Radical Marketers are missionaries who have changed our lives in ways unimaginable due to their own passion for making the world a better place. Radical Marketers develop a deep connection with their audience and are able to understand the customer’s needs very well. They focus on providing better products and services instead of just profits. They do not need large scale marketing expenditures. They have a deep connection with their product as if it is their own child and expect their customers to feel the same way

Radical Marketers have 10 commandments which are their identity and they are followed religiously:

1)      The CEO must directly supervise the marketing function. The CEO must know his customers, their needs and their product.

Eg . Shailesh Mehta, CEO at Providian Financial

2)      The Marketing Department must stay small and flat to minimize complications and ensure smooth transfer of valuable information without any distortions.

Eg. Providian has integrated marketing into all its disciplines instead of having a separate exclusive marketing department.

Jim Koch at Boston Beer, who redefined Beer Industry, had no marketing department for the first 10 years of its operation.

3)      The CEO should be in close, regular contact with customers. They prefer direct, first hand data in place of second hand data.

Eg. Jim Koch of Boston Beer used to informally visit bars to interact directly with his customers

4)      The Marketing department is used only to supplement his own intuitive understanding of the market and not as a substitute for genuine customer understanding. The problem with Marketing Research is that it that it generalizes everything and explains it in terms of averages, but in life everything can’t be around average. People may like the things having extreme qualities.

Eg. People either take hot water or cold water for a bath; you wouldn’t find them asking for lukewarm water generally.

5)      The few selected employees of Marketing Department must be very enthusiastic about the Company’s philosophy and product. Since the number of employees in Marketing Department is small, they are directly recruited by the CEO.

Eg.  Boston Beer’s first employee was Koch’s ex-secretary, who was young enough to know the local bar scene and who shared her boss’ enthusiasm for the product.

6)      Customers must be thought of as individuals, not numbers. One must figure out how they can be served better. Customers must be respected.

Eg. Relating it with India we can use Mahatma Gandhi’s words “A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us; we are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it.”

7)      Striving to create a community of customers which are unified by a common thread i.e. Brand Identity. The one thing that shouldn’t be missed is to publicize the community. If you search for “user group” (with quotes) at Apple’s site, you get 112 matches. (The same search at Microsoft’s site yields 16,925 matches).

Eg. Apple has unpaid, raging, thunder-lizard evangelists for Macintosh and Apple II as their Group Users.

8)      Rethinking the Marketing Mix is a good idea. We all have the 4P’s of Marketing (Price, Place, Promotion & People ) embedded into our brain but can we adopt a different approach.

Eg.  Thought leaders like Bob Lauterborn, Philip Kotler and Koichi Shimizu have argued for years (since the mid-90s) for a customer-centric model known as the Four C’s: Customer, Convenience, Cost and Communications.

9)      Admiring and encouraging the much uncommon quality: ‘common sense’. Establishing a structure of generation of Fresh and Creative Marketing Ideas.

Eg. Take example of Barista vs. Café Coffee Day. Barista provides the same coffee and experience across its outlets and gives you a feeling of familiarity as opposed to Café Coffee Day

10)   Being true rather obsessive with regard to sustaining Brand’s Integrity and Quality. Taking utmost care that the Brand shouldn’t get diluted and its image should be preserved.

The Radical Marketing concept is not new to India. Traditional Indian Businesses like Handicraft and other artistic products have been doing it for ages. They didn’t have any established marketing structure, rather they established a personal rapport with the customers and the quality of their products spoke for themselves. Maybe the newly evolving Indian Business can take a cue from them and adopt some of their practices to survive in the ever changing Marketing scenario.

By: Harsh Shethia and Utpal Khardenavis, NMIMS, Mumbai

Should Companies participate in Social Media? 

Now this was a question that many companies faced during the dawn of social media on the web. Some grabbed this new opportunity to understand their customers better while others were slow to respond. Gradually there has been acceptance in the industry that social media is here to stay and it will have a powerful impact on the way companies promote their products. Not participating actively in Social Media could convey wrong signals to the customers. The customers might think that the company is unconcerned about their views. Even worse, misconceptions about the product may go uncorrected and create false rumours that may damage the reputation of the company. Companies realized that participation in social media conveyed a sense of trust, which is very important for it to build a reputation. The companies do not have any fear if they believe that they have offered the best they could to the customer. In case the review is positive the company can officially participate in the discussion and amplify the facts that have helped it in getting a positive review from the customers. If the reviews are negative the company can clear any misconceptions that the customers have about the product. For example HUL has started the ‘Sunsilk gang of girls’ online portal to increase awareness of their products. This initiative comes from an effort by Sunsilk to develop a greater understanding and connect between the consumer and the brand by building another interface with them. The brand stands for togetherness, fun and expertise, and that’s what the site seeks to propagate. It also serves as an exclusive girls’ forum and helps them share information related to health and well being.

Participation in Social Media broadly involves two stages. The first is making the customer aware of the products by advertising in appropriate places. It is easier to target customers as a group rather than as individuals. It is easier to penetrate the group as word of mouth advertising works efficiently due to the trust between the members, their ideological proximity or common interests. So the companies can target specific groups (online communities) which may appeal to the members. If you are a MBA entrance exams coaching agency, then placing advertisements on a MBA entrance discussion forum makes more sense than advertising on a Forum for Photography. So participating in social media gives you the opportunity to selectively target the audience that you feel would be more receptive to your advertisements. Another advantage is that you can measure the response of the customers on social media. Number of page views and the number of banner advertisement clicks are examples of parameters used to study the interaction with customers. The quality of the interaction can be gauged by parameters like the time spent and bounce rates i.e. how frequently users have quit the site. The second part is actually interacting with the customers. In addition the company can selectively participate in discussion on these forums to dispel any doubts that customers may have regarding the company and the product. Some of the companies have forums of their own, which completes the cycle by facilitating feedback from the customer. It is this feedback that has opened a completely new dimension that can be explored by the companies. The internet has revolutionised the marketing scene and there are many more changes to come with the boom in the number of internet retailers.

By : Ankur Salunke and Sravan Tadakamalla, NMIMS, Mumbai

With the advent of new and diverse marketing platforms which have increasingly leveled the playing field for all the players, the sharks can no longer comfortably sit on a couch sipping beer in the safety of the knowledge that the salmon have neither the funds nor the stage to showcase their product power. Marketing avenues in the digital and mobile space have thrown open the gates for the naïve, the novel, the ambitious and the over-ambitious to present their brands to the consumers in the way they like and impose their presence along with the sharks.

But does just being able to design websites, develop mass mail campaigns, send text messages and make a presence on social media tools without hefty costs give the small players the ammunition to gun down their imposing foils?

Every company has to build a brand for themselves from the beginning, exploring the right avenues and not all avenues to market themselves. The changing behavior of consumers, the changing macroeconomic factors that dictate product pricing, the empowerment of consumers to access information in new ways are all factors that need to be taken into consideration while formulating an integrated marketing campaign for your product or service. Here are a few pointers for the small players on what to do and what not to do.

What not to do:

Do not bombard your target audience with your brand. Consumers are becoming increasingly impatient with intrusive advertising, and are no longer helpless in dealing with it.

1. Highly sophisticated mail spam filters can easily detect online viral marketing mails. Spam filters assign points to spam attributes, such as excessive use of exclamation marks, or catchy phrases like ‘Order now!’ and add up the points. If the total exceeds a threshold value, the mail is qualified as spam and thrown into the abyss.

2. Mobile companies have been ordered to restrict the sending of viral messages unless the naïve and unknowing consumer voluntarily accepts it.

What to do:

1. Put your brand behind a cause.

Make an emotional connect with people. Make them feel that by connecting to the brand, they are connecting themselves to a cause and contributing to the society. Everyone wants to project themselves as a philanthropist in the making, and everyone yearns to do social good as long as it doesn’t cost them time and money.

Apparel brand – ‘I am a green teen’

Electronics brand – ‘Save energy, save yourself’

Technology brand– ‘Be a part of the next technological revolution? No. START the next technological revolution’

Foods – ‘An apple a day…still makes me feel hungry! Bingo – A healthy snack to recharge my battery.’

2. Interactive advertising

Why is my brand the best?

a)      Quality 1

b)      Quality 2

c)      Quality 3

d)      All of the above

‘SMS the right answer to 5454 and win a bike!’

Interactive advertising engages the customer and gives him or her incentive to know more about your brand.

3. Packaging with other new products

Find complementary products with an established brand equity with which your product could be packaged. Not only are potential consumers given a good look at your product, the partnership lends credibility to your brand.

4. Be the voice of the people. Make a facebook and twitter page. Comment on important social, political and economic topics and voice the popular opinion. Get a following and you get your market share.

5. Create a unique brand delivery selling point. Make the usage of the product an experience.

‘Buy a membership card and you get every fifth product that you want for free!’

6. No budget means no brand ambassador. No problem. Make users feel like they are the brand ambassadors of the product. For users who buy a membership card, or register themselves on your websites, or become loyal to your brand in some way – give them unique goodies that flaunt brand loyalty. A t-shirt which says ‘I didn’t choose Xperia X10. It chose me.’

7. An extraordinarily important point and yet an often overlooked one is online credibility. Do not let your marketing campaign get lost in millions of spam messages. Partnering up with complementary partners who are authorities in their sectors was one. Tie up with online retail and coupon selling websites like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Crazeal and the like.

8. Small business are also benefiting and targeting big firms using crowd sourcing platforms. Crowd sourcing platforms are where the people are the resources, skills as well as ideas. Crowd sourcing is a cheap and efficient alternative and is fast gaining scale among the small businesses. Business are using crowd sourcing to develop brochure and logos reducing costs by 20 to 30 %.

As the freelancing culture is permeating the society and people are ready to look for work that could be done remotely and digitally, small businesses could give big firms a run for their money by utilizing the digital space effectively.

One cannot explore all avenues. Identify which medium best suits your intended brand image and earmark a majority of your marketing fund for that. Other avenues can be explored at a later stage and used for jumping segments or market penetration. Build your brand one step at a time, and you can beat the sharks at their own game.

By: Apoorv Singhal and Apoorva Jain, NMIMS, Mumbai

For the benefit of the ones who don’t know what it is, an Elevator pitch is a 30 second sales pitch about an idea or a product. In olden days, it was possible for salesmen and potential suppliers to pitch their products and ideas to CEOs and financiers and common people even when they were travelling in an elevator. This implied that they would have to be able to at least convey their message, if not convince their target within an average of 30 seconds – clearly, crisply, in a concise manner, while also making it appealing. This is the origin of the famed term “elevator pitch”

It doesn’t matter what you are pitching for or who you are pitching to. What matters is that you get your audience to listen to what you have to say. Most people don’t realize that getting someone to listen to what you have to say is much harder than it looks. The problem is that people are busy and the more potentially helpful someone is, the busier they are likely to be. If you want to create a window for your proposal, idea or product in the mind of your audience; if you need to close the deal, then you need to figure out a way to communicate your message to someone who has a number of other things up their mind. You need an elevator pitch, a good elevator pitch.

Some guidelines to make a good elevator pitch are these: Practise it out loud. You will know the best parts, the worst parts, the highlights and the specials of your pitch only when you say it out loud to yourself.  You need to include a line that is bound to capture attention, such as mentioning an award that a product received or by using rational superlatives such as “best”, “first” (as opposed to using irrational superlatives like “most amazing”, “awesome” etc.) The second most important thing for you is to say it with both excitement and conviction, both in the product and in yourself. And the most important thing is the close. The close needs to have something about what’s in it for them. No one is going to shell out a penny for the best product in the world if it is of no use to them. Make sure to make it memorable / catch their attention with a relevant statistic, a witty line or a line with a small (really small) anecdote. But whatever you do, don’t sell anything; just say enough to make them want to buy it.

Here’s an example of a good elevator pitch by an insurance company:

“Settlement Alternatives provides turnkey solutions to all your insurance needs! Our website, workbooks and presentations each provide information, guidance, options and alternatives to help you resolve your insurance woes. Success is a click away…SettlementAlternatives.com!”

This elevator pitch explains what the company does and what it has to offer, in simple and easy to understand terms. It is a crisp and effective introduction to the company that is friendly and direct. Also the words ‘you’ and ‘your’ have been used which make it more personal and appealing to the listener. The pitch ends well with a tagline that is relevant to the business, easy to understand and also gives the website of the company, thereby increasing the company’s chance of turning the reader into a customer.

The major problem with elevator pitches (or most sales pitches for that matter) these days, is the new technology that we are encountering and the behavioural changes that it is bringing in us. The ubiquitous Tablets, Smartphones and BlackBerrys ensure that we do not have any more free time inside an elevator or anywhere else for that matter (not to mention that lifts have gotten faster these days). Neither does the salesperson have time, nor the venture capitalist. There is a dearth of time and patience even to listen to a 30 second ‘long’ speech.

With the advent of the internet where most ads contain only 15 – 20 words, where most ads are just pictures and where people have increasingly shorter spans of attention, conciseness in the elevator pitch is taking on a new meaning. It’s no longer “Short and Sweet” but rather “Short is Sweet”. And one likes to think that the term “Elevator Pitch” should probably get a Spanish twist and be contracted as “El pitch” – “El” being the short version of “Elevator”.

By: Ishpreet Narula and Srinivasan Chockalingam, NMIMS, Mumbai

Barring the BTL activities promotion through a medium like TV is the main tool in the hands of the modern marketer as far as the urban markets are concerned. One will think that the story for the rural setup should not be all that different. In reality though, there is a huge disparity. Two numbers help in putting these differences into light – 17 and 60. 17 is the percent of purchasing power that the top six metros account for in India. 60 is the percent of media spends that are being done by the top companies in these metros. No matter which way you look at it, the numbers do not seem to match up. Some may argue that the reason behind the skewed numbers is quite simply the fact that the modern mediums of communication are still more efficient in the urban setup. Such claims have some base but they do not tell the whole story.

Rural India is unique. The remnants of the class system of the old ensure that people with power are still looked upon for directions by the rural folks. These people in power are the opinion leaders in the true sense of the word. Promotion in rural setup cannot be successful unless this group is a part of the promotion plan. Take an example of promotion of Mobile phones in Rural India. Rural India has seen economic empowerment in recent times with the easy availability of credit and measures like loan waiver from the government. This has led to a surge in purchasing power. In addition, the migration of family members to city has ensured a great demand for mobile phones. But as the surveys of Rural Marketing Association of India suggest, the mobile phone is the first electronic gadget that a villager buys and simply put – the technology scares him. Hence the rural consumer, unlike his urban counterpart, decides based on what the Gram Sabha members or the Village Development Officer – the opinion leaders – suggest.

Thus, reaching this rural consumer in many cases implies reaching the opinion leaders. This in turn will require re-orienting your rural sales force. Companies would do well by employing such opinion leaders in their sales force if possible.

BTL Activities and engaging the opinion leaders ensure a greater reach but we can still not ignore the immense potential of mass media. This is the juncture at which Rural India throws some startling facts again. They might fall way behind when it comes to the number of households having a TV but when it comes to Radio Rural India wins hands down. This India still likes to start its day by listening to Vividh Bharti. Even though radio broadcasting in villages might not have seen a proliferation similar to the cities but it still remains a potent medium. Radios in villages provide an unmatchable reach.  This has been the reason behind initiatives like Reliance Media World’s “BIG Rural” which offers brand activation through support of BIG FM Radio.

Even though the “how” and “whom” of promotion are important characters, the hero of the story still remains the product. Rural markets have long been seen from the prism of low pricing. This approach has generally led to introduction of cheaper/low-quality cousins of the original product. The truth is that the rural consumer wants value for his money. Rural India has huge problems in term of infrastructure like regular electricity, bad roads etc. So if you are a telecom company selling a mobile phone which can save 100 messages but has a battery backup of only 1.5 hrs or if you are an automobile company selling a bike only in Rs. 28,000/- but having a low suspension , chances are your product will not sell since your product does not solve the rural concerns. Rural markets respond to products which are attuned to rural needs. Corporate India is waking up to this fact but the rise has been slow. We have heard about Samsung launching phones which will run on a solar battery to cut down on the dependence on electricity but news reports like these have been more of an exception than a rule.

Urban markets are getting saturated and the time has come for the marketers to tap the huge potential of the rural markets but this will only be possible if a clearer approach is adopted towards the trinity of what to sell, how to sell and to whom to sell.

By: Neelotpal Shukla, NMIMS, Mumbai

The same can be said about two of Mumbai’s most enduring landmarks in the cinema space, The Regal and Eros cinema theatres in South Mumbai. Not far too long before, a movie-going experience would be incomplete if we didn’t enjoy the movie at these theatres, respectfully cheering the seductive moves of an actress while sitting in the balcony seats as city folk danced and hooted with wild abandon in the aisles of the stall seats. As times have changed, multiplex theatres have arrived and stolen the soul of the Indian movie experience. Indeed, many other iconic cinemas like Metro and Sterling have taken the bait and converted to swanking multiplexes. Today, a movie is more about plush seats carefully categorised as silver, gold or platinum, exclusive premiers, personalized catering service and outrageously priced snacks. Is it a wonder that while we still remember most dialogues from movies we saw when younger; the ones we watch today remain only a blur in our memory? Truth is, we do not have the time to immerse ourselves in the magic of cinema when we are constantly being bothered by attendants on what item on the menu they could bring us next, and what the special of the day is.

There is a valid case made about individual liberty and the right to make a choice about where someone would want to see a film. However, what is saddening in that these incredible cinemas with all their heritage and quality, are been utterly neglected by one and all. Neither the movie patrons nor the film fraternity are worried about the fact that these cinemas may go out of business, and forever destroy a part of cinema folklore. After all, these theatres have hosted the premier shows of some of Bollywood’s most famous films and millions have watched their favourite actors in awe on these screens as the actors lived out a life that most aspired to! While many would say that this is inevitable in today’s fast-paced world, examples from around the world prove otherwise: Apollo and Broadway theatre from New York City, The Gateway Theatre in Chicago, River Oaks Theatre in Houston, Cinema Odeon in Florence, Crest Theatre in Sacramento, California are all cases in point. These cinema theatres are famous iconic local landmarks in their own right. They have not endured till today as they offer the most advanced projection technology or the best catering service: they have thrived as there is fascinating history connected with them and more importantly, the people associated with them not only recognize this fact but also value it.

So what can Mumbai do to prevent the loss of yet another piece of its history in these changing times? As the audience, you and I can’t really do much. But the theatres’ management and the Bollywood certainly can. The theatre management needs to restore the facilities at these theatres to pristine condition and re-launch them as exclusive, elite and historic theatres. Bollywood needs to be sensitive to the role these theatres have played in their history together and restart doing premier shows and new movie launches here. If you wish to create a local iconic landmark, these steps are as critical as they are relevant. Most tourists to New York City today make it a point to visit Broadway theatre and Apollo Theatre. Why can’t Regal or Eros cinemas also be looked at as the local iconic landmarks for Mumbai?

You may ask why there is a need for recognising historic significance. Well, the answer will strike you in a few years, when the international community asks you about your rich film heritage – and you have nothing else to show for it but a stack of old photographs and chains of swanky multiplexes with shabby personal attendants who are interested in nothing else but selling you yet another tray of Nachos.

By: Sudeep Singh, NMIMS, Mumbai

The main reason a company chooses line extension instead of creating a new brand is that the company assumes that a particular name has already been established, has a position in the mind of the consumer and has been advertised well. So basically, extension of a given brand is cheaper and more efficient since the company does not have to spend money and time in positioning/advertising a new brand to the consumer, that too in a market that is already so cluttered with products. Another reason why a company chooses to go for line extension is that the company feels its product is invincible and that the consumer would be ready to accept a new product simply because it has heard the same name as before.  (Well, this is not the case, as has been proved once too many times before)

Let’s look at a case of line extension in India. Indigo from Tata is a case in point. The car Indigo itself could be considered a line extension of the successful Tata Indica. But now that the Indigo is a success on its own, there are some variations of that as well. When the Indian government announced subsidies for cars under 4 metres in length, Tata was one of the first to react by reducing the length of the Indigo to less than 4 metres (which makes it the shortest sedan in the world), give it a new name called “Indigo CS” and sell it for a price that no sedan could match at that time, making a handsome profit in the process. But then, there’s also an Indigo XL, an Indigo Marina, an Indigo Manza, an Indigo XL etc. But how many people actually understand the difference between the different brands? And what does the Indigo CS do to the XL and what the manza do to the Marina? Doesn’t it all confuse the customer?

Let’s take a look at Kraft foods. They are a classic example of being in everything and still being nothing. They are a confectionary, food and beverage conglomerate. From A to Z, they have a whole line up ranging from Kraft steak sauce, cheese, gelatine, mayonnaise, macaroni & cheese and some brands with different names. Not that they do not generate enough revenue, but the name of the brand is so diluted that people have nothing to associate it with. Though Kraft has a good market share, it is not a leader in almost every product that it sells under its name directly.

Another case is that of Crest toothpaste. Crest was initially a successful product as it was the first toothpaste with fluoride. This was the major selling point for Crest against Colgate. With some success and the fragmentation of the toothpaste, Crest introduced more and more varieties of toothpaste, all under the same name. Some with tartar control, some with fluoride and so on. At a point, there were as many as 52 SKUs (Stock Keeping Units of different varieties, weights etc). This added greatly to the customer’s confusion. Colgate launched Colgate Total, which claimed that it provided everything within one product. Crest could not match this move by removing all 52 SKUs and making one Crest Total instead. Crest was from Procter & Gamble. Not to mention what they did with 31 SKUs of Head & Shoulders.

A successful handling of line extensions must be learnt from the Japanese. Honda’s Acura, or a better example, Toyota’s Lexus. Honda is known for its fuel economy, so it was a good move to categorise the sports car range under a different name. Toyota’s models are known for their great quality and value for money. So it would not be ideal to sell a high priced Toyota as it would deviate from this basic value proposition. So naming a new range under “Lexus” is a good strategy. Not many people that are aware of the Lexus brand know that it is from the Toyota stable. This works well for both the brands without affecting one another.

There are some definite advantages of Line Extension in the form of lesser spending on advertisement, more share of mind and share of heart of a customer for a given brand name, less time and money spent in establishing a new brand name etc. Line extension is not a mistake; rather, line extension is a trap. This trap can be used both ways, though. One way is that of getting too many products and diluting the main product the way Kraft and Crest did, and the other way is to ‘trap’ two products into separate positions in the mind, they way Toyota and Honda did. Line extension must be used with control and with caution. It will cost dear to a company to overuse it such as the case of Crest. The line extension trap is also an easy way for competition to use to overtake a brand: a brand that tries to be everything. The stigma associated with being a ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ isn’t limited to just, people. Brands can fall prey to it too.

By: Srinivasan Chockalingam, NMIMS, Mumbai

One of the first successful flash mobs was organised by Bill Wasik, Senior Editor of Harper’s Magazine at Macy’s departmental store in June 2003. More than 130 people converged upon the ninth floor rug department of the store, gathering around an expensive rug. Anyone approached by a sales assistant was advised to say that the gatherers lived together in a warehouse on the outskirts of New York, that they were shopping for a “love rug”, and that they made all their purchase decisions as a group.

What really started as a source for entertainment can now develop into a strong PR technique for the companies, organisations and social groups galore. Few major cities like New Delhi, Kolkata and Bengaluru have already witnessed about a couple of flash mobs in the past fortnight or so.

Imagine, Anna Hazare’s supporters doing a flash mob to support their cause and spreading more awareness regarding the Lokpal Bill. Sounds absurdly interesting, doesn’t it? The fever of flash mobs has just started picking up in the eastern part of the World and has a long way to go. This could well be a substitute to the traditional Nukkad Natak (Street play) concept which is widely used to promote a social cause.

Picture a product launch or a company’s brand launch in the form of a flash mob. The company can merely gather a few people, train them and tell them to perform at a particular place, wearing company branded T-shirts or holding a particular product like a Juice or a biscuit while performing their act: A seemingly perfect way to launch a product, as far as minimum effort, cost and maximum buzz is concerned. Sounds like an idea. Doesn’t it?

With the 2013 General Elections coming up, imagine a political party including it in their election campaign as a PR activity. The Congress Party conducting a co-ordinated dance at Jan Path and then actually promoting it via viral marketing. Or a SRK promoting his new movie in a totally different way by getting as close to his viewers as possible. Or a college group going and performing at a mall just to promote their local fests or other events.

The idea doesn’t seem to stop and with the craze building nationally this could be the next big thing after Kolaveri D, which now has over 20 different versions on Youtube alone. India never seems to get enough of the dance and drama in their daily lives right from cricket to politics and from job to family life. For the entertainment hungry India, are Flash Mobs an effective weapon for communication and presentation of ideas?

And the bigger question that follows is: Can the FLASH MOB be every marketers most trusted weapon?

By: Shreyansh Batia, NMIMS, Mumbai

Product Recalls are obviously a nightmare for most companies (but then it’s also a motivating challenge for some marketers). That’s mainly due to the cost involved, not just monetarily, but also status wise. A product recall is worsened by other events occurring with it, such as repeat attacks (Tylenol case), hoax calls, recall of one product affecting another product of same brand (Toyota’s recent recall) and the beating the brand takes at the stock market.

A general sequence followed for a product recall goes like this: Notification to wholesalers, dealers, retailers and the public, announcements on websites, setting up of hotlines and communication channels, announcements to consumer protection groups and setting up places for re-collection of the faulty goods. There definitely is a lot of scope for a company to do things incorrectly here, but also a lot of scope for a company to prove its marketing and PR skills. Let’s look at 2 cases to illustrate how a product recall can be handled and to show how a product recall can affect a company/brand.

Case 1: The first case is about Fisher-Price. The company deals, as you know, in toys for children. I’m sure that even if you don’t worry about the seatbelts in your cars or the worms in your chocolate, you’d definitely worry about what goes into your baby’s hands or in some cases, what your baby is getting into. In such a market, where the customers can be highly sensitive, Fisher-Price still holds a huge share in the market. You’d think that they make great products. In fact, they recall some of their defective products in such large numbers that you’d be left wondering how they even survive. (To quote some figures, September 2010 – 10 million products, April – July 2007 – 1 million pieces of Dora the Explorer). But they are still able to survive only because they handle it with sensitivity, with promptness and also use a good communication network. They have had around 28 product recalls so far for various reasons, right from toys having harmful lead-based paints to toys having religious sounding chants, making it one of the biggest numbers across industries.

Case 2: 2008-2011 Toyota vehicle recalls – The case was that of accelerator pedals ‘sticking’ to the floor and causing uncontrolled acceleration. There were almost 5 million recalls of different models during this time in various phases spread out over the 3 years. Toyota had to recall multiple models, including a separate recall for the famous hybrid model, as that particular model had to get a software update as well. Honestly, it couldn’t have come at a worse time, hitting the company during recession and coming at a time when Toyota had its first loss in 75 years. I already mentioned that a recall can affect a brand/product in unpredictable ways. A good point in case is that this recall also affects resale value of Toyota cars manufactured during this period. Traditionally, Toyota’s cars have always enjoyed a great resale value owing to their build quality and mileage. Other competitors of Toyota such as GM/Ford even offered rebates targeted at appalled (rather, frightened) potential customers of Toyota. The case became particularly famous also because of the media involved. Toyota survived only because of the exceptionally strong brand image that it has developed over decades

On the positive side, Product recalls have actually benefited the industry as a whole, though. The Tylenol poisoning brought us tamper-resistant packaging such as induction seals, the Cadbury worm issue brought us an extra layer of paper protecting our beloved chocolates, toy recalls brought us reduced lead content in the paint and so on. Also, companies now have improved quality controls, better checklists and the governments have better legislations. As we see, the public is on the receiving end of some advantages of a product recall whether or not they do the company harm. On the negative side, there’s also a concept called the Peltzman effect. Say, for example, when seatbelts are made mandatory, people drive with less caution and say, when the extra layer of seals are present, we take less care to check tampering in the product.

With better communication channels such as social media including the likes of twitter and facebook and a large number of news channels who want to sensationalise everything, it has become harder to contain any information (especially the kind that would hurt a company) or rumours, for that matter, from spreading like wildfire. Also, with the cut-throat competition, any amount of harm done to the product could spell doom to the company immediately. It’s taking even more expertise in handling a product recall in these days than it ever did. It helps to be an organisation of repute in the minds of the customer and to have some really capable PR professionals to handle a product recall – the pressing need for an increasingly skilled workforce isn’t limited to the manufacturing floor.

By: Srinivasan Chockalingam, NMIMS, Mumbai

So, what is it that we notice here? Pertinent advertising. Relevant words to a relevant target. Online advertising is a multi-billion dollar industry. So how does one justify spending so much, while hardly any of us click on the ads. How does a company like Google/Facebook even convince advertisers to team up with them? And why would a company approach Google/Facebook if it did not think that these websites could display their ads to the right person? That question is answered by the powerful search algorithms that Google employs, in order to display the advertisement to the correct target audience. Once we show a relevant ad to a person, can we claim that the job is done? Well. It’s probably just half (or even less) done. And that’s because displaying the ad doesn’t guarantee the person’s attention.

So then, even if you do have the attention, what do you do with it? In today’s world, the mind is easily led to the next ad or the ad below it. So it’s not just important to get the attention but also to do something to retain it. However, with the current barrage of advertisements that’s hitting us on a day to day basis, that’s a tall order. We were getting close to a point where real estate on screen was more expensive than real estate in a city. Then there was a point where the attention of the person was a more expensive commodity. And now we are at the position where retention makes earlier expenses seem like a pittance. I may have to work in the advertisement industry for a few years to actually suggest a solution to this problem, but here are some ideas off the top of my head.

The first idea is about creating chunks of ads, one at a time. If we wanted to market a product, we could create the ads in a sequential manner by sending out chunks of information in each ad. What if we create teaser campaigns that are published one after the other? This would have more effect and retention in the minds of the target. Similarly, one could employ viral ads (of course, no one can “make” a viral ad). But if it does catch on, then you bet there’s nothing that can generate as much publicity as that.

Take the case of YouTube. All you have to do is to open the website. And you can be assured that there is at least one video that is bound to catch your “attention”, be it about Bruno mars’ latest song or a documentary telling you how 9/11 was staged. After you are done watching it, 9 other equally fascinating options flash across your screen. And there, they have your attention again. Actually, they never lost your attention. But then, these are videos. They are visual stimulants. What about other, plainer advertisements?

What if we had small, light weight flash videos playing on the side on facebook and Google instead of just having long sentences in a rather small font and a logo to go with it? Would it retain more attention or would it reduce it further? And, of course, it is futile to deny the impact of captivating colour combinations. Even though Orkut is out of fashion today, its signature blue hue is imprinted in our minds. Notably, over the years, if you look at poster design or logo design, underlining has almost gone out of fashion. Darker shades and darker colours like black and pink (which used to be considered queer) are now in vogue.

Another way to work on retention is to leverage the latest technology. There’s now a new software called “adsight”. This software uses your webcam to track your eye movements and measure which parts of an advertisement are viewed more and which parts really grab your attention. Could we modify this software to use it to see if people notice the right hand side of their Facebook page at all?

Those are some of the thoughts that I wanted to share. Some time ago, the war in advertising was being won by people who chose the better colours, the wittier lines and the bigger fonts -but not anymore. With real estate (on screen, I mean) at a premium, with every company having unlimited creativity at their disposal, with more and more social networks coming up and more complex algorithms going into showing the right ads, in the end, it shall only boil down to who holds your attention for that one extra second.

By: Srinivasan Chockalingam, NMIMS, Mumbai