Brandalyzer

Archive for the ‘Advertising’ Category

As I mentioned in earlier blog posts, to communicate something to a recipient one has to command the recipient’s attention and then be relevant to the recipient.

Communication:  Command Attention (Clutter breaking) ->  Be Relevant

This holds true even for communication among two individuals or two groups of people or for television commercials (TVCs). For the rest of this blog we will discuss it in the context of TVCs.

Though the rules seem simple, commanding attention is itself a very daunting task in this fragmented and cluttered world of media. On top of it, the message is driven home only if you are relevant to your fragmented consumer segments. Currently, we shall focus on the first part of the problem – clutter breaking and commanding attention.

What have commercials been doing to break clutter?

Historically, entertainment has proved to be one of the most effective ways to command attention of people. Entertainment is a very pervasive element of television ads today. Research shows that creative entertainment increases the attention to view the entire ad, reduces the resistance to persuasion, and has positive effects on purchase intention.

Wikipedia defines entertainment as – “Entertainment is something that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight.”  Psychologists define entertainment as “attainment of gratification of senses”.

Though people have different personal preferences of entertainment, it has been observed that across cultures and time there are recognisable and familiar forms of entertainment such as story-telling, music, dance, drama, sex, sports, horror etc. So, most ads today have atleast one form of content used to entertain consumer such as humour, music, and creative stories, etc.

The answer to the question is – Commercials have been using entertainment as one of the effective ways to break clutter and maintain attention levels, increasing people’s interest to view the entire ad, and research shows that creative entertainment has positive effects on persuasion and purchase intentions.

If all is well, what is the problem about entertainment in commercials?

One observation that always intrigued and puzzled me is that the commercials that are very entertaining and enjoyable don’t always drive home the intended purpose. There are many commercials that are enjoyed a lot and has high ad recall, but they just become only a source of entertainment for the audience.

My observation of several ads and people made me come to the hypothesis that the entertainment provided in the ad actually fulfils the consumer and conflicts with the consumers’ process of synthesizing the brand/product message.  This negative influence of entertainment is especially seen when the brand purpose is not weaved into the story provided for entertainment. For example, in ads where the entertainment part comes first and the brand is shown very late in the ad and they are not so well connected. If entertainment is used to break clutter, then it is important that the brand is shown as a part of the entertainment at the beginning of the ad, else there is a risk that the TVC may be very entertaining but not serving the objective of the ad.

Harvard professor Thales Teixeira has conducted interesting research on this regard and wrote a paper – “Why, When, and How much to entertain consumers in advertisements?” This is based on a facial tracking study (software used to track the facial emotions) in response to the TVCs. This is a first of its kind study and is the latest (dated January 2013).

One of the key hypotheses for the study is – Does high entertainment in advertisements have detrimental effects on persuasion and purchase intent, while having beneficial effects on a person’s willingness to watch the ad?

Key Results from the Study:

1. Entertainment can overcrowd your product message.

2. Viewers tend to pay less attention to the message associated with the brand once they’re already entertained.

3. If entertainment is not brand-associated (brand comes first and then the entertainment part starts or both at once), then it works only as an attention capturing device.

4. An excessive amount of entertainment is ineffective because it reduces the ad’s persuasiveness, as the entertainment conflicts with the persuasiveness.

5. Medium level of positive entertainment leads to a higher intent to purchase the advertised brand than low or high levels.

Entertainment plays both a co-operating and a conflicting role

Prof. Teixeira found that entertainment plays both a co-operating and a conflicting role, depending on its type (i.e., location in the ad). Entertainment that is associated with the brand is co-operating, as it acts as a persuasion device both in the interest and purchase stages. Entertainment that is not associated with the brand acts predominantly as an attraction device at the interest stage, thus indirectly cooperating but also directly conflicting with the ultimate goal of the ad.

The paper talks about the role of the location of entertainment and brand in the ad and its effects on the purchase funnel. If the ad is solely intended to induce purchase from previously aware or interested consumers, early placement of the brand is recommended. This might be the case for established brands or mature products. Yet, if the purpose of the ad is to generate awareness and interest, for example for new brands or products, and other marketing tools will be used to trigger purchase, then placing the brand later in the ad will be more effective to increase its attractiveness. Lastly, for ads intended to increase interest and purchase, ad persuasiveness and attractiveness should be balanced.

The study shows that entertainment, while increasing interest, can hurt purchase intent, especially if it appears before the brand, and can help purchase intent, when it occurs after the brand. So having the brand appear later may work if the objective is more towards building awareness. But still I am not a strong supporter of entertainment coming first and then brand later. If you want to be safe, make sure that the brand has an appearance somewhere in the beginning of the ad (especially when entertainment is used for clutter-breakthrough).

Thank you.

Similar Posts on this blog:

http://brandalyzer.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/centuryplys-latest-gorilla-tvc/

http://brandalyzer.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/television-advertisements-and-relevance/

http://brandalyzer.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/flipkart-attacks-the-online-fears-with-its-new-set-of-tvcs/

References for this post:

http://brandalyzer.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/television-advertisements-and-relevance/

http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/event.aspx?num=387

http://www.affectiva.com/assets/Entertainment-effects-on-Purchase-Funnel.pdf

CENTURYPLY is undoubtedly one of the major furniture brands in India. Century Plyboard stayed away from TV advertising from the last four years, before it came back on TV with its new TVC on the World Anger Day – 28th Aug, 2012.

In this blog post, we shall evaluate this TVC from Century Plyboard and understand if it met its objectives. Please watch the TVC below.

TVC

Objectives:

Though Century Plyboard is a major brand in India and consumers trusted the brand, research suggested that it is not an aspirational brand in the eyes of the consumers. So, Century Plyboard wanted to build a campaign that brings out the brand as a “lifestyle brand” and truly make it aspirational. As we all know, for any brand, the ultimate apex in brand hierarchy is to be aspirational for its target group.

However, in process of making it a lifestyle/aspirational brand, Century Plyboard also wanted to communicate a key functional aspect – “durability of the furniture“.

Let us check the TVC on some of the key parameters.

1. Does it command the attention of the recipient?  √

No doubt that the thrown car and the angry gorilla at the beginning of TVC attracts your attention, and is clutter-breaking among any group of advertisements. I would say 100 out of 100 for the Bates team for such a clearly clutter-breaking start for the TVC.

Great! Now that it got the attention of the consumer, it would have to be relevant and communicate the message.

2. Communication of Durability √

As the consumer watches attentively, the next scene that attracts attention is that the gorilla is not able to break the door and it enters the house breaking through the roof. As the gorilla lands on a dining-table, the dining table doesn’t break and the gorilla chases the person in the scene to the cupboard. Until this point, the consumer is still attentively wondering “what is the gorilla upto?”.

Now, as it turns out that the gorilla is the husband’s imagination of his wife’s anger, it brings out an element of empathy and fun making the whole commercial very enjoyable. The message in the background also re-emphasizes on the visual communication.

It is a great story with an element of suspense, and clearly communicating the durability of the furniture.  I give 100/100 in the communication of the functional aspect “durability”.

3. Does it bring the Lifestyle/Aspirational element? Χ

Though the advertisement communicates the durability aspect, it communicates it in a raw manner and definitely doesn’t communicate it creating an aspiration for the brand. The point of concern is: is “durability” a differentiated factor among branded furniture or is it a hygiene factor where the consumer is looking for more than durability. This is why Century Plyboard as a brand should become a lifestyle brand and be more aspirational in the consumer’s mind. This helps to enhance the product portfolio and target the up-class consumers, together bringing in the brand aspiration.

The TVC clearly falls short in the aspect of creating aspiration. The commercial is definitely enjoyable and it has the brand recall with “CENTURY PLY” cards at the end of the ad. The advertisement would have been perfect, had the situation been that people don’t have much trust in its durability. However, the situation here is to somehow create an element of aspiration for the brand.

On the whole, it definitely does well on breaking the clutter, consumers will enjoy the ad, communicates the aspect of durability and increases the awareness of “CENTURYPLY”. However it falls short in creating aspiration.

For years, Cadbury Dairy Milk (CDM), India’s favorite chocolate brand, has been trying to be the symbol of celebration and expression of every sweet moment in your lives. In continuation of its pursuit, Cadbury Dairy Milk celebrates the beginning of new friendships with its latest TVC, ‘nayi dosti ka shubh aarambh’. The TVC showcases the first magical moments of a blossoming friendship between a young girl and boy on the sidelines of a wedding, an occasion that in itself connotes new relationships.

watch?v=s2jsCGLO56g&feature=player_embedded

The new commercial plays out at a traditional wedding ceremony. A teenage girl and boy exchange notes on how every family has a “dancing uncle/aunty” and an “allergy aunty/uncle”. They quickly realize that the two families have much more in common than they thought. When the girl excitedly asks, Tumhaari family mein mere jaisa kaun hai?” the boy smiles and replies ”Main”. A piece of Cadbury Dairy Milk is exchanged to celebrate their new found friendship and the closing VO states, ”Nayi Dosti Ka Shubh Aarambh. Also, the commercial plays the same jingle which would help establish a strong brand recall.

On Air on July 21

It is set to hit TV screens nationwide on July 21, 2012 and is expected to have a presence in over 70 television channels. To further
strengthen the brand’s digital presence, the TVC was released online on YouTube and Facebook on July 13.

Ad Timing: Friendship Day and College Re-opening

The campaign is perfectly timed to be on-air two weeks before the Friendship Day on 5th August. Also, with most colleges opening in June of the year, it also has good timing with students just starting to make new friends in colleges. CDM wants to be the chocolate through which the students express their emotions of the ‘friendship moments’.

The TVC will be supported by a robust integrated marketing campaign, including on-ground activations in 80 colleges, creative print placements, interesting radio capsules in leading radio stations across many cities and outdoor, to urge people to make new friends and celebrate special “friendship moments”.

Symbol of different things in different contextual situations

Cadbury Dairy Milk is trying to own every sweet moment of celebration and expression in your lives. This is part of the long-term brand building campaign ‘Shubh Aarambh‘. CDM has taken a very difficult challenge  and it has done a decent  job by partly owning the festival and family celebrations with its product line ‘Cadbury Celebrations’. It later built on the valentine moment between a boy and a girl.

It now comes up with this intelligent TVC trying to own the moment of ‘friendship’ with the message and building on its earlier moments – valentine, family, and celebration – with the background of marriage.  This is intelligent, as CDM is trying to become the message itself within different contexts, and bringing all the moments together.

It is very encouraging to see Kraft Foods continuing its strong brand-building activities, despite the inflationary times. With the consumers feeling the price increases on all products, consumers are already decreasing their discretionary spends such as chocolates. So, it is very interesting to see whether this will translate into sales in the short-term or not, but it definitely is going to help the brand in the long-term.  This is a classic example of a strong campaign with a long-term vision for the brand.

The press release for this advertisement has been shared by the strategic communications agency, The PRactice (www.the-practice.net).

AdStock is a simple mathematical model of how advertising builds and decays. It is invented by Simon Broadbent as he studied Milward Brown’s ad awareness data.

AdStock helps to:

  1. Optimize your advertisement scheduling
  2. Used in marketing-mix modelling to come up with advertising ROIs, etc.
  3. Helps you decide when to be off-air and when to be on-air
  4. Helps you understand the advertising decay behaviour

How advertising builds and decays?

Let us take awareness as a parameter to understand the concept of AdStock.  As a consumer watches an advertisement for the first time, let us assume that consumer gains certain awareness of the brand, category, etc. Now, when the same consumer watches the advertisement for the second time, the advertisement builds on the awareness. The advertisement hopefully will strengthen the awareness, recall, preferences, etc. So, advertising builds on itself and that is why we call it as a campaign building.

Similar to the way it builds, an advertisement also decays in similar fashion. If a consumer has seen an advertisement A1 10 times in a week and the same consumer has seen an advertisement A2 only once in a week, then the way the consumer forgets the advertisements is very different.  The decay rate of an advertisement depends on various parameters such as: the strength of the advertisement itself, media plan, media vehicles chosen, category involvement of the consumer, etc.

The normal GRP data doesn’t take into account the build and decay rates. So it doesn’t take into account the residual effect of advertising, though a company doesn’t advertise in a specific period. AdStock is nothing but the GRP data taking into account of the build and decay of advertising, which is more sensible in marketing applications.

Optimize your advertisement scheduling

As explained, the AdStock GRPs are the GRPs weighted for the advertising build and decay rates.

Let us look at case to optimize the scheduling strategy for an advertisement. For this case, the advertisement is assumed to have a half-life of 6 weeks (hypothetical). This will come out for a decay rate of 12.24% as shown in the table below.

We have four options of scheduling, each using roughly the same (1200-1500 GRPs) amount of GRPs. Once we translate these raw GRPs into AdStock GRPs, it will help us decide which scheduling strategy is the most optimum as explained below.

The AdStock GRPs are adjusted based on the decay rate.  For example, the number 469 in Wk 2 is arrived by: (250 of Wk2) plus (250*87.8) (decayed GRPs of Week 1) = 469.

Similarly, 662 in Week 3 is arrived by: (250 of Wk 3) + (250*87.8) (decay of Wk 2) +(250*77.0)(decay of Wk 1)= 469

From the above, it is clear that Option 1 gives the maximum ROI. The other parameter important for selection of an option is the off-air time. Which of the above options gives me the maximum off-air time (when you don’t air the advertisement)?

From the above table, it is clear that Option 1 gives the maximum off-air time for the advertisement by still maintaining more than 500 GRPs. In the above example, 500 GRPs is considered as the threshold and if it goes below, then the advertisement has to come on-air.

To sum it up, AdStock helps marketers understand ‘When to advertise‘? AdStock is commonly used in scheduling, marketing-mix modelling, etc.

Any comments on this regard are most welcome.

Thank you.

Scheduling deals with the question, ‘When should we advertise the product?’ The answer depends on many factors such as the marketing objective, product sales trend, competition, budget, etc. as we will see in the article.

Types of scheduling patterns:

There are three types of scheduling patterns broadly:

  1. Continuity – Advertise throughout the year and evenly throughout the year.
  2. Flighting – Advertise only during some months of the year
  3. Pulsing – It is a mix of both continuity and flighting, where you have a base amount of activity and you increase the media activity during some periods.

With significant amount of money being spent on media activities and increasing quarterly pressures, it becomes very important to get the best out of every rupee. It is important to understand how to schedule the advertisements for a brand or product. Some of the key factors that influence the scheduling pattern for a brand are as below.

Marketing Objective

The scheduling of an advertisement for a brand is most heavily influenced by what exactly is the marketing objective. For example, a brand launch (on its first year), the objective is to increase the awareness than to increase sales. So, the advertisement scheduling will be tuned towards increasing reach. For example, a typical target could be to reach 75% of the max TG through the vehicle. Similarly, if the objective is to increase sales through some consumer promotions, then the scheduling has to be planned in synch with the promotion time.

TG Viewership

The scheduling strategy of when to advertise your product also gets impacted majorly by the target group (TG) you’re targeting and their viewership habits. For example, if your target group is male 25-40 years, then you may push more advertising on the weekends as the male viewership increases across specific channels on the weekend. So, a good understanding of how the TG consumes the media is very important to set the right scheduling strategy for the brand.

Sales Trend

For most FMCG products, sales happen throughout the year, but some periods show significant increase in sales (blip in sales). For example, a brand like Pears gets sold more in the winter months of the year.  In such brands and categories, you see an increase in advertisements during the respective seasons.

Purchase Cycle

Besides looking at the sales trend of the brand, it is important to understand the purchase cycle of the brand. Is the brand bought at the end of the month as a monthly grocery purchase, or is the brand bought throughout the month or at the beginning of the month. It also depends on what pack-sizes are sold, for example, if larger packs are sold in Metros and smaller packs are sold in lower towns, and then your scheduling of advertisements should differ for the smaller towns and metros appropriately.

Product Availability

It is important to advertise at the time when your product has the highest chance of being sold. If you advertise your product, it is important to be present in the store. It is important for the marketer to work on the advertisement scheduling in accord with the distribution plan.

Markets

Another typical question could be: Should I advertise more in the stronger markets and leverage more? or Should I advertise less in the stronger markets and advertise more in the weaker markets?

Typically for any product or brand, some markets are more important than the other markets. So, typically your advertisement budgets are skewed towards some markets, which will affect the scheduling patterns for the brand.

Competition

It is important to closely understand the sales trend, media activity, and past scheduling patterns of the competitor. Another key question for the marketer is: Should I closely mimic the competitor scheduling pattern or Should I take a different approach?. For example, if you observe GSK’s Sensodyne and Colgate-Palmolive’s Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief advertise mostly at the same time following a similar advertisement scheduling pattern.

Budget

If budgets are low for a brand, then the brand may prefer to drop the media activity for a couple of weeks and then be present with the threshold weights for some specific periods. As one understands, budget is an important parameter influencing any decision.

The above discussed parameters are some of the most common major factors that influence the scheduling strategy for a brand.  Any comments from the media or non-media professionals on this regard are most welcome.

Thank you.

Before reading this article, just close your eyes zeroing your mind for a moment and recollect three television advertisements. Write down a few details of each of the television advertisements you could recollect.

Of all the numerous advertisements I’ve watched, I could recollect only three advertisements:

  1. The old Nescafe advertisement
  2. The recent Flipkart’s advertisement of office-going children
  3. The JK Cement advertisement

These are the only three advertisements I could recollect instantaneously. It is strange to think that I hardly could recollect any other advertisements.  Now, close your eyes and recollect a few brands.  I recollected a few brand names listed the following:

  1. Dairy Milk (chocolate)
  2. Kellogg’s
  3. Dettol
  4. Coca-Cola
  5. Pepsi
  6. ICICI Bank
  7. Samsung
  8. McDonalds
  9. Ford Figo
  10. Flipkart

Also, if one wants to understand which brands do consumers associate with a category, then we have to ask the consumers to recollect advertisements w.r.t those categories. The above shouldn’t be mixed with this.

Clearly, the top of mind (TOM) set of brands are the above. I read through the list and tried to recollect the last seen advertisement in each of these brands. I could recollect the advertisements of all the above brands. Now, why couldn’t I recollect most of these advertisements in the first question? It is because the first question lacked a context.

This shows that a television advertisement on its own is generally of not much use. But if you provide a context to the consumers, then the television advertisements will help the consumers connect the brand with the context. Consumers going to the shop will subconsciously recognize the brand that they’ve watched it on television.  This means if you are investing in television advertisements, you have to provide sufficient contextual support such as in-shop presence, BTL, distribution etc.

Until now, we spoke about two things: Advertising your product on television and creating a context offline. This helps the consumers connect the brand with the context. But what actually helps the consumer receive your communication in the first place.

To communicate something you need to first command the recipient’s attention

Consumers, as human-beings, switch on and off in various situations based on different factors. One of the key factors that make the consumers decide to switch on or off is Relevance.  A consumer who is about to buy a car will suddenly switch on (becomes attentive) while watching an advertisement of a car. The same consumer 2 years back might be passive and switched off to advertisements of cars.

Also, anything different from routine generally catches the attention of people. For example, the Flipkart advertisement having elderly looking kids. Another example is the use of celebrities. Because consumers become attentive when they look at celebrities, usage of celebrities and other unique elements commands attention.

I’ve put celebrities and unique creative elements under one category because they are good in commanding attention. But they are not enough. Only uniqueness in the creative will help consumers remember the advertisement, but consumers will not remember the brand of the advertisement.

To communicate something you should be relevant to the recipient

The presence of unique elements or celebrities doesn’t make a communication relevant. But the problem is relevance is something that has to come from the consumers. I cannot shout in the media that I am relevant to you, hear me! For example, a consumer considering to buy a car finds the advertisements of cars relevant. Does this mean that to communicate to a target audience I have to wait for the consumers to feel my category relevant to them? No, in such cases you have to build category relevance to the consumers. You have to give them reasons why they have to use the category.

But, how does one build relevance? Relevance is a recurring theme. You build relevance to a category by relating the category to what is relevant to the target audience. For example, if you want to communicate something on conditioners, you have to make consumers relevant to the category. But the category is very nascent and consumers don’t feel a relevance to the category. So, in such cases you build relevance for conditioners by understanding what is relevant (1-level below) to the prospective buyers of the conditioners and connecting that (1 level below relevance) with the category. So, you come up with elements like softened hair, strong roots, etc which are relevant to the consumer and connect that to the category. This is building category relevance for effective communication. The recent TVCs on Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief is also an example of the category relevance.

But what if the category is already a well penetrated category like shampoos or toilet soaps? As the category is already relevant, all brands clutter the consumer confusing him and he switches off to the category. This is where brand relevance comes into play. This means you have to make the consumer feel relevant, not by talking about the category, but by talking about the brand. Here you don’t talk about the category elements like softened hair, but you try to build relevance by distinguishing your brand such as natural, herbal, seeds of some plant etc. You have to give reasons to buy your brand and make your brand relevant. This is the true test of marketers on how well they can create the brand relevance – the brand associations, the aura of the brand, brand values, brand differentiation etc. Consumers have to feel a specific brand in the category relevant to them.

Most television advertisements today fail because they are not relevant to the audience and they failed to build relevance.  The media is so cluttered today that advertisers struggle to draw attention first, and the very few that draw attention fail in being relevant to the target audience. So, television advertisements are an effective tool to build brand awareness and recognition. But it is a difficult task to build brand relevance using TVCs, because consumers are not ready (and too much clutter) to receive the differentiating factors that should make this brand relevant to them.

In my next post, I will write about how to build effective relevance and how we can connect relevance with the consumer decision making process.

Not many people would argue about the diversity of the culture in India. This is the country where the language and the taste of water changes every 100 km. The question is – how does this diversity affect the marketers to communicate their products? How does an advertiser look at this diversity? Is there a magic mantra that cuts through all these linguistic and cultural diversity?

Research done by Milward Brown suggests that there is no single mantra in advertising that works for the whole country. There are very few advertisements that worked well across the country. Some of the observations from the research are:

1. Celebrities can be the glue that binds markets

Celebrities can work across markets, but that definitely doesn’t guarantee the success. Using a celebrity reduces the risk of failure of     the advertisement across markets. Particularly in the South, the use of local celebrities is more followed as it is observed that people connect well with the local celebrities. Cricketers can certainly help communicate across the markets. It is true that every Indian lives on Bollywood and Cricket.

2. Children can certainly help

Children can help raise empathy and likingness quotient in the ad. However, an interesting stat is one-third of all the ads that don’t do well have kids in them. So, the mere presence of a child doesn’t increase the likingness of the ad. Generally speaking, it is observed that people tend to be active watching ads of children. Children, if used properly, can help in breaking the clutter.

3. Effect of humour is variable

Humour in India works well when it is based on visuals and music. Humour which is based on regional situations and wit may not do well across the markets. While some of the ads have worked well in some regions, the ads based on regional humour caused some serious trouble to the brand in other markets.

4. Product demonstrations are less likely to do well

Advertisements that focus on product demonstrations are less likely to do well. Differing expectations from advertising are at the root of this difficulty. There are clear differences across regions and town tiers in this regard. South India tends to be driven more by the need for information, as does small-town India.

Regional differences in receiving ads

First, something that all of us (in India) suspected: North is North and South is South, and never the twain shall meet. These two regions show the poorest creative transfer; an ad that does well in the South is unlikely to do well in the North, and viceversa.

Second, the West is a poor receiver of ads from the North. Looking at ads tested in those two regions, only 34 percent of ads that were highly enjoyable in the North did well in the West, while close to half the ads that did well in the West also performed well in the North. Therefore, if we need to prioritize between the two regions, the West provides a better litmus test of likely performance.

Third, the South is neither a borrower nor a lender. Ads that do well in the South transfer poorly to the North, moderately well to the West, and well to the East. Therefore, if the South is relevant for a brand, it must automatically be selected as a test centre.

Fourth, successful ads in the East transfer well to other regions, though within a specific and limited context. To clarify, the East is an important market for relatively few brands and categories, so any principle of travel would apply to this rather specific set of brands. The East also tends to be more critical of advertising compared to other regions. Hence, purely from the perspective of creative transference, strong performance in the East is an indication of good performance in other zones.

Most of the research above is done based on the Link scores, a evaluative tool of advertising by Milward Brown. Whether your objective is to raise awareness, promote trial, develop rational or emotional brand associations, or to convey a very specific message, Link will tell you how your ad will perform.

Thank you.

 

Although advertising can be a highly effective means of communication for those consumers who are exposed to it, it is becoming extremely difficult to reach with increased media fragmentation and costs of TVCs. Advertising on TV is a very costly affair and is done only when other vehicles cannot attain the objectives.

Increase in Modern Trade

With Modern trade contributing to 20% of FMCG retail consumption in the major metros and tier-1 cities of India, now more and more consumers are scanning your products. The Indian consumers love going to malls and the consumers find the “product talking” at the store more relevant. With these changing dynamics in India, packaging is going to play a major role in the future.

For most of these consumers, packaging is the first point of contact which attracts them to the product while they scan the shelves. According to some newspaper reports of shopper research, an Indian shopper typically spends 20 seconds scanning a shelf. Research always talked about the importance of packaging and the consumer perceptions built on packaging. It is just that marketers didn’t find its relevance, as Indian retail was majorly dominated by traditional trade.

Packaging plays the biggest role in winning the First Moment of Truth (http://brandalyzer.wordpress.com/2011/09/24/google-and-pg-on-zmot/) and plays a crucial role even after the purchase of the product, Second Moment of Truth.

At the point of purchase, packaging serves a number of key functions, namely:

  • Cutting through clutter and letting the consumer notice your product
  • Communicating marketing information
  • Stimulating or creating brand impressions
  • Providing brand cues and values – safety, style, value, quality, etc.

Sensation Transference

Consumers don’t make a distinction between the product and the package. How consumers feel about the package is transferred to how they feel about the product itself. For the consumers the product is inclusive of the package. There is numerous research that shows that consumers build quality, experience, and taste perceptions from the package itself.

Multinational brands that are eager to chew up a bigger share of the Indian market are spending huge sums to carefully study the Indian consumer to bring in elements that appeal to them. For instance, the latest Kellogg cereal packaging to hit shelves has created more drama around food to make it look more appealing.

Packinnova 2011

This year, for the first time in India, design outfit Desmania, under the aegis of Procter & Gamble, organised a competition for innovative packaging ideas, Packinnova 2011. The company invited students from leading design institutes in the country to submit ideas on ‘packaging for small volumes’. So, the point is clear – packaging is gaining importance in India.

The heart of a computer is the processor and that is what Intel makes. Let us see how Intel is constantly reminding the consumers about what they build  and inspire them to engage with their technology. In a bid to engage consumers and promote its i5 processors, Intel is doing a range of promotions.

Objective:

To push the sales of i5 processors in India. To make the consumers think of Core when they make the next purchase. So, they want to increase the awareness, involvement and association with the Intel Core  brand.

Target Group:

Youth in the age-group of 19-35 years. This is the largest consumer segment of all computing and communication products.

Intel recently launched a viral app called ‘Museum of Me’. It also created an interactive video gaming adventure on YouTube called ‘The Escape’. It continues to advertise on TV in India.

Rationale behind ‘Museum of Me’

While the Indian PC market is in an interesting phase of development and the internet consumption too is growing fast, it is observed that there is an interest in the internet users to recall memories and share them on social networking sites. This consumer behaviour has been the trigger of these promotions.

‘Museum of Me’ pulls information from the user’s Facebook page to create a virtual museum of digital life. Photos, videos, and friends are presented as pieces of art in a museum or an art gallery. The campaign is witnessing an organic growth on the social networking sites 15% of Indian Facebook users already exposed. The company markets this with the tagline Visually Smart reminding consumers of the high end graphics and multimedia abilities of the Core i5 processors.

The Escape

This is a game on YouTube with a movie style chase sequence. The visuals are created for the user to experience the benefits in an emotional way. The game has already got good number of visitors which also helped double the visits to the page http://www.intel.com.  There has been an increase in positive buzz about the brand in the social media post these promotions. It is obvious that these wouldn’t immediately translate into sales and the ROI will come in the next three to four years. The visually smart positioning is advertised with the Bollywood movie channel on Youtube – Youtube BoxOffice.

TVCs for lower-tier markets

India is at a different stage of development where the phone and TV penetration beats the broadband internet, especially in the Tier-III and Tier-IV markets.  The consumers in these markets are not so active on the internet and spend more time on TV. So, Intel continues to spend a lot on the television commercials.

The company doesn’t want to advertise in the face rather create experiences around the brand and engage the consumers with the technology building a long term equity. Most of the promotions may not immediately translate into sales but will build the brand and let more consumers come into the category and the brand. With an appropriate promotion mix of both digital and traditional promotions, Intel is trying to capture the share of mind and be the top of the mind(TOM)of the consumers when they go for their computer purchase.

Maggi Noodles was launched in 1983 as a tasty treat for children, with the brand communicating a strong fun element. The packaging was bright, innovative, and attractive. The brand appealed to mothers as it was very convenient, taking only 2 minutes to prepare, and the price is very affordable. Maggi was a big success.

But, subsequently the brand faced two main challenges:

  • Cost escalation forced the company to increase the price of the product
  • It became clear that advertising was required to maintain sales. The brand requires constant support.

Objective:

The need was to establish a strong core franchise of loyalist regular users among children under 14 by means of more closely targeted and less expensive than continuous mass media advertising.

Promotion Chosen:

Children under 14 were invited (by press ads and leaflet distribution in schools) to become members of a Maggi Club. The child has to send 5 Maggi logos cut from the packs. The members received a club membership card and a list of gifts of fun activities for the year ahead. Some of the gifts are: Snap Safari Game, Disney Today Comic , Standees Set, Cap and Mask set, etc.

Result:

The promotion was extremely successful with large enrollments obtained. These members represented an expanding core franchise set of regular loyalists for the brand.

 

 


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