Category: THE ANCHOR

By Ashwin Padmanabhan, Business Head, North and South, 92.7 BIG FM

 

India is a diverse country, much like the varying lengths of the fingers on your palm. There is unity in diversity – of culture, habitats, food and more importantly language families. Officially, the Indian Constitution states 22 languages – these further have grown with dialects changing every 100 kms or so, like its bio-diversity. With a 1.2 billion population, the uniting aspect for all these characteristics is language, though myriad, it is that one big idea that ties the country, and to go regional in terms of language content is the factor that will converge and amalgamate especially in the media and entertainment industry

 

Regional markets have developed to an extent that everything that is available in the metropolitan cities is sold here. The education and information spread makes it relevant for marketers and advertisers to be present in this populace. Advertisers, local and national, have seen the benefits in ROI. Product marketers have seen their products reach new peaks in sales output. When luxury cars arrived in the country, it was thought that the metro cities would show high sales, but unprecedented sales in regional areas led them to pump in more promotion in regional markets and thereby opened these markets for higher and more luxury brands.

 

Hence going regional is the one value-add in every product segment. In media and entertainment, radio covers almost 95% of the country; cinemas in every town ensured weekend entertainment; malls are the latest trend for evening shopping; but the one big promoter has to be television. TV infiltrates the audiences like never before. In-home entertainment is here to stay. And advertisers acknowledge this immense buying power.

 

For us, we believed in the regional story all along and hence our first business with 92.7 BIG FM and 45 stations across the country, each distinctly different from the other, each regional in its true sense. We have recently also made our television foray in the regional space, with television brands – BIG MAGIC and BIG RTL THRILL, both of which have been developed keeping in mind the regional audiences.

 

There are many India’s within one India, and it is for brands and marketers to cater specifically for their audiences. Meeting the diversity of its audience, and providing them what they want, and not just merely what they need, is the big idea. With the consumer spoilt for choice and far more aware, the one shoe fits all theory clearly doesn’t work anymore. Regionalization is most definitely here to stay!

 

By Rajan Narayan, President, Quadrant Communications

 

In this hurried world, brands have lost their authority and aura. They are reduced to transactions, service providers, labels and vendors.

 

Much like Po, the Kung Fu Panda who realizes that there was no secret ingredient in his dad’s soup, today we are waking up to the harsh reality that the elusive holy grail of advertising – the Big Idea – may be dead.

 

Or rather it has become irrelevant. Why is this so? Because the very definition of the Big Idea – that it held the brand idea together for years if not decades – has now changed permanently.

 

Ah the luxury of time! Today brands don’t live for a decade, so what chance do the brand idea and the Big Idea have? And what does this do to the concept of the Big Idea? It is reduced to the need for many small ‘Big Ideas’ (excuse the oxymoron!).

 

Today brands need continuous engagement with their consumers to stay relevant. This puts tremendous pressure on the brand to refresh itself continuously and present itself in new and different ways to stay on top of the consumers mind. This calls for more continuous ideas that steadily flow to the consumer rather than the one Big Idea that is followed by silence.

 

Tearing away at the Big Idea is also the proliferation of media that a consumer today engages with. The availability of the plethora reduces his involvement with each to a bare minimum.

 

Gone are the days when a consumer read a newspaper end-to-end. Or subscribed to a magazine. The television comes to life at fixed hours called ‘family time’ or does the odd job of being a ‘filler’ at gyms, pubs, restaurants and hair salons!

 

The internet is everything in a snippet – emails that reduce communication to a line, social networking reduces it further to a ‘like’, YouTube reduces every video to under a minute and Twitter says it all in 140 characters.

 

And you can cram it all into your lunch break or coffee break or travel time, thanks to phones, pads and pings.

 

In this hurried world brands have lost their authority and aura. They are reduced to transactions, service providers, labels and vendors. Call it the great ‘Dumbing Down’ of brands, if you may.

 

Few if any have maintained their vision and led a collective belief. And it is impossible now to do it under constant media glare. One slip and everything is recorded and dissected to the brand’s end.

 

Iconic brands like Cadbury’s, Coca Cola, McDonalds, Nike and Apple have all faced this heat of consistent scrutiny.

 

The crumbling of icons and the need for constant relevance steals the depth in every interaction. Today relationships are shallow and weak. Companies sell off brands in a matter of a few years. Entire marketing teams change in less than two years and in that time half a dozen agencies work in and out of the brand.

 

So who’s thinking long-term? The tremendous pressure to perform leads to marketing and advertising folks dubbing ‘little engines’ as Big Ideas. Because the target is often the next awards show or the next performance appraisal. Often the target of the idea is not the consumer – it is an awards jury or the CEO of the company.

 

Lastly, the judgement of what constitutes a big idea has moved away from the consumer to the amount of newsprint grabbed by the idea.

 

How well can a minor idea get written about? How many people in my network can I get to write and talk about my idea. Can I convince the marketing head that this can become a star point in his CV, making him more marketable?

 

So here we are at the end of it all, content to create many tiny little ideas and spend time trying to convince the world that they are big. While the concept of the Big Idea passes us by – along with our consumers.

 

By Suranjana Ghosh, Marketing Head, CNBC-TV18

 

The Indian broadcasting industry is poised at the brink of the next big game-changer. With digitization, we are at the threshold of the new wave, which will reset the existing rules and patterns.

 

Digitization and the mandatory rollout of digital signal for cable operators in the four metros is a long overdue, and a welcome move for the Indian broadcasting industry and for all stakeholders involved: Broadcasters, distributors and viewers. It is a step towards bringing the industry on par with the global broadcasting standards.

 

Digitization will presumably allow and make way for greater addressability for both broadcasters as well as distributors.

 

Viewers will get a superior, enhanced viewing experience now. Digitization will make the medium more democratic, empowering the viewer with greater access to the channel of his or her choice. This makes it incumbent on broadcasters to focus more sharply on their content offering, to make it attractive and compelling to its viewers. This enhanced value will ensure audience retention and loyalty.

 

The revenue model for broadcasters may also see a shift from being governed largely by advertising. Subscription revenues are now likely to start contributing more to the revenue line.

 

Lastly, digitization will enable advertisers to make more targeted television spends, given that the audience will now be more clearly segmented by the choice of content that they subscribe to.

 

By Sanjeev Kapoor, Celebrity chef & founder, FoodFood

 

Food today is not a mere consumable – it is rapidly acquiring a lifestyle halo. As prosperity invades Indian households, food is coming out from the kitchens and extending well into our lives. Food today has become experimental, has gone cosmopolitan and has discovered fusion. Broadcasters are thus tuning in to whet the appetite of their consumers, the viewing audience who are as much fed by the content as they feed the content. Advertisers have started sharing a substantial part of their budget on food and lifestyle shows.

 

Food in media has created a whole new avenue of advertising – innovative brand integration. There is not only opportunity for product placements, but the ingredients themselves can be branded, new concepts can be introduced and new methodologies demonstrated while simultaneously ‘pushing’ the brand itself. The chef, often seen as a guru, and emulated in the hope of achieving similar culinary success, becomes a natural spokesperson and endorser for products.

 

Food also naturally allows for a high degree of interactivity and entertainment. Both of which the consumer today seeks from the media. The food gamut is endless and covers a vast sphere from travel to entertainment to culture and even kids. Almost every aspect of media lends itself to food, be it game shows, travelogues, lifestyle features, talk shows, or even soaps… space for every brand to be naturally incorporated into the content!

 

By Vivek Lakhwara, Sr. Vice President, Laqshya Media Pvt. Ltd

 

My take on the one big idea in OOH is its Measurability.

 

In spite of being the oldest media, it lacks in offering measurability, as yet, in our country.

 

So, what does it mean? Media is planned based upon the reach and impact of a certain media amongst its target group. Before money is allocated to various media the percentage of target group it would reach is known. Therefore, a calculated call is taken with regards to the inclusion of a media and the extent to which it is taken. It is also known how quickly the build-up to that reach would happen. This helps in better allocation of budget. It also helps in determining the right price of a media vehicle. Even if the price is not up to a decimal, it does offer base figures. Then of course, depending upon the demand and supply of inventory pricing happens.

 

In case of OOH, while it is quite established that it creates great impact and buzz, it doesn’t quantify its audience. This leaves a huge question mark in professional planning. Also, stretches most frequented by stakeholders tend to generate more demand and lead to overpricing. At the same time other equally good units could generate less enthusiasm and therefore less price.

 

As a starting point we ought to know who are the people passing by on the streets of our towns and cities. We need to understand the traffic flow. This is readily available in many countries through the traffic department. But, it is not yet available to the OOH industry in our country. So, we need to make an attempt to understand the people and traffic passing by through the various stretches of our towns and cities.

 

This then needs to be categorized according to the quality of traffic passing by. So, we could categorize people depending upon their demography. This would give us a fair idea about the kind of people passing by and therefore probability of them viewing a OOH unit.

 

Once, we know the demography of people passing by, we could engage ourselves in another exercise of ascertaining the likelihood of a OOH unit being seen by the people passing by. This can be done by indexing the units based on certain parameters which impact the probability of a unit being seen.

 

The number of people of a certain demography, passing by, multiplied by the probability of viewing a unit, would give us the viewership of a unit for a certain demography.

 

Such an exercise would put OOH on the same pedestal as other media in terms of ascertaining its visibility and therefore reach. It would also mean evenly distributed media could emerge resulting in pricing according to the audience delivery.

 

By Alpana Parida, President, DY Works

 

There are three major compelling reasons why advertising (ATL, as it is called) should become history, and become not more than 15-20% of the marketing budget:

 

Markets have seen a proliferation of categories, brands, variants and formats. Newer and newer products/ brands or variants fill the shelves – and the consumers know they have a choice. In this scenario, they come with a consideration set in their heads and then are fence-sitters till they see the product. The packaging is what sells at the retail shelf. And the Back of Pack is what causes conversions.

 

Brands have an opportunity to enter the ‘consideration’ set at the point of sale. Communication at the point of sale can drive trials and market shares. It is critical to understand what consumers want to know for conversion to occur. Depending on the category, of course, the consumer typically seeks more specific and rational reasons to justify the purchase. It is important to tell the consumer how this product will fit into his/ her life.

 

Media clutter is unprecedented and advertising is so busy trying to be memorable and TOM that its connection with the brand (sometimes even the category) is becoming tenuous. Advertising does not work any more – unless brands have budgets upwards of Rs 100 crore.

 

By Mrinmoy Mukherjee, Director, Marketing & Business Development, Retail, Raymond Limited

 

The fashion and apparel sectors are among the fastest growing industries in the world today. The Indian fashion industry is seen in global circles as dynamic and with great potential. Over the past few decades, the fashion industry in India has evolved considerably on account of the increasing fashion consciousness among Indians. Indian youth have developed a distinct fashion sense – thanks to the democratization of information because of the digital age. By 2020 India will become the youngest nation in the world with an average age of 29. It is believed that it is the massive Indian fashion consuming class that will set trends in the global fashion industry in the future. With such fast-evolving consumers in the apparel sector, brands need to be abreast of the needs of their audiences, while being agile enough to adopt to their changing tastes.

 

In this context, it will be of primary importance to comprehend consumer tastes. Digital media, especially social media is a key tool that will help feel the pulse of fashion trends. Even as retail sales are still primarily being dominated by large format multi brand stores and exclusive brand stores, the influence of social media and Internet on offline purchasing is becoming increasingly important, acting as a complete ‘game changer’. Though this is just the beginning, retailers in India have started taking to social media. However, there is still considerable untapped opportunity. In the backdrop of changing lifestyles, increased incomes, demographic variability, and a vibrant democracy a sharp rise in social media usage in India can be expected. Brands can get meaningful insights and use them for decision-making in launching new campaigns, CRM programmes etc. It is interesting to see how marketers can take advantage of that. This is the platform where consumers talk free. Social media can get brands the exact sentiment of customers and what they want, as they are a direct and interactive communication tool.

 

Brand owners and media planners who can comprehend the complexity of the consuming consumer not only from a product and brand perspective but from her/his proximity to digital media platforms and can predict going forward how the two will complement each other will be the winners of the future marketplace. The future marketplace will be a complex mix of digital and real…the new reality!

 

By Sanjay Hemady, Chief Operating Officer, HIT 95 FM

 

Thinking big for the business will mean many aspects never ever done before; some things that make the game to be different will have to be played. There will be various aspects that will need to be covered as a plan to turn around and turn to profitability.

 

A lot has been tried and written, as a revolutionary measure all stations coming together with a “Minimum Common Agenda” might be the first step in a collaborative way. Let’s bring in a smile, let’s enjoy the game of radio.

 

With a goal to reach a revenue figure and an objective to achieve a set deadline will make all the difference. Some hard audited facts have to be showcased, hard stands need to be taken, assistance from external consultants should highlight the last 10 years that were toiled completely… Some hard thinking needs to be done with authority and responsibility that should be exercised to achieve goals and objectives in a constructive and meaningful way.

 

Accept it, that the going has been tough, accept that we don’t see a sunrise with the same ongoing humdrum, accept that we have to pull up and run faster… but the radio teams are always geared to give their best.

 

The question is, do we have the authority to be responsible enough to steer progress? Do we know that some collective introspection is required? If yes, let’s take these measures immediately.

 

Appoint an eGoB of Empowered Group of Radio Broadcasters with a clear agenda based on a result oriented plan and timelines. Invite a respected personality who can be an acceptable figure by all to guide the radio business to prosperity. This personality should spearhead radio agenda aggressively. This was effectively done in the olden times. Take the example of the first Maurya emperor Chandragupta and the scholar, teacher, philosopher Chanakya regarded as the master strategist who was heard by one and all. A quote which might be relevant for us today: “Learn from the mistakes of others… you can’t live long enough to make them all yourselves!!”

 

A fresh new thinking, a fresh new approach is the need of the hour.

 

Are we in a state to name the gentleman who will be radio’s game changer? Or who will be the father of Indian radio or a Chanakya…?

 

Radio’s time will come and we know the game, so let’s play it now!

 

By Sujit Kote, GM, Hansa Events and Activation

 

The one big idea that could be a game changer for the Events industry is ‘Intellectual Property’. IP offers unique entertainment to the audiences and gets like-minded brands together. Consumers were always exposed to international entertainment through the Internet, but through Youtube and Social Media the awareness is much more now. Regular Bollywood song and dance alone does not excite consumers any more. International formats and new format IPs are slowly but surely making their way into India. These IPs will be driven by a single, large brand or multiple brands with similar ideologies coming together. The success of the marathon for the last few years is a testament to the fact that IPs are here to stay. New age music festivals have already begun to spring up across the country. Event-management companies and production houses are making rounds of festivals to buy India property rights for various international IPs. In the next few years, India will see a huge rise in the number of IPs across the country.

 

Also, the one big idea that could be a game changer for the events and activation industry is the integration of social media. Very few players have actually realised and used the potential of social media. Today, the success of a campaign is being judged based on the active response for the event or activation. But by use of social media, the event/activation campaign reaches out to a larger audience or attracts a larger audience to the event. An event or activation is no longer restricted to the venue where the activity is taking place. The event is now being broadcasted live on Facebook, tweeted across social media, uploaded on various social media sites for consumers to experience at will. Very soon, the success of an activation campaign would be measured based on the responses on social media alone.  The integration of social media with events and activation would see a difference in the way pre-promotions would be done while maintaining sustainability of activity and measurement of final results.

 

By Jaisurya Das

 

When we started Dear MxM on Day 1 of MxMIndia, the concept was unique. What was a counselling service doing on a trade news and views site, people asked?

 

We were almost certain we would be writing our own questions and it would take ages before our readers sought our advice…. Well, we were wrong and the very next week the response started coming in and soon we were battling on what to answer each week since most of our readers had multiple queries and each of them significant.

 

While the response to the column is welcome – and we will start a new season soon, it also shows that there is a genuine need for a quality counselling and mentoring in the media. Industry associations may perhaps take a lead in the issue and start it. Large media companies must have it. It’s vital for organizations and seniors in the business to be available to mentor young talent. Until some decades, media companies had established training or internship programme. Not any longer, as entry-level employees are thrown in the deep end instantly. Even though this may be good exposure, not everyone is able to tackle the pressure and demands of the job.

 

It is important that senior employees or HR departments take the lead for internal mentoring but employees are hesitant to speak to someone from their own workplace, they should be able to approach the ‘neutral’ mentors appointed by industry associations.

 

The media is a people’s business, and we need to take good care of all our talent. It’s our responsibility to do so.

 

— The writer is COO, Sakal Media Group and Contributing Editor, MxMIndia