Business is Marketing

What would be the end result of a terrific Product, fantastic Pricing, and an out-of-this-world Promotional strategy? A flop show! That is, if you forgot the most important factor: Place! If there is one American invention that has rocked the world and been tried by almost everyone – it’s the ice-cold colas. If there is one war that everyone loves to watch – it’s the cola wars – between Coke and its long standing arch-rival Pepsi. While “blind tests” done time and again have revealed that not many consumers can differentiate between the taste of Coca-Cola and Pepsi once they are blindfolded, then how come it’s been such an uphill task for Pepsi to defeat Coke? In America, it’s someone else who is holding the strings of this old battle – it’s McDonald’s. Strange but true, if McDonald’s (which only sells beverages of the Coca Cola Company) decides to sell Pepsi instead of Coca Cola, then it would not take long for Pepsi to finally defeat Coke. Since 1955, McDonald’s has exclusively sold ...

Obesity laden burgers, cancer causing cigarettes, liver damaging alcohol, pesticide infected cold drinks... advertising is unethically selling everything! It’s time we protested! Angrily! We are so busy working, earning a living, spending, buying things, that many a time, we lose focus of the big picture. We see advertisements and confuse dreams with reality. Sometimes, these dream merchants sell us products, rather, manipulate us into wanting things we don’t really need. Sometimes they seduce us to buy things which are bad for us. More often than once, we find ourselves succumbing to dreams that these advertisers sell. Let’s take a few minutes to think – is it ethical? All that glitters is not gold Increasing competition, increasing clutter in the advertising space and increasing pressure force the companies to do almost anything, even making false claims just to sell. The softest targets and the easiest to convince are children – they may not have the purchasing power, but their pers...

Al Ries and Jack Trout would never have imagined that the newest weapon of mass destruction in marketing warfare is, hold your breath – music!!! “Aye mere vatan ke logo… zara aankh mein bhar lo pani...,” sang the melody queen Lata Mangeshkar; hearing which, even Jawaharlal Nehru (then India’s Prime Minister) who was a part of the audience, was moved to tears. That was decades ago; yet, even today, this song never fails to move you. Music has tremendous power. As Victor Hugo once said, “Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.” Advertising men have used this tool efficiently, to build brands and beat competition. Think of any big brand in any industry and most likely you will recall a catchy jingle. “Kya swaad hai zindagi mein…” Do you remember humming this tune in your car or in the shower! That was the heartwarming ad of Cadbury chocolates where the girl jives into the cricket field, oblivious of the crowd, as her boyfriend hits the winning...

“Of the 25 biggest product categories in the 1920s, 20 are still the brand leaders; and all were built on radio!” Saigon, Vietnam 1965... A secret US army base is readying for war... But one man is going to keep the soldiers laughing... And his radio show… Gooooood Morning Vietnam! Back in India, Vidya Balan set Munna Bhai’s heart aflutter as she crooned, “Gooood Mooorning Mumbai” to her listeners on the radio. Panic was created on Halloween night in 1938. A radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ fictitious story The War of the Worlds caused many people to believe that Martians were invading New Jersey. The listeners missed the opening credits and many were treated for shock hysteria and even heart attacks. Newspaper offices (and surprisingly not Police Stations) were swamped with frantic queries, “What is happening? Where’s the nearest bomb shelter? What must we do?” Yes, a lot can happen on the radio! In fact air waves are witnessing fervent activity in India and the world over. The radio i...

Ask yourself the reason why, while feverishly flipping through this magazine, you’ve suddenly stopped at this particular article! Is it because you have religiously followed this section on marketing strategies for the past year? Well, is that so?!? A man walked into a large room full of people. He was supposed to address them. However, no one was paying attention and it was too noisy to be audible to all. So he went up to a board that was kept there and wrote something. There was a sudden silence in the room as everyone waited for him to speak. The man started, “Now that I have your attention, I will start my talk...” All that he had written was “SEX,” in bold letters on the board and had managed to get the attention of every single person in the room. ‘Sex’ is one word, which arouses a lot of curiosity and has a strong psychological appeal. Is it true then that sex sells? Well, a recent study showed that sex in print advertisements improved the effectiveness of the advertisement, mad...

Everything you did right last year, seems to be stuttering away to glorious ignominy this year; competition’s biting painfully hard; sales are stabbing away; consumers aren’t even giving a third glance; the heat seems to be getting too hot... If you’re at your wit’s end, relax, we’ve got the mother of all solutions – give away your product... for FREE! My six year old walked into a departmental store and went up to the gentleman at the counter and asked him, “Which one of these packets have the free gifts inside them? Please show me.” My jaw dropped as I watched him shop along piling things onto the shopping cart on the basis of which car, or Power Ranger toy or Superman projector they had inside them. Soon I realized I had four untouched packets of Kellogg’s Chocos, and many Sunfeast biscuits and Horlicks bottles. Once the “free gift” was taken out of them, they were abandoned by my little one, leaving me the headache of finishing them off. My first reaction to this shopping escapade ...

“I feel it in my fingers I feel it in my toes, The love is all around me, And so the feeling grows”... I have been humming this song for days, and wondering why! It’s one of my favourites, but not one to be sung for days. I tried to figure out why, and then realized that everywhere I looked, every shop I went to, every website I visited, every dinner I attended, there was one thing that was always present; and that too in large doses – love! Yes, I realized it’s that time of the year when love is on sale, everybody, everything, is drenched in “red,” the colour of love. The red hearts, the red roses are just ‘unmissable’. If Saint Valentine were here, he would have been a very happy saint, for what he did in secret and under great fear, is today being done so openly and with so much gusto that even those remotely aware of him cannot miss this day. Of Chocolates and Teddy Bears If legend were to be believed, then Saint Valentine was a priest during the third century in Rome. At that time...