Intel - Redefining Audio Identity

If you have seen the old(hardly a year back) Intel ads you will be familiar with their trademark sound bytes at the end of those ads. Thats what we call audio identity of a brand in Branding. And like a good audio identity this one registers itself in the prospects memory, easy to recognize and aids recall. I am giving the link for one of such ads below.

Older:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qqS1kDWjDQ

But recently Intel came up with a new ad campaign with a tagline "Sponsors of Tomorrow" which instead of using beats uses human voice singing in chorus and follows the same old tune(it goes Pom...Pom...Pom..Pom). So you will ask whats the big deal?? well I feel by using the human voice they have made their audio identity hummable and so manage to get more involvement from the prospects. It also enhances the three features of a good audio identity which I have already mentioned. I really liked these ads. The link for one of the ads from the series is given below.

Latest:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6nOlgNJfHo&NR=1

Regards,

Ravi

Mundu and The Barber

Today Mundu(read previous post to know more about him) went for a hair cut in a saloon( the one in the basement) near Kutty's. The barber greeted him and ask him to occupy one of the vacant chairs. After taking all the specifications for the kind of hair cut Mundu wanted he started dressing his hair. In the process he started the following conversation with Mundu :

Barber: Is this the first time you are visiting my shop sir?

Mundu: No, I have been here once before.

Barber: Ok. Where do you stay sir?

Mundu: LIBA Hostel, Loyola College.

Barber: So you are a student sir.

Mundu: Yes I am doing my MBA. Management, you know.

Barber: Ya ya I know MBAs sir. I hope I have not told you already that I have started a part time real estate agency sir and if any of your friends need a flat on rent please tell them to contact me.

Mundu(sounding excited) : No no you havn't told me earlier. Thats great. How long have you been doing that?

Barber: For the past 6 months sir.

Mundu: Have you advertised about this in classifed section of some newspaper?

Barber: No sir. I have just been telling this to all the customers who visit my saloon.

Mundu: So you are relying solely on "word-of-mouth".

Barber: Whats that sir?

Mundu: Don't bother. But I strongly feel you should put one ad in newspaper else your business won't pick up. Tell me how many leads you generated till date??

Barber: How many what sir??

Mundu: I mean how many people came to you looking for flats.

Barber: A good number of them sir.

Mundu: Really, I am surprised. So in case people get flats through you, do you pay some commission to your customer who recommended them to you?

Barber(mockingly) : Thats why I told "I know MBAs" sir.

Regards,

Ravi

Introducing "Mundu Marketer" !!!

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to this character called "Mundu Marketer"(no, he does not market Mundus, this Mundu is a concept I am lifting from the movie "Jhankaar Beats"). This character is purely frictional(no spelling mistakes:)) by nature because he picks up arguments at the drop of hat for the greater cause of marketing. He swears by Kotler and the only "f-word" in his dictionary is 'F'inance.

From today onwards I will be writing(whenever I get opportunity) about the adventures of our very own Mundu Marketer. So here is the first one in the series:

Mundu was sitting facing me and reading the latest edition of Brand Reporter(a fortnightly magazine by afaqs for marketers and advertisers) in the library. He almost fell down from his seat when he saw a full page ad by a Hindi Daily purely in Hindi in the magazine. And we had the following conversation:

Mundu : This newspaper brand has gone crazy.

Me : Why? What happened?

Mundu : Look at this full page ad. Its totally a waste of money in a place like Chennai.

Me : How?

Mundu : Its so simple. How many people will understand Hindi in Chennai?? So it will be better if this brand start advertising in Tamil. Didn't Kotler wrote about "Developing Effective Communications" in his book and these people are flouting that basic rule of communication.

Me : Hmmm... thats a brilliant idea. A Hindi newspaper targeted to Tamil readers :).

Regards,

Ravi

The Gr8 Indian Rubber Story - So It Finally Got Stretched !!

Talking of the ad campaigns for Indian rubber(condom) brands the one ad that has top of mind recall is "Pyar hua iqrar hua, pyar se phir kyon darta hai dil" ad of Deluxe Nirodh. Then there were ads of Kohinoor, Kamasutra(the one with Pooja Bedi) and Moods(Moods Please ads) which were able to register themselves in one's memory. But still there were dozen more brands which were vying for consumers mindshare but failed miserably to do so.

So what ailed these ads? I think they were low on what I call "creativity quotient". If you checkout some ads of condoms from West(e.g. Durex) you will be impressed by the effectiveness of their communication by purely being creative. I guess one of the reasons could be the contrast in the censorship regulations between India and the West. But I still feel such regulations are actually blessings in disguise as they encourage marketers and admen to be more creative in their approach and beat the system.

And one such creative campaign has been started by JK Ansell, which owns the Kamasutra brand of condoms. The campaign is not a TVC but a digital one capitalizing on the popularity of social media networks. They have come up this Facebook application Find Your Rubber which associates a personality with each condom variant and suggest the one to the user which matches his personality. This campaign is truly viral in nature and a path breaking one for a condom brand.

Surprisingly this is not the first time that Kamasutra is leveraging digital media to its advantage. About six months back they set up this interesting website called Sendsomerubber.com where in you can send rubbers to your friends. And you have to visit this website to find out the number of rubbers already sent :). Now you will agree with me that this brand of rubber has really stretched the Indian rubber story.

Regards,

Ravi

The Serial Ditchers

Yesterday I was reading this article "Five Rules For Retailing in a Recession" published in Harvard Business Review. The very first rule talked about going for the Headroom whch they defined as market share you don't have minus market share you won't get.So for retailers, customers who are loyal to their competitors represent market share they don't have and will likely not get. Customers who are loyal to them represents market share they already have and hence holding on to these loyal customers is a high priority job in a downturn. But if they start spending 25% less, it will directly affect retailer's sale. So the headroom lies with the customers who are loyal neither to a particular retail store nor to their competitors and such customers are called switchers. But I would rather prefer to call such customers "serial ditchers". Read on to find out why.

The romance kindles with the proposal(read ads) issued by retailer through different channels. This particular type of customer accepts the proposal and comes singing to the store Tumne pukara aur hum chale aaye re (You called me and I am here). So both retailer and customer are happy and the affair begins. The customer visits the store frequently and the retailer can't help singing Hame tumse pyaar kitna yeh hum nahi jaante, magar jee nahi sakte tumhare bina(I don't know how much I love you but I can't live without you). This running around the tree(read store) and singing(read purchasing) continues for a month or two and then customer feels disenchanted(or disillusioned) from the spell of the retailer. The retailer realises that something is wrong with customer's behavior but poor fellow don't know what is in store for his store. And one fine day the customer walks out of the store singing Teri Galiyon mein naa rakhenge kadam aaj ke baad(I won't step into your neihbourhood (read store) in future) and leaving retailer sad and gloomy searching for the reasons of this unexpected betrayal.

But the (ex-) customer looks for new proposals and has an affair with almost all the competitors of the retailer with assurance given to each one of them that Hum bane tum bane ek dooje ke liye( We two are made for each other). Then she went on ditching them all one after another. The customer has no remorse at all because for her change is the only constant. The customer wants honeymoon but no marriage. And what happens to those retailers she ditched?? well in business you can't afford to be Devdas because Paro gayi toh kya hua he has to concentrate on Chandramukhis(read loyal customers). But would it be wise for him to close his store's door for Paro?? I would say no because this attitude will ruin his business. So I would picture him singing this another bollywood oldie Koi jab tumhara hriday tod de, tadapta hua jab koi chod de, tab tum mere paas aana priye, mera dar khula hai khula hi rahega, tumhare liye( When someone breaks your heart leaving you in agony and pain then you can always come back to me, my (store's) doors are always open for you).

So my dear retailers wait for the right opportunity to hit the nail on the head(read headroom).

Regards,

Ravi

Howrah to Chennai aboard Coromandel

Yesterday I returned to Chennai after a 20 days summer vacation spent mostly at my small village in Bihar. It was a train journey via Howrah where I was joined by one of my college friends. He had booked ticket of AC III for both of us in Coromandel express. We reached our compartment 10 minutes before the scheduled departure but found 9 people already seating in that compartment( earlier it used to be 8 but Lalu introduced extra side berth in each compartment but thankfully Mamta has directed to remove them all). When we inquired we found out that 3 people have been given RACs for a single seat(not ours) and thats why we two were extra over there. Somehow we managed to adjust and got place to sit since this RAC puzzle will be solved only when T.T.E arrives.

The train started as per schedule. Our co-passengers in the compartment included an elderly lady tavelling all by herself(Tamil), a gentleman in his late fifties(Telegu), three men almost of our age(all contenders for a single seat, I couldn't find out much about them) and a Bengali family of beta(son), Maa( mother) and Maasi(Mother's sister) travelling down south because beta had to attend counselling for some medical college.

Ten minutes into the journey the family started complaigning about the heat and congestion. Beta looked most restless of the lot and complaigned to coach attendant about the same. The coach attendant assured that the heat problem will be solved in another half an hour as AC requires some time to show effect but he told solving congestion problem is beyond his capacity. So the family had no choice but to wait for another half an hour.

But it seems there was some technical snag in air conditioning system and there was no improvement in temperature as half an hour passed. During this half an hour I think the family informed almost everyone in their khandaan(clan) about the problems they are facing. Meanwhile the attendant along with his helpers was trying hard to fix the snag amidst the constant cribbing of the family and threats of lodging complaign against him at the next station. Thankfully both the problems got solved before the next station. Two people with RACs were alotted seats in other compartments bringing an end to congestion and AC started working properly bringing an end to heat.

Now everyone looked comfortable but the family still had a problem, one of their seats was on the opposite side and the elderly gentleman had that odd seat on their side. So they started cajoling him to exchange his seat. The reason for exchange they gave was it will be convenient at night if all three from the family have berths on the same side. All this conversation was taking place in Hindi. The old man thought for a moment and replied "Sone ke baad family kahan yaad rehta hai"(Who remembers family once he/she is fast asleep). His remark threw the rest of us in splits of laughter. But he obliged to their request and exchanged the seat.

The next day we all had little conversations among ourselves and it was mostly in English or Hindi but I don't know what was it with the family they assumed we all knew Bengali and will suddenly switch to it during conversation. We nodded twice or thrice but since they started using more and more and more Bengali I had to tell them that "aami Bangla jaane na"(I don't know Bengali). But my friend continued nodding whenever they spoke in Bengali to him. I was damn sure he don't know Bengali but I had no clue why he was nodding his head on every sentence they spoke.

Anyways when we were about to reach Chennai our conversation finally touched upon the place we come from. They were surprised to know that my friend is not a Bengali. One of the ladies asked how come he spoke such a fluent Bengali. I was surprised because he never uttered a single letter in Bengali but my friend smiled as if he was expecting this question and told that he can understand a little bit of Bengali but can't speak. Well the family looked a bit disappointed, they exchanged looks among themselves and my friend, he was nodding.

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देखते हैं हाथी किस करवट बैठता है  

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या फिर जनता करुणा के सागर में बह जायेगी?

कौन होगा इस सरकारी बागीचे का बागबान ?

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ये तो बताएँगे आनेवाले पल | 

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या फिर चंद सीटों में ही सीमट जायेंगे ?

अब शुरू होगी जोड़ - तोड़ की राजनीति  

किसके कितने हैं नंबर किसकी कैसी है स्थिति ? 

निर्दलीय अपना दल चुनेंगे 

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