Social Media Marketing

Advertising your Brand the Green Way- The Future Branding Strategy

2011-06-17T00:26:00.001-07:00

Brands globally have realized the emphasizing fact that, Cash spent on Advertising budgets is not sufficient to access their impact on overall environmental initiatives. They have come to realize and accept the fact that social norms towards environment and advertising are changing and consumer’s now associate brands and advertisements for what Organizations do and don't.

The Optimal result of which, more and more Organizations are making tactical decisions, incorporating both positive brand impact and negative brand risks into their advertising equations. This is the power of "Green Advertising or Branding" as it is the personification of all information connected to a brand, which serves to create an association centring on positive expectations to the brand as well as the environment.

Though intangible, a brand may generate significant value for a company based on its ability to create differentiated experiences for consumers and thereby enable the company to generate and sustain future cash flows as a result.

Increasingly, leading Ad- Companies are recognizing that environmental issues have the potential to impact brand value either positively or negatively and are taking the right initiations towards it.

Presently, Leading Brands are responding to global concerns about the environment by creating green campaign investments which strengthens the brand value. Marketing a Brand green involves actions that define green brand leaders and initiators. These actions need to be considered by most of the companies who are looking forward to Go-Green with their branding solutions.

1.Be answerable. Companies should acknowledge that environmental issues such as climate change, global warming are real and can begin to attract the growing group of consumers looking for green brand leadership and advertising in a cult status by following the pack leader and determine their environmental impact and track metrics over a period of time.

Corporate Social accountability is the need of the hour and is one of the top pillars of successful brand Communications, when it comes to the environmental space protection. Consumers are becoming increasingly net- savvy and demanding when it comes to protecting the environment. Hence Companies should not think twice in setting high goals for themselves when it comes to the environmental protection practices or the way they conduct business as the way they advertise themselves has become effortless now.

2.Be Transparent Leading brands should providing public disclosures of their environmental and social impact by the business they do. This acts as a good faith among the interest of the public.

3.Be a Realistic Enabler Today, Consumers are doubtful as many companies have tried to green wash hollow environmental efforts. As such, companies must work hard to build credibility and earn consumer trust over time or best follow a leader, when it comes to branding themselves in the best possible manner as consumer expectations have changed.
It is not enough for a company to green its products. Consumers expect the products; they purchase which helps in reducing the environmental impact in their own lives too.

4.Formulate a Vision plan A Vision plan helps in making decisions, which help in redefining their strategy and reshape the entire industry and environmental dynamics. Organizations recognize that environmental issues can also impact positive brand value.

Hence, in response to it, leading brands are increasingly incorporating brand metrics into their evaluation criteria for green investments and taking action to green their advertising operations and marketing communications.

If you're concerned about your green brand advertising, We can assist you in designing a Holistic Green Brand Advertising Solution for your unique needs and Rest assure that your brand platform will be unique, just like your business.

Here are 7 top reasons to consider Green Brand Advertising.

1. Advertising Yourselves Green saves the environment and the trees as all the advertising is done without the help of paper. Just imagine the tonnes of paper you will be saving to the Environment.

2. You get and we assure you a higher Campaign recognition and response. The reason being the Campaign stays active at all point of time

3. You get to demonstrate your business pro-activeness by becoming an eco-friendly partner and thereby simultaneously create the buzz on it.

4. You create a positive impact on the environment as more trees mean more oxygen and more lung space by branding Green

5. Green Branding serves as a great form of Geo-targeted advertising. It also serves as an Initiator by Higher word of mouth promotion from your best customers to their friends and acquaintances.

6. Green advertising as compared to traditional advertising modes is comparatively low, with a higher recall rate, reach and a higher conversion ratio.

7. People association and trust factor generation is very high

“Green Branding = Superior Brand Recall+ Targeted Audience+ Superior Lead Flow+ Niche Word-Of-Mouth".

Google Analytics for Business Intelligence

2010-06-17T07:42:00.000-07:00

Online Advertising is in a slow pace because of low innovational levels in India

2010-06-11T02:20:00.000-07:00

Online advertising is still in a growth phase in India and what makes it even more challenging is the slow pace of innovation and high pace of copy cat models, few follow. Nothing is new, which most of you all didn’t know much about or were not aware of it much.

The ubiquitous Piyush Pandey gets a mention tag as he is normally the case on stories based on this hot theme (no offense to piyush here – I personally love his blog and admire how outspoken and creative he is on the topics of advertising.).

This topic, lets call it “Lack of advertising innovation in India” or “Why no advertising companies are taking innovations and creativity seriously” or “Where are Indian successful advertising startups with the perfect Midas touch in advertising’ has been touched upon umpteen times by media, bloggers (yes – I’m guilty too) and even in startup conferences and panelists too frequently.”

So assuming there’s practically or absolutely no contest and very little “Out of the Box” innovations happening in the Indian advertising scenario. I feel businesses are also at a blame for this as they try getting too much work for too little money, which hampers the output delivery process, eventually. I think we should move beyond the obvious and try to focus more on how to resolve the issue successfully.

As David Ogilvy, the father in Advertising once said, “I have always believed that writing advertisements is the second most profitable form of writing. The first, of course, is ransom notes”.

For starters, I’d like to point to a recent post by Prahlad Kakkar who captured the essence of building a startup ad campaign quite well, or let’s say initiating the campaign from “Rags to Riches”.

By far, his Pepsi TV ad-commercial with the Big-B is one of the best and most lucid pieces of advertisement, I’ve ever seen on a creative ad process and rightly positioning them. I’d say we’re still early in the first decade and have a long way to go yet when it comes to the extra creativity process.

Meanwhile, I also wanted to talk briefly about the often quoted ‘Not Enough Creativity Output’ ratio issue. The way I see it, the lack of client funding is a classic stereotype problem in the Indian advertising market.

Let’s say that hypothetically speaking, I have some extra money lying around that I’d want to invest somewhere and I believe advertising and promoting my company or service online will get me more branding, visibility and returns as I saw that my competitor was doing it himself.

Now, without any significant planning, initiation and consultations and the expected probability of getting good returns on my investment, I start pitching for advertising companies who can deliver me practically “Everything for Literally Nothing.”

Indian Internet advertising, in its current form, is not a very viable market unless experts are handling it. So, the ballgame that I see right now is more concrete returns in this sector and first mover advantage in the future, if you are ready to invest yourself in the long term prerogative and give the chance to leverage your brand equity plans to experts than small time fly by night advertising companies to save up costs in the initial run.

But some of us may argue, that aren’t ad-companies supposed to be true creative builders and isn’t online advertising more like, invest and forget, as there is no guarantee of returns compared to realistic selling, some ask . I do not agree, that’s the reason I say it’s a classic David and Goliath problem. But we are forgetting the costs it takes to do a manual sales and repetitive follow-up procedures. However in internet, the brand stays there, it’s how marketers push or pull the product to the people.

Here is one to Online advertising all the way.

Facebook’s Insignia The Ultimate Company branding.

2010-06-11T02:16:00.000-07:00

Facebook, the worlds leading Social networking and information sharing site controlled by Mark Zuckerburg has a new firm-stand policy called Facebook Ultimate Company Insignia.

The Facebook Insignia is further broken down into three parts by Mark Zuckerburg CEO Facebook, who has divided the platforms into Graph, Stream and Platform.

1.Graph refers to the Social Graph measures and Facebook’s Open Graph initiative, wherein it shows how many people are active or a part of Facebook.
2.Stream represents the continuous flow of information and status updates between users successfully.
3.Platform represents the famous Facebook platform, through which information is shared and enabled amongst its users.

Mark adds that the arrows on the insignia can go in both directions or in multiple directions, signifying the fact that in Facebook, sharing and openness doesn’t go in or lead in one direction always.

It can even go Viral and create an Identity branding strategy for individuals, companies and even peace organizations. This is the vibrancy and the dynamic nature of Facebook.

By helping people and organizations in this initiative we are helping in “Making the World More Open and Connected”, adds Mark Zuckerburg who even prides on calling it as the unofficial mission statement of Facebook.

Facebook's Mission

Facebook introduced the Insignia with a plan, to tell people that Facebook is dedicated to help up in opening and connecting the entire world, seamlessly and as many people together as possible, which thereby utilizes the Open Graph, the Stream, and the Facebook Platform successfully.

The mission has definitely transformed positively over the years. In 2004, Facebook which was simply known as “An online directory that connects people through social networks at colleges.” Became “Facebook is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers.” in 2006, followed by “The company develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information through the social graph, the digital mapping of people’s real-world social connections.” In 2008, it became a tool that “helps you connect and share with the people in your life.”

In 2009, pieces of the mission began to surface solidly, wherein Facebook officially declared itself as a platform through which “Facebook gives people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.”

We can conclude from this evolution, that Facebook is becoming more and more ambitious, transforming from a simple clustered network for your friends to a Combined utility platform to make the world more open and connected and thereby intends to keep opening up the platform and connecting the web through its successful platform.

We feel that Zuckerberg and his team plan to succeed in becoming the central connection to the entire world by this dynamic platform.

Experts in the Social media trends however feel that, Zuckerberg is wearing the insignia as a hood. But Zuckerburg bets to his non followers that he believes in the mission statement of Facebook with every fiber of his being, and nothing is going to stand in his way in making Facebook the leader in the pack in whatever they build.

Twitter, YouTube, PayPal are the pioneering leaders in Internet space solutions.

2010-06-01T04:00:00.001-07:00

VeriSign, Worlds leading service provider for Internet infrastructure services, recently released a list of “The most Powerful Pioneering” Internet service companies. This was calculated on the basis of impact these companies have made in internet development and serviceability to people.

The top contenders are Twitter, YouTube, PayPal, MySpace, Alibaba, Baidu, Infosys and e-Trade.The other winners in the .com leader’s space were followed by Internet application and service stalwart leaders like

1.Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Proud Co-founders of Google.
2.Jerry Yang and David Filo, Founders of Yahoo Inc.
3.Steve Case, Co-Founder of AOL.
4.Mark Zuckerburg founder of Face book.
5.Jeff Bezos, Amazons CEO.
6.Steve Jobs from apple Inc followed by.
7.Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates himself.

VeriSign made this inauguration move to proudly celebrate it 25 years of Successful Internet Innovation.

VeriSign added that the .com winners were selected from a focus group of 75 people and companies who were nominated for the award and were then ranked by the jury panel members comprising of leading businesses, media-people, academicians and policy leaders as VeriSign believes that these companies and people together reflect the dynamic evolution of a successful consumer internet story of how a .com website has helped changed and made peoples life simple.

VeriSign CEO and President Mark Mc Laughlin proudly added, that “Over the past 25 years, the internet has strengthened communities, transformed economies and allowed people all over the world to come together”. This would not had been possible without the vision, talent and creativity of these companies and individuals.

The hundreds of millions of people who now use the internet daily for multiple purposes have to thank these trailblazers profusely for the Rich Online Experiences they enjoy today as Twitter, Google, Face book, PayPal, Cloud Computing were unimaginable back in 1985 when the first .com domain name was registered.”

The new trend in Branding - Logo advertising.

2010-06-01T03:54:00.001-07:00

Branding is all about Creation of Identity. This has created a new space in the advertisement model of a company. This trend is called as “Logo advertising”, wherein a company advertises and positions itself through a logo/image and communicates to people through the logo over what the company is all about.

Logo advertising is a crucial component in long term branding and identity formation of the company. The logo helps in communicating to the public, as to what the brand deals with.

Logo advertising is not an easy task as people opine. Industry experts add that logo should convey a resonance message through which trust generation should be generated easily in the mind of the consumer for a higher brand recall and association.

Let’s discuss a bit more as to what a logo is all about, A logo can be a symbol, trademark or a name which integrates text, image, object of different shapes and sizes that helps in easy recognition and association of a product as long as its catchy and appealing.

Few steps which can be included to make Logo advertising a success.

1.The Brief or what exactly the company is all about.

The most crucial and critical component in Logo design, Here we sit with the client and discuss with him the Vision, Mission, Idea, objectives and requirements of his company, which will help us in designing an Ideal logo for the client. At the end of the day do remember, Its customer satisfaction not the repetitive Logo reworks that matters.

2.Research and Implementation.

After the brief analysis about the product and service from the client, comes the crucial part of Research or the information finding fact about the company, you are going to endorse. Find out what they specialize in and who their potential customers are and would be looking for in a logo which would help them in making realize in a flash as to what the company is all about.

Example, If you are working for a FMCG company then an obvious thing that could be included in the logo is an image of the company or product which tells the viewer that the logo belongs to a particular FMCG company. Try including a wide array of objects and ideas that you can integrate into the logo. There are instances, wherein the name of the company can even lead to a brilliant design of a logo, Greenpeace is one such example.

3.Visual Research and Exploration

The visual research is the next step, wherein all actual and feasible research on the logo design, style, shape, and color, personality pattern is studied to design or give the logo its final touches.

Logo design can better be reinforced and designed better by understanding the competitors and type of logos they use to position themselves in the market. One key to be successful in the Logo designing business is to never work in boundaries, Be “Out of the Box”, oriented and exhibit your expertise and Ideas. This helps in establishing yourselves as well as the company you are working for, and thereby help you stand out in the competition.

Eg-) The silver crocodile- Lacoste, is what comes to peoples mind when they see an image of apparel with a crocodile.

4.Sketching, Designing and Conceptualization

This is where you start making rough sketches of your design. It is the phase where for the first time you have to work using your creativity. During this phase the designer draws the skeleton of the logo using all the research material that he has collected over a period of time. Some designers use a sketchbook for this purpose; some prefer napkins, while some simply straight away start using the computer.

5.Using a computer

Initially, It is not always the advisable thing to do. When the designer creates various sketches and thinks about various concepts that could be integrated into the design, a designer’s mind is almost never idle and hence the constant flurry of ideas continues all day long, and this will be a little hard to implement or take down on a computer.

You could come up with designs anywhere, from professional studios to your favorite park or even a coffee shop. Once you hit upon what exactly you are looking for, you will probably immediately realize that and this is just the right time to take a break.

6.The Presentation

Here the designer showcases his final work to his client. It is important that your presentation is highly professional and provides the client with all the details.

It is your prerogative whether you want to showcase all the logo designs that you have developed or whether you want to just showcase the finalized designs that you had chosen and forms the crucial part to brief on how you went through the whole process of his logo designing and advice the company on how the logo could prove to be the best ideal choice or you can simply show the company what you have designed and leave the final decision up to your client.

All said and Done, Logo advertising is all about smartly advertising your Business in the minds of the consumers.

Get ready to be Googled in Television as well, “Google is Bringing Internet to TV via their new Product called as “Google TV”.

2010-05-24T23:37:00.001-07:00

Google, worlds leading search engine portal and leader in Video sharing services via youtube.com, has unveiled the launch of their next successful product venture. This time its “Google TV”, which Google say will enable people to watch, browse
TV programmes and websites from their much preferred source, the Television.

Google opines this will help in creating the next revolution in TV Media space, which currently has a few established channel sponsors by adding a whole new lot of multiple entertainment channels from both the TV and web if integrated successfully.

Currently powered by Google’s Android software and Chrome Web browser, Google TV can be successfully accessed by enabling web-enabled routers in their televisions which is inbuilt in SONY or installing the router boxes from Logitech to existing TV sets.

Logitech routers serve as an added advantage by featuring the inbuilt computer keyboard, which will act as Google TVs remote control, whereby people can search or browse on Google on the screen home page in the TV as they do in the Internet.

Salahuddin Choudhary, Product manager Google TV, adds that “Because Google is built on Android, Chrome etc which are open platforms; they are just exhibiting a fraction of the features what they can do”, thus we believe that by Giving People the power to experience and feel the TV and Web on a single screen, Google TV promises to turn the Living room TV into a new platform for Innovation by the way of Internet and Cable integrated into one powerful entertainment network.

Google TV is slated for a 2010 end release all over the world.

Yahoo acquires “Associated Content” A freelance news and Health Information site.

2010-05-24T23:29:00.001-07:00

Yahoo, Popular search engine and display ad network portal headed by Mrs. Carol Batz, has acquired “Associated content”. The website was a freelance new and health information site which was started in 2005 by Luke Berry. Associated content is a low-cost news and advertisement network, which relied on nearly 400,000 freelancers to share their expertise, opinions and views on a variety of subjects ranging from general news, health awareness, Global environment etc.

Yahoo opines the acquisition of “Associated Content”, is going to help them supplement its regular lineup of stories, news which are in active conversation amongst its users. This move helps to make it all the more successful for Yahoo as it is tying up with Fulltime Independently produced information by reporters, which is not typically covered by traditional media outlets.

Yahoo is even planning to bring a complete makeover in the “Associated Content” Website, shortly. Associated content is happy with the offering, as it opines it will help them target more Unique Visitors on a per month basis. It currently draws anywhere between 16-16.5 million visitors per month. This is nearly 2 million more than “The new York times” website, which has healthy traffic audience of 14 million.

Carol Batz, CEO Yahoo said that “Combining Yahoos world class editorial team with Associated Content makes us a game Changer in the Contextual and Behavioral Content.” We will create revolutionary and retention based content on what our users want, care and are active a lot on. This will help us create a venue as a publisher, wherein we directly help an advertiser to engage with the consumer in our network. This will help in building an enriching consumer experience, which will eventually result in higher brand retention and new consumer creation. This makes us one of the best reason, on why we are the most visited Destination Online sums up Batz.

Facebook- The new destination for Display ads

2010-05-19T00:47:00.000-07:00

Facebook worlds leading social networking site, is no longer the favorite of people alone. It’s now the advertiser’s most preferred single source advertising medium, which very recently prided itself on serving nearly 177 billion display ads in a matter of just 3 months in the United States of America (U.S.A) from January to March 2010.

This figure is way ahead of Yahoo, which was initially the best display ad publisher network with an estimated traffic of 132 billion ads followed by Microsoft with a moderate 61 billion ads on their respective websites. Comscore adds further that, this data does not include ads which Yahoo and Microsoft delivered to their content networks.

Facebook currently caters to a wide audience in ad serving, as people spend much of their leisure time in facebook, and are active in it a lot. This was a first mover advantage to Facebook as it started airing the right contextual display ad in its network, which started attracting people in scores.

This trend has also reflected a new growth in small and medium range advertisers by way of single source of Advertising, thereby increasing demand of the channel, adds Linda Abraham Chief Marketing Officer, Comscore. The top advertisers in Facebook currently are Toyota, Ford motors, Verizon Communications and Zynga.

Experts add that Facebook is closing the gap by competing with established Internet ad-giants, Wherein Facebook is helping advertisers by publishing ads nearly 16 .3% of the 1.1% trillion display ad inventory. This is an achievement in itself for Facebook which has made a revolution in itself by the way of Single source mode of advertising.

Low cost Advertisers are not worried as they know that Facebook is helping them generate good results, but will single channel advertising work out in the long term, is the dilemma Medium and large scale advertisers are facing currently.

The best answer to it is Optimum Mileage factor, use the channel till it works best!

Apple- The biggest challenge for us right now is to beat Google in Mobile advertising.

2010-05-19T00:44:00.001-07:00

Steve jobs led Apple Inc, which very recently boasted a successful, audience accepted product called iPad, has added one more successful service in its kitty. Touted by Apple as iAd, It is a 4th generation mobile advertising platform, which Steve says will be the new revenue generator, as it simultaneously helps developers and publishers to build applications for the iPhone, iPod and the successful iPad.

Steve jobs, who was exuberant about the service offering adds that, “We were not the first to it, But we will be the best, in what we do”, referring to iAd, which noticeably competes with Google’s mobile advertising service. Steve went a step further by adding that mobile advertising is still in its nascent phases. He firmly believes on making revolutionary contributions in it by the way of implementing iAd network.

Steve jobs, adds that the biggest challenge for Apple is to capture and beat Google in mobile advertising segment. Google acquired Admob, which they literally snatched it from our hands. But we brought another small but good company called as Quattro, which has helped us a lot. Now with the iAd coming in, Apple will have a breakthrough as Steve knows that people are more comfortable searching in an iPad than a phone.

IPad boasts of “Getting you into every corner of the internet…They don’t exist on PCs. This is a new phenomenon that is occurring on the iPhone for the first time in history.” adds jobs.

iAd differentiates itself from other mobile ad-networks by its built in embedded style in the operating system. There is a multiple option of interaction and video content on the application itself. Jobs knows that “People will be a lot more interested in clicking on these because they don’t have to find their way back to the application once again.”

Apple will tie up with developers and host the ads, wherein the earnings will be split on a 60:40% basis. Very recently Apple provided an advertising example, in which the advertisement is like a mini-application that opens up when a user clicks on a banner wherein he can download wallpapers, play free games or even buy games.

Steve is expecting the service to be a gala hit, as he calculates that by summertime the iPhone will be generating nearly one billion ad impressions in a day, as a user on any given day will spend nearly 30 minutes in his iPhone and even if we just serve one ad every three minutes, there’s around 100 million iPhones we are serving to, which will be generating nearly one billion ad impressions a day which is quite sizable traffic.

Google better start revamping up, sums up Steve.

Zapak.com India’s leading gaming and Social networking site is now offering Social media branding and advertising services.

2010-05-10T06:21:00.001-07:00

Zapakdigital launches Zapak Social connect which Arun Mehra, COO of Zapak says will be a pioneer in providing social media branding and advertising to leading top brands in India and around the world through interactive social network games.

Zapak.com known in the market as the largest online gaming webspace is also a much preferred publisher for social networking games. Zapak has an impressive list of brand tie ups in their closet with biggies like NDTV imagine, HUL, M&M, Neo sports etc present in their social gaming and branding network. Zapak with their social media gaming strategy has fortified its foothold as the market leader in the space.

Charles Theodore who will be heading this niche service added that "We have exhibited tremendous success by providing innovative brand solutions to clients in the gaming space and taking most of our advertising games/applications on the social media platforms. We have a strong understanding of creating applications, brand engagements, virals on Social media through games and thereby cater to our advertiser’s needs and requirements.”

Social media branding and advertising has the ability to engage and retain the customer on a never before heard scale in comparison to other forms of advertising and PR tools. Zapak has just fortified on it through their Social media gaming and identity branding service. This has helped leverage brands like Axe, Mahindra & Mahindra etc vault to the top.

Zapak.com’s social marketing connect offers social gaming, application and contest gaming in social networks, which thereby helps in premium positioning of the product, and equally ensures the Online reputation management or positive buzz marketing for brands keep happening continuously.

Online brand leverage practices, Risky yet Rewarding as its all about Constant experimentation!!

2010-05-10T06:15:00.000-07:00

Advertising has taken a new trend in the last few years. Businesses want to showcase their products/service where people are, at an affordable cost and generate tangible revenues from it. This has caused a run for the mill in online advertising and branding. However businesses are lost out in the online buzz word speculations like CPC, CTR, CPL, CPM etc. This is doing their campaign or brand promotion initiative more harm than good. We agree that online advertising offers multiple advantage of text, display, real video ads (RVA) simultaneously, However Online advertising firmly placates on the promotional and brand building aspect first and later on it’s more about innovative forms of online sales promotion.

Unfortunately Online campaigns are losing out in the brand race adds experts. Brands are concerned more about revenue generation and do not place due emphasis on future strategies like product positioning, service delivery execution, campaign tracking and analytic conversions. This has made them lose out precious ad- inventory space, ROI generation and tactical consumer engagement. The main intention behind this writeup was to focus on how exactly to win in the online brand race.

1. Getting educated strategically: - By meaning of getting educated strategically we mean that a clients business plan, products, target market, pricing policy, spend etc has to be researched a lot. This then has to be spoken with the client over his vision and mission of the company and how he wants to position his product in the next few years.

2. Be Honest:-Make deliverable promises, never promise the sky for him in online advertising. If you feel that the spend is too low for the channels and the creative options is restricted and is just for sake of short term revenue generation, let him know honestly, It’s not feasible in online brand promotion thereby helping your agency the trauma of not having a problematic profit oriented client and also bearing the brunt of the campaign team.

3. Intellectually educate them: - We know that online marketing is not feasible for all verticals. It requires pre- planning and strategic implementations frequently for the ROI to pour in for the campaign consistently. However a strategic campaign manager can really work wonders on campaigns. He can effectively build lasting relationships through consumer lifecycles by building integrated campaigns, build strategies and initiate them up with proper product planning, positioning and design, target traffic and conversion execution. He knows this step is crucial to make the project a successful one from the long term perspective.

4. Failure and ROI go hand in hand: - Campaigns can work sometimes or they can be a big drain, Consider all the factors which went wrong in a campaign analysis factor like audience demography, keyword selections etc and then rework on them with a bold experimentation and acceptance, Viola you have the next campaign which is generating the required ROI for you. This is the power of online campaign management.

5. Experiment more: - Just because the previous changes you have done are getting the campaign good ROI doesn’t mean you stop your experimentation process. Dynamize and experiment the campaign/brand more and see which one performs better. This can act as a future case study for performance based findings, key performance indicators and analyze the trend behaviors which you helped in getting for the client.

6. SWOT yourselves :- Make a strength, weakness, opportunity, threat(SWOT) study of yourselves which presents your strengths/opportunities more, and thereby educate and leverage online advertising for what it’s worth and no more and never push something for an added extra revenue. This causes a lot of resentment later.

Online advertising is potentially challenging but is often wrongly perceptionalized. It is underfunded with a low positive word of mouth to be an effective marketing channel among the common person. People taking initiative in leveraging this channel will definitely help in generating tremendous return on investment for their clients as they know Online brand leverages are risky, rewarding and is more about experimentations.

Google unveils Innovative Language Converter tool in the Indian market.

2010-05-03T06:27:00.001-07:00

Google the worlds leading technology based search engine giant recently announced their “Scriptconvertor” software in the Indian market. This translation tool helps users in translating the English script to their Mother tongue language. Right now this tool is available in 17 Indian languages like Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, Punjabi, Sanskrit etc.

People are really happy with the software as they opine exposure to Indian script writing is very limited. The language picks on from daily speech but writing/reading it is a tedious task. Google with their software has definitely helped us a lot says people who tried the software and are happy with it. This software has helped a lot for the language and the script to still survive, the best example being Sanskrit which eventually was replaced with Hindi.

Though many people are comfortable in writing and speaking Hindi. It’s not so the case with Sanskrit as the script is a bit tedious to pick up soon. But Google has helped the script to survive as the translations are available in both the English and the Devanagari script.

Google says this is a free to use open source software. It also stated that it is happy that the product is a huge hit in the Indian market owing to the multiple dialect preference of people. The Internet audience was not able to pull up more in Indian market as language was a main barrier. However with Google now coming up with their language converter software has helped the Indian internet audience shoot up significantly.

Social media and Display advertising are a crucial component in long term Brand Building.

2010-05-03T06:17:00.001-07:00

We know that Internet has multiple modes of advertising a product or a service to a target audience. Industry experts add that the value of the delivery cannot be just judged by the reach/channels. It takes into consideration more intricate factors like user segment, age, demography, online consumer behavior, product positioning and reach etc to grow, retain and enhance effective online Brand communication. Sustainability being the main issue today, Brands are ready to pool millions in online media space as they know that it will generate a pull factor to retain the target audience back.

Internet advertising has boomed a lot in both Social media (Creative content) and Media delivery apart from the sponsored results search in dominant Search Engines. However Social media/Display advertising is lot more innovative and challenging as users choice is mixed, wherein lies the challenge of a marketer to generate a lead.

A norm holds fixed that Display advertising and Social advertising is all about engaging your audience. Adding fuel to it is a users purchase inclination and Information seeking behavior. However all Information can also be misleading, disengaging or confusing here. Consider an advertising scenario of a FMCG product on an Industrial product portal. Looks irrelevant right? The mistake here the publisher did was in selecting the right target audience for the product. Not only will the product generate less visibility, it will also be a waste of precious ad inventory.

Social media advertising on the other hand represent a confluence of diverse user interests. Creation of ad- relevancy to the target audience is a bit relaxed here. 350 -400 million people use Social networking sites on a daily basis which has created a mass market factor for marketers. They opine target people are active on social networks for multiple purposes and therein lies our challenge to engage them and convert them.

But why so much Hype about Social media and Display advertising. It’s a medium wherein a person who wants a specific product say “A”, can also be converted to purchase product “Z”, of another category. This is a bit challenging in the conventional Search. We all know what comes up next. “The pull factor of Social media advertising.”

Social networking is the hotcake now. Nearly 300 million people worldwide are logging on to it everyday, and every brand out there has the opportunity to be the leader in the pack. A recent study by Vizisense reveals that 9 million people are active on leading Social networks and the number is growing day-by-day in India. Social networking is emerging as the new home page to the world.

An interesting observation that I might add is that media plans which had only “Search and Display” budgets, now are having “Search, Display and Social media” budgets. Social media is quite often seen as an independent component of media plans now.

Facebook lite, the alternative variant of Facebook.com closes down.

2010-04-26T22:32:00.001-07:00

27 April, 2010

Facebook worlds leading Social and business networking website very recently closed its “Facebook lite” variant. The alternative variant was launched for people/countries with lower bandwidth and connection problems. The variant was launched in September 2009 by Facebooks team as a pilot project.

But now Facebook has closed the variant version and has posted on its Fan page that “Facebook lite is no longer available”. Thanks for trying out Facebook lite. So if a facebook lite user tries using “lite”, he will be reverted to the main Facebook.com page.

Facebook lite was an easier and quicker way for users to write posts, upload photos, videos, view people profiles etc. The options were very limited than the main Facebook.com which had multiple application tools and chat options.

Facebook adds that “lite” gave them an option of learning a lot from the test of a “Slimmed-down site” in potential markets like India and U.S, which helped them, strengthen the main Facebook.com page.

Roy Valdes, Gartner research team says that monetization and maintenance of simultaneous sites was an issue. Hence they closed the non performing one and revamped main part of Facebook.com’s performance sufficiently.

“High Performance risk, High reward ratio” has helped Facebook.com a lot as closing Lite was a risk involved in a very short time and they did it successfully without killing the main essence of the theme adds Industry experts.

Internet the Better media alternative than television making it “Most essential media”

2010-04-26T22:30:00.001-07:00

26 April 2010,

Internet has now become the people’s favorite media choice as compared to the Television before. Internet has become “the most essential media” for people who opine that internet has given them more space, privacy and exciting features. The Television unfortunately has been a bit lackluster in this. Hence people opine they are ready to eliminate the television if they must, but not the internet.

According to a recent poll survey conducted by Arbitron and research team called as “Infinite Dial 2010” survey, Statistics revealed that media mediums vary from geography to geography and most people will definitely want to try out Internet rather than television. This is the power of Internet adds the team.

The survey shows that 72 % of people will prefer an Internet as their Media mode than a television. The remaining 28 % opted for Television who said that they prefer it as it’s easy to operate than the Internet/Computer.

Television vs. Computer, Internet vs. Cable we can definitely say that “Internet is the better media alternative than television in terms of both cost and reach”.

Online Advertising Business in India is in a growth phase!! Let’s not perceptionalize it or make presumptions about it!!

2010-04-20T07:37:00.001-07:00

Online advertising is using modes of Internet to promote your product or service in the Internet but we see that the web space in Indian market is too fragmented and people are not aware of it much. They draw their own perceptions or presumptions about it. This is causing the Internet Industry and the channel of advertising more “Harm than Good”.

Even Small Businesses hop into the bandwagon and without realizing they create mistakes jarring the channel more. The intention behind this write-up was to display what are the mistakes we usually do and how we can rectify upon it.

People who jump into Online industry think a lot can be “Earned through Nothing” as they have heard either through Word of Mouth or in print about ad-words, ad-sense and affiliates etc and get more people/businesses involved. This not only spoils the Functioning of the channel but also the people/businesses involved. Let’s get one thing straight here “The print advertising model doesn’t work in Online”. It needs strategizing, implementation and re-working consistently. Hence please tread at your risk or even simple hire a professional.

The Indian Internet space is scattered a lot. This needs more free force from ISP providers. This causes players/service providers to push extra hard to find, convince, acquire and retain a customer even though they just happen to break-even from it.

They overestimate the market heavily and bank more than their net worth value in the market which makes them succumb to pressure. So be careful when you hear statements like “Rs 350 crore market” next time. It also means that the market has full untapped potential of Rs 350 crore. The way you successfully tap is left on how you strategize and implement it.

Never take a blind risk Of Ignoring players already present in the Industry and try minimizing the “Overlaps” by working on a Unique selling proposition (USP) of yours over your competitor. Never bank on “Big money, Big Pitches” all at once as people in India, Venture capitalists involved like to play safe with their money. We cannot blame them as Indian Internet advertising market is still in its nascent phases.

Entry level barriers are very low and IP (intellectual property) laws in the Internet space are not strong which makes similar service copycats pop up in matter of weeks. The payment getaways have a lot of reinforcement to be done as they are charging too much for online transactions. I definitely feel a goal, SWOT plan has to be worked for both companies and businesses to succeed and position themselves in the Indian online space market.

If we start working on each of these processes with a vision, then definitely we can assure that this mode of advertising will have a lot of traction as the next big advertising channel in India!!

It’s time to think different: Harish Bijoor

2010-04-19T04:50:00.001-07:00

It’s time to think different: Harish Bijoor

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Brandanomics of IPL 2010

2010-04-16T15:05:00.000-07:00

88 players, 8 teams and 125 brand associations with the players, that’s the power of IPL (Indian Premier League). Brainchild of Lalit modi, founder CEO (IPL). Sponsorers range from Beverages, FMCG, Insurance, Education and even individual team sponsorers. But this is just the macro picture, We are forgetting Title sponsorers, Television sponsorers, Strategic timeout sponsorers, Catch of the match sponsorers, Online video streaming sponsorers and the “kamal ka six” and four Individual Match Sponsorers.
The list seems exhaustive, right? Yes we are talking about 150 Brand Sponsorers all raking in the moolah of IPL by cashing 88 different players and the user’s psychology of Cricket.

Is it right for IPL to allow Branding so heavily and are Audience really connecting with brands?
IPL these three words have become a magic word for any brand manager who wants to position his product in the minds of the users, as he knows the Indian audience well and now with IPL, the global audience also loves their staple diet of cricket to the core. IPL came to know that users will not just restrict themselves to TV alone and hence concept of “Online Live Streaming” via Youtube came up which has become an online marketplace for digital marketers.

IPL is happy with the revenue it’s generating and the pull factor it is helping to create for these brands to the target audience.

Here are some ideas and innovations that will go a long way in ensuring that audience connects with the brand.

IPL and sponsorers are all set to become more innovative in brand recall by having other sponsorship prizes for maiden over, hat-trick wickets etc as these are fairly difficult to achieve, and brands have come to realize that endorsing themselves in this medium are creating a niche for themselves in the clutter.
Marketers also feel that player’s jerseys, umpires, cricket balls, cheerleaders can all be precious advertising spaces/mediums which have to be enriched and empowered with a brand association.

But the real waste of space is the ground itself. “How unfair is to have just five logos on the ground”. Imagine how much brand value can be unlocked by just opening the ground for more brands to occupy. Imagine the revenue that can be generated if 100 square feet of area is given to each brand on the ground. This will become audience targeted advertising.

IPL is not just Cricket; it’s more about creating brand space in the minds of players.

http://www.financialexpress.com/news/reliance-comm-to-go-mobile-advertising-way/231733/

2010-03-16T22:29:00.000-07:00

http://www.financialexpress.com/news/reliance-comm-to-go-mobile-advertising-way/231733/

Social Media Job Description

2010-03-13T08:01:00.001-08:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Social Media Job Description

View more documents from Tom Humbarger.

A B C of content writing

2009-12-29T02:06:00.000-08:00

Content Writing is specialized branch where a writer needs to develop original content. Good qualities of content writing are

I. Originality

II. Simple sentence structures

III. Comprehensive display of information

IV. Flow

Article containing above features makes interesting reading and informative one. Web content writing asks for thorough online research skills. A good content writer has to be proficient in online research added to his English language skills. Online research forms an important part of content writing. In order to produce quality articles in quick time, one needs to be good at online research.

Let me now explain the four features of quality content:

Originality: After finding the online information, content writer has to be use the info. Wisely and form his own article after going through the comprehensive data available on the internet.

Simple sentences: It’s advisable to avoid use of long sentences and flowery language. Either use short or simple sentences to highlight the information.

Comprehensive display of information: Do not write very generic article, try to specific so that reader finds useful information there.

Flow: content writer also needs to maintain his focus on the subject matter & make his journey from one paragraph to another a connecting one.

Essence of the story is that readers shall get all the necessary info. He is looking for. The secret of valuable content is “engagement” of reader with your website.
To create a quality content, content writer needs to have a holistic understanding of the subject for which he is writing articles.

My Experience with Internet Marketing

2009-12-29T02:04:00.000-08:00

Hi Friends,
Here, I intend to share my experience with internet marketing mediums and methods. As most of readers know, there exists several online platforms to advertise and sell your products. Out of various mktg. methods, I had close association with Pay per click marketing. Its the advertisement practice that's done by search engines programs. As far as i know, it has been tremendously successful, hence renowned.
You may learn about PPC marketing by means of variety of online sources. Some of the major Search engine advertising platforms include Google adwords, Yahoo search marketing & MSN adcenter. In addition to above list, there are also other search engines providing PPC programs. Apart from Search engine's PPC other forms of online marketing are SEO, Affiliate programs and rapidly growing social marketing.
I find internet medium to be dynamic and a great teacher. The reason for current blog post is my online search to learn about affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is also a vast medium to achieve your business objectives. Without lecturing a lot, i would like that readers find for themselves what is it all about.( hanks to hide my ignorance abt the concept of affiliate and its story.)
Rather than just gathering info. abt affiliate marketing, one can also earn money by sending visitors to merchant's site/advertiser's site. I am not quite sure, how affiliate marketing works in symphony with contextual advertising? Yeah, readers you have one thing to explore here!
Do post ur comments n thoughts n ideas n doubts n queries.... regarding d same.

Importance of Online Media in the 21st century

2009-12-29T02:00:00.000-08:00

Online media is gaining importance with every passing day. Increasing number of people are getting hooked on internet sites for variety of purposes. Internet media has evolved to a greater extent since its inception in 1990s.

The traditional mediums of communication lag way behind the online media. In the 20th century, the effective mediums of communication were print media followed by radio and television. Newspapers dominated the media for quite a long time in the past century. Political parties and diplomats all over the world made optimum use of print media to spread their message and gain popularity. Radio channels were used effectively during the world wars. Where as television gained popularity in the second half of the 20th century. Motion pictures and films were produced and promoted after television reached to the masses. Feature films and movies had a major impact on the social life in the later part of 20th century. In the late 1990s, the internet companies popularized online media mainly in the developed countries that include US, UK and Europe continent.

Internet proved to be highly successful media for businesses to advertise for their products. The advanced software tools made it easy for advertisers to measure the impact of advertising online. On the contrary, traditional mediums lacked this potential of tracking the returns on advertising. Online media became popular around the world in couple of years. The others sectors of online media include news, games, entertainment, animation, movies and the list is ever increasing. Each of these sectors of online media are evolving every day and increasing its influence.

The prime reason that people are attracted to the online world is efficiency and time saving. You no longer have to wait in queue for payments of bills whether it is telephone, electricity or movie tickets. Buying and selling activities are possible with the help of internet access. Consumers can now browse items they wish to purchase, compare their prices by means of internet. As a result, e-commerce has received a tremendous boost, due to advance of internet.

Online media have helped businesses to flourish and grow. At the same time, it has provided consumers a platform to raise their voice against faulty goods and unethical business practices. Thus, online media has proved to be blessing to the humanity.

Internet businesses have also contributed to the growth of employment in several countries. Many companies in one of the continent outsource their work to the companies situated in other parts of the world. This phenomenon has helped the third world countries and emerging economies to boost their national income.

As the influence of online media has increased largely, this age is now recognized as information age. News occurring in one part of the world reaches to different corners of the world in fraction of seconds. Thanks to the online media for the quick transfer of information. There are innumerable news sites where you can find latest news and happenings around the world. It can be said in the true sense that the world has come nearer due to advancement of the online media and communication gizmos.

Due to large number of benefits it is clear that online media would definitely aid human race to achieve great heights. Technology has always worked to simplify things for human welfare. The sophisticated digital technology which is evolving every day will certainly help us in our endeavors. Thus, one can undoubtedly say that the online media is going to rule the 21st century.

5 Social Media Myths

2009-12-19T05:07:00.001-08:00

While the emergence of Social Media has been amazing, much of the talk surrounding Social Media has become divorced from reality. Social Media is, and will most probably continue to be, a small (albeit important) part of the overall marketing picture.

Unfortunately, the way Social Media is being hyped will probably do more harm than good – a backlash is inevitable.

The root of the problem is that Social Media people don’t seem to know much about the rest of the marketing world. Sometimes, they seem to imply that the world’s premier marketers have been in the grips of some mass hysteria for the last 50 years and they need self proclaimed social messiahs to part waters and show the way to the promised land.

Social Media myths are very easy to dispel with even a modest attempt to look at the facts.

Myth #1 Old Media is dead: Since 1996, Digital Media spend has gone from 0% to 10% of total advertising both in the US and globally (according to ZenithOptimedia). At the same time, newspapers have dropped by roughly the same amount..

The rest of the media world has been flat. TV has dropped a few points, Magazines have gained a few, Outdoor and Radio have been relatively stable. None of the major media will die anytime soon.

Social Media gurus often cite selective anecdotal evidence. They point to a company that went bust, or that a magazine went to a digital format. Undoubtedly, these things have happened. However, the same can be said for social media as well. MySpace and Friendster have certainly seen better days.

As I wrote in an earlier post, despite the hype, there is no demonstrable trend away from traditional media.

Myth #2 Broadcast is dead: Another myth is that people don’t want one-way communication but want a dialogue instead. Socialnomics author Erik Qualman proudly declares that he doesn’t even own a TV.

However, this Nielsen report (pdf) found TV viewership at an all time high in 2008. Another interesting fact is that while nearly 30% of US homes have Digital Video Recorders (DVR), less than 5% of viewing is timeshifted. It turns out that people enjoy being entertained. They even might sometimes prefer to talk to someone they are watching TV next to, rather than online. Moreover, it seems that when they do watch timeshifted TV, they often watch commercials.

Just to put this point in its proper perspective, 5% of viewing is significant. If a TV show can garner 5% of viewing it’s a hit! However, the other 95% remains 19 times more meaningful.

Finally, It’s an open question how much of social media is actually dialogue and how much is broadcast, as Neicole Crepeau points out in her excellent blog post.

Myth #3 Editorial is dead: Digital Technology allows for greater consumer choice. If we don’t like the content that editors choose for us, we can arrange information for ourselves, through RSS readers or other technologies. Social Media gurus assume that because we can arrange information for ourselves, we will always want to.

The factual basis given for this myth is usually the same as for the two previous myths. They point to some failure or give an example why someone would want to choose information for herself. However, there are no facts to support a general trend away from editorial content. AsBarry Schwartz points out in The Paradox of Choice, having more options isn’t always better or preferred.

As information multiplies, the editorial role is actually more important. Media fragmentation gives us more control over who we choose to pay attention to, but that just increases the value of those who can gain our trust.

Digital Media allows us to research the facts for ourselves more efficiently, but we certainly can’t do that in every case; nor would we want to. If it was so easy, Social Media gurus would get their facts right more often.

Myth #4 Brand advertising is dead: Businesses advertise for many different reasons. Some campaigns focus solely on stimulating sales, others do not. If direct response was all they cared about, advertisers wouldn’t spend so much time and effort tracking brand perception.

The truth is that consumers respond to brands that they like and trust. Brand advertising makes direct response more effective, salespeople more productive and products stand out on shelves.

For products that have short product cycles, advertising can translate directly into sales. However, durable goods advertise to consumers who are years away from a purchase and business services often depend on retaining clients over a period of years. Many marketers have to deal with consumer behavior that is far more complex than simply counting clicks.

Direct response advertising has been around for decades. It has been, and will always remain an important part of the picture and digital technology makes response much easier to measure. However, as I’ve pointed out before, that doesn’t negate the need for brand advertising.

Myth # 5 There is a trend towards Social Media: Just as evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould pointed out that there is no trend towards “evolutionary progress” but towards diversity, the real trend is towards media fragmentation and it’s been going on for a very long time.

While Social Media is important, it is doubtful that it will ever make up more than a small part of the overall marketing picture. (See more on this topic here).

We can reasonably expect both Social Media and its impact to grow, but eventually that growth will level off. Trees don’t grow to the sky. If Social Media can achieve even a few percent of the enormous global market for marketing services, it will be an enormous business. However, believing that Social Media’s gain will come at great expense to everyone else is just not thinking seriously.

A Future Role for Social Media – Big Seed Marketing

For Social Media to become successful, it will have to integrate successfully with other marketing services. Good marketing unlocks synergies between marketing channels.

Duncan Watts, although a virtual unknown in Social Media circles, was the initial pioneer of Social Network Theory and is someone to be taken seriously. He is also the primary advocate ofBig Seed Marketing.

The concept is based on the mathematics of Social Networks, the fact that a substantial effect can be initiated anywhere in the network (e.g. delays at a regional airport can disrupt major hubs) and also on Solomon Asch’s research on how majorities influence minorities. (See How Ideas Spread).

Watts advocates using mass media campaigns, because that is the most efficient way to reach the most people. His research suggests that campaigns can be greatly extended using social media. In effect, that Social Media can multiply the efficacy of conventional campaigns. Major brands such as E*Trade and Miller Beer have adopted the strategy.

Those who have a stake in Social Media would gain much greater benefit thinking seriously about how they can improve and extend existing marketing campaigns rather than casting aspersions on what other media contribute.