RA.One Marketing: Was definitely needed but how much?

Just watched another program bashing up Ra.One marketing campaign and how the film has been a dud till now despite a very well planned campaign. Well, first of all I have not watched the movie till now, so I wont be the right person to comment on the actual content of the movie. I’m aware of the basic theme, the marketing campaigns, supposedly the superior effects, technological edge, the characters and songs of the movie. But beyond that no comments on whether it’s good or bad.

Possibly one of the longest marketing campaigns in the history of Indian movie marketing spanning over a period of approx 10 months & with a lavish budget of Rs. 40 crores, Ra.One had indeed one of the most discussed maniac marketing campaigns ever. From global tours, to graphic novels, to digital marketing, to brand alliances, to presence on reality shows, to innovative merchandises, to physical toys, to digital games for ipods / ipads, to youtube channel, to google plus pages… phew and yes, before I forget, to even have Akon for Chammak Challo and Lady Gaga for the premier… I mean you name it and the movie had got it. Yes, I agree the marketing campaign for Ra.One was nothing less than an attack on your senses! Words like overdrive or aggressive promotion would be understatement for a campaign of that magnitude.

But I still do not understand why link up a promotion campaign with the average or failed performance of the movie. Since when a good marketing has actually made a bad product successful in the market? Can’t recall even one case study where a crap product has been a hit because of strong marketing. Despite, all the criticism on the marketing strategies and the need for it, I for one at least think that a movie like Ra.One needed the promotion push in the market. Here’s why:

• Content: The movie tries to venture into a different zone, the sci-fi genre that is still primarily untouched by many in Indian film industry. A third of the film’s budget has gone into special effects and Ra.One boasts of some 3,500 VFX shots in the entire movie. Considering the digital bang and effort which has gone into creating this kind of content, it does make sense to me to back it up with relevant marketing and engagement tools like digital games, innovative merchandises and graphic novels etc. Two of my movie buff friends actually commented – “when it comes to special effects, the movie has been made marvelously well. Whatever said and done, the movie has set up a benchmark and standard for others to match up to in Indian Film Industry.”

• Character: It’s not a general Bollywood flick with a pre-decided story line. This movie is all about an Indian super hero and that too a new brand. More than the movie, a character G.One had to be introduced, defined and established in the minds of the TG. A brand different from legendaries like Spiderman or Superman of this world. Now whenever there has been a need of such introduction, promotion has to be done. Take the case of any famous Hollywood flick and you’ll see a trend.

• Target Audience: Apart from regular SRK fan base, the movie was also targeted towards kids and anything around kids these days has to be marketed with that special imagery or the zing factor to grab their attention. In fact if we speak of the TG, it was sort of a shift from that typical SRK imagery where instead of wooing the women audience or presenting a family melodrama, it was the first time when he has tried to entertain kids primarily. And trust me I have met three kids in last one week who actually liked the movie, loved the character of G.One and merchandises of Ra.One.

Considering the attempt at a different kind of content, need to establish a brand in form of a character and an attempt to target a completely different set of audience, I think this movie needed the marketing buzz for sure. Now, whether a budget as huge as this was needed or promotion as aggressive as this was required is something really debatable. In my views, its yet another classical case of “how much is too much” and “create the hype only if you have the potential to sustain it” with which the campaign needs to be reviewed or evaluated and not with a direct correlation or one-to-one relationship solely between marketing efforts and product performance.

P.S: Despite all the criticism, I think I do want to catch up on this movie sometime for sure and if at all my views change after watching this movie, I will update the post again.

100 million & counting: Internet users in India

It has happened. India crosses the 100 Mn Internet users mark this September. As per the latest report from IAMAI, there are 112 Mn claimed Internet users as on September 2011, out of which 88 million users belong to urban cities and 24 Mn to rural areas. Compared to last year, there has been a growth of around 13% and by December 2011 it is expected that there will be 121 Mn claimed Internet users.

Few other key insights from the report:

• Usage from home has increased whereas common access points like cyber café usage seem to be on decline as compared to previous years. Around 37 percent of users access the Internet from home, 23 percent from cyber cafes, 22 percent from office, 9 percent from mobile devices and rest from schools and other such places.

• Internet usage in smaller towns continues to spike its dominance over top 8 metros with a combined usage of more than 60 percent.

• Youngsters in India continue to drive Internet Usage in India and usage of school going kids has seen a substantial rise. This opens up the market for children aged below 18 year of age.

• While the usage by both college going kids and young men have taken a slight dip compared to 2009, school going kids have started using internet more than they’ve ever had in the past decade owing to the now existent e-learning services and educational information available on the Internet.

• Emails, Education, Social Networking, Music and Text chatting are the most popular activities amongst Urban Internet users whereas in Rural areas accessing music, videos, photos and general information search are the activities of prime usage.

  

So, users and usages have increased. What next for India Online? More e-commerce companies? Better e-learning services? Increased market for smart-phones and tablets? Growth in Mobile Internet Industry? Well, maybe all of these. Indeed a landmark figure has been reached, now interesting to see how it impacts the overall state of Indian Internet Industry and its position in Global competitive landscape.

Source: Report on Internet in India (I-Cube) 2011.

Customer Communication

E-commerce in India: From convenience to choice

And this time I was not surprised when this friend of mine from a far remote corner of the country informed me that her recent purchase was actually an original off the runway dress straight from a leading fashion event. By now I know that like many, even she is hooked on to a popular luxury e-commerce Indian site which not only gives her the chance to access the latest in fashion but has also made it absolutely simple for her to buy anything of her taste in just few clicks. This friend who had to relocate to a small town due to personal reasons always used to crib about lack of branded or in-vogue things at her place but since the day I had introduced her to few established e-commerce sites in India there has been absolutely no looking back. From books to apparel to accessories, she has tried it all and is thrilled at the way e-shopping has transformed her shopping experience. Not only is she herself convinced about it, she has also got few friends and colleagues of hers to log on to these sites and order stuffs which are not available in their vicinity.

As a consumer, her online buying behavior has moved on an up curve with time, she started with items like books where the chances of product damage during transit were less plus the purchase value was small. With positive experiences by one e-retailer and one courier company, she slowly started to order high value items from different sites and now is completely convinced about the benefits of e-commerce and reliability of online transaction in India. Yes, consumers like hers are not the majority and there are many who are still wary of transacting online but then the fact that she is ordering so many high value items from such remote corner is definitely some indicator.  In yet another similar incidence, there is this acquaintance of mine who is in a habit of changing his mobile phone every few months. During his last purchase, he managed to get a model of HTC delivered at his door far before than I could have bought it. He had pre booked it online from yet another popular Indian e-commerce site!

Isn’t it interesting to see such trends happening in India now? While for people like us e-commerce is not something new and by now we are quite habituated of transacting online but then the majority of Indian consumers still live in tier 2 and tier 3 cities who have enough reasons to not shop online, be it internet connectivity or lack of awareness in terms of using their cards online. While for us, convenience or price differentiation triggers our online behavior, for them it is the choice and availability of products.

Though not hugely upbeat, but there are enough statistics now which is directing towards the change in online buying behavior of Indians beyond metros. As per last e-commerce census by Ebay, 3,296 Indian cities shopped online in 2010 and of this, 2234 were Tier-2 & Tier-3 cities. Founder of naaptol.com, a best deal marketplace site says that 90% of his business comes from rural India. The company advertises its deals across product categories in newspapers and customers in the rural market are placing orders—not at the click of a mouse but by punching in the contact number given in the ads. As per the March 2011 data for online banking in India, 48% of users are from metros and 52% come in from non-metros, while last year the data was different with 57% from metro & 43% from non-metros. Yet another e-commerce site Letsbuy.com has sold LED TVs of as high value as Rs. 1 lakh and above in tier 2 and 3 towns where the product is not available through normal retailers.

From necessities like ticketing and banking to luxuries like fashion apparel and high end gadgets, consumers from different parts of the country are logging in and trying to buy these online. Not only the list of products being bought has expanded, even the ticket size of online transactions has increased now. There is need for convenience, an aspiration for luxury products and money to spend; lacking was the avenue to access such stuffs in remote towns which gets fulfilled by many big and reliable web shops now. The behavior is definitely changing but is it significant enough for all these e-commerce players to have a sustainable business model? Yet to see how many become revenue wise successful in long run, though few online players have already created a difference and made that impact!

*In case you would like to read the ebay e-commerce census of last year, you can download the same from here.

Café Coffee Day: First Indian Brand on foursquare

While having a cup of coffee yesterday at CCD next to my work place, I got to notice this. So, foursquare is in alliance with Café Coffee Day now:

Cafe Coffee Day has launched this offer on 17^th Feb 2011. Check in at foursquare and you can get a 15% discount on your 3rd check-in. If you are the Mayor, CCD will serve you a free coffee and 20% discount on every 3rd check-in. As of now this offer is only valid in Bangalore outlets, but they slowly plan to roll it out in other cities too. (via)

Finally foursquare has started tie ups with Indian brands too. With this offer, Cafe Coffee Day is the first Indian Brand on foursquare to have its own Brand Page – http://foursquare.com/CafeCoffeeDay! In fact it’s good to see this CCD offer, I had created an account on foursquare long back but have not been active there for some or other reason. Maybe it will influence users like me to finally be active with my check ins, after all who would not like to have a free coffee from an outlet where you end up going almost daily .

Location based customer targeting has been there in India for quite some time now. CCD itself had tied up with Nokia last year for a two month long location based advertising campaign where it was targeting consumers based on their location and then driving them to the nearest CCD outlet. Nokia users with models like N97 and above were served CCD ads on the weather or events page. Clicking on the ad gave users two options – click2web which took them to CCD’s Facebook page and click2route which directed users to the nearest CCD. Now with sites like foursquare which are specifically meant to keep a tab on customer’s location, marketers can leverage these better to serve ads or promotional offers at any particular spot. Even though the user base is not huge as of now and audience type is quite niche but this definitely seems to be one of the interesting newer ways to reach out to the consumers on the move. And you never know, when this niche will actually become mass esp. with promotion triggers from brands and acceptability of more similar services like Facebook Places which may pick up momentum in India as well.

Would be interesting to observe the future trend for this medium, as of now I must check in to foursquare whenever I’m visiting the CCD outlet next .

5 Twitter tools for your brand

You search for Twitter management tools and you get millions if not zillions of suggestions to try this or that. Though have been using few actively for my personal account for quite some time now but recently tried to look for some new ones for a project related to my company. Last when I had used these tools for brand tracking was for my earlier company but must say that with the phenomenal growth of twitter, this twitter tool and app market has also exploded quite vehemently. I mean you search for anything and there are hundreds of free utilities which can offer you any kind of solution in just one click. And when there are lots of good things around, it’s difficult to decide on the best .

Based on my recent usage and experience, here’s a list of 5 tools which I think can be very helpful for keeping an eye on the following 5 aspects which you need to track about your brand.

1. Tracking the brand mention: Social Mention – Though there are many alert and tracking options available but so far I liked Social Mention as the best one.  It’s been used by many and in one single dashboard it actually tells you the mention of your brand not only in Twitter but in almost all other social media channels. To add to that, statistics like sentiment, strength, reach and passion help you analyze some qualitative aspects of your mentions as well. You can further filter your search for different types of social media channels.
2. Measure your influence & reach: Twitalyzer – Twitalyzer is a combination of free and paid services. Free offerings include basic understanding of your scores for influence, reach, impact, engagement and velocity. To have further more detailed insights, you can always subscribe to their paid services and get detailed customized reports as per your needs.
3. Know other influencers in your industry: Klout – Apart from measuring your influence, Klout also allows you to measure other interesting aspects like who are you influenced by, who are the top influencers in your industry, how is your influence score vis-a-vis other influencers similar to you. You can use Klout not only for your Twitter score but also for other channels like Facebook & Linkedin.
4. Mapping against competitors: Twitter Counter – By far the best tool which I could get my hands on for comparison of your brand against your competitors. Not that more do not exist, but quite many are buggy or not with updated statistics. This one gives you a quick snapshot on weekly, monthly, 3 monthly and 6 monthly basis.
5. Managing your followers count: Friend or Follow - Well, don’t think anyone can zero on one such service, there are hundreds and thousands of follower management tools, right from some which alert you over email (Qwitter) when somebody stops following you, to some which tell you which tweet made people unfollow you at what point (Tweet Effect). But for basic follower management, I find Friend or Follow to serve my purpose both for the brand handle and my personal one. It gives a dashboard view for fans, following and friends at one place and can help you in managing the list quickly.

This is a list of tools which I have found useful and have performed consistently, otherwise there are instances where many such free services close down without even sending any notification email (e.g., Qwitter – this service is really inconsistent when it comes to performance). Many of you must have been using different other tools for your brands, so in case you have suggestion for  any better tool, please drop in a comment to this post.

A quick take on 2010 & wish you a happy new year!

Well, a lot has happened in 2010 for Indian Marketing and Media industry. While I will come back with detailed posts on some of the brand case studies which created impact this year, but as of now here goes a quick take on my “likes” & “dislikes” for marketing incidents that occurred in 2010

1. A rebranding which I liked : Indian Rupee Symbol
2. A rebranding which I disliked: Airtel
3. A marketing trend which I liked: Social Media becoming mainstream, few predicted this but not many were sure or convinced about it till last year.
4. A brand which completely wowed me: Flipkart
5. A brand which always delivered what it committed to me: Indigo
6. A new product /service which I started using in 2010: Online luxury shopping portals and totally addicted to FashionAndYou.com
7. A old category coming out with newer marketing techniques: Books, wow what innovative marketing stories in Indian Literature Industry.
8. An ad which really created a buzz: Volkswagen Vento talking newspaper ads
9. An ad which I hated : IBIBO, JK Cement Swimming Pool ad
10. Ad which I liked for its social messaging: ”’Tata Tea Choti & Badi Patti’ and ‘Tum Chalo Toh Hindustand Chale by TOI‘

I may update this list later if some more related points come to my mind, till then do drop in comments about the stories which you liked or brands which you hated in 2010.

With this last post for 2010, here’s wishing all my readers a very happy and prosperous new year! May you have a rocking & great 2011!

Quick Bytes: A “Don’t” in Social Media

Dear Brands,
It just does not make any sense to put an icon for Facebook or Twitter in print ad without giving your URLs or official page titles for readers to find you quickly. I saw this big ad in TOI today with one of the call for actions being “Follow us on Twitter and Facebook”, despite the space being available to mention the URLs or official handles, there was just no mention of the same. To add to that the name is common enough to generate enough pages if you go ahead and search for it.

I recently observed even a television commercial doing the same – a prominent chocolate company ad on television stated “participate in our contest on Facebook and win prizes”, well the screen with this message lasts for few seconds, but all it mentions about the location to participate in contest is a plain “F” icon for Facebook. No mention of the page URL at all. And if you go ahead and search for that brand on Facebook, there are enough pages with that brand name to get you confused about the identity of the official page.

Please remember it’s not a web or interactive digital ad in front of your customers where they can click the icons and land up on your page. Won’t harm (esp. when you have space to utilize) to mention something like @yourname or /yourname near those icons. Easier for your customers to reach the right location quicker!

Micromax fastest rising query after IRCTC : Google Zeitgeist 2010

Micromax is the 2nd fastest rising query in India! Wow, the brand definitely seems to be on a roll. At first I was surprised but hey wait, isn’t it the most buzzed brand in Indian Telecom Industry these days? Google has released its Zeitgeist 2010 report for most searched words in India. While IRCTC retains its position of being at the top like earlier, this year there were definitely some newer surprises in the list. Here goes the complete list for Indian market:

Micromax is gaining market share in India by making cheap phones with long battery life and targeting the needs of mass Indian consumers. Recently it announced the launch of its android phones too at a cost of Rs. 6,999/-. Not only is this brand selling more than a million phone every month, in last two years it has also become the third-largest GSM mobile phone vendor in India after Nokia and Samsung, with a market share of 6%.

Well, mass targeted products definitely sell in India. Google’s this report further substantiates it, check out the section for raising people. Sonakshi Sinha scores higher than Katrina, mass appeal of Dabbangg once again?

No IDEA to Get IDEA: IDEA the first to play on MNP

While Airtel was busy in revealing a new brand identity by spending some obscene amount of money in introducing a new logo, the same time IDEA was busy capitalizing on the hottest talk of the telecom industry – MNP (Mobile Number Portability). In fact if I’m not wrong IDEA is the first one to start talking about it and must say that the communication hits the nail just at the right place. Have watched three commercials till now, one speaks of customer service accessibility, the other for network connectivity and third on vague billing system. Liked the communication as well as the execution; all three ads highlight the most commonly faced issues with telecom service providers in India and ends with call for action “get idea” in a very smart way. Messaging is so simple that it is clear to even people who are not aware of basic things like different component of their bills but can gather from this ad that there is some new feature where one can switch operators without changing the number. Most of IDEA ads used to focus around social messaging, this is the first time I’m observing them encashing on a new service offering. Or maybe if I look at it from a different POV, I will say that even this one has social awareness aspect as it’s the first messaging in India which informs & confirms the advent of MNP in India.

Finally MNP has arrived after some zillions of roadblocks and millions of postponement. Even though it has been launched only in few circles as of now but the nationwide launch of it by 20^th Jan 2011 is surely going to further intensify the competition amongst different telecom service providers in India. More than the price, I think it’s going to be the service differentiation which will be deciding the track of churn vs. gain between different operators.  To add to that, the process of switching does not seem to be too expensive or troublesome as of now. Here are some general FAQs related to MNP in India published by different authorities (via):

1. How can I proceed with MNP i.e., change my service provider without changing the number?

Send an SMS: PORT<space>Mobile Number (that is to be ported) to 1900. For ex. PORT 9812345678. Your existing operator will immediately provide you with a 8 digit alpha-numeric porting code that you need to submit to the operator you wish to opt to along with relevant documents. (The unique porting code will be valid only for 24 hours). After consulting with your existing operator, new operator will move your number in a maximum of 4 days.

2. What are the minimum and maximum time specified for porting number from one operator to another?

Porting time could be anything between 24 hours to 4 days.

3. What are the charges for Porting to another operator?

Service providers can charge a maximum of Rs. 19 for porting a number.

4. Who is eligible for availing mobile number portability?

Any customer having a mobile number older than 90 days can migrate to another operator with the same number. He / She will have to wait for another 90 days before being able to port their number again.

5. Will my number be dead during the porting process?

As per the details available, a number will remain dead for 2 hours approximately during the porting process. Fortunately, the 2 hours downtime will be between 10 PM and 5 AM IST.

6. Can I migrate my post-paid number to another operator with prepaid services or vice-versa?

Yes, that can be done once you clear off all pending dues with the current operator.

7. Will my prepaid balance carry-forward to new operator?
Unfortunately not. All remaining balance on your mobile will get lapsed and will not be carried-forward to the new operator. Thus, it’s advisable to completely use the available talk-time before moving to another operator.

8. Can I port my number from one circle (state) to another?

Retaining same number while moving from one state to another is not possible unless MNP services are launched pan-India.

9. Can I port my CDMA number to GSM operator or vice versa?

Yes, with the introduction of MNP, moving from CDMA to GSM or vice-versa is possible too, but your existing mobile will be rendered useless if you opt to move from CDMA to GSM technology.

10. Can I port my landline number to a mobile service provider?

Porting a landline number to a mobile operator is possible in countries like US, though, for now Indian govt. has planned to launch MNP only for mobile phone users. India might witness landline number portability in the future.

From the face of it, MNP seems to be easy-to-switch process but the actual impact or hidden (if any) truths will only be known once it’s launched all across.  But if it’s really what it communicates to be, then this will be like a super boon for consumers in India. What do you think about MNP, promise vs., reality & the impact of it on consumers & the industry?

BTW, in case you’ve not seen the IDEA MNP ads till now, do check it out: