Video : Seth Godin on TED Talk

I found this video of Seth Godin on Marketing on You Tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBIVlM435Zg

Name of the video is :

Seth Godin: Sliced bread and other marketing delights

Enjoy !

TtHhAaNnKkSs FfOoUuRr VvIiSsIiTtIiNnGg !

Kk. Rr. Oo.

cOLORs N aCCENTS

Every religion existing, suggests its followers to be acknowledging and respectful of the others.

I was just thinking that marketing, if it were a religion would be based on the same philosophy. At the core, it also urges the marketers to be respectful of people, their habits and their behavior. Marketers do not have biases when they are studying a population. They do not sneer on a particular habit or behavior of a population. They find no accent funny, they rather respect that and try to speak people’s dialects. They do not call names to population because of their color, features, habits or culture; they rather try to find similarities between people and best ways to serve them.

Proud to be a marketer ! ;)

ThanQ 4 visitng --- K.R.O :)

Buddha; Public Speaking and Business Eye

Once I read this interesting piece of Buddha’s sermon which he gave to his disciples (known as ‘bhikkhu’ or ‘bhante’) –

When I am addressing a group of business men, I talk like them and when I am addressing a group of beggars, I talk like them. I use a language which my audience can understand.

I read it in year 2006, when I used to do a bit of Public Speaking. These lines took me by surprise because I never knew that Buddha spoke on Public Speaking also. This Is true that one should know her/his audience before going and talking to them because then one can shape up their talk in a language appealing to their audience.

We can see that, what he said applies not only to public speaking but to business also.

One knows all the evolution business world has exhibited- from being a Product-centric phenomenon to a Customer-centric one.

Though as a subject, business took a lot many years to evolve in its outlook than its counterpart, public speaking, which started from the evolved stage itself.

But, unlike the evolution which takes place in species, its evolution has not been homogenous. There are still businesses out there, which are having a product-centric approach.

And what about marketing? Do we market having a customer-centric approach or are we still trying to communicate only the features of the product?

A marketing communication starts with finding an Accepted Consumer belief (ACB) e.g. if I have cracked heels, I will not get respect in the society (Krack Cream used this ACB very effectively in their TVCs).

I then communicate what benefit I am providing and why should anyone believe me (Reason to believe - RTB)

Communication which start with so much understanding and end with a beautiful execution should rarely fail to pass the message to the audience.

ThAnKs 4 VIsiTinG

K.R.O

The Stickiness Factor

On Friday, we had a fresher’s party in our office. It is though a bit different from a regular Fresher’s party. It is NOT a party given for a new joinee from the team, it is rather the other way round. Whoever joins our team has to give a big treat to all the 15 members of our team…. Eeya! Now that’s what we call … Innovation J

But yeah, this is not the event which forced me to write, it is rather what happened in the way.

I was talking to my colleague while sitting in the co-passenger’s seat in his car. We were zipping over through this fly over. As my habit is, I was checking all the hoardings, posters and even sign boards coming our way. This big hoarding caught my attention. On 90% area of this hoarding, there was a picture of a hot chick with darkened midtones and shadows (done in photoshop to make the chick look ultra hot and sensual and inviting too ;) ). My eyes got ‘stick’ to the babe, and I kept staring at her till the last nano second possible. We are past the poster now, and I am still under her spell. After a few seconds, when she kindly returned my senses back, I tried to remember which category and which brand was she posing for.

One second, two seconds and Yeah, I could figure out the category – it should be a jeweler’s ad, because all of them make it the same way and show the same thing; hot chick wearing their jewellery. No matter how hard I tried , I just could not remember the name of the brand. Any guesses why? Simple! Cuz I did not notice it. My eyes were fixed on the pretty lady all that while.

Hmmm…. if it is happening to majority of the junta, the hoarding is exposed to, then it effectively means that Net Exposure to the brand is … is very very low ???

Money wasted?

This reminds me of the Sesame Street Case Study which Mr. Gladwell mentioned in his book “Tipping Point”.

To give a summary (I copied it from Wikipedia :D )–

Sesame Street is an American educational children's television series and a pioneer of the contemporary educational television standard, combining both education and entertainment. Sesame Street is well known for its Muppets characters created by Jim Henson. It premiered on November 10, 1969, and is the longest running children's program on television.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book has stated, "Sesame Street was built around a single, breakthrough insight: that if you can hold the attention of children, you can educate them".

(Below text is mine again!)

The guys in Sesame Street put a lot of research in each episode.

One research finds out on which portion of the screen, the kids are looking at. There would be some alphabets appearing at the bottom of the screen while the Puppet character in the show would tell kids about that alphabet.

The research showed that the kids were not looking at the alphabet, they were rather looking at the puppet character because the character was very dynamic and was having a lot of movements.

The puppet character had more Stickiness Factor than the alphabet. The Sesame Street then ofcourse made adjustments to improve the Stickiness Factor of the text.

If we go back to our lady on the hoarding, now can we say that the lady had more Stickiness Factor, so much more that I could not take my eyes off her face and see the brand? Yes, we can.

We moved a bit farther, and among the clusters of hoardings and posters, one hoarding with highest stickiness factor won my viewing time.

This poster had the same format. 90% of the space had 4-5 very fair and pretty ladies, with a line of text saying something about being stylish. This time also, the most pretty face, who was eventually the girl in the middle got my eyes ‘stick’ to her (and I believe that was the whole idea of putting her in the middle… good marketing .. thumbs up to them). Unfortunately, this time around also I just could not take my eyes off her to see the brand name, occupying 10% of the whole space in the lower right corner. But yes, even if my eyes were fixed on that pretty sticky thing on the poster, I could make out that it was a Star Network logo, but which Star TV? No Idea.

Well, let me not say that just because I had my eyes ‘stick’ to one part of the screen means that everyone looking at the hoarding will follow suit. But even if say 40% (which is quite possible) of the junta is doing the same thing then that means that the campaign is only 60% effective on the face of it.

I then started thinking what would I do if I have to put my brand’s hoarding in the city?

a. I would rather not design my hoardings before I finalise the places to put them. As this will enable me to design it by putting in elements which increase its Stickiness Factor to a level more than others. For example, if the area has a lot of color posters, I may use the contrast effect to grab attention by making my poster in Black and White.

b. This means that I may have same message given to people in different ways or designs. And if I am using a 360 degree approach to communication then I should be able to simulate same message in different ways through different media.

c. One may argue , having 4-5 different designs for say 20 locations in a city will shoot up the cost of the whole campaign, I would say, if we calculate Return on Marketing Investment, it will be better in this case.

d. I would take care of a few things while designing the hoardings-

i. I will not put large amount of text. I will try to keep less than 7-8 words on my hoarding (this is just my standard; I have no study to support it.)

ii. I will put pretty faces on it but will make sure that my brand name is also getting the required attention. For ex- in second hoarding above, they could have moved the logo from lower right corner to lower middle corner, exactly where the central pretty lady is.

Hmmm… I am just thinking how do we actually decide on the spots to put our hoardings?

Now that’s a good question, and I would like to think over it before I write on it.

Well, if you have got ideas, feel free to share… post as a comment to this post. Post-it! J

Thanks for visiting!

K.R.O

Buy One Get ... MULTIPLE ... ehhh !!!! Part 2

I am tuned in Again J.

Thanks for coming back.

Let’s see why ‘Buy 1 Get 3’ would have made me buy –

For this we will have to …. Ummm (okay, read carefully as it is serious. No kidding.) … read following italicized text like a consultant. Lemme help you .. you just have to read it with a false accent … I knw it may sound a bit pretentious but trust me it will be fun J

Give it a try -

Price perception – As a customer, from my knowledge (which I have built by going to stores, seeing ads in newspaper and anywhere else and by talking to my friends about their buying) I know that branded shirts (jargon for this is – strategic group) generally can be bought in the price range of 699 to 1500.

Quality Perception – As branded shirts are costly I have created some quality standards for them.

(he he he .. ur still accenting? :P Go on. Go on. Don’t stop)

Value Perception – This would be Price times the Perceived Quality (and dude, there is nothing absolute here. This is all relative)

So how can we increase the Value Perception?

Increase Quality perception or Decrease Price.

When I am offering a shirt for Rs. 500 for which Price Perception is Rs. 699 – Rs. 1500. I will create a Value perception in the minds of customers.

Enjoyed? J

DUDE! ANY MORE GYAAN?

What more I would tell stores would be

1. Identify touch points. Activate them. Remember that every touch point is an opportunity and a challenge for you. (Do you rememder how they failed to identify and activate the touch point where I was first exposed to the price tag of the shirt?)
2. I can’t understand why stores have forgotten ‘FREE’ which has highest semantic description and which attracts shoppers like nothing else?

(Refer to the image above. I hv yet to figure out how I paste it in the middle of the post. Sry for inconvenience)

Which one is more attractive?

LET’S NOT FORGET OUR OLD FRIEND

Now, because that’s the talk of the town, even I can’t resist talking about it.

These days, everyone seems overwhelmed and short sighted by recession. Every store and brand is giving big discounts to attract customers. It is a good strategy because in recession buying behaviour changes and a good segment of customers seek value for their money.

What is probably missing in this strategy is a strategy for Post-Recession Era. What when it all gets over?

This is more critical to brands which are comparatively new.

If you are not creating a value proposition other than low price then in post recession era when discounts would no longer be a good strategy, would customers still buy you?

Thanks for visiting.

K.R.O.

(keep reading on!)

Buy One Get ... MULTIPLE ... ehhh !!!!

‘Them say that to be a good marketer first be a good customer.’

I heard them.

Last Saturday, I woke up as a customer.
As I was playing a customer, after breakfast I felt like buying something. I put on my walking shoes and reached Tirumalgiri Road (yeah, that’s in Hyderabad).

@ 10 A.M

Walking down the road towards Patny Center, one can find this medium size complex with a good number of small garments shops giving away stuff on humongous discounts. I had visited them once and found out that they had big labels in pretty old stock, so old that some denims even looked like ‘Pre-Owned’. I don’t see myself wearing a pre-owned denim , even if I get it at knock-off prices, so I neglected those shops and continued my journey. I went farther ahead and found ‘Koutons’, selling ‘Buy 1 get 5’ …. “what the hell!” I said to myself and went inside. See, I know something has gone terribly wrong with them. From being a premium brand they could somehow managed to become a street side brand which can only sell by giving big discounts. The image of the brand has got screwed up big time. Now because being a discount store has become their strategy, and because being a good customer I have already figured that out, I would not notice any discount given by them. But this offer was really big. ‘Buy 1 get 5’ … are you crazy?

INSIDE THE STORE

Anyways, I was already inside the store, checking their stock. I wanted to buy some formal shirts. I checked the price tag (a touch point with the brand) and divided it by 5. Why? Because for that one shirt I was getting 4 other shirts for free. And because I was playing a good customer, I decided that I would not get blinded by the offer. I would calculate the value I would actually get. One shirt was for Rs. 2.5K (what the hell!?! 2.5K??? boss they have definitely over priced them—a strong feeling of they-are-robbing-us was created).


THE CALCULATION

Divide 2.5K by 5; per shirt I would be paying 500 Rs. The crappy shirt material along with these-guys-are-thieves perception forced me not to buy anything from the store. Yes, ANYTHING. I did not even think of checking other things like denim or trousers. And I was out of the store with a bad feeling.

THE AFTERGLOW

I like afterglows ( ;) ) , pls read it the way I want you too.. So that u ‘feel’ it… give stress on feel please. Yes, that’s what you have to do … give stress on the words written in single quotes (e.g. ‘feel’) and the ones written in double quotes have to stressed and read “reaalll” slow …. Yes! You got it!! Ok, so let’s get started -

You know what? marketers should know that ‘everytime’ (gv stress here) I walk out of a store like this, I accumulate a ‘bad’ (nd here) experience about a brand in specific and about an offer in general. So next time, If you are thinking about giving me an offer like that, just keep in mind that I would already have some perception (good or bad) about the offer, and you would have to do something which

1. “Neutralizes” (read it sloooww) the effect of my perception (if bad) and
2. “Utilizes” (this one too) its effect (if it is good)

So what could Koutons have done to make me buy stuff?

1. “Reduce” their prices. Take a small hit on their margins and ‘ACTUALLY’ give me a value.
2. If they can’t do 1 then they should make an offer which makes me think that they are giving me some value. For ex-

Pricing a shirt at Rs. 2.5 K and expecting customer to digest it without having a ‘bad’ perception is just plain ‘stupid’.

Price it at 1500 and offer me ‘Buy 1 get 3’ deal. You will still enjoy the same margins and customer will also see a value in it. Why?

Get to know ‘Why?’ and what other things they could have done to get me in my next blog …..

Thanks for visiting.

K.R.O.
(Keep Reading On)

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