Pitch oct nov issue 2014

The Face of Marketing

Volume XI | Issue 8 | November 2014

` 75

s Ad t r fo rne te n I

ds A or io f d a R

s Ad r fo V T

s t Ador rin f p s w ne

Brands and their Ad spends this

FESTIVE SEASON Ad spends shoot up as consumer sentiment improves

Pitch | November 2014

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FEATURE

TRAVEL

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INSIDE

COVER STORY

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Pitch Volume XI, Issue-8 November 2014

Publisher & Editor-in-Chief Annurag Batra Editor & Director Amit Agnihotri Director Nawal Ahuja

EDITORIAL TEAM

Consulting Editor

Vinod Behl

Deputy Editor

Rashi Bisaria

Correspondents

Kanika Mehrotra

Senior Art Director

Shamsad Shaikh

Senior Graphic Designer

Joby Mathew

Photographers

Vilas Kalgutkar (Mumbai) Suresh Gola (Noida)

AD SALES

Rajat Thareja Prashant Kulkarni Sneha Walke

9810134435 9886138249 9845541143

0FFICES

NEW DELHI: Shop No. 32, 33 south Ettn. Part-I, Om vihar, Uttam Nagar, New Delhi 110 059 NOIDA: B-20, I-Floor, Sector-57, Noida, Uttar Pradesh - 201301 Phone: (0120) 4007700 Mumbai: 301, Kakad Bhavan, 3rd Floor, 11th Street, Bandra (W), Mumbai - 400 050 Phone: (022) 2640 3303/09/14/16

Brands rediscover the potential of marketing FEATURE: READY-TO-COOK INDUSTRY

Bengaluru: Flat No. 1,062, 1st Floor, 2nd Cross, 6th Main Road, HAL 2nd Stage, Indira Nagar, Bengaluru - 560 038

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Ready-to-Cook industry poised for a 20-25 per cent growth over next five years

CIRCULATION/DISTRIBUTION

Vinod Sharma (Delhi) - 9999447209 vinod@exchange4media.com Anandan Nair (Mumbai) - 9819445200 anair@exchange4media.com On News-stands ` 75 www.pitchonnet.com Printed and published by Annurag Batra on behalf of Adsert Web Solutions Pvt Ltd B-20, I-Floor, Sector-57, Noida, Uttar Pradesh - 201301 Printed at All Time Offset Printers, E-53, Sector-7 Noida, Uttar Pradesh - 201301 An exchange4media Publication

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FEATURE: FACEBOOK MARKETING

How Facebook helps Tech and Telecom players in targeted marketing

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Pitch | November 2014

INTERVIEWS ‘Myntra is hoping for a noticeable increase in shopper interest’ Ganesh Subramanian COO, Myntra

“We expect this festive season to be better than last year”

Ritu Gupta Director, Marketing, Consumer and Small Business, Dell India

Shantanu Dasgupta Vice President, Corporate Affairs and Strategy, Whirlpool India

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Automakers struggle to strengthen sales this festive season

Dell leverages the festive season to reveal the potential of technology

Premium Chocolate offerings find favour with consumers

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A look at the top brands that managed to create a buzz this year

INTERVIEWS

“Denim becomes a canvass and a roadmap of your life” Philip Ward Director Marketing , Lee Asia Pacific

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Social media marketingbiggest growth space in marketing John Kerr Managing Director, Zeno Asia

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Ajit Sivadasan of Lenovo on making improvements to the customer’s online experience Ajit Sivadasan VP and GM, Lenovo

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Corrigendum This is regarding the India TV logo which was published in the Sep 2014 issue of Pitch. This is the correct logo of the channel. The use of old logo is deeply regretted.

Pitch | November 2014

Anika Agarwal AVP and Head-Marketing Planning and Brand Development, Max Bupa

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Arvind Vohra India Head, Gionee Smart Phones

12 Brands need to engage in

“We want to own the family health space.”

‘We want to be a part of the customer’s life” Shanta Roy Sanjeev Head Marketing, Haier India

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Aiming to build a huge resonance for Gionee

FirstCry.com real time with people’s taps the passions, their market for baby interests: - Tim Andree care products 62

Supam Maheshwari CEO and Founder, FirstCry.com

COLUMNS

Ray Velez | Chief Technology Officer at Razorfish

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Abhishek Dadoo | Founder & CEO, Shoffry

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Saurabh Uboweja | CEO, Brands of Desire

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Hamsini Shivakumar | Owner, Leapfrog Strategy Consulting

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Vinish Kathuria | Chief Operating Officer, Digital Quotient

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Apurva Chamaria |Director&Head-GlobalBrand&DigitalMarketing,HCL 72 Gaurav Sood | Brand Communication professional, Brand Educator & Research Scholar Annurag Batra Chairman & Editor-in-Chief, Pitch Magazine

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14 Technology has not just given us a pair of shoes to run faster, it’s given us wings: -Geetu Verma

56 Arvind Gupta reveals the key to creating winning campaigns

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FEATURE

ready-to-cook industry

Ready-to-Cook industry

Poised for a

20-25 per cent growth over next five years

By Deepa Balasubramanian

B

lame it on the fast-paced urban lifestyles, rising disposable incomes, experimental palates or the increasing number of working women in the country, the Ready-to-Cook food industry is on the upswing. The category has emerged as the next best alternative to a home cooked meal. The total processed foods market in India stands at Rs 1500 crore, out of which the Ready-to-Cook segment share is Rs 600-700 crore (barring noodles) and is expected to grow around 20-25 per cent over the next five years. (Figures Courtesy: IBEF) Companies such as MTR, Gits, ITC, Bambino and Kohinoor Foods have played a major role in bringing this concept of ready-to-cook in India. Ruchi Soya Industries in the brand name Nutrela and Sakthi Group, Chennai based industrial conglomerate in the name of ABT Foods are the recent entrants to the RTC products category.

One such brand, that has tried to innovate with new flavours is MTR - an established player in the FMCG market, which has also had the first mover advantage. Indian foods have a very lo-

calised and regional flavour and MTR understood this insight. Operating in almost seven food categories, MTR Foods has a different marketing strategy for each.

Marketing Strategy & Growth

The convenience factor has provided an impetus to the Ready-to-Cook industry in India over the past few years. Marketers are always on the lookout for ways to appeal to the customer and his evolving needs.

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Pitch | November 2014

Speaking about its tailored strategy, Vikram Sabherwal, VP-Marketing, MTR Foods explained, “All our products are not available throughout India. We ensure that each category is marketed differently. For instance some of our ‘masalas’ that are only available in the three southern states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh are customized according to those states’ tastes. Each state has its own preferences and we introduce a customized touch to each product to give our customers the exact taste they are looking for. The Breakfast mixes is a standard product that is distributed throughout

Pitch | November 2014

“Each state has its own preferences and we introduce a customized touch to each product” Vikram Sabherwal | VP-Marketing, MTR Foods the country and hence does not require any tailor-made marketing strategy.”

The range of products commonly referred to as Ready-To-Cook (RTC) can broadly be classified as Dessert Mixes (Gulab Jamun Mix, Kheer Mix etc), Snack Mixes (Rava Idly Mix, Dhokla Mix, Puttu Mix etc) and Curry Making Enablers (Gravy Mix, Masala Mix etc).

G K Suresh, Marketing Head, Foods Business, ITC says, “Today, the homemaker is taking on multiple responsibilities in and out of home. Amidst all this, the role of the RTC category is to help her in ensuring that she does not miss out on the joys of cooking and serving her family delightful food. Our products are therefore designed to supplement her culinary expertise while taking the drudgery out of cooking.”

According to Suresh, there is a need for products that can help whip up every day favourite dishes as there are for occasional specialities. He says, “Our Aashirvaad brand offers a range of daily delights, while our Kitchens of India brand offers gourmet dishes perfected by the Master Chefs of ITC Hotels.”

Brands like ITC have understood the needs and psyche of the market and know what can drive

adoption of these products.“Currently, the RTC category is relatively low on household penetration. Two factors are key in driving adoption of this category. One is the ability to customize products to the local palate and regional preferences, which ITC is able to do successfully since our products are created by the Master Chefs of ITC Hotels who specialize in various cuisines.

The second factor is the need to proactively allay any apprehensions that the homemaker may have about the wholesomeness of RTC products. Our marketing communication is therefore also tailored to make consumers aware of the fact that all our RTC products are free of any added preservatives,” added Suresh of ITC. Being a new entrant in the RTC category, the flagship soya food brand Nutrela has plans to increase sales about five-fold in the next five years.

Speaking about the importance of RTC and their strategy for it, Sandipan Ghosh, AVP-Marketing, Consumer Brands Division, Ruchi Soya Industries Limited said, “In today’s age all homemakers and individuals have a busy lifestyle and are rushed for time when they have to pack lunch for their kids and themselves. This is where the instant mixes and the ready-to-cook

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FEATURE

ready-to-cook industry

category plays a major role in acting as a helping hand to these homemakers.”

Soya has been accepted wholeheartedly by health conscious Indians and hence Nutrela products hope to cash in on this wide appeal. Ghosh added, “Nutrela is here to deliver the authentic taste along with the dose of health in all offerings. Soya being rich in protein helps our brand’s offering to be unique.

In this age all homemakers want to balance taste , variety and health and Nutrela leverages this current trend with new offerings of Ready Mixes like Soya Upma, Soya Kheer, Soya Dhokla etc.”

Nutrela’s communication has been around the concept of ‘Super Jaldi, Super Healthy’ which clearly communicates the combined proposition of convenience and health to consumers.

Ghosh also thinks that quality, consistency and communication is where the brands need to strike a chord. Nutrela also initiated experiential engagement programmes like taste trials across trade channels, RWA Activations and participation in various cookery shows. The brand is all set to reinforce its leadership position in this category by capturing over 20 per cent market share by 2019 in the ready-to-cook segment.

Incorporating Desi taste in Ready-To-Cook products

While the aroma of fresh home-made dosas, idlis, upma and stuffed parathas still rules many Indian homes, MTR rava dosa and ITC’s Gulab Jamun Mix have found a niche of their own.

“Our products are designed to supplement culinary expertise while taking the drudgery out of cooking” G K Suresh

marketing Head, Foods Business, iTC

Speaking on the importance of creating widespread consumer product trials to drive adoption, Suresh says, “Our key marketing focus is to get consumers to experience our products. Be it Aashirvaad Gulab Jamun mix with its delectable full-cream milk formulation or the fully self-contained Masala Mixes from Kitchens of India which

provide an instant gravy base for a variety of Indian dishes, our consumers tell us that each of our products makes for a delightful experience. This is what gives us the confidence that we are in for rapid and sustained growth in this category.”

The RTC category is already sizeable in the 4 southern states along with Maharashtra and growth is picking up across other regions too. Suresh believes that the industry is now poised to witness higher growth with rapidly increasing household penetration, just as it has emerged as a huge market in

many regions worldwide.

ABT Foods has new instant mixes which include Rava idli mix, Rava Dosa mix, Rava upma mix, Pongal mix, Payasam mix, Gulab Jamun mix and Badam Milk mix.

Some new offerings from Nutrela include Nutrela Instant Soya and Nutrela Ready Mixes,

“The instant mixes and the readyto-cook category plays a major role in acting as a helping hand to homemakers” Sandipan Ghosh |

aVp-marketing, Consumer Brands Division, ruchi soya

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Pitch | november 2014

dependable items that the brand feels will strengthen its offerings.

MTR Magic Kitchen Meal Mixes is the Ready-to-cook category from the foods company which has variants such as Chana Masala, Methi Mutter, Palak Paneer etc – mostly North Indian fare and the breakfast mixes are mostly south Indian options such as oats idli, oats upma, multigrain dosas etc.

Sabherwal says, “Among masalas, two of the three markets that we operate in, we are the leaders with a 32 per cent market share. In Andhra Pradesh we have 16.3 per cent market share. In Tamil Nadu, we have just started so we are the number three player. In breakfast mixes we are again the leaders with a market share of 32.5 per cent.”

So how has MTR managed to create brand awareness and a high recall value? It could be attributed to a judicious mix of its marketing and advertising spends. MTR spends 80 per cent of spends on television, 10 per cent on radio, 5 per cent on print and 5 per cent on Digital. An equal amount is spent on activations which include trial generating activities like sampling.

Suresh expresses his faith in the visual medium, “When people start to see a brand on air they feel re-assured about its quality. This helps brands reduce barriers in entering the market.”

Division of marketing spends

Experts feel that as Double Income couples are growing in number, the ready-to-cook category will be on a growth path as people have less time to spend in the kitchens. They also feel the category is a heavy TV spender and spends little less but significantly on niche magazines. For instance, the Vikatan Group, a Tamil media group has a dedicated food magazine Aval Kitchen where the share of ad spends from this category has been consistently growing.

Ananda Vikatan also has a set of food advertisers who advertise with them consistently.

Pitch | November 2014

“We launched Aval Kitchen to tap into this category.

This year in July we made it a monthly magazine” Pravin Menon

National Head- Ad Sales, Vikatan

Pravin Menon, National Head- Ad Sales, Vikatan said, “. We launched Aval Kitchen to tap into this category. Aval Kitchen was produced as a special feature last year and it was a quarterly magazine. This year in July we made it a monthly magazine and have created content that’s relevant to the reader as well as the advertiser. It has been well received. Our copy sale has been consistently growing and we have increased our visibility and B2C spends to reach out to a larger audience.”

Some of the major advertisers include ITC Aashirvaad, Dabur Homemade, Sakthi Masala, Praylady etc that have long term deals with Aval Vikatan.

He added, “We create brand solutions for clients in our magazines and this has

The RTC category is already sizeable in the 4 southern states along with Maharashtra and growth is picking up across other regions too.

worked well for them, hence they have given us a long term commitment. This is in addition to their regular brand ads.

For example, we came out with Aval Vikatan recipe booklet sponsored by Aachi masala, where we have a contest for readers within the booklet and this association has been there for more than 8 years now. We also created south indian recipes using Ruchi Soya as a base and distributed product samples with the magazine last year.”

Ninan Thariyan, Vice President, The Times of India, Chennai said, “Conventionally, RTC products use television as the primary medium. But today they are open to utilise print too. They prefer large format advertisements, such as full pages and power jackets. Yet another trend is their openness to innovative advertising like edit wraps, contextual placement of advertisements, sampling, fragrance printing and a host of other innovative options. RTC’s also work with print media increasingly on brand activation programmes.”

Talking about the medium of advertising that the RTC category has been looking at, Vinay V Sheshgiri, Vice President- National Sales, Asianet News Network said, “India being more of a conservative market, advertising is going to be crucial for brands to open up and reach out to prospective customers. Since the RTC industry is more inclined towards women, they advertise more on niche and GEC channels and going forward they will also start considering news channels as an important medium.”

Consumer’s needs and attitude play a crucial role in the Ready-To-Cook category and most players are contributing towards the development of the category itself. Apart from focusing on the domestic market, these companies have also expanded their reach internationally in geographies with a sizeable Indian diaspora. n - deepa@exchange4media.com

7

INTERVIEW

Philip Ward

“Denim becomes a canvass and a roadmap of your life” How does brand Lee stay ‘Curious’ through its products and propositions?

To us, “Stay Curious” is the most accurate brand expression we can have for the metropolitan life that our consumers live. There are so many rich and interesting facets to their lives that we believe as a brand, we relate to and also enable.

Lee as a brand has always been a wonderful blend of heritage, craft and innovation. As a brand, we draw on the inspiration that the lives our customers have, to create meaningful and purposeful designs that they relate to and use. Denim is a wonderful and unique material in that it truly becomes a canvass and a roadmap of your life. How many other personal items can you think of that you value as they wear and age? Denim tells the story and the adventures of the indi-

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t has stayed relevant for 125 years and is still going strong. Lee, the international premium denim brand has survived all these years based on its strength in innovation. It was the first to introduce skinny jeans in India, developed a sustainable denim range eCreate and a unique summer line of Linen denims. Its propensity to innovate with times has just become stronger over the years. Rashi Bisaria of Pitch spoke to Philip Ward, Director Marketing , Lee Asia Pacific to find out what keeps the brand relevant in these fickle times and how customers have become curators of the brand.

Pitch | October November 2014 2014

vidual. We are curious about that magic and about our consumers

The brand has maintained a low key with regard to advertising. Is this a conscious decision?

We believe that the future of consumer connection is enabling and sharing the lives of our brand community. To do that today, you need a lot more than a great top line campaign and an effective buy. More and more, our consumer is curating our brand and it’s our respon-

IS NOW Pitch | October November 2014 2014

sibility to foster and honour that relationship. You will only see more brand community based marketing from us and this I believe, is what connects the brand long term with the Indian denim lover. We aim to be a meaningful and bene�icial part of their life, not simply an ad in it.

What is Lee’s strength as a brand that has helped it sustain in the Indian market over the years?

Relevance, authenticity and great prod-

No.1

uct are the biggest strengths. To me, all this comes down to walking that �ine line between listening to your consumer, but also being brave enough to know when it is right to stretch their minds a little. That could be product, marketing or events. I think the difference between a good brand and a great brand is that bravery and a willingness to move forward and challenge your customer to try something new. Our brand is a delightful juxtaposition. We aim to respect the past, but represent the future in denim.

in the Hindi Belt

WITH 1.42 Cr READERS 9 Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand

INTERVIEW

PhiliP Ward

How has the brand evolved over the years keeping the evolving consumer pro�ile in mind?

Lee has offered some great consumer insight led products that have incorporated technical and design innovations in them. Urban Riders, inspired by the inner city cyclist is a great example and the beautiful female Stretch Deluxe line is another. When I spoke of respecting the past and representing the future, there is no better example than the Lee 101+ collection that incorporates inspiration drawn from our heritage products but executes them with a modern twist.

What would you say is the strength of the business model?

remains important but from a personal point of view, I question the impact of a print title that does not offer a holistic consumer experience from online to of�line. You have to �ish where the �ish are and that to me includes every brand based consumer interaction all the way to the denim wall, not just media buys and not just digital.

How is India different as a market from other Asian countries?

I think there are more similarities than differences. We live in a connected world where more so than ever before the term “brand community” has a global connotation. A Lee

terri�ic denim market and an incredibly rich and complex cultural landscape. It’s thrilling to be part of that and as a brand respond to the changes in consumers’ wants. As the emerging generation shapes their own futures with fashion and broader aspects of life, we aim to be there with them, listening and creating alongside them.

Lee has always been about crafting solutions based on the lives and needs of the end user Developing deeper relationships with today’s consumers based on insight and empathy. Challenging marketing norms and cocreating new ideas with our consumers. Finding and working with great retail partners and suppliers. Attracting and keeping people who live the Lee life in the business. Having fun along the way and reminding ourselves that Lee jeans should be a personal touchstone to good times and personal freedom. If we can do those things consistently, we will remain in great shape.

As the consumer is increasingly shifting online, how is Lee meeting this new consumer’s needs? Are you going strong on digital marketing?

Of course. Our spend is far more weighted to digital than it was, but to me, it isn’t about banners. It is about conversations and engagement. Print

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denim lover that resides in Mumbai or Bangalore has potentially a lot more in common with a denim a�icionado in Amsterdam, Tokyo, New York or London than necessarily with his or her neighbour or classmate. Our duty as marketers is to bring that connection to life. We can enrich the brand experience by letting our community make it their own beyond borders. India is a

Lee is very strong on its innovation. What is the reason for this? What do you attribute this to?

History. It’s part of the brand’s DNA. From Unionalls, to the �irst zipped jean in the 101 Z, to the iconic Storm Rider denim jacket, Lee has always been about crafting solutions based on the lives and needs of the end user. Look at the Lee Riders jeans; curved and shaped to enable comfort in the saddle. That is purposeful design derived from true insight and participation right there. It isn’t going away either. We have some wonderful, meaningful innovations arriving in 2015 that I believe will capture the imagination of the Indian and wider Asian consumer.  -rashi.bisaria@exchange4media.com Pitch | November 2014

Pitch | October November 2014 2014

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“Brands need to engage in real time with people’s passions, their interests”

M

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Tim Andree | Executive Chairman, Dentsu Aegis Network & Executive Vice President, Member of The Board, Dentsu Inc

“

All consumer communications, entertainment, transactions are converging on one platform.

Convergence will continue to be a major driving focus for the global advertising industry

“

arketers have used long used technology, in some form or the other, to engage consumers. But, with the evolution of the internet, technology is now part of almost every media plan and is impacting the media industry in an unprecedented way. Throwing light on how technology is shaping the future of marketing, Tim Andree, Executive Chairman, Dentsu Aegis Network & Executive Vice President, Member of The Board, Dentsu Inc, said that convergence of technology across platforms has swept away geographical boundaries in a way that people and technology are today seamlessly blending together with unlimited access to information. Andree, who was addressing the stellar gathering of industry stalwarts from around the world at the 14th edition of the exchange4media Conclave, said, “All of consumer communications, entertainment, transactions are converging on one platform. Convergence will continue to be a major driving focus for the global advertising industry.”

With digital ad spends expected to triple due to better infrastructure, increased consumer confidence in on-line transaction and growth of mobile devices, particularly smart phones, Andree said that the important point to note was that consumers were now very comfortable in these channels and wanted their brands to also be present here.

With nearly 40 per cent of consumers on social media following brands, this highlights the high level of engagement that is possible.

He adds, “It is a virtuous circle between supply side innovation led by new technologycentric global media companies, and led by demand side adoption led by consumer be-

haviour. This has attracted huge investments from the supply side from Google, Apple, Facebook, Alibaba who have capital to invest in new technology.” Andree added that this investment is centred on consumers, who connect via connection points, which are now much closer to the point of transaction. Social media has ensured that brands are just a click away from consumers and technology has enabled real-time access to brands, content.

Pitch | November 2014

Engaging Content A key aspect to keep in mind while engaging consumers is that content must be engaging, delivered in the right way and at the right time. Andree said, “Brands need to engage in real time with people’s passions and with their personal and cultural interests. Now, it is expected that we know what they need and when they want it. But, data and technology need to be used the right way.”

Need to embrace Innovation Andree also spoke about how agencies need to be visionaries, embrace innovation and anticipate what is coming in the future to guide clients not just in marketing, but also in the future of their business. He said, “Communication and technology have always evolved together. The role of the agency has always been to help clients make connections to consumers to help drive their business.”

Story-Telling at the Heart of the Business Reflecting on the origins of Dentsu, Andree said that foundations for the firm were laid on storytelling and technology, adding: “This has still not changed. We are still entrepreneurs who are excited about how technology is allowing us to tell really great stories.

Story-telling is at the heart of our business.”

He said that to be an effective marketer, you must move people, as engagement is not passive but active and emotional.

Era of Globalisation The Digital explosion has accelerated globalisation and this has also impacted marketers in unprecedented ways. Globalisation has forced brands to evaluate markets and judge future growth and this comes with the challenge of introducing their brands to newer people. Andree said that for Dentsu, globalisation has been the driving force of how the organisation has been developed for the future and it has become necessary for organisations in the industry to change and evolve their business model. Elaborating on this, Andree said that Dentsu’s strategy has been to extend the model, which made the company successful in Japan, worldwide. He said,

Pitch | November 2014

“We are re-inventing as an organisation and in many ways re-inventing the industry.”

Andree said that’s Dentsu Aegis Network is unique in the industry and the operating model has been designed for convergence.

He adds that agencies within the network complement each other and are not competitive, enabling them to deliver integrated and specialist solutions at the same time. “The operating model allows a culture of collaboration among our people and it is truly differentiated from our competitors,” said Andree and adds that what sets Dentsu apart, is their approach to client centricity and said that the best way to serve shareholders is by serving clients, and this in turn will make shareholders happy. According to Andree when a company model promotes internal competition, this focus can take away the focus from the client competition.

Andree said that as Dentsu’s model is built on geographic market PNL, instead of business PNL, this promotes co-operation and collaboration and “puts the client at the centre where he should and has to be.”

Another fundamental difference is the approach to scale. Andree said that scale with multiple competing agencies and offices are not very efficient and not really necessary in the digital age. The focus at Dentsu is on scalability by being flexible, adaptive and efficient. Instead of having multiple agencies working against each other in a pitch, he said it is better to have one focused group, “An assortment of competing and fragmented offering doesn’t translate to more value for clients or for the industry at large. Our strategy is to acquire agencies and talent and offer capabilities that complement each other.

Our network will add value to our clients.”

He added, “Our approach is to have specialist

Globalisation

agencies that offers capabilities to clients on an integrated basis alongside other specialist. We are simply the complimentary portfolio of companies that are built around clients and changing consumer. That I believe is the advantage.” What binds the Dentsu Aegis Network together is efficient values and concept of focus on innovation.

Finally, Andree said that good innovation happens when you bring ideas together with technology and entrepreneurship. The key is to innovate technology with creativity to connect with people and move them. Andree said, “Technology can move people and create emotions. At Dentsu, we create solutions by combining technology with creativity with a focus on emotions and human relevance.”

Tim Andree, Executive Chairman, Dentsu Aegis Network & Executive Vice President, Member of The Board, Dentsu Inc was speaking on Marketing: The Future is Technology at the exchange4media Conclave 2014 in Mumbai. Noor Fathima Warsia, Group Editor, APAC Digital Market Asia, moderated the session.

-feedback@pitchonnet.com

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“Technology has not just given us a pair of shoes to run faster, it’s given us wings”

C

hange is happening faster than we realise, and the challenge for marketers is to be geared for it, be future ready.

In her presentation titled ‘Marketing to the Jetsons,’ Geetu Verma, Executive Director - Foods & Refreshments, Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) said, “There are many facets of this change and they are galloping. We need to wind up with the thought that change is not about to happen, but the fact that change is here and it is now”. Verma was speaking at the exchange4media Conclave.

Verma explained how technology is at the helm of this change, deciding the way we live, from the industrial revolution to the invention of the light bulb or vaccination and preventive healthcare to even how elections are fought through social media. And what is aiding this change is the information explosion. “With 240 million internet users, 950 million mobile subscribers, 650 million websites… information is something that is available easily,” she said. “If you reflect on change, you’d realise it took about a hundred years for 30 million landlines in India and it took only 20 years for mobiles and for internet to reach these kinds of

“

“

Change is not about to happen, but the fact is that change is here and it is now”.

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Geetu Verma, | Executive Director - Foods & Refreshments,

Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL)

numbers. That is the pace we are talking about,” she added.

In her presentation she also touched upon our dependency on technology.

Verma said, “It is jokingly said that in today’s day it is may be easier to find a

clean glass of drinking water with a WiFi … this dependency on technology has changed social structures, changed the way people interact with each other and most importantly, how we market our products and services. It’s not just given

Pitch | November 2014

people a pair of shoes to run faster, it’s given them wings.”

Brand communication with the audiences has become two-way. Which is why brands need to have supreme confidence in their product or service to put it out there for consumers to disaggregate and do what they want with it. Citing the example of IKEA Hackers she said, “IKEA Hackers is one such fan page created for the fans, by the fans, where ideas have been taken apart, they have been built on and the company is letting it happen because it is confident of its offering.

Consumers are engaging with it, they are tweeting and talking about it and they are building a conversation factor,” said Verma. Another example she provided to illustrate the power of consumer opinions is the way CNA Fashion, which is a Dutch clothesline. It allowed people to ‘like’ their clothes and there was a display on every hanger showing the number of likes each outfit had. This works both ways - helping people to choose according to other people’s taste, or go with something different.

Highlighting how addicted we are to technology today, she said, “I was just having a look at numbers which came out on a TATA Communications report. This says that 82 per cent of users in India suffer from FOMO (fear of missing out), 46 per cent of internet users are spending six hours a day on the internet and 43 per cent of these internet users would happily trade television for the online. That is really the time that is being spent. We do not have time to watch a television program before tweeting about what we like.”

She said that this trend was not only limited to urban India but was evident in tier II cities too. Today farmers are using their mobile phones to get information on the commodity markets or a schoolteacher is using online booking. Andhra Pradesh has the largest number of smart phones in a tier II city. “Andhra Pradesh is one state where smart phone penetration is the highest in tier II towns…

Pitch | November 2014

Place becomes an important differentiator in how we are going to use technology

Let’s just pause and think about how we can round up the facets of this change. It has created an audience that is spoilt for choice. It has created a populace with a vocal kind of choice and now has a platform to express it,” Verma added.

She further talked about how companies used to look at India as one whole country when it is actually a combination of different nations. From Delhi to Andhra Pradesh, every state has a different audience. Place becomes an important differentiator in how are we going to use technology. She gave the example of Kan Khajura campaign that used technology in this way. It leveraged missed calls to create effective promotions.

She briefly also touched upon the need for both etail and retail to coexist and the need for better solutions for

them to evolve together.

During Verma’s interaction with Sam Balsara, CMD, Madison World, she was asked about how marketers deal with the risks involved with change. She said one has to be comfortable with taking risks.

“We did find this resistance to move to digital from the tried and tested television and print. Mostly because digital has more data. We did a couple of things internally - we actually earmarked a certain percentage of our spend for digital.

We did this for quite some time. Secondly, we even put a digital experimentation fund. Heads of businesses have a fund

and you can come and pitch your ideas.

It could be a bizarre or a risky idea but if you are convincing, take the money and go home. We have seen some marvelous things come out of that.”

Geetu Verma, Executive Director Foods & Refreshments, Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) was at the first session at the exchange4media Conclave 2014, in Mumbai, speaking about ‘Marketing in the New World’. The 14th edition of the Conclave featured some of the finest and most influential speakers from around the world.

-feedback@pitchonnet.com

15

COLUMN Marketers Need to Be Thinking Bigger Than the Apple Watch It’s Time to Focus on Going from Wearables to Useables

Ray Velez

Chief Technology Officer at Razorfish and Co-author of Converge, Transforming Business at the Intersection of Marketing and Technology

raymond.velez@razorfish.com

“For all the work that the tech minds at Google and Apple put into building these devices, marketers are the ones with the power to make the device more appealing” 16

W

hen Apple’s CEO Tim Cook unveiled the much-awaited Apple Watch, hailing it the company’s most “personal device” to date, I couldn’t help but think that’s only partially true.

Unlike iPhones, the real value to consumers with the new watchlies in its ability to morph into something bigger than what’s sitting on your wrist.

For months now the industry has been abuzz about wearables;however, that term is becoming a misnomer. The future of these devices is not about what a consumer wears, but how they behave.

I foresee a majortransition when there is true interconnectivity between watches and other devices, homes and vehicles – the phenomenon that’s referred to as the ‘internet of things’.The innovators who can build novel apps will drivethe watch’s adoption, not the device itself.

While Apple certainly nailed the design element of the product (it was a stroke of brilliance to enlist the ex-CEO of Burberry to help style watch) being fashionable is only half the battle. The rest is all about utility.

Until now, the biggest issue early adopters have encountered with wearables is that they’ve lacked broad integration and clever apps. While it was exciting at CES to see Mercedes integrate with the Pebble, it’s far more exciting now to see the rush of brands integrating with Android Wear

and the Apple Watch.For all the work that the tech minds at Google and Apple put into building these devices, marketers are the ones with the power to make the device more appealing.

The Apple Watch, when it’s available in early 2015, must seamlessly and quickly deliver such information like how much gas is in the car or whether the front door is locked. Countless brands are hard at work developing apps to serve these utilitarian functions.

Interestingly, lots of functionality and apps for the Apple Watch seem similar to the Android Wear watches that cameout recently. For example, there’s talk of an American Airlines appthat will let you check in and collect bags, Twitter will show noti�ications, and BMW will display charge level. It’s exciting to see Apple �inally embracing Near Field Communication(NFC) on both the iPhone and the Apple Watch, as NFC will soon let us make seamless mobile payments and even open hotel doors.

Getting to a place where all wearable devices aren’t just a nice-to-have but truly helpful to everyday living will take serious trial and error.This is where marketers have a huge opportunity. Not to use smartwatches and other wearable products to deliver ads, but to make these devices more utilitarian and fun for consumers.

Those marketers who can �igure out not Pitch | November 2014

only how to best design functional apps and services not only for the Apple Watch, but also those that work in tandem with other parts of life will be the real winners.

Here are four key hurdles that companies should keep in mind when formulating marketing strategies for wearables.

1. Don’t Be Novel, Be Indispensable The biggest problem with wearablesis when people don’t wear them. Lots of folks excitedly buy them only to take them home and tuck them away in a drawer. The “This Week in Tech” podcast reported that 45% of wearable devices are ditched within the �irst week.Why? Because wearable tech isn’t sophisticated enough yet to measure what people want – which is more than counting the number of steps you took in a day.

In the future, products need to spark more valuable interactions with wearers. “Hey it’s 3pm, you should have a Kind bar” or “congrats, you shed two pounds this week.” Apps and devices like the Jawbone Up or the Fitbit are getting close and there’s lots of promising projects over on Kickstarter. It’s going to require wholly novel approaches to satisfy consumers because there is less real estate. You can’t employ interruptionbased techniques, so rethink how to build contextual messages for wearable devices. Marketing best practices are shifting as eyeballs move to smaller screens.

2. Going From Premium to Mass Market With a price tag that starts at $349, the Apple Watch is decidedly a premium

Pitch | November 2014

lives. Making them smaller, taking into consideration fashion will help move this. One of my favorite companies to watch in this space is AdaFruit; their team is doing an amazing job giving our designers the raw technology tools to build some surprising inventions. Take their ‘responsive’ bike jacket for example. As you slow down, brake lights come on, tilt sensors tell you whether you are turning right or left, and infrared tells you if someone is getting too close. product that’s signi�icantly more expensive than its largely �itness-oriented predecessors in the wearables market.

Like all other �irst versions of these devices, cost poses a barrier to adoption. It was for the Pebble, which was expensive due to the component process and manufacturing process. A Nielsen survey last fall found that cost is a limiting factor, with 72% of users saying they wish wearables were less expensive. It seems inevitable that costs will go down as manufacturing gets more established, but for the moment more consumers than you might guess are balking.

3. Just Wearable or Lovable?

When Google �irst came out with Glass, we saw a preview at the Googleplex from their lead designer in New York and it was clear they had put a lot of effort into a simple and elegant design.

It hasn’t achieved the goal of seamlessly weaving its way into our lives. I know I won’t wear Glass in public. People look at you differently and not in the good way. Apple realized this in designing the new watch; they made sure it looks good. Getting these devices to blend into our clothes and accessories is what will help attract more buyers. There’s the NFC ring to help with security and passwords, and Ringly is another company who’s making smart jewelry.

All new wearables need to follow the lead of the “internet of things” mindset and seamless weave their way into our

4. Personal Versus Pervasive Data-sharing between the leaders – and this is where Nike’s move to rethink its involvement in the market and scrap their proprietary wearable products was wise --is a huge issue because the platforms aren’t coming together. Until the data speaks across companies and becomes as pervasive as a regular web page speci�ication it’s going to be hard for people to have their devices work in a powerful way. Of course personal data privacy must be taken into consideration.

But this will really play out in a strategy put in place by Google year ago; Android Wear has set a foundation for interfaces that will be recognizable across mobile, wearables, Google Glass, and Android Auto. Until there are open standards, these devices will be held back by competitors desire to, well, compete.

The wearables market is set to grow exponentially. Berg Insight predicts we’ll see sales of 60 million units in three years time. Marketers must remain one step ahead of the game to prepare for the eventual reality of consumers embracing these devices. They should also take an active part in making them more appealing and delivering true value on mobile.

The most sure�ire way to do it is to focus on�inding ways to allow your brand’s wearables approach link with consumers’ lives more broadly. 

The views expressed here are of the author alone, and do not necessarily re�lect the views of Pitch

17

FEATURE FEATURE

FACEBOOK FACEBOOKMARKETING

By RASHI BISARIA

W

hen telecom operator Tata DoComo launched an online service to simplify the process of setting up a mobile connection, it needed to reach out to Indians across mobile devices and desktop computers. In order to raise awareness about their newly launched online store Docomo reached out to the social media behemoth Facebook for the same. Facebook became the key digital media vehicle for launch of their acquisition ecommerce platform and for the two months that the campaign ran, it built awareness and increased online sales.

But what it also did was reveal the potential of Facebook as a platform of choice for companies to amplify their content, even before they approached mainstream media. In fact, Facebook is positioning itself as the go-to medium for telecom and technology companies that need to have a targeted reach.

For a generation that leads its

18

How Facebook helps Tech and Telecom players in targeted marketing life between multiple screens, Facebook has become a virtual world to exist and revel in. Having hit the 100 million user mark in India, the platform is in a comfortable space as far as customer usage is concerned. With its line-up of tools and products customised for businesses, the platform is being recognised for its brand building potential that is also driving sales. Businesses are opening up to the idea of using Facebook as an essential ingredient in their targeting capabilities. Commenting on the role of Facebook for the launch of Docomo’s online store Arjun Kolady , Head, Tech and Telco, Facebook India, says, “It was a unique example for us as well.

Docomo treated us as the platform of choice for launching their online shop. They tried Facebook as their launch platform even before they went mainstream. We had to drive massive reach. They also used products like Custom Audiences and Outcome Matching . The ROI on our platform was excellent,

“When any device is to be launched, Outcome Matching becomes a core pillar for delivering what actually matters to the marketer” Arjun Kolady | Head, Tech and Telco, Facebook India

Pitch | November 2014

orders were �lowing in. The Tata Docomo was a success story and it’s become a best practice.”

Airtel too has used Facebook’s targeting capabilities in a meaningful manner.

Bharti Airtel’s association with the social media network has been long standing.

It was one of the �irst telco giants to enable customers to use Facebook anytime, anywhere even without a data connection.

Mohit Beotra, Chief Brand Of�icer, Bharti Airel explains how useful Facebook has proved to be, “We are constantly looking at leveraging latest innovations that can contribute towards making our customer reach more effective. In line with this, Airtel was one of the �irst advertisers in the world to use network targeting on Facebook. As part of this, we were able to tailor our campaign across many important dimensions including mobile network type, device model, OS version, feature phone vs. smartphone etc. – thus making our digital outreach in India more targeted, effective and meaningful.”

Outcome Matching and Custom Audience tools are uniquely built for brands.

The Custom Audience tool makes it easy to target speci�ic customers. The client can get their own list of customers and match them against Facebook users. Using Facebook’s standard targeting, such as location and demographics , the advertiser can reach the engaged customer. Another tool that works especially well for devices is Outcome Matching. “When any device is to be launched, Outcome Matching becomes a core pillar for delivering what actually matters to the marketer. True Identity gives Facebook that edge as the targeting capabilities become more accurate,” explains Kolady. Facebook has custom built this tool for the tech and telecom category and the results are promising.

Outcome matching was used to great effect when Nokia Lumia decided to drive awareness and sales for its Lumia range on the occasion of Diwali in 2013. Nokia India had come up with a buyback offer on its Lumia range. People could exchange their old phones with a new Lumia and get an exchange discount. Facebook’s sophisticated targeting capabilities to make sure

Pitch | November 2014

What was really beneficial was the ability Facebook gave us to meaningfully measure the direct impact of the campaign on both brand awareness and sales” Viral Oza | Marketing Director, Nokia India.

“Airtel was one of the first advertisers in the world to use network targeting on Facebook” Mohit Beotra | Chief Brand Officer, Bharti Airel

“The fast evolution of facebook coupled with shrinking screen sizes has led to a lack of clarity about what may or may not work for the brand” Vinish Kathuria | Digital entrepreneur and COO, Digital Quotient

a broad range of people accessing Facebook on a variety of operating systems and devices would see the ads. The company tracked the campaign with Nielsen Brand Effect and Facebook’s Outcome measurement. The direct result of Nokia’s Facebook Ad investment was the sale of 18420 devices and a 54x return on ad spend.

“What was really bene�icial was the ability Facebook gave us to meaningfully measure the direct impact of the campaign on both brand awareness and sales,” explains Viral Oza, Marketing Director, Nokia India.

It’s the marketers’ need to know and understand demographics, interest groups and geography and Facebook’s tailor made solutions seem to have the potential to deliver. “Our approach is to address the questions posed by marketers. We are focused on helping marketers move the needle.

Marketers come up with questions likeHow can I increase brand awareness? How can I drive sales? Can I drive message association with a particular feature? These are questions that need to be answered

and we at Facebook are doing exactly that,” adds Kolady.

But it’s interesting to note that despite Facebook rolling out new features and tools for businesses at a rapid pace, brands in India have been slow in engaging with the platform. Is it because brands are not equipped with an appropriate strategy to leverage Facebook? Digital entrepreneur and COO, Digital Quotient, Vinish Kathuria attributes this to a mix of reasons, “The fast evolution of facebook coupled with shrinking screen sizes has led to a lack of clarity about what may or may not work for the brand”.

The war for consumer attention continues among brands and Facebook presents an opportunity that can only be leveraged if they are agile and quick in adapting to this new environment. Facebook has reached critical mass. With its evolved features and exploding user base, it has established why it is the preferred social media platform for marketers.  - rashi.bisaria@exchange4media.com

19

INTERVIEW

JOHN KERR

Social media marketing-

biggest growth space in marketing What, according to you, is marketing in today’s world?

Big disruptive forces in the marketing world today—mobile, social, big data, cloud. Each one of these has a fundamental shift in terms of how marketers need to build relationships with stakeholders, consumers and communities. But, all four of them are happening at the same time. So we see it as a global shift around marketing and communications. That’s what we set up Zeno to be, under the belief that, because social means there is a greater need for authenticity, a greater need for narratives and stories that have an emotional impact.

A

Do you mean the hard sell isn’t working anymore?

With changing times, you need to think about content in a completely different way—from two-minute video to 6-second bit; big data means you need to be customized and personal; cloud means you need to have the ability to be able to clock a consumer’s journey, catch them in different ways and have a story unfold, as opposed to the old way of marketing one big hit gives you everything you need.

The key is how you get people to care about what you market, and then try to sell.

Content comes first. I am a firm believer in

global shift around marketing and communications is taking place. Brands are asking the right questions from their media agencies. But it’s still a long way to go for digital media agencies in India. In a candid conversation with Ankur Singh, John Kerr, Managing Director, Zeno Asia, talks about Zeno Group’s vision, his belief consumer relationships, and emerging market trends. John’s 20 year career has spanned seven countries, four continents, in-house to agency - spread across communications, interactive and brand marketing. Before taking up as MD at Zeno, he grew Edelman Digital into one of the largest and most awarded social media marketing networks in the region. He led a team of 80, with specialties in digital strategy, online research, online communities and social content.

20

Pitch | November 2014

relationships. You need to unfold and unveil over time. So that when you launch, most of the information is already out. The traditional way was to hold everything back, and launch big. Whereas now, people want to find out more, know what others are saying, exchange notes.

Digital advertising/marketing spends are still miniscule, when compared with other communication mediums. Do you expect the scenario to change?

The Asia-Pacific social media marketing budgets are just about 2 per cent. This has doubled in the past 12 months. But, we are looking at a 98 per cent possibility. It’s only just started. Digital across the region is about 24 per cent, up from 8 per cent two years ago. But, most will still agree that a vast majority of that 24 per cent is going into banner ads. Who clicks on a banner ad? People just skip them. There remains a massive difference between consumption of media from a consumer’s perspective, and investment in the right types of media from a marketing perspective. And, I think this will change. Now, clients are asking the right questions from their media agencies, like ROI. But it’s still a long way to go. We are doing a lot of work around amplification—media amplification.

IS NOW

Pitch | September 2014

Even more than earned traditional media, the increasing return of earned social media is supercharged due to the exponential viral potential of that piece of content.

Call it word-of-mouth, going viral, or engagement, it all means the same thing: content gets shared with one’s social network, and the payoff is earned social media.

No.1

How well is digital/social media placed against traditional media today?

Earned media will lead owned or paid media. When one puts paid media in the upfront in a media campaign, people really don’t buy it. The consumer knows much more than what you and I are trying to tell him. Knowing the intelligent customers, brands are looking for agencies that care, and are creative in their approaches.

is the

The Asia-Pacific social media marketing budgets are just about 2 per cent. This has doubled in the past 12 months. But, we are looking at a 98 per cent possibility

How well is influencer marketing working in India?

Influencer marketing will always work.

But, the trust factor is becoming questionable by the day. True influence requires two things: audience and advocacy. Advocacy is driven by the depth of conviction, and influencers typically are less committed to the product or company than are actual customer advocates. Finding influencers is the first step in any good brand advocacy program; engaging them enough to be advocates so to grab the brass ring of earned social media is the second step.

How relevant are social platforms in digital marketing?

Social media is dependent upon social networks, and those networks are made up of people who are uniquely attuned to the other people in their social networks. That attunement is what makes the social share so powerful. The people who share, comment and otherwise engage their online communities personally are the advocates whose endorsement of your brand has the power to take your content viral, to millions of people much more attuned to pay attention to it than they are to notice a billboard on the freeway. We intentionally look at the Facebook activity feed, and we follow people on Twitter who give us the sort of information we want. Here, social surveys play a key role in understanding what your consumers like and do not like.

Unfortunately, many brands do not care for these surveys, and are content with just building a fan base or follower base, without tapping the huge database of consumers in that base. is an area where, I be-& Uttarakhand Source : IRS 2013 *This Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh lieve, a lot of work still needs to be done. n -ankur.singh@exchange4media.com

in the Hindi Belt

With a plethora of content being shoved on the consumer at each click of the mouse, how do you ensure long-term consumer engagement in digital marketing?

We need to take leadership in terms of changing the way marketers think about content. Most media companies in India are yet to understand the true potential of media amplification. We are aiming at from creating innovative content and using it as a social amplification opportunity.

WITH 1.42 Cr READERS

Fastest Growing Hindi Daily in Uttar Pradesh

With more than 72 Lakh readers.

21 Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand

COVER STORY

22

Pitch | November 2014

Brands rediscover No .1 the potential of marketing

in the Hindi Belt

WITH 1.42 Cr READERS

IS NOW

Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand

Fastest Growing

With more than is the 72 in Lakh vercoming the pessimism of the optimistic consumer market the readers. sec-

By Rashi Bisaria

O

ond Pradesh quarter of 2014. Buoyant consumer Uttar spending was evident as early as July

last 5 years, brands have Hindi Daily in discovered the real potential of the festive months this year with ad spends spiralling up in most sectors.

India topped the consumer confidence survey by Nielsen and became the most

The

undisputed

when the country started spending on the end-of-season sales and this sentiment has only gained ground with the onset of festivities in September.

No.1

Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand

of Bihar & Jharkhand

With more than 56.65 Lakh readers, Hindustan is the No.1 Hindi Daily in Bihar Pitch | November 2014

23 Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand

COVER STORY

Amazon and Flipkart are spending Rs 50-60 crore each on the advertising blitzkrieg and other players are not far behind.

The Automobile sector has been in a state of depression since 2010, but data from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers indi-

“While impact and value additions are key, buying and placement will hold their own importance” Anita Nayyar CEO, havas Media Group

24

cates a slow recovery in this market too. Consumer durables are seeing positive sentiments drive the spending this year. The festive season is responsible for 40-45 per cent of consumer durable sales, but the last four years have been a huge disappointment. This year is seeing sales revive, injecting more positivity among retailers. As Anita Nayyar, CEO, Havas Media Group says, “The sentiment is positive and upbeat. The macroeconomic outlook is better, the government and its performance is seen to contribute towards a better environment. Ad spends are likely to grow in double digits.”

E-commerce becomes the show stealer

Ad spends are seen galloping but the big spenders and show stealers are the ecommerce companies that

have occupied the consumer mind space by bombarding their messages across media. Amazon and Flipkart are spending Rs 50-60 crore each on the advertising blitzkrieg and other players are not far behind. In fact, audience aggregation platform SureWaves has seen a phenomenal increase in festive ad spend on TV of online retail of 257 per cent since last year. E-commerce ad spends are expected to touch Rs 200 crore in October according to media planners.

This category has more than tripled its ad spends and its expected spends are slated to touch Rs 1000 crore by the end of the current year.

Ecommerce players have captured the television media and have even surpassed consumer durables in

their ad spends.

Most brands are dividing the spends judiciously among different media, which has resulted in some of the most innovative and integrated marketing campaigns seen in recent years. “As always, brands demand a better ROI. While impact and value Pitch | November 2014

No.1

theon Hindi Belt Percentage increase in Ad in Spends SureWaves WITH 1.42 Cr READERS 297% IS NOW

TRAVEL

257%

Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand

is the

Fastest Growing

A large thrust of the spend on TV is coming from brands that are targeting the bullish demand in tier 2 and tier 3 cities

The

137%

119% Hindi Daily in Uttar Pradesh

undisputed

With more than 72 Lakh readers.

109%

additions are key and give brands the desired flip in a cluttered festive environment better, buying and placement will hold their own imSource : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand portance,” explains Anita Nayyar. “Television is a favourite in the festive season with a lot of interesting impact properties and film premieres.

Radio continues to hold its good to mark the festival, but digital is one medium which is fast gaining share along with mobile. Print with the festive offers is also increasingly being patronised, so one will see a string of full pages, jackets and jackets on jackets,” she adds.

No.1

of Bihar & Jharkhand

Television is king this festive season

Innovative advertising is one of the With more than 56.65 Lakh readers, Hindustan is thetelevision No.1 Hindi Daily in Bihar

ways by which brands are trying to gain consumer attention. Vis-à-vis last year, sectors such as Cellular Phone Services, Online Retail, Personal Healthcare, Automobiles and FMCG have Source : on IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand increased the ad spend SureWaves Spot TV

34 lakh* women can't see your brand if you are not in The only Magazine with the reach of a Newspaper Pitch | November 2014

25 No.1 in Hindi Belt * Source : Female Readers of Hindustan, IRS 2013 Hindi Belt: Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand

COVER STORY

TV is the best medium for fabfurnish.com owing to its mass reach. The brand decided to launch an only HD TV campaign

Network by 297%, 257%, 137%, 119% and 109% respectively. A large thrust of this spend is coming from brands that are targeting the bullish demand in tier 2 and tier 3 cities of the country. Even segments such as incense and fragrance markets, along with building materials indus-

try are aggressively increasing their presence during the festive season.

Talking about the trend, Mandar Patwardhan, COO, SureWaves MedaTech Pvt Ltd said, “This is a clear indication of the positive mood prevailing in the country and we are glad that large media buyers and national advertisers are now seeing the value of a media platform like ours that allows brands to tap into the combined audience of the highly popular local and regional TV channels in their target markets and also gives them measurable return on investment.”

First timers on TV

“With our extensive collection of regional and local brands, our catalogue will be a treat for online shoppers” Radhika Ghai Aggarwal Co-founder and CMO, shopclues.com.

26

Most upcoming brands have launched their first TVCs around this time, having planned the launches for many months. ShopClues launched its maiden TV ad campaign and is seeing a massive increase in sales.

“We had planned our first-ever ATL campaign ahead of the festival season. This brand campaign will firmly establish our positioning as a mar-

ketplace for the Indian masses. With our extensive collection of regional and local brands in unstructured categories, our catalogue will be a treat for online shoppers this Diwali,” says Radhika Ghai Aggarwal, Co-founder and CMO, shopclues.com. ShopClues is also concentrating on mobile as a medium and is expecting the platform to contribute significantly to festive season sales. They are also Pitch | November 2014

planning a series of promotions exclusively for this medium.

Innovation in Television Advertising

Snapdeal.com launched an innovative campaign on the occasion of Diwali, which has left competitors and consumers gaping. It was the biggest marketing campaign by the site which went live across electronic and print media. The brand signed up an astounding 28 celebrities to create 50 commercials. Each commercial showcases celebrities endorsing the Snapdeal Diwali bumper sale while playing their characters in a quirky manner. Speaking about this innovative campaign, Sandeep Komaravelly, Senior Vice President at Snapdeal. com said, “This is one of the most innovative and unique market-

“The idea was to talk about Diwali Bumper sale, using characters that everyone relates to” Sandeep Komaravelly senior Vice President, snapdeal.com

ing campaigns that has been attempted so far, by any brand. We have strategically chosen the most popular characters from the best

ishly to build brand awareness.

After the success of the first TV campaign launched in November last year, FabFurnish.com has been building on its success through advertising. Around Rs 1.86 crore has been spent this month on branding alone which includes TV, Radio and a few other offline activities. TV is the best medium owing to its mass reach. In order to target their customers with greater precision, the brand decided to launch an only HD TV campaign, which is a first of its kind. A survey conducted by the brand conveyed that most of their customers were HD viewers and based on this insight the exclusive campaign was launched.

The brand also used radio effectively this season. A short and crisp radio commercial was aired in all

Each commercial showcases celebrities endorsing the Snapdeal Diwali bumper sale while playing their characters in a quirky manner loved TV shows across India to connect with our wide consumer base. The idea was to talk about Diwali Bumper sale, using characters that everyone relates to.

It’s a very novel approach for a marketing campaign.”

Fabfurnish.com, the online home store has also spent lav-

IS NOW Pitch | November 2014

No.1

the major metro cities. The Radio Campaign resulted in a 30 per cent boost in sales within 48 hours of its launch. There appeared a noteworthy difference on comparing the sales before, during, and after the radio campaign, in terms of brand awareness and conversions.  - rashi.bisaria@exchange4media.com

in the Hindi Belt

WITH 1.42 Cr READERS 27 Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand

COVER STORY / INTERVIEW

Ganesh Subramanian

‘Myntra is hoping for a noticeable increase in shopper interest’ M

yntra has succeeded in donning the profile of a fashion destination and is hoping this image will draw in the consumers in the festive months. Having tied up with designers, it has exclusive designer wear on offer which is not available in offline stores. From expert style advice to exclusive collections only available on Myntra, the ecommerce site is doing everything to woo customers. Rashi Bisaria spoke to Ganesh Subramanian, COO, Myntra, to get an insight into the brand’s strategy for the frenzied festive months.

What are Myntra’s expectations from the festive season? Are you expecting increased sales, more interest from the consumers?

With an array of over 1 lakh carefully chosen products in our portfolio along with new brands and campaigns being launched during this festive season, we are looking forward to excite our shoppers and celebrate the festivities.

At Myntra, we are committed to helping India look good, not just by offering ravishing apparel, accessories and footwear from some of the most popular brands, but also provide style tips to help shoppers get a stunning ensemble.

The festive season generally brings with it a noticeable increase in shopper interest and with our range of new collections on display, and many thousands of products only available on Myntra. com; we expect it to be a record breaking Diwali this year, with over 3x growth in sales as compared to last year.

What campaigns did you plan for this season?

This year, we are looking forward to capitalizing the festive mood by being the one stop destination for anything and everything related to helping our shoppers look good. We are gearing to offer over 5,000 exclusive styles and collections by some of the most respected

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brands like FCUK, UCB, Elle, SuperDry, Biba, FabIndia and Antony Moratto along with our personalized style service.

The recently launched Style Helpline will be an important feature to engage with our shoppers, where our expert stylists will be available to answer everything from miniscule style queries to advice on getting the perfect festive look this season. We will also be banking on some of our designer and premium brands to do well during the season with an all new Autumn Winter collection on offer.

Considering that huge discounts are always on offer on these portals, how will the festive season be different?

We are constantly building our product offerings with exclusive products and services customized to the festive season which is moving away from discount led promotions.

Specifically for fashion, the non-availability of latest brands in tier-2 & 3 cities has led to high interest in online shopping from these consumers

Why do you think India will shop online this season?

During the festive celebrations, customers want to look their stylish best and online retailers like Myntra.com offer them a complete package of everything related to fashion. Expert advice on what trends will work this season, what looks will suit their personality are all available at their fingertips.The mood amongst shoppers this season is encouraging as people are willing to spend extravagantly on fashion brands which may not be accessible in offline stores.

What are the factors that are helping ecommerce boom in the country?

The increasingly fast growth in internet usage in India, largely on mobile devices is the key driver for e-commerce growth.

Mobile contributes 70 per cent of the internet usage in India and will continue to remain the single largest growth driver for ecommerce in India.

Specifically for fashion, the non-availability of latest brands in tier-2 & 3 cities has led to high interest in online shopping from these consumers. Some of the top international and national brands on Myntra like Antony Morato, Desigual, Stanley Kane, HRX, Supra etc. are only available on Myntra, not even in any offline store in the country. Further, Cash on Delivery has also been instrumental

| November | November Pitch 2014 Pitch 2014

in driving growth due to the convenience it offers.

How are associations with designers helping Myntra with its customers?

We have been continuously upgrading our fashion offering to our customers by providing the best of fashion to shoppers across the country. To further this vision, Myntra has tied up with prestigious designers like Indian by Manish Arora, Rajesh Prathap and Wills Signature Line by Rohit Gandhi & Rahul Khanna, Ritu Kumar, Rohit Bal and many more. The latest addition to this star studded designer portfolio is the Woolmark prize winner, Rahul Mishra, who is the only Indian to have been bestowed with the prize.

These associations have helped Myntra primarily create differentiation, by providing a diverse offering for customers and also expanding presence of designer brands in markets where these brands are not present in stores yet. n -rashi.bisaria@exchange4media.com

The mood amongst shoppers this season is encouraging as people are willing to spend extravagantly on fashion brands IS NOW which may not be accessible in offline stores

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Fastest Growing Hindi Daily in Uttar Pradesh

With more than 72 Lakh readers.

29 Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand

INTERVIEW COVER STORY / INTERVIEW

RITU GUPTA

Dell leverages the festive season to reveal the D potential of technology

ell India has been on a roller coaster ride this year. It has not only increased the number of Dell Exclusive Stores from 50 to 250 within a year but has connected with customers through very customer focused campaigns. It has been able to combine the offline experience and the online campaigns seamlessly to provide value to the customer. With new product launches and innovative festive discounts and schemes, Dell India is doing everything right. Rashi Bisaria spoke to Ritu Gupta, Director, Marketing, Consumer and Small Business, Dell India, to know how the brand has been able to achieve so much, in such a short period of time. Edited excerpts: What are Dell’s expectations from the festive season this year as compared to last year?

We are very excited with Dell’s growth over the last few quarters. A renewed and robust go-to-market strategy coupled with a steadily expanding retail and channel partner network has been visibly paying off, with Dell achieving No.1 position in the Indian PC Market with a 23.1 per cent share across segments in Q1CY2014 and the No.1 position in the Consumer & Small Business segment with a 20.2 per cent (units) and 25.9 per cent (revenue) share in Q2CY2014. This has resulted from various strategic initiatives like increasing the count of Dell Exclusive Stores from 50 to 250 within a year, sequential customer focused campaigns; like our

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Pitch | November 2014

This year, we are encouraging technology users to leverage the connectivity potential of Dell’s products

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Back to School and Back to College Programs, as well as delivering innovative solutions for myriad audiences, based on their usage comfort and technology requirements. All of this has led us to seeing consecutive share gain over the last 6 quarters.

This year, we are encouraging technology users to leverage the connectivity potential of Dell’s portable tablets and Inspiron notebooks, Dell Venue tablets as well as Dell Inspiron All-in-One desktops.

We have introduced this through our festive season campaign – ‘Stay Connected – Dell Se’; with value adds being given along with Dell’s

is the

The

in the Hindi Belt

connecting devices specially during the festive season to ensure that customers are able to celebrate with friends and family, wherever they may be. We wish for customers to recognize that technology is becoming embedded in their everyday life, and that the gift of technology is ideal – whether they bring it into their homes, or gift it to the ones they care about.

Considering the growth trajectory we have moved in over the last few quarters, we are looking forward to customers experiencing the wonders and potential of technology this festive season and are expecting a successful third quarter.

tomers and address what we believe our customers most desire which is peace of mind. Towards that customers purchasing our PCs (Inspiron Notebooks & Desktops, XPS & Alienware laptops) between 20th September 2014 till 26th October 2014 can redeem gifts worth up to Rs. 8000 which includes 2 years additional warranty (including Next Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand Business Day Onsite & 24/7 Phone Support, excluding Accidental Damage) worth Rs. 5000 and gift vouchers worth Rs. 3000 from a choice of brands like Peter England, Allen Solly, Van Heusen, World of Titan or Jabong.com.

Running simultaneously, is the festive offer on our Venue tablet range (Venue 7, Venue 8 & Venue 8 Pro) where customers will receive an exciting festive gift hamper worth Rs.5000 including a Bluetooth headset and power bank.

WITH 1.42 Cr READERS

Fastest Growing HindiWhat Daily in discounts and Pradesh kind ofUttar of-

undisputed

fers can consumers expect?

Buying a PC is a big decision for Indian consumers and most of our consumers are keen to recognize the value behind their purchase.

That is why we have designed our festive offers to empower our cus-

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With more than 72 Lakh readers.

How is Dell dividing its marketing spends for the festive season Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand between TV, Print, radio and digital?

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With more than 56.65 Lakh readers, Hindustan is the No.1 Hindi Daily in Bihar Pitch | November 2014

31 Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand

COVER STORY / INTERVIEW

RITU GUPTA

The PC market sees a trend in a yearly fashion. While, the �irst half of the year is more about the back to school and college seasons and is dominated by the print medium, owing to the nature of communication required to showcase product speci�ications and features, the festive season in the second year is when vendors are more inclined towards taking the TVC route, thereby automatically hiking investment in marketing during this time of the year. The idea is to engage with the customers in a manner that will help them make the right decision for their requirements.

We believe in listening to our customers and understanding their needs and requirements better in order to innovate around them.

During the festive season, purchase is driven by emotion and the spirit of festivity, and marketing efforts are directed towards helping customers recognize how a brand can play a signi�icant part in celebrations which are of immense importance to the customer.

Has the focus on digital increased from last year?

Digital communication adds a unique dimension to engagement with customers. It adds an element of two way conversations between a brand and its customers. We believe in listening to our customers and understanding their needs and requirements better in order to innovate around them. As a brand, Dell is cognizant of the value that can be garnered from consumer insights aggregated through this method of engagement, and we are now ensuring conversational aspects to all our brand activities by making ourselves available on social media. To create a consistent balance between execution and planning, it is necessary to be receptive to customer response and to consistently use this data as consumer insight in order to reinforce future strategy. It is an

32

unending process of execution, learning and recreating while keeping pace with ever evolving consumer needs.

Speci�ically for the festive season we have designed a Facebook application based on the theme of staying connected. This app lets the fans create a customized greeting card which includes personalized pictures and text message for their friends and family. This card will include a discount coupon that can be used on purchases.

The entire application is mobile compatible so that we can also understand how many of our users and fans are active on mobile.

Which products is Dell focusing more on this time around?

Dell is promoting its consumer category of connecting devices for customers to stay connected this festive season with its products. In the consumer segment, Dell is focussed on its Inspiron notebooks including the brand new 2-in-1 convertible notebooks for the college goers and young working professionals and Inspiron desktop and All-n-One ranges for young school going students and for family use; as well as the Venue

range of tablets for both personal and professional use.

Are there any new launches in the pipeline for this time of the year?

Yes, the new festive campaign advertisements will be showcasing our newly launched Inspiron 2-in-1 7000 series convertible notebooks. These devices offer the versatile experience of switching between full-�ledged utility of a notebook and the intuitive touch interface of tablet usage. This gives users the �lexibility to choose the form factor they seek depending on the purpose of use – be it work or play.

We are also about to announce the next generation of our Venue 7 and 8 Android tablets with features such as improved all-day usage over Wi-Fi, 3G and Voice enabled versions, latest Intel Processor, Android™ 4.4, KitKat® OS, HD display and premium audio in a thin and light design.

These tablets will break into the category of tablets which we have not entered in the Indian market, putting Dell on the map with mobile retailers and consumers.  -rashi.bisaria@exchange4media.com Pitch | November 2014

COVER STORY

IPSOS STUDY

Festive Season boosts spending, making India most optimistic country

A

ccording to a report by global research �irm Ipsos, India continues to be the most optimistic country in the world with 61 percent Indians expecting that its economy will be stronger in the next six months. The reason for this is a boost in consumer spending during the ongoing festival season.

According to the “Ipsos Economic Pulse of the World” study, India’s economic con�idence level has moved up to 72 percent in August 2014, a signi�icant rise of 7 points making India the 4th most economically con�ident country in the world after Saudi Arabia, Germany and China.

Almost half 47 percent Indians believe that the local economy which impacts their personal �inance is good, a rise of 3 points.

“With the festival season on, early signs of recovery in automobile, retail, real estate, consumer durable and jewellery industry is clearly visible according to Industry data publicly available,” said Amit Adarkar, Managing Director, Ipsos in India.

“Home sales and consumer goods purchases would show stronger gains on account of better job prospects, higher household incomes and rising optimism

IS NOW Pitch | November 2014

about India’s economic prospects. This will further increase demand in the consumer discretionary sector, thus strong domestic demand would continue to drive overall growth,” added Adarkar.

The online Ipsos Economic Pulse of the World survey was conducted in August 2014 among 18,056 people in 24 countries.

India’s economic confidence level has moved up to 72 percent in 2014, a significant rise of 7 points making India the 4th most economically confident country in the world

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After holding steady for four months, the average global economic assessment of national economies surveyed in 24 countries is up one point as 40% of global citizens rate their national economies to be ‘good’.

Same players occupy the top �ive, with Saudi Arabia (85%) once again leading the national economic assessment with a wide margin, followed by Germany (75%), China (73%), India (72%) and Sweden (70%). European countries once again spearhead the bottom of the assessment, with just handfuls in these countries rate their national economies as ‘good’: France (6%), Romania (7%), Italy (8%), Spain (11%), and South Korea (15%).

Countries with the greatest improvements in this wave: Russia (59%, +9 pts.), India (72%, +7 pts.), Turkey (49%, +5 pts.), China (73%, +4 pts.), Egypt (61%, +4 pts.) and Great Britain (45%. +4pts).

About The Survey: The survey instrument Global @dvisor is conducted monthly in 24 countries via the Ipsos Online Panel system. 

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SHANTANU DASGUPTA

“We expect this festive season to be better than last year” C

onsumer durable brands like Whirlpool rely on the festive season for a spurt in sales and this year is no different. For Whirlpool, the three month festive season accounts for 25 per cent of the annual sales volume. The brand is riding high on its innovative festive promotional offers. ‘A Kitchen In Your Honour’ is one such offer through which five consumers stand to win a bumper prize of a Kitchen makeover worth Rs 2.5 lakh. In conversation with Kanika Mehrotra, Shantanu Dasgupta, Vice President, Corporate Affairs and Strategy, Whirlpool India talks about the importance of innovative offers and deals for consumers during these months.

As compared to last year, what is the percentage allocation of spends towards the festival season offers this year?

In 2013 the allocation of spends for the festival season was around 25 per cent.

It is the same in 2014.

How is this year panning out to be different in terms of expectations, customer trends, and your offerings?

The last few festival seasons have been somewhat dull due to poor consumer sentiment stemming primarily from in�lation. While in�lation still remains a worry, we believe a new norm of cost

of living is setting in and consumers are beginning to make purchases of items that they had deferred. We, therefore, expect this festive season to be better than last year but we will de�initely not see the kind of growths we saw in 2009 and 2010.

What is your breakup of ad spends this year for the festivities?

The break up would be as follows: TV13 per cent Print-7 per cent Radio-3 per cent Digital-2 per cent. Our objective is to create a 3600 brand visibility across all mediums.

What kind of campaigns, offerings

The gifts may change but the emphasis is on connecting with the consumer with a festival relevant theme

and marketing communication have you come out with, this year?

Whirlpool ‘s consumer offer for this festival season started on September 10. The theme for this Diwali is “ Celebrate Diwali in Style”. There is an assured gift on purchase of any Whirlpool product: consumers can win either a Glamour Kit from AVON worth Rs.935 or a Style Kit from Park Avenue worth Rs.758 or an Accessory Kit from Luxor worth Rs.1234. In addition, there would be an assured second gift on all premium models, where the gift is an Arrow Travel Bag worth Rs.2999.

Shopping destinations are fast moving online. How is Whirlpool bracing for this challenge?

Whirlpool of India has an e-Store on its brand website and also markets selected offerings through online partners like Home Shop 18, Flipkart, Indiatimes Shopping etc. The channel is in its infancy as far as home appliances are concerned, and less than a per cent of our turnover goes through this channel at present. However, we believe this channel will grow in the years to come, which is why we are nurturing it.

Consumer durable companies see a hike in sales during this time of the year. What kind of sales did you see last festive season as compared to the whole year.

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Pitch | November 2014

The festival season, which is a 3-month period from September to November, accounts for approximately 25 per cent of our annual sales volume.

How has your approach changed from last year? Can you give some examples?

Our approach (always) is to build a theme that connects with the mood that prevails during the festive season. The emphasis on “style” this year is because this is a time when people invest in buying the latest in fashion and jewellery, redecorating their homes, and engaging socially with friends and family. Effort is made to make sure that they and their homes are ‘in style’ . The gifts that we have chosen are in sync with the theme, such as women’s and men’s cosmetics from Avon and Park Avenue, and a stylish tote bag from Arrow.

This has been our approach every year. The gifts may change but the emphasis is on connecting with the consumer with a festival relevant theme, and gifts that come from reputed brands that they will appreciate, is a constant. n -kanika.mehrotra @exchange4media.com

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is the

Pitch | October November 2014 2014

Fastest Growing Hindi Daily in Uttar Pradesh

With more than 72 Lakh readers.

35 Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand

INTERVIEW COVER STORY COVER STORY

Premium Chocolate offerings find favour with consumers

By Rashi Bisaria

Premium chocolates make up about 27 % of the Rs 3000 crore chocolate market in India

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T

he tradition of gifting sweets on festive occasions can never fade in India even though the gifts themselves may have donned new avatars. These can range from traditional sweets by family owned legacy shops to the dark and premium chocolates that have become the new norm. While traditional sweets have undergone a makeover in their packaging and presentation to keep up with the times, it’s the innovation in the chocolate industry that rules conversations around festival gifting. The demand for chocolates increased by 35 per cent in urban areas this year, ahead of the festive season, according to industry body ASSOCHAM. The Indian Chocolate market is currently poised at over Rs 4500 crore and is expected to cross Rs 7500 crore by 2015.

Consumers prefer chocolates for various reasons, one of them also being the attractive and convenient packaging . The biggest players in India have their finger on the pulse of this new age consumer whose demands and tastes have evolved with time.

Uniqueness and differentiation have become the key factors in the rising popularity of a chocolate brand. The premium chocolates have been able to differentiate themselves and two brands that have been doing well in India in this category are Ferrero

Pitch Pitch||November2014 November 2014

Rocher and Cadbury.

According to the consultancy Technopak, premium chocolates make up about 27 per cent of the Rs 3000 crore chocolate market in India. Ferrero has developed the segment of premium chocolates in the country having earned a six per cent share of the Indian chocolate market in just a decade.

INTERVIEW:

It made the concept of premium chocolates work even at a steep price point and is most popular during the festive season.

Cadbury, the other big player in the premium category, launched its Silk brand in 2010 and this year forayed into the luxury gifting space with Cadbury Glow, another premium offering.

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It is the latest addition by Mondelez in the gifting category which has been launched first in India.

Rashi Bisaria spoke to the dominant player in the premium chocolate market Amarpreet Anand, AVP Chocolate Gifting, Mondelez India Foods about their festive offerings. n - rashi.bisaria@exchange4media.com

Amarpreet Anand, AVP Chocolate, Mondelez India

in the theluxury Hindi “Cadbury GLOW marks our entry into giftingBelt space�

WITH 1.42 Cr READERS IS NOW How important has the pre- to follow. mium chocolate market become for your brand?

In recent years, there has been a trend of premiumization in India across categories making it an attractive market for the launch of premium chocolates in India. We created the space for premium chocolates in the Indian market and are the leader in this space with premium products like CDM Silk, Bournville and Temptations. Cadbury Celebrations, our festive gifting offer, operates across the premium and mass premium segments with the Rich Dry Fruit Collection (RDFC) range. RDFC has been the growth driver for the brand over the last few years and is expected to do so in the coming years as well.

Cadbury GLOW marks our entry into the luxury gifting space. The brand stands for the ultimate joy of gifting and receiving a gift. Being a luxury gift offering, special attention has been paid to ensure that the product is superior both in terms of taste and also packaging. Cadbury GLOW is being launched in India first, with other global markets

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How is Mondelez approaching the festive season this year as compared to last year?

The festive season is extremely important for Mondelez and this year is no different. We have increased our investments across media, Point-of-Buying compared to the previous Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand years. We have a new TVC for this Diwali and expect this year to be one of the best gifting years for the brand.

How are you dividing your media spends this year during the festivities?

TV continues to be the lead medium for our brands but over the last few years, digital has gained prominence. We plan to be active across multiple media touch points closer to the festival to build salience for our premium brands.

Fastest Growing

With more than 72 Lakh readers.

Do you think Digital can overtake Television in the Hindi Daily in Uttar Pradesh coming years?

undisputed

Digital has gained prominence for the brand in the last few years. With over 4 million fans of our Cadbury Celebrations FB page, digital is an important medium to build continuous engagement with the consumers. While the share of digital is increasing each year, we believe TV will continue Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand to be the biggest reach medium in the near future.n

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With more than 56.65 Lakh readers, Hindustan is the No.1 Hindi Daily in Bihar Pitch | October 2014

37 Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand

COVER STORY

AUTOMAKERS

struggle to strengthen sales this festive season

By Ankur Singh

S

eptember and October are usually good months for auto sales in India. The auto Industry was hoping to have a good September this year as a far as trade is concerned. However, according to figures released by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) on Monday, the sales have dropped by over a per cent against the figures clocked same time last year. People have not spent on vehicles as much as the industry was expecting.

Even as auto sales yet to stabilize this festive season, SIAM has said October is the month to watch out for as festival demand is expected to give a boost to sales.

There were 18 auto launches slated for this festive season. The auto market is still witnessing pressure in realizing sales, even though showroom traffic has strengthened. Even with a slew of launches, the promotional activities of most brands are subdued.

Pitch takes a look at the top brands that managed to create buzz this year.

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MARUTI CIAZ moting the With Ranveer Singh pro on the Ciaz brand, Maruti is betting big new Honto hijack customers from the went on sale da City and Verna. The Ciaz tional activlast week after heavy promo its launch. ities in September, ahead of

Pitch | November 2014

SU ZUKI GIXXER the Gixxer motorcycle Suzuki officially launched motorcycle which will in September. The 155 cc nda CB Trigger, Hero take on the TVS Apache, Ho priced at INR 79,809 Xtreme and Pulsar 150, is is being promoted by (on-road, New Delhi), and going big on print adSalman Khan. The brand is son. vertisements this festive sea

IS NOW Pitch | November 2014

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COVER STORY

HONDA 160 CC MOTOR CYCLE

FI

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NTU E V V A AT

RA

Honda Motorcycles India has confirmed the launch of an all-new 160 cc motorcycle early November. The launch of the motorcycle is expected to take place within four weeks. Further details on the two-wheeler are unknown.

However, one thing is certain. With Honda going all out to promote the brand with Akshay Kumar, buyers can expect strong promotions in the coming weeks.

Pre-launch bookings for the Avventura started in September. The market introduction of the Punto-turned-crossover will only take place this month. Fiat is also keen to show the car to prospective customers, and displays at shopping malls are being planned before the launch.

HON

ILIO B O M DA

RS

Though Honda launched the Mobilio back in July, deliveries of the sportier RS-spec grade began from mid-September.

The RS grade adds extra visual flair to the MPV, and is available only with the diesel engine.

However, the brand that was initially endorsed by comedian Kapil Sharma is now lacking the promotional gusto it came with in the first place.

Pitch | November 2014

VW POLO

CROS D N A I D T T G , GT TSI

S POLO Volkswagen, at the refreshed Polo’s launch, announced that the September. These cars were made available by the end of September. Select dealerships though already started deliveries of the updated car in the beginning of the month. The brand recently unveiled a TVC for the same, and has gone big on print and OOH promotions.

MER CEDES G

LA

Mercedes-Benz India launched the GLA crossover on September 30. Based on the MFA platform, the GLA will rival the likes of the Audi Q3 and BMW X1. Dealers of the company already started accepting orders for the GLA since May this year. Although the brand isn’t going big on promotions, regular print ads are being rolled out this season too.

T RENA ULT DUS

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Renault India introduced the Renault Duster AWD (All-Wheel Drive) variant in September.

Based on the top-end Duster 110 PS variant, the new variant adds the feature of 4WD using a Shift-on-the-fly mechanism, and along with it body graphics and a new steering wheel. The brand has done a lot of OOH and print promotional activities.

Looks like automakers need to buckle up to catch the buyers’ attention this festive season. n - ankur.singh@exchange4media.com

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Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand

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With more than 72 Lakh readers.

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INTERVIEW

ARvind vOHRA

Aiming to build a huge resonance for Gionee

C

hinese handset maker Gionee entered the Indian market eighteen months ago and has since sold over 3 million handsets in India. The brand is now stepping up its brand building efforts and recently launched its first television campaign ‘7 seconds’. Close on the heels of ‘7 seconds’, Gionee launched the second leg of the campaign called ‘Hello India’. The aim is to get customers to switch to this new brand this festive season. Speaking to Rashi Bisaria, Arvind Vohra, India Head, Gionee Smart Phones, reveals its strategy for the festive season, how the brand has evolved over time and how it is connecting with consumers. Edited excerpts

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Pitch | November 2014

What are Gionee’s targets for the festive season?

Gionee is expecting strong sales this festive season, which will help the company achieve Rs.3,000-crore revenue target set for the current financial year. During the festive season a growth between 25 and 40 percent is seen and a brand ends up doing business which is almost three to four times that of the regular months. During the 60-day period starting with Navratas, Gionee is targeting sales of Rs.700 crore.

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Gionee launched two brand campaigns in quick succession. What was the idea behind each of the two campaigns?

Gionee launched two brand campaigns for the festive season. The first Brand Campaign ‘7 seconds’ is a statement of confidence and does so with a startling fact that `Every 7 seconds, someone upgrades to a Gionee’. The brand campaign reflects the brand’s growth and the trust that has been garnered from the consumers along the way.

The second leg of the campaign ‘Hello India’ is a greeting from the brand to all the real as well as aspiring users of Gionee. Gionee has been able to touch the hearts and minds of people across the country and through both the campaigns Gionee is showcasing the brand’s endeavours and achievements. We are looking at more

is the

The

consumers shifting to Gionee this festive season. Having sold 3 million phones till date, Gionee is welcoming users from all walks of life with the launch of its Festive Campaign - ‘Hello India’. The brand campaign looks at capturing their `behavior with phones’ - in their language, their situations and their attitude – and aims to build a huge resonance for Gionee.

Both the campaigns are running across 80 channels and in 8 languages that include English, Hindi, Tamil, Kannad, Telegu, Malyalam, Marathi, and

Bengali.

Which medium is being used the most for your marketing campaigns?

We are adopting a mass media approach and resorting to various mediums like TV, print, digital to expand our reach and get our message across to our audience. At present our campaigns are anchored around TV as a medium with 45 per cent of our spends directed towards it. 20 per cent of our spends are directed to-

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Fastest Growing

With more than 72 Lakh readers.

wards Print. Print, Digital, OOH are Hindi Daily incampaign Uttarreflects Pradesh The brand used as support mediums. To reach

undisputed

the brand’s growth and the trust that has been garnered from the consumers along the way

consumers in particular regions we will continue to use print as a medium for our brand building. Going forward Digital will also be used strongly for our marketing campaigns.

Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand

No.1

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INTERVIEW

ARvind vOHRA

Amidst the sea of smartphones, the product with the newest technology and finest hardware will stand out How are phone brands uniquely positioned to benefit from the festive season purchases?

Every brand is launching new products, marketing initiatives and campaigns. Similarly even Gionee has launched new products like the Gionee GPAD G5 and CTRL V4S and has tried to evolve as a brand. The festive season is an important time of the year and it is important to build a higher connect with the audience as well as get stronger brand visibility, hence the brand campaign – Hello India. While every company comes up with product campaigns, Gionee has launched their brand campaign to be able to make that connect with the audience.

44

How is Gionee differentiating itself from the clutter of phones available in the market?

Gionee has positioned itself as a brand offering the best features and performance at a rational price which we think other devices lack. We have focused on our �lagship series like the E series, S series and M series which specially focus on camera, build and performance, style and battery. To

differentiate your brand from the multitude of players you need to continuously evolve and each time offer new innovative products. To stand out of the clutter we have tried to be innovative and come out with industry �irsts like best android camera, slimmest phone which has also made it to the Guiness Book of World Records.

Amidst the sea of smartphones, the product with the newest technology and �inest hardware will stand out and we have gone on to create benchmarks in the industry with our products and services.

How important is digital for Gionee? Is it being given undue importance?

Digital has evolved to become one of the most sought after mediums in

recent years. With more users adopting the internet especially the urban crowd who like being connected on the go, the digital medium has become crucial for businesses. Gionee’s target audience is the youth who are tech savvy and are very active on social networking sites. With this in mind, digital is becoming important and we are trying to use the medium effectively and have also been spending on the digital front to maximize the brand’s exposure.

What markets in India are you focused on?

India is a strategic market for us and we are working on building the brand. North India is a very important market for us and we expect it will contribute more than 30 percent of our business. Similarly, other regions like the South and East are also important and Gionee has been received well by the audience in every region. A brand gets built by how many people carry it and thus every market is important for us. Our marketing plan is worked out on the basis of the needs of each market. . -rashi.bisaria@exchange4media.com Pitch | November 2014

Pitch | November 2014

45

INTERVIEW

Shanta Roy Sanjeev

‘We want to be a part of the customer’s life” C

onsumer durable companies have decided to be where their customers are and as consumers are moving online, so are they. Most brands like Whirlpool and Haier are using the digital medium in tandem with other media for marketing and branding as well as for their promotional offers. Haier India, the home appliances brand, which completed ten years in the Indian market this year is upbeat about the festive season, having increased its marketing spends around this time by 50 per cent from last year.

Haier has decided to extend the festive offers online, having increased its digital spends by a 100 per cent. Rashi Bisaria spoke to Shanta Roy Sanjeev, Head Marketing, Haier India, to find out how the brand is making the most of this time.

46

What have been your expectations from the festive season this year as compared to last year?

The overall sentiment of the year 2014 looks very positive as we see the market gaining momentum. It has been a very exciting year for Haier which completed its 10 years in India this year. The company introduced the unique ‘i-age’ line of products, inspired by the Internet age to mark this occasion, continuing the brand’s legacy of innovation and inspiration. This year for the festive season we are trying to go beyond the conventional by adding excitement and cheer to our customers’ shopping experience by offering exciting

Pitch | November 2014

IS NOW

No.1

offers during the time of the purchase and extending them to the online platform, as well. This will give us a chance to maximise our interaction with the consumers and be a part of their celebrations.

What kind of discounts and offers can consumers expect?

To multiply the happiness of festivities, Haier has introduced the ‘i-Win Haier’ Festive Offer’ to add cheer to our consumers’ shopping experience. The unique model of the offer will enable us to increase engagement with our ‘i-age’ consumers not only at the purchase level but also extend it to the online medium.

The offline offer promises exciting assortment of assured gifts and extended warranty, on various products along with the consumer finance (0%) scheme which will be applicable in all markets The online part of the offer is ‘Play Higher, Win Haier’ campaign where consumers get an opportunity to win jackpot prizes by participating in the online offer on Haier India Facebook page. To participate in the same, every consumer will get a scratch card on purchase of a Haier product which reveals a unique code. The customer has to enter the code on a dedicated Facebook application hosted on www.facebook.com/haierindia and get a chance to turn the slot and save/lock the highest number according to them. Winners are being announced every week basis the highest locked number in the database.

By extending the offer to online platforms, Haier has become a part of its customers’ lives through the most popular medium which keeps people connected with each other.

is the

The

in the Hindi Belt

of products, inspired by the Internet age.

WITH 1.42 Cr READERS Haier’s legacy is built on inspiration This was a revolutionary step taken by

and innovation – inspiration that comes from listening to our customer needs constantly and innovation that drives us to create the best solutions

Haier to offer products for the Internet generation which believes in pace, imagination, intelligence and path-breaking innovations.

The online platforms are where brands more interactive and Source : can IRS 2013have * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand engaging conversations with the consumers, hence we are focusing on digital. As compared to last year, we have increased our digital spends by 100 per cent to tap into the ever growing online community.

Fastest Growing How has Haier divided its marketing spends for the festive season between TV, Print, radio and digital?

While during the first half of the year, the spends are more towards television the second half of the year sees the marketing spends skewed more towards print, outdoors, roadshows and other offline platforms to promote the festive offers. Digital platforms would be extremely important this time to promote the offer which culminates on Social Media. Overall, we have increased the marketing spends during the festival season by around 50 per cent from last year.

Hindi Daily in Uttar Pradesh

undisputed

No.1

Has the focus on digital increased from last year?

Yes, as a brand, our focus has always been on creating solutions that suit the needs of modern contemporary families. Haier’s legacy is built on inspiration and innovation – inspiration that comes from listening to our customer needs constantly and innovation that drives us to create the best solutions. This year marked an important milestone for us as we completed 10 successful years in India and to celebrate this moment with our consumers, we introduced our unique ‘i-age’ line

With more than 72 Lakh readers.

Which products is Haier focusing more on this time around?

Haier, with its widest range of product portfolio this year, has recently launched some incredible innovative products under the ‘i-age’ range of products. We are focusing on products such as the newly launched Golden Ratio Bottom Mounted Refrigerator, which has been customized to suit the needs of Indians, Haier Smart Air Conditioner, 4K technology- wifi enabled LED Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand TV, ‘i-shine’ front loading Washing Machine named Crystal, Haier Deep Freezers, Haier Aquatunes Water Heater with an inbuilt USB port for music function.

of Bihar & Jharkhand

Which part of the country does Haier get the maximum revenues from in these months?

While our customer base is widespread in all the regions during this time of the year, we expect the maximum revenue to come from the west, north and central parts, followed closely by southern and eastern markets. We are optimistic of 50 per cent growth during this part of the year as compared to the corresponding period in FY13. n Source :-rashi.bisaria@exchange4media.com IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand

With more than 56.65 Lakh readers, Hindustan is the No.1 Hindi Daily in Bihar

34 lakh* women can't see your brand if you are not in The only Magazine with the reach of a Newspaper Pitch Pitch || October November 2014 2014

47 No.1 in Hindi Belt * Source : Female Readers of Hindustan, IRS 2013 Hindi Belt: Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand

COLUMN Your customers are on mobile.

Where is your ad-spend this festive season?

Abhishek Dadoo Founder & CEO Shoffr

abhishek@shoffr.com

Share of wallet campaigns should communicate a crisp value proposition designed for the customer to take action

48

I

s it the case that your customers linger around the city discovering what’s new during festive season?

Maybe, and if so, please go right ahead and plaster your banners at every of�line media possible. Or is it the case that your customers are on Facebook and WhatsApp discussing and preparing for festivities with their friends and family? Festive season is a season of committed spending. Most customers have a pre-decided budget and are typically overwhelmed with the advertisements bombarded at them. With this backdrop in mind, let’s analyse the role mobile advertising can play for you this festive season.

Mobile media has a daunting landscape and targeting existing customers on mobile is tricky. However, we can simplify our lives by answering three basic questions about your mobile ad campaigns: • Increase brand awareness, share of mind, or share of wallet?

• Drive traf�ic to online-store or of�line-stores?

• Advertise via third party or proprietary mobile assets?

Objective: Brand Awareness, Share of Mind, or Share of Wallet

requiring the highest marketing dollars and share of wallet campaigns requiring the lowest.

Remember that customers’ festive season wallet size (budget) is �ixed. Hence ads should be designed to increase your share of wallet. In my view, going after increasing brand awareness or share of mind is wasteful during festive seasons because there are many competing ad campaigns ongoing during this time. Hence, it’s best to narrow the focus to increasing share of wallet.

On mobile the screen space is small, customer attention span is low, and the mobile data meter is ticking. Share of wallet campaigns should communicate a crisp value proposition designed for the customer to take action. Share of wallet campaigns are in-fact best suited for mobile.

On the �lip-side and by its very nature, a brand awareness campaign for new customers requires painting a larger than life picture for the customer. Such campaigns need physically larger canvases and demand more attention span from the customer.

For a brand, every ad campaign is designed to increase one-and-only-one of the three fundamental marketing levers – brand awareness, share of mind, or share of wallet. Ad spends vary for each lever, with brand awareness campaigns

Do you have a mobile optimized e-commerce portal or an e-commerce enabled native app? If you don’t have one, avoid the mobile advertising channel for your ecommerce portal all together. Simply focus on promoting your e-commerce portal via

Traf�ic: Online or Of�line

Pitch | November 2014

desktop advertising channels.

The true power of mobile advertising comes to light when you leverage mobiles’ location aware features to drive traf�ic to your of�line stores. More power to you, if your ads are not only location aware, but also customer preferences aware. This form of micro-targeting typically yields the best return on advertising investment.

Fortunately or unfortunately, such microtargeting can only be achieved via mobile advertising.

The true power of mobile advertising comes to light when you leverage mobiles’ location aware features to drive traffic to your offline stores

Festive Season Ads Framework

Mobile Publishers: Third Party or Proprietary Third party mobile publishers include popular websites, popular apps, social media, or SMS databases. We can consider e-commerce aggregators such as Amazon, Flipkart, and SnapDeal as third party publishers for our purpose. Typically these assets are made available for advertising via mobile ad-exchanges such as inMobi or AdMob. Of course you can always send an SMS blast to a database of phone numbers. However, there is one catch – it is virtually impossible to differentiate between existing customers and non-customers on third party mobile assets. Hence, your festive share of wallet campaigns will be targeted to customers and non-customers alike, thereby lowering your return on the

Pitch | November 2014

ad campaigns.

Putting this in the context of share of wallet campaigns for the festive season, we would ideally like to target brand aware existing customers only. Targeting non-customers with share of wallet campaigns is wasteful to say the least. This is because a brand would have to traverse the brand awareness and share of mind phases before delivering a successful share of wallet campaign. To run a successful share of wallet mobile campaign, its best to leverage your very own proprietary assets, i.e. customer segmentation and customized messages via native app noti�ications, SMS, or mobile web pop-ups.

Building proprietary mobile assets takes time, resources, planning, and good content. This might seem like a

lot of work but the good news is that the mobile era has just begun. Collect and sanitize your customer data, get your apps installed on your customers’ smartphone, and analyse the customer transaction history to death. In the meantime you might have to revert to third party mobile assets for your festive season ad campaigns.

To summarize, here is the mantra for mobile marketers this festive season – Opt for location aware share of wallet campaigns that drive traf�ic to of�line stores by leveraging your proprietary mobile assets. 

The views expressed here are of the author alone, and do not necessarily re�lect the views of Pitch

49

COLUMN Is your business Diwaliready? Are brands using the digital medium effectively?

Saurabh Uboweja

CEO, Brands of Desire

saurabh.uboweja@brandsofdesire.com

E-commerce in India has acquired the reputation of thriving on discounts, offers and everything in between that makes the customer feel she is getting a great deal 50

W

ith e-commerce quickly becoming ubiquitous in India, the use of digital is coming of age. Social media has proven its worth during the election campaigns early this year along with popular current themes like Modi, Sports and Bollywood. Mobile is �inally on the get-set-go mark as a credible channel for building brands. Are brands ready for the festive push this season? Will they leverage the seasonal momentum to augment their engagement?

Are they doing enough? This article is an attempt to decode answers to some of these questions.

The Great Indian Festive Season (GIFS) starts in late September and goes all the way till end of November, covering Navaratri, Eid, Dussehra, Bhai Duj and peaks during Diwali. It is chased closely by the wedding season, concluding with the year-end holidays for Christmas and New Year. For a lot of consumer brands, the 3-month period makes up for 50-60 per cent of their annual sales and preparation for the season starts as early as six months before the season.

Leaving the Modi euphoria and the resulting exuberance aside, a signi�icant portion of the country’s middle and lower income families will curtail their expenses during this festive season due to rising costs across key consumables.

They are forced to slash their festive

budget to meet their monthly expenses.

E-commerce in India has acquired the reputation of thriving on discounts, offers and everything in between that makes the customer feel she is getting a great deal!

On the surface, it appears that digital and festive buyers would make a great match.

However, this is far from true based on initial observations just at the start of the festive season.

Pitch | November 2014

For independent brands, the usual approach is boosting engagement and top of mind recall, which should lead to cross channel sales. For online marketplaces, the approach is almost always seasonal offers and discounts, which should lead to sales.The fact that e-commerce in India does the same all year round, their approach hasn’t been inspiring in offering something new to the festive customer.

Buying consumer electronics is amongst the most popular trends during the festive season. Out of the three independent brands studied, Dell is the most active in using digital to engage with their potential customers. They launched a digital campaign – Celebrate Dell se, which they are running on a microsite. Their social media pages have the same campaign running, with interesting content, contests and offers. LG has a dedicated webpage on Diwali but hardly thrilling.

Their social media campaign is also not that engaging, though it may pick up as the season progresses. Sony like

always is product oriented in their festive promotion on social media without much action on their website.

Strangely, popular beverage brands like Pepsi and Coke don’t appear to be using digital to reach out to their consumers during the season, even though one would assume that their sales should sky rocket during this time as friends and families get together often. A quick look at the global Coke campaigns during festive seasons took me to the Coke Zero campaign last year. It ran one of the most successful global digital campaigns during Christmas 2013 – SweaterGenerator.com, which had nothing really to do with product promotion but was driven by engagement and brand recall.

Online marketplace brands Out of the brands studied, Amazon leads by a good margin. They have created several pages dedicated to the season. Pages like ‘Online Shopping Dhamaka’offer new deals every day.

They have also set up an online ‘Gift Store’ which sells gift cards, gift sets & hampers, festive season deals and a

Digital as a strategy has to be an extension of the offline sales strategy. The campaign should aim to be seamless

Pitch | November 2014

community initiative (light up a child’s Diwali). With unique pages on ‘Navratra beauty look for women’ and ‘festive look books for women’s ethnic wear’, their creative customer engagement on the portal and social media is de�initely the most effective. Snapdeal comes a close second but predictable with a ‘Diwali Bumper Sale’across categories such as kitchenware, home furnishing, home décor, furniture and toys, electronics

and women’s ethnic wear. The sale is promoted through Facebook as well.

Myntra is rather subtle and has a Navratri Festive Offer on women’s ethnic wear. Although, they have scheduled Myntra Fashion Festival during the Navratra dates, the brand look hasn’t been updated to re�lect the festive look.

Flipkart, surprisingly doesn’t seem interested. They have a Navratri focused dedicated page but nothing beyond it.

Their social media pages haven’t been updated to re�lect the season yet. Jabong has been the biggest disbelief, as they haven’t yet done anything worthwhile on digital to attract consumers to their brand.

Here are some useful tips that marketers may consider while building a digital strategy for the festive season.

1. Digital as a strategy has to be an extension of the of�line sales strategy.

The campaign should aim to be seamless. For example, a successful of�line campaign can be made viral online. Watch the “WestJet Christmas Miracle” video. The video got more than 30 million hits. We are yet to see Indian brands harnessing the power of digital in more than obvious ways.

2. Be creative. You have to connect with people’s emotions in your engagement strategy. Yes, digital doesn’t just mean discounts and offers.

3. Build up the excitement at least a month earlier to build anticipation of the season allowing consumers to plan their purchases.

4. Work harder on the visual merchandizing online much the same way as you do in physical stores during the season.

5. Surprise and delight customers with gifts and make their festive season special. 

The views expressed here are of the author alone, and do not necessarily re�lect the views of Pitch

51

COLUMN

Brand Equity & the E-Tailing Wars Hamsini Shivakumar

Owner, Leapfrog Strategy Consulting

hamsini6@googlemail.com

Flipkart, Amazon and SnapDeal should earn consumer trust, affinity and goodwill because they are making shopping much more affordable 52

T

he festive season of 2014 will be marked as the year of the e-tailing wars in India, which are intended to get the e-commerce sector to cross a tipping point of scale. If the print media reports are to be believed, it has succeeded.

Flipkart achieved Rs.600 cr of sales in 10 hours and its rivals report increased sales as well.

In its wake it has unleashed protests and retaliatory action in the consumer electronics sector more than any other. It seems from this that the maximum consumer interest in the discounted prices has been in consumer electronics or the fear of lost sales by the conventional retail trade is highest in this product market.

One of the bigger points of contention is the loss of brand equity for brands like Apple, Sony, Samsung, LG, Whirlpool etc due to being sold at highly discounted prices on Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal. What happens when a consumer �inds that a 45” �lat screen Sony TV costs Rs.45,000/- in the showroom, but is available on Flipkart’s Festival Sale for Rs.20,000/-? And a Whirlpool refrigerator that costs Rs.25,000/- is now available for Rs.10,000/-?

There are different brands that

participate in the unfolding drama – the manufacturer brands, the e-tailer brand as well as the bricks & mortar retailer brand. What happens to brand equity in each of these cases?

What aspects of the brand’s symbolic elements are impacted by these price wars? Is it trustworthiness? Is it exclusiveness and consequently status and badge value? Is it af�inity?

Arguably, Flipkart, Amazon and SnapDeal should earn consumer trust, af�inity and goodwill because they are making all shopping much more affordable, thus enabling consumers to enhance their lifestyle multi-fold within their budget. For

Pitch | November 2014

the consumer, these sales are a lifestyle bonanza being showered upon them by the e-tailer brands, which they should reciprocate with growing goodwill towards these brands.

On the other hand, brands like Sony, Samsung, Apple etc have to contend with the net impact of high price variability for end-consumers.

rather than full price or higher markup price in regular retail.

Extreme price drop and price variation across retail channels can be seen by consumers to break the trust code of integrity/reliability vis-àvis the manufacturer or originator brand. It also sets up for the implicit ‘greater fool’ drama around who is

Even if consumers understand that it is the e-tailers who are selling below cost price, extreme price drop can lead buyers to question the trustworthiness of the manufacturer Even if consumers understand that it is the e-tailers who are selling below cost price, extreme price drop can lead buyers to question either the trustworthiness or the authority/ leadership of the manufacturer in the product market. An alternative scenario is that consumers continue to trust and respect the brands, but they begin to attach the label of the ‘discount-brand’ to some of them suggesting that they are permanently on ‘sale’ or that they are only worth buying at a discount via e-tailers,

Pitch | November 2014

smarter in cheating whom and by how much, in a price negotiation.

In addition, it opens up space for a consumer watch-dog or protector of consumers’ interests to enter, one who regulates the actions of the players or keeps consumers informed on what is a fair price to pay for products and services.

It is with these considerations in mind that manufacturers seem to have decided to take action to rectify the situation. Some are now saying they will no longer supply products

Extreme price drop and price variation across retail channels can be seen by consumers to break the trust code vis-à-vis the manufacturer or originator brand direct to e-tailers, nor will they provide original service guarantees to products bought from e-tailers.

This would stop e-tailers from indulging in heavy discounting to move stock.

Even if they source products from wholesalers, the lack of service guarantees would be a deterrent for customers.

Online fashion retailers such as Myntra and Jabong also had to contend with push back from fashion brands with regards to their discounting for fear of diluting the brand’s status signi�ication as well as addressing franchisee retailer concerns on lost revenue. To address this issue, some brands therefore set a policy that the current season’s fashion would not be made available in the online channel, only previous seasons.

In sum, the rapid growth of e-tailing in India as a ‘discount’ or ‘lowest price’ channel, positioned on compare, save and buy from the convenience of your home or of�ice does not augur well for manufacturer brands. There are points of caution for them to take note of in order to protect not just their brand equity, but the usefulness and value of branding per se. 

The views expressed here are of the author alone, and do not necessarily re�lect the views of Pitch

53

INTERVIEW

ANIKA AGARWAL

Can you elaborate on the ‘lighthouse positioning’ and how Max Bupa has succeeded in being different?

When we entered the market in 2010, we were the number 21 player and 3rd health insurance specialist after Apollo and Star. It was a cluttered market and a low involvement category. For the brand, the most important questions was to do with bringing about differentiation .The brand decided to use the light house positioning from day one.We had decided not to use the usual push hard marketing strategy and to do things differently. The brand started its journey with the strong belief that it wanted to be the health partner for customers.

Instead of pushing people to buy health insurance we promoted the idea of good health. For all our online or offline campaigns we have used our ethos of spreading awareness about the importance of health.

Since last year, we have incorporated the idea of family into the brand ethos. India still adheres to the concept of caring for the health of family members. We want to own the family health space.

In a span of four years, the brand already enjoys the highest customer awareness from among the five health specialist insurance companies, out of which Apollo and Star had entered the market much before Max. As far as consideration and recommendation are concerned people are choosing and also recommending Max insurance.

How have you used innovation to engage with customers in an interesting manner?

The health insurance category is uninteresting.

“We want to own the family health space.”

H

ealth Insurer Max Bupa’s ‘light house positioning’ has helped it differentiate from the other players in the category . Started four years ago, the company recorded 50 per cent growth in its Growth Written Premium (GWP) last fiscal. Kanika Mehrotra of Pitch Spoke to Anika Agarwal, AVP and Head-Marketing Planning and Brand Development, Max Bupa on how contextual and relevant content can ignite interest in a supposedly boring category like insurance. The brand’s digital strategy has also helped it stay ahead in the game.

54

Pitch | October 2014

For the brand, it is a big challenge to engage people. We have tried and remained contextual to our customers. We try to remain as trendy and latest as possible with respect to our communication. Our digital campaigns are not about driving health insurance but focus on driving broader conversations about people, their health and daily lives.

One such example is the Max Bupa Family Selfie Campaign, which was started keeping in mind the selfie trend and the recently adopted ethos of family health.We had asked people to click family selfies and upload them on Twitter.

The campaign - #FamilySelfie – touched 2.4 lakh online users. This was tied in with Max Bupa Family Campaign meant to promote our unique product Heartbeat Family First that covers up to 14 relationships.

The campaign was successful and connected with existing followers to re-iterate our commitment to family values.

Who is your target audience for these campaigns?

We are not like the typical insurance players that target a stereotypical age group.

We are targeting the entire family. We involve the whole family into the conversation. Last year’s Walk for health campaign we involved a lot of school children as we believe that the idea of good health needs to be imbibed in our values and system.

You recently touched the 300,000 number of Facebook fans while on twitter you have 17.5 K followers. How differently do you deal with these media? Which of the two gives better results?

IS NOW Pitch | October 2014

Our engagement ratio is significantly more than that of our competitors. Most important reason for our success is that our content is relevant and contextual

Birender Ahluwalia-Director -Sales and Distribution Max Bupa and actor Sonam Kapoor at Max Bupa Walk for Health event in Mumbai

Social media is a very integral part of our marketing strategy and we use it very actively unlike other players in this space.

For instance, we have customer engagement platforms on Facebook like the Get Help initiative. Our engagement ratio is significantly more than that of our competitors. Most important reason for our success is that our content is relevant and contextual.

We also do customized campaigns specifically for digital media like the Satya Mythya ki Paathshala. The initiative aims to address some of the most common misconceptions which have the maximum impact on the industry’s take off, ranging from perception of insurance as a tax saving instrument to doubts and mistrust related to the benefit of health insurance

No.1

This campaign will be back in quarter four of 2014.

How are you using Google Hangouts considering that the last one did not have a good turnout?

That google hangout was specifically for tax planning, and therefore limited.

Google hangout is an important tool for us. For our next event ‘Walk for Health’, another Google Hangout has been planned but this time it would be far more generic and topical. We would organize hangouts with influential people on the topic of walking which is expected to have more traction. Google Hangouts and all the new features of social websites form an integral part of our marketing strategy. n -kanika.mehrotra@exchange4media.com

in the Hindi Belt

WITH 1.42 Cr READERS 55 Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand

A smart digital plan and micro data, key to winning campaigns

By Rashi Bisaria

T

he recently concluded general elections have become a study in the use of social media analytics to gain understanding of human behaviour at a micro level. How the Bharatiya Janata party used the data collected to get the momentum going formed the core of Arvind Gupta’s talk at exchange4media’s CMO League held at the Leela in Gurgaon on September 5. exchange4media’s CMO League was presented by Headlines Today and powered by Dainik Bhaskar. Himalayan was the Associate Sponsor, while Co Sponsor was Tez. An IIT BHU graduate and PhD in data analysis from Illinois in US, Gupta shared the best practices employed by the BJP and how the seeds for this clean sweep by the saffron party were sown five years ago. “In 2009, the BJP performed miserably and it was a lesson learnt the hard way. There was no personalisation or planning. We were directionless, a party in chaos. That’s when we realised the importance of planning ahead. The seeds were sown for the 2014 campaign,” explained Gupta.

Explaining how technology was leveraged to its own advantage by the party, Gupta added, “In early 2010, we began the planning. We worked back with the data.

We segmented all electoral booths and studied the internet penetration in that booth. Extensive planning and research was conducted. We knew how to reach

56

Arvind Gupta | Head, BJP IT cell

each constituency.

“Speed, size and scale turned Having data at a micro out to be the biggest factors in level is key to planning this campaign” any campaign.”

BJP’s social media campaign tried out some masterstrokes that worked in its favour. They trained volunteers as online campaigners. campaign and digital media helped, by preThey understood where they were weak cise targeting and smarter reach. The camand focused on those areas. The party had paigners mastered the art of free air time or 22 lakh volunteers who were trained to fo- free media. In fact, digital brought down the cost of engagement producing the highest cus on the areas.

“We found out that 160 seats were digi- ROI. When asked what the reasons for the tally strong and 200 seats were still digidismal performance of other parties were, tally dark. They had to be our focus group.

Gupta replied, “Other parties had a bad We used technology innovatively and what product.

They also failed miserably on their helped even more was that Mr Modi was a communication.

They misjudged and unmaster communicator. We held virtual raldermined the mood of the nation. There lies where Mr Modi could personalise the were clear signs which they chose to igmessage. Speed, size and scale turned out nore.

Congress should have recalibrated its to be the biggest factors in this campaign,” campaign after reading the signs. ” he said.

When asked about mid-campaign Gupta gave immense importance to ‘crowd-sourcing of ideas’ and spoke about course correction, Gupta was quick to point the positives of being open to ideas from out that his team did at least four-five corpeople at large. Personalisation of mes- rections by becoming more aggressive each saging became another strong pillar in the time. Addressing marketers, he shared how small victories and strong self-belief led the campaign to its successful completion and a resounding victory for the BJP. His final words to marketers summed up his message, “Content is key and the meat lies in execution and implementation.

Social media had set the narrative for traditional media”. n

Personalisation of messaging became another strong pillar in the campaign and digital media helped, by precise targeting and smarter reach

Pitch | November 2014

Are Marketers ready for the ‘unmetro’ India?

By Rashi Bisaria

H

ave the tier 2 and 3 cities become the real growth drivers for brands and are marketers ready for this new set of consumers?

The discussion among eminent marketers at the CMO League organised by the exchange4media group in Gurgaon, explored the aspects of this growing trend that is keeping marketers on their toes.

Small town India is fast catching up in all spheres, having become a breeding ground of consumerism with a growth potential waiting to be harnessed. ‘On today’s date, 50 per cent of the business is coming from tier 2 and 3 cities. Exposure to media has removed the urban-rural divide,’ said Amarjit Batra , CEO Olx India and Head, Asia. ‘There is no major difference between the aspirations of people in these towns versus those in the metros. In fact, people in these towns are more receptive,” he added.

Kunwar Sachdev, Founder and CEO, Su Kam, the India-based power solutions provider shared his own insights with regard to the consumer behaviour patterns in small towns where he said, relationships proved to be critical. Marketers entering this space need to have a local touch if they wish to create a niche for themselves and their products. Stressing on the importance of home grown talent and manpower, Sachdev related anecdotes from his life as an entrepreneur who faced and surmounted the challenges when he set up Su-Kam in 1992.

From humble beginnings in a small town his brand now has a presence in more than 70 countries.

Vice President, Sales and Marketing of NIIT, Satinder Juneja spoke about how techPitch | November 2014

nology was helping homogenise the markets. Giving a fresh perspective to the discussions, he shared how definitions of small towns were changing. “Marketers should pick up the heterogeneity from the markets and take them into account when devising their plans,” he said.

Marketers in India are seeing a growing interest in products and services from the tier 2 and 3 towns but there are a number of challenges when they enter these locations.

Local manufacturers and brands always have an upper hand as they have better access to the people and are familiar with the consumer culture of the place. What also creates a hurdle is their own bifurcated mindset which overlooks the growing similarities between behaviour patterns across India. Speaking about the communication in these regions, Ashish Sehgal , Chief Sales Officer , Zee Entertainment EnterpriseLtd said, “Despite the similarities, it is important to devise different communication for different markets.” Kaakon Sethi, Group Chief

Corporate Marketing Officer, Dainik Bhaskar Group described how ‘unmetro’ India had the capacity to surprise marketers. “Earlier, Mumbai was the most important market in that region for us. But recently, we analysed the market in detail to find out that central Maharashtra had a huge potential. The discovery of central Maharashtra as an important market was wonderful,” she said.

So just what was keeping marketers from exploiting the potential of this emerging market? One reason, as pointed out by Amit Kumar Gope, Head Marketing at Century PlyBoards was the lack of data and hence knowledge about these markets.

“More data is needed for marketers to evaluate these markets,” he said.

Summing up the session, Manu Seth, Director Marketing, HTC India and also the moderator said, “ The question for marketers now is to know how to expand their customer base in these markets. Customisation of solutions is important for these markets as one solution may not work for all locations.” n

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Pitch | November 2014

Pitch | November 2014

7

FEATURE

WHITE LABEL ATMs

How White Label ATMs can serve marketers in giving exposure to brands

By RASHI BISARIA

O

wned, maintained and operated by third parties, White Label ATMs have come as a welcome facility both for banks and also for the different brands associating with the platform for their own exposure. RBI announced guidelines to operate these cost effective ATMs in 2012 but it took almost 2 years for them to start operations in the remote parts of the country. Tata’s Indicash White Label ATMs were not only the �irst to enter this new territory but have become market leaders with 70 per cent of the market share. What is also working well for Tata Communications Payment Solutions is how the ATM space is being used effectively by brands for advertising especially in inaccessible small town locations of the country.

As Sanjeev Patel, CEO, Tata Communications Payment Solutions says, “We are spread across 17 states pan India and our focus is on tier 3 to tier 6 locations. We go into places that have hitherto not been penetrated by ATMs.” It is the rural catchment areas that Tata is tapping into, from areas that have a population below 15000 to places where it is below 5000.

The Tata group has overcome several local challenges to establish its presence in these far �lung locations. The small towns do not have organised set ups and Indicash

has had to look for variants to room rental models. But as the group has established its presence in these remote corners of the country having surmounted dif�iculties related to lack of infrastructure, it now provides an apt platform to marketers. “From a marketer’s perspective, we present a reasonably attractive option to expose brands to customers, where there are not many organized media options,” says Patel. “We offer options of various formats in an atm room. We see reasonable footfall as we tend to be in the main locations. Hence, it

“The ATMs give both an avenue to gain brand exposure in entirely new locations along with brand engagement through interactive set ups”

Sanjeev Patel | CEO, Tata Communications Payment Solutions

60

presents a reasonably attractive media vehicle for brands who want to advertise to the customers there. Another advantage is that there is really no real competition to this media till now,” he adds.

The formats available to the marketers include the front glass of the ATM room, the inside of the room, the ATM wrap, and brochure stands. Salesmen too are allowed to promote their products.

“The ATMs give both an avenue to gain brand exposure in entirely new locations along with brand engagement through interactive set ups. It is easy to capture the customer’s undivided attention during the time he spends here,” explains Patel. A variety of brands like HDFC Mutual Funds, Tata DoComo, FedEx, Asian Paints, Hero Honda, Tata Motors have already come forward to use this unique opportunity. A key telecom client refusing to be named expressed how it bene�itted from this platform, “ Our keen interest was to generate leads and we do �ind potential in this medium as it has an assured footfall by way of walk-ins.” Automobile players have also shown interest in the concept that drives visibility in targeted catchment areas where other advertising opportunities are limited.

Tata Indicash has plans to expand to 15000 ATMs by 2016 of which two thirds would be in tier 3 to tier 6 locations. Product managers and media planners can use their money in a targeted manner to reach out to speci�ic sets of people in rural areas.

The concept can enable more involved purchase decisions among customers, having caught the attention of the target audience within the closed space of an ATM room.  - rashi.bisaria@exchange4media.com Pitch | November 2014

INTERVIEW

SUPAM MAHESHWARI

FirstCry.com taps the market for baby care products with innovative offerings T

he online babycare market in India is still at a nascent stage and unorganised even though the industry is massive at Rs 50,000 crore. FirstCry.com, based on a hybrid business model is trying to fill a gap that has existed in the small towns where parents do not have easy access to quality baby products. Rashi Bisaria of Pitch spoke to Supam Maheshwari, CEO and Founder, FirstCry.com to find out how this player entered an unorganised market and how it is succeeding in establishing its presence through innovative offerings. Edited excerpts: What was the environment in baby care products like when Firstcry launched?

When we launched Firstcry, the industry for baby products was signi�icantly small.

We were not the �irst to enter the market but we were quick to become the largest. The number of brands in the market were low which led to a huge gap between the needs of the parents and the choice available. The brands that were available were scattered and there was not any one platform where a parent could easily buy what he/she needed.

What was the gap that Firstcry stepped

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in to �ill? Please describe what were the needs of customers which were not being met, which strata of society was Firstcry aiming to target?

The Baby and kids industry in India is massive, with a large portion of it being untapped and unorganized. There was a dearth of quality products and brands that were available in the market. Apart from that there was a huge gap in the access that parents in smaller towns had to quality baby products. We have been able to democratise availability and at the same time we have made sure we create delight with our variety. We cater to the widest

range of price points in each category in order to provide for parents from all socioeconomic pro�iles.

What was the clutter breaking technique that Firstcry used?

Firstcry.com works on a hybrid business model. So, apart from the online presence, FirstCry.com also has over 70 stores across India including Tier I and Tier II cities, and the stores operate under the brand “FirstCry.com”. In addition, Firstcry runs a unique programme wherein the brand reaches over 70,000 unique parents each month by giving out a Firstcry Box. Under Pitch | November 2014

IS NOW

No.1

this programme, free gift boxes are given to each new parent across 6000 hospitals in the country as a token of congratulating them on the birth of their child. The box contains the basic necessities like diaper, lotion, oil, etc. from leading global brands like Mamy Poko and Libero. Firstcry has already delivered 3 lakh boxes across In-

is the

Pitch Pitch || October November 2014 2014

in the Hindi Belt

WITH 1.42 Cr READERS

dia and plans to reach 2 million parents by end of 2015 with this programme.

How big is the baby care market and what is the share of ecommerce players in it?

The Baby and Kid’s industry is massive and is estimated to be at nearly

Rs. 50,000 cr. It is largely unorganized.

The high birth rate in India, coupled with the ever growing middle to upper income class will ensure that this industry keeps growing at a rapid pace.

TheSource share of * ecommerce players as &ofUttarakhand : IRS 2013 Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh now is comparatively very low. Having said that, we strongly believe there also

Fastest Growing Hindi Daily in Uttar Pradesh

With more than 72 Lakh readers.

63 Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand

INTERVIEW

SUPAM MAHESHWARI

lies great scope of growth in the ecommerce sector.

Chains like Mom and Me are also looking at entering ecommerce space. How will it affect Firstcry?

We see competition as healthy since it means there are more players building the market. Our focus is on leveraging our strengths and continuing to build new innovations that complete our view of the baby and kids eco-system. The continuous large scale awareness created by the FirstCry Box program ensures that we reach parents early. The large variety of brands and products and our close partnership with brands ensure that we have the best offerings in the market. Add to that the delight of easy access whether at our local store or through timely home delivery and you have a customer-focused recipe for success.

osk innovation has made it exceptionally easy for customers to browse through 70,000 products listed on Firstcry.com.

To get Indian parents familiarised with our concept, we introduced our Firstcry Box Programme. We at Firstcry are obsessed with a mom’s needs. We were determined to create an ecosystem in the niche by providing a well-integrated of-

making sure that new moms receive quality samples in a quality box. The momentum at which we are tapping newer parents every month is unmatched. We further aim to reach 2 million parents in the next 12 months.

What are your plans for the future?

We want to be the clear market leaders for baby product market in India.

If you want to order for your baby’s products, Firstcry.com has to be ‘the ultimate destination’. Our focus will be on constant innovation, improvement and value addition to leverage the customer experience. There are hardly

We cater to the widest range of price points in each category in order to provide for parents from all socio-economic profiles.

The fully integrated and synergistic clickand-brick model, with a focus on Tier-II and -III towns makes our model strong. .

What were some of the biggest challenges faced by Firstcry in its journey?

The vision was very clear when we started off with �irstcry.com. Our focus was to bring easy access for baby and kids products for the parents. When we began, the market was unorganised where customers did not have easy access to world class brands or even enough variety and good quality products. As a team, we have always viewed all challenges as opportunities. We observed that the Indian parents largely preferred buying of�line that gave us great inspiration to adopt the hybrid model. Further to make shopping a delightful experience, we installed kiosks at our stores. The ki-

64

�line as well as online option for parents to avail whatever product or brand they needed for their kids.

How are you building the brand?

Which media are you using?

Our brand image is majorly elevated by strong word of mouth & customer oriented marketing initiatives. With “Celebrating the Happiest Cry Ever” programme, Firstcry.com has tied up with more than 6000 hospitals across the country and has already delivered to 2 lac Firstcry boxes. Big hospital chains like Apollo, Columbia Asia, Fortis, and well known maternity homes like Seven Hills in Mumbai, Manipal in Bangalore, Paras Springs in Delhi, Ruby Hospital in Pune are all part of the program. We have partnered with some of the world’s leading baby brands like Mamy Poko, Libero and Chicco in

good baby stores available in India in any city within a distance of 5 Km, so as of the expansion plans, we will reach 100 stores

by December, 2014 and 400 by 2017.

We are passionate about creating an ecosystem of related solutions for parents.

We will continue to roll out more initiatives that build this eco-system.

What have been the big milestones for the portal so far?

Today with a footprint in over 20 states with more than 70 stores, we are in a great position to offer the right variety of brands and products to parents. Firstcry.com has touched the lives of over 1 million parents.

The Firstcry box programme has been instrumental in helping us reach over 3 lakh new parents already. These are just some numbers to help appreciate the scale.  -rashi.bisaria@exchange4media.com Pitch | November 2014

Pitch Pitch || October November 2014 2014

65

COLUMN

Do you know your Audience?

Vinish Kathuria

Chief Operating Office, Digital Quotient

vinishk@live.com

It’s imperative to have a fundamental grasp of your audience’s behavior and know who’s looking for the services or products you offer 66

T

he digital marketing industry is at a cusp of a paradigm shift, the old rules of digital marketing are giving way to the new set of mantras for data driven real-time marketing decisions. At the center of this transition is an ever evolving, time starved and multifaceted consumer. More and more consumers are in an ‘always on’ mode on various digital devices like mobile, PCs and tablets at homes, on transit and at of�ices. They scourge the internet for the best deals, buys and review multiple products on e-commerce sites daily.

They discover content through various sources like search, social recommendations and content-curated sites. In this fast paced environment where millions and billions of digital engagement is taking place across thousands of touchpoints, the challenge to catch the right audience at the right place with the right marketing communication is paramount.

Thus, knowing your audience behavior can help you exponentially in the success of your marketing campaign as you can customize it as per their need.

Today, the dynamic digital landscape and via technological advancements there are endless opportunities to advertise and engage with customers. It is also not surprising to note increasing spends on digital and mobile advertising by many brands. In fact, they spend bigger

parts of their budgets targeting the digital world and yet they struggle given the inability to track audience behavior vis a vis bulk digital purchases. Many wonder if they are wasting money each month on online advertising that doesn’t really reach ideal prospects and often think what if every person who saw their ad online �it the perfect customer pro�ile?

Therefore, regardless of the kind of

Pitch | November 2014

business you run, it’s important to pay attention to people visiting your site or pro�ile. It’s imperative to have a fundamental grasp of your audience’s behavior and know who’s looking for the services or products you offer— and who you want to be following your business — varies from business to business and from website to website.

The internet reaches a global audience round the clock every day. Therefore, it becomes critical for a brand to be digitally active and track the digital journey of these audiences. The ways in which consumers interact, shop and explore the world around us have been considerably altered by technological developments. The evolved consumer

behavior due to digital evolution - is an important aspect to be analyzed by marketers that demands newer approach for building and delivering products/services.

For doing this the key factors are segmenting and �iltering your target audience. Mining the most relevant data on user’s digital behavior that will help marketers reach out to the target audi-

Pitch | November 2014

ence in a better way. Not everyone is looking for the service or products you offer, and without precise audiencebucketing you might be missing out on the audiences who are your potential customers. Thus, the need today is for optimization of the research tools and platforms to offer actionable marketing intelligence by analyzing tons of data on audience’s digital journey and �iltering info most relevant for your brand/company to save any wastage in marketing expenditure.

Imagine if you could quickly say that your Twitter following is 58% female, 87% white, 39% in the metros and 81% in the higher than a lakh income bracket? That might help you sculpt

The need today is for optimization of the research tools and platforms to offer actionable marketing intelligence

your Tweets and target based on your products and service that appeal to that type of audience better. What if you could also include that your typical follower shops at Emporia or Flipkart, eats at McDonalds more often than other QSRs? With this kind of precise data you can open up partnership and cross-promotional opportunities traditional research and demographics doesn’t always produce. Tools are now emerging to help marketers understand their audiences better.

As with any marketing campaign, business owners should research extensively and thoroughly understand their audience before they launch their campaign. Today, the ways to research are also highly dependent on data & analytic platforms. A platform should be such that provides you with intelligence which helps you in reaching out to your right target audience at the right time with the right solutions.

Imagine as a marketer you had precise data about your target audience – who they are? What they need? When they need it? And how? Won’t it be fascinating for you as well as your customers?

Imagine the kind of power and edge it will give to you over others.

The digital ecosystem, today, provides plethora of newer ways to connect with audiences as it runs on innovation and engagement. But without de�ining who your audience is and which tool will be most effective for them, as a CMO you cannot execute your strategy. If you haven’t already realized the importance of engaging your target audiences you are already lagging behind. Traditional players in various segments are realizing this massive change and are now pulling up their sleeves to get into the game.

One should not only analyze the basic demographics and purchasing patterns, but there are a number of other factors to be kept in mind regarding digital audiences. With the rise of social media, it’s important to consider that some users may actually be more valuable than they initially appear based on their level of online in�luence and word-of-mouth.

Ultimately, it’s all about how well and impactful is in brand engaging and connecting with the audiences. It’s an era of dialogue creation, with integrated campaigns across platforms that are far more effective in delivering brand’s message than campaigns in silos.

For any brand, the audience is at the top of the priority pyramid. Fundamentally, the campaign is designed for a certain audience - who will help ful�ill your business objectives. Just make sure that you know who they are before coming up with a campaign, which otherwise will be a mere beating behind the bush situation. So answer the basic question right at the start of the marketing plan “Do I know my audience?” 

The views expressed here are of the author alone, and do not necessarily re�lect the views of Pitch

67

FEATURE

ADOBE

India emerges as one of the leaders in digital marketing performance in the APAC region

By RASHI BISARIA

L

atest research from Adobe and CMO Council has revealed that India has emerged as one of the leaders in the digital marketing space in the APAC region after Australia. The annual study that measures digital marketing performance on four key parameters – mindset, marketing readiness, marketing skills and organizational alignment – shows that India’s digital marketing performance is at par with

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India leads the confidence in digital marketing as a driver of competitive advantage

the APAC average across mindset, organizational alignment and marketing skills, but well ahead of it in marketing readiness.

Surprisingly, while India has emerged as one of the leaders, it has dipped in its own performance this year as compared to last year. It is important to note that India scored much higher than the APAC average last year.

“This year we are noticing that the Indian marketers are reflecting on the efficacy of their campaigns and shifting from a tactical campaign-specific, KPI-driven approach, to demonstrating the business impact and value of digital as a strategy to engage customers,” says Umang Bedi, Managing Director – South Asia, Adobe. “India is going through the same stage of advancement that was noticed in mature markets like Australia and North

Pitch | November 2014

OVERALL RATING

Believe digital marketing will drive competitive advantage

Believe customer perference and digital dependency drive adoption of digital

Believe digital marketing Believe mobile device proliferation and better engages and appeal drive digital activates audiences marketing

OVERALL RATING

Using analytic and Currently measuring reporting technologies and testing

Strong senior management support; receptive to piloting and testing

Strong digital marketing champion on leadership team

Dedicated director of digital or interactive marketing

Dedicated and experienced in-house digital marketing analysts

High or progressive level of maturity

It is a big contributor and partner in selecting and deploying digital marketing

Channel and sales teams are pushing for more digital marketing spend

Agency is extremely effective across strategy, execution, and measurement

Data is integrated throughout the marketing life cycle

America a while back. We expect that India’s leadership in digital marketing will only get stronger from here and will enter the next phase of digital advancement.”

India leads in the confidence in digital marketing as a driver of competitive advantage, but questions engagement and activation: 96 per cent of the Indian marketers have high confidence in the ability of digital marketing to drive competi-

Pitch | November 2014

OVERALL RATING

OVERALL RATING

High or reasonable ability to measure ROI

tive advantage. This is amongst the highest in APAC with only Australia leading with 97%.

However, while Indian marketers believe that the key driver to adopting digital is the ever-growing internet population (70% in India vs. 59% in APAC), their belief that customer preference and digital dependence drive the adoption of digital, and digital can engage and activate the audience, is lower than the APAC av-

erages.

“Customer preference and digital dependence would increase along with the increase in penetration of internet in the Indian market. Therefore, what would matter is how the Indian marketers are able to increase engagement and activate audience through digital marketing. This presents challenges in program planning, execution and most importantly measurement”, says Bedi.

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FEATURE

ADOBE

The role of stakeholders in driving digital marketing; Overall, digital marketing performance is improving across APAC, especially with regard to organizational alignment. For India, organizational alignment is at par with APAC and at the same level as 2013.

Strong senior management support and receptivity to piloting and testing is less for India than the APAC average. Senior management is now shifting focus from piloting and testing, to committing to the programs in place, and giving priority to establish a strong digital marketing base before exploring newer areas. Good news however is that Indian marketers have been able to keep to the same level of digital champions on the leadership team as last year.

As compared to their APAC counterparts, Indian marketers are receiving lesser support from channel and sales teams for increasing digital spends. However they’re doing better as compared to last year suggesting that departments that have a customer interface are realizing the importance of digital marketing in augmenting their efforts.

This is a critical learning and reinforces the importance of digital marketing in the integrated marketing plans of organizations.

IT is collaborating with marketing much more in India than the rest of APAC and is a big contributor and partner in selecting and deploying digital, which is suggestive of an internal mandate from the leadership to IT on digital.

High use of analytics but low confidence in understanding of ROI: Indian marketers are more confident than their APAC counterparts overall in their marketing maturity (58% feel they are high or progressive in marketing maturity as compared

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“We expect that India’s leadership in digital marketing will get stronger and will enter the next phase of digital advancement” Umang Bedi

Managing Director – South Asia, Adobe

to 35% in APAC). And more marketers are using analytics and measurement technologies to prove the value of digital. However, their understanding of digital marketing effectiveness

is very much in the developing stage (company’s ability to measure value of digital and its ROI: getting better - 43%; needs improvement - 31%; high on excellence - 5%).

“Marketers are measuring more than ever. However the value of digital and data can be demonstrated by using it to create differentiated advantage and driving connected relationship strategy for the business,” says Bedi.

Talent gap continues to challenge marketers: More marketers in India have dedicated and experienced in-house digital marketing analysts as compared to APAC. 30 per cent of them have a dedicated director of digital. However a very measly percentage of marketers believe that data is integrated throughout the marketing lifecycle.

Marketers are also disappointed in their agencies’ effectiveness across strategy, execution and measurement. Clearly, better progress is needed in the country to narrow the gaps in skills and talent.

“Data is the backbone for business and marketers, and India has the potential to be the center-of-excellence for data. We’ve got a big opportunity ahead of us and organizations need to act fast and invest in skills development,” says Bedi.

APAC Digital Marketing Performance Dashboard Methodology The 2014 Adobe APAC Digital Marketing Performance Dashboard was compiled through quantitative surveys with over 800 marketers across the region. Marketers from Australia, Korea, China, India, Hong Kong, Singapore and other countries responded and completed the surveys.  - rashi.bisaria@exchange4media.com Pitch | November 2014

Pitch | November 2014

71

COLUMN How HCL became one of the Top 3 most Influential Brands on LinkedIn – The Journey Apurva Chamaria

Head, Global Brand & Digital Front Office at HCLTechnologies

apurva.chamaria@gmail.com @a1purva

HCL has been leveraging LinkedIn from a 360 degree perspective, effectively utilizing their Sales, Marketing and Talent Solutions 72

W

ithin 2 years of its foray into LinkedIn, HCL Technologies (HCL) has become one of the top 3 in�luential brands in India. What is the secret employed

by HCL to achieve the success on this platform? The journey started in 2012, when HCL’s focus shifted to identifying a social platform that catered to the requirements of a global B2B IT company. LinkedIn, being the largest professional network globally, emerged as the platform of choice for our outreach initiatives. LinkedIn’s platform personality along with the availability of precise targeting options synchronized well with the goals HCL was trying to achieve.

Its effectiveness for HCL’s marketing initiatives was validated through the success of HCL’s Thought Leadership group “CIO Straight Talk”, where HCL has been able to build a high quality “invitation only” community of G2000 CIOs. Since then, HCL has been leveraging LinkedIn from a 360 degree perspective, effectively utilizing their Sales, Marketing and Talent Solutions for Thought leadership/ Marketing/ Employer brand / Recruitment and Sales initiatives.

A. Marketing Solutions:

HCL has been utilizing the Marketing Solutions provided by LinkedIn to promote the following programs:

1. Thought Leadership Communities: 1. A CIO Straight Talk: The CIO Straight Talk community is agroup on LinkedIn, where customers are recognized as practitioner thought leaders whose experience based insights add tremendous community value. The robustness of LinkedIn as a B2B social media platform is aptly demonstrated through the highly engaged, rich content community. As described earlier this thought leadership group is a high quality exclusive by invitation community of G2000 Company CIOs, who broadcast their views and opinions within the community and also consume relevant content disseminated by HCL on the community group. CIO Straight Talk Interactive on LinkedIn can be accessed at: http://partner.linkedin.com/ ciostraighttalk. The results of this initiative speak for themselves: a) Total Membership: 1793 as on 7th Oct’14 b) Close to 80 per cent Director Level & above; 30 per cent of the membership is CXOs c) 150+ discussions and comments in past 6 months d) 10% community members have participated in the micromarketing activities like webinars, contributions to the magazine, giving HCL references etc. e) 10 CIO webinars for engaging community members clocking on an average 75 attendees and 120+ registrations each f) Participating Organizations – 70 per Pitch | November 2014

cent from organizations with >10,000 + employees g) 110+ Fortune 500 companies 1. CTO Straight Talk: HCL has also recently launched the CTO Straight Talk on LinkedIn which is the world’s �irst “for CTO, by CTO” social platform that brings together CTOs and product engineering leaders across the globe. This platform has been created and managed by HCL and strives to facilitate peer-to-peer exchange of practical ideas amongst CTOs and senior product engineers on wide variety of business and technology topics.CTO Straight Talk Interactive on LinkedIn can be accessed at: http://lnkd.in/CTOStraightTalk 2. Global Brand Positioning Campaign - Relationship Beyond The Contract LinkedIn’s relationship with HCL came across strongly, when together they launched, a �irst of its kind LinkedIn App, promoting HCL’s new brand positioning Relationship Beyond the Contract (RBtC). The RBtC philosophy derives out of HCL’s belief that in an uncertain business landscape, no business contract can predict the future and

thus only a relationship that can stand on the bedrock of trust, transparency and �lexibility will ultimately add value to the customer. Based on this thought, the HCL RBtC LinkedIn application encourages Linkedin members to therefore be on a continual quest to discover such relationships that lie beyond the bounds of a contract. Visit http://www.

Pitch | November 2014

60,000+ Average Job views per Month 7500+ Average applications per months 5,000 Average Monthly Unique Visitors 33% increase in Talent Brand Index (TBI) - 8.5% (Feb 2013) to 13.5% (July 2014)

77% increase in Number of Followers on HCLT profile on Linkedin ( last 12 months)

hcltech.com/relationship-beyond-contract for more details for more details.

The launch of the application was aimed at encouraging users to go above and beyond the scope of their existing contracts. (http://rbtc.hcltech.com/).

The web-based application, which is accessible via LinkedIn’s APIs and InMail feature, is aimed at encouraging users to go the extra mile by allowing them to log-in and acknowledge professional relationships that they feel have gone beyond the contract. Users can access the app to add a personalized note of appreciation to their contacts which the recipient can then view, download and

print. The app has created immense brand value for HCL in a �iercely competitive ITES industry.More than 10000 contracts have been shared across the globe using the RBtC LinkedIn app.

3. Business Marketing campaigns: HCLhas partnered with LinkedIn for various business marketing campaigns for a focused target reach.

HCL also leveraged LinkedIn for content marketing program with a multi prolong approach for content dissemination through updates in newsfeeds (Sponsored Updates/ Organic Updates), Employee posts, and dissemination of Slideshare decks to right target group, and CIO straight talk interventions. This multi prong approach is helpingHCL reachitsaudience and engage them.

4. Showcase Pages: HCL has showcased its array of services through the comparatively new Showcase Page feature of LinkedIn. This feature has helped HCL’s relevant services showcase relevant content on theiraspect of business on their own showcase page. HCL was the �irst among its industry peers to implement Showcase Pages for its Industries, Service Lines and Propositions.

5. LinkedIn Pulse: The HCL Tech CEO Anant Gupta was invited and joined LinkedIn’sGlobal In�luencer Platform called the PULSE. With this hejoined a select group of global in�luencers like Bill Gates, Jack Welch, Richard Branson etc. who use this to share their thoughts on important issues.

B. Talent Solutions:

As platform with a reach of 300 Million professionals across the world, LinkedIn has been a crucial part of

73

COLUMN HCL Technologies of employer branding strategy. The employer branding of HCLT is based on three major tenets• Creating employer brand (Ideapreneurship) awareness • Attracting passive candidates • Engaging with the active and passive candidates 1. Tailored Content: The Gold Career page of HCL Technologies on LinkedIn, takes the employer brand message to talent network and showcase their employee value proposition through customized experiences.

The career page allows HCLto take the employer brand message, jobs, company images & employee testimonials to the talent network. Numerous campaigns, like in-mail advertisement, personalized jobtargeting, are run on the page to constantly engage and build relationships with the followers.

2. Case Studies: As part of creating employer brand in the minds of the prospective & current employees, our leadership publishes blogs/ case studies on LinkedIn. Here are a few examples: 1. 3 ways HCL Technologies brings its employer brand to life 2. “Hiring and inspiring ideapreneurs” 3. Cheat Sheet for Social Media Recruiting: HCL Technologies’ Journey

3. Business Outcomes HCL has achieved tremendous results in terms of talent engagement, brand awareness and positive perception thereby leading to more ef�icient and successful talent acquisition.

C. Sales Solutions:

As a part of it’ssales enablement initiatives HCL utilizes the following features from LinkedIn sales solution: 1. Enhanced Search 2. Inmails 3. Visitor Information HCL also plans to launch social selling

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for its sales personnel to enhance the effectiveness and reach.

D. Measuring Success on LinkedIn

There are multiple ways to measure the bene�its of leveraging LinkedIn

1. TalentBrand Index: TBI is de�ined as the Talent Brand (TB) Reach and TB Engagement, where TB Reach is the number of people viewing or connected to employee pro�iles, while TB Engagement is the number of people following or researching about the company and its jobs. TBI de�ines how a company performs from the talent brand perspective and is an Industry de�ined parameter.HCL increased its TBI from 9% in FY13 to 13.5% in FY14 through various employer brand related initiatives.

2. Content Marketing Score: Content Marketing Score has been developed by LinkedIn which is measured in the following fashion: • A score that quanti�ies and benchmarks the in�luence companies have on LinkedIn • A score that can be �iltered by audience • A score that is stacked up against a competitive set HCL ranksNo. 1 in European Union for Large Enterprise business decision maker audience amongst its peers.

3. Engagement metrics: HCL measures engagement with target audience on

LinkedIn in terms of

A. Conversion rate: Number of conversions per post. On LinkedIn, this is de�ined as the comments to a Post.

For April, 2014 the conversion rate for HCLT on LinkedIn was 4.27.

B. Applause rate: Applause rate is based on the number of “likes” each post gets. For April, 2014 the applause rate for HCL on LinkedIn was 36.14.

In past two years HCL has aggressively expanded its presence on LinkedIn by leveraging three key solutions - Market-

ing, Sales and Talent. By doing this not only has it been able to engage 300K+ audience across the world but has also become one of the top 3 in�luential brands in India on LinkedIn.HCL has been able to establish its in�luence & thought leadership on LinkedIn by concentrating on content strategy and effective targeting of the content to its TG. Understanding the TG and what will appeal to them has been the cornerstone for HCL’s success on LinkedIn. The digital marketing team has been focusing on bringing �irst-in-class and/or best-in-class initiatives – e.g LinkedinRBtC App to promote its unique vision & brand proposition.

HCL is also closely monitoring and reporting the measurement factors that determine the success of its efforts. 

The views expressed here are of the author alone, and do not necessarily re�lect the views of Pitch

Pitch | November 2014

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75

IMA-2014

The Indian Marketing Awards 2014 to set new standards in marketing

By Ankur Singh

W

ith some of the best minds in marketing as pre-screeners and jury, the Indian Marketing awards event from the exchange4media is gathering momentum. As entries pour in and the big day draws near, the categories that have emerged as most popular are Brand Activation, Digital Marketing, Social Media, Mobile Marketing, New brand, product or Service launch. IMA will have a rigorous two-stage judging process. The judges will look to reward innovation, strategic thinking, results and key outcomes that contributed value to the respective organisations.

The categories (14 entry-based and 3 nominated) were decided in order to cover all aspects of marketing and to set new benchmarks for excellence in this fast evolving �ield.

Headed by Vinita Bali, former Managing Director, Britannia, the jury consists of some of the brightest industry leaders including Harit Nagpal of TataSky, Kamal Bali of Volvo India, Saugata Gupta of Marico, Amarnath Ananthanarayanan, CEO and MD at Bharti AXA General Insurance, Amit Burman, Vice Chairman at Dabur, Prema Sagar, Principal & Founder at Genesis Burson-Marsteller, Ranjan Kapur, Country Manager – India at WPP, Sangeeta Pendurkar, Managing Director at Kellogg In-

76

dia, Sukumar Ranganathan, Editor at Mint, Thomas Puliyel, President at IMRB International, Mumbai, and Vijay Subramaniam, Managing Director - India & South East Asia, Bacardi India form the jury.

The Pre-screening Jury The pre-screening jury will �irst shortlist the entries, some of which will go on to win the coveted trophies. Debabrata Mukherjee of Coca Cola, Vivek Sharma of Philips, Dinesh Garg of TTK Prestige, Devender Chawla of Future Group, Prabhakar Tiwari of Ceat India, Aarti Ahuja of TCNS Clothing, Girish Shah of Godrej Properties, Sandipan Ghosh of Ruchi Soya Group, Anshul Punhani of Monster.com, Sandeep Aurora of Intel, Saujanya Shrivastava, CMO, Bharti AXA Life Insurance and Apurva Chamaria of HCL will form the illustrious panel of prescreeners who will get to work in the �irst week of November.

With an aim to advance the marketing profession, unlock the potential of ideas, markets and businesses and realise their true value for customers and organizations, IMA 2014 is looking to recognise and honour creativity, originality and effectiveness delivered by marketers.

Vinita Bali, former Managing Director, Britannia, who will be heading the jury at the Indian Marketing Awards

2014, feels that the most signi�icant challenge for marketers is driving the concept that “brands are businesses” right through the company. “This implies that the entire value chain of brands must be designed and engineered to deliver sustainable and pro�itable growth. The “business of brands” therefore, becomes the rallying cry for the company and not just its marketing department or brand managers. That also means that brands and the business they generate become an increasing part of conversation in board rooms.”

The jury is looking forward to reviewing and analyzing the entries. Jury member, Prema Sagar, Principal and Founder, Genesis Burson-Marsteller, said, “I would like to see the IMA Awards recognize the best of campaigns that are creative, have a high recall and have left an impact on the business and consumers as well.”

“I am hoping to look at the innovation of the marketing community and the impact that the Indian marketing fraternity has had on building brands especially the smaller ones,” said Amarnath Ananthanarayanan, CEO & MD, Bharti AXA General Insurance.

The Indian Marketing Awards 2014 will take place on December 12, 2014 preceded by the much-awaited jury meet on November 14.

Pitch | November 2014

Pitch | November 2014

77

COLUMN

“Culture Jamming”

A Powerful Strategic Tool for Creating the Monstrous Brandenstein

Gaurav Sood

Brand Communication professional, Brand Educator & Research Scholar, with a 2 decade practice creating strong brands

gauravkaransood@yahoo.com

There is a risk in running emotional branding strategies; since they expose firms to a particular type of cultural backlash known as the ‘Doppelganger’ brand image 78

O

ver the past half a decade, culture jamming has emerged as a highly in�luential tool for creation of a brand’s doppelganger image. Brand, a term coined in earlier centuries to differentiate livestocks by hot iron stamping, has now evolved into branding of products, services, people, commodities etc. Marketing and branding gurus have given the world umpteen branding strategies and philosophies. David Ogilvy, the doyen, described brand as “the intangible sum of a product’s attributes.”

Agencies and consultants developed their own branding philosophies, for instance J Walter Thompson better known as JWT, projected “Thompson Total Branding” tool, which helped companies to build strong powerful brands.

But little was it known that these big brands will encroach on consumer’s daily lives and become brand bullies. The big brands through their marketing muscle power, buy their way into public spaces. They even believe, and arrogantly at that, that their branding messages must be passively accepted as a one-way information �low. These brands would make emotional claims like Khushion ki home delivery (Dominos), Khushion ki chabbi (Tata Nano), Open Happiness

(Coca Cola), to develop emotional story-driven approaches. In this case, they leverage the happiness proposition taglines, thus furthering meaningful & resonating connects between consumers and brands. The usage of this concept (Happiness) by these brands has been highly admired by advertisers as they have been successful in creating the right kind of brand recall.

However, there is a risk in running emotional branding strategies; since they expose �irms to a particular type of cultural backlash known as the ‘Doppelganger’ brand image— that is, a family of disparaging images and stories about a brand that are circulated in popular culture by a loosely organized network of consumers, anti-brand activists, bloggers, and opinion leaders in the news and entertainment media.”

Pitch | November 2014

So what is “Culture Jamming?”

The most powerful tool to create this monstrous doppelganger image or Brandenstein is known as ‘Culture Jamming”. The Oxford dictionary de�ines culture jamming as, “The practice of criticizing and subverting advertising and consumerism in the mass media, by methods such as producing advertisements parodying those of global brands.” The term culture jamming was framed in 1984 by the US band Negativland; it was designed to expose patently dubious political assumptions behind the commercial culture.

Brands like Nike, McDonald’s, WalMart and Starbucks and the recent sporting event (IPL) have been on the receiving end, suffering a backlash against their super brand imagery. And many more brands, viz, Celebrities (Alia Bhatt), politicians (Smriti Irani), business men (Adnani & Ambani), Policies (Gujarat Model), News reporter (Arnab Goswami) have been similarly targeted.

According to Naomi Klein the author of the bestseller book, “No logo”, “The most sophisticated culture jams are not stand-alone ad parodies but interceptions-counter-messages that hack into a corporation’s own method of communication to send a message starkly at odds with the one that was intended.”

Pitch | November 2014

The resurgence of culture jamming has much to do with social media and new software technologies Culture Jamming – 2.0 The resurgence of culture jamming has much to do with social media and new software technologies that have made both the creation and the viral propagation of brand message parodies immensely easier. Culture jamming has been bene�itted by technological advancements, with software programs like Photoshop now enabling culture jammers to match the original precisely.

Take an example of facebook, large group of users create, upload and share ‘user generated content’ in order to mimic or distort original brand messages. Even as Alia Bhatt ‘laughs it off’ on the Twitter and facebook jokes about her, which started when she confused the Chief Minister of Maharashtra with the President of India in “koffee with Karan” talk show. Since then there were Twitter trolls and facebook pages coming up with many such Alia-Is-So-Dumb jokes. Today, a single negative tweet or facebook post could be a serious threat and may damage a brand’s imagery in the market place.

Empowered by social media channels the consumers are de�ining their own perspective on brand messages, a view that’s often at odds with the brand image and therefore is tilting

the balance of power from supplier to buyer. Well before the anti-Nike campaign began to gain ground, CEO Phil Knight presciently observed that “there’s a �lip side to the emotions we generate and the tremendous well of emotions we live off of. Somehow, emotions imply their opposites and at the level we operate, the reaction is much more than a passing thought.”

So should most big brand names rush to sue for alleged trademark violations and take culture jammers to court for parodying brand messages or raise issues in parliament like Ms Jaya Bachchan on stopping RJs from mimicking, cracking jokes on parliamentarians. Or reverse counter la Alia Bhatt way, bringing out “Genius of the Year” video, a �lip strategy which has silenced her critiques and has garnered more than 1.6 million views in a day.

The culture jammers force brands out of their comfort zone and branding managers are �inding it harder than ever to control the terms of this monstrous brandenstein.

Can brands ignore and laugh it off or develop an alternative branding strategy, to counter the rise of this modern cultural phenomenon of branding? 

The views expressed here are of the author alone, and do not necessarily re�lect the views of Pitch

79

INTERVIEW

Ajit SivAdASAn

Ajit Sivadasan of Lenovo on making improvements to the customer’s online experience P

art of Lenovo’s digital strategy stems from its understanding of the consumer experience lifecycle. Lenovo’s digital strategy is directed towards brand building, sales and online community building. As an integral part of Lenovo’s efforts in this space, Lenovo.com has emerged as a marketing function with the primary objective of enhancing Lenovo’s online presence in addition to driving online sales to consumers and B2B entities in several countries. Rashi Bisaria spoke to Ajit Sivadasan, VP and GM, who drives Lenovo’s global web strategy around sales and marketing to find out more about the brand’s successful digital strategy and strong web presence.

80

In this day and age when every brand’s digital presence is taken for granted, how is Lenovo leveraging its web strategy differently?

Lenovo is probably doing most of what other brands are doing, the difference, as far as I can tell is around our awareness of the importance of digital and engagement based marketing in the overall customer experience lifecycle. We have spent a significant amount of time in understanding Pitch | November 2014

our customer’s overall journey and how they intersect the digital landscape. This helps us to first, provide a reasonable experience and second, the ability to measure the interactions using metrics we consider relevant. These, in combination allow us to make incremental yet important improvements to the customer experience online.

IS NOW

No.1

Can you share figures around the impact it has created on paid, owned and earned media in the last year?

While I cannot share numbers due to the competitive nature of such data, I can help provide some feedback that represents the importance of digital. From an online sales standpoint, almost all of the media dollars deployed are directed towards digital tactics. There is an increased awareness of using paid media to amplify earned and owned media and using them appropriately. While we continue to improve our efficiency (Expense to Revenue ratios), absolute clarity is elusive due to the constant state of change in the space. What is also becoming clear is that “one shot wonders” are difficult to duplicate and while coming up with creative concepts are very important from an advertising standpoint–more important is the need for consistency and coverage that’s fully integrated into the customer ecosystem.

is the

The

challenges in keeping up with customer expectations on user experience.

We have approached this challenge by understanding the complexity of the environment. Prioritizing whats important to our customers is by far one of the bigger challenges because on the face of it everything dealing with customers is important. That said, we have focused on device domain intersection as a key area to improve experiences; meaning how customer move from desktops to phones and vice versa. Making this experience more seamless helps customers instantly. We continue to drive relevance of content for our customers, Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand example, we try and provide content that’s closer to what our customers may find useful. Ultimately we want to provide products and services that are really targeted. Of course this gets challenging when you have over 1B visitors coming to the site annually. Finally, we have several initiatives that leverage big data concepts to predict trends and sentiment so we can react better and /or be more proactive on issues.

in the Hindi Belt

WITH 1.42 Cr READERS

Digital strategies and associated media deployment has become extremely measurable due to advanced Data Management platforms coupled with segmentation and targeted media purchase. So it is safe to say that organizations that are on the leading edge of digital advertising are able to measure and drive constant improvements, driving efficiency gains in media deployment. And finally, measurement allows better analysis and optimization of various mixes across all types of media; paid, earned and owned.

Fastest Growing How has Lenovo been able to improve the customer experience through its digital initiatives?

Customer experience as you know is a broad concept, it cuts across every touch point the customer interacts with the brand; from advertising to purchase and post sales support. This in conjunction with the very dynamic nature of the internet creates unique

Hindi Daily in Uttar Pradesh

undisputed

No.1

With more than 72 Lakh readers.

Can you share some of the best practices Lenovo adopted to evolve from a traditional PC company to what it is today.

IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand A lotSource of :what is happening today is based on experimentation and shelf

of Bihar & Jharkhand

With more than 56.65 Lakh readers, Hindustan is the No.1 Hindi Daily in Bihar Pitch | November 2014

81 Source : IRS 2013 * Delhi+NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand

INTERVIEW

Ajit Sivadasan

life for good ideas is short. We do have a bias towards doing things that are leading edge. Among these are building predictive models for online purchasing, developing ALL digital, ALL social marketing campaigns that are immersive and unique. Building concepts that drive customer generated content and ideas to push the envelope of creativity and enhancing the quality of customer interactions. Above all, using advanced Data concepts to leverage customer feedback, both implicit and explicit, to drive all aspects of customer experience.

As Lenovo continues its evolution to a PC+ player we will continue to leverage the digital ecosystem to drive two way, real time conversations that allow any number of meaningful and highly relevant exchanges. Mobile devices will naturally drive the stickiness of such interactions and further push the user experience paradigm.

In terms of marketing spends, how much does Lenovo allocate to digital?

It depends and varies widely across the various routes to market. As an example, online sales is driven predominantly using digital strategies. Other routes to market combine various media mixes, in some cases from 30 per cent to 60 per cent digital. As an overall brand, we are more and more focused on digital strategies due to the benefits of reaching a broader audience in a targeted manner with the ability to optimize in a much more regimented

Digital in many ways allows us to level the playing field when it comes to reach and amplification, while driving the quality of the interactions 82

Measurement allows better analysis and optimization of various mixes across all types of media; paid, earned and owned manner. Digital in many ways allows us to level the playing field when it comes to reach and amplification, while driving the quality of the interactions.

Please give examples of a few successful digital campaigns We have done several but the most memorable ones have been the launch of the Yoga tablet last October when our Brand Ambassador and ‘ product manager’ Ashton Kucher launched the product online via YouTube and Social media. We managed this launch entirely using a digital framework, from the pre buzz creation to launch and post launch activities. We were able to accurately track the brand sentiment as each action unfolded across multiple platforms. We were able to curate the content to our specific needs, we amplified messages in key markets leveraging our media assets–the campaign was quite successful, both as a campaign in itself and from a learning standpoint. It gave us cues on scaling, sentiment, relative performance to other brands. We also used an all Social strategy to drive our Smartphone product K900, in Indonesia to great effect. The lenovo phone and brand were relatively obscure in Indonesia but post the campaign our brand metrics overall experienced major improvement to claim the second spot in the PC+ category, which as you know is a significant ac-

complishment. Of course all of these happen because of our sophisticated user base, great ideas and some of the world’s most innovative technology and products from Lenovo.

How has the customer evolved over time and has Lenovo adapted to changing consumer trends and behaviour?

Customer evolution has been constant and consistent in the digital space. As internet penetration continues and more people join the ecosystem, lot of improvements happen to infrastructure, tools and technology naturally due to companies trying to monetize more of the activities. Customers are becoming more savvy and knowledgeable and rightfully have higher expectations from companies serving them.

Our customers in most mature markets expect us to provide them a easy to use and world class customer experience online. Whether it involves purchasing products or directions to local retailers or simply help in returning a product or for service. They want to be kept in the loop in a non intrusive manner. They expect us to safe keep their privacy and yet know enough to provide enhanced services if they are a repeat customer. So in keeping with these trends, Lenovo have constantly evolved the user experience paradigm using various techniques including and not limited to advanced testing of concepts, page layouts, features and functionality. We have tried different approaches to enhancing navigation on the site, providing content in easily consumable formats; whether it is video or text. We have worked on building behavioral models based on just observation, we have built models based on behavioral economics to make it easier for consumers to compare and contrast information and so on.n -rashi.bisaria@exchange4media.com

Pitch | November 2014

Pitch | November 2014

83

COLUMN : ANNURAG BATRA COLUMN ANNURAG BATRA

Competition in e-commerce keeps marketers on their toes

Annurag Batra

Chairman & Editor-in-Chief, Pitch Magazine abatra@exchange4media.com @anuragbatrayo www.facebook.com/anuragbatrayo

I

t’s been termed ‘India’s first online Diwali’ this year and quite rightly so. As consumer sentiments soar after a hiatus of the previous years, brands have decided to make the most of the positivity around. The e-commerce story has been a source of much entertainment complete with a dramatic drop in prices, tempting discounts and deals, and in-your-face advertising for the festive months. The story holds several lessons for players poised to enter this fiercely competitive space. The past months have seen both healthy rivalry and camaraderie, fresh funding, sale debacles and new entrants in the sector.

According to an ASSOCHAM report, corporates are spending 25-30 per cent more on advertising this season as compared to last year and e-commerce players have increased their festive marketing spends. Content providers have helped these brands by providing customised and aggregated content to help communicate with consumers on digital channels.

Snapdeal, the e-commerce marketplace, has claimed that for the brand it’s going to be the biggest Diwali ever. Not only is it working with other sought-after brands to come up with different offers but has inundated the small screen with a slew of 50 commercials. Snapdeal’s aggressive strategy has jolted consumers and other e-commerce players alike. It’s not enough to come up with discounts and offers. It’s important to innovate not once but repeatedly. It’s not just sufficient to have a strategic communication plan but also an aggressive one. Snapdeal has managed to capture the attention and share of wallet of the consumer with its Diwali specific television

The e-commerce sphere will be interesting to watch in the coming months as dominant players cannibalise smaller ones and new entrants populate the market 84

advertising. The result has been quite promising.

Snapdeal has managed a growth of 100 per cent in sales for most categories. The clever ‘Diwali Bumper sale’ was an advertising stunt aimed to expand the customer base and capture eye-balls.

There are important lessons in the Snapdeal story that cannot be overlooked.

Amazon’s weeklong Diwali Dhamaka sale that offered massive discounts has seen overwhelming response from shoppers. Amazon has competition from home-grown players and is continuously on its guard. With discounts that tore through the roof tops, it was expected that customers would flock to the site in large numbers during the sale. Amazon was careful that the ‘Flipkart’ Big Billion’ day showdown was not repeated.

The e-commerce sphere will be interesting to watch in the coming months as dominant players cannibalise smaller ones and new entrants populate the market. After all, India is the fastest growing e-commerce market in Asia-Pacific.

Their success will also depend on how well and fast they deliver. Customer satisfaction remains top priority and the ones that will be able to satisfy the demands for convenience and quality of the customer, will surpass the others. Free and fast delivery and prompt service are fast becoming key differentiators with each player devising innovative solutions to surpass the other.

The growth of online retail can also be attributed to the surge in demand in tier 2 and 3 towns. That is where the next phase of growth will undoubtedly come from. Interestingly, one of the topics that was discussed at the CMO League organised by exchange4media recently was about marketers getting ready for the ‘unmetro India’. The discussions, captured in this issue, revealed some fascinating insights about how these cities have become the real growth drivers for brands. It seems to be an exciting time ahead for marketers.  Pitch | November 2014

IRS 2013 Results

No.1 IS NOW

in the Hindi Belt

WITH 1.42 Cr READERS Hindi Dainik (in Crores) *Hindi Belt

| November | June-July2014 Pitch Pitch 2014

Hindustan

Dainik Jagran

1.42

1.34

Delhi+NCR, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar & Jharkhand

637

FEATURE

rni regn.no.:deleng/03/11/11487

TRAVEL

6

62

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