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Pan IIM Marketing Digest

THE LOOKING

GLASS

Editorial Dear Readers It gives us immense pleasure to bring out the first ever PAN-IIM marketing digest, with a joint effort by the marketing clubs of IIMs A, B, C and L. If you take time to look around, you would observe the importance of marketing in every sphere of your life. Starting from the time you get up in the morning, the brush, toothpaste you use, right up to the time you crash on your bed at night, just think of those countless brands that shape your daily lifestyle. It‟s a continuous tussle between those myriad brands laid across the horizon of consumer observation span. In a season where marketers are leaving no stone unturned trying to grab consumer attention, marketing automatically assumes utmost impor-tance. The world is brutal. It‟s no longer about marketing your product right. It‟s basically a requisite for sur-vival. If you don‟t do it, your competitors will. And the consumers have plenty of options. So, basically if you don‟t sell, your competitors will. We decided to come up with a collection of choicest articles contributed by students and industry personnel, which would highlight the trends of contemporary marketing. And for the same reason we decided to call the digest, „The Looking Glass‟, because we feel it will give a true reflection of marketing, and the direction it is taking in today‟s scenario. The articles touch a wide array of topics which have assumed importance in the recent past. How has humour been used effectively by marketers? How do you sell educational institutes? What exactly did the Fake IPL Player do for KKR? How do advertisers resort to surrogate advertising? What are the trends in online mar-keting? These, and many more articles inside would keep you engrossed as you go through the pages, we hope. There are those who envision, and then there are those who work to make the vision a reality. We are proud to say that we had a team which did both. We would like to thank all those who were involved taking the digest to the completion stage. There was a tremendous amount of co-ordination and synchronization put in by the market-ing clubs of the 4 IIMs. At every stage of development we also received immense support from the faculty in the form of guidance and encouragement. Also, a very special thanks to Mr. Prakash Bagri, Director of Marketing, Intel South Asia, for sharing his insights on the evolution and future of marketing, in the digest. In future we plan to evolve by bringing in greater participation from the industry and experts and initiating wider distribution. Please do send us your feedback at [email protected].

Yours Truly Mayank Jain, Prasad Gopal , Robin Joseph , Garima Mamgain

In this edition

Team

Measuring the Effectiveness of the Humour Quotient in Indian Advetising ……3

Influencer Marketing ..…..6

Implicit Positioning and Surrogate Advertising .........9

Fake IPL Player: Redefining Marketing ..…..11

Effective Multi-tiered Promotions: Lessons From Santoor ..…..13

4P's of Indian Theatre Marketing ..…...17

Neo-Political Marketing ...….21

Strategic Marketing for Educational Institutions…..25

Welcome to Marketing, the third epoch! ........28

Sidestepping the Commoditization of Disruptive Innovations …...30

Sales Role in Fixed Income Securities Market ……32

Valuation of TV Advertising …….34

Ogilvy and Mather Trivia …….36

Is Recession the time to tighten Ad Budget? …….37

Low Cost Customer Acquisition Strategies for E-businesses …….39

State of the Market -A Comparative Study …….42

Does Green Marketing Sell? ……..44

Men's Cosmetics ……..48

Editors Design Pan IIM Team

Mayank Jain (IIMC) Yatish Misra (IIMC) Piyush Mehta (IIMC) Chayan Mukhopadhyay (IIMB)

Prasad Gopal (IIMB) Prativa Lama (IIMB) Brijesh Unithan (IIMC) Gautam Attravan (IIMB)

Robin Joseph (IIMA) Rajkul Fulzele (IIMA) Mafla Mudgal (IIMC) Shreshth Sharma (IIMB)

Garima Mamgain (IIML) Rishi Varshney (IIML) Nikhil Joshi (IIMC) Meenakshi Prasad (IIML)

Pratik Prakash (IIMC) Saikat Mondal (IIML)

Sanglap Bannerjee (IIMC) Ganesh PR (IIML)

Abhishek Mohan (IIMB) Manoj Kumar Kamble (IIML)

mailto:[email protected]

T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S

P A G E 3

In this article, we explore the hu-

mour quotient in Indian advertis-ing through the lens of certain

television ad campaigns that have

tickled the consumer funny bone

in order to evaluate the effective-

ness of such campaigns. We di-verge from the traditionalist body

of literature that brackets hu-

mour in advertising as risky and

at best, as effective as other ads.

Our contention is that an ad

campaign based on humour stands out from the crowd and

captures the consumer mind-

share.

INTRODUCTION

When using humour to advertise

a product, the main challenge for

marketers is to link the advertise-

ment to the underlying brand so

as to translate consumer enjoy-

ment to consumer purchase. This linkage is questioned by numer-

ous researchers with the distrac-

tion of the consumer from the

brand quoted as the chief flaw of

such a strategy. We diverge from

this view – our contention is that the industry context and basis of

competition is also critical to the

nature of advertisements used.

Our frame of analysis would be

campaigns that are recognized for their innovative use of humour

including Fevicol and Fewikwik,

Happydent White, Vodafone Zoo-

zoos, Idea Cellular, Frooti, Tata

Sky, Sprite.

TYPES OF HUMOUR

Back in the 1960‟s, a golden rule

in advertising, propagated by the

founder of Prentice-Hall, was to

never mix humour and advertis-ing. Today, with the proliferation

of product offerings, humour is

increasingly being looked upon

not as a distraction that trivial-

izes the product, but as an effec-

tive means of distinguishing the product from the crowd and

drawing the attention of con-

sumer.

Measuring the Effectiveness of the Humour

Quotient in Indian Advertising

Humour can come in many forms

and the choice of the appropriate type is highly dependent on the

target audience, the cultural bias,

the choice of advertising medium

and the product itself. Some of

the more popularly used forms are:

Personification: This is

where inanimate objects assume

human characteristics and the inherent humour in observing

such behaviour is used to high-

light some quality or the desir-

ability of the brand. One such

example is Pepsi‟s „Oye Bubbly‟

campaign in which various ob-jects such as the car stereo and

the garage are shown coveting the

Pepsi bottle.

Exaggeration: Here certain

attributes of the product are

magnified out of proportion like

the Fevikwik ads where the fish-

erman uses Fevikwik on a stick

to catch fish, trumping the so-phisticated fishing gear of the

person next to him.

Slapstick: This particular

brand of humour deals with the

ludicrous/exaggerated and pre-

sents situations where the hu-

morous aspect of the ad, far from

being subtle, strikes the viewer in

the face, the Chlormint ads being

a prime example of this.

Other forms include sarcasm,

comparison, pun, understate-

ment and irony. However, there is

a strong cultural context for such

advertisements. Individualistic

cultures like the US and UK typi-

cally feature advertisements hav-

ing one or two dominant charac-

ters while in more collectivistic

cultures like Thailand, ads re-

volve around groups. Similarly,

the degree of uncertainty avoid-

ance and the amount of mascu-

line dominance in the culture of a

country are key factors in influ-

Our contention is that

an ad campaign based

on humour stands out

from the crowd and

captures the consumer

mindshare.

Indian advertisements,

in the past, have

mostly derived their

humour from the in-

terplay between multi-

ple characters.

P A G E 4


spectrum – be it the group oriented Fevicol

truck ad showing people stuffed into a truck,

or the more individual oriented Fevikwik fish-erman ad, from the slapstick Akai TV ads of

old to the more subtle Camlin Marker ads, to

the extent that even potentially controversial

ads like the Axe series have found acceptance

in India, which is viewed to be conservative.

Case Studies: We examine the following ad-

vertising campaigns with a view towards illus-

trating the different types of humour that

works in the Indian context and also to meas-

ure the effectiveness of these campaigns along multiple dimensions: Amaron, Frooti,

Axe and Max New York Life Insurance. Our

choice is driven by the different types of hu-

mour used in each of these campaigns.

Amaron (Amara Raja) batteries: The iconic claymation advertisements with the catchy

slogan of „Lasts Long Really Long...Ting Tong‟

captured the imagination of the public and

acted as clutter busters in 2002. The „Hare

and Tortoise‟ ad and the „Kumbhakarna ad‟ were aired on Doordarshan and other satellite

channels and brought in tremendous brand

awareness for Amaron batteries – a new en-

trant into the automotives battery space in

2000.

Interestingly however, the expected spurt in

sales did not materialize. The product was a

low involvement one with incumbent advertis-

ing focussing on the toughness and macho

image of the car battery. The dominant player at that time, Exide, was well entrenched and

Amaron did not manage to make a dent in

their sales. The ad agency – O&M went back

to the same claymation studio in 2004 to

come up with a follow up, the „Pandu Mangal‟

ad. The uniqueness of this ad was the univer-sal nature of the humour – the bumbling cop

in pursuit of a wily thief was instantly recog-

nized and appreciated across all segments of

people. We also theorize that the humour was

well received as it relied on simple age-old themes and had powerful visual imagery. This

ad consolidated Amaron as a powerful brand

and was a platform for their explosive growth

post-2006. In 2006 Amaron reverted to a

stereotypical performance based campaign

using racing stars like Karun Chandok and Narain Karthikeyan. Our take is that the hu-

mour based advertising helped establish the

brand awareness but did not add to the top-

line due to the low involvement of the car

owners in the buying decision and the lack of

product differentiation as the „Lasts Long‟ promise held true de-facto in the business.

influencing the type of humour that can be

successfully used in advertisements, with countries high on these two parameters tend-

ing to prefer slapstick or direct humour to

subtle nuances and double entendres.

Analyzing the Indian advertising scenario keeping this cultural context in mind, certain

key trends can be identified. Given the tradi-

tional family oriented culture of India, Indian

advertisements, in the past, have mostly de-

rived their humour from the interplay between

multiple characters. Also, in the past, humour has tended to be largely slapstick, based on

filmy spoofs and ridiculous situations. This is

part, can be attributed to the diversity of cul-

tures and languages found in India. Humor-

ous ads, therefore, must tread the thin line between keeping the cultural idioms of their

target audience in mind and taking care not to

offend the cultural sensibilities of any group.

Slapstick offers an easy way out with situ-

ational humour having a broader reach while

also ensuring that the punch line is not lost on the audience.

EVOLUTION OF HUMOUR IN INDIAN ADS

Over the years, there has been a gradual evo-

lution in the use of humour in Indian adver-

tisements. The most obvious change has been

the increasing use of humour with advertising

agencies increasingly trying to grab the atten-

tion of consumers through their funny bone.

In 1993, only 28% of commercials were hu-

mour-based. By 2001, at least 46% tried to

incorporate some form of humour. And while

in most countries, funny ads have largely

been associated with low-involvement prod-

ucts, in India, even high-involvement products

like televisions and insurance have tried their

hands at humour.

A more subtle change that has been taking place is in the type of humour employed.

From pure slapstick, ads are moving towards

more intelligent comedy, with a more individu-

alistic bent, be it the Vodafone Zoozoos, which

cleverly depicted a variety situations, each

with some link to a feature offered by Voda-fone, or the Fasttrack „Move on‟ commercials,

which perfectly capture the changing nature

of Indian society today. India today is at a

crossroads, between its traditional past and a

more modern future, which perhaps explains the success of ads across the entire cultural

P A G E 5


Frooti: The Digen Verma ad blitz that lasted

for 15 days in February 2001 catapulted the

brand into public imagination and generated a tremendous buzz across the country. The cam-

paign was centred on a faceless college going

guy called Digen Verma worshipped by his

friends, girls and even peons – in general eve-

ryone who knew him except for the stodgy old

college professor. The teaser campaign com-bined with the new caption for Frooti – „Just

Like That‟ was aimed at repositioning Frooti

from a kids drink to one for the youth. Hence,

a rebellious theme was adopted in the cam-

paign.

The last series of ads in this campaign show

Digen ordering Frooti (of course Digen himself

is not shown on screen) – this causes pande-

monium across the country and everyone switches to Frooti immediately! This campaign

was unique in the effective use of suspense

(watch this space approach) and humour in

engaging consumer attention through various

innovative forms of media (messages telling

Digen to remove his car from the parking lot were flashed in theatres, bus stops had posters

asking if Digen would be on the next bus and

so forth).

A look at the sales figures show a marginal in-

crease in the year the campaign was aired fol-lowed by steady increase in sales – the market

share decline was halted by this campaign

though. Sceptics however claimed that the Di-

gen Verma persona had become more famous

and had marginalized the brand. Later, Frooti

switched to their old theme of „Fresh and Juicy‟ which did worse than the Digen Verma

campaign – hence in comparison the use of a

unique style of humour proved to be more ef-

fective for Frooti.

Axe: Our inclusion of Axe is a little controver-

sial as its ads have straddled a thin line be-

tween sexism and naughtiness in terms of the

humour. We study it due to the unique nature

of the advertising – the same campaigns are

aired worldwide and there has been no attempt to tone down the humour or modify it in any

way for India.

This dispels the notion that Indians are con-

servative in their humour – of course the mar-

keting for Axe was backed up by a great prod-

uct too. The Axe effect in terms of sales and

market share has been spectacular to say the

least. HUL (the parent company)replaced their

old deodorant brand Denim with Axe due to its

spectacular success.

Axe is by far the naughtiest brand in India

and is targeted at the male aged 16-25. The ads highlight various situations where the

guy, usually an ordinary next door

neighbour kind of chap rather than a

hunk, gets pursued by different women.

Seduction is the dominant motif here, with the women making the first move – a bold

idea for Indian audiences. Yet, it has cap-

tured the pulse of its target audience per-

fectly.

Max New York Life: When Max New York came out with their advertisement featur-

ing an overzealous dad with his young child

as he exhorts the child to repeat words of

increasing complexity, consumers sat up

and took notice. The advertisement poked fun at Indians who have a propensity to

push their children into various activities

at a young age. Interestingly, the humour

in the ad was well received – wry humour

had worked on Indian screens after a long

while! The ad demonstrated two things – one that Indians were willing to laugh at

themselves and two, high involvement

products could be advertised using hu-

mour.

The sales of new policies shot up from the

slowdown in October – further the weighted new received premiums too shot up. The ad

had worked its magic. Max New York fol-

lowed it up with another humorous ad in

Apr-2009, this time poking fun at the re-

tired Indian male.

CONCLUSION

Thus, the use of humour, in products

where consumer preferences play a vital

role in selection, not only helps bring the

brand into the consumer‟s consideration

set through increased brand awareness

and recall, but also appears to translate

directly to an increase in sales.

Kaushik Sriram is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Banga-

lore. He holds a Bachelors degree in Electronics and Communi-

cation Engineering from National Institute of Technology (NIT)

Trichy and can be reached at [email protected].

Rohini Ramachandran is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM

Bangalore. She holds a Bachelors degree in Electronics and Com-

munication Engineering from National Institute of Technology

(NIT) Trichy and can be reached at [email protected].

P A G E 6

Imagine your next visit to your optician. After the regular eye check-up, he advises you to switch to contact lenses, informing you of the pros and cons. You wonder what this is

leading to - is your optician working as an agent to some contact lens manufacturer?

Well, the answer to this question can be both yes or no. He is just exercising his influence on your decision making. The motivation for such an action could have

come from a manufacturer, in the form of incentives,

such as higher margins. On the other hand, he might

just be using his judgment and trying to help you out.

Influencer Marketing


Welcome to the age of influencer

marketing. You might have wit-nessed and experienced it in the

past – it‟s just that the term has

become more visible. Youtube,

blogs, twitter – the tools can be

many, the message is the same - “you are being influenced.”

Compared to traditional marketing

practices, influencer marketing fo-

cuses on key types of individuals. It

aims to take advantage of the influ-ence these individuals have over

the target segment, with these in-

fluencers becoming the centre of all

marketing activities.

According to Duncan and Nick,

these influencers may be potential

buyers themselves, or they may be

third parties. These third parties

exist either in the supply chain

(retailers, manufacturers, etc.) or may be so-called value-added influ-

encers (such as journalists, aca-

demics, industry analysts, profes-

sional advisers, and so on) - Fig 1.

Using Influencer Marketing

The first and most important activ-

ity in influencer marketing is iden-

tification of influencers and evalu-

ating their potential to serve the

marketing objective. WOMMA

(Word of mouth marketing associa-tion) provides a handy classifica-

tion of influencers based on how

they derive their power of influ-

ence.

Once the target influencer has been identified, the next step is to

market the product to the influen-

cer, to help increase the awareness

among the influencer community.

They then become well equipped to

use their influence in favour of the firm.

The third and final set of activities

involves the use of these influen-

cers to advocate to the target seg-ment. Influencers can play a direct

or indirect role in this process.

What we see in case of contact

lenses is an indirect approach

where the influencer (optician) is

raising awareness about the cate-gory and not the brand. To comple-

ment the strategy, the manufac-

turer might put some point of sale

merchandising to promote its prod-

uct. The third and final set of ac-

tivities involves the use of these influencers to advocate to the tar-

get segment. Influencers can play a

direct or indirect role in this proc-

ess. What we see in case of contact

lenses is an indirect approach

Figure 1: Type of Influencers (source: WOMMA)

P A G E 7


where the influencer (optician) is raising

awareness about the category and not the brand. To complement the strategy, the

manufacturer might put some point of sale

merchandising to promote its product.

Industry Practices

One of the most common applications of

influencer marketing is in medicines and

pharmaceutical products. In many cases,

the active ingredient is common across

companies, and the medicines are substi-

tutable. Since the law prohibits any adver-tisements of prescription drugs, compa-

nies rely on prescriptions from doctors to

drive sales. Hence, they send their repre-

sentatives to disseminate information to

doctors and give them free samples (you might have seen „Physician‟s sample, not

for sale‟ printed on mini packs in your

doctor‟s clinic). Sometimes, the represen-

tatives even check up with local chemists

whether the medicines being promoted are

selling, before they make a visit.

Even in categories where advertising of the

product is permitted, like oral care, com-

panies don‟t miss out on opportunities to

promote their products to dentists. This is

because an advertisement can rarely have the credibility, and hence the influence on

the purchase decision, as compared to a

suggestion from the consumer‟s dentist.

Another avenue that companies use to

market themselves to influencers like den-tists is sponsoring lectures on recent

trends in oral care. Use of various dental

associations to certify one brand of tooth-

paste or toothbrush is another example of

influencer marketing. Colgate has done

well in this regard in India.

On a related note, Marico Ltd. has suc-

cessfully used influencer marketing

through cardiologists to promote its prod-

ucts, especially Saffola Oil. Saffola is a saf-flower based refined edible oil that prom-

ises to help control cholesterol for cardiac

patients. When Marico launched this

product in market, the biggest challenge it

faced was that most of the customers were

unaware about cholesterol. Cardiac pa-tients relied completely on their cardiolo-

gists and family doctors for information (in

WOMMA classification, these belong to

Category/Subject Matter Expert group).

These doctors commanded a great amount of influence on their patients and most of

the times their prescriptions acted as a

command for the patients. Marico identi-

fied these doctors and dieticians as its

influencers.

Marketing to these influencers is done

through various activities. Here we list

some of them:

1. Product detailing and sampling to the

doctors. Marico promoters visit these doctors and brief them about the

product. They use product detailers

and other research documents to

backup their claim. Sampling helps in

generating some trials if the doctors find the product claims appropriate.

Essentially, it‟s the same route that

pharmaceutical companies take for

their product.

2. Involvement with various medical as-

sociations and other such platforms. The visibility on such forums provides

reach to a large section of influencer

community.

3. Involving various key influencers to

help improve the product offering and future product development.

Figure 2: Saffola's use of influencer

marketing

P A G E 8


Top 10 Most Brilliant Marketing Screw Ups

Coors put its slogan, "Turn it loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer from diarrhoea."

Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."

Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick", a curling iron, into Ger-man only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the "manure stick."

When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the U.S., with the beautiful Cau-casian baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the label of what's in-side, since most people can't read.

Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.

An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of "I saw the Pope" (el Papa), the shirts read "I saw the po-tato" (la papa).

Pepsi's "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" translated into "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave", in Chinese.

Frank Perdue's chicken slogan, "it takes a strong man to make a tender chicken" was translated into Spanish as "it takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate."

The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Ke-kou-ke-la", meaning "Bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax", depending on the dialect. Coke then re-searched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent "ko-kou-ko-le", translating into "happiness in the mouth."

When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its

ads were supposed to have read, "It won't leak in your

pocket and embarrass you". Instead, the company thought

that the word "embarazar" (to impregnate) meant to em-

barrass, so the ad read: "It won't leak in your pocket and

make you pregnant."

Once these influencers become aware of the

product and accept the effectiveness of the product, they do not hesitate in giving infor-

mation about the same to their patients.

Saffola today is part of many a diet charts

and diet-guides because of such activities. It

is most probably the only edible oil that is recommended by doctors during consulta-

tion.

Another, most common use of influencer

marketing in modern times is engaging tech-

nology experts during launch of new prod-ucts. Most of the cell-phone manufacturers

as well manufacturers of new age software

provide their product to these experts before

the product is formally launched. The ex-

perts are encouraged to write about the product. The influence these experts com-

mand over the tech savvy target segment

helps in convincing early-buyers of the prod-

uct and thus generating the initial thrust

required for the success of the product.

Influencer marketing gives a marketer an

opportunity to utilize resources beyond what

is owned by the organization. This necessi-

tates establishing professional and ethical

norms on the marketer‟s part. The power of

influence also comes with great responsibil-ity of using this influence in the right man-

ner. It is not uncommon to hear of compa-

nies providing excessive incentives to influ-

encers, to ensure that they promote only

their products. The onus is on the marketer to define the ethical and professional

boundaries and stay within them.

So, in case you are looking to visit your opti-

cian anytime soon, at least now you know

that he might be influenced by Bausch and Lomb to „influence‟ you into buying contact

lenses.

Ammar Tambawal is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Ah-medabad. He holds a Bachelors degree in Electronics Engineering f r om VESIT, Bombay and can b e r each ed at [email protected]

Pritesh Jain is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Ahmedabad. He holds a Bachelors degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from RV College of Engineering, Bangalore and can be reached at [email protected]



P A G E 9

Implicit positioning and surrogate advertising


The ban on advertising of tobacco and liquor introduced by the

Government of India during the early 2000s has spawned a generation of

surrogate marketing initiatives as corporations

leant to sell without communicating to the consumer. Many in the

industry have since started to diversify into areas

where they can leverage their brands’ aspirational value; such as aviation,

clothing and apparel and sports. However the

surrogacy in advertising continues in the absence of a strong code by the

ASCI and the government flip flops on the issue.

The need of the hour is to come clean on the subject

and develop an unambiguous plan of

action

Advertising is widely accepted to be

the most potent tool in the hand of a marketer. Whether it is to launch a

new product, entrench an existing

one, educate on the new salient fea-

tures or create a new market, most

consumer products manufacturers orient a considerable amount of

time, energy and money to reaching

out to existing and potential con-

sumers though various media such

as television, radio etc. as also new

age media like the Internet and Out of Home (OOH) media.

Origins

In this context, one can imagine the

predicament of a producer who is

mandated to legally produce and

stock and then has his hands tied by

being denied the right to market the produce. This is a ditch that many

liquor and cigarette companies have

found themselves in after the Gov-

ernment of India passed a blanket

ban on all advertising of „intoxicants

and harmful substances‟ in mid 2002. Most of the large players

adapted quickly to introducing what

are termed as complimentary prod-

ucts which fell outside the ambit of

the Government‟s regulation. The significant ones include 8PM Whisky

(apple juice), Aristocrat Whisky

(apple juice), Bagpiper (club soda),

Hayward‟s 5000 Beer (kit of darts

which was the centrepiece of the ad-

vertising campaign) and Gilbey's Green Label Whisky (mineral water);

and in this process was born a new

trend of surrogacy in advertising

which is commonly defined as

„advertising one product with the view of selling another‟

Trends in surrogate advertising

After the ban imposed on the 12 ad-

vertisements identified as surrogates

by the Government of India, and the

show-cause notices issued to Star

TV, Zee TV and Aaj Tak in 2002 un-

der the provisions of the Cable Tele-vision Regulation Act of 2002, the

whirlwind of surrogate ads hitting

the telly calmed down to a large ex-

tent. Advertisers started diversifying

and shifted their focus to other ad-

vertising avenues which often

stretched the concept of brand ex-tension to previously unheard-of lev-

els. These include the mundane such

as sponsoring events (without ex-

plicit advertising) and Internet adver-

tising; the unconventional such as ITC‟s diversification into clothing and

apparel as well as the far-fetched

such as the Red and White Bravery

Awards and other lifetime achieve-

ment awards instituted mainly to

perpetuate brand recall among the target audience. One interesting

trend which was observed in the mid

2000s was the “socially responsible

advertising” taken up by many liquor

companies. Several advertisements exhorting viewers to be responsible

citizens and refrain from driving after

drinking were seen by media ana-

lysts as a form of surrogacy.

Media analysts have also often won-

dered aloud that the ambitious for-

ays made by Dr Vijay Mallya in avia-

tion, Formula 1 and related „glamorous‟ industries have as much

to do with his desire to perpetuate

his strong brand portfolio as the

prospect of de-risking his business

by diversifying.

For the best part of this decade, the

tobacco and liquor manufacturing

lobby has been trying to persuade

the government to relax the restric-

tions on advertising what are per-ceived as surrogate products. Fi-

nally, as late as March 2009, the

Government of India decided to the

hand a long rope under the stipula-

tion that the surrogates have no product linkages to intoxicants.

However on June 10th this year, the

government tabled a bill to amend

the Cable Television Network Act of

1994, which is likely to tighten the

screws on surrogate advertising even further.

Advertising Ethics

The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) issued clarifications at

various points of time that in accor-

dance with the code laid for guiding

P A G E 1 0


ethical behaviour in advertising, the mere use

of a brand name or company name which may

be the same or related to a product put under advertising restriction may not be construed as

reason enough to find the advertisement objec-

tionable. An exception may however be made

in case the product which is advertised is not

freely available or is produced and distributed

in minuscule quantities, which may not be suf-ficient to warrant advertising costs. Also adver-

tisements must not contain direct or indirect

cues for the product under advertising restric-

tion.

However many advertisers must still grapple

with ethical dilemmas as the existing code

leaves a lot of scope for interpretation.

Voluntary abstinence

A notable exception to the clamoring by the

tobacco and liquor lobby and circumventing of

stipulations to maintain sales is the conduct of

ITC Ltd after the ban announced by the gov-

ernment. In 2001, ITC voluntarily opted out of the sponsorship deal that it had signed with

the BCCI to sponsor the Indian cricket team

and has since been de-emphasizing its ciga-

rette brands in favor of other lines of business

which are considerably more sustainable. It

has also taken up large scale Corporate Social Initiatives in rural India, the crown jewel being

the e-Choupal initiative, to enable the agricul-

tural community to adopt a direct selling ap-

proach.

Two sides of the same coin: Ambiguity of

law

Many in the industry question the practice of

banning advertisements which effectively

erodes the ability to sell while at the same time allowing production to continue.

In an article published by The Hindu in March

2008 Ramesh Narayan, a communication con-

sultant writes, “The advertiser‟s perspective is fairly straight-forward. If it is legal to manufacture, distribute and sell a product, why should it be illegal to promote the sale of that product? I don‟t think anyone can answer that question convincingly.

If it has been established conclusively that ciga-rette smoking kills, why is it that it is available to anyone, irrespective of his or her age, at every street corner?” "It's difficult to digest that an industry which is allowed to sell its products, is banned from ad-vertising the same products, despite the fact that the commercials carry health warning, ad-

vising the customers to use the product in tem-perance.", says Prof. Atul Tandan, Director,

Mudra Institute of Communications in an arti-

cle released in July 2002.

While such questions make intuitive sense, the

practicality of banning production of tobacco

and liquor is unpalatable for the simple reason

that these are very heavy contributors to In-

dia‟s tax kitty and the revenue loss due to a ban on production will most likely be catastro-

phic. Also the increasing pressure exerted by

the WHO as well as NGOs and health activists

have forced the government to be seen doing

something. As a result of this duality of pur-pose, the tug-of-war continues without resolu-

tion.

The need of the hour

The following measure will go a long way in easing the deadlock seen here:

The ASCI should have an unambiguous guide-

line for differentiating acceptable and unac-

ceptable forms of advertising with respect to surrogate products. Also the ASCI should be

empowered to implement the guidelines and

issue penalties for non-conformance.

The government needs to take a stand on the

issue. It must look beyond having the cake

(the advertising ban) and eating (tax revenues) it. Advertising companies must take pains to

understand the nature of the products and

market that they are dealing with and must

refrain from designing and propagating surro-

gate brands.

Nikhil Joshi is a 1st year PGDM student at IIM Calcutta. He holds a Bachelor‟s degree in Electronics and Telecommunication Engi-neering from University of Mumbai and has worked as a Software Testing Consultant with L&T Infotech. He can be reached at [email protected]


P A G E 1 1


Fake IPL Player: Redefining Marketing

“Lord Almighty along with the Ca-lypso King decided to take the attack on to the Bubblies. The Phoren babas were happy when they saw Appam being slaughtered. Prince Charles of Patiala was all tensed up but Bhookha Nan and Kaan Moolu were

having a very good time with Sandy

Baddy Babe.”

This may sound gibberish to many.

But those who have ever come

across the Fake IPL Player‟s blog at

any point of time would be laughing their hearts out. This blog has be-

came a sensation in the cricketing

world. But at the same time it also

made several great traditional mar-

keters sit up and take notice.

What is this hype all about?

Just a couple of days before the start of the IPL 2nd season in South Af-

rica, a blog was launched by an

anonymous person, who claimed to

be a member of the Kolkata Knight

Riders Squad. Throughout the IPL he kept sensationalizing the intra-

team conflicts. Humor and Suspense

- his two weapons- made the follow-

ers want more of it.

The result

Although Kolkata Knight Riders

(KKR) kept up their dismal perform-ance, they have emerged as the

strongest IPL brand. According to

the IPL Brand Value Scoreboard

2009 published by UK‟s Intangible

Business in collaboration with MTI Consulting, KKR tops the board with

an estimated brand value of $22.3

million. As Richard Yoxon, the Inter-

national Director of Intangible Busi-

ness puts it – “Winning games is not

enough to build a successful sports brand. Teams need to engage the

local community, attract star players

who inspire a wide audience and de-

velop a strong marketing communi-

cation program.”

Further, according to a report pub-

lished by Business Standard, the peak ratings of KKR matches on SET

MAX channel were among the high-

est; at around 6 per cent of the total

cable viewers above the age of 15

years.

A source representing one of the

sponsors summed it as “From an

advertiser‟s point of view, we have

got a lot of mileage and media space

for the right and wrong reasons. The fact that it has managed to attract

television viewership and on-ground

support from spectators speaks a lot

about the brand KKR”.

This may be a coincidence. But surely Fake IPL Player has popular-

ized the two relatively new strategies

of marketing – Anti-Marketing and

Buzz Marketing.

Anti Marketing

After studying marketing campaigns and trends for several years, Indrajit

“Jay” Sinha, an associate marketing

professor at the Fox School of Busi-

ness and Austrian marketing profes-

sor Thomas Foscht, discovered that

effective campaigns go against what traditional marketing preaches. They

have together published a book

“Reverse Psychology Marketing: The

Death of Traditional Marketing and

the Rise of the New Pull Game”, which identifies and analyzes the

new marketing trends.

According to the book -- “Traditional

marketing campaigns are focused

around customer orientation. They offer too much choice, confusion and

sales pressure, resulting in custom-

ers‟ boredom, cynicism and irrita-

tion. Less is more with present-day

marketing. Customers now crave simplicity, authenticity and exclusiv-

ity”.

Fake IPL Player, a blog released by an anonymous blogger during the Indian Premier League (Season-2), created a lot of furor in the cricketing world. But at the same time it

stood out as an excellent marketing campaign for

the Kolkata Knight Riders Team. Using the unorthodox marketing

techniques of Anti-marketing and Buzz

Marketing, it could help KKR build up a strong brand value as well as

generate enough TRPs on television. This article

analyses the different new-age marketing techniques with reference to the case

of the aforementioned blog.

“Fake IPL Player” blog did exactly the same

thing. Instead of blowing its own horn, the

author tactically cooked up stories about in-fighting within the team. This created a sen-

sation for the cricket crazy masses which in

turn strengthened the KKR brand. As market-

ers put it “Any publicity is good publicity”.

There have been a few examples of successful anti-marketing in the past. One such signifi-

cant example is that of Steven Singer Jewel-

lers. It has successfully executed a marketing

campaign – “I hate Steven Singer”. As a result

it has become a landmark jeweler in the Philadelphia region.

Buzz marketing

Viral marketing describes any strategy that

encourages individuals to pass on a market-

ing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's expo-

sure and influence.

Buzz marketing is a viral marketing technique

that attempts to make each encounter with a consumer appear to be a unique, spontane-

ous personal exchange of information; instead

of a calculated marketing pitch choreo-

graphed by a professional advertiser. Al-

though the concept of Buzz marketing is not

new, but the way Web 2.0 is used these days, it has opened up several avenues for the new

age marketers. Like viruses, such strategies

take advantage of rapid multiplication to ex-

plode the message to thousands, and mil-

lions.

This was the case with the Fake IPL Player.

The Fake IPL Player didn‟t spend a single

penny. But he reached thousands. Overnight

the blog became the talk of the town. He used

a simple and free user friendly web resource, blogs, and spread through word-of-mouth

communication. He realized the fact that get-

ting one interested user (or customer) will

eventually result in several others getting in-

terested in the product. More than 8000 fol-

lowers of the blog stand testimony to this fact.

Uncontrolled Conversation: the mantra of

new-age advertisements

Traditionally brands discouraged uncontrolled

conversation on social media and read too

much into the controlled conversations in a

simulated environment e.g. FGDs, In-depth

Interviews etc. But simulation and controlled

conversations twist the facts to a certain ex-

tent thereby affecting the outcome of the data analysis as done by market research agen-

cies.

Uncontrolled conversation would let people

vent out their emotions without any con-

straints. This would in turn give marketers better insights into consumer behaviors.

Fake IPL player‟s blog generated a greater

buzz for Team KKR by encouraging uncon-

trolled conversation. Thousands of comments

were posted in response to each blog post. This added flavor to the blog and generated

further interest in the blog as well as in the

KKR team. This in turn resulted in the soar-

ing TRPs of the KKR matches.

The lesson

Some claimed the Fake IPL player was a real

life cricketer while others, at the same time, considered it a marketing gimmick of KKR,

Shahrukh Khan et al. Though he did reveal

his identity in his own cryptic way, the Fake

IPL Player remains anonymous as ever. What-

ever it may be, it has surely taught all estab-lished and budding marketers a lesson. It‟s

not about the big bucks spent on advertising

and promotion, but about innovative market-

ing channels and creative strategies. Analyz-

ing the right media channel and the right

creative message is far more fruitful than some elaborate but outdated marketing and

promotion practices.

Welcome to the new „fake‟ world!

Praneet Gourav Mishra is a 2nd Year student at IIM Lucknow specializing in Marketing and Finance. He is a “Mechanical Engineer” from NIT Rourkela and can be reached at [email protected]

P A G E 1 2


P A G E 1 3

for promotions across different

Population groups (POP groups)

and outlet types (Retailer or Whole-

salers). Then we will describe Multi-

tiered promotions followed by its

application by Santoor brand. In

the end we will consolidate the

learning of the study.

Trade Preferences for Promo-

tions: Primary survey

A structured questionnaire was de-signed and was pre tested on a

sample of 7 retailers at Hyderabad

city. Out of 101 outlets visited, 9

said they are not interested in pro-

motional offers so no further ques-

tions were asked about the promo-tions. The survey findings are sum-

marized below:

Deal Proneness: It was found

that 91.08% of the traders were

deal prone. Similar trend was

observed across outlet types

and POP groups.

Deal Preference: It was found

that 64.13% of traders prefer

price-cut promotions while rest

preferred gift based promotions

like gift articles etc. Considering

outlet type, 60.66% of retail out-lets prefer price cut while

70.97% of wholesaler preferred

price cut promotions. Across

POP groups, FLP retailers were

more inclined towards price cut

(76.19%) as compare to lower POP groups (OLP – 60%, 20K-

50K – 41.16%). In order words

lower POP group retailers were

interested in gift based promo-

tions.

Time of Incentive: 56.52% of

trade prefers instant gratifica-tion while rest prefers long term

benefit. It can be concluded that there is a mix response in the market. Considering the outlet type, 67.21% of retailers prefer instant gratification because of

Trade promotions refer to any activ-

ity aimed at providing an incentive to the channel members for their

support in marketing and distribu-

tion of the product. There are a

number of tools available to the

marketer for the same such as price-off, allowances, free goods, trade

shows, sales contests, specialty ad-

vertising, etc.

The importance of such measures

stems from the fact that the retailer

is willing to sell only those products which have a demand in the market

and thus allow him to earn a profit.

These measures incentivize the ef-

forts that a channel member puts in

for increasing the sales of a product and create a „push‟ in the channel

which may lead to a higher sales

turnover. The push effect is of spe-

cial significance in product catego-

ries where the differentiation be-

tween products is not very high. One such category is the FMCG.

Within the FMCG sector, the adver-

tisement campaigns that are run

bring the customer to the retail

store, yet at the point of sale there

are numerous options available. At this juncture the retailer can have

an impact on the purchase decision.

Incentives offered to the retailer, by

the company or the wholesaler, mo-

tivate the retailer to push the brand and affect the purchase decision

favorably.

Through our study we intend to find

the relevance of multi-tiered promo-

tions for such categories. We chose

soap category (INR 6500 Cr) as it is the biggest category in FMCG seg-

ment. Within Soaps, Santoor is the

2nd largest brand in India in the

popular segment, and also the larg-

est brand in Andhra Pradesh with a market share of 37.07% of the total

3,374 tons per month. One reason

for the leadership position attained

is the multi-tiered promotion policy

of the company. In this article we

will present the primary survey con-ducted to identify trade preferences

Effective Multi-tiered Promotions: Lesson from Santoor

Sales promotion is an essen-

tial part of any marketer’s

activities. It can be classified

as Trade promotion and

Consumer Promotion The

authors conducted a survey

about trade promotion ac-

tivities in the soap industry

and found out that different

types of traders prefer dif-

ferent kinds of promotions.

Every company must offer

promotional schemes which

cater to the needs of all

types of retailers. One ap-

proach of integrating varied

promotional efforts is multi-

tiered promotion. To show

the effectiveness of this

approach, we have shown

the promotion efforts of

Santoor soap in a particular

quarter.


P A G E 1 4

wholesaler having considerate stocking

capability and pushing power tends to opt more(64.52%) for long term plans

due to extra margins involved. The

same trends follow in various POP

groups.

Type of Incentive: It was found that

48.91% of trade prefers assured prizes

while 51.09% of trade prefers to try some luck. The similar response was

from retailers and wholesalers. Looking

at the POP groups, the retailers from

lower POP groups (20K-50K) were more

interested (64.70%) in lucky draw. The wholesalers from Metro (62%) and OLP

(71.42%) were more interested in lucky

draw and bumper prizes.

Leanings from the survey –

Preferences of traders for different promo-

tions changes across outlet type and POP

groups

Customization of promotion schemes nec-

essary for effectiveness of the same – a mix of

price based and gift based promotions to cater

to the different needs of different traders

Promotion schemes with different time-

lines are preferred by different traders due to

their inherent nature (outlet type, planning

horizon, etc)

Multi-Tiered Promotion

Multi tiered promotion refers to promotional

schemes running simultaneously at the same time and complementing each other towards

meeting the sales targets of the company. The

different schemes may be price based or gift

based, follow different timelines individually

and complement each other. The offering of

the different schemes is based on the discre-tion of the Sales Manager – who may focus

more on a particular kind of scheme for differ-

ent traders keeping in mind their preferences.

For example – there is a weekly scheme (price

or gift based) running which motivates retail-ers to buy higher stocks every week. At the

same time, there is a monthly scheme wherein

the retailer can win a gift on purchases of a

specified number of units or earn a special

discount. Now even though initially the re-

tailer may think that the monthly target is be-yond his reach and may focus on just the

weekly scheme, by the last week of the month

the weekly target achievement would have

brought him within sight of the monthly tar-

get. This position may motivate him to achieve the monthly target as well, leading to higher

sales for the company. If there is an appro-

priate multi tiered promotion mix, the com-pany can effectively achieve its sales targets.

To substantiate our proposal, we provide em-

pirical data on the multi tiered promotion

used by Santoor soaps during Jan-March

2009, in the Andhra Pradesh market

The Santoor Way

Santoor uses multi-tiered trade promotions

with different time duration and promotion

mix. We will measure the effectiveness by observing the impact of sales. The promotion

schemes run by Santoor can be classified as

in Table 2.

Secondary Scheme

Adding to the regular margins and “primary

schemes” each sales officer has been allotted

budget of Rs 15 per CFC for the “secondary

schemes”. The Sales Officer can tailor

schemes on the basis of it. These schemes are tactical in nature which is used by Sales

officer to meet the sales target. The schemes

are QPS (quantity purchased scheme) to give

extra margins and offers for bulk purchase.

The trade schemes used during Jan-May

2009 were:

Specific trade plan

Wipro regularly announced long duration (2-

3 months) trade plan to motivate trade for

bulk purchase. We will discuss Tambola scheme (Jan-Mar 2009) for this article, which

involved a lucky draw for the prizes (Spark

Car, Bajaj Motorcycle, Air Conditioner etc).

The unique feature, early bird prizes to kick

start the program was valid for a period of first 21 days. One Early bird Ticket for a

zonal lucky draw was given if the trader ob-

tains 50 Tambola tickets. The prizes were

worth Rs 300 to Rs 6000.

Effectiveness of the Multi-tiered promotion

mix was reflected in the increased sales dur-ing the scheme period of as shown in Table

4.

During the Tambola scheme, the company

also ran consumer promotions summarized in Table 5.

Table 2: Multi-tiered Promotion by Santoor (Source – Personal Communication)

Table 3: Tactical Weekly Scheme "Secondary Scheme" (Source – Personal Communication)

Table 4: Effect of Multi-tiered Promotional mix on Sales (Source – Personal Communication)

Table 1: Parameters for Primary Survey

P A G E 1 5


erences. They also were seeing higher

customer purchases due to the rejuve-nated customer promotion campaign.

Thus we see that each of the schemes was

complementing the others, with the choice

of offering price or gift based incentives lying

with the sales manager, the schemes. We see that the multi-tiered approach for pro-

motional mix was followed leading to higher

sales and success in the market.

Conclusion

The conclusion of the study is that the

trader preferences for promotion schemes

vary, between price based and gift based

incentives. The preference for the scheme

horizon also varies with the size, type and

nature of the trader. Some traders prefer short term incentives which provide instant

gratification while some prefer long term

benefits. To be effective, a promotion mix

needs to consider all kinds of traders. Multi

tiered promotion is an approach for the same, which can provide different types of

incentives to different traders, vary the in-

centive horizon, and integrate every simulta-

neous scheme towards the achievement of

the overall sales target of the company. The

approach has been used in the market by Santoor, and effective execution can lead to

better results.

Abhishek Sood is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Bangalore. He holds a Bachelors degree in Commerce (Honours) from Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi and can be reached at [email protected].

Akhil Kumar Meshram is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Bangalore. He holds a dual degree, Bachelors and Masters in Information Technology from Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management (IIITM) Gwalior and can be reached at [email protected].

Flash Start – This phase saw the launch of

the Tambola Scheme, along with the weekly

schemes (price and gift based) and con-sumer promotion. The long term schemes

generally fail to motivate traders during ini-

tial period. In order to kick start the plan,

Wipro introduced early bird prizes to give

traders dual incentive to participate in the

plan. The short term incentive though brought buzz in the market it was amply

supported by tactical weekly schemes suit-

ing both the preference, gift and price pro-

motion of traders. The weekly schemes in

the first two weeks brought them close to the target for early bird prizes leading to

higher purchases in the third week. At the

same time, higher push in the channel was

complemented by a consumer promotion.

So the traders were purchasing more to be

eligible for weekly and/or early bird scheme while the customers were also demanding

more of the soap. Thus, Multi-tiered promo-

tion mix (weekly and early bird scheme)

helped Wipro to motivate traders to pur-

chase more so as to be eligible for another tier of incentive i.e. Tambola scheme in its

first phase.

Mid slump – During this phase, the weekly

schemes ran as before, the customer pro-

motion also ran without change. The overall

Tambola Scheme was also present, without

the early bird scheme. The benefit of such a strategy was that traders who had built

high stocks in the first phase were able to

clear them out. The consistency of con-

sumer promotion was a deliberate attempt

to help trader in finishing their accumu-lated stock as superior change in consumer

promotion would shift the consumer de-

mand towards the freshly offered stock The

weekly benefits were for those traders who

were either not covered by the early bird

scheme, or were not interested in the long term benefits. They benefitted immensely

with the continuing weekly offers.

Late Push – In this phase, the weekly

schemes continued as before, the customer

promotion was changed so as to motivate

trader to purchase more and at the same

time, there was an increased focus on the Tambola scheme. The traders, who had

been utilizing the weekly schemes, and

early bird scheme were close to the targets

for the Tambola scheme – and in their effort

to achieve this target, they could utilize the weekly schemes which were mix of price

and gift based promotion as per their pref-

P A G E 1 7

Theatre needs mass

marketization to

make it commercially

viable.

4P’s of Indian Theatre Marketing

Theatre has been the soul of Indian entertainment since Vedic times.

The different forms of theatre acts

in India have given an incredible

and unparalleled versatility to In-

dian art and culture. The father of Indian theatre Bharat Muni who

wrote Natya Shastra laid the foun-

dation of structured training in

field of theatre and dramatics be-

tween 200 BC and 200 AD. Theatre

as an art form in India has its roots during the Vedic period. But

in spite of such a long period of

existence , theater groups are still

fighting to make theater commer-

cially viable. This paper discusses some aspects of Indian theatre ,

categorization of art , process of

theatrical productions , 4P‟s of

theatre marketing mix , the needs

of today‟s culture consumers , the

difference between the high art and popular art , competitors to theatre

and challenges faced by Indian

theatre groups. Based on the com-

prehensive discussions with nu-

merous theatre artists and theatre activists, the paper lays down stra-

tegic outline for a theatre market-

ing plan in India.

INTRODUCTION

Theatre is an ancient aesthetic

practice in India. Surviving play

texts and treatises suggest that theatre existed in the Indian sub-

continent from the dawn of civiliza-

tion. According to the Natyashastra

of Bharata, an exhaustive treatise

on the art of performance, drama

was a gift from the gods to the hu-mans.

Theatre has travelled many centu-

ries in India. The different active

forms of theatre in India which are

still mesmerizing the art lovers are

Bhavai in Gujarat , Yakshagana in

Karnataka , Nautanki in Uttar

Pradesh and Bihar , Swang in

Haryana , Jatra in Bengal and

Mohan Rakesh, Girish Karnad,

Mahesh Dattani,Badal Sircar,

Dharamveer Bharati and B.M Shah

Kutiyattam in Kerala. Noted con-

temporary playwrights like Habib

Tanvir, Vijay Tendulkar, and Mohan

Rakesh, Girish Karnad, Mahesh

Dattani, Badal Sircar, Dharamveer

Bharati and B.M Shah revolution-

ized the art of story telling and mod-

ern theater. We must acknowledge

the contribution of stalwarts like

Prithivi Raj Kapoor, Sohrab Modi,

Ebrahim Alkazi , Amal Allana, Om

Puri, Naseerudin Shah , ShahRukh

Khan, Manoj Bajpai , Atul Kulkarni,

Yashpal Sharma and Sima Biswas,

who popularized Indian theatre and

then moved to the film industry.

THEATRE: PRODUCTIONS & CHALLENGES

McCarthy (2001), categorized arts in

four broad sections i.e. Performing

arts, Media arts, Visual arts and

literary arts. The second figure

shows the categorization of arts.

Performing arts is further subdi-

vided in to theatre, dance, music

and opera. Media related arts are

subdivided in to installation art,

film production and the recent addi-

tion of computer/digital arts. Visual

arts have been categorized into

painting, sculpture and crafts. The

last section, literary art is classified

into fictions and poetry.

Any theatre production involves a

series of rigorous steps. The second

figure shows the steps involved in

making a theatrical production and

bringing it to the people. Theatrical

scripts are conventionally sourced

from historical writings or adapted

or written right from scratch. Once

the script is ready then it is sub-

jected to production. Support and

inputs from musicians, choreogra-

phers, actors, costumes. Lighting

and direction result in a presentable

form of a theatre product.


Digital marketing strategy coupled with

accessible locations for staging live

performances will help in attracting large

number of audience in a timely manner and thus make Indian theatre a commercially viable

business.

P A G E 1 8


The second figure shows the marketing effort

to reach culture consumers. The figure shows two triangles with a small and big base. The

smaller base shows the existing marketing

effort and the bigger base shows the intended

marketing effort.

The various new challenges in cultural con-sumption are: decrease in consumer time for

leisure, expansion of consumer options for

entertainment, expanded exposure to world‟s

cultural products, blurring the distinction be-

tween high and popular culture and changing

patterns in public funding. These challenges in cultural consumption have created a tough

competition for the consumption of theatrical

products.

4 P’S OF THEATRE MARKETING

PRODUCT

High art Vs Popular art: The principal problem with the consumption of theatre products is

the distinction between high art and popular

art. The prominent and “talent rich” houses of

theatrical productions like National school of

drama , Naya theatre and Rangshankara fail

to distinguish between the consumption of high art and popular art. In fact the artists

with prime talent in these organizations be-

come so self obsessed that they never care

about the consumption of their art for the end

consumer. They keep on producing high art for which there is a limited audience and

eventually no body is able to produce popular

art. There are two prime reasons for this:

-Those who can produce popular art in a com-

mercially viable way indulge in producing self

fulfilling high art, which is seen by a handful and eventually making it non consumable for

the masses.

-As there is less and limited consumption of

available high art, therefore popularity of art is

limited and this results in a decrease in audi-

ence. As a result , those who want to produce

popular art do not get sufficient funds to pro-duce commercially viable popular art.

PROMOTION

The promotional strategies used by theatre

production houses are very limited. Recently

few corporate houses have started funding the

theatre production houses e.g. Matrix cellular, Vodafone, Religare, and Mahindra and Mahin-

dra. These corporate houses use extensive

publicity and advertisements for popular art

but it has not resulted in creating an enduring

audience. The traditional form of publicity techniques used by theatre production houses

are as follows:

Occasional advertisements in leading news

papers which occupy very small column

width and do not create any lasting im-

pression on potential audience.

Small printed pamphlets are manually dis-

tributed outside the auditoriums. This only helps to inform the existing theatre audi-

ence. This localized and captive distribu-

tion does not create awareness to potential

audience.

Few theatre production houses have

started using cultural websites to promote

their new productions on cost free basis. But the irony is that due to lack of funding

and advertisements such cultural websites

are struggling.

The other means of promotion is through

word of mouth. But word of mouth promo-

tions by existing audiences are not able to

generate enduring audiences.

Due to lack of funding, theatre production

houses use the cheapest means to promote

their new products. And mostly the auditori-

ums which are used for such theatrical per-

formances are situated in a few specific areas which are inaccessible to masses. Therefore

minimal promotional efforts are nullified by

limited access to theatrical arenas.

PRICE

Theatre in India has struggled to reach break even point. Theatre production houses who

hire or have fulltime / part time performers

in it incur the expenses as shown in table 1.

On an average, a theatrical performance in-

volves 3 to 4 lead actors and 4-6 support ac-tors. Lighting personnel play a key role in

designing the lights for the stage show and

are generally hired by theatre groups exter-

nally for specific periods. In general the thea-

tre production houses keep single show on

Saturday and double shows on Sunday. This format is repeated for two weeks. This means

that in general six shows are performed for

each production. The capacity of the audito-

rium is approximately 350.

The total expense of Rs 425000 is averaged for six performances in a span of two weeks.

Therefore the average charge for each per-

formance comes to about Rs 70000. And the

average seating capacity of an auditorium is

350 , which means that in order to break

even each ticket shall be priced Rs 200.It is difficult to ensure a full house in these per-

formances and if the performance turns out

to be a high art performance then the audi-

ence drops drastically and the production

becomes commercially unviable. Therefore it

is quite evident from the basic calculations that it is not profitable to run the theatre

business with a specific and captive audi-

ence. Theatre needs mass marketing to make

it commercially viable.

PLACE

The places where the theatre products are

distributed need good acoustic arrange-

ments, lighting facilities and pleasant ambi-

ence. Therefore‟ theatre production houses

rely heavily on a few select auditoriums.

These auditoriums are generally run by gov-ernment or small charitable trusts or some

private hospitality organizations. Access to

these places is limited to high end audiences

who have taste for cultural products. The en-

during audience for these places is mostly constituted by those who consume high art

products and therefore theatre production

houses that produce popular art products ,

stage them in available select places are not

able to attract mass audience. High art audi-

ence does not attend such performances and thus creating a losing proposition for theatre

production houses.

Product Place matrix

The above shows the product place matrix for theatre productions. Following inferences can

be deducted from product place matrix:

High Art consumers are less and they reach

accessible as well as inaccessible places for

art consumption.

Popular art consumers do not try to reach

to inaccessible locations but will reach in

high numbers to accessible locations.

STRATEGIES FOR THEATRE MARKETING

It is a well accepted fact in marketing that if

you have problems in more than 2 P‟s of mar-

keting mix then it surely means that the mar-

keter does not understand the segment of con-sumers. In theatre marketing mix, it is evident

that theatre production houses have serious

problems with product, price, and promotion

and place as well. The key strategies for effec-

tive theatre marketing are as follows:

Correct segmentation of culture consumer

for consumption of different forms of art. Based on the segmentation, the different

sections of consumers should be targeted

with specific theatre products and posi-

tioned in accessible locations.

Cultural organizations such as theatre pro-

duction houses or Government funded

theatre schools should diffuse the bound-ary between high art and popular art. And

theatre artist should produce theatre prod-

ucts related to popular art.

Based on the cost of theatrical productions

it is quite evident that it will be difficult to

break even with existing high art audience, therefore theatre production houses shall

make their products available at accessible

places such as cinema complexes, shop-


P A G E 1 9


P A G E 2 0

ping malls and other community places.

Popular art lovers and high art lovers spend their time in public places such as mall and

cinema complexes. The cultural organiza-

tions should partner with cinema complexes

to stage the live performances in such

places. The cinema complex owners like Fun cinemas, PVR, INOX etc should be con-

tracted to spare at least one screen for live

performance and promote theatrical prod-

ucts in such spaces.

Theatre can become commercially viable by

integrating mass marketing and mass con-

sumption through low cost positioning, wide communication and deep distribution. India

is home to various forms of theatre in differ-

ent languages therefore a correct segmenta-

tion can help theatre become viable.

Catch them young: All of us become a rou-

tine audience to film entertainment because

we are exposed to it through television from childhood days and thus we become cultur-

ally habitual to it. Therefore a theatre cul-

ture needs to be cultivated in Indian society

and this can be achieved by partnering with

educational institutes. In western world, Theatre in education constitutes an integral

part of educational curriculum, which helps

in cultivating a strong theatre culture in the

society. Theatre production houses, non

profit organizations and Government shall

introduce Theatre in education (T.I.E) as a compulsory subject in middle and senior

school education. This will help in creating

art awareness and art consumers in our so-

ciety.

Digital marketing: Theatrical products are

plagued from poor distribution and access problems. One of the crucial issues related

to theatre marketing is the booking of tick-

ets. Recently in few select cities some thea-

tre production houses have tied up with

digital marketers to allow web based book-

ings but a large part of Indian theatre is un-touched to digital marketing concept. There-

fore a unified effort shall be raised to help

theatre production houses to market their

products digitally to art consumers.

CONCLUSION

Finally, it can be concluded that Indian thea-

tre which exists in various forms in India has huge potential. It can be marketed to a mass

audience if proper segmentation of high art

consumers and popular art consumers is

done. Digital marketing strategy coupled

with accessible locations for staging live per-formances will help in attracting large num-

ber of audience in timely manner and thus

make Indian theatre a commercially viable

business.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The author is thankful to the theater actors, directors and writers from Delhi‟s National

School of Drama, theatre production house

ASMITA, Delhi, Rangashankara, Bangalore

and Prithvi theatre, Mumbai, for the inputs

provided.

Mukesh Sharma is currently pursuing his one year full time MBA (EPGP) from IIM Bangalore. He has spent more than 10 years in automotive industry. He runs a non profit theatre group, Performer Group, in Delhi. He has acted, directed and produced various plays of social relevance in Delhi.

Marketing Jokes!!!

Two women were shopping. When they started to discuss their lives, one said, "Seems like all John and I do anymore is fight. I've been so upset I've lost 20 pounds." "Why don't you just leave him then?" asked her friend. "Oh! Not yet." the first replied, "I'd like to lose at least an-other fifteen pounds first." Marketing moral: Ya gotta have a goal! A retailer was dismayed when a competitor selling the same type of product opened next-door to him, displaying a large sign proclaiming "Best Deals." Not long after that, he was horrified to find yet another competitor move in next door, on the other side if his store. It's large sign was even more disturbing—"Lowest Prices." After his initial panic, and concern that he would be driven out of business, he looked for a way to turn the situation to his marketing advantage. Finally, an idea came to him. Next day, he proudly unveiled a new and huge sign over his front door. It read, "Main Entrance!" The Difference Between Optimism, Pessimism & Marketing The Optimist says, "The glass is half full." The Pessimist says, "The glass is half empty." The Marketing Consultant says, "Your glass needs re-sizing."

P A G E 2 1

Obama’s landslide victory in

the recent US elections has

brought forth the

effectiveness of strategic, well

-designed political marketing.

Starting from the usage of an

effectively delivered,

consistent message across the

different phases of the

campaign, to leveraging the

reach of modern technology

in raising funds from millions

of common people, Obama

has perfectly demonstrated

the art of implementing a

successful marketing

strategy. Though the Indian

socio-political scenario is not

exactly the same as the US,

our politicians could surely

benefit by taking a leaf or two

out of Obama’s book.

Neo-Political Marketing


Political marketing, simply put, is mar-

keting designed to induce people to vote for a particular individual or a po-

litical party. It attempts to accomplish

this by influencing citizens‟ thoughts

on various issues. Although political

marketing uses many of the same con-cepts used in traditional marketing, it

is different in the sense that ideas and

concepts are sold in political market-

ing, rather than products and services.

What is interesting to observe is the

evolution of political marketing through the embrace of new technolo-

gies and distribution possibilities. In

this article, we attempt to provide a

sense of these changes. Different as-

pects of political marketing in the US are studied with emphasis on Barack

Obama‟s widely lauded campaign. The

corresponding aspects are analyzed in

the Indian scenario as well, while at-

tempting to understand the reasons

for the differences observed. We also provide certain observations on

whether the Indian politicians can take

a leaf out of Obama‟s book.

INTERNET & OTHER MEDIA USAGE

Emerging media and social networks

are changing the rules of marketing.

Marketers across industries are slowly

beginning to understand the impor-

tance of this new media. However, one needs to realize that social media is

not changing the face of business mar-

keting alone, but that of marketing it-

self! Its effects can be felt far and wide,

and one of its most acclaimed applica-

tions was its use in Barack Obama‟s 2008 presidential campaign.

Some reasons for Obama‟s success

were his willingness to experiment

with new communication tools and his

understanding of the need for an evolving communication strategy. If

President John F. Kennedy pioneered

the use of speech writers and a shift to

television, and President Ronald

Reagan harnessed the power of televi-

sion to communicate his messages, Barack Obama‟s team can be credited

with pioneering the use of internet,

social networking sites and mobile

phones in a political campaign.

There are numerous examples to il-

lustrate that Obama‟s campaign team understood the power of the

new media, such as the citizen jour-

nalists. When one blogger asked to

go to the media section at a Hillary

Clinton rally in Boston he was turned away (because he was "not a

real journalist") and had to cover it

from the back of the crowd. In con-

trast, Obama‟s campaign brought

him up to the media section where

he was placed with print reporters from the major dailies and TV crews

from the networks.

President Obama leveraged his web-

site, user generated content, blo-

gosphere and video games to engage not just the donors and volunteers

but all the citizens. A trademark of

Obama‟s campaign was his appeal to

the undecided voters and uncommit-

ted supporters through the Join Now

campaign in his website. The use of social networking sites, especially

„MyBarackObama.com‟ during the

campaign as a message board for

local rallies, a virtual phone bank

where Obama supporters could call

undecided voters in Pennsylvania and a place to raise money. With

more than 2.6 million friends in

Orkut and Facebook, the Obama

campaign also capitalized on the well

known social networking sites. Such efforts were rewarded by the positive

buzz that Obama received in the blo-

gosphere. For his efforts, Advertising

Age recently named Barack Obama

“Marketer of the year”, outperforming

brands such as Nike and Apple.

However, Indian politicians too have

not been far behind in their efforts.

It was just 5 years back, in the 2004

general elections, that the internet

was used for the first time in Indian politics. It started with the India

Shining campaign of the BJP. Nearly

5% of the BJP‟s campaign budget

was allocated to the e-campaign, for

revamping its campaign website,

pushing out text messages, pre-

recorded voice clips and emails to its database of 20 million email users

P A G E 2 2


and 20 million phone users, and offering cam-

paign-related mobile ringtones for download. Though BJP lost the 2004 elections, the ef-

forts can be considered to be successful as it

set the stage for the use of advanced technolo-

gies in an election campaign. Since then, the

demographic profile of India‟s electoral base has changed and the usage of technology for

attracting voters is increasingly being ac-

cepted by the masses.

This time around, a number of politicians

have launched their own websites. The list

includes prominent politicians such as L K Advani (lkadvani.in) to lesser known names

such as Vijay Kumar Malhotra (http://

vkmalhotra.in/) and Mr. Ananth Kumar

(http://ananth.org/). According to the BJP,

LK Advani‟s website has become very popular and receives over 250,000 hits per day. Ad-

vani is also on Facebook, Orkut and YouTube,

while his colleague and Gujarat chief minister

Narendra Modi, uses tools such as podcasts,

Twitter, Google SMS and widgets. Indian Na-

tional Congress‟ youth wing leader, Rahul Gandhi, has over 3,000 supporters on Face-

book. The Advani@Campus initiative seeks to

build a grassroots volunteer campaign “to con-

tact and mobilize young voters in thousands

of college campuses across the country”

The leftist Communist Party of India (Marxist) is not too far behind either. Though the politi-

cal party does not favor digital technologies

(since it replaces human labor), it has shown

a clear preference for cyberspace-enabled

propaganda (vote.cpim.org) for their election strategy of 2009. The CPI(M) has even admit-

ted that since 54% of the Indian voters are

youngsters, the internet may be the best me-

dium for reaching out to them. Parties have

even gone to the extent of wooing those not

residing in India, such as the website created by the Telugu Desam Party (http://

www.tdpuk.com) for U.K. based non-resident

Indians.

Indian National Congress has taken a step

ahead of just promoting the party and has

chosen to project India as one of the most

technologically advanced nations. Through its

Jai Ho video campaign, based on a song taken

from the much acclaimed film “Slumdog Mil-

lionaire”, Congress has shown the way to go

for election campaigns in India. In terms of

using technology as a means of garnering vol-

unteer support in India, the Congress party,

during the most recent election, had set up 50

internet kiosks in the State of Gujarat, to kick

start the campaign and to register youth

party members through the party website.

The advantage of these campaigns lies in its

cost-effectiveness. Traditionally, the urban youth have been known to shy away from

elections. Now, the politicians have found a

way to reach them without stretching their

election budgets. Fortunately for them, these

methods are slowly finding more acceptances from people who represent different walks of

life.

The youth leaders can convey their messages

to a larger section of the masses and attract

more audiences through social networking

sites, internet sites and blogs. In the Indian context, the usage of internet kiosks can be

made more effective, by having a vernacular

medium of interaction and training programs

can be conducted for the people who haven‟t

accessed the internet before. Sites similar to „MyBarackObama.com‟, can be used to main-

tain a rapport with undecided voters. Also,

given the increase in the number of bloggers

in India, the opinion of citizen journalists

about the party can help increase the num-

ber of volunteers, as more people would read and be influenced by microblogs.

FUND RAISING

Traditionally, fundraising for elections has

majorly relied on industrialists and lobbyists. This applies both in the US and Indian con-

texts. Take for example, George Bush‟s fund

raising campaign for the American presiden-

tial election in 2000. He successfully created

a muscular network of „bundlers‟ (designated by him as „Pioneers‟ and „Rangers‟), each of

whom committed to bring in $100,000,

$200,000, or more from friends and associ-

ates. These bundlers were typically high-

powered CEOs and lobbyists.

The Indian context is not very different. Apart

from the significant portion of funding that

comes through black money, a huge share

comes from formal business funding. In fact,

the recent tax exemption to the corporate sec-

tor for political funding is expected to signifi-

cantly raise the contribution from this sector

and bring about higher transparency. In the

recent parliamentary elections, the major

backers of the Congress party were the

Aditya Birla group and the Tatas, while the

BJP received substantial funding from the

Sterlite group of Anil Agarwal and the


P A G E 2 3

Gujarat-based Adanis. In fact during the period

of 2003-07, the two parties raised close to Rs. 53 crores through such sources. In this context,

Obama‟s fund-raising strategy stands quite

unique. Almost half of Obama's unprecedented

$639 million in funds raised from individuals

came from small donors giving $300 or less.

The role of internet in Obama‟s fundraising can-

not be overemphasized. The internet provided a

quick, cheap and far less intimidating way of

fund raising for political novices as compared to

getting big cheques written. Notably, some of

Obama‟s campaign groups had set up systems by which donors could have their credit cards

billed automatically in easy-to-budget monthly

amounts of as little as $20. The significance of

Obama‟s viral fund raising wasn't just in driving

up dollar totals. It is widely accepted that such a personal approach in massive fund-raising

resulted in millions of donors feeling personally

connected to Obama. They later turned into

door knockers and phone bankers to support

his campaign.

There are very good lessons for Indian politi-cians in Obama‟s massive viral fund raising.

There is a huge section of the Indian middle

class that keeps itself aloof to politics. If our

politicians are able to tap in to this segment,

even funds of the order of Rs. 20 - 50 per

household would result in a huge fund due to the sheer size of this electorate. But here we

also need to pay specific attention to the Indian

context. Unlike the US, internet penetration is

quite low in India. So the parties need to think

of other cost-effective means of fund raising. Mobile phones, with their rapidly growing pene-

tration among the Indian middle-class, can be a

good option. Political parties can probably enter

into agreements with mobile service providers

and raise funds through premium rate SMSes

(the way reality television programs make peo-ple send premium rate SMSs to express their

support to specific candidates in the show).

MESSAGE STRATEGY

There are two main parts to the success of

Obama‟s message communication strategy. One

is the content of the message and the other is

the consistency of its delivery. The content of

Obama‟s message was one of hope, change, and

inclusion – ideas that resonated with the major-

ity of Americans reeling under a crisis of confi-

dence both in the economy and in the nation‟s

identity in terms of its foreign policy. In spite of

the fact that there were lots of issues where

Obama could have attacked the incumbent

government, he did not take up a negative campaign dwelling on just the opposition.

Rather, policy details on how to achieve the

change he sought to deliver formed the major

focus of his campaign. However, he did not fall

shy of attacking the incumbency and the op-position when it was needed.

Consistency in message also played an impor-

tant part in the success of Obama‟s campaign.

This consistency was manifested across the

various platforms of message delivery – speeches, debates, infomercials, and blogs.

Through this lesson in successful integrated

marketing, he was able to achieve coherence

in the minds of the public. In fact, marketing

strategist David Meerman Scott recalls asking a group of 300 people in Riyadh to think about

the one word that that they felt the Obama

campaign stood for. The unanimous response

from everyone was „CHANGE‟. Had that exer-

cise been repeated for John McCain, Hillary

Clinton, John Edwards, and Mitt Romney, it is fair to say that people would have had a hard

time figuring out a word, let alone the word

being the same. Even supposedly smaller as-

pects of the campaign such as the logo (shown

in Exhibit 1 below) were used to communicate

the same message to the public: the „O‟ stand-ing for Obama, the blue and red colors used to

represent the US flag, the red stripes indicat-

ing farmlands, and the O‟s whitespace symbol-

izing the sun shining over the plains evoking

sunrise. On the other hand, as can be ob-served, there is very little symbolism present

in the other candidates‟ logos.

On the contrary, in India, we find that there is

both a lack of content and inconsistency in

the messages communicated by most political parties. However, there is no dearth of vague

symbolism attempting to bring together citi-

zens and communities of diverse characteris-

tics under a common umbrella. Consider the

example of the BJP, whose purported aim is to bring in Ram Rajya (Rule of Ram). While such

a concept draws upon mythology and people‟s

beliefs bringing to their mind some kind of a

vision of an idealist society, it does not really

say anything about the policies to be adopted

by the party in any domain such as education or foreign policy. On the other hand, the Con-

gress‟ choice of the Aam Admi (Common Man)

appears to be more appealing and in tune with

how a vast majority of the voters perceive

themselves. Consistency in the message con-

veyed at the national level is something that is seriously lacking. With the necessities of coali-

tion politics and rise of regional players, a


P A G E 2 4

party‟s message and what it stands for often

gets lost in the scramble for power. This was witnessed during the run-up to the 2009

election results as each party, from small to

the large, „kept their options open‟. As Shek-

har Gupta puts it, we have entered an age of

ideological fungibility. While it is not fair to criticize this and probably irrelevant to com-

pare with the Obama campaign (very differ-

ent political systems and socio-economic

structures), it does appear probable that the

confusing messages and inconsistency be-

tween what is conveyed and what is done to take advantage of short-term benefits will

only result in diluting and alienating the

supporter base of a party and erode its

brand value.

The marketing story of the Obama campaign as well as those of the other aspiring politi-

cians in India and the United States can be

considered to be immensely successful, irre-

spective of them winning or losing. This is

because of the increasing application of

technology and marketing concepts in a field like politics, which has a lower preference

among the MBA graduates, at least in India.

However, there is still a long way to go be-

fore we can start talking about having

branded politicians and parties which com-

mand a huge brand value!!

Abhilash Sridharan is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Ban-

galore. He holds a Bachelors degree in Metallurgical Engineering

from IT-BHU Varanasi and can be reached at ab-

[email protected].

Arun Manohar is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Bangalore.

He holds a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian

Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and can be reached at

[email protected].

Venkatasubramanian S is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM

Bangalore. He holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Science from

CEG, Anna University and can be reached at

[email protected].

Vivek R is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Bangalore. He holds

a Bachelors degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering

from College of Engineering, Anna University and can be reached

at [email protected].

Thirteen amazing facts about Google

Google receives daily search requests from all over the world, including Antarctica.

Google’s Home Page Has 63 Validation Errors. Don’t believe us? Check Google Validation

The infamous “I’m feeling lucky” button is nearly never used. However, in trials it was found that removing it would somehow reduce the Google experience. Users wanted it kept. It was a comfort button.

Due to the sparseness of the homepage, in early user tests they noted people just sitting looking at the screen. After a minute of nothingness, the tester intervened and asked ‘What’s up?’ to which they replied “We are waiting for the rest of it”. To solve that particular problem the Google Copyright message was inserted to act as a crude end of page marker.

The name ‘Google’ was an accident. A spelling mis-take made by the original founders who thought they were going for ‘Googol’.

Google has the largest network of translators in the world.

Employees are encouraged to use 20% of their time working on their own projects. Google News, Orkut are both examples of projects that grew from this working model. Google consists of over 450,000 servers, racked up in clusters located in data cen-tres around the world.

Google started in January, 1996 as a research pro-ject at Stanford University, by Ph.D. candidates Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were 24 years old and 23 years old respectively.

‘Googol’ is a mathematical term 1 followed by one hundred zeroes. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Ed-ward Kasne.

Number of languages in which you can have the Google home page set up, including Urdu, Latin and Klingon: 88 (Eighty Eight)

Google translates billions of HTML web pages into a display format for WAP and i-mode phones and wireless handheld devices.

P A G E 2 5

Strategic marketing for Educational Institutions


We start this article with a few obvious yet

interesting questions. What was the first thing

that came to the minds of your parents when you

were a 4 year old toddler playing around expertly

with the Lego building set gifted to you by your

aunt? What was the most important question facing your family when you had

set foot in class Xth or XIIth? And going by the current trends, what was on the top of your mind when you were in your

final year of graduation?

Apart from a few conspicuous excep-

tions, the answer to all the above questions lies in one simple word, education. And hardly anyone would

disagree with me when I say that it

holds much more prominence in the

Indian context. Yes, that‟s true.

Throughout your lifetime, education is one of the most important things,

rather the most important at some

occasions, which goes on in your

mind either consciously or subcon-

sciously. Our parents spend their life-time earning with their sweat and

blood to ensure a decent and possibly

the best education for us.

But does the role of education as an

economic agent limit itself at the edu-cational institutes only? Let‟s just

have a quick look around us before

we jump to a conclusion. Or let‟s just

turn on our Television sets. And

ahoy!!! We are flooded with companies providing services like education

loans, child life insurance and many

more. So, I guess we can safely as-

sume that education as an economic

agent goes much beyond the primitive

concept of schools and universities.

Now that we have established the im-

portance of education as a self sus-

taining and most importantly, a sup-

porting agent to other industries and services, let‟s just contemplate what

exactly the education sector is doing

for its own popularity or publicity.

But before we critically examine and

draw conclusion in the later part of

this article, I would request the read-ers to treat education as just another

industry. By saying this, we in no way

are trying to undermine the impor-

tance of teachers and our Alma Mater

in our lives. We will always be in-

debted to them for what we are today. But my request will lead us to a logi-

cal and thoughtful analysis of strate-

gic marketing in the education sector.

Monastic orders of education under the supervision of a guru was a fa-

vored form of education for the nobil-

ity in ancient India. The knowledge in

these orders was often related to the

tasks a section of the society had to

perform. The priest class, the Brah-mins, were imparted knowledge of

religion, philosophy, and other an-cillary branches while the warrior

class, the Kshatriya, were trained

in the various aspects of war-

fare.The business class, the Vai-

shya, were taught their trade and

the lowest class of the Shudras was

generally deprived of educational advantages.The book of laws, the

Manusmriti, and the treatise on

statecraft the Arthashastra were

among the influential works of this

era which reflect the outlook and

understanding of the world at the

time.

Apart from the monastic orders, institutions of higher learning and

universities flourished in India well

before the common era, and contin-

ued to deliver education into the

common era. Secular Buddhist in-

stitutions cropped up along with monasteries. These institutions im-

parted practical education, eg.

medicine. A number of urban

learning centres became increas-

ingly visible from the period be-tween 200 BCE to 400 CE. The im-

portant urban centres of learning

were Taxila and Nalanda, among

others. These institutions system-

atically imparted knowledge and

attracted a number of foreign stu-dents to study topics such as logic,

grammar, medicine, metaphysics,

arts and crafts.

Following independence in 1947, Maulana Azad, India's first educa-

tion minister envisaged strong cen-

tral government control over educa-

tion throughout the country, with a

uniform educational system. The

next big breakthrough in the edu-cation sector came with the privati-

zation of education in India. Along

came a new wave of colleges mush-

rooming through the length and

breadth of the country. Education

as an industry was seeing a new dawn with some big corporate

names entering the arena. This was

essentially the time when the need

of „differentiation‟ arose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guru

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kshatriya

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaishya

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaishya

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shudra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manusmriti

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthashastra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxila

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maulana_Azad

P A G E 2 6


The need to provide students with a cause/

motivation to join college ABC instead of the competitor‟s XYZ was what propelled the

education sector to turn towards big time

advertisement in electronic, print and other

modes of mass media. And now, education

is a global product with institutions world-wide competing for students and finding

ever more creative ways to satisfy student

needs and preferences. With the continuing

rise in the preference for flexible distance

learning, educational institutions are finding

that when students and faculty have signifi-cantly different cultural backgrounds and

learning styles, the expectations of the

learning experience can be unfulfilled.

But when you see education as an industry,

the main questions that come up are: -

„How far are educational institutions really

“customer-oriented”?

Do they choose the most appropriate market

segments for their organization‟s strengths?

Is there consistency between the segments

targeted and their product offerings?

How far are they aware of the complexities of

the decision processes of the “buyers”?

Is it appropriate for educational institutions to

become “marketing-oriented”?

So in the light of the above questions let‟s

now analyse the different possibilities in the

education sector where marketing can be applied to get favourable results. The main

sectors picked are foreign education setup

and distance learning programs.

The first sector we pick up is the foreign

education sector. According to the latest sta-

tistics, 2.2 million students study abroad

worldwide and the numbers are estimated to

grow beyond 3.72 million by 2025 (IDP, 2007 forecast). The leading 3 destinations

for international students reap in excess of

USD 45bn$ annually. But don‟t let these

mind boggling figures confuse you. Being

truly international is no longer an option. Positioning and focus in a competitive envi-

ronment, creating and investing in assets to

support internationalisation, global partner-

ships and alliances and creating a brand

dialogue with the students are a few among

many initiatives of the foreign universities.

The traditional marketing approach was pri-

marily based on the focus of sales, globetrot-

ting by sales representatives and agents,

scholarships & use of alumni. Amidst all this little or no attention was paid to the

quality of infrastructure inline with the need

of international students in the home uni-

versity. However, this approach is now fac-

ing many problems, some of which include increased competition from the national (&

not only international players) and a focus

on the students‟ demands with increasingly

available choices and information. Hence, to

change this we require a resource demand-

ing transformation process. The foreign uni-versities need to rethink their strategies

and invest in quality infrastructure, staff

and facilities. Also, with an increasing num-

ber of international universities offering

similar courses at similar prices at multiple locations, the threat of commoditization of

education looms large. The pertinent ques-

tion which the foreign universities must ask

themselves is “can they differentiate them-

selves on the student experience instead of

qualification?” The answers to all these questions have been found out by the for-

eign universities in the following ways: -

Going alone is becoming increasingly

difficult so renewed focus on partner-

ships and collaborations

Growth of private sector provision and

transfer of provisions from public sector

to private sector

Joint venture public-private partner-

ships

Renewed focus on experience, reliability,

safety and employability of foreign stu-dents

Interoperability- credits and recognition

between home universities and foreign institutions

Improving the cultural outlook of the

universities

Focus on networking through internet

like social networking sites

Moving on, lets study the application of

marketing principles, to the educational in-

stitutes, through the very famous 4P ap-proach and analyse what can be their differ-

entiating factors : -

P A G E 2 7


PRODUCT

Some authors suggest that education is a prod-

uct. For example; Kaye suggests looking at dis-

tance education as a product instead efficiently

use our resources, the needs of the student/

consumer should be assessed. By doing so, we can learn from the students and then apply

that knowledge to attract future students while

meeting the needs and improving upon the ser-

vices offered to the current students. The prod-

ucts have a different name, logo, colour and physical attributes. We can say that distance

education institution is a brand and a brand is

a way of differentiating one product from an-

other; the greater the perceived similarity of

products, the more important the brand in es-

tablishing the differences. Some schools will clearly feel that they are different from others,

or that the market perceives differences, which

makes it less important for them to establish

their corporate identity.

PRICE

This concept embodies more than a value that

someone will pay for it. The meaning associ-

ated with price changes is contextual. Institu-

tions have different pricing policies and all in-

stitutions compete against each other to in-

crease their application and enrolment rates. Pricing policies will impact student choice be-

tween institutions.

PLACE

It is a means of getting the product into the

consumer‟s hands. The personality of the place sends messages to the target audience. The

vehicle which is used to reach the students can

be a physical location or a virtual space where

the connection speed of internet used, e-mail,

can serve as a differentiating mechanism.

PROMOTION

Promotion is a means of communication be-

tween the seller and buyer. It includes adver-

tising, public relations, personal selling, pub-

licity, and sales promotions. If one higher edu-

cation institution wants to enrol more students than other, it will need to use corporate adver-

tising or engage in activities that create a liai-

son between the students and the institutions.

Publicity provides media coverage to the insti-

tutions and visibility can create confidence

about an institutions reputation and quality perceptions.

Moving on to the last section of the article, we

shall see the future of marketing techniques in the educational set up. The first point we con-

sider here is the referral system of marketing

which though has been used for quite some

time, finds an increased relevance in the cur-

rent scenario. As more and more foreign uni-versities are wooing students of Indian origin to

pursue courses offered by them, referral mar-

keting may be an Innovative tool in their mar-

keting efforts. For this we should be well con-

versed with the concepts of relationship mar-

keting. Relationship marketing, as the name suggests, means developing long-term bonds

with users by making them feel good about

how an institution of higher education relates

to them. The idea is to develop and maintain

strong personal relationships, feelings based on positive interactions and perceptions. In

many ways relationship building and mainte-

nance is the essence of marketing. The market-

ing exchange process is used to build and

maintain positive relationships with continuity

and consistency. A good way to begin relation-ship marketing is to build concentrated core

groups of key target audiences and focus atten-

tion on that group, with the idea of creating a

"ripple effect" as members of that group help

carry the school's messages to their friends,

associates and colleagues. Referral marketing i.e., making use of existing students to canvass

for potential students is being practiced by for-

eign universities. The existing students are per-

ceived as important among stake holders.

Hence, the concept of referral marketing can be a boon for the Indian educational set ups

which are struggling to retain their students in

the wake of increased foreign competition.

So much is the importance of marketing in the

educational set ups that there have been re-

search papers about quantifying the demand

forecast in the future. I would like to wrap up this article by a simple yet powerful quota-

tion : -

“marketing is not about trickery or even insincer-ity, it‟s about spreading ideas you believe in, sharing ideas you are passionate about, and doing it with authenticity. Its important to real-ize that‟s it is easier to grow with happier people

than it is to find new strangers to accost”

-Seth Godin

Mafla Mudgal is a 1st year PGDM student at IIM Calcutta. He holds a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from Delhi Col-l e g e o f E n g i n e e r i n g a n d c a n b e r e a c h e d at [email protected]

P A G E 2 8

Welcome to Marketing, the third epoch!


We are in the middle of a great revolution in

marketing deed and corresponding thought. I

must admit it was a struggle not to call this

“Marketing 3.0”. However, this sobriquet has already been usurped

by many marketing scholars and practitioners

of the current era to define different aspects

and offshoots of internet led marketing. I am not going to suggest that all marketing in the current era is equal to internet

marketing (though much of it is related to the

internet in some way or the other), and thus the need to stay away from the debate of Marketing

3.0. Instead the heralding of the third era of

marketing! To reach the tenets of the current era, it

is important to give a quick dekho into the past from my perspective and that will also help lay the

evolutionary path.

The first epoch of marketing was the

most stretched. The early seeds of our profession were laid somewhere

in the wake of the Industrial Revolu-

tion and continued till the early part

of the last century. This was the

period when products started being invented to meet basic human needs

– the electric bulb, the motorized

car, the safety pin – and thus set the

stage for elementary definitions.

This era was also completely prod-

uct centric, and focused on manu-facturing – a car provided transpor-

tation, a bulb light and so on. Much

of marketing revolved around ensur-

ing the transfer of the good from the

manufacturer to the user and all the elementary functions required to

make it a success, including avail-

ability and communication. In In-

dia, we experienced this era much

after independence given the overall

shortages and a nascent manufac-turing industry being set up.

The second epoch of marketing saw

many success stories through the

late 19th and most of the 20th cen-

tury. This epoch also saw the tran-

sition of marketing from selling products to establishing brands.

The advent of more players saw the

resultant increase in options, and

led to the need for “differentiation”.

It could be in terms of the rational like form, feature, cost, shape, size,

color or even in terms of irrational,

emotional, psychological attributes.

The holy portals of most marketing

theories, philosophies and frame-

works as we know it today were built for this era. You thus had the “4 P‟s

of marketing”, defined your “target

segment” and build a “brand posi-

tioning statement” and tried to build

“consumer loyalty”. This period ac-tually saw the maturing of market-

ing thought into an important field

of theory and practice from both

academicians and business. The

progress of fast moving consumer

goods like soap, tooth-paste, deter-gent etc provide a graphic represen-

tation of the evolution of the second

epoch of marketing. Even today,

many marketers continue to derive

succor from the building blocks of

this era. ,Some of it leading to micro

- segmentation, and consequently brands making that extra effort to

establish consumer connect, and

moving from the rational to the irra-

tional and then beyond.

This leads us to the third epoch of marketing. What is it? When did it

start? Was it the advent of the inter-

net? I‟ll address the questions in

reverse. As I said at the start, no

this is not just about the internet

and internet marketing. The advent of the internet was perhaps the cata-

lyst for change and accelerated the

transition of marketing from the pre-

vious era. Infact, as often said the

internet is to the 21st century what electricity was to the 20th. The

ground-work of this marketing era

had thus started a couple of decades

earlier and we are now in the midst

of it.

This epoch is all about Experience Marketing. This epoch marks the

demise of classical marketing

thought, and instead brings to the

forefront multiple possibilities in the

sphere of marketing. There are three

different vectors of change in this epoch, best represented as the evolu-

tions across consumer expectations,

customization and computer or tech-

nology innovation.

Consumer behavior and expectations have changed dramatically over the

last few decades. Today consumers

are (always) accessible, connected,

demanding, empowered, intelligent,

skeptical and even vengeful. They

lack patience, have no loyalty and are pressed for time. They don‟t

wish to be interrupted, sold to or

campaigned any more. The basis of

products, brands and thereby mar-

keting has changed completely. The old and dated concepts don‟t hold

any more. A brand has to be crea-

tive, engaged and hopefully relevant.

This epoch continues to question the

gospels of marketing thought. As

one of the senior managers of this company put it: What happens to

the principle of 4P‟s of marketing, if

three out of the four P‟s are zero?

The brand and company in question?

Google! Their products are free, the

P A G E 2 9


company doesn‟t really advertise and there isn‟t

any specific placement of its products. This ep-och of marketing is based on a foundation of

technology, and the immense possibilities that

technology can enable. And the internet pro-

vided the catalyst for bringing these possibilities

to the vast multitude of humanity in the best, fastest and most impactful manner.

The onset of this era is perhaps best reflected

with the emergence of a brand whose experience

can't be equated with any sensory aspect –

touch, feel, hear, see or taste. An ingredient

brand which signifies trust and reliability, and a promise of technology innovation. And a brand

which has constantly stood as guarantor of

break-through computing performance. The

brand in question? Yes, Intel. The Intel brand

has created the world‟s best known, longest ever

and most extensive co-operative marketing cam-paign “Intel Inside” and its signature bong is

heard every minute, somewhere in the world! In

today‟s era the marketplace has become clut-

tered with a plethora of choices. At the same

time consumer demands have evolved to a level of “soya milk froth free decaf latte” granularity.

Technology innovation is the driving force be-

hind this accelerated evolution. And there are

technology tools which help marketers meet this

role. Customization and personalization is de

rigueur for a brand to stand out amongst the clutter. Though marketing has to be non-

invasive, the brand has to still attempt engage-

ment and interaction with the consumer. To-

day, consumers expect their brands to be hon-

est, transparent, socially conscious, environ-mentally friendly, participative, co-operative etc

and in return they reward you with their time,

attention and hopefully, their money. This has

to be unobtrusive, responsible, apolitical and

still impactful. Today, brands shouldn‟t seek

loyalty, but instead hope that they can interest and engage the consumer and thereby win their

commitment. In other words, in this era the one

who stands out (and it could be a brand, prod-

uct or service and more likely a combination of

all the three) is one which is able to engage with customers in a holistic manner appealing to

their senses and thereby establishing an emo-

tional connect with them. The brand experience

is what it does, where it fits in one‟s life and

most importantly how it makes you feel. Many brands are redefining their framework

from being a packaged good to a complete ser-

vice. Personal products brands moving onto

personal care are one end and Luxury brands

extending their portfolio to provide a range of accessories and accruements is another.

This is the new realm of marketing. And as

marketers we need to define what really we

wish to create in order to make an impact here.

We therefore need to figure out a complete en-

gagement plan with the consumer appealing across different touch points, and to multiple

senses. We need to provide a holistic experi-

ence which communicates the tenets of the

brand and expect the consumer to thus connect

with it, and hopefully when she needs spend

time or money to acquire it. The Marketing Epoch‟s if tabulated across dif-

ferent brand elements would look like the table

shown. Above.

Mr.Prakash Bagri is currently Director of Marketing, Intel South Asia. We, as editors of this digest, are thankful to Mr.Prakash, an expert with more than a decade of marketing experience, for sharing his industry insights on the evolution and future of marketing.

Epoch First Second Third

Time-Period 1760 – 1850 1850 - 1980 1980 till today

Marketing Focus Product Brand Experience

Proposition Functionality Differentiation Engagement

Appeal Rational Emotional Sensory

Association Availability Loyalty Commitment

Life-cycle Eternal Long Ephemeral

P A G E 3 0

Sidestepping the Commoditization of Disruptive Innovations


Today’s business environment is

characterized by intense competition, directed

primarily at the basic need to survive. In such times, firms continuously watch out for avenues by which

to gain competitive advantage over other

industry players. Disruptive innovation,

referring to a concept that

can radically alter the

trajectory of the industry

itself, is an attractive

alternative for firms.

However, we consider the

next phase wherein these

very innovations could get

commoditized, with more

players engaging in similar

endeavours. We look at

the factors that could help

prevent such a

phenomenon, and the

means to effectively

leverage upon the

marketing function.

We live in a world today, where every

organization is constantly on the lookout for means to differentiate

itself from the others that comprise

its industry; for ways to achieve sus-

tainable competitive advantage; and

in very, very simple terms, for ways to survive. In this milieu, one often

comes across strokes of genius,

which in the blink of an eye, set a

particular market player apart from

the crowd; and in the process, rede-

fine the way business is done, and even looked at in that industry. An

event of such a scale and scope, is

often what one would call a disrup-

tive innovation.

A disruptive innovation is one which

breaks the continuing stream of in-

cremental improvements and changes, to radically alter the devel-

opment, and very conception of said

product/service/industry. And as is

the case with any mine that strikes

gold, this newly irresistible area be-

comes the hotspot for all firms con-sidered worth their salt. In indus-

tries unlike Pharmaceuticals, where

a concrete protection mechanism

(read Patents and the like) is absent,

the competitors are quick to repli-cate the product/service/model,

with augmentations inherent to their

respective firms. Thus, what had

been a breath of fresh air to con-

sumers a week back, is suddenly

spreading all around, and halfway to becoming the next homogeneous

commodity. And with that of course,

over time the idea loses its initial

sheen, wearing itself off from over-

use and exploitation.

Economists and game theorists

would refer to this phenomenon of decaying valuation as “Tragedy of

the commons” or “Decreasing mar-

ginal profitability”, both of which

symptomize the winding trails of

commoditization. And it is here, that

we endeavour to step in, and if not devise a way out of this piece of oft

repeated history, then at least sit

down with it, and get to know it bet-

ter!

Marketing as a function plays a key

role in the effective delivery of any value proposition, be it a product,

service or in any form for that mat-

ter. After the core operation, it is

marketing that ensures that the tar-

get consumer segments are reached; and that the external gaps in value

delivery are minimized. Given the

significance of marketing, we would

look at the core issue through two

viewpoints:

1) Managing innovations in the mar-keting domain, so as to be able to de-rive sustainable competitive advan-

tage from them.

2) Capitalizing on core innovations by leveraging upon a sound, directed

marketing campaign.

Coming first to marketing innova-

tions, one can readily observe that

the marketing strategies adopted by

a firm should be determined to a

great extent by the existing brand perception that it enjoys. Discount-

ing cases of deliberate image make-

overs (which entail a separate, dedi-cated campaign altogether), one can see that a gauche mismatch between the brand‟s identity and the new of-fering portrayal can lead to unde-

sired confusion and ambiguity in the

impressionable consumer psyche.

Thus, due consideration to this fac-

tor, and adequate preparedness for the same is necessary to ensure that

an ingenious innovation does not

backfire, and then to make matters

worse, play straight into the hands of

the more suave competitors.

Coming to the issue of commoditiza-

tion with respect to disruptive inno-

vations, we can see from the very outset, that such a mass replication

is possible only when the entry barri-

ers for such an introduction are ei-

ther too low, or easy to transcend.

Thus if a retail chain were to offer a drastic 70% off Sale once a month,

then it alone would not serve the

purpose of truly differentiating it in a

sector growing at a frenetic pace.

P A G E 3 1


Put another way, if such an initiative is not

backed with the requisite supply chain and sourcing efficiencies, it won‟t be long before

the firm starts to bleed. And to make mat-

ters worse, other more lean competitors

could then launch a similar programme,

only more aggressively and credibly posi-tioned to deliver.

To take the previous example one level higher, there might be a phase where all in-

dustry players are more or less in similar

phases of maturity and efficiency. In such a

case, a soundly backed discount sale initia-

tive would be easily replicable, and this

could over time lead to a flood of such offer-ings, and even to the consumer growing in-

creasingly indifferent to them. When such a

stage is reached, it is the beginning of the

end of the value for what had once been a

unique innovation; the commoditization has kicked in.

Thus, to counter the forces that lead to a

collective exploitation of an idea that an en-terprising firm brings to the market, the firm

in question must ensure that there is more

going for it than just the “first-mover‟s ad-

vantage”. That is, the innovation must be

rooted in something that is quintessential to

the firm, like its unique work culture, lead-ership vision or even something more tangi-

ble like restricted access to sources/

suppliers. Further, it must be noted that if

such a commoditization were to indeed take

place, then it is not only a loss for the firm that introduced the concept, but more sig-

nificantly it is an opportunity lost for the

industry as a whole. And the solution to this

problem is not to form a cartel and fleece

the pennies out of a society slowly starting

to walk on its aspiring, middle class feet; rather, firms would need to constantly inno-

vate in a manner that accords to each one of

them a niche pocket through which to grow,

overlap and compete. With time, consolida-

tion is inevitable in a fragmented industry, and in the case of one that is concentrated,

one can then look forward to epic marketing

battles, a la the Cola wars. In either case,

firms would be required to dig deep and

come up with some one thing that is unique

in them.

In this regard, when it comes to differentiating yourself, especially in an industry where the core product/service is easily commoditized (low cost airlines, retail etc.), one essential re-

source comes to the fore, as a point for poten-tial differentiation: the people in the firm. Thus, it may be seen, that often it is the firm’s human resources that form the core of its mar-keting strategy, highlighting how the people contribute to adding unique value to the

particular firm. Examples of this strategy

abound, from Intel‟s “Superstars”, to

Google‟s famed “20% time” policy. And with

this, strategically aligned HR processes en-ter the fray for sources of sustainable com-

petitive advantage.

Thus, to conclude, one may note that dis-

ruptive innovations by themselves, devel-

oped on an unsustainable model can never

be of use to a firm. On the contrary, such an

effort shall more often than not end up be-ing in the firm‟s detriment. Further, such

endeavors must be based on fundamentals

that are intrinsically hard to replicate for

others. Finally, the marketing strategies

should be designed in a way that does not

conflict with the image of the firm, and if it is aimed at a repositioning, then it needs to

be adequately armed.

Anand Justin Cherian is a 2nd year student of IIM Cal-cutta, specializing in Behavioral Sciences and Systems. He holds a Bachelors degree in Information Technology Engineering from Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology. In his free time, he likes blogging, painting and photography. He can be reached at [email protected].

Varun is a 2nd year student of IIM Calcutta, specializing in Marketing. He holds a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineer-ing from Delhi college of Engineering. Prior to joining IIM Cal-cutta he has worked with IBM and Royal Bank of Scotland, for a total of 3 years. He can be reached at [email protected].

Sarang Shahane is a 2nd year student of IIM Calcutta, spe-cializing in Marketing and Finance. He holds a Bachelors degree in Information Technology Engineering from NIT Durgapur. Prior to joining IIM Calcutta he has worked with Amdocs Ltd for nearly 2 years . He can be reached at [email protected].

P A G E 3 2

Sales jobs and financial wizardry jobs conjure up

very different images in our mind. However there is a

confluence where one needs to use skills needed by both

these job roles when you work as salesperson for fixed income securities.

What roles and challenges does the nascent Indian

market provide? And how do you successfully establish

yourself as a good salesperson? The author

shares his experiences and learning acquired while

working as an analyst with Merrill Lynch this summer.

Sales Role in Fixed Income Securities Market


A brief background of the mar-

ket

The market for fixed-income secu-

rities issued by Indian companies

is limited and illiquid. The liquidity

falls exponentially below the high-

est investment grades. Hence the

most active sellers of these securi-

ties are large Indian corporates

with good credit ratings. The larg-

est and active buyers are mutual

funds, insurance companies, gov-

ernment agencies like LIC, IFCI,

IDBI, UTI, EXIM, etc. Smaller buy-

ers include PE firms, specialized

banks, etc. The liquidity in this

market also depends on the issuer

and the sector of the issuer. For

example, debentures issued by

manufacturing companies with

assets as collateral are preferred

and need to pay lesser interest

than those by IT services compa-

nies.

The deals are arranged by brokers

like Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank,

ICICI, etc. in the OTC market.

They are in touch with both the

buyers and issuers of such securi-

ties throughout the year and work

to service individual client needs.

However since a number of bro-

kers are active, there is significant

competition in this arena. Usually,

the only criteria used for choosing

between competing brokers is the

price they negotiate for their cli-

ents. The quickest broker to pro-

vide an acceptable price wins the

deal. Clearly, the way to win as a

broker is via superior sales strate-

gies.

So how do you differentiate?

Information asymmetry – The sales

manager for Nirma uses the power

of his brand to sell his product

while a Big Bazaar uses the vol-

ume of sales as a tool to offer lower

prices and entice buyers. Here,

information is the salesperson‟s

biggest sales tool. Being an OTC

market, there is significant infor-

mation asymmetry and it is very

important to be well aware and well

connected. By performing market

information dissemination, brokers

perform a service for their clients in

hope of getting business. They per-

form price discovery for each secu-

rity and negotiate an agreement to

pocket a commission. Through their

intimate knowledge of client prefer-

ences and history, they perform

number of additional value added

services like connecting preferred

sellers to issuers, providing kick-

backs on older deals, doling out fa-

vors, disseminating market informa-

tion to clients, etc.

Personal relations – This is an im-

portant differentiate which helps

clinch deals. Trust by your clients

in your evaluation of the market will

get you business. This is developed

by knowing your clients well and

being able to read what they do not

say. For example, there can be very

different meanings when person A

says that „It looks difficult to do this

deal‟ than when person B says it. If

person A was a Japanese, it would

mean a refusal to do the deal while

if person B was American, it would

mean an interest in negotiating fur-

ther. Knowing your client is how

this difference can be judged.

Personalized service – By under-

standing the needs of the issuer and

customer a priori, brokers can sig-

nal a personal interest in the busi-

ness of the clients. For example,

brokers track when a large commer-

cial paper (CP) issue bought by cli-

ent XYZ from issuer ABC is about to

expire. As a result, they can proac-

tively ask ABC if they would like to

again raise money by issuing a

fresh CP two weeks before the ma-

turity. Simultaneously they can

track what XYZ intends to do with

the inflow of money at maturity and

if they can fix up a deal with an-

other issuer. They can perform su-

perior price discovery, work faster to

sell securities and clinch deals with-

out too many competitors even

P A G E 3 3


coming to know of the deal. Also, by knowing the urgency of the situation and more information

than competing broker, one can get a better deal covenants, spread positive reviews of the clients and enhance or tarnish their image.

Employing these three strategies can consistently get you deals and clients in this market and

help you become a successful securities salesperson.

Siddharth Chaudhari is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Ahmedabad. He holds a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT, Bombay and can be reached at [email protected]

QUIZ ANYONE??

1. Geophysical Services Incorporated (GSI) a pioneering provider of seismic exploration services to the petroleum industry during and after World war II, made a foray into electronics and designed products for the US army and navy. How is the company today better known as?

2. Karl Elsener, the founder, started this company to create work in the sparsely industrialized central Switzerland. In 1897 the product was created and legally registered in the small village of Ibach. Since that time it has become well-known in more than 100 countries for precision, quality, functionality and versatility. Name the product and com-pany.

3. Living in the crowded streets of Old Delhi, Davinder Kumar Jain, understood the potential of the pen manufacturing way back in the early 1960s. At the age of just 19, DK started producing fountain pens, a writing instrument that deeply fascinated him, thus laying the foundation of the largest manufacturer of writing instruments in India. Iden-tify the company/brand.

4. Originally called New Lord & Company, this company was born as a small tailoring shop in the year 1947. A couple of years later, it was bought over by Mr Arjan Daswani. Under the aegis of Daswani, the company transformed it-self into a mega shirt store. Today, it’s one of the established names in the Indian fashion industry and claims for bringing international acclaim to Indian tailor craftsmanship. Which brand/company is being talked about?

5. The enterprise could be considered to have started in 1901 when William aged 21,drew up plans for a small engine that displaced 7.07 cubic inches and had four-inch flywheels. The engine was designed for use in a regular pedal-bicycle frame. Over the next two years William and his friend Arthur labored on their little bicycle. What company was founded by William and Arthur?

6. This company, originally known as Standard Oil of California, or Socal, and was formed amid the antitrust breakup of Standard Oil in 1911. It was one of the "Seven Sisters" that dominated the world oil industry during the early 20th century. It is now one of the world’s six ‘supermajor’ oil companies and the largest producer of geothermal energy in the world.

7. The way in which Frank Robinson wrote the name of a product was so elegant and original, it was decided to use his handwriting for the logo of the product. Name the product that even today uses Robinson’s script as its trade-mark.

8. After serving in the subscription department and as a copywriter for Esquire, he left in January 1952 after being denied a $5 raise. Took his biggest gamble in 1953 by raising $8,000 to launch his business venture. Made an ap-pearance on a popular TV series. Has a species of rabbit named after him and is known as one of the world’s best-known womanizers.

9. Born on June 7, 1975, she did her schooling from Bombay Scottish School and later on joined Mithibai College. She was not interested in academics and ventured into television at the age of 19. Soon changed the face of Indian tele-vision industry and completely dominated it. Awarded with Ernst & Young (E&Y) Startup Entrepreneur Of The Year award in 2001.

Answers

1. Texas Instruments; 2. Victorinox (Original Swiss Knife); 3. Luxar Pens; 4. Chirag Din; 5. Harley Davidson Motor Cycles; 6. Chevron; 7. Coca Cola; 8. Hugh Hefner; 9. Ekta Kapoor


P A G E 3 4


Valuation of TV Advertising

The slowdown in the Indian econ-

omy has meant that more and more

firms are looking to control expendi-tures seen as unnecessary and add-

ing little value. For most firms, it‟s

the promotional and advertising

budgets that get hit first. In such a

scenario, managers need to justify

their advertising spends and meet required advertising ROI targets.

This calls for an accurate way of

measuring advertising effectiveness.

Effectiveness is essentially measured

through the advertising medium‟s reach. For TV, advertisers want their

ad to be seen and hence the task is

to find the cost of reaching an eye-

ball. The primary indicator used in

TV advertising deals is „Cost per rat-

ing point‟ or CPRP. Another parame-ter, „Cost per thousand impressions‟

or CPT may also be used.

The following terms will be useful to

understand the valuation of ad

deals.

Universe

The Total/Actual number of

people in a defined target audience.

TV rating points (TRPs)

These are measured by audience

measurement agencies like Televi-

sion Audience Measurement (TAM)

and these help to express the viewer-

ship for programming on television in numerical terms.

TRPs take into account two factors:

1. Reach- The number of viewers for

a particular program

2. Time Spent- The amount of time

spent by these viewers watching the program

Example: Consider the universe to be

made up of 4 viewers A, B, C and D.

The following shows the viewership

details for a TV program.

Person Time Spent Minutes Available

A 6 10

B 0 10

C 8 10

D 5 10

TRPs=

TRPs= 47.5% or 47.5 TRPs

This is can be construed in two

ways:

1. 47.5% of the target audience

watched the program for its en-

tire duration (i.e.10 mins).

2. The entire target audience

watched the program for 47.5%

of the program duration.

The first meaning suggests that TRPs

give the percentage of the target au-dience that has been reached by a

program and hence also reached by

the ads shown in the program slot.

Gross rating points (GRPs)

GRPs represent the sum of all TRPs

achieved in a period. Hence, GRPs

are not program-specific and can be

calculated for a diverse set of TV pro-grams.

Cost per rating point (CPRP)

CPRP represents how much it would

cost to deliver one target rating

point, or 1% of target audience, i.e. a

TRP of 1%. That is, CPRP represents

the price charged by a TV channel

from an advertiser to deliver a TRP of 1%. In the Indian TV industry, this

CPRP is for a 10 second slot during a

program.

Cost per thousand impressions

(CPT)

It is the cost of delivering a thousand

impressions. For example, a viewer

watching a 10-second slot in which an ad is shown would be one impres-

sion.

The author stresses the importance of advertising effectiveness in the face of tighter promotional

and advertising budgets. Advertising effectiveness of a medium is primarily

measured through its reach, that is, how many of the company’s target customers the medium reaches, and for how

long. A system of metrics is discussed, one that

focuses on calculating the cost of reaching one intended eyeball. The

article explains how ad deals between TV

channels and advertisers are valued based on these metrics. The author then

compares CPRP and CPT and explains how using

one method over another may be advantageous

based on whether one is a marketer or a TV channel.

P A G E 3 5


Marketing Gyan!!

Canned beer was first introduced in 1933,

in New Jersey.

The types of horses that have been utilized

to name Ford automobile products are

Bronco, Mustang, Pinto, and Maverick.

The first supermarket was located on Long

Island, Jamaica Station, New York. The King

Kullen Store was a product of the Great De-

pression era and supermarkets have evolved tremendously. The products were set out on

pine boards resting on boxes.

McDonald's first restaurant was located in

Des Plaines, Illinois. It opened on April 15,

1955.

Drive-through service was initiated in

McDonald's stores in 1975. Today, it is fea-

tured at almost every unit that also has

parking.

The first television commercial appeared on

July 6, 1941. It was a commercial for Bulova watches.

The Romans had a goddess, Juno Moneta,

who was the goddess of Warning. She

warned the Romans of dangers. The Romans

were so appreciative that they set up a mint

in her temple. The name Moneta in the old French language was "moneie" which even-

tually became our word for money.

McDonald brothers' names are Maurice and

Richard. They owned a drive-in restaurant

in San Bernardino, California.

Nike was the ancient Greek goddess of vic-

tory.

Dilated pupils are a good indicator of excite-

ment. When training salespeople they can

be taught to use indicators of product inter-

est by looking at their customers pupils.

B.M.W stands for "Bayerische Motor Werke”

7 Up was invented by C.L. Grigg and was

named as „7 Up‟ since it contains '7 natural

flavors' and carbonation.

Valuation of an ad deal

A television channel has an estimate of the ad inventory that it wants to sell in a year (or

more). This ad inventory refers to the total ad

time it can sell, say 10000 hours in a year. The

channel sells a portion of this inventory to ad-

vertisers in long-term deals of 1 year (3 year deals are less common). The channel promises

the advertiser a specific number of GRPs that it

will deliver during that one year and the adver-

tiser is charged a price for these GRPs.

Value of the deal= CPRP X GRPs X total

number of slots

Each of these slots is of 10 seconds. The issues

that form the focus of the negotiations are the

number of GRPs and the CPRP. If the slots sold

by the TV channel fail to provide the promised

GRPs, the TV channel compensates by giving the advertiser bonus time, i.e. ad slots free of

cost. If instead, more than the promised GRPs

are delivered, the advertiser would have to pay

some extra for the extra GRPs. These details are

thrashed out in intense negotiations between

channels and advertisers.

Calculating CPT

The cost per thousand impressions is an indi-

cator of the absolute reach of the TV medium. It

is calculated as follows:

CPT= total value of the deal/ number of peo-

ple reached (in thousands)

Since 1 TRP means that 1% of the target audi-

ence is reached, the total number of people

reached can be found out using the universe

size.

Number of people reached= TRPs X universe size

What’s the right metric- CPRP or CPT?

It depends on whose point of view we consider.

Most deals today are done using CPRP as the

measurement metric. TV channels claim that

this system of valuation is unfair since CPRP is based on rating points, which indicate only per-

centages of the target audience reached. Con-

sidering that the target audience watching

these channels is increasing in absolute terms,

more people have to be reached by the TV chan-nels to get the same TRPs. TV channels are

thus demanding a shift to using CPT in negoti-

ating ad deals with advertisers.

Amogh Bhole is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Ahmedabad. He holds a Bachelors degree in Electronics Engineering from VJTI, Bom-bay and can be reached at [email protected]


P A G E 3 6


Ogilvy & Mather Trivia

1. The Asian Paints

The Asian Paints Exterior Emul-

sion campaign sought to upgrade cement paint users, in a tradition-

ally low

involve-

ment cate-

gory.

O&M lev-eraged the

brand's

interior

equity and its association with

beauty benefits to position its ex-teriors portfolio as “Time Proof

Beauty” paint The brand grew by

43% and the sign off "Badhiya

Hai!" has become part of popular

consumer lexicon.

2. Center shock

Before the launch of Center

Shock, the confectionery market

in India was on the road to de-

cline. Within the confectionery market , the chewing gum seg-

ment was showing a 23 % decline.

(AC Niel-

sen Re-

port). Un-

der these circum-

stances

Perfetti

India Ltd.

decided to launch a product that would "shake up the market".

The most startling facet of the

product, Center Shock, is its sour

taste…in fact, sour beyond excep-

tional. So much so that it shakes you up. The creative challenge was

not just to communicate this in a

manner that establishes this be-

yond doubt for the young audience,

but also to make it memorable. And above all, shake them up. The

central thought of the campaign,

"shakes you up", was taken for-

ward in on-ground promotions and

media innovations. As a result of

this campaign, Center Shock went from being a "no brand" to the No.1

brand in the chewing gum category

3. Pulse polio

The campaign against Polio was

designed to create a strong feeling of responsibility amongst parents

and shake them out of their inertia

so as to ensure maximum turnout

on the National Immunization

Days. It used the angry man per-

sona of Amitabh Bachchan, the screen legend of Indian cinema to

admonish parents for their irre-

sponsible behaviour and apparent

disregard for the safety and happi-

ness of their children.

As a result of the campaign, 19 districts reported over 50% booth

coverage after February round; 2.8

million children were immunized in

January and additional 6 million in

February, as compared to Novem-ber 2002 round. Over 90% respon-

dents reported that the Amitabh

spots were a major influence in

motivating them to come to the

booth.

4. Sprite

The clear lime drink Sprite stands

for honesty, confidence and sim-

plicity. They needed to connect

with the teen and make the brand aspirational. This was done by po-

sitioning Sprite as the No Pretence

drink - clear, honest and straight

up - what you saw was what you

got. The tongue-in-cheek campaign

helped the brand grow by 62% dur-ing the campaign period.

P A G E 3 7

The ongoing recession and the tightening of ad

budgets by most marketing firms in India and abroad

have raised a crucial question about what the stance should be during these trying times for

businesses. This article discusses the benefits of

having higher budgets for advertisement during

recessionary pressures. It exemplifies its stance by

taking into account customer perceptions

about companies during recession and how big wigs

in the past have pulled themselves up into a more strengthened position post downturn. The article ends

with a word of caution stating that competitiveness

and relative market position should be the

most appropriate way to judge the situation before

allocating ad budgets.


Is Recession the time to tighten Ad Budget?

“Your outgo must be less than your

income, and so if income drops,

you must immediately take steps to reduce the outgo”, this small lesson

drummed into our heads as chil-

dren sticks to us forever, and is

carried forward into our profes-

sional life as well. Interestingly, the

same lesson makes us susceptible during good times, when sales are

on an upswing, to splurge and to

try things that might not seem es-

sential at other times. The same

people resort to tightening their belts, trimming the excessive flab

and cutting advertisement budgets,

the minute sales dip a bit.

Should this be the norm for Ad

budget allocation? „No,‟ says former

chief marketer of Coca Cola, Mr Sergio Zyman. He exemplifies the

same with one of the marketing

metaphors: “Marketing money

(Advertisement money) is like fuel

in a car. You take the fuel out of the tank, the car stops, and with it

so does the brand”. So does that

endorse the view that marketing

expenditure should be held con-

stant, if not increased during reces-

sionary period? Mr Zyman again comes to the rescue. He juggles the

same words, but this time taking a

completely different stance:

“Marketing is like fuel. If the engine

isn‟t working- as Coca Cola discov-ered with New Coke in the eighties-

a full tank of marketing fuel is use-

less”.

With such diverse views, it becomes

quite essential to dip our fingers into empirical data. Empirical re-

search results show that the better

course of action in a downturn is to

sustain marketing communication

or actually increase it. You get more bang for your buck when eve-

ryone else is laying low, and you

come out of the recession faster

with a healthier bottom line.

Aggressive companies increased

market share on an average of 1.5 points during recessions, while

budget-cutters gained only 0.2

points. Roger Graham, professor of

accounting at Ohio State University

verifies that advertising expenditures

during recession contribute to in-creased earnings by firms for up to

three years. The greatest impact oc-

curs in the year immediately follow-

ing the recession and this impact is

more pronounced for firms offering

consumer goods or industrial prod-ucts, as opposed to firms offering

services. This entire philosophy

works on the basic premise that ad-

vertisement is considered as a long

term investment rather than as a short term expense.

Advertising during recession pro-

vides a unique window of opportu-nity for investment in building

strong brand equity, solidifying the

customer base, gaining new custom-

ers and more importantly making

inroads into the competitor‟s terri-

tory. Most consumers perceive the lack of advertising during recession

to be synonymous with the business

struggling. This creates a negative

perception in the minds of the cus-

tomers who become more cautious about the present customer value

proposition offered by the firm and

more suspicious about the quality of

goods and services committed to

them. Likewise, a vast majority per-

ceives businesses that continue to advertise during recession as being

competitive or committed towards

doing business.

P A G E 3 8


Therefore it becomes critical to advertise

during recession, to maintain long-term positive consumer perception of the brand.

Advertising not only assures consumers of

the business reliability in a soft economy,

but it can influence where and what they

buy. In recessionary times, price loyalty is greater than brand loyalty, so instead of

reducing ad budgets it would be advisable

for companies to increase their spends on

sales promotions and discounts.

The top management has the unpleasant duty of reporting disappointing results dur-

ing recession; then they offer encourage-

ment by pointing out that all the cost cut-

ting measures have been implemented, as

if the stakeholders ascertained that they wanted all costs to be cut to the bone and

get the ship in order. This leads to the no-

tion where advertisements are considered a

form of defensive insurance, and not as

profit generators. Top management sets the

whole marketing budget as a percentage of expected revenue, and when expected reve-

nue drops, they see every reason to cut

marketing expenditures. But this exposes

the illogic of setting marketing expenditures

based on expected revenue. The marketing

budget is the cause, not the effect. Setting a higher marketing budget will get higher ex-

pected revenue for a company during bad

times. Contrary to this opinion a recent

survey by R3 which manages 100 of Asia‟s

top 500 brands points out that one in every four Indian companies have been forced to

scale down their marketing and advertise-

ment spending because of the ongoing eco-

nomic crisis. But the hard lesson was

learnt my most US companies during the

1981-82 recession.

In an effort to come out of the red, during

the ongoing slowdown advertisers and com-

panies are turning to desperate measures

to promote their products and increase

consumer spending. Some advertisements like Pepsi‟s Saturday Night Live have ini-

tially confused the consumers in an effort

to break the clutter. Researchers are of the

view that standing out in advertisements is

imperative during recession even if at the

expense of confounding customers. The zoo zoo ad of Vodafone might be along these

same lines.

Though it might seem that high spending

on advertisements during recession might

give a competitive advantage to a company,

there are ample examples, when this did not work. Popular brands like Barclaycard,

Renault Clio and Nescafe Gold Blend ran

ad campaigns that generated acres of extra

press coverage during 1981-82 recessions,

but they all lost substantial market shares later on. The point to be noted here is the

quality of the ads featured, and the relative

weaknesses of competing brands are impor-

tant as well. These two criteria should be

delved into in detail before increasing ad

expenditure during recession.

The truth is that advertising effects cannot

be isolated from other factors. While market

leaders who may be able to garner re-

sources during recessionary trends to fight price wars and sales promotions with com-

petitors, may use the tactics of increasing

ad budgets, companies facing tough

choices should not be bullied into believing

that advertising is a panacea. For them the

engine might be too worn out to respond to the fuel.

But then, the crux of the argument is that

advertising definitely has positives attached

to it. Using it you might not be able to get

quite where you intend to be, but at least

you will get to some distance along the right path!

Saikat Mondal is a 2nd year student of IIM Lucknow, spe-cializing in Marketing and Operations. He holds a Bachelors degree in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from Jadavpur University. Prior to joining IIM Lucknow he has worked with Cognizant Technology Solutions for around four years. He can be reached at [email protected]

P A G E 3 9


Low Cost Customer Acquisition Strategies for E-businesses

Search engines are a favorite for

most of the startups. Getting listed

on the first page of a relevant key-word search (aka Search Engine Op-

timization or SEO) is unequivocally

the top priority. It is important for

Redbus to be visible for the search

string “Bangalore to Hyderabad” and

Inkfruit would like to sell theme t-shirts to the gaming buff searching

for information on „Age of Empires‟.

Inkfruit banks on community inter-

actions and online thematic contests

to keep the buzz around, which helps it to be in the first page of

search. Constant updates and add-

ing linkage from other sites (creating

affiliates) helps Studyplaces.com to

keep up its ranking. BankBazaar‟s

efforts paid returns when it moved from the 20th page of search to the

1st page in less than 6 months.

BankBazaar promotes its site

through paid listings (aka Search

Engine Marketing or SEM) as well. Many startups take the paid route to

begin with as it is easy and the cost

per click for search engines is very

low. Though search engines route a

lot of traffic to websites, there is a

catch as explained by Shiva Kumar, VP Products & Technology of Flip-

kart.com. “Getting traffic is impor-

tant but what‟s more important is

getting the right customers to your

site, otherwise these noise users eat up your bandwidth” says he. With

close to 90% of traffic coming from

search engines Flipkart is cautious

about protecting their servers from

the noise users.

Social Media has made a consider-

able contribution for the increase in

internet usage, especially for the

young users in India. It is an excel-

lent medium for businesses that are targeting the youth. Prasanth Mo-

hanachandran, Executive Director -

Digital Services at Ogilvy, cites the

example of the 40,000 strong Zoozoo

community of Facebook to under-score the importance of Social Media.

Noel Manoj of BankBazaar.com be-

lieves that Social Media will have a

major influence in Internet Market-

ing and purchasing tendencies. Pras-

anth from Ogilvy cautions about the demographics of people using social

media sites. More than 40% of the

users of Facebook and Twitter are

less than 24 years old and 50% of

the users have an income below 2 lakhs per annum (Vizisense). So, this

medium might not be suitable for

selling financial products. “Social

Media Optimization is inexpensive

and builds loyal customers. However,

the volumes have been far from im-pressive so far” opines Akhil Chug of

StudyPlaces.com.

Social Bookmarking is a method for

Internet users to store, organize,

search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet.

The first myth of online marketing is that it is cheap. From what we have learnt

from our exploratory research Indian online businesses

typically spend around Rs 40 to Rs 400 per customer

acquired. Advertising online however is better in terms of

the ability to send the message to a target segment and get a faster response. The second

myth is that what has worked in the US will work in India. We discovered that none of

the strategies that our respondents used worked the same way. There is no strategy mix that fits all. While some strategies are generic and can

be used by all with little tweaking, others have to be

tailored and customized to suit the product and the

consumers. We talked to 10 Indian startup e-businesses that are making news lately

and gathered their opinions on effective promotion strategies. In this article we explore what

promotion strategies have worked for these companies

and how they managed to use them effectively.

Website Business First Second

Redbus.in Bus-Ticketing SEO Offline

Inkfruit Designer T-Shirts

Offline SEO

BankBazaar Loan Comparison SEO SMO

StudyPlaces Education Consult-ants

SEM Email

Careers-India Job Info SEO SMO

FlipKart Bookstore SEO SMO

Habits.in Lounge & Lifestyle

Viral SEO

Home-Designing Interior Designing SEO SMO

ISchnell Education Software Offline SEO

EasySquareFeet Real Estate SEO Online Commu-nity Based

Table 1: Ten E-businesses choose the strategies of their choice

P A G E 4 0


With over 100 million unique URLs book-

marked and 3 million registered users, sites like Delicious are routing substantial number

of users to different websites. However, the

traffic from these sites to the Indian websites is negligible. Manu Avinash of Careers-

India.com says “The social bookmarking sites

have huge potential and of late we are getting

some traffic from these sites”.

Amusingly, what used to be the bread and

butter of an internet marketer a few years ago

comes number three on our list. Email has to

be used very cautiously. Opt-in lists (users

who have accepted to receive promotional

mails) can be either created by self or in the initial days bought from an agency. “More

than two emails per month may be consid-

ered as spam by users”, warns Akhil Chug. It

is important to communicate constantly with

the customer and at the same time not be considered as a spammer. Apart from fre-

quency, the timing of emails is extremely im-

portant. Mayank, Marketing Head of RedBus,

says, “Sending a mail about holiday ticket

reservation two days before the holidays be-

gin is useless but sending it two weeks before will bring in good traffic with very high con-

version rate”. Depending on the type of the

product affiliates‟ databases (like Zapak,

Cricketnext etc) can be used to send relevant

emails to their user base like what Inkfruit is currently doing. The click rate or open rate of

mails sent through such tie-ups are at least

10 times better than random mail campaigns

that some websites run through email data-

bases available.

Rediff.com chose television over inter-

net to advertise its repositioning strategy.

While the wisdom behind ignoring the offline

marketing is debatable; offline advertising is indispensable for many sites. “Many low cost

untraditional options are now available for

offline marketing. Credit card bills, electricity

bills, bus tickets are being used to reach the

customer. It is important to define your target

customers and target only those who match your target spending and age levels” says

Prashanth, Ogilvy. Redbus.in struck a win-

win deal when it started advertising on credit

card bills. Advertising space is also available

on buses, auto rickshaws, subway stations etc. For a company like Inkfruit, which gets

most of its revenues through offline sales, ad-

vertising offline is extremely important. 45% of

traffic to Inkfruit is direct (users type the URL

of the website) and majority of this is contrib-

uted by offline marketing. The offline options include promoting in malls or shopping com-

plexes where Inkfruit products are sold. If the

segmentation is geographical in nature one

can take advantage of the Direct Post facility

of India Post that allows businesses to send

mails to a certain pin code location at Rs 1.50

per article. Public Relations (PR) is a part of offline mar-

keting strategy and is a combined responsibil-

ity of the company and the PR agency se-

lected. According to Kashyap, Cofounder of

Inkfruit.com, “If your product is innovative and can create interest for the reader, creating

a positive PR is not difficult”.

Figure 2 Redbus.in advertised at the back of an auto (information madness)

Figure 1: Contest of Inkfruit featured in a blog (Jain)

P A G E 4 1


The extent that the media covers you also

depends on who you have for backing. “Selecting the right seed fund to promote

and finance your company is a vital task.

Right people can get you good PR and give

you invaluable mentorship. That‟s what

TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) did for Red-Bus” according to Prashanth from Ogilvy.

Sasikanth Chemalamudi, founder of Hab-

its.in says “Having a very strong and close

knit alumni network (of his Alma matter

BITS Pilani) has helped Habits to increase

its awareness”. Technology intensive B2C or B2B products require lot of offline mar-

keting in India, whereas in the US, the us-

ers being aware of such products, online

marketing works effectively. For example,

ISchnell is using only offline marketing to sell its product in India but for US & China

they are relying on online marketing.

Mobile marketing, which is in a nascent

stage now, can drive the future of advertis-

ing. BSNL has already started wooing cus-tomers to opt in for promotional messages

on their mobile in return for free call time.

With the advent of Blyk, the UK based

company which has pioneered the model,

in India it only means more advertising

over the phone. “Mobile is a major channel in India as more users go online on a mo-

bile than a computer for the first time.

Hence mobile applications will add of a lot

of importance” says Noel Manoj of BankBa-

zaar.

While all the strategies discussed so far are

facilitators for directing the customer to the

site, at the heart of the acquisition process

is the product. Conversion of a casual visit to a desired action (sale, registration,

spending quality time etc) happens only if

the product that you offer is likeable and

creates value to the customer. Customer

loyalty on the other hand depends largely

on the service component. Nothing drives your customer off to the competitors like

bad service does. Bad service coupled with

good advertising may help build the cate-

gory and help the competitor prosper at

your advertising expense.

Pradeep P N is a 2nd year student of IIM Lucknow, spe-cializing in Marketing and Finance. He holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Science from BITS Pilani. Prior to joining IIM Lucknow he has worked with Juniper Networks India for around two years. He can be reached at [email protected]

Sarat Chand is a 2nd year student of IIM Lucknow, spe-cializing in Marketing and Finance. He holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Science & Engineering from Osmania University. Prior to joining IIM Lucknow he has worked with Cognizant Technology Solutions & Satyam Computer Services Ltd. for around six years. He can be reached at [email protected]

Identify the Ad!!

Check Page 47 for answers

Identify the occasion??

P A G E 4 2

State Of The Market- A Comparative Study


In this paper, the

author attempts to identify the

characteristics of the business climate in India that can help explain the different

performance of individual states in

terms of investment and growth. The paper summarises the efforts

made by the various states in attracting

investment. The author explores the

investment climate in several typologies of Indian states and identify the key

features of the various parameters that

influence investors in India. The analysis

shows that the states have significantly

ramped up the marketing initiatives to

attract investment.

Media mogul, Rupert Murdoch was

perhaps paying tribute to God‟s Own Country when he trooped into the

state capital to finalise the takeover

of Matrubhoomi, a local Malayali

daily. More noteworthy was the fact

that this was the first time the bil-lionaire had made a foray into re-

gional daily. Something has

changed, something had metamor-

phosed – Brand India from the shy

nonchalance of the 50s to the street-

smart self-advertiser of the new mil-lennium the journey has well and

truly come a full circle. The various

states of the country have ramped

up their efforts to position them-

selves as brands, as a full scale war culminates to catch the eye of inves-

tors foreign and home grown.

There still remain a multitude of

views on when India opened its

doors to Foreign Investors but there

is little to argue that it was at the

turn of the millennium in 2001 that

branding of states well and truly emerged. It would have been un-

thinkable some 15 years ago that 14

of the states of India now have brand

ambassadors!

THRISSUR- MAKING A MARK

An idea still exists that the race to

sell themselves remain restricted to

the proverbial industrial Shangri la

belt of Gujarat, Maharashtra and a few others like Karnataka and the

national Capital Region. The arrow

could not be more off the mark as

even erstwhile obscure towns are

rising to prominence in the mind-

map of potential investors riding piggy back on a dazzling marketing

campaign. Thrissur in Kerala, Ti-

ruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu and

Haveri in Karnataka are unlikely

towns investors will be herded into. But they recently entered India's

venture capital map, thanks to the

impressive and aggressive campaign-

ing of these states. On June 22,

Thrissur-based ESAF Microfinance

and Investments (EMFIL) said it landed Rs 12 crore from Dia Vikas

Capital, an arm of Opportunity In-

ternational Australia, while Haveri's

Navachetna Microfin Services Ltd re-

ceived Rs 1.5 crore from a few high net worth individuals and IT profes-

sionals. A day later, Tiruchirappalli-

based Grama Vidiyal Micro Finance

Ltd (GVMFL) said it raised Rs 20.4

crore from MicroVest, Unitus Equity Fund and venture capitalist Vinod

Khosla. This is the second round for

Grama, which had raised Rs 14.7

crore in 2008. These are not isolated

events which can be ignored. State

Branding has well and truly arrived and the investor today has been daz-

zled with fresher and innovative mar-

keting blitz from the various states.

Gone are the days when 26 January

used to be the only day for displaying the resplendent riches of a region.

Even states like West Bengal, which

has been traditionally averse to big

ticket investment, have joined the fast

lane to woo investors. Appointing

cricket star and hometown hero Sau-

rav Ganguly as a brand ambassador to the state was just one of the many

steps taken to attract the eye of the

investors. Jyoti Basu the former chief

minister of the state converted to

capitalism late on an investment pro-motion trip around Europe and Amer-

ica, flying on Concorde, staying at

New York's Waldorf Astoria hotel and

dining with inveterate capitalists at

such firms as Price Waterhouse, Rolls

- Royce and Merrill Lynch.

Mr Basu was just one of a flock of In-

dian state chiefs who were realizing

the need of the hour and stepping up

to be feted as representatives of their country's open-door policy on foreign

investment. In dark clouds of eco-

nomic slowdown, silver lining emerged

for Rajasthan as the western desert

state attracted highest investment

P A G E 4 3


plans during October-December 2008-09 by

corporate India, bringing a considerable shift in its ranking order, among the 21 India states Ra-

jasthan is turning to be one of the most favour-

able investment destinations, carving top posi-

tion in the third quarter of the financial year

2008-09 (October December), witnessing a major jump from 13th position in the same period of

the financial year 2007-08, according to a paper

brought out by ASSOCHAM.

As India Inc expressed investment plans in Ra-

jasthan, the state registered a major jump by 245.84 per cent during October-December 2008-

09 as compared to the corresponding period of

the last year (2007-08). The next big investment

destinations also witnessed major shift as sec-

ond place was occupied by Madhya Pradesh as compared to the sixth place last year. Orissa

maintained its place at the top slot carving third

position. The secret of the success was not to be

found in JK Rowling‟s quiver but in simple mar-

keting logic, innovation is the key to survival.

Brand positioning has been important as every

state has hired the best corporate houses to sell

their state to the world as an investor‟s dream.

The state of Gujarat was perhaps the first to hit

the ground running as they launched

www.supportgujarat .com a website featuring a plethora of advertisements and support data

highlighting the advantages of investing in Guja-

rat.

Over 60 Accolades and Awards for Gujarat under Narender Modi from International and National

Organizations for Best Investment Environment

to Best Sanitation, for Innovations in Govern-

ance, Disaster Management, Best-in-class infra-

structure, Energy Output, Reducing Maternal & Infant mortality rate. “You are stupid if you are

not investing in Gujarat”, says Ratan Tata. Modi

was voted the best CM in the country for three

consecutive years by India Today ORG-MARG

Survey. Gujarat has also been voted Best State by Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. 100+ billion US Dollars

MOU‟s signed in 2007 Vibrant Gujarat Investors

Summit.

These are not mere facts but simply highlight the

advantage and competitive edge Gujarat had over its rivals being a “first mover”. The idea has lived

since Gujarat with all states ready to shell out

millions even at times of global economic slow-

down to gain a facelift which would showcase

themselves to the world. Adman Prahlad Kakkar acknowledges the fact as he underlines the fact

that quite a few advertising agencies and Brand

management companies have been making big

bucks owing to this “branding-boom” in India.

“Branding of states and nurturing and positioning of the brands is here to stay and is more than a passing fad,” says business baron Vijay Mallya

who himself has been an active player in the re-

branding of Karnataka as a state which was more

than India‟s silicon valley.

The stage has been set, the world is now watching ………………………. And the states of India are

ready to stand up and be “AD”ed

Sanglap Banerjee is a first year PGDM student in IIM Calcutta,he holds a Btech degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from National Institute of Technology Bhopal, and can be reached at [email protected]

Mega Investment Proposed ( Source: IPICOL, Government of Orissa )

Company Proposed Pro-

ject Location Cost(Rs Million)

Consolidated Electric Power Power Jharsuguda 160000

Larsen & Toubro Ltd Steel Gopalpur 70000

TATA Steel Steel Gopalpur 65000

Ganapati Exports Ltd Steel Duburi 60000

Hindalco Industries Ltd Aluminium Kalahandi 50000

Indian Oil Company Oil Refinery Paradeep 50000

Nippon Oil Company Oil Refinery Paradeep 50000

MESCO Steel Duburi 42690

Oswal Agro Ltd Fertilizer Paradeep 42200

Utkal Alumina Aluminium Rayagada 30000

Ashok Leyland Oil Refinery Haridaspur 24000

Consolidated Electric Power Power Ib Valley 20750

Neeleachal IspatNigam Limited Steel Duburi 15250

Indian Seamless And Alloys Limited Steel Duburi 13770

Orind Steels Ltd Cold Rolled Steel Duburi 11500


P A G E 4 4


Does Green Marketing Sell?

When Philips came up with CFL

(Compact Fluorescent Lights)

“Marathon” in 2000, the product was immediately a hit even though it was

charged at a price of $20 against

$0.75 for regular incandescent

bulbs. While many media reports

accredited the eco-friendliness of this

product (“Green Marketing”) as the reason behind its success, we believe

that the benefits offered by the prod-

uct in terms of saving power in the

long run, capability of lasting for 5

years and the trust in the brand Phillips were the reasons for its suc-

cess. The article attempts to explain

consumer‟s behavior in terms of pref-

erence and willingness to pay more

for green products.

During our research, we

found that consumers behave differ-

ently for the products that require different levels of involvement. Before

we explain this further, we must in-

troduce the term “Green Marketing”.

American Marketing Association de-

fines Green Marketing as the mar-

keting of products that are presumed to be environmentally safe. Green

Marketing incorporates a broad

range of activities including product

modification, changes to the produc-

tion process, packaging changes as well as modifying advertising. Other

terms for green marketing are eco-

logical marketing and environmental

marketing.

Studies in the US (Cramer, 1991) show that over 90% Americans

are concerned about the environ-

mental impact of products they buy.

Of these 50% of the respondents are

willing to pay premium for eco-friendly goods. Organizations in de-

veloped countries have widely

adopted Green Marketing practices,

while consumer trends show that

developing nations such as India and

Brazil are not far behind. A study by Jain and Kaur (2004) has shown

that though consumers are not fully

aware of environmental issues, they

are willing to prefer and pay more for

products that are certified to be envi-ronmentally friendly. So how have

organizations exploited this wave of

environmental concern amongst con-

sumers?

Going Green

Often green strategies are de-

signed not only for environmental

benefits but also for the benefit of

the organization. We believe that

strategies which benefit the environ-ment as well as the organization may

in fact help the cause, since they

would be more sustainable when

compared to pure philanthropic ini-

tiatives, otherwise termed as Corpo-

rate Social Responsibility (CSR). The benefits of environmentally friendly

strategies for the organization can be

broadly classified as:

Increasing profitability by com-

manding a higher price for envi-

ronmentally friendly products

Differentiating products based on

environmentally-friendly attrib-utes

Increasing market share by de-

veloping preference for environ-

ment friendly products through

advertising

Building corporate brand image

by associating with environment

friendly practices and products

Marketers have had mixed results

while implementing eco-friendly

strategies. While there have been

huge successes such as the Toyota

Prius and Philps CFL, there have also been innumerable failures that

Dwindling natural resources and global warming have led many companies to

innovate products that are eco-friendly. Marketers

have mixed results about the success of such green products. We referred to

several books, online articles and research papers to understand the mistakes made by marketers and to understand the consumer’s

attitude towards green products. We concluded that eco-friendliness has varying influence on the

consumer’s preference for green products. While eco-friendliness can influence

consumer’s purchase decision for a low

involvement product, it won’t be sufficient to

persuade consumer to buy a high involvement product. Understanding consumer

behavior towards different categories of green products can help marketers innovate

the right products and develop effective

communication strategies.

have disappeared into the oblivion.

Green Marketing Myopia

Many marketers get obsessed to de-

velop number of product features rather than

meeting customer needs, the condition

termed as “Marketing Myopia” by Theodere

Levitt(1960). Jacquelyn and Edwin(2006)

build on this further to explain “Green Mar-keting Myopia”. They suggest that Green Mar-

keting must focus on two objectives: improved

environmental quality and customer satisfac-

tion. Misjudging or overemphasizing one at

the cost of the other can lead to Green Mar-keting Myopia. Such myopia can occur when

products fail to provide credible environ-

mental benefits. Introduced in 1989, pack-

ages for Mobil's Hefty photodegradable trash

bags prominently displayed the term

"degradable" with the explanation that a spe-cial ingredient promoted its decomposition

into harmless particles in landfills "activated

by exposure to the elements" such as sun and

rain. Because most garbage is buried in land-

fills, allowing limited exposure to the ele-ments, the claim enraged environmentalists.

Ultimately, seven state attorneys general sued

Mobil on charges of deceptive advertising and

consumer fraud, and the company withdrew

the product from the market.

To help marketers maximize the effec-

tiveness of green marketing strategies, we ex-

plain below how consumer behavior theories

can be utilized.

Understanding the Consumer Behavior of Green Marketing

Though there are a lot of esoteric mod-

els explaining why or why not does green

marketing work for different products and

consumers, we found that basic consumer

behavior theories can be easily applied to ex-plain the effectiveness of green marketing in

different scenarios.

Before getting into theory, a primary

question that arises is how do consumers benefit from purchasing and using environ-

mentally-friendly products? Do all people

have the same attitude towards the environ-

ment?

In the field of green marketing, differ-ent studies have classified consumers based

on different demographic, psychographic, cul-

tural and personality variables. The most use-

ful classification in the Indian context was

found to be based on three parameters: con-cern for the environment, awareness of envi-

ronmental issues and environmentally-

friendly behavior (Jain and Kaur, 2004). The

key findings of this study show that though

Indians lack sufficient knowledge about envi-

ronmental issues, there is a generally high concern for the environment and most sur-

prisingly, Indian consumers score very high

on environmentally friendly behavior, espe-

cially with respect to conservation of re-

sources (saving water, oil, etc.) and purchase decisions (buying greener products).

The most important benefit that indi-

viduals seek from environmentally responsi-

ble behavior is the desire to act in an environ-

mentally responsible manner. The attitudes that drive this need, resulting in purchase

behavior can be broadly classified as cognitive

and emotional. “Environmental conscious-

ness” corresponds to the cognitive dimension

of environmental attitudes, and “Environmental Concern” refers to the emo-

tional dispositions as individual indignation

about the destruction of nature (Hartmann

and Ibanez, 2006). Based on these needs and

segmentation, we analyze how green market-

ing can be effectively used to influence the purchase behavior of consumers for different

types of products.

Products (and services) can be broadly

classified as high and low involvement for analyzing the consumer purchase behavior.

Since the purchase behavior is totally differ-

ent for these two types of products, the impli-

cations of green marketing can be different for

these two types of products, which we bring

out in the following sections.

High Involvement Products

Any product that is perceived as ex-

pensive, risky or has emotional value at-

tached to it is considered as high involvement product. The benefits sought from high in-

volvement products such as TV, cars, etc. are

very different from that of low involvement

products such as toothpaste, soap or paper

napkins. While customers may purchase a

eco-friendly low involvement product for the benefit of environment even if the price is

marginally higher, they will not purchase high

involvement green product for it just being

eco-friendly. They will weigh attributes such

P A G E 4 5


as performance, brand, convenience and price

against the competing products. If the con-

sumer is required to make tradeoff on any of these parameters for environmental benefits,

environmental product almost always loses.

Many products that require customers to

make such trade-offs have failed to establish

themselves in the marketplace.

So now the question is, how to make

green marketing startegies be perceived as

high involvement startegies? – In two ways,

first: it helps the companies make favorable

image and second it reduces the post pur-chase dissonance.

As per Fishbein‟s Multiattribute theory

(Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980), consumer‟s atti-

tude towards a product is the function of con-

sumer‟s belief and the evaluation of the prod-uct attributes. If a consumer has a preference

for certain attributes and if the product pro-

nounces those attributes then there is a high

probability that consumer will purchase that

product. Thus, consumers having higher pref-erence for green products are more likely to

purchase such products over others. How-

ever, such customers are less than 2% in

number and the mainstream customer won‟t

buy just by that attribute. But if the product

is equal to competing product on all other pa-rameters then consumer may prefer the green

product.

Secondly, high involvement products

have high probability of creating post pur-chase dissonance. It could be because of it

being expensive than other competing prod-

ucts or because it rates closely with other

brands on performance parameters. In such

cases, consumers will look for balance in the

psychological set by seeking supporting infor-mation or by distorting contradictory informa-

tion. As per cognitive dissonance theory,

when a brand does not meet expectations or

when a competing brand is found to offer

more benefits, the consumers will discount the negative information and rationalize their

behavior/purchase. The product rated higher

on eco-friendliness can thus help consumer

reduce post purchase dissonance when the

product is found to have defects or is weaker

than competing brands on certain parame-ters.

Low Involvement Products

Low involvement products are charac-

terized as not being economically important, and involving low risk for the consumer. The

purchase decision process for such products

is thus relatively simple as compared to that

of high involvement products. In contrast with

high involvement products, green marketers

can significantly influence the purchase be-havior of consumers for low involvement

products through persuasive advertising of

environmentally friendly claims regarding

their brand.

For typical low involvement purchases

like paper and detergents, elaborate evalua-

tion of benefits of product and comparison

with other products is usually not done. In

the absence of marketing, such products are

likely to become commodities, with little dif-ferentiation between products. To prevent this

from happening, billions of ad dollars are

spent by FMCG companies like Unilever and

P&G, so that they can increase the involve-

ment of consumers and create a brand prefer-ence for their products. A study by US re-

searchers (Schuhwerk and Lefkoff-Hagius,

1995) has shown that advertisements with

environmental appeals have significantly

more impact on consumers who are less in-

volved in environmental issues (as in case of India) when compared to advertisements with

traditional feature appeals (like financial

benefits). Once a brand preference is created,

it may turn into purchase habits and result in

brand loyalty for green products.

In practice however, environmental

advertisements have often failed to enthuse

customers. Again, researchers have dug out a

major cause for such failures to be the lack of

veracity of the environmental claims made in advertisements. Consumers are found to be

extremely sensitive to the credibility of the

claims made by green marketers, and can

quickly get suspicious about vague or am-

biguous statements. Though governments have laid out strict laws to prevent marketers

from making false claims, brands have to en-

sure that their claims are substantiated and

phrased clearly to prevent the loss of credibil-

ity.

Conclusion

Based on secondary research, we have

found that marketers have to adapt their

P A G E 4 6

green marketing strategies depending on the

nature of the product. For high involvement

products, environmentally friendly attributes may not be sufficient to persuade customers

to prefer the product or pay a premium for it.

Such products must match or provide addi-

tional value when compared with other prod-

ucts on various parameters such as perform-

ance, brand, convenience and price. In con-trast, green marketing can offer benefits for

low involvement products. Claims of environ-

mental friendliness of products, if clearly ad-

vertised, can cause a shift in consumer pref-

erences.

Ankit Thakkar is a 2nd year PGP student with marketing specialization at IIM Lucknow. He holds Bachelor‟s Degree in Mathematics from St. Xavier‟s College Gujarat and Post Graduate Degree in Information Technology from SP Jain, Mumbai. He can be reached at [email protected].

Nishant V Patel is a 2nd year PGP student with marketing specialization at IIM Lucknow. He holds Bachelor‟s Degree in Telecommunications Engineering from Bangalore. He can be reached at [email protected].

P A G E 4 7

Answers to quiz on Page 41

Top Left: Taare Zameen Par

Top Right: United Colors of Benetton

Bottom Left: PETA

Bottom Right: Fevicol

P A G E 4 8


Men’s Cosmetics

„Look at that nest! Seems like she has never used a shampoo in her

life‟.

„Umm…even I haven‟t‟

„What???‟

Thus went a conversation way back

in 1999 with a female friend of mine. I had, till then, never ever used

shampoo. Not even Wipro Shikakai

(where did that gem of an idea disap-

pear? I wonder). I guess I had a con-

stant layer of grime on my hair and any excess was washed away by wa-

ter. Over time, like a bored married

couple, everyone seemed ok with

this arrangement. The grime actually

provided volume to my hair, I discov-

ered this later in the era of the shampoo. Back in those days, my

idea – well, not mine, my mother‟s

actually- of moisturizer was sarson

ka tel (most probably Dhara or Post-

man). In winters, I had to, under the strict commands of mommy dearest;

apply mustard oil all over before tak-

ing a bath. It was a matter of little

concern that my vests soon turned

yellow and I went to school vaguely

smelling of the same blasted oil. I had just started shaving secretly us-

ing Dad‟s Philishave – or so I

thought. It didn‟t occur to me that

my parents had observed the ab-

sence of my facial fur. Soon after, Dad bought me my first razor, brush

and Nivea shaving cream. That

Nivea shaving cream was my first personal cosmetic tube.

(Reproducing Chapter 5 of my

autobiography?) Today, I have a

dedicated table in my hostel room

for cosmetics. I pretty much have a full range – right from Himalaya‟s

Neem Face Wash to Lakme‟s sun

protection lotion. I have migrated

from water to Head & Shoulders

shampoo with cool menthol and I

use a Garnier Fructis cream condi-tioner afterwards. It‟s no secret that

many men today spend almost as

much as women on cosmetics. And

it‟s not because we are suddenly

getting in touch with our feminine side, but we just want to look good

and smell good. And if any woman

or man wants to taunt our breed, I

request that person to take a ride

in a crowded Mumbai suburban

train in the summer at peak time. It is our deodorated and eau-de-

toiletted arm pits your noses will

search out amongst all the bacteria

laden smelly arm pits which would

surround you.

But do men relate to cosmetics in

the same way as women do? Indus-

try insiders don‟t think so. Accord-

ing to Noella Gabriel, director of

product and treatment develop-ment at the Elemis spa, “Men are a

hard market, but once you've got

them through the door, they are very loyal.

Far more loyal than women.” So much for

men being unfaithful. Though the Fair & Handsome ad evoked more than its fair share

of snide remarks and jokes, it seems that

Emami had done their homework. A study

conducted by Emami Industries in the early

2000s showed that 29% of the users of fair-

ness creams were men! I wonder how those 29% men managed to buy Fair & Lovely.

Probably they took as much courage as buy-

ing that, than any other only-for-men latex

products. Companies nowadays have gone

beyond mere re-branding of their products. As it turns out, we have different skin than

women. Hence, new products exclusively for

men are hitting the shelves.

In fact, biggies like Nivea, L‟Oreal and Dabur

are all expanding their businesses in the men‟s cosmetics segment. Nivea is focusing

on its „Nivea for men‟ and L‟Oreal has the

„Powerlight‟ range of cosmetics to pamper

men.

The fact that L‟Oreal used John Abraham,

who no one in their right mind would term

feminine, shows the transformation which

has taken place in the market. HUL‟s Fair &

Lovely, launched in 1975 and initially tar-

geted at women, also came up with Fair & Lovely Menz Activ. And why not? The Indian

male grooming segment is valued at Rs 750

crore and growing at a pace of 20%, faster

than the global cosmetics market which is

hopping along at 18%. Shahrukh sure knew

what he was getting into when..well..when he got into that bath tub in the Lux ad.

Men have come of age. And know which

creams to buy to beat it as well. We might

stand confused in the cosmetics segment of malls trying to decide which cream to buy.

But the fact that we are standing there, ac-

tively deciding for ourselves and not pretend-

ing that the moisturizer is for our better

halves is a sign of the changing times. But

why did we decide to take all that pain in the first place? Well, I believe Garnier said it best

– „Because I am worth it.‟

Ayan Ghosh is a 2nd year student at IIM Lucknow. He holds a Bachelors Degree from National Institute of Technology, Surat and can be reached at [email protected]

P A G E 4 9


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