Advertising is not a one stop solution. Lessons to learn for Start-ups. Create value inward.

Learn from recent setbacks faced by highly valued companies like Byjus & Paytm

It is the dream of every entrepreneur to create a company with ever increasing customers, high valuation among investors and the brand name known all over the world. While pursuing these goals many of them forget that unless you invest in your product upgradation, employee satisfaction & customer loyalty there is no use in creating a brand value through heavy advertising through mass media. Recent issues faced by Byjus, Paytm and very recently Bharatpe are all examples now for any start-up company to learn some lessons.

Create value inward. Invest in your product, employees & customers

Even before Byjus was called in by the authorities for enquiry, the brand faced severe backlashes from its customers & employees. While customers were angry with the high intense personal-call marketing tactics (they would call an existing customer every day to market the same product)   followed by non-upgradation in the product quality (even a 6^th standard kid could find out spelling mistakes in their online study material), employees were angry at the pressure tactics used to make them meet high targets and the way they were sacked to be replaced by newcomers. The internet was already filled with the customer complaints and the bad-mouthing by erstwhile employees. (This same author had warned about this in a previous article in https://www.afaqs.com/news/advertising/hrithik-roshan-bats-for-whitehat-jr-what-will-this-do-to-the-brands-image) . Byjus as a unicorn company soared ahead with high valuation but it was losing its inhouse brand ambassadors (customers & employees). TATA group is an example where they invest continuously for generations in keeping their employees and customers loyal. Even when they face a tough situation, these two pillars - employees & customers – always stand behind them in full support. 

Slow and steady build a solid brand.

“Patience is a key element of success,” said Bill Gates. When a man who has created a great empire out of his business, we ought to give ears. In a recent talk show, Mr. Kochouseph Chittilappilly, the founder of the brands like V-Guard, Wonderla & Veegaland said “All of you know me now as a successful businessman. There were all those years behind where no one knew I existed. Business is about building it slow and steady.”

Most start-ups nowadays try to be a unicorn and scale up so fast that on the way up it stumbles and start falling. The higher you go the heavier will be the fall.  Recent issues faced by Byjus was due to its scaling up in all directions with high paced acquisitions and even the restrictions on Paytm came after its entry into every aspect of financial business available instead of focusing and stabilizing its main business as a payment app. These companies might of course come back but will pay a high price for its lapses. Start ups and entrepreneurs must learn the value of patience and build your brand slow and steady and keep all the physical and financial infrastructure in place before scaling up.

Follow the law of the land

The cardinal rule in any business to run in the long run is to follow the law of the land it operates. Just by creating high valuation and bringing in high profile investments is not a solution for your business to be in the run for a long time. Byjus was called in by the officials for flouting several laws of the country, Paytm is facing issues for not following several norms to be followed under RBI rules, Bharatpe is facing issues as its co-founder has been called in by officials for breaking financial laws. You can build a brand for a short run by spending heavily on mass advertising but keeping it alive in the long run needs to be by following the rules of the land. Great business thinkers has always said that the success of any brand, any product or any technology depends on the law of the land. Especially when you are a start up you have to know the laws, should be updated about the changes in the laws and adhere to them steadfastly. Unlike bigger companies a small company may not be able to face the financial struggle while facing legal issues. 

BRANDING LESSONS FROM ELECTION CAMPAIGNS

 

Roadshows alone won’t win hearts

State Elections Results 2021: A Branding POV

Every election campaign is a case study for marketers and branding professionals as these campaigns are aimed at convincing a large target audience within a short period of time. At the end of the day both a brand owner and a political party is trying to ‘win hearts’ by promising a value through their product/service.  Verdict of the audience on state elections 2021 is out and here is an opportunity for marketers or brand owners to learn how the winner could reach out to the target audience convincingly and how the losers couldn’t do so. Different states went under elections just now. Maybe what we are going to analyze here is applicable to all the states but let us stick to one state, Kerala, to make the analysis shorter and clear.

Road shows alone won’t win hearts: ATL alone won’t bring customers

All the three major political parties carried out road shows, yathras and mass rallies for the election campaign. But what made the winner smart is that the CPM under the leadership of Pinarayi Vijayan used their entire party machinery to go to the ground level and talk directly with the voters. They meticulously went door to door convincing the voters about their proposition, replying on the spot to clear the doubts in the minds of the voters. BJP and the congress depended more on road shows and yathras and mass rallies to ‘win hearts’. Here is an important lesson for brand owners too. ATL advertising or mass advertising in mass media like TV can make your brand name register in the mind of the consumers but if you want to convert that consumer as your customer, then you have to find ways to connect with your target audience directly through BTL advertising too. All avenues including digital medium will have to be used to connect with the target audience directly, introduce the product/service proposition, reply to their genuine concerns and be interactive. ‘Winning hearts’ is what creates a loyal customer and winning heart is not possible through one side communication but only through interactive communication.

Brand loyalty among your employees and trade partners

Any brand to be successful has to go through different channels of participation from the brand owner, inner core of the team, partners like dealers/distributors, retailers and so on before it reaches the final customer. Only if all these channels believe in your product/ service proposition, will they promote your brand to the end consumer. The winning party in Kerala and its leader did the same with their strategy. They convinced their political partners or allies about their stand on each subject, made them believe they are one for all & all for one and at times they even corrected according to the feedback from their local partners. This resulted in creating a unified voice in their campaign and this in turn made clarity in communication for the voters. This is another lesson for any marketer or brand owner. You cannot go out there and sell your product/service directly to every end consumer. Your distribution channels or anyone who takes your product/service to the end consumer should be seen as your brand ambassador. To do that you have to convince them that they are a mutual partner in your success story and for that you are ready to hear them out and do any corrections if necessary.

Clarity in brand proposition

Any campaign to reach your target audience should have clarity in your campaign proposition. The more positive the campaign thought is, the more receptive the target audience will be. LDF had a very clear slogan as their proposition whereas the UDF and NDA had vague communication platforms. ‘URAPPANU LDF URAPPANU THUDARBHARANAM’ (Sure it is LDF, Sure it is continuity for LDF) was very clear about what they are asking for and it showed the confidence in their approach. ‘naadu nannavan UDF’ ( to make this place better, vote for UDF) is a vague statement that anyone can put forward and there was a need to clarify how they are going to do it. ‘modikkoppam puthiya keralam’ (new Kerala with Modi) is also a vague statement which is not clear about the campaign platform or the brand proposition. Here is another lesson for a marketer/brand owner. Be clear first in your mind about what you are going to propose to your target audience. Create campaign platforms which will motivate your target audience to buy your product/service through clarity in your campaign thoughts and stick to the campaign platforms throughout your campaign period. Communicate in different levels to your target audience on what you mean by your campaign platform and what they can expect from your proposition.

Believe in your campaign platform and stick to it

Once the LDF decided on the campaign platform to have the word “Sure” in their slogan it is interesting to note that every leader, whether from the main party of the LDF or the smallest party in the LDF, tried to use that word even in their local press meets. This is a great example of how your campaign thought can be made popular among the public. The campaign platform should be believed in by the brand owner first and should adamantly try to stick on it during the campaign period. Everyone associated to the brand should be motivated to believe in that thought and they should propagate it whenever they get a chance. A campaign platform should be created after long thoughts over it and once decided has to stick on it rather than changing it during the course of the campaign.

Disclaimer: Pictures downloaded from internet just as reference images.

CHANGING LAWS WILL CHANGE THE LANGUAGE OF ADVERTISING

 

IT IS THE LAW THAT CREATE BIGGEST DISRUPTION IN BUSINESS. EVEN MORE THAN A PANDEMIC OR A DISASTER

  

We are amidst a pandemic that has shook the world and have created disruptions in businesses. It has forced us to change and create innovations in the way we live and do business. Still I believe the biggest disruption in any business is created by the laws of a state or a country. If you don’t agree imagine this. The pandemic has created lots of new business opportunities for eg. Sanitizers. But each state has different set of rules to procure, manufacture or distribute the contents which create sanitizers. So any business man who thinks this as an opportunity and invest in it should be aware of the laws that govern the industry he is investing in. Now imagine there is another business man who has huge supply of sanitizers with him and there is huge demand in another state but that state has stiff regulations to do this deal. Many people had started selling homemade cakes & bakery items to overcome the present financial burden but there are laws which they have to conform to even for such businesses. In states like Kerala the authorities have warned that unless these business-from-homes are registered under FSSAI they are liable to be prosecuted. So it is not the supply, demand or opportunity that creates or disrupts your business but it is the law that does it. An entrepreneur should never forget that any business in any country is governed by certain rules & regulations made by the respective governments. Even there will be different set of rules for different states within a country.

NEW LAWS FOR ADVERTISING (The Consumer Protection Regulation Act 2019)

From July 2020 a new law has been implemented in the field of advertising and without knowing this new law it would be suicidal for any business house or advertising companies to go ahead doing earlier kind of advertising. The new law seeks to hold manufacturers, service providers, advertising companies and celebrity endorsers accountable for ads, stipulating heavy fines and even jail terms for misleading claims. There is a provision in the new law which allows for ‘e-filing’ of complaints and a video conferencing option to participate in complaint redressal. Gone are the days of escaping from customer complaints by simply stating on your documents or packages that any dispute can be filed in the remotest place on earth.  Till now we had only ASCI (Advertising Standards Council of India) as a self regulator which had no legal authority to prosecute the offenders. Now, a Central Consumer Protection Authority, headed by a government-appointed chief commissioner, will be set up in Delhi to regulate violations of consumer rights, unfair trading practices and false or misleading advertisements. And keep in mind this new law is not applicable only for the traditional media of advertisements but also for the new age media like the digital.

CELEBRITIES, BRAND OWNERS, AD COMPANIES BEWARE

This new law brings into its umbrella everyone involved in the marketing of a product and even the so-called digital delivery platforms or aggregators are also held responsible for false claims or misleading advertisements. The biggest move is to bring the celebrities who endorse a product into the ambit of this new law which for sure will make celebrities think twice before doing blind endorsements without checking the facts of their claims. Guilty manufacturers and service providers face jail terms of up to two years, along with fines of up to ₹10 lakh. Celebrities found endorsing misleading ads can be fined up to ₹10 lakh. For repeat offences, the new authority can impose a fine of up to ₹50 lakh and a jail term of up to five years. It can also bar a celebrity from endorsing ads for up to a year, extending it to three years for repeat offenders.

HOW DOES THIS CHANGE THE LANGUAGE OF ADVERTISING

We are in the midst of lots of false claims by even the biggest of brands in the country. Most celebrities even don’t care what they are endorsing as far as they are paid hefty sums. For eg. The 99% germ free ads has become so outdated that people now see only that one germ that remains on the screen as every ad looks and claims the same for similar products. People know these claims are outright false ones that they don’t even care whether it is 99% or 95%.  All this will have to change with the new law. The approach and language of advertising in marketing a product or service is going to change or else you will be held responsible by the consumer as this new law is giving full control over to the consumer. This will bring back good copy, good content, based on sound strategies back into play in the field of advertising. This will bring back the creativity of thinking how to place the product or service into the consumers mind by sticking to the originality of the product or service rather than with misleading loud false claims. Advertising companies will have to work more closer with the brand owners to create brand awareness on a long term basis rather than the short term loud speaker ones. As an advertising professional who always believe in the power of good advertising, I personally am more than happy with this change in law. Good advertising for me is simply communicating the true good elements of a product or service to the consumer in such a way that the consumer finds it satisfies a need or solves a problem for him/her. Bringing in a celebrity for the sake of influencing a consumer with false claims is not good advertising. Offering discounts which you don’t get in reality is not good advertising. So the new law for sure will make the brand owners, ad companies and the celebrities more responsible toward the messages in their ads. This would bring a more level field to play with words and visuals and only the real professionals would be able to create ads which help a brand to be on top of mind of the consumer. Both advertising industry and brand owners will have to innovate to adapt to this new disruption which is going to be out there in the market, even after the pandemic has left us. So all the stake holders in these industries better learn the rules by-heart so that they won’t be forced to leave the field of play.

Branding in the Time of Corona

“Florentina Ariza had kept his answer ready for fifty-three years, seven months and eleven days and nights. 'Forever,' he said.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
The great novel gives us a message - even if you have to face uncertainties in life, patience will lead you to your goal. At times we may have to step back to reach that ultimate aim. A brand owner has to be patient to make his customer loyal to the brand just like the lead character in that ever-famous novel by Marquez. It is not about bragging about what you have but end of the day it is about the customer falling in love with your brand.
 

Branding in the Time of Corona

These are testing times to the human species as a whole and every individual has a responsibility towards the global community in fighting this out. The corona virus has unleashed never seen terror among people through COVID 19 and every brand is getting affected by its devastating hold. So what should Brands do during these testing times?

Do’s and Don’ts

Be Silent – This is not the right time to try to sell your products or services through advertising. Nobody is going to even read out what you have to offer unless it is useful for their daily life to face this difficult situation. For eg. A bank should refrain from offering their products like fixed deposits, A hospital need not advertise about its huge infrastructure or equipments, A retail showroom need not offer discounts to lure customers. On one end these won’t get any eyeballs from your target audience and from another end the customers in these troubled times would look your brand as just plain insensitive. On the other hand a hospital can advertise its new video consultation services, a bank can advertise its digital services especially those services which may help the customer financially during these difficult times like allowing them to overdraw their salary accounts, a retail showroom can allow their customers to buy online and allow returns & exchanges on such purchases or even introduce EMI schemes so that the customer can pay later for their apparel purchases.

Care your customer from your distant shores – Brand loyalty is all about making the customer feel the brand as their own. It is not about the colour of the logo or the emblem but it is all about the perception of a customer on a brand’s ability to satisfy their personal needs, it is about the perception of the customer about how a brand cares them. For eg., When a bank advertises about all the covid care measures but don’t even sanitize their ATMs a customer doesn’t feel the brand cares them. When a hospital advertises about their infrastructure the customer may not notice them but when the hospital provides sanitizers for free it may connect to the general public. When a retail showroom announces discounts the customer may not even look at it where as when it does something to give out masks to the general public it may get noticed. In short it is not about shouting in their ear but about caring your customer to overcome these tough times.

Be patient, Shut your mouth – These are the times when the authorities under the Govt. and everyone world over are trying to spread the message about how to fight COVID 19. There is no need for the brands too to spread the same messages. Just sending the same messages they get from every other source along with your brand logo doesn’t make any change in the daily life of your customer in these difficult times except you are one more another person who clutters their mobiles and mail boxes. So be patient, shut your mouth and open it only when you feel you have an idea which may contribute your customer another tool to fight this deadly disease. Save your money & resources spend on useless advertising, wait for the good times and wait for your loyal customer to return to you on their own at the end of this mayhem.

Experiential branding – This is the time to create experiences for your customer that influences their perception about you. The other day I saw a 3 star hotel in my town, which was not that popular earlier, being appreciated by everyone passing by. What they did was simple. They put out their hand wash sink on the pavement outside their hotel walls which can be used by at least 5 people at a time to wash their hands with soap and water. Now this is what makes the customers notice than the hotel spending huge sums on advertising in mass media. These are little things for a brand to think about but make huge difference in the perceptions of the customer. They experience the care directly rather than the brand speaking for itself. When your target audience is facing difficult times create experiences for them which might reduce their pain a bit. Yes that too should be considered as a branding exercise for the brand’s long term benefit.

'The Hindu' - the mainstream Indian newspaper had the guts to publish an ad in their own newspaper saying it bluntly against the misuse of ad space during these difficult times. Kudos to them for saying it on the face.

EXIT TRADITIONAL HOARDINGS. ENTER DIGITAL WALLS.

What it means to Brands down South?

Static Advertising will change to Real-time Interactive Advertising

End of the Traditional Hoardings/bill boards

Two decades back we were amazed by the huge painted hoardings on a highway or bill boards on top of a high rise building. The people who painted such exquisite works were called artists, even the great M.F Husain was one of them. All of a sudden entered flex printing technology and all those artists went jobless and nobody even knows how they survived later on in their lives. Not everyone is a M.F Husain in any way. Every brand moved on to hoarding advertisements using flex printing and the past decade saw huge developments in such hoarding advertisements. Now we don’t know what will happen to business men, both small & big players, in this field. In every field it is inevitable that new technology will replace older ones and that is what happened to the painted hoardings of yester year. Smart brand owners would have easily adapted to the change as they will be always updated about such technological changes. But in our country, especially down South, we never really get ready for changes that come up in future due to changes in the laws of the country. Now the time has come to say good bye to the hoardings/bill boards as we see a huge change in the way the law perceives such huge hoarding constructions. After all though a horse rickshaw might seem economical, environment friendly and a low cost maintenance option, if the law does not permit it on the road we have no other way but to change our mode of transport isn’t it?

Hoardings as an advertising medium 

Hoardings are one of the biggest components of the media mix in South India now. The rise in cost of advertisements in print & electronic media and ineffectiveness of the digital marketing activities due to the absurd handling of the digital media space by spurious digital marketing agencies also have contributed to brand owners spending a huge amount from their media budget for hoardings as part of their OOH advertising campaigns.  Governments, Courts & Environmentalists have time and again warned about the dangers of the flex material used for hoardings and the danger of the huge hoarding constructions itself. While most of the major cities in North India have moved on to other methods of erecting hoardings, here in South India especially Kerala we still go on erecting even unauthorized hoardings and use every trick in the book to sell them to brand owners. Brand owners too seems to be unaware about the changing perception about such flex printed huge hoardings and are going on spending huge budgets on such advertisements. Chennai for instance had banned flex hoardings years back and they have kept such boards out of the city limits for past several years. Now the latest instance of an unfortunate death of a girl in a mishap involving a huge flex board is sending repercussions around the brand owners and the first ones to see the need to change are the biggest spenders on hoardings – film fraternity. Both Tamil and Malayalam industry leaders have come out with statements clearly against use of such hoardings in their future campaigns. Brand owners will have to follow suit not out of the need but out of the necessity to abide the law enforcement agencies.

Now what next?

We South Indians have a general attitude towards change and are well known for being late to adapt to changes most of the times. So what next for OOH advertising should be phrased as ‘what is the present’ in hoarding advertising just because world over and even in major cities in India digital bill boards have already replaced traditional hoardings? Digital bill boards are using digital images or videos to show advertisements. These are environment friendly and at the same time cost effective to both the hoarding companies and the brand owners. Cost effective for the companies erecting digital boards as they can sell same space to multiple companies. Cost effective for the brand owners because they can use a same space to advertise different messages per day or even per hour. 

Change in advertising approach

Digital bill boards are already in and it is going to stay for quite some time though the medium may change drastically along with the progress in new age technologies. For instance we may not have to wait for many years to see digital moving walls and even digital advertisements on moving vehicles as already commercial production of flexible screens have started in more developed countries. A product coming out of a screen and talking to us personally or a brand ambassador coming out of a screen on a street and talking to us about a product are not imaginary concepts any more with the advent of new age technology applications of virtual reality and artificial intelligence. So it is high time brand owners looked at these prospects and be ready to use such new mediums. What this means for your advertising strategy? A change in advertising content is inevitable as we are moving towards a digital, more interactive medium from a still image based content used in flex printed hoardings.

In shorter terms be ready to change your existing static communication content to real-time interactive communication content. This needs a lot more new set of tools & ideas to make your advertising content relevant to such new mediums. If still thinking this is not going to happen in the near future just check how many advertisements in a print medium like a newspaper or magazine you can see at least a QR code which is the basic tool to make a static print advertisement more interactive. This means even the print media which is the most static advertising message tool is adapting itself towards being interactive. Again down South most of the brands use a QR code just to divert the customer to the website or face book only to see the same advertisement displayed there where as smart brand custodians use such tools to make the customer interact with the brand or product and even initiate a purchase directly through that tool. Brand owners will have to be more focused on their idea or the story about their brand and the communication will have to be more interesting to the viewer in future rather than just announcing what the product or the brand wants to communicate. Every disruption brings in the need of new expertise and it is time to think how to adapt to this future challenge.

In-film branding & Content Marketing down South

Though late as always, Kerala brands are waking up to content marketing. Thanks to demonetization, the subsequent fall in business and less black money to flaunt around, business houses in Kerala are now thinking different. From the all-out spending on creating television commercials & traditional advertising they are slowly but steadily moving towards content driven advertising including online & in-film branding and they have started to look for other avenues for their marketing communications. But as usual there seems to be a tendency to misuse these new mediums both in terms of creative content and expenditure on such media. This might be either because of the ignorance about the basic concepts of such marketing tools or just because of the age old misconception of advertising - ‘the more you spend the more it reaches out and the more you spend the more you should have voice in such content’. Times have changed. It is not how much you advertise but what you advertise that matters. Today content is the King. Future is in content driven marketing ideas and the content will be influenced and even created by customers.

In-film branding

Recently I happened to watch a Malayalam movie which had in-film branding by about a dozen brands in Kerala. Unfortunately it was done in such a bad way that it didn’t do any good to the movie or the brand as such. The basic concept of in-film branding is that our brand subtly slips into the narrative of the film rather than shouting at every opportune moment. In most of the recent films we can see blatant use of in-film branding techniques which makes a negative impact on the viewer’s mind rather than a positive affiliation to the brand. It would be good if some basic points are kept in mind while going for such branding techniques.

·         Viewer is sitting out there in the theater to watch the film not our brand. So never should our brand be shouting at the viewer in between the film’s story line.

·         Whatever be the brand’s spend on a movie, tweaking the story line to suit the needs of the brand should never be done as it spoils both the brand and the movie. First the movie gets spoilt by such in-film branding and second it results in wastage of money for the brand to be in a flop movie.

·         Hear out the whole story line and decide whether your brand could fit in somewhere in the story line. For eg. a movie about atrocities in a medical institution and your hospital brand being used in the film as that hospital will be disastrous for your brand.

·         Do not shout your brand at your audience because you are not airing your TV commercial within a film. Keep in mind that James Bond is not every now and then waving his Omega watch at the audience; rather it is a device that helps him all his way. James Bond is not mouthing out the words ‘I am using an Omega watch” rather the brand is promoting James Bond films in their other communication materials.

Content Marketing

Though content marketing has reached its advanced stages in India and abroad, Kerala brands still don’t use content marketing as a part of their marketing tools. Online is all about content which is relevant to the viewer. Even Social Media like FB, Twitter etc. are used in a wrong sense by most Kerala brands just as another medium to showcase their print ads or TV commercials. Better be aware of some basic points while using online as a medium.

·         Internet is a medium which can be used to make loyal customers but it can be done only by giving them relevant content. For eg. a print ad put out as an FB post wont create a customer for your saree showroom but a relevant information about a particular cloth material may create interest in the mind of an FB user.

·         Nobody is going to search out and see your TV commercial in YouTube. Create short films, music and other contents which help out to reach your brand to viewers instead of posting your TV Commercials.

·         Think yourself as an FB user. The third time you see an irrelevant post from a business house or a brand you would hide such posts. So no need to insist on daily posts of your brand in social media. Rather go for interesting posts keeping intervals between the posts and make sure they are relevant for your target consumer.

·         Internet is not only about social media and social media is not only about FB, twitter & Instagram. It is a wide wide world out there which includes blogs, travelogues and much more. Use online media in such a way that internet has rich content about your brand or product, again make sure it is relevant to the reader.

·          Mobile games, mobile apps are all alternatives to increase your brand visibility but again it all depends on how you create content specifically for these mediums.

·         Last but not the least, online marketing is all about interactivity and even a single post on FB can create interactive sessions with your customers if they feel it is beneficial for them to interact. Better stop shouting online about what you have to say about your brand/product and start speaking what your target audiences want to hear.