Brands Revisited

India at 60: Look at some websites

2007-08-15T08:45:00.000-07:00

Everybody is screaming and yelling about India's 61st Independence day celebrations, I thought of adding to it in my own way. I thought I would look at top India portals whoi have cared to brand their website on this occasion.

I was quite shocked to see a vertical manhattan at Sify - trying to get business but nothing in terms of branding and they are supposed to be one of top 10 networks.
Nice big logo at Orkut's India interface

Monster - one of the top 3 search portals and nothing on branding front.

Lot of hype on their news channel - CNBC TV 18 but nothing on moneycontrol.com
Was not expected either and also found nothing on India's biggest rail ticket transaction site IRCTC
Titsy witsy bit of branding on Rediff
Classy one on Indiatimes but again very minor
Awsome logo of Google
Nice one by Yahoo also

AOL - nice one

Basics of service in branding

2007-06-03T12:01:00.000-07:00

Motorola:
I had been a big Motorola fan and believed that they deserved to regain their supremacy in mobile phones. But I do not think so it will ever be able to do that unless they get the basics of servicing in place.

Here is my frustrating experience with the big brand.

I bought Motorola A780 phone, which was marketed under MOTO WHIZ campaign in June last year and was pretty satisfied with it. But the battery life started getting worse day by day from 5 months....the buttons started malfunctioning...so I decided to take it to service center. And then I had a shocker of my life. There hardly was any service station in entire Noida but a small dinghy place in sector 18 where hardly 5 people can sit without touching each other. No professionalism at all in dealing with harried consumers.

I waited their for long for my turn only to hear that for checking whether the battery is at fault, they would need 2 days and if its faulty they would send it to some factory somewhere on the planet. When asked for a backup phone they said NO WAY! and when asked if they could tell me how much time it would take to come back from the factory, they again had no answers.

Distraught, I came back to one of the new swanky HOTSPOT outlet (which is now supposed to service and handle retail of Motorola) and I had bought my phone from one of the HOTSPOT outlets. The service lady tells me that she would arrange for the batteries as soon as possible. And would call me to tell about it. I waited and waited and called her back after 1 month only to be told the batteries are still not arrived.

I kept on calling her for 2 more months only to ind the batteries are still not come. And now its going to be 1 year when all the guarantee and warranty on my phone would be gone. My phone needs to be charged now every 6 hours else the battery gets discharged.

I mean its ridiculous....its height of anti-consumerism. I loved the brand but my experience with it is pathetic and am certainly not going to recommend anyone any more to spend even a single penny on it. They might have understood to make a product and sell it but they are certainly far far away to understand that servicing a customer is even more critical.

Goodbye Motorola! You just lost a big fan of yours. I know you would not care as you must be busy making some new hot selling product.

Targeted advertising: Noscruf.org

2007-05-27T05:57:00.000-07:00

I had made a cursory mention of Targeted advertising and the need for reaching out to customers in more and more appealing and customized approach.

P&G launched an unbranded viral campaign, Noscruf.org to divert attention from Philips Norelco Bodygroom electric razor (an Amazon.com bestseller) and scare men into being clean shaven by showing thme the consequences of growing hairy stubble.

The campaign has been done by Digitas, boston based agency.

The campaign is quite hilarious. Noscruf stands for National Organization of Social Crusaders Repulsed by Unshaven Faces. The website has been designed on the lines of archaic geo cities type pages. At first look it looks like a crusade by some selected women against men of their lives who do not shave. It is totally unbranded and only by googling you can make out that it actually is a marketing campaign. The entire look and feel of the old and dusty website makes you jump of the bed and shave....

Yahoo has new Mission statement.

2007-05-26T22:50:00.000-07:00

Yahoo has been trying to catch up with Google. This seems to be one of the ways to catch up with "Don't be Evil" motto of Google.

Yahoo launced its new mission statement: "Yahoo's mission, is to connect people to their passions, their communities, and the world's knowledge."

To ensure this, Yahoo offers a broad and deep array of products and services to create unique and differentiated user experiences and consumer insights by leveraging connections, data, and user participation.".....Jeff Weiner, EVP of Yahoo's Network Division

They have done a rather good job of pinning down the statement. With the rise of web2.0 technologies and evolution of consumer needs...Yahoo with its products like Answers, Finance, Bix etc can do it. But the big question is whether Yahoo would be able to come up with new products and especially against Google juggernaut? Yahoo mail is not able to catch up with GMAIL. Infact nothing after Answers has been able to catch public attention.

Coming back to mission statement: It is actually a little more focus than its previous mission statement:

"Our mission is to be the most essential global Internet service for consumers and businesses."

How we pursue that mission is influenced by a set of core values - the standards that guide interactions with fellow Yahoos, the principles that direct how we service our customers, the ideals that drive what we do and how we do it. Many of our values were put into practice by two guys in a trailer some time ago; others reflect ambitions as our company grows. All of them are what we strive to achieve every day.

In nutshell, the mission statement is right, Yahoo needs to fulfill it with new products and make better us of its marketing acumen to prove they can sustain it.

Read details:
1. Man on a mission blog
2. CNN News
3. Yahoo docs
4. And for a word by word analysis, read on Search engine blog

Despair, Inc. :-(

2007-05-19T07:54:00.000-07:00

All of us have seen those motivational quotes in our offices....those DARE TO BE DIFFERENT notes all over the corporate merchandise. Here is a company, DESPAIR, INC, which produces posters, mugs, souvenirs,t-shirts and lot of other merchandise to play jest over the motivational indoctrination syndrome, all over the corporate culture. Quite contrast and as a mirror image to Successories.

Sample is the pessimist cup.

Logo of the company? you would not believe it. It has tradema rked :-( , yes the famous frowning emoticon which we use in chats, mails etc. Next time you use it, beware, they may ask you to pay money for it is usage.

A Caution notice

2007-05-04T22:36:00.000-07:00

It is saddening to know how some unscrupulous handful of people try to cash in hopes of people who are looking for jobs...It saddens the spirit of companies like HCL which are trying to make India a much better place to live in...

Blog marketing

2007-05-03T06:35:00.000-07:00

I had blogged about Webaroo
on my Tech blog, and I got a mail from a webaroo professional.

Very smart. This is the future of marketing. Relevant and contextual advertising. Sending mesages to those who are actually interested.

"Indian" Hoarding

2007-01-03T05:45:00.000-08:00

During the last week many flights were canceled in Delhi due to heavy fog, Indian put this big and bold hoarding on the airport. Nice!! I just hope their call centre is better...and take calls not like Airtel!

ICICI: 2 Hour ATM

2006-12-10T08:31:00.000-08:00

lol...I saw this in Sector 11 office near HCL Infosystems ...can not they take care of these small things????

Nescafe outlets

2006-10-16T09:22:00.000-07:00

Nescafe rings coffee in anybody's mind. So it was not a surprise they started coffee outlets but what I liked was that they are using the outlets to promote other products like Maggi,etc
Its a nice concept targeted to people who want to have coffee and snacks while on move. Added benefit is the locations that they are chosing and format they have rolled out. These are more like kiosks but with nice ambience and pictures.
Overall its a good though late entry of Nescafe in retail.

UPS India stores: A great experience

2006-09-24T10:32:00.000-07:00

A great brand is which goes beyond the core product in value added services to give beyond the expectations of consumers.
A live example of this is UPS Store in Inida. (Source: The Brand Reporter)

Courier services had been a commoditized business where when you walk in you will meet uneducated people ruffling away parcls etc but UPS targeting SOHO and SMEs has devised a new strategy. Customers can track their parcels through SMS, delivery box service being given to customers; next day delivery to Europe and USA; at the store customers can get specialised and customised packaging services for variety of services and the entire staff is trained for pacakaging. Besides, store stocks stationery items and packaging materials like bubble wrap and thermocol which are hard to find elsewhere. Plus you can email your document to the store and they will take print out and courier it across!! Whew! along with that they give printing, lamination and binding services at the store.
Awsome way of buidling surprise expectations for customers

Internet crusade to save old logo

2006-07-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

People are enraged with the new proposed logo of Ontario.
For detail news click here

Unusal Advertising

2006-06-13T04:20:00.000-07:00

Irctc website is supposed to promote Railways tickets and look what is it doing.
Sometimes I wonder what the world has come to ....

Find SVP

2006-02-18T10:15:00.000-08:00

ever puzzled by countless ads, ever increasing size of newspaper, channels, websites when a common man is inundated with so much information ...well that served as a business model for a company: Find SVP

An Information clearing house named Find SVP has built a thriving business in 20 Centuries on the promise that less information can be More Information.

Mapping Brand Equity

2006-02-18T09:52:00.000-08:00

In the quest of understanding Brand Equity, here is what I had been thinking from long time and Sunil Alagh lecture in a seminar sparked off some more focus and clarity on the way in my understanding.

These are applicable to both B2B and B2C sectors.

A Brand can be said to be a bundle of two things: A Product and Emotional linkages to consumers.

The diagram on left shows three positions that a brand can be perceived in market.

1: Too good product but bad in terms of emotional appeal in consumers (example could be Air India promising a great experience and the recent adverts of a pilot sitting with a girl , well as of now everybody knows its not there and communicating what is not there before you ensure consumers expereince it is deadly)

2. A company / brand which people can relate very easily and commands a good deal of loyalty in consumers but launches something with bad content and the product generally flops despite a good taking in the beginning (Ex: Pepsi launching Pepsi Blue)

3. Balance between Product and Perceptions: generally perceptions carrying sucessful product (Ideal case) Orange in UK (not Indian Orange brand)

Example of Mobile Industry (Global). These is my understanding.

now its open for debates and discussions .

Kodak: Identity Changed

2006-02-06T00:16:00.000-08:00

On January 6, 2006, at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las vegas.
This new look moves the Kodak name out of the traditional yellow box, giving it a more contemporary design, a streamlined rounded look and distinctive letters. This introduction is the latest step in the company's broad brand transformation effort, which reflects the multi-industry, digital imaging leader Kodak has become."

Another source reports that "This 'Brand Transformation' project appears to have originated from the long term relationship with Ogilvy. Clear tangible guidelines never seemed to materialize but there were plenty of interim guidelines that came in the form of vague short paged pdfs; each progressively spoke in more detail about a new visual style." The source notes that "Kodak is a traditionally slow moving organization with large marketing and communication divisions."

In an internal January 9 memo, CMO Carl Gustin recognizes the need now to move a little faster: "We are working quickly to update our guidelines, policies and practices. This is a major change with a lot of work yet to be done. We chose to reveal the wordmark without the completed 'rulebook' because it was ready and it was time to go!"
Source:http://www.identityworks.com

David v/s Goliath of Advertising

2005-12-21T01:40:00.000-08:00

Marshall’s Road in Chennai is the David (Advertising Agency) office, on the other side is the office of JWT (Advertising Giant). In between is a hoarding, on the left side of which in white against a black background is written ‘David’, with a red arrow indicating the location of the office.
Courtesy: AgencyFaqs

MSN India Starts Advertisement on its website

2005-12-19T23:23:00.000-08:00

MSN India has started a new thing on Indian Internet.
Ads on websites. (See red bordered)
Will it be big or not?....We have had interstitials, superstitials,banners ,etc but TVC ad on website...and the best part is....it does not depend on the connection speed you have...as it does not buffer on your computer but is real time....
But i think it may not work in the world of TIVOs where people are trying to get rid of Ads....but yes it can certainly see a new task for all the pop up blockers to come up with getting rid of this thing in future....but thats stretching this new and exciting thing too far....all in all discussed it will certainl help Indian Internet to evolve further.

My Logo

2005-10-27T04:31:00.000-07:00

Why I chose this?...Will write very soon on that

Google

2005-01-24T05:17:00.000-08:00

Google stands for

Bose

2005-01-22T01:36:00.000-08:00

Yestreday I was thinking about what makes people buy a product worth Lakhs of rupees, I had this thing in mind since visited the Bose Shop in Mumbai with a freind.

(Yesterday being a great chance to reconsider the question. I was doing an asiignment for Consumer Insights. :-)

I am a music lover (not a fan but love to relax hearing John Denver , some cool soothing songs)and also a dancer, and I that is why I appreciate the fact that each and every beat of a song stands for some meaning. I would love to have a music system which gives me this pleasure. I may be willing to pay a little premium for it.

Then another thought came to mind, yesterday there was a concert of Parikrama in IIM A and many guys had taken the pains of going to the concert without caring about the cold outside. They were like fans of pink floyds and they had to go and listen to it no matter what. From there came this idea....Bose is perhaps for those people...who are rock and concerts freak...like a freind of mine paid 1500 rupees for 2 hrs concert of Bryan Adams in Bangalore....Bose helps them to relive this dream of rock concerts conveneintly at their own place, where people can relax hearing to their favourite song ...clearly ...you may have current aberrations leading to unclear sound but not in BOSE.....thats the essence of BOSE.....