Marketing is all around us.
The question that arises then is can you escape it? Or more so, do you want to escape it? The answer to that is both Yes and No.
For generations now, marketing has been taken for granted, we have seen so much of it that we fail to look at how it’s changing us, to the point that we no longer understand what is being marketed to us anymore because it’s just EVERYWHERE.
Precisely why, This is Marketing highlights the need to have a different perspective on the day to day activities practiced by marketers.
It’s blunt- it won’t make you feel proud of what you are doing, instead, it will make you doubt everything that you are doing.
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Let's look at my top 10 learnings from the book, below:
1
“So tell me, what is the difference between Advertising and Marketing?”
I have been asked this question in almost every interview, be at a B-school or for an actual job.
To put it loosely, Advertising is a part of Marketing and that’s crucial for Marketers to understand.
Our job does not end when we buy ads online, and put our product out there, because it’s the simplest thing to do, it includes a lot more.
Marketing involves looking at a holistic picture of what the brand stands for in the marketers’ mind and what it stands for in the consumers’ mind and then trying to bridge the gap if any.
2
If nothing else works, discounts definitely will.
Indians are known to be price-sensitive, but every product that’s heavily discounted may not always be a consumers’ best bet.
We need to understand this and understand that a strong price point can make or break your brand.
Remember TATA Nano’s “Poor Man’s Car” tagline? that’s a classic example of communication gone wrong!
3
This is where the game changes, where your positioning strategy is put to test.
Consumers are bombarded with messages every second.
How does he/she then distinguish between two options available?
We need to be on the lookout for ‘Customer Ambassadors’ to make our brand stand out of the clutter.
One point to note here is the case of Testimonial advertising- Colgate is one brand which relies heavily on Testimonial Advertising and it works well for the brand.
There could be many reasons behind this, however, the main one definitely has to be the connection that a consumer gets when he/she sees someone similar to him/her in the advertisement.
4
Market-driven lasts, and let me explain how.
If you are marketing-driven your sole focus is to get more views, drive more engagement, I’m not saying that doesn’t help, but if that’s your only focus, it will be short-lived.
How do we create a clear difference between another brand and us?
By getting a ‘Market-driven’ angle to it.
I believe Dove captures this beautifully, we see the ads around aspirations of women, we see the real faces and the content is way more relatable for a consumer, the brand has tried to capture the dreams or expectations of their target audience beautifully which will develop a very strong brand connect.
5
As marketers, we must understand that a consumer is on the lookout for a brand that is personal and unique to him/her.
Let’s look at the Lenskart scenario here, before the brand was launched, all of us would just visit an optician or an eye doctor to get the required spectacles.
Many of us might still do that, however Lenskart has branded itself so well, that you can actually just check out their website to compare various frames with the 3D image selection option available.
This is understanding what consumers want and providing for them
6
Not every product is meant for everyone and that’s where the concept of STP (Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning) comes from.
The smaller and more precise, the audience you target, the better results you may expect. Look at what Kellog’s Special K did when the brand entered India, their communication was clear to show how the target audience was, not only women, but women with specific needs to lose weight in a short duration of time.
7
It’s completely OK to exclude a set of consumers from your ad campaign.
This works exceptionally well with respect to Luxury brands and its marketing.
Humans have this strong need to feel special, to be different from the rest and successful marketers respect the same and work around it.
A BMW which is known to cater to only the high end consumers cannot release a communication catering to masses, the marketing needs to ensure that uniqueness, that feeling of pride to own a BMW, that luxury feel, comes through in the advertisement.
8
This is so important to understand!
Most of the time we fear this need for ‘innovation’ altogether, not just with respect to ensuring that the content is creative but the medium chosen is innovative as well.
Having worked in the advertising field, I still do not skip any commercial ad on TV since I know the efforts involved behind it.
But not everyone who watches television, has worked in an ad agency and frankly, not everyone cares.
It’s important to move ahead with time and explore newer mediums to advertise where media waste is minimized and your gains are maximized
9
No two people are the same, how amazing would it be if we could say the same about brands?
Not all is lost, we can still make that happen.
Your brand needs to be unique even if the offerings are the same just like any other brand.
Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali did just that, well at least during the initial years, they stood out from the crowd by offering a proposition of ‘Swadeshi’ or Made in India, which connected very well with the consumers.
You look for what they are looking for, and you combine them both.
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