How strong could a color be to a brand....

Colors like blue(Indian team,Pepsi), red symbolizes a lot about the brand. To an extent that people in rural associate products with colors without even knowing their names. For example : From class room discussions i learnt that Lifebuoy in villages is better acknowledged as "laal sabun"(Red soap). For many red means kingfisher, eveready batteries(give me red), Coke,Red cross, Ferrari and many more.

Well out of these, the story of Coke is worth knowing.

We all know how Santa Claus looks like.... A man with Red and White(I guess every one knows him by the same color pattern.). To divulge the fact Santa Claus before 1950's was known in Green and White until 1950's when Coke launched a campaign to celebrate christmas which portrayed Santa Claus in red(because coke is widely recognized as red cola drink.) The campaign became so popular all across the world that chilren born after 1950's thought Santa Claus wear red and white dress.

We can very well understand what can a color bring to a brand..In this case the change has been acculturative ...Ramkumar

Golf is for niche market what IPL is for Indian masses..

It is always nice for a brand to get associated with sports if it is in a spree of brand awareness.

If you are following Indian Premiere league then im sure you must have noticed a lot of sponsorships from companies like Vodafone, Hero Honda, Karbonn, Micromax, Maxx mobiles and Setmax TV channel to name a few which are taking the major apportion of the time space(in this case, time space is the time in between completion of overs etc. when TVC's are broadcasted).

If you look at these companies you might find a very peculiar similarity that all these companies are serving the masses. All these companies wanted to be noticed during the time of highest TRP ratings which is cricket in India for all senses.

Why aren't companies like Sony Bravia, Mercedes Benz, BMW, Louis Vuitton, GAP, Volkswagen, Xylys etc are not trying to get associated with the largest Indian confluence?? Well for them the market is entirely different. As we know that brands can be classified into 3 categories broadly.. Cult brands, Aspirational brands and brands for Mass Market. All the above mentioned brands(Sony...) are all aspirational brands. Aspirational brands doesnt spend marketing budget for awareness rather they spend money for next level of buyers i.e for "action" if you remember AIDA rule. Well to get associated with their prospective buyers ,companies like Barclays bank, BMW, Swaroski, Cisco etc are betting high on the rich mans game(GOLF). That is because a survey reveals that an average golfer comes within a salary bracket of around 35L pa.. Which is the right target which they say the conversion rate is as high as 15% and companies like Toyota revealed that their conversion rate was as low as 0.001% in the past where they had bad experiences with cricketing game.. ......RamKumar

A Lost bike..Story of marketing myopia

A brand that was once the heartthrob of Indian urban Youth is now resting in peace...
A case of marketing myopia...

I am not sure why I chose this brand , may be because of nostalgia.

This bike was manufactured by Ideal Jawa Ltd with technical collaboration with Jawa of Czechoslovakia. Ideal Jawa started its operations in 1960 .Yezdi ( that time Jawa ) was in Indian roads from 1961. During 1960's Indian roads were ruled by scooters. Bikes were not at all popular due to mechanical issues and low mileage.

During that period , there were only three serious players in the Indian motorcycles market. Bullet, Rajdoot and Ideal Jawa. Rajdoot was popular in rural areas because of sturdy suspension. Bullet and Jawa were popular in the urban market.

Yezdi was targeting the youth with the positioning of " Forever Bike Forever Value" . Since it was a seller's market, what ever that was produced were lapped up by Indian consumers.

1980's saw a sea change in the Indian two wheeler market. Japanese technology entered the Indian market through joint ventures. The market saw lot of new 100 cc bikes which were more fuel efficient and easy to ride.

Ideal Jawa was having a blind eye. It refused to accept the realities. When the consumer attitudes changed, Jawa refused to change . Customers wanted Bikes that offered mileage, style and comfort. Japanese bikes provided all that. This period also showed the shift of Indian consumers from scooters to motorcycles.

Yezdi had serious mechanical issues, especially the starting trouble. One had to pump about 20 times to get that machine started. It had no chance before the peppy new generation Japanese bikes.

Yezdi realised this late and came out with some design changes and new launches like Roadking which had a new styling. But it was too late.

Failing market and labour problems took its toll on Ideal Jawa . Yezdi was laid to rest in 1995. Had Yezdi changed its products in tune with the customer needs, we would have seen a lot of this bike on Indian roads. but alas ....

Once an Icon, Yezdi has now faded in to the annals of history.

Rural people using "World Wide Web"

I have seen Broadband majors like Tata, Bsnl etc coming up with new plans to enter rural market and infact BSNL has named it as "BSNL broadband RURAL"(can definitely be a topic for discussion for bad brand naming. Included in another blog.). & telecom companies are also entering the market through GPRS pathway..Well in my opinion the process/cycle would be something different.. If you understand the product hierarchy the core constitues communication and then comes entertainment.. Communication through cell phones and entertainment thru TV's definitely..Internet comes after that.. For that they need a computer which is a hefty investment for them. Computer(fixed investment)& internet(operational investment). If we look at the internet penetration in India it is close to 0.5%(govt. website) which is the mean of urban as well as rural..I mean the figure for rural is still meager. Now for this market there are large and big shots entering the field and already entered in some cases..

Even if they use internet we dont expect children (prospective user) and women to chat or write blogs rather their use would be restricted to use of mails, likes of educative websites etc. If this is true then some DTH companies have encashed it in the right way leveraging their technology to serve the customers need.. Major DTH companies like Airtel, Tata Sky etc. got into tie-ups with some Web portal companies like Shaadi.com , English learning sites etc.

So I think the transition would be through DTH route..

K'taka mulls global financial district

Karnataka government’s plan to set up a global financial district in Devanahalli has met with enthusiasm from the banking and finance community in the preliminary meeting. The district is being envisioned as a hub for financial institutions to cater to industrial banking and finance.

The government had identified 200 acres of land near Bangalore International Airport at Devanahalli for the proposed district.

At a preliminary discussion organised by the government last week, senior officials from 45 banks, insurance companies and mutual funds attended and expressed their willingness to set up their offices there, Nirani told reporters.

He said the global financial district would enable industries to access finance for their projects in the state at one place as all the banks and financial institutions would be available.

With big ticket investments from companies like Arcelor Mittal, Hero Honda and Wipro expected to come into the state in the next couple of years, the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) is looking to acquire around 50,000 acres to be allotted for industrial purpose. Of this, around 12,000 acres has already been acquired, he said.

“Depending on the area, we are acquiring land at prices ranging from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore per acre,” said Nirani. He added around 5,000 acres of the 50,000 acres the state is looking to acquire could fall under the fertile land category which could be de-notified.

“If more than 20 per cent of a piece of land is found to be fertile, we will go ahead and acquire the land (for industrial purpose) only if we get approval of over 80 per cent of farmers,” said Nirani.

Islamic Banks!!! A welcome story..

Islamic banks are about to get a permit to enter the Indian Subcontinent..Sashi Tharoor and other ministers are mulling on the idea whether to give a go to these banks.These banks serve not only to muslims but serve equally to all the religions which is a misnomer in every Indian mind..These banks have a wide presence in countries like Malaysia. These would act as a boon for many people as they have a policy to charge no interest to the loans being disbursed. Which mean interest free loans..Well a question may arise as to how these banks would generate profits! Well these banks work on a concept of investing money in real estates which no other Indian banks are allowed. So lets see how it goes!!!

Why did kingfisher logged on to the campaign: "Dont drink and drive."

~Ram kumar~
Well i guess most of us must have come across the big outdoor hoardings by kingfisher(UB group) which holds a big statement like "DRINK RESPONSIBLY" and the footer says"Don't drink and drive."
Well i guess there is a lot of study behind it as to why they came up with such corporate social responsibility stunt and especially from a stable run by a person like Vijay Mallya..
If you look at study which is conducted for a sample of 100 regular alcohol drinkers of different age groups under 16-24, 25-44, 45-64, 65+ . The number of people who consume more that 4 units perday are:
16-24 ----- 23
25-44 ----- 31
45-64 ----- 21
65+ ----- 07 (Source: British heart foundation website.)

Which clearly brings to a conclusion that age group of 25-44 consumes alcohol to the max.

Now if you look at the correlation between age and deaths due to accidents,from the study we understand that age is a major factor.. Details as taken from(http://medind.nic.in/jal/t04/i1/jalt04i1p20.pdf) reveals that,

Age grp Males
(years) Cases
0-10 27
11-20 76
21-30 110
31-40 91
41-50 46
51-60 28
61-70 20
71-80 3 0
81-90 1 0
91-100 0
(17% of the deaths are because of drunk drivers.)
Now by simple calculation if u distribute these figures in the previously taken age groups we get:
0-21 --- 93 (27+76)
21-40 --- 201(110+91) "Figure got doubled"
41-61 --- 74 (46+28)
61+ --- 60(20+30+10)

Can be clearly deciphered that Death rate is maximum for the age group 21-40(44 in the previous table,,forgive me for the residual error..no exact data found) who tends to be the largest customer group (31% of the sample consumes more than 4 pegs/units per day. )Now if you look at the total size of regular drinkers and multiply it ,you would find the number to reach astronomical heights.

Lastly if you peep into your own lives you understand that the average alcohol expenditure with age on the x-axis tends to increase and abruptly after your first salary and may decline after 40's because health problem grips in..Again gets to the conclusion that the maximum expenditure is for the age group of 21-40(Rational value)....So for the maximum revenue to be generated by UB Group they should save these people from dying..So the campaign"Drink responsibly " and "Don't drink and drive"..
Please comment on this..This is my first marketing deduction....Ram kumar