Amazon - An Innovation Powerhouse!

An annoying interstitial ad forced me to post it on my facebook page as a sign of protest. It is funny how social network makes you feel as if you are actually powerful. I will save a detailed note on this psychological e-phenomenon for future, but I must say that the ad did what it was supposed to do. Discounting the fact that I didn’t end up buying the colourful bagpacks, the ad did manage to attract my attention. It also made me promote it (unwittingly!) to my 500+ internet buddies on facebook.

 

The brand that was advertising vociferously on my daily news website was Amazon. Huh.

Amazon is everywhere these days. It has slowly and steadily, and with a lot of patience and innovation, built a strong-fundamental based business model in India. Many were wondering for the first few months after Amazon made its way into India about Amazon's quiet game plan. The firework that one would expect from the big daddy of online retail was far from visible.

All this while, Amazon was investing in the foundation stone of this to-be e-tailing giant of India. This has helped Amazon India to build for itself an environment and capability to roll out mind-boggling innovative ideas that has kept its customers delighted and rivals on toes so far.

Amazon demonstrated aptly the approach to build a business in a new market by challenging set rivals and even beat them on their own turf. The long experience in its home country and deep pockets though adds to its advantage, none should be taken away from Amazon for being super agile and incessantly innovative.

I wrote some time back on Amazon’s bipolar approach on improving its delivery performance to enhance customer delight. At one end, Amazon had started experimenting parcel deliveries through drones while on other hand, in India it sealed an alliance with India Post to help it deliver parcels in far-flung areas.

Very recently, Amazon introduced a fresh gust of innovative ideas that varies from category expansion to new services and from vendor empanelment to channel expansion.

Back in US, Amazon turned heads last week by inking a $ 300mn-three years deal with HBO to let Amazon Prime members watch old HBO shows. Within no time after giving its customer the HBO delight, it announced launch of the prima-pantry service for its prime members. The service allowed the prime members to shop from more than 2,000 products to fill a four-cubic foot box with up to 45 pounds of goods. The package can then be shipped at very nominal cost to the customers.

These simple innovations have not only added to the product lines it can sell but have also created benchmark for serviceability and customer responsiveness in this rapidly growing industry.

Here in India, Amazon has opened up a bottle of innovations which, with the gush these innovations are ejecting, seems to have been there ‘under-construction’ for some time now.

After collaborating with India post to deliver its parcels in 19,000 pin-codes across country through its Colosseum -like network of 140,000 Post-offices, Amazon has put into action its plan to make it easy for sellers.

Amazon, this week launched two initiatives for sellers to facilitate an accelerated and hassle-free experience. The US-based firm launched the Self Service Registration (SSR) and Amazon Easy Ship for sellers. Amazon SSR enables sellers irrespective of their size, location and size of catalogue, to self-register on the Amazon marketplace and start selling within a day without any third party intervention, making the process quick, easy and transparent.

With Amazon Easy Ship, the seller has to pack the shipment and confirm to Amazon that they are ready to ship. Amazon Logistics collects the shipment and ensures that the product is delivered to customers in 2-4 days.

Jeff Bezos is known to be the driving force of Amazon's
customer first culture and a true admirer of innovation at work

These two services have taken the e-commerce game to a different level in India. A response from the bigger rivals(so far!) Flipkart and Snapdeal is soon expected as the e-commerce industry matures in terms of technology and operational set-up.

The big question is, how Amazon has been able to pop-out one innovation after other, even faster than the TV soaps’ episode run?

The answer is fairly simple – Getting the basic rights and employing Long-term thinking in a new market.

Amazon didn’t rush to lure customers as soon as it entered in Indian market. Instead, it took its time in getting the fundamentals right. It built the logistics network, warehouses and built up a large selection of products that is now bringing in customers for them.

In a recent interview, Amit Deshpande GM of Amazon India said that its strong back-end infrastructure is helping it scale up fast. He further added on that when they decide on areas of focus, they always work backwards from the customer. Selection, delivery experience, logistics, payments and website experience are areas they are super-focused on.

Amazon has been scintillating in terms of its growth, and more importantly in its systematic business approach in terms of all modules of a business organization – Strategy, Marketing, Supply chain, Human Resource development and above all, Innovation.

Truely, Amazon is an innovation powerhouse!

Killer Greenfold - Killing Competition

Think of any denim-wear brand ads and two expressions that will instantaneously hit your brains will be two phonetically close words – Sexuality and Sensuality.

Historically, denim brands have been very innovative about the execution of their 'assigned' branding themes, but they can be very much held guilty of innovation paralysis as far as their central themes are concerned.

This can be easily established on looking at campaigns for some of the major brands in denim wear.

Wrangler is one of the biggest denim-wear brand of the country and has had a long association with John Abraham. John Abraham brings youthfulness and macho image to the brand which works in its favour. This brand image has been a tried and tested platform for many players and not many venture outside this ‘safe’ zone.

These ads while promote the clean finish jeans, there is higher focus on the brand ambassador and hence it is difficult to decipher the key message in isolation.

Levis did something very similar in its campaign for button-fly jeans. The brand ambassador was Akshay Kumar and Levis didn’t leave any stone un-turned to capitalize on his uber-macho image. The campaigns showed him doing stunts and flaunting the product in the process. Though the makers can claim ‘freedom’ do be the central them due to the key message –“live unbuttoned”, it was not apparent. Apart from a different brand ambassador and a louder message on macho-ism, there was nothing new to offer.

Another campaign from Levis for the cling fit jeans featured Kangana Ranaut in some “clingy” shots. Again the idea was so tightly bonded with sensuality, the key message was lost. The use of celebrity brand ambassador took a major portion of focus away from the campaign in this case. 

The “stupid” campaign by Diesel was a lot more thoughtful and did reap benefits in creating excitement for the brand as these ads started even before diesel opened its first outlet in India.

However, One campaign that stands out of all for multiple reasons was the ”Green fold” campaign by Killer jeans. Killer jeans was launching a new range of jeans wear and needed a clutter breaking thought that would stand out among its competitors .

The campaign was designed on the fact that each of these jeans consumed 100 liters less water then any other jeans, while being manufactured. The thought was simple and was picked up from a manufacturing innovation aspect.

This point was very tactfully converted into a marketing aspect by putting across the acceptance and usage of these jeans as an environmentally conscious decision. Also, the campaign stressed on the fact that the buyers should be proud of themselves to have bought a product that helps in ecological preservation. The campaign was divided into multiple print ads which showed the models using the saved water in a more responsible way like watering the plants and storing water for birds. Some of the high points for the campaign were as follows -

• The campaign hit the right note as the jeans-wear projected itself as a conscious brand among the sensuality and sexuality driven brands.

•  The campaign put the killer branded jeans on a different table than all others as it did not blow the  “be sexy and look gorgeous” trumpet like its competitors

• The campaign very smartly labelled Killer jeans as an environmental crusader urging youth to participate in this “holy” mission of saving water by doing their little bit - Buying this jeans over others

• The campaign also ensured that the focus is only on the message, hence no celebrity brand ambassadors were used

• A very interesting aspect of this campaign was that there were no pointers on the product itself leaving this aspect untouched. This helped the campaign in keeping focus on the key message

• The campaign however, used the tried and tested technique of using foreign models conforming to this trend in the denim wear industry

The idea of green-fold was a very exciting one.  This idea stemmed out of the human psychological behaviour which was intelligently picked up by Killer Jeans. More than doing good things,  people want others to know that they are doing good things. Since these jeans looked the same, Killer wanted to differentiate them from others which will also give its owner a sense of proud and “ecologically aware” status

·        

      The jeans were dyed green inside, so a fold at the bottom showed the green colour unlike the traditional blue. This not only gave the denim a stark different look from other jeans but also labeled its owner of being environmentally conscious. The choice of green as the colour for this fold was apt.

The overall communication stands at making “being ecologically concerned and aware” as the new "cool" for its TG. The campaign also give Killer jeans the first mover advantage for being a conscious youthful denim brand, a notch above being just sensual and sexual.

Truly, a Green-fold campaign!

 Cheers,

Amazon @ Seamless Innovation

Amazon’s Octocopter project swept many people e off their feet. It looked like future had arrived. Whether the project and idea is safe and more importantly legal in countries where Amazon would want to take this concept is a topic for a different day, but how revolutionary the idea is in terms of exceeding customer expectations in terms of delivery and service, we will take that into consideration for now. 

   

Marketing is not just about building a brand. It is also about creating a brand promise, communicating this promise to customers and most importantly, fulfilling that promise, time and over again.At a time when there is intense competition between companies to grab a share of consumer consumption, arriving at a brand promise and consistently delivering it is a critical factor for success of any brand and company.

Reliable, quick and hassle-free home-delivery is one such promise that is being made by a lot of companies these days. These companies are from sectors like e-commerce, food-chains, courier & logistics and many more.

With benchmarks for customer service and satisfaction rising due to the availability of alternatives and higher purchasing power, run of the mill ideas for marketing and customer services have started to feel the heat. Whether a company wants to grab its TG's attention or want to delight its customers through its service, innovation has become a game changer.Innovation has become a major factor to differentiate between ordinary and brilliant companies and brand.

Amazon is one such company which has always been know for its innovative approach towards its business.  The recent initiatives taken by Amazon testifies this. One is the much hyped experiment about using drones to deliver products to customers. But the other one is much local and much more viable option which many of us would not have imagined.

When a company demonstrates its futuristic delivery idea, how many of us would imagine that the same company is also roping in an organization tagged as old and slow – India Post, for the same objective- delivery! .  This is a classic example of seamless innovation. This is also something, which most of the organizations have not been able to achieve. When a company goes for all-tech futuristic innovations, it is almost impossible to have eyes open to more traditional avenues to innovate. Amazon did that.

The end objective in both the cases is same but the TG of course changes. The drone delivery would be for achieving quick delivery times and the India post collaboration is to achieve high penetration for the company in terms of customer reach. Not to forget the drone experiment was not done in India or for Indian market though, but the extent of pro-activeness and the efforts to achieve customer delight  is remarkable in the Jeff Bezos led company.

Also, one should note that Amazon's drone delivery experiment is not the first one since Dominoz has done this experiment in June this year already.

   

 But what makes Amazon special is the bandwidth of innovation it allows its employees and teams across globe to create value for their customer. This organizational culture not just enriches its employees with learning but also benefits its customers. Truly inspiring!

Cheers, 

Google Search Films - Business sense with Marketing 3.0

So what was the need for Google, already enjoying more than 95% of market share to make a series of ad films (Google search) promoting its presence and products?

When you are 95%+, it means it is just you!

The campaign is called Google search and was launched on 13^th November for netizens.  It has five films with the first film setting the tone for the other 4 films. The first film(Reunion) is 3:03 minutes long while the other ones are between 40-60 seconds each. We will stick this post to the first film which is the introduction and highest viewed film among the set of five.

With a view count of more than 6 million in less than 2 weeks and 66000+ likes, it is clear that viewers have accepted the ad and the concept whole heartedly.  Some of the comments on the film on youtube will make Google guys very proud of themselves.  The ad is going to be broadcasted on television from 25^th November. TVC space is expensive and the unique set of audience these ads will encounter on TV, will be the one which is not internet savvy, unlike the ones which have embraced the ad so strongly on net-space. Hence the question becomes even more critical. Does Google need this?

Before we answer this question, let us understand why this ad made such a furore on internet. Most have already figured out multiple emotional touch points these ads titillate, which have connected very well with the audience.

These are emotion of a generation who witnessed partition, friendship, affection, care etc.

Apart from this, Google has adopted an intelligent strategy of passive pitching in these ads. Nowhere in any of the film or voice over, the word ‘Google’  has been used. Hence, Google didn’t try to intrude the emotions and place its sales pitch into the films. Audience is intelligent and it always appreciates such gesture. A hard-sell approach would have killed the emotions!

Technically, this worked for Google since it is well-known by the viewers as a brand and hence it could afford to sit quietly as a product/service placed at multiple spots in the film but not announcing its presence. It worked better for Google because the films were released only on internet which means that it went to an audience who already knew what Google is.

Now coming to the ‘why?’

Shift towards  Marketing 3.0 –  With this campaign Google has promoted itself to Marketing 3.0 which as per Kotler is –

“...companies practicing Marketing 3.0 have bigger missions, visions, and values to contribute to the world; they aim to provide solutions to address problems in the society. Marketing 3.0 lifts the concept of marketing into the arena of human aspirations, values, and spirit”

This gives an edge and recall to the brand in audience’s mind as the brand is shown to celebrate human spirit and emotion.

The ad unlike believed however, is not a social or emotional build-up for nothing. There are subtle placements of the product/service which will make space in consumer’s consideration set without he/she being aware of it. These points are doing multiple things with multiple users –

• It is educating the unaware about the product
• It is bringing the product into consideration set for the fence-sitters
• It is making itself as the preferred choice for hopping consumers and win their loyalty

Here are these points which without being loud, registers in audience’s mind sub-consciously –

•  The first search shown in the film does not only show that Google is used for search, But it shows itself as the natural destination for search related services. It also shows Google to be the homepage which makes a lot of difference in the usage for a search engine
• Google autocomplete is shown to help the user with their searches hence pitching this small but clever innovation that adds to customer ease in internet search
• The very fact that the ad film seamlessly goes from a small mention of an old friend to them actually meeting shows the effectiveness of Google as a search engine. It basically suggests that Google search results are accurate and relevant to the search queries made
• In a very clever way, all the offerings were bundled together seamlessly in the film – Google maps, Google plus, weather app, flight information app. The one-stop shop idea was smoothly integrated with the script which educated the audience about other services

Apart from the above mentioned, there are three communication points that stand out in terms of the bigger strategy that Google might have in mind. While the above mentioned are subtle insertions to promote the product and service the next three are more important in terms of adding users who have not been to internet yet and those who are going advanced in terms of mobile technology.

The idea of the two young people being very comfortable with Google applications goes on to show the connect the brand has with youth. It shows that the youth has invariably accepted Google as their “know it all” friend. It positions the brand itself as a young brand. A trait very important for a brand to posses in a country where two-third of its population is under 35 years of age.

Another interesting aspect was the young boy in Pakistan in his sweet-shop using internet and Google applications with ease. It shows that the tech savvy tag is not exclusive to corporates and students any more. Google shows that it has breached these boundaries to go to people and have brought them in a bigger pool of “tech-aware” consumers if not tech-savvy.

The most important point is the demonstration by Google on its seamless and logical integration of mobile devices for using its applications. The share of mobile devices in internet usage has been increasing rapidly. The mobile devices account for 62.5% of internet usage now as compared to 37.5% from desktops. Google has acknowledge this fact and showed its applications being used as comfortably on tabs and smart phones as on laptops. This is a master stroke where, without going away from the concept of the film, the mobile adaptability of the product and service is communicated.

Put together, the subtle insertions of various communication points in the films is brilliant marketing. How are these ads taken by TV audience which is a different set form internet audience on many parameters, will be interesting to see.

Cheers,

  

Pranks are good - So says Prankvertisers !

Prankvertising is a hot debate these days in advertising world. The idea to capture your audience with a visceral reaction and emboss an idea/brand/set-up in their mind has always been tempting for the marketers. However, what makes this form of advertising an art and a science both is - how much creativity you can employ into these at one hand and how precise and calculated you should be on the other hand to keep the whole experience interesting and relevant. Most importantly, how clearly and effectively the experience can communicate the intended message to the targeted audience effectively.

     
                                  Prankertising for the movie CARRIE - 500,000 + views in 1 month 

 
Prankvertising is a high-profit-high-loss chip. Right from the point where the idea of creating a prankvertisement is conceived till the point it is in public domain, there are multiple points that can make or break the whole experience for the marketers and audience.

                                    TNT Belgium Launch - 46 million views since Apr 2012

These ideas are top-of-the-roofs idea which are (and should be for the right buzz!) loud and subtle at the same time. They are largely clutter-breaking ads. This is also the sign of a good prankvertisment. It should be loud in the content but subtle in intent. Hence, it should be able to generate top-of-the-mind recall due to its content and must also be able to pass on the message to the audience in a simple yet effective way.

The cost associated with prankvertising is less since these are generally created to be aired on social media or fan page and not on expensive TVC slots.  Generally, these are created with the idea to promote a concept or a product in the public domain and rarely warrants for an action from consumer there and then. Hence once the ad is created it is released in social media which is the most common platform for such initiatives. These campaigns largely rely on social sharing and creating a buzz on the online communities. Word-of-mouth and social sharing hence are the strongest medium for propagating the same.

                           LG IPS Monitors - So Real, Its Scary - 20 million views since Oct 2012

Challenging part in this is the fact that since the reliance on taking the ad and hence the message forward is on audience prerogative. This means that if the content is interesting, the sharing and buzz-creation will work on its own. In case the content is not strong enough, it will be killed at very early stage by the TG and netizens. Hence, the first measure of success for prankvertisers will be the penetration (rate and absolute numbers) for the ad put in public domain.

However, as mentioned earlier, prankvertising is a dual-edged sword. These ads usually catch people out of prior information hence there always is a risk of events taking a turn which was unaccounted for. Sometimes the prank may not go down well with the audience who might feel offended. Such unwarranted events lead to bad publicity which is difficult to shed off.  The more practical problem with such events is that they sometimes become too loud and ignores/misses the second important part of the campaign – pass a message to the audience. Hence, one should be extra cautious while bring in a plan for prankvertising to the table.

Not to forget, sometimes questions are raised on prankvertising about its credibility and authenticity. Many argue that the people who are presented as ignorant passers-by and unsuspecting audience, are usually actors. This takes away the appreciation of the surprise element that the audience is shown to have gone through in the whole experience.Ethical behaviour is another factor that is invoked whenever such ads make rounds. Critics questions the rightfulness of involving people into a video making or campaign/ad without taking their prior permission.

However, on a pure advertisement perspective, It is clear that a well-thought of prankvertising campaign which manages all the macros and micros of planning and execution is a strong clutter-breaking method which also come out as cost-optimized and effective. Keep the prank mode on!

Cheers,

Brand Building Series #1

CPM – Three Pillars of Brand Building 

Branding is everywhere. And hence, it has gone through what everything that is everywhere has – for ever and ever. Overburdened! Cliched!Confused!

Unfortunately, definitions and explanations sought on branding are more likely to confuse the seeker than clarify. The reason is the vicious mumbo jumbo everyone chooses to rattle rather than KISS-ing (Keep-ing it simple!)

This short piece is to make things really simple for everyone.

Brand is not the name of a company or a logo or a colour its mnemonics carry. Instead, these are part of the brand identity.

Brand, simply put is – What people perceive in their mind about 

• A person
• A company
• A product/service

Obviously when we perceive something good about apple or amazon – It means that these companies have been successful in creating an effective and beneficial brand image for themselves. In broader terms they have been able to create a brand for themselves.

But how have they been able to do that while others either failed or were not so successful?

It takes more than just pumping money in campaigns and promotions to create a brand. It is generally a slower process and hence demands utmost discipline and patience.

In this piece, we only invoke the three pillars of brand building while keeping details on how a brand is built, for the next parts of the series. These pillars must be closely analyzed in order to move in the right direction to build a brand that lasts!

The three pillars of Brand Building are, CPM –

·    

• Customer
• Who is my customer 
• Target Group and traits
• What delights him
• Know what they expect and exceed it
• What influences him 
• Decision-making and influencers 
• Product
• What is my product type
• High/Low Involvement              
• Mass/Niche catering
• Innovative/Me-too
• Where does it fit in
• Need
• Comfort
• Aspiration
• What is its UVP  
• Unique Value Proposition
• Market
• Competition
• Acknowledge
• Observe
• Study
• PoSs and PoDs
• Points of Similarities
• Points of Differences within products available in the market
• Industry trends/Norms
• Fundamentals of the Industry
• Influencing factors

These pillars must be thoroughly understood by every marketer who wishes to build a brand.  Each parameter/question/factor mentioned under the pillar and sections under the pillar requires deep analysis which leads to certain answers.

Based upon these answers, a strategy is devised to help in building a brand. More on this, in the sequel to the series.

Cheers,

Mantastic may not always be Fantastic - Milind Soman Old Spice Ad

The latest ad from Old spice india is already creating buzz. With more than one and a half million views already, this ad has sure grabbed enough eye-balls. Stats have been disabled for the video for now.
There are multiple facets to the theme, execution and brand proposition offered by this ad.

For starters, Old spice India, with this ad, brings on television - Milind Soman, the first and probably the only super male model of the country to the small screen after a long time and more importantly, in an avatar which accentuate his presence.

The underlying theme for men's deodorants have largely been same across all brands. Fog and Nivea, very recently did something on different lines but still the underlying proposition largely remains same. Unfortunately, this ad, though with a peculiar set up and execution theme, does not strike a very different chord than the chore.

Firstly, this ad is heavily inspired by the Old spice ad on the theme - "The man your man can smell like" which was a wildfire in online ad trade. The ad starring Isaiah Mustafa was thronged by monologues which made it difficult to break attention for the viewers. The underlying proposition was - Old spice does wonder to its consumer and makes him uber-attractive to his female counterparts

In the latest Indian version, Milind Soman is seen to be undertaking the similar task. The ad starts with him donning just a towel and a pair of sunglasses(and of course a gold chain shouting out loud -'MAN') to add to the "kewl" quotient. He later talks about his realization on how being a macho is not about gelled hair. One can't miss a cue dropped when while being uber-cool he is sipping tea in a silverware (trying to break more myths on "kewlness"). He then invokes the lady-luck of all deodorant brands, the 'sweetheart'(How did fairer skin become an inevitable part of men hygiene?) to hand him over a bottle of old-spice deodorant. The ad ends with the 'sweetheart' sitting in his lap but not before he has pushed hastily a brief and desperately timed sales-pitch where he insipidly asks people to buy Old-spice to become 'mantastic'. The newly coined word 'mantastic' just seems to be a substitute for "macho-ism". Ans all this is happening when the background music is being played on sitar.

   
There are highs and lows for this advertisement and i'm sure marketeers were betting more on highs than they were worried about lows. For example, Milind Soman seems to be a great choice for the product and brand considering his reputation of being bold and due to the fact that he has been a male super-model, a coveted profession for many. Bringing him onscreen with a low 'apparel budget' was also a way to strengthen his
'desirable' rapport with women. The set-up easily breaks out off the clutter from run-of-the-mill deodorant ads where audience at the start of ad itself can zero down the ad to be for either a condom brand or a deodorant(sadly yes!). Background music is intelligently chosen to aid the set-up.

Alas! The highs ends here, and i have not even touched the product and the brand proposition. The biggest problem as mostly with clutter-breaking ads is, when the ad takes over the supposedly central figure of the whole idea- the product or brand.

The 'Mantastic' theme seems to be halfhearted one. How Old spice builds it from here, will be important. The flat speech on do's and dont's of macho-ism looks more like an interview which audience didn't ask for. The "Sweetheart" ends up adding the same 'old spice' to the ad only bringing it closer to the other deoderant ads by emphasizing the 'Use deo to get girls' theme.Informing the audience about ingredients which are largely chemicals (or at least sound so) doesn't help the cause either.

Overall, the ad gives some new and intelligent avenues while falls flat miserably at some points. How it helps P&G in terms of top-line, that is yet to be seen. But for sure, this ad is a great learning for marketing students on what to do and what not to do while conceiving an ad concept.

Cheers,