I was just browsing the book stores and caught sight of the Vintage Twins - A wonderful idea of bundling two books for a combined price. What makes this combination really cool is that there are themes to this twin bundling - Crime, Fantasy, Fear, Lies, Love, Lust, Monsters, Satire, Sin & Youth.
The idea behind this bundling is in pairing a modern classic with an established Classic. So you have crime and punishment being bundled with Ripley's game. There's so much thought behind this idea that we surely must dissect it.
Firstly, the "why", may be someone in Vintage saw that their established Classics weren't selling as much as their contemporary classics, and thought, bundling the two with a theme binding both the books was a good way to ensure sales. But the "story" being weaved through some good branding is the message of revival of established classics.
"The Greatest Books of ALL time twinned with the greatest books of OUR time"
Furthermore, they say "the books have been carefully selected to provide a thought-provoking combination". fair enough. I personally think its a very clever idea. Most established classics, if they aren't classroom prescribed reading material, are rarely read, because of the perceived old-fashionedness of language. Established classics need a revival because this is the era of best sellers. Infact Anna Karenina had a mini revival after Oprah put it on her book club.
But bundling itself is an interesting concept that can be applied in any line of business - be it FMCG or in a Tech Product Market. Any product manager will tell you that bundling is a great way to test new products in a market or to up sales of a product that is showing sluggishness. What bundling does is offer a path of of least resistance to the customer.
3 important aspects of bundling methinks:
1. Bundling can only be successful if one of the products in the bundle is a hugely successful product. No point bundling two weak selling products together or 2 strong ones for that matter. the former is ofcourse, obvious, both together will never sell and the latter is a sure fire way of cutting your margin down
2. Another important aspect for a bundling strategy to work is that the combo has to be complimentary to each other. Bundling a shampoo and conditioner makes sense where as bundling Tea and conditioner does not.
3.The consumer defintely must feel like the combo is worth it. It must be value for money
These are my 2 cents worth on the concept of bundling, I would sure love to hear other views on this!
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Marketing – Web 2.0 Style!
(hey all, y'know how I love to write right? (note to self: bad sentence that), well I wrote the article about Social networking below for a magazine and since its been published, thot I'd put it up on my own blog as well. Btw all you copy cats, you can filch my article but a citation would be appreciated
Marketing – Web 2.0 Style!
I’m not much of a cricket fan, but having an older brother made me pickup the nuances of the game, albeit quite involuntarily. I know that there is a ball called the “doosra” that is supposed to completely flummox the batsman. The efficacy of the “doosra”, my brother tells me, lies in its surprise element. Just when the batsman has figured out how to play the bowler, the latter throws in the “doosra” to confound the former. That’s exactly I suppose how marketers feel, our “doosra” being the internet ofcourse. Just when we have almost figured out Search engine marketing and optimization, the internet throws yet another curve ball called "Social Networking”.
Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is clearly the new buzz word these days with more than 500 million citations in google alone. Web 2.0, according to Wikipedia, refers to the next generation of internet applications that “facilitate sharing and collaboration between users”. The term “Web 2.0” came into being during the first O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004. If the first wave of the internet applications got users to seek content on the net, the second wave of internet applications not only lets users create content but also distribute and share it. Web 2.0 is all about using the internet as a platform to connect us and our online activities with the world at large. Technologies that fall under the Web 2.0 bracket include blogs, social networking sites such as Orkut, Facebook etc, Wikis and more.
Social Networking Sites (SNS)
Social Networking sites, till recently, were largely considered a teen fad – a place where idle teens hung out but when Newscorp bought Myspace for $580 million last year and when Facebook went from the being the 60th to the 7th most visited website in span of one year, the entire industry started taking notice.
Although Myspace and Facebook are largely popular in the United States, here in India, the Google promoted Orkut is the overwhelming favourite. India has the second highest number of Orkut users apart from Brazil, accounting for more than 8 million profiles. Infact Orkut is the 3rd most popular website in the country, behind Google and Yahoo according the website tracking portal, alexa.com and was even voted the “Youth Icon 2007” by MTV!
Most SNS work pretty much in the same manner. Users are required to sign-up using an email ID and password. Once they have registered, they proceed to fill out their “profile” that has information relating to age, gender, political views, relationship status and ofcourse the ubiquitous, “about me” field. Once the, “profile” has been created, users embark on building the “network” through search tools. Most SNS like Orkut, Myspace and Facebook allow users to post messages to friends through “scrapbooks”, blog, upload videos and photos, form communities and even send emails. Users spend an estimated 20 minutes per day on social networking sites.
With SNS drawing so much traffic its little wonder then that these days a new site is born practically every month. This has led to the creation of smaller more niche SNS like LinkedIn for professionals who want to network with other professionals in the same line of business or Shelfari for booklovers who want connect with other enthusiasts. Experts believe that the future of social networking lies in “custom built” social networks, with users creating their own social networks for their own circle of friends
Marketing Potential of SNS
Most SNS rake in advertising revenues through simple banner and text ads. Although, Orkut has recently pulled out text ads from the site (due internal considerations it seems), marketers as still excited by the prospects that SNS seem to offer
Targeting & Segmentation: As most SNS take in information on age, gender, location, ethnicity etc, while creating a profile, the ability to reach the right demographic is greatly enhanced. For example a B-school could easily advertise to 20+ age group category or a Japanese restaurant could advertise to people who prefer japanese cuisine in a particular city
Nurturing Early Adopter Communities: Most SNS encourage users to build & join communities based on their preferences and affiliations. Its, therefore, not surprising to find communities on products such as Toothpaste, chocolates etc. a community offers a plethora of opportunities to marketers. As a community is essentially comprised of loyalists and early adopters of a product, marketers can use a community to test new products and innovative ideas, get reviews and feedback, create a buzz, use the community to spread the message by word of mouth. Infact a peer recommendation is considered the most powerful and persuasive tool in leading to a purchase.
Widgets: A major inflexion point occurred in the social networking arena when, Mark Zukerberg, Facebook’s 23 yr old owner, announced this May that he was “opening” Facebook to third party developers. Anyone could now build “widgets” or web applications on Facebook and propagate it. This led to the development of all sorts of widgets including comparing and reviewing books, trivia quizzes on favourite TV shows or generating random quotes from a comic strip. The potential of widgets to attract traffic is so enormous that even Myspace and Orkut have both announced that they would be opening their sites to third party developers.
For a marketer this means that one could promote a product and create a “buzz” by creating a cool application, like a game and then have it spread by the network.
India and SNS
One of the best examples of Indian marketers warming up to the social networking phenomenon is HLL’s Sunsilk Gang of Girls Website. Since its launch in June 2006, the unique all girl community has over 600,000 members and over 36,000 “gangs”. Besides content that primarily relate to the brand like hair care and styling information, the portal has features such as blogs, Job Section, Book Bar, and a user generated video content section called GOG TV
The Gang of Girls portal has allowed the brand to propagate its message to the large user base more effectively than what a 30 second commercial could. It has created a space for loyal users to congregate where they can now give feedback, test and review new products, fill out survey sheets (a marketer’s dream!) and build even stronger associations with the brand. The brand in turn gets to learn the pulse of the market and get valuable information on what the next trend is going to be.
Another interesting aspect of the website is the tie-in with third party agents like Monster.com for the job section and oxford book store for the book bar section. Although these features add to the overall experience of the portal by making it more wholesome, it also means products not directly related to the brand get a weigh-in by the community.
MTV India’s relaunched website – mtvindia.com also incorporates a lot of SNS like features that finds favour with its target demographic – the college going youth. The MTV U section enables one to join ones college community and also interact with people from other colleges. Apart from the now usual features like blogs and message boards, there is also a section where products that appeal to the college crowd are promoted. Interestingly MTV India also has a link on the site to join its group on Facebook
Social networking features like blogs, communities, message boards are being increasingly adopted by marketers inorder to make their marketing campaigns more 360o. These features enable a marketer to truly engage and interact with the audience being marketed do
While the traffic that social networking sites attract is making marketers scramble to hit upon the right formula, the fundamental difference between search engine marketing and social networking must be understood. Search engine marketing works because people are essentially looking for things, in social networks people are essentially hanging out and not looking for anything specific. The advertising in such spaces needs to be subtle and should add to the experience of social networking. Anything that disrupts the experience is bound to be a big turnoff.
Another important aspect to keep in mind is that most of these sites have a youthful userbase that is prone to fads. The space needs to constantly to re-invent itself to have members coming back and not flock to the next site with cool features. This requires constant monitoring and large budgets. One must therefore decide what features one needs to implement to maximize the marketing effort
Marketing – Web 2.0 Style!
I’m not much of a cricket fan, but having an older brother made me pickup the nuances of the game, albeit quite involuntarily. I know that there is a ball called the “doosra” that is supposed to completely flummox the batsman. The efficacy of the “doosra”, my brother tells me, lies in its surprise element. Just when the batsman has figured out how to play the bowler, the latter throws in the “doosra” to confound the former. That’s exactly I suppose how marketers feel, our “doosra” being the internet ofcourse. Just when we have almost figured out Search engine marketing and optimization, the internet throws yet another curve ball called "Social Networking”.
Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is clearly the new buzz word these days with more than 500 million citations in google alone. Web 2.0, according to Wikipedia, refers to the next generation of internet applications that “facilitate sharing and collaboration between users”. The term “Web 2.0” came into being during the first O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004. If the first wave of the internet applications got users to seek content on the net, the second wave of internet applications not only lets users create content but also distribute and share it. Web 2.0 is all about using the internet as a platform to connect us and our online activities with the world at large. Technologies that fall under the Web 2.0 bracket include blogs, social networking sites such as Orkut, Facebook etc, Wikis and more.
Social Networking Sites (SNS)
Social Networking sites, till recently, were largely considered a teen fad – a place where idle teens hung out but when Newscorp bought Myspace for $580 million last year and when Facebook went from the being the 60th to the 7th most visited website in span of one year, the entire industry started taking notice.
Although Myspace and Facebook are largely popular in the United States, here in India, the Google promoted Orkut is the overwhelming favourite. India has the second highest number of Orkut users apart from Brazil, accounting for more than 8 million profiles. Infact Orkut is the 3rd most popular website in the country, behind Google and Yahoo according the website tracking portal, alexa.com and was even voted the “Youth Icon 2007” by MTV!
Most SNS work pretty much in the same manner. Users are required to sign-up using an email ID and password. Once they have registered, they proceed to fill out their “profile” that has information relating to age, gender, political views, relationship status and ofcourse the ubiquitous, “about me” field. Once the, “profile” has been created, users embark on building the “network” through search tools. Most SNS like Orkut, Myspace and Facebook allow users to post messages to friends through “scrapbooks”, blog, upload videos and photos, form communities and even send emails. Users spend an estimated 20 minutes per day on social networking sites.
With SNS drawing so much traffic its little wonder then that these days a new site is born practically every month. This has led to the creation of smaller more niche SNS like LinkedIn for professionals who want to network with other professionals in the same line of business or Shelfari for booklovers who want connect with other enthusiasts. Experts believe that the future of social networking lies in “custom built” social networks, with users creating their own social networks for their own circle of friends
Marketing Potential of SNS
Most SNS rake in advertising revenues through simple banner and text ads. Although, Orkut has recently pulled out text ads from the site (due internal considerations it seems), marketers as still excited by the prospects that SNS seem to offer
Targeting & Segmentation: As most SNS take in information on age, gender, location, ethnicity etc, while creating a profile, the ability to reach the right demographic is greatly enhanced. For example a B-school could easily advertise to 20+ age group category or a Japanese restaurant could advertise to people who prefer japanese cuisine in a particular city
Nurturing Early Adopter Communities: Most SNS encourage users to build & join communities based on their preferences and affiliations. Its, therefore, not surprising to find communities on products such as Toothpaste, chocolates etc. a community offers a plethora of opportunities to marketers. As a community is essentially comprised of loyalists and early adopters of a product, marketers can use a community to test new products and innovative ideas, get reviews and feedback, create a buzz, use the community to spread the message by word of mouth. Infact a peer recommendation is considered the most powerful and persuasive tool in leading to a purchase.
Widgets: A major inflexion point occurred in the social networking arena when, Mark Zukerberg, Facebook’s 23 yr old owner, announced this May that he was “opening” Facebook to third party developers. Anyone could now build “widgets” or web applications on Facebook and propagate it. This led to the development of all sorts of widgets including comparing and reviewing books, trivia quizzes on favourite TV shows or generating random quotes from a comic strip. The potential of widgets to attract traffic is so enormous that even Myspace and Orkut have both announced that they would be opening their sites to third party developers.
For a marketer this means that one could promote a product and create a “buzz” by creating a cool application, like a game and then have it spread by the network.
India and SNS
One of the best examples of Indian marketers warming up to the social networking phenomenon is HLL’s Sunsilk Gang of Girls Website. Since its launch in June 2006, the unique all girl community has over 600,000 members and over 36,000 “gangs”. Besides content that primarily relate to the brand like hair care and styling information, the portal has features such as blogs, Job Section, Book Bar, and a user generated video content section called GOG TV
The Gang of Girls portal has allowed the brand to propagate its message to the large user base more effectively than what a 30 second commercial could. It has created a space for loyal users to congregate where they can now give feedback, test and review new products, fill out survey sheets (a marketer’s dream!) and build even stronger associations with the brand. The brand in turn gets to learn the pulse of the market and get valuable information on what the next trend is going to be.
Another interesting aspect of the website is the tie-in with third party agents like Monster.com for the job section and oxford book store for the book bar section. Although these features add to the overall experience of the portal by making it more wholesome, it also means products not directly related to the brand get a weigh-in by the community.
MTV India’s relaunched website – mtvindia.com also incorporates a lot of SNS like features that finds favour with its target demographic – the college going youth. The MTV U section enables one to join ones college community and also interact with people from other colleges. Apart from the now usual features like blogs and message boards, there is also a section where products that appeal to the college crowd are promoted. Interestingly MTV India also has a link on the site to join its group on Facebook
Social networking features like blogs, communities, message boards are being increasingly adopted by marketers inorder to make their marketing campaigns more 360o. These features enable a marketer to truly engage and interact with the audience being marketed do
While the traffic that social networking sites attract is making marketers scramble to hit upon the right formula, the fundamental difference between search engine marketing and social networking must be understood. Search engine marketing works because people are essentially looking for things, in social networks people are essentially hanging out and not looking for anything specific. The advertising in such spaces needs to be subtle and should add to the experience of social networking. Anything that disrupts the experience is bound to be a big turnoff.
Another important aspect to keep in mind is that most of these sites have a youthful userbase that is prone to fads. The space needs to constantly to re-invent itself to have members coming back and not flock to the next site with cool features. This requires constant monitoring and large budgets. One must therefore decide what features one needs to implement to maximize the marketing effort
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Wired & Logos
I must happily confess that these days I have a new obsession- Wired.com. From the very funny "MicroHoo" stories to the headlines today - The Truth About Autism: Scientists Reconsider What They Think They Know. Its really great source for whats the latest technology and next big thing on the net
Wired also had this great story on how the Google Logo evolved. Ruth Kedar, the artist responsible for creating this now eponymous logo, takes one through all the prototypes and her rationale, her client's - Larry page & Sergei Brin's brief and a lot more. Read all at - How Google Got Its Colourfull Logo
Wired also had this great story on how the Google Logo evolved. Ruth Kedar, the artist responsible for creating this now eponymous logo, takes one through all the prototypes and her rationale, her client's - Larry page & Sergei Brin's brief and a lot more. Read all at - How Google Got Its Colourfull Logo
Monday, January 28, 2008
Trendspotting
One of most important aspect for the success of any Google Adwords campaign is choosing the right keywords apart from across bidding the right price. That's why my favourite google app is Google Trends
Google trends is an app that tells you what the world is searching for. Literally! You get to know how popular your search term is and which part of the world is searching for it. I'll tell you how I used this app in my Adwords campaign.
In my previous company, us marketing folks got to play around with Google Adwords as corporate dearest was funding the whole project. It was quite fun and they loved it when we wanted to experiment with some of the search words, especially to settle the debate between them "long tail" type keywords versus the popular more expensive keywords. So my company was hosting this huge seminar for customers and I wanted use the power of the net to drive traffic to the site. I was playing with Google trends and happned to type in the word "Seminar" and saw that a lot of people in India were searching for the term. I bought the keywords and created an AD for the Event. Within 15 days it was my highest performing keyword. Ofcourse we also tested to see if there were any clicks on the landing page and it was fairly decent. That's why I *heart* the net so much. It gives you so much data to make the right choice.
Google trends also in a way lets you check out the "buzz" about your product versus your competition. Take for example, the comparison between people searching for Myspace, Facebook and orkut in india
Orkut is clearly the hands down winner and if you were a marketer wouldn't this information be priceless? Trends also throw up other curve balls. It also lets you pick a region to find what the buzz is in every part of the region. For the same comparison as above, I selected India region to see which part of the country was searching the most on these keywords. The results were as follows:
What's surprising is that non metro cities are searching for orkut. Not so surprising as its already popular in the metros I suppose. Still very good data to work with when say launching a product
I also recently stumbled upon the Orkut Trends Blog, where the google team shares some interesting stats on Orkut usage and user perceptions. This might come in very handy if you're considering doing some social networking marketing in your campaign
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Shopping fundaes
Well apparently there's a science to it. One of the aspects that intrigued me while reading Kishore Biyani's Book It happened in India was his obsession with the Indian shopper. At various instances he mentions how he meticulously studies his shopper, noting dislikes, preferences, reaction to various stimuli etc. Infact the future group has taken retail to the next level, through their inhouse design agency - Idiom that researches consumer reaction to signages and other communication outlets within the store
Shopping is one of my favourite activities and I was surprised that it can actually be categorized! According an article by Anand Narasimha of Bates David Enterprise, there are infact four types of shopping- Recreational, List, Item and Impulse shopping. According to him,
Recreational Shopping is pre-planned but open ended and might not even result in a purchase. Here shopping is a means of relaxation. Window shopping also belongs to this category. Apparently as recreational shopping serves as a sort of "retail therapy" more often than not, it does lead to a purchase
List Shopping is pre-planned that leads to a purchase. Like shopping for grocery basically. This is a must do sort of shopping as opposed to recreational shopping
Item shopping is shopping that is triggered by a need for a specific item. Like buying woolens for a trip abroad, or a special dress for ones birthday. That's why one sees retail stores in what I call a "Ever-Party" mood. Its no wonder they are celebrating women's day, mother's day etc. A year long party makes the consumer come back for more
Impulse Shopping basically shopping that occurs on a whim. Like buying chocolates for example. Its unpredictable and according to the article two of the largest impulse categories in a store are women’s footwear and cosmetics!!
Read the complete article here
Shopping is one of my favourite activities and I was surprised that it can actually be categorized! According an article by Anand Narasimha of Bates David Enterprise, there are infact four types of shopping- Recreational, List, Item and Impulse shopping. According to him,
"This classification is based on two factors: the planned versus spontaneous
nature of the shopping trip and the focused versus open-ended nature of the
purchases made"
Recreational Shopping is pre-planned but open ended and might not even result in a purchase. Here shopping is a means of relaxation. Window shopping also belongs to this category. Apparently as recreational shopping serves as a sort of "retail therapy" more often than not, it does lead to a purchase
List Shopping is pre-planned that leads to a purchase. Like shopping for grocery basically. This is a must do sort of shopping as opposed to recreational shopping
Item shopping is shopping that is triggered by a need for a specific item. Like buying woolens for a trip abroad, or a special dress for ones birthday. That's why one sees retail stores in what I call a "Ever-Party" mood. Its no wonder they are celebrating women's day, mother's day etc. A year long party makes the consumer come back for more
Impulse Shopping basically shopping that occurs on a whim. Like buying chocolates for example. Its unpredictable and according to the article two of the largest impulse categories in a store are women’s footwear and cosmetics!!
Read the complete article here
Sunday, January 20, 2008
In the beginning....
Yes, the obligatory introductory post about this blog and me. (Please don't yawn, we'll try for it not be boring)
I'm a marketer and I love marketing. Its my raison d'tre and my passion. I also like to write, so this blog brings both my joys together. Very convenient right?
The title of this blog is inspired from Seth Godin's Book "All Marketers Are Liars". No need to mention the book resonated with me, but I truly believe what Seth Godin says - Marketing is a very powerful tool and can change the world.
Oh, one more thing, Venture capitalists are most welcome
I'm a marketer and I love marketing. Its my raison d'tre and my passion. I also like to write, so this blog brings both my joys together. Very convenient right?
The title of this blog is inspired from Seth Godin's Book "All Marketers Are Liars". No need to mention the book resonated with me, but I truly believe what Seth Godin says - Marketing is a very powerful tool and can change the world.
Oh, one more thing, Venture capitalists are most welcome
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Stumble It!