Product Placement/Collaboration - A Journey from Vicarious to Personal Experience

Product Placement is formally defined as - "any form of audio-visual commercial communication consisting of the inclusion of or reference to a product, a service or the trade mark thereof so that it is featured within a programme..". Its about time we change the "..featured within programme" part in that definition, as the product is not placed far away in a movie reel anymore, it is within its actual intended customer's reach, and sometimes literally in his hands!

From FedEx in Cast Away to Coke in Taal and from modern family's apple ipad show to the Safari Storme's presence in the Indian TV series 24, the product placement was pretty much a vicarious experience, with its relevance preserved and communication cascaded through the scene's. The TG not only related with the product through the associated actor and story line, but also the brand message was succinctly absorbed. But the tactic soon started to be overused to an extent that the two essential component for product placement's success, relevance and integration were given a back seat and mindless visibility drove the fad. Soon, more often than not, the placements started to be first ridiculed and then conveniently ignored by the audience.

This trend was slightly arrested by bringing a higher credibility to the product's relevance and its integration with a real-life situation (instead of story line), by taking products a little closer to 'reality'. The wave of product placement in the so-called "Reality Shows" struck and we started seeing bottled beverages consumed by the judges' and motorbikes being ridden by the contestants. Since, the audience generally believed that the reality shows are for real (yes, it did then and it still does!), the products were brought closer to the real target audience with much ease, piggybacking on the credibility and fan-following of judges and contestants of these shows.

Parallel to this, another wave of product placements brought this marketing tactic even closer to its audience by the means of enhancing the 'reality' content to highest level thus far. It must be noted that the product placement in sports has been there for a long time, but never been given so much prominence, as it is been given now. The strongest argument in favour of product placement in sports is that it is as real as it gets (fingers crossed!) and hence the audience is able to relate to the product communication and promise in an empowered way, as the customer attributes the purchase decision to a strong and credible show of trustworthiness by the product/brand through sports ambassadors in a real sporting event.

While, many would have thought that this is as closer as the product placement can get to its customer,  i recently came across two on-field executions  where the product is placed further closer to its target audience(literally in audience's hands!). Relevance and Seamless Integration - the two basic pillars for a successful product placement strategy are excellently preserved.

The first one was Ms Hema Malini promoting "The World's Best RO Purifier"(What?) at 30000 fts, while the very welcomed 'complimentary' paper cup with water (assuming RO purified!) is served (How?) in an Indigo flight (Where?). A simple cup of water served with an ad by an aggressive and innovative water purifier company, in a set-up where everyone has lots of time to notice, watch and analyse (When?), a sweet spot is hit.

The second execution was of mindfully placed 'Tempo' hand sanitizers on each table at a McDonalds restaurant. A beautiful multi-pronged placement strategy -

• Promoting an easy to use hand sanitizer with a pleasant fragrance (What?)
• Invoking hygiene and health concerns when people are about to eat food (When?)
• Making the product available at arm's reach on the same table where the food is placed (Where?)
• Allowing customers to try the product for free (How?)
• Gain customer mind-share, especially with a very dominant player present in the segment

The above two product placement (& collaboration) strategies with their multi-pronged targeting demonstrates a never ending world of opportunities to market product and brands with placement anc collaboration strategies.

Also, these executions open hosts of other avenues for product placements/collaboration well beyond the traditional audio-visual commercial avenues that forms the basis of the widely accepted definition of product placement.

Certainly, the product placement as a marketing strategy has brought the products once marketed by TV actors in the movies and vicariously experienced by the audience, to the very hands of its target customers where the story line is not just real, but is also personal and tha too, to each one!

Cheers,.

The Indian e-commerce Industry – Boom or Bubble?

The e-commerce euphoria in Indian business landscape is accentuating and investors are queuing up for putting their money into the ‘future’. Within the last 15 months foreign hedge funds, asset managers and investment firms have invested almost $4 billion in just 26 Indian technology and e-commerce start-ups.

A recent report published by UBS on e-commerce in India suggested that Indian e-tail market—which is currently valued at $16 billion will grow to an astonishing $50 billion by 2020. The report also projected that the ‘loss making’ sector will begin to make clear profits by 2020.


While such positive projections for the sector is definitely encouraging, some deep dive is needed to bring out the realities of this seemingly simple but grossly misunderstood business. Indian e-commerce industry is at a fascinating point of its journey, but one needs to have a more realistic view on its growth engine.

The Rosy Picture

The Indian e-commerce sector received more than $5 billion in funding in 2014, compared to $1.6 billion in 2013 and $760 million in 2012. Of this, in 2014, Flipkart raised some $1.9 billion while Snapdeal found about $1 billion in funding.

Together, these two online shopping firms are now valued much, much higher than the total market capitalisation of India’s major brick-and-mortar retailers, which have dozens or even hundreds of physical shops

A major reason cited for strong growth of online retailers compared to brick and mortar retailers is latter's capex and operational efficiency requirements  which restrains their ia do not have enough bandwidth or speed to counter e-commerce retailers.This bestows upon a huge opportunity for scaling e-commerce segment to new heights, considering an estimated $ 500 billion retail market in India.


The phenomenal valuations for India’s e-commerce companies are based on the premise that Asia’s third-largest economy presents a vast opportunity for online retailers. Specific reasons cited for optimism around the industry are as follows:

• Internet population - With 200 million active Internet users, India is next only to America’s 250 million and China’s 550 million internet users 
• Rising incomes levels – India’s per capita income has risen to $1,500 increasing the purchasing power, especially for 350 million strong middle and upper class 
• Demography – Two-thirds of India’s population is under 35 -- the demographic that makes up the largest share of the country's Internet users 
• Expected long term profitability of e-commerce firms – With the market maturing and consolidating, the discount regime will fade away improving profitability of the companies 
• Drawing parallel between India’s e-commerce market with that of China’s – India is often looked upon as China of mid 2000s and lot of analysts draw a parallel between how the Chinese markets grew from then till now, to how the Indian market will grow from now to till the next 10 years

A Rose without thorns? Not exactly…

To the anguish of many, the highly anticipated deal between Alibaba and Snapdeal fell apart in the month of March earlier this year. The reason behind the deal was disagreement on the valuation that the Indian firm sought. Apparently Snapdeal was looking for a valuation between $6 billion and $7 billion while Alibaba wanted to commit for a valuation under $5 billion.

Revenue vs Losses

Many analysts believe that the valuation of e-commerce companies is a tricky area as there is lot of untrend-ed future cash flow, which is largely aspirational, and a high level of gut feeling that comes into play during valuation discussions. Interestingly, more often than not, these e-commerce firms who are seeking funding based on certain valuations aspirations, are not making any money at the moment.

Mr K. Vaitheeswaran founder of Indiaplaza.com says, “E-commerce is a hard business. You need time and scale to make money. But at some stage there must be an intention to make money. I think there is no plan to make money because of the infinite supply of investment capital. I’m not surprised they are not making money because they are not even planning on making money”

According to the USB’s report, Flipkart, Amazon India and Snapdeal reported a combined revenue of $85 million and a loss of $163 million in FY14. To put it simply, for every $ earned, $ 3 were spent by the companies.

Globally, Amazon.com, has not had sustained earnings even after two decades of operations. It became profitable in 2007 but since then earnings have been dwindling. It reported a net loss of $241 million in 2014.

Apart from the intrinsic issues pertaining to the valuations, profitability and business models of e-commerce companies, external issues such as government’s digital investment, digital infrastructure, regulations and policies are major challenges for the Indian e-commerce industry.

• India has been placed at 115th rank on broadband speed in a recent united nations’ study on ecommerce environment 
• India’s regulatory environment for e-commerce remains unclear as the government is strongly opposed to the idea of 100% FDI in B2C ecommerce, often citing close environment in China and Japan 
• India’s tax authority has also had troubles in aligning tax laws for the e-commerce industry leading to arbitrary actions which has affected the overall business ease in the segment. 
• As per The United Nations, India ranked 83rd out of 130 countries in terms of its e-commerce environment, judged by factors such as the number of Internet users, availability of secure servers and credit-card usage 
• The AT Kearny’s 2015 Global E-commerce index based on parameters such as online market size, Consumer behaviour, Growth potential and Infrastructure was published recently. India failed to even make into the 30 country list.

Just as China, India? No way…

Flowery comparisons have been made between Indian and Chinese e-commerce markets and many have conveniently believed that just like the e-commerce sector grew by leaps and bound in China, the fate of the Indian e-commerce market will be a replica.

E-commerce market of top-10 countries and the growth recorded on last year

Unfortunately, there remains host of differences between the two markets which need a sincere mention:

• At $1,500, India’s per capita income is less than a quarter of China’s $6,800 which does not seem to be catching up anytime sooner 
• China has the biggest e-commerce market volume in the world at $ 426 billion which happens to be about 85 times that of India’s e-commerce market, just too big to compare at this point 
• Chinese internet users are much more sophisticated users than that of Indian users. One third of its online users are connected continuously while 58% are online between 2- 4 times a day 
• Also, China, has an e-commerce market which is more than 10 times bigger in terms of contribution than that of India. Interestingly, China also happens to have a bigger online market contribution then more developed countries like US, Japan, France and Germany. UK is the only market in top-10 markets which has a higher contribution of e-commerce in overall retail market than China 

Online retail contribution as a % of total retail

Hence, the comparison between the two markets and countries on this front suggests that it may not be a fair assumption that Indian now is what China was 7-8 years back and what worked for China then, will work for India now.


Conclusion

With only 39 million online buyers, that translates into approximately 3.2% of the total population, online market place still is at a nascent stage in India, Though the 27% growth in the e-commerce market in India in 2014 looks flattering, the high growth figure is actually due to its very small base. The sector is currently seeing headwinds in terms of sky rocketing valuations and huge employee benefits, but monetising and making the industry profitable will remain a challenge in these times.

Top-10 e-commerce markets by the AT Kearney's Global e-commerce incdex

Government support is absolutely critical on infrastructure point of view to increase user penetration. Also, a more transparent policy on regulation and tax structure will go a great way to strengthen the fundamentals of e-commerce industry in India.

E-commerce industry in India is going through an aggressive transformation and while it can be the sunshine sector for growth, it is imperative to understand the limitations and risks in the sector, and handle these risks effectively. Addressing these risks should be our top most priority to avoid this boom turn into a bubble. It is possible only when euphoria over virtual cash flows, imaginary cash rich P&L statements and outrageous valuations makes way for a structured growth plan across the business parks and government corridors, backed by more realistic aspirations, but of course, with the same enthusiasm.


Cheers,

EpicFail #StarbucksRaceTogether

A seemingly well intentioned campaign to encourage conversation on 'race' at the starbucks has gone supremely awry.

Why should a benign act of trying to encourage conversation on coffee about a very sensitive but recently battered issue face such backlash? With the benefit of hindsight, the answer is simple - Inability to on-board your internal and external stakeholders, both on emotional as well as practical aspect.


The Baristas who were to set forth the campaign by tagging and encouraging people to write "Race together" on their coffee cups, were never on-boarded. It came across as a irrelevant exercise for them which made their daily job more tiring with no visible change.

This gap also led to a sense of insincerity to flow across, right up to the customers which led to what is explained in the next paragraph, revulsion. Great campaigns can fail if your field team is not convinced about the vision and objective of the campaign. To add, ease and practicality of implementation must be thoroughly planned and demonstrated before pushing the campaign down the chain up to the foot-soldiers, to avoid making it a boo boo.

 Race is a sensitive topic and with the recent flare ups in US on the subject have led to an open yet sometimes an ugly debate with opinions and counter opinions being blasted. While the intention may be absolutely honest, this sudden campaign rubbed the general public the wrong way as it did come out as a marketing gimmick.

As mentioned above, there was no serious attempt to actually diffuse tensions and encourage positive environment. The operational way of tagging #RaceTogether(rather than an emotional effort by the Baristas) made the customers feel that Starbucks is trying to piggy back a sensitive issue for its own marketing advantage.

The campaign is ordered to be halted prematurely.

Lesson learnt the hard way!

Jaguar XJ ad features Kareena Kapoor Khan - Misfired?

Recently the new commercial for Jaguar XJ was aired. The ad features the beautiful Kareena Kapoor Khan.

While the ad tries to demonstrate the killer looks and astonishing features that the Jaguar sports, the effort fell way short in creating the magic one would expected from a Jaguar ad (Given their pleasant track record in ad intelligence, especially in last couple of years). The reason could be attributed to a series of loopholes that found place in this ad.

The ad starts very much like the Jaguar ads made for foreign markets but very quickly gives away the protagonist baton to the actress. The subsequent screens take their own sweet time while admiring the beauty of the actress while squeezing the frames which had the car and its features as focus.

• Emotion mismatch - Elegance mixed with confidence would have been the right emotion for presenting a product which is an icon in itself. It would also have complimented the global image of the brand, hence keeping consistency for the brand communication across poles and hemisphere. But for some strange reasons, the ad-makers and the script writers chose to unleash the good actress, which she is  instead of the product being the center piece of communication.

          The gestures and the emotions displayed by the actress are more suitable for a furniture or bathroom fitting advertisement. For example, multiple glides of fingers on the car fixtures. Also an interesting expression spawned over multiple frames, that of an overjoyed kid sitting first time in a 'big' car

              

• Choice of Brand ambassador - Well, this may be a contentious one, but Kareena Kapoor Khan may not be the best choice as a brand ambassador for the Jaguar. The power and iconic status the brand should look for itself in India, does not resonate with the actress brand image. 

More so when the actress is also doing ads for many mass products like cold drink(limca) and cosmetics products (boroplus). To add, she has been doing these ads for quite some time now. Long enough for the audience to have created a perception of brands associated with her. So when she promotes a low cost mobile phone(iball) or a sachet for boroplus that costs 5 rs, the audience bolsters a perception about her association with price sensitive product (barring Sony Vaio).

Not to forget she hasn't had any 'iconic'performance, critically or commercially, for a long time now in            movies either. Bad time to form an association!

• Adjectives chosen to define brand traits - Elegance and Sophistication are the right words we would want to associate with the brand Jaguar. But liveliness and inner beauty are misplaced. Somehow there is a lousy attempt to associate the actress' personality traits to the Jaguar. This not only is irrelevant but also puts the idea of wow-ing the audience with the product in the back seat. (Is Kareena Kapoor Khan the benchmark for Jaguar?). 

The tagline "How alive are you" may come out as a good one in a different situation and a different ad but wrt this advertisement, it comes out to be completely out of place, not leading the audience anywhere.

              

• Brand personification - The conversation in the ad's background by the actress, tries to personify the brand, quite forcefully with someone who understands her. An easy innuendo to her partner in real life. This trick kind of takes away the focus from the car to the actress' personal liking and life. Always remember - Indians lose focus of everything when placed against the Bollywood tit-bits. Bad move.

• Bollywod-yfying - While we love our bollywood, It is no secret that we love international brands to remain "international". It adds a perceived benefit to the product emotionally, socially and financially for us. Hence, though bollywood-yfying a product may look like reaching out to the newer pastures in terms of TG, it might hit back if the brand is too "Indianzied" in the effort. The term "Iconic British Brand" would yield more for Jaguar than the "Indianized" version of it.

While it can be agreed that having Kareena Kapoor Khan in the ad will connect with a bigger audience in the country and will create awareness about this iconic brand, but the real question is -

• Is the TG focused through this advertisement right for Jaguar XJ?

Before signing out, Check out this ad for Jaguar for UK market.

          

Cheers,

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,