Dabbling with structures and dribbling with a Congress victory

A random thought came to my mind while revisiting incidents of the past. Often, as history has shown, external factors influence the branding and positioning as they happen and it can work in favor or against you. Consider Singh is King! The film.  As far as we know till today, the film is a declared hit. A great film campaign aimed at the Sikh community. It began about two months before the film was to be launched. Then Dr Singh won the confidence vote. A brilliant opposition, interjection with the display of tightwads of money whose origins are still to be proved. Imagine how the film got a new wave of marketing when all channels were shouting, how Singh is King, with a positive vibe about the entire episode. It must have helped the film reinforce itself, even though it was not at all connected. Who won’t want to have the amount of media attention and constant rambling? Call it a product placement where a film and its title became cult even before its launch. And have a look of what all the film branding got into! http://www.afaqs.com/perl/media/media_newslets/index.html?id=36988

 

 

Coming back to the proceedings of this session, by far this was a very academic one. One thing which I thought I would not like to do in an IMC class is get bogged down by theory. Though RM does a great job, somehow IMC in the Indian context is keeping theory aside and inventing and improvising keeping in mind the Indian Consumer. Yet we must got through some theoretical concepts. Here are some!

 

The types of campaigns

 

Continuous campaign— Olympics which occur every four years. Amul if you can think of! Titan to a large extent

 

Fleeting campaign( My dictionary says there’s no word as flighting)— Pepsi blue, Amul Corporate one- The taste of India, Ultratech – change of name…, Century of Trust, Kiosks typically uses single media. I am very confused between a standalone and a fleeting though we all know it should not matter much when we get down to designing one.

Standalone campaign— Uses Multiple Media

Pulsing campaign: Message pulse is decided by the marketer-that is the frequency of the ad is decided by the marketer in advance. E.g. display outside malls: Hafte ka sabse sasta din

Focused campaign: Where the message is spread across multiple mediums, a similar message is promoted for a prolonged period. The older Maharaja campaign can be considered to be a focused campaign.

Brand Classification according to the Profit-Premium 

Profitability on Y axis, Premium on X axis

Media                                                          

 

If you ask me this is turning out to be the biggest and the most crucial factor in most campaigns. Innovative media and their growing acceptance or disfavor among the audiences is becoming the biggest impediment for a brand manager.

 

The current media available to us are

 

Conventional

 

1.      Hoardings

• LCD Screens
• Bus, Trade, lamppost
• Behind Railway Tickets
• Sampling/ Triadvertising
• In-Store Advertising
• Merchandising
• Discount Coupons

 

 

2.      MICE(Meetings/Incwentives/Conferences/ Meetings)

3.      Television

o   Target market based with the GEC(General Entertainment and Special Interest Channels)

o   Property development is a niche area with specific content developed keeping in mind

 

4.      Radio

o   More a local medium

o   Retention based advertising

 

 

5.      Print

a.      Lifestyle Press

b.      Public Relations

c.       Pamphlets

d.      Advertorials

e.      Pullouts

 

Unconventional Media

 

6.      Web and

a.      Social Networking Groups

b.      Search Engine Optimized

c.       Blogs

d.      Video Upload Sites

 

7.      Mobile

a.      MBlogs

b.      SMS

c.       Blue Casting

 

 

Why this list. For the Media Planner’s work and in the context of the Incredible India-II campaign which we are planning to do, it would form the basis of any campaign. We did a workshop after this on non-Traditional Methods of Branding. We were asked to present on some of the branding techniques. I chose an interesting Economist and Absolut Campaign. The limitation of choosing certain media was overcome in these campaigns. The Economist Campaign used the rooftop of the public bus to communicate to its target audience- Those who occupy the higher echelons of the companies sitting on the top floors of skyscrapers. Absolut has used a unique product form as the central theme in communicating the fact, whatever the activity in life Absolut goes well with it.