World Space : Another brand that failed in India

World Space satellite radio service shut its shop in India on 31^st December 2009 and with that country’s first satellite radio service went out of market.

The brand came in India in 2001 but at that time they didn’t become popular among masses because of their very high prices. They came back in 2005 with reasonable price-value preposition and this helped them earn 4.5 lakh customers who paid up to Rs 1800 per annum for music which is a huge number in a market like India where paying for radio for was a new concept altogether.

The company failed in India because its parent company filed for bankruptcy in the USA in 2009. But nonetheless, there are certain lessons that can be learnt from its story.

Firstly, company launched itself with over the top pricing and didn’t correct it for 2-3 years. By that time a perception had already been created among the consumers about the brand being expensive.

Secondly, they made a mistake in pricing the receiver. World space didn’t focus on lowering the cost of receivers and kept pushing the sale of its subscription. (Remember the case of mobile services which penetrated so deep only because the handsets were available at prices as low as Rs 1500).

Thirdly, the marketing strategy was inappropriate for the kind of offering they provided. They rightly roped in AR Rehman as brand ambassador but at the field level the marketing approach was again inappropriate. They should have adopted direct marketing approach and set some sales targets for sales force. Once they had achieved a customer base then they could have tried to up-sell premium subscriptions to them. But they instead seemed waiting for customers to make first contact.

The Revival of Brand hockey in India

The recently concluded Hockey World Cup saw the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) pull out all stops to bring about awareness for the event and drive ticket sales with the long term objective of promoting the national sport among the masses and reviving Brand Hockey.

The marketing included a nation-wide campaign which saw celebrities like Virender Sehwag and Priyanka Chopra encouraging fans to fill up the seats in the Dhyan Chand Hockey stadium in Delhi. The event was also able to draw a lot of sponsors with Hero Honda and SAIL leading the charge.

There is no ambiguity to the fact that the audience responded well to the campaign. People rushed in droves to catch the ‘national sport’ in action. TRP ratings were at an all time high with the India Pakistan encounter drawing a TVR of 1.8 on Doordarshan and 1.3 on Ten Sports, comparable to the 1.85 average for recent cricket matches.

However, I believe that the problem with Indian hockey follows a vicious circle. Team India has not performed well at the international level. There is thus little motivation for the audience to follow the sport and since the audience is not there, the sponsors are missing too. Again, because of no money, there is a lack of proper training facilities and more importantly no cash incentive for youngsters to follow the sport as a profession which again results in the team not improving up to international standards.

In light of the above, it was not surprising that the performance of the team did not live up to the expectations of the masses. To be frank, India was never really expected to win the World Cup, but from a marketing perspective, if the company fails to deliver with the quality of the product, the target market will quickly shift to other more successful brands such as Cricket, especially since they have a high brand loyalty.

It is thus critical at this juncture for Hockey India to continue investing in the sport. Sponsors are a must for coming events and they can be brought in only by maintaining the TRP for the sport. The good news is that there is help at hand. The International Hockey Federation has declared the World Cup a commercial success with India drawing more television viewership than Netherlands, Malaysia, Argentina, Spain and Australia. It has proclaimed India as an integral market for its future tours with India being a likely venue for the first world club championships.

It is thus crucial to market the future tours aggressively as this is an excellent opportunity to break the cycle and revive Brand Hockey in India.

Healthy Snacks? Not for me!

There are regular statistics about how the Indian market or the consumer in general is becoming more and more health conscious. And hence the advent of all the healthy snacks and awareness about the calorie count in your aerated beverage. But is it really a good idea? What is the consumer really looking for when he goes to purchase a mid-meal snack or a beverage? Isn’t it about craving something, something different from your everyday food, something to munch on while watching the movies, something chatpata? So it’s basically taste that we want in our snacks. If someone could make them healthier, nothing like it! Who wouldn’t want to NOT feel guilty every time you open a pack of yummy chips? But the problem is that none of the healthy variants taste the same! Everytime I would visit a store and I had a choice between a Lay’s or a Bingo and Smart Chips or Hippo, I’ll pick the former because frankly, if I was that health conscious I wouldn’t be out hunting for indulgences in the first place. I would be munching on some carrots or something. I’m not saying that there is no market for healthy chips at all. The newspapers and magazines prove how ‘potentially huge’ the market is. But my point is that nobody is going to want to give up on taste for a healthier version of chips that taste crap. And for that matter, I don’t want to know how many calories I’m consuming each time I have cola drink. I KNOW it’s not good for my health. It’s not enabling the consumer to make an informed decision. Who are they fooling? It just turns me off the drink.

Let’s give the consumer some credit; we know what we’re doing!

Marketing of Rock Music in India

“Standin by….. Standin by…… Standin by……” - PSP12, ZERO

The rock music industry in India is doing just that, still standing by. The segment still remains a niche sector with a lot of talented artists but no proper exposure or opportunities to showcase themselves. The industry is plagued with rampant plagiarism and lack of mainstream record label support. The need for the hour is to take Rock to the masses and a concrete marketing effort in order to make rock music both popular as well as financially profitable.

The rock music scene in India is actually pretty old, dating back to even the 60’s when an entire generation discovered Hendrix and the Beatles. There on it has pretty much evolved and is now a quite a force. But yet it is nowhere close to where the Hindi music industry is. I think there are quite a few reasons for it:

The primary language of most rock music is English. This is not the language of our masses. Hence there is low consumer connect.

There is an inherent resistance amongst Indians to absorb anything remotely western when it comes to culture, especially dance and music. This is especially true with the older generation and can be seen amongst many parents.

There is low acceptance of true rock music within the mainstream music industries.

Rock music in India needs a facelift and quickly. The reason for the quickness is that one can see an outflow of talented musicians shifting over to commercial Hindi/regional film industries, the shining example being Vishal Dadlani, once a RATM screaming front man for Pentagram, now-turned singer-music director for SRK chick-flicks.

It is not that there is a lack of effort from within the industry. People like Farhad Wadia, CEO Independence Rock have kept the flag flying high for the past 25 years. Channel V’s Launchpad is one the most viewed shows. Bands like Avial (Malyalam) and Faridkot (Hindi) have reached national recognition status. Marketing for the Rock music industry needs to change on several fronts:

The positioning needs to change from being an elitist sort of culture to one which promotes that everyone can be along for the ride and be part of the same fraternity.

There needs to be more emphasis on promoting regional language bands. This will help gather local support and build fan bases.

There need to be more international acts happening in India for rock music. Sporadic tours by Iron Maiden will not help.

The promotion for any concert is usually featuring sponsors who wish to indulge in surrogate marketing, namely liquor companies and cigarette manufacturers. There is a need to bring in a diversity of sponsors.

Mainstream music industries must give more support and start recognizing rock as a genuine art form.

There has to be a concrete effort to change the mindsets in an average middle class household towards rock music. The acceptance levels towards rock must increase.

This year Independence Rock, India’s largest rock fest celebrates its 25^th anniversary. In 2002, I-Rock almost got cancelled because there were no sponsors. But the crowd agreed to pay extra and the show was held. Such is the craze and loyalty that people have towards rock music in India. For this passion alone it is worth putting efforts towards marketing rock music in India. And in ACDC’s immortal words…..

“……it’s a long way to the top, if you wanna rock n roll…….

Marketing in Politics

When a book is written on this election, it should not be titled “The Making of a President” but “The Marketing of a President”- these lines quoted from Harvard Business Online, underline the marketing excellence of Obama’s campaign. The viral marketing campaign is considered as one of the most innovative uses of marketing for political purposes and has earned much acclaim.

Not taking anything away from the sheer brilliance of the campaign, I would like to dispel, in this article, the popular myth that Marketing is new to Politics. In fact, a study of the evolution of Politics suggests that Politics has been the earliest adopters of the innovations in marketing. Just like any other FMCG company, the rules of the game have changed from a pure “sales” focus where the only important target was to get “votes” to long-term relationship building. Segmentation, Positioning - name any marketing terminology and it has been used in some form or other by the various political parties around the world. However, there are serious implications of these applications and hence, a clear demarcation of boundaries and limitations of Political Marketing is required.

Political Marketing - Meaning

Political Marketing is defined as “a set of activities, processes or political institutions used by political organisations, candidates and individuals to create, communicate, deliver and exchange promises of value with voter-consumers, political party stakeholders and society at large.”(Andrew Hughes and Stephen Dann).

Thus, Political marketing seeks to establish, maintain and enhance long-term voter relationship at a benefit for society and political organisations so that the objectives of the individual political actors and organisations involved are met. This is done by mutual exchange and fulfilment of promises (Henneberg, 1996; O’Shaughnessy, 2001). The political “product” may include party policy, leader image, promise, or references to past performance of a political entity (O’Shaughnessy, 2001).

From this perspective, the political marketing completely fits the bill of an oligopolistic FMCG market. However, the application of the marketing concepts to politics is not without some serious ethical implications, especially in case of multiparty system like India.

Ethical Implications – Indian Perspective

“MNS Chief Raj Thackeray Asks North Indian Taxi and Auto Drivers to Learn Marathi or Leave Maharashtra Within 40 Days”- this is the other “ugly” side of influence of marketing over politics. This kind of misuse of marketing techniques are usually observed in multiparty political setup where political parties serving only the interests of certain “target segments”

(segmented on the basis of geography and religion), commit such despicable acts to create “PRO”-segment positioning for themselves.

This is where a clear line has to be drawn between politics and marketing to avoid the drastic consequences of a political system having marketing deficiencies. However, this is often not possible despite the frequent interventions of the Election Commission. The cause of this is the “thin but dangerous” line between marketing and politics that the constitution makers probably failed to see. Having said that the multiparty system is indispensable in a diverse country like India to avoid the parties serving only to the “mass market” i.e. majority in this case. The solution to this can also only come from developments in marketing. Development of an effective system to curb “Competitive Advertising” is what is required so that it can be replicated in the multiparty political system.

Fashion Marketing

Haggling with merchandisers, chasing seemingly impossible targets and above all, trying to catch the ever elusive pulse of fashion- that’s Fashion Marketing for you. In the words of Coco Chanel herself – Fashion is made to become unfashionable. But it is in this game of Cat and mouse that the fun lies.

For most of us when you talk fashion, an image of those ‘over the top’ impractical creations seen on the ramp, comes into the mind. The ones with those crazy feathers, twirls & curls. The ones in which you take one step outdoors & you’ll be laughed off as a clown, the ones which not even those anorexic FTV models can pull off. For the uninitiated, in the world of fashion, this is what is called as ‘Haute Couture’. What we actually see in the stores is ‘Pret a porter’ or ready-to-wear.

You see once the fashion designers have unleashed their deepest, darkest creative energies on these seemingly crazy dresses, they come down to the practical business of making money & that’s when the role of marketing really comes in. You see in prêt a porter you have to make what the customers want or else you are just like the cook who can make a flawless prawn-shrimp delicacy but when it comes down to the boiled egg he falters.

Fashion Marketing is a very tricky business for many reasons; the best marketers of the coveted FMCG or consumer goods Industry tend to lose their footing here. For one, when it comes to apparel there are rare product repeats. The customer will love your product but they won’t buy it again. Reason? “I’m bored of this style”, “it’s no longer in fashion”, “and I’ve become fat”… or even worse “just like that”. Here’s where all your Consumer behavior statistics fall flat on their face.

Moreover in fashion the consumer continuously seeks newness & variety – “Show me something different” and you’ll be left scratching your head. And the best part is the customer also does not know what they want to buy. And while this can lead to a lot of difficult choices while coming out with new collections but at the same time, it can also be used to their advantage by marketers. You can create fashion, you can create trends & you can help the consumer make the best decisions, with your own products of course!

Another very major difference between FMCG marketing & Fashion Marketing is that fashion changes every few months. While it took almost a century for consumers to start to transition from soap to liquid hand wash, your next door neighbor moved from bellbottoms to harem pants to capris to shorts to very short shorts every other season. But continuing on the lines of optimism, this is something that really can be exploited by the fashion marketers to their benefit. Because fashion changes so frequently, there is ever more scope for innovation. You see newcomers uprooting the most well established fashion houses in the industry. So while the obstacles to remain on the top are huge, so are the opportunities to

reach there. Moreover in apparels you need to recognize that each & every consumer is different in terms of fit, color, preference. You may design & market the best jeans – best fabric, finest detailing, trendy look, even prototype it on hundred odd people but ultimately it is each & every customers indiviual preference, body structure & body image that makes or breaks your product.

And let me not even get started on the importance of the retail store in your entire value chain. Well, you see the clothes don’t come in any fancy packaging, they just sit pretty on the racks, waiting to be picked up for their own innate qualities. So the retail store is like the packaging for the clothes & that s what tells the customer what the brand stands for. While some brands believe in minimalistic stores, so that they pass on the lower costs to the customers, others invest heavily in plush interiors creating a shopping ‘experience’ for the customer.

All in all, it’s a challenging & exciting field of marketing that has just about kick-started in India. With the onslaught of scores of International brands Zara, Promod , Esprit, FCUK etc, the age of Fashion Marketing has just begun..

But you know, they say in Fashion Marketing ‘All that glitters IS gold’! It is the world where market survey means walking the high streets or scouting college campuses for the street trends, business meetings take place in designers studios, industry review means reading fashion magazines like Vogue & Elle & the best part - industry summits are fashion shows in Paris, Milan & a fine holiday in Europe!

Brand Laddering

Does wearing a Raymond suit makes you feel like a “complete man” or eating Parle G biscuits turn you into a “genius” overnight? This is what brand laddering is all about. It is progressing from product attributes to product benefits to the more abstract values or motivations, attaching an aspirational value to the brand. It means repeatedly asking what the implication of an attribute is or what's the ultimate benefit that the brand can provide to the customer.

At first when a new brand is launched, the focus is about its functional benefits, for example a textile brand would talk about For example, textile brands would talk about superior quality, texture etc. An electronic brand would talk about superior technology. Once these attributes are firmly established in the mind of the consumer, the brand moves into the next step in the laddering process .This stage involves positioning the brand on the product benefits. So focus shifts from functions to benefits. For example, Maggi Noodles built its brand based on the product qualities like “easy to cook “and good taste. Later the brand repositioned itself on the health platform. The more recent tagline of Maggi “Taste Bhi, Health Bhi”, takes the brand from attributes focus to benefit positioning.

The most important stage of brand laddering process is to associate the brand to abstract benefits. These are more aspirational in nature, encompassing conceptual benefits that focus on a deeper need of consumers much above the product benefits. Communicating is a functional benefit, but “Express yourself” is an abstract benefit. Similarly, other brands like Fair & Lovely that talked about beauty and fairness in the initial stages now talk about women empowerment and confidence. Raymond makes you feel like a “complete man”. Bournvita makes you “confident” and Fiama Di Wills make you “beautiful, today, tomorrow and always”.

There are multiple benefits of brand laddering. First and foremost, it gives you flexibility in the way you present yourself. It gives the marketer option to communicate itself in multiple ways and more creatively. It also helps the brand to extend itself into related categories since its positioning is no more conceptual and not limited by any functional attributes of a product.

The final stage in the laddering process is where the brand becomes synonymous with the abstract benefit. This is a level where the brand starts personifying abstract benefit. Example can be Johnson & Johnson which has now become synonymous with the tender and loving mother – child relationship. Over these years, the brand has established itself by positioning on this abstract concept. In theory, this is referred to as Brand Essence.