Business is Marketing

It’s once again that time of the year when love is in the air and all around you, or as Jay Leno once described it, “Today is Valentine’s Day – or as men like to call it, Extortion Day!” GREAT MARKETERS ARE GREAT LOVERS A great marketer loves people. He observes them well, and is quick to find out what they want, many times even before the consumer himself! They call him the “accidental billionaire.” But one thing the man knew as well as software programming was what people his age liked and wanted. Mark Zuckerberg knew that kids on campus want to always be in touch with each other, apart from of course knowing who was dating whom. He probably was right; no wonder Facebook has over 500 million users, and the “status” tab is the most talked about feature! For a great marketer, the consumer is king. The rule is simple, give them what they love and you will have them eating out of your hand. There is nothing more attractive than this four-letter word. No, it’s not ‘LOVE’ but ‘FREE’! If yo...

The movie was insipid, I agree! However, marketers have important lessons to learn – no, not from the film, but its title. Think about it, all our marketing activities are centered around the “Break”. The “breaks” are our lifelines. On TV, it’s the commercial break where all the action happens for marketers! But does TV still work? Does it hold as much promise today as it did earlier? IS TV DEAD? TV has almost become a dirty word in today’s marketing world. Most people, especially the younger generations, seem to be spending all their time online. So who is watching TV? According to the Association of National Advertisers, a survey done on US marketers showed that 62% of them believed that TV advertising had become less effective in the last couple of years. However, they were in for a surprise as according to Deloitte’s 2009 State of the Media Democracy report, Americans were watching 18 hours of TV in 2009 as compared to 16 hours in 2008 – and 26% more people in 2009 than in 2008 ch...

It’s time again to make New Year resolutions, make new promises, set new targets and make new plans. For most of us, it’s also a time to “wish-I-haddone-more”, wish I had planned better, worked harder, quit smoking, kept my new year resolution of 2010! This new year would also be the same as last year, if we do not start thinking differently. The last decade proved that in business, as in personal life, those brands and people who reinvented, stayed in business. You need to be alert and look out for new trends; but more than that, you need to be more aggressive in observing what’s not working and then changing it fast. Being in love with your old ways (however successful they were in the past) can be disastrous. OLD NEED NOT BE GOLD If you want to raise a happy child, the rule is, “Till he is five years old, treat him like a king. Till he is 13, treat him like a prince. From 13 to 18, treat him like a pauper. After 18, become his best friend.” The crux is that good parents change their...

Yes, it’s too time consuming to wait to be let in. If you want to create an impact, you have to be quick. You have to be aggressive. You don’t knock. You just walk on in! In marketing too, a lot of brands have done it by catching our attention and our imaginations and walking right into our lives. In fact, when you do so, it doesn’t matter whether you are big or small, old or new. What matters is how aggressive you are. If you put your energies in the right direction, even the mighty will crumble in front of you. DARE TO DO THE NEW The person topping the list of “Dares” seems to be Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, who is spilling the beans on the Pentagon, the Government, and even on corporations. He has shown what “being bold” can do. A single man who has dared to take on the Goliaths, much like some brands, the Davids, who took on themighty Goliaths and defeated them. A new player in the telecommunications sector, this brand has shaken the old players. Its advertising cam...

His business plans go a little beyond – well, infinity, if I may put it that way. The vision of his company is to make us a multiplanetary civilization. Yes, we needn’t fear being stuck on Earth forever when some unforeseen tragedy strikes. For that 39 year old Elon Musk and his company Space X, are inventing a reusable orbit-class rocket, which according to him, will be one of the most important inventions in history. He plans to take us to various planets and he may be successful, faster than we think he can. However far flung his vision may sound, for starters, the man has managed to win a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to help deliver cargo to the International Space Station located 200 miles above the Earth. Wow! That’s what dreamers are made of, those who dare to think beyond – in this case, way beyond the ordinary. Elon is also one entrepreneur who has his eyes set on the future. He has a car company. It’s no ordinary car company but an electric car company named Tesla. He also...

Your first kiss, your first love, listening to an old song, walking in the rain, receiving a mail from an old acquaintance, watching your child sleep, watching the sunset, waking up to find you still have an hour to sleep, getting a gift that you were planning to buy, seeing your parents smile, sipping coffee in the winter sun! Guess these are just some of the moments that are our ‘bestest’ ones. Life is full of challenges, heartbreaks, pressures and tensions, but true satisfaction and long lasting happiness comes from some of the simplest things that life has to offer. As in life, so in business, the best things are the simplest. Let’s take a closer look. THE BEST COMMUNICATION IS THE SIMPLEST The most famous scientist who ever lived, and the person responsible for giving the most famous equation of the world: E=mc2, was, yes we all know, Albert Einstein. What made this man so famous and made his theories create the maximum impact was not just his genius in analysing things, but in hi...

Once again it’s that time of the year when the world gets into a festive mood. It’s going to be Christmas soon and marketers are already, ready with their plans and their campaigns. Back in India, Dussehra just got over, but festivities have only just begun, with the grand-dad of all festivals – “Diwali”, just around the corner. It’s that time of the year when everyone goes on a buying spree. Consumption reigns supreme this time. However at the heart of all this frantic activity lies a simple thought – “the power of giving”. Yes gift giving is central to Diwali. It’s a way of paying homage to the deity of wealth – Goddess Lakshmi. No wonder Diwali is the largest gift giving and shopping festival of India. Gifts symbolise one’s prayers to the almighty for the prosperity and well being of the recipient. “Giving” is at the heart of all festivities, and “giving” should also be at the heart of all marketing activities. GIVE TO GET This kind of giving is one of the oldest tricks in the books...