Pan IIM Marketing Digest

The
Looking
Glass
 THE LOOKING
Editorial
GLASS In this edition
Dear Readers Measuring the Effectiveness of the Humour Quotient
in Indian Advetising ……3
It gives us immense pleasure to bring out the first ever PAN-IIM marketing digest, with a joint effort by the
marketing clubs of IIMs A, B, C and L. Influencer Marketing ..…..6

If you take time to look around, you would observe the importance of marketing in every sphere of your life. Implicit Positioning and Surrogate Advertising .........9
Starting from the time you get up in the morning, the brush, toothpaste you use, right up to the time you crash on
your bed at night, just think of those countless brands that shape your daily lifestyle. It‟s a continuous tussle Fake IPL Player: Redefining Marketing ..…..11
between those myriad brands laid across the horizon of consumer observation span. In a season where marketers Effective Multi-tiered Promotions:
are leaving no stone unturned trying to grab consumer attention, marketing automatically assumes utmost impor- Lessons From Santoor ..…..13
tance. The world is brutal. It‟s no longer about marketing your product right. It‟s basically a requisite for sur-
vival. If you don‟t do it, your competitors will. And the consumers have plenty of options. So, basically if you 4P's of Indian Theatre Marketing ..…...17
don‟t sell, your competitors will.
Neo-Political Marketing ...….21
We decided to come up with a collection of choicest articles contributed by students and industry personnel, which
would highlight the trends of contemporary marketing. And for the same reason we decided to call the digest, „The
Strategic Marketing for Educational Institutions…..25
Looking Glass‟, because we feel it will give a true reflection of marketing, and the direction it is taking in today‟s
scenario. The articles touch a wide array of topics which have assumed importance in the recent past. How has
humour been used effectively by marketers? How do you sell educational institutes? What exactly did the Fake Welcome to Marketing, the third epoch! ........28
IPL Player do for KKR? How do advertisers resort to surrogate advertising? What are the trends in online mar- Sidestepping the Commoditization of
keting? These, and many more articles inside would keep you engrossed as you go through the pages, we hope. Disruptive Innovations …...30

There are those who envision, and then there are those who work to make the vision a reality. We are proud to Sales Role in Fixed Income Securities Market ……32
say that we had a team which did both. We would like to thank all those who were involved taking the digest to
the completion stage. There was a tremendous amount of co-ordination and synchronization put in by the market- Valuation of TV Advertising …….34
ing clubs of the 4 IIMs. At every stage of development we also received immense support from the faculty in the
form of guidance and encouragement. Also, a very special thanks to Mr. Prakash Bagri, Director of Marketing, Ogilvy and Mather Trivia …….36
Intel South Asia, for sharing his insights on the evolution and future of marketing, in the digest.
Is Recession the time to tighten Ad Budget? …….37
In future we plan to evolve by bringing in greater participation from the industry and experts and initiating wider Low Cost Customer Acquisition
distribution. Please do send us your feedback at looking_glass.mag@gmail.com. Strategies for E-businesses …….39

Yours Truly State of the Market -A Comparative Study …….42

Mayank Jain, Prasad Gopal ,
Robin Joseph , Garima Mamgain Does Green Marketing Sell? ……..44

Men's Cosmetics ……..48

Team
Editors
Mayank Jain (IIMC)
Prasad Gopal (IIMB)
Robin Joseph (IIMA)
Garima Mamgain (IIML)
Design Pan IIM Team
Yatish Misra (IIMC) Piyush Mehta (IIMC) Chayan Mukhopadhyay (IIMB)
Prativa Lama (IIMB) Brijesh Unithan (IIMC) Gautam Attravan (IIMB)
Rajkul Fulzele (IIMA) Mafla Mudgal (IIMC) Shreshth Sharma (IIMB)
Rishi Varshney (IIML) Nikhil Joshi (IIMC) Meenakshi Prasad (IIML)
Pratik Prakash (IIMC) Saikat Mondal (IIML)
Sanglap Bannerjee (IIMC) Ganesh PR (IIML)
Abhishek Mohan (IIMB) Manoj Kumar Kamble (IIML)
 PAGE 3 Measuring the Effectiveness of the Humour
Quotient in Indian Advertising
In this article, we explore the hu-
mour quotient in Indian advertis-
ing through the lens of certain
television ad campaigns that have
tickled the consumer funny bone
in order to evaluate the effective-
ness of such campaigns. We di-
verge from the traditionalist body
of literature that brackets hu-
mour in advertising as risky and
at best, as effective as other ads.
Our contention is that an ad
campaign based on humour
stands out from the crowd and
captures the consumer mind-
share.
Our contention is that INTRODUCTION
an ad campaign based
When using humour to advertise
on humour stands out
a product, the main challenge for
from the crowd and
marketers is to link the advertise-
captures the consumer
ment to the underlying brand so
mindshare. as to translate consumer enjoy-
ment to consumer purchase. This
linkage is questioned by numer-
ous researchers with the distrac-
tion of the consumer from the
brand quoted as the chief flaw of
such a strategy. We diverge from
this view – our contention is that
the industry context and basis of
competition is also critical to the
nature of advertisements used.
Our frame of analysis would be
campaigns that are recognized for
their innovative use of humour
including Fevicol and Fewikwik,
Happydent White, Vodafone Zoo-
zoos, Idea Cellular, Frooti, Tata
Indian advertisements, Sky, Sprite.
in the past, have
mostly derived their TYPES OF HUMOUR
humour from the in- Back in the 1960‟s, a golden rule
terplay between multi- in advertising, propagated by the
ple characters. founder of Prentice-Hall, was to
never mix humour and advertis-
ing. Today, with the proliferation
of product offerings, humour is
increasingly being looked upon
not as a distraction that trivial-
izes the product, but as an effec-
tive means of distinguishing the
product from the crowd and
drawing the attention of con-
sumer.
THE LOOKING GLASS
Humour can come in many forms
and the choice of the appropriate
type is highly dependent on the
target audience, the cultural bias,
the choice of advertising medium
and the product itself. Some of
the more popularly used forms
are:
 Personification: This is
where inanimate objects assume
human characteristics and the
inherent humour in observing
such behaviour is used to high-
light some quality or the desir-
ability of the brand. One such
example is Pepsi‟s „Oye Bubbly‟
campaign in which various ob-
jects such as the car stereo and
the garage are shown coveting the
Pepsi bottle.
 Exaggeration: Here certain
attributes of the product are
magnified out of proportion like
the Fevikwik ads where the fish-
erman uses Fevikwik on a stick
to catch fish, trumping the so-
phisticated fishing gear of the
person next to him.
 Slapstick: This particular
brand of humour deals with the
ludicrous/exaggerated and pre-
sents situations where the hu-
morous aspect of the ad, far from
being subtle, strikes the viewer in
the face, the Chlormint ads being
a prime example of this.
Other forms include sarcasm,
comparison, pun, understate-
ment and irony. However, there is
a strong cultural context for such
advertisements. Individualistic
cultures like the US and UK typi-
cally feature advertisements hav-
ing one or two dominant charac-
ters while in more collectivistic
cultures like Thailand, ads re-
volve around groups. Similarly,
the degree of uncertainty avoid-
ance and the amount of mascu-
line dominance in the culture of a
country are key factors in influ-
 PAGE 4
influencing the type of humour that can be
successfully used in advertisements, with
countries high on these two parameters tend-
ing to prefer slapstick or direct humour to
subtle nuances and double entendres.
Analyzing the Indian advertising scenario
keeping this cultural context in mind, certain
key trends can be identified. Given the tradi-
tional family oriented culture of India, Indian
advertisements, in the past, have mostly de-
rived their humour from the interplay between
multiple characters. Also, in the past, humour
has tended to be largely slapstick, based on
filmy spoofs and ridiculous situations. This is
part, can be attributed to the diversity of cul-
tures and languages found in India. Humor-
ous ads, therefore, must tread the thin line
between keeping the cultural idioms of their
target audience in mind and taking care not to
offend the cultural sensibilities of any group.
Slapstick offers an easy way out with situ-
ational humour having a broader reach while
also ensuring that the punch line is not lost
on the audience.
EVOLUTION OF HUMOUR IN INDIAN ADS
Over the years, there has been a gradual evo-
lution in the use of humour in Indian adver-
tisements. The most obvious change has been
the increasing use of humour with advertising
agencies increasingly trying to grab the atten-
tion of consumers through their funny bone.
In 1993, only 28% of commercials were hu-
mour-based. By 2001, at least 46% tried to
incorporate some form of humour. And while
in most countries, funny ads have largely
been associated with low-involvement prod-
ucts, in India, even high-involvement products
like televisions and insurance have tried their
hands at humour.
A more subtle change that has been taking
place is in the type of humour employed.
From pure slapstick, ads are moving towards
more intelligent comedy, with a more individu-
alistic bent, be it the Vodafone Zoozoos, which
cleverly depicted a variety situations, each
with some link to a feature offered by Voda-
fone, or the Fasttrack „Move on‟ commercials,
which perfectly capture the changing nature
of Indian society today. India today is at a
crossroads, between its traditional past and a
more modern future, which perhaps explains
the success of ads across the entire cultural
THE LOOKING GLASS
spectrum – be it the group oriented Fevicol
truck ad showing people stuffed into a truck,
or the more individual oriented Fevikwik fish-
erman ad, from the slapstick Akai TV ads of
old to the more subtle Camlin Marker ads, to
the extent that even potentially controversial
ads like the Axe series have found acceptance
in India, which is viewed to be conservative.
Case Studies: We examine the following ad-
vertising campaigns with a view towards illus-
trating the different types of humour that
works in the Indian context and also to meas-
ure the effectiveness of these campaigns
along multiple dimensions: Amaron, Frooti,
Axe and Max New York Life Insurance. Our
choice is driven by the different types of hu-
mour used in each of these campaigns.
Amaron (Amara Raja) batteries: The iconic
claymation advertisements with the catchy
slogan of „Lasts Long Really Long...Ting Tong‟
captured the imagination of the public and
acted as clutter busters in 2002. The „Hare
and Tortoise‟ ad and the „Kumbhakarna ad‟
were aired on Doordarshan and other satellite
channels and brought in tremendous brand
awareness for Amaron batteries – a new en-
trant into the automotives battery space in
2000.
Interestingly however, the expected spurt in
sales did not materialize. The product was a
low involvement one with incumbent advertis-
ing focussing on the toughness and macho
image of the car battery. The dominant player
at that time, Exide, was well entrenched and
Amaron did not manage to make a dent in
their sales. The ad agency – O&M went back
to the same claymation studio in 2004 to
come up with a follow up, the „Pandu Mangal‟
ad. The uniqueness of this ad was the univer-
sal nature of the humour – the bumbling cop
in pursuit of a wily thief was instantly recog-
nized and appreciated across all segments of
people. We also theorize that the humour was
well received as it relied on simple age-old
themes and had powerful visual imagery. This
ad consolidated Amaron as a powerful brand
and was a platform for their explosive growth
post-2006. In 2006 Amaron reverted to a
stereotypical performance based campaign
using racing stars like Karun Chandok and
Narain Karthikeyan. Our take is that the hu-
mour based advertising helped establish the
brand awareness but did not add to the top-
line due to the low involvement of the car
owners in the buying decision and the lack of
product differentiation as the „Lasts Long‟
promise held true de-facto in the business.
 PAGE 5
Frooti: The Digen Verma ad blitz that lasted
for 15 days in February 2001 catapulted the
brand into public imagination and generated a
tremendous buzz across the country. The cam-
paign was centred on a faceless college going
guy called Digen Verma worshipped by his
friends, girls and even peons – in general eve-
ryone who knew him except for the stodgy old
college professor. The teaser campaign com-
bined with the new caption for Frooti – „Just
Like That‟ was aimed at repositioning Frooti
from a kids drink to one for the youth. Hence,
a rebellious theme was adopted in the cam-
paign.
The last series of ads in this campaign show
Digen ordering Frooti (of course Digen himself
is not shown on screen) – this causes pande-
monium across the country and everyone
switches to Frooti immediately! This campaign
was unique in the effective use of suspense
(watch this space approach) and humour in
engaging consumer attention through various
innovative forms of media (messages telling
Digen to remove his car from the parking lot
were flashed in theatres, bus stops had posters
asking if Digen would be on the next bus and
so forth).
A look at the sales figures show a marginal in-
crease in the year the campaign was aired fol-
lowed by steady increase in sales – the market
share decline was halted by this campaign
though. Sceptics however claimed that the Di-
gen Verma persona had become more famous
and had marginalized the brand. Later, Frooti
switched to their old theme of „Fresh and
Juicy‟ which did worse than the Digen Verma
campaign – hence in comparison the use of a
unique style of humour proved to be more ef-
fective for Frooti.
Axe: Our inclusion of Axe is a little controver-
sial as its ads have straddled a thin line be-
tween sexism and naughtiness in terms of the
humour. We study it due to the unique nature
of the advertising – the same campaigns are
aired worldwide and there has been no attempt
to tone down the humour or modify it in any
way for India.
This dispels the notion that Indians are con-
servative in their humour – of course the mar-
keting for Axe was backed up by a great prod-
uct too. The Axe effect in terms of sales and
market share has been spectacular to say the
least. HUL (the parent company)replaced their
old deodorant brand Denim with Axe due to its
spectacular success.
THE LOOKING GLASS
Axe is by far the naughtiest brand in India
and is targeted at the male aged 16-25. The
ads highlight various situations where the
guy, usually an ordinary next door
neighbour kind of chap rather than a
hunk, gets pursued by different women.
Seduction is the dominant motif here, with
the women making the first move – a bold
idea for Indian audiences. Yet, it has cap-
tured the pulse of its target audience per-
fectly.
Max New York Life: When Max New York
came out with their advertisement featur-
ing an overzealous dad with his young child
as he exhorts the child to repeat words of
increasing complexity, consumers sat up
and took notice. The advertisement poked
fun at Indians who have a propensity to
push their children into various activities
at a young age. Interestingly, the humour
in the ad was well received – wry humour
had worked on Indian screens after a long
while! The ad demonstrated two things –
one that Indians were willing to laugh at
themselves and two, high involvement
products could be advertised using hu-
mour.
The sales of new policies shot up from the
slowdown in October – further the weighted
new received premiums too shot up. The ad
had worked its magic. Max New York fol-
lowed it up with another humorous ad in
Apr-2009, this time poking fun at the re-
tired Indian male.
CONCLUSION
Thus, the use of humour, in products
where consumer preferences play a vital
role in selection, not only helps bring the
brand into the consumer‟s consideration
set through increased brand awareness
and recall, but also appears to translate
directly to an increase in sales.
Kaushik Sriram is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Banga-
lore. He holds a Bachelors degree in Electronics and Communi-
cation Engineering from National Institute of Technology (NIT)
Trichy and can be reached at kaushiksr08@iimb.ernet.in.
Rohini Ramachandran is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM
Bangalore. She holds a Bachelors degree in Electronics and Com-
munication Engineering from National Institute of Technology
(NIT) Trichy and can be reached at rohinira08@iimb.ernet.in.
 PAGE 6 Influencer Marketing
Imagine your next visit to
your optician. After the
regular eye check-up, he
advises you to switch to
contact lenses, informing
you of the pros and cons.
You wonder what this is
leading to - is your optician
working as an agent to some
contact lens manufacturer?
Well, the answer to this
question can be both yes or
no. He is just exercising his
influence on your decision
making. The motivation for
such an action could have
come from a manufacturer,
in the form of incentives,
such as higher margins. On
the other hand, he might
just be using his judgment
and trying to help you out.
Welcome to the age of influencer
marketing. You might have wit-
nessed and experienced it in the
past – it‟s just that the term has
become more visible. Youtube,
blogs, twitter – the tools can be
many, the message is the same -
“you are being influenced.”
Compared to traditional marketing
practices, influencer marketing fo-
cuses on key types of individuals. It
aims to take advantage of the influ-
ence these individuals have over
the target segment, with these in-
fluencers becoming the centre of all
marketing activities.
According to Duncan and Nick,
these influencers may be potential
buyers themselves, or they may be
third parties. These third parties
exist either in the supply chain
(retailers, manufacturers, etc.) or
may be so-called value-added influ-
encers (such as journalists, aca-
demics, industry analysts, profes-
sional advisers, and so on) - Fig 1.
Using Influencer Marketing
The first and most important activ-
ity in influencer marketing is iden-
tification of influencers and evalu-
ating their potential to serve the
marketing objective. WOMMA
(Word of mouth marketing associa-
tion) provides a handy classifica-
tion of influencers based on how
they derive their power of influ-
ence.
Once the target influencer has
been identified, the next step is to
market the product to the influen-
cer, to help increase the awareness
among the influencer community.
They then become well equipped to
use their influence in favour of the
firm.
The third and final set of activities
involves the use of these influen-
cers to advocate to the target seg-
ment. Influencers can play a direct
or indirect role in this process.
What we see in case of contact
lenses is an indirect approach
where the influencer (optician) is
raising awareness about the cate-
gory and not the brand. To comple-
ment the strategy, the manufac-
turer might put some point of sale
merchandising to promote its prod-
uct. The third and final set of ac-
tivities involves the use of these
influencers to advocate to the tar-
get segment. Influencers can play a
direct or indirect role in this proc-
ess. What we see in case of contact
lenses is an indirect approach

Figure 1: Type of Influencers (source: WOMMA)

THE LOOKING GLASS

 PAGE 7

where the influencer (optician) is raising Category/Subject Matter Expert group).

awareness about the category and not the These doctors commanded a great amount
brand. To complement the strategy, the of influence on their patients and most of
manufacturer might put some point of sale the times their prescriptions acted as a
merchandising to promote its product. command for the patients. Marico identi-
fied these doctors and dieticians as its
influencers.
Industry Practices
One of the most common applications of
Marketing to these influencers is done
influencer marketing is in medicines and
through various activities. Here we list
pharmaceutical products. In many cases,
some of them:
the active ingredient is common across
companies, and the medicines are substi-
tutable. Since the law prohibits any adver-
tisements of prescription drugs, compa-
nies rely on prescriptions from doctors to
drive sales. Hence, they send their repre-
sentatives to disseminate information to
doctors and give them free samples (you
might have seen „Physician‟s sample, not
for sale‟ printed on mini packs in your
doctor‟s clinic). Sometimes, the represen-
tatives even check up with local chemists
whether the medicines being promoted are
selling, before they make a visit.

Figure 2: Saffola's use of influencer

Even in categories where advertising of the marketing
product is permitted, like oral care, com-
panies don‟t miss out on opportunities to
1. Product detailing and sampling to the
promote their products to dentists. This is
doctors. Marico promoters visit these
because an advertisement can rarely have
doctors and brief them about the
the credibility, and hence the influence on
product. They use product detailers
the purchase decision, as compared to a
and other research documents to
suggestion from the consumer‟s dentist.
backup their claim. Sampling helps in
Another avenue that companies use to
generating some trials if the doctors
market themselves to influencers like den-
find the product claims appropriate.
tists is sponsoring lectures on recent
Essentially, it‟s the same route that
trends in oral care. Use of various dental
pharmaceutical companies take for
associations to certify one brand of tooth-
their product.
paste or toothbrush is another example of
influencer marketing. Colgate has done 2. Involvement with various medical as-
well in this regard in India. sociations and other such platforms.
The visibility on such forums provides
reach to a large section of influencer
On a related note, Marico Ltd. has suc- community.
cessfully used influencer marketing
3. Involving various key influencers to
through cardiologists to promote its prod-
help improve the product offering and
ucts, especially Saffola Oil. Saffola is a saf-
future product development.
flower based refined edible oil that prom-
ises to help control cholesterol for cardiac
patients. When Marico launched this
product in market, the biggest challenge it
faced was that most of the customers were
unaware about cholesterol. Cardiac pa-
tients relied completely on their cardiolo-
gists and family doctors for information (in
WOMMA classification, these belong to

THE LOOKING GLASS

 PAGE 8

Once these influencers become aware of the Top 10 Most Brilliant Marketing Screw Ups
product and accept the effectiveness of the
product, they do not hesitate in giving infor-
mation about the same to their patients.
 Coors put its slogan, "Turn it loose," into Spanish, where it
Saffola today is part of many a diet charts
was read as "Suffer from diarrhoea."
and diet-guides because of such activities. It
is most probably the only edible oil that is
recommended by doctors during consulta-  Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the
tion. following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an
Electrolux."

Another, most common use of influencer  Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick", a curling iron, into Ger-
marketing in modern times is engaging tech- man only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not
nology experts during launch of new prod- too many people had use for the "manure stick."
ucts. Most of the cell-phone manufacturers
as well manufacturers of new age software  When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used
provide their product to these experts before the same packaging as in the U.S., with the beautiful Cau-
the product is formally launched. The ex- casian baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa,
perts are encouraged to write about the companies routinely put pictures on the label of what's in-
product. The influence these experts com- side, since most people can't read.
mand over the tech savvy target segment
helps in convincing early-buyers of the prod-  Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the
uct and thus generating the initial thrust name of a notorious porno magazine.
required for the success of the product.
 An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the
Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of
Influencer marketing gives a marketer an
"I saw the Pope" (el Papa), the shirts read "I saw the po-
opportunity to utilize resources beyond what
tato" (la papa).
is owned by the organization. This necessi-
tates establishing professional and ethical
norms on the marketer‟s part. The power of  Pepsi's "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" translated
influence also comes with great responsibil- into "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave", in
ity of using this influence in the right man- Chinese.
ner. It is not uncommon to hear of compa-
nies providing excessive incentives to influ-  Frank Perdue's chicken slogan, "it takes a strong man to
encers, to ensure that they promote only make a tender chicken" was translated into Spanish as "it
their products. The onus is on the marketer takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate."
to define the ethical and professional
boundaries and stay within them.  The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Ke-kou-ke-
la", meaning "Bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse
stuffed with wax", depending on the dialect. Coke then re-
So, in case you are looking to visit your opti- searched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent
cian anytime soon, at least now you know "ko-kou-ko-le", translating into "happiness in the mouth."
that he might be influenced by Bausch and
Lomb to „influence‟ you into buying contact  When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its
lenses.
ads were supposed to have read, "It won't leak in your
pocket and embarrass you". Instead, the company thought
Ammar Tambawal is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Ah- that the word "embarazar" (to impregnate) meant to em-
medabad. He holds a Bachelors degree in Electronics Engineering barrass, so the ad read: "It won't leak in your pocket and
from V ES IT, Bombay and c an be reac hed
make you pregnant."
at 8ammary@iimahd.ernet.in

Pritesh Jain is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Ahmedabad.

He holds a Bachelors degree in Electronics and Communication
Engineering from RV College of Engineering, Bangalore and can
be reached at 8priteshj@iimahd.ernet.in

THE LOOKING GLASS

 PAGE 9
The ban on advertising of
tobacco and liquor
introduced by the
Government of India
during the early 2000s has
spawned a generation of
surrogate marketing
initiatives as corporations
leant to sell without
communicating to the
consumer. Many in the
industry have since started
to diversify into areas
where they can leverage
their brands’ aspirational
value; such as aviation,
clothing and apparel and
sports. However the
surrogacy in advertising
continues in the absence
of a strong code by the
ASCI and the government
flip flops on the issue.
The need of the hour is to
come clean on the subject
and develop an
unambiguous plan of
action
THE LOOKING
Implicit positioning and surrogate advertising
Advertising is widely accepted to be
the most potent tool in the hand of a
marketer. Whether it is to launch a
new product, entrench an existing
one, educate on the new salient fea-
tures or create a new market, most
consumer products manufacturers
orient a considerable amount of
time, energy and money to reaching
out to existing and potential con-
sumers though various media such
as television, radio etc. as also new
age media like the Internet and Out
of Home (OOH) media.
Origins
In this context, one can imagine the
predicament of a producer who is
mandated to legally produce and
stock and then has his hands tied by
being denied the right to market the
produce. This is a ditch that many
liquor and cigarette companies have
found themselves in after the Gov-
ernment of India passed a blanket
ban on all advertising of „intoxicants
and harmful substances‟ in mid
2002. Most of the large players
adapted quickly to introducing what
are termed as complimentary prod-
ucts which fell outside the ambit of
the Government‟s regulation. The
significant ones include 8PM Whisky
(apple juice), Aristocrat Whisky
(apple juice), Bagpiper (club soda),
Hayward‟s 5000 Beer (kit of darts
which was the centrepiece of the ad-
vertising campaign) and Gilbey's
Green Label Whisky (mineral water);
and in this process was born a new
trend of surrogacy in advertising
which is commonly defined as
„advertising one product with the
view of selling another‟
Trends in surrogate advertising
After the ban imposed on the 12 ad-
vertisements identified as surrogates
by the Government of India, and the
show-cause notices issued to Star
TV, Zee TV and Aaj Tak in 2002 un-
der the provisions of the Cable Tele-
vision Regulation Act of 2002, the
whirlwind of surrogate ads hitting
the telly calmed down to a large ex-
tent. Advertisers started diversifying
and shifted their focus to other ad-
GLASS
vertising avenues which often
stretched the concept of brand ex-
tension to previously unheard-of lev-
els. These include the mundane such
as sponsoring events (without ex-
plicit advertising) and Internet adver-
tising; the unconventional such as
ITC‟s diversification into clothing and
apparel as well as the far-fetched
such as the Red and White Bravery
Awards and other lifetime achieve-
ment awards instituted mainly to
perpetuate brand recall among the
target audience. One interesting
trend which was observed in the mid
2000s was the “socially responsible
advertising” taken up by many liquor
companies. Several advertisements
exhorting viewers to be responsible
citizens and refrain from driving after
drinking were seen by media ana-
lysts as a form of surrogacy.
Media analysts have also often won-
dered aloud that the ambitious for-
ays made by Dr Vijay Mallya in avia-
tion, Formula 1 and related
„glamorous‟ industries have as much
to do with his desire to perpetuate
his strong brand portfolio as the
prospect of de-risking his business
by diversifying.
For the best part of this decade, the
tobacco and liquor manufacturing
lobby has been trying to persuade
the government to relax the restric-
tions on advertising what are per-
ceived as surrogate products. Fi-
nally, as late as March 2009, the
Government of India decided to the
hand a long rope under the stipula-
tion that the surrogates have no
product linkages to intoxicants.
However on June 10th this year, the
government tabled a bill to amend
the Cable Television Network Act of
1994, which is likely to tighten the
screws on surrogate advertising even
further.
Advertising Ethics
The Advertising Standards Council of
India (ASCI) issued clarifications at
various points of time that in accor-
dance with the code laid for guiding
 PAGE 10
ethical behaviour in advertising, the mere use
of a brand name or company name which may
be the same or related to a product put under
advertising restriction may not be construed as
reason enough to find the advertisement objec-
tionable. An exception may however be made
in case the product which is advertised is not
freely available or is produced and distributed
in minuscule quantities, which may not be suf-
ficient to warrant advertising costs. Also adver-
tisements must not contain direct or indirect
cues for the product under advertising restric-
tion.
However many advertisers must still grapple
with ethical dilemmas as the existing code
leaves a lot of scope for interpretation.
Voluntary abstinence
A notable exception to the clamoring by the
tobacco and liquor lobby and circumventing of
stipulations to maintain sales is the conduct of
ITC Ltd after the ban announced by the gov-
ernment. In 2001, ITC voluntarily opted out of
the sponsorship deal that it had signed with
the BCCI to sponsor the Indian cricket team
and has since been de-emphasizing its ciga-
rette brands in favor of other lines of business
which are considerably more sustainable. It
has also taken up large scale Corporate Social
Initiatives in rural India, the crown jewel being
the e-Choupal initiative, to enable the agricul-
tural community to adopt a direct selling ap-
proach.
Two sides of the same coin: Ambiguity of
law
Many in the industry question the practice of
banning advertisements which effectively
erodes the ability to sell while at the same time
allowing production to continue.
In an article published by The Hindu in March
2008 Ramesh Narayan, a communication con-
sultant writes,
“The advertiser‟s perspective is fairly straight-
forward. If it is legal to manufacture, distribute
and sell a product, why should it be illegal to
promote the sale of that product? I don‟t think
anyone can answer that question convincingly.
THE LOOKING GLASS
If it has been established conclusively that ciga-
rette smoking kills, why is it that it is available
to anyone, irrespective of his or her age, at
every street corner?”
"It's difficult to digest that an industry which is
allowed to sell its products, is banned from ad-
vertising the same products, despite the fact
that the commercials carry health warning, ad-
vising the customers to use the product in tem-
perance.", says Prof. Atul Tandan, Director,
Mudra Institute of Communications in an arti-
cle released in July 2002.
While such questions make intuitive sense, the
practicality of banning production of tobacco
and liquor is unpalatable for the simple reason
that these are very heavy contributors to In-
dia‟s tax kitty and the revenue loss due to a
ban on production will most likely be catastro-
phic. Also the increasing pressure exerted by
the WHO as well as NGOs and health activists
have forced the government to be seen doing
something. As a result of this duality of pur-
pose, the tug-of-war continues without resolu-
tion.
The need of the hour
The following measure will go a long way in
easing the deadlock seen here:
The ASCI should have an unambiguous guide-
line for differentiating acceptable and unac-
ceptable forms of advertising with respect to
surrogate products. Also the ASCI should be
empowered to implement the guidelines and
issue penalties for non-conformance.
The government needs to take a stand on the
issue. It must look beyond having the cake
(the advertising ban) and eating (tax revenues)
it. Advertising companies must take pains to
understand the nature of the products and
market that they are dealing with and must
refrain from designing and propagating surro-
gate brands.
Nikhil Joshi is a 1st year PGDM student at IIM Calcutta. He
holds a Bachelor‟s degree in Electronics and Telecommunication Engi-
neering from University of Mumbai and has worked as a Software
Testing Consultant with L&T Infotech. He can be reached at
joshin2011@email.iimcal.as.in
 PAGE 11

Fake IPL Player: Redefining Marketing

“Lord Almighty along with the Ca-
lypso King decided to take the attack
Further, according to a report pub-
on to the Bubblies. The Phoren babas
lished by Business Standard, the
were happy when they saw Appam
peak ratings of KKR matches on SET
being slaughtered. Prince Charles of
MAX channel were among the high-
Patiala was all tensed up but
est; at around 6 per cent of the total
Bhookha Nan and Kaan Moolu were
cable viewers above the age of 15
having a very good time with Sandy
years.
Baddy Babe.”

A source representing one of the

This may sound gibberish to many.
But those who have ever come
across the Fake IPL Player‟s blog at
any point of time would be laughing
their hearts out. This blog has be-
came a sensation in the cricketing
Fake IPL Player, a blog
world. But at the same time it also
released by an anonymous
made several great traditional mar-
blogger during the Indian
keters sit up and take notice.
Premier League (Season-
2), created a lot of furor
in the cricketing world.
What is this hype all about?
But at the same time it
stood out as an excellent Just a couple of days before the start
marketing campaign for of the IPL 2nd season in South Af-
the Kolkata Knight rica, a blog was launched by an
Riders Team. Using the anonymous person, who claimed to
unorthodox marketing be a member of the Kolkata Knight
techniques of Anti-
Riders Squad. Throughout the IPL
marketing and Buzz
he kept sensationalizing the intra-
Marketing, it could help
team conflicts. Humor and Suspense
KKR build up a strong
brand value as well as - his two weapons- made the follow-
generate enough TRPs on ers want more of it.
television. This article
analyses the different new
-age marketing techniques The result
with reference to the case
of the aforementioned Although Kolkata Knight Riders
(KKR) kept up their dismal perform-
blog.
ance, they have emerged as the
strongest IPL brand. According to
the IPL Brand Value Scoreboard
2009 published by UK‟s Intangible
Business in collaboration with MTI
Consulting, KKR tops the board with
an estimated brand value of $22.3
million. As Richard Yoxon, the Inter-
national Director of Intangible Busi-
ness puts it – “Winning games is not
enough to build a successful sports
brand. Teams need to engage the
local community, attract star players
who inspire a wide audience and de-
velop a strong marketing communi-
cation program.”
sponsors summed it as “From an
advertiser‟s point of view, we have
got a lot of mileage and media space
for the right and wrong reasons. The
fact that it has managed to attract
television viewership and on-ground
support from spectators speaks a lot
about the brand KKR”.
This may be a coincidence. But
surely Fake IPL Player has popular-
ized the two relatively new strategies
of marketing – Anti-Marketing and
Buzz Marketing.
Anti Marketing
After studying marketing campaigns
and trends for several years, Indrajit
“Jay” Sinha, an associate marketing
professor at the Fox School of Busi-
ness and Austrian marketing profes-
sor Thomas Foscht, discovered that
effective campaigns go against what
traditional marketing preaches. They
have together published a book
“Reverse Psychology Marketing: The
Death of Traditional Marketing and
the Rise of the New Pull Game”,
which identifies and analyzes the
new marketing trends.
According to the book -- “Traditional
marketing campaigns are focused
around customer orientation. They
offer too much choice, confusion and
sales pressure, resulting in custom-
ers‟ boredom, cynicism and irrita-
tion. Less is more with present-day
marketing. Customers now crave
simplicity, authenticity and exclusiv-
ity”.

THE LOOKING GLASS

 PAGE 12
“Fake IPL Player” blog did exactly the same
thing. Instead of blowing its own horn, the
author tactically cooked up stories about in-
fighting within the team. This created a sen-
sation for the cricket crazy masses which in
turn strengthened the KKR brand. As market-
ers put it “Any publicity is good publicity”.
There have been a few examples of successful
anti-marketing in the past. One such signifi-
cant example is that of Steven Singer Jewel-
lers. It has successfully executed a marketing
campaign – “I hate Steven Singer”. As a result
it has become a landmark jeweler in the
Philadelphia region.
Buzz marketing
Viral marketing describes any strategy that
encourages individuals to pass on a market-
ing message to others, creating the potential
for exponential growth in the message's expo-
sure and influence.
Buzz marketing is a viral marketing technique
that attempts to make each encounter with a
consumer appear to be a unique, spontane-
ous personal exchange of information; instead
of a calculated marketing pitch choreo-
graphed by a professional advertiser. Al-
though the concept of Buzz marketing is not
new, but the way Web 2.0 is used these days,
it has opened up several avenues for the new
age marketers. Like viruses, such strategies
take advantage of rapid multiplication to ex-
plode the message to thousands, and mil-
lions.
This was the case with the Fake IPL Player.
The Fake IPL Player didn‟t spend a single
penny. But he reached thousands. Overnight
the blog became the talk of the town. He used
a simple and free user friendly web resource,
blogs, and spread through word-of-mouth
communication. He realized the fact that get-
ting one interested user (or customer) will
eventually result in several others getting in-
terested in the product. More than 8000 fol-
lowers of the blog stand testimony to this fact.
Uncontrolled Conversation: the mantra of
new-age advertisements
Traditionally brands discouraged uncontrolled
conversation on social media and read too
much into the controlled conversations in a
simulated environment e.g. FGDs, In-depth
Interviews etc. But simulation and controlled
conversations twist the facts to a certain ex-
tent thereby affecting the outcome of the data
analysis as done by market research agen-
cies.
Uncontrolled conversation would let people
vent out their emotions without any con-
straints. This would in turn give marketers
better insights into consumer behaviors.
Fake IPL player‟s blog generated a greater
buzz for Team KKR by encouraging uncon-
trolled conversation. Thousands of comments
were posted in response to each blog post.
This added flavor to the blog and generated
further interest in the blog as well as in the
KKR team. This in turn resulted in the soar-
ing TRPs of the KKR matches.
The lesson
Some claimed the Fake IPL player was a real
life cricketer while others, at the same time,
considered it a marketing gimmick of KKR,
Shahrukh Khan et al. Though he did reveal
his identity in his own cryptic way, the Fake
IPL Player remains anonymous as ever. What-
ever it may be, it has surely taught all estab-
lished and budding marketers a lesson. It‟s
not about the big bucks spent on advertising
and promotion, but about innovative market-
ing channels and creative strategies. Analyz-
ing the right media channel and the right
creative message is far more fruitful than
some elaborate but outdated marketing and
promotion practices.
Welcome to the new „fake‟ world!
Praneet Gourav Mishra is a 2nd Year student at IIM
Lucknow specializing in Marketing and Finance. He is a
“Mechanical Engineer” from NIT Rourkela and can be reached at
mishra.praneet@gmail.com
 PAGE 13
Sales promotion is an essen-
tial part of any marketer’s
activities. It can be classified
as Trade promotion and
Consumer Promotion The
authors conducted a survey
about trade promotion ac-
tivities in the soap industry
and found out that different
types of traders prefer dif-
ferent kinds of promotions.
Every company must offer
promotional schemes which
cater to the needs of all
types of retailers. One ap-
proach of integrating varied
promotional efforts is multi-
tiered promotion. To show
the effectiveness of this
approach, we have shown
the promotion efforts of
Santoor soap in a particular
quarter.
THE LOOKING
Effective Multi-tiered Promotions: Lesson from Santoor
Trade promotions refer to any activ-
ity aimed at providing an incentive
to the channel members for their
support in marketing and distribu-
tion of the product. There are a
number of tools available to the
marketer for the same such as price
-off, allowances, free goods, trade
shows, sales contests, specialty ad-
vertising, etc.
The importance of such measures
stems from the fact that the retailer
is willing to sell only those products
which have a demand in the market
and thus allow him to earn a profit.
These measures incentivize the ef-
forts that a channel member puts in
for increasing the sales of a product
and create a „push‟ in the channel
which may lead to a higher sales
turnover. The push effect is of spe-
cial significance in product catego-
ries where the differentiation be-
tween products is not very high.
One such category is the FMCG.
Within the FMCG sector, the adver-
tisement campaigns that are run
bring the customer to the retail
store, yet at the point of sale there
are numerous options available. At
this juncture the retailer can have
an impact on the purchase decision.
Incentives offered to the retailer, by
the company or the wholesaler, mo-
tivate the retailer to push the brand
and affect the purchase decision
favorably.
Through our study we intend to find
the relevance of multi-tiered promo-
tions for such categories. We chose
soap category (INR 6500 Cr) as it is
the biggest category in FMCG seg-
ment. Within Soaps, Santoor is the
2nd largest brand in India in the
popular segment, and also the larg-
est brand in Andhra Pradesh with a
market share of 37.07% of the total
3,374 tons per month. One reason
for the leadership position attained
is the multi-tiered promotion policy
of the company. In this article we
will present the primary survey con-
ducted to identify trade preferences
GLASS
for promotions across different
Population groups (POP groups)
and outlet types (Retailer or Whole-
salers). Then we will describe Multi-
tiered promotions followed by its
application by Santoor brand. In
the end we will consolidate the
learning of the study.
Trade Preferences for Promo-
tions: Primary survey
A structured questionnaire was de-
signed and was pre tested on a
sample of 7 retailers at Hyderabad
city. Out of 101 outlets visited, 9
said they are not interested in pro-
motional offers so no further ques-
tions were asked about the promo-
tions. The survey findings are sum-
marized below:
 Deal Proneness: It was found
that 91.08% of the traders were
deal prone. Similar trend was
observed across outlet types
and POP groups.
 Deal Preference: It was found
that 64.13% of traders prefer
price-cut promotions while rest
preferred gift based promotions
like gift articles etc. Considering
outlet type, 60.66% of retail out-
lets prefer price cut while
70.97% of wholesaler preferred
price cut promotions. Across
POP groups, FLP retailers were
more inclined towards price cut
(76.19%) as compare to lower
POP groups (OLP – 60%, 20K-
50K – 41.16%). In order words
lower POP group retailers were
interested in gift based promo-
tions.
 Time of Incentive: 56.52% of
trade prefers instant gratifica-
tion while rest prefers long term
benefit. It can be concluded that
there is a mix response in the
market. Considering the outlet
type, 67.21% of retailers prefer
instant gratification because of
 PAGE 14
wholesaler having considerate stocking
capability and pushing power tends to
opt more(64.52%) for long term plans
due to extra margins involved. The
same trends follow in various POP
groups.
 Type of Incentive: It was found that
48.91% of trade prefers assured prizes
while 51.09% of trade prefers to try
some luck. The similar response was
from retailers and wholesalers. Looking
at the POP groups, the retailers from
lower POP groups (20K-50K) were more
interested (64.70%) in lucky draw. The
wholesalers from Metro (62%) and OLP
(71.42%) were more interested in lucky
draw and bumper prizes.
Leanings from the survey –
 Preferences of traders for different promo-
tions changes across outlet type and POP
groups
 Customization of promotion schemes nec-
essary for effectiveness of the same – a mix of
price based and gift based promotions to cater
to the different needs of different traders
 Promotion schemes with different time-
lines are preferred by different traders due to
their inherent nature (outlet type, planning
horizon, etc)
Multi-Tiered Promotion
Multi tiered promotion refers to promotional
schemes running simultaneously at the same
time and complementing each other towards
meeting the sales targets of the company. The
different schemes may be price based or gift
based, follow different timelines individually
and complement each other. The offering of
the different schemes is based on the discre-
tion of the Sales Manager – who may focus
more on a particular kind of scheme for differ-
ent traders keeping in mind their preferences.
For example – there is a weekly scheme (price
or gift based) running which motivates retail-
ers to buy higher stocks every week. At the
same time, there is a monthly scheme wherein
the retailer can win a gift on purchases of a
specified number of units or earn a special
discount. Now even though initially the re-
tailer may think that the monthly target is be-
yond his reach and may focus on just the
weekly scheme, by the last week of the month
the weekly target achievement would have
brought him within sight of the monthly tar-
get. This position may motivate him to achieve
the monthly target as well, leading to higher
THE LOOKING GLASS
sales for the company. If there is an appro-
priate multi tiered promotion mix, the com-
pany can effectively achieve its sales targets.
To substantiate our proposal, we provide em-
pirical data on the multi tiered promotion
used by Santoor soaps during Jan-March
2009, in the Andhra Pradesh market
The Santoor Way
Santoor uses multi-tiered trade promotions
with different time duration and promotion
mix. We will measure the effectiveness by
observing the impact of sales. The promotion
schemes run by Santoor can be classified as
in Table 2.
Secondary Scheme
Adding to the regular margins and “primary
schemes” each sales officer has been allotted
budget of Rs 15 per CFC for the “secondary
schemes”. The Sales Officer can tailor
schemes on the basis of it. These schemes
are tactical in nature which is used by Sales
officer to meet the sales target. The schemes
are QPS (quantity purchased scheme) to give
extra margins and offers for bulk purchase.
The trade schemes used during Jan-May
2009 were:
Specific trade plan
Wipro regularly announced long duration (2-
3 months) trade plan to motivate trade for
bulk purchase. We will discuss Tambola
scheme (Jan-Mar 2009) for this article, which
involved a lucky draw for the prizes (Spark
Car, Bajaj Motorcycle, Air Conditioner etc).
The unique feature, early bird prizes to kick
start the program was valid for a period of
first 21 days. One Early bird Ticket for a
zonal lucky draw was given if the trader ob-
tains 50 Tambola tickets. The prizes were
worth Rs 300 to Rs 6000.
Effectiveness of the Multi-tiered promotion
mix was reflected in the increased sales dur-
ing the scheme period of as shown in Table
4.
During the Tambola scheme, the company
also ran consumer promotions summarized
in Table 5.
 PAGE 15

Table 1: Parameters for Primary Survey

Table 2: Multi-tiered Promotion by Santoor (Source – Personal Communication)

Table 3: Tactical Weekly Scheme "Secondary Scheme" (Source – Personal Communication)

Table 4: Effect of Multi-tiered Promotional mix on Sales (Source – Personal Communication)

THE LOOKING GLASS


 Flash Start – This phase saw the launch of
the Tambola Scheme, along with the weekly
schemes (price and gift based) and con-
sumer promotion. The long term schemes
generally fail to motivate traders during ini-
tial period. In order to kick start the plan,
Wipro introduced early bird prizes to give
traders dual incentive to participate in the
plan. The short term incentive though
brought buzz in the market it was amply
supported by tactical weekly schemes suit-
ing both the preference, gift and price pro-
motion of traders. The weekly schemes in
the first two weeks brought them close to
the target for early bird prizes leading to
higher purchases in the third week. At the
same time, higher push in the channel was
complemented by a consumer promotion.
So the traders were purchasing more to be
eligible for weekly and/or early bird scheme
while the customers were also demanding
more of the soap. Thus, Multi-tiered promo-
tion mix (weekly and early bird scheme)
helped Wipro to motivate traders to pur-
chase more so as to be eligible for another
tier of incentive i.e. Tambola scheme in its
first phase.
 Mid slump – During this phase, the weekly
schemes ran as before, the customer pro-
motion also ran without change. The overall
Tambola Scheme was also present, without
the early bird scheme. The benefit of such a
strategy was that traders who had built
high stocks in the first phase were able to
clear them out. The consistency of con-
sumer promotion was a deliberate attempt
to help trader in finishing their accumu-
lated stock as superior change in consumer
promotion would shift the consumer de-
mand towards the freshly offered stock The
weekly benefits were for those traders who
were either not covered by the early bird
scheme, or were not interested in the long
term benefits. They benefitted immensely
with the continuing weekly offers.
erences. They also were seeing higher
customer purchases due to the rejuve-
nated customer promotion campaign.
Thus we see that each of the schemes was
complementing the others, with the choice
of offering price or gift based incentives lying
with the sales manager, the schemes. We
see that the multi-tiered approach for pro-
motional mix was followed leading to higher
sales and success in the market.
Conclusion
The conclusion of the study is that the
trader preferences for promotion schemes
vary, between price based and gift based
incentives. The preference for the scheme
horizon also varies with the size, type and
nature of the trader. Some traders prefer
short term incentives which provide instant
gratification while some prefer long term
benefits. To be effective, a promotion mix
needs to consider all kinds of traders. Multi
tiered promotion is an approach for the
same, which can provide different types of
incentives to different traders, vary the in-
centive horizon, and integrate every simulta-
neous scheme towards the achievement of
the overall sales target of the company. The
approach has been used in the market by
Santoor, and effective execution can lead to
better results.
Abhishek Sood is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Bangalore.
He holds a Bachelors degree in Commerce (Honours) from Sri
Venkateswara College, University of Delhi and can be reached at
abhishekso08@iimb.ernet.in.
Akhil Kumar Meshram is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM
Bangalore. He holds a dual degree, Bachelors and Masters in
Information Technology from Indian Institute of Information
Technology and Management (IIITM) Gwalior and can be
reached at akhilkm08@iimb.ernet.in.

 Late Push – In this phase, the weekly

schemes continued as before, the customer
promotion was changed so as to motivate
trader to purchase more and at the same
time, there was an increased focus on the
Tambola scheme. The traders, who had
been utilizing the weekly schemes, and
early bird scheme were close to the targets
for the Tambola scheme – and in their effort
to achieve this target, they could utilize the
weekly schemes which were mix of price
and gift based promotion as per their pref-
 PAGE 17
4P’s of Indian Theatre Marketing
Theatre has been the soul of Indian
entertainment since Vedic times.
The different forms of theatre acts
in India have given an incredible
and unparalleled versatility to In-
dian art and culture. The father of
Indian theatre Bharat Muni who
wrote Natya Shastra laid the foun-
dation of structured training in
field of theatre and dramatics be-
tween 200 BC and 200 AD. Theatre
as an art form in India has its
roots during the Vedic period. But
in spite of such a long period of
existence , theater groups are still
fighting to make theater commer-
cially viable. This paper discusses
Theatre needs mass some aspects of Indian theatre ,
categorization of art , process of
marketization to theatrical productions , 4P‟s of
theatre marketing mix , the needs
make it commercially of today‟s culture consumers , the
difference between the high art and
viable. popular art , competitors to theatre
and challenges faced by Indian
theatre groups. Based on the com-
Digital marketing prehensive discussions with nu-
strategy coupled with merous theatre artists and theatre
accessible locations for activists, the paper lays down stra-
staging live tegic outline for a theatre market-
performances will help ing plan in India.
in attracting large
number of audience in a INTRODUCTION
timely manner and thus
make Indian theatre a
Theatre is an ancient aesthetic
commercially viable
practice in India. Surviving play
business. texts and treatises suggest that
theatre existed in the Indian sub-
continent from the dawn of civiliza-
tion. According to the Natyashastra
of Bharata, an exhaustive treatise
on the art of performance, drama
was a gift from the gods to the hu-
mans.
Theatre has travelled many centu-
ries in India. The different active
forms of theatre in India which are
still mesmerizing the art lovers are
Bhavai in Gujarat , Yakshagana in
Karnataka , Nautanki in Uttar
Pradesh and Bihar , Swang in
Haryana , Jatra in Bengal and
Mohan Rakesh, Girish Karnad,
Mahesh Dattani,Badal Sircar ,
THE LOOKING GLASS
Dharamveer Bharati and B.M Shah
Kutiyattam in Kerala. Noted con-
temporary playwrights like Habib
Tanvir, Vijay Tendulkar, and Mohan
Rakesh, Girish Karnad, Mahesh
Dattani, Badal Sircar, Dharamveer
Bharati and B.M Shah revolution-
ized the art of story telling and mod-
ern theater. We must acknowledge
the contribution of stalwarts like
Prithivi Raj Kapoor, Sohrab Modi,
Ebrahim Alkazi , Amal Allana, Om
Puri, Naseerudin Shah , ShahRukh
Khan, Manoj Bajpai , Atul Kulkarni,
Yashpal Sharma and Sima Biswas,
who popularized Indian theatre and
then moved to the film industry.
THEATRE: PRODUCTIONS &
CHALLENGES
McCarthy (2001), categorized arts in
four broad sections i.e. Performing
arts, Media arts, Visual arts and
literary arts. The second figure
shows the categorization of arts.
Performing arts is further subdi-
vided in to theatre, dance, music
and opera. Media related arts are
subdivided in to installation art,
film production and the recent addi-
tion of computer/digital arts. Visual
arts have been categorized into
painting, sculpture and crafts. The
last section, literary art is classified
into fictions and poetry.
Any theatre production involves a
series of rigorous steps. The second
figure shows the steps involved in
making a theatrical production and
bringing it to the people. Theatrical
scripts are conventionally sourced
from historical writings or adapted
or written right from scratch. Once
the script is ready then it is sub-
jected to production. Support and
inputs from musicians, choreogra-
phers, actors, costumes. Lighting
and direction result in a presentable
form of a theatre product.
 PAGE 18
The second figure shows the marketing effort
to reach culture consumers. The figure shows
two triangles with a small and big base. The
smaller base shows the existing marketing
effort and the bigger base shows the intended
marketing effort.
The various new challenges in cultural con-
sumption are: decrease in consumer time for
leisure, expansion of consumer options for
entertainment, expanded exposure to world‟s
cultural products, blurring the distinction be-
tween high and popular culture and changing
patterns in public funding. These challenges
in cultural consumption have created a tough
competition for the consumption of theatrical
products.
4 P’S OF THEATRE MARKETING
PRODUCT
High art Vs Popular art: The principal problem
with the consumption of theatre products is
the distinction between high art and popular
art. The prominent and “talent rich” houses of
theatrical productions like National school of
drama , Naya theatre and Rangshankara fail
to distinguish between the consumption of
high art and popular art. In fact the artists
with prime talent in these organizations be-
come so self obsessed that they never care
about the consumption of their art for the end
consumer. They keep on producing high art
for which there is a limited audience and
eventually no body is able to produce popular
art. There are two prime reasons for this:
-Those who can produce popular art in a com-
mercially viable way indulge in producing self
fulfilling high art, which is seen by a handful
and eventually making it non consumable for
THE LOOKING GLASS
the masses.
-As there is less and limited consumption of
available high art, therefore popularity of art is
limited and this results in a decrease in audi-
ence. As a result , those who want to produce
popular art do not get sufficient funds to pro-
duce commercially viable popular art.
PROMOTION
The promotional strategies used by theatre
production houses are very limited. Recently
few corporate houses have started funding the
theatre production houses e.g. Matrix cellular,
Vodafone, Religare, and Mahindra and Mahin-
dra. These corporate houses use extensive
publicity and advertisements for popular art
but it has not resulted in creating an enduring
audience. The traditional form of publicity
techniques used by theatre production houses
are as follows:
 Occasional advertisements in leading news
papers which occupy very small column
width and do not create any lasting im-
pression on potential audience.
 Small printed pamphlets are manually dis-
tributed outside the auditoriums. This only
helps to inform the existing theatre audi-
ence. This localized and captive distribu-
tion does not create awareness to potential
audience.
 Few theatre production houses have
started using cultural websites to promote
their new productions on cost free basis.
But the irony is that due to lack of funding
and advertisements such cultural websites
are struggling.
 The other means of promotion is through
word of mouth. But word of mouth promo-
tions by existing audiences are not able to
generate enduring audiences.
Due to lack of funding, theatre production
houses use the cheapest means to promote
their new products. And mostly the auditori-
ums which are used for such theatrical per-
formances are situated in a few specific areas
which are inaccessible to masses. Therefore
minimal promotional efforts are nullified by
limited access to theatrical arenas.
 PAGE 19

PRICE

Theatre in India has struggled to reach break

even point. Theatre production houses who
hire or have fulltime / part time performers
in it incur the expenses as shown in table 1.
On an average, a theatrical performance in-
volves 3 to 4 lead actors and 4-6 support ac-
tors. Lighting personnel play a key role in
designing the lights for the stage show and
are generally hired by theatre groups exter-
nally for specific periods. In general the thea-
tre production houses keep single show on
Product Place matrix
Saturday and double shows on Sunday. This
format is repeated for two weeks. This means
The above shows the product place matrix for
that in general six shows are performed for
theatre productions. Following inferences can
each production. The capacity of the audito-
be deducted from product place matrix:
rium is approximately 350.
 High Art consumers are less and they reach
The total expense of Rs 425000 is averaged
accessible as well as inaccessible places for
for six performances in a span of two weeks.
art consumption.
Therefore the average charge for each per-
formance comes to about Rs 70000. And the
average seating capacity of an auditorium is  Popular art consumers do not try to reach
350 , which means that in order to break to inaccessible locations but will reach in
even each ticket shall be priced Rs 200.It is high numbers to accessible locations.
difficult to ensure a full house in these per-
formances and if the performance turns out STRATEGIES FOR THEATRE MARKETING
to be a high art performance then the audi-
ence drops drastically and the production It is a well accepted fact in marketing that if
becomes commercially unviable. Therefore it you have problems in more than 2 P‟s of mar-
is quite evident from the basic calculations keting mix then it surely means that the mar-
that it is not profitable to run the theatre keter does not understand the segment of con-
business with a specific and captive audi- sumers. In theatre marketing mix, it is evident
ence. Theatre needs mass marketing to make that theatre production houses have serious
it commercially viable. problems with product, price, and promotion
and place as well. The key strategies for effec-
PLACE tive theatre marketing are as follows:

The places where the theatre products are
distributed need good acoustic arrange-
ments, lighting facilities and pleasant ambi-
ence. Therefore‟ theatre production houses
rely heavily on a few select auditoriums.
These auditoriums are generally run by gov-
ernment or small charitable trusts or some
private hospitality organizations. Access to
these places is limited to high end audiences
who have taste for cultural products. The en-
during audience for these places is mostly
constituted by those who consume high art
products and therefore theatre production
houses that produce popular art products ,
stage them in available select places are not
able to attract mass audience. High art audi-
ence does not attend such performances and
thus creating a losing proposition for theatre
production houses.
 Correct segmentation of culture consumer
for consumption of different forms of art.
Based on the segmentation, the different
sections of consumers should be targeted
with specific theatre products and posi-
tioned in accessible locations.
 Cultural organizations such as theatre pro-
duction houses or Government funded
theatre schools should diffuse the bound-
ary between high art and popular art. And
theatre artist should produce theatre prod-
ucts related to popular art.
 Based on the cost of theatrical productions
it is quite evident that it will be difficult to
break even with existing high art audience,
therefore theatre production houses shall
make their products available at accessible
places such as cinema complexes, shop-

THE LOOKING GLASS

 PAGE 20
ping malls and other community places.
Popular art lovers and high art lovers spend
their time in public places such as mall and
cinema complexes. The cultural organiza-
tions should partner with cinema complexes
to stage the live performances in such
places. The cinema complex owners like Fun
cinemas, PVR, INOX etc should be con-
tracted to spare at least one screen for live
performance and promote theatrical prod-
ucts in such spaces.
 Theatre can become commercially viable by
integrating mass marketing and mass con-
sumption through low cost positioning, wide
communication and deep distribution. India
is home to various forms of theatre in differ-
ent languages therefore a correct segmenta-
tion can help theatre become viable.
 Catch them young: All of us become a rou-
tine audience to film entertainment because
we are exposed to it through television from
childhood days and thus we become cultur-
ally habitual to it. Therefore a theatre cul-
ture needs to be cultivated in Indian society
and this can be achieved by partnering with
educational institutes. In western world,
Theatre in education constitutes an integral
part of educational curriculum, which helps
in cultivating a strong theatre culture in the
society. Theatre production houses, non
profit organizations and Government shall
introduce Theatre in education (T.I.E) as a
compulsory subject in middle and senior
school education. This will help in creating
art awareness and art consumers in our so-
ciety.
 Digital marketing: Theatrical products are
plagued from poor distribution and access
problems. One of the crucial issues related
to theatre marketing is the booking of tick-
ets. Recently in few select cities some thea-
tre production houses have tied up with
digital marketers to allow web based book-
ings but a large part of Indian theatre is un-
touched to digital marketing concept. There-
fore a unified effort shall be raised to help
theatre production houses to market their
products digitally to art consumers.
CONCLUSION
THE LOOKING GLASS
Finally, it can be concluded that Indian thea-
tre which exists in various forms in India has
huge potential. It can be marketed to a mass
audience if proper segmentation of high art
consumers and popular art consumers is
done. Digital marketing strategy coupled
with accessible locations for staging live per-
formances will help in attracting large num-
ber of audience in timely manner and thus
make Indian theatre a commercially viable
business.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author is thankful to the theater actors,
directors and writers from Delhi‟s National
School of Drama, theatre production house
ASMITA, Delhi, Rangashankara, Bangalore
and Prithvi theatre, Mumbai, for the inputs
provided.
Mukesh Sharma is currently pursuing his one year full time
MBA (EPGP) from IIM Bangalore. He has spent more than 10
years in automotive industry. He runs a non profit theatre group,
Performer Group, in Delhi. He has acted, directed and produced
various plays of social relevance in Delhi.
Marketing Jokes!!!
Two women were shopping. When they started to discuss
their lives, one said, "Seems like all John and I do anymore is
fight. I've been so upset I've lost 20 pounds."
"Why don't you just leave him then?" asked her friend.
"Oh! Not yet." the first replied, "I'd like to lose at least an-
other fifteen pounds first."
Marketing moral: Ya gotta have a goal!
A retailer was dismayed when a competitor selling the same
type of product opened next-door to him, displaying a large
sign proclaiming "Best Deals."
Not long after that, he was horrified to find yet another
competitor move in next door, on the other side if his store.
It's large sign was even more disturbing—"Lowest Prices."
After his initial panic, and concern that he would be driven
out of business, he looked for a way to turn the situation to
his marketing advantage. Finally, an idea came to him. Next
day, he proudly unveiled a new and huge sign over his front
door. It read,
"Main Entrance!"
The Difference Between Optimism, Pessimism & Marketing
The Optimist says, "The glass is half full."
The Pessimist says, "The glass is half empty."
The Marketing Consultant says,
"Your glass needs re-sizing."
 PAGE 21
Obama’s landslide victory in
the recent US elections has
brought forth the
effectiveness of strategic, well
-designed political marketing.
Starting from the usage of an
effectively delivered,
consistent message across the
different phases of the
campaign, to leveraging the
reach of modern technology
in raising funds from millions
of common people, Obama
has perfectly demonstrated
the art of implementing a
successful marketing
strategy. Though the Indian
socio-political scenario is not
exactly the same as the US,
our politicians could surely
benefit by taking a leaf or two
out of Obama’s book.
THE LOOKING
Neo-Political Marketing
Political marketing, simply put, is mar-
keting designed to induce people to
vote for a particular individual or a po-
litical party. It attempts to accomplish
this by influencing citizens‟ thoughts
on various issues. Although political
marketing uses many of the same con-
cepts used in traditional marketing, it
is different in the sense that ideas and
concepts are sold in political market-
ing, rather than products and services.
What is interesting to observe is the
evolution of political marketing
through the embrace of new technolo-
gies and distribution possibilities. In
this article, we attempt to provide a
sense of these changes. Different as-
pects of political marketing in the US
are studied with emphasis on Barack
Obama‟s widely lauded campaign. The
corresponding aspects are analyzed in
the Indian scenario as well, while at-
tempting to understand the reasons
for the differences observed. We also
provide certain observations on
whether the Indian politicians can take
a leaf out of Obama‟s book.
INTERNET & OTHER MEDIA USAGE
Emerging media and social networks
are changing the rules of marketing.
Marketers across industries are slowly
beginning to understand the impor-
tance of this new media. However, one
needs to realize that social media is
not changing the face of business mar-
keting alone, but that of marketing it-
self! Its effects can be felt far and wide,
and one of its most acclaimed applica-
tions was its use in Barack Obama‟s
2008 presidential campaign.
Some reasons for Obama‟s success
were his willingness to experiment
with new communication tools and his
understanding of the need for an
evolving communication strategy. If
President John F. Kennedy pioneered
the use of speech writers and a shift to
television, and President Ronald
Reagan harnessed the power of televi-
sion to communicate his messages,
Barack Obama‟s team can be credited
with pioneering the use of internet,
social networking sites and mobile
phones in a political campaign.
GLASS
There are numerous examples to il-
lustrate that Obama‟s campaign
team understood the power of the
new media, such as the citizen jour-
nalists. When one blogger asked to
go to the media section at a Hillary
Clinton rally in Boston he was
turned away (because he was "not a
real journalist") and had to cover it
from the back of the crowd. In con-
trast, Obama‟s campaign brought
him up to the media section where
he was placed with print reporters
from the major dailies and TV crews
from the networks.
President Obama leveraged his web-
site, user generated content, blo-
gosphere and video games to engage
not just the donors and volunteers
but all the citizens. A trademark of
Obama‟s campaign was his appeal to
the undecided voters and uncommit-
ted supporters through the Join Now
campaign in his website. The use of
social networking sites, especially
„MyBarackObama.com‟ during the
campaign as a message board for
local rallies, a virtual phone bank
where Obama supporters could call
undecided voters in Pennsylvania
and a place to raise money. With
more than 2.6 million friends in
Orkut and Facebook, the Obama
campaign also capitalized on the well
known social networking sites. Such
efforts were rewarded by the positive
buzz that Obama received in the blo-
gosphere. For his efforts, Advertising
Age recently named Barack Obama
“Marketer of the year”, outperforming
brands such as Nike and Apple.
However, Indian politicians too have
not been far behind in their efforts.
It was just 5 years back, in the 2004
general elections, that the internet
was used for the first time in Indian
politics. It started with the India
Shining campaign of the BJP. Nearly
5% of the BJP‟s campaign budget
was allocated to the e-campaign, for
revamping its campaign website,
pushing out text messages, pre-
recorded voice clips and emails to its
database of 20 million email users
 PAGE 22
and 20 million phone users, and offering cam-
paign-related mobile ringtones for download.
Though BJP lost the 2004 elections, the ef-
forts can be considered to be successful as it
set the stage for the use of advanced technolo-
gies in an election campaign. Since then, the
demographic profile of India‟s electoral base
has changed and the usage of technology for
attracting voters is increasingly being ac-
cepted by the masses.
This time around, a number of politicians
have launched their own websites. The list
includes prominent politicians such as L K
Advani (lkadvani.in) to lesser known names
such as Vijay Kumar Malhotra (http://
vkmalhotra.in/) and Mr. Ananth Kumar
(http://ananth.org/). According to the BJP,
LK Advani‟s website has become very popular
and receives over 250,000 hits per day. Ad-
vani is also on Facebook, Orkut and YouTube,
while his colleague and Gujarat chief minister
Narendra Modi, uses tools such as podcasts,
Twitter, Google SMS and widgets. Indian Na-
tional Congress‟ youth wing leader, Rahul
Gandhi, has over 3,000 supporters on Face-
book. The Advani@Campus initiative seeks to
build a grassroots volunteer campaign “to con-
tact and mobilize young voters in thousands
of college campuses across the country”
The leftist Communist Party of India (Marxist)
is not too far behind either. Though the politi-
cal party does not favor digital technologies
(since it replaces human labor), it has shown
a clear preference for cyberspace-enabled
propaganda (vote.cpim.org) for their election
strategy of 2009. The CPI(M) has even admit-
ted that since 54% of the Indian voters are
youngsters, the internet may be the best me-
dium for reaching out to them. Parties have
even gone to the extent of wooing those not
residing in India, such as the website created
by the Telugu Desam Party (http://
www.tdpuk.com) for U.K. based non-resident
Indians.
Indian National Congress has taken a step
ahead of just promoting the party and has
chosen to project India as one of the most
technologically advanced nations. Through its
Jai Ho video campaign, based on a song taken
from the much acclaimed film “Slumdog Mil-
lionaire”, Congress has shown the way to go
for election campaigns in India. In terms of
using technology as a means of garnering vol-
unteer support in India, the Congress party,
during the most recent election, had set up 50
internet kiosks in the State of Gujarat, to kick
THE LOOKING GLASS
start the campaign and to register youth
party members through the party website.
The advantage of these campaigns lies in its
cost-effectiveness. Traditionally, the urban
youth have been known to shy away from
elections. Now, the politicians have found a
way to reach them without stretching their
election budgets. Fortunately for them, these
methods are slowly finding more acceptances
from people who represent different walks of
life.
The youth leaders can convey their messages
to a larger section of the masses and attract
more audiences through social networking
sites, internet sites and blogs. In the Indian
context, the usage of internet kiosks can be
made more effective, by having a vernacular
medium of interaction and training programs
can be conducted for the people who haven‟t
accessed the internet before. Sites similar to
„MyBarackObama.com‟, can be used to main-
tain a rapport with undecided voters. Also,
given the increase in the number of bloggers
in India, the opinion of citizen journalists
about the party can help increase the num-
ber of volunteers, as more people would read
and be influenced by microblogs.
FUND RAISING
Traditionally, fundraising for elections has
majorly relied on industrialists and lobbyists.
This applies both in the US and Indian con-
texts. Take for example, George Bush‟s fund
raising campaign for the American presiden-
tial election in 2000. He successfully created
a muscular network of „bundlers‟ (designated
by him as „Pioneers‟ and „Rangers‟), each of
whom committed to bring in $100,000,
$200,000, or more from friends and associ-
ates. These bundlers were typically high-
powered CEOs and lobbyists.
The Indian context is not very different. Apart
from the significant portion of funding that
comes through black money, a huge share
comes from formal business funding. In fact,
the recent tax exemption to the corporate sec-
tor for political funding is expected to signifi-
cantly raise the contribution from this sector
and bring about higher transparency. In the
recent parliamentary elections, the major
backers of the Congress party were the
Aditya Birla group and the Tatas, while the
BJP received substantial funding from the
Sterlite group of Anil Agarwal and the
 PAGE 23

Gujarat-based Adanis. In fact during the period
of 2003-07, the two parties raised close to Rs.
53 crores through such sources. In this context,
Obama‟s fund-raising strategy stands quite
unique. Almost half of Obama's unprecedented
$639 million in funds raised from individuals
came from small donors giving $300 or less.
The role of internet in Obama‟s fundraising can-
not be overemphasized. The internet provided a
quick, cheap and far less intimidating way of
fund raising for political novices as compared to
getting big cheques written. Notably, some of
Obama‟s campaign groups had set up systems
by which donors could have their credit cards
billed automatically in easy-to-budget monthly
amounts of as little as $20. The significance of
Obama‟s viral fund raising wasn't just in driving
up dollar totals. It is widely accepted that such
a personal approach in massive fund-raising
resulted in millions of donors feeling personally
connected to Obama. They later turned into
door knockers and phone bankers to support
his campaign.
There are very good lessons for Indian politi-
cians in Obama‟s massive viral fund raising.
There is a huge section of the Indian middle
class that keeps itself aloof to politics. If our
politicians are able to tap in to this segment,
even funds of the order of Rs. 20 - 50 per
household would result in a huge fund due to
the sheer size of this electorate. But here we
also need to pay specific attention to the Indian
context. Unlike the US, internet penetration is
quite low in India. So the parties need to think
of other cost-effective means of fund raising.
Mobile phones, with their rapidly growing pene-
tration among the Indian middle-class, can be a
good option. Political parties can probably enter
into agreements with mobile service providers
and raise funds through premium rate SMSes
(the way reality television programs make peo-
ple send premium rate SMSs to express their
support to specific candidates in the show).
MESSAGE STRATEGY
There are two main parts to the success of
Obama‟s message communication strategy. One
is the content of the message and the other is
the consistency of its delivery. The content of
Obama‟s message was one of hope, change, and
inclusion – ideas that resonated with the major-
ity of Americans reeling under a crisis of confi-
dence both in the economy and in the nation‟s
identity in terms of its foreign policy. In spite of
the fact that there were lots of issues where
Obama could have attacked the incumbent
government, he did not take up a negative
campaign dwelling on just the opposition.
Rather, policy details on how to achieve the
change he sought to deliver formed the major
focus of his campaign. However, he did not fall
shy of attacking the incumbency and the op-
position when it was needed.
Consistency in message also played an impor-
tant part in the success of Obama‟s campaign.
This consistency was manifested across the
various platforms of message delivery –
speeches, debates, infomercials, and blogs.
Through this lesson in successful integrated
marketing, he was able to achieve coherence
in the minds of the public. In fact, marketing
strategist David Meerman Scott recalls asking
a group of 300 people in Riyadh to think about
the one word that that they felt the Obama
campaign stood for. The unanimous response
from everyone was „CHANGE‟. Had that exer-
cise been repeated for John McCain, Hillary
Clinton, John Edwards, and Mitt Romney, it is
fair to say that people would have had a hard
time figuring out a word, let alone the word
being the same. Even supposedly smaller as-
pects of the campaign such as the logo (shown
in Exhibit 1 below) were used to communicate
the same message to the public: the „O‟ stand-
ing for Obama, the blue and red colors used to
represent the US flag, the red stripes indicat-
ing farmlands, and the O‟s whitespace symbol-
izing the sun shining over the plains evoking
sunrise. On the other hand, as can be ob-
served, there is very little symbolism present
in the other candidates‟ logos.
On the contrary, in India, we find that there is
both a lack of content and inconsistency in
the messages communicated by most political
parties. However, there is no dearth of vague
symbolism attempting to bring together citi-
zens and communities of diverse characteris-
tics under a common umbrella. Consider the
example of the BJP, whose purported aim is to
bring in Ram Rajya (Rule of Ram). While such
a concept draws upon mythology and people‟s
beliefs bringing to their mind some kind of a
vision of an idealist society, it does not really
say anything about the policies to be adopted
by the party in any domain such as education
or foreign policy. On the other hand, the Con-
gress‟ choice of the Aam Admi (Common Man)
appears to be more appealing and in tune with
how a vast majority of the voters perceive
themselves. Consistency in the message con-
veyed at the national level is something that is
seriously lacking. With the necessities of coali-
tion politics and rise of regional players, a

THE LOOKING GLASS

 PAGE 24
party‟s message and what it stands for often
gets lost in the scramble for power. This was
witnessed during the run-up to the 2009
election results as each party, from small to
the large, „kept their options open‟. As Shek-
har Gupta puts it, we have entered an age of
ideological fungibility. While it is not fair to
criticize this and probably irrelevant to com-
pare with the Obama campaign (very differ-
ent political systems and socio-economic
structures), it does appear probable that the
confusing messages and inconsistency be-
tween what is conveyed and what is done to
take advantage of short-term benefits will
only result in diluting and alienating the
supporter base of a party and erode its
brand value.
The marketing story of the Obama campaign
as well as those of the other aspiring politi-
cians in India and the United States can be
considered to be immensely successful, irre-
spective of them winning or losing. This is
because of the increasing application of
technology and marketing concepts in a field
like politics, which has a lower preference
among the MBA graduates, at least in India.
However, there is still a long way to go be-
fore we can start talking about having
branded politicians and parties which com-
mand a huge brand value!!
Abhilash Sridharan is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Ban-
galore. He holds a Bachelors degree in Metallurgical Engineering
from IT-BHU Varanasi and can be reached at ab-
hilashsr08@iimb.ernet.in.
Arun Manohar is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Bangalore.
He holds a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian
Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and can be reached at
arun.manohar08@iimb.ernet.in.
Venkatasubramanian S is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM
Bangalore. He holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Science from
CEG, Anna University and can be reached at
venkatas08@iimb.ernet.in.
Vivek R is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Bangalore. He holds
a Bachelors degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering
from College of Engineering, Anna University and can be reached
at vivekr08@iimb.ernet.in.
THE LOOKING GLASS
Thirteen amazing facts about Google
 Google receives daily search requests from all over
the world, including Antarctica.
 Google’s Home Page Has 63 Validation Errors.
Don’t believe us? Check Google Validation
 The infamous “I’m feeling lucky” button is nearly
never used. However, in trials it was found that
removing it would somehow reduce the Google
experience. Users wanted it kept. It was a comfort
button.
 Due to the sparseness of the homepage, in early
user tests they noted people just sitting looking at
the screen. After a minute of nothingness, the
tester intervened and asked ‘What’s up?’ to which
they replied “We are waiting for the rest of it”. To
solve that particular problem the Google Copyright
message was inserted to act as a crude end of page
marker.
 The name ‘Google’ was an accident. A spelling mis-
take made by the original founders who thought
they were going for ‘Googol’.
 Google has the largest network of translators in the
world.
 Employees are encouraged to use 20% of their time
working on their own projects. Google News, Orkut
are both examples of projects that grew from this
working model. Google consists of over 450,000
servers, racked up in clusters located in data cen-
tres around the world.
 Google started in January, 1996 as a research pro-
ject at Stanford University, by Ph.D. candidates
Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were 24
years old and 23 years old respectively.
 ‘Googol’ is a mathematical term 1 followed by one
hundred zeroes. The term was coined by Milton
Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Ed-
ward Kasne.
 Number of languages in which you can have the
Google home page set up, including Urdu, Latin and
Klingon: 88 (Eighty Eight)
 Google translates billions of HTML web pages into
a display format for WAP and i-mode phones and
wireless handheld devices.
 PAGE 25
We start this article with a
few obvious yet
interesting questions.
What was the first thing
that came to the minds of
your parents when you
were a 4 year old toddler
playing around expertly
with the Lego building set
gifted to you by your
aunt? What was the most
important question facing
your family when you had
set foot in class Xth or
XIIth? And going by the
current trends, what was
on the top of your mind
when you were in your
final year of graduation?
THE LOOKING GLASS
Strategic marketing for Educational Institutions
Apart from a few conspicuous excep-
tions, the answer to all the above
questions lies in one simple word,
education. And hardly anyone would
disagree with me when I say that it
holds much more prominence in the
Indian context. Yes, that‟s true.
Throughout your lifetime, education
is one of the most important things,
rather the most important at some
occasions, which goes on in your
mind either consciously or subcon-
sciously. Our parents spend their life-
time earning with their sweat and
blood to ensure a decent and possibly
the best education for us.
But does the role of education as an
economic agent limit itself at the edu-
cational institutes only? Let‟s just
have a quick look around us before
we jump to a conclusion. Or let‟s just
turn on our Television sets. And
ahoy!!! We are flooded with companies
providing services like education
loans, child life insurance and many
more. So, I guess we can safely as-
sume that education as an economic
agent goes much beyond the primitive
concept of schools and universities.
Now that we have established the im-
portance of education as a self sus-
taining and most importantly, a sup-
porting agent to other industries and
services, let‟s just contemplate what
exactly the education sector is doing
for its own popularity or publicity.
But before we critically examine and
draw conclusion in the later part of
this article, I would request the read-
ers to treat education as just another
industry. By saying this, we in no way
are trying to undermine the impor-
tance of teachers and our Alma Mater
in our lives. We will always be in-
debted to them for what we are today.
But my request will lead us to a logi-
cal and thoughtful analysis of strate-
gic marketing in the education sector.
Monastic orders of education under
the supervision of a guru was a fa-
vored form of education for the nobil-
ity in ancient India. The knowledge in
these orders was often related to the
tasks a section of the society had to
perform. The priest class, the Brah-
mins, were imparted knowledge of
religion, philosophy, and other an-
cillary branches while the warrior
class, the Kshatriya, were trained
in the various aspects of war-
fare.The business class, the Vai-
shya, were taught their trade and
the lowest class of the Shudras was
generally deprived of educational
advantages.The book of laws, the
Manusmriti, and the treatise on
statecraft the Arthashastra were
among the influential works of this
era which reflect the outlook and
understanding of the world at the
time.
Apart from the monastic orders,
institutions of higher learning and
universities flourished in India well
before the common era, and contin-
ued to deliver education into the
common era. Secular Buddhist in-
stitutions cropped up along with
monasteries. These institutions im-
parted practical education, eg.
medicine. A number of urban
learning centres became increas-
ingly visible from the period be-
tween 200 BCE to 400 CE. The im-
portant urban centres of learning
were Taxila and Nalanda, among
others. These institutions system-
atically imparted knowledge and
attracted a number of foreign stu-
dents to study topics such as logic,
grammar, medicine, metaphysics,
arts and crafts.
Following independence in 1947,
Maulana Azad, India's first educa-
tion minister envisaged strong cen-
tral government control over educa-
tion throughout the country, with a
uniform educational system. The
next big breakthrough in the edu-
cation sector came with the privati-
zation of education in India. Along
came a new wave of colleges mush-
rooming through the length and
breadth of the country. Education
as an industry was seeing a new
dawn with some big corporate
names entering the arena. This was
essentially the time when the need
of „differentiation‟ arose.
 PAGE 26
The need to provide students with a cause/
motivation to join college ABC instead of
the competitor‟s XYZ was what propelled the
education sector to turn towards big time
advertisement in electronic, print and other
modes of mass media. And now, education
is a global product with institutions world-
wide competing for students and finding
ever more creative ways to satisfy student
needs and preferences. With the continuing
rise in the preference for flexible distance
learning, educational institutions are finding
that when students and faculty have signifi-
cantly different cultural backgrounds and
learning styles, the expectations of the
learning experience can be unfulfilled.
But when you see education as an industry,
the main questions that come up are: -
„How far are educational institutions really
“customer-oriented”?
Do they choose the most appropriate market
segments for their organization‟s strengths?
Is there consistency between the segments
targeted and their product offerings?
How far are they aware of the complexities of
the decision processes of the “buyers”?
Is it appropriate for educational institutions to
become “marketing-oriented”?
So in the light of the above questions let‟s
now analyse the different possibilities in the
education sector where marketing can be
applied to get favourable results. The main
sectors picked are foreign education setup
and distance learning programs.
The first sector we pick up is the foreign
education sector. According to the latest sta-
tistics, 2.2 million students study abroad
worldwide and the numbers are estimated to
grow beyond 3.72 million by 2025 (IDP,
2007 forecast). The leading 3 destinations
for international students reap in excess of
USD 45bn$ annually. But don‟t let these
mind boggling figures confuse you. Being
truly international is no longer an option.
Positioning and focus in a competitive envi-
ronment, creating and investing in assets to
support internationalisation, global partner-
ships and alliances and creating a brand
dialogue with the students are a few among
many initiatives of the foreign universities.
The traditional marketing approach was pri-
marily based on the focus of sales, globetrot-
THE LOOKING GLASS
ting by sales representatives and agents,
scholarships & use of alumni. Amidst all
this little or no attention was paid to the
quality of infrastructure inline with the need
of international students in the home uni-
versity. However, this approach is now fac-
ing many problems, some of which include
increased competition from the national (&
not only international players) and a focus
on the students‟ demands with increasingly
available choices and information. Hence, to
change this we require a resource demand-
ing transformation process. The foreign uni-
versities need to rethink their strategies
and invest in quality infrastructure, staff
and facilities. Also, with an increasing num-
ber of international universities offering
similar courses at similar prices at multiple
locations, the threat of commoditization of
education looms large. The pertinent ques-
tion which the foreign universities must ask
themselves is “can they differentiate them-
selves on the student experience instead of
qualification?” The answers to all these
questions have been found out by the for-
eign universities in the following ways: -
 Going alone is becoming increasingly
difficult so renewed focus on partner-
ships and collaborations
 Growth of private sector provision and
transfer of provisions from public sector
to private sector
 Joint venture public-private partner-
ships
 Renewed focus on experience, reliability,
safety and employability of foreign stu-
dents
 Interoperability- credits and recognition
between home universities and foreign
institutions
 Improving the cultural outlook of the
universities
 Focus on networking through internet
like social networking sites
Moving on, lets study the application of
marketing principles, to the educational in-
stitutes, through the very famous 4P ap-
proach and analyse what can be their differ-
entiating factors : -
 PAGE 27
PRODUCT
Some authors suggest that education is a prod-
uct. For example; Kaye suggests looking at dis-
tance education as a product instead efficiently
use our resources, the needs of the student/
consumer should be assessed. By doing so, we
can learn from the students and then apply
that knowledge to attract future students while
meeting the needs and improving upon the ser-
vices offered to the current students. The prod-
ucts have a different name, logo, colour and
physical attributes. We can say that distance
education institution is a brand and a brand is
a way of differentiating one product from an-
other; the greater the perceived similarity of
products, the more important the brand in es-
tablishing the differences. Some schools will
clearly feel that they are different from others,
or that the market perceives differences, which
makes it less important for them to establish
their corporate identity.
PRICE
This concept embodies more than a value that
someone will pay for it. The meaning associ-
ated with price changes is contextual. Institu-
tions have different pricing policies and all in-
stitutions compete against each other to in-
crease their application and enrolment rates.
Pricing policies will impact student choice be-
tween institutions.
PLACE
It is a means of getting the product into the
consumer‟s hands. The personality of the place
sends messages to the target audience. The
vehicle which is used to reach the students can
be a physical location or a virtual space where
the connection speed of internet used, e-mail,
can serve as a differentiating mechanism.
PROMOTION
Promotion is a means of communication be-
tween the seller and buyer. It includes adver-
tising, public relations, personal selling, pub-
licity, and sales promotions. If one higher edu-
cation institution wants to enrol more students
than other, it will need to use corporate adver-
tising or engage in activities that create a liai-
son between the students and the institutions.
Publicity provides media coverage to the insti-
tutions and visibility can create confidence
about an institutions reputation and quality
perceptions.
THE LOOKING GLASS
Moving on to the last section of the article, we
shall see the future of marketing techniques in
the educational set up. The first point we con-
sider here is the referral system of marketing
which though has been used for quite some
time, finds an increased relevance in the cur-
rent scenario. As more and more foreign uni-
versities are wooing students of Indian origin to
pursue courses offered by them, referral mar-
keting may be an Innovative tool in their mar-
keting efforts. For this we should be well con-
versed with the concepts of relationship mar-
keting. Relationship marketing, as the name
suggests, means developing long-term bonds
with users by making them feel good about
how an institution of higher education relates
to them. The idea is to develop and maintain
strong personal relationships, feelings based
on positive interactions and perceptions. In
many ways relationship building and mainte-
nance is the essence of marketing. The market-
ing exchange process is used to build and
maintain positive relationships with continuity
and consistency. A good way to begin relation-
ship marketing is to build concentrated core
groups of key target audiences and focus atten-
tion on that group, with the idea of creating a
"ripple effect" as members of that group help
carry the school's messages to their friends,
associates and colleagues. Referral marketing
i.e., making use of existing students to canvass
for potential students is being practiced by for-
eign universities. The existing students are per-
ceived as important among stake holders.
Hence, the concept of referral marketing can be
a boon for the Indian educational set ups
which are struggling to retain their students in
the wake of increased foreign competition.
So much is the importance of marketing in the
educational set ups that there have been re-
search papers about quantifying the demand
forecast in the future. I would like to wrap up
this article by a simple yet powerful quota-
tion : -
“marketing is not about trickery or even insincer-
ity, it‟s about spreading ideas you believe in,
sharing ideas you are passionate about, and
doing it with authenticity. Its important to real-
ize that‟s it is easier to grow with happier people
than it is to find new strangers to accost”
-Seth Godin
Mafla Mudgal is a 1st year PGDM student at IIM Calcutta. He
holds a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from Delhi Col-
lege of Engineering and can be reached
at maflam2011@email.iimcal.ac.in
 PAGE 28
We are in the middle of a
great revolution in
marketing deed and
corresponding thought. I
must admit it was a
struggle not to call this
“Marketing 3.0”.
However, this sobriquet
has already been usurped
by many marketing
scholars and practitioners
of the current era to
define different aspects
and offshoots of internet
led marketing. I am not
going to suggest that all
marketing in the current
era is equal to internet
marketing (though much
of it is related to the
internet in some way or
the other), and thus the
need to stay away from
the debate of Marketing
3.0. Instead the heralding
of the third era of
marketing! To reach the
tenets of the current era, it
is important to give a
quick dekho into the past
from my perspective and
that will also help lay the
evolutionary path.
THE LOOKING GLASS
Welcome to Marketing, the third epoch!
The first epoch of marketing was the
most stretched. The early seeds of
our profession were laid somewhere
in the wake of the Industrial Revolu-
tion and continued till the early part
of the last century. This was the
period when products started being
invented to meet basic human needs
– the electric bulb, the motorized
car, the safety pin – and thus set the
stage for elementary definitions.
This era was also completely prod-
uct centric, and focused on manu-
facturing – a car provided transpor-
tation, a bulb light and so on. Much
of marketing revolved around ensur-
ing the transfer of the good from the
manufacturer to the user and all the
elementary functions required to
make it a success, including avail-
ability and communication. In In-
dia, we experienced this era much
after independence given the overall
shortages and a nascent manufac-
turing industry being set up.
The second epoch of marketing saw
many success stories through the
late 19th and most of the 20th cen-
tury. This epoch also saw the tran-
sition of marketing from selling
products to establishing brands.
The advent of more players saw the
resultant increase in options, and
led to the need for “differentiation”.
It could be in terms of the rational
like form, feature, cost, shape, size,
color or even in terms of irrational,
emotional, psychological attributes.
The holy portals of most marketing
theories, philosophies and frame-
works as we know it today were built
for this era. You thus had the “4 P‟s
of marketing”, defined your “target
segment” and build a “brand posi-
tioning statement” and tried to build
“consumer loyalty”. This period ac-
tually saw the maturing of market-
ing thought into an important field
of theory and practice from both
academicians and business. The
progress of fast moving consumer
goods like soap, tooth-paste, deter-
gent etc provide a graphic represen-
tation of the evolution of the second
epoch of marketing. Even today,
many marketers continue to derive
succor from the building blocks of
this era. ,Some of it leading to micro
- segmentation, and consequently
brands making that extra effort to
establish consumer connect, and
moving from the rational to the irra-
tional and then beyond.
This leads us to the third epoch of
marketing. What is it? When did it
start? Was it the advent of the inter-
net? I‟ll address the questions in
reverse. As I said at the start, no
this is not just about the internet
and internet marketing. The advent
of the internet was perhaps the cata-
lyst for change and accelerated the
transition of marketing from the pre-
vious era. Infact, as often said the
internet is to the 21st century what
electricity was to the 20th. The
ground-work of this marketing era
had thus started a couple of decades
earlier and we are now in the midst
of it.
This epoch is all about Experience
Marketing. This epoch marks the
demise of classical marketing
thought, and instead brings to the
forefront multiple possibilities in the
sphere of marketing. There are three
different vectors of change in this
epoch, best represented as the evolu-
tions across consumer expectations,
customization and computer or tech-
nology innovation.
Consumer behavior and expectations
have changed dramatically over the
last few decades. Today consumers
are (always) accessible, connected,
demanding, empowered, intelligent,
skeptical and even vengeful. They
lack patience, have no loyalty and
are pressed for time. They don‟t
wish to be interrupted, sold to or
campaigned any more. The basis of
products, brands and thereby mar-
keting has changed completely. The
old and dated concepts don‟t hold
any more. A brand has to be crea-
tive, engaged and hopefully relevant.
This epoch continues to question the
gospels of marketing thought. As
one of the senior managers of this
company put it: What happens to
the principle of 4P‟s of marketing, if
three out of the four P‟s are zero?
The brand and company in question?
Google! Their products are free, the
 PAGE 29

Epoch First Second Third

Time-Period 1760 – 1850 1850 - 1980 1980 till today
Marketing Focus Product Brand Experience
Proposition Functionality Differentiation Engagement
Appeal Rational Emotional Sensory
Association Availability Loyalty Commitment
Life-cycle Eternal Long Ephemeral
company doesn‟t really advertise and there isn‟t is what it does, where it fits in one‟s life and
any specific placement of its products. This ep- most importantly how it makes you feel.
och of marketing is based on a foundation of Many brands are redefining their framework
technology, and the immense possibilities that from being a packaged good to a complete ser-
technology can enable. And the internet pro- vice. Personal products brands moving onto
vided the catalyst for bringing these possibilities personal care are one end and Luxury brands
to the vast multitude of humanity in the best, extending their portfolio to provide a range of
fastest and most impactful manner. accessories and accruements is another.
The onset of this era is perhaps best reflected This is the new realm of marketing. And as
with the emergence of a brand whose experience marketers we need to define what really we
can't be equated with any sensory aspect – wish to create in order to make an impact here.
touch, feel, hear, see or taste. An ingredient We therefore need to figure out a complete en-
brand which signifies trust and reliability, and a gagement plan with the consumer appealing
promise of technology innovation. And a brand across different touch points, and to multiple
which has constantly stood as guarantor of senses. We need to provide a holistic experi-
break-through computing performance. The ence which communicates the tenets of the
brand in question? Yes, Intel. The Intel brand brand and expect the consumer to thus connect
has created the world‟s best known, longest ever with it, and hopefully when she needs spend
and most extensive co-operative marketing cam- time or money to acquire it.
paign “Intel Inside” and its signature bong is The Marketing Epoch‟s if tabulated across dif-
heard every minute, somewhere in the world! In ferent brand elements would look like the table
today‟s era the marketplace has become clut- shown. Above.
tered with a plethora of choices. At the same
time consumer demands have evolved to a level
of “soya milk froth free decaf latte” granularity. Mr.Prakash Bagri is currently Director of Marketing, Intel South
Technology innovation is the driving force be- Asia. We, as editors of this digest, are thankful to Mr.Prakash, an
hind this accelerated evolution. And there are expert with more than a decade of marketing experience, for sharing his
technology tools which help marketers meet this industry insights on the evolution and future of marketing.
role. Customization and personalization is de
rigueur for a brand to stand out amongst the
clutter. Though marketing has to be non-
invasive, the brand has to still attempt engage-
ment and interaction with the consumer. To-
day, consumers expect their brands to be hon-
est, transparent, socially conscious, environ-
mentally friendly, participative, co-operative etc
and in return they reward you with their time,
attention and hopefully, their money. This has
to be unobtrusive, responsible, apolitical and
still impactful. Today, brands shouldn‟t seek
loyalty, but instead hope that they can interest
and engage the consumer and thereby win their
commitment. In other words, in this era the one
who stands out (and it could be a brand, prod-
uct or service and more likely a combination of
all the three) is one which is able to engage with
customers in a holistic manner appealing to
their senses and thereby establishing an emo-
tional connect with them. The brand experience

THE LOOKING GLASS

 PAGE 30
Today’s business
environment is
characterized by intense
competition, directed
primarily at the basic need
to survive. In such times,
firms continuously watch
out for avenues by which
to gain competitive
advantage over other
industry players.
Disruptive innovation,
referring to a concept that
can radically alter the
trajectory of the industry
itself, is an attractive
alternative for firms.
However, we consider the
next phase wherein these
very innovations could get
commoditized, with more
players engaging in similar
endeavours. We look at
the factors that could help
prevent such a
phenomenon, and the
means to effectively
leverage upon the
marketing function.
THE LOOKING GLASS
Sidestepping the Commoditization of Disruptive Innovations
We live in a world today, where every
organization is constantly on the
lookout for means to differentiate
itself from the others that comprise
its industry; for ways to achieve sus-
tainable competitive advantage; and
in very, very simple terms, for ways
to survive. In this milieu, one often
comes across strokes of genius,
which in the blink of an eye, set a
particular market player apart from
the crowd; and in the process, rede-
fine the way business is done, and
even looked at in that industry. An
event of such a scale and scope, is
often what one would call a disrup-
tive innovation.
A disruptive innovation is one which
breaks the continuing stream of in-
cremental impr ovements and
changes, to radically alter the devel-
opment, and very conception of said
product/service/industry. And as is
the case with any mine that strikes
gold, this newly irresistible area be-
comes the hotspot for all firms con-
sidered worth their salt. In indus-
tries unlike Pharmaceuticals, where
a concrete protection mechanism
(read Patents and the like) is absent,
the competitors are quick to repli-
cate the product/service/model,
with augmentations inherent to their
respective firms. Thus, what had
been a breath of fresh air to con-
sumers a week back, is suddenly
spreading all around, and halfway to
becoming the next homogeneous
commodity. And with that of course,
over time the idea loses its initial
sheen, wearing itself off from over-
use and exploitation.
Economists and game theorists
would refer to this phenomenon of
decaying valuation as “Tragedy of
the commons” or “Decreasing mar-
ginal profitability”, both of which
symptomize the winding trails of
commoditization. And it is here, that
we endeavour to step in, and if not
devise a way out of this piece of oft
repeated history, then at least sit
down with it, and get to know it bet-
ter!
Marketing as a function plays a key
role in the effective delivery of any
value proposition, be it a product,
service or in any form for that mat-
ter. After the core operation, it is
marketing that ensures that the tar-
get consumer segments are reached;
and that the external gaps in value
delivery are minimized. Given the
significance of marketing, we would
look at the core issue through two
viewpoints:
1) Managing innovations in the mar-
keting domain, so as to be able to de-
rive sustainable competitive advan-
tage from them.
2) Capitalizing on core innovations by
leveraging upon a sound, directed
marketing campaign.
Coming first to marketing innova-
tions, one can readily observe that
the marketing strategies adopted by
a firm should be determined to a
great extent by the existing brand
perception that it enjoys. Discount-
ing cases of deliberate image make-
overs (which entail a separate, dedi-
cated campaign altogether), one can
see that a gauche mismatch between
the brand‟s identity and the new of-
fering portrayal can lead to unde-
sired confusion and ambiguity in the
impressionable consumer psyche.
Thus, due consideration to this fac-
tor, and adequate preparedness for
the same is necessary to ensure that
an ingenious innovation does not
backfire, and then to make matters
worse, play straight into the hands of
the more suave competitors.
Coming to the issue of commoditiza-
tion with respect to disruptive inno-
vations, we can see from the very
outset, that such a mass replication
is possible only when the entry barri-
ers for such an introduction are ei-
ther too low, or easy to transcend.
Thus if a retail chain were to offer a
drastic 70% off Sale once a month,
then it alone would not serve the
purpose of truly differentiating it in a
sector growing at a frenetic pace.
 PAGE 31
Put another way, if such an initiative is not
backed with the requisite supply chain and
sourcing efficiencies, it won‟t be long before
the firm starts to bleed. And to make mat-
ters worse, other more lean competitors
could then launch a similar programme,
only more aggressively and credibly posi-
tioned to deliver.
To take the previous example one level
higher, there might be a phase where all in-
dustry players are more or less in similar
phases of maturity and efficiency. In such a
case, a soundly backed discount sale initia-
tive would be easily replicable, and this
could over time lead to a flood of such offer-
ings, and even to the consumer growing in-
creasingly indifferent to them. When such a
stage is reached, it is the beginning of the
end of the value for what had once been a
unique innovation; the commoditization has
kicked in.
Thus, to counter the forces that lead to a
collective exploitation of an idea that an en-
terprising firm brings to the market, the firm
in question must ensure that there is more
going for it than just the “first-mover‟s ad-
vantage”. That is, the innovation must be
rooted in something that is quintessential to
the firm, like its unique work culture, lead-
ership vision or even something more tangi-
ble like restricted access to sources/
suppliers. Further, it must be noted that if
such a commoditization were to indeed take
place, then it is not only a loss for the firm
that introduced the concept, but more sig-
nificantly it is an opportunity lost for the
industry as a whole. And the solution to this
problem is not to form a cartel and fleece
the pennies out of a society slowly starting
to walk on its aspiring, middle class feet;
rather, firms would need to constantly inno-
vate in a manner that accords to each one of
them a niche pocket through which to grow,
overlap and compete. With time, consolida-
tion is inevitable in a fragmented industry,
and in the case of one that is concentrated,
one can then look forward to epic marketing
battles, a la the Cola wars. In either case,
firms would be required to dig deep and
come up with some one thing that is unique
in them.
In this regard, when it comes to differentiating
yourself, especially in an industry where the
core product/service is easily commoditized
(low cost airlines, retail etc.), one essential re-
THE LOOKING GLASS
source comes to the fore, as a point for poten-
tial differentiation: the people in the firm.
Thus, it may be seen, that often it is the firm’s
human resources that form the core of its mar-
keting strategy, highlighting how the people
contribute to adding unique value to the
particular firm. Examples of this strategy
abound, from Intel‟s “Superstars”, to
Google‟s famed “20% time” policy. And with
this, strategically aligned HR processes en-
ter the fray for sources of sustainable com-
petitive advantage.
Thus, to conclude, one may note that dis-
ruptive innovations by themselves, devel-
oped on an unsustainable model can never
be of use to a firm. On the contrary, such an
effort shall more often than not end up be-
ing in the firm‟s detriment. Further, such
endeavors must be based on fundamentals
that are intrinsically hard to replicate for
others. Finally, the marketing strategies
should be designed in a way that does not
conflict with the image of the firm, and if it
is aimed at a repositioning, then it needs to
be adequately armed.
Anand Justin Cherian is a 2nd year student of IIM Cal-
cutta, specializing in Behavioral Sciences and Systems. He holds a
Bachelors degree in Information Technology Engineering from
Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology. In his free time, he likes
blogging, painting and photography. He can be reached at an-
andj2010@email.iimcal.ac.in.
Varun is a 2nd year student of IIM Calcutta, specializing in
Marketing. He holds a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineer-
ing from Delhi college of Engineering. Prior to joining IIM Cal-
cutta he has worked with IBM and Royal Bank of Scotland, for
a total of 3 years. He can be reached at va-
run2010@email.iimcal.ac.in.
Sarang Shahane is a 2nd year student of IIM Calcutta, spe-
cializing in Marketing and Finance. He holds a Bachelors degree
in Information Technology Engineering from NIT Durgapur.
Prior to joining IIM Calcutta he has worked with Amdocs Ltd
for nearly 2 years. He can be reached at
sarangs2010@email.iimcal.ac.in.
 PAGE 32
Sales jobs and financial
wizardry jobs conjure up
very different images in our
mind. However there is a
confluence where one needs
to use skills needed by both
these job roles when you
work as salesperson for
fixed income securities.
What roles and challenges
does the nascent Indian
market provide? And how
do you successfully establish
yourself as a good
salesperson? The author
shares his experiences and
learning acquired while
working as an analyst with
Merrill Lynch this summer.
THE LOOKING
Sales Role in Fixed Income Securities Market
A brief background of the mar-
ket
The market for fixed-income secu-
rities issued by Indian companies
is limited and illiquid. The liquidity
falls exponentially below the high-
est investment grades. Hence the
most active sellers of these securi-
ties are large Indian corporates
with good credit ratings. The larg-
est and active buyers are mutual
funds, insurance companies, gov-
ernment agencies like LIC, IFCI,
IDBI, UTI, EXIM, etc. Smaller buy-
ers include PE firms, specialized
banks, etc. The liquidity in this
market also depends on the issuer
and the sector of the issuer. For
example, debentures issued by
manufacturing companies with
assets as collateral are preferred
and need to pay lesser interest
than those by IT services compa-
nies.
The deals are arranged by brokers
like Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank,
ICICI, etc. in the OTC market.
They are in touch with both the
buyers and issuers of such securi-
ties throughout the year and work
to service individual client needs.
However since a number of bro-
kers are active, there is significant
competition in this arena. Usually,
the only criteria used for choosing
between competing brokers is the
price they negotiate for their cli-
ents. The quickest broker to pro-
vide an acceptable price wins the
deal. Clearly, the way to win as a
broker is via superior sales strate-
gies.
So how do you differentiate?
Information asymmetry – The sales
manager for Nirma uses the power
of his brand to sell his product
while a Big Bazaar uses the vol-
ume of sales as a tool to offer lower
prices and entice buyers. Here,
information is the salesperson‟s
biggest sales tool. Being an OTC
market, there is significant infor-
GLASS
mation asymmetry and it is very
important to be well aware and well
connected. By performing market
information dissemination, brokers
perform a service for their clients in
hope of getting business. They per-
form price discovery for each secu-
rity and negotiate an agreement to
pocket a commission. Through their
intimate knowledge of client prefer-
ences and history, they perform
number of additional value added
services like connecting preferred
sellers to issuers, providing kick-
backs on older deals, doling out fa-
vors, disseminating market informa-
tion to clients, etc.
Personal relations – This is an im-
portant differentiate which helps
clinch deals. Trust by your clients
in your evaluation of the market will
get you business. This is developed
by knowing your clients well and
being able to read what they do not
say. For example, there can be very
different meanings when person A
says that „It looks difficult to do this
deal‟ than when person B says it. If
person A was a Japanese, it would
mean a refusal to do the deal while
if person B was American, it would
mean an interest in negotiating fur-
ther. Knowing your client is how
this difference can be judged.
Personalized service – By under-
standing the needs of the issuer and
customer a priori, brokers can sig-
nal a personal interest in the busi-
ness of the clients. For example,
brokers track when a large commer-
cial paper (CP) issue bought by cli-
ent XYZ from issuer ABC is about to
expire. As a result, they can proac-
tively ask ABC if they would like to
again raise money by issuing a
fresh CP two weeks before the ma-
turity. Simultaneously they can
track what XYZ intends to do with
the inflow of money at maturity and
if they can fix up a deal with an-
other issuer. They can perform su-
perior price discovery, work faster to
sell securities and clinch deals with-
out too many competitors even
 PAGE 33

coming to know of the deal. Also, by knowing the urgency of the situation and more information
than competing broker, one can get a better deal covenants, spread positive reviews of the clients
and enhance or tarnish their image.
Employing these three strategies can consistently get you deals and clients in this market and
help you become a successful securities salesperson.

Siddharth Chaudhari is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Ahmedabad. He holds a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT,
Bombay and can be reached at 8chaudharis@iimahd.ernet.in

QUIZ ANYONE??
1. Geophysical Services Incorporated (GSI) a pioneering provider of seismic exploration services to the petroleum
industry during and after World war II, made a foray into electronics and designed products for the US army and
navy. How is the company today better known as?
2. Karl Elsener, the founder, started this company to create work in the sparsely industrialized central Switzerland. In
1897 the product was created and legally registered in the small village of Ibach. Since that time it has become well
-known in more than 100 countries for precision, quality, functionality and versatility. Name the product and com-
pany.
3. Living in the crowded streets of Old Delhi, Davinder Kumar Jain, understood the potential of the pen manufacturing
way back in the early 1960s. At the age of just 19, DK started producing fountain pens, a writing instrument that
deeply fascinated him, thus laying the foundation of the largest manufacturer of writing instruments in India. Iden-
tify the company/brand.
4. Originally called New Lord & Company, this company was born as a small tailoring shop in the year 1947. A couple
of years later, it was bought over by Mr Arjan Daswani. Under the aegis of Daswani, the company transformed it-
self into a mega shirt store. Today, it’s one of the established names in the Indian fashion industry and claims for
bringing international acclaim to Indian tailor craftsmanship. Which brand/company is being talked about?
5. The enterprise could be considered to have started in 1901 when William aged 21,drew up plans for a small engine
that displaced 7.07 cubic inches and had four-inch flywheels. The engine was designed for use in a regular pedal-
bicycle frame. Over the next two years William and his friend Arthur labored on their little bicycle. What company
was founded by William and Arthur?
6. This company, originally known as Standard Oil of California, or Socal, and was formed amid the antitrust breakup
of Standard Oil in 1911. It was one of the "Seven Sisters" that dominated the world oil industry during the early
20th century. It is now one of the world’s six ‘supermajor’ oil companies and the largest producer of geothermal
energy in the world.
7. The way in which Frank Robinson wrote the name of a product was so elegant and original, it was decided to use
his handwriting for the logo of the product. Name the product that even today uses Robinson’s script as its trade-
mark.
8. After serving in the subscription department and as a copywriter for Esquire, he left in January 1952 after being
denied a $5 raise. Took his biggest gamble in 1953 by raising $8,000 to launch his business venture. Made an ap-
pearance on a popular TV series. Has a species of rabbit named after him and is known as one of the world’s best-
known womanizers.
9. Born on June 7, 1975, she did her schooling from Bombay Scottish School and later on joined Mithibai College. She
was not interested in academics and ventured into television at the age of 19. Soon changed the face of Indian tele-
vision industry and completely dominated it. Awarded with Ernst & Young (E&Y) Startup Entrepreneur Of The Year
award in 2001.
Answers
1. Texas Instruments; 2. Victorinox (Original Swiss Knife); 3. Luxar Pens; 4. Chirag Din; 5. Harley Davidson Motor Cycles; 6. Chevron;
7. Coca Cola; 8. Hugh Hefner; 9. Ekta Kapoor

THE LOOKING GLASS

 PAGE 34
Valuation of TV Advertising
The slowdown in the Indian econ-
omy has meant that more and more
firms are looking to control expendi-
tures seen as unnecessary and add-
ing little value. For most firms, it‟s
the promotional and advertising
budgets that get hit first. In such a
scenario, managers need to justify
their advertising spends and meet
required advertising ROI targets.
This calls for an accurate way of
measuring advertising effectiveness.
Effectiveness is essentially measured
through the advertising medium‟s
reach. For TV, advertisers want their
The author stresses the ad to be seen and hence the task is
importance of advertising to find the cost of reaching an eye-
effectiveness in the face ball. The primary indicator used in
of tighter promotional TV advertising deals is „Cost per rat-
and advertising budgets. ing point‟ or CPRP. Another parame-
Advertising effectiveness ter, „Cost per thousand impressions‟
of a medium is primarily or CPT may also be used.
measured through its
reach, that is, how many The following terms will be useful to
of the company’s target understand the valuation of ad
customers the medium deals.
reaches, and for how
long. A system of metrics
is discussed, one that Universe
focuses on calculating the The Total/Actual number of
cost of reaching one people in a defined target audience.
intended eyeball. The
article explains how ad TV rating points (TRPs)
deals between TV
channels and advertisers These are measured by audience
are valued based on these measurement agencies like Televi-
metrics. The author then sion Audience Measurement (TAM)
compares CPRP and CPT and these help to express the viewer-
and explains how using ship for programming on television
one method over another in numerical terms.
may be advantageous
based on whether one is a TRPs take into account two factors:
marketer or a TV channel. 1. Reach- The number of viewers for
a particular program
2. Time Spent- The amount of time
spent by these viewers watching
the program
Example: Consider the universe to be
made up of 4 viewers A, B, C and D.
The following shows the viewership
details for a TV program.
Person Time Spent
A 6
B 0
C 8
D 5
THE LOOKING GLASS
TRPs=
TRPs= 47.5% or 47.5 TRPs
This is can be construed in two
ways:
1. 47.5% of the target audience
watched the program for its en-
tire duration (i.e.10 mins).
2. The entire target audience
watched the program for 47.5%
of the program duration.
The first meaning suggests that TRPs
give the percentage of the target au-
dience that has been reached by a
program and hence also reached by
the ads shown in the program slot.
Gross rating points (GRPs)
GRPs represent the sum of all TRPs
achieved in a period. Hence, GRPs
are not program-specific and can be
calculated for a diverse set of TV pro-
grams.
Cost per rating point (CPRP)
CPRP represents how much it would
cost to deliver one target rating
point, or 1% of target audience, i.e. a
TRP of 1%. That is, CPRP represents
the price charged by a TV channel
from an advertiser to deliver a TRP of
1%. In the Indian TV industry, this
CPRP is for a 10 second slot during a
program.
Cost per thousand impressions
(CPT)
It is the cost of delivering a thousand
impressions. For example, a viewer
watching a 10-second slot in which
an ad is shown would be one impres-
sion.
Minutes Available
10
10
10
10
 PAGE 35
Valuation of an ad deal
A television channel has an estimate of the ad
inventory that it wants to sell in a year (or
more). This ad inventory refers to the total ad
time it can sell, say 10000 hours in a year. The
channel sells a portion of this inventory to ad-
vertisers in long-term deals of 1 year (3 year
deals are less common). The channel promises
the advertiser a specific number of GRPs that it
will deliver during that one year and the adver-
tiser is charged a price for these GRPs.
Value of the deal= CPRP X GRPs X total
number of slots
Each of these slots is of 10 seconds. The issues
that form the focus of the negotiations are the
number of GRPs and the CPRP. If the slots sold
by the TV channel fail to provide the promised
GRPs, the TV channel compensates by giving
the advertiser bonus time, i.e. ad slots free of
cost. If instead, more than the promised GRPs
are delivered, the advertiser would have to pay
some extra for the extra GRPs. These details are
thrashed out in intense negotiations between
channels and advertisers.
Calculating CPT
The cost per thousand impressions is an indi-
cator of the absolute reach of the TV medium. It
is calculated as follows:
CPT= total value of the deal/ number of peo-
ple reached (in thousands)
Since 1 TRP means that 1% of the target audi-
ence is reached, the total number of people
reached can be found out using the universe
size.
Number of people reached= TRPs X universe
size
What’s the right metric- CPRP or CPT?
It depends on whose point of view we consider.
Most deals today are done using CPRP as the
measurement metric. TV channels claim that
this system of valuation is unfair since CPRP is
based on rating points, which indicate only per-
centages of the target audience reached. Con-
sidering that the target audience watching
these channels is increasing in absolute terms,
more people have to be reached by the TV chan-
nels to get the same TRPs. TV channels are
thus demanding a shift to using CPT in negoti-
ating ad deals with advertisers.
Amogh Bhole is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Ahmedabad. He
holds a Bachelors degree in Electronics Engineering from VJTI, Bom-
bay and can be reached at 8bholea@iimahd.ernet.in
THE LOOKING GLASS
Marketing Gyan!!
 Canned beer was first introduced in 1933,
in New Jersey.
 The types of horses that have been utilized
to name Ford automobile products are
Bronco, Mustang, Pinto, and Maverick.
 The first supermarket was located on Long
Island, Jamaica Station, New York. The King
Kullen Store was a product of the Great De-
pression era and supermarkets have evolved
tremendously. The products were set out on
pine boards resting on boxes.
 McDonald's first restaurant was located in
Des Plaines, Illinois. It opened on April 15,
1955.
 Drive-through service was initiated in
McDonald's stores in 1975. Today, it is fea-
tured at almost every unit that also has
parking.
 The first television commercial appeared on
July 6, 1941. It was a commercial for Bulova
watches.
 The Romans had a goddess, Juno Moneta,
who was the goddess of Warning. She
warned the Romans of dangers. The Romans
were so appreciative that they set up a mint
in her temple. The name Moneta in the old
French language was "moneie" which even-
tually became our word for money.
 McDonald brothers' names are Maurice and
Richard. They owned a drive-in restaurant
in San Bernardino, California.
 Nike was the ancient Greek goddess of vic-
tory.
 Dilated pupils are a good indicator of excite-
ment. When training salespeople they can
be taught to use indicators of product inter-
est by looking at their customers pupils.
 B.M.W stands for "Bayerische Motor Werke”
 7 Up was invented by C.L. Grigg and was
named as „7 Up‟ since it contains '7 natural
flavors' and carbonation.
 PAGE 36
Ogilvy & Mather Trivia
1. The Asian Paints
The Asian Paints Exterior Emul-
sion campaign sought to upgrade
cement paint users, in a tradition-
ally low
involve-
ment cate-
gory.
O&M lev-
eraged the
brand's
interior
equity and its association with
beauty benefits to position its ex-
teriors portfolio as “Time Proof
Beauty” paint The brand grew by
43% and the sign off "Badhiya
Hai!" has become part of popular
consumer lexicon.
2. Center shock
Before the launch of Center
Shock, the confectionery market
in India was on the road to de-
cline. Within the confectionery
market , the chewing gum seg-
ment was showing a 23 % decline.
(AC Niel-
sen Re-
port). Un-
der these
circum-
stances
Perfetti
India Ltd.
decided to launch a product that
would "shake up the market".
The most startling facet of the
product, Center Shock, is its sour
taste…in fact, sour beyond excep-
tional. So much so that it shakes
you up. The creative challenge was
not just to communicate this in a
manner that establishes this be-
yond doubt for the young audience,
but also to make it memorable.
And above all, shake them up. The
central thought of the campaign,
"shakes you up", was taken for-
ward in on-ground promotions and
media innovations. As a result of
this campaign, Center Shock went
from being a "no brand" to the No.1
brand in the chewing gum category
THE LOOKING GLASS
3. Pulse polio
The campaign against Polio was
designed to create a strong feeling
of responsibility amongst parents
and shake them out of their inertia
so as to ensure maximum turnout
on the National Immunization
Days. It used the angry man per-
sona of Amitabh Bachchan, the
screen legend of Indian cinema to
admonish parents for their irre-
sponsible behaviour and apparent
disregard for the safety and happi-
ness of their children.
As a result of the campaign, 19
districts reported over 50% booth
coverage after February round; 2.8
million children were immunized in
January and additional 6 million in
February, as compared to Novem-
ber 2002 round. Over 90% respon-
dents reported that the Amitabh
spots were a major influence in
motivating them to come to the
booth.
4. Sprite
The clear lime drink Sprite stands
for honesty, confidence and sim-
plicity. They needed to connect
with the teen and make the brand
aspirational. This was done by po-
sitioning Sprite as the No Pretence
drink - clear, honest and straight
up - what you saw was what you
got. The tongue-in-cheek campaign
helped the brand grow by 62% dur-
ing the campaign period.
 PAGE 37
Is Recession the time to tighten Ad Budget?
“Your outgo must be less than your accounting at Ohio State University
income, and so if income drops, verifies that advertising expenditures
you must immediately take steps to during recession contribute to in-
reduce the outgo”, this small lesson creased earnings by firms for up to
drummed into our heads as chil- three years. The greatest impact oc-
dren sticks to us forever, and is curs in the year immediately follow-
carried forward into our profes- ing the recession and this impact is
sional life as well. Interestingly, the more pronounced for firms offering
same lesson makes us susceptible consumer goods or industrial prod-
during good times, when sales are ucts, as opposed to firms offering
on an upswing, to splurge and to services. This entire philosophy
try things that might not seem es- works on the basic premise that ad-
sential at other times. The same vertisement is considered as a long
people resort to tightening their term investment rather than as a
belts, trimming the excessive flab short term expense.
The ongoing recession and and cutting advertisement budgets,
the tightening of ad the minute sales dip a bit.
budgets by most marketing
Should this be the norm for Ad
firms in India and abroad
budget allocation? „No,‟ says former
have raised a crucial
question about what the chief marketer of Coca Cola, Mr
stance should be during Sergio Zyman. He exemplifies the
these trying times for same with one of the marketing
businesses. This article metaphors: “Marketing money
discusses the benefits of (Advertisement money) is like fuel
having higher budgets for in a car. You take the fuel out of
advertisement during the tank, the car stops, and with it
recessionary pressures. It so does the brand”. So does that
exemplifies its stance by endorse the view that marketing
taking into account expenditure should be held con-
customer perceptions stant, if not increased during reces-
about companies during sionary period? Mr Zyman again
recession and how big wigs comes to the rescue. He juggles the
in the past have pulled same words, but this time taking a
themselves up into a more complet ely dif f er ent st ance:
strengthened position post “Marketing is like fuel. If the engine Advertising during recession pro-
downturn. The article ends isn‟t working- as Coca Cola discov- vides a unique window of opportu-
with a word of caution ered with New Coke in the eighties- nity for investment in building
stating that competitiveness a full tank of marketing fuel is use- strong brand equity, solidifying the
and relative market less”. customer base, gaining new custom-
position should be the ers and more importantly making
most appropriate way to
inroads into the competitor‟s terri-
judge the situation before
With such diverse views, it becomes tory. Most consumers perceive the
allocating ad budgets.
quite essential to dip our fingers lack of advertising during recession
into empirical data. Empirical re- to be synonymous with the business
search results show that the better struggling. This creates a negative
course of action in a downturn is to perception in the minds of the cus-
sustain marketing communication tomers who become more cautious
or actually increase it. You get about the present customer value
more bang for your buck when eve- proposition offered by the firm and
ryone else is laying low, and you more suspicious about the quality of
come out of the recession faster goods and services committed to
with a healthier bottom line. them. Likewise, a vast majority per-
ceives businesses that continue to
Aggressive companies increased
advertise during recession as being
market share on an average of 1.5
competitive or committed towards
points during recessions, while
doing business.
budget-cutters gained only 0.2
points. Roger Graham, professor of

THE LOOKING GLASS

 PAGE 38

Therefore it becomes critical to advertise give a competitive advantage to a company,

during recession, to maintain long-term there are ample examples, when this did
positive consumer perception of the brand. not work. Popular brands like Barclaycard,
Advertising not only assures consumers of Renault Clio and Nescafe Gold Blend ran
the business reliability in a soft economy, ad campaigns that generated acres of extra
but it can influence where and what they press coverage during 1981-82 recessions,
buy. In recessionary times, price loyalty is but they all lost substantial market shares
greater than brand loyalty, so instead of later on. The point to be noted here is the
reducing ad budgets it would be advisable quality of the ads featured, and the relative
for companies to increase their spends on weaknesses of competing brands are impor-
sales promotions and discounts. tant as well. These two criteria should be
delved into in detail before increasing ad
expenditure during recession.
The top management has the unpleasant
duty of reporting disappointing results dur-
ing recession; then they offer encourage- The truth is that advertising effects cannot
ment by pointing out that all the cost cut- be isolated from other factors. While market
ting measures have been implemented, as leaders who may be able to garner re-
if the stakeholders ascertained that they sources during recessionary trends to fight
wanted all costs to be cut to the bone and price wars and sales promotions with com-
get the ship in order. This leads to the no- petitors, may use the tactics of increasing
tion where advertisements are considered a ad budgets, companies facing tough
form of defensive insurance, and not as choices should not be bullied into believing
profit generators. Top management sets the that advertising is a panacea. For them the
whole marketing budget as a percentage of engine might be too worn out to respond to
expected revenue, and when expected reve- the fuel.
nue drops, they see every reason to cut
But then, the crux of the argument is that
marketing expenditures. But this exposes
advertising definitely has positives attached
the illogic of setting marketing expenditures
to it. Using it you might not be able to get
based on expected revenue. The marketing
quite where you intend to be, but at least
budget is the cause, not the effect. Setting a
you will get to some distance along the
higher marketing budget will get higher ex-
right path!
pected revenue for a company during bad
times. Contrary to this opinion a recent
survey by R3 which manages 100 of Asia‟s
Saikat Mondal is a 2nd year student of IIM Lucknow, spe-
top 500 brands points out that one in every cializing in Marketing and Operations. He holds a Bachelors
four Indian companies have been forced to degree in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from
scale down their marketing and advertise- Jadavpur University. Prior to joining IIM Lucknow he has
ment spending because of the ongoing eco- worked with Cognizant Technology Solutions for around four
nomic crisis. But the hard lesson was years. He can be reached at pgp24277@iiml.ac.in
learnt my most US companies during the
1981-82 recession.
In an effort to come out of the red, during
the ongoing slowdown advertisers and com-
panies are turning to desperate measures
to promote their products and increase
consumer spending. Some advertisements
like Pepsi‟s Saturday Night Live have ini-
tially confused the consumers in an effort
to break the clutter. Researchers are of the
view that standing out in advertisements is
imperative during recession even if at the
expense of confounding customers. The zoo
zoo ad of Vodafone might be along these
same lines.

Though it might seem that high spending

on advertisements during recession might

THE LOOKING GLASS

 PAGE 39
The first myth of online
marketing is that it is cheap.
From what we have learnt
from our exploratory research
Indian online businesses
typically spend around Rs 40
to Rs 400 per customer
acquired. Advertising online
however is better in terms of
the ability to send the message
to a target segment and get a
faster response. The second
myth is that what has worked
in the US will work in India.
We discovered that none of
the strategies that our
respondents used worked the
same way. There is no strategy
mix that fits all. While some
strategies are generic and can
be used by all with little
tweaking, others have to be
tailored and customized to suit
the product and the
consumers. We talked to 10
Indian startup e-businesses
that are making news lately
and gathered their opinions on
effective promotion strategies.
In this article we explore what
promotion strategies have
worked for these companies
and how they managed to use
them effectively.
THE LOOKING
Low Cost Customer Acquisition Strategies for E-businesses
Search engines are a favorite for
most of the startups. Getting listed
on the first page of a relevant key-
word search (aka Search Engine Op-
timization or SEO) is unequivocally
the top priority. It is important for
Redbus to be visible for the search
string “Bangalore to Hyderabad” and
Inkfruit would like to sell theme t-
shirts to the gaming buff searching
for information on „Age of Empires‟.
Inkfruit banks on community inter-
actions and online thematic contests
to keep the buzz around, which
helps it to be in the first page of
search. Constant updates and add-
ing linkage from other sites (creating
affiliates) helps Studyplaces.com to
keep up its ranking. BankBazaar‟s
efforts paid returns when it moved
from the 20th page of search to the
1st page in less than 6 months.
BankBazaar promotes its site
through paid listings (aka Search
Engine Marketing or SEM) as well.
Many startups take the paid route to
begin with as it is easy and the cost
per click for search engines is very
low. Though search engines route a
lot of traffic to websites, there is a
catch as explained by Shiva Kumar,
VP Products & Technology of Flip-
kart.com. “Getting traffic is impor-
tant but what‟s more important is
getting the right customers to your
site, otherwise these noise users eat
up your bandwidth” says he. With
close to 90% of traffic coming from
Website Business
Redbus.in Bus-Ticketing
Inkfruit Designer
T-Shirts
BankBazaar Loan Comparison
StudyPlaces Education Consult-
ants
Careers-India Job Info
FlipKart Bookstore
Habits.in Lounge
& Lifestyle
Home-Designing Interior Designing
ISchnell Education Software
EasySquareFeet Real Estate
Table 1: Ten E-businesses choose the strategies of their choice
GLASS
search engines Flipkart is cautious
about protecting their servers from
the noise users.
Social Media has made a consider-
able contribution for the increase in
internet usage, especially for the
young users in India. It is an excel-
lent medium for businesses that are
targeting the youth. Prasanth Mo-
hanachandran, Executive Director -
Digital Services at Ogilvy, cites the
example of the 40,000 strong Zoozoo
community of Facebook to under-
score the importance of Social Media.
Noel Manoj of BankBazaar.com be-
lieves that Social Media will have a
major influence in Internet Market-
ing and purchasing tendencies. Pras-
anth from Ogilvy cautions about the
demographics of people using social
media sites. More than 40% of the
users of Facebook and Twitter are
less than 24 years old and 50% of
the users have an income below 2
lakhs per annum (Vizisense). So, this
medium might not be suitable for
selling financial products. “Social
Media Optimization is inexpensive
and builds loyal customers. However,
the volumes have been far from im-
pressive so far” opines Akhil Chug of
StudyPlaces.com.
Social Bookmarking is a method for
Internet users to store, organize,
search, and manage bookmarks of
web pages on the Internet.
First Second
SEO Offline
Offline SEO
SEO SMO
SEM Email
SEO SMO
SEO SMO
Viral SEO
SEO SMO
Offline SEO
SEO Online Commu-
nity Based
 PAGE 40
With over 100 million unique URLs book-
marked and 3 million registered users, sites
like Delicious are routing substantial number
Figure 1: Contest of Inkfruit featured in a blog (Jain)
of users to different websites. However, the
traffic from these sites to the Indian websites
is negligible. Manu Avinash of Careers-
India.com says “The social bookmarking sites
have huge potential and of late we are getting
some traffic from these sites”.
Amusingly, what used to be the bread and
butter of an internet marketer a few years ago
comes number three on our list. Email has to
be used very cautiously. Opt-in lists (users
who have accepted to receive promotional
mails) can be either created by self or in the
initial days bought from an agency. “More
than two emails per month may be consid-
ered as spam by users”, warns Akhil Chug. It
is important to communicate constantly with
the customer and at the same time not be
considered as a spammer. Apart from fre-
quency, the timing of emails is extremely im-
portant. Mayank, Marketing Head of RedBus,
says, “Sending a mail about holiday ticket
reservation two days before the holidays be-
gin is useless but sending it two weeks before
will bring in good traffic with very high con-
version rate”. Depending on the type of the
product affiliates‟ databases (like Zapak,
Cricketnext etc) can be used to send relevant
emails to their user base like what Inkfruit is
currently doing. The click rate or open rate of
mails sent through such tie-ups are at least
10 times better than random mail campaigns
THE LOOKING GLASS
that some websites run through email data-
bases available.
Rediff.com chose television over inter-
net to advertise its repositioning strategy.
While the wisdom behind ignoring the offline
marketing is debatable; offline advertising is
indispensable for many sites. “Many low cost
untraditional options are now available for
offline marketing. Credit card bills, electricity
bills, bus tickets are being used to reach the
customer. It is important to define your target
customers and target only those who match
your target spending and age levels” says
Prashanth, Ogilvy. Redbus.in struck a win-
win deal when it started advertising on credit
card bills. Advertising space is also available
on buses, auto rickshaws, subway stations
etc. For a company like Inkfruit, which gets
most of its revenues through offline sales, ad-
vertising offline is extremely important. 45% of
traffic to Inkfruit is direct (users type the URL
of the website) and majority of this is contrib-
uted by offline marketing. The offline options
include promoting in malls or shopping com-
plexes where Inkfruit products are sold. If the
segmentation is geographical in nature one
can take advantage of the Direct Post facility
of India Post that allows businesses to send
mails to a certain pin code location at Rs 1.50
Figure 2 Redbus.in advertised at the back of an auto
(information madness)
per article.
Public Relations (PR) is a part of offline mar-
keting strategy and is a combined responsibil-
ity of the company and the PR agency se-
lected. According to Kashyap, Cofounder of
Inkfruit.com, “If your product is innovative
and can create interest for the reader, creating
a positive PR is not difficult”.
 PAGE 41
The extent that the media covers you also
depends on who you have for backing.
“Selecting the right seed fund to promote
and finance your company is a vital task.
Right people can get you good PR and give
you invaluable mentorship. That‟s what
TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) did for Red-
Bus” according to Prashanth from Ogilvy.
Sasikanth Chemalamudi, founder of Hab-
its.in says “Having a very strong and close
knit alumni network (of his Alma matter
BITS Pilani) has helped Habits to increase
its awareness”. Technology intensive B2C
or B2B products require lot of offline mar-
keting in India, whereas in the US, the us-
ers being aware of such products, online
marketing works effectively. For example,
ISchnell is using only offline marketing to
sell its product in India but for US & China
they are relying on online marketing.
Mobile marketing, which is in a nascent
stage now, can drive the future of advertis-
ing. BSNL has already started wooing cus-
tomers to opt in for promotional messages
on their mobile in return for free call time.
With the advent of Blyk, the UK based
company which has pioneered the model,
in India it only means more advertising
over the phone. “Mobile is a major channel
in India as more users go online on a mo-
bile than a computer for the first time.
Hence mobile applications will add of a lot
Identify the Ad!!
Identify the occasion??
THE LOOKING GLASS
of importance” says Noel Manoj of BankBa-
zaar.
While all the strategies discussed so far are
facilitators for directing the customer to the
site, at the heart of the acquisition process
is the product. Conversion of a casual visit
to a desired action (sale, registration,
spending quality time etc) happens only if
the product that you offer is likeable and
creates value to the customer. Customer
loyalty on the other hand depends largely
on the service component. Nothing drives
your customer off to the competitors like
bad service does. Bad service coupled with
good advertising may help build the cate-
gory and help the competitor prosper at
your advertising expense.
Pradeep P N is a 2nd year student of IIM Lucknow, spe-
cializing in Marketing and Finance. He holds a Bachelors
degree in Computer Science from BITS Pilani. Prior to joining
IIM Lucknow he has worked with Juniper Networks India for
around two years. He can be reached at pradeeppn@iiml.ac.in
Sarat Chand is a 2nd year student of IIM Lucknow, spe-
cializing in Marketing and Finance. He holds a Bachelors
degree in Computer Science & Engineering from Osmania
University. Prior to joining IIM Lucknow he has worked with
Cognizant Technology Solutions & Satyam Computer Services
Ltd. for around six years. He can be reached at
pgp24058@iiml.ac.in
Check Page 47 for answers
 PAGE 42
State Of The Market- A Comparative Study
Media mogul, Rupert Murdoch was
perhaps paying tribute to God‟s Own
Country when he trooped into the
state capital to finalise the takeover
of Matrubhoomi, a local Malayali
daily. More noteworthy was the fact
that this was the first time the bil-
lionaire had made a foray into re-
gional daily. Something has
changed, something had metamor-
phosed – Brand India from the shy
nonchalance of the 50s to the street-
smart self-advertiser of the new mil-
lennium the journey has well and
truly come a full circle. The various
states of the country have ramped
up their efforts to position them-
selves as brands, as a full scale war
culminates to catch the eye of inves-
tors foreign and home grown.
In this paper, the There still remain a multitude of
author attempts to views on when India opened its
identify the doors to Foreign Investors but there
characteristics of the is little to argue that it was at the
business climate in turn of the millennium in 2001 that
India that can help branding of states well and truly
explain the different emerged. It would have been un-
performance of
thinkable some 15 years ago that 14
individual states in
terms of investment of the states of India now have brand
and growth. The paper ambassadors!
summarises the efforts
made by the various THRISSUR- MAKING A MARK
states in attracting
investment. The author An idea still exists that the race to
explores the sell themselves remain restricted to
investment climate in the proverbial industrial Shangri la
several typologies of belt of Gujarat, Maharashtra and a
Indian states and few others like Karnataka and the
identify the key
national Capital Region. The arrow
features of the various
could not be more off the mark as
parameters that
influence investors in even erstwhile obscure towns are
India. The analysis rising to prominence in the mind-
shows that the states map of potential investors riding
have significantly piggy back on a dazzling marketing
ramped up the campaign. Thrissur in Kerala, Ti-
marketing initiatives to ruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu and
attract investment. Haveri in Karnataka are unlikely
towns investors will be herded into.
But they recently entered India's
venture capital map, thanks to the
impressive and aggressive campaign-
ing of these states. On June 22,
Thrissur-based ESAF Microfinance
and Investments (EMFIL) said it
landed Rs 12 crore from Dia Vikas
Capital, an arm of Opportunity In-
ternational Australia, while Haveri's
THE LOOKING GLASS
Navachetna Microfin Services Ltd re-
ceived Rs 1.5 crore from a few high
net worth individuals and IT profes-
sionals. A day later, Tiruchirappalli-
based Grama Vidiyal Micro Finance
Ltd (GVMFL) said it raised Rs 20.4
crore from MicroVest, Unitus Equity
Fund and venture capitalist Vinod
Khosla. This is the second round for
Grama, which had raised Rs 14.7
crore in 2008. These are not isolated
events which can be ignored. State
Branding has well and truly arrived
and the investor today has been daz-
zled with fresher and innovative mar-
keting blitz from the various states.
Gone are the days when 26 January
used to be the only day for displaying
the resplendent riches of a region.
Even states like West Bengal, which
has been traditionally averse to big
ticket investment, have joined the fast
lane to woo investors. Appointing
cricket star and hometown hero Sau-
rav Ganguly as a brand ambassador
to the state was just one of the many
steps taken to attract the eye of the
investors. Jyoti Basu the former chief
minister of the state converted to
capitalism late on an investment pro-
motion trip around Europe and Amer-
ica, flying on Concorde, staying at
New York's Waldorf Astoria hotel and
dining with inveterate capitalists at
such firms as Price Waterhouse, Rolls
- Royce and Merrill Lynch.
Mr Basu was just one of a flock of In-
dian state chiefs who were realizing
the need of the hour and stepping up
to be feted as representatives of their
country's open-door policy on foreign
investment. In dark clouds of eco-
nomic slowdown, silver lining emerged
for Rajasthan as the western desert
state attracted highest investment
 PAGE 43

plans during October-December 2008-09 by ance, Disaster Management, Best-in-class infra-

corporate India, bringing a considerable shift in
its ranking order, among the 21 India states Ra-
jasthan is turning to be one of the most favour-
able investment destinations, carving top posi-
tion in the third quarter of the financial year
2008-09 (October December), witnessing a major
jump from 13th position in the same period of
the financial year 2007-08, according to a paper
brought out by ASSOCHAM.
structure, Energy Output, Reducing Maternal &
Infant mortality rate. “You are stupid if you are
not investing in Gujarat”, says Ratan Tata. Modi
was voted the best CM in the country for three
consecutive years by India Today ORG-MARG
Survey. Gujarat has also been voted Best State by
Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. 100+ billion US Dollars
MOU‟s signed in 2007 Vibrant Gujarat Investors
Summit.

As India Inc expressed investment plans in Ra- These are not mere facts but simply highlight the
jasthan, the state registered a major jump by advantage and competitive edge Gujarat had over
245.84 per cent during October-December 2008- its rivals being a “first mover”. The idea has lived
09 as compared to the corresponding period of since Gujarat with all states ready to shell out
the last year (2007-08). The next big investment millions even at times of global economic slow-
destinations also witnessed major shift as sec- down to gain a facelift which would showcase
ond place was occupied by Madhya Pradesh as themselves to the world. Adman Prahlad Kakkar
compared to the sixth place last year. Orissa acknowledges the fact as he underlines the fact
maintained its place at the top slot carving third that quite a few advertising agencies and Brand
position. The secret of the success was not to be management companies have been making big
found in JK Rowling‟s quiver but in simple mar- bucks owing to this “branding-boom” in India.
keting logic, innovation is the key to survival.
“Branding of states and nurturing and positioning
Brand positioning has been important as every of the brands is here to stay and is more than a
state has hired the best corporate houses to sell passing fad,” says business baron Vijay Mallya
their state to the world as an investor‟s dream. who himself has been an active player in the re-
The state of Gujarat was perhaps the first to hit branding of Karnataka as a state which was more
the ground running as they launched than India‟s silicon valley.
www.supportgujarat .com a website featuring a The stage has been set, the world is now watching
plethora of advertisements and support data ………………………. And the states of India are
highlighting the advantages of investing in Guja- ready to stand up and be “AD”ed
rat.
Sanglap Banerjee is a first year PGDM student in IIM Calcutta,he
Over 60 Accolades and Awards for Gujarat under holds a Btech degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from
Narender Modi from International and National National Institute of Technology Bhopal, and can be reached at
Organizations for Best Investment Environment sanglapb2011@email.iimcal.ac.in
to Best Sanitation, for Innovations in Govern-
Mega Investment Proposed ( Source: IPICOL, Government of Orissa )
Proposed Pro-
Company Location Cost(Rs Million)
ject
Consolidated Electric Power Power Jharsuguda 160000
Larsen & Toubro Ltd Steel Gopalpur 70000
TATA Steel Steel Gopalpur 65000
Ganapati Exports Ltd Steel Duburi 60000
Hindalco Industries Ltd Aluminium Kalahandi 50000
Indian Oil Company Oil Refinery Paradeep 50000
Nippon Oil Company Oil Refinery Paradeep 50000
MESCO Steel Duburi 42690
Oswal Agro Ltd Fertilizer Paradeep 42200
Utkal Alumina Aluminium Rayagada 30000
Ashok Leyland Oil Refinery Haridaspur 24000
Consolidated Electric Power Power Ib Valley 20750
Neeleachal IspatNigam Limited Steel Duburi 15250
Indian Seamless And Alloys Limited Steel Duburi 13770
Orind Steels Ltd Cold Rolled Steel Duburi 11500

THE LOOKING GLASS

 PAGE 44
Does Green Marketing Sell?
When Philips came up with CFL
(Compact Fluorescent Lights)
“Marathon” in 2000, the product was
immediately a hit even though it was
charged at a price of $20 against
$0.75 for regular incandescent
bulbs. While many media reports
accredited the eco-friendliness of this
product (“Green Marketing”) as the
reason behind its success, we believe
that the benefits offered by the prod-
uct in terms of saving power in the
long run, capability of lasting for 5
Dwindling natural resources years and the trust in the brand
and global warming have Phillips were the reasons for its suc-
led many companies to cess. The article attempts to explain
innovate products that are consumer‟s behavior in terms of pref-
eco-friendly. Marketers erence and willingness to pay more
have mixed results about for green products.
the success of such green
products. We referred to
several books, online
articles and research papers
to understand the mistakes
made by marketers and to
understand the consumer’s
attitude towards green
products. We concluded
that eco-friendliness has
varying influence on the
consumer’s preference for
green products. While eco-
friendliness can influence
consumer’s purchase
decision for a low
During our research, we
involvement product, it
won’t be sufficient to found that consumers behave differ-
persuade consumer to buy a ently for the products that require
different levels of involvement. Before
high involvement product.
Understanding consumer we explain this further, we must in-
troduce the term “Green Marketing”.
behavior towards different
categories of green products American Marketing Association de-
can help marketers innovate fines Green Marketing as the mar-
the right products and keting of products that are presumed
develop effective to be environmentally safe. Green
communication strategies. Marketing incorporates a broad
range of activities including product
modification, changes to the produc-
tion process, packaging changes as
well as modifying advertising. Other
terms for green marketing are eco-
logical marketing and environmental
marketing.
Studies in the US (Cramer,
1991) show that over 90% Americans
are concerned about the environ-
THE LOOKING GLASS
mental impact of products they buy.
Of these 50% of the respondents are
willing to pay premium for eco-
friendly goods. Organizations in de-
veloped countries have widely
adopted Green Marketing practices,
while consumer trends show that
developing nations such as India and
Brazil are not far behind. A study by
Jain and Kaur (2004) has shown
that though consumers are not fully
aware of environmental issues, they
are willing to prefer and pay more for
products that are certified to be envi-
ronmentally friendly. So how have
organizations exploited this wave of
environmental concern amongst con-
sumers?
Going Green
Often green strategies are de-
signed not only for environmental
benefits but also for the benefit of
the organization. We believe that
strategies which benefit the environ-
ment as well as the organization may
in fact help the cause, since they
would be more sustainable when
compared to pure philanthropic ini-
tiatives, otherwise termed as Corpo-
rate Social Responsibility (CSR). The
benefits of environmentally friendly
strategies for the organization can be
broadly classified as:
 Increasing profitability by com-
manding a higher price for envi-
ronmentally friendly products
 Differentiating products based on
environmentally-friendly attrib-
utes
 Increasing market share by de-
veloping preference for environ-
ment friendly products through
advertising
 Building corporate brand image
by associating with environment
friendly practices and products
Marketers have had mixed results
while implementing eco-friendly
strategies. While there have been
huge successes such as the Toyota
Prius and Philps CFL, there have
also been innumerable failures that
 PAGE 45

have disappeared into the oblivion. tural and personality variables. The most use-
ful classification in the Indian context was
found to be based on three parameters: con-
Green Marketing Myopia cern for the environment, awareness of envi-
ronmental issues and environmentally-
Many marketers get obsessed to de-
friendly behavior (Jain and Kaur, 2004). The
velop number of product features rather than
key findings of this study show that though
meeting customer needs, the condition
Indians lack sufficient knowledge about envi-
termed as “Marketing Myopia” by Theodere
ronmental issues, there is a generally high
Levitt(1960). Jacquelyn and Edwin(2006)
concern for the environment and most sur-
build on this further to explain “Green Mar-
prisingly, Indian consumers score very high
keting Myopia”. They suggest that Green Mar-
on environmentally friendly behavior, espe-
keting must focus on two objectives: improved
cially with respect to conservation of re-
environmental quality and customer satisfac-
sources (saving water, oil, etc.) and purchase
tion. Misjudging or overemphasizing one at
decisions (buying greener products).
the cost of the other can lead to Green Mar-
keting Myopia. Such myopia can occur when
products fail to provide credible environ-
The most important benefit that indi-
mental benefits. Introduced in 1989, pack-
viduals seek from environmentally responsi-
ages for Mobil's Hefty photodegradable trash
ble behavior is the desire to act in an environ-
bags prominently displayed the term
mentally responsible manner. The attitudes
"degradable" with the explanation that a spe-
that drive this need, resulting in purchase
cial ingredient promoted its decomposition
behavior can be broadly classified as cognitive
into harmless particles in landfills "activated
and emotional. “Environmental conscious-
by exposure to the elements" such as sun and
ness” corresponds to the cognitive dimension
rain. Because most garbage is buried in land-
of environmental attitudes, and
fills, allowing limited exposure to the ele-
“Environmental Concern” refers to the emo-
ments, the claim enraged environmentalists.
tional dispositions as individual indignation
Ultimately, seven state attorneys general sued
about the destruction of nature (Hartmann
Mobil on charges of deceptive advertising and
and Ibanez, 2006). Based on these needs and
consumer fraud, and the company withdrew
segmentation, we analyze how green market-
the product from the market.
ing can be effectively used to influence the
purchase behavior of consumers for different
types of products.
To help marketers maximize the effec-
tiveness of green marketing strategies, we ex-
plain below how consumer behavior theories
Products (and services) can be broadly
can be utilized.
classified as high and low involvement for
Understanding the Consumer Behavior of analyzing the consumer purchase behavior.
Green Marketing Since the purchase behavior is totally differ-
ent for these two types of products, the impli-
Though there are a lot of esoteric mod-
cations of green marketing can be different for
els explaining why or why not does green
these two types of products, which we bring
marketing work for different products and
out in the following sections.
consumers, we found that basic consumer
behavior theories can be easily applied to ex-
plain the effectiveness of green marketing in
High Involvement Products
different scenarios.
Any product that is perceived as ex-
pensive, risky or has emotional value at-
Before getting into theory, a primary tached to it is considered as high involvement
question that arises is how do consumers product. The benefits sought from high in-
benefit from purchasing and using environ- volvement products such as TV, cars, etc. are
mentally-friendly products? Do all people very different from that of low involvement
have the same attitude towards the environ- products such as toothpaste, soap or paper
ment? napkins. While customers may purchase a
eco-friendly low involvement product for the
benefit of environment even if the price is
In the field of green marketing, differ- marginally higher, they will not purchase high
ent studies have classified consumers based involvement green product for it just being
on different demographic, psychographic, cul- eco-friendly. They will weigh attributes such

THE LOOKING GLASS

 PAGE 46

as performance, brand, convenience and price Low Involvement Products

against the competing products. If the con-
Low involvement products are charac-
sumer is required to make tradeoff on any of
terized as not being economically important,
these parameters for environmental benefits,
and involving low risk for the consumer. The
environmental product almost always loses.
purchase decision process for such products
Many products that require customers to
is thus relatively simple as compared to that
make such trade-offs have failed to establish
of high involvement products. In contrast with
themselves in the marketplace.
high involvement products, green marketers
can significantly influence the purchase be-
havior of consumers for low involvement
So now the question is, how to make
products through persuasive advertising of
green marketing startegies be perceived as
environmentally friendly claims regarding
high involvement startegies? – In two ways,
their brand.
first: it helps the companies make favorable
image and second it reduces the post pur-
chase dissonance.
For typical low involvement purchases
like paper and detergents, elaborate evalua-
tion of benefits of product and comparison
As per Fishbein‟s Multiattribute theory
with other products is usually not done. In
(Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980), consumer‟s atti-
the absence of marketing, such products are
tude towards a product is the function of con-
likely to become commodities, with little dif-
sumer‟s belief and the evaluation of the prod-
ferentiation between products. To prevent this
uct attributes. If a consumer has a preference
from happening, billions of ad dollars are
for certain attributes and if the product pro-
spent by FMCG companies like Unilever and
nounces those attributes then there is a high
P&G, so that they can increase the involve-
probability that consumer will purchase that
ment of consumers and create a brand prefer-
product. Thus, consumers having higher pref-
ence for their products. A study by US re-
erence for green products are more likely to
searchers (Schuhwerk and Lefkoff-Hagius,
purchase such products over others. How-
1995) has shown that advertisements with
ever, such customers are less than 2% in
environmental appeals have significantly
number and the mainstream customer won‟t
more impact on consumers who are less in-
buy just by that attribute. But if the product
volved in environmental issues (as in case of
is equal to competing product on all other pa-
India) when compared to advertisements with
rameters then consumer may prefer the green
traditional feature appeals (like financial
product.
benefits). Once a brand preference is created,
it may turn into purchase habits and result in
brand loyalty for green products.
Secondly, high involvement products
have high probability of creating post pur-
chase dissonance. It could be because of it
In practice however, environmental
being expensive than other competing prod-
advertisements have often failed to enthuse
ucts or because it rates closely with other
customers. Again, researchers have dug out a
brands on performance parameters. In such
major cause for such failures to be the lack of
cases, consumers will look for balance in the
veracity of the environmental claims made in
psychological set by seeking supporting infor-
advertisements. Consumers are found to be
mation or by distorting contradictory informa-
extremely sensitive to the credibility of the
tion. As per cognitive dissonance theory,
claims made by green marketers, and can
when a brand does not meet expectations or
quickly get suspicious about vague or am-
when a competing brand is found to offer
biguous statements. Though governments
more benefits, the consumers will discount
have laid out strict laws to prevent marketers
the negative information and rationalize their
from making false claims, brands have to en-
behavior/purchase. The product rated higher
sure that their claims are substantiated and
on eco-friendliness can thus help consumer
phrased clearly to prevent the loss of credibil-
reduce post purchase dissonance when the
ity.
product is found to have defects or is weaker
than competing brands on certain parame- Conclusion
ters.
Based on secondary research, we have
found that marketers have to adapt their
 PAGE 47

green marketing strategies depending on the

nature of the product. For high involvement
products, environmentally friendly attributes
may not be sufficient to persuade customers
to prefer the product or pay a premium for it.
Such products must match or provide addi-
tional value when compared with other prod-
ucts on various parameters such as perform-
ance, brand, convenience and price. In con-
trast, green marketing can offer benefits for
low involvement products. Claims of environ-
mental friendliness of products, if clearly ad-
vertised, can cause a shift in consumer pref-
erences.
Ankit Thakkar is a 2nd year PGP student with marketing
specialization at IIM Lucknow. He holds Bachelor‟s Degree in
Mathematics from St. Xavier‟s College Gujarat and Post Graduate
Degree in Information Technology from SP Jain, Mumbai. He can
be reached at ankit.thakkar@gmail.com.
Nishant V Patel is a 2nd year PGP student with marketing
specialization at IIM Lucknow. He holds Bachelor‟s Degree in
Telecommunications Engineering from Bangalore. He can be reached
at nishant1@gmail.com.

Answers to quiz on Page 41

Top Left: Taare Zameen Par
Top Right: United Colors of Benetton
Bottom Left: PETA
Bottom Right: Fevicol
 PAGE 48
Men’s Cosmetics
„Look at that nest! Seems like she
has never used a shampoo in her
life‟.
„Umm…even I haven‟t‟
„What???‟
Thus went a conversation way back
in 1999 with a female friend of mine.
I had, till then, never ever used
shampoo. Not even Wipro Shikakai
(where did that gem of an idea disap-
pear? I wonder). I guess I had a con-
stant layer of grime on my hair and
any excess was washed away by wa-
ter. Over time, like a bored married
couple, everyone seemed ok with
this arrangement. The grime actually
provided volume to my hair, I discov-
ered this later in the era of the
shampoo. Back in those days, my
idea – well, not mine, my mother‟s
actually- of moisturizer was sarson
ka tel (most probably Dhara or Post-
man). In winters, I had to, under the
strict commands of mommy dearest;
apply mustard oil all over before tak-
ing a bath. It was a matter of little
concern that my vests soon turned
yellow and I went to school vaguely
smelling of the same blasted oil. I
had just started shaving secretly us-
ing Dad‟s Philishave – or so I
thought. It didn‟t occur to me that
my parents had observed the ab-
sence of my facial fur. Soon after,
Dad bought me my first razor, brush
THE LOOKING GLASS
and Nivea shaving cream. That
Nivea shaving cream was my first
personal cosmetic tube.
(Reproducing Chapter 5 of my
autobiography?) Today, I have a
dedicated table in my hostel room
for cosmetics. I pretty much have a
full range – right from Himalaya‟s
Neem Face Wash to Lakme‟s sun
protection lotion. I have migrated
from water to Head & Shoulders
shampoo with cool menthol and I
use a Garnier Fructis cream condi-
tioner afterwards. It‟s no secret that
many men today spend almost as
much as women on cosmetics. And
it‟s not because we are suddenly
getting in touch with our feminine
side, but we just want to look good
and smell good. And if any woman
or man wants to taunt our breed, I
request that person to take a ride
in a crowded Mumbai suburban
train in the summer at peak time.
It is our deodorated and eau-de-
toiletted arm pits your noses will
search out amongst all the bacteria
laden smelly arm pits which would
surround you.
But do men relate to cosmetics in
the same way as women do? Indus-
try insiders don‟t think so. Accord-
ing to Noella Gabriel, director of
product and treatment develop-
ment at the Elemis spa, “Men are a
hard market, but once you've got
 PAGE 49
them through the door, they are very loyal.
Far more loyal than women.” So much for
men being unfaithful. Though the Fair &
Handsome ad evoked more than its fair share
of snide remarks and jokes, it seems that
Emami had done their homework. A study
conducted by Emami Industries in the early
2000s showed that 29% of the users of fair-
ness creams were men! I wonder how those
29% men managed to buy Fair & Lovely.
Probably they took as much courage as buy-
ing that, than any other only-for-men latex
products. Companies nowadays have gone
beyond mere re-branding of their products. As
it turns out, we have different skin than
women. Hence, new products exclusively for
men are hitting the shelves.
In fact, biggies like Nivea, L‟Oreal and Dabur
are all expanding their businesses in the
men‟s cosmetics segment. Nivea is focusing
on its „Nivea for men‟ and L‟Oreal has the
„Powerlight‟ range of cosmetics to pamper
men.
The fact that L‟Oreal used John Abraham,
who no one in their right mind would term
feminine, shows the transformation which
has taken place in the market. HUL‟s Fair &
Lovely, launched in 1975 and initially tar-
geted at women, also came up with Fair &
Lovely Menz Activ. And why not? The Indian
male grooming segment is valued at Rs 750
crore and growing at a pace of 20%, faster
than the global cosmetics market which is
hopping along at 18%. Shahrukh sure knew
what he was getting into when..well..when he
got into that bath tub in the Lux ad.
Men have come of age. And know which
creams to buy to beat it as well. We might
stand confused in the cosmetics segment of
malls trying to decide which cream to buy.
But the fact that we are standing there, ac-
tively deciding for ourselves and not pretend-
ing that the moisturizer is for our better
halves is a sign of the changing times. But
why did we decide to take all that pain in the
first place? Well, I believe Garnier said it best
– „Because I am worth it.‟
Ayan Ghosh is a 2nd year student at IIM Lucknow. He holds a
Bachelors Degree from National Institute of Technology, Surat and
can be reached at pgp24125@iiml.ac.in