Total Recall

Innovative marketing....

2011-01-15T22:21:00.000-08:00

Recently went to Shopper's stop, for ...well...shopping...

Saw this stall, in the women's clothing section...

I think this whole idea of buying a holiday over the counter is brilliant!! Most people hate planning trips, and wish someone else would do it for them, the whole gig of booking hotels, sight seeing and so on...
An what's a better place than where women will see it and pester their husbands to take them on those trips!
I love the packaging, it also has a cards pack in it, for entertainment :)

Recipe for disaster Part 2 - Micromax

2010-07-10T11:39:00.000-07:00

There are a lot more ads out there that Micromax has come up with, jarring people's emotions and nerves,toeing the line between totally being written off and making people notice their product.

Case in point - One does not easily get rid of Akshay Kumar's annoying laughter, but the ad literally burns itself in the brain, and the imagery of him playing virtual destructive tennis in the kitchen unwittingly comes up when you think of gaming and mobiles in the same context.

One of their ad, that is their best till date, would be the one that targets women(demographic -25-40 something)

What works for it -
1. The theme of the ad is vanity....and the target is women, destined to work.
2. They've got the right person to advertise. It's easy to associate Twinkle Khanna with bling, and is well known to the target age group.
3. The tag line is simple and fits perfectly with the theme - "it twinkles". Very easy to remember!!
4. The ad is humorous, and though the theme is still disaster caused by the phone, nobody dies
5. The only feature advertised is that its bling, again, no talk of any other features, though it does have quite a few of em.

What does not -
The pricing. One would not expect a Swarovski crystal mobile to cost below INR 5000. It's affordable to the teens, and that doesnot seem to be their target(atleast from the ad). Would a lot of wannabe socialites be that gullible to sport a micromax bling phone if it's NOT expensive? I'm not sure...

So are they finally getting closer to getting the formula right ?

To be continued....

Recipe for disaster - Part 1 : Micromax

2010-07-05T03:44:00.000-07:00

The theme for Micromax mobiles seems to be disaster....the ads end up in someone dying or getting seriously hurt.
The ads range from making you feel very irritated - Akshay Kumar laughing continuously in an extremely annoying manner for 40 seconds while he destroys an entire kitchen ; a little uncomfortable - boy gets bumped off by car; very uncomfortable - boy unknowingly shoves a baby down the escalator.

Everyone watches ads for the first time, if they are gripping enough, and these ads definitely have a good narrative, as you almost try to peep over the shoulder of the character carrying the mobile, wondering what could actually cause such mayhem. From the second time onwards however, I started reaching for the remote, to avoid the unpleasant feeling I get from seeing them.

But do I remember the brand? Hell Yeah!!

Recall isnt necessarily a good recall. You can remember a cafe for that fly in the coffee, or a restaurant for exceptionally bad service, or a product that left your face bluish green. These kind of brand recalls convert into a loss of revenue for the establishments/companies for a very long period of time.

However for Micromax,though the way they are generating recall is on the dangerous edge of putting off the 30 onwards segment forever off their mobiles, I think they are doing a lot of things right.

Lets see what -

Micromax Facebook

What works for it:
1. Very focussed. It is a facebook phone. There is no reference to any other feature.
2. The target segment is perfect, 16 to 20 something, carefree, and for a super connected generation.

What might not:
1. The ending leaves most parents feeling uncomfortable and they still have a huge say in what their kids buy at that age group.

to be continued...

You talkin' to me?

2010-03-13T01:45:00.000-08:00

You hire the top star for endorsements and brand promotions, you have a brilliant marketing campaign, and a million customers already.....you cant go wrong....right? Not really....and this is why....
With the financial year coming to an end, I was short of receipts and time, so this time I decided to stop searching for my receipts and use their call centre services to get what I needed.

A couple of instances stuck on clearly in my head, and that's how they ended up in this post -

HDFC bank customer service -

I have subscribed to almost every service possible with HDFC, because their online accounts are easy to use and are well integrated with addon services like MFs and trading. So its surprising, that a bank with such a strong online presence, should really lack at the mouthpiece end.

After pressing on a number of 1s and 2s, I landed up with a female customer service executive, who was polite. She asked me what I wanted, and though I know my request for getting a folio number from my online MF account was not something they were used to, she put up a good show, of understanding what I wanted. And then without a word, or intimation, she put me on hold. After 2 minutes of me wondering whether to hang up or stay put , a guy picked up. Now I wonder if there is any hiring process or they just pick up people, because he sounded so slurred, I had to make him repeat everything. After listening to my troubles, he said "hold on" and dropped the call!!! Finally in desperation I gave up, and decided to call up the fund house instead, which leads us to:

Birla Sun Life customer service -

As soon as I called I was immediately asked to choose my language of preference, such a relief! Makes you wonder why most of the call centres prefer to put that question to you last, after they've repeated every conceivable instruction in all 3 laungages. In the 3rd pass, I was allowed to choose to talk to a human voice, which was a very pleasant lady. Quick questions, deftly asked, did not make me feel like I was trying to swindle them , in fact I didn't realise she was verifying my information, until in a very pleasant voice she said that she was satisfied with the details, and would send me my file immediately, and not only that, could I please note down the Folio number just in case?

All in all, no hassle, a tension free conversation and I was left with a feeling of all's well with the world.

To top it, I got an automated call the next day asking me to rate the customer exec on a few points and asked me to record feedback if any!

A lot of financial products and services nowadays, are not stand alone, and require customer education as well as continuous product support. Unfortunately, companies dont realise that these are their first selling points to existing customers, and getting new customers is much more expensive than retaining the existing ones. Harried customers are much more prone to switching services, causing the company acquistion costs as well as revenues. How the customer execs talk should be a reflection of what your brand stands for, and for financial services, you really need people who understand both the products as well as the customers.

Above all a willingness to bend backward and help and a continuous commitment towards improvement is what assures customers that their money and trust is safe.

Do you see me?

2009-11-18T03:45:00.000-08:00

Driving around Parle West, saw this huge ad banner on a famous college building, so I clicked it...and then thought about it. The immediate thing that struck me , was the target was bang on, the tag line was cool, and something told me, colleges didnt allow branding. So then as usual, my digging(googling) began...

But before I come to that, the ad that got my grey cells ticking:

The tag line: Boost your chances

Target: duh...college going guys....so that they can...er...boost their chances

Does it work: Im quite sure it does, the tag line is suggestive yet not crass, but some doubts prevailed, as the target seemed a bit off. I dont know, maybe it's the times, but for us HSC was a bit too early for attracting attention, where most students were more weighed down by percentages and career streams.

On second thoughts though, it seemed odd that a college would allow an ad like that floating down its walls. I mean, agreed the building needs more than a dash of paint, but I'm sure they wouldn't stoop so low. Thankfully I had another close up of the ad:

Ahh, the fine print!!!

It says " Paragana 2009" at the bottom!! The strange thing is, that is not Mithibai's festival, but actually a B school festival of Narsee Mongee, which , for those who dont know, is right across Mithibai!!! That explained a lot of things!! Not only does the target get more focussed( anyone associated with B schools knows that they have enough money to buy AXE, and they definitely are looking out to "boost their chances"), but things seem to have worked in the favor of AXE, as it got a huge dull backdrop for its really big ad(NM isnt as tall, and is painted) as NM and Mithibai belong to the same organisation.

Well one mystery solved is one mystery less...and for those who are wondering my take on this advertising...I have to admit it's quite good....

Ad slaughter: Docomo – Friendship express

2009-11-09T03:32:00.000-08:00

Docomo has been in the news for its unexpected and aggressive market share capture by per second billing. A good sound short term strategy; a little hasty; but that’s not what we are going to talk about.

But is having the right strategy enough?
It evidently is not, as strategy has to be supported by a really good ad campaign. For most products, the ad campaigns that introduce the product or service, spend the first phase educating the people about what’s different in their product. Differentiation is the key to capturing eyeballs and creating a favorable opinion of the product. After this first phase, which can go on for quite some time; depending on whether the product has to be introduced or just differentiated; comes the stage of creating emotional appeal, where people are already aware of the brand name.

This is where docomo thinks it is. Considering the ad below:

What is wrong with this ad?

- Well a bunch of people start singing something sounding like “du du du...do do mo mo”

- Then suddenly the very boring train transforms into something like a singing express, and you are stumped for what the ad is actually trying to tell you

- It makes you think quite a bit about what just hit you, which is not something one wants to do, because though thought provoking is good, it’s no good, if your thoughts run all over the place with no specific direction.

- It also ends with the really corny “Do the new” tag line, which just clashes with the friendly “du du du” and all those friendly smiling feel good faces. It seriously reminds me of “Do the dew”, and makes it feel like a rip off by a creatively handicapped ad team.

- I personally feel it’s too early to tap into the emotional quotient of the market it’s just captured.

It somehow seems that the Docomo campaign has been handed over to some over eager MBA right out of his marketing strategy classes, who wants to implement all that he has learnt, all at once..

For what it’s worth, this ad definitely has recall value, but I have serious doubts about whether it’s going in the right direction.

Airtel on the other hand, has effortlessly mixed the emotional with the product, where SRK in his characteristic style asks a simple question “kitna waqt lagta hai kisi ko manane mein – sorry” … and ends with a “per second billing by Airtel”

It might not be the best of ads, but its effective, and it gets the message across without any hassles, clean and the right amount of emotion, that people can identify with. Though they could start experimenting with their ads, the Airtel ads rarely disappoint.

Maybe Docomo would do well to filch Airtel’s ad team along with the market share!!

Going Natural

2009-10-26T09:14:00.000-07:00

I saw this print ad for Odomos naturals day before, it was a huge half page ad, with a kid arm wrestling with another kid (this kid being made of mosquitoes…gross but enough to make a parent paranoid). It said its non sticky and smells nice and is non allergic.

Later on during the day, I saw another naturals ad, with Vidya Balan in a park, seductively confiding to the camera the new cream repellant is…the same three things….
non sticky, smells nice, non allergic. So far so good. But after seeing the same ad 4-5 times during one movie break, something odd struck me. This ad was not for Odomos, but for Good Knight naturals.

After some light digging up, I realized that the news of the launch of these two campaigns appeared in different news sites, with a gap of a couple of days.

9th Oct 2009 – Dabur launches ODOMOS Naturals Mosquito Repellent

Oct 10 2009 - Godrej Sara Lee launches new campaign for GoodKnight Naturals; ropes in Vidya Balan

So we now have two different brand campaigns with the same product name, extolling the same 3 virtues!!!

Like me, I guess most customers will end up thinking it’s the same campaign. So if someone sees the Good knight ad first, the Odomos ad is going to be mistaken for the Good Knight one and vice versa.

In most probability the initial sales will now be largely determined by the shelf presence of these brands and brand loyalty.

The Brand Blog!!

2009-10-14T02:35:00.000-07:00

Hi!!

Welcome to Total Recall....that's a very silly sounding name for a blog, so is the link "brand it like it is", but the blog name will stay as a reminder to not start a new blog at midnight when the brain cells are almost shut down, and the link, I cant do much about, for most of the link names I could think of, seem to be already taken!!

So if you've read past the rant, this blog will talk about brands. And ads, and people who are brands. And target segments, and crappy ads, and good ones. Basically everything under the sun that even comes close to a brand. Welcome to the blog!!!!