base which is loyal to the brand and some times drive through their way to office only to get a coffee. Its a religion for few people. What is the secret behind star bucks that people are responding. Why is Starbucks, and similar cafes strike a chord in so many disparate places? What need Starbucks was fulfilling? Why do somany customers willingly wait in the long lines at Starbucks stores and not in front of Cafe Coffee Day or Costa Coffee?
The success of StarBucks could be attributed something more than coffee.........its something more psychological and described by Howard Schultz, C.E.O, Starbucks in the following words(Excerpt from Pour Your Heart Into It) :

A taste of romance. At Starbucks stores, people get a five-or-ten minute break that takes them far from the routine of their daily lives. Where else can you go to get a whiff of Sumatra or Kenya or Costa Rica? Where else can you get a taste Verona or Milan? Just having the chance to order a drink as exotic as an espresso macchiato adds a spark of romance to an otherwise unremarkable day.

An affordable luxury. In a Starbucks Store you may see a policeman or a utility worker standing in line in front of a wealthy surgeon. The blue-collar man may not be able to afford a Mercedes the Surgeon just drove up in, but he can order the same cappuccino. They are both giving themselves a reward and enjoying something world class.

An oasis. In an increasingly fractured society, Starbucks stores offer a qucuiet moment to gather your thoughts and center yourself. Starbucks people smile at you, serve you quickly. A visit to Starbucks can be small escape during a day when so many other things are beating you down. Satrbucks is considered by its customers as breath of fresh air.

Casual social interaction. One of the advertising agencies that pitched for Starbucks, interviewed Los Angeles- area customers in focus groups. The common thread among its consumers was this comment: “Starbucks is so social. We go to Starbucks stores because of a social feeling.”

Its indeed the most significant brand values probaly missed by Coffe Shops in India. A Coffe Shop could be the integral component of Indian social scene in part because they fulfilled the need for a non threatening gathering spot, a “third place” outside of work and home.

Sociologist Professor, Ray Oldenburg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Oldenburg ) described in his book, The Great Good Place, the significance of a gathering sport, or a “third place”. Oldenburg’s thesis is that people need informal public places where they can gather, put aside the concerns of work and home, relax and talk. Germany’s beer gardens, Englands pubs, Delhi’s Delhi Haat or a food court of Metropolitan Mall, Viennese Cafes created this outlet in people’s lives, providing a neutral ground where all are equal and conversation is the main activity. Without such places, the urban area fails to nourish the kinds of relationships and the diversity of human contact that are the essence of the city. Deprived of these settings, people remain lonely within their crowds.

This is the gist of this blog. Coffee Shops should emphasize the design of consumer experience inside their store while making it a “third place” just like Ray Oldenburg’s thesis. You cant be only coffee.........you need to be more than coffee.

What to do When your Company Engulfed in a PR Crisis

noreply@blogger.com (Pratap Kumar Pattanayak) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:42:00 +0000

The PR crisis that crippled OC Commonwealth Games makes me wonder whether big organisations like OC are supported by the right kind of PR professionals.

Consider for example the Commonwealth Games where 30,000 Crores spent. Only Rs.1600 crores was the budget of OC. Few days ago the media started splashing that large scale corruption happened in Commonwealth Games with DDA,MCD and other bodies under scanner. Just the time when the media intensifying the story about the corruptions by civic authorities Times Now, a leading TV channel in India came out with an alleged money laundering between OC and a company called AM Films. The amount was Rs.3 Crores. To make matters worse the Chairperson of OC came out in open in a press conference with an allegedly forged letter saying that his team members are right and he is going to sue the TV Channel Times Now. The rest is history. The world witnessed the media lynching OC over an amount of Rs.3 Crores while all attention shifted towards OC. The alleged corruption amount was Rs.3 Crores, but the media did not stop its analysis. One TV channel made other TV channels get in the same way to lynch OC while ignoring other stake holders in order to get the right TRP.

It compels any PR person to ask the following questions:

1. Why the media attention shifted from big scale corruption issues to a small scale corruption worth of Rs.3 Crores.
2. Why instead of chasing behind authorities like MCD,DDA, and other civic authorities with a bigger budget the media preferred to chase OC with a budget of only Rs.1600 Crores.(The total budget for the Games was Rs.30,000 Crores)
My answer: a very wrong PR crisis management style by OC, especially those persons who are in the advisory level to the Chairperson. How can a chair person with an Organisation representing the image of a country come out in public with a letter, without going through its authenticity, and on record in camera threaten to sue a TV Channel, while ignoring the rat within the Organisation.

There are many scales of PR Crisis over the years, where some companies turned a crisis in favour of them while some sank like a Titanic under the crisis due to the lack of PR management.

Consider for example Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda, grandson of the founder, went into hiding and sent American CEO Jim Lentz to make apologies. Meanwhile, he let serious product quality issues spiral out of control by understating safety risks and product problems. This left the media, politicians, and consumers to dictate the conversation, while Toyota fumbled the responses. Disingenuous quasi-apologies and disjointed plans for resolution have been Toyota's substitute for crisis response. As accounts pour in about declining quality, the company parades out relatively unknown mid-level managers to quell the firestorm.

So if you are the Chairperson of the company, and you are the face of the company then what you should or should not do at the face of a PR crisis. Going through the OC case I have the following suggestions:

1. Always have a crisis management team with the right authority should be in your team. The team should have the right people with the right PR knowledge such that quick decisions can be taken. Make sure your crisis management team has the authority to access the resources. In OC case I doubt there were any Crisis Management team at all or any right PR advisor with the Chairperson.
2. At the instance of negative news popping into media the first thing the crisis management team should find out the authenticity of the report. Remember if the report is not authentic then the battle is on your side, but the problem starts when the negative reports are true. What you will do matters on how true you are for the cause of the reputation of your enterprise.
3. If the problem lies with your organization, the people in it or the products then first acknowledge it. Accept the flaws because by accepting you are sending the message that you are accountable for the flaws, errors, or whatever be the cause of the negative news. When you accept it you will give the media less ammunition to lynch your Organization. The best example is Tylenol.
4. Rectify the errors. Go back to the source of the problem and eliminate it. Then announce it in the media, first apologize for the mistakes that your Organization did, then announce the rectification. Remember that being naïve won’t solve the purpose, because no one would like to listen to you if you say you are too naïve to know that things will happen this way. Announce the world what actionable steps that you as the head of the organization taking to ensure that same mistakes won’t happen. If there is a flaw in the products then bring it back….if any damage happened to customers compensate it or replace the products. In other words do whatever it takes to eradicate the problem. The best example is the Tylenol crisis in the 80s. When terrorists laced Tylenol capsules with cyanide in the mid-1980s, Johnson & Johnson CEO Jim Burke understood his company credo challenged him to put the needs of customers first. Although J&J was not responsible for these problems, Burke nevertheless recalled every Tylenol product from the market.
5. Never create a communication gap. When the media breaks out a negative news about your company the countdown clock starts clicking in the opposite direction. Every second matters. Your call of action or the time when you meet the media with all the actions makes or break the brand. Remember that if you make delaying meeting the media and clarifying then you are making information vacuum which the media is going to fill up with their side of the story. And that’s where you lose the control over the situation. The best example is the Tiger Woods scandal. Once the scandal broke up Mr. Tiger Woods preferred to go into oblivion, never taking the courage to meet the media and clarifying the wrong doing. He preferred to be silent and went underground for a month. So the information vacuum which was created filled with all kinds of stories. The media was in control of the situation. After one month Mr. Tiger Woods called for a press conference and started reading a note which seemed to the world like that he is not apologetic about anything, indeed he was acting like an actor of a play. Probably the worst kind of PR crisis management.
This is a challenging menu, and this crisis is the true test of a leader’s leadership. As a leader are you up to these challenges? I believe if you want to make your company a great company then its better to be ready for this challenge and accept my menu

The Next Retail Differentiation; Space Branding

noreply@blogger.com (Pratap Kumar Pattanayak) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 05:10:00 +0000

Last Sunday, I took some time off to visit some of the retail stores including, Reliance Fresh, and Big Bazaar. I just wanted to know what are the key factors which makes or breaks the retail brand. My experience at those stores gives me the following insight:

Lack of Space and lack of knowledge about 3d space branding: In a mission to increase the presence what really missed by the two giants are the space available within the stores. I guess both Reliance Fresh, and Big Bazaar took 3D Branding in the back seat. It was so crowded and to even to move the trolley from one place to other was herculian task for me. It felt like a Mandi to me.

3Dimensional Branding, is one of the most important part of the 360 Degree Brand concept. In the present circumstances I believe that if there is a new player which wants to compete either with Reliance Fresh, or BigBazzar then it should take 3d Space branding as the differentiator.

Retailer's should think if the brand will be their home then what it would look like. STOP THINKING ABOUT WHERE YOUR BRAND SHOULD LIVE. Start thinking about how to get people to live your brand. Marketer's should begin by creating spaces where consumers feel just as happy to stop by as to buy. Where the point of sale has a point of view. Where the purchase path actually gives people a reason to walk in.

I know what I'm writing here contradicts the belief of Mr.Kishore Biyani, who once said Indian customers love to do shopping in an environment which is crowded. A crowded place gives the middle class Indian customer a sense of belongingness .

I really dont think so. I believe that the real brand strategy is to challenge this belief and make the behavior pattern of the middle class customers change.

New Media for Fashion Marketers:The Down Turn Survival Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Pratap Kumar Pattanayak) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 05:05:00 +0000

What does the capability and skill-set to appropriately embrace "new media" look like in our country; how does it successfully function in the marketing organization and, above all, how can marketers be both practical and efficient about building one?" How can fashion and lifestyle brands/retailers actually go about adopting new media to push their businesses further. What would be the 10-15 fold path for them to successfully enable themselves with new media to grant just that momentum in a sluggish market that is witnessing the emergence of a new breed of 'new media' shoppers........

The capability and skill-set of new media is quite immense in India. This is due to the clutter in the market with an availability of many thousands of communication vehicles significantly overlapping each other makes the marketer opt for the most efficient media vehicle and digital marketing to a large extent helping them. Consider for example an educated middle class young lady as a typical buyer for high-end watch which serves her aspiration to need to look wealthier than she is. A closer study of her life style will reveal that she spends larger span of her daily life with her cell phone or with internet. It also reveals that she spends less time watching TV. Now doesn’t it make sense to engage her through the most appropriate medium that is the new media?

The future is more brighter than ever before as the government is on the verge of allowing 3G in telecommunication. It will open up for branded content and innovation in digital marketing.

There is no doubt that new-media or digital marketing is in the primary stage. But in a marketer’s perspective new media strategy always revolves around converting it to a viral marketing campaign. Buzz is very important. If you are creating a website and still you are unable to drive audience to it then probably the purpose is not solved.
For fashion and life style media the evolution of new media opened up new innovative platforms for communicating the brand message while engaging their target audience. Remember that engaging your target audience is the challenge in the new media platform. Example-fashion shows on the net. Or inviting your target audience to join in second life where you are organizing a fashion show. The more creative you are, the more is the chances of success to create the buzz.

Remember that in a recessionary market when every one goes on spending less on marketing and expecting more in terms of ROI then new-media is possibly the best media where you could quantify your ROI. With tools like google-analytics even small retailers are getting the benefit. They get an idea who are the real customers and how to spend most effectively.

The Indian Fashion Consumer & New Media:

Fashion consumers in India are to a large extent New Media savvy and the figures are growing. But the buying pattern of the fashion consumers are not related with new media, and still experiential marketing is what influences the purchase decision.

Business owners of fashion brands are using new media to use as a vehicle to create.

· Brand Awareness.

· Information sharing.

As already stated new media is on the edge over traditional media in terms of its penetration and it is very useful for targeted marketing effort. In a down-turn market where each penny spent upon marketing matters for its effectiveness and brand managers will be held accountable for the efficacy of their investment plans on media, new media is the only hope to bring accountability in the board room.

Tools for an Interactive Site
There are many tools available for making the site more interactive. A marketer can use any combination of the following for a best use of their website.

Blogs: Blogs are used to make a community speak about the product or brand. But remember to have a blog space in your website with a moderator as chances of spamming and hate males are there.

Pod Cast : A podcast is a series of audio or video digital-media files which is distributed over the Internet by syndicated download, through Web feeds, to portable media players and personal computers. This is a one way of communication where information can be provided by the marketer to the information seeking customers.

Web Cast: web cast are web-broad casts where streaming media files(audio or video) can be viewed live or on-demand. Fashion marketers can web-cast a fashion shows for users to have a glimpse on it if they missed it..

Webinar: Webinar is a web conference. In a web conference, each participant sits at his or her own computer and is connected to other participants via the internet. This can be either a downloaded application on each of the attendees computers or a web-based application where the attendees will simply enter a URL (website address) to enter the conference.

RSS Feed: RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format..

Example of new media use for brand building activities:

1. Victoria’s Secret: Conducted a webcast of its fashion show.
2. Burger King: Burger king used its mascot on its website which will answer any question that you ask by acting in a comic way.
3. Chevy Tahoe: Chevy Tahoe has made a remarkable campaign which used site visitors to create a TV commercial in its website. This is the first ever advertising in the world that was created on the website.

SEO and PR:
A new way to integrate PR initiative with new media is to SEO the PR. This is evolving in a greater way.....

Branding Insights from BrandAnthem: Multiplex+Sanitary Napkin=Increased Brand Value

noreply@blogger.com (Pratap Kumar Pattanayak) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 05:03:00 +0000

Branding Insights from BrandAnthem: Multiplex+Sanitary Napkin=Increased Brand Value: "Today I went to a newly opened Multiplex to watch a bollywood flick. I am surprised to find out the offerings of the Multiplex. In the toile..."

Multiplex+Sanitary Napkin=Increased Brand Value

noreply@blogger.com (Pratap Kumar Pattanayak) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 04:57:00 +0000

Today I went to a newly opened Multiplex to watch a bollywood flick. I am surprised to find out the offerings of the Multiplex. In the toilet there is an advertisement by the multiplex claiming that it has all the offerings which some one may require in urgency....which includes sanitary napkin,diapers, band aid etc.

A good strategy by the multiplex to go an extra mile.