As I posted some 2 years back on my blog about Social consciousness in Indian advertising industry, I Posted 2 videos related to Airtel then showing how Airtel is relating telecom services to indicate that they can bring social status change in India.
Today I read an interesting blog about businesses run in India by Dr. Peter Cappelli at HBR Blogs (http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/03/indian_companies_doing_well_bec.html) this article points out specifically how indian business owner spend effort in improving social causes and that inturn helps in gaining that loyal customer base and thus improving the business bottom line. It really proves out the theory of social experience, the Airtel ad that I shared shows how rural children can be educated using the cellular services, today airtel runs ads about how it can make the planet green using its cellular service, that really is a huge change in Indian business environment. Probably this could be a new dimension to strategy of businesses and something we may need in this economy instead of five force analysis may be it should now be six force analysis going forward adding social element to strategy.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Stimulus package in this economy
My friend Vinay pointed me to this marketing campaign by a local restaurant
Interesting marketing campaign but the thing I like about this campaign is having to return to the store with the discount envelope unopened. I guess most of them who have the envelope probably would return to the store just to open the envelope and see what's in there. Nice way to get customers back to the store and hopefully they will make some impulse purchases.
Many other companies have similar programs such as Newyork & co offering customers to return back to stores offering discounts for future period but in this restaurant case the interesting part is having the envelope sealed so that the customer is not aware of the discount until he goes back to the store. Interesting marketing campaign.
Interesting marketing campaign but the thing I like about this campaign is having to return to the store with the discount envelope unopened. I guess most of them who have the envelope probably would return to the store just to open the envelope and see what's in there. Nice way to get customers back to the store and hopefully they will make some impulse purchases.
Many other companies have similar programs such as Newyork & co offering customers to return back to stores offering discounts for future period but in this restaurant case the interesting part is having the envelope sealed so that the customer is not aware of the discount until he goes back to the store. Interesting marketing campaign.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Terminal 5
Last week I read an article on WSJ about British Airways using innovative approach to improve their bad PR about their new Terminal 5 in London. When BA opened terminal 5 it was a disaster missed baggage, long wait times for check in etc. There was huge bad PR from that opening of Terminal 5. Now BA is planning to overcome that image by running daily ads in newspapers and Radio.
The strange thing about these ads are they are created everyday and then published in the paper the next day. I may not have exact times here correct but it is like they take pictures of real passengers at Terminal 5 during the day from 6:00 AM to Noon with the amount of time it took for that passenger to go through check in or collect baggage etc. In the afternoon the ad agency collects all pictures and creates ad campaign by 4:00pm. Then they are submitted to BA authorities for review and a particular ad is selected by 5:00pm. Then they are sent to paper and radio for publication the next day.
This strategy for dynamic (or almost dynamic) ad creation is is really innovative but at the same time could be difficult to continue maintain the service levels everyday.
On a bad day it may not be able to create an ad and it may be noticeable by customers when they see an ad being repeated or if they do not see the ad at all.
But if everything goes smooth then it obviously creates good word of mouth because the passengers themselves are involved and its very fresh ad campaign.
I think it creates lot of pressure on the ad agency who is creating the ad, in these days when an ad takes at least a week to create it is really challenging to have less than 20 hrs workaround on the ads. All the best to the ad agency!!
The strange thing about these ads are they are created everyday and then published in the paper the next day. I may not have exact times here correct but it is like they take pictures of real passengers at Terminal 5 during the day from 6:00 AM to Noon with the amount of time it took for that passenger to go through check in or collect baggage etc. In the afternoon the ad agency collects all pictures and creates ad campaign by 4:00pm. Then they are submitted to BA authorities for review and a particular ad is selected by 5:00pm. Then they are sent to paper and radio for publication the next day.
This strategy for dynamic (or almost dynamic) ad creation is is really innovative but at the same time could be difficult to continue maintain the service levels everyday.
On a bad day it may not be able to create an ad and it may be noticeable by customers when they see an ad being repeated or if they do not see the ad at all.
But if everything goes smooth then it obviously creates good word of mouth because the passengers themselves are involved and its very fresh ad campaign.
I think it creates lot of pressure on the ad agency who is creating the ad, in these days when an ad takes at least a week to create it is really challenging to have less than 20 hrs workaround on the ads. All the best to the ad agency!!
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Advertising in Social networking
Latest TechnologyReview magazine had cover story about social networking sites making money. Till today advertisers couldn't figure out a successful way to make money by advertising on these social networking sites. Interesting quote from the article is :
"For social-networking sites, targeting will necessarily entail getting "between" users, as Seth Goldstein put it. You come to a social network because you are interested in your friends; ergo, the thinking goes, in order to get your attention, advertisers need to let you know what your friends are buying or thinking about buying, or they must somehow get you to send each other ads. It's either a beautiful idea or a creepy one, depending on whether you're an ad executive or the user of a social network."
How cool it would be to know what your friends bought and get some ads or discount coupons on your myspace or facebook. But you need to be very careful about how many ads you put in there and how you get the data. One solution I can think off is that when a person buys something on the internet or in the store, the store sends the person a link to the item he bought so that he could share that link with his friends in myspace or facebook. His friends can review the item and if they like they can buy the same item or any other product. Kind of referral program but its just that its is again user generated email content and because the email link is being sent by their friend, people are more likely to click on the link than if the link was sent through some automated software. The person who refers the program may also get some additional discounts for future purchases.
By using this program,
1) you are sending out targeted advertisements because the person would send the link to his friends who he believes would be interested in the product.
2) Most likely the person receiving the link would be interested and would click the link. So its cheaper in advertising terms $0.00 CPM.
3) Both the receiving and sending parties have incentive so both are more likely to make a purchase or at least review the product.
There are software tools that the magazine talks about in the article, the softwares are cool and interesting.
Another interesting that I found is how the article relates these social networking sites to the dot com era of lycos, compuserve etc : http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/20922/page7/
"For social-networking sites, targeting will necessarily entail getting "between" users, as Seth Goldstein put it. You come to a social network because you are interested in your friends; ergo, the thinking goes, in order to get your attention, advertisers need to let you know what your friends are buying or thinking about buying, or they must somehow get you to send each other ads. It's either a beautiful idea or a creepy one, depending on whether you're an ad executive or the user of a social network."
How cool it would be to know what your friends bought and get some ads or discount coupons on your myspace or facebook. But you need to be very careful about how many ads you put in there and how you get the data. One solution I can think off is that when a person buys something on the internet or in the store, the store sends the person a link to the item he bought so that he could share that link with his friends in myspace or facebook. His friends can review the item and if they like they can buy the same item or any other product. Kind of referral program but its just that its is again user generated email content and because the email link is being sent by their friend, people are more likely to click on the link than if the link was sent through some automated software. The person who refers the program may also get some additional discounts for future purchases.
By using this program,
1) you are sending out targeted advertisements because the person would send the link to his friends who he believes would be interested in the product.
2) Most likely the person receiving the link would be interested and would click the link. So its cheaper in advertising terms $0.00 CPM.
3) Both the receiving and sending parties have incentive so both are more likely to make a purchase or at least review the product.
There are software tools that the magazine talks about in the article, the softwares are cool and interesting.
Another interesting that I found is how the article relates these social networking sites to the dot com era of lycos, compuserve etc : http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/20922/page7/
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Changes in Advertisement industry in India
These days the ads in India are getting very interesting, traditionally they just have been focused on family, kids etc no matter if the ad is for a soap or a car, recently the ads that are created are created with a concept behind it, one of them is to create a story like a serial such as a couple break up and then the ad goes on to ask viewers to text back asking if the couple would join together or not and they start showing some additional information in the ad. This creates what I believe as a followership for the ad and people start watching the ad and I also think its a nice mechanism to track how many people are watching the ad and get some data out of it.
Though the ad may no longer be relevant to the product but it just creates a buzz in the market and probably the creators are hoping that this buzz would generate some sales for the product lets see how that works. I doubt if any data that they collect would help in analyzing the amount of sales it generates.
On the other side there are ad's that are showing the social value that their product is creating and also have a sense of emotion to the ad and to the product. I believe these ads are really strong and can effectively generate sales and buzz in the market. Couple of ads that stand out are:
These ads not only portray an image of social benefit by using the idea service but they also create that emotional bondage in terms of the characters thus creating a lasting memory in the viewers. What an Idea!!!
Though the ad may no longer be relevant to the product but it just creates a buzz in the market and probably the creators are hoping that this buzz would generate some sales for the product lets see how that works. I doubt if any data that they collect would help in analyzing the amount of sales it generates.
On the other side there are ad's that are showing the social value that their product is creating and also have a sense of emotion to the ad and to the product. I believe these ads are really strong and can effectively generate sales and buzz in the market. Couple of ads that stand out are:
These ads not only portray an image of social benefit by using the idea service but they also create that emotional bondage in terms of the characters thus creating a lasting memory in the viewers. What an Idea!!!
Motorola finally showed turnaround today and posted $0.02 revenue per share. Hopefully we will see some turnaround by the end of the year once we start shipping new products and improve cash flow on the other two business segments. There was an interesting post on fortune today questioning the split, what if Motorola turns around would Motorola still continue with the split, lets watch out.
Talking about Motorola here's an interesting ad to watch:
Talking about Motorola here's an interesting ad to watch:
Restarting my Blog
My friend Vinay has sent me an email request and reminded me of my resolution, now I think its high time I should start posting often in my blog.
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