Cover Story - Marketing Campaigns that Indian Marketeers can learn from || Vinay Jain || IIM Shillong || November 2015 edition

Marketing Campaigns that Indian Marketeers can learn from

-Vinay Jain

IIM Shillong

The marketing campaigns that we see nowadays in India are really creative and are more than just advertising and sales promotion campaigns. Ask your dad, he will tell you that the marketing campaigns during his time weren’t even half as cool and engaging they are now. We might feel proud believing that the Indian marketers are stepping up the game in the field of marketing with their innovative ideas. Sorry to say this but we would be wrong in believing so. The marketing campaigns that were launched in the other countries will not only blow your minds but also make you ask yourself that why such campaigns aren’t being implemented in our country. Let us take a look at the campaigns that I have been talking about:

Skyfall:

The marketing of an Indian movie includes actors walking into TV shows, calling a press conference, attending the talk shows of Cricket matches or launching Games at most. These may do the trick but are really expensive and not innovative and hence doesn’t attract as much attention. What Skyfall did in association with Coca-Cola was something that needs to be appreciated. They gave away free tickets to people. How is giving away free tickets creative? The catch here was the way they gave those tickets. They had to prove that they too are as good as James Bond, they literally had to! They were given 70 seconds to reach a different floor of the mall to get free tickets with a set of obstacles in between which did make many people fall on their face. The successful ones got their tickets and both Coca-Cola and Skyfall got their publicity for a very meagre expense.

Watch the video on YouTube: Unlock the 007 in you. You have 70 seconds!

Volkswagen: 

Since, social marketing is the cool thing now, all Indian firms are trying to capitalize on it. Ads like Jaago Re! By TATA Tea are all over the place now and also widely appreciated because it is for a social cause. Volkswagen has taken social marketing to another level by its Campaign in a theatre in Hong kong where an ad starts with a person driving a car and only the road view can be seen from the driver’s point of view. All the people in the theatre look at this like any other ad shown in the theatre. Then, a location based broadcaster was used to send a text based message to all the people in the theatre all at once. Everyone in the theatre look at their phone and the next instant the person driving the car in the ad crashes into a tree with a loud bang. Everyone in the theatre is left shocked for a few seconds. Then the screen flashes “Mobile use is now the leading cause of death behind the wheel”. This was another cost effective and creative way of spreading your message.

Watch the video on YouTube: [FULL] Volkswagen Eyes On The Road Cinema Stunt - Shocking Danger of Texting and Driving

Coca-Cola Friendly Twist: 

Coca-Cola is said to have few of the most creative campaigns of marketing their drink. One such campaign is the ‘Friendly Twist’ campaign that they used on the first day of college. As a usual first day scene in any college, the freshmen year students were all sitting alone listening to music, texting on their phone, just looking around. Amidst all this there was a refrigerator containing bottles of Coca-Cola which can be drunk for free. Obviously, most of the students went to get for themselves a bottle of Coca-Cola. The catch here was that these bottles didn’t have the usual caps and weren’t getting opened by any of the students. Only after sometime did the students realise that these could be only opened by another bottle where both the caps were to be connected and then twisted to open both the bottles. The trick here was that to open a bottle a student will have to talk to another student and will end up socializing with people around him. The campaign was a big hit and couldn’t have gotten a better response from across the globe.

Watch the video on YouTube: Coca-Cola friendly twist

 The Smoking Kid: 

Everyone is aware of the famous ‘Gutka Mukesh’ anti-smoking campaign that is shown before the start of every movie in the theatre and sometimes even on TV. A lot of us only find it funny and not something that compels us to stop smoking. The Thai health promotion foundation wanted to make sure that people quit smoking and they commissioned Ogilvy to come up with a campaign that made sure that happened. Ogilvy came up with a master campaign which made every smoker realise what a big mistake smoking was. The video starts with people smoking all over the place some old, some college students, some even school kids. When all of a sudden two small kids go to the smokers and ask for a lighter. The smoker is shocked looking at such small kids and gives all sorts of reasons as to why the kid shouldn’t smoke stating reasons like “Cigarettes contain poison”, “it leads to cancer”, “you look old when you smoke”, “if you smoke you die faster, don’t you want to live and play?”. The kid replies to them “if it’s so bad, why are you smoking?” and then hands them a paper asking them to take care of themselves too and reminding them to quit smoking. This campaign received a lot of appreciation from smokers and Non-smokers equally.

Watch the video on YouTube: Smoking Kid - Best of #OgilvyCannes 2012 / #CannesLions

Why is this happening?

The Indian audience is not as such developed and mature as compared to the common population in the other countries shown in the above campaigns. We still have people here fighting daily for three meals a day therefore the thirst for new marketing campaigns is definitely not on their list. Also, the marketing managers of the country didn’t really take the marketing campaigns to the ground level and were stuck 

Perspective - NeuroMarketing || Anuj Goel || IIM Shillong || September October 2015 edition

NEUROMARKETING: The Next Generation Marketing Technique

Marketers have always struggled to find out what customers think about various products and services and what is thinking process. As a result, they conduct surveys and focus group discussions to find out a customer’s opinion about their products or services. But, there have been many cases where it has been found out that there is a big difference between what they say about their thinking and what they actually think about. As a result, marketers are never able to find the true insights and they never know what is going on in a customer’s mind. However, this has been rapidly changing in the past few years. 

Neuro-Imaging and Behavioral psychology are two scientific disciplines that are mining our brains to

find hints to develop new marketing strategies. Neuro-Imaging Science has bestowed many gifts upon us. However, probably the most important of them all is neuro-imaging especially functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Neuro-Imaging includes a lot of techniques that also includes functional magnetic resonance imaging. It measures the activity of the brain like use of oxygen, metabolism of sugar, blood flow etc. The use of these kinds of techniques for the purpose of marketing research is known as neuromarketing. In order to track brain functions, neuroscientists generally use EEG of fMRI. EEG involves attaching electrodes to a person’s head and then evaluating the pattern of his brain waves to find out the intensity of his visceral responses such as excitement, anger, lust, disgust etc. 

Frito-Lay hired a neuromarketing firm in 2008 to find out what the customers felt about Cheetos which was the largest selling brand of cheese puffs in the United States. EEG technology was used

for this experiment and it was found that customers react strongly to the fact that after eating Cheetos their fingers turn orange because of the cheese dust. This data helped FritoLay to develop an ad-campaign “The Orange Underground”. In the famous “Pepsi Challenge,” people liked the taste of Pepsi more than Coke if they couldn’t see the cans and they couldn’t identify which product it was. Yet, people continued to buy more Coke, and that brand stayed on top rather than taste. This experiment helped to understand that a brand will dominate the product in the minds of the consumers. However, there are various limitations to the use of EEG for the purpose of neuromarketing. Because the cap of electrodes is attached to the surface of a person’s head, a neuroscientist isn’t going deep into the brain. Functional magnetic resonance imaging eliminates this limitation. It uses a large magnet to track the blood flow inside the brain as the person responds visual, audio or taste element. It helps the marketers to get a view of the person’s pleasure center. 

Pleasure center is that part of the brain that is involved in pleasure. Dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens is so tied up with pleasure that scientists refer to this region as the brain’s pleasure center. But, a major problem with fMRI is that it requires the person to be very still inside the machine unlike EEG which can be very intimidating. Behavioral Psychology Using this scientific tool scientists try to find out how people think and make decisions and what factors influence those decisions. This is done because people think they are logical but in reality a large number of our decisions aren’t based on logical processes. 

According to a research, during a purchase decision people respond to abstract information rather than concrete information. As a result, people are more inclined towards advertisements that describes a positive experience with a product or service in abstract terms rather than dealing with specifics. Through behavioral psychology, it has also been find out that a consumer purchasing decision is also based on the fact whether an advertisement directs the consumer’s attention to the present or to the future. In a research, before sending all the participants for grocery shopping half of the participants were told to think about themselves in the present scenario while the other half were told to think about themselves in the future scenario. It was found that people who thought about present scenario bought pleasure oriented products like chocolates while people who thought about future scenario bought healthy foods. 

Neuro-Marketing’s value proposition Neuro-Marketing involves the use of neuroscience research techniques to shape advertising and marketing strategies that could help brands connect with consumers in deeper and more lasting ways. Campbell used pupil dilution, biometric heart and measurement tests along with changes in body and sweat levels to update its soup label. Campbell added steam to the old label so as to engage consumers emotionally, the spoon was removed because it added no value and Campbell’s logo was shifted to the bottom of the bowl as it drew too much attention towards itself. This is neuro-marketing’s value proposition because consumers are generally unable to understand their decision-making processes while purchasing goods and services and conventional market research methods such as focus groups and surveys are of very limited value to marketers. 

Techniques of Neuro-Marketing:

1. Implicit association measurement: It measures the reaction time of consumers as they come across a brand or an advertisement 

2. Eye tracking: It monitors the consumers’ eye movements while they interact with an advertisement. It also tries to find out what captures a consumer’s visual attention and how do they navigate websites and communication. 
When Sunsilk used the image on the left nearly 94% viewers looked at model’s face while only 6% of them looked at the product. Result were exactly the opposite when only a simple change was made
to the print ad. 84% viewers looked at the product when they were shown the image on the right. This trick could be used by today’s marketers while designing a website or a print ad so as to make viewers concentrate on the most important things that the marketers wants to communicate 

3. Automated facial coding: It tries to decode the expressions of consumers when they watch ads. The expression could be anything like smile, raising of eyebrows or even a frown. This has helped neuro-marketers understand consumers’ emotional reaction to communication on a moment –by-moment basis.

4.Galvanic skin responses: It is known as skin conductance and it measures the electrical conductivity of the skin that generally varies with the moisture level. Increased level of moisture because of sweating could mean psychological or physiological arousal 

Possible future of Neuro-Marketing:

1. Neuro-Marketing is here to stay - A tools that not only provides effective branding options but also helps produce better products by involving consumers in design of products even before they are brought into the market. 


2. There will be many frauds - As the entire process is very complex and difficult to understand there will be many people who will claim that they can read a consumer’s mind.


3. Universities can monetize their expertise by forming partnerships with business houses - This is an opportunity for various scientists to come to the forefront, try a new field and apply neuro-imaging to practical problems. There are various examples like Dr. Justine Meaux who is a neuroscientist but now works as a neuro-marketer. 

4. Investment opportunities for companies that supply MRI and EEG machines - This can be an opportunity for entrepreneurs to enter this lucrative market with disruptive business models and pricing schemes. 

Issues with NeuroMarketing: 

As this technique is expanding on a daily basis, the concern among regulators and consumers is also rising. They believe this is a way to deceive them and it erodes privacy. These sort of claims aren’t new to the marketing industry, the concerns regarding consumer tracking brought on due to internet cannot be forgotten. However, there are some issues that need to be taken care of before this technique becomes the future of marketing research. 
Legal Issues A number of legal issues can be raised by the use of neuromarketing. They can be broadly classified into 3 major areas: 

1. Privacy Issues: The aggressive claims by the neuromarketers about this technique hasn’t gone well with the general public. The regulators and the general public have raised privacy concerns. The prospect of intrusions into a person’s personal thought process has raised concerns. This will be a problem for the neuro-marketers because in the last year alone, more than 100 cases have been filed alleging that modern marketing techniques like behavioral advertising violates consumer privacy. 

2. Tort Issues: Using neuro-marketing to induce the intent to purchase the product which if misused will cause personal injury raises very critical and important questions that definitely need to be answered. There can also be claims that through neuro-marketing protected internal areas of brain are being touched that again becomes a liability for neuro-marketers. 

3. Consumer protection: Regulators are also concerned that with the advancement of this technique people may be made to believe that they want a product even though that product is useless for them. In Europe a case has already been registered with a company that employed neuro-marketing. Policy Issues A number of policy issues have been raised by the use of neuro-marketing as it seeks to safeguard industry interests. 

These issues can be broadly classified into 3 major areas:

1. Scope of Use: A disciplined assessment needs to be undertaken as to where and how the growth this technique is being occurring on a worldwide basis. Country wise and product wise data should be collected on a regular basis for this assessment 

2. Engagement: A strategy needs to be made for positively interacting with various stakeholders interested in neuro-marketing. This is done to prevent granting licenses to those who might sensationalize this technique and fill suspicion among the regulators 

3. Self-Regulation: Policies need to be drafted to establish ethical standards for implementing neuro-marketing techniques so that it could prevent targeting of vulnerable groups like children and it must also ensure accountability. 

Updates || Cheena Pasrija || IIM Shillong || August 2015 edition

BRAND LAUNCH

Reliance Brands to launch Japanese retailer Muji’s stores all across the country 

Reliance brands have entered a joint venture with Japan’s Ryohin Keikaku Co. Ltd. to enter the rapidly growing Indian market. The leading retailer under the Muji brand will open standalone stores across major cities across the nation. The range of products which will be covered are clothing, furniture, stationary, kitchen tools, beauty items and many more. 

Major liquor giant Constellation Brands to launch a new wine in India 

Prosecco will be the name of the new wine that is all set to hit the Indian market which is

being launched by the Global liquor firm Constellation Brands. The Indian wine market is expected to be one of the biggest wine markets in Asia in the next five years. As per Industry experts, a growing young urban population is definitely going to help reaching good sales in wine which is luring the brand to launch new product in India even though the high taxes are posing challenge.

BRAND WATCH

3 WPP Agencies chosen by Coca Cola for Its Global Ad Campaign 

Coca Cola has finalized the three agencies that will create their next global campaign after a total of 10 shops pitched their ideas earlier in the year. Coke has confirmed the names of three agencies which are Ogilvy New York, Madrid’s SRA Rushmore and Santo in Buenos Aires. The idea of the brand was to capture ideas from across the globe that will have an automatic connect with people from all geographies. 

Aéropostale partners with Arvind Lifestyle to enter the Indian market 

Major US brand Aeropostale is teaming up with Arvind Lifestyle to enter the rapidly growing

Indian market. The brand, popularly known as Aero is planning to come up with its first store in India in March next year. In all, the Company wants to open around 30 stores in India in the next three years and also want to be showcased at the e-commerce platform. India is a truly exciting retail market, driven by its growing economy and vibrant youth culture,” said Julian R Geiger, CEO of Aeropostale.

MEDIA

Unilever faces social media protest 

 Unilever is facing issues on all fronts now. Earlier the battlegrounds were bottom lines and shelf spaces but now they have a new threat, which might pose to be a bigger problem to them than the rest. Unilever was recently a target of social media ambush. The producer of Dove soaps and Surf washing powder – Unilver has been ambushed by a 28-year-old Indian rapper, Sofia Ashraf. She has released a video against Unilever which has gone viral on web. The video “Kodaikanal Won’t” raised the issue of the environment damage done by Unilver in Kodiakanal and calls on Unilever to “clean up your mess”. It has managed to get 2.7 million views online and a response from Paul Polman, Unilever’s chief executive. 

AD WATCH

Not everything needs to be stored digitally- Canon Printers 

Not all moments should be stored digitally, some of them are private and just for you. The

ad emphasizes on maintaining privacy by preferring print-outs over digital storage. It is short, funny and creates an impact which lasts. Canon, with this strategy, is not just promoting its product but the printing industry as a whole. 

YoutubE link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmle8852VZ0

Radical Thoughts - Managing a marketing faux pas || Mohammed Fahd || IIM Shillong || August 2015 edition

Managing a marketing faux pas

Marketing blunders have existed ever since marketing has been around, after all to err is human. Therefore, try as a company might to steer clear of all marketing goof-ups, a marketing manager is likely to come across a marketing gaffe over the course of their career. Every year, dozens of companies make certain marketing mistakes. Many popular examples continue to be a major blot in the glorious histories of corporate giants one of which happens to be the Ford Pinto, a car model whose very name means a tiny penis in Portuguese. Additionally, following a series of explosions due to rear end collisions, a memo was leaked from a Ford executive claiming that it would be cheaper to pay reparations to injured drivers rather than recalling the vehicles, an incident that seriously damaged Ford’s customer friendly image. 

Coca Cola is another giant who has garnered infamy at a few occasions due to poorly planned marketing tactics however in their particular case, Coke has repeated their blunders not just once but thrice. In 1985 Coke launched a sweeter variant in an attempt to win back younger drinkers switching to Pepsi however, the move backfired when the lovers of the original formula protested leading to a massive boycott & forcing the company to reintroduce their original formula as Coke Classic. Coke has also displayed an abject neglect for cultural nuances as displayed by their debacles in Dubai & China. 

The recent Adidas debacle following their sexist Manchester United female jerseys is

another glaring example of a giant showing that no one is immune to such slip-ups & therefore it is important that people understand how to handle such a faux pas. In order to do handle such an event a company needs to answer 3 important questions: Will the mistake cause significant loss in revenue now & in the future? Will it tarnish the company’s image? Will it offend consumers? If the answer to all 3 questions is a yes, then the company needs to take immediate evasive steps. 

In the infamous words of John C. Maxwell, “A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, & strong enough to correct them.” In order to accomplish these objectives a company needs to take certain steps. First of all, the company needs to act promptly & go into damage control mode. The longer the issue is allowed to linger, the more damage will be done. Secondly, if the issue has offended a community it is highly advisable to issue an apology. Thirdly, in order to control the ensuing chaos the company needs some good PR going their way & to do that they need to offer their consumers an incentive to forgive & forget. The incentive can be anything as long as it can help reduce or takeaway the spotlight from the gaffe. Lastly, the company needs to takes steps to ensure that such an event does not take place again & promote those steps publicly. 

Most often the mix-up is a result of multiple mistakes however the company needs to highlight the most glaring errors & tackle those to re-assure the consumer that their concerns are being taken care of. Internally, the company can create a system to detect patterns of mistakes early & detect the data while taking steps to ensure that all elements involved in the previous mix-up are taken care of. Large corporations know that at the end of the day, avoiding such situations over a number of decades is not possible however certain best practices have emerged over time & if carefully followed they can ensure that such situations need not result in significant loss of revenue & a bad lasting image in the minds of the consumers.