Markathon July 2017

In this digital era, advertising has taken various forms to beat the fierce competition. The ads have evolved a great deal from the traditional surf excel ad to the new age customized ads for the users which in a way intrudes their privacy.

In the cover story, Arnav Khanna talks about the evolution of advertising technology, adblock and walled garden in the digital advertising space.

In the catch and miss section we bring to you the Tata Sky advertisement featuring Mr. Amitabh Bachchan which beautifully captures the acting learning experience of Mr. Bachchan through Tata Sky acting. While this ad really intrigued us, The Hair & Care fruits oil failed miserably in conveying its message to the target audience.

its global design store in Kanpur, ITC’s entry into fruits and vegetables, Microsoft launching its new chat app called Kaizala and many more.

The Eye to Eye section involves a very relevant debate on permission marketing with Mr. Prateek Kaushik from XIMB talking about the benefits of permission marketing such as cost savy and the one which helps in relationship building.

On the other hand, Miss Siddhi Bangard from XLRI having a very different viewpoint on the same, calling it an irrelevant effort which may tarnish the brand value.

In this month’s perspective, we have ‘Break the mis-conceptions and make it big- lessons from Ford India’ which undermines the role of villains in advertisements. Villains from the Bollywood movies do not get much endorsements as the companies feel that it may tarnish their brand but Ford has done something completely opposite in this regard and endorsed its brands through villains which has proved to be a great success. Marketing a country’s image- A modern perspective, talks about how the image of a country acts as a catalyst to marketing its products.

The positive image of a country brings about a positive image about the products of that country and vice versa. The article talks about how country image marketing is done and how global brands play a major role in the process.

In our Vartalaap for this edition, we have interviewed Mr. Sadashiv Nayak, Business Head, Big Bazaar. He has completed his post-graduation from XLRI and has worked with marquee business houses like Asian Paints, HUL and Future Group. He has a professional experience of 20 years and strongly believes in innovation as well as understanding the voice of the customer. He has great insights on marketing and some tips for those looking to make a career in this field.

In the Brand Story- Corporate Speaks section, Mr. Senthil Kumar talks about the evolution of Kellogg’s Brand, a cornflakes brand that we all cherish for our breakfasts, and about how it came into being. The marketing world has been buzzing this month, with Vodafone launching Also we have a lot more in store for you this month with our top five reads which will definitely intrigue you with diverse topics such as ‘ men are more responsive to online ads’ , ‘Life on the sixth continent’ and more. So enjoy reading this edition and do write back to us with your articles or any feedback.

Cheers!

Team Markathon

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Andar Ki Baat

Perspective

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Break the Mis-Conceptions and Make it big Lessons from Ford India Drumil Jagwani | IIM Shillong Marketing A Countrys ImageA modern Day Strategy Lijo R | KJSIMR

Cover Story

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Advertising Armageddon Arnav Khanna | IIM Shillong

Eye 2 Eye

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Is Permission Marketing the best way to earn the attention of customers?

Vartalaap Mr. Sadashiv Nayak

12 Prateek Kaushik

Siddhi Bangard

XIMB

XLRI Jamshedpur

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Business Head Big Bazaar

Future Retail Group

Interviewed By:: Himanshu Chugh | IIM Shillong IIM Shillong

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Andar Ki Baat SpeciaLs

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AD-dicted

Top 5 reads of the month Articles which you just 24 cannot afford to miss

Catch & Miss advertisements of the month Ravitej Vadlamani & Suman Sourav | IIM Shillong

Marketing Gyan

Brand Story | Corporate Speaks

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Updates

Fresh from the Marketing World Suman Sourav | IIM Shillong

Kellogg’s Senthil Kumar MARKATHON

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perspective

Break the Mis-Conceptions and Make it big Lessons from Ford India

By Drumil Jagwani IIM SHillong

“Great advertising comes from breaking away from the stereotypes�

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ntroduction

ollywood is one industry where the characters played by the actors play on stage, makes people judge them off-screen. If a person is portrayed a hero, he dies a hero and if he/she has been a villain, chances are he/she will always keep portraying the same role again and again until a more competent villain outcasts them in being a more negative character on screen.

The villains of Bollywood have made a name for themselves killing people on-screen. The audi-

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perspective

in their home and often spend hours outside their houses in Mumbai just to catch a glimpse of them. No wonder the Indian companies have always approached them for endorsing their brand. From Amitabh Bachchan to Shahrukh Khan, from Hema Malini to Deepika Padukone, from child actors like Darsheel Safari to the late Mr. Rajesh Khanna in Havells ads, all the protagonists have endorsed multiple successful brands in their lifetime. It is said that the success of brands and engaged celebrities has always gone hand in hand. These celebrities are carefully chosen to represent their brand. Colgate Max

ence hates them from the start till the end and if they are seen at any public gatherings, the notion is there will always be an aura surrounding them which will pass the message, “come near me and I will burn you to ashes”. Such is the hatred towards villains or idol worship of heroes that in the 1973 hit film Coolie starring Amitabh Bachchan, while filming an action fight sequence, Puneet Issar hit Mr. Bachchan on his stomach and he was admitted to hospital where he fought with death for his life. Millions prayed for Mr. Bachchan to make it out alive.

Prayers worked for Mr. Bachchan but not for Mr. Issar, his life was made into hell on earth.

He was met abuses and hurled with stones in public. After recovering Mr. Bachchan came in Mr. Issar’s defence, but it was too late. Mr. Issar himself admits his career was finished after Coolie.

In real life these villains, are the humblest people one can ever find. They frequently donate to charity and according to Bollywood sources are the most approachable person on the movieset. However, they are the protagonists of Bollywood who have always made it big in reel-life and in real-life. The people come rushing to them for autographs and photographs.

They worship them

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Fresh toothpaste stood for youth and energy, and who will be better than Ranveer Singh to endorse the brand. Simultaneously, the sales of Colgate MaxFresh did go up, teenage boys and girls and the segment below 30 years shifted from using Close-Up to Colgate MaxFresh. Close-Up was hit because of Colgate’s successful strategy to hire the right person for the job.

Shakti Kapoor’s name also spelled youth from the first letter, but who would associate with him to sell Navratan Cool Oil, or for that matter, we never saw the late Mr. Amrish Puri endorsing a private bank. These Bollywood villains never got to be near to any company who would make them their brand ambassadors. The latest and the closest a villain came to be endorsing a brand was Maaza where Varun Dhawan was shown to be defeating Gulshan Grover in pursuit of the mango drink. In the advertisements too, the vil-

lains stay as villains.

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perspective Then why would any competent brand in India, come out with advertisements where these villains are given the center screen. No manager would commit this grave mistake in his life. But, one company did commit this mistake their sales have been facing north ever since.

The recent advertisements of Ford India have come out with a series of advertisements where we see the famous villains of Indian entertainment industry playing the role of villains for the

first ten seconds but quickly the advertisement shifts telling people to get rid of the mis-conceptions and pre-conceived notions about them and Ford cars. These cars have very low service costs and people shouldn’t just overlook Ford costs because of the service costs. They iterate this point that even in the fifth year of service, the costs would be around Rs. 3453.

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Brilliant advertisements which got straight to the mind and the heart by playing with our emotions of fear, acquaintance, comfort and trust in just 30 seconds. Tubelight Films hit the bulls-eye with this series of advertisements.

This successful campaign helped Ford India to boost their revenue in a twin manner. The car sales shot up and people who went to local service stations now decided to go to an authorized service center. Rs. 3453 was actually

lesser than what they would have paid for getting Ford cars serviced anywhere else. If Maruti Suzuki capitalized on having service stations in all 4 directions, Ford now capitalized on having cheapest service in all the 4 directions. It is not to be forgotten that the concept of hiring the antagonists was first seen in Jaguar cars advertisements abroad where the villains of the west successfully helped Jaguar advertisements to stand out. But, Ford India did a good job themselves. The advertisements are light, filled with colour and will surely stay in our memories for long. Ford India just opened its doors to casting villains in advertisements. Time for others to harness this negative energy into something big.  

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MARKETING A COUNTRY’S IMAGE – A MODERN-DAY STRATEGY By LIJO R KJ SIMR

Importance of a Country’s Image

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n today’s world markets, a positive country image has a considerable impact on the evaluation of consumers, of products from different countries and thus influences their purchasing decisions later. It is very relevant for the countries to market their positive image.

An image of the country is like the total of all the descriptive, deductive beliefs of information one gets from a given country or the sum of all these emotional and aesthetic qualities that experience, beliefs, ideas, memories and impressions that a person has on a place.

For example, there was a news about the publication of a series of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, as a consequence Danish products were re-

moved from shops in the Middle East, which cost businesses in Denmark millions and raised fears of irreparable commercial damage. Similarly, after a series of withdrawals and products manufactured abroad disasters, US consumers are very sensitive to the product’s origin and active search for products “made in USA”.

For example, despite the impressive figures of Indonesia, the world’s fourth Largest country, the “country mark” Indonesia is ranked 66th in the world. The Global Country Brand Index is a study conducted by Future Brand, a group of consultants, by analyzing comparative perception of countries using a number of factors. In the latest study, Indonesia is not unique: several large and theoretically powerful countries like Indonesia, Bangladesh, Kenya and Mexico suffer from “ignorance” on the world stage, a lack of recognition by people all over the world. Bangladesh is ranked 72nd in the country’s index mark, while Kenya is ranked 65th, and Mexico is ranked 55th, behind minnows such as Costa Rica and Panama. In contrast, tiny Singapore ranked 14th in the Future Brand study.

Why a country working in relative darkness varies from place to place, but many unknowns face similar difficulties - the lack of a large diaspora, some world ambassadors, the shortage of major consumer brands. And being relatively far from the radar can have ramifications that go far beyond national pride. Ignorance can greatly harm the strategic power of these nations, hinder dipping

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perspective How Country Image Marketing Is Done??

motion makes a difference in effectiveness 3.

There are several useful ways to evaluate a promotional program 4.

The promotion of investment appears to have a statistically significant influence on foreign investment flows

The organic image of an area is created from information such as newspaper reports, magazine articles, television reports, etc. This imaging process can be seen as a result of the socialization of all life.

In marketing the focus is on the second level that could be advertising trying to “induce� an image in the consumer’s mind, and thus increasing the likelihood of a purchase decision in favor of a product.

5.

Investment promotion programs have proved effective in attracting certain types of investors Promotional techniques can include: a.

Providing information to potential investors b.

Create an attractive image of the country as an investment location c.

Providing services to potential investors

The image of the country as a may be composed of generalized images created not only for representative products but also by the degree of economic and political maturity, historical events and relations, culture and Traditions and degree of technological virtuosity and industrialization.

However, promotion is only one of the many tools available for countries wanting to attract foreign investment. Governments can: a.

Provide tax incentives and subsidies can create wonders b.

Providing industrial zones, export processing zones and other infrastructure c.

Attempt to reduce red tape for potential investors d.

Bilateral tax negotiations, trade and investment e.

Seeking to create an enabling environment by ensuring the repatriation of profits, ensuring access to imported components and vowing not to expropriate property without compensation.

Even the culture of a country can be used to create a Positive image. There are typical ways of disseminating the culture - and image - of a country: food, music, sport, to name a few.

Another way is, focusing on the technical and promotional structures used by countries in their competition to attract foreign direct investment. It can be said that: 1.

Different technical combinations of promotion are useful in the different phases of a promotional program 2.

The type of organization responsible for pro-

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How Global Brands help Building Country Image

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Let’s look at Dubai, where a growing global awareness of its airline, Emirates, which has become a carrier with one of the largest route networks and some of the most luxurious cabins, has spread to promote a Positive international image of Dubai.

Until recently, the soft power promoted by the government was the province of rich nations - the French cultural institutes of the French Alliance in

However, other developing countries have largely ignored public diplomacy promoted by the govern ment at its own expense. The Mexican government, for example, has not even developed a coordinated national brand strategy - a strategy that could be used to show Mexico’s growing wealth and to fight stories of crime and drug trafficking. The country that often appear in the global media.

Unknowingness also limits diplomatic relations between countries. Although it is theoretically possible for a country to have strong relationships simply through interactions between elites –For e.g.

The United States and Saudi Arabia have remained strategic partners for decades in an elite-built relationship, If their populations have moved away - it becomes more and more difficult task to be accomplished, especially when it comes to democracies where policies generally require public support.

While doing image development in a particular country, the marketer has to acknowledge and take into account the existing knowledge structures in the target market when designing the marketing mix.

It is very essential for a country to market itself to stay relevant, it can be even very simple. Like the world capitals, for example. But over the last decade, some larger developing countries have also frequent foreign trips by the Head of the state, what devoted considerable government resources to Shri. Narendra Modi is exactly doing in his first tenure as the Prime Minister of India. public diplomacy.

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cover story

july 2017

Advertising Armageddon

Cover Story

When was the last time you saw a complete TV

commercial. Unless it started with some unconventional tone or talked about something other than the MARKETING product. The world of advertising is very essential BUDGET to marketers, it gives form to our brands and deliver the idea to the customer. Advertisers have to maintain a very delicate balance between the brand’s message and entertainment. Therefore, creativity is the skill which works here. But there’s something more here, with the increase in touchpoints accessed by the customers, ATL advertising is no more limited to the conventional trinity of media (Print, Radio and TV).

As we are getting ahead with the Digital Age, advertising has become much more than a one to many communication. Advertisers are finding it difficult to create result oriented content. Is it the doom of ad-

vertising? Let’s find out!

Traditional Media I would start by reminiscing some of the most iconic ads in the Indian landscape. Surf came with the ad

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featuring the character “Lalitaji”, where this lady would engage in a monologue with the audience, listing ho surf excel was better than the household Nirma. Surf was priced higher than Nirma, but when the benefits were listed to the consumer in an approachable manner, it became effective. Then came the Cadbury Dairy Milk ad with its tagline “Kuchh khaas hai”, which was another success. A lot has changed since then, marketing spends boomed, technologies evolved and new and creative ways of acquiring customers have been coming up since then.

With the increasing competition there has been a slow decline in the loyalties as switching brands became easier. Over a point of time it started becoming more difficult for brands to stand out, marketing departments and ad agencies started to face the heat of this wave as the effectiveness of these campaigns started to get questioned.

Digital Marketing came as a saviour with its data based analysis that gave managers an answer to the problem of effectiveness. Since then, digital marketing has become more accessible and more affordable. Better digital substitutes for traditional forms of interaction and entertainment, such as social media, video streaming services are being preferred by marketers today.

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I would like to give a “not so corporate” perspective to this change, because media is not all about products and services, it is essentially about how information is transmitted to its prospective receiver. Newspapers and Newsrooms have been a source of stable journalistic production where, the reports were available from lesser and more trusted sources. Now, with the increasing sources of news platforms, there has been an increased exposure to news. This information mixed with gossip, opinion, hot takes and branded content has led to the weakening of the stable platforms. Media houses are also trying to keep up with their own apps, featured articles, and developing a strong repository of online content, but are facing a hard time with the likes Twitter and Facebook.

Digital Advertising The advent of internet triggered a completely new sphere of influence for the customers as well as the advertisers. What started with banner ads on websites, has now become a series of mediums through which digital advertising can be practiced. Online advertising is one of the fastest ways to reach the audience with SEO, social networking, Email Marketing, online classified ads, pre-video ads, pop-up ads, website takeovers etc forming some of the

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mediums. Ads have become the primary revenue source for various internet companies and a major source of ad expense for the ad agencies.

The internet ads can be broadly classified into three basic models: Cost per action (you pay if a customer sees the ad, clicks it and buys the product), Cost per click (you pay if a customer sees the ad and clicks it) and Cost per thousand (you pay on the basis of number of people your ad has been exposed to). Few major advantages of digital ads is targeted nature of ads, the ease of sharing throughout the internet, monitor and immediate course correction through analytics. The upcoming trend in Digital advertising is through the mobile platform. Since most of the population is accessing the internet through their mobiles, it makes it very important for the companies to understand the dynamics of mobile ads. Due to the advantages of digital ads and their increasing effectiveness, digital marketing budgets of the companies and increasing at a rate higher than the traditional media spends.

Omnichannel marketing identifies a customer and reaches him/her across all channels-mobile, video, desktop and more. It tries to maintain the context in which the customer has interacted with the brand. It means that a customer interacting with the brand second time will not be shown the same ad he/she was shown when he/she interacted with the brand for the first time. It is slowly gaining popularity and can be seen in Amazon ads where we are shown ads of items that we had added to cart or had searched for..

Advertising Technology

Adblock?!

Online marketing has already established its need, in the world of growing internet users and their changing habits. But digital ad spending by the companies need to be utilised in a cautious manner so as to draw maximum return.

There are a lot of internet users which might not be intended by the company, and there might be certain web banners which might not be profitable at all. Advertising Technology is a group of tools and software designed to make online advertising effective. Ad Tech is designed to help advertisers make better use of their budgets and deliver the right content to the right customers at the right time. Two of most revolutionary technologies under Ad Tech are the Programmatic Advertising and Omnichannel Marketing.

Programmatic advertising in simple terms deals with the automated buying and selling of Ad spaces on websites to prospective marketers on the basis of their targeted audience, It helps marketers to cover the entire web effectively without dealing individual publishers. It is both cost effective and time effective, but comes with some amount of risk

But this is not a happy ending yet, increased customisation of ads being displayed to the customers has led to a sense of intrusion of privacy.

This has reduced the effectiveness of online ads.

It has led to a phenomenon of Ad Blocking- software equipped with the technology to prevent publishers for displaying online ads. Ad blocking is one of the biggest obstacles in front of marketers today. Ads are paid payed only after they have been served, this means that the publishers are not going to get paid for visits to their sites for any browser that has Ad Blocker installed. According to an estimate it is blamed for costing $22 billion in 2015 to the advertising industry. To make matters worse there has been a growth of 41% in the number of people making use of Ad blocking software. Apple has also released its iOS9 with ad-blocking feature, this is going to make it tough to go for mobile in the near future.

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In order to survive in this result oriented scenario, Ad agencies need to work effectively with the Ad Tech companies. The Ad Tech as a whole offers a huge range of products which can be used in a customised manner by the Ad agencies for relevant targeting and better integration of different channels. With Ad Tech brands can connect with its customers on all channels. This will trigger cross-platform uniformity and ensure authenticity in marketing efforts.

Can advertisers do anything about this? Can they pull out something creative to get around this problem? The answer is No and Yes. There

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is no shortcut to this problem, customers feel irritated with the intrusive ads and it is their right to privacy, advertisers can’t do much about it.

However, there is something they can do, something they have always been good at, Crafting the right message. The connect needs to be established with the customers and proper data should be collected about them. Omnichannel need to be embraced to make the customer feel

connected to the brand. Native Advertising has more chances of being accepted than banner ads and therefore can be utilised to prevent damage for ad-blocking software.

Walled Garden in the digital advertising space

Facebook. Since a large chunk of traffic can be accessed from these two platforms, ad tech companies can use them to get to the users and place appropriate banners, but Google and Facebook have denied sharing any data about the user on their platforms. That leaves advertiser with the only options, buy Ad Tech products from Google (DoubleClick Bid Manager) and Facebook (Atlas Ad Server). This has led to the question on a conflict of interest. Using their own Ad Tech products might lead to funnelling the brand’s ad spend to their own Media Networks. Google and Facebook earn majorly through advertising, with this strategic move they have integrated the value chain to ensure earnings from advertisers This creation of closed platforms will lead to a bifurcation in the Ad Tech space.

Advertising agencies will have to buy the Google’s and Facebook’s Ad Tech products separately for access to a bigger user base and effective targeting. It has further complicated the procedure of Ad Tech integration with the media agencies where the main idea was to purchase one product that would engage with all of the web. .

A walled garden is a closed platform or a closed ecosystem in which the service provider controls all the offerings (applications, media, content).

Successful platforms like Google+, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter etc. have created new ways to engage their users. That is by providing third party content on its platform to users. Facebook Instant Articles, Snapchat Discover, Twitter Moments. Apart from keeping users engaged in their platforms for a longer time, these closed platform provider control the entry of third party applications and restrict the data collected from the user behaviour within their platforms.

In this context, third party ad-tech companies have been restricted from operating in two of these ‘walled gardens’ namely, Google and

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vartalaap

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VARTALAAP An Interview with Mr. Sadashiv Nayak Mr. Sadashiv Nayak is the current Business Head for Big Bazaar, Future Retail Group. He completed his Post graduation from XLRI and has from then worked in various challenging roles with marquee business houses like Asian Paints, HUL and Future Group. With a professional experience of more than 20 years Mr. Nayak strongly believes in understanding the voice of consumer and innovating to make the experience for the end customer enriching.

Future Group

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Business Head Big Bazaar

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vartalaap

That’s the position, we want to be the third grain of India with the tagline “Pet Bhara Pyaar”.

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Markathon: : You have worked with three major groups, Unilever, Asian Paints and now with Future group. How has your experience been in these corporates and what is the one thing that is common?

Each one of them had their unique capabilities. After coming to Big Bazaar, I realised what Asian Paints was doing to us, they were far ahead in supply chain. When I came to big bazaar I realised how HUL was so obsolete relatively and how big bazaar was just learning. So, to my mind I think I picked up supply chain form Asian paints, when it came to HUL I picked up sheer sales aggression, which I think is a fantastic ability for an organisation of that size. And thirdly with Big Bazaar, what came was that the customer is everything. So, the common thing which I found in each one of them in their own way, maybe with different lenses in, was that all three laid a huge emphasis on teams and people, some saying it openly and others not so openly. Asian Paints would do a lot of things around people and help them bond, Levers would do it with some bit of sophistication, like the prayer meet which the chairman would do for everyone in the company at a certain time, it was like an open house for everyone to ask.

Here, in Big Bazaar everything is around people, e.g. If there are 150 stores and the people in Guwahati store are not excited, then whatever we plan and strategize, it is not going to happen. People is the one thing which runs common in all three of them.

So there are two which are in the pipeline, one is Debrugarh and one is Dimapur. Shillong has been signed, but there is some problem on the real estate, because we use certain criteria to make sure that it is a viable store and hence for that you need a bare minimum consumption market which some of the places in North East will not meet.

But some places like Guwahati, we feel like we can take in 7 more stores (1 Big Bazaar and 2 Fashion Stores are already there), but we’re waiting for the right property. We have invested in a small warehouse now, we have added two more floors in that Big Bazaar and are planning to add more categories into it. Also we have got us into Agartala, Johrat, Silchar and a Central in Guwahati.

I think internally I have the same mind set for Guwahati as it is for any store in cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad. It may not have reached a Delhi or Mumbai level in my mind, but I don’t see it from a small town lens anymore. We always have new plans as to what next, so the commitment is large we are looking for property and we should be doing around 10 stores in the next two years. We don’t acquire land, we normally operate on a leased model, but a bare minimum criteria on the store location and the store layout and size is something which we look at and that is something we are not finding the right fit in Shillong.

Markathon: Big Bazaar as a store also has many store brands, be it FMCG brands like Tasty Treats, Golden Harvest, Swiss Temple, DJ&C etc. Without proper positioning and proper recall, where do you see the future of these brands?

Markathon: Since we are talking about North East, we wanted to know more about your plan for more stores in the First and foremost you said brands, and you said private labels. But both are not the seven sisters

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same, we have made a transition from one to the other. We call them Own Brands and there is a reason for it. When you say there is no positioning, it is just an assumption!

There is a perfect positioning even when we may not be stating it upfront. BTW we have most of our food brands lie under another listed company called the Future Consumer. Big Bazaar belongs to a company called Future Retail. Both the companies have a strategic tie-up, but the deals are done at an arm’s length, which means we will negotiate with them as hard as with maybe, HUL. That’s the way we operate, but that helps us, all the push and pull helps. But, I think you can go on and check the Future Consumer website and see for yourself the kind of talent the company holds. What you’re possibly observing is perhaps, like the other brands, I don’t see you enough, but that’s done consciously, why I would blow up money advertising, when I have to sell in only Big Bazaar. But when you come inside the store you may see our brands.

Taking the example of the brand Poof, in this the insight was that when you look at indulgence snacking there is a guilt associated to it and we wanted to free people from that guilt. Poof offers a Waflet, a wafer biscuit torn into pieces, packaged in a very contemporary packaging. So like Poof there are other brands which have been positioned well and are doing well. There are also brands like Kosh, which are still trying to find its feet, because we’ve taken an ambitious jump. We want to make it the third grain in India. First being rice, second be-

We feel that if a brand gets created in Big Bazaar, it can get created elsewhere.

Bars etc.), and to cover the full picture we will have to go into the centre of the plate, the roti, the rice, the kheer. That’s the position, we want to be the third grain of India with the tagline “Pet Bhara Pyaar”. It doesn’t preach you to be healthy, instead it says that the mother will give you good health by giving you good food. That positioning is very strong and was last taken by maybe Saffola Atta or maybe Amul. But Indians will not change their grains that easily. Out of 6 products, 3 have shot off really well, on is somewhere in between and two of them need work.

Markathon: Having talked about a strong positioning, are we looking to sell these brands even further, i.e. beyond Big Bazaar?

It is already happening, it is already there in Trent, Star Bazaar, and Hypercity. It is there in our own smaller formats like Nilgiri’s, Heritage, and Easy Day. We are doing an experiment in Varanasi, where we are going to general trade. In Rajasthan we have taken the distribution of the entire Public Distribution Scheme called Annapurna stores, so there you have all our private brands and we’re in talks with two other governments for their PDS. But that’s not our first priority, we feel that if a brand gets created in Big Bazaar, it can get created elsewhere. I will tell you about this with an example, we tied up with the Spanish government to launch Olive Oil in the country, at that time it was only used as a Baby Oil. We introduced the concept of different grades of Olive Oil, we achieved what we wanted to but what happened was that everyone around started selling Olive Oil. So, the trickledown effect is huge. Therefore, from us it gets very easily passed down to the nearby general trade and therefore it poses an opportunity for us to take our products outside.

ing wheat and third will be oats. Other companies like Marico and Kellogg’s have tried Markathon: Can you please tell us more coming up their efforts but have never yield- about different store formats that Big ed results. As a retailer we will not stick to Bazaar has come up with. Big Bazaar a particular product form (Muesli, Energy

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Gennext is something to be seen in the big cities like Mumbai. What is the rationale behind such a change from the conventional Big Bazaar store?

meanwhile they can sample different food products, until the queue moves ahead and the bill is finally processed and the payment is completed. We would ideally wish that this could happen everywhere but as of now the country is Tell me as a customer, It’s about preparing for the cus- not fully prewhat did you feel? tomer of tomorrow – that’s why it pared. However, what we Markathon: I went is called Gen Next.

Whether it haphave done is there and saw a pens today or tomorrow, we don’t that we have salad and a Pasdecided to try counter first, know. build these not the product 10-12 pilots and here people can experience shelves, internally connected was the clothing store. Each lane had big boards the best food from food courts, learnings and the shelves were very well organized. from Central in the fashion floor, and lesThe first products I could see were your sons from Hometown (furniture & lifestyle) own brands and many imported brands and eZone (consumer electronics). Once you’ve done that, Big Bazar creates a buffet as well. to pick up what they want. So suddenly you Tell me how much time did you spend there? had many stores that said that they have lot of senior citizens, and they wanted sit Did you overshoot your time? down billing, so they’ve created their space, Markathon: I spent around 45 mins some wanted to do home delivery, and many wanted to keep a food counter. there. And yes I did overshoot my time.

I think you have now answered yourself.

Firstly, all our stores are not going to be Gennext, they are going to be limited. There is a customer who is changing, for whom time is not a constraint. In cities like Mumbai there are people who have ample amount of time and money. For purchasing exotic items have either to go to multiple small shops or something expensive like Food Hall. Then, how do you cater to that indulging customer? And secondly, product categories like Mayonnaise, Ketchup etc. don’t have any brand ambassador. They need to be promoted well through the retail channel and we want them to explore everything. And after doing all this you encounter the biggest pain point of Big Bazar, billing. Then we got something known as sit-down billing. I don’t know if you’ve experienced that. Say an old couple is shopping with their kids, and it becomes tough for them at times to wait in the queue. In that case they can simply handover the trolley, get a coupon and an OTP on their phone and sit nearby. In the

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What you saw as a time-constrained customer, many people want to have food. And you went to the Mumbai store, which may not be the best one. If you go to the Noida store, it’s really indulging – people are serving pizzas [sampling being free, everyone wants one].

So we do all that! It’s about preparing for the customer of tomorrow – that’s why it is called Gen Next. Whether it happens today or tomorrow, we don’t know. But from a retailer’s perspective, do stuff and put it up elsewhere, which is the real model.

Markathon: You talked about home delivery. So you have these upcoming modern ventures such as Big Basket and Grofers which may pose some threat in the future. So are you looking at some home delivery avenues in different formats?

We do home delivery, but more as a service.

But not aggressively, you can’t book us as

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home delivery, you can come and shop and we shall deliver it to your home. We are trying WhatsApp delivery in Bangalore. But I am personally not very comfortable as you need to do it in a formal organized manner like Big Basket. The challenge in the Big Basket model is that there is little money.

Unlike Big Basket though, others in that category failed, they didn’t even want to invest in inventory, they would simply process the order by purchasing from Big Bazar acting as an aggregator which frankly after a point makes no sense to the customer who has to pay a premium for the service. So what we are doing is that we are investing in technology, and using the same platform. We had a separate organization, an ecomm venture called Big Bazar Direct (nothing to do with Big Bazar) which integrated the home delivery system and alerts for customers, mapping the entire movement of goods from warehouse to store and store to customer but it was unviable. As and when we decide that we are in a viable position for e-retailing, then we shall get in. But as Kishorji as iterated recently, we don’t plan to touch this segment for the next couple of years. Also, you have to master other things as well before entering this segment – how the different product SKUs shall be billed, food safety, packaging, and many other things.

Markathon: What are your views on the present model of D-Mart? They have been offering deals at the cheapest prices in the industry and their expansion has been increasing exponentially towards different regions of the country and they also had a successful IPO recently. How does Big Bazar differ from D-mart?

They have a good value proposition in terms of the economic benefits, but there is hardly any variety and they have a limited set of offerings. And as a financial analyst you have to remind yourself that D-Mart doesn’t have to pay any rent which directly increases their EBITDA on a month-to-

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month basis. The other reason behind the lower prices is to reduce your assortments thereby increasing the efficiency. Speaking of only food products they barely manage to cover half of our offerings and then we have 80,000 other SKUs selling in our store at any point whereas for them it will be around 4000. And today there are customers wanting that price and we have consciously vacated that position as we have other places to generate revenues from. That model is no doubt good. But if I have to be a little skeptical, two years down, the same store growth is going to be a trouble. For us, we are on a different journey, preparing for the Gen Next customer. There is great value but the prices may not be the lowest. You may not get the cheapest coconut at our store today, but you will definitely get six different kinds. Then you have other categories such as FBB where you have the regular merchandise, merchandise endorsed by Katrina, Varun Dhawan, and Miss India. You are creating aspirations in the process of these brand buildings. The bigger gain in the entire process for us is database marketing where we have a huge database of customers which helps us to divert customers to the right place. We did a program for mothers reminding them that their infants’ diapers are over and giving them a small token, and it fetched a conversion of 8%. We also did something called Wednesday Bazar, where we gave great discounts on food but the category that fires the most is apparel.

So apparently food is the recruiter for us - it gets us data, identifies the customer and we are able to get a much larger share of wallet & mind. You cannot get the share of mind without selling clothes. But we do have built in tools for combating these other players, tools such as the Savings Club for certain markets which offers higher discounts compared to the peers.

Markathon: How much have you leveraged customer information and Big Data as of now in stocking customer specific SKUs and targeting?

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We use Big Data analytics but at a very small scale as of now and we are at a very basic level of data mining to get the category sales up. We are doing a small pilot to get to know the top 50,000 customers who although may not account for a significant part the revenues but will help us in understanding the process of analyzing. For example, we can get to know how to celebrate festivals with them. And finally after a certain amount of time we can start defining the customer segments [the empty nester, the music lover, or the cherry picker] like the more evolved markets like UK where stores have done it as they started thirty years ago. As of now we have a lot to learn and observe as the market evolves gradually and we are not in a rush.

Markathon: Being a marketing student what would be your advice to the current students wanting to pursue a career in this field? How much time do you spend in the market with the customers?

MBA just happened for me, accidentally. I was inclined to get into electronic engineering and then I had a change of mood and

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also got influenced by everyone around.

Honestly, I spend a lot of time in the market. If you remove the label of Marketing, HR, Finance, etc frankly I think it is about doing business and a lot about the customer. All of us are customers ourselves and we understand somethings intuitively. The challenge comes when you unnecessarily (and I am not trying to look down upon the Marketing models) build a label to ‘complexify’ stuffs. The models should help us simplify stuffs, or build trends and observe instead of complicating them. At the time I was taking the course on market research at XLRI we came across this classic research conundrum. If you take a survey on flight experience, assume the results suggest that flight A has good food, good customer service, nice hygiene, but fares low on safety. How do you look at it? Safety is of course the biggest concern for any customer in the first place, we have to focus on that first but the model doesn’t help me simplify this, it instead complicates stuffs.

Therefore, the models should help in this aspect be it any business and the market visits and observations put that canvas for you.

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eye2eye

july 2017

Is Permission Marketing the best way to earn the attention of customers?

Prateek Kaushik XIMB

Siddhi Bangard XLRI Jamshedpur

My fifteen year old cousin suddenly asks - “What’s Permission Marketing?” ,Tad surprised, I go, “What do YOU understand by Marketing?”. Instantaneously he answers, “Um, gaining attention and communicating messages? ”. “Yes exactly”, amazed by his brevity I said. He went, “Then what makes Marketing tough? You’ve only got to communicate well and voila!

It’s done”.

“Yes! Only if you manage to get attention!” I uttered.

“And what about Permission…….“, he asked. Before she could complete i jumped in, “You seem pretty interested, want to know more?”. “Absolutely”, he said, all intrigued.

“Guess what. This is exactly what Permission Marketing is”. Inspite of huge developments in Marketing, the basic challenge of earning attention has remained same.

What’s worse with the growth of social media platforms potential customers are getting bombarded with loads of unrequested information like never before.“Interruption marketing” looks obsolete and less chic now.

Permission marketing on the other hand with a sway of “consent“seems much more promising in following ways: • Cost savvy: It uses marketing tools such as Emails, social media , mobile messages to target customers already shown interest in information • Relationships building: Consistent interaction with customer through messages which are read and absorbed bolsters relationships • Customized like a pro: Since the customers choose to be informed, personalization could be done demographically or based on interests, gender,etc • ROI: An intrigued audience means interested customers. This means prospective leads into sales would be much more likely than “shooting in the dark” That being said, committing Permission marketing is the best way to earn attention would be an over ambitious stance to take, that too at a time when plethora of devised strategies are being put to test everyday.

“Is this ad not relevant to you?” - FB asks me, once I click on the close button of a lingerie ad. This question must have been asked to the billion users of FB a zillion times by now. But why? Oh, they are trying to know if you will be interested in buying the said product and if not, they will not bother you. It is ironic that permission marketing itself begins with interruption marketing to first grab the attention of the consumer. I believe most will agree that it is one of the most annoying questions ever asked! And it is just not a general disgust with the invasion of my priced privacy that makes me believe so, but there are other reasons and facts which can build the understanding that other forms of marketing especially interruption marketing still rule the roost. First is, not every good or service is amenable to or requires permission marketing for instance marketing a movie as a product. Interruption marketing for movies in the form of promotions on TV and social media are still major forms of advertisement. Second, permission marketing defends itself saying it thrives on customers genuinely interested in the product, is it always true? In these days of information overload and ever shrinking attention spans, how much thought do we give before giving permission, and are all the people who give permission genuinely interested in the product or service. Third, the opt in emails are not customized, and hence no targeted delivery of information happens which might further distance the customer from the product/ service, since every time he/she opens the mail, they find there is nothing in it for them. “The Brand Value” is tarnished, due to high frequency of “irrelevant efforts”. This implies that though cheaper, the risks of losing a customer are high. Lastly, the gravest issue internationally is breach of privacy. Once you give “the permission”, you can be followed and tracked incessantly. The internet knows your preferences more than you do. And as famously remarked - “what goes live on the net, can never be erased”. Permission marketing repels anonymity of a buyer’s choices.

Topic for the next issue: “Brand Extension- Shortcut to building trust across new product categories?” Your opinion (view/counterview) is invited. Word limit is 250-300. Last date of sending entries is 28th August 2017.

Include your picture (JPEG format) with the entry. Winners will receive a prize money of Rs. 500 each!

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AD-dicted AD-dicted

PRODUCT: Tata Sky

december july 2013 2017

By Suman Sourav iim shillong

By Ravitej Vadlamani IIM Shillong

CATCH

PRODUCT: Hair & Care Fruit Oils

POSITIONING:’Bade Break ka Bada Manch’ CREATIVE AGECY: Ogilvy & Mather

YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/EU4Rm7jOTkY

CONCEPT:

POSITIONING: One-of-a-kind range of hair oils with a distinctive mix of fruits

R

The ad consists of a series of four TVCs. The first TVC shows how Mr.Bachchan was unsuccessful in playing the role of Ram and was given the role of a tree. He later gets to know about Tata Sky Acting Adda, after which, he tries to learn acting. The last TVC shows the transformation of Mr.Bachchan to a good actor with the help of Tata Sky Acting Adda. He goes on to give the audition so powerfully that he bags the role of a Raavan in the play. The series shows how Mr.Bachchan is transformed into a confident actor with Tata Sky Acting Adda classes. The campaign ends with a tagline ‘Bade Break ka Bada Manch’.

CREATIVE AGENCY: BBH India YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=onXanVaR90k

MISS

CONCEPT: Ad starts with Shraddha Kapoor playing fruit ninja on her mobile. Then the ad directly switches to the Shraddha cutting fruits with her sword in a ninja suit. The narration starts with, “What if, hair also gets the goodness of fruits” and then goes on to end with “for the first time, the goodness of fruits are in a hair oil” The ad has several close-ups of the Shraddha’s hair trying to emphasize that her hair is full of energy. Also, through out the ad, Shraddha can be seen cutting all types of fruits till the narration ends.

VERDICT: Catch

VERDICT: Miss

Markathon believes that the advertisement manages to perfectly capture the aspirations of the small towners in the country and leverages that to the brands advantage through the tagline of ‘Bade Break ka bada manch’. The advertisement potrays tata sky as a gateway to success in the very glamorous and coveted show business. By roping in a much respected and legendary personality like Mr. Amitabh Bachchan, the campagain draws from the aura of Mr. Bachchan who blends into the role of an aspiring actor quite beautifully. With the advertisement being targeted at the rural middle class of the country, tata sky is looking to build itself a niche in this segemnt through this campaign and overall can be said to be a hit.

Markathon believes that the ad was intended to reignite a feeling of exhilaration and excitement towards hair oiling amongst its youthful consumers. But, it fails to communicate its message miserably. Shraddha Kapoor, in a never seen before avatar, tries to show her hair which is full of energy. But, the film has been shot in a manner that consumers are not able to experience the elation and vigor of the new offering. The only thing the audience sees is Shraddha jumping up and down in order to cut different types of fruits. Also, it does not have a strong narration to connect with the target audience. The ad poorly attempts to capture the visual delights of the brand but does not able to convey any story or message that should have been captured with this disruptive category.

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brand story

july 2017 BRAND STORY | COPORATE SPEAKS SENTHIL KUMAR

The Cereal Flakes of Gold

A

morning breakfast table looks quite empty without the bowl of one of the most costly breakfast menu in the world. You have guessed it right, it is indeed a bowl of those golden flakes of cereal, but if you just rewind and check how you were able to get this right, you will understand the sheer success of a long lasting brand that has positioned this idea in your minds for over a century. Yes, you heard it right, the famous brand of Kellogg’s existed from over a century, but the fact goes totally oblivious to a daily life consumer who purchases this box of crunchy-tasty cereals. The fact that also goes unnoticed is the origin story of this brand and particularly the product of “Corn” flakes which was invented out of an idea to cleanse human beings from all kinds of bodily pleasures by an eccentric doctor and his businessman brother. This culinary brainchild entails the true ideological conflict story between two brothers which effectively led to the success of a billion dollar brand of Kellogg’s cornflakes.

The story unfolds from the late 19th century in Michigan frontier of United States of America which was home to the Kellogg’s family. The Kellogg’s had a large family but the one who stood out from them all was the 5th son, John Harvey Kellogg, who was infamous as the sickliest child in the family. He escaped death at the age of 9 when he was diagnosed of tuberculosis. To his misfortune, the Kellogg’s had a reputation of distrusting doctors as they believed a medical surgery to be even more deadly than a disease as it was a nascent period for the medical field.

John was totally abhorred of becoming doctor after an incident when he witnessed his fellow friend to be bled to death which happened to be a common practice of cleansing blood those days. John’s father began his humble career by working in a broom factory and being the so-called “bread-winning sex” of those age, John and his 8 years younger brother were forced to work along with their father. John was totally off working in the factory as his interest lied in reading books, whereas his younger brother Will Keith developed his business skills at the early stage of his tenure. Will even mastered the act of full-fledged selling at the age of 14. For the oblivious John, everything in his life turned out to be too dramatic yet fortunate for him. From the day of his birth, the Kellogg’s joined a new religion called the 7th day Adventists which

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was aimed towards the purification of human bodies and souls by adopting revolutionary principles which fascinated young John to the extent that by the age of 12, little John became the messenger of Good by the distribution of health reform pamphlets and subsequently venturing into a career as a healer. John adopted these ideas as an innate part of his livelihood so much so that he moved to vegetarianism at the age of 14.

To further take this principle as a real life practice, he began performing water therapies as a healer but always had an inquisitive mind of questioning its effects which effectively landed him to pursue his medical degree in 1874 to become a physician. This transformed him from being a blind follower to an intellectual preacher. He reduced the practice of water therapies and started a series of therapies of his own which he believed were necessary for

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cleaning the soul. These included electric shocks, artificial sunbath using light bulbs, performing exercises in swimsuit costumes for better sun exposure and the biggest revolution of inventing an ideal diet therapy as it became a need post the Civil war era. Men devoured on lots and lots of meat fats and washed them down with malted beers and smoked it out with fat cigars which led to the development of an epidemic of stomach ailments. The sufferings led to a series of new medical jargons like neurasthemia-technical name for nervousness and dyspepsia aka indigestion. This created the need of a perfect penicillin for such problems and eventually expanded a market for tonics across the nation. Dr. Kellogg wanted to offer a solution not as a mere product but something as a ‘way of life’ service which encompassed tailor-made baths, massages and diets in a clinical facility called the “Sanatorium” which refers to modern day spas. Considering himself as a perfect follower of his own principles, Dr. John isolated himself from all kinds of bodily pleasures. ALL KINDS OF PLEASURES. Yes, he never indulged in any sexual activities although he got married with his sanatorium assistant, the young Ella Eaton in 1879 but never consummated the marriage instead he and Ella adopted about 40 orphans from the poorest parts of the nation as a vision to set the perfect example of his transformation drive. In this entire journey, John was accompanied

by Will, who had completed a business course and acted as John’s shadow making notes and assisting him in business for a salary of just $9/week. John was in total dominance over Will which was the first sign of the adrift relation between the brothers.

in his sanatorium which germinated the ideal American flake diet. Out of the series of trials conducted, he came across a thick spread of peanut which was called as nut butter aka the popular peanut butter. The ugly truth was that even though these food alternatives sounded interesting, they surely failed in the matter of taste. Apart from the food and exercise course, the transformational advice in his prescription was the need to control sexual urges. In his citations, sex was considered as the ‘sewer drain of the body’ and act of masturbation as the ‘silent killer of the night’. He invented the painful act of circumcision without anaesthetics for chronic masturbators.

These activities kept him busy leaving Will Keith (WK) free space to invent in the experimental kitchen of the sanatorium where he was working upon the unfinished effort of John to recreate of a Denver-made cereal product called ‘Shredded Wheat Biscuits’ with an alternative of wheat flakes which unfortunately was not taking the right shape for a flake. Over a magical day WK discovered that a loaf of left over wheat dough gave the right mould for a flake which marked as the revolutionary day on 1894, when the first flakes were made of wheat and the recipe was experimented with rice, oats and even corn.

To WK’s surprise, John insisted the product to be a subscription for the sanatorium patients which conflicted with his thoughts as a business opportunity. This further widened the relationship divide between the brothers and to their misfortune they were destined to meet an outsider who transformed their lives in a sweep.

Dr. Kellogg continued the good work and postulated a prescription of good health which garnered him worldwide fame. The first postulate being ‘elimination of all kinds of meats from the diet’ to have colon hygiene and reduce the ill-effects of constipation. Salt and sugar were considered to be unnatural and were also excluded from his list. Secondly, he emphasized the need for regular exercise by conducting musical exercise regimes with supervisions. He was the unknown inventor behind the reason why we pump ourselves at the gym listening to music. He went to the extent of inventing fancy medical apparatus like the colonic irrigation machine for constipation ailments and the Oslo manipulator aka the belt massager for body fat reduction in his sanatorium. This holy place soon became a hotspot for well-renowned celebrities. Henry Ford was among the frequent visitors to this place. CW Baron, owner of the Wall Street Journal, on one of his visit urged the need of capitalizing the invention to John, who never took these efforts for monetary purposes, as it was indeed a deed for him. In 1927, Johnny Weissmuller, the Olympian swimmer, became the ideal physique example for the sanatorium.

John began his quest for the perfect meat-replacement food

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In 1891, a Texas entrepreneur by the name Charles W Post arrived with complaint of dyspepsia and lived in the sanatorium for years. Although he lost his business during the course but saw a huge potential in the Kellogg’s product based on his daily visit in the kitchen. Finally on 1st Jan 1895, CW Post began marketing his coffee substitute made from grain and molasses similar to Kellogg’s and named it Postum which eventually was a blockbuster success. He even went to the extent of developing a product for the summers and came up with Grape Nuts which combines the fruity flavour and double-baked nutty texture of the cereals. This began the turf of competition on the breakfast table based on the level of marketing, which was quite aggressive in case of CW Post, eventually by 1901, he made his 1st million. In the meantime, WK was keenly observing the home-grown competition which had already led to the mushrooming of about 100 companies viz. Malta Vita, Cero Fruito, Dixie Rice, Egg-O-See, Corn-O-Plenty etc. The entire Battle Creek became a cereal hub with every neighbourhood working in one or the other factory except the Kellogg Bros. WK developed an interest to build a company and waited for the right opportunity to penetrate the market.

In the meanwhile by 1902, the brothers faced an unfortunate tragedy when the main sanatorium burned down accidentally, but Dr. Kellogg made his plans to rebuild it with the help of his brother who was planning to come up with a new product during the course. Finally by 1906, when John was away from Battle Creek, WK committed the sin that enraged John and strangled the relation between the brothers. WK added sugar to his recipe which was a stand out differentiator of selling and success and hence WK independently founded “The Battle Creek Toasted Cornflake Co.” whereas John Harvey continued to sell his product proprietarily in the sanatorium.

teen magazines with threatening creative quotes that created a sense of insecurity among the youth. This insecurity was then leveraged and brought to retail stores by providing free samples under the ‘exploring your grocery’ campaign. Moving from BTL advertisement, Will created a massive ATL campaign by placing “I want Kellogg’s” quote on a giant 50-foot billboard on the NYC Times Square in 1912, which exploded the sales figure tremendously. Will experimented with new packaging innovations to differentiate his product, one such innovation was the iconic ‘Rooster’ box which garnered huge fame and riches. WK had his own principles not only about earning but also about giving back the goodwill he earned to society. He aided several charities by giving jobs to the people even during the period of “Great Depression” when the entire world was cramping out jobs. He even founded the Child Welfare Foundation, today recognized as the Kellogg’s Foundation, to help the needy children to achieve societal respect.

By 1910, WK’s business flourished to stunning $1mn/year business. This resented John as his product was commercialized and hence asserted his claim to family name and changed his company name to “Kellogg’s Food Co.” to which WK responded by changing his company name as “Kellogg’s Toasted Cornflake Co.”. This created a confusion among the American cornflake eaters and hence to differentiate his product, WK endorsed it by appending his signature to every box with the slogan “Beware of imitations, none genuine without this signature”. Then began the ‘Who-sued-Who’ battle which further drifted apart the brothers and was popularly titled as ‘The Battle of Bran’ that went in favour of WK in the Michigan Supreme Court by granting him the rights to sell under his family name Kellogg. The victory resulted in unleashing the marketing genius to his full potential by showcasing his unique skills of advertising to counter competition from CW Post and others. Will positioned his cereal to be a healthy meal for the younger America for which he advertised Kellogg’s in

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july 2017 a true inventor and was one of the 10 most influential people at his time. It is indeed unfortunate that a visionary who was ahead of his time, is remembered just as a comic eccentric man.

The conflict in ideology between the brothers gave birth to one of the most respected and affluent brand of all times although it is unfortunate that nobody knows the turmoil that led to its establishment and the true vision behind its origin which marked the beginning of a much needed movement to suppress the common problems of obesity and related disorders across America. The sign of health quotient across the nation today makes us realize that Dr. Kellogg’s principles were considered to be mere gospels but not practiced just due to lack of credence in his methods. We must not forget that he never endorsed his product to be the only solution for weight loss, but highlighted the need of a daily routine of regular exercise and balanced diet, which seems to be the need of the hour in several nations globally. Let this article mark as a token of respect and recognition to the unsung story behind of the Kellogg’s brothers and its true founder Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. So next time when you open a box of Kellogg’s cereals, make sure that you just don’t pay for its monetary value but pay for its ideological value that entails this amazing story! .

As WK’s business continued to earn profits even at the times of distrust, John’s sanatorium ran into over $3mn of debt as sales of his product dropped to a whopping 75% by mid 1930s which led the sanatorium to fall into receivership. This caused John to detach himself from the 7th day Adventists Church by finally exiting Battle Creek after a period of 54 years and moving the sanatorium to Miami, Florida. Dr. John Harvey continued his research on cardiovascular symptoms thereby becoming one of the first doctors to identify risks of high blood pressure and other cardiovascular disorders. His ideology made him stood out of the league from the traditional medicine practitioners but eventually became an infamous preacher of baseless ideas with no medical credence due to the advancement in 20th century medicine. In 1942, WK planned to discuss business with John marking it to be their last meet. As on Dec 14th 1943, Dr. Kellogg died alone at the age of 91, falling short of his target of 100 years. In his last days, John had sent a letter of apology to Will for the abuse he inflicted on him knowingly or unknowingly. The sad part is that it never reached Will until when he made it to his own death bed which left him startled. As of today, there marks no recognition of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg in history, not even a street named after him nor a monument built for him, who was

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Sexism in advertising is a problem – but hardly the worst one

1)

Do we like gender stereotyping? Deep down, do we want boys to be ridiculed for wearing pink by bullying aftershave or power-bike brands?

And generations of Bisto mums to be manacled to their granule-strewn stoves instead of building sheds or having affairs?

Link: - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/23/exism-in-advertising-is-problem-buthardly-worst-one-david-mitchell-asa-gender

2)

How Marketing Sets the Indian OTT Players Apart

Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar, Voot, SonyLiv, and the latest entrant ALTBalaji are all working towards consumer acquisition and user base expansion today. It is believed that success of any content platform largely depends on the content it offers and the marketing it does. The platforms hence are leaving no stones unturned to catch audience attention.

Link:-http://www.adageindia.in/marketing/cmo-strategy/how-marketing-sets-the-indian-ott-players-apart/ articleshow/59443306.cms

3)

Men are 'more responsive' to online ads

Shutterstock’s study, carried out by eye-tracking specialists Lumen, found that simple image-led online ads which mirror the demographic profile of their target audience perform best. Data also showed that marketers selecting the correct images can double the amount of time that online ads are viewed on desktop.

Link : http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/men-more-responsive-online-ads/1440158

4) If BMW is too radical with its brand revitalisation it will be on the road to failure A brand revitalisation is not an arrogant attempt to change what a brand stands for but rather a more respectful mission to first find out what made the brand special in the first place.

Link :- https://www.marketingweek.com/2017/07/04/mark-ritson-bmw-radical-repositioning/

5)

Life on the sixth continent

If shopping with all passenger classes becomes too much, airports are adding private shopping suites for the posh set. At London’s Heathrow travelers can avail the services of a personal shopper and suite Link :- :- http://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/marketing/life-on-the-sixth-continent/59346717

By Suman Sourav | IIM Shillong Vodafone Launches Its Global Design Store in Kanpur With the increasing use of smart phones, mobile internet, and new technologies, the customer is evolving at a fast pace. To provide this customer with an interactive, convenient and satisfactory service experience, Vodafone India introduced its Global Design Store in Kanpur. Customers will be offered an array of services through special designated zones such as 4G Zone to discover and experience the mobile internet. Vodafone is at the forefront to introduce innovative concepts, products, and services that enrich the lives of customers.

ITC forays into fruits, vegetables, and perishable segment Diversified conglomerate ITC Ltd has forayed into fruits, vegetables, and other perishables segment; the company has recently forayed into the frozen prawn segment.

While the offerings have been launched in “select markets� at present, plans are afoot to roll-out the same nationally. Fresh, frozen and dehydrated agri-products will provide high-quality options to consumers, create an agri-value chain that will help farmers diversify crop production and manage waste. This move can be anticipated as a strategic move against the competitions like Reliance fresh.

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SBI launches a unique credit card to capture prime time SBI Card launched a unique credit card for the neo-premium consumer in India. This launch is a strategic move as India is set to become the world’s youngest country with 64% of its population in the working-age group.

There will be an increase in young, premium consumers, who want to buy niche and premium experiences, the world offers.

SBI Card aims to cater to this neo- premium consumer through the new card SBI Card PRIME.

Microsoft launches new chat app called Kaizala Extending its productivity solutions to the mobile space, Microsoft launched its first “Made for India” chat messaging application called Kaizala. The application is designed for large group communication and can enable messages to be sent to millions of people in a group simultaneously. “Microsoft Kaizala has been optimized for 2G networks to enable connectivity in remote locations and offers features with offline support. Microsoft plans to rope its 9000 strong partner network to gain traction in the market and remain the market leader in this segment.

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digi-tally

july 2017

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Articles are invited

“Best Article”: Drumil Jagwani| IIM Shillong She receives a cash prize of Rs.1000 & a letter of appreciation We are inviting articles from all the B-schools of India. The articles can be absolutely anything related to the world of marketing but it should be an original work that is not published elsewhere. The articles can be specific to the regular sections of Markathon which includes: •Perspective: Articles related to development of latest trends in marketing arena.

•Productolysis: Analysis of a product from the point of view of marketing.

•Strategic Analysis: A complete analysis of marketing strategy of any company or an event.

Apart from above, out of the box views related to marketing are also welcome. The best entry will receive a letter of appreciation and a cash prize of Rs 1000/-. The format of the file should be MS Word doc/docx.

The last date of receiving all entries is 28th August, 2017. Please send your entries marked as <ARTICLE NAME>_<SENDERS’ NAME(S)>_<INSTITUTE> to markathon.iims@gmail.com.

MARKATHON

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IIM Shillong