To change or not to change

Change is good. It symbolises evolution. Yet a lot of corporations are faced with a dilemma of whether they should change or not. When Asian Paints wanted to get a corporate makeover, they decided it was time to bid goodbye to their mascot of many years-Gattu-the cute little mischievous boy. Little did the company realise that his absence would be surely felt.

HMV instantly brings to mind the image of a dog listening faithfully to his master’s voice coming out from the gramophone. After the company saw its profit dip by 20%, it felt the time had come for a change. So it’s replaced the old dog Nipper with a new one (from the Wallace & Gromit Series) called Gromit. People love the old logo and the company is not taking chances. It says the new logo is only for a few months–its focus being on selling children’s DVDs.

NBC after all burnt its fingers when it changed its logo to a capital ‘N’, way back in the mid 70’s. ‘N’ lacked the charm of the peacock and did not go down well with the public. It was changed back to the peacock, a few years later.

Just changing is not the solution. You need to do so with caution as sometimes sudden changes upset people. Quaker Oats modified the Quaker Man on its package over a 10 year period to avoid undermining customer confidence.

Long lasting logos

You need to design your logo with caution. A good logo is one which won’t lose its charm too quickly. After all logos need to be cared for and nurtured and it takes millions of bucks to make them popular. A logo, it’s said, works on the heart of the consumer. Think Nike... its logo symbolised a whole generation. Carolyn Davidson created it in 1971 for only $35. Today’s youth swears by Google... a logo which actually was the misspelling of the word “googol”. More people in America recognised the AT&T logo (93%) than the name of their President. Come to think of it, AT&T changed its logo design almost 70 times till it finalised on the current one!

Logos are small, but they depict large images and create long lasting impressions. Think of Superman & his logo – the large ‘S’ – is probably the most lovable and most recognised logo ever created. Some logos are just everlasting, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, BMW... you never tire of seeing them and you always like them.

Logos are strong symbols that have the power to unite, not just organisations, but people too. If Wipro’s rainbow flower helps unite its diverse business, then “Om” unites all Hindus & the “Cross” unites all Christians. Logos are more than just graphic designs. They are, in fact, pint size power houses! And by now, I’m sure you agree...

Copyright © :-Rajita chaudhuri and Planman Media

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist)

Celebrities and Brand Wars

Yes, celebrities today are fighting it out for the brands. If Dena Bank roped in Juhi Chawla, then Bank of Rajasthan got the dream girl Hema Malini. Dabur, such a popular, old and trusted brand name of India, required Amitabh to help Chyawanprash fight aggressive players like Himalaya, Zandu etc.

Back in 2002, Pepsi agreed to pay the then pop princess Britney Spears $8 millions for two ads. Popular faces are helping to make brands become popular too – even if it costs the moon.

War with TiVo

Some years back, Nokia and Pepsi tied up with a leading television producer to make a unique show with no commercials. Instead, they said, the advertising message would be incorporated into the show. It shows how advertisers are getting anxious about the rise of personal video recorders like TiVo, which make it easy for viewers to skip commercials. As TV set manufacturers and cable companies are increasingly building such recorders directly into their equipment, advertisers are forced to find way to place their ads in such a way that they don’t get forwarded. As in the above example, Pepsi & Nokia are ready to shell out $1 million an hour to showcase their products/brand names on the TV show.

The Super Bowl’s allure has increased – thanks to TiVo. This is because Super Bowl is live and least affected by TiVo. It would be one of the few shows, which millions of Americans would watch without zipping through commercials. A 30 second spot could cost anywhere around $2.6 million! Nevertheless, companies are ready to pay. They would get a chance to show their best and most finely made ads – for people would actually be watching the ads for once. Those who would record the Super Bowl using TiVo would do so to forward the game & watch the ads in leisure.


Technology has made it a whole new world for advertisers. You need to create ads that are entertaining enough to get people to stop fast-forwarding. As Steve Pacheco of FedEx put it very correctly, “The ads now need to be designed knowing that they might be watched more closely, more than once and on different platforms. The ad now needs to stand up to being seen live, played back on a DVR, viewed over the web or even downloaded on an iPod.”

You need to make sure you give nothing but the best. Your ad needs to work harder and smarter now. It should not only deliver the message in a few seconds, but should be visually alluring too. Advertising is not just about creativity, it’s also about big bucks!

Copyright © :-Rajita chaudhuri and Planman Media

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist)

BIG BUCKS

Want to break through the growing clutter of TV ads? Don’t just make ads; make larger than life ad films and spend the big bucks!

Nicole Kidman, is running gazelle like, being pursued by paparazzi in a cityscape lined with billboards bearing her image. She ducks into a taxi to escape and orders the driver to drive. Little does she realize a sultry Brazilian is seated beside her. Kidman escapes with him. He does not know who she is. She claims to be a dancer. After four days of a fairy tale like life, she realizes she can’t escape from reality and needs to go back. And so she does, leaving the Brazilian wistful, remembering only “her kiss, her smile, her perfume.” The film finishes with a one minute rolling of credits.

This film cost £18 million to produce. Its not a feature film… but a 180 seconds advert for Chanel’s No.5 perfume. The very same perfume which was made famous by Marilyn Monroe when she claimed that all she wore to bed was Chanel No.5. Today, however, with Britney’s perfume being the fastest selling one, Chanel No.5 is considered to be a scent you buy in the airport for your grandma for her birthday. Chanel needed a face lift and Nicole Kidman loved the concept, for the ad showcased her as the “most famous woman in the world.”

Is this the future of ad films? Many say yes. According to a survey done by TiVo about the TV commercials that get fast-forwarded the least, the ones with special effects featured a lot on this list , especially the ads of movies with special effects. No wonder then, ad films are getting slicker, more technically superior – and they are costing a lot.

If you need to keep the fingers of the viewers off the remote, you need to do a whole lot of interesting stuff. You can’t just make a good ad film. You need to make one which gets talked about and which people enjoy watching.

Way back in the early 90’s, Lehar Pepsi was launched in India. The ad featured Remo Fernandes and Juhi Chawla. It was a hit and became a much talked about ad, for this was the first of the Indian ads which touched the Rs.1 crore mark! Today, Rs.1 crore has become commonplace. Be it Happydent, Thums Up, Mahindra Scorpio, Fevicol, Pepsi Gold and a whole lot more advertisements that were shown last year – all cost about Rs.1 crore. If you want to be noticed you need to spend Rs.1 crore minimum.

Ad Films or Feature Films?

Today, the line of difference between ad films and feature films is thinning. More and more actors are replacing models in the ad films. More and more film directors are becoming ad film makers. Of course, the budgets are sky-rocketing – some times getting even bigger than the budgets of the feature films. In fact, with so much moolah involved in ad films, more & more feature film companies have started making ad films to earn quick bucks. Yash Raj Films, now has a Yash Raj Ad cell, which wrapped up 20 commercials for Dabur Chyawanprash & Hajmola with Amitabh Bachchan.

There is so much of advertising & so much of clutter. The easiest way to break through it is by using a celebrity & feature film makers have the easiest access to them. No wonder Videocon went to Santosh Sivan when they featured Shahrukh Khan in their ads. This is not a new trend; back in the 60’s, B. R. Chopra did the Lux soap ads, for it required film actresses.

One of the most expensive TV ads was of Apple Macintosh. It, too, was created by Ridley Scott who directed movies like Gladiator, Hannibal, Blade Runner, Alien et al. After all, a feature film’s fate is decided every Friday, while ad films – if good – have a much larger life.

Cost Consideration

You need people to notice your ad – you need to spend. When it comes to creating an impact, no one is doing cost calculations today. Brands are ready to go all out just so that you give them a second glance. ICICI didn’t hesitate to pay Big B Rs.10 crore, so that he could endorse their product. Coke and Pepsi for years have been using celebrities to keep their products on top. Other brands are learning this trick too.

To stay on top, you need very aggressive advertising. Ask Maruti, which lost some of its gloss and a virtual monopoly in the small car segment as other players entered the market.

Take the white goods market of refrigerators, washing machines, et al. With so many players in the market, if they don’t market & advertise aggressively, there would be a huge inventory pile up. No wonder companies like Samsung, LG, Phillips – all popular brand names – still advertise so heavily. Cost is no concern here. They would do almost anything to stand out.

Copyright © :-Rajita chaudhuri and Planman Media

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist)

Behind every grave crisis lurks a truly golden opportunity

IIPM - Admission Procedure

Forget Chicken Little. Think “Holy cow!” That’s what you’ll be saying when you see the once-in-a-lifetime deals that are suddenly popping up all over the place, the strategic acquisitions that never seemed possible before and the warehouses of assets selling at massive discounts. Every economic, industry or business crisis inevitably spawns such extraordinary opportunities. You just have to have the foresight to be looking for them... and the guts to grab them. Look, we are not saying you should not worry about the current unsettled environment. Two months ago in this column, we ourselves noted that the era of low cost money was swiftly coming to a close, and that there would certainly be painful consequences for many banks, private equity firms and individual investors. But in our view, this credit crisis is just a financial-sector crunch, not an economic Armageddon. Like all cycles, this one will play itself out in several months or a year – two years at the most. Think of the savings- and-loan debacle in the 1990s, the Mexican Peso devaluation in ’95, the Asian financial crisis in ’97 and the tech-bubble burst in 2000.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
IIPM is A World of Career
Why Study Abroad When IIPM Gives You 3 global Advantages!
IIPM, GURGAON
ARINDAM CHAUDHURI’S 4 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD CHOOSE IIPM...

The sub-prime crunch can help American companies become leaner and meaner.

When IIPM comes to education, never compromise

Q: Is the current mortgage crisis the beginning of the end for the United States economy?

– Jacques Wullschleger, Jupiter, Fla.

A: Do you mean, is the sky finally falling? We would not blame you for putting your question in that manner, given the US market’s volatility over the past few weeks. Recently, there has been a spate of high profile bankruptcies involving United States businesses, such as those at New Century and American Home Mortgage, and the recent closure of the respected hedge fund Sowood Capital Management. And that’s not to mention the big privateequity deals that are hanging precariously, or, like the last week’s sale of Home Depot’s wholesale supply unit, being sharply renegotiated in the eleventh hour. No, we would only blame you if your question meant you were thinking of running for cover right now, or worse, hunkering down. Because for many individuals and companies, right now happens to be the perfect time to venture out – in fact, even to get aggressive.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
IIPM - Admission Procedure
IIPM is A World of Career
Why Study Abroad When IIPM Gives You 3 global Advantages!

Globus goes for it!

IIPM, GURGAON

Fashion retail chain Globus (of the Rajan Raheja Group) is on an expansion spree. It plans to invest a whopping Rs.8 billion to open 130 stores across 70 cities over the next five years. Currently, Globus has 19 stores. According to reports, it will have 70 stores in tier-II towns, 35 in tier-I cities and between 25 and 30 in tier-III cities. The chain has also roped in reigning Bollywood diva Kareena Kapoor as its new brand ambassador.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
IIPM, ADMISSIONS FOR NEW DELHI & GURGAON BRANCHES
ARINDAM CHAUDHURI’S 4 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD CHOOSE IIPM...
IIPM Economy Review

The traditional Google home page

The traditional Google home page has brought tremendous reviews in the first few years, but now the design looks a bit outdated. Google needs to have a more innovative, attractive and user friendly design. Google has always had an impeccable record on the technology platform, a legacy of its founders, Brin & Page. But has been criticised for weak marketing. If this weakness is not taken care of, customers could soon start availing of services provided by other search engines. When Google started its journey, search was a commodity, rather than a unique differentiating factor. Google changed that status quo and built a massive fortune almost exclusively on search. But as the company itself would realise, that it cannot go on the same way. Besides acquiring companies like YouTube to get into new exciting growth areas in the internet space, Google will have to make some dramatic initiatives to ensure that it means much more to its customers than a huge mathematical number.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Web Mail

It would not come as a surprise to many, considering how Yahoo has been making some smart marketing innovations. Yahoo’s new portal services like web mail, stylish searches, Yahoo Answers in selected results, Yahoo Photos/Flickr search and removal of irritating Weather or News shortcuts have made it the talk of the town. Google is still the undisputed title holder for searches, but lost in the arena of promotion of its new additional features, like iGoogle page or Google Maps. Search results with video & news into content, changing AdWords background colours & dropping Froogle, which are blamed for plummeting its customer satisfaction. A Google spokeswoman commented on the survey results, “We are continually working to provide the best online experience for our users and welcome strong competition that helps in market innovation.” This insignificant decline may not worry Google, but the company must realize that Yahoo’s score this year represents a changing trend in the psyche and perception of customers towards search engines. The perceptions of customers towards Yahoo changed after Yahoo’s re-launch of its home page. The web page was redesigned but Yahoo made sure of keeping all the old offerings.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

A ‘point’ to ponder...

Google’s dominance is under threat
Unlike its namesake, Yahoo has hardly got the opportunity for a victory cheer ever since it was upstaged by Google on literally every front in the search engine space. Not until now that is. For the first time in the last five years, Google has lost its championship belt to Yahoo in the critical aspect of customer satisfaction, as per the American Customer Satisfaction Index conducted by University of Michigan. This year, Yahoo was a point ahead of Google at 79. This search engine survey also indicated a resurrection of sorts for infamous search portals like Ask.com, AOL, MSN et al. In particular, Ask.com achieved the highest increase in customer satisfaction this year of 6%. Ask.com could in fact prove to be a well-armed rival for the major search engines in the coming years as it has strong search technology & impressive features too. Larry Freed, CEO, Fore See Results (which sponsored the ACSI report) commented, “People have gotten comfortable with the (Yahoo) interface. They have also done a good job in continuing to be dominant in communities and sub-functions of the portal.”

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

limited and similar radio channels

Says Amitava Sinha, MD, Rediffusion DY&R: “So far with limited and similar radio channels, the highest reach has been the best buy…but with increasing fragmentation of the industry this equation is likely to change and each of the channels will have their own respective clientele.” Riya Mukherjee, Senior VP, Radio Mirchi, agrees and adds that radio “is forcing clients to think more locally and not just in terms of print or TV advertisements…. Radio gives advertisers a chance to reach out to local consumers.” Clearly, with radio finding firmer feet in the Indian landscape, the medium’s reach is expanding with every passing day, endearing it that much more to marketers, more so as a powerful local medium. In terms of penetration radio already scores as high as 99% (AIR). Charles, VP, Marketing,Hello FM (run by Daily Thanthi newspaper, Chennai) says, “We had campaigns from political parties like AIADMK, Congress, DMDK etc. When political parties understand FM’s importance as a medium of advertisement, you can easily guess the sea change it can make in the advertising industry.”

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Radio waves

The action plan is to throng every nook and canny of the nation with radio waves, from the beaches in Maharashtra to the deserts of Rajasthan. In effect, it would be tonic to the industry and infuse a wave of fresh breath and energy into the medium. On the flip side, rapid expansion is fast transforming radio into a me-too medium, with every additional channel churning out more of the same. “There is no real programming difference among current channels…and with new channels jumping into the fray, success will completely depend on how much localised and distinctive content you offer,” exclaims strategy and brand consultant , Priya Raj. This effectively means that a lot of product fragmentation will have to take place to absorb newer channels, in turn emphasizing that even radio audiences will get further fragmented into niches. Media analysts believe that it will massively impact the advertising landscape.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

New age fairy tale

The sleeping beauty is awake! But, is she ready for more?
As kids, most of us were fond of fairy tales, and an all time favourite was the saga of the Sleeping Beauty. Remember the beautiful princess who goes into a slumber because of a wicked witch’s spell? But finally after 100 years, a prince and his magical kiss awakens the princess. The tale of India’s radio industry is identical. Though the oldest and cheapest electronic medium, radio was on death bed (thanks to the stringent government policies) till about a few years ago. But just when naysayers were lifting their pens to write obituaries for the medium, the good fairy’s magic worked and policymakers loosened stringent policies, implemented privatisation, ushered in the revenue sharing regime, and opened up the sector to 20% FDI. The magic kiss truly awakened India’s radio industry.... For example, while in the license fee regime, a radio channel was at best able to earn an EBITDA of 8%, now with the revenue sharing structure, the same has gone upto a whopping 53% today. Going forward, the I&B Ministry has recently given approval to another 175 new radio channels, to be launched by the end of 2007.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Hamara Bajaj

The Rehman ad or the Hamara Bajaj ad or an India-Pakistan cricket match seems to achieve far more in terms of patriotism or soaring spirits than most of these ads put together. Why? Because, everything considered, these ads don’t seem to be able to add any value to the core content; all they seem to do is force feed words and phrases that attempt to signify the spirit of the occasion. Result? They look and sound corny, boring, unimaginative, uninteresting, fake, propagating nothing more than hollow posturing…

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Pretentious, Expensive Dramabazi or Passionate Corporate Patriotism?

Badal Das, a Professor of Sociology, bemoans this 15th August aberration as “an amazing opportunity, lost.” He reckons that it is not everyday that the cut-throat world of business has an opportunity to actually exploit the emotional-patriotic space in a creative fashion without really focusing excessively on the sell factor… “a canvas which is invitingly open for exciting inventiveness with a captive audience – in patriotic mood and mode – ready to absorb the communication across media. After all it is a very special day and even the most hardened sceptic will be willing to relent in the face of the popular mood of the moment. Unfortunately, for unknown reasons, what we are deluged with are variations of dull ads. Sad…” While the jury is not fully out on this one, some take-outs are worth …taking out!

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

“Herd mentality”

It wasn’t about what got you doing an ad for I-Day, but rather what you lost by not doing it, while the other guys did it! It was - and has become a kind of “herd mentality” movement, an ego issue, a keeping up with the whoever’s-of-theworld game! You are not perceived as a ‘politically correct’ organisation (pun intended), if you don’t run these ads! JWT NCD Josy Paul agrees. He believes that most of the stuff dished out on August 15th does zilch to make any sane/normal person puff out his chest with patriotic pride and it’s largely because it seems to have been done “either to mindlessly honour a time tested tradition or saab ko khush karne ke liye! Unfortunately very little thought is invested in making it engaging, interesting, imaginative or fresh in thought or insight, towards blending a product promise with a patriotic spin. It can be a truly exciting challenge and a terrific opportunity to attempt clutter-busting stuff…” Paul speaks of the time when he recently visited a plant in Roorkee during its inauguration and how, when the national anthem was played, his hair stood on end and he wept! “For me, that was hugely moving and meaningful, symbolising rootedness in the soil where I stood. I don’t get that same feeling for any of those ads nowadays.”

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Amul and Mother dairy

And the MNCs will have to outperform these indigenous players – Amul and Mother Dairy. Through a formidable build up of logistics capabilities over the years, these players have proliferated the dairy business from a mere milk business to several milk based product businesses. “I think that becomes necessary in food business, so even if you are a co-operative company, you need to add value to your products. Constant value addition has enabled us to enrich our dairy portfolio,” feels Paul Thachil, CEO, Mother Dairy India Ltd.. Value addition with massive expansion strategies has enabled Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (GCMMF), Amul and National Dairy Development Board & Mother Dairy to corner global giants like HUL. Sources from Amul reveal us this success mantra. As a dairy firm, they have an edge of having their own procurement hub; what became necessary was spreading their network faster than HUL could. However, unlike Nestlé, HUL never paid heed to having a full fledged dairy unit.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Litres of milk

The Bentonville beast has set up an extensive target of sourcing 1.5 million litres of milk per day and once the complete sourcing mechanism is in place, it will start working on setting up a dairy processing unit. Clearly, Wal-Mart is trying to milk out every possible opportunity from Indian soil. Companies entering this sector are avid for alliances with local part ners. And with Indian dairy farms being still dominated by small-scale unorganised sectors, which are loaded with poor infrastructure and a plethora of other issues, local players have all reasons to tie-up with global players. Cashing in on this inherent symbiosis, Nestlé India has tied-up with Andhra Pradesh based Heritage Foods India Ltd, Bengal’s Nester & Maharashtra’s Dynamix Dairy. With definite conviction, Nestlé is strengthening its sourcing hub across India and hence it’s palpable that the FMCG giant has put a stymie to the much hyped market buzz of exiting the dairy business. The FMCG giant is upbeat on this oyster segment and has already created Moga in Punjab into a procurement haven. So it’s no surprise that the Moga unit contributes an extensive amount of one million litres of milk per day to keep Nestlé’s milky affair a non-stop one. What Wal-Mart and Nestlé are trying to do now, two of the country’s leading co-operative majors have been doing for the past three decades.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Serenading the Indian ‘cash cow’!

The Indian dairy sector is bracing itself for an ‘organised’ upheaval
Tired of haggling with your milkman every morning over petty issues? Well, he deserves your sympathy rather than your scorn, for your neighbourhood milkman may soon be a thing of the past, thanks to ‘organised’ intervention in the sector both from India and overseas. With Wal-Mart CEO Lee and his team hunching out massive plans to ‘milk’ super colossal profits from the dairy sector in India, you could well imagine events getting quite nasty for the largely unorganised players. In the same league, Yakult Danone India, a joint venture between Japan based Yakult Honsha & Group Danone of France, is also gearing up to roll out their manufacturing unit for dairy products near the capital. With India being the largest producer of milk in the world & Rabo India Finance extrapolating Indian dairy market to reach an exorbitant Rs.4.4 trillion, players across the globe have lined up to mint money from the Indian cash cow. The world’s largest retailer – Wal-Mart will soon start sourcing milk directly from farmers in northern Indian states. To rope in as many farmers as possible and also to grab some from rivals, Wal-Mart is offering prices phenomenally higher than existing players.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative