Gul Panag official twitter face of WLIFW: Celebrities tweeting for brands

I had earlier written my thoughts on bollywood celebrities on twitter at pluggdin wherein one of my observations was:

“Considering the influence which celebrities have on Indian consumers and twitter becoming twilmy I’m wondering if the next trend will be celebrities endorsing brands on twitter or promoting services amongst their followers”

So it comes as no surprise to me when I read the news of Gul Panag being the ‘Twitter Face’ of the forthcoming Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week. Wills Lifestyle has initiated this association to explore the platform of new age media and to engage with the patrons of WLIFW in an interesting fashion. For the very first time in the world, a celebrity will tweet directly from the event venue on the on-goings of the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week. Recognizing the growing popularity of Twitter in India and especially of Gul Panag on this platform, Wills Lifestyle decided to take on board Gul Panag as the ‘Twitter Face’ to cover the event for this medium. You can read more details of the story here.

Indeed a smart way of interacting with fans and viewers. And smarter is the choice of celebrity as Gul definitely knows the art of customer engagement and involvement in this space. With her loyal fan following and twee-peal (twitter-appeal), I’m sure Gul will manage to create enough word of mouth and viral effect for WLIFW this year. She has already started creating the excitement with special contests for tweeple where winners are going to get free passes for the event. With more and more Indian brands jumping on to the twitter bandwagon over last couple of months, I think it would be fair to say that twitter is one of the fastest adapted new age media by Indian marketers; it has proved to be a great communication medium, in fact in digital media right now it is definitely “THE” marketing medium so to say.

Image Source: GroveMarketingBlog

Presence on social media has become a hygiene factor for most of the brands and many Indian brands / events / services are using different social media platforms for different purposes. Some of them have been successful whereas some are still trying to figure out the use beyond posting links of advertising campaigns or PR coverages. But despite this mix, noteworthy thing is the innovative ideas which Indian marketers are coming out with for new age mediums like twitter. I personally loved this idea of a tech-savvy bollywood personality being “twitter face” of WLIFW and I think it’s one of its kinds in Indian market currently. Now let’s wait and watch which other brands follow the suit. Though a word of caution here for marketers would be to think carefully before deciding on this “me too” strategy as not all celebs can actually create the same aura in this medium and also not every product / service needs to be promoted through this platform.

All that glitters may be gold this diwali – Indians to go online for shopping?

Update: Catch my latest post on pluggdin:

• All that glitters may be gold this diwali: It’s that time of the year again which most Indian marketers wait with bated breath, there is festivity all around and thanks to better market condition, Indian consumers are looking forward to splurge this festive season both in offline as well as online shopping. Read More…

Wish all readers a ‘bagful’ (after shopping ) & prosperous diwali!

Should Air-India change its mascot now?

Was surfing the website of Air-India today to book a ticket & suddenly I saw our very own Maharaja in different avtaars there, like Maharaja with a laptop on home page & Maharaja with Indian flag near log in box. Though the size of Maharaja was definitely reduced but nonetheless noticeable enough! In fact I think as a kid my understanding of the word “brand” or “mascot” was only limited to either AI’s Maharaja or AP’s Gattu and its that solid imprint on my childhood memory that even slightest trace of Maharaja ji or cute Gattu catches my attention till date.

Air India had adopted this Maharaja mascot in 1946 symbolizing an Indian Maharaja kind of person welcoming passengers from all across the world on board, if I’m not wrong this Maharaja is one of the longest lived & most recalled mascots till date. But then today this mascot made me really thinking esp. because of all the reasons for which Air India has been in news of late. Now with Rs. 5000 crore loss last fiscal year due to operating costs, day on day ongoing loss of approx Rs. 15 crore & plans to cut down on quite many travel sectors, does Air India stand anything to do with royalty in these days? Well, I know the mascot was not chosen for exact representation of royalty only but then to a common man the image as well as the word Maharaja has always meant to communicate the same. With Air India being in news for only huge losses and other sorry state of affairs I personally think this Maharaja is a mismatch with the overall perception of the company. A Bankrupt Maharaja instead of Maharaja is what it makes me feel about it now . Rationally speaking, I think it’s time for AI to re-look at its mascot, it has outgrown its own perception today and I can see some sort of disconnect here. Though I’m sure there must be nostalgic / emotional reasons for the company to still continue with the same.

Would like to know your views on this. Does this Maharaja suit AI’s current image? Do you think AI should bid farewell to this Maharaja now?

Its makeover time for Videocon

Saw an interesting cute green colored animation ad yesterday on one of the news channels, they were showing some birds & the reason for my increased curiosity along with resistance to switch channel during that break was the fact that those birds were somewhat resembling twitter bird . But that ad actually had nothing to do with twitter & to my surprise it ended to be of none other than the traditional consumer durable giant (or shall I say erstwhile giant) Videocon. The clipping ended with a message – change is happiness. Seeing such a major brand makeover from sturdy steel colored V to a fluid green colored V was indeed a happy change.   

“The Videocon logo is the heart of the new brand identity. The Fluid lava reflects the brand idea, ‘Experience change’. The color palette has been chosen to reflect the philosophy of Videocon Group i.e. the color green is symbolic to the company’s ecology drive” says the official coverage of Videocon. You can read more about it here.

Some of the major changes which I’ve observed in their current campaign strategy – this time apart from conventional media, I can already see their presence on digital medium too; their website along with the re-launch in other medium has gone for a change as well and is completely in sync with their new brand positioning plus they are promoting e-selling through their web channel. Well, as per me I loved this change & I think just like Sony even Videocon was in much need of a facelift. Somehow Videocon has lost that connect with today’s consumers, not only in terms of messaging & communication rather in terms of their product deliverables too. It’s good to see news of launch like mobile services & DTH services from Videocon. They are also augmenting their current offerings to suit the taste of today’s Indian consumers. Considering the sea change in Indian market dynamics over the last decade I think it’s prudent of these established brands like Godrej or Videocon to change their pace as per current times.

Re-branding of Sony Television

I got the chance to catch up on television tonight after almost 3-4 weeks & when I saw the complete video “ghar aayi hai khushi” today I realized that it’s a promo video of Sony channel itself. I liked the video, have watched it earlier in bits & piece but somehow because of this line “ghar aayi hai khushi” I used to think it’s a promo campaign of yet another crappy soap from Sony.  But few minutes on that channel and I think I was very pleasantly surprised.

I wasn’t aware that Sony has gone for such a major facelift in last 3-4 weeks. Yes, Sony did create a noise during IPL with its “Badal Rahe Hain Hum” campaign but it was good to see this badlaav not only in terms of just a branding campaign but overall programming too. They have launched fresh content during prime time and for a change this time they have taken themselves away from saas-bahu, typical Indian family sagas or singing-dancing reality shows. I got the chance to go through two out of their five (Rani Padmini, Palampur Express, Bhaskar Bharti, Ladies Special & Entertainment ke liye kuch bhi karega ) new programs and I liked both of them. They looked fresh & appealing.

I think this re-branding exercise was much needed from Sony. Once a number 1 channel, they had really lost the game to their competitors over a period of time. Not only they lacked the pull in their existing content, they were lacking innovation in their new content too. After all, for how long only Indian Idol or CID could have helped them sail through the competition? I as a viewer don’t remember when was the last time I would have watched any program with interest on Sony. And with some millions of singing reality shows I had lost complete interest in the last season of Indian Idol as well. Now let’s see if this re-launch of Sony really helps them in upping their ratings once again. The last total GRP rating which I had read was definitely not having Sony in top 3. These slots were occupied by Star, Colors & Zee as per TRP ratings for the week ending 13^th June’09. But then it was hardly 2-3 weeks since they had launched their new programs. So, would be good to observe the future ratings & fate of this re-branding campaign of Sony.

 

Why marketers should use Twitter?

Update on 30th May’09:

I had personally joined twitter more than a year & half back but was not an active user of the account then. Initially, I just used to read updates from the people whom I was following & then slowly got into posting my updates too. In fact I became totally active (rather addictive ) almost after six months of opening my account & the more involved I got into this the more I realized the power of it. Very soon I opened an account on behalf of the company where I work & started tweeting about the updates of my company. Well, what started just as an update mechanics is now converted into a full-fledged customer interaction medium. I’m totally amazed at the viral effect & the potential of this medium from promotion & customer engagement point of view. I occasionally keep on reading about twitter & it’s phenomenal growth etc., but based on my personal experience with twitter I think I have come to a conclusion that this medium is definitely a must for every new age marketer who wants to be in touch with his net savvy (or shall I say tweet-savvy) customers. Here is why:

• Creating & Tracking Brand Buzz: I have found twitter to be one of the best mediums for being updated with what people are writing about your brand. I’ve used  other popular alert services including the ones for twitter too but I find the “search” option on twitter to be really a smart way of being updated about “at the moment” buzz of your brand. It surely gives a real time insight into your customer satisfaction, dissatisfaction, needs & gaps of your service.

• Word Of Mouth (Or Tweet of mouth ) : While a negative tweet definitely harms your image but a positive tweet followed by different retweets surely leads to excellent word of mouth marketing. There is this one guy who was having problems with our service, I read his negative tweet which he had written just 2 minutes ago, I immediately escalated it to our internal service delivery head & in next 5 minutes the guy got a call from our service head. The guy got so impressed that he immediately tweeted about the power of twitter w.r.to. customer service. In next 15 minutes when his problem was solved he ensured to mention the prompt action taken by our company in so many tweets of his and was all gaga about the service attitude & brand promise of our company. Thanks to all his retweets which gave us a positive boost to our brand that day. After that my SD head ensures to search for keywords related to our service every 2 hours

• Competition Tracking: If your competitor is also active on twitter, then toh wah bhai wah! Isko kehte hai chandi ho jana! Easiest & fastest way to be abreast with what competitors are doing as well as how many customers are dissatisfied by your competitors is to search your competitor related keyword in twitter. I’m telling you it’s a very effective medium for competitive taka-jhaki

• Customer Feedback / Suggestions: It’s definitely a very quick medium to seek feedback before any new launch or for announcing any new update / feature / product etc. And thanx to tweet-savvy customers they give you some very genuine feedback immediately.

• Potential Targetting: Highly effective medium to reach out to potential customers too, check out who is looking out for your kind of service & reach the potential TG in a smart way.

Serious word of caution: When I say it’s an effective medium for marketers to promote & engage, this does not mean it should be used as a free tool for SPAMMING. Beauty of twitter is that twitter users till date DETEST spamming a lot. So, don’t go ahead posting only URLs or your service related promotions. You’ll only lose the interest of your followers & it just takes a few micro seconds to “unfollow” your brand. If it is fast method to engage, it is equally fast to un-engage. So, think again before you start abusing this medium. Key is to interact, talk, engage personally & tweet something which your followers can look forward too . If you’ve captured the attention, you can definitely promote your brand in a more involved way.

Advaniji goes further aggressive on digital medium!

I had earlier written about Advaniji getting net savvy and his portal www.lkadvani.in. But looks like humare neta, Advaniji toh internet space mein super aggressive ho rahe hai . Ah he is not leaving any stone unturned to reach out the online Indian citizens. Here are some developments which I observed recently from Advaniji and his campaign promotion teamJ

• Blog: Like everybody and anybody on this earth, even L.K. Advani has decided to have his presence on blogosphere. His blog http://blog.lkadvani.in/ got launched in Jan’09 & supposedly Mr. Advani is blogging personally on this space. Well, posts are good but don’t think he is writing it himself. Fan following of his blog seems to be ok with each post having on an average 100+ comments. No, I don’t mean 100+ comments is less but kya karein, celebs like BigB and Aamir Khan have set a very high bench-mark for popular personality blogs with each of their posts receiving on an average 1000+ comments.
• Online Advertisement / SEM: Oh this was truly a surprise for me, I noticed 2-3 sites as well as Google sponsored search displaying L.K.Advani portal ads. And yeah quite an extensive keyword listing they have done for these ads, you type any election related keyword & you get to see these ads. Impressive isn’t it?

• Emailer campaigns: Personally I have not received this email but one of my associates was mentioning that after pre-recorded voices now people are doing email blasts as part of political advertising. He received an email with subject as invitation from L.K.Advani to visit his portal www.lkadvani.in

Well, I am neither a big supporter of BJP nor I am active into Indian Politics scenario. Most of the times I find it to be so dirty that I prefer to have my involvement limited to reading or watching just headlines and that too not because of any interest but only to be updated about the latest happenings. Having said that, I do find this initiative of BJP a good move and sort of positive change in Indian Politics. At least they are trying to connect to the newer generation; at least they are taking some effort to reach out to educated mass. Wondering if it is Obama effect or the Social media effect on his campaign management team but whatever it is, I must say it is a welcome change J.

Stampede of price driven promotions!

I get to cross this mall daily on my way back home and its one of the most popular malls of Bangalore. Always damn crowded and is having all popular brands which you can think of. It used to have those occasional promotions during Diwali, Christmas or End of season sale. But now instead of those occasional sale offers, the mall has sort of become “discounted product” mall only. Just think of last 3 months – November they were having “festival special”, December they were having “Christmas / New Year Special” and now in Jan, 1^st it was “26^th Jan” special which got extended to “end of season sale” on 27^th Jan’09. Wow every day there is a sale and most of these are not “upto 50% off”, rather “FLAT 50% or 40% off”.

Well as a consumer, it’ too good and I’m loving it but then it forces me to think, are these brands going through sales volume crisis which is forcing them to come out with such price driven promotions every day? Is it another after-effect of recession? I can understand it for few brands but almost every brand is currently running a price driven promotion including some very big names which are not so famous for their discount promotions. Even they have jumped into this price game now. One walk in any popular mall / market and you will see nothing less than a stampede of price driven promotions. As a first impression, it definitely communicates that brands / retailers are trying hard to sell the products to Indian consumers who have otherwise become conscious now of their expenses esp. in categories like luxury & entertainment. Since not many consumers are hit by recession in India as badly as in US, so expenses in necessary categories are still going on but if I think of me, my friends and acquaintances as a sample set, I definitely know that people have curtailed frequency of activities like eating out, multiplexes, impulse apparel purchase and frequent air flying. Though price driven promotions like these are good to some extent, it helps in attracting attention of consumers but do such tactical sales promotions and that too regularly really help companies in meeting their numbers? And even if they will meet their numbers, how about their P&L? And with most of the main marketing budget frozen now, do they have any other option than to do such promotions to increase footfall…Hmmm let me think and in case you have any thoughts, do share it here. In the meantime I think I should enjoy these sales and discounts before companies realize that its hitting their margins badly and decide to stop it J

Update on 30th Jan’09: Two interesting observations related to this post:

·         Yesterday I actually stopped at that mall and went to this very prominent apparel retail outlet, they were running an announcement there for promos and offers. And guess what? Despite yesterday being 29^th, the promotions running were having old dates, one of the announcements sounded like, “100% money back offer! Dear shoppers, shop for X amount between 10^th Jan – 26^th Jan and get a gift voucher worth Rs. X back”. And no, the date was not announced by mistake, they kept on repeating the same recorded message J. The promo was still on but collateral as well as promo clip was having the last date as 26^th Jan’09. Clearly communicates that they had plans to end the sale on 26^th but were continuing it till now!

·         Today’s ET states – “Subhiksha is closing a significant number of its 1,600 stores across the country to cope with a cash crunch”. Very recently I read a write-up mentioning Subhiksha’s success story and while I was wondering on these price driven promotions and cash situation of the retailers, here I get to read about a situation which is self-explanatory and that too of Subhiksha! Wondering if other such announcements are also on their way?

 

IPL is back with yet another marketing gimmick

Last year we did see the birth and rise of one of the greatest marketing phenomenon in sports marketing in India, yes of course I am referring to IPL’2008. More than cricket, it was this whole business and marketing angle to it which made it so popular. Cricket combined with entertainment and that too Bollywood, what more do you need to create pull in Indian market? After all cricket and Bollywood are like two religions in India. As expected this combination of cricket and entertainment did create a huge roar in the market esp. from business and brand point of view.  And when this year IPL is back in news, it is again so with yet another marketing gimmick viz., reality show for Cheerleaders!

Watched it on television first and then read it in news that Shahrukh Khan, owner of Kolkata team Knight Riders is conducting a talent hunt show this time to find cheerleaders for his team. This reality show will be aired on NDTV Imagine and will be produced by his home production “Red Chillies Entertainment”. The program called as “Knights & Angels” will be first ever such contest in India and is open for only young girls who aspire to be cheerleaders in the second season of IPL. Well, I am confused. Do girls really aspire to be cheerleaders in life??? But on second thought when girls can compete to be the item number queen on television now, then why not a cheerleader? Personally speaking I’m all for IPL and its overall marketing angle to it, it definitely gives a different edge to sports in India, but a reality show for cheerleaders is something which didn’t go well with me. Anyways reality show is done to death now, so I don’t know if there will be any added charm for this program and most importantly how does it matter if these cheerleaders come through reality contest or through some other medium? Will it really make any difference to the team? From promotion perspective it can create some hype but let’s see if it really benefits the overall Knight Rider brand in IPL season two.

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 .