Knowledge in Marketing
Viral Marketing - Not just online
Viral Marketing Definitions: A communication and distribution concept that relies on consumers to transmit digital products via electronic mail to other potential consumers in their social sphere and to animate these contacts to also transmit the products. Type of marketing that infects its consumers with an advertising message, which passes from one consumer to the next like a rampant flu” virus. True viral marketing differs from word-of-mouth in that the value of the virus to the original consumer is directly related to the number of other users it attracts. The tactics of creating a process where interested people can market to each other—is therefore emerging as an important means to spread-the-word and stimulate the trial, adoption, and use of products and services. Any positive or negative statement made by potential, actual, or former consumers about a product or company, which is made available to a multitude of people and institutions via the Internet. Intro: Marketers have given this phenomenon several names; besides viral marketing and buzz, there is also breaching the tipping point and convergence marketing, all of which refer to a very specific type of word-of-mouth communication about a brand or product that leads to explosive self-generating demand—or ruin. Central to the success of these campaigns is one or more of the following: their entry timing (early), their visibility, or the simplicity of the idea. The Honda Cog example broke a complex idea into a simple engaging one: each car component forming part of an elaborate domino-type setup. Another example is Hotmail, which attached a clickable URL to every outbound message sent by a user. The result was that every customer became the vehicle through which other potential customers found out about the service. Not only did potential customers become aware of the company, but the receipt of a Hotmail email also provided a simple and immediate opportunity to access the service. Through this form of marketing, Hotmail went from 0 to 12 million customers globally in 18 months; a staggering launch[1]. Offline Viral Marketing The challenge with viral and word of mouth marketing offline is getting the initial ball rolling, and more importantly, sustaining the viral marketing offline. The key to beginning and sustaining an offline viral marketing campaign is to have your brand attached to an item that is hot, trendy, exciting, not particular to one group of individuals, and most importantly has the ability to create and oohhhh and ahhhhhhh affect when the recipient experiences this item. The offline world has the constraint of geography, so the least expensive forms of viral marketing are going to be geographically bound, which can be challenging for some sites. Some argue that offline marketing is a waste of time for most sites or blogs. However, every site should practice some form of offline viral promotion. These efforts are called "drive to web programs" and they can be very successful. There are two important pieces to all promotion, and they become even more important in promoting your site offline. Just like the online world, your success at offline promotion is going to hinge on putting your message in front of the prospect in the right context – meaning at the right time and when they are in the right mood to perform the action you are looking for, which in this case is a visit to your website. Two elements are needed for each viral marketing idea – the hook and the context. Once you figure out how you’re going to do it, you need to determine where you’re going to do it. If the niche and scope of your business won’t lend itself well to local leads, passing out business cards isn’t going to work as a viral marketing idea. Every site could benefit from offline leads – it’s just a matter of time and money. So here are seven ideas with an explanation of hook and context for each: ¨ Use your URL like your phone number. Wherever there is a phone number there should be both a URL and contact email address that is generic: press releases, yellow page ads, newspaper advertising, radio and TV ads, company vehicles, brochures, sell sheets, the bottom of every page of your catalog. Context: Global, because all of your marketing materials travel all over the place. ¨ Webcards. You can get business cards pretty cheap these days. Choose an attention-getting color that fits with the image of your site. Context: More locally focused, because you are handing them out. ¨ Make every customer contact a viral marketing opportunity. paper clipping a couple of the webcards to an invoice or statement or other correspondence with a small postit note personally written by you asking them to keep one of the cards and give the other one to someone who might be able to use it. Context: Sort of a viral marketing meets chain letter idea that has potential. Global in scope. ¨ Referral Bribes. Offer your current customers an incentive to refer new customers. Maybe it’s a coupon for a percentage off their next order, or an entry into a prize raffle or something else of value. This encourages people to tell you who referred them so you can see who’s helping you out. Context: Global if you combine offline with online. ¨ Tchochkes. Tchochkes [choch-kez] are little gifts (knick knacks) emblazoned with your URL that you give out to people. The webcard could actually be considered a tchochke, but they usually are stuff we have on our desk or around our house like paperweights, coffee cups, T-Shirts, refrigerator magnets and other stuff. Context: Global depending on where you send them. ¨ Direct Mail with a personalized offer. There are (snail mail) mailing lists for everything. Use a well designed, neat, personalized letter with a personalized URL (an easy one), and send them off to redeem their offer. Context: Global. ¨ The World as Your Billboard. figure out how to get your URL in front of as many people as you can locally. Creative and unique wins the day. Posters, yard signs, billboards, bumper stickers, pens and pencils, and car window signs. Think about it and come up with something good. Context: Local. Examples: ¨ Half success: One example is that of an electronic form Sony Ericsson used for the launch of its T68i mobile telephone with camera. Sony Ericsson spent $5 million on a campaign that, in part, used 120 actors who frequented popular tourist locations or fashionable bars and nightclubs in New York. The actors would identify people from the desired target segment, approach them, and ask them to take their pictures, with the objective of the campaign being getting the product into the hands of potential customers, having them experience its ease of use, and encouraging them to ask questions about it. Despite tactical success, Sony Ericsson was criticized by consumer groups on the ethics of the campaign, since the actors did not identify themselves as paid representatives of the company. ¨ Success: Honda UK: Revitalizing the brand through viral marketing: The result of the creative effort was an ad known as bThe CogQ that featured hundreds of individual pieces of a new Honda Accord connecting with each other as though they were a big tumbling domino display. The ad was initially launched on UK television at the first commercial break of the Brazilian Formula 1 Grand Prix. The ad ran the full 2-min length allotment, and wherever Formula 1 fans gathered to watch the event in the UK, brought the room to a standstill. Coinciding with the television launch, the bcreativeQ was also made available on the Honda website, where those fascinated by it could download it to watch over and over. Such was the amount of interest that many shared the ad with friends and began emailing it around the world. Thus began the viral marketing campaign of The Honda Cog. In using viral marketing as part of the message delivery, Honda was able to spread its message further than traditional media would allow within the UK. The result? In the UK, Honda attributed record-breaking sales in the first quarter of 2004 in part to the dramatic increase in brand awareness from The Cog ad. ¨ Success: Pepsi used a successful viral marketing approach to connect the right target segment with its brand. In 2001, Pepsi became a key sponsor of the inaugural Soul Beach Music Festival in Miami, Florida. Traditionally, sponsorship relies on the placement of the sponsor’s logo on posters, tickets, T-shirts, and signs at various events. Pepsi took a different direction: it developed a campaign in which patrons at the festival had their photographs taken and were then given a DigiCard that contained a range of multimedia, including a screensaver, video, audio, and self-contained email software. The DigiCard was both a reminder of the photograph taken and a vehicle that led participants to the Pepsi site to collect their photographs. For Pepsi, the value of the Soul Beach sponsorship was the ability to link its brand directly to an exciting event and the personal experiences of thousands of participants who then emailed their photographs (and the Pepsi brand) to friends and family around the corner or around the world. Failures: Viral Marketing is a tricky thing, and like fire and government it is powerful servant but a fearful master. While companies scramble to “go viral” and produce the next overnight web sensation, the road is fraught with danger and the gutter littered with epic fails. Failure Examples: ¨ The most famous (and ridiculous) recent example of viral marketing FAILs is the Great Boston Bomb Scare of 2007 ™. In an attempt to create hype around its upcoming movie, advertisers behind Aqua Teen Hunger Force paid some weird dudes to hang sticky LED signs all over the city. The city freaked out, thinking they were bombs and shut everything down, arrested the kids and fined Cartoon Network a whole bunch of money. But at least now it has its own Wikipedia page. ¨ Ashanti Death Threats: Failing R&B singer Ashanti thought it would be a good idea to promote her new album by launching a viral marketing campaign that allowed people to send their friends death threats. Yes you read that right, death threats. ¨ Chevy’s Create Your Own Tahoe Commercial: Chevy created a user generated advertising platform for a campaign for the Tahoe. Things went wrong when users started making ads critical of the big car maker’s fuel efficiency and environmental friendliness. Commercials typically included stuff like this: Hey, 2,325 U.S. kids have died, 16,653 have been injured, and up to $2 trillion will be spent to keep our oil supply safe. If you support the troops you’ll get out there and use some of it! Chevy Tahoe: Don’t let all that blood go to waste.™ ¨ Virgin’s B3ta Competition: Virgin started a contest on the popular designer website for users to create images of what would happen if you said yes to everything. What Virgin ended up getting was a bunch of offensive pictures of Richard Branson. The guys behind the site had this to say about it all: “Yep, they pulled the challenge. Yep, they were told before they opened it exactly how it would play out. Yep, they asked us to delete it. Yep, I think the whole thing is funny.” ¨ Starbucks Free Iced Coffee: Sometimes the campaign doesn’t have to fail to turn against its creators, sometimes it just has to work too well, like Starbuck’s free iced coffee for friends and family efforts. The coffee chain sought to entice friends and family of employees to come into the store for free iced coffee, but when word got out about the offer and the respones was bigger than expected, corporate headquarters nixed the promotion. ¨ Dove & Axe Mashup: Unilever’s success with socially responsible Dove viral ads found resistance when a Youtube user made a mashup of the Dove ads and some of Unilever’s Axe commercials, which many consider sexist. Axe ads were used to show how on one hand the company objectifies women, while on the other, it pretends to care about the daughters of America. ¨ Working Families for Wal-Mart: As if Sony’s epic fail didn’t teach the PR world enough, Walmart hired firm Edelman who created an astrotuff blog allegedly written by average working families to counteract the bad public image the mega chain has suffered from for years. When the blog was outed as a fake it further damaged Walmart (and Edelman’s) shaky reputation. Online Viral marketing examples: Scope mouthwash, for example, designed a customized animated kiss that was electronically mailed to its current customers to tie in with the promotional slogan that Scope brings people kissably close. The customers could forward the e-kiss to family and friends, with tracking technology revealing that most of them did so. The De Beers website allowed visitors the opportunity to design their own rings and then forward the designs on to friends or family. The site was so compelling that visitors wanted to share it with others. When Procter and Gamble launched its new shampoo, Physique, online, visitors who referred the website ad to 10 friends won a travel-sized styling spray and were entered into a competition to win a year’s supply of shampoo. This promotion generated two million referrals and made the Physique launch the most successful new shampoo launch in the United States. A prime example of Internet word-of-mouth referrals or viral marketing is The Blair Witch Project, released in 2001. Although the movie lacked a sizable promotional or marketing budget, interest in its storyline was generated through online marketing under the premise that the movie depicted the true story of three student filmmakers who disappeared somewhere in the Maryland woods while attempting to film their own story of the Blair Witch and whose missing footage was found 1 year later. To support the truthfulness claim, the movie’s creators provided a website with evidence from the case, including sheriff’s reports, photographs, and details of the Blair Witch. Other supporting documentation included a comic book and chat sites incorporated in the 12-month lead-up to the movie’s launch. A friend of someone who worked in the industry allegedly copied previews of the movie that were posted on the Web prior to the film’s release. Before the movie even opened, it had inspired more than 20 fan sites, a mailing list, an online chat room, and positive reviews on a number of review sites including Ain’t It Cool News. All this viral hype helped develop the $30,000 film into a $150 million blockbuster. Hotmail - When Hotmail launched, much of its early success was due to the virality of the sigline that it attached to every outgoing email inviting the recipient to join. One of the earliest examples of viral marketing on the internet. Subservient Chicken - the creepy webcam site made for a Burger King campaign allowed people to control a guy in a chicken suit. It went viral almost instantly and for a few weeks was everywhere. Will it Blend - One of the most recent best viral marketing campaign examples, Blendtec’s will it blend video series shows scientists testing if various household items will blend in their super-powerful blender. This campaign leveraged the popularity of online video sharing sites. One Red Paperclip - This was a blog where the author started with a single red paperclip and traded his way up to a house, documenting his steps along the way. Million Dollar Homepage - Perhaps the most famous viral marketing “why didn’t I think of that” example, this site sold pixels on its homepage and eventually made over a million dollars. Simpsonsize Yourself - Created for the Simpsons movie, this site allowed visitors to create an avatar of themselves as a character from the cartoon. Mentos/Diet Coke - Another wacky scientist schtick, these guys got famous by making art out of the explosions caused by mixing diet coke and mentos. Mentos handled it beautifully, Coke did not. Dove Evolution Video - Part of a campaign by Dove, this video showed how models’ beauty is often artificial, and really struck a chord with its intended audience of female viewers. Tea Partay - A beverage company created this video as a parody of rap videos and used preppy white kids. Youtube Embedable Videos - Youtube’s meteoric rise is due in large part to the embeddable videos the company introduced, allowing bloggers to put videos directly into posts. Lonelygirl15 - This fake reality show featured an aspiring actress, playing strange storyline. It generated lots of views and eventually the creators were unmasked. Bob Dylan Facebook App - This application allows users to make their own version of Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues video. This is a viral marketing campaign example consisting entirely of “brand” interaction for the purpose of entertainment. [1] Dobele, A et al. (2005), Controlled Infection! Spreading the Brand Message Through Viral Marketing, Business Horizons, Vol. 48, pp.143-149
Kinshuk Mishra
Yogurt Market in India - Opportunity
Case Study Competition Submission
Introduction to Digital Marketing
Introduction to Digital Marketing by Faiyaz M Khairaz www.compufield.com/digital
Design of Gyrowheel based on primary and secondary
Based on ergonomic study and some primary research, gyrowheel has been designed
Palarapu Pavan Kumar 
Arti Mede
Mahindra & Mahindra - Company Profile
This document talks about the journey of the I ndian multinational car manufacturing corporation Mahindra & Mahindra.
Hima Bindu Mudadla
Journey of VLCC
This presentation details the journey of beauty and fitness company, VLCC.
Dabur Product Portfolio
This document enlists the company profile and product portfolio of India's largest Ayurvedic medicine & natural consumer products manufacturer, Dabur.
Pure It case study
PUREIT CASE STUDY 1.What was so compelling for HUL to develop a product like Pureit? What factors accounted for its success? At a time when the global mantra “Blue is the new green” indicated that availability of clean water was essential, HUL found the opportunity to introduce a water purifier product in the middle and lower class segments. Most market players were offering the higher end models of water purification and hence there was an open market for the affordable water purifier model. The opportunities for innovations meant that HUL could work like a start-up and have a dedicated research and development team, which in the long run could provide very compelling prices for its products. Statistics like the one that reports only 60% of water in India was usable showed that there was a huge potential for clean water in the market. The factors that accounted for the success of Pureit are: a. The low prices that it offered its product compared to the competitors. b. No need for electricity. c. Targeted the open market of lower and middle class. 2. Explain the product portfolio of Pureit? How would you explain the rationale for current offerings of the company? Pureit offered mainly 4 types of product varieties. The initial launch in 2008 saw the classic model being released at $44 The classic was a manual fill type water purifier, initially aimed at bringing an affordable water purifier into the market. The next step was to improve on the existing model by ensuring a better consumer experience. The company offered the autofill model that made the work of consumer less. Such a system would draw water from the supply when available and the consumer didn’t have to worry about filling water in the compartment. This product was priced at $70. The 2 latest models are the Compact and the Marvella. The compact was a cheap version of the classic that looked to make the cost of clean water even more affordable. Marvella on the other hand is a fully automatic water purifier that was sleek and offered a multitude of benefits. This was meant to conquer the high class market. The compact costs $22 and the Marvella costs $150. The reasons for the launch of the compact and the marvella are as follows: the compact was a means of offering a very low cost product for ensuring a strong market penetration. Pureit had to reach the masses and reducing costs was one of the significant ways of ensuring this. Marvella on the other hand was aimed at ensuring a complete market presence and eventual dominance of Pureit. Hence marvella was offering compelling features at a price range significantly higher than the other products from the company. 3. What was so special about the Water Team that enabled the success of the project? The water team was built like a start-up. For HUL to become a successful player in the water purifying market, it had to ensure that the employees had a personal touch with the product. This was done by deviating from usual company norms of cycling employees. Usually cycling ensured a wider experience base. However, it was important that a few key players were retained in the same role for Pureit. This could ensure that the employees were personally accountable for the success or failure of the product. This kind of setup also allowed the employees to learn from their mistakes and could eventually thrive from failures. Another important aspect was that the knowledge that there was a larger safety net in the form of HUL allowed the company to “fly” in the words of Yuri Jain. Therefore, such a setup allowed the employees to work with a start-up attitude while also not having the risks associated with failures in normal start-ups. 4. How would you interpret the consumer behaviour? Consumers wanted not just a clean water supply, but needed to see in physical interpretation that the water had been purified. This was a common feature for all consumers who preferred to physically see that their water has been purified. Apart from that, consumers also felt the need to have value for their money. This meant that due to the huge variety of options available for them, it was possible to bring down costs. This could be seen even in the higher end market that saw its prices drop significantly. Coming to Pureit, it wanted to entice the consumers using a few strategies like low price and also using doctors to recommend their product. This helped in gaining the trust of the market and hence allowed Pureit to be successful. This strategy also resulted in the pull effect wherein, retailers were forced to bring in the Pureit products due to demand from the consumer end. Hence we can conclude that the consumers were happy with the product offerings of pure it. 5. Explain the competitive scenario in the product segment? The water purifier segment is highly competitive with over 150 players in the market. There was always the presence of higher end product offerings that used the UV and RO technologies to draw in customers. However, Pureit was one of the first to let its presence be felt in the lower price category. This would however not be for too long. The Tata company introduced the Swach. It was also a low priced entry that made the market fiercely competitive. With India’s POU water purifier market estimated to hit 41.1 billion by 2014, there is huge potential and lots of competitors for the same. Some of Pureit’s fiercest rivals include the Tata Swach, the EFL Aquagaurd, the Kent RO and the EFL Aquasure. Currently the market is dominated by the UV and RO technologies but with the Pureit, Swach and Aquasure launches, this is set to change. This wasn’t all of it though. Many other players like Phillips, Godrej with its “Krystal’, and Asian Paints with its water bottle purifier also entered the market. Another important competitor later came into the picture in the form of Proctor and Gamble’s sachet packs capable of purifying 10 litres of water per sachet. The pricing was also quite good at $0.01 per sachet. This is the current scenario of the market competition.
Sarat Nanda
Inflation
INFLATION AND DEFLATION Inflation simply means increase in the price of goods and services, and deflation means fall in the price of goods and services. Inflation takes places when the demand is high for a particular good or service, here the supplier has in upper hand as his goods are in demand, he can charge higher prices for the same good and the consumers will pay the high price. Why ? Because they want more of those goods.(demand being high) Manufacturer/supplier benefits from inflation as they are able to earn more profits at higher prices. Where as in deflation,the demand is low for the goods and services, so in order to make the customer buying the goods, the supplier reduces the price. Here customer gets an upper hand as he benefits from the relatively cheaper goods. So extreme of anything (be it inflation or deflation) is bad for the country's economy and the government needs to strike a balance between the 2 sides so that it's beneficial for all.
Harshit pandey
Marketing Management Consumer Review
Marketing Management-1 Group 5 General Discussion Area Customer Name: Mayur Kanzaria Product: Activa by Honda, which was purchased in 2012 & price of product was 54,000. · How would Mayur describe consumer experience? Product is consumed by 3 members of family including Mayur, his brother & his father. His mother is now too learning to drive product slowly. Normally Mayur uses product for his part time work, hang out with friends & to attend tuition classes in city area, day to day grocery shopping & odd jobs are also taken in same product. Mostly product is used 2-3 times on day and mostly to city (attend tuition classes) & to near by colony for his part time work. Plus, all other household chores result in average 50-55 Kms of daily transportation as per consumer. On Weekend days & some special days when Mayur has to meet his friends or his brother has to hang out with his friends they use it. His father mainly uses it on weekends for any work to meet any relative nearby. Consumer is quite satisfied and happy with product as its very less maintenance & till now, he hasn’t needed to replace any component, which was functioning badly. Mayur has such high opinion for product and he suggest this product to many of his friends. · What Type of relationship does the customer have with the product or service? As mentioned above consumer has purchased product about 4 years ago. It was purchased by his father when he was got into college. So, from that time also main user for product was Mayur so that time average 10-15 Kms per day, he had to travel mainly to visit nearby location for his tuition purpose & other activities combine. From then on, as time went on its usage has been increased as Mayur’s age increased. After that he joined part time work & frequent night outs & long trips in city become more common. So, till now relation has increased from only as vehicle to necessity now. Mayur experience more difficulty managing his day if he has not vehicle. Terms that relationship describe are: Good, A partner in need, heavily dependent, loving. · What kind of Things have gone wrong in the relationship? Major problem with product according to him is its mileage. With time slowly product consumed more petrol than it did before which is a concern as petrol price increased in years. He complains that headlight of product is not proper as it ejects slightly cross light. This is not major issue but he has talked about it with service centre serval times. Still they haven’t given any satisfactory solution to this problem. Plus, Mayur complains that with time more usage of brakes resulting more vibration & noise. He basically demands that product could have been made more durable & strong to resist shocks. · What positive surprise has occurred? According to Mayur, he hasn’t gone through single accident yet because of vehicle performance issues. He is quite happy with that. It has enough space in for daily grocery shopping to apparels or any other shopping which is comforting. This factor has given his above expectation value as he realised in bikes, he would have to carry a bag for shopping & any other activities. Or insert as hook type feature at side of bike, which looks uncool on bike. · Is customer satisfied or dissatisfied with product or service? Customer is overall satisfied with product. Values like consistent performance, no major maintenance, enough space are important to him. Of course, mileage is issue for his as durability of outer body used. But before purchasing that product he has research that part of disadvantage. So, product has overall exceeded expectation of consumer. · What is meaning of this product or service to the customer? In Mayur’s life, from its early freshman college years to now product has become more like partner to him. Everyday he needs it. Product is best for his bachelor life as its affordable compare to car & easier to use than bikes. As his mother is learning to drive this vehicle slowly, that wouldn’t have been possible with a bike or car. Easier to drive makes it easy for his younger brother to use it frequently to nearby places & hangout. Product basically play role of transportation agent, who is ready to serve whenever he wants. An agent which is reliable & good value for money. · What role does the brand play in all this? Before purchasing, he had done enough research for which brand wanted to choose. He & his father mainly talked to friends, relatives & neighbours about it. Most of them recommended them this brand. So, at time of purchasing they had no second thoughts related to brand of this product. With time now they have experience that brand have given them their value of money.
Lav Patel
Marketing Strategy for increasing likes on FB page
It is about Strategy to be followed to increase number of likes on a already existing FB page.
Garvit Sahdev