Contemporary Drifts in Marketing Modus Operandi

You happily book your vacation ticket and when you log off your IRCTC account, a joyride automatically takes you to Amazon.in to add to your happiness. From magazines and newspapers to e-mails and web-linked kiosks (82% used), pop-ups to in-store smart TV’s, all have seen a mammoth change. To quote Julian Saunders of Joined-Up Company, ‘Nowadays everything communicates, or tries to’.

Today everybody’s views are available just a click away, be it an individual living in the remotest part of the country or a company well established in its domain. With the advent of Digital India campaign, the online market of India is expected to grow leaps and bounds. With large number of people having an internet enabled phone and access to broadband, the companies would be able to target the customers even from the bottom of the pyramid.

Gone are the days when companies spent hefty sums to sign up a celebrity as their brand ambassador, now it’s more about stationing the product in the hearts and minds of the consumers. Take for instance the British Airway’s ‘It’s time to visit MUM’ campaign targeting the Indian children staying abroad or be it Coca-Cola’s ‘Share a Coke’ campaign involving the printing of names on the cans and interweaving consumers more with the brand emotionally, socially and intellectually.

The firms are now focusing more on how they can make the consumer, sentimentally and psychologically relate to their product and themselves create its need in their lives than merely blindly brand or promote the product. A perfect example is one of the latest advertisement campaigns from Yatra.com where they launch- ‘Relive Memories’ to send them a photo and a travel memory they’d like to recreate.

There are some things which bind us all as humans, no matter where we are from. For all those living away from home, will relate to the fact that we all want to be at home during our festivals, and we all crave for ‘maa ke haath ka khaana’. A beautiful ad from Pakistan masala company Shan hits the right notes, and makes us fall in love with it!

The brands today are more involved in penetrating deep into the lives of the consumers and trying to leave an enduring mark in their minds and hearts using the sentimental and touching value of their products. The pockets app by ICICI is a youth-oriented online wallet which smartly integrates banking with Facebook’s social life. Ranbaxy Volini launched a very interesting campaign on the occasion of Women’s Day, called “Pat on the Back”, saluting women. The campaign invited people to appreciate women in their lives by patting their back quite literally through a Facebook app “Pat on the back”. The brand then sent those pats to women and made them feel special. Within 7 days, about over 10,000 women received pats, successfully creating a deep bond with the brand.

A significant shift in the method of appeal is the use of subtle humor in the advertisements. PolicyBazaar.com first came up with an owl to apprise people, not to become owls by buying irrelevant policies but consequently, they changed from ‘ullu’ to Kapil Sharma’s ‘thullu’ to add a tinge of humor to the ad.

Today, most of the brands have come up with an option of customized shopping where-in the customers can search, match, virtually try and henceforth finalize a perfect fit for them. Nike has given consumers the privilege to design their own shoes and customize the shoe material, color, pattern and what not. Another entrant into the et al market is the ‘gift card’, which is a convenient, portable, easy-to-use, rechargeable card that comes with a life-time validity.

With a free sign-up and result oriented cost incurred, Google ads is one of the biggest facet of the marketing channels. It offers more customer outreach, global advertising and a ‘right target at right time’ approach with a meagre starting budget of 1000 bucks a day. That means of the 3.3 billion users accessing google at a time in the world, your ad could be seen by a notable number of people.

A relatively strategic concept which is being extensively used by numerous businesses worldwide is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) (29% used). All you need to do is feed Google, Yahoo etc. with the most valuable keywords and phrases. Another approach known as Pay per Click (PPC) also leverages industrial keyword research, improves on-site conversions and controls cost. What if you are in dire need of a house loan and an angel in disguise calls you to inform about her most borrower friendly loan scheme. Well, Telemarketing (17% used) is none less when it comes to some of the most widely used and extensively followed channels of business communication.

Xiaomi, the Apple of China has grown into one of the fastest growing companies not because of the usual online marketing assorted by various other brands in the same line but because of its distinctive road of ‘flash sales’ that it followed. In April, it launched 40000 devices of its Mi4i model in the Indian market. It was a matter of mere 15 seconds and then a ‘BOOM’ got all the devices sold.

The same thing happened when it tried to launch Mi3 with a slight difference resulting in devices being sold within seconds. Phew! That was indeed super quick. Nobody would have thought sales could be so ephemeral. Xiaomi created a hunger market wherein people were asked to register for the device before-hand which helped the company in determining the number of devices to be launched. Hype was created and the word of mouth was spread and it worked in company’s favor.

Online sites like fab.com and gilt.com have brought flash sales to clothing and fashion accessories too. Their sales were meteoric- in just 2 years it went from scratch to $250million and was able to raise $150million in a little more than a year. But flash sale strategy might turn out to be suicidal in some cases. There is a possibility of losing credibility with the customers if the product is unavailable in the inventory. This might prove out to be a threat to the brand.

Today, the brands try to be witty and at the same time impactful. They leave no occasion to bring themselves in the lime-light and win customer’s hearts. On June 21 2015, Oreo posted a visual update reminding people that it was the longest day of the year, an obvious fact. But to connect it to the brand, it used a stretched pack of Oreo biscuits as the graphics. Bingo! Share a Tangle Campaign promoted peer to peer sharing by encouraging users to share Bingo tangles with five friends. 

When using brains is the point of talk, how can we forget Amul’s daily ad snippets which have been touching lives for decades, be it ‘Kalaam ka Kamaal’ or ‘Khaa P.K Jaana’.Cadbury’s wanted to boost their Facebook likes, so they decided to construct a giant Facebook thumb out of their own signature Dairy Milk bars. The idea started as a thank you gesture to fans for helping them reach one million likes.

One of the many significant trends prevalent now-a-days is the impeccable manner in which the brands place their products in movies, television etc. It is without doubt an effective way to reach an increasingly fragmented audience. The use of Tag Heuer in the movie- Don, mention of Singapore tourism in Krrish and the divulgence of magazine Verve in movie Dostana are smoothly woven into the content and turn out to have large impact on the consumers.

Brands never miss a chance when it comes to taking toll on their rivals. There is a never-ending brutal competition going on among various brands all over the world. The war for supremacy is the sole reason that drives these brands to come up with different ways of marketing, trying to mock their competitors in the most subtle way. It is one of the most heated topics in the marketing world which brings these brands into the focus of customers. The major reason of such heated ongoing war is that there is hardly any point of differentiation among these brands. All they have to do to increase their market share is to link as many customers as possible with their witty promotional advertisements.

The famous twitter-war among Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal has brought the Indian e-commerce industry to an entirely new level. Twitter War between Ola cabs and Uber is something not worth missing.

Constant urge of TOI and The Hindu to get ahead of each other has brought their advertising methods into the focus of customers. “Stay ahead of Times” campaign was a counter attack by The Hindu to the ‘wake up Chennai’ campaign by its rival TOI. Both of these campaigns were successful in digging into the minds of customers not just on television but also through print media.

How can we forget our social media and the indispensable role it plays as one of the largest and most widely used channels of present day marketing? From Twitter to LinkedIn and from Facebook to Blogs, everyone from corp-orates to sole-proprietors find it the most lucrative and viable option to strike a cupid at the target consumers. The power of social media marketing cannot be denied. Real-time marketing has become the “it” thing in advertising and nowadays all one has to do is login to a social network and within seconds they will be exposed to some form of advert; no matter how discreet it may look.

With the increasing penetration of internet in India, the number of Facebook users has increased to 142 million, overtaking the number of users in the US. The companies are eyeing this platform to tap the youth and social media users. Lays-‘Do us a flavor’ campaign launched on Facebook involved fans to a large extent. The customers had to vote for their favorite flavors and later the top 3 flavors were available in the market. The net sales of lays increased by 12%. The buzz that was created among the customers, brought in their choices to the company, helping them to expand based on the market demand.

The involvement of customers at each step brings in the trust factor among them. If some brand is less active on social media, it shows up less on google. The advantage of using social media as a platform is that it does not require astronomical investments. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter are used by companies to promote their products on a large scale mainly targeting youth. Consumers’ online brand related activities and word of mouth have helped brands in promoting their products successfully. Internet marketers are now placing an increasing amount of emphasis on building communities via social networks and are integrating each platform to deliver a constant stream of exposure. In fact, acquiring a ‘Like’ on Facebook or new follower on Twitter is held in higher regard than unique website traffic.

From cell phones to smartphones, tablets to wearable gadgets, the evolution of mobile devices is one of the most significant factors influencing the world of marketing. As the focus is shifting to the mini screens, brands will be able to build up a more personalized relationship with their customers. Currently, customers are seeking more engagement from brands. This trend will continue with customers becoming more demanding in their expectation of transparency. Genuine brands – the ones that “walk the talk” and create real value – will survive the test of time.