Be a Digital-Celebrity!

As the url of this blog - 'Are you a brand' suggests - it's all about creating a niche for yourself, whether in the real world or the digital world. Creating a brand out of oneself is a long term proposition which requires a carefully thought out plan and its meticulous implementation. A Digital Celebrity in the virtual space is same as a brand in the real world.

How to be a Digital Celebrity or How to create Brand 'You'?

Owning your share of real estate in the virtual world is the first step towards achieving the stardom. Be there on Orkut, Facebook, Twitter and what-have-you and let people know about your presence. The logic is simple - Be visible. These destinations help you create your own circle of influence, which might create the ripple effect, if used judiciously.

In the Digital space, everything is public, be sure what content you are putting up on various social media platforms. Every picture that you upload on flickr or every video that you share on Youtube tells a million things about you. Be careful!

Engage yourself with various communities. Be active and contribute constructively. Let people get exposed to your way of thinking.

As the rule says - Low risk, Low return - High risk, High return. Do not hesitate in voicing your opinion in public forums and on socially (or otherwise) relevant issues.

Last but not least, own a domain name (www.yourname.com), if possible.

When Social Media turned pink...

A lot has been written/talked about the 'Pink Chaddi Campaign' which was launched in India by a group of youngsters against the anti-valentines day forces. The campaign got tremendous support and momentum primarily because of the reach of various social media platforms. Such was the impact of the information disseminated through various social media avenues that a large number of people actually sent 'Pink Chaddis' to the Sree Ram Sena office, thereby helping the objective of the campaign.

I have put together some info about how social media amplified the impact of the campaign and made it hugely successful. Enjoy

The Earned Media

You don't need to be an advertising expert to deliver result worth Rs.10 after spending the same amount. The challenge is to earn that extra bit which adds to the final effectiveness equation. The clients' money can be used either to buy media or create 'owned' media. However, an effective advertising campaign generates 'Earned Media' or in simplistic terms 'Word-of-mouth' which differs it from other vanilla campaigns.

Putting it mathematically,

Earned Media = K x (Bought Media + Owned Media)

However, it is necessary to keep in mind that this word of mouth or Earned Media doesn't come for free. The initial push required to create that talk value needs money to be spent judiciously. The best example of Earned Media that I have ever seen is the all time bollywood classic 'Sholay'. The movie made using a lavish budget of Rs.2crore (in 1975) was trashed by the critics as soon as it hit the theaters. In fact, it was labeled as 'Choley'. What led to this movie becoming one of the all-time grosser was a strong word-of-mouth. Thirty Three years down, Sholay has already earned more than Rs.400crore (adjusted to inflation).

The foundation of any advertising campaign is a media neutral branding idea which cuts across any given medium. A good branding idea generates a good amount of word-of-mouth. In fact, this could be used as a yard stick to gauge the effectiveness of the branding idea. However, quantifying word-of-mouth is still a long shot.

Consumer is still the king!

For all the advertising, brand promises and marketing budgets, if the marketers don't get their fundamentals right, their beloved brands are bound to get screwed in the long run. What marketers fail to understand is that just by spending zillions of dollars on advertising won't get them near to their targets. All the marketing efforts go in vain if the end consumer is not satisfied.

Few days back, I saw Aegon Religare Pension Plan's latest TV commercial. For all the clutter and undifferentiated offerings in the category, the brand actually took a very fresh and innovative approach. I immediately SMSed the customer care to get in touch with me, so impactful was the communication. Fifteen days down, nobody called me. The bubble got burst and I decided not to engage with the brand anymore.

A marketers' interaction with the consumer can be divided into three stages: Pre-Sale, Sale, Post-Sale. Unfortunately, the entire marketing thrust is on Pre-Sale and Sale and the Post -sale period is completely or partially ignored. Probably, the concept of Customer Lifetime value is not an exciting proposition for them. Just a lil bit of 'Hi-Hello' with the consumer after receiving the cheque from him could go a long way. After all, the cost of acquiring a new customer is much higher than the cost of a new customer acquired through referral by an existing customer.

Advertising Pfaff

A planner's point of view on advertising....

Freakout Virgins :)

Just saw this new Burger king campaign - Whoppervirgins (www.whoppervirgins.com) ...Simply mindblowing. Before this, Burger King had done another viral campaign- Whopperfreakouts (www.whopperfreakout.com) which was a huge hit within few days of its launch. Have a look.

Enjoy!

Adultdost vs Gajodhar

In this post, I have tried to analyse two virals that I came across this month. TataSky, in order to promote its Active Darshan pack, launched a viral microsite called as http://www.adultdost.com/.

Interesting...isn't it!! The reason why I found this interesting was due to two reasons:
1) For a company as traditional and conservative as Tata, associating itself with something which suggests a pornographic gateway was a bit (in fact a lot) risky.
2) Promoting the Active darshan pack by making use of a completely contrasting way from a content of view.

The moment I saw this viral, I immediately showed it to my colleagues and they passed it on further. Such impactful was the viral. Suddenly, the marketer inside me began to analyse the numbers involved with the viral. The making of the viral including the development and creative would have cost 20k at max. From the ROI perspective, I would rate this viral as one of the best that I have seen in recent times. Brilliant!

Another viral that I saw was Gajodhar (to promote http://www.oktatabyebye.com/) which was nothing but a spoof on Aamir Khan starrer 'Ghajini'. To be honest, the first few frames put me off completely and the reason - Webchutney. The moment I got to know that this was a Webchutney creation, I told to myself, 'Not again' :(

However, I continued watching the viral till I realized that I had once again wasted my precious 5 minutes on a stupid Webchutney viral.

There are tons of reasons for not liking this viral:
1) I have seen similar brainless, stupid virals before
2) Taking advantage of opportunity is fine but creative banckruptcy is not
3) I didn't bother to viral it!!!

Creating a viral just for the heck of it I believe is nothing but fooling around with clients money. Virals from a marketers point of view give a better ROI, however, in the long run, brand can't be sacrificed for ROI.