A Brand mascot and a Brand ambassador

Having a good product is not enough today to taste success in the market. All elements in the Marketing mix should fall  at the right place at the right time. One such aspect is the brand mascot or some times the brand ambassador that you select. There are brands which continued with the same mascot for multiple campaigns and stick to them for years. At the same time some brands were forced to bring back their successful mascot after trying to replace them for a new campaign. Brand also stick with their ambassador for multiple campaigns, a non celebrity is bought in and established overnight. The new Airtel Girl is one such example. Airtel through the campaign successfully launched their 4G as well as Sasha Chettri. Their second campaign that launched during the ICC world cup was the continuation of the first campaign with the same person upon the concept of wide network even on remote locations. The case of Vodafone was curious with their pug. After moving from Hutch to Vodafone as a part of their rebranding initiative they stopped the "You & I" concept with the dog in 2008. The influence of the pug in the mind of the viewers was so much that the brand was forced to reintroduce him later.  

Nirma girl & Parle G kid was so popular for ages that even without the brand name people will relate the mascots with the brands. Onida from 1983 to 2010 used its famous Devil for promoting them even during the stiff competition from LG during the early 2000. The big difference between a mascot and an ambassador is that, an ambassador is normally an individual and every good & bad aspects of him/her will effect the brand. Where as once a mascot is established you can take them for years and they will always be young in the mind of the customers or viewers. 

The trend called Social Media Marketing

New dimensions of marketing emerged with the growth of technology and of its end users. Since 2000, the growth of smartphones played a major role in deciding the way brands started communicating with its customers. Platforms such as google plus, linkedin, facebook, skype, twitter etc helped in the emergence of a new division called as Social Media Marketing. Over these years brands started realising the effective use of these platforms in getting much along with its customers and prospects. Initially Social media was a communication model which started with orkut & myspace and they were used mostly among the friend’s circles. Then, as the size of the group increased and features in the offering by new platforms became dynamic these platforms lost its charm. The new platforms along with them bought the importance of one more aspects i.e. Content Marketing. Valuable & relevant contents were shared with the customers which helped the brands to build brand awareness & thus create brand loyalty in an indirect way. The trend of social media has grown so much so that it is now an eminent part of any marketing plan. With over 2 billion smartphone users in the world social media is the most cost-effective method to connect with your customers and to promote your business. Also, when every individual is accessing more than 1 social app. in their Smartphone the importance of Content marketing or Viral marketing also gains its share.  

Growth of Online Marketing

The shift from traditional marketing to online maketing took nearly a decade to flourish. It has grown to such an extend that now there are brands existing solely through online marketing. There are many reasons for the growth of Online marketing, this includes factors such as increase in mobile connectivity, availability of internet across the regions, upcoming of a tech savvy generation, convenience offered by online shopping and a wide variety of options to choose from at a click of a button. The reasons for a seller was different to choose this mode of promotion. The main reasons were the big difference in operational cost compared to outlet based sales, the huge collections they can offer to the clients without even actually holding the stock, ability to track the ROI with the new age analytical softwares and the option to have user based ad targeting. The need and reach of online was to such an extend that many branches of it also emerged over these years. Social media marketing, search engine marketing etc  were among them. All this new age marketing concepts can be together named as digital marketing. Digital marketing brought with itself new ways of targeting the potential customers. The main benefit of digital marketing was it can provide real time data on visitors, puchase, clicks etc were as a traditional mediums will only be able to provide details on exposure of an ad. The growth will not stop here, with every new gadgets entering the human life, more and more marketing models will also emerge because reaching the customer in the most cost effective way is the prime objective of every brand.

How ads check your intelligence

What looks good is already half sold. 

Many a times along with good packing & positioning in the shops, brands also convince us and influence our buying decision by roping in popular celebrities, humor and some times by placing kids in the ads. But among all these colorful ingredients we overlook the product, what they offer or what the ad is showing us. When a popular mosquito repellent brand mentioned in its recent ad "if you can count the mosquitos" then you should choose the normal mode and if you can't then the other mode. Another example is when a famous face cream brand ask you to apply the fairness cream daily twice for a white skin. Both these ads are indirectly asking for maximum usage which will lead to additional sales. If we keep the logic aside, these ads or product doesn't offer anything new or different from their competitor. But still these ads helps to create the required initial curiosity and sales push. The main reason is the way they communicate the message. When your favorite celebrity assures you of fairness like him or her you are almost convinced. 

Next time when you buy a product just because you liked the ad or expect the result as what they show in it, then better rethink. You may be able to save a good amount of money for tomorrow. 

Ads & Brands

Over these years we must have come across many ads which still holds a place in our mind. Not necessary that we recollect these ads due to the good reasons, some times due to the negative aspects also we remember these ads. Its important for every brand to understand the psyche of the viewers and to analyse all the possible conclusions that they will derive by seeing the ad. The recent ad of Star Sports "Mauka, Mauka" was accepted largely by the Indian audience. Even though the ad shows the desperation of a Pakistani supporter to see their team winning the world cup again or beating India atleast once. But as a viewer what we saw was how their arch rival outperformed them each time and left them blaming their fate and kept them waiting for so many years. During the same period one more ad appeared as TVC from a well known service provider. The earlier ads of Idea such as "Ullubanaowing" & "Walk & Talk" was very popular and were considered as one of the best ad campaigns. But the recent IIN campaign even though having a good thought started getting annoying to the viewers with the even more irritating jingle.

Its being observed that 90% viewers switch the channels as the ads begin. When he has 100 odd channels waiting for his attention its quiet difficult to keep him hooked for even a 10 second. Hence its very important to make ads that's appealing to the viewers it could be with the theme, actors, locations and most important the message. Also ads with light humor element stick to our memory for some time but the message should be clear and soft. That's why we still remember the old Cadbury ad or the Bajaj TVC even after so many years. Liking an ad doesn't offer anything to the brand, it doesn't mean the viewer is a prospective customer but every time he spend by seeing the brand, you are creating an informal relation that at some point of time could be a formal relation. 

Targeting Competitors Directly

One among the various strategies adopted by the brands to promote themselves in the market is targeting their competitor directly through their ads. This method is normally followed by new entrants and by aiming the main competitor they are challenging the position of the competitor. Automatically through the process they are showcasing them self superior to the existing player and the indirect benefit is getting noticed in the market. Recently the same strategy was applied by Datsun Go in their new ad campaign by targeting the top player Maruti Suzuki. Through out the ad they showed various models of Maruti Suzuki and the ad theme was about moving forward and think something new and big. Also the ad was positioned particularly on the new generation and youngsters. Datsun couldn't have a better ad indeed to come into the limelight and make their brand a topic of discussion in the market. With this ad they are also challenging the years long monopoly enjoying by Maruti in the Indian Market. Its sure that Datsun is aiming the first time car buyers, in that case their real competitors are Hyundai i10 or Ford Figo. We need to wait and see whether Datsun Go will taste success in the Indian market like his sibling Nissan but the campaign surely caught the attention they aimed for.

Know Your Clients for better positioning

I never saw a chocolate positioned separately for boys and girls. That too with separate packing with different colour codes. Ferroro India, gained 6% share in the Indian Chocolate market share in 5 years and that too by challenging the biggies such as Nestle and Cadbury. All the three products, Ferroro Rocher, Tic Tac or Kinder Joy had made their own consumer targets over these years. But if we take Kinder Joy particularly, there are many things to mention about the success and positioning of this products. There were many products in the market already aiming to catch the attention of the kids. They came out with small versions, unique packaging, toys along with pack etc to tap them. But this product not only made a clear division but also were priced higher. When a brand position their product in a higher price either they are too confident about their product or are very particular about the targets. By pricing the product at Rs. 30/- for 20 gms they actually took an initial risk but what played good for them was the surprise gift. The egg shaped product offered a surprise gift inside the pack itself which made the buyer sure that they will get it while buying.

The product is now a hit among the kids and now the company is realizing the need to convince the parents about the quality. The recent ad campaign of Kinder Joy is focusing on the ingredients and the international standards they keep while preparing the product. This is actually an advance step taken by Ferraro before any allegation or complaints arise as happened with Cadbury few years back. We need to wait and see will Ferroro continue with the shape of Easter Egg or will come out with a different one with a smaller pricing.