Author

Kanupriya Sindhu

Supplemental Education Industry : Educomp enters the business

April 2, 2010
A decade or two back the word coaching or tuition was an option for the weak students, but now it is as much a norm for any student (esp. the aspirants of exams like IIT, AIEEE, PMT etc.), as say a senior school passing certificate. From board exams to school tuitions, IITs to medical, CAT to GMAT, there is demand for coaching classes at all education and income levels now. Read More…

Indian Premier League (IPL) and Digital Media

March 29, 2010
While earlier seasons of IPL have been hot favorite of traditional media (primarily television) but this time, it definitely seems to be attracting mega bucks for digital medium too.  Google has announced the list of sponsors now for its first main sports event which will be streamed live on YouTube. Royal Challengers IPL Team, HSBC India & HP India will be the premium sponsors along with some other big names like Airtel, Coca Cola and Samsung who have also taken the key sponsorship slots. Read More at Pluggd.in

Continuation of my last post

March 29, 2010
First of all apologies for putting up this post so late. Though I had stopped the poll after almost a week only but some important projects at work and traveling on weekends just kept me away from my blog for long. But nevertheless I had put an update on the results of my poll in my previous post. And as committed in my earlier post, here I reproduce the results of the poll done in my previous post. I had tried to keep the voting count unique by blocking the votes from same cookie as well as IP address (that’s the maximum which was possible as per polldaddy’s settings).

Now based on my last posts experience (esp. the comment furor :-)), I would again like to repeat that the opinions expressed in my post about the ad are solely mine as a consumer, personally speaking I didn’t like those ads. As a marketer too, I would repeat that I didn’t find any connect between the messaging and the product, also the communication route somehow didn’t seem to be in sync with the targeted TG. Maybe I’m right or maybe I’m not but then to each its own and I stand by my opinions against this ad as a regular consumer. Thanks to all those who commented on my previous post.

Bad product & worse marketing : IBIBO social games

February 22, 2010
The worst thing that can happen to a bad product is good marketing…but what about the case where the product is bad and the marketing is even worse? Hmmm…then I guess it becomes a case study on brands like IBIBO with title – “how not to market a product”. No, seriously wasn’t balti ad enough that IBIBO has come out with yet another innovative campaign “why play akele”? Not one, not two, rather they have a whole series of creatives for this campaign but what is interesting is to decide which one of these can be crowned as the worst of the lot? This or this or OMG this i.e., the aunty ad on radio, well my vote clearly goes to aunty ad on radio! Every time I listen to this one on 94.3, I can’t resist myself from changing the channel, even if it means listening to kannada songs for a while on mirchi. I detest this ad so very much!

On a serious note, I’m wondering what exactly could be the reason for IBIBO to go ahead with such a crappy campaign? Millions of money spent just like that, effort wasted without any thought on promoting a product which by nature should have been actually promoted through a viral route. A copied concept which due to lack of any innovativeness decided to take the paid marketing path only leading to further disasters enroute. Neither the messaging is right, nor is the execution. To add to that the overall tone of the creatives is so suggestive & absolutely repulsive for the relevant TG of the campaign. I’m wondering is it me or is it everyone who finds these creatives to be totally absurd and disgusting? I think it won’t be a bad idea to do a quick survey on general reaction towards this campaign & send the results to IBIBO marketing team…maybe it can save us from further tortures of “why play akele” kinda campaigns in future.

Public service initiative🙂 : May I please request all of you to take out few seconds and just give your opinion below? It would be interesting to observe the results, though I don’t have any doubts on the outcome.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in my post are personal & I request readers to express their own judgements & take their own call.

[polldaddy poll=2740294]

Update on 8th Mar’ 2010: This poll is closed now for voting as per the expiry timeline of the poll. I will be publishing the result of it in my next post, for now you can just see the % of results by clicking “view results”

“Paa” Marketing: Auro is the strongest marketing pull

November 27, 2009
For quite some time, I have not blogged about movie marketing mainly because of two reasons – 1.) I think like all other industries, even marketers from Bollywood were lying low due to economy as well as industry specific reasons and 2.) Like typical herd mentality, all marketers for past few months have been using almost ditto strategies again and again for their movie promotions – same website, social media, contest, reality TV presence etc. etc. Nothing new or innovative was coming out which could be discussed or talked about. But well looks like this monotony is going to be broken with the release of Paa. Not only the trailor but the promotion and presentations too are interesting enough to generate curiosity amongst the audience. Here are some of the new strategies which the marketers are using to promote this movie:

  • Brand Auro: Despite the fact that one of the biggest brands of Bollywood is playing the lead role of the movie, what is interesting is that the movie in all its promotions and appearances is focusing on Brand “Auro” and not Brand “Big B”. The promotion started with a teaser campaign with just a glimpse of Auro and at first look I actually didn’t recognize that it was Mr. Bachchan himself. Since then I’ve seen the promotion of this movie in different reality shows as well as television programs but everywhere it’s Auro who has been the focus and not the star-cast like other movie promotions.
  • Smart messaging: These days in cinema halls you won’t be surprised if you get a sweet chide like – “Stand up for the national anthem, or I’ll tell Paa”, or “Switch off your cell phones, or I’ll tell Paa”. This is how the movie is being promoted in theaters via slide shows and messages. Interesting and surely catchy!
  • Engaging properties: Apart from the regular engagement properties like on-ground events and contests, online website, presence on social networking sites like Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, channel on YouTube etc., this movie has been creating a difference through some other interactive promotions too, for e.g., the apt placement of Auro Dance within the cricket match. During the recent series, whenever a wicket was taken a small figure of Auro used to come on the screen, doing that unique “Auro dance” (you can see this dance on its official website as well). On the occasion of children’s day, contests like “Paa and I” where a child can be the father for a day or “I Love my Paa” was organized and all the contests received enthusiastic participation from the kids.

Good to see a fresh movie theme with fresh marketing initiatives. This is a low budget film and hence not much money has been spent on promotional activities but even with a small budget, I think the movie has created enough buzz in the market due to its intelligent strategies. And who needs a large budget to promote a film which has got 67 year old Amitabh Bachchan playing the character of a 13 year old kid. The most expensive element in this 16 crore film is actually Big B’s make-up which accounts to 10 % of the overall budget; no wonder his looks in the film is topic of such a high interest amongst media as well as audience. Mr. Bachchan’s make up for his character Auro is actually going to be one of the strongest marketing pulls for this movie.

Farmville Success – An evaluation

October 31, 2009

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OK…It’s official now. I’m SERIOUSLY addicted to Farmville and there is no denying the fact now. Howmuchsoever I tried to resist this game by blocking all Farmville updates or ridiculing my friends who have been playing it during work hours, but ever since I went to this app with a thought to just have a casual glance on this thingy called Farmville, there has been no turning back. This game is really addictive and I think after a long time I’ve become crazy for any game like this. Yes, when I had opened my Facebook account, I definitely enjoyed few apps but beyond those initial ones, rest I just visited more from a purpose of checking those out. But Farmville is a different story all together, the devotion is so much so that every night when I come back from work the first thing which I do is check out on my crops and harvest the ready ones. And I think I am still not as compulsive user as some of my friends are, someone now dreams of gaining XPs whereas someone wakes up at midnight to harvest his crop, there is one who smsed me his Facebook password to harvest as he was stuck in a long meeting and one who called up and shared the password so that I can harvest his ready crops as he himself was travelling out. Such is the user-involvement in this game!

No wonder Farmville has got 58+ million active users (as on 14th Oct’09) and it has been topping the list of social games ever since its launch on 19th June’2009.

Farmville

Image Source: Gamasutra

Close to 60 million users in just 4 months??? That’s really some statistics in the history of social games! So, what could be the reason for this historical success of the game? Well, there are actually many but I think the key reasons which can be attributed towards the phenomenal success of this game are:

  • Engaging/Stickiness: Oh, this game is really sticky to its core and this is one of the biggest reasons for so much of repeat visits to this app. You buy crops with Farmville coins, sow them in your farm and if you do not return to your farm on time, your crops wither and die. That’s a loss of money and negative impact on your balance! So, one has to return to this game again & again if you want to make more or do not want to lose your money there. A lovely way to keep the users engaged.

  • Networking: With Farmville on Facebook, there is a possibility of networking within a networking site. You can ask your friends to be your neighbors in farm and there are different ways by which you can visit your neighbors and earn reward points in the game. So having neighbors is advantageous and within social networking arena of Facebook, it gives you another chance of farm networking by interacting and helping your friends. Now I do get actual messages like, “visit my farm as I’ve revamped it completely” or “check out the new tractor and decorations on my farm” 🙂

  • Viral: It spreads like crazy in your community and there are many interesting reasons for the same, be it free gifts which you send or receive from your friends and later can use those to make money, sharing the wealth of your success or helping stray animals, all have some rewards attached which motivates you to spread the word more and more. You automatically end up doing these making this game truly viral in every way.

  • Communication: Zynga content guys definitely know the art of communication, each action has a prompt for communication and most of it is in either such an interesting language or are encouraging announcements of your advancements that you actually end up publishing your updates to your friends. And these updates act nothing less than a trigger to your friend to go and do some more farming in their farms.

  • Design and innovation: I personally love the UI of this game, I mean the colors and graphics of those fully grown crops definitely give you joy of a different kind. To add to that, constant innovation by Zynga team in terms of new farm additions like those beautiful flowers, Indian flag etc. or themes like the Halloween ones are nice additions for the users.

  • Monetization: Farmville is not just another free social game, it has got a well planned monetization strategy in place too. And by money I don’t mean Farmville coins or cash, I definitely mean hard cash in terms of real $. Thanks to the addiction of this game that once players are hooked on to it, they actually end up spending “real” money in buying “virtual” goods. On any given day 500,000 tractors (which are $20 “virtual” Farmville tractors) are sold on Farmville. No wonder, Zynga the company behind Farmville is making good money and has been profitable every month since September 2007.

Last but not the least, I’m wondering if success of Farmville has some connection with users’ psychography too? The fact that quite many Farmville users are actually Indians, makes me think if it has something to do with roots of Indians being in farming and agriculture? Also in other countries too, amidst all hectic life and work stress people are heading towards peaceful farms in reality, so is setting up a virtual farm somewhere helping them relive the same experiences online too? Has Farmville’s growth got anything to do with user’s inclination towards pastoral lives and is it serving “this” intrinsic need in the virtual world?

All that glitters may be gold this diwali – Indians to go online for shopping?

October 17, 2009

Update: Catch my latest post on pluggdin:

  • All that glitters may be gold this diwali: It’s that time of the year again which most Indian marketers wait with bated breath, there is festivity all around and thanks to better market condition, Indian consumers are looking forward to splurge this festive season both in offline as well as online shopping. Read More…

Wish all readers a ‘bagful’ (after shopping ) & prosperous diwali! 🙂