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Marketing

It’s all about photos

March 2, 2017
Photo Credit — https://unsplash.com/@jaywennington

Out of all the work experience that I have, almost half of it has been into photography industry now — a category that has really exploded in last decade, a category in which you literally have to be on your toes in case you want to make a mark, a category that has gone through unimagined consumer behavior changes at an unimagined pace. We all are clicking, clicking all the time, clicking anything & everything!

My work also involves meeting photographers and consumers who are looking to hire photographers on a regular basis and at times the kind of insights that I get by just observing or casually interacting with them is mind blowing.

The trend of getting life events photographed or preserving our unique moments as photographs has been existing since centuries but there is something now because of which photographs and photography are as much part of our lives as food and sleep.

Thanks to social media, it will be safe to say that now we humans literally eat, breathe and live our lives through photos. This is something that we all know of but at times certain incidences just make this realization starker!Read More

Experiencing the power of Brand Consistency through a 4 year old

October 24, 2016

Brand Consistency Helps.

And it just doesn’t matter if the consumer is 40 or 4 year old!

This is something that we all know and always try to achieve as a marketer but recently I experienced the power of a consistent brand in a different way altogether.

Few weeks back, I was traveling out of country along with my 4 year old and one of the days during that trip we were roaming in an area that had very limited options for food. While I was ok with anything to eat but it was the little one for whom we were not able to find any suitable option. To add to that, internet connectivity was weak and Google map wasn’t being of much use. It was already quite late for his meal time and he didn’t want to eat any of the packaged snacks that I was carrying. And suddenly he shouted — Mumma, look there is a Domino’s! I tried to look around and asked — where? He was pointing to a remote corner where we could spot a red & blue part of glow-sign. It was quite far but yes the red & blue looked familiar and we started walking in that direction. And bingo, he was right, there was a Domino’s! As we approached nearer, we realized there were other food joints as well including some good options for pizza. We tried to convince him to try out something new but the junior was adamant on having a pizza and that too from Domino’s only.

Here’s a snapshot of conversation between me and my 4 year old.

Me: Ok I understand you want to have pizza only but why not try this place (me pointing to the next outlet of Brand Y).

Him: No, I want to eat at Domino’s only as I know their pizzas are good.

Me (Trying my luck again as we wanted to explore something different): But how do you know the pizza at this other outlet is bad without even trying?

Him: Mumma, I don’t know if the other pizza is bad but I know Domino’s pizza is good. What if their cheese pizza will have mirchi (chilly) in it? Domino’s ke cheese pizza mein mirchi nahi hoti and taste humesha same hota hai (Domino’s cheese pizza doesn’t have chillies in it and always tastes the same). I’m hungry and I will have my favorite cheese pizza of Domino’s ONLY!

And yes, the mom and dad in us won over the foodie in us. We finally had pizzas at Domino’s only despite the fact that Brand Y outlet looked more appealing and had much higher rating on Tripadvisor.

Now a 4 year old’s love for pizza is something that I needn’t explain 🙂 but his love for Domino’s was something that I thought was worth observing:

  • He can’t read all the small letter alphabets yet, but it was him who could spot the brand from a really far off place. In fact the brand name was hardly noticeable but he could recognize the outlet just by a glimpse of that red & blue logo unit. Well,

Consistency surely makes a brand easily recognizable!

  • His trust in brand and its offering was rock solid! He had tried Domino’s cheese pizza at different places earlier and he knew that it tastes the same everywhere. Preferably,

Consumers trust the brand they recognize and consistency helps in building that trust!

  • He was sure of his choice and when it came to his favorite pizza he wasn’t willing to try anything else except Domino’s. He ensured that we bought the pizza from Domino’s only. And,

When there is a trust, there is a loyalty and chances of repeat business are quite high.

So here I was, practically experiencing the three key lessons of Brand Consistency through purchase behavior of my 4 year old who doesn’t even know how to read a brand name yet :). Consistency actually helps your brand get recognized, builds trust in the minds of your consumers and increases the chance of repeat business!

Btw, that area also had Domino’s biggest competitor in Indian market but somehow that brand was not the top of mind recall for my 4 year old, maybe because Domino’s is more of a household name in India due to its focus on home delivery model as against the fine dining or eat out experience by the competitor.

Domino’s — you definitely have a very loyal 4 year old consumer at my end!

Whatever happened to writing for humans

June 18, 2015

Of late I have been interviewing people for content writer positions in my current organization. I had some content strategy in my mind and the goal as product owner was clear to me – create content for user engagement and offer content that the user is looking for. Yes, the operative word was “user”, loud and clear. But as baffling as it may sound, not even a single candidate whom I interviewed in last few weeks mentioned to me the word “user” in his/her opening pitch. It all started with writing content for search engines and ended with content quality being SEO friendly. To add to that, the kind of content that I am looking to create is sort of new initiative for my target audience, so it’s important for the candidate to have basic understanding of the category.  When asked about industry experience, understanding of target audience, pat came the reply – you can let us know which words work for you and we will figure out the content that’s doing well for those words in search engines and create content for you accordingly, the written piece will have all those words with right density and frequency.

Density? Frequency? Engines?  Errrr, what happened to writing content for humans? Last I knew was search engines were meant for discoverability but consumption of content was still done by humans. Isn’t it? And search gods like Google have anyways changed their algorithm to focus on quality of content rather than quantity of keywords inserted in it.

Then, why this focus on promotion so much more than production?

I understand the importance of marketing the content esp. in this age of too-many-of-any type of content but being a hard core marketer I can only say one thing – you try to market whatever, be it product or service or content, if the foundation of it is not in place, then your marketing can only help you just as much and not that much.

I know there are many golden rules that exist for creating engaging content, marketing the content etc but based on all my practical experiences in product & marketing, especially in digital, here is my quick list for new age content creation process:

User first – As basic as it may sound, but this is really important – put your users first above everything. Write for target audience and not for target channels. Content to me especially when I am looking for user engagement is exactly like a product. If you put your users in the heart of your content creation process, half of your battle is won. Speaking of user first, I actually love this quote by Jamie Turner:

Content Marketing

As a simple practice when I write or approve any piece of content for my products, I generally check it on 3 quick parameters – is it offering value to my readers, is the language easy to understand for my readers and is it engaging, inspiring or thought-provoking for my readers?  Yes, “readers” it is, in all three parameters.

Quality can never be outdated – Whatever changes may happen in our content search or content consumption behavior but one thing that can never be changed is the importance of “quality” of content especially in today’s age where there is a content jungle out there. You may adapt many tricks to  get discovered but once the user has landed on your page and if sufficient substance is not there in your content then she will lose interest and is bound to navigate away immediately. To add to that, average attention span of readers has further reduced by more than 30% in last 3 years. While there are many methods to get your content promoted, and content marketing seems to be one of the most fashionable jargons these days but there is no substitute to the quality of content that you produce if you want your marketing to really work for your content.

Engage with readers – Again a term that we have heard quite often but it’s one of the most ignored parameters when it comes to content. Like any product or service, user engagement in your content is a must.  Connect, interact, converse and accept the feedback or criticism graciously. The more the user is engaged, the easier it is for them to act or decide.

To sum it up, if the content is unique, offers value to its readers and is interesting enough to hold reader’s attention, then there is no reason why the reader won’t share and spread the word around it. “Share”, isn’t it the reason as to why content has suddenly become one of the most important marketing channels in the digital world?

Whatever happened to writing for humans!

June 18, 2015

Whatever happened to writing for humans!

Of late I have been interviewing people for content writer positions in my current organization. I had some content strategy in my mind and the goal as product owner was clear to me — create content for user engagement and offer content that the user is looking for. Yes, the operative word was “user”, loud and clear. But as baffling as it may sound, not even a single candidate whom I interviewed in last few weeks mentioned to me the word “user” in his/her opening pitch. It all started with writing content for search engines and ended with content quality being SEO friendly. To add to that, the kind of content that I am looking to create is sort of new initiative for my target audience, so it’s important for the candidate to have basic understanding of the category. When asked about industry experience, understanding of target audience, pat came the reply — you can let us know which words work for you and we will figure out the content that’s doing well for those words in search engines and create content for you accordingly, the written piece will have all those words with right density and frequency.

Density? Frequency? Engines? What happened to writing content for humans? Last I knew was search engines were meant for discoverability but consumption of content was still done by humans. Isn’t it? And search gods like Google have anyways changed their algorithm to focus on quality of content rather than quantity of keywords inserted in it.

Then, why this focus on promotion so much more than production?

I understand the importance of marketing the content esp. in this age of too-many-of-any type of content but being a hard core marketer I can only say one thing — you try to market whatever, be it product or service or content, if the foundation of it is not in place, then your marketing can only help you just as much and not that much.

I know there are many golden rules that exist for creating engaging content, marketing the content etc but based on all my practical experiences in product & marketing, especially in digital, here is my quick list for new age content creation process:

User first — As basic as it may sound, but this is really important — put your users first above everything. Write for target audience and not for target channels. Content to me especially when I am looking for user engagement is exactly like a product. If you put your users in the heart of your content creation process, half of your battle is won. Speaking of user first, I actually love this quote by Jamie Turner:


As a simple practice when I write or approve any piece of content for my products, I generally check it on 3 quick parameters — is it offering value to my readers, is the language easy to understand for my readers and is it engaging, inspiring or thought-provoking for my readers? Yes, “readers” it is, in all three parameters.

Quality can never be outdated — Whatever changes may happen in our content search or content consumption behavior but one thing that can never be changed is the importance of “quality” of content especially in today’s age where there is a content jungle out there. You may adapt many tricks to get discovered but once the user has landed on your page and if sufficient substance is not there in your content then she will lose interest and is bound to navigate away immediately. To add to that, average attention span of readers has further reduced by more than 30% in last 3 years. While there are many methods to get your content promoted, and content marketing seems to be one of the most fashionable jargons these days but there is no substitute to the quality of content that you produce if you want your marketing to really work for your content.

Engage with readers — Again a term that we have heard quite often but it’s one of the most ignored parameters when it comes to content. Like any product or service, user engagement in your content is a must. Connect, interact, converse and accept the feedback or criticism graciously. The more the user is engaged, the easier it is for them to act or decide.

To sum it up, if the content is unique, offers value to its readers and is interesting enough to hold reader’s attention, then there is no reason why the reader won’t share and spread the word around it. “Share”, isn’t it the reason why content has suddenly become one of the most important marketing channels in the digital world?

“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.

So much to watch on television now!

July 6, 2009
I’ve been spending some considerable amount of time on television these days, 1 hour daily is definitely considerable as per my standards. Reason – prime one being my motive to avoid working on laptop till late night esp. after office hours due to health reasons, secondary being the intent to get involved in other activities beyond internet / work & third the most important being the fresh & interesting content on Indian Television now. For me television has never been an engagement medium at all, it’s long that I have watched anything with continual interest on television, thanks to the soaps showing bahus working in kitchen with kanjeevaram or bridal chiffon sarees, their 10kg gold jewelry clad look or 1 feet long bindi adorned faces, somehow like many other today’s generation Indian women even I could not relate to those ever conspiring saas-bahu serials at all. Trust me, the kind of strategies & conspiracies they make in those soaps, I’m sure such women (if at all they exist in real world) can make very good diplomats or high commission planner in Indian Embassy. To add to that the frustration of at least 1 million (or is it more?) reality shows running on each channel every day where people are either singing or dancing or bitching AND crying. By the word AND before CRYING I definitely mean that crying is an inclusive & not mutually exclusive activity in any reality show. Now whether you are dancing or singing or playing a game, you HAVE to cry, else your participation is not deemed fit enough for the winning candidature. Sigh!!!

A lethal combination of such “mera pati mera devta hai” soaps & “mujhe meri maa ke liye jeetna hai” reality shows was force strong enough to put me off television for quite some time now. I did watch few new concepts here & there like Ballika Vadhu on Colors but even there, I lost my interest because of its dragging content. So, of late even if I used to sit in front of television it was either with a book or with my laptop in hand. But some 10 days back, a cute girl “Antara” managed to grab my attention finally on Zee so much so that her innocent looking face made me put that book down & watch the serial intently till the end. The end of that episode made me curious enough to wait for its next episode & lo’ now I’ve been watching “Aapki Antara” continuously for last week & a half. I must say it’s a damn nice serial which Zee is telecasting these days at 8:30 pm. Not only this, there are many new programs on each channel now which in terms of presentation and content are far cry as compared to their old counterparts. There is Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya hi Kijo on Zee, Bhaskar Bharti, Ladies Special & Entertainment ke liye kuch bhi karega on Sony and many others on channels like NDTV Imagine, Colors etc; surprisingly none of these are having the typecast indian saas, bahus or patis.

Thank god, finally Indian Television Industry has accepted the change in Indian Consumer’s taste! I had written about Sony re-branding on my marketing chit-chat blog earlier but well, in terms of content I think not only Sony rather the overall television industry has gone for a major facelift. I think soap producers have finally understood that today’s consumers prefer to watch a “Rock On” as against “Ek Vivaah Aisa Bhi” or a “Dostana” as against “Yuvraaj”. Like many other things, Indian consumer has undergone a change in their television viewing habit too and hence television producers need to keep up with times if they want to capture today’s generation. As of now I’m loving this change & I just hope they keep on innovating to sustain this change in the long run too :-).

It’s time for me to end this post & catch up on entertainment ke liye kuch bhi karega now 🙂

Updates from Marketing Chit-Chat: 1st June – 30th June’09

July 6, 2009
Posted these on Marketing Chit-Chat last month, would love to see your comment there:
  • Facebook URLs – Good for personal branding: Which one sounds better? http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?id=123456&ref=profile (dummy id) or http://www.facebook.com/kanupriyasindhu? Clearly 2nd one, isn’t it? Read More…
  • Re-branding of Sony Television: I got the chance to catch up on television tonight after almost 3-4 weeks & when I saw the complete video “ghar aayi hai khushi” today I realized that it’s a promo video of Sony channel itself. Read More…
  • It’s makeover time for Videocon: Saw an interesting cute green colored animation ad yesterday on one of the news channels, they were showing some birds & the reason for my increased curiosity along with resistance to switch channel during that break was the fact that those birds were somewhat resembling twitter bird . But that ad actually had nothing to do with twitter & to my surprise it ended to be of none other than the traditional consumer durable giant (or shall I say erstwhile giant) Videocon. The clipping ended with a message – change is happiness. Seeing such a major brand makeover from sturdy steel colored V to a fluid green colored V was indeed a happy change. Read More…