Read Between the Ps

According to popular language, an Indian Head Massage , as its called, helps release stress accumulating in the tissues, muscles and joints of the head, neck and shoulders. It is best done using Coconut Oil. What is the first brand that comes to mind for Coconut Oil? Did you just imagine a blue bottle? Now, What if you demand love through a head massage? And I am not alluding to the south-east asian nation which has been typecasted as the best combination of love and massage! This one is closer home and in a far cleaner context. Relationships that are lost in our busy lives - a touch of a Head Massage takes it away. Parachute's "Thoda Love Jatao" is being advertised heavily on YouTube. Unlikely that you would have missed it if you would have opened YouTube today! Here is a summary of the context around the campaign as per its website , Parachute Advansed - Your sister called but you were too busy & couldn’t talk. Dinner with family is more about wh...

Almost every youngster I have met looking at the next big thing wants to work in Digital Marketing. Some of them, just by posting few Facebook posts, consider themselves to be the Digital doppelganger of Philip Kotler (or maybe Byron Sharp now!) Digital is largely experimental and it is still not mainstream - every brand believes that Digital is the next big thing - the best way to connect with millennials is to catch them online. However, in 2012, Ehrenburg-Bass Institute, based on a study of 200 brands on Facebook,   found that less than 0.5% of fans actually engaged with a brand (that is, undertook meaningful activity, including comment and share, rather than just ‘Like’).  It also found that Facebook fans were skewed towards heavy buyers, and that purchase frequency didn’t increase after someone became a fan. Again, for the uninitiated, Digital is not the same as Social Media. Have hardly met 'neo-experts' who talk beyond Social Media and SEO while re-enf...

What if someone gave away the secret of living for more than 100 years to you? Would you share it with your friends?  Released today at TED talks, Susan Pinker , a Developmental psychologist, reveals how in-person social interactions are not only necessary for human happiness but also could be a key to health and longevity. She gives reference of a Village in Italy (Sardinia) and shares the key reasons that drive longevity in men and women. According to her, two of the biggest reasons (emphasis on close personal relationships and face-to-face interactions) are summarized below - First, your close relationships. These are the people that you can call on for a loan if you need money suddenly, who will call the doctor if you're not feeling well or who will take you to the hospital, or who will sit with you if you're having an existential crisis, if you're in despair. Those people, that little clutch of people are a strong predictor, if you have them, of how long you...

Playing the old classic patriotic songs with every flag hoisting, the emerging innovative combination of saffron, white and greens represented in our attire (and not necessarily with a flag), and the varying degrees of pride while looking at the national flag - all this along with celebrating a mid-week national holiday with high laziness quotient!  - That is how 15th August passes with most of us every year! (I am excluding the NRIs from this lot, as the " NR but I " bit in them comes out very strongly today). Advertisers try to be topical around independence day - either through s(t)ale discounts or through innovative emotive connects. Some of the key words I noticed in most of the ads include Freedom - the quintessential term without which the ad is seemingly irrelevant, Tri color representation Offers - from 15% to 2017/- only Independence day Gandhi ji  On the other hand, we talk about Freedom from the societal aspects of our country, where we take ...

Spending money on a full-page print ad is definitely noticeable. You spend a lot of money and time to invest behind the creatives, the messaging and the back-end preparation. It would then be quite heart-breaking for a marketer when readers would ignore or not get your message and flip over! Worst, it is noticed more by marketing students (like me) who would rather intellectualize than buy! When such a step is taken by one of your peer companies that you admire, the marketer in me cannot hold myself from opining! Case in point is iChef   - In case you heard the name for the first time, let me not tell you what they do - just see this ad and see if you guessed it correctly. This was the ad on 5th of August - front page of Bombay Times So what did you guess? The company is into ready-to-cook meal kits pre packed and served fresh to you - so that you don't have to get worked up on sourcing the ingredients and make a nice complete meal for your family. The next one cam...

In the three decades since Tommy Hilfiger founded his eponymous label, the fashion landscape has changed beyond recognition. In the 1990s, Tommy Hilfiger was one of the most dominant fashion brands on the market. It was the height of cool among young urban consumers, with stars including Kate Moss, Snoop Dogg and the members of Destiny’s Child buying into its preppy style of American sportswear. It tapped into pop culture in a way other brands failed to do, building relationships in a genuine and believable way. ( Fast Company ) Smart Associations - By getting connected to musicians and rappers, who were not focused on earlier, the brand got high reach early on. Yet as the brand grew up, so too did its audience and Tommy Hilfiger struggled in recent years to attract subsequent generations. The founder had been grappling with keeping the fashion appealing to a new generation of consumers, yet without eroding its identity. But all that has changed over the past 12 months. Takin...

The Cola Wars in 1990s were well known - with both multinationals (Pepsi and Coca Cola) pushing media to grab the largest pie of the market. However, while both Pepsi and Coke leveraged their global playbook, that strategy itself became an impediment to growth. Thums Up's management was a lot smarter than the competition thought. They waged a clever guerrilla marketing war against Pepsi by carefully studying its global playbook, and pre-empting its moves. As a result, by the time the bubbles settled, Pepsi emerged as number two in the market, but Thums Up was number one, having positioned itself as 'the stronger cola, with a more adult taste', expressed by the slogan 'Taste the thunder'. Today, India is a unique three-player cola market: Thums Up, with a 16.6% share; Pepsi with 13%; and Coke with perhaps less than 10%. According to Anwar Alikhan (JWT India) , It's a brand that's so successful that it's said to be a bit of an embarrassment for th...

Raksha Bandhan marks the commencement of the Festive Season in this part of the world. It is followed by a multitude of 'celebration points' for people, a formal excuse to party, celebrate or, in most cases, hog guilt-free! It also marks the 'season' for ad agencies and a great time for any marketing student to sit back and admire the level of creativity around you! While most of them are short-lived and are only limited to creative admiration, post the event (Raksha Bandhan), some of them rightly deserve a big aPPlause ! Here is a snapshot of the recent creatives around Raksha Bandhan - worth browsing and getting carried away! Exchange4Media and Afaqs A specific set of ads caught my attention last night - How do you showcase what you have by articulating what you don't have? What is the best combination to drive a strong emotive appeal? Ask Ogilvy & Mather and they would surely send you these links - the recent ones they made for Amazon. In 2016, O...

According to  a new report  by Accenture Strategy, Retailers and consumer goods companies could unlock  $2.95 trillion  in value for the industry and consumers over the next decade by accelerating digital transformation,  Investments in new, digitally-driven business models will give consumers greater choice around how they purchase goods and services and enable companies to deliver profitable, differentiated experiences.  Part of this Digital transformation entails brands hovering around the key influencers that are rapidly emerging out of new technologies. Very soon you would notice the brands flirting around with these tech hulks flaunting their strength, seeking their attention! A new innovative Go-to-market approach is imperative for any brand now! The one that involves mollycoddling AI experts like Amazon Echo - a swayamvar of sorts for brands! If you Echo what I just mentioned (pun intended), maybe you would have h...