Bollywood stars Shah Rukh Khan and Katrina Kaif star together for the first time come together in an ad campaign for best-selling beauty soap bar, Lux. They will endorse two new sensuous variants, Lux Peach and Cream & Lux Strawberry and Cream.
In 2005, Shah Rukh Khan came onto the brand to feature in a memorable TVC with Hema Malini, Sridevi, Juhi Chawla and Kareena Kapoor. This time, the product he endorses has a fragrance created by world renowned perfumer Didier Gaffet. Inspired by the perfume Kenzo Flower and keeping in mind the sensory preferences of Indian women; this Master Perfumer has created a fragrance that’ll make Indian woman feel elegant and polished. In Shah Rukh Khan’s own words, “The fragrance of Lux reminds me of being happy and being in love.”
Shah Rukh Khan and Katrnina Kaif’s sizzling chemistry can be seen radiating through the campaign, which has been shot and directed by French director Juan Delcan. The Sufi-inspired music score is by Gulzar and sung by Sonu Niigaam. Katrina has been styled by leading Bollywood fashion designer Rocky S.
At the shoot, Shah Rukh Khan also said, “I’m happy to be associated with Lux yet again! The fragrance of Lux will captivate you just as it has made me ‘Bekaboo’. The fragrance of Lux that stands for love and sensuality brings out the lover in me.”
Katrina Kaif added, “Lux for me is a very special and iconic brand; it symbolizes beauty. When I think of Lux, I think of fun and spontaneity. Lux embodies a type of a woman rather than just soap and of course the fragrance that embodies sensuality. Lux’s amazing fragrance makes the whole experience of bathing fun!”
How does a portal market itself and build the brand over a longer period of time? Why should a customer keep coming back and shop with you instead of going to a competitor website? Marketing will drive the association of brand with consumers.
#2 Technology
This plays a big role in enhancing user experience on site. As a portal increases the categories that it retails, it becomes that much more difficult and time-consuming for a customer to find what they need. An e-tailer needs to leverage technology to make product discovery much easier and faster by way of tagging, search, filter etc.
#3 Re-looking at content strategy
In an industry where you have multiple players selling the same categories, brands, styles etc., the only way an e-tailer can differentiate themselves is content. Content can be on site, product lead, off site, social media. This also involves looking at merchandising very differently.
#4 Execution
Execution plays a very important role. Customers buy from online portals without having a real-time experience of the products and repost faith in the portal to deliver high-quality products, on time and in great condition. We at zivame ensure that we execute the order well and live up to the customers’ expectations.
#5 Value Proposition
Our value proposition is making the customer feel comfortable buying lingerie. Buying lingerie offline can sometimes be awkward. We also ensure that our packaging is done in really neat-looking boxes with no provocative pictures on them. Sticking to the core value proposition is of utmost importance.
Early in his presentation to a packed session at the Digital Media Festival in Beijing, Mindshare’s Asia Pacific Digital Lead, Nick Seckold, shared his ideas on how marketers can use mobile to complement their marketing campaigns.
“In an age of ‘always on’, people are always on the move and are socially connected through their mobiles 24/7. Hence, there is no doubt that mobile represents a growing opportunity for brands, but penetration alone is not the best reason to convince advertisers to use mobile. The engagement portion through seamless, fun and addictive user interface is key to the success of a mobile campaign,” said Mr Seckold.
Mobile is slated to stay on the uptrend. Based on Portio Research’s latest report, there will be 6.5 billion mobile subscribers worldwide by end-2012, while annual handset shipments will reach 2.15 billion by 2016. So as mobile technology continues to evolve and significantly influence culture and the lifestyles of consumers, the impact mobile devices are having on daily life is almost unfathomable.
“The missing piece to the puzzle is not ‘why’ advertisers should use mobile but ‘how’ they should use it,” Mr Seckold added.
In January 2012, Ford launched the “Drive Smart” mobile application campaign in India to advertise the new Ford Fiesta. The application launch was in sync with the Auto expo and gave a unique platform to catch auto enthusiasts at the expo. Whilst every car manufacturer was distributing freebies in form of physical product catalogues, merchandise, calendars, etc. Ford distributed this utility cum entertainment application to its users at the expo via handy QR code cards. Through social integration (Facebook and check-in), conversations around Ford increased to 2.5 times more than its competitors. An app called “Drive Smart” was developed to engage prospects and customers, with a popular maps feature and traffic updates. The app has had 43,000 downloads and is still counting.
“The nature of our new age audience demands a new approach to mobile marketing communication. These out of the box ideas such as Ford’s will take mobile marketing to a whole new level. In the past, advertisers merely wanted a mobile presence but at Mindshare, our mantra is to adapt to consumers’ needs, making the campaigns memorable and hard-hitting,” commented Mr Seckold.
With this in mind, Mr Seckold urged marketers to transition their mindsets, putting themselves in their target audience’s shoes and truly understand where they live – online, offline and on mobile.
Phase I of digitization has been a challenged ride. Even as MIB believes that as on November 5, 2012, 22.4 lakh Set Top Boxes (STBs) were installed in Mumbai, 25.15 lakh in Delhi, and 17.74 lakh STBs in Kolkata; analogue signals still continue to beam in the four cities. The Chennai matter is sub-judice in the Madras High Court. To top it all off, the sunset date for the second phase has already been announced. It is no doubt that 100 percent digitisation of the four metros is still a huge task.
Anita Nayyar
Anita Nayyar, CEO, Havas Media, India & South Asia said, “The current state will carry on over the next eight weeks until stabilization sets in and state government and consumers realize it’s here to stay. The change to digital, now or later is eminent in waves if not crests and troughs. Hundred percent digitization across India will certainly take much longer and there will be many more extension dates.” Raj Datta, Senior GM, MPG-Kolkata also opined that reaching 100 percent digitization in Kolkata will take close to three months.
Raj Datta
While the broadcasters are happy with the numbers, since it will give them additional revenues and save them the carriage fee, the advertisers are still apprehensive. The cost of set-top box (STB) and infrastructure are the primary concerns of the industry. The suspension of TAM data, simultaneous beaming of analogue and digital signals is only adding to the confusion during the festive season. Mona Jain, CEO, Vivaki Exchange opined that the advertisers are wary of the fact that visibility will drop due to the transition. She said, “For the advertising fraternity, the festive season is the key period for them. Due to transition to STBs and digital signals, there are going to be shortfall and shifting in terms of visibility. This is a big concern for them. They are not able to predict the shifts in their current plan and that is an issue.”
Mona Jain
Kolkata has been grappling with low transition numbers. While Mr Datta predicts that digitisation might shoot up due to the impeding cricket season, he is quick to point out, “We do not know what the numbers will show because TAM data has been suspended and will be available only after December 15. Anything and everything is an estimate. It remains to be seen how channel scenario will change. I am guessing that the viewership of niche channels such as History, Nat Geo might shoot up. Post digitization, illegal connections will also drastically drop, also because they will have to shell out money and take a connection. Thus, I feel that the whole scenario will change towards what SEC A likes.” He also said that the sampling of SEC A, B has also increased and this might result in shift of advertisers’ money.
“Advertisers as rule will have to adopt a more segmented and targeted approach sub-slicing their segments. With access to more channels, viewership by TG, will get spread, people will experiment and consume more even if it is not focused consumption and this will happen across genres. Marketers and advertisers if they want immediate results will be looking at incremental spend than earlier budgeted as they will have the option to follow the spread,” opined Ms Nayyar, adding, “Underreporting of C&S households has been an issue and resulted in loss to the exchequer. Further there is the deferring of the TAM data which clients are used to even though digitization will allow more refined information, but while this is already being done it will take a while to become a norm.”
She also said that advertising will increasingly get localised and spill over to local print and radio in the long run.
According to Mr Datta, advertisers are apprehensive about believing the historical data and the current situation. “As a media agency, we have to depend on historical TAM data that we have till October 7, but we do not know if it is giving the correct picture. But we do feel that overall viewership might drop because of digitisation. These issues are coming up repeatedly since we work with cost effective measure called CPRP, and broadcasters are a little apprehensive. It is a complete wait-and-watch kind of scenario. Something definite is quite difficult to predict,” he said.
While the planners and buyers feel the broadcasters are co-operating, it remains to be seen who emerges unscathed in the digitization fracas.
If you have been keeping track of estimates of the television advertising market over the last several years, using FICCI Frames reports or Media Partners Asia publications or any one of a gaggle of consultant and investment banking firms’ projections, you would cite a year-on-year growth rate of anywhere between 7 and 15% for the last half decade.
If there was an empirical way of verifying this; there isn’t, by the way; the actual numbers would probably fall within this range. Which brings us to a simple question. Is this rate of growth good, bad or terrible? To answer this question, you need another data point. How has the footprint of television grown over this period? When I joined the industry in 2005, conventional wisdom as well as empirical surveys held that India had about 80 million TV homes.
The same sources also suggested that this number was growing by upwards of 7 million homes every year. This growth estimates reconciles fairly well with the latest estimates: over 130 million TV homes now. During this period, the GDP Real’s as distinct from Nominal growth rate , barring the last couple of years, has been in the high single digits. The Nominal growth rate, that doesn’t correct for inflation, has stayed in the teens.
Another way of putting this is as follows. TV households have very nearly doubled their Real incomes and more than doubled Nominal incomes during this period. And the number of TV households has itself grown over 60%. Aggregate all this up and you can reasonably infer that the economic opportunity represented by TV homes, which is after all what advertisers are after, has well nigh tripled during this period. In brief then: TV advertising revenues doubled. Economic opportunity that the advertising chases tripled.
That should settle the question about the quality of the advertising revenue growth rate rather unequivocally- it has been terrible.
And I haven’t come to the bad news yet, but stay with me a moment.
A very large proportion of the revenue growth has come not from better yields or systematic price corrections. It has come from a steady expansion in advertising inventory sold by the broadcasters. Since 2004, the Cable Act places a cap on permissible advertising inventory for a licensed TV channel at 10+2 minutes per programming hour; this to be comprised of 10 minutes for commercial advertising and 2 minutes for channel promotion. In actual fact, and surely you have noticed this every time you watch TV yourself, channels routinely run much more advertising than that. I could name genres that go as far as half an hour for every programmed hour.
However it wasn’t always like this. It got here by the proverbial slippery slope. Starting with generally high compliance with the stipulation at the outset, a given broadcaster might find herself in the situation of having to increase revenue but not muster the courage to secure it by increasing prices. Instead, the broadcaster might say to herself, “hey, let’s slap on a couple of extra 30 seconds spots every hour at the same prices. We will get the revenue we need and no one need be any wiser, after all even the viewer is scarcely likely to noticeâ€. That unpleasant trick called JND – the Just Noticeable Difference – was used repeatedly in its most egregious form, to slice out more and more content time and replace it by a cancerous expansion of commercial time. And the consumer, not being brain dead, was noticing. The broadcaster chickened out of the hard decision and the consequences weren’t pretty.
What happened to the advertiser who refused to pay a modest and fairly earned price increase? His commercial started out in a great place, a 3 BHK you might call it in Mumbai residential terminology but was squeezed, in agonizing progression into a I BHK, a studio, a 1 room chawl, a Dharavikholi and finally a dugout between the platform and the tracks. Eventually, the advertiser’s relentless focus on Efficiency squeezed every last smidgen of Effectiveness out of the commercial, turned it into roadkill. Advertisers scripted their own misery, if somewhat indirectly.
We are in an awful place today. Broadcasters’ abject pusillanimity and advertisers’ cussed monomania has left both in an abyss. Neither appear to have the gumption or the clarity of thinking that will enable them to emerge from it. So let me thrown down the gauntlet to the third participant in this daisy chain, the media agency. As the intermediary in the transaction, you should most clearly see the trouble we are in. And prescribe the remedy which is so obvious.
Diwali is the season when we clear clutter and cobwebs and give our homes a fresh, cheerful lick of paint. Isn’t it time to do just that to our advertising inventories?
Paritosh Joshi has been a marketer, a mediaperson and a key officebearer on industry bodies. He is developing an independent media advisory practice. He can reached via his Twitter handle @paritoshZero
Online apparel and lifestyle story Fabulloso.com has appointed Bang in the Middle (www.banginthemiddle.com) as its communication partner for its next phase of growth and expansion.
Fabulloso! is an online store that sells a curated selection of apparel and lifestyle products. In a very short time Fabulloso! has created a very different niche for itself in the ever expanding e-commerce space in India. Bang in the Middle will help Fabulloso create online marketing campaigns to make it among the most preferred shopping destinations for life style goods in India.
Commenting on the appointment, Gaurav Taneja said, “Bang in the Middle understood our brand, consumer and displayed the right acumen to help us win in the market place. We believe e-com space in India has just started and there is tremendous potential to grow. We expect Bang in the Middle to partner us in our quest for growth and leadership.”
“Fabulloso! Is a delightful brand to be associated with. With Fabulloso’s very different product offering and consumer proposition, we believe they will be the favored destination for the discerning shoppers. Our experience in digital marketing will help Fabulloso build momentum for its brand” said Naresh Gupta, Managing Partner, Bang in the Middle.
Fabulloso! retails a selection of designer creations, wardrobe classics, shoes and accessories, personal care products, and home decor and furnishings. Fabulloso! bring to you a mix of brand names that are instantly recognizable, brands that are known to a smaller audience and products that are independently designed. Merchandise is available for as long as it lasts, fresh inventory is added on almost a daily basis.
India’s first AppFest is scheduled to be held from December 13 to 15, 2012 at the HICC, Hyderabad. Organised by the Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), AppFest 2012 seeks to provide an environment for developers and entrepreneurs to come together on a platform and leverage the enormous opportunity to move towards an ‘Apps Economy’. In India, given the strong base of mobile users, rapidly growing base of Internet users, availability of innovative minds and depth of resource pool, the opportunity can be enormous.
AppFest 2012 will be the first step towards realization of this opportunity, and hopes to foster an environment where businesses, developers, platforms and networks are incentivized for their efforts. It is important that the first person and the last person in the value chain, – the innovators/developers/entrepreneurs, are amply rewarded.
Spread over three days, the AppFest 2012 will have three tracks, namely, Talkathon, Hackathon and Challengathon. Developers would be able to share ideas on technology, revenue models and current opportunities with each other. It will also provide an opportunity to participants to compete and create on spot customized solutions for brands present and immediate opportunity to work with them on larger projects. Besides, industry experts will also speak on a range of topics, sharing their first hand experience and case studies to showcase how apps have and can change the world.
Tata Tea Jaago Re has announced the launch of its renewed website, www.jaagore.com, which provides information on a gamut of social issues, at the click of a button, to empower all Indians to act on issues relevant to every citizen. The new website reflects the company’s continued efforts to awaken individuals and inspire them to be the change that they wish to see around them.
Commenting on the renewed portal, Vikram Grover, Vice President & Head Marketing – South Asia, Tata Global Beverages Limited said, “Tata Tea’s Jaago Re campaign has been an agent of social awakening. It has been ahead of the curve in bringing burning issues like corruption into national consciousness. Today we are entering a new phase in the life of jaagore.com – this phase is born out of a belief that information is the lifeblood of a democracy. Very often information and the tools of democracy are not understood well and therefore not utilized. While we at Tata Tea do realize the importance of awakening to issues that the nation is facing, we feel that it is equally important to have easy access to information in order to empower people to make a difference.” He further added, “With the new initiatives on our website we are looking at leveraging the strength of the online medium to take our campaign to the next level and to provide information to help citizens to act and make a difference.”
Vineet Gupta, Managing Partner, 22feet said, “Jaago Re is one of the most recognized initiatives undertaken by any brand in this country. This year, the initiative takes another step forward towards awakening and empowering people by simplifying complex issues that affect our day to day lives. We, at 22feet are privileged to be the Digital partner for this initiative and look forward to delivering relevant content across all digital touch points.”
Providing simplified information endorsed by topical experts, the portal allows young, tech savvy India an interface to navigate complex, time consuming steps and enables them to act and solve the issue. Starting with ‘Know Your Police’ in the first cycle; the portal will focus on new topics every quarter and touch upon various subjects such as steps to filing an RTI, registering to vote and women’s empowerment.
About Jaago Re
Tata Tea’s award winning Jaago Re campaigns have time and again awakened individuals and inspired them to be the change they wish to see around them. Making its debut in 2007, the campaign began with a television commercial (TVC) which showed a young man enquiring about the credentials and credibility of a local politician campaigning for votes before offering him a cup of tea. Striking a chord with the youth, the campaign launched a series of advertisements over the last four years that wove in the themes of awakening, enlightening and civic consciousness. For more information please visit our website www.jaagore.com
About Tata Tea and Tata Global Beverages
Tata Tea is a leading brand in India and is owned by Tata Global Beverages, a company whose brands have presence in over 40 countries. Tata Global Beverages has significant interests in tea, coffee and water and is the world’s second largest tea company. 250 million servings of its brands are consumed everyday around the world. Tata Global Beverages’ annual turnover is US$1.4bn, it employs around 3,000 people across the world. The company focuses on ‘good for you’ beverages and has a stable of innovative regional and global beverage brands, including: Tata Tea, Tetley, Himalayan natural mineral water, Tata Water Plus and Tata Gluco+, Good Earth tea, Grand Coffee and Eight O’clock coffee. For more information please visit www.tataglobalbeverages.com
Publicitas Digital in India has signed an exclusive representation with Qunar.com, a leading mainland China online travel information website where it will exclusively sell the digital advertising space of Qunar.com on a domestic and international level.
Qunar (www.qunar.com), which means “where to go” in Mandarin, is a search engine designed to help travelers compare air ticket and hotel room prices, and to provide other travel-related information. Users are able to access travel products provided by airlines, hotels and travel agents, and choose the best deals for themselves.
With immediate effect Publicitas Digital in India will exclusively sell the digital advertising space of Qunar.com on a domestic and international level. Michelle Ong, Senior Sales Director, Qunar.com, said,”Qunar being the largest travel site in China, we have seen tremendous interest from travel brands globally to market themselves on our site. India being one of the fastest growing travel destinations for Chinese travelers, we were seeking to appoint an India based partner with strong local presence, history, resources and recognition by brands /media agencies within India. After in-depth evaluations, we came to a conclusion that Publicitas excelled in all the criteria that we’re looking for with impeccable sales house qualities. We’re incredibly excited to see what Publicitas can bring to us in the near future. Together, we’re confident our synergy will surely bring to the table the best tailored-made solutions for each client’s needs in India that aims to reach out to the most digital-savvy, affluent, Chinese travelers.”
Marzban Patel, CEO Publicitas India & Asia, said, “The media landscape in China is not easy to navigate. Publicitas has over a decade invested in building competencies to assist its clients reach their audiences in China. We now have fully trained multilingual staff in Beijing and Shanghai that work with our offices around the world to deliver the right target audience across media platforms. Our partnership with Qunar in India is important as it will enable Indian companies, tourism boards and tour operators reach the Chinese travel market with ease.”
Star CJ Alive, the 24×7 home shopping channel from the Star Group, has announced the appointment of Kenny Shin as the new CEO for India.
Taking charge of his role at Star CJ Alive this year, Mr Shin joins from CJ O Shopping, the Korean conglomerate, where he was in a key leadership role, having been with the company since 2002. Based out of the Mumbai office, his key mandate is to provide strategic direction for Star CJ’s long term India growth plans.
Mr Shin started his career at Dong-Suh Research Institute before moving on to complete his MBA from the University of Rochester. Post that he held various senior leadership positions in his stellar career at reputed companies such as Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, NY; Hansol M.com, Seoul, Korea and HansoliGlobe, Seoul, Korea.
Under his able guidance at CJ O Shopping (world second biggest home shopping company in terms of revenue), the company went to the No 1. position in the TV home shopping segment in Korea in a span of two years. He successfully managed various divisions within the company including Merchandising, Digital, Quality Assurance, call center amongst others. Not only that, he also launched the mobile phone vertical and successfully built it into a highly profitable category as a result winning the CJ O Shopping Best Award in 2009. He was also responsible for creating many path breaking TV programmes such as Shopping Star Living King, the Greatest Beauty Show, Digital Pak Pak Show where he created record sales history. At HansoliGlobe, he led the Business Development function in addition to spearheading Strategic Alliances and overall strategic direction for the Company.
Commenting on his appointment, Mr Shin said, “I am delighted to have the opportunity to spearhead the India operations. The challenge is very exciting given the complexity and diversity of the Indian market. I want to make STAR CJ as ‘Shopping Himalaya’ of India in future.”
Neo Prime has sealed the broadcast rights for the West Indies tour of Bangladesh beginning November 13.
The series is expected to produce some exhilarating cricket as the West Indies, fresh from winning the recent World Twenty20 Championship – their first major title in eight years, aim to continue their ascent in the world rankings as they tour Bangladesh for 2 Tests, 5 One Day Internationals and 1 T20.
Prasana Krishnan, COO, Neo Sports said: “West Indies cricket is on a high after their World T20 victory and we are thrilled to have stalwarts like Chris Gayle, Marlon Samuels and Shivnarine Chanderpaul playing on Neo for our viewers in the Indian Sub-continent and the US to enjoy.
Neo has been home to many memorable moments in international cricket, and a winning West Indies side is great news for cricket fans as they are compelling to watch. They took the honours the last time these two sides played a series in Bangladesh, but the hosts have always battled hard on home turf, and this has all the makings of an entertaining series.”
Fans can look forward to some explosive batting performances as Gayle will be playing Tests against Bangladesh after 7 years and with an average of nearly 70 against them, he will be the player to watch out for.
Bangladesh have never beaten West Indies in a Test match at home and they will want to correct the record this time around.
India TV has come up with a unique communication to further reinforce its leadership position in the Hindi News genre. The campaign, which is constructed to communicate countrywide reach and varied viewership of India TV, is unique in more ways than one.
“Bharat Se India Tak”, as the name suggests, will talk about India TV’s ability to crossover to the right audiences across length and breadth of the nation; audiences that are worthy target groups for a wide array of national & international brands trying to reach out to the vast and rapidly evolving Indian market. India TV has planned a highly innovative execution to communicate this proposition and it is sure to catch the attention of the entire industry.
India & Bharat, the two words are usually used to emphasize the rural-urban divide in our great nation – where India cues genteel, urbane and upwardly mobile even as Bharat connotes the rustic and perhaps backward hinterland. Of course, reality is scarcely that simple and beneath the superficial contrasts, there are strong linkages that bind the two together. India TV, as this campaign reveals, is one such common denominator. Looking forward, it is critical that this exaggerated segregation be retired and this campaign takes a step in the in the direction of unequivocally asserting, “Bharat or India – We are one people.”
The campaign reminds stakeholders of India TV’s history of consistent leadership, in the towering skylines of metropolitan India – the great cities of Delhi and Mumbai that are home to a vast consumer base with high disposable incomes. At the same time, it talks about channel’s loyal and committed viewership in the rapidly transforming prosperous interiors of the country where burgeoning incomes are creating millions of first generation consumers eager to embrace new lifestyles and experiences.
By Richa Kar
By Paritosh Joshi
Star CJ Alive, the 24×7 home shopping channel from the Star Group, has announced the appointment of Kenny Shin as the new CEO for India.
Neo Prime has sealed the broadcast rights for the West Indies tour of Bangladesh beginning November 13.