The 4 E's of Digital Marketing

While going through a power point presentation, I came across a very interesting perspective on Digital Marketing. By virtue of being a two-way medium and the advent of Web 2.0, the way we approach traditional marketing doesn't find place in the realm of digital consumer engagement process. It is important to see Philip Kotler's 4P's of marketing through the digital lens and see whether they pass through the digital filter.

The 4P's need to be replaced by 4E's in the basic digital marketing framework.

Product vs Experience: Unfortunately, digital is often used as a lead generating medium without any focus on brand building. Digital, if used judiciously, can be used to create an unforgettable brand experience that entices and encourages the consumers to not just consume the product but develop a long lasting relationship with the brand. A delightful brand experience can convince a consumer about the role of the brand in its life.

Price vs Exchange: The internet works on the basic principles of 'community living'. You share, I share. Its similar to the age-old barter system. You can't put a price to the content. Its available abundantly. More you share, more you would move up in the social hierarchy in the digital space.

Place vs Everywhere: Once your content/communication is out, it's everywhere. You don't select the touchpoints, the commmunity does it for you.

Promotion vs Evangalism: That's a dream of every marketing professional. You don't promote a brand on the digital space, you search for the brand champions.

ZooZoo-ism is the new religion

Finally, I have decided to write about the latest sensation of the advertising world - ZooZoos (not sure about the origin of the name but I quite like it). The day I saw the first ad (click here to see all the ZooZoo ads), the planner inside me got curious to know the creative brief that the planner on the account must have given to the creative team. Whatever the brief might me, its creative manifestation has ensured that Vodafone continues to enjoy the consumers' affinity in the 'post-pug' era (click here to see the ad). ZooZoomania has taken over the imagination of the people. After a long time, I saw people waiting for an ad to come on TV .

As they say, if advertising is the religion, ZooZoo's are the God :)

Thankfully, O&M, the creators of ZooZoo, extended the thought beyond the mass media and built communities and fan groups (click here) on the social networking sites. The official fan page of ZooZoo on Facebook has more than 3lac fans. (Shahrukh Khan's fan page has around 2.5 lac fans. Click here).

The challenge, however, is to carry forward this euphoria and ride on it as far as possible. Few top of mind options-

- Advertising is nothing but creative storytelling: ZooZoo's became popular because everytime they appeared on television, they had something fresh to tell. People waited for those new 'stories'. Use digital media to tell new and innovative stories about ZooZoo's, by the ZooZoo's. Nothing stops Vodafone to tell interesting ZooZoo stories in 140 characters. That could in fact, attract people to create their own ZooZoo stories. Did I just hear ZooZoo comic?

- Offer what consumers want: People love those 'irrational noises' - the ZooZoo talk. Is there a possibility to do something around that? Can we take it on to the mobile platform? How about ZooZoo based VAS offerings?

- Come out of the television, get in to their homes (and hearts): Indian answer to the 'firang' Barbie. Believe me, its gonna be a hit.

All said and done, one thing needs to be taken care of in the long term. Hutch (and Vodafone) streched the whole 'pug' story too far. From 'pug-o-mania', it went on to become 'pug-o-phobia'. Avoid that in this case.

Waiting to see more stuff on ZooZoo. Hope the entertainment continues.

Brand Busting in One minute

Brands cannot be created overnight. It takes years to convince the consumer about the role of the brand in its life. A single-minded focus is what is required to build a brand. A brand needs to identify an emotional truth about the consumer that it can associate itself with. This emotional truth or emotionale helps the brand to connect with its target consumer. If the consumer experiences that connect then the journey towards advocacy begins and ultimately that consumer becomes the brand champion.

However, if the brand doesn't do justice with its loyal consumers in terms of their expectations then the consumers never forgive the brand.

Recently, I had a very disappointing experience at McDonald's. I went to McDonald's Mumbai Central outlet (station premise) and ordered potato wedges. That day McDonald's was running a promotional scheme under which they promised that if they failed to deliver the order in one minute, they would give away a coke free. Great!

But to my disappointment, just to ensure that they don't cross the one-minute benchmark under any circumstances, they were serving cold, stale stuff which was already kept ready.

My reaction - A big thumbs down!

How can they serve someone cold potato wedges/french fries?

- Never forget the fundamentals: Quick service is not the necessity but quality food is. McDonalds can offer a quick service but not at the cost of the quality. Consumers go to McDonalds to have a quick bite, not to have food that is prepared in 'quick time'. Quick service is just an add-on.

- Don't chew more than what you can: Dont make promises if you are not equipped to fulfill them. Either you install more equipments or get more employees to keep your words. If you can't, then don't make unrealistic promises.

- Understand your consumer: Understand what's important to your consumer. Any promotion or offering should be properly analysed and then only be implemented. It doesnt make any difference to consumers' life if it gets its order delivered in one minute or one and half minute.

It takes years to build a brand but just a minute to bust it.

Me-too Blogs!

Having watched a lot of me-too ads, me-too brands and me-too products over the years, I wasn't surprised when I saw a 'me-too' blog. Following the stupendous success of the Fake IPL player's blog (click here to see), another blog called 't20worldcupmole.blogspot.com' (click here to see) has come into the limelight. The author claims to be a part of one of the teams participating in the T20 World Cup.

My initial reaction - hmmm...let's wait and watch.

The initial response to the blog is nowhere comparable to the FIP blog. This blog only has 2 followers and hardly around 100 comments. But passing any judgement at this point of time about the popularity/following of this blog would be too premature. Once the World Cup begins, then only we would get a clear picture.

Few random thoughts on 'Me-too' stuff -

- 'Differentiate or Die' Or 'Diferentiate & Die': Its all about cracking that 'insight' basis which a branding idea is developed. The insight/branding idea for two different brands may be silmilar, the execution needs to be different and obviously better (Sorry, Mr. Jack Trout). Differentiating your brand just because your competitors' have already postioned themselves in a certain way is definitely debatable. Two different brands can own the same idea and still execute them in a completely different way. Two brands can still survive without infringing into each other's territory.

- Trust your consumer : You don't need to get defensive in case their are any similarities between the two ideas. Recently, Ad-pundits have pointed out lot of similarities between the latest Loop mobile campaign and the Vodafone (then Hutch) campaign. So What?? How does it make a difference. Leave it to the consumers to decide. If the consumers find a better emotional connect in the recent campaign compare to the earlier one, they will accept it otherwise it would be forgotten just like most of the other campaigns.

Take it lightly!

A very simple yet effective WEBSITE created by Ogilvyone India for the brand Cadbury's Perk. Click here to see.

P.S: Don't miss the loader

World's smallest 'learn-by-earning' University

Yes..you read it write. Sumit Roy (my Account Planning teacher at MICA) runs world's smallest learn-by-earning university called Univbrands. Check out his website here. Read an article on 'Aha' trees - A tool devised by Sumit for doing brand research and generate consumer insights. Click here to read the article.

Digital News Lifecycle

Read an interesting post about the Digital news lifecycle. It talks about how breaking of the 'breaking news' on the social media platforms is no longer a news. In fact, these days, if a news appears in mass media before it is twittered, then definitely its a matter of surprise.

Few excerpts:

The Digital News Lifecycle -

1. Twitter Alert: A bystander (accidental citizen journalist) will break the story via Twitter.

2. Blog Post: News organizations and bloggers will pick up the story and write a quick blog post about it, often with a link to the tweet or the photo.

3. Article/ Package: News organizations will convert the story into a 300 word newspaper article or a 3 minute TV story.

4. Context: Bloggers, news organizations and Wikipedia contributors will quickly start compiling background material on the story.

5. Analysis: Bloggers and news organizations will offer in-depth analysis on the story, and news organizations will often interview the bloggers who have broken the story or provided the most context on it, as part of their analysis.

6. Conversation: The conversation will continue in the comments sections of blogs and news websites, on Twitter and on social networking, social voting, and social bookmarking websites.

7. Customization: The entire story, across multiple formats and sources, will be available as an archive that can be searched by tags, accessed in various formats, including RSS feeds, and recombined to provide context for future stories.

As the news story will move through its lifecycle, both the depth of the story and its reach will increase, hit the peak in the context or analysis stage, and then decrease thereafter, as the interest in the story decreases. The story will move from alert to analysis in an hour, a day, or a week, depending on the nature of the news. The conversation and customization stages will in the domain of the long tail and go on almost indefinitely, driven by search.

Click here to read the entire post.