Kingfisher Communication

I’m sure like me all of you would also have got your inboxes flooded with new year wishes. More than personal messages, it’s in fact all sorts of marketing campaigns from different services wishing new year and announcing some or other new year offer. Ah speak of that over-abuse of email marketing channel in India!!! Well, most of promotional emails went into my trash folder without even opening it…but here comes one email on my gmail id which I couldn’t help myself from opening it immediately despite knowing it very well that this one also is some marketing mailer. Reason? Well, the sender of the email is Dr. Vijay Mallya J. Now am I not supposed to click it at least once to see wht Mr. Mallya has to communicate to me? This was also just another mailer but see a small customization in terms of sender’s name did make a difference to me as a consumer. And not only me, I’m sure most of the consumers would like to click it at least once to read Mr. Mallya’s message and therefore just a bit of personalization would have led to a higher CTR than normal King club mailers. After all the sender’s name reads Dr. Vijay Mallya and from the look of it, it didn’t seem to be a virus mail. Kingfisher is really the king of communication and yea they always set some benchmark of service and communication. Check it out:

 

Well, this is my last post for 2008… So, shall I also say in Mallya eshtylee – I want to personally thank all of you for your continued patronage, for reading my blog and sharing your opinions…ha ha ha, I know I know it’s getting too much, so better leave this style to Mr. Mallya. From my side, just a simple wish  - Wish all my readers and blogger friends a very happy and prosperous new year!

 

Ghajini Marketing Contd…

I had earlier written about some interesting Ghajini marketing strategies and a spoof on Ghajini, but got to notice some other interesting stuffs about Ghajini on digital medium in last one week and from whatever I have observed, one thing is clear that their marketing agency has definitely tried quite some different online marketing strategies for promoting this movie. Here are some of those which I noticed recently:

• Now having a movie website is quite common these days, but in case of Ghajini, not one or two rather three websites were launched – www.rememberghajini.com , www.findghajini.com & www.wallofsuspects.com. While the 1^st one is the official website of the film, 2^nd and 3^rd links are quite interesting properties around the movie which surely raises curiosity and creates excitement amongst the users over the story of the movie. Do try out and you will yourself feel the same

• Speak of any entertainment portal and it is running some or other contest, now again movie contests like these are not new but what I noticed different was the one running on Business of Cinema. This contest is a kind of post-release contest and asks for feedback about the movie and lucky winners get a chance to meet Aamir Khan.

• 3D game CDS were launched based on Ghajini theme and in fact Indyarocks was running a contest where the winners were to get these 3D game CDs.

• Aamir’s own website is totally donned in Ghajini look since long and as Aamir is quite active on his blog personally, he has written some posts on Ghajini and his feelings around the release of the movie. Can you guess the number of comments on his recent post titled – Yes Ghajini is Releasing??? Its only 3588 as I’m typing this blog

• Now this one is not a digital promotion but still I think I need to mention this – other day we went to this mall near our house and we were looking for some tie to be gifted to one of our close friends. The moment we entered Van Heusen shop all we could see was Aamir Khan and his Ghajini collection. All the ties on display were branded as “Ghajini special collection” and their normal collection hardly had anything. Well, I must say the brand was totally Ghajinifioed. In fact it’s not only Van Heusen, but Samsung and Tata Sky as well who are associated with Ghajini promotion because of their pre-association with Aamir Khan.

I am yet to see the film but the promotion of it has definitely created a stir in the market.

Gajodhar: New viral campaign

Got a mailer from Makemytrip with subject – Worldwide premier of Gajodhar…before time! The first look itself gave a very clear impression that it is some spoof on much-awaited movie Ghajini. Watched the film and found it to be funny! It’s a viral campaign of www.oktatabyebye.com (travel community of Makemytrip) and as most of the other virals of Makemytrip, this also is done by Webchutney.

 

The film shows a character Gajodhar who is out on a holiday and has a very different rather weird way of noting down all his experiences. Whatever he experiences like “room achcha hai”, “food is good” etc. he gets those tattooed on his body in a nearby tattoo shop. At the end of his holiday, he comes back and copies all those experiences on www.oktatabyebye.com. I liked it but honestly speaking didn’t like it as much as other viral campaigns of Webchutney. Well, maybe my expectation bar has been raised a lot as far as funny viral films from Webchutney are concerned. No, it’s not bad but found it to be bit dragging and elements to be repetitive.  But what is good about this viral is the timing (well what you can call as chance pe dance karna J) – currently everybody is caught with this Ghajini fever and hence this whole Ghajini look and feel and spoof on tattoo will definitely raise some curiosity and garb attention of viewers. Secondly it’s a holiday season and considering Oktatabybye is not that popular till now, I think it’s really good to be reminded of such site during this holiday season. Anyways many people write about their travel experiences in blogs, travelogues etc., and if told about a dedicated travel community portal in an interesting way along with a review writing contest announcement wherein one can win vouchers, cameras etc, I’m sure people would like to explore the portal further. I think this viral will work for the portal in getting some more eyeballs.

 

In case you have not seen it till now, you can click on the following image to have a look:

 

IDEA – for the people, by the people!

Logged in to Yahoo India today and got to see this splash banner of Idea.

 

Well, personally I have always liked the advertisements of idea esp. the television commercials. Though the ideas shown in the commercials are not always practical or implementable one but then too those commercials leave a sweet smile on your face with a thought, “oh how wonderful it would have been if this idea was implementable”. For e.g., that school kids of village learning through phone or the village kid giving the road direction to a gentleman in a very fluent English. Yes, some of the commercials show those ideas which if possible to implement could have really changed lives. So, considering my liking for Idea ads, it was quite natural for me to click this very prominent online Idea ad and to my pleasant surprise it took me to a site http://www.bythepeople.in .

 

The first look gave an impression of it being a web extension of their recent television campaign wherein politician seeks opinion of the people on some important projects through phone. And yeah I was right, it’s actually a site by Idea wherein people can submit their opinions on any public issue. The site emphasizes on public opinions and importance of participative decisions. As of now it’s just having one page which asks to vote in favor or against of participative decision and a text box asking to submit topic on which one would like to have opinion and on submitting your vote, it shows the result statistics. Well, personally speaking I liked the concept of this website. Though it’s not something absolutely new as there are some other Indian portals as well which are revolving around some or other important social awareness campaign but still the whole idea of raising public opinion on important topics through online voting system seems to be a good idea and if used properly it can be mutually beneficial for the brand hosting it as well as for general public. The portal is quite new as of now, maybe they have plans to introduce some more stuffs in future but I do think that this website is lacking certain critical info currently, for e.g., what will happen once I submit my vote on any important topic? What is Idea going to do with those public opinions? Are they going to submit it to concerned authorities or are they going to take some initiatives based on those opinions? I’m not sure if taking certain initiatives will fall under their responsibility limits but they should at least tell people why and what of this portal and the overall basis of initiating this opinion portal. If they do so, it will surely help them in differentiating from any current existing poll properties like TOI poll etc, polls like TOI merely act as indicator of certain statistics like X % said yes and Y % said no. The title of the page reads – “for the people, by the people”, I wish it really turns out to be so

Ghajini Marketing: Employees go bald!

While I was anyways impressed with these interesting collaterals of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi in multiplexes, I get to hear of this another very different kind of promotion campaign of Aamir Khan’s upcoming movie Ghajini. Now first speaking of this Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi collateral which I noticed in a popular retail outlet in the form of a table top followed by a theater in the form of a long standee where I went to watch this movie, it was having a very fascinating dual visual effect. Same standee was showing two different forms of Shahrukh and Anushka if seen from two different angles – one was showing him in his common man avtaar and the next angle was showing him in his hip and cool avtaar. Quite interesting and attention grabbing! Wish I could have taken a picture of the same.

 

But I think what Ghajini has done is far more catchy and really unique in terms of promotion strategy. Ghajini promoters have tied up with leading multiplexes in Mumbai where multiplex staffs have volunteered to sport the famous Ghajini hairstyle from 9^th Dec – 25^th Dec’08. Well, actually they have gone bald like Aamir, so I am not sure how they are saying that this promotion is valid only till 25^th Dec’08. I think it has to be valid till they don’t get their hair back…LOL, isn’t it? Can you imagine everybody i.e., right from administrative and refreshment counter staffs to ushers being bald at the same time??? Have a look on this pic and for more such pics check out this NDTV photo gallery.

 

 

 

I must say I found this promotion to be quite interesting and very hatke! At least I had not heard of this kind of thing before in Bollywood. Looks like Ghajini is not leaving any stone unturned for competing against the big releases like RNBDJ and Jumbo. Though jumbo is a movie of very different genre but RNBDJ is definitely having SRK and when it’s a competition between SRK & Aamir…well the whole world knows how and what it is J. Promotion wise definitely Ghajini is standing out more, but let’s see who stands out more at BO finally?

 

Recession and Consumer Spending Behavior

A lot is discussed now-a-days about India being geared up for economic downturn and consumer spending not observing any major shift as compared to its earlier pattern. Well, to some extent it’s true and being a marketer myself I understand that one needs to be optimistic about the market and consumer purchasing power but when I think of myself as a consumer I do feel that my spending behavior has undergone some major changes in last 3-4 months. Call it the effect of this phrase “onset of downturn” or the effect of phrase “save cash for those bad times” I have definitely changed my behavior towards lots of purchase decision which were not thought through earlier by me or my husband. In fact some of these were never so called purchase decisions rather they used to be just one of those impromptu expenses. But now we do think before spending on such things and I can observe a similar pattern amongst my peer circle as well. As a salaried class consumer, here is a list of my top five curtailed expenses which used to be regular affair earlier:

• Dine Outs: Oh I really don’t have a count of the earlier frequency of our dine outs and most of such expenses being absolutely unplanned and ad lib. But now with our saving belt on suddenly we found ourselves questioning, do we really need to eat out? Shall we really spend this X amount of money for a casual meal for two? Not only these occasional questioning is helping us keeping a check on our wallet rather its having the same effect on our weighing scale too J. Frequency has gone down to absolutely a countable figure now.
• Movie / Entertainment: Considering the kind of movie buff we both are, all weekends used to be movie outings for us in some or other multiplex. It didn’t matter which movie and what star-cast, we had to see some movie in multiplexes. But then we started wondering, do we really need to see Yuvraaj in theater by spending X amount of money…nah not worth it. Let it get released on DVD. Now not every weekend is spent at multiplexes , some of it is at home with DVDs and books.
• Accessories / Apparel: Since, I am the only woman consumer in my household and hence this one is more applicable to me and not my husband. I used to go for this sudden splurge on accessories like bags, shoes etc. but now this has come down to a large extent, thanks to my “save cash” mission.
• Air Travel: Yeah this one has really-really come down – ours and our families’ personal trips through flights. Now either it’s low cost flights or if it’s not much of a distance then trains!
• Household: Oh yes, now we do look at those newspaper inserts announcing sale on monthly groceries or those freebies at A,B,C retail stores!

Hmmm, so at least we have become conscious of our expenses because of the economic environmental effect. I think we have definitely managed to come down by 10-15% in our regular expenses. How about you as a consumer? Do you think your spending behavior has undergone some change and if yes, which are the key ones? Any experience / suggestion as a consumer to save cash is more than welcome on this space .

“Let’s pool in”: Car pooling campaign in Bangalore

I was aware of Commute Easy since long but thanks to Radio One campaign that this came back to my mind again. I have sort of become a very regular listener of Radio One because of it being the only Bollywood fm channel in Bangalore as of now and of late I have been hearing this “Let’s pool in’ campaign quite a lot on this channel. It’s a public service initiative launched by Radio One in association with Commute Easy and Bangalore Traffic Police to address the traffic woes of the city. www.commuteeasy.com is a car pooling website wherein one can register and search for people travelling to same destinations / route. You can search and register for pool depending upon the start and end destination as well as time of your commuting. One has the option to go by his own vehicle or any other vehicle in case you don’t possess one of your own. Apart from the site being very user friendly, it has got an interesting etiquette section as well, which chalks out the Dos and Donts neatly and helps to answer some questions regarding fee share etc which you might have in mind esp. when car pool concept is not so common in India.

I must say it’s a very nice initiative by Radio One and Bangalore Traffic Police. Traffic situation currently in Bangalore is nothing less than a nightmare and in fact it is getting worse day by day. As per statistics revealed by Praveen Sood, additional commissioner of police (traffic & security) – Bangalore has 32 lakh vehicles vis-a-vis a 60-lakh population as against Mumbai with 18 lakh vehicles in a population of 1.2 crore (Source: Times of India dated 28^th Nov’08). Oh no wonder our traffic congestion is sooo bad and deadlier than any other metropolitan city in India. We always crib about traffic and all that, now at least here is an opportunity for us to do our bit to solve the traffic issues to some extent. I have personally tried this service last year for travelling from my home to work and for few days and I did find some good car pooling options that time. I had informed about Commute Easy to some people as well but then with passing time I had almost forgotten about this website. Good to be reminded about this service again through this campaign of Radio One! And not only Radio One is spreading the awareness rather they are giving some extra benefits like free movie tickets, invitation to some hip parties, song requests etc to all commute easy users. Well those are definitely some cool incentives to motivate people for using this service. I am personally all for this campaign and I will encourage all Bangaloreans out there to definitely go and check out www.commuteeasy.com once.