How Mobile friendly is your corporate website?

As an increasing number of folks are using their mobile phones and portable devices as the convenient first option to access the net on the move, be it for their emails, social networking or just searching for info, its critical that websites go mobile friendly . Most websites when accessed via mobile or portable devices are unfriendly to navigate and view. So don't you think its about time you asked the above question?

The brand imperative for start-ups

The Indian economy is abuzz with a lot of entrepreneurial activity in the ‘for profit’ as well as ‘social entrepreneurship’ domains.  It’s great to see much activity and the intention of entrepreneurs to redefine value creation and development by venturing out to explore new opportunities and market niches.

All successful businesses have at their core a unique long lasting proposition for their customers and have successfully managed to communicate it and deliver on this proposition, which in the brand consulting circles is  referred to as the Brand Promise or the brand’s essence or its reason to exist, etc.

Most businesses that have the first mover advantage tend to be successful and also have a greater chance of being the leader. Yet how does one be the first or find a niche or differentiate themselves in a crowded market and position themselves as the first or only choice? 

Most entrepreneurs like to believe they have a great and unique idea on hand and that it’s a game changer, and jump into it without thinking it through, and end up failing because

• they have overlooked a few fundamental aspects of the business strategy or
• were too lost in the grand scheme of things or
• they lost the plot by not being consumer centric. 

It’s important to have control over aspects that are within the start-ups purview, chief amongst them is brand development and marketing. 

The greatest founders and CEOs have understood the power of brands and seen the immense value they create by imbibing a brand oriented culture.No matter how great the idea is, unless it’s marketed well, the chances of success are slim. An ordinary product when marketed well stands a better chance of success than a great product that has not been marketed. This is the crux of the problem.

Many start-ups seem to neglect marketing and more importantly brand strategy and it’s the last thing on their agenda, while according to me it should be the first task they should address when building a strategy and venturing into entrepreneurship.  This does not mean one spends months on end getting the strategy right, its about getting a  fundamentally strong blue print in place.

In an ever flattening world where access to technology and expertise is not a constraint, the only thing that can set a business apart is the brand and its value proposition. Please remember a brand is not a logo or a tag line. It’s a lot deeper. They are just external expressions of a brand and its promise, a means to identify. Mind you they are important but come in at a later stage of brand development.  

So what is the brand imperative for a start up?  Well, it’s about developing a unique, relevantly differentiated concept – an idea that can stand the test of changing technology or competition and about developing trust or anything else it promises, that no one else can satisfy quite like it and develops into a relationship with the consumer based on trust, comfort or anything else.

 It’s about developing and communicating the promise of your brand to the relevant set of people. Does it end there? No, it actually begins by developing a business strategy around the brand concept. What’s the point in communicating a hollow promise if you cannot deliver on it? Sooner or later your customers will find out and will then desert you for someone who can or for someone cheaper.

Just having a good business strategy is not enough, nor is it enough to only invest in an illusionary exercise of brand creation and development(read logo, tag line, colours). It’s important to bridge them and one begins by developing the brand and what it will stand for, what it will do and how it will ‘wow’ its customers. If one gets these aspects right by investing a little in consumer research and a brand consultant, one would have at least laid a strong foundation or got he ball rolling for success.

Building and marketing a brand is not as expensive as it is made out to be. Marketing and promoting a brand is not about investing loads of money into main stream advertising. There are a lot of affordable, inexpensive and free platforms which startups can tap into or utilise to promote and advertise their venture. 

Another aspect is that a strong brand orientation allows start-ups to attract like minded talent who are keen on joining and contributing to the organisation’s success and objectives. A strong brand orientation is reassuring to potential candidates as they are aware that it can only improve their career prospects in the near future.

In conclusion, a good brand strategy has the power of bringing in focus and tremendously aids in decision making and in streamlining operations, by identifying activities that feed into delivering on the brand's promise or those that don’t.

Is there an insight or opportunity?

I pass by this bus stand almost everyday and if I have to wait at the red light I tend to observe the coomuters and what they are doing and wonder if there's an opportunity for a brand to meaningfully connect with them? I am sure there are quite a few and I don't mean OOH advertising.
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Thoughts on Social Media Marketing

There’s a lot of buzz around  Social Media Marketing and the opportunities Social Networking Sites such as Facebook and Linkedin provide to market brands, as there should be, as today’s youth seem to spend more  time online and are keen on 'staying connected' and 'express' more than ever, be it from their PCs or mobile phones.  In today’s fast paced world wonder how many of them even have time to watch ads on TV like I did?

What has intrigued me is the ineffective manner these sites are used to build brands.  I am sure most of the stuff written here is nothing new, yet brand marketers and brand mangers seem to forget to apply thought, and don't approach it as an INTERACTIVE medium.

Let’s look at Facebook – Almost everyone is on Facebook and its mostly free!

It’s a great place to reach out to the consumer.It offers one the invaluable opportunity to interact with consumers. The fact that customers ‘likes’ your (marketeer) brand is a good starting point. It reflects their willingness to associate with the brand and to express this fact amongst their social group. The dialogue process has begun.

It’s a great place to disseminate information and seek feedback.  Brands that can initiate a dialogue will fare better at leveraging the benefits of SN sites such as Facebook or Twitter.  

It’s not just enough to talk about special offers or discounts.  Used as a platform to disseminate information that is line with the brand’s personality/brand creates a lot of traction and recall and becomes a great place for those seeking to spend a few minutes of their free time. For eg: if the brand is a lifestyle brand, focus on posting links about lifestyle choices, activities or trends that are line with your brand’s personality and attitude. Don’t restrict yourself just to promotional offers or pushing your products.  Be informative. Be a guide, a friend, a guru.

I have observed that smaller brands seem to do much better at leveraging the benefits that FB offers than large national brands.  A restaurant brand even accepts table reservations via wall posts on its FB page.

Even while advertising, remember you are not restricted by the 30 sec spot. Leverage upon YouTube to post longer videos. Add presentations, photos, conduct quizzes, contests and in general connect and communicate with your fan base.

Do respond to queries, comments and seek suggestions and ideas. It’s another destination to gauge your brand’s health and how it’s doing in the mind of the consumer. Use it for insight mining. 

If your brand has connected with the consumer at a deeper level, more often than not the consumer himself would initiate the dialogue. Be open to feedback, be willing to communicate and interact at a different level. Remember in the information age the brand is owned by the consumer, as much as we like to believe the opposite. They are in control and they have the power to make or break a brand with what they have to say. 

Thus it’s important for brands to get involved and to go where the discussions tend to happen, and keep their eyes and ears open and think hard about how they can leverage the power of SNS in starting a dialogue and involving the consumer in building their brands.    

Discount Sales, Discounting Brands

I recently met a retailer friend and as usual I chewed his brains on the importance of having a strategic brand vision in place for his family controlled chain of stores, for its long term survival and to avoid falling into the trap of 'Discount Sales' that seem to have plagued the retail sector, where the leader will be the one who can offer the lowest price.

During our interaction he had a few valid points about how the entire mid segment retail sector and specifically the category he is in is plagued by discount sales and he has no choice but to follow suit as competitors have been doing it and customers who walk in, walk out because they can get  the same item on sale at another store.
 
The category he is in fortunately DOES give him the opportunity  for his brand to differentiate itself from the rest of the pack.  So how does one get out of this rut? A common denominator for this is FOCUS!

Bollywood stars here , there, everywhere....stop bombarding my TV experience

Seems like most of our top Bollywood stars are keen on turning into to advertising stars, and are competing with each other for the title of who endorses the most. They appear in more commercials than they do in films.

The Two Khans , AB, The Kumar and the  rest of the flock seem to be intent on endorsing any brand that they can lay their hands on from gold loans to paint! Who cares a dam about brand fit?! Who can blame them if they make some easy money and insulate themselves from being at the mercy of the box office or the producer.

The big question is, what are the marketeers doing? Every one seems to want to follow the herd and get a celebrity to endorse their brand. Why? Would it be an achievement on the resume or keep the Boss's wife happy?

There's such a  bombardment  of it on TV and Print that its getting harder to associate or recall (top of mind)  a brand that a celebrity endorses or is a great fit. Gone are the days when one could associate an Amir Khan with Titan, a Shah Rukh with Hyundai and Amitabh with Cadbury. I still recall the Colgate Palmolive -Kapil association from years ago because it was such a good fit and because of its memorable tag line.

The idiot box is swarming with so many celebrity endorsements across channels that I wonder if there are any more brands or products that have not  undergone the celebrity touch. There's so much celebrity clutter and uninspired advertising, that they (brands) are lost in the plot and seems like the ad guy's job has just got easier -  sign on a celeb , put together an insipid creative, and keep the client happy!

 A lot of these ads seem to be more intent on pushing the celebrity than the brands themselves thus over shadowing the original intent of driving awareness for the brand/product. Its just getting more tiring to see such ads.

The stars seem to be intent on diluting their brand image, and  the brands seem to be intent on spending their precious advertising rupees on weak celebrity associations and advertising.


The more I see such bland advertising the more I believe in the dearth of creative and strategic BRAND thinking amongst our branders and marketeers. Its hard to digest the utter waste of such precious marketing rupees on such advertising!

Why is it happening? It could  boil down to the lack of belief in one's product or offering. In essence, if you have a weak (just another me too) product which has nothing going for it in terms of relevantly differentiating itself  from the competitive set OR in satisfying an untapped consumer need born out of insight, it would be a perfect fit for a celebrity push.

This trend while it lasts is like shooting an arrow in the dark hoping it would hit the target.
 Would I buy an Airtel DTH because of Saif or Kareena or whoever else endorses it? Naah,.. buy you may very well say the objective is served since you can recall the Airtel Brand, but I would instead opt for Tata Sky cause it spoke out to me with its creative new ad of 999* no conditions apply, and the fact that I can skip those unwanted language channels and not simply because of an earlier Amir Khan association....

Seasons' greetings