Is buying when not on 'sale' any good?

I just happened to visit the Alpha One mall this afternoon. Some students were sitting in the atrium on benches doing nothing and breathing in the cool air. Shops, all looked empty.

Of course, it's a Thursday, and one won't expect much anyway. Besides, everyone's blaming the economy. And lastly the discount sales are largely over. Or have they? So it looked.

The last point has become the reason for people to move out shopping. They know that if they don't buy when there's no discount sale, they won't have to wait too long.

Now that 'shopping when there's discount sale' has become the norm, I am wondering what exactly is a person who's shopping when there's no 'sale' thinking? For surely, asked directly if he would prefer to save money on buying the same thing when there's a discount, every single buyer would reply in affirmative.

One grand excuse that people might give to themselves when they do 'unsale' shopping is that they buy when it's new, fresh, just in. They buy when very few others have the same thing. But that's only internally satisfying until it is publicly recognized that very few others have the same thing.

We all know public recognition of new things isn't necessarily uniform and up to date. In fact, majority don't bother to keep track of majority of the things. And therefore, recognition from others is difficult when someone goes 'unsale' shopping.

I think that's so terrible. 'Unsale' should be added as a tag alongside the brand name so that such shopping gives shopper some good credit for having taken the risk.

Vibrams, the marketing thinking and the invisible style

Just came back from a 5km run in the backwoods in my Vibrams FiveFingers.

A little girl going to school watched the shoes and followed my moving feet with a sleepy curiosity. A taxi-driver followed my feet for a few seconds. A watchman (whom I encountered for the first time) at a neighborhood building followed my feet for a few seconds too. Sometimes even dogs look at my feet with curiosity.

When at Hiranandani Garden in Mumbai, quite a few fellow runners/walkers on the track look on with inquisitive eyes.

Over more than 2 years now, I've rarely encountered another person in my vicinity wearing Vibrams.

None of the people who've talked to me about Vibrams have ever admitted that they love the style. Strangely, it doesn't bother me. My feet feel so right, so very natural, so free.

That's the point. I am sure Vibrams must have been written to or informed by a mighty number of shoe-lovers about the 'ugliness' of the visual design. On the other hand, a mighty number of Vibrams wearers must have shared how amazing they feel on wearing the shoes.

Surely, exclusivity - even that of the weird or the incomprehensible which borders ugliness - is a style statement. But unless there's something substantial, such style statements are difficult to sustain.

In the case of Vibrams, the movement the shoes facilitate and the feeling arising out of that movement in the wearer, far surpass the awkwardness of visual style. In fact, if you video-record the movements/the action of someone wearing Vibrams, you might not find anything extraordinary either. And this someone won't stop wearing Vibrams.

Toyota's Express Maintenance is great strategy

I am not a great believer of the carzy ecosystem. But having bought and owned and maintained a car, this initiative makes perfect sense. In fact, more than perfect sense.

It's the kind of strategic move that was open to all the car brands of the country. But again it takes guts and simple observation of the customers' travails at the service stations to come up with such a move. Coming from a brand that promises Quality Revolution, it looks the right thing. Am sure this must have taken quite a bit of preparation to be able to promise such a thing.

Among those bullet points, look at the last one. Watch your car being serviced. And 60 Minutes Comprehensive Service.

I don't quite like the Toyota's styling department but if I were to buy another car today, this initiative would be enough to switch my mind to a Toyota.

SDC Bank?

Oh the brightness captured my attention amidst the drabness of the architecture you see in the picture and the dullness of the traffic of the traffic I found myself in.

SDC Bank. Full form, The Sahebrao Deshmukh Cooperative Bank Ltd. Given the transformation that every little bank has undergone, I wasn't quite surprised to find this. However, it looks to me that this fancy abbreviation was a result to put itself in the league of the big abbreviatedly branded banks of the country.

I wonder if this peculiarly traditional bank name has a history, a story. If it really does, it has just added one more layer between itself and the people's understanding. Perhaps there's another way for such brands to tell  us their stories and appeal to a certain audience.

May be, its customers will now feel a little better when others ask them, "So which bank you have your account in?" And they say, "SDC Bank!" Wow! Was that the thinking for this change?

Brightness helps get attention. Abbreviation adds to the confusion though.

Elements of persuasion

I find the following in the case of a book. I am talking about stuff found on the physical book.

1. Title
2. Author's Name
3. Visual on the Jacket
4. Appreciation/Endorsement Blurbs
5. Award/Number of Copies Sold/Motion Picture Adaptation
6. Story Idea
7. Storyline
8. Price
9. Thickness of the Book
10. Publishing House
11. Material/Binding Quality
12. Mini-reviews inside on the first few pages
13. Manner of Indexing
14. Titles filling up the Index
15. Author's Pic
16. Author's Bio

Platform, website, presence

As more people on the web have come to know of Mississippi Earrings, we face these questions more frequently now:

• Are your products available on the net?
• Do you have an online shop?
• Are you selling online?
• Why don't you sell online?
• Why don't you set up an online platform?
• Do you have a website?
• What's the name of your website?

All questions look apparently the same. But if one were to get very specific about the meanings of each of the words in these questions, one would have to make very very deliberate and different choices than the answers that some questions lead one into.

Like for example, for the first question, I would have to answer, "Yes, designs are available on the net."

For the second, third and fourth questions, "No, we don't have an online shop. But we try to sell through the online medium and we do makes sales through the online medium."

Fifth question. Online platform to sell? More important is online presence so that friends and others remember us when they are buying jewelry. Platform is infrastructure, not an aid to memory unfortunately.

Sixth, yes we have a blog. Website still doesn't fit into our scheme of things. Can you see the website out there standing tall, a landmark, among the nondescript buildings? :)

Seventh, what's the name of our earrings?

Pizza Hut's fraud (or intention to fraud)

Sunday afternoon, I went to Pizza Hut. While ordering, I happened to see that stamp like symbol so prominently placed on the menu. Says "all inclusive Pricing" with a capital P. That term and that symbol seem so assurance-giving.

After having had my meal, I checked the bill. It had 10% Service Charges added to the total amount.

I enquired. I showed to the waiter that mighty symbol that seemed so reassuring. In turn, the waiter showed me the fine print at the bottom of the menu with the asterisk mark. Then showed the asterisk mark at the end of the term "all inclusive Pricing".

Wtf! Does the word 'all' and the word 'inclusive' have some sanctity or not?! It's like saying no-conditions attached, subject to this condition. Is the word bigger or that fucking * mark with the fine print? That's what it has come down to for the big brands, is it?

xyzkart.com Platforms

Was intrigued by the kart.com names suddenly flooding the market. Found this. Highlighted in red above. :)

Flipkart started as a books company, so the words 'flip' (flipping pages) and kart. Now it sells a whole range of stuff. Including electronics, mobiles, fashion goods et al. In contrast, these guys are trying to build kart.coms for each and every category. Would be interesting to check the results after some time.

What do you think will happen most likely?

Fuzzy Logic? No, Fuzzy Duck!

Those in Ahmedabad and read Ahmedabad Times must've seen this ad. The size compels you too. And if it holds your attention, you must've noticed the name. FUZZY DUCK.

FUZZY DUCK?! I check my eyes every time I see the ad. Must admire the audacity. Not sarcastic here. Of course, with their spends and audacity, they could think of better branding efforts surely. I really want to see how they fare.

Two Spoons and Your Favorite Dessert

So your favorite dessert is placed on the table right in front of your eyes.

And there are two spoons alongside to have your fill.

Of course, you'll not use both the spoons unless you are in a certain mood :). Which one will you pick?

Have a look at this conversation:

 

In the above when I say 'nothing of strategy', I don't actually mean 'nothing'. Every move is a strategy, good or bad. In the instance quoted above, I reckon it's a weak capture of strategy. It is possible that the strategy itself is weak.

For one moment, let me equate a tagline with a spoon. A spoon, among many different spoons, which my friend's customers would want to use to have their fill. What kind of spoon is this friend asking us for? And therefore, how effective his marketing communication efforts might turn out to be?

No small matters these.

Goddess of English

I just came across this interesting bit. And only now.

A Dalit writer called Chandra Bhan Prasad, along with the dalit community of a village called Banka in UP, has built a temple to worship the Goddess of English!

An excerpt from a write-up on the BBC site:

About two feet tall, the bronze statue of the goddess is modelled after the Statue of Liberty.

"She is the symbol of Dalit renaissance," says Chandra Bhan Prasad, a Dalit writer who came up with the idea of the Goddess of English

"She holds a pen in her right hand which shows she is literate. She is dressed well and sports a huge hat - it's a symbol of defiance that she is rejecting the old traditional dress code.

"In her left hand, she holds a book which is the constitution of India which gave Dalits equal rights. She stands on top of a computer which means we will use English to rise up the ladder and become free for ever."

Incredible!

It's a sort of socio-cultural development but I gather quite a few marketing tips from this event.

If people are stuck up about religion, seed the change in the religion itself, instead of trying to generate an anti-religious sentiment. Am sure it must have been some work convincing at least some of the dogmatic people in the community.

And if God is the greatest and if God's word is the highest command, then make God command the change.

They've also announced that they'll celebrate Oct 25 every year as English Day. Of course, if you have Ram Navmi, Shivratri, Holi and so on, why not English Day for Goddess of English.

Still early days but this should yield interesting and positive results. Great initiative.

You can go through the BBC article here.

Pic courtesy: http://www.bbc.co.uk/

Discounts! Wow!

A couple of days back, I tweeted, "These days, people shop only when Discount is available. Discount has become the biggest brand." Some people seem to agree. In which case, there are huge implications.

I am quite intrigued by discounts. My interpretation of brands that go on discounts is this. Either the total supply in the category exceeds the demand. Or the particular brand's supply exceeds its demand in the market. Standard economics.

These are the possible layers of outcomes resulting from discounting. Layer-3 follows Layer-2 follows Layer-1.

All marketing happens to create perceptions which lead to the desired outcome, right? When discounts become a recurring and a quite-awaited feature of the brand, what can one say about the perceptions getting created?

If one looks at Layer-3, one theoretical possibility is "Image is intact" for both, brands making net loss as a result of the discounts and brands making net profit even after the discounts. Is there a hope that when a good number of sales happen and people really start liking the brand, they would start paying the 'normal' prices and forget the discounted prices? But is that a possibility in real? My judgment is that brand image takes a dip and people might not be willing to pay 'normal' prices once accustomed to paying at certain levels of prices.

Discounts are a downward spiral. What happens if the "image is hurt"? Since people would resist walking in, offer more discounts? And then?

If companies make a good Net Profit even after discounts then why discount at all? Reduce the prices across the board, so that customers are willing to walk in at any time of the year, if they like the brand.

I don't have hard numbers to substantiate the hypotheses or judgments in this post. Some numbers would help understand the phenomena better.

Live Ads

When I watched this TEDx video "Dance Your PhD" featuring John Bohannon & Black Label Movement, I was stunned.

Stunned by its impact and its simplicity. It absorbs the viewer. Not necessarily sure if the theories still becomes understandable right in the first go. But one just cannot deny its attention grabbing quality.

Would you pass by without watching such a performance for a few minutes?

Having worked on Brand Activation assignments for quite some time, it stuns me in that we never could think of something like this. Evidence to the effectiveness of such activation is for every one to see. Reality dance shows, song and dance in movies, advertisements, theatre, street theatre/play. Not in the sense of attaching a brand message to a theatrical or dance performance. But in the sense of actually acting or dancing out the message of the brand itself.

I call this kind of activation a 'Live Ad'. The memorability of such a Live Ad is undoubtable. I suppose, engagement is almost guaranteed. Of course, it needs a narrator/spokesperson of great ability.

The best part is it is a celebration of human form in motion. While it is choreographed, it isn't staged like an ad on television. It is felt in its immediacy and reality. It calls for great fitness on part of the performers, and therefore, most likely, the faces that lend themselves to the brand are going to be immaculate.

Any brand wanting to engage audience like this? We will make it possible. Write in to siddharthsoni at witvanwinkle dot com. Check witvanwinkle.com as well.

Breaking the Clutter Online Through Advertisements: A Perspective

The TV Screen, The Laptop/Desktop/Tablet screen, The Mobile Screen: the three prominent screens in our day-to-day lives. And marketers/advertisers have been, and are still, vying somehow to occupy space on all the three screens. While the TV screen was fairly well-captured long back, the confidence on other two screens is at best shaky.

How was the TV screen captured? You watching some drama, some action and snap... Bang. There's a new jingly wall in front. Yes, the one view was completely obliterated to show you another. All space gone in one go. Typical interruption strategy. After the ad's done, there's drama and action again. Action-Ad-Action-Ad. It's sequential.

So what's happening on the Laptop screen? There's some spot there, some spot here. The page remains for perusal, but some space is allotted to advertisements. Which means the content-for-perusal and the ad-for-interruption show up in close vicinity and at the same time. Advertising on Web Screen is largely space-sharing, unlike on television where it is largely sequential (one-after-another).

If researches on usability and eye-scanning-on-the-web are to go by, people develop blind spots when they become familiar with the web-page in question. It means certain spaces just don't register any more. Very similar phenomenon to your behavior in places that you are very familiar with. No matter how many obstructions or projections come in your way, after a while, your movement becomes smooth enough to dodge them.

This gives rise to an inference: if page-designs (especially layouts) remain the same/are standardized, ad-spots will typically become blind spots. Bling spots are always reserved for content, in whatever form. Whether marketers know this or not, that's the reason there is so much emphasis on engagement (or conversation). And engagement would only happen through content spots.

TV Screen erects ad-walls but Laptop/Web Screen cannot.

TV Screen uses dramatic breaks during dramas to drill into the consumer's heads, Web Screen allows great conversations to be soaked up by consumer's senses.

So what do ya got to talk about? Who's doing the talking? Does he know how to talk?

Flood of Names

Branding has to contend with quite a few names now. Add to that the words in the message that the brand wants people to remember and credit the brand for.

Depending on the business model and the intentions, one might have to take care of the following names/words. Take for once, Shopper's Stop, a retail hub fashion brands.

• Retail Store Name - Shopper's Stop
• Online Store/Domain Name - Shoppersstop.com
• Tagline/Punchline for the Retail Store - Start Something New
• Owned Brands - Stop (and similar other names)

Also, important is the category name. Category name of the retail store, category name of the product for which it has an owned brand and so on

• Category Name for the retail store - Fashion Store? Lifestyle Store?
• Category Name for the owned brand - Women's Office Wear / Casual Wear, etc.

Sure, category names get embedded in a while and therefore, might not need marketing spends and energies. But for any new position or innovation, category names also need to be remembered.

And many more words are added through campaigns and messages in those campaigns... Imagine the memory capacities of common people! And there's a passage through which these messages reach the place of storage in the consumer's active memory, imagine the width of that passage and possibilities of clogging.

Or if the minds are fertile lands of the earth, imagine the rate of absorption. Also imagine then, the viscosity of the messages. Water-like? Toothpaste-like? Soup-like? Or wood-like? Or metal-like?

So how patient are you? How much do you have? Do you have a nail and a hammer?