NUS MBA Marketing Club

Marketing and Technology Converge Yet Again with Google Goggles

2010-11-17T09:44:00.000-08:00

Google does it again! The internet and computer software giant has long been regarded as a brilliant innovator in online advertising technology, starting with its AdWords and AdSense programs, and it shows us once again why they are hard to beat: they have recently launched a new marketing experiment with a year-old application called Google Goggles which shows definite promise.

What is Google Goggles? For those who haven't heard about it yet, it is a mobile application which allows users to search online for information regarding practically anything under the sun by taking a picture. Think about it - how often do you jot down a particular product, brand, restaurant name, etc as an SMS or note in your mobile phone for future information search once you get home and have access to the internet? How many times have you taken a picture of an interesting print ad or outdoor sign, with the intent of looking it up online later on? I'll be the first to admit that I've done it countless times and I'm sure all of you are guilty of the same thing. Google has managed to recognize this trend and has sought to provide a better solution: real-time information search as and when you see something and take a picture! Bloody brilliant, isn't it?

With the Google Goggles marketing experiment, Google has extended the Goggles' functionality for branded marketing initiatives. All an advertiser has to do is to "Goggles-enable" their offline images (e.g., print ads, movie posters). When users take pictures of these Goggles-enabled images, the application recognizes them and directs the users to predetermined mobile site destinations. To date, they have conducted the marketing experiment with five leading companies: T-Mobile, Disney, Diageo, Buick and Delta Airlines.

Now this is what I call a perfect convergence of marketing and technology!

Note: More information on the Google Goggles marketing experiment may be found on the Official Google Blog.

Photo Credit: smarterware.org

Marketing students learn more about the tech sector

2010-11-10T06:52:00.000-08:00

by Aparna Aggarwal

Last 28 October, we attended a social mixer session at Harry’s Bar organized by the NUS MBA Marketing Club. The session was with Guy Charusadhirakul who is the senior manager at eBay for Marketplace Development. I hadn’t been to a social mixer at NUS before, but I can definitely say that it surpassed my expectations. I came out learning a lot from the session and it was also a good chance to network with an industry professional and seniors.

During the session, Guy openly shared his work experience at eBay as well as the opportunities that he benefited most from while at business school. He talked about his interest in the technology sector and how he was able to realize his passion by taking up an internship in the same industry during b-school. He encouraged us to get involved in consulting projects with companies through the management practicum, especially for career-switchers.

Although Guy worked as a General Manager, he is currently in-charge of the cross-borders business at eBay. One of the challenges faced by a business such as eBay is that sellers are not very prompt about shipping out orders and hence lose customers. In addition, package tracking and delivery are perennial challenges. Moreover, international currency rates are constantly changing, hence it's become increasingly difficult for a buyer who is, for example, based in China to purchase from a seller based overseas (e.g., in America) using the online marketplace. Besides, many buyers are not even aware that e-Bay offers access to direct small business sellers and not only casual sellers. One of the advantages of selling through eBay for a small business is that it saves the initial setup costs.

Overall we had a good interaction with Guy and the seniors; all with good food and great wine!

Robin Speculand Talks to NUS about Strategy Implementation

2010-10-12T09:32:00.000-07:00

by Vanessa De Bruijn

At August 26th Robin Speculand paid NUS a visit to talk about the role of leadership in strategy implementation. Not only was I curious about the event because it was (co)organized by the Marketing Club, but due to my own experience in undergoing some project implementations in my previous job, I wanted to know what an expert would say regarding this subject.

Robin Speculand turned out to be a very enthusiastic speaker, which was very welcome after a long day of classes! His presentation was highly interactive, and full of practical examples and tips.

He spoke about the successes and failures of campaigns previously run and how they could have been improved or prevented (e.g., the introduction of the new terminal at London Heathrow, which was unfortunately remembered for being a big fiasco!).

He explained his principles by using a compass to guide a company through the process of implementation by using the elements of: People, Biz Case, Communicate, Measure, Culture, Process, Reinforce and Review. He emphasized the importance of detail at the review part, since it is usually ‘squeezed’ in at the end of the process, or even left out completely.

When leadership kicks in, Speculand mentions the following as key take-aways:

It’s not rocket science. It’s common sense, but just because it’s common sense doesn’t mean it’s common practice.

Leaders have been living the strategy; staff members are hearing it for the first time.

Leaders are responsible for translating the strategy into specific actions.

So, make sure the leaders in the organization translate the new process down to their managers and they translate it down to their people. The most important part is that the entire company is “breathing” the new strategy.

He elaborated on how NOT to implement and gave tips on how to try to make strategy implementation work. All in all it was one big déjà vu. I will be sure to drop my previous manager an e-mail with a copy of Robin’s slides…

Marketing Club Welcome Tea: Connect with the Industry!

2010-09-27T22:03:00.000-07:00

by Narmin Tartila

The much awaited Marketing Club Welcome Tea was finally held on 1 September 2010, at the very home of the NUS Business cohort, Mochtar Riady Building. What could be better, the event was teamed with an internship sharing session! MBA students who had landed internships at coveted companies were invited to speak and interact with the new batch of MBA Club Members.

Much to the delight of the participants, the interns represented mainstream corporates as well as start-up companies. Lokesh Malik from Dell and Melody Lee from Johnson & Johnson spoke at length regarding their first hand experiences in the corporate world of Singapore. Luke Donnelly, who started his career at a start up venture named iTwin, opened the possibilities of experiencing work life in a different field. Moreover, there was ample opportunity for the newly recruited Marketing Club members to mingle with the interns and gain tips of the trade!

Events such as this provide a platform for members to mingle with each other to share events, stories and experiences pertaining to their common passion – Marketing! Moreover, they also get an opportunity to rub shoulders with seniors in the job field and thereby cement the bond between the Club Members and the Marketing community.

Execution Leadership: The Role of Leadership in Strategy Implementation

2010-08-24T00:33:00.000-07:00

The NUS MBA Marketing Club and NUS MBA Consulting Club jointly present Execution Leadership: The Role of Leadership in Strategy Implementation, a talk by Robin Speculand on 26 August 2010 (Thursday) at 6pm. The event will be held at Seminar Room 3-5 of BIZ1, Mochtar Riady Building, 15 Kent Ridge Drive at the National University of Singapore, Kent Ridge Campus.

Interested participants may register here.

Branding as Recipe for Future Success of Asian Businesses

2010-04-07T23:27:00.000-07:00

by Markus (exchange student from Spain)

On Monday (05 April), the NUS MBA Marketing Club welcomed Martin Roll, a business and brand strategist, for a presentation about "Business & Brand Leadership" in their beautiful, new Mochtar Riady Building. Martin (INSEAD MBA alumnus) is a thought-leader on value creation through brand equity and the author of the book Asian Brand Strategy which was named "Best Business Books 2006” by Strategy+Business magazine.

In an inspiring and interactive session, Martin started his talk by asking the participants to name leading Asian brands. After several minutes of discussion, the about 45 strong group of full-time MBA students, faculty members and guests from the corporate world agreed that there are only a few leading global Asian brands - if we exclude Japanese brands as well as some brands from South Korea such as Samsung and LG.

Importantly, the most profitable Asian companies focus on intangibles such as human capital, exploiting network effects and creating synergies based on brands, rather than investing in tangible assets according to a McKinsey study. However, many Asian companies are challenged to follow this approach due to their path dependency with less focus on innovation, dominance of large diversified conglomerates, excess capacity and Asian specifics regarding IP and trademarks. Thus, the challenge for Asian companies is to build brand equity in order to capture a larger portion of the value creation in the value chain and in order to catch up with Western icons such as P&G, Apple, McKinsey or Goldman Sachs.

Martin enthusiastically shared with the group his opinion about the weaknesses of the Marketing function such as a lack of marketing representation in the boardroom through a Chief Marketing Officer. He outlined that functional attributes, points of difference, emotional values and a strong brand are needed in order to create a real connection and a strong global iconic brand. Having discussed the basics, the group learned from successes such as Banyan Tree, Amazing Thailand campaign, Jim Thompson, SK-II what is needed to develop a strong brand. HSBC, Lenovo, Hero Honda, Laneíge, Huawei, Uniqlo were further examples to illustrate parts of strong brand leadership of Asian companies.

For the students of Asia's global business school NUS, the example of excellent brand leadership at Singapore Airlines helped to deepen their learning about self-motivated creativity (success & outperformance) within an organization which is mainly instilled by organizational alignment in a three step process: building awareness, generating acceptance and sustaining commitment through performance management, feedback as well as intensive training.

At the end of the presentation, Martin successfully inspired the participants to take an active role in shaping a bright future for Asia and for Asian companies through mastering Marketing and leading Asian brands to great regional and global recognition. Thereby, they would follow many Asian leaders who return from overseas back to Asia in order to leverage their global mindset and experience creating arising global brands and building highly-profitable businesses through brand equity.

For those of you who are interested in more information about Asian Brand Strategy, I would recommend to watch the 5-minute speech of Martin on Youtube or to consider buying Martin's awarded book Asian Brand Strategy.

Business & Brand Leadership: A New Approach to Success for Asian Business

2010-03-25T17:29:00.000-07:00

The NUS MBA Marketing Club is pleased to present world-renowned thought leader Martin Roll in a talk on Business and Brand Leadership: A New Approach to Success for Asian Business.

Kindly register your attendance here.

Business & Brand Leadership: A New Approach to Success for Asian Business - What's it about?

The face of business in Asia is changing faster than one can blink one’s eyes. Asian companies that used to be back-end workhorses, manufacturing consumer goods cheaply for Western companies, are slowly realizing the benefits of brands and innovation. A rapid changing landscape will emerge in Asia over the next 5-10 years, where the opportunities for Asian companies and therefore Asia will benefit from better and stronger competitive positions than ever before.

The primary objective of boardrooms is to build and sustain shareholder value, and deliver competitive returns to shareholders. At the same time, branding is a very effective catalyst for better leadership and helps the boardroom to drive a shared vision throughout the organization.

The boardroom must manage by metrics, and balance short- and long-term perspectives and performance. The growing emphasis on brand strategy to drive shareholder value and competitiveness will move up the boardroom agenda and become one of the most prominent value drivers in Asia in this century.

The most important factor for building strong Asian brands is the mindset of the Asian CEO and boardroom. Branding is a boardroom discipline and successful brands can be built only when the boardroom, led by the chairman and the CEO, understands, appreciates and commits to treating branding as a strategic discipline and devotes the resources at the company’s disposal to support the brands in a continuous manner.

The same is true for any government trying to build a strong and sustainable competitive position through a strong nation brand.

Martin Roll will provide case stories on Asian brands, and illustrate how the Asian company can employ branding as successful catalysts for leadership and long-term performance to grow new markets.

Offering insights, knowledge and perspectives on branding as a strategic tool for the Asian businesses, Martin Roll will define The 10 Leadership Principles that will drive breakout success, sustain profitability and financial impact for Asia in this century.

Who is Martin Roll?

Martin Roll is a world-renowned thought-leader on value creation through brand equity driven by tremendous global experience and insights. He facilitates business leaders and organizations to think bold for future strategies. By focusing on building and managing successful businesses through iconic brands, Martin Roll helps boardrooms to enhance shareholder value and create sustainable competitive advantage.

Martin Roll delivers the combined value of an experienced international business strategist and senior advisor to corporate boards and marketing executives of the world’s largest companies including many corporations in Asia. He brings more than 20 years of management experience. Martin Roll holds an MBA from INSEAD.

Martin Roll is not only a highly accomplished speaker and presenter but as well a talented and well trained moderator of panel discussions and roundtables. He is a valuable contributor to any senior management discussion on the subject of leadership, innovation, growth, organizational excellence and brand equity, its close link to management and how it drives outstanding performance through shareholder value.

He strides the industry-academia continuum and delivers superior value to his global audiences. Every year, he travels 500.000 miles on all continents and speaks at more than 100 global top-level conferences. He is also a frequent guest lecturer at INSEAD, Nanyang Business School, CEIBS and several other global business schools.

Martin Roll is the author of the global bestseller Asian Brand Strategy, a very compelling book of frameworks for Asian branding and the winning formula for any boardroom. Asian Brand Strategy was named “Best Global Business Book” by Strategy+Business magazine.

What's a typical day for a Brand Manager?

2010-03-06T03:31:00.000-08:00

Curious to find out what a typical work day is like for a Brand Manager?

Interested students may register here.

(Image Credit: Getty Images)

Changing Youth Marketing

2010-03-05T09:14:00.001-08:00

You are invited to be part of this groundbreaking conference happening on 20 March! See details below.

Get featured in a youth panel and directly address the CEOs, VPs and directors of your favourite brands. Be part of a full business conference and meet the people behind the campaigns in person! We'll select about 5 panellists to share their honest insights, and a leader who has deep knowledge of the subject will moderate the session in a neutral yet engaging fashion.

Simply create a post on your blog entitled "How I Want Brands to Connect with Me" . Alternatively, create a facebook note with the same title. Tell us why you deserve to be on this panel, and what you want to change. Use any method you want - words, images, podcasts or video!

At the end of your post, please leave your age and school/organisation. If you like to keep your privacy (like Tiger Woods) then email your entry to us at lydia@conferences.com.sg

Once you're done, just create a link on our wall and we'll go check it out immediately.

May the best post win :)

Last entries are on 9 March 2010, and 5 lucky winners will be announced the next day and notified via a fb message.

Participation Requirements:
16-25 years of age
Outspoken and engaging
Of course, stay available for the panel!

Only valid entries with your details will be considered. Certificates of Participation will also be given to those who are selected :) Where you come from doesn't matter - the more variety the better!

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Methods, techniques and formulae from advertising. But do they work?

2010-02-15T09:13:00.000-08:00

by Sanat Vallikappen

I’ve always hated marketers who try to sugarcoat the ordinary and sell it to me as the best thing going. So I found it unusually satisfying last week to watch The Persuaders, a documentary in which so-called gurus of marketing were exposed, their methods questioned, and the clutter crisis in advertising evaluated.

For those who haven’t watched the film, the following paragraphs attempt to give you some glimpses.

Presented by the Marketing Club, the film alternated between voices that rhapsodized over the kind of advertising practiced, and equally powerful, dissenting voices that tore these methods apart.

The script writers, Barak Goodman and Douglas Rushkoff, took a rather cynical view of promotional marketing, clarifying in no uncertain terms, the truth inherent in one of the oldest aphorisms about advertising – "I know I am wasting half my ad dollars, but I just don’t know which half.”

When you’re bombarded with it 24/7 – in the corner of the elevator car, the bottom of the cup when you go to pick up the golf ball, through sky-writing, a passing bus or even a subway tunnel which serves as a backdrop to display messages – it’s difficult to break through the clutter, and every effort at it only creates more clutter.

But that doesn’t stop those like Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide to come out with the kind of spiel even the ludicrously naïve would find hard to believe. “Tide’s not a laundry detergent any more. All detergents get your clothes cleaned. Tide’s something deeper. It’s an enabler, it’s a liberator. I guess you’d think about moving Tide from the heart of the laundry to the heart of the family,” he says in the film.

The critics’ take is that these pseudo-spiritual marketing messages that try to strike the innermost cord in the consumer, seldom work. One such instance, well-documented in the film, is about Song, a no-frills subsidiary of Delta Airlines, which decided to focus on women’s needs in its advertising - so much so that very few identified it as promotion for an airline.

Apart from AT&T, Hallmark and Coca-Cola, most companies that have tried to make this emotional connect with consumers have failed, says Bob Garfield, columnist at Advertising Age, and one of the sane voices in the film.

Nike, which said that it was about the meaning of sports, but more than that, it was about transcendence through sports, or Starbucks, which said that it’s about a third place that’s neither home nor work, are probably a handful that can also boast success.

But sample this hilarious, but failed message: “Polaroid is not a camera, it’s a social lubricant.”

Product placement was another area that came in for harsh criticism. The advertiser might want to call it the seamless integration of product and narrative, but Garfield says that whatever MBA euphemism one may attach to it, it was still product placement.

Market research also came under heavy fire in the film. In fact, in an instance of dichotomous questioning (a research method where your answer can either be ‘yes’ or ‘no’) shown in the film, one of the questions was, “When you’re eating white bread, do you feel lonely?” What was that all about?

So what makes advertisers tick? What makes them come up with often-incoherent, often-ineffective messages day after day? “Once you’re in the game, you can’t stop. If for no other reason, that the competition will eat you alive,” is a possible explanation offered by a former executive at J Walter Thompson. That means this noisy chatter will go on endlessly. And whether or not it helps sell the product, at least there’s going to be enough going around for all of us to have fun at someone else’s expense.

Those interested in learning more about the film may visit its website at www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders.

Photo Source: The Persuaders website

Watch The Persuaders!

2010-02-02T01:48:00.000-08:00

The NUS MBA Marketing Club proudly presents its first event of the year!

What's it about?

In "The Persuaders," FRONTLINE explores how the cultures of marketing and advertising have come to influence not only what Americans buy, but also how they view themselves and the world around them. The 90-minute documentary draws on a range of experts and observers of the advertising/marketing world, to examine how, in the words of one on-camera commentator, "the principal of democracy yields to the practice of demography," as highly customized messages are delivered to a smaller segment of the market.

Those interested can register here.

(Source: The Persuaders website)

A Fresh Take on Tourism Advertising

2009-10-14T00:14:00.000-07:00

by Jen Non

Tourism has been widely recognized as a major contributor to any country’s economy. As such, countries across the globe have invested significantly over the years in “destination marketing,” hoping to attract more visitors.

A few weeks ago, the Philippines launched a new global ad campaign called “Take Me to the Philippines” with a music video featuring Apl.de.ap. from the Black Eyed Peas. The music video is now being aired globally through the MTV network and is supported by an interactive website and on-ground components such as a roaming promotional caravan.

The Philippines' DoT has partnered with MTV for this initiative in a bid to attract the 15-20 age demographic – young, powerful consumers who are able to influence their parents’ consumption behaviour and patterns. This is the first time that MTV has teamed up with a country and it is DoT’s biggest global campaign to date with a particular network.

The video makes use of vibrant imagery while showcasing the country’s landmark destinations such as Boracay and Mayon Volcano as well as its famous icons like the tricycle and jeepney. Apl’s music lends further to the fresh, energetic appeal that the visual images evoke. This is definitely not your average dull tourism video!

Will this campaign be a success? Only time will tell – but already, the feedback on social platforms such as Facebook have been highly encouraging. While I personally think that there is a lot more to be done for the Philippines to attract the same volume of tourist arrivals as its neighbours such as Thailand and Malaysia, this music video is a good step in the right direction.

What to Think: Advertising in Singapore

2009-10-10T12:50:00.000-07:00

Advertising has the power to influence consumer buying behavior, and of course, that is an activity that must be regulated. It takes very little imagination to understand that advertising regulation is fundamental to business and that business would be much more difficult without it. As a general example, were there no rules against false advertising, it would obviously put the consumer at risk of faulty or dangerous products, as well as increase the difficulty of doing business by eliminating part of the basis for trust between consumers and businesses.

Therefore, it is totally unsurprising that Singapore has such regulations; however, true to form, some of the regulations published by the Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore (ASAS) are probably a bit different from analogous rulebooks elsewhere, as the ASAS specifies social values and norms for ads in some detail. That is, not only does it prescribe how advertisers should behave, but also how advertisers should influence consumer's perceptions and social behavior.

Generally, the Singapore Code of Advertising Practice (SCAP) sets the guiding principles for ASAS and "seeks to promote a high standard of ethics in advertising through industry self-regulation." This means ASAS offers fee-based consulting to firms on SCAP code compliance and also provides a way for professionals and members of the general public to file complaints against those who violate the code.

While most of the SCAP is fairly standard and takes the obvious position that "all advertisements should be legal, decent, honest and truthful," it does contain some unusual material which can be said unique to Singapore's cultural and legal environment and interesting to anyone doing business here. I have excerpted a few choice passages below.

1.4 All advertisements shall not subvert the shared values in Singapore’s society including:
(a) Nation before community and society above self;
(b) Family as the basic unit of society;
(c) Community support and respect for the individual;
(d) Consensus, not conflict; and
(e) Racial and religious harmony.
1.5 All advertisements shall not subvert Singapore’s family values of:
(a) Love, care, and concern;
(b) Mutual respect;
(c) Filial responsibility;
(d) Commitment; and
(e) Communication.
9.1 Advertisements should not:
(a) Downplay the importance of patriotism and national unity;
(b) Misinterpret national policies and goals for the benefit of any individual;
(c) Distort the perception of Singaporeans and the quality of life in Singapore;
(d) Distort the perceptions of citizens’ influence in national issues;
(e) Discredit or be derogatory to Singapore as a democratic country or in any other way.
9.2 Advertisements should not promote or condone rude and inconsiderate behaviour. Advertisements should not downplay the importance of having a caring and compassionate attitude for the less fortunate members of the community.
9.3 Advertisements should not adopt or encourage a confrontational approach to resolving societal conflicts or differences. Advertisements should not exploit or fuel conflicts relating to national problems and controversial policies or issues.
9.4 Advertisements should be handled sensitively to minimise misinterpretation of intentions on ethnic issues. Advertisements should not jeopardise interethnic understanding or discriminate against any ethnic group or religion, or downplay the importance of mutual dependence amongst all groups.

10.1 Advertisements should not:
(a) Downplay the importance of the family as a unit and foundation of society;
(b) Undermine the perception of the family as a place of comfort and security;
(c) Discredit mutual love, affection and support amongst family members.
10.2 Advertisements should not encourage inconsiderate and disrespectful conduct amongst family members.
10.3 Advertisements should not denounce or discourage the responsibilities of honouring, supporting and providing for one’s parents and grandparents in their old age.
10.4 Advertisements should not undermine the willingness among family members to stand by one another through ups and downs.
10.5 Advertisements should not erode or downplay the importance of communication amongst family members in building trust and understanding.

Intelligent Marketing with Web 2.0

2009-09-30T01:18:00.000-07:00

by Luke Donnelly

In the 21st Century, companies will rely more heavily on the artificial intelligence of the Social Web (Web 2.0) to market products and services to people more effectively. Effective marketing relies on intelligent spending, using those precious marketing dollars to reach the right demographic targets with your message. Why pay to broadcast your advertising message to a wide audience, when you can make useful "recommendations" to only those that are likely to be interested, at a much lower cost? This is why companies are starting to provide goods and services using the tools of Web 2.0.

Even today, in the infancy of the Web 2., take companies like London's Last FM. This online music service "scrobbles", or collects data about what you listen to on iTunes, and displays it to other Last FM listeners, and in real-time on your Skype profile. It also collects data about what you've been listening to on the go, by eavesdropping every time you connect your iPod or iPhone to your computer. The service then slowly, over time, builds an accurate profile of the kind of music you like. Even if your tastes are varied.

Using tagging and intelligent software, Last.fm uses your profile to make recommendations about songs or artists you might like to pay to download and concerts you might like to attend, based on your location and tastes. It identifies other listeners with similar taste to yours, and makes recommendations such as "We know you haven't heard any music yet by X, but 85% of people with tastes similar to yours often listen to the new album by X". You can play a sample song by X and watch a video. One click later, you've bought the album, not from a traditional ad, but from a recommendation -- a helpful, accurate recommendation.

"Recommendation marketing" is useful, but it is crucial that the recommendations are accurate. Look at Amazon. When I buy a birthday present for my sister on Amazon, I factor in that she has very different tastes from me. So it's exhausting when I then receive inaccurate purchasing recommendations a few months later from Amazon: "Hey, we think you might like to buy the new book by (insert name your least favourite Chick Lit author here)".

Doesn't Amazon's recommendation service remember that I didn't choose to send that previous gift item to myself? I chose to send it to someone else! So the later recommendation that Amazon makes to me should be based on MY tastes, not on my judgments about gifts for others. There's room for improvement.

Companies know that the social web is big business. A recent business case competition on tagging for taste and suggestion was held by Netflix, with a one million dollar prize! Using the Netflix online DVD ordering service, customers build up a preference list of movies they would like to see. The problem is that customers are not walking around a rental store. The only real estate they have is the computer screen. So if they don't see titles they might like, they don't rent, or they rent less frequently.

Making accurate recommendations about what a consumer might like is a important when managing a business. Why pay for warehouses full of DVDs that no-one wants to see? How many copies of a new European arthouse movie should the company order for their St Louis warehouse, for example, based on the film-watching tastes of their customers in St Louis?

Netflix has their own recommendation engine, but they suspected it could be improved. After years of trying to improve it themselves, they thought there was still room for improvement. So they exposed much of their customer statistics and ran a huge business case competition over three years, that ended last week. The prize of a million dollars went to a team that designed a recommendation engine that could beat Netflix's existing engine by 10%.

But this is just the beginning. A few short years from now, with (and in some cases without) our permission, smart companies will be using Web 2.0 marketing technologies to know exactly what we listen to, what we choose to wear, what we watch, where we like to eat out. But also, what we have not yet watched. What we have not yet listened to. Where we have not yet eaten, but, based on accurate judgment about our tastes, where we would like to eat.

At that point, the common questionnaire will be dead. Web 2.0 will be almost as intelligent as humans, and a huge percentage of company recommendations will lead to purchases. Enriching your experience, increasing companies' earnings, and every marketing dollar spent will yield returns.

It’s All in the Packaging

2009-09-27T03:30:00.000-07:00

by Jen Non

Browsing through the shelves at Kinokuniya reinforced one important point that marketers tend to forget: the power of packaging.

Yes, the brand name matters. In the same way that most people will gravitate towards the best-selling authors such as Dan Brown, Danielle Steele or Jodi Picoult, consumers in a supermarket will readily look for big-name brands such as Heinz ketchup, Pantene shampoo or Colgate toothpaste. Yet, if you’re in a very cluttered or crowded area such as Kinokuniya (or any hypermarket like Carrefour or Cold Storage), the problem is standing out among the thousands of seemingly identical items.

If the average customer is like me, he/she will quickly scan the shelves and look at items that grab the eye. For example, while browsing aimlessly through the non-fiction sections of Kinokuniya, I tended to look at books whose covers caught and held my attention through colourful or interesting graphics, or succinct titles that hinted of something fascinating (e.g., "The Fall of Advertising & The Rise of PR" by Al Ries and Laura Ries; "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond). All other books fell to the wayside, with nary a thought given to them. With the countless selection offered by Kinokuniya as well as the limited time I had in the store, I could not be bothered to look at each book one by one and read each of their précis on the back cover. Similar to being at the supermarket as well, when you’ve got a harried mother of two looking for mayonnaise while being plagued by the constant cries of her child who WANTS ICE CREAM… NOW!

Sadly, though, packaging (as well as shelving and visual merchandising) has been largely out of the product mix whenever marketers do their brainstorming. Most of the time, we get bland and generic labels that do nothing to excite a customer’s attention and imagination. Even worse, we get packaging labels that aren’t even seen by the customers! To quote one recent article by Scott Young and Jonathan Asher, “Consider rounded containers. They look great in the conference room (or when viewed in a focus group) when they face directly forward, but, in-store these containers are often turned off-center, which can greatly compromise their impact and communication. Bagged products can also be a challenge because they are likely to sag or get ‘scrunched’ on shelf, which can impact quality perceptions and/or make key copy points (claims, variety, etc.) unreadable.”

If you still don’t believe in the power of good packaging, consider the Japanese who have elevated packaging and gift wrapping into an art form. The food contained inside the beautiful packaging may not always be good (and for non-Japanese speakers such as myself, we may even be clueless as to what is actually inside the package), but we must have that item because it’s simply exquisite! Moira Cullen, the Senior Director for Global Design at The Hershey Company, said it best when she spoke about the packaging employed for food, confections and teas sold in Japan’s leading department stores: “On a purely visceral, visual level, I was seduced by these objects. The boxes and pouches and bags were exquisite. Each one was uniquely exceptional. I didn’t always know what was inside, but I didn’t care. I was so amazed I bought an extra suitcase just for samples. I had to bring them home with me.”

Photo source: theDieline.com. Those interested in learning more about brand packaging may go to the Brand Packaging website at www.brandpackaging.com

DDB Brasil's Tsunami: How not to win awards

2009-09-25T00:31:00.000-07:00

In a bid to create the edginess necessary to win awards, it seems that the distinguished adverstising firm DDB Brasil overstepped the bounds of ethics and good taste when it released the following ad, entitled "Tsunami," supposedly created for the World Wildlife Fund.

While the ad is illogical and distasteful, evidently its shock value was enough for DDB Brasil to garner a prestigious One Club "Merit Award." However, many complained that the content of the ad was offensive, and what's worse, the ad was not even commissioned by the WWF. It was created by DDB alone for the purpose of claiming awards.

Confronted with public anger to the false ad, DDB Brasil initially lied and disclaimed ownership, but it was later shown to be the agency's work. The fallout from the fiasco has prompted the One Club to revoke DDB Brasil's merit award and issue strict new rules regarding "fake" ads. Moreover, the WWF has also issued a statement condemning the ad and disclaiming any association.

However, the firestorm did not stop there, and the scandal has spawned a sardonic "response" ad, which proclaims: "It was just advertising. Don't make war about it."

Pepsi gives readers a taste of the future with Harry Potter-style ad

2009-09-08T20:51:00.000-07:00

This post is an article that was shared by one of our members, Roland Lim

This article heralds the new media space to watch out for: magazine video ads! Will this new technology catch on?

By Kenneth Li in New York

Published: August 20 2009 03:00 | Last updated: August 20 2009 03:00

When Entertainment Weekly readers open the magazine next month, they will discover people talking to them from a wafer-thin video screen built into a printed page in a marketing experiment that highlights the radical new strategies advertisers are employing to reach consumers.

The full-motion ad is made possible by technology from a US company called Amerchip that works much like a singing greeting card and recalls the moving pictures of the "Daily Prophet" newspaper of the Harry Potter films.

The cost of the promotion from CBS, the US broadcaster, and Pepsi, the soft drink maker, was not disclosed. However, magazine industry executives estimated the ad would come at a high cost at a time when media companies around the globe face a severe decline in advertising revenue.

"It's part of the future - a way to engage consumers in new and surprising ways," said George Schweitzer, president of CBS marketing group. "How do you sample a drink? You give them a taste."

CBS and Pepsi's promotion will feature a six-page print advertisement in the magazine that will play a video promoting the Monday night autumn television programming line-up.

The promotion will appear in copies to subscribers of the magazine in the New York and Los Angeles area. It has not been decided exactly how many of Entertainment Weekly's 1.8m circulation will receive the video ad version.

Although the companies declined to discuss the cost of the promotion, one magazine industry executive familiar with the technology estimated the ad on 100,000 copies would cost in the low seven-figure range.

On that basis, the cost of one full-page ad page for an advertiser in Entertainment Weekly would be many times higher than 9 cents per regular page, based on the magazine's current rate card.

Although it remains unclear if the technology will catch on with other marketers and magazines, the magazine industry has continued to seek new technology to lift the moribund print sector, which has been hit with a severe decline in ad revenue and slipping circulation.

Esquire, a men's magazine published by Hearst, last year created a cover for its 75th anniversary issue built with an E Ink screen, the same technology used in Amazon.com's Kindle reader, that generated significant buzz.

Find the article on the website of Financial Times

Is Starbucks VIA the wrong path?

2009-03-22T11:27:00.001-07:00

When Starbucks announced last month that they were introducing instant coffee called VIA in their shops, I was totally shocked. After reading part of CEO Howard Schultz’s memoirs cum history of Starbucks in his internationally acclaimed book “Pour Your Heart into It”, one thing struck me: that this Seattle-based company took coffee very seriously. And this reflected in their company philosophy that each cup of Starbucks coffee should be of the highest quality of freshly ground beans that are brewed to perfection. In fact they were so dedicated to their philosophy that the introduction of frappuccinos (fraps) initially sparked a gargantuan debate amongst top management. Apparently, fraps were considered by coffee connoisseurs as an abomination of the original brewed espresso because they were frozen, too dolled up and flavoured, thus hiding the true taste of the brew.

In fact, going back a little in time, one of the earlier inspirations of Starbucks were the Italian espresso cafes in Milan where people passed by in the morning on their way to work to grab an espresso from their favourite espresso café owners, stood for a while to chit chat about the weather and the news, and then left. The transaction took only a few minutes, but already involved a lot of personalized interaction with the barista. The espresso and this sort of interaction inspired the founders of Starbucks and decided to bring to test the idea in Seattle. First it was a Milan type café with no tables. So connoisseurs queued to get their espressos and that was it. As it became more popular, people wanted to stay a bit longer to chat and demanded for tables and chairs. So management put in some tables. And soon, they were attracting not just the connoisseurs, but also people in general who were curious about this coffee craze. So by educating their customers about coffee, word of mouth spread and more and more people were attracted to come and experience the interaction and the nice ambience. As more kinds of people caught the craze, eventually requests started coming in for different flavours and variations, so then came the espresso based lattes and the mochas, then the frappuccinos.

And now instant coffee? After all the investment poured into educating customers and staff about the best ground beans and the beauty of espresso and whole bean coffee in general, why the sudden move into instant coffee? Won’t this move dilute Starbucks’ brand equity?

Before answering the question directly, I’d like to think that Starbucks has always put a premium on satisfying their customers by listening to their needs. One can see from the way they evolved that each change was made in order to address a customer need. From the addition of tables to the frozen fraps, each change was a dedicated action to satisfy the customers even more. By evolving and responding to needs, their targeted audience grew wider and wider. It wasn’t just coffee connoisseurs anymore or just people on the go, but everybody who loves to meet with friends and family or kill time in a nice place with nice music over a cup of coffee! In Manila, some Starbucks shops are even outfitted with meeting rooms to accommodate students and businessmen alike who needed a nice place to study in or conduct a business meeting. Undoubtedly, Starbucks has evolved into a lifestyle brand with an impetus to listen and adjust to customer needs constantly.

And now, with the deepening financial crisis, and with several Starbucks shops closing, I can only surmise that the call of the public is for cheaper but decent instant coffee.

When a short frap could easily cost you $5, and a regular brew around $3, it’s becoming harder for consumers to part with their hard-earned dollars. But with less than a dollar per cup of instant Italian blend VIA, will customers come looking for Starbucks again? Assuming that most of Starbucks customers are not coffee snobs or connoisseurs anymore, I think it will work. As many homes are brewing their own coffee at home or turning to instant coffee to save money, it only makes sense for Starbucks to allow its customers to experience the brand once more at a lower price point. By doing this, they’re not only responding to customer needs, but also tapping into a larger customer base that is just waiting for instant coffee to become better. With VIA, as long as it is what they claim to be, which is the product of 20 years of research on the Starbucks way of making instant that tastes just like a freshly brewed Starbucks coffee using a super secret technology (want to know more? Please see the youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1YU5kRmDUo), then I believe it will make a lot of consumers happy.

The Starbucks quality touch that its customers are used to: still there, through an offering of premium VIA flavours and nice packaging.

The distinct freshly brewed taste using only the best Arabica beans: still there, using their super secret technology.

Therefore as far as brand equity is concerned, I don’t think Starbucks has much to be worried about as long as it delivers on its promise of having instant that’s not really instant that tastes like brewed, the Starbucks way. VIA is definitely the right way to go right now.

But now they also have breakfast meals similar to McDonald’s? But this is another discussion for next time.

Marketing principles for troubled times

2009-03-19T12:24:00.000-07:00

By all accounts the world economy has entered uncharted waters. Governments are trying to spend as fast as they can, coporations are minimising losses and cutting costs, and newly minted and unemployed MBAs are carefully calculating how much they will earn from selling their blood plasma each month. Meanwhile, the world's finest policy minds are attempting to mitigate the crisis through massive spending stimuli, which one assumes will have second-order ramifications that are almost certainly unknown to anyone at this time.

Fortunately for marketing practitioners, two professors from our neighbours at INSEAD have attempted to offer some insight in a recent working paper, "When to push the panic button?" Therein, professors ‘Paddy’ V. Padmanabhan and Pushan Dutt offer guidance marketing activities during an economic downturn, stressing the need to know your consumer, the market, and avoiding the fallacy of price wars.

From INSEAD Knowledge:
"The bottom line: companies need to figure out how badly they’re going to be hit, both in terms of the sectors they’re operating in, and the local context in terms of the country they’re in. “If you look at the share of the wallet pattern in Hungary, it's going to look very different to the share of wallet pattern in, say, Vietnam or India,” Padmanabhan says

The rest of the paper discussion as well as an interview can be found at:

http://knowledge.insead.edu/contents/MarketingInDownturn090217.cfm?vid=186

Marketing Ninja

Marketing in Banking Sector: by Malcolm Koh

2009-03-03T03:21:00.000-08:00

The marketing club is officially abuzz! A warm evening on 3rd of February witnessed the first event organized by the Marketing Club - a talk by Mr Malcolm Koh of RBS on "Marketing in the Banking Sector". In an informative session, Malcolm shared with the participants insights on how marketers strive to deliver a high level of service quality. It was fascinating to learn what goes behind making an organization like RBS such a wonderful experience for clients. He also talked about how service marketers overcome varied challenges like resource scarcity to deliver high quality service by their brand.

About the speaker:

Malcolm, a NUS MBA alumnus, heads the Client Experience division of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Singapore. He also heads the NUS MBA Alumni Association and has been driving a number of alumni initiatives with NUS Business School such as the Alumni Mentorship Program. An avid marketer, Malcolm has over 10 years of experience in services marketing across various industries such as banking, airlines, hospitality and HR consultancy.

The Beauty of Brevity

2008-11-06T08:41:00.000-08:00

Nike and Weiden & Kennedy : the stuff advertising dreams are made of.

The Buzz Begins!!

2008-10-21T07:36:00.000-07:00

After a long lull, the NUS MBA Marketing club is buzzing again! All through our first semester, we've been watching the Fin Club run amock, conducting talks, quizzes and what not. If that wasn't enough, we had a new club, the Social Impact Club being launched with all the fanfare, while we marketers, notorious for our cacophony, were sitting silent on the sidelines, hoping for some signs of life in our club!

It all changed on a fateful Tuesday evening when a we, a group of over-enthusiastic Marketers met to discuss "killer" ideas for the next semester. Somehow, ideas seem to have a queer way of degenerating into chaos. The meeting had so many ideas being thrown left, right and center (including the ones which had more to do with the women's club) that I was glad we didn't end up killing each other! Order returned (though momentarily) when people were asked to take ownership of some of the good ideas and turn them into reality.

Some of us would have expected that all the enthusiasm would die down within a week and people would forget about the club and get on with their boring lives. Well, part of the excitement did temper down (thank goodness!), but it seems that a lot of positive energy has emerged over the week with people actually beginning to work on their parts. As we sat down again to discuss the progress for the week, a realization struck that the current cohort can achieve a lot through the coming months. I'm glad to break this newz to all that Professor Prem Shamdasani has agreed to be the faculty mentor of our club. Our Marketing Club will have a website soon. We too will have movies, talks (I hope) and quizzes which will be a learning as well as fun experience for all of us. This blog is a small beginning, I hope we'll have active contributions from all the members (to this blog as well as other activities).