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June 29, 2015

Product Designs - With Surprise



I certainly have seen some really good product designs in the physical goods space, and of course with technology coming up big, mobiles and other devices are really popular when it comes to product design. But one product that has been a clear revelation for me is this chocolate product plus DIY toy for kids.

Kinder JOY - WITH SURPRISE


 

Was doing groceries when I spotted Kinder Joy! Costs Rs. 35 for one piece of egg in India but crazily popular among kids and I'm sure same is the case across the world. Now many advertisers and Marketers know how much of a rage this product is within its target group!  So I picked it up to do some product design and brand analysis. Here are some of my observations.Feel free to add your thoughts!  A lot of these might not even matter to the actual consumers (Kids), but would be intriguing for the decision makers. 

Branding: Branding right on top with an intrigue,  "With Surprise"  Standard,  intrigue and feeling of mystery inside my meal, which has worked wonders even when I was a kid. (lucky cards, sorat, scratch to win)
 
Enticement: Mystery and audience engagement continues inside with the ???  Marks all over and creating further curiosity.  On the other half of the egg, they only talk about the product, which only contains the egg white resembling cream with chocolate. Decluttered even from the audience thought process. If I want to find out what the surprise is, I'll forget about the other part, and choose to eat it later. Minimalistic and easy flow of consumer thought tapped into. 

Product Detailing: Simple,  visual representation of make your own Jerry the mouse. Now he mouse detailing is so much that you even have stickers for its ears, musical notes for his accordion and bright colors for his hat. 

Hook and Value for Money: Most kids obviously buy it for the toy. They don't care about what they eat, mostly I'm  guessing. At 35 bucks, parents won't mind it either as it's creative, small, engaging their kid, and most importantly its as if giving a simple affordable toy which educates/helps utilize their logical mind. Much like simplified Lego. 

Product Information: They've also mentioned warning for kids below 3 years at least in 2 places within product. Packaging design is so concise, small, accurate and yet contains value worth so much. Also the small leaflet contains instructions in many other languages, a QR code too, for parents if they want more info. 

Lastly, the overall satisfaction for kids is as good as a Happy meal toy, only more as, they  assembled it and they can keep collecting such toys. Great brand recall, customer reuse and repeat tactic. 

Great stuff from Design thinking perspective and also Marketing it well! What say?
 
Srinivas has been a communications professional for over 15 years. He has worked with and built India's largest digital agencies from the ground up and been part of their acquistion journey. Social Wavelegnth (now Mirum, part of the WPP group) and Kinnect, now part of the Interpublic Group (IPG). He's also been a public speaker, keynote speaker at various large panels/events of the likes of BBC Knowledge Summit, Blockchain Summit Bangalore. And has been a guest lecturer at IIM, Symbiosis, Indian Institute of Digital Education.
He has been blogging since 2005. And also been author at various publications, that include Startup India by ZDNet, Social Samosa, Lighthouse Insights.  His passion for Writing, Advertising, Creativity, Digital, Blockchain and Future Tech is what drives him each day.
 

September 25, 2014

#ItAllStarts with Great Story Telling - Nescafe's New Ad





"One of the most amazing ads I've seen in recent times." 

I don't even have to say anything beyond this. 

But I couldn't help it. Yep, that's what resonates most with people. At the end of the day a soft chuckle while you read a billboard. A lump in your throat that connects with the story being told or for that matter even a teardrop in your eye that waits to trickle down while you feel the story tingling down your spine and connecting with your deeper emotions while you watch an Ad like this! 

Yes, that's exactly the spot this latest Nescafe Ad did to me. I must have watched it at least 10 times. No kidding! I admit, each time I watched it I had those feelings all over again. 

Usually I may not be that attentive when I'm watching a TV show and as it smoothly transitions into a commercial break what catches my eyes or gets my attention are two things. Either an Ad that's absolutely crappy that makes me cringe and ask myself with a serious expression as to, why? Why did they even bother... Or something really great and spectacular that drives home a point with a smooth message that actually stays with me for a longer period of time.

But this actually is much more than that. Very recently I wrote an article for Lighthouse Insights about how Advertising will always be more about story telling and less about trying to market a product to your consumers. And this Ad, has validated precisely those thoughts of mine. What's more, it's really done well integrating a lot of elements that drive it's potential target audience. I happened to see this on my twitter /Facebook timeline, I think, when it was promoted or RTed by someone. What caught my eye was the fact that it was something to do with stand up comedy. Little did I know that it was more than just that. 

Very beautifully, the creators have tapped into an issue that captures an emotional sentiment with such beautiful attitude. The story isn't about how the character 'Rishi' is determined to succeed despite his challenge. The story is about how it inspires you to look at the aspect of not fretting the small stuff in life. And what is more timely is the way the product is plugged in without even sounding like an ad. In fact, it's not even a plug. A Nescafe mug, a spoon-full of coffee, the stirring and the pouring of milk literally 'stirs' that temptation within you and yet provides all the subtlety you need to avoid interruption and encourage a blend towards the story to culminate into the core message of what he's trying to put across. 

'Thank god for coffee...Isne Mujhe Lagaaye Rakha, Aur Aapko Jagaye Rakha!' 

I mean it's not even about copy writing, it's more than that. The fact that Coffee as a product is such that most of their TG, the young enchanting, raring to go and always fighting with their own aspirations will easily relate to. But it's not just about the fact that it keeps you energetic or up while you achieve your dreams but as simple as a humorous take on the character's skills as a stand up comedian to admit and even laugh it out by saying that the coffee will help you stay awake even if you're bored waiting to listen to the joke finish. Such fine detailing in the story telling is always missed out when you produce such TVCs. A great script, amazing production value and great acting. A combination of 'great show don't tell,' even cliches are so witty and put in such great context, for example the buffering and laughter club references. 

I really like the way they've used the audience laughter in points where his joke actually has a great punch and as the story he's trying to tell us within his stand up act and the end of the advertisement, how he raps his name smoothly blending into the character as they start the Nescafe music and how it makes you feel upbeat and beautifully overwhelmed that you hit the replay button on YouTube and watch it all over again. 
 
Srinivas has been a communications professional for over 15 years. He has worked with and built India's largest digital agencies from the ground up and been part of their acquistion journey. Social Wavelegnth (now Mirum, part of the WPP group) and Kinnect, now part of the Interpublic Group (IPG). He's also been a public speaker, keynote speaker at various large panels/events of the likes of BBC Knowledge Summit, Blockchain Summit Bangalore. And has been a guest lecturer at IIM, Symbiosis, Indian Institute of Digital Education.
He has been blogging since 2005. And also been author at various publications, that include Startup India by ZDNet, Social Samosa, Lighthouse Insights.  His passion for Writing, Advertising, Creativity, Digital, Blockchain and Future Tech is what drives him each day.

August 10, 2014

Copywriting is like making love!

Yep, you heard it right! Writing copy is like making love. The attraction that you have towards you brand is something that sets the tone to making the first move. Sometimes a little bit of persuasion is a lot about seduction and little about enticing your mind to come up with an idea that you hope to be a great work of art. 

Copywriting is not just about writing great words which flow smoothly and vociferously elicit your consumer to buy your product or have a top of the mind recall when they go out next time to purchase something in the market. You get the point...

It is about an idea that is well executed and not merely in words or concept. I always like to say great advertising is always about amazing story telling! And when you do that, it's nothing less than feeling the rush and excitement that stays on for a long time...

It's about your audience being provoked, maybe a grin on their face and an introspective thought of the sorts that'll say something like, "Hey, that's clever! Wow, this seems really interesting!" Or that chuckle and a bit of a laugh which allows them to indulge in the humorous moment that you intended them to be in.  

Some examples of what making love feels like. Courtesy: BestCopyAds,  BrilliantAds & Madovermarketing 









Photo: Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there.


Photo: Eskom: Use Electricity Wisely





Look what happens when you cut down too many trees




When it simply needs to be there, yesterday" DHL Express ad



Ariel: Bright White Ad

And one of my most favorite recent Print AD by Durex for their 'Dotted' Condoms








Srinivas has been a communications professional for over 15 years. He has worked with and built India's largest digital agencies from the ground up and been part of their acquistion journey. Social Wavelegnth (now Mirum, part of the WPP group) and Kinnect, now part of the Interpublic Group (IPG). He's also been a public speaker, keynote speaker at various large panels/events of the likes of BBC Knowledge Summit, Blockchain Summit Bangalore. And has been a guest lecturer at IIM, Symbiosis, Indian Institute of Digital Education.
He has been blogging since 2005. And also been author at various publications, that include Startup India by ZDNet, Social Samosa, Lighthouse Insights.  His passion for Writing, Advertising, Creativity, Digital, Blockchain and Future Tech is what drives him each day.

August 05, 2014

If 'debauchery' included Social Experiments it'd be in 2014

Yes, that's right. 2014 is the year of 'Social Experiments' as the so called Humanitarians of the new media age are calling it. 

First we had 'candid camera', then 'Reality Television.' and now we have something called as a Social Experiment. What does it attain? Well, nothing but a so called environment of fake awareness about social issues or behavior that even first year arts student majoring in Psychology could figure out based on reading half of their course material. 

If you'd want to do something and mooch website hits, video views, fine go ahead and do it. Don't do it under the pretext of something called as a 'Social Experiment' or something that we didn't already know. It's very easy to use Social Media and create a fake environment or an environment which devours the very existential behavior of the so called non-revolutionist average Joe walking around town minding his or her own business, especially in a country like India. And of course in much more developed countries you'd easily get arrested if you tried something like this, but that's another story. 

And then there are stories where the videos get doctored, and sometimes edited to ensure that they only include the cuts where their message was being conveyed or showcasing that how little people care about such experiments. I'm not saying that we need a society of zombies who don't do about anything. Well, truth be told, there needs to be a larger message as most of the audience who watch this, are armchair activists and probably get a kick out of sharing the post, video, blog and give their two cents, but when soup hits the fan, they'd probably be that 'average Joe' sitting back or comforting themselves or excusing themselves for the lack of inaction, cause those who care, don't need these videos to be awakened. Or sadly, the society has come down to such state of mortification that they actually do need these nudges from time to time. Whatever it is, it certainly is the year that it peaked in and I wonder what it holds for the morrow.  

The thing is, that it's easy to do something and then sit back and watch human behavior. I guess the better use to such 'Social Experiments' would be to call a spade a spade and try to fix the overarching problem and not instigate people via curiosity to gain some views and make money out of it. What do you think?
 
 Srinivas has been a communications professional for over 15 years. He has worked with and built India's largest digital agencies from the ground up and been part of their acquistion journey. Social Wavelegnth (now Mirum, part of the WPP group) and Kinnect, now part of the Interpublic Group (IPG). He's also been a public speaker, keynote speaker at various large panels/events of the likes of BBC Knowledge Summit, Blockchain Summit Bangalore. And has been a guest lecturer at IIM, Symbiosis, Indian Institute of Digital Education.
He has been blogging since 2005. And also been author at various publications, that include Startup India by ZDNet, Social Samosa, Lighthouse Insights.  His passion for Writing, Advertising, Creativity, Digital, Blockchain and Future Tech is what drives him each day.

April 20, 2014

A copywriter's dilemma



Brace yourself for you are not alone. Think about this huge idea, great concept, something you have written with a keen sense of understanding of your consumer and yet it is received by a lonely stupor with the lack of critical cognitive function and level of consciousness by the so called people who matter the most. Yes, your 'clients.' Of course they have a very good understanding of what the product is and what the consumer is all about, for they have been at the pinnacle of glory in the most fashionable way you may want to imagine yourself in. Of course they have done their homework, they've met your consumer time and again, not just in focus groups but also been a part of all the research that has made it into their values and product building through the best interests of their company and brand vision and mission. 

Sometimes, that is something which we feel is a huge dilemma for a copywriter. Trying out a new idea, a new concept or something new that your consumer would not know is a big risk. Yes, beyond Apple and Steve Jobs, we all know the overused and abused adage of 'Your consumers don't know what they want.' is something that is hardly accepted with a huge sense of conviction by marketers and advertisers alike. Of course, Jobs was a genius, he had his time and his reality distortion field to work for him many a times. But if you have an idea today and you know for sure that it's something that will put the P (read:Punch) in the 4 Ps of Marketing that most MBA marketers brag about, then I say, bring it out!

A copywriter's dilemma is not the fact that he lacks the conviction to sell his idea, his concept, his thoughts to everyone, but it's the simple fact that sometimes his customers' don't just get it. Even if they do, it isn't about them buying your product and you helping the brand reap success in leaps and bounds. It isn't about them trying out the product because they read, saw, heard or viewed your Ad somewhere. It's a simple definition of whether the writer understands his customer, deals with something as simple as thinking like one, and simply put devoid of any form of exhaustion, brings in an energy that will make them think how on earth did this phenomenon occur. Creates a curiosity for something that he will remember for a long long time! 

A copywriter's dilemma is not the fact that he doesn't believe in his product. It is the fact that he believes in them so much that it becomes hard to sell the idea to anyone else because of the fact that he just doesn't let go of his bubble for the beauty of what it has become. He tries to delve deep into what remains to be seen as a simple product. Something inspiring, something catchy, something beautiful that will not just change lives of people, but their beliefs and philosophies and understanding about a certain segment of commodities that aren't just created to appease to the senses of an ordinary world, but more to be ingrained as a lifestyle. 

A copywriter's dilemma isn't in the mere belief of a symbolic metaphor that is an inception within his audiences or a catchy jingle that the customers hum around for days, weeks, months and sometimes, very rarely, years! It is the fact that he believes that this metaphor isn't really a figure of speech but something magical that has been woven in form of a story to make you understand that the life as we are living, isn't just about hoardings, billboards, consumerism, TV ads, radio jingles but a lot more beyond that. The life we have, is all about our beliefs, the life we have is about the chance to go out there and try out something new. The life we have is to feel what everyone else find difficult to even fathom. Something that the copywriter tries hard to but fails a lot of times. Not because he doesn't believe, but believes in everything more than the consumers do. And that my friends is the worst thing for anyone who has a dream, just like you, just like each and every one of you!

Image Credit: Tom LaBaff on AlexanderPollard
Srinivas has been a communications professional for over 15 years. He has worked with and built India's largest digital agencies from the ground up and been part of their acquistion journey. Social Wavelegnth (now Mirum, part of the WPP group) and Kinnect, now part of the Interpublic Group (IPG). He's also been a public speaker, keynote speaker at various large panels/events of the likes of BBC Knowledge Summit, Blockchain Summit Bangalore. And has been a guest lecturer at IIM, Symbiosis, Indian Institute of Digital Education.
He has been blogging since 2005. And also been author at various publications, that include Startup India by ZDNet, Social Samosa, Lighthouse Insights.  His passion for Writing, Advertising, Creativity, Digital, Blockchain and Future Tech is what drives him each day.

March 31, 2014

Is social media the end of paid media?


My answer to the question on Quora: Is Social Media the end of paid media 

No, it's about being smarter and being more focused as many have pointed out in their answers. Recently I read an interesting blog about  Facebook Organic Reach Plummeting. What's more interesting is the comment thread and as many would have pointed out in the thread, Facebook as such is a big challenge, but traditionally Google has found a really interesting way to integrate all these attributes and making paid media better overall. The key is of course to find these aspects and fine tune it and ensure that throughout all media you are using these tactics. Rinse - Repeat


  1. Focus on Acquisition and methods to directly reach out once you've paid for Social Media.
  2. Targeting should be integrated via all other mechanisms too.
  3. Drive optimization through focused rather than spend money on bombarding across all channels and media.
  4. Learn what your user behavior is and customize your spends.
  5. The goal should be to get them back to your properties and engage with you on your own turf. Advertise to get them off of FB and onto your site to download your whitepapers, watch your videos, sign up for your newsletter, buy a product from you, attend your conference, etc.(As mentioned in comments)
  6. Convert your fans and followers to an owned list or something you control.
  7. "I think most business owners have no problem with paying Facebook for advertising, I believe the primary problem is having to pay to get new fans, and then pay again to reach the same fans you just paid for. Then repeating this cycle again and again. Most small businesses are willing to pay for Facebook advertising, but they simply cannot afford to promote every single post." Interesting comment on the blog by Zach. 


This basically is a problem with Facebook and the same is very well addressed via Google media buying and adwords. 

So if you look at it overall,  the thing Facebook avoided for a long while and now suddenly is trying to get at (Extort brands via strong ad tactics) will cost them for sure, while Google will smile their way into advertisers' pockets.
 
Srinivas has been a communications professional for over 15 years. He has worked with and built India's largest digital agencies from the ground up and been part of their acquistion journey. Social Wavelegnth (now Mirum, part of the WPP group) and Kinnect, now part of the Interpublic Group (IPG). He's also been a public speaker, keynote speaker at various large panels/events of the likes of BBC Knowledge Summit, Blockchain Summit Bangalore. And has been a guest lecturer at IIM, Symbiosis, Indian Institute of Digital Education.
He has been blogging since 2005. And also been author at various publications, that include Startup India by ZDNet, Social Samosa, Lighthouse Insights.  His passion for Writing, Advertising, Creativity, Digital, Blockchain and Future Tech is what drives him each day.

March 30, 2014

Product Design and Branding - Kinder Joy

I certainly have seen some really good product designs in the physical goods space, and of course with technology coming up big, mobiles and other devices are really popular when it comes to product design. But one product that has been a clear revelation for me is this chocolate product plus DIY toy for kids.


Kinder JOY - WITH SURPRISE





Was doing groceries when I spotted Kinder Joy! Costs Rs. 35 for one piece of egg in India but crazily popular among kids and I'm sure same is the case across the world. Now many advertisers and Marketers know how much of a rage this product is within its target group!  So I picked it up to do some product design and brand analysis. Here are some of my observations.Feel free to add your thoughts!  A lot of these might not even matter to the actual consumers (Kids), but would be intriguing for the decision makers. 

Branding: Branding right on top with an intrigue,  "With Surprise"  Standard,  intrigue and feeling of mystery inside my meal, which has worked wonders even when I was a kid. (lucky cards, sorat, scratch to win)
Enticement: Mystery and audience engagement continues inside with the ???  Marks all over and creating further curiosity.  On the other half of the egg, they only talk about the product, which only contains the egg white resembling cream with chocolate. Decluttered even from the audience thought process. If I want to find out what the surprise is, I'll forget about the other part, and choose to eat it later. Minimalistic and easy flow of consumer thought tapped into. 

Product Detailing: Simple,  visual representation of make your own Jerry the mouse. Now he mouse detailing is so much that you even have stickers for its ears, musical notes for his accordion and bright colors for his hat. 

Hook and Value for Money: Most kids obviously buy it for the toy. They don't care about what they eat, mostly I'm  guessing. At 35 bucks, parents won't mind it either as it's creative, small, engaging their kid, and most importantly its as if giving a simple affordable toy which educates/helps utilize their logical mind. Much like simplified Lego. 

Product Information: They've also mentioned warning for kids below 3 years at least in 2 places within product. Packaging design is so concise, small, accurate and yet contains value worth so much. Also the small leaflet contains instructions in many other languages, a QR code too, for parents if they want more info. 

Lastly, the overall satisfaction for kids is as good as a Happy meal toy, only more as, they  assembled it and they can keep collecting such toys. Great brand recall, customer reuse and repeat tactic. 


Great stuff from Design thinking perspective and also Marketing it well! What say? 

Srinivas has been a communications professional for over 10 years, and has been blogging since 2005. He has worked with the likes of Social Wavelength, now Mirum India, (A JWT Group Company) for four years and now Heads Learning and Development & Analytics at Social Kinnect: A Digital Marketing Agency in Mumbai. His passion for Advertising, Creativity, Social & Digital Marketing helps make a difference for the brands they work with. 

February 05, 2014

Using Quora to Market Your Business

Original article written on Social Samosa

Quora is quite a rage when it comes to driving loads of knowledge with a pinch of perspective. It uses Social Networking to classify various topics of interest in order to open an avenue to many intelligent minds across the world so that they are able to share their knowledge, opinions and most importantly create a channel to discuss topics of interest with a dash of first hand experience from users who’ve been there and done it all.




Come to think of it, Quora provides a lot of insights and knowledge and probably bears a close resemblance to Wikipedia (minus the perspective element), stock exchange or some other business community forums and curation tools including the likes of Reddit and Digg.
I would have said, Yahoo answers, a decade ago, but as much as I’d like to compare it to the only former alternative that many say would come to this social networking site, it quite frankly doesn’t make the cut and a lot of us know why. So much so that even LinkedIn Answers has shut down and Quora is ruling the world when it comes to providing perspective driven knowledge to many users across the world.
So how, you may ask, can businesses take advantage of this amazing site? I’d like to share with you some aspects that would help businesses grow, build their communities, create awareness amongst niche audiences, provide help with research information that you want, and a lot more.

Building your Brand on Quora

One of the best aspects of Quora is the fact that it gives each and every one an opportunity to create their own brand and provides such perspective about several aspects of what’s happening to the brand and the company which may not necessarily always be  found on press releases or on the company website. Add the brand name and Quora in your Google alerts and you’d be surprised to find out what kind of buzz is out there about your business.
The key, of course, is to be able to monitor how many questions are being asked about your brand, company or anything that’s related to what your company does. Go ahead and answer specific questions that may have been asked about your company. If you’re the community manager for your organization, take up the responsibility of researching upon specific questions directed at your organization.
Run them by relevant departments, and go ahead and provide inputs to the readers and the audience who are clued in to that question. Other than that you may also choose to focus on topics that could be of interest to your target audience. For example, there are many topics that would be relevant to your industry and that’s your cue to go ahead and be the expert on behalf of your company and help the community members.

Researching perspective driven insights for your brand

Yes, you have Wikipedia for a lot of the questions that you are looking for, in general. If you’re working on making a document, trying to analyze certain elements of the market for your business or say you’re looking for experts to help your brand out with respect to research related aspects, then Quora is the right fit for you.
Of course, while a lot of the World Wide Web is a great resource for knowledge and information that is abundantly available out there, Quora will allow you to find and sort information, people and, of course, a lot of material knowledge based on real time, current and perspective driven insights which you may not find elsewhere. Reading someone else’s answers based on their personal experiences gives you the perfect dose of granular details that might be hard to find on any other source across the Internet. So that’s quite the added advantage you get for doing your homework on the right platform.

Industry trends from the experts

While Quora has a collective base of domain driven knowledge of various business related topics which marketers can use to their advantage, it is also full of genuine experts who share their vision without particular perks for themselves, sharing expert opinions that would matter to your brand.
Most importantly, there is a great chance you could find great curated content that would help you prove a point or two if you’re doing research for something niche and particular within your target group, product or to help you market your brand better.

Competition Analysis

Typically I wouldn’t say that Quora is the best platform to find out what the competition is doing, however one edge that Quora might get in this aspect is to research and get to know what other competitors are focusing on, especially if there are answers about their company and inside news / strategy that is being shared on their work.
User cases that are shared on Quora by competition or what the competition has done being out in the public domain could be the best  way to understand, analyze and figure out how you could use that to your advantage.

Traffic, Eyeballs and Audience

One of the major advantages about the Quora ecosystem is you’ll get to know exactly what kind of an audience is viewing a particular question and how popular the question is. There are also opportunities to promote a particular question or an answer to a certain set of people within your following. This will give businesses a clear picture of how you are targeting the right kind of people whom you need to reach out to via your opinion, content and expertise.
The credits, as a currency, typically give you the opportunity to target your specific answers which could contain links to your website, or anything information worthy to allow people to benefit from and at the same time drive traffic towards your specific links. A lot of times, SEO and indexing is highly driven via Quora. If you choose to answer the right question, there is a huge probability that the same question might be the query of many looking for answers through Google and the top result then would be a Quora answer.
Some of these aspects are of course intertwined and there is an element in Quora which empowers brands and businesses to drive their communication, messaging and more importantly allows them to engage with the very specific niche community which you wouldn’t find on other social networks as easily as you think, even LinkedIn for that matter, especially if you have B2B brands. But the most important element of using Quora for business is the attribute of knowing that the consumer of your content is highly intellectual and at the same time a curious kind of a person.
The kind of content you share for your business or personally needs to be out there with a certain level of accuracy, insight, perspective and more importantly be helpful to those who are reading it. And if you’re the one who’s consuming content, you need to understand that while most of the perspective driven insight could provide you with some real answers to the question you’ve asked, you also need to account for the margin of errors and the holistic picture that it is able to provide you.
Having said that, while the benefits of using Quora are many, do consider using this social network as an extension of all the attributes you would use under ordinary circumstances. 

Image Credit: Social Samosa

Srinivas has been a communications professional for over 10 years, and has been blogging since 2005. He has worked with the likes of Social Wavelength, now Mirum India, (A JWT Group Company) for four years and now Heads Learning and Development & Analytics at Social Kinnect: A Digital Marketing Agency in Mumbai. His passion for Advertising, Creativity, Social & Digital Marketing helps make a difference for the brands they work with.  

January 16, 2014

Enhancing the Customer Experience through Social



Original article was written for Business2Community.

Marketing has always been about driving your brand towards your customers and reaching out your messaging through various channels that have been available to marketers across various eras of marketing. Be it any tools that traditional marketers have used or media they chose to engage with their customers, it was always about talking to them and trying to deliver your communication with the best impact possible. Throughout time, the struggle has always been about creating a recall value for your brand and letting your customers know what you aspire to do for them and how the brand could change their life. The AIDA model as popularly known always looked to reach out to your audience by creating awareness, generating interest, desire and then get them to act upon your marketing messages to finally buy your product. But sometimes, in today's era, I ask myself this question, "Is it only about creating an awareness through generating interest and then creating that desire?" The answer, as much as I try to resonate with what's happening out there, is always different.

How so? You may ask, what has changed in this current scenario and what is making the difference in today's customer as opposed to the earlier ones. There lies the answer. Your customer today has become a lot more aware of his surroundings and a lot more intelligent than you thought they were. The idea is not to create awareness as he's already aware of what's out there in the market. Probably focus groups are not the best way to approach your customer because, your market is so vast and the intelligence and emotional quotient of your customer is so disparate that you'll hardly be able to nail it when it comes to the messaging. Your customer doesn't need to be told what they want. They already know it. Your customer doesn't need to focus so much on generating that interest as he already has a keen attachment, affinity and attachment in the kind of products he consumes. Your customer most of all, doesn't need to really know what he's buying, cause he's already made up his mind!

So what we need today is creating an enhanced customer experience in the products he uses and giving him a dose of that enhancement you shall add to his lifestyle by pitching your product to him. Unlike traditional marketing campaigns, or drives to generate the awareness of what features your product focuses on, your ability to create an innate sense of desire, a sense of fulfilment and a sense of overall satisfaction the customer shall get by using your products is what is the need of the hour. Top technology brands like Apple, Samsung, Sony have tried to focus on these aspects more than anybody else. In fact, smaller brands in different spaces like Uber, AirBnB, Pebble, Blend Tech, Fitbit, have always aspired to create that innovative desire to give the customers something different and something worth imbibing into their lifestyle. At the end of the day, what's important for brands to understand is to disrupt the equation, create something innovative and build a desire to not just 'want to use your product' but to create a 'need for your product.' Many local brands are doing that really well if I may say. Coffee shops giving free Coffee but charging for WiFi because the need of the customer is not coffee, but a place to sit and indulge himself on his smartphone, tablet or laptop while finding an excuse to go somewhere out there and work is what brands should realize. As a customer, I don't need to buy smart products, I need products that will make my life smarter. Wearables have become the talk of the town and this technology is here to stay, especially after #CES2014.

What brands should realize is that the innovation is required not because people want to be aware of something that they didn't know, but something that will innovate and make their lives simpler. Innovation has become a tool to help customers aspire for things they didn't know existed or didn't imagine to change their lives for the better. Marketers need to understand that and try to change their way of thinking. Rather than focus on traditional surveys, target demographic profiling or building a messaging of the brand via identifying, breaking down and building a great marketing strategy to let their customers know about their products, they should simply inspire people to think differently and boom! Your product is sold! Innovations from KickstarterIndiegogo are getting so much traction that traditional product builders would wonder, how the space has shifted. More than the marketing aspect, the customer experience has become BIG! Are you ready for that change? Is your brand doing something different to create that great customer experience in this socially connected world? A question I always want to ask myself while working on my brands. What about you?

Image Credit: Social4ce
 
Srinivas has been a communications professional for over 15 years. He has worked with and built India's largest digital agencies from the ground up and been part of their acquistion journey. Social Wavelegnth (now Mirum, part of the WPP group) and Kinnect, now part of the Interpublic Group (IPG). He's also been a public speaker, keynote speaker at various large panels/events of the likes of BBC Knowledge Summit, Blockchain Summit Bangalore. And has been a guest lecturer at IIM, Symbiosis, Indian Institute of Digital Education.
He has been blogging since 2005. And also been author at various publications, that include Startup India by ZDNet, Social Samosa, Lighthouse Insights.  His passion for Writing, Advertising, Creativity, Digital, Blockchain and Future Tech is what drives him each day.

December 20, 2013

A Day in the Life of a Social Media Professional

This original article was written for Social Samosa here


You wake up, get ready and head off to what seems to be a really hectic day. You have designs to line up, content to create, ‘strategies’ to make, Powerpoint templates to select, presentations to make, conversations on Twitter, LinkedIn and forums to participate in, ‘contests’ to run, ‘trending activities’ to conduct, posts to schedule, communities to build, and most importantly, client calls/meetings to attend to.

Yes, sometimes that becomes one of the most important task on your checklist. We’ve seen far too many cliched infographics depicting the day in a life of a Social Media professional, memes depicting ‘What I do at work,’ ‘jokes’ made around advertising and social media profiles, the ‘eat, breathe, live social media’, type T-Shirts, and to top it all, we have to hear the gurus of advertising and the know-it-alls tell us how Social Media is just another fad.
But I guess all of that is history now, with the lines between social, digital, mainline etc being blurred. “Integrated Marketing/Advertising” has a nice ring to it and is here to stay. What’s more important today is that belief; Belief in what you’re doing, which makes a huge difference to your job and a lot more to what your brand is saying.

Being a Social Media Professional

Truth be told, being a social media professional isn’t easy, wouldn’t you say? That’s partially correct, but a lot would really depend on how you perceive it and how you build on that perception to drive what you really want to do at the end of the day.
Build real value for your client, and I don’t mean that in terms of ‘ROI’ or what kind of numbers you build for your client, how you impacted their overall marketing tactics or for that matter, what you really did to build brand awareness for your client.
Adding real value starts in understanding, and begins with you achieving a clairvoyance of sorts about what exactly it is that your brand needs. Not what you think will generate an ROI of sorts, or what you think will create ‘buzz’ on Social Media and ‘Digital platforms’ as many would like to say. But what is it that your ‘brand really needs.’ Figuring this out goes a long way in the future along with helping you meet the desired goals you set for yourself. Not as a Marketer, Advertiser, Brand Manager, but simply as an artist.

Creating Value

Visualise yourself as an artist who is out to create great art in every single things he does, like I listed above. When you’re thinking about all of those things and ask yourself what it is that you’re doing that creates value, you are doing a commendable job.
You know it’s really good to sometimes stop and think about what we’ve done and in retrospect you’ll plot a really amazing line of what’s worked for you and what hasn’t. But don’t just analyze the statistics, or the numbers, or for that matter the affinity you created amongst a community on the social web, but also the kind of art you created day in and day out. What matters is how you focus on it with this perspective in mind.
Well, you may say that’s a far fetched way of looking at things, but truth be told, after working for over four years in this field, there is a difference in the way I perceive things today. No, I’m not talking about just ‘thinking out of the box’ or ‘there is no box’ approaches towards the creative or not so creative work that we do.
I’m talking about the way we look at every single thing when we work on those amazing campaigns we build or choose not to, the way we really drive engagement for our brands or maybe not. Every success, every failure have a lesson in them. The right way, or let me call it a better way of looking at it is to just step outside, give yourself a bird’s eye view and see where you’re heading.
A lot of times, we end up doing things we may not be really confident about. We end up pushing that limit between a force fit creative or something that really won’t work for a brand. I don’t know about you, but I always cringe at the very idea of a ‘trending activity’ because that will add nothing but a few hours or days of brand awareness!

Needs of a Brand

Well that is really great, excellent if you may ask, in the current scheme of things. But what next? How many times do we actually capitalize on these activities and campaigns to try and decipher something impactful for the brand? That should matter more to you than anything else at the outset. Not those appreciation mails coming in from your client or commendations from your peers. But what next?
Well, there are always those times when you need to deliver a pitch presentation on a given day that would have probably been better off if it was a day earlier. Ideas are never scarce, and mostly not completely bad and unusable, but what sometimes affects us is how many of them are really going to add value to our brand.
Yet, we go ahead and tell ourselves that we’ll improvise later, we’ll try and console ourselves that this is one instance and it would probably not impact the brand as much. I’m sure all of us have been there at some point in time. If not, then truly awesome! You’ve already crossed that threshold and seen the different side of the horizon!
I guess creating a sense of awareness for yourself and your brand helps a lot. Realizing what you’re doing is impacting your brand in a certain manner helps seeking the right answers to the right questions that you would go ahead and ask yourself rather than just doing what you think might ‘work’ for the brand for the time being. So don’t lose this battle, because eventually you might end up doing it so often that you’d have been defeated long before you even knew there was a war coming.
Yes, there are a lot of us who have challenges, and we face them with the hope of learning something new, creating something great, build something fantastic for your brand. Something that it needs, if not every single day, probably once in a while–to know that there is someone like you out there, who connects with what it’s trying to say.
Yes, we do say the wrong things sometimes and make mistakes every once in a while. Sometimes, our mistakes are noticed by the entire world, and sometimes too insignificant to be spotted by anyone.. But in your heart, if you are self aware about the things your brand needs and what you can give to them, you’ve gone a long way ahead.

Social Media and Marketing

I’ve been trying to figure out what this beast called social media is for quite a while and I must say, I have really enjoyed dissecting the minuscule observations, learnings, insights, and trends that, often I’ve forgotten to think of how it really mattered to the brand and how and when we should start learning from our mistakes and probably from others as well. And hey, that’s quite a thing.
Marketing as such, has evolved a lot, and so has advertising, say from the ‘Mad Men’ era, especially with it being part of many cycles of evolution. Yes, there’s a lot to learn and we’ll see a lot of changes happening, being part of it at this stage and we’ll probably see a lot of changes in the way consumers consume content, products, services and for that matter your interaction with them as well.
Cultures shifting, patterns changing, trends being disrupted and for that matter, the medium of interaction divulging into each other and crossing lines that were originally set with a niche in mind. That will stop existing and we’ll have a unified way of looking at how we simply communicate with our consumers.

Conclusion

When that day comes, I’d like to ask you all to remind yourself where you started and traverse into your own journey to realize how much you’ve achieved. The things you thought were amazing, will now be of amusement to you, to the point that it stops being funny. You’ll achieve a sense of perspective in that you’ll get an understanding of how things were different and how they’ve changed. In fact, I’d say, don’t wait for that day to come. Be a futurist, today! Tell yourself to stop doing the things that really don’t make a difference to your brand but indulge yourself in asking yourself a simple question.
“What is it that my brand really needs?” “And where do I go from here?”
Just these simple questions haunting you when you wake up, get ready, and head off to what is seemingly a really hectic day with designs to be lined up…. (Fade out)


Just ask yourself…. “What is it that my brand really needs?”
 
Srinivas has been a communications professional for over 15 years. He has worked with and built India's largest digital agencies from the ground up and been part of their acquistion journey. Social Wavelegnth (now Mirum, part of the WPP group) and Kinnect, now part of the Interpublic Group (IPG). He's also been a public speaker, keynote speaker at various large panels/events of the likes of BBC Knowledge Summit, Blockchain Summit Bangalore. And has been a guest lecturer at IIM, Symbiosis, Indian Institute of Digital Education.
He has been blogging since 2005. And also been author at various publications, that include Startup India by ZDNet, Social Samosa, Lighthouse Insights.  His passion for Writing, Advertising, Creativity, Digital, Blockchain and Future Tech is what drives him each day.