New Media, Marketing and Entrepreneurship

Aah sometimes a good evening with a few intelligent brains over some quality wheat beer from Belgium makes for a lot of “common sense”.

While with @1aditithakur recently at the famous Beer Cafe in Delhi, the conversation started with the shopping experience in the mall and it moved onto the limitless gyaan on branding. Finally we started discussing brand and brand names.

Your Name: how does that change the taste of the ketchup?

So we got served these potato chips with a ketchup which read Heinz. Lets say I don’t care a dime whether I am eating a Heinz OR a Kellog’s for my breakfast till the time I am liking what I am consuming. I mean just by naming my restaurant (if I open one) Mc Paritosh OR Mc Whatever will I become a super duper hit? I have this craving for a good coffee badly, Starbucks, does it tops the first thought on my mind, to be honest NO. Starbucks as a name is a no-name when it comes to coffee. Does it sound like one to you?

LG, Samsung, Honda, Maruti how do they sound like a car? Do you hear engines revving up in your ears the moment you hear these names?

I am certain about something, these names don’t drive me to buy them!

Source: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mO7qCYLnaTc/TZmsjWR-4iI/AAAAAAAACAA/B6KGupGPA98/s1600/halls%2Bapril%2Bfools.png

I believe spending those crucial multi million dollars on creating that ohh so amazing Brand Name is all a bogus concept. Well, yes! those ohh so cool, award winning at Cannes branding majors might disagree with me. But then they have to, isn’t it? The bread and butter comes from there!

What’s my take on this?

• Its simple (not the way Ranbir Kapoor makes it dumb in his Docomo Ads). Its simple in the way that, people buy what gives them performance. So whether it is normal petrol OR some buster muster premium petrol, if my car gives me the best performance with normal, I am okay with calling normal as normal and buying it.
• Brand Logo’s: I learnt this lesson from my 3 year old nephew. He bought this helicopter with a remote control but what appealed to him was not the branding which came with it and not the colors, but he got excited when he saw how fast and high the helicopter actually flew.

In my view what in reality leaves a strong recall with your consumer is your product/ service. If you are in the services industry you ought to understand the experience which your customers derive from your service. The experience is what drives him to ‘choose to buy you again’. If you are a product business then, making a Kareena bath in a bathtub with lots of soap on will not sell your soap. that’s DUMB. Your product must in all manner fulfill the promises you are making with your customers.

And the beer ended: the result

While we ended with the binging, we both (had to) agree with each other (he he) that brands must invest in places where it counts for the customer and in creating an experience. Yes, you can always be a Godrej basking in the glory of the brand re-organization drive which says that their brand is valued at a few billion dollars (I need to check the number again). But lets keep it at bay for now.

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In my endeavor of establishing transparency and clarity in the, Ohh so amazing and new world of Social Media and Online Marketing, I am sure the series of posts I am doing now, will surely be an eye opener for clients.

Just sometime back, my strategy team did a search on the keywords, Social Media and India, and what we got were people who have sometime or the other in their professional lifetime, related to the Social Media industry. And since Social Media is not an age old concept, thus we started looking at the profiles of people who are currently into the profession.

To my UTTER AMAZE, the profiles, I was given were an absolute NO, if they were to handle my brand strategy not just on the internet but everywhere else. Interestingly, these people are recruited by not just the small Social Media ‘shops’ but the biggies in the business as well. Positioned highly, these guys are given fancy terms and well, the customer is sold!

Let me bring more clarity by looking at certain aspects of what my strategy team gave me, post the data analysis:

• Education
  • Majority of these people have not done management (which I am not suggesting is necessary)
  • 80% of them, do not have the words, Branding Consultant, Marketing, Positioning, Product life cycle, etc in their summary/ profiles
• Current
  • The current profiles are all Social Media Strategist, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Executive
• Past
  • There are people from BPO, from Technology, Adventure Tourism, Operations who are handling your So called Social Media Branding and Online Branding and Brand Creation and what not
• Experience
  • Most of these people are fresh (1-3 years) of experience and are running the show

In my personal view, I completely agree that innovative thinking, creativity are needed, but is it that you will hand over your brand in the hands of someone who does NOT even understand what Brand stands for?!

This revelation by the team, surely opened my eyes towards how is the New Media industry being structured and shaping up. We are playing on chances and one of running successes.

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Walk the Walk… Talk the Talk… Times have now arrived for the corporate to consider Blogging the Blog!!

Yes, its true, as social media is arriving with the Corporate, there are new rules getting created. New possibilities opening up. The Corporate today wants to get one with the consumer, interact with his relevant target audience wherever the consumer is!

Your consumers are already on the Internet

With the usage of Internet spilling over to almost all parts of the country, the corporate has a valid and an entirely new and ever increasing scope to interact in real time with its consumers, take feedback and hence constantly evolve as a ‘People’s Brand‘.

Your clients are already talking about you, are you listening?

We are licing in change, which essentially is the only contant thing in life. And so is a brand.  A brand needs to evolve with the times, reaching out to the relevant set of people who are talking about you or would want to talk about you!

Blog and Get Blogged about

I suggest many of my clients that they should themselves participate in corporate blogging and not leave the entire communication to be handled by the PR team or any third party agency or marketing company handling your online communications.

Should you tie up with an external agency – Case Study?

Hmmm… I am sure with the strategy that Nokia used before launching N97 in India and Samsung while launching the Jet. What did they do? Call a select group of bloggers and wallah they have arrived at a much lesser cost as compared to doing a TV ad or big hoarding out there, which they will do for sure, but they have captured one strata of the market.

Trends In Indian Corporate Blogging – My View

The trends purely show, that there is a BIG opportunity and according to me it exists due to the fact that agencies have not been able to show the GAP and the OPPORTUNITY to the Corporate.

Say ‘hi’ to your sutomer each day, reach out and extend your hand! Get connected and retain your loyal customers!!

A focused Corporate blog will EMPOWER your customer to know more and get connected with the brand.

To leverage the power of Corporate Blogging and create a successful strategy of saying ‘hi’ to your customer each day, CONNECT WITH ME at   

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