Economy of Social - Social Media Tips, Marketing and Business

Twitter has launched its TV ad campaign promoting moments, which was launched earlier this month. Since Jack Dorsey has been handed over the reins at Twitter, a lot new has happened. Twitter finally seems to have a sound  product roadmap . One of the biggest challenges being faced by Twitter right now is its sluggish user growth as compared to Facebook (apart from the lack of a steady revenue stream). This campaign should hopefully help set things up and speed up the growth of Twitter.

Volkswagen, Europe's largest car-maker is facing its biggest crisis in its 78-year history. On 22nd Sept, 2015 it said that as around 11 million diesel cars across the world were equipped with an engine type that could skew emissions data. While this highlights a dangerous unethical management culture, it's perhaps the biggest threat to the iconic brand.

I've heard a few marketeers say, "These ads are meant for TV and thus won't work for digital" . Fact - An ad that won't work well on digital will also not work well on TV. People have rejected it. TV Advertising is a very challenging space. You have an extremely limited amount of very costly time to engage with your consumer and communicate your message. If the consumer does not like your ad on TV, she's going to skip the same ad/content on social media as well. The vice-versa is also true. If she likes your ad on social media, she's definitely going to give your ad on TV a second look.

Sachin Tendulkar's retirement was a very emotional moment. But, Sachin Tendulkar's retirement have made quite a few fans looking for a new job.

I just saw an advertisement stating "Create a Facebook Profile. Signup for free today!" I read a huge interview of Mark Zuckerberg in the  newspaper today  (his first interaction with an Indian publication). An excerpt in his interview quoted him as saying " With 82 million monthly active Facebook users in India and a comparatively small Internet subscriber base, we have a long road ahead. "

Hindustan Unilevel, India's largest consumer products firm, along with Ogilvy, has partnered with more than 100 dhabas and hotels at the Kumbh mela site to serve rotis that are stamped with "Lifebuoy se haath dhoye kya?"   Economic Times reports that the company has made special heat stamps to make an impression of its message on rotis and hired 100 promoters to stand in 100 kitchens across the mela. The campaign started on February 1 and will run for 30 days. The company hopes to put the hand wash reminder on 2.5 million rotis.

There is no dearth of pretentious people in this world. You don't need to search for one. But then there are friends, enemies and folks who aren't pretentious. They are simply genuine. They wouldn't wait for a second to say "The don't like your dress", if they don't like it.  In the same way market places can be divided into the pretentious and the genuine customers.  Now let me come to the point of advertising. For a decade there has been a debate on the question of effectiveness of advertising. The trends lean toward sales promotion. In my opinion there has been only problem - Marketers haven't tried to understand the situation. As John Romano has famously said, “ The smaller the understanding of the situation, the more pretentious the form of expression. ” Pretentious expression won't appeal to the genuine customer. Advertising won't yield results let alone "measurable results".

Well print advertising in developed world is dead. To put it simply People aren't really buying it.The following graph will show you just that. If you carefully look at the graph, it took about five decades to go from about $20 billion in annual ad revenue to $63.5 billion in 2000, and then only about one decade to go back to approximately $20 billion. Did they innovate? They invested in websites and apps. Print ad may be near its silent grave in the developed world but it is still going strong in developing nations with low internet penetration. This is a lesson for emerging economies where internet penetration is still low. How to avoid the cliff edge? 

Marketers and advertisers who've respected and admired David Ogilvy and tried to get into social media marketing especially through Facebook pages should know one thing upfront - Till now their success in getting a million plus fans on their Facebook pages has not worked out as planned. It has been like a failed series of dates. To begin the explanation I'd like to pull a quote from the famous book, " Confessions of an Advertising Man " " The consumer is not a moron. She is your wife. Don't insult her intelligence" We have a habit of following numbers to give us an indicator of our performance. The number of likes on Facebook gave marketers the perfect fodder. They acted like unintelligible creatures that simply grazed on the green pastures of social media to get those "likes". I might sound critical or even cynical of these creatures (including being a part of the tribe) but I have my reasons. Let's understand the dynamics of Facebo...

The new Cadbury Bournville advertisement features a white man checking cocoa seeds in front of a African family that supposedly produced it. On rejection the seed starts crying. And well his imperialist buyer (The English guy) says, " He is nothing...Please tell him I am sorry ". An old African man in the family looks perplexed, and a young man in the African family simply throws the seed away from the table. The ad ends with " Only the best Cocoa from Ghana goes into making a Bournville ... Maybe that's why you have to earn it... ". This British mumbo-jumbo is a reflection into past era of imperialism that was characterized by economic dominance and exploitation. The economy of Ghana is primarily sustained by Cocoa and gold. By projecting "English dominance" and an advertisement that portrays a rich English middle aged person, a crying cocoa seed, and a poor African family, What are you trying to project? It's a complete recipe for disaster...

People who stay in the news everyday, ads that repeat over and over again on TV, radio etc. can annoy. Although budgetary constraints restrict excess advertising, had there been little constraint brand managers would have gone bonkers while launching a new product. Although it has been accepted in consumer behavior that advertising helps in building brand equity and promotional schemes dilute it, excess of advertising can also dilute the brand through annoyance. To see this annoying effect yourself, check out this ad of head on.  

Jonathan has made a point on Old Spice Social Media campaign . he says, The Old Spice campaign is the latest variation on this very old idea, with some important caveats. It isn't classified as commercial, but rather social, so there's no message at the end like "Shoot the brute some Old Spice." It riffs on its own prior creative content, so it's not really about the brand as much as about the brand's branding and giving entertainment to in-the-know viewers. So I'm sorry, what's the point again? I understand why the campaign is perfectly suited to social-technology platforms, but TV or print ads were matched to the requirements of those media, too, without giving up their purpose. The argument that social campaigns have no point other than being social is more an excuse than a strategy, since consuming and commenting on content is nothing new (only the clickable tools are). You can add up all the time consumers spend chuckling at the videos and st...

Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art.  ~ William Bernbach. Mobile Advertising industry globally is a billion dollar industry with operators, application developers, media agencies trying to milk the cow of high penetration and reach of mobile phones. But to all the mind and money behind this medium for persuasion lies a critical flaw. The assumption that mobile phone advertisements can persuade. This assumption is not entirely a fallacy but in its current mode of implementation most mobile phone advertisements are ineffective and inefficient.

2007: Advertising on digital media grew by 155% to $1.2 billion but consumer interest in these sites dipped by 14%.  2008: Google's $1.65 bn purchase of YouTube wasn't giving returns. I possibly have an explanation

Now big companies are putting all muscle behind social media and P&G is leading the race.P&G used to promote soaps and detergents to day time television viewers using Soap Operas, the day time television that had kept users engaged for over 70 years. Moreover, P&G also produced soap operas. Arguably Procter and Gamble is the world's most sophisticated brand marketing company with net annual sales in its 2010 fiscal year close to $80 billion. But why is this behemoth turning towards Social Media ? Matt Prichard, the Marketing Chief at P&G says Digital media has “become very integrated with how we operate, it’s become part of the way we do marketing,”  “It’s kind of the oldest form of marketing — word of mouth — with the newest form of technology.” But P&G did have its doubts about Social Media. Barry says that it took a while for P&G to admit and embrace social media. But, once they were on board with Facebook, they realized its huge potential. They also ...

This day had haunted Peter for a long time. It was like he was gearing up for the final battle against Achilles. Christmas was 2 days away and the thought of this battle ruining Christmas made Peter very scared. He was finally visiting the dentist.

Is advertising clubbed with a philanthropic tone justified ? It has been proven that a consumer responds better to a philanthropic advertisement as compared to a direct sales pitch. But isn't it somewhere misguiding the consumer ?Ultimately a company wants a sale, so it dresses as a sage and comes to you with its product. Its like Baba Ramdev endorsing a pharma company. Although I have my doubts in the Baba himself. Sadly this form of communication is being endorsed by Adage. Peter Daboll is CEO of Ace Metrix wrote in AdAge  Philanthropic ads for major brands continue to show strong advertising value. Consumers respond better to a message about what companies are doing for them, instead of a straight sales pitch. 

Bad advertising ain't that bad actually. Advertising is about building a positive attitude towards your brand. Bad ads did affect in the a bygone era [Remember Burger King ad - " Where's the Herb ? "  (1986)]. Now the scene is quite different. Even if you spend millions on an advertising campaign you'd still find people saying, "Do you really have an ad on TV". Thats clutter.

How often do we read a complete newspaper article ? How often are we attentive 100% of the time in a class ? How often do we give our 100% to a subject ? If the prof manages to seduce us he'd have our 100%. If the subject does the same it would have our 100%. And so if for an unattractive yellow paged newspaper article. There a two elements of seduction. First being the first look. If at the first glance a car does not manage to seduce me, its highly unlikely that through repeated persuasion, the car company will have me buy it. Although in high probability my neighbor might just buy it. Now my neighbor was probably seduced and I was not. Still we have those generic ad campaigns by car companies trying to please us all. I may be pleased, not seduced. Now that takes me to the second element: Cooperation. [ Original idea by Seth Godin] I may be pleased but the success of seduction depends on cooperation. How well do I cooperate? The reason behind Facebook or twitter's...