Branding -Positioning-Advertising

Very recently I read about the nudge theory which impacts the behavior of Individuals . The theory in simple terms means  "Small activities or triggers can influence behavior of individuals or collective group" For example a simple LED directional arrows in walking path can direct humans to walk in a straight line in a much crowded environment . This shall have significant impact in crowd management etc. To know more on nudge theory please visit  CLICK HERE FOR NUDGE THEORY . As founder of CBHR - Chennai Beyond HR - An initiative to take  HR Beyond Organisations ,  an initiative  was taken for road discipline to make a statement that HRs can do beyond organisations and make small impacts. The first meeting for this year was organised on 16-06-2018 and we had CBHR members participating in it. To know more about CBHR first meeting and details please visit  CLICK HERE As a first step we have launched this CAR stickers which shall be pasted on the ca...

It has been more than a decade since I was branded as Sales Person .Frankly speaking it was not an easy journey for me to survive and excel in the midst of traditional format of sales crowd .I was one among very few or rather only sales person who believed that sales is all about giving and not grabbing or getting. The rest of the colleagues who I have experienced mostly spoke about customer value proposition   for long run but looked at grabbing the immediate business for meeting up with targets / pressure. It was tough for me to compete with such a crowd and excel with the philosophy of giving .I always coach or mentor my team on “ Empathy” as the key characteristic of a Sales Person. Most of the time I ask my team who come to me for guidance on sales the following question. “How do you /would you react to a situation when you see your closest friend slipping down in front of you and got injured”. It’s the same way you have to see the customer’s pain .Seeing the custome...

Its after long holiday for my scribbling I felt like writing this on  a holiday today .Also I believe customer satisfaction never has a holiday in the entire sales process . I was given this topic yesterday at an office sales event unfortunately due to overflow of thoughts and lack of time I couldn't cover all .I thought I should pour it all here as its something that everyone would have experienced and experience.Whenever It comes to customer satisfaction , in the sales cycle it comes after acquiring the customer as we define the other as "suspects and prospects".Though technically it is right I strongly believe it comes even before at the stage of segmenting and targeting the right market.Most of the times defining the target customer means we define their needs,wants and pain points .Unless we define this properly later we cant satisfy them as we would have acquired a wrong customer or be in a wrong market with focus and core- competency on something else.Also we have...

Over years we have seen Corporates talking more about Branding.I see three faces broadly here in an Organisation's growth Path. Stage One: Company in its Start up stage wants to differentiate itself from its competitors and give extremely good Service levels to its customers to kill competition.There is a continous focus on Innovation ,Value Addition etc.Most of the time size is also small and it is quite Manageable.In this phase most of the time branding evolves through automatic route merely through customers Word of Mouth(WoM).Most of the companies later dont realise it is this Fundamental "quality of Service-Innovation-Value addition " is the core of Branding. Stage two: The second Phase is when a company is in Matured/Post Growth state where it looks for Market Expansion.Now Company thinks about Branding investment because it understands that WoM Cant cut across geographies/industries effectively.Capitalising on the WoM and Branding Initiatives companies Grow More an...

I often go through various books on Branding and try to understand the way it is being created and taken to Nirvana.I now started feeling that a brand hovers around one simple Funda called "Emotions". I beleive if you are able to "Create,Communicate and Deliver Logical valuable emotions consistantly at every interface of Target Customer" you are in the right path of the Brand Mission. Consider any product say for example a bajaj pulsar , if you just communicate the benefit it is one another bike of bajaj.It started communicating emotional aspect of masculine,Bold targeting youth and pulsar is like a standalone brand now. Some Experts comment "Brand Loyalty is a myth".However a Brand Built on Strong Emotions have logical psycological sense to have loyalty toward that. Loyalty is an Emotional Factor and it can be created by consistent delivering of tangible and intangible value to the customer. Consistent delivery of Tangible values can create Likingness but...

It happened recently when I went to my uncle’s house in Chennai that his one year old daughter stopped crying when she listened to Jennifer Lopez and started dancing itself within the small arena built for it, the cradle. If I have to approve the definition for globalization in wikepedia I would say this is the perfect one. Yes, friends the impact of globalization is felt in each and every corner of this world but as a management student and more precisely a marketing student I was giving a thought is there this globalization has something to change with our traditional marketing views and concepts. I felt yes and it forced me to fill my pen once again. If I have to see globalization I would see it as “Dealing with Differences”.oh! That’s a great task for every marketer you know. Anything in this world is termed difficult when it has uncontrollable in it. These uncontrollable play a very important role and this makes a marketer to see globalization as a threat. The uncontrollable comes...

SOME OF THE KEY SUCCESS FACTORS FOR COCA –COLA  Brand image There are two schools of thoughts one says a brand can be built and other says a brand is evolved.whats right is not our issue now however a brand signifies one word called “trust” the consumer have on that brand. A trust can’t be built over night. It’s a saga. Coke has its history of about more than a century and this prolonged sustenance has definitely added to the brand image in the minds of the consumers and to its wallet.  Brand associations. Throughout its history it was really excellent in associating the brand with right celebrities, right personality, right colour etc.the campaigns like “tanda mat lab coca cola” best describes the intangibles associated with that in India.  Brand extensions: It capitalized on its brand equity by extending into mineral waters and other flavors of coca-cola at right time. It acquired a company called minute maid corp. and introduced Fanta (1960), sprite (1961) and tab in 1963.it brok...

INTRODUCTION: Demand theory is the basic of managerial economics and the concept of marginal utility plays a very important role in understanding the demand theory. Before entering into marginal utility its better to understand what is “UTILITY”. WHAT IS UTILITY? It is whole boutique of benefits or satisfaction that an individual gets in buying and using a service or product. In simple words it is aggregation of benefits and satisfaction. Let us discuss by relating to practical situations. Lets take an example of star bucks the very famous coffee outlet in us. What a customer gets in going for star bucks. It’s not only the coffee (the product as benefit) but also the experience, which are ambience, convinience and prestige in taking a coffee over there. He gets satisfaction in terms of emotions and product. That is why he is willing pay also a premium for the same product coffee at star bucks. WHAT IS MARGINAL UTILITY? It is nothing but the extra benefits and satisfaction that an ind...

Positioning at bus stop I was waiting in a bus stop as usual to go out for shopping. There were few more college students standing along with me and I could see some curiosity and eagerness in their silent whispers. I understood they are waiting for some local aiswraya rai (of course I have crossed those times of whispers in my life too).I was watching them. I love analyzing people and emotions and i got a food for thought that time. suddenly every guy in that group started behaving differently, one took his mobile and started his US accent English with some caller on the other side (hope genuine or he was talking to recorded voice in customer care, sorry I am not a mind reader), the other adjusting his coolers and the last had nothing except a cigarette and he lighted that in his own style. What are they trying to do? To impress that girl. To position themselves in the mind of that girl. To put in marketing terms to capture the mind space of the prospect. Let’s now correlate this situ...

The recent Airtel Commercial where a grandson meets his grandfather is a perfect blend of emotions and benefits. If we read the book “ Ogilvy On Advertising” written by David Ogilvy he says about the commercials which has above average performance in making customers shift brands. In that he lists commercials, which gives fun, testimonials, product usage, emotions etc have the capability to shift Brand preference. Generally emotions are used in cases where you can’t explain the benefit of a product like cigarettes, beer etc. Here in this new Airtel commercial the emotional distance between the grandson and grandfather is broken by the network coverage capability of the airtel network. If we closely watch, the grandfather’s residence will have a village set up which shows the network extension of Airtel to even villages. It also suits the Indian culture and current trends of Indian families where the modernization and lifestyle has lengthened the road of emotions but a parents mind a...

As marketing students the words we never forget whenever we make presentations are "brand","positioning","mind space". Etc.we have different opinions and definitions for "brand","branding","and positioning". Sometimes when i read books i really don't know what exactly they mean to us. How is it going to help us as marketing managers? The whole article is my personal interpretation about brand and positioning. How does a product differ from a brand? I personally feel that a product is one, which only concentrates on its functional attribute. What i really mean is that if i am a pen manufacturer i concentrate only on writing? So as a product seller i am keen in selling my product as a writing instrument. What difference i have to give or try to give if i want to market my brand instead of a product. Here comes the role of STP (Segmenting, Targeting, Positioning) concepts, the idea of perceptual mapping, etc.to put it more c...

This blog will give ideas about what is branding and how some global companies have succeeded by branding.It will also share views on branding techniques and how to position the product in the mind space of a customer etc. Also helps in sharing views of various marketing gurus opinions about different branding and positioning concepts.