The Marksman Jan '15

The

MARKSMAN

K J SOMAIYA INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES & RESEARCH VOL V | ISSUE VIII | JAN’15

>>Pg07 BRAND MARKive: M&M

>>Pg13

SPECIAL STORY

>>Pg15

>>Pg18

FAUX PAS: ZUNE

PIONEER: Prasoon Joshi

COVER STORY >>Pg09

EDITOR’S NOTE Dear Readers, The entire team of Marksman would like to wish you a very Happy New Year. We would like to thank all our readers for their immense support throughout these years as we bring to you the very first issue of the year 2015.

Our cover story this month is titled Strength Based Marketing popularly denoted as Sbm. It’s a simplistic and direct form of marketing based on ones strengths whereby one can undertake marketing just by utilizing these strengths and building on the existing ones. So go ahead and read on how one can capitalize on their own strengths.

This month’s special story –“From E-tailing to Entertainment” discusses how various etailing websites have ventured into the entertainment industry. Our Brand Markive, this month is something which no one would want to miss! This issues Brand Markive, needs not much of an explanation and to cut it short, it talks about the world famous M&M’s. So go ahead and relish this month’s issue with our other regulars on: Tweets, Bookworm, Buzz, Ad-itude, Squarehead, Hallmark Campaign, Pioneer and Faux Pass.

With immense pleasure, we would like to congratulate our this month’s call for articles winner – Vani Chandra from MICA whose article has been chosen to be featured in this month’s issue. And for all those entries which haven’t been published in this issue, we thank you all for your response and encourage you to keep writing to us with the same fervor.

Feedback is always welcome and we would appreciate and acknowledge if our readers keep writing to us. Stay connected with us on www.interfacesimsr.com/the-marksman.

Enjoy Reading!

TEAM MARKSMAN The Interface – The Marketing Club of SIMSR @marksmansimsr

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# TWEETS #Effie 2014: Ogilvy bags agency of the year award

#Twitter to sell ads on tweets embedded on other sites

The central idea is to reach the millions of users who have not signed up with Twitter, but see tweets embedded on news sites and apps. It could also boost ad revenue for Twitter, which is looking to prove that there is an appetite for its content beyond its official user base. The Ogilvy & Mather bagged the Agency company also revealed its plans to of the Year title at the Effies 2014 boost video content, encouraging held in Mumbai on 16 January 2015. users and advertisers to upload video It finished 31 points ahead of last to Twitter directly, rather than linking year’s winner Lowe Lintas + off to third-party sites such as Partners. Ogilvy’s winning tally YouTube. It also plans to introduce included two Golds, eight Silvers and video auto-play, similar to the way 16 Bronze wins. The Company videos automatically start playing on received its two Gold wins for the Facebook newsfeed.

Bournvita (Best on-going campaign category) and Google (Digital: Online/Mobile Communication category).

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TWEETS #SAP Introduces Marketing Gap Analysis Tool To help marketers make more informed and educated decisions about the technology they use, SAP has launched a marketing gap analysis tool in partnership with Raab Associates.

This tool enables marketers to take a self-assessment by answering a series of questions about their organization's overall profile, their ongoing marketing campaigns, and any other relevant processes. The solution then processes the information to determine the organization's current marketing technology foundation and offers a number of recommendations for strategy improvement.

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#Snapchat launches Discover feature, with news stories and ads

Snapchat is all prepared to make money by serving its users editorial and multimedia content from major brands such as CNN, Yahoo News, National Geographic, the Food Network, ESPN, Cosmopolitan etc. with advertisements running along the content. Snapchat’s new feature named as Discover is an effort to "build a storytelling format that puts the narrative first" and emphasizes that "this is not social media.� They are counting on editors and artists, not clicks and shares, to determine the app’s popularity.

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IT’S ALL ABOUT AD-ITUDE

TELEVISION AD DABUR Vatika Created by- Linen Lintas (Delhi) Produced by-Film farm (Mumbai) There are lovely long locks, there are curly ones too. They are straight and cropped, we get them dyed too. How precious they are to men and women alike. But, a man often goes bald by choice and women rarely do. So when those locks are lost by a woman after a fight for survival a part of her self-esteem is lost too. Well, that is the way it is with the world, a bald woman is not a usual sight. This is not the first time that a brand has set out to salute the courage of female cancer survivors. There have been bold advertisements earlier too. So what’s new about this ad? What did it dare to do?

Responsibility campaigns as they call it are ones wherein the product proposition is attached to a cause. But, somewhere the reality is always concealed behind unusually idealistic situations or a cloth. Dabur Vatika in its latest ad campaign titled ‘brave and beautiful’ dares to announce that some women don’t need hair to look beautiful. This ode to brave women indeed strikes an emotional chord as it takes immense courage to resume normal life post a chemotherapy. The protagonist of the film is seen hesitant and reminiscing about her gorgeous hair in photographs and mirrors. But the support of her family and colleagues who still find her beautiful sans her hair is support enough for her to stand stronger.

However highlighting something exactly opposite to a products proposition is wise or not is still debatable.

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IT’S ALL ABOUT AD-ITUDE PRINT AD Company-Nivea Advertiser- Beiersdorf AG Country-Netherlands Sometimes it is the minimal that speaks the most and this minimalistic print ad for Nivea night cream is proof enough that an idea can sell on its sheer creativity. And creativity can be as simple as a round box of Nivea night cream set against a navy blue background, its cover slightly displaced to reveal a crescent moon made up of its content. Minimum cost, excellent product ‘placement’-literally and the result is effective.

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BRAND MARKive M&M We small pellets of happiness…

All of us, no matter what our age, are huge fans of candies; be it the gummy bears or the Hershey bars or the chewy éclairs or the jelly beans. But, out of all these, one of the vintage remains that small, vibrantly colored, button shaped, sugar coated beads of chocolaty happiness known as M&M’s.

A fistful of these can elevate us even from the darkest of moods and transport us back to the times gone by. It is a well known fact that the most amazing inventions are spawned from wars, but it’s surprising to know that even these awesome, seemingly, childish bits of candy were born in the throes of the Spanish Civil War. Forrest Mars Sr., son of the founder of the Mars Company and the Milky Way Bar moved to England in the year 1932 and began manufacturing Mars bars for the soldiers

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However one of the biggest issues facing the chocolate bar industry during those times were the dip in sales summer after summer as the bars used to melt in high temperatures. Hence, when Mars encountered soldiers eating chocolate beads with a hard sugar coating, he was visibly thrilled. The idea of developing a chocolate item which would be resistant to melting had immense prospect in terms of revenues.

On returning to the States shortly thereafter, Mars joined hands with Hershey’s Bruce Murrie which ensured him a steady flow of resources throughout the Second World War. The partnership hence gave the candy its name M&M’s.

Because of its resilience the government soon sanctioned it as a compulsory ration for soldiers and by the time the war ended everyone was hooked to it like the Pied Piper’s tunes.

Soon after the war, the brand jumped from strength to strength and after being introduced to the general public Mars even bought out Murrie’s shares and brought it under the umbrella of his father’s Company, Mars in the year 1964.

However, he never changed the name and that has stuck on till date.

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BRAND MARKive Today the brand has been ranked as one of the most recognized and loved candies world over, even surpassing the flagship Mars Bar of the parent company. The brand has continually innovated and improvised its portfolio of flavors and today it has close to twenty eight variants, the most famous being milk chocolate, dark chocolate, peanut and pretzel.

Over the years, some imaginative marketing has evolved the brand image and help expand its roots. Personification of the candies and giving it faces has helped to develop creative storylines and increased the scope for merchandising.

Apart from this the brand also sponsors its own team in NASCAR and offers various options of customization to its customers. Specialty stores in some parts of the United States also enhance the choice that it offers to its patrons. Special packaging, wider choice of colors, unique messages on each pellet, and a whole spectrum of hues are just a few such options.

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Some major brands recognized all over the world were also due M&M’s; Minstrels, Skittles, and even Cadbury Gems, are some such related products.

The appeal of this brand is only accentuated when one gets to know about its colorful history and the developments of different colors that have happened over the years. However, apart from its appeal another force has perpetually risen uphill; its popularity.

Sold, in over hundred countries across the globe, M&M’s is a favorite amongst old and young alike and no matter what the occasion, these small pellets of happiness are nothing short of heavenly vice.

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COVER STORY Strength Based Marketing

The great late comedian Bill Hicks once said, “if anyone here is in advertising or marketing… kill yourself”.

This sentiment is not as rare as it is radical – from Hicks’ audience appreciating the point to medical studies on the adverse impact on children’s diet – it is undeniable that marketing and advertising have sweaty hands, if not outright bloody. A recent study titled “Think of me as evil?” undertaken by the Public Interest Research Centre and the WWF in the UK addressed this conundrum. As it points out, the traditional theoretical defence of advertising has employed three arguments: 1.

2.

3.

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Of causing redistribution consumption; Of being a cultural mirror; Of promoting choice.

of

Admirable as these are on paper, the report clarifies that there is substantial evidence that in practice advertising involves subconscious manipulation, promotes socially and environmentally damaging norms and, for all practical purposes, forces attention due to its pervasive/invasive nature.

The most obvious, immediate and readily acknowledged effect of advertising is an increase in awareness of a product or service. Because this communication is designed with the idea of selling, as opposed to ‘purely’ for information or entertainment, it is often successful at exactly this.

However, by the fulfilment of this very function, both market share as well as market size are augmented. Therefore the first argument stands in need of re-phrasing at its best. Whether it is fruit juice or cigarettes that is the subject of an advertisement, its effect is largely to increase the product’s acceptability and subsequent use. Combine this fact with that of the ‘necessity’ of selling and the argument of being a cultural mirror sounds dubious at best. An advertisement now seems to be a recipe for (in)forming masses (such that some may say the word carries the same meaning with its ‘m’ silent) to the desired mould, give or take a few dents of random variations, judgment errors and predictive misses.

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COVER STORY Even when marketing and advertising have been applied to less controversial ends, the rhetoric has often been either one of solutions to negative problems or of temporary fixes. As blogger Greg Faxon points out, from products supposed to make you drop dangerous habits to those that are supposed to single-handedly transform you into a desirable or attractive you. Whatever the merits of these aims and claims, it is striking that there is a paucity of what has in recent times come to be identified as a strengths-based approach. The basic idea can be found across continents, contexts and continuities – from the Tao Te Ching’s “seeing the universal harmony amid great pain” to Norman Vincent Peale’s enthusiastic exhortation to positive thinking – that there is much more to life than healing wounds.

In our own times, and in the context we uphold as sacrosanct, a movement by the name of positive psychology has been unfolding and developing this idea within the space of psychology. Its leading proponent has often been said to be Martin Seligman, who outlined the term in a scientific context in 1998 while he was the President of the American Psychological Association.

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The field lays a definitive emphasis on cultivation, enhancement and fulfilment rather than fixing, maintaining or preventing -- the classic example being that of teaching to fish rather than fetching a fish. But will not teaching to fish alienate or even perhaps annihilate the market then? Perhaps. But not without creating genuine value, an investment of goodwill and a new market (that of teaching to fish).

‘Marketing’ itself is an orientation that has been described as a late 20th century development in the field of business. Much earlier, say in the wake of the industrial revolution, production defined the paradigm, then leading to the sales paradigm with growth in affluence, leading in turn to the marketing concept paradigm with growth in choice.

Quite recently the next shift seems to loom over the horizon -- relationship marketing. As Seth Godin describes in his We Are All Weird, that the current paradigm is “addicted to mass… and there’s no mass available” – that is, the bell curve is fattening and flattening.

Moreover, it appears that brand loyalty is not as strong a phenomenon as sometimes claimed to be. According to a recent Ernst & Young study entitled “This time it’s personal: from consumer to co-creator”, the connectivity brought in by the web has transformed the way the consumer relates to companies, brands, products and markets.

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COVER STORY The survey asked thousands of consumers to rank factors that affect their feelings about a brand. It validated the theory underlying relationship marketing, which is that the customer is willing to form a relationship with a brand as long as the highest ranking factors, namely price and quality were congruent (as has been found to be the case in developing countries); and that the customer is willing to sustain this relationship only on the basis of this congruence (as has negatively been found to be the case in developed countries). The report highlights the need for engaging in dialogue with the consumer, personalising services and involving customers so as to make them business partners (relevant especially in R&D).

Any marketing trend is essentially a call to focus on a particular facet of marketing – there is bound to be an X Marketing that has a drift contrary to that of Y Marketing.

The fundamental message of strengthsbased marketing is to utilise and build on existing strengths.

For instance, taken to its logical conclusion in terms of the 4 Ps, SbM for Promotion would not urge the viewer to go buy the product at all for it would involve a laborious imploration or an attempt to exploit some weakness on the part of the consumer. SbM for Price would be a PayWhat-You-Want model – it does away with fear or retribution as its basis (“how will people pay if not by ‘force’?” and “how will my undertaking be compensated if nobody pays?”). It is based on commanding rather than demanding payment.

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These will appear highly unrealistic even toan optimist, and rightly so. However, they arenot without precedent. SbM for Price has already been adopted by some restaurants, albeit largely unsuccessfully so far. As it turns out, a good deal depends on the collective sense of egalitarian obligation. While SbM for Promotion may seem to be a recipe for decreasing rather than increasing sales, exactly the opposite has occurred in the case of one company that did go ahead and try it.

Patagonia, a Californian apparel entreprise, urged its customers to consider whether they really needed to buy a new jacket when they could simply reuse or recycle an already used one. It even ran an ad explicitly saying “Don’t Buy This Jacket” while asking customers to pledge to “wrest the full life out of every Patagonia product by buying used when you can”. The result? People not only signed the pledge but also bought more jackets. It of course helped that Patagonia was well-known for its commitment to ecology, but it is likely that there is more to it than consumers rewarding a company for this not-so-unique attitude.

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COVER STORY To return to the question implicit in the beginning – is marketing evil? Yes, in the same way as any other tool is, for it depends on its user. The power to persuade carries with it the responsibility to never mislead. The new paradigm moves ever closer to consumer satisfaction by basing business decisions on what is of value to people rather than a primary focus on targets. It is a smarter approach in that it leads the way to greater returns in the long term while minimising customer distrust, difficulty and defection.

As Jay Baer says in his Youtility, “Just be useful – create things of intrinsic value and your customers will keep you close.”

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SPECIAL STORY From E-tailing to Entertainment

After a record breaking $25 billion IPO in New York, Alibaba is flying over to Los Angeles, Hollywood. The e-commerce behemoth is diversifying into making movies.

The Chinese tech giant recently announced its first film which will be based on a short story by writer Zhang Jiajia whose latest work went viral and made waves on the social media. The company plans to leverage its marketing prowess to promote its entertainment arm.

Here’s how Alibaba plans to integrate the entertainment offerings with its ecommerce business – Big Data. Alibaba has 307 million active customers shopping on Taobao and Tmall, its main Chinese estores. It can tap into this data trove to ascertain the target viewer’s profile, preferences, location etc. In order to do so, the company has already reorganized and formed a separate data division consisting of 800 employees specifically dedicated to mine the data. Since last year Alibaba has also started channelling investments to crowdfund movies at the same time giving insights on what people wish to see as entertainment.

Renowned names like Wong Kar-Wai and Tony Leung are said to be associated with the new film, a romantic drama called Bai Du Ren which translates into “The Ferrymen.”

The film will be made under the banner of Alibaba Pictures Group, which acquired a controlling stake over ChinaVision Media Group last year. China’s internet giants are battling to control the entertainment content in the world’s second largest film market, where online videos rule the roost and where last year’s box office sales surged 36%.

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SPECIAL STORY Once the content to be provided and viewers are narrowed down, marketing messages can be targeted at them through the company’s shopping platforms. Alibaba sites are a first stop for anybody buying online in China and most of its revenue is generated from selling advertisements within its platform. The company would also work with retailers that sell merchandise on its platforms to design and sell products related to entertainment offering. Further, Alibaba’s mobile payments platform will be pressed into service to facilitate online ticket sales.

Alibaba hashelp a lion’s of the We’ll you share channel yourdigital usagead market, far more than Twitter, Yahoo or Amazon.

Incidentally, Amazon just won 2 Golden Globes for the comedy TV show “Transparent” which it showcases through its own Netflix like streaming service, Prime Instant Video. For a number of Though Alibaba is not the first e-tailier to consumers, the Golden Globes news may venture into entertainment. Jack Ma’s have been the first time they realized that nemesis Jeff ‘Amazon’ Bezos did it a couple Amazon is into showbiz as well. of years back through his Amazon studios which is into comics, movies and mainly Netflix is another online based company television shows. that expanded into content production.

Best known for “House of Cards” featuring Kevin Spacey, it graduated from renting DVD’s to online streaming and eventually producing original content. Following the footsteps of Netflix which upended the U.S. entertainment business with algorithms that give people tailored suggestions on what to watch, both Amazon & Alibaba are trying to leverage their data to target films and in the former’s case, TV shows to its customers.

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MARKETING FAUX PAS Zune by Microsoft – A Tech Failure by a Tech Giant “Zune is a big investment for us,” Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman had said this at the time of its launch, adding, “It’s a vision that will carry us forward for years.”

Yes. A big investment it was. It was also a blunder that may be on top of Microsoft’s “Things to erase from the permanent memory” list.

Microsoft Zune was the Windows makers’ answer to Apple’s iPod. Launched in November 2006, this line boasted of having portable media players as well as digital media player software for Windows PCs. Other services included a music subscription service called "Zune Music Pass" in addition to music and video streaming services for the Xbox 360 gaming console via the Zune Software.

It started off in close cooperations with Toshiba and though there were a few features which were appreciated like the Zune’s ability to allow sharing of songs over WiFi, the Zune faced a lot of critique for being bulky and having dull, unattractive colours.

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What followed were several attempts by Microsoft to make Zune a competitive product in the market, with successive updates that introduced features like touch-sensitivity in its initial versions. In the versions that followed, it had more features like tagging and purchasing songs heard on FM radio, several games and support for audiobooks were added.

Microsoft also tried to increase the popularity of Zune through several tie-ups: McDonalds, to encourage WiFi sharing and subsequently with United Airlines, which gave the passengers a feel of what the product is, what its functionalities are and how they work.

But even with these regular updates and seemingly sincere attempts, Zune was discontinued on March 5, 2011. There may be several reasons that may be cited: the almost impregnable market situation created by the competitor, the glitches caused by the comparatively complex user interface, the limited range of colours or variants provided or just the image of the company as a follower of an innovator.

Whatever may be the reason, Zune was a product which certainly had potential, but failed to create a massive impact on the tech geek’s psyche.

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Hall-MARK CAMPAIGN Vodafone Fakka – Recharge Revolution Disappointment is when you don’t get your favourite candy or chocolate in the store you go for shopping. Annoying is when the shopkeeper gives a candy which you least preferred in return when he doesn’t have small change in his cash register. Well, the situation is similar in Egypt as well or may be even worse. The shopkeepers give a wide variety of products in addition to candy such as a piece of spare vegetable and in certain extreme scenario, even a button. So if a customer is shopping for a product worth 7 British Pence and he pays 10 British Pence, he will not be getting the balance 3 British Pence in return. He will end up in getting an irrelevant product in return. Needless to say, customers are left confused and frustrated.So how Vodafone capitalized this opportunity?

By Introducing Vodafone FAKKA (Egyptian slang for “Small Change”) Check out the video for the same. https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-ytts=1422411861&x-ytcl=84924572&v=BqOsYNilElY Egypt is a poor country with over 20% of the population below the poverty line and the people have low disposable income.

Vodafone’s target market comprises of this low income population for their new product called Vodafone FAKKA. These are very low denomination prepaid cards, known as micro credit recharge cards.

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Normally, prepaid cards are set at dominations of around 10, 15, 50, 100 Egyptian Pounds (roughly 1, 1.5, 5 and 10 UK Pounds). These micro credit cards would be priced from 0.5 Egyptian Pounds (5 British pence), to 3 Egyptian Pounds (30 British pence) and everything in between.

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HALL-MARK CAMPAIGN Vodafone positioned the product in such a manner that it is not perceived as "Vodafone for poor people" instead as one which gives value to everyone. It fitted the shopping behaviour of all poor consumers who shopped most of the products in neighbourhood kiosks and grocery shops. Positioning of the micro recharge cards invited a whole new distribution system which helped them to harness the unexplored market.

Vodafone gained 46,000 new outlets that had not carried any telecommunications offers until then. The micro credit recharge cards were available in every nook and corner like an FMCG Product.This fuelled the unprecedented growth of brand Vodafone.

The ad campaigns and other promotional activities were a huge success in communicating the required message to people. The average revenue per user increased by 7% and the total revenue exceeded the original target by 510%.

Needless to say, VODAFONE FAKKA hence proves to be a great example of how a new product has to be positioned and how the value should be delivered to each customer. In short, it proves to be a perfect example of this edition’s Hall-Mark Campaign.

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PIONEER Prasoon Joshi The mind or the heart? Happiness or satisfaction? Money or achievement?

If there was to be a survey of people’s thoughts today, these could have easily topped the list- in consideration as well as in number. You see numerous people fighting the same battle, and then, you look up at Prasoon Joshi, and you murmur, ‘here is someone who won at the same’.

Prasoon Joshi is a name known to all- the Asia Pacific Chairman & CEO of McCann Worldgroup India, writer, poet, lyricist, screenwriter, author, advertising guru, achiever. A unique mixture of elegant commercialization and strict poetry-he is the perfect recipe for any working mind’s role model and any beating heart’s inspiration.

He began his ‘career’ with Ogilvy & Mather, in Delhi. In 10 years, he became the creative director of their flagship Mumbai office. In 2002, he joined McCann-Erickson as the executive vice-president and national creative director. By 2006, he was the executive chairman for McCann Worldgroup India and regional creative director for Asia Pacific. What more? By then, he had written 3 books and had become a part of 9 movies which had hit the screen and many more were soon to achieve critical acclaim and monetary success.

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Remember Coke’s ‘thanda matlab CocaCola’? Asian paints’ ‘Waah Ramesh Babu..Naya ghar…badhiya hai’? Saffola’s ‘Abhi toh mai jawaan hoon’? All of these were the brainchild of the same guy. A spree of intrigue that has rightfully earned him the title of an “Ad-Guru” and the thread of control of PM Narendra Modi’s multi-faceted marketing-cum-promotional campaign, which is considered as the primitive reason of his famous victory. Add to that Silk Route’s ‘Dooba dooba rehta hoon…’,Taare Zameen Par’s ‘Maa …’, Delhi-6’s ‘Rehna tu…’, Rang De Basanti’s powerful lyrics and dialogues and you will see a winner of 3 Filmfare and 2 National Film awards.

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PIONEER His career reflects strategic planning and intime adaptations to the worldly changes. The decision of joining an advertising agency clearly involved pursuing his dreams as also keeping a check on reality. While most quickachievers seem in a hurry, Joshi kept his calm- the decision to do selective (successful) movies and a handful of (successful) campaigns is a sign of the same.

Today, he is the most sought after man in the commercial-creative world and the latest name in the prestigious list of Padma-Shri winners. Rightfully so, isn’t it?

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BOOKWORM Age of Propaganda: the Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion Anthony Pratkanis and Ellliot Aronson New York: WH Freeman (2001), ISBN 0716731088; pp. 416

Renowned psychologists Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson wrote this book with the “hope that knowledge about the process of persuasion will allow all of us to detect and resist some of the more obvious forms of trickery and demagoguery”. Perhaps the advice contained in the book may be more valuable to practitioners who utilise propaganda to various ends rather than to those whom it poses dangers, for the latter work harder at trying to influence us than we to prevent any such influence.

Although it is not an academic work itself, the book features analysis of various studies in social psychology, marketing and law coupled with investigations into cultural history.

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As a sample of how interesting it is, they introduce a scenario wherein students acting as fundraisers go door-to-door asking for money. For some households, they would say “even a penny would help!” -- the result of which was a net increase of rather than decrease in donations received.

In their historical exploration they draw upon numerous cases of use of these tactics (e.g. emphatic appreciation) by politicians, sales agents, advertisers and others who appeal to deep emotions and stir irrational feelings to manipulate perception to their own advantage. They elaborate four strategems for influence: pre-persuasion, source credibility, constructing and delivering a message and controlling emotions.

‘Propaganda’ is hardly used to carry positive connotations, but the term itself refers merely to a spread of ideas or doctrines.

Marketers may not therefore like to call themselves propagandists, but creating propaganda is much of what they are supposed to do. Whether a particular message ought to be disseminated or not is another matter entirely – this book addresses not the ethical or moral underpinnings of propaganda but the strategies employed to bring about success through it.

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FEATURED ARTICLE Selfie-Mania : How brands are using Selfies to enrich their promotional activities As the technology of front- camera cellphones pervaded the markets, the ‘Selfies’ as we know today came into picture.

However till 2013, there was not much ado about Selfies. The buzz that we are “Do you know?” is surely not the best way experiencing today is the result of very to start a scholarly article, but here I am, famous ‘Ellen de Generes’ selfie at the more than tempted to do so. So let us start. Oscars on 2nd March 2014. Since then Do you know who took the first Selfie? It Selfies have become ubiquitous. This wasn’t Lady Gaga for sure. This unforeseen genesis of modern day narcissism has but accurate answer to this question is sparked many a debates in circles of Robert Cornelius. A true photography sociology and psychology. As the critics enthusiast who took a picture of himself, wait for its slow death, the marketers are and it became the first known photograph busy squeezing the juice while it lives. of a human in American history. However this unknowing father of selfie died unaware of the phenomenon he had given birth to.

Around 150 years later Selfies have found a surrogate mother in social media. It is interesting to study how Selfies evolved over time to the point of becoming the oxford dictionary word of the year in 2013.

The birth of the term ‘Selfie’ is even more The mother of all Selfies interesting. Just like Cornelius another 2014 saw the eruption of promotional unassuming individual from Australia, in activities centered on Selfies.

2003, first mentioned the word in his blog, Marketers went full throttle in utilizing thus giving name to this phenomenon of the buzz created by this novice taking self –portraits. As the popularity of phenomenon of personal branding.

My-space grew so did the phenomenon of A full- fledged study done on this taking self-photographs for the profile phenomenon, by UTS,Australia and an pictures, however till this point the advertising company revealed some photographs were being taken from a interesting insights. distance.

Vani Chandra

- MICA

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THE MARKSMAN

FEATURED ARTICLES This study, done in a span of three years on about 3 milllion Selfies claimed that with the dawn of Selfies marketers are literally sitting on a gold mine. According to the study Selfies are popular because they are a way of personal branding. People are eager to promote themselves as a brand. With enough ingenuity brands can now create promotional activities which would have a high involvement level within consumers.

Some of the most creative promotional campaigns centered on Selfies proved that this era of Selfies is not going to die soon.

Turkish Airlines’ successful campaign with the living legends Lionel Messi and Kobe Bryant is a perfect example. As these stars took Selfies in some of the most exotic destinations, the fortunes of the campaign soared. #SelfieshootOut contest became one of the most acclaimed campaigns of the year by garnering about 130 million views in two weeks. While the popularity of the Selfies inspired Turkish Airlines to build its own Selfshot app, apparel brand Urban Weiner gave $10 coupons to customers who would tweet their Selfies of the trial room( obviously in an Urban Weiner outfit) with #urban selfie.

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India was not left behind in embracing selfie love. HUL (to promote its Ponds BB) created a selfie song and urged women to be selfie ready. The men also were not left behind with the #LivewithFire campaign by Reebok, where they were asked to capture their ‘live with fire” moments.

One of the most innovative uses of Selfies was made by Axe deodorant in its #KissForPeace campaign. Launched during Valentines Day, the brand urged the consumers to send their ‘kissing Selfies’. The selfie of the day got a chance to be a part of the glitterati at Times Square, New York and win a trip to Berlin. The result was thirty four thousand tweets for the company.

It is interesting to note that Selfies today are no more a fad. They are the new phenomenon, an accepted “way of life”. The once predicted selfie fatigue is nowhere to be seen. The young, the old, the tired and the bored; Selfies have fascinated everyone around. The experts, busy researching its implications, are convinced that this dawn of Selfies has several behavioral implications. It has challenged the perceptions of self-image and personal promotions.

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FEATURED ARTICLES The brands too are amazed at the rate at which Selfies tend to go viral. For marketers this has opened up multifarious avenues for gaining those precious “insights�. Brands can now mine these Selfies for better understanding of their audience. However the biggest advantage is the fact that once promotion-wary consumer is now ready to promote the brand via Selfies.

For the sagacious brands Selfies are now a tool with which they can create highly engaging and impactful campaigns.

Use of selfie in brand promotional campaigns Info graphic on the next page References:

http://www.responsys.com/blogs/nsm/s ocial-media-marketing/4-companiesuse-selfie-marketing-reach-customers/

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THE MARKSMAN

SquAreheaD

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BUZZ ACROSS

PUZZLE 1

3. The space probe launched by Japan (8,1) [Hint: may include a number]

2

3

4. Golf player Vijay Belongs to which country? (4)

4

5. The company that bought Sterling Resorts India (6,4)

5

6

7

8

6. The Australian cricketer who died after he had suffered a severe head injury due to a bouncer during a match (7,6) DOWN

CLUES

1. The Indian to beat the computers in mathematical wizardry (11,4) 2. The world’s largest cruise terminal was unveiled in (5)

ship

7. This automaker had to pay $70 million due to failure in reporting its safety issues (5) 8. This pharmaceutical company bought Ranbaxy Laboratories (3) Answers: Across: 3.Hayabusa-2 4.Fiji 5.Thomas Cook 6.Phillip Hughes Down: 1.Shakunthala Devi 2.Dubai 7.Honda 8.Sun

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Call for ARTICLES CALL FOR ARTICLES FEBRUARY 2015 Articles can be sent on any one of the following topics*: 1. PINFLUENCE – Leveraging Pinterest & Prize Levels 2. Rise of the Undertaker – Future of the Entrepreneurial paradigm 3. The Food, The Fad & the Funky – Lessons from Zomato’s innovative advertising

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The TEAM THE TEAM TWEETS by Vasundhara Tewari It’s all about AD-itude by Kavya Dubey Brand MARKive by Dhruv Maheshwari COVER STORY by Akshay Peshave SPECIAL STORY by Sankalp Thakur FAUX PAS by Sukanya Remesh HALLMARK CAMPAIGN by Dilip Anantharaman PIONEER by Abhijit Sharma BOOKWORM by Akshay Peshave SquAreheaD by Vasundhara Tewari BUZZ by Palak Thakker PROOF READ by Minoli Sheth Dilip Anantharaman DESIGNING by Kavya Dubey PROMOTIONS by Minoli Sheth Rahul Vangani

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