MxMIndia

Tag: Aniruddh Naik

  • The problem may be because there are too many media salespeople in a media company and hardly any marketing people to position their platform or make it attractive enough for the advertiser, writes Aniruddh Naik

    Aniruddh Naik: Why your Platform isn’t Enough: A Marketer’s Perspective

    Aniruddh Naik
    Aniruddh Naik

    In my day job, we had a campaign go live on different media platforms (digital and television).

    We took a certain Platform A over another (let’s call it B) on digital.

    In fact the other platform wasn’t even in consideration.

    The salesperson from another platform B called me up. I was in a meeting. He called my colleague. Then he called the PoC from the media agency almost 10 times in two hours.

    Sent me a long WhatsApp message to complain how the media agency didn’t consider them. He went on to rant about why his Platform B was best because it had 400 million users whereas Platform A had only 40 million users.

    Finally, we spoke. And immediately after the hi-hellos, an audio version of his WhatsApp text barged in. For the next five minutes, I wasn’t even allowed to sigh.

    At once he finished and I replied, “your first line- that your platform is 400 million and the one we have taken is 40 million- is the reason why your platform has not been considered”

    Not allowing time for himself to understand, he repeated why it’s ridiculous to not consider them.

    Finally, I had to say it- look buddy, we don’t need the mass, we need the class. And your competition seems have one. Look at the ads they do on their platform (context) and why my brand being placed there is equally important than being placed on a platform that reportedly has 400 million.

    He was unrelenting and pushed targeting on his platform. Eventually, my silence made him realise that his efforts were of little use.

    Something similar happened for a digital programmatic company who wanted to know why we didn’t go for their amazing programmatic platform that would open the doors of open internet.

    Open internet is a black box. I have written a detailed article that showcases how basic demographic demarking for an individual on internet is flawed. You might appear in a male cohort or female cohort; you might be 18, 39 or 54. You might be tagged as government employee, car-owner or daily wage-earner.

    There’s no way to know who is who or even if they are what we are expecting in the open internet.

    That’s why it is always better to use platforms where people consume content in a controlled environment- i.e. Facebook or YouTube or a direct publisher.

    Anyway, that’s not the point. The point here is digital media has marketing problems-positioning and knowing the brand.

    Positioning is for themselves- they are everything to everyone. The moment it happens, you allow the advertiser to compare you to YouTube and Meta- where you have no stand of your own.  And so, the conversation, sadly, comes down to saying ‘humko bhi kuch dedo’. It clearly says you can offer no value when compared against.

    The problem may also be because too many media salespeople in a media company and hardly any marketing people to position their platform or make it attractive enough for the advertiser.

    The second is understanding the brand you are pitching to. What’s the brand about? What’s the campaign about? Who is the target?

    Interestingly, no matter how many brief documents you share it- the solution is almost the same.

    In our case, the particular platform we selected was because of the premium value brought both by users on the platform and the advertiser.

    Finally, on another weird note. I receive a call from a media sales guy. I said someone else reached out couple of weeks ago. Talk to him.

    He replies the guy is no longer in the system.
    That was a quick move, I add.
    Maybe he had to move because you are the reason he had to move on (because I didn’t advertise on his platform, the first time he called)!

  • Why Clutter isn’t the Enemy against Advertising in IPL or Elections?

    Why Clutter isn’t the Enemy against Advertising in IPL or Elections?

    Aniruddh Naik
    Aniruddh Naik

    You usually do not go and tell the supply chain team which model they should use for forecasting. Or the CFO what type of accounting she or he should do.

    Or question a tech guy on why python and not, say, C++.

    Or a management consultant why this framework?

    Because intuitively we tend to take whatever they say as the truth, cast in stone.

    Cometh marketing meetings on brand and media, everybody including the one whose job is to only ship couriers in office seem to have a view.

    They tend to tell you what should happen in your ad, where you should play the ad and why you should use the giant-sized billboard on some highway because you pass through it daily.

    In my experience on promoting a commercial on IPL, the common question in the office is, “is it worth promoting in the IPL.”

    “There’s so much of clutter.”

    “Will people notice us?”

    And so on. Yet, when you go ahead and promote, the questions changes, “I saw the ad, but not sure if it will register.”

    Why? Because there’s clutter. And how much can we remember?

    This persists within the marketing and advertising teams as well.

    Many are non-believers in going for big-ticket items to promote your advertising. If it is a question of lack of funds, then fine. But if you can stretch the budget, then clutter SHOULD NOT be the reason to AVOID.

     

    Lack of Research Usage

    The whole point of my grouse was this- we do not use enough research in advertising and media from let us say psychologists or neuroscientists.

    Why? Because we tend to dismiss it as ‘subjective.’ FYI, when Bill Bernbach says it took a million years for man’s instincts to develop. It is fashionable to talk about the changing man, but we must be concerned with unchanging man.

    Let us explore that.

     

    The Traditional Advertising View

    That an ad must make the person take notice, command attention and then, land the message about the most brilliant features of your product.

    Assumption: Lack of attention = No Impact. So, the one who watches the ad, should be conscious.

     

    Does the human brain work like that?

    Yes. Only if you believe our brains, all the time, make conscious decisions.

    That is not true. Only 5-10% of decisions the brain makes are conscious. The rest without our conscious brains realising that.

     

    Come to IPL. Please.

    #1 Yes, a moment. Dr Robert Heath study and research says advertisement, unlike the popular opinion, is a LOW INVOLVEMENT PROCESSING.

    Watching an advertisement, with our attention elsewhere, can still lead to us absorbing the advertisement. So, an ad playing in the background can bypass our conscious mind and be sub-consciously taken inside without you knowing.

    How? By associations. A neuroscientist’s definition of branding would be something like advertisement is an exercise in designing associations.

    If you are a Coke–Happiness

    If you are a Nike–Athletic Motivation

    If you are Rebill–Thrill & Adventure

     

    #2 Research by Ipsos in the Brand Immortality Study assessed 97K subjects with 512 commercials from 47 companies, the results were interesting.

    7.3 % brand uplift in people who were attentive to ads.

    2.7% brand uplift in people who could only recall the ad when described.

    1.2% brand uplift who could not recall the ad.

    So even with low recall, there is a brand uplift of 1.2%.

     

    #3 What if people Skip or Fast Forward the ad?

    Research by Innerscope assessed people who watched the advertisement live, who fast forwarded and people who didn’t.

    Result? The fast-forwarded group recalled and recognized twice as many as the group who had not seen. Obvious, is not it. The point is despite fast-forwarding, they saw the ad.

    Why? Because our brain captures, connects and stores visual information in eighty milli-seconds!

    Showing the advertisement, even in a cluttered environment, can make your brand recognize (during the buying process or buying situation. You will end up feeling familiar).

     

    Finally, why does that happen?

    A famous experiment uncovered a phenomenon called Blindsight. A blind person with pupils unharmed was put in a room full of obstacles and asked to go to the other end of the room. He did so without touching the obstacles. And the experiment was repeated.

    When asked how, he said he had no idea. That is because the eyes picked up the stimuli and navigated without making his rational side of the brain recognise.

    These visual cues are linked to amygdala that processes fear and emotions. Now can you connect RedBull with thrill and adventure, Coke with happiness?

    The connection will happen even if we do not see the entire ad of Coke. Our brain subconsciously picks up a family sitting around, laughing faces, food on the table, and bottle of coke in hand. That is all.

    The onus is on us. How good can we associate the things that will make the brand quickly noticeable and store information in the brain?

    It is not the media clutter in IPL. It is how good are you at hacking the subconscious part of the brain!

  • Introducing a new fortnightly series of commentary on the intersection of marketing, digital and behaviour, by Aniruddh Naik

    Aniruddh Naik: The Not-So-Sweet Masking: A Marketer’s Wake-Up Call

     

    Aniruddh Naik
    Aniruddh Naik

    In 2014, our marketing professor in my first year MBA showed us a Dary Milk case study. And I was blown away. Brilliant idea.

    Probably every marketing person has heard of this transformation idea brought along by Ogilvy in those times that changed the fortunes of the brand in India.

    What’s that? Dairy Milk’s Kuch Meetha Ho Jaaye.

    Cadbury Dairy Milk had gone through a similar change a few years ago when a lady ran across a cricket match savouring the chocolate in her hand. That shifted the brand’s target out from children to all adults who have a childlike side to them (which is everyone, I believe).

    So now the brand was falling short of its business- Children- done, adults- done. But the frequency of having chocolates was apparently low.

    Cometh ‘Kuch Meetha Ho Jaye’ from Pappu Pass Ho Gaya with Amitabh Bachchan to an assorted box for Rakshabandhan to Diwali.

    The idea: position Diary Milk as a replacement for your Mithai.

    And once TVs were flooded with ads, streets stamped with hard-to-miss hoardings, the idea caught on. I remember buying a Dairy Milk gift box for Raksha Bandhan. It became a lazy gift choice. Don’t break your head trying to find something useful, just thump a box as gift. Much like an earlier version of Sonpapdi.

    And the marketing bards composed songs elevating the heroism of the idea.

     

    Cut to June 2024.

    A CNBC-TV 18 anchor, Shibani Gharat. posted this video on Twitter

    I was running peacefully in rain this morning till I saw this hoarding!! Why??? Why? It is my petition to save 🙏🏽 #puranpoli pic.twitter.com/7bHE7WAjNs— Shibani Gharat (@ShibaniGharat) July 7, 2024

    First, puranpoli is not the breakfast of Maharashtra. Second, it is not to be had with Nutella as supporting dish.

    They wish to position it as a cheese spread or tomato ketchup. Put it on everything. It’s the same trick. To position Nutella as a regular sweet spread or as an ally. And how can you do it?

    Cadbury Dairy Milk showed the way. In this case, the suggestion is to have a traditional Marathi special sweet dish that’s eaten with ghee or milk or both with chocolatey Nutella.

    I am not being a disappointed food culture activist.

    But before another professor shows this up as a case study and bards compose new songs on how Nutella penetrated India as a LinkedIn post, here’s something about Nutella all of us should know.

    Nutella has 56gm of sugar in per 100gm of its serving.

    Net weight of a Nutella is 825 gm. Do the math. Sugar is 462gm.

    Which is 110 teaspoons of sugar

    20-30% of Palm Oil to add fat

    And it is positioned as a breakfast item. A sugar-heavy dish for breakfast item!

    A chocolate spread that’s only positioned as a spread because some great category manager in India said: “Let’s continue to the spread global idea of pushing Nutella for breakfast with non-breakfast items.”

    In October 2023, the read-label educator and influencer Food Pharmer educated what Nutella always stood for. By reading the label.

    The read-label idea is now being spread by not only influencers but brands like The Whole Truth and Yogabar. Influencers care more about being true and honest to their followers. They are perfectly fine to reject the paid collab and promote anything they see as misguiding. Or marketing tactic.

    Brands are being built and legacy brands are running in the wrong direction. In times like these, there will be roar and not cheers for being dishonest with positioning and marketing. You cannot distract the customer with distraction positioning. Social media is not controlled unlike TV where just because you advertised, nothing negative can be published. Per Statista, India has 350+ Million (close to United States population) monthly active users. Any such attempt by cool sounding concepts or agencies will be called out and will gain traction.

    And we as marketers need to wake up. Do we stop selling then? No, but find another way to position or sell. There are many food guilty-pleasures. Or get your agency to be creative.

     

    Aniruddh Naik usually attempts to follow First Principles in digital and brand marketing with experience in creating visibility and consideration for brands. Currently works with a global engine oil and lubricants company. His views here are personal.