The way we communicate has changed today. Branding is a different game altogether. The strategy that was considered the right way to build a brand just a few years back is all wrong today. We, as marketers, were doing a great job all these years and then came Tim Berners-Lee and changed it all. He is the man who invented the ‘World Wide Web’. With more than 2 billion users the growth in the number of people using the Internet in 2013, as compared to 2000, has been 566%. Whoa! That’s humongous. It’s this Internet which has created a unique generation of consumers called the ‘Millennial’. People in the age group of 18-34 fall in this category. Why are they so important? Let’s look at a few quick facts. 75 million is the population of the Millennials in US alone. In countries like India and Bangladesh most of the population is around this age. What it translates into is a few simple facts. By 2022 at least 30% of all retail sales will be to this generation, and by 2025 about 75% of the total car sales will be to this generation, making this age group the most important consumers. They are the consumers of the future and as brand builders it’s critical for us to make them believe in our brands. However, this generation is very different from its parents. They live differently, decide differently, and hate being marketed to, making things very difficult for marketers. Gone are the days when you picked up a Lonely Planet or any other travel guide book to know about a new destination you wanted to travel to. Today, you just ‘google it’ and can know more about the place, and even see real time videos of the place. You read books on the Internet and buy them through Amazon. If you want to change your job you don’t go to a placement agency but to LinkedIn. If you want an education many prefer to go online than to a campus. In fact, even if you want to protest for a cause you do not need to go out on the streets rather you go to the Facebook page and ‘like’ it and voila you are a protester! Reading, writing, travelling, protesting – you name it and it’s happening on the Internet. So, logically your brand building too should happen on the Internet. Consider this, when someone from this generation wants to buy a car he does not got to the company showroom or collect the car company’s brochure. The first thing he does is visit various websites, at least 25 of them, and then goes to a showroom when he has almost made up his mind of what he wants. Very rarely is the salesman able to assert his influence, for it’s ‘third party reviews’ which hold more weight than the salesman. It’s said knowing your audience is the key to building a great brand for then you know exactly what he wants. However, this time it’s going to be an uphill task just knowing the audience as these guys are different. All these years brands were built by connecting and engaging the customer at various ‘touch points’, and the traditional touch points used to be TV, print, radio, outdoor hoardings, and direct mailers. A close look at these touch points reveals that this new generation watches his favourite TV programme on YouTube, or records it on his set-top box and watches it by fast forwarding the ads. He does not wait for the morning newspaper to arrive to know what’s the latest for he can log on to Twitter and read the summaries of the top headlines, or log on to the website and get the information. With live streaming of music he does not listen to the radio but tunes in to his iPod, MP3 player etc. Be it direct mail or e-mail most of them go in the junk box if they are promotions of brands. To top it all, with new laws coming in the number of hoardings is also fast decreasing. So, if this is the scenario then how do you ‘touch’ this guy? FORGET, TO LEARN MORE If you want to reach the new guys then there are certain things you need to forget. (a)Forget physical media. Instead think digital. (b)Forget traditional TV. Think of the second screen. Mobiles will be big in future and most brand building activities will happen here. (c) Forget mass, think personalization. Mass mediums like TV and print have lost a lot of their sheen. It’s mediums which can send customized messages to consumers that will work. You need to think like Amazon. Once you buy from it, the second time that you go there it knows you, and suggests things to buy that you may like depending on your past purchases. This is the personalization, the customization that the consumer of today wants. One size fits all no longer works. One campaign for TV, print, outdoor, radio, et al will not work any more. They say it’s the end of ‘lazy marketing’ and marketers & brand builders have to wake up and shake up and think of new ways to engage the consumer. Thanks to Facebook and other such sites today you can break up your customer base into micro segments. Pizza Hut, for instance, discovered that it had 17,000 different types of customers and planned different online campaigns which worked for the various groups. Read More....An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri ( Renowned Management Guru and Economist). For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned LinksSC slams AICTE's illicit control on MBA coursesMBA, MCA courses no longer under AICTE 2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012 Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs) Ranked 6th OverallZee Business Best B-School Survey 2012 Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA IndoreIIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 yearIIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman ConsultingProfessor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and ManagementIIPM makes business education truly global Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman IIPM B-School Facebook Page IIPM Global Exposure IIPM Best B School India IIPM B-School Detail IIPM LinksIIPM : The B-School with a Human Face------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What do you do if you are a pizza parlour and the neighborhood where you are supposed to deliver your pizzas has people from over 200 nationalities who speak equally varied number of languages? Dubai based Red Tomato found a way to solve this problem – with the help of a fridge magnet. This magnet is connected with the bluetooth of the user’s mobile phone. He just presses the button, selects his choice of pizza online and orders it. Now it no more mattered which language you spoke; you always got the pizza you wanted. Deliveries increased by about 500%! In 2011 IPL used the mobile phone to spread awareness about the cricket series. It used the SMS2.0 service. All those who used this app to send text messages were shown a banner ad of the series. While their message was being sent the banner ad became full screen where the user could see options like check the score, read more, download ringtones etc. The company received more than 16 lakh impressions and more than 35,000 ringtone downloads! Lego has found a way to be relevant to the young generation and has found a way to compete with video games for market share. All you required was the special edition box of the Lego blocks, and the mobile app ‘The Life of George’ downloaded on your smartphone. The mobile app beams images which you have to make with your blocks within a time period specified by the app. With every successful attempt you move up levels. There are no estimates available of the sales figures, but it generated 294 million page impressions! In Stockholm McDonald’s created a digital billboard on which passers-by were invited to play table tennis using their phone’s touch screen. So it was you and your mobile versus the interactive billboard. If you lasted for 30 seconds you won yourself free goodies from the nearest McDonald’s outlet. An electronic coupon was delivered on your mobile phone which could be redeemed at the nearest McDonald’s outlet, directions to which were also sent along with the coupon. 460 people played in 5 hours and 400 of them actually went and cashed their coupons resulting in increased footfall. Talking of free goodies, now you can send a free Coke to anybody in any part of the world along with a message. Coca-Cola has installed special vending machines which can be accessed through your mobile phone. At the touch of a button a Coke bottle is delivered to who ever you want to deliver – even a complete stranger – along with a personal message. Using your phone you can even see who got your Coke and what was his reaction! The one thing common between all these examples is the use of mobile phones for increasing customer engagement. It is the gadget of the future, and is fast becoming the most effective way for brands to reach out to their customers. LOOK WHO MADE MONEY LAST YEAR!Google is a very happy company this year. Its stock prices have been increasing constantly. Over the past year its stock has increased by 30%. One of the main reasons was its ability to successfully monetize its mobile user base. The company’s mobile ad division is today its second largest division. Mobile revenues have doubled from 2011 to 2012. It is precisely because of this that Facebook’s IPO fizzled last year. Just before the highly anticipated initial public offering it revealed that it was not making any significant revenue from its mobile website, in spite of more than half its 900 million members using the service on their mobiles. This year Facebook’s revenues from ads on mobile devices touched $305 million. Today, the company claims to be a ‘mobile-first advertising company’, according to its Product Director of ads Gokul Rajaram. In the beginning of last year e-commerce website eBay estimated that it would make $10 billion in mobile revenues. By the end of 2012 the company had touched $13 billion. This year it is sure to touch $20 billion. According to its Senior Director for mobile commerce Olivier Ropars, business is all about ‘connected commerce’. It is the ability to shop anytime, anywhere and a mobile is the perfect device for that. According to him, one third of all eBay transactions are ‘touched’ by the mobile. No wonder eBay invested in mobile apps and today its mobile apps have seen a download of 120 million. Read More....An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri ( Renowned Management Guru and Economist). For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned LinksSC slams AICTE's illicit control on MBA coursesMBA, MCA courses no longer under AICTE 2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012 Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs) Ranked 6th OverallZee Business Best B-School Survey 2012 Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA IndoreIIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 yearIIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman ConsultingProfessor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and ManagementIIPM makes business education truly global Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman IIPM B-School Facebook Page IIPM Global Exposure IIPM Best B School India IIPM B-School Detail IIPM LinksIIPM : The B-School with a Human Face------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A simple arithmetic question for you: ‘A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?’ If you answered ‘10 cents’ you also probably are not aware of the ‘less obvious rules of success’. I will try to discuss a few here – the most obvious ones at least. Just as the obvious answer that 90% of the readers gave was actually the wrong answer (the right answer is 5 cents for the ball and a dollar and five cents for the bat), similarly the rules of success are the ones we most often tend to overlook. Success comes from strange quarters and with strange reasons too. Decades ago, an interesting book “What they don’t teach you at Harvard Business School” became a best seller. The author had then tried to show how the most obvious things are not being taught, the things that actually impact our careers. Even today, most people are not aware of many similar things. IT’S NOT WHAT YOU SPEAK, RATHER WHAT YOU DON’T WHICH IS IMPORTANT!A research by Classes and Careers revealed some interesting secrets about how to successfully crack interviews. While most of us will spend hours learning the important answers and pouring over the course and trying to mug up as much as possible, as many important points as possible, it’s the smart ones who do that little bit extra, which is the difference between success and failure. The biggest game changer in the interview process are the ‘non-verbal’ cues. It is not so much what you speak, rather what you don’t speak which creates the maximum impact. If you falter here it might cost you your job! Failure to make eye contact is one of the biggest mistakes. A good eye contact shows a confident personality. When you look at people, they look back at you! When you do not look at people they do not take you seriously and they do not trust you either. It’s a simple rule – liars tend to avoid eye contact. Eye contact is in fact the most important rule for survival and yet it is one of the most overlooked aspects of communication. In the animal kingdom, the dominant male is the one who can outstare other animals in his pack. If the contest turns out to be a draw, a battle ensues. If you stare at an animal, there’s a good chance it will either attack you, or pee on the floor. We humans aren’t much different. Keep looking at the person with whom you are having a conversation; however, do not stare. This is the tricky part. The most frequently asked question is “How do I look and not stare?” Well, there is a formula to help you get it right and solve this problem of yours. The simplest way to get started is by putting the 5 & 7 guide into action. This means, when speaking maintain eye contact for 50% of the time, when listening maintain it for 70% of the time. When you use eye contact properly, you avoid staring but still display interest and confidence. Eye contact is a powerful tool, and should be used wisely. In the end remember never ever to look at your cell phone to check a text message or a call. This not just causes loss of eye contact but also your job. The non-verbal message you send is ‘this interview is not the most important thing right now’. The second thing to keep in mind is the way you dress. This is probably more important than the way you answer questions. An interview is all about making the best impression and the right dress will help you do that. A good degree, knowledge etc will take you a certain distance, but the right clothes will take you all the way. Ignore the rule ‘dress to impress’ and you may lose your job. The best way to impress is to be yourself. No one knows this better than Indira Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiCo and today one of the most powerful women of the world. For her first interview she went dressed in an ill-fitting business suit and orange snow boots. Her appearance elicited a collective gasp of horror from the people there and as expected she did not get the job. For her next interview, she decided to follow the advice of her professor at Yale University and went in a sari. His advise to her was, she had to be herself and most importantly be proud of who she was. She went for the interview relaxed, more confident and smart, and Boston Consulting Group recruited her immediately. At the interview table, you are being sized up continuously and it’s these little things that count. Ask yourself, who do you remember after watching a talk show or a reality show? Not necessarily the person with the best points but the one with the best dressing sense. Many people tend to overlook this one point, but its importance cannot be denied. Years ago, Mark Twain said the same thing: “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society.” Even today, your clothes could decide your success or failure, especially so if the interviewer has to decide between two similar candidates! You could influence his choice and swing the vote towards you by just dressing right. Read More....An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri ( Renowned Management Guru and Economist). For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned LinksSC slams AICTE's illicit control on MBA coursesMBA, MCA courses no longer under AICTE 2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012 Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs) Ranked 6th OverallZee Business Best B-School Survey 2012 Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA IndoreIIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 yearIIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman ConsultingProfessor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and ManagementIIPM makes business education truly global Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman IIPM B-School Facebook Page IIPM Global Exposure IIPM Best B School India IIPM B-School Detail IIPM LinksIIPM : The B-School with a Human Face------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She was a young girl when she first came to Mumbai from a small village. She was born into a dalit family and had faced discrimination all her life. After marriage at a tender age of 12, it got even worse as she was beaten up by her husband's family and tortured daily. She could not take it and ran away to her father's house. But the Indian society always looks down at a woman who leaves her husband. The pressure was too much for her to take and she tried to commit suicide at the age of 16. Her aunt saved her and inspired her to live her life on her own terms. That day, this 16 year old Kalpana made a promise to herself to live her way. She went back to Mumbai and started working at Rs.2 per day. She worked 16 hours a day. Soon, she started her own business. Subsequently, as luck would have it, she got a chance to run a metal engineering company - Kamani Tubes - which was in massive debt. She could understand the plight of the people best as she had already been in that situation once. She soon turned the company around and is today the CEO of this multi-million dollar company. Her commitment to herself, to never give up, finally paid off. Success comes when you are ready to be bonded, when you are ready to be committed. With commitment, comes the ability to give your best without looking for returns. A mother's love is the best description of commitment. She loves her child without thinking or calculating what she will get in return. It's pure, it's unconditional, and it comes from a deep commitment towards her baby. All people who have achieved greatness have been able to do so because of their steely determination and their commitment to the cause. Michelangelo was one such person. He was a great artist, but his greatness lay in his ability to stick to his commitments. He sculpted his first masterpiece at the age of 21. He was so good that he was soon asked to paint the ceiling of a small chapel in the Vatican. He was initially asked to paint only 12 figures on the ceiling, a figure that over time increased to 400. Since he had committed to the task, he did not refuse to paint any of the 400 figures. The whole task took him four years, and that too while working mostly lying on his back, as he had to paint the ceiling. This caused permanent damage to his eyesight; and at the age of 37 itself, he started looking quite old. One day, while Michelangelo was immersed at work, someone saw him intently painting a figure that was quite concealed in a dark corner, a corner that most people would not notice. The person asked Michelangelo why he was working so hard on something that not many would see? His answer was, "God would see!" That is commitment. when you work with passion and give your best without calculating how much benefit you would get. As expected, the ceiling that Michelangelo painted set a new standard in art, which is being copied for generations now. Great leaders are those who are committed to a cause. In fact, not just that, they are great leaders if they can make their employees as committed as they themselves are. As Thomas Watson Jr quoted in the book A Business and its Beliefs - The ideas that helped build IBM: "The basic philosophy, spirit, and drive of an organization have far more to do with its relative achievements than do technological or economic resources, organizational structure, innovation, and timing." If your people believe in you, then you can achieve anything. For them to believe in you, they need to see your commitment towards them. If you treat them well, challenge them well, and give a good, fair, honest feedback, they will remain committed to you come what may. Mary Kay Ash was not just a businesswoman committed to her business but she was also committed to the women who ran her business, who sold her products. After working for 25 years in a male-dominated industry, when Mary retired in 1963, she started writing a book on `direct-sales', something she had done all her life. The book soon turned into a business plan; and Mary and her 20-year-old son soon started a cosmetics company. She had spent her life in a male dominated world and knew how difficult it was for women and she was determined to change it. She created her company with a strong commitment towards women. A company where women had unlimited potential personally and financially. She once said, "My objective in life is to help women know how great they really are." The commitment showed and soon her company - Mary Kay Cosmetics - became one of the largest direct-sales cosmetics companies in the world. After all, a company is as great as its people. Henry Luce founded the Time magazine not only to make money from it, but he also thought that it was his responsibility to inform and educate his readers. He wanted them to think, debate and discuss various issues. He brought a sense of mission to journalism. By 1940, he was America's most powerful and innovative mass communicator. It was his commitment to a cause that made his magazines more gripping than others and provided readers a better view of the world than similar periodicals and newspapers. Soon, Time Inc. became a substantial concern. Most correspondents started reading Time and tried to copy its style of writing. When you are committed, you set standards of excellence. COMMITMENT GIVES YOU A REASON TO LIVE AND A REASON TO DIE FOROne man who gave up his life for a cause, a commitment, was Ernesto Che Guevara. He said, "We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it." In 1955, Che, who was just a troop doctor then, met Fidel Castro. Slowly, he developed close bonds with Fidel. Soon, Che understood the cause for which Fidel was fighting and started believing in it. He started fighting with Fidel - and from a doctor of the group, Che soon became its most courageous soldier. He was deeply committed to the cause of the oppressed and the exploited and was ready to fight for them, irrespective of which part of the world they lived in. He was from Argentina but he fought in Cuba; he even fought in Bolivia where he met his death. This is what has made him the most famous revolutionary of the world. He is a man whose life will continue to inspire many, even years after his death, for he lived his life for a cause and even died fighting for it. Commitment makes you go beyond your comfort zone. A lot of us start a lot of things because we are interested in them. We start learning a musical instrument, a new language, join the gym etcetera because, well, we're interested in the same. To be really successful in any field, one needs to go beyond merely being interested. One needs to be committed. When all that binds you with something is plain interest, you would undertake that only when it's convenient to you. But if you are committed, you'd do that even when it's not convenient. Similarly, you find someone interesting and fall in love; but to make a marriage last, takes something more. A deep commitment to the relationship and a lot of hard work are required. Today, many are ready to fall in love but few are ready to commit to it; so the number of divorces are increasing because that commitment to love, no matter what obstacles or temptations come your way, is missing. Passion without commitment is of no use. Read More....An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri ( Renowned Management Guru and Economist). For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned LinksSC slams AICTE's illicit control on MBA coursesMBA, MCA courses no longer under AICTE 2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012 Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs) Ranked 6th OverallZee Business Best B-School Survey 2012 Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA IndoreIIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 yearIIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman ConsultingProfessor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and ManagementIIPM makes business education truly global Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman IIPM B-School Facebook Page IIPM Global Exposure IIPM Best B School India IIPM B-School Detail IIPM LinksIIPM : The B-School with a Human Face------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Olympics are over and forgotten and so is India’s performance. Yes, we did win a few medals, but we did not win a gold. If we had to look at the Olympics from a marketer’s point of view, then once again, there is this one company, which deserves to get the ‘Gold’ for its marketing strategy. If you watched the Olympics, you would not have missed the neon green shoes on the feet of some 400 athletes. Well it’s not the first time that athletes have worn Nike shoes during the Olympics, but it is definitely the first time that they have worn this color. Earlier, Nike used to make shoes that matched the uniforms of the athletes. The shoes ‘matched’, which means that they blended with the uniforms. Nike did not like that for nobody really noticed them. Martin Lotti, the designer at Nike, was not happy just designing shoes; he wanted to be noticed. So he chose a color that was bound to stand out – be it the racing track, the boxing ring, or any other event. He colored his shoes neon green and made every athlete wear them. There was no chance that anyone could miss them. So while Adidas was the official sponsor of the game, it’s once again Nike’s shoes that got noticed. If you stick by certain basic rules, chances of going wrong are reduced remarkably. Like in the above mentioned case, when people go to watch the Olympics, they go to watch the athletes. So if any brand wants to get noticed, the most logical thing would be to be as near to the athletes as possible. Nike did just that. It thought ‘athletes’ and all marketing and branding efforts were concentrated around the athlete. So while Coca Cola is rumored to have paid $100 million and Adidas has apparently shelled out around $63 million, it is Nike who did not spend any money on sponsorships that got the maximum attention. Branding is all about creating the right impact and Nike was bang on target this time. Branding is also about creating customer satisfaction, but surprisingly, many companies lose this focus and finally lose out in the race. IT’S FOR THE CUSTOMER, SILLYPeter Drucker quoted a long time back, “There is only one valid definition of a business purpose: to create a customer.” This simple fact is overlooked by many. First, you have customers, and the rest follows later. However logical and simple the concept, some companies just fail to implement it. For many, the focus is on ‘shareholders’. They rationalize that if shareholders are happy, the company is doing good. Jack Welch is one of the best examples of a CEO who is known for his capacity to grow shareholder value. He moved GE from a market value of $14 billion to $484 billion; making it the most valuable and largest company in the world. It was the one company that met market expectations every quarter for almost 48 quarters, and it delighted shareholders for 12 years. So if shareholder expectations are the benchmark, then GE should have been the strongest company. But surprisingly, after Jack Welch retired, the company’s market capitalization started going down and today, GE has lost 60% of that value. How could this happen? The answer is simple; the earnings and the balance sheets were ‘managed’. There was no ‘real’ value creation happening in the company. This is one of the reasons why every day, a new accounting scandal emerges in the corporate world and companies that looked so strong and sturdy just disappear. It’s customer delight and not shareholder delight that makes a company really outperform its competitors. Time and again, it has been proved that the company, which did not shift its focus from the customer, come what may, won in the long run . The iPhone 5 was launched recently. It’s a phone the world had been waiting for with great anticipation. That’s because this is one company that never cared for Wall Street or the shareholders. It believed in only one rule – delighting the customer. In fact, Apple’s iconic founder Steve Jobs never left an opportunity to bring out the fact that he did not bother about shareholders, and what mattered was delighting the customer beyond expectations. His energy was focused on developing a new product and his consumers loved him for that. Apple fans world over adore the company, and do not care about the technology that it uses. So while the tech geeks might not rate the iPhone 4S very highly, the fact is that Apple sold four million iPhone 4 handsets in three days; the maxi mum a phone has ever sold in corporate history. The iPhone 5, which was launched a few days back, has been judged by many as lacking the ‘knockout gasping features’ that people have started to expect from Apple. But it will still sell 22 million units in the September quarter. In fact, after the launch, experts have revised their figures and are thinking that it will touch 27 million. According to some, the new device should sell as many as all the previous models combined. JP Morgan has even calculated that iPhone 5 could add half a percentage point to the country’s GDP growth!! Once again, you’ll see lines in front of Apple stores and share prices will start moving up. A company that specializes in delighting its customers looks different, feels different and behaves differently. As Roger Martin, in his book “Fixing the Game”, says “To delight customers, a radically different kind of management needs to be in place, with a different role for the managers, a different way of coordinating work, a different set of values and a different way of communicating. This is not rocket science.” These organizations are not dominated by the sales force or the accountants, who only talk numbers; but by people who know how to create value. After all, it is commonsense that delighting the customer is what gets a business profits. Business is finally for the customers and shareholder satisfaction is the consequence of correct strategies and not the strategy, silly!! Read more....An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri ( Renowned Management Guru and Economist). For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned LinksSC slams AICTE's illicit control on MBA coursesMBA, MCA courses no longer under AICTE 2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012 Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs) Ranked 6th OverallZee Business Best B-School Survey 2012 Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA IndoreIIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 yearIIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman ConsultingProfessor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and ManagementIIPM makes business education truly global Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman IIPM B-School Facebook Page IIPM Global Exposure IIPM Best B School India IIPM B-School Detail IIPM LinksIIPM : The B-School with a Human Face------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 resultsIt’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 ILLUSTRATE1ST STORY100 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 STORYIt 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 STORYAn 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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 PERSUASIONAdvertising 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 WEAPONThe 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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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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