The best of products and marketing campaigns may fall fl at when it comes to the customer. And this may be despite the best of market research backing them. But a marketer who understands the customer’s mind can utilise the 4Ps strategy in a more optimal manner; leading to stupendous results

It’s turning out to be a year of new launches, making the market place more interesting and competitive. Palm launched its glitzy mobile phone “Pre” making Apple really shaky and nervous, with Apple wanting to sue it for copying the iPhone touchscreen. Microsoft has launched, rather relaunched its internet search engine with a new name Bing – planning to take Google headlong in the battle of the “searches”. Yes, this time – innovation seems to be the key to survival. But will plain innovation be enough to make a product survive?

THREE STORIES TO ILLUSTRATE

1ST STORY

100 students at MIT’s Sloan School of Management were shown an advertisement of the magazine – The Economist. It was a subscription ad, urging readers to pick the type of subscription they wanted to buy or renew. Three offers were on display:- 1st Offer: Internet subscription for $59 2nd Offer: Print subscription for $125 3rd Offer: Print and Internet subscription for $125

Out of the 100 students, 16 students opted for the first offer, zero students for the second, and 84 students went for the third offer. Now no one in their right minds would even remotely think of going for the second offer when at the same price, you got a bigger and better bargain when you selected the third offer.

So the researcher Dan Ariely decided to do away with the 2nd offer (after all no one went for it in the first round); this time again, 100 students were asked to fill up the subscription form. The results spoke a different story; 68 students chose the first offer of $59 for Internet only, while only 32 chose the $125 subscription, which offered the combination of print and Internet. While it appeared to be the most lucrative option the first time, what was it that made it look so lackluster the second time?

2ND STORY

It was a basement-run operation when it started. Today it’s grown into a huge business with branches spread all over the world. The company is Amway Corporation. The company has used a technique whose power is indisputable. It calls this BUG. Before you draw up any conclusions, the BUG in nothing but a collection of Amway products – the furniture polish, detergent, shampoo, deodorizers etc. all put together in a specially designed tray. Each salesman is trained and instructed that he has to necessarily leave this BUG in the prospects house for 24-72 hours, without charging her anything or putting her under any obligation to buy. She was just expected to try the product. When the salesperson returned to collect the free samples (BUGs), most of the customers bought at least one product. The BUG, true to its name, was working like magic. What was it that suddenly made the same products so good, that all sales shot up so fast?

3RD STORY

An owner of a jewellery store found that she was unable to sell a collection of turquoise jewellery. She tried as hard as she could, but nothing worked. As a last resort, during the peak tourist season, she asked her saleswoman to put a note on the turquoise jewellery section announcing “Everything at ½ (half) price”. As expected, everything was sold within a few days. However, the shocking part was that the saleswoman had not heard her correctly and instead of putting everything at “½” she had put them at “2x” i.e. double the price. Why did it all sell?     Read More....


For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM makes business education truly global
IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm - Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri (IIPM Dean) – ‘Every human being is a diamond’
Arindam Chaudhuri – Everything is not in our hands
Planman Technologies – IT Solutions at your finger tips
Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri's Portfolio - he is at his candid best by Society Magazine

IIPM ranked No 1 B-School in India
domain-b.com : IIPM ranked ahead of IIMs
IIPM: Management Education India
Prof. Rajita Chaudhuri's Website

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Tobacco companies have successfully used basic and simple marketing tactics for years; even if it meant irreversible damage to society. It’s high time we beat them at their own game.

It’s interesting that rotting teeth, lungs infected with cancer and a slew of other horrendous and horrifying images will adorn cigarette packets in India from this month (June onwards). Another interesting development occurred in Washington a few days back. A federal appeals court upheld a landmark 2006 ruling on 22nd May that cigarette makers for decades have been lying about the dangers of smoking “In a 93-page opinion, a three- judge panel cleared the way for new restrictions on how cigarette companies market and sell their products,” stated the Washington Post. What is it that makes marketing and selling of cigarettes so different that it required a 93-page letter to help reduce their effect, if not stop it totally? What is that that these companies have been doing that’s so harmful to our society. What weapons do they use & what’s their game plan?

POWER OF PERSUASION
Advertising and marketing are nothing but means of persuading consumers to buy the desired brand or product and it’s the tobacco industry that seems to have mastered the art over the years. For, according to some surveys, about two thousand teenagers begin to smoke each day, inspite of the fact that smoking is the number one killer in preventable deaths in a nation. Yet it’s persuasive marketing & advertising that ensures that thousands bite the bait and buy these harmful products. This happens is because cigarette companies thrive on “Image Culture” and use it to the hilt to sell their wares.

IMAGES MARKETING – THE FIRST WEAPON
The television was invented in the 1930’s and for many years, no one thought it had any use. They had the radio for their entertainment and if it tired them out, they all went to the movies. Who needed television – no one! What needed television – the economy. It needed the television to tell to the world, about life in a consumer society. It needed to show “Images” of success, progress, happiness. It’s the cigarette companies who learnt this lesson the best and used these images to camouflage the potent danger of their products. It chose its target audience cautiously and bombarded them with judiciously selected images. The target that was the best, the easiest and the fastest to convince was the “gullible teenagers”. A study revealed that what each teenager feared most was being labeled “uncool” and hence started the “marketing of cool”. This strategy proved to be most successful, for, according to 1981 internal document of Philip Morris (largest Cigarette Company in the world), “Today’s teenager is tomorrow’s potential regular customer, and the overwhelming majority of smokers first begin to smoke while still in their teens. The smoking patterns of teenagers are particularly important to Philip Morris.” With the mission & vision statement clear, cigarette companies started targeting the vulnerable minds of teenagers through marketing schemes & campaigns. They bombarded them with images of “cool”. Tobacco companies used themes that appealed to the young minds; images of fun, action, excitement. Now you could look macho if you had a Marlboro in your hands. Strand Cigarette claimed “you’re never alone with a Strand”. “I’d walk a mile for Camel,” vowed many cigarette addicts. A women was successful if she held a Virginia Slims between her beautiful fingers for “You’ve come a long way” (read achieved success) if you smoked Virginia Slims. Sex appeal; cartoon characters, movie star status – every conceivable tool was used for years by tobacco companies to convince people that if you smoked, you had a life. Every claim of happiness was backed by a stunningly beautiful picture – that made every onlooker want a life like that. Worse still, it made smoking look like a fun activity – not a product that could kill.     Read More....


For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM makes business education truly global
IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm - Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri (IIPM Dean) – ‘Every human being is a diamond’
Arindam Chaudhuri – Everything is not in our hands
Planman Technologies – IT Solutions at your finger tips
Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri's Portfolio - he is at his candid best by Society Magazine

IIPM ranked No 1 B-School in India
domain-b.com : IIPM ranked ahead of IIMs
IIPM: Management Education India
Prof. Rajita Chaudhuri's Website

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They are certainly not an endangered species, but definitely quite a peculiar one! The young boys and men of today cannot be reached efficiently via the 30-second commercial anymore, instead they need to be engaged via the gaming route

“Highly unrestrained use of expletives, dark, and very funny” that was how one could describe the new animated satire “South Park” that debuted on VH1 in May. It’s totally different from what TV audiences in India have been used to.

Let’s take a look at some of the popular shows on TV. It used to be the “saas-bahu” ones, which have now given way to the sob-sagas of little girls and their sad tales. Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi ensured that most women were stuck to their TV sets during the time it was aired. Most of them are still there, this time teary-eyed for the girl in “Balika Vadhu” and other serials like it. The point is, look around on TV and mostly those are women who are being targeted and marketed to.

However, there is a segment that, for a long time, has been the most elusive to catch and market to. It’s the young boys & men. Where do we look for them? If statistics are to be believed, then this segment is the most elusive and hence the most desired. Young men are tuning out broadcast TV as they turn to games and the internet. About 22% of them watch TV, while more and more of them are spending their time on the internet. For years, NBC’s “The Tonight Show” was the biggest money maker on television – considering it had a huge fan following. Today, the ratings of the show have declined, albeit slightly – among the younger viewers – since lesser young men are watching it.

With lifestyles changing, people staying up late, TV channels are realizing that there is a market that has gone untapped for a long time and a lot of them are creating programs to suit this group – the young males. However, these are few and far in between. Today, almost every sitcom is female oriented. Male oriented programming is almost squeezed out of prime-time, save a few like the recently premiered “South Park”. Traditionally, big mass-advertisers have targeted women, because the sales of most are driven by women - who still do most of the household buying. However, the 18-34 year old male is today making his choices, forming brand loyalties, and cannot therefore be overlooked.

Life beyond 30
Many would vouch for the fact that life begins at 30. It’s time marketers took a cue from this one. You need to look beyond the 30-second-long TV commercials if you really want to reach out. TV used to be the coveted media, but the remote control changed it all. Then came the internet & fragmented the audience. Today, TV no longer caters to the mass audience and some companies have sensed it. Back in 2003, Coca Cola cut its TV ad spending by 10 percent and pumped the money into a totally new and unexpected new media – the video game! Advertising has followed consumers; so when the young viewers switched from TV to games like The Matrix Reloaded and Enter the Matrix – so did Coca Cola. Soon P&G and GM, the biggest advertisers of US, shifted too. They had found a way to catch the target audience – a way different from the 30-second TV commercial way!

It reached the white house boy
The elusive 18-34 year old male is touted as the “most intensely targeted subset of humans today”. He’s unique – doesn’t read much, doesn’t watch much TV either – but spends hours (15 hours every week) on playing games. Today, all brands big & small are rushing to showcase their goodies on video games, just to catch the attention of this elusive species! As per Microsoft, its Xbox live – a subscription service that allows consumers to download games, and a whole lot of other stuff – reaches more men aged 18-34 than The New York Times, ESPN. com or Men’s Health. Try to beat that!

Electronics Art (EA) recalls a time years ago when it used to pay companies to reproduce their logos on its games. Today big brands like Honda and McDonald’s are paying EA; not just that, hoards of them are on the wait list – to be included in the new games being developed and launched. Recently, Microsoft has entered into a deal with EA to provide live-in game advertising within games developed by EA that can be played with an Xbox 360 or a PC. One of the first to spot the trend, Microsoft didn’t waste time, and a few years back, it acquired Massive Incorporated for $200 or $300 million. It could smell a lot of advertising money coming its way. Google, for the first time, got left behind, but it woke up & soon made plans to acquire another upcoming gaming company – Adscape Media Ltd.     Read More....


For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM makes business education truly global
IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm - Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri (IIPM Dean) – ‘Every human being is a diamond’
Arindam Chaudhuri – Everything is not in our hands
Planman Technologies – IT Solutions at your finger tips
Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri's Portfolio - he is at his candid best by Society Magazine

IIPM ranked No 1 B-School in India
domain-b.com : IIPM ranked ahead of IIMs
IIPM: Management Education India
Prof. Rajita Chaudhuri's Website

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