Understanding the brand and product promotion

For a few days, I have started observing the brand and product promotion strategies by consumer durable sector. Here are my ramblings on the strategies.

1. Titan's discount on surrendering any other watch: I thought about this offer a lot and eventually came to conclusion that this offer serves multiple purposes. First, it is lucrative, get any road side watch and have a discount on Titan. Second, it is mopping out the competitive products present in the market. Effectively increasing the per-capita Titan watches. Thirdly, watches work like self advertisements, the more Titan you see on the wrists, the better it sells.
2. Buy one get one free: I had always been intrigued by such offers. I would think why they cannot sell one at half of the price, or just double the container size? After having a tryst with retail management a few things came to my mind. First, changing container size has two problems; a) Retailers will not find a proper place b) If the original size container has some after use usages, the bigger container may not be useful in that purpose. Second, why cannot they just half the price? This strategy at times back fires; this is just a perceptional change but people always associate price with the quality.  And people will certainly not buy twice the amout even if they subscribe to your brand. Third, and most important in my view, such offer is selling you twice the stuff you may actually need. This serves two wonderful purposes; a) It clears of the idle inventories. b) It makes sure that competition will have to wait twice the time if the customer want to change his/her mind and switch the product. Inflicting thy neighbour :-)
3. Loyalty cards: This is no brainer. It shouts in the air, "our regular customers, yes we do value you". This in turn creats a brand loyalty.

Google wave and lessons in product management

Keep it simple stupid!

Although I wasn't lucky to be invited to evaluate the google wave but what followed on the Internet was more than enough to get at least introduced to. Upon getting introduced to various functionalities and capabilities, I was sure that Google is entering into the PLM world unknowingly but little later I realized that it was actually to compete the one and only one facebook.

Google is one such admired company that doesn't need to spend a penny on marketing. The whole world is ready to do for them for free. Even then the wave stopped!!! 

There are invaluable lessons for strategic product management here.

1. Keep it simple stupid: Google search engine, gmail, gtalk were the cleanest software products available! Why this step child treatment for the Wave? The interface was horribly complex. Although the idea to start with had a merit; when we communicate, we don't pause for the other people, many people in a discussion talk simultaneously talk but then does it qualify to a useful discussion? In the wave you can be bombarded with sudden messages amounting to various points of views. Humans beings have some limitations at least. Wave certainly is better for a brain-storming session but it needs to be more organized. It surely has the potential to replace e-mail, document sharing and collaboration.
2. Facebook is the leader in the social networking. You cannot outpace the leader in whatever he does unless he is recklessly poor in his business model and segmentation reach. Brand wars are never won so easily. Before google was born there was yahoo; yahoo was into search as well as content providing business. Google didn't enter into information providing, instead they created a different market of search altogether. Now who knows yahoo search? Google is verb and an adjective now. Microsoft didn't outpace IBM by providing better and faster mainframes, instead they created a revolution of PCs. On the other hand Flipkart simply concentrated on the market segment left by Amazon. In the same way, if the google had to use Wave, enterprise wide applications could have been the target instead of facebook. Current document management systems, PLMs, ERPs are too poor and inefficient. Google could easily penetrate the market and mop up the market share. But directly hitting the king in his arena is a tough nut to crack.
3. Google has too many products to offer. People are confused about what to see and what not to! This is like the case of  "Consumer Revolt" in the case of many brand/category extensions. (Seriously what is the difference between buzz & wave?)

I strongly believe that Google Wave would have been a huge success had it positioned itself as a B2B document management application. Wave could have swept the whole document management on the cloud market share because of the brand name. We have so many certified SAP consultants; such a move might have change the course of history. (Interestingly this is what Volvo did in India; India is a huge market for Buses and Tata is the king. Indian consumers are price sensitive, thus no operator would anyway test the market with a costly vehicle. Volvo didn't compete directly in that segment, instead they competed in long distance travel where luxury does have a meaning. They also positioned their brand as 'Safe' with the help of Volvo driving schools. Rest is history; I don't wonder when people say, "I don't want Luxury ticket, give me Volvo ticket. This is the Brand at work.)

So what do I conclude today?
If the competition is high, a new product should either create a new market for itself of it should concentrate on the unattended segments to start with, otherwise the demise is inevitable even if little delayed.

Current trends in Branding

Competition mired Indian consumer goods industry is finally thinking about the importance of brand positioning. The recent trends in creative advertising and the paraphernalia in support of the brands have impressed me in particular. I think that the brand building is as good as nest building. A naive bird, carefully picks every straw of correct proportion to weave a nest so tight as it is almost impossible to tear is apart easily. A brand manager also has the similar responsibility. Now it is not much about the quality (producer has to provide the quality (cheap enough for the market segment being tagetted) uncompromisingly otherwise it will be out. Quality does have a premium and people know it), it is about image. It is about an implicit promise that end comsumer assumes of a brand and the brand manager must continuously remind the consumers about that promise.

Here is a tale of Samsung's brand positioning for its hand phone Guru.

Need of brand extension: Samsung has not been a good player in the hand phone market traditionally. On the other facets of competition Samsung has established a good name. Here brand extension becomes imperative. Samsung needs something more than mere Samsung.

Choice of a brand ambassador: They have chosen the legendary Amir Khan, who is trusted for his talent and ahead of the time movies. Samsung is trying to cash in this brand equity of Amir Khan.

Building around a story: This is a recent trend in advertising. The first advertise came up Amir Khan leaving for his village for job. His parents (and girl friend) are bound and kept in touch by Samsung phone Guru. Here the point being elaborated is the imotional importance of a phone. The night long talk with the girl friend high lights the fact that it has a lasting battery life. The market segment being targetted clearly is young people who are living away from their family and are 20-30 age band. This advertisement cleary hits the nerve.

Now that the brand Samsung, and its phone has come upto the mark, it is time for product extension and earn somemore. The latest advertisement talks about Amir Khan being promoted to a manager role, thus there is a "NEED" of multiple numbers, thus a need for multi-sim Samsung Guru. (Other advertisement about multi sim phones were not so effective in my view. They talked about the importance from the perspective of talking to two girl friends -or cheating). But Samsung's latest correctly hits the need side of a product.

On the similar lines the advertisements for Safola tend to show that they are not selling a product, they caring for your heart. Emotional bonding is a must for brand building.

So what is my learning today?

1. Brand equity, tough intangible, can be encashed.
2. There are genuine needs for brand extension. A brand manager should use only such opportunities instead of unnecessary proliferating the brand.
3. Brand positioning is a long term process and rewards are guaranteed in the long run.
4. Brand positioning sbould be in such a manner that is amuses the consumers and at the same time talks directly about their needs.
5. Brand positioning has a lot to do with bonding. If I visit a general store, as soon as I see edible oil, any packet reminds me of Safola, which apparently is better for my heart.