Markathon - January - February 2020

MARKATHON MARKETING MAGAZINE OF IIM SHILLONG | JAN-FEB 2020

COVER STORY INFLUENCER MARKETING

EYE2EYE

PERSPECTIVE

IS INDIA A BREEDING GROUND FOR SPORTS MARKETING

EMERGING SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS FOR BUSINESSES

SILENT VOICE PRINT ADS

JAB THEY FAILED RAISING STEAKS THE TRUMP WAY

CATCH OR MISS NETFLIX VS AUDI

VARTALAAP MR. ROHIT GULATI ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR KARL STORZ ENDOSKOPE

al

EDITORSÂ of the month AND THE TEAM Kopal & Harshit

Adrija

Garima

Manik

Kaushal

Sahil

Komalangi

Shreyas

EDITOR'S NOTE HARSHIT SOMANI KOPAL TRIPATHI

The new year has already brought sunshine, not just to the northern plains, but to some economic indicators that seemed to have caught a chill throughout 2019. The world merrily shopped around the new year much to the delights of brands who had been busy till then curating marketing campaigns revolving around the new year.

Just when things seemed to be in place, the COVID-19 outbreak has created panic and unsettled the otherwise settling world. As opportunistic as marketers are, several brands, both Indian and foreign brands, have come up with creative and informative advertisements and campaigns about this deadly virus. In their efforts, there should be a check on what content and message are delivered by their campaigns. History is replete with examples of how campaigns directed towards good cause have backfired because of a lack of due diligence.

It is said that with great power comes great responsibility. Brands, businesses, and marketers have a more responsible task at hand than just caring about their bottom line. It is vital for brands and businesses alike to be as useful as possible to the communities they serve - the result of combining purpose and practicality.

Companies like Facebook, Reliance, Tata Group, Xiaomi, Vedanta, and many more have pledged support through donations, distribution of food, medical necessities in this time of crisis. It is definitely time that the corporate world helps the government and the citizens to work towards combating the tragic scenario.

This month we invited Mr. Rohit Gulati, Associate Director at KARL STORZ Endoscopy India Pvt. Ltd. for some insights on Telepresence and Strategic Marketing. We also have an interesting write article on Influencer marketing, which discusses the evolution and types of influencers in detail. In the Silent Ads section, we have covered the McDonalds Dolly Parton challenge and the print ad by Durex on World contraception day. We have also discussed the much talked of “Burger King’s Moldy Whooper” in the updates section.

In the end, we would like to thank all the participants who had sent thoughtful entries for the Perspective and Eye2Eye section. We would also thank our readers for their constant faith in us, which has kept us motivated throughout. We look forward to your feedback and suggestions.

We hope you have a healthy life, a productive quarantine, and a happy reading!

Team Markathon

03 | Index

January-February 2020

Andar Ki Baat 05

PERSPECTIVE Emerging Social Media for Businesses Akshansh Gupta IIM Shillong

07

COVER STORY Influencer Marketing Garima Singh & Shreyas Tripathi

09 E Y E 2 E Y E Is India a breeding ground for the advent of Sports Marketing?

Ishan Kacker & Snehil Kesarwani IIM Shillong

11

LOGOISTIC The Evolution of Starbucks LOGO Manik Kapur

04 | Index

January-February 2020

Andar Ki Baat 0112

SILENT VOICE Print Ads Kaushal Gupta

13

AD-DICTED Catch or Miss Kopal Tripathi & Komalangi Srivastava

14 J A B T H E Y F A I L E D Raising the Steaks- The Trump Way Sahil Brahmne

15

VARTALAAP Mr. Rohit Gulati Associate Director, KARL STORZ Endoscopy India Pvt. Ltd. Adrija Khan & Kaushal Gupta

17 U P D A T E S Kopal Tripathi

05 | Perspective

January-February 2020

BY AKSHANSH GUPTA IIM SHILLONG The last two decades have seen a tectonic shift in how marketers interact with their customers across the buyer’s journey from acquisition to conversion. From selling products and services to focusing on consumer experience and catering to individuals with offerings tailor made for them which is popularly known as a target segment of one. A powerful tool or more precisely the norm of the day when it comes to reaching your customers today is social media. And a very noticeable change in the domain of social platforms is how companies are not targeting society at large but finding suitable niches for themselves where they fit the best. This has given rise to a lot of new and emerging companies to create and acquire newer markets for themselves as they are focused on smaller segments since their inception.

Depending upon who is the customer and what is expected out of the campaigns and content, brands can decide upon their online presence and market themselves accordingly. Brands are slowly shifting from household names like Facebook and Instagram to more niche platforms like SlideShare, Telegram and TikTok. What this has also caused is a dent on communities without a target group in mind like Snapchat and Google+. Let us look at the winners of this movement in detail and the impact they have created on how we look at brands.

PERSPECTIVE

EMERGING SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESSES

06 | Perspective SLIDESHARE LinkedIn SlideShare is perceived widely as a platform to upload and surf through PowerPoint presentations, word documents and infographics.

Being a quizzing enthusiast, I have personally exploited the website for the same in search of question sets by popular quiz masters. But what most users are not aware of is the fact that SlideShare is an authority website which makes it easier for posts made on SlideShare to go up on Google rankings when compared to most of the other online services. This makes increasing brand awareness and SEO easier while simultaneously bringing in better RoI for the businesses. It has around 80 million unique monthly visitors and 35 million registered users. Also, SlideShare works well for long tailed keywords which is best suited for companies operating in highly specialized domains and wish to deploy resources into reaching a highly specific audience.

Talking about brand perception, SlideShare helps you to position yourself as a mature and serious business which is especially helpful for startups and/or companies related to fields like education, skill development, training, etc. It is well suited for long form content aimed at describing processes, products and services. This is of even more importance now given the downfall of Facebook as a platform to share written content.

TIKTOK It is a popular Chinese social media app owned by one of the most valuable unicorns of the world, ByteDance. It was the most downloaded app in the United States in 2018 and also became the seventh most downloaded app of the decade in 2019. The user generated content on TikTok is subjected to a lot of criticism and mockery for being substandard and childish when compared to other similar services like YouTube and IGTV which have more mature and professionally curated content. But where TikTok made the mark was how they understood the aspirations of the Indian rural audience to be celebrities of their own world.

Instagram on one end gives you a chance to follow the life of your favorite celebrities. On the contrary, TikTok lets you be the celebrity and be seen by millions of people online by just using your smartphone. Cherry on the cake is the market they decided to target. In a country like India where 70% of the population lives in the villages and finds it disconnected from the mainstream on multiple frontiers, TikTok appears to be the perfect

January-February 2020 launchpad to fame and self-fulfillment. When compared to YouTube, TikTok allows only short length videos which go well with the falling attention span of the millennial generation.

The company has recently come up with paid Ads on lines of Google and Facebook. Brands have started to realize the importance of TikTok which can be seen by the number of actors, influencers and content creators getting on the platform in the last couple of years. India’s leading social media influencer in the domain of fitness and mental health, Ranveer Allahbadia has talked about the importance of TikTok in contemporary brand building on multiple forums and himself created an account recently. Popular actors like Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt as well as popular production houses like TVF also has accounts on the platform given the huge mass of traffic and visibility it generates.

TELEGRAM It is a social messaging platform like WhatsApp but with a larger permissible group size and an option for new members to check chat history. Telegram has 100 million users and 15 billion daily messages.

More than 220,000 new users sign up every day.

The unique feature is that it prohibits all kinds of paid advertisements and is thus very popular amongst customers.

What sets it apart from WhatsApp are the bots which do all kind of things for businesses from order collection to feedback loops, event marketing, etc. A lot of businesses use it for daily updates, network building and real time assistance to customers. The power of Telegram lies in the acquisition phase of the marketing funnel where a lot of companies use it for their affiliate networks, brand building, discount channels as well as keeping their customers aware of what is the company up to on a real time basis. And the best part is it’s all free. The platform is well suited for emerging companies which are in the nascent phase of their journey and want to increase their online presence while ensuring a very personal experience for their potential and/or actual customers.

07 | Cover Story

January-February 2020

INFLUENCER MARKETING

COVER STORY GARIMA SINGH SHREYAS TRIPATHI

WHAT IS INFLUENCER MARKETING?

HOW IS INFLUENCE MEASURED? Due to a boom in influencer marketing, it is not uncommon for any Tom, Dick or Harry to term himself an influencer. Therefore it is a common practice among brands to rank influencers whether in blogs, on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok.

When corporations or brands leverage the existing trust factor that an individual has established on social media to convey marketing and communication messages, this is termed as influencer marketing.

There are several ways to rank influencers:

THE THREE PARTICIPANTS

2. The second level of test could be the number of “likes� the posts have. This is an indication of not just the appreciation but also the number of active users the page has.

The influencer system constitutes of three key participants: 1. Brands that approach the influencers on social media to convey favourable brand narratives; 2. Influencer refers to an individual who through his creative, entertaining or informative content establishes a relationship of trust with his followers or audience on a social media platform. In short, the brands ask this influencer to promote their product because it has been observed that when an influencer recommends a product, brand or service there is a direct impact on sales; 3. The followers or audience of these influencers expect them to put original and genuine content about the field in which the influencer is knowledgeable. Word of mouth is potent in this case of promotion, as many of these followers are themselves influencers in their respective friends circle.

1. First but the least effective measure is the number of followers that an influencer has. This has been termed as least effective as a lot social media pages have fake followers which are just an eye wash.

08 | Cover Story 3. Third level is the number of “shares” that the posts have. This indicates not only the interest but also the relevance of the content to the target audience.

4. Analysing the comments made by the audience helps establish the perception that the audience has about the influencer. This is a bit tedious task but probably one of the most necessary step as the image of the influencer must align with the image that brand is trying to portray.

5. The commenting section plays a major role in understanding the level of involvement that the target audience has with the influencer. A detailed comment would mean that there is a higher scope for “word of mouth” marketing if the influencer promotes a brand.

January-February 2020 TYPES OF INFLUENCERS Celebrities: Thanks to substantial followership and an extensive reach, their content has a strong potential to become viral. But the strength of the relationship they share with each member of the audience is weak Characters: They create an online persona, a ‘roleplaying’ of sorts, and attract viewers based on the originality of their content. Their content is viral, but the relationship with audience members is weak

THE EVOLUTION OF INFLUENCER MARKETING The origin of online influencer marketing can be traced back to early 2000s- where forums, blogs and brand communities were hailed as an escape from the consumerist marketing ecosystem. For the next few years, these platforms thrived and attracted an ardent following since its content was perceived as fresh, authentic, non-commercial, and unbiased.

Eventually, brands jumped on the bandwagon with tactics such as sponsored posts, undisclosed gifts, hidden infomercials. While influencers found it beneficial, followers felt disillusioned and criticized influencers for becoming “sell-outs” to the brands.

Influencers came under the radar over their highincome levels and the ‘value’ of their actions.

Yet, over time consumers got used to advertising in online narratives and accepted it as a necessary evil.

And now, brand narratives and marketing content have become a part of the influence game.

Spokespeople: These influencers actively voice for a cause, and are very close to their followers. The bond they share with the audience is very strong.

Thus, they have a high impact and recommendation power Buddies: They do not have a huge following, but a very dedicated fan base. In fact, their bond is so strong that their influence impacts the behaviour of their followers.

THE CLOUT OF NANO-INFLUENCERS Spokespeople and Buddies are called “nanoinfluencers.” Celebrities and Characters are often criticized for building followship by buying likes and followers. Chances are that they may end up being treated as other conventional media channels unless they make efforts to create truly unique, high-interest content.

On the other hand, the number of nano-influencers will definitely see an upward surge. It is because: • Their strong bond with audience members ensures a high level of influence on their community and recommendation power. Brands can benefit by carefully selecting influencers for more precise targeting of the relevant audience • Consumers look for more authentic relationships when it comes to influencing. Nano-influencer content is perceived as original, relevant, and unique, which makes the bond more influential and privileged.

09 | eye2eye

January-February 2020

Is India a breeding ground for the advent of Sports Marketing?

ISHAN KACKER IIM Shillong

SNEHIL KESARWANI IIM Shillong

Undoubtedly, sports, as a discipline, has the ability to strike a chord with a wider audience, irrespective of religion, class, caste, and now gender. Hence, marketing your goods and services through the unique platform provided by sports does seem like a lucrative proposition in theory. With a plethora of brands vying for the attention span of 1.5 billion people, India should be the ideal playground for sports marketers.

VERSUS

Once known world over as the home of cricket, the Indian sports market has opened itself to a plethora of new and exciting sports.

The Indian sports industry has recently witnessed a boom in the terms of number of sports leagues that have hit our television screens, keeping viewers on the edge of their seats, be it the IPL, or the ISL, or the PKL. To put things in perspective, Hotstar’s reach during VIVO IPL 2019 was comparable to the entire population of the United States. The sports story in India has transformed rapidly over the last decade. Olympic medals for Saina Nehwal and P V Sindhu have propelled badminton and its stars into the big leagues.

Before that, it was Sania Mirza's exploits in tennis which kept the conversations going as well as the money coming.

The season-on-season colossal growth of these different leagues has not just showcased its popularity among the audience but also from a brand's perspective – a customized marketing solution which offers not only high impact visibility but also builds brand engagement with the audience. The thing about sports leagues in India is that they are not treated as sporting events, they have gone on to become few of the biggest reality shows of India – celebrities, clothing, the electric atmosphere, all of which fits in absolutely brilliancy with brand proposition.

With the advent of fantasy sports, non-cricket sports will now get the opportunity to expand in popularity and drive engagement for their teams. Among all the emerging sports, kabaddi has gained significant traction over the last few years. As these sports associate with fantasy league platforms, it will not only be successful in luring in large sponsors but will also assist in creating deep engagement with the audience.

The

However, the story isn’t all sunshine and roses.

Whenever you talk of sports in India, the first and, perhaps, the only sport which a vast majority of Indians relate to is cricket. Businesses have been quick to latch on to this opportunity and built their marketing campaigns around the game of cricket. However, that’s where the biggest problem lies.

The battle to put the brands on a cricketing field or jerseys has reached a saturation level in a number of ways.

First, the commercialization of every aspect of the game is acting as an impediment to the fans’ overall viewing experience. Let’s consider Indian Premier League. Cricket commentators feel like the spokesperson of the businesses, rather than the game. Players wearing the jerseys flush with dozens of logos look like talking-walking-billboards, which gets reflected in the low merchandise sales of IPL teams.

Second, due to this monopoly over the Indian sporting scene, businesses are forced to pay extremely high amounts for sponsorships, whose pay off may not be increasing at the same pace.

Thus, in the long-run, it might not be feasible for upcoming businesses to invest such amounts on marketing their offerings through the game of cricket.

10 | eye2eye

January-February 2020

What has been more interesting to note is that there has been a shift in the demographics with non-metros and women consuming more sports than ever before.

Gone are the days when sports were solely a male prerogative, nowadays it is not unusual to see each and every member of the family glued to their TV sets. Women now go to stadiums in large numbers to experience the extravaganza, which encourages a large set of brands to put their money on, opening more avenues for these brands to garner eyeballs.

of Cricket in India, other sports have been unable to thrive and thus have remained a highlight,

The Indian sporting arena has definitely changed a lot, and marketers have no

qualms in jumping in with their bags of money. Sports marketing has been booming, but marketers must be wise enough to not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

shadowed

by

the

headlines

of

cricket. According to a report by BARC India, Non-cricket properties contribute to only 20% of the live matches viewership in India.

Leagues such as Pro Kabaddi League (Kabaddi) and Indian Super League (Football) have emerged in recent years. However, they are nowhere near to be as commercially successful as Indian Premier League. Thereby, people are reluctant to pursue these sports as a viable

VERSUS

The privatisation of sports has pushed it from a pure play to a business-friendly market, which benefits the entire sports ecosystem and provides opportunities to invest in sports.

However, just because a property is selling well, doesn’t mean we oversell it; each brand needs to identify what it should stand for and carve a niche mould for itself in the market.

More importantly, the overwhelming popularity

career, which reduces the quality of gameplay.

Thus, the playing field in sports for businesses is

smaller

relative

to

the

number

of

organizations competing against each other.

Another factor that continues to impede the growth of sports marketing in the country is the lack of formal education and research on the subject. Apart from a few business schools and institutes in India, the ways to pursue sports marketing as a formal career are hard to find.

Hence,

finding

the

right

personnel

specialized in this field would remain a challenge for organizations.

In theory, India may seem like the next breeding

ground

for

sports

marketing.

However, in the presence of these obstacles, it would struggle to find its place as a separate field in the country.

The

It's wise to debate it out in our eye2eye section, but please don't argue with the experts.

Stay home, stay safe! Let's fight COVID-19 together!

11 | Logoistic

January-February 2020

THE EVOLUTION OF STARBUCKS LOGO

BY MANIK KAPUR

Starbucks was started in 1971 as a coffee, tea and spices business rather than a shop to get your favourite coffee. Since the company started in Seattle by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker, the founders wanted to represent the adventure of the high seas. They found inspiration in the book Moby Dick by Hermin Melville. The founders were struck by a Norse woodcut of a doubletailed mermaid – with a theory that the siren was considered to lure sailors.

Also, the fact that their coffee travelled vast distances over the seas to reach customers inspired them to use the siren as their logo. The logo was put on a brown Cigar paper with the Words “Starbucks - Coffee, Tea, Spices “printed on it representing its supposed approach.

As Howard Schultz acquired the company, its brand strategy changed. They started shifting from a coffee and tea store to a coffee shop concept, with handcraft espresso and beverages offered on stores. To fit into their new concept, the logo was revamped to convey their unique story. In 1987, the logo was redesigned from the brown coloured bare-breasted two-tailed siren with Coffee, Tea and Spices on it to a green coloured, white on black, two-tailed siren with breasts covered by her drooping hair, making it more suitable to the public audience. The green colour used to represent freshness and uniqueness, along with the shortening of the word to “Starbucks Coffee” on it to represent the shift to coffee-based drinks.

By 1992, the company had significantly increased its reach and sales all across America, with around 165 stores. To design their logo to a much more uncluttered and contemporary approach, the company decided to zoom in more on the siren; they extended the hair of the siren to go to the end of the body with the lower part cropped out. The navel was not visible, along with just the top ends of the tails now shown. The colour scheme was still there as green along with the Words” Starbucks Coffee” and the stars, to represent their brand.

Verdict: Miss On its 40th century, Starbucks decided to redesign its logo again to a much cleaner and more modernistic picture. The first major redesign was the removal of the Word “Starbucks-Coffee” from the logo, and just the siren was there with her two tails and the white on a green background. The company wanted to move the focus of the customers from the words to the entirety of the logo, to make it the symbol of their brand as the best coffee experience and shift the concentration towards the siren, similar to approaches by Nike and Apple. The shade of green was also made lighter in between the two shades of green’s used in previous logos. The redesign was also its effort to recognise its expanded operations and not just restrict itself to the words of “coffee business” as it incorporated new concepts throughout the world. The use of the new logo expanded to new diversified products by the company like special edition gift cards as well.

*Logo used in Middle East Countries might be different given the cultural followings

LOGOISTIC

Started as a single store in Seattle’s historic Pike Place Market, Starbucks has clearly and effectively dominated the consumer preference along the years when it comes to not only coffee but also what goes as a full and rewarding coffeehouse experience, a place to chat, meet up or even work together. Through success involving continuous quality improvement for both its menu and the customer experience, the journey of their logo shows us in how the company has revamped its vision to do the same.

12 | Silent Voice Voixce

January-February 2020

SILENT VOICE: PRINT ADS

BY KAUSHAL GUPTA

1. PRINT AD BY DUREX ON WORLD CONTRACEPTION DAY Durex has always been famous for their innovative print ads they do publish on their social media platforms. Recently, they came up with this print ad, very subtly conveying the message and also promoting their product and the brand itself. They posted the following Ad with the caption, “There are a MILLION reasons to buy Durex condoms! This WORLD CONTRACEPTION DAY Durex helps you to stay safe.”

The Ad was minimalistic in nature and showed a condom, with a transparent body cover having a maze printed over it. The purpose was to represent that durex condom is such a maze into which if sperm once gets into, won’t be able to escape out. The purpose was to illustrate the effectiveness of the condom as a product and build the credibility of Durex as a brand. The ad garnered popularity among their target audience and created awareness on mission of the World Contraception Day which is to improve awareness of contraception and to enable young people to make informed choices on their sexual and reproductive health.

2. MCDONALD’S FEAT. DOLLY PARTON CHALLENGE As you all might remember, 2019 recently ended with the very famous Ten-Year challenge. 2020 couldn’t keep it away from such campaigns and kickstarted itself with a new viral meme challenge and it’s being called the “Dolly Parton Challenge”. The campaign was kicked off by the USA music legend herself. She shared a collage of four photos featuring herself from different eras and projects and put the caption, “Get you a woman who can do it all.” The images were labeled as either LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or Tinder. Her clothing, props, and poses in the pictures reflected the different ways that many of us present ourselves on the respective social media platforms.

A lot many brands also welcomed the challenge and posted print ads on their social media platforms, advertising their products, if they had to represent their product/brand on various platforms.

This was the print ad shared by McDonald’s which got instantly viral.McDonald’s posted it with the caption “Get you a restaurant that can do it all.” For LinkedIn, they chose their classical hamburger in its most sophisticated form. For Facebook square, they posted a family meal picture. For Instagram square, they went on to show different colors and display their vacation mode.

For Tinder section, they took the picture of an exotic drink, which would quench the people’s thirst.

13 | Ad-dicted

January-February 2020

BY KOPAL TRIPATHI AND KOMALANGI SRIVASTAVA Company: Netflix Theme: Life Without Netflix Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=B4R02hzbKiY

Company: Audi Theme: Sustainability Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch? =WvEAklsAAts

Concept

Concept

Netflix is the world’s most popular on-demand media streaming platform. To stroke a chord with the Indian audience, Neflix took a desi route and created an extraordinary ad campaign. They released a few short videos featuring stand-up comedian, Abish Mathew, famed for his show Son of Abish and a recognized face among the youth of India. Throughout the campaign, they subtly highlighted the advantages of Netflix over traditional TV watching with their wide choice of shows and films to choose from. Additionally, unlike television channels, Netflix premieres the entire season of their original productions at once, giving viewers ample of opportunity to binge watch.

The concept of this 60 seconds Super Bowl commercial features a well-known actress Maisie Williams, known for her role in popular TV series, Game of Thrones. Williams then finds herself stuck at an intersection along with conventionally powered vehicles made to look awfully bad by smoke and pollution. She starts singing a song “Let it go” from Disney’s Frozen which signifies letting go of gasoline to switch to electronic vehicles.

CATCH

Verdict: Catch Netflix executed a clever social media campaign, infused with humor and a desi tadka using GIFs and videos from Bollywood movies and ‘just Indian things.’

Using interactive social media posts, Netflix highlighted the advantages they provide over traditional television – no commercial breaks, convenience of access to their favorite shows on the move, a vast choice of film and television series to choose from. The hashtags #LifeWithoutNetflix and #TheNetflixLife created a lot of buzz on social networking sites like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. The campaign was well executed and achieved a lot of traction and response on social media. Netflix cleverly achieved its aim of striking a chord with the Indian audience.

R

MISS

Verdict: Miss The advertisement clearly misses to reach its target audience. Williams appears to the millennial generation which are very less likely to own the luxury Audi car with a base price of $75,000. The song “Let it go” has a general perception of hatred among parents (who are the actual target audience) because they have heard it multiple times. Moreover, the commercial seemed to have wasted the talent of the actress along with over spending on releasing with the Super Bowl and playing the popular Disney song.

14 | Jab They Failed

January-February 2020

BY SAHIL BRAHMNE Donald Trump, before he became the POTUS - President of the United States, was well-known for his business acumen and was regarded as one of the shrewdest businessmen along with being one of the best deal makers.

Regardless of what you think of his political stance, you cannot ignore the flamboyance with which Trump ventures into new businesses. The man who once sued a writer for calling him “just a millionaire” has had many ventures. Some of them turned out well while some of them failed spectacularly. To name a few, Trump – The Board Game, Trump Bottled Water, Tour de Trump (a bicycle race based on the Tour de France), Trump Vodka, Trump Airlines, Trump University (bet you didn’t see that coming) were all part of his business portfolio that he rather not talk about.

But amongst all of those, Trump Steaks does seem rather interesting.

Trump Steaks, launched in 2007, to capitalize on the popularity of the Trump’s Reality TV Show – The Apprentice. Trump Steaks signed a deal with The Sharper Image to

exclusively sell Trump Steaks. This was probably the beginning of the end for Trump Steaks as The Sharper Image was an electronics and high-tech lifestyle store that had very little to do with frozen foods. Trump Steaks, with the tagline “World’s Greatest Steaks”, was branded as a premium product and was priced between $199 and $999. The product garnered negative reviews from the very start and famously lost a blind taste test with a score of 7.5 out of 10, to a $35-a-pound steak(as compared to Trump’s $95-apound) that had a score of 9.5 out of 10.

The alliance with The Sharper Image was discontinued just after two months as due to low sales. Later, the CEO, Jerry W. Lewin remarked that the product was largely unsuccessful, saying, "The net of all that was we literally sold almost no steaks, if we sold $50,000 of steaks grand total, I'd be surprised."

This is a classic example of how a poorquality product coupled with a lackadaisical marketing campaign is a recipe for failure.

JAB THEY FAILED

RAISING THE STEAKSTHE TRUMP WAY

15 | Vartalaap

January-February 2020

AN INTERVIEW WITH ROHIT GULATI

BY ADRIJA KHAN AND KAUSHAL GUPTA

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, KARL STORZ ENDOSCOPY INDIA PVT. LTD.

He is a dynamic leader and leads teams through change, articulating clear vision, aligning strengths to goals and instilling accountability. He uses his cross-market experience to accelerate sales, capitalizing on a strategic analytical approach to deliver revenue growth.

The medical devices market is heavily import-dependent — at around 70-80%, with imaging equipment (CT & MRI scanners), cardiac stents, orthopedic implants, glucometers, and critical care equipment cornering a large share. For consumables and disposables like gloves, crepe bandages, IV sets, blood bags, catheters and syringes, there are several small to medium players. Only low to mid-technology medical devices are manufactured in India, and even for these there’s a high dependence on input raw materials and components from China.

1. How are healthcare (pharmaceutical, consumable and medical devices) companies marketing their products given the prevalent corona virus spread worldwide?

Amid reports of potential supply chain disruptions for critical medicines and active pharmaceutical ingredients, it is becoming increasingly evident that novel COVID-19 outbreak may well lead to supply disruptions in India for some commonly used medical devices like digital thermometers, infrared thermometers, nebulizers, blood pressure monitors and glucometers.

Some key medical devices that are at risk of shortage due to supply chain disruptions are :

VARTALAAP

Mr. Rohit Gulati is the Associate Director, Strategic Marketing at KARL STORZ Endoskope. He has been in the Healthcare industry (pharmaceutical, consumable and medical device) for 15+ years, having worked with the likes of Bosch and Lomb and Beckton Dickinson. He is passionate about building high-value brand/market opportunities for the rapid growth of start ups as well as wellestablished companies.

16 | Vartalaap

January-February 2020

2. What kind of pricing strategies are followed for various medical instruments? How does Karl Storz handle the trade-off between product quality and the price?

• Premium Medical device products / companies follow Skim the Market pricing at

launch and then in small periods offer discounts, so that they do not erode value over a longer horizon / term • Low cost Medical device products / companies follow penetration pricing strategy by launching their products at 20-30% lower price than competition and playing on volumes and cross-subsiding over a longer term

There

are

reports

components

such

of as

Indian

medical

electronic

parts

device for

manufacturers

medical

devices

who

from

procure

the

their

Chinese

primary

regions

of

Hangzhou and Dongguan. With no possibility of replenishment of supplies in the very near future, some manufacturing lines will slow down or close by end of March 2020 or April 2020.

3. The Medical industry is based on trust. How do you manage new customers and doctors to trust your products? How important is the role of providing on-hands experience first of the instruments to the surgeons?

• Surgeons have instilled their trust upon us since ages, due to our consistent levels of service and product quality.

• In- hand experience is the most critical part of providing education and instilling confidence in our customers. We regularly do in house workshops and training programs across the globe through our numerous training centers and centers of excellence.

4. Would you suggest that students get cross-market experience to excel in the healthcare industry? How can it benefit them in the long run?

• Students must surely try and experience various facets of the MedTech Industry. They should try to work across in various streams/specialties to get an idea of how the device helps the end patients (Understand the entire value chain).

• Understand the Business models existing in India and various regulatory changes impacting the Industry today.

• This is one of the fastest growing industry in healthcare, so you can look forward to a fast pace growth environment and career.

5. What piece of Marketing advice would you like to impart to our readers?

As students of Marketing, reading about the Industry in most important. Catch hold of the below: • An Overview of the Value Chain by Lawton Robert Burns • Indian Healthcare Industry – Strategic Perspectives - IIM B MOOC • Start with Sales

VARTALAAP

KARL STORZ is one the oldest and most trusted brands across the world of endoscopy.

17 | Updates

January-February 2020

Burger King made headlines when it launched its latest ad showing a whopper turning moldy. It was launched to announce that Burger King would remove artificial colors, flavors and preservatives from its whoppers by the end of the year. It was a bold move by Burger King wherein industry mostly features beautifully-shot items that have been set up by stylists. The advertisement was welcomed to show a “real” burger beyond its prime and consumers praised its transparency. This bizzare advertisement tests how far can burger king take its audiences down the bold marketing route before losing the path entirely.Tanishq product on every anniversary would have strong sentiments attached to.

DATA DRIVEN DISTRIBUTION FOR RED CHILLIES A niche Bollywood movie is planning to change the concept of how movies are being marketed and distributed in this country.

A new release produced by Red Chillies has adopted a digital and data driven approach to market and distribute the film. In a market where the number of screens is seen as a benchmark of demand, which isn’t true, this approach focuses on availability.

It's a factor of availability. The plan is to release it in screens where it is most likely to get maximum traction. This leads to a significant impact, despite being a smaller number of screens. The studio had to research extensively on distribution density and patterns of these films, the footfalls each territory attracted and even the time of day and week that maximum people came to watch these films. Based on this, the team then zeroed in on the best territories to release and aggressively market the film.

UPDATES

BURGER KING’S MOLDY WHOPPER

By Kopal Tripathi

18

January-February 2020

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