INTEGRATED MARKETING CAMPAIGNS

A carefully designed and well planned promotional activity presents a holistic approach towards breaking out of the clutter and reaching to the intended target audience at the right time and in the right manner.

As a result, in the 21^st century, it is the 4^th P of the marketing mix (Promotion) that has gained phenomenal importance and thus Integrated Marketing Campaign (IMC) has emerged as the new buzzword!

Mr Bhosle is a resident of Preet Vihar, Delhi. He works in a private bank. Let us look into a typical day of this gentleman and find out what is Integrated Marketing Campaign.

Monday morning, 6 am.

The first thing Mr Bhosle does in the morning is to get hold of his newspaper, The Times of India. Along with it comes out the pamphlet of Pizza Hut (with their latest World Food Fest campaign), Dominos (with their discount coupons) and a menu card of the new ‘Goyal Da Dhaba’ that has recently opened up in the nearby locality. The home delivery offered by each one of them convinces Mr Bhosle to keep these in the drawer of his bed.

He opens up the newspaper, checks out the big advertisement of VLCC at the center bottom corner. Well, this seems to be the answer to his wife’s daily woes.

On the center page, he checks out a full page advertisement of Big Bazaar: ‘Isse Sasta Aur Achha Kahin Nahin?’ He goes through the advertisements and is keen to check out the latest men’s collection at smashing prices in the nearby store.

Turning to the Delhi Times section, he is amazed by the looks of the ravishing Maruti SX4. He thinks it is right time for him to upgrade his old Ford Ikon. On the center page, he finds that his favorite Ghazal artist will be performing at the Indian Habitat Center next Saturday. Yeah, the program for the next weekend is fixed now!

9:00 am

It is time to go to office. He gets into his car and turns on the radio to Red FM. The RJ Ulta Pulta Nitin, along with regular numbers, keeps updating about the latest events and activities in town.

In between shows, jingles of ads from city malls to cold drinks to the hottest property in town are played time and again.

There comes the red light and the rear side of an auto-rickshaw reads: “buyselloldbooks.com”. Earlier, three-wheelers adorned body paint that screamed sweet nothings like “Maine Pyaar Kiya”, “Buri Nazar Waale”, “Munne de papa di gaddi”. But, they are not used any more. The companies like mouthshut.com, stickiewicket.com, farmsandvillas.com, mapmyindia.com and many more have found a really cheap medium for communication these days.

At the rears of blue line buses are postures of the Hero Honda “Sa Re Ga Ma Pa” and daily soaps of Zee TV and Sony TV.

During his travel, he also reads advertisements of inverter, steel rod and cement companies painted on the walls of highway.

On one hoarding near a red-light, he finds a huge and beautiful poster stating:

“NOW, THAT’S A MAN: MARUTI SX4”

On the top of the bus-stop, he reads the teaser headline of the latest serial to be launched soon on Zee TV. The line “When one is ill, why should the other eat medicine?” keeps him wondering as to what would the story would be? The ad shows 2 girls sitting next to each other, with their backs facing the audience.

Next, Mr Bhosle gets down at the Metro Station and parks his car. While on his way to the Metro, he finds hoardings and posters of SBI, LG and Bleu (a new mobile phone company) at different places of the Metro station. He gets into the metro-rail and on its interiors, many companies have put up their posters while the major part is occupied by National Rural Development Mission’s Aids Awareness messages, malaria caution displays and other social awareness messages.

To prevent from falling, he holds on to one of the hangers on the ceiling and finds Abhishek Bachhan (advertising for Big FM) posted on the hanger. There are SBI and Citifinancial stuck on other hangers as well.

10 am

Mr Bhosle reaches the office and he receives a call.

Call: Good Morning, Sir

Mr Bhosle: Good Morning

Call: Are you using a credit card, Sir?

Mr Bhosle: Yes, but tell me why you are asking this?

Call: Sir, I am calling from ICICI bank and we have a free gift with every credit card that is made before the 31^st of September

Mr Bhosle: (Checks the date on his cell phone) Well, I think I would like to go for it.

Call: Sir, how shall we proceed?

Mr Bhosle: Send your executive and I’ll give all the documents required.

Call: Fine sir, our executive will call you soon.

Mr Bhosle: Fine

Call: Thank you sir, it was really nice talking to you.

Mr Bhosle: Same here thanks!

During his working hours, he receives an SMS:

Weekend Dhamaka!! Win Daily Rs 2000, Weekly Rs 15000 or a brand new Tata Indica Xeta car. Call 12900 & say FUN to answer simple questions & win. Call charges: Rs 6 per minute apply

He switches on his laptop and checks his mail account. Here, he finds 2 unread mails. One mail is from the blog link he has subscribed to. It talks of the latest Apple i-phone that has hit the market. It describes its features and attributes which leave him stunned by the technological miracles that human race is witnessing. The 2^nd mail is from www.agencyfaqs.com where they have reviewed the latest strategic move by Pizza Hut by introducing the World Food Festival.

7 pm

After finishing the day’s work, he leaves for home.

He reaches home and switches on the TV. The movie shown by the cable walla has scrolling ads of all kinds at the bottom of the page, showing new business openings in the nearby areas. He switches onto the news channel and finds that a press conference has been organized for the launch of Volkswagen’s Pasat in India. Wow!

Amidst all the zapping, he also checks out Pizza Hut (with chefs from all over the world) and Samsung advertisement (with Rahul Dravid).

Then an advertisement comes where some girls are looking for men and then suddenly a few men come on their cars and the slogan comes in:

“MEN ARE BACK: MARUTI SX4”

On another channel, he finds that a complete half an hour dedicated program has been aired by Asian Sky Shop for showcasing breakthrough consumer products at rock-bottom prices. Well, the cutlery set with a free table cover interests him to call up the toll-free number for order placement as well.

9:30 pm

His kids and wife have planned for a movie tonight. It is the movie ‘Dhoom 2’ at the nearest mall.

On the outside of the mall, he finds a huge poster saying:

“NOW, THAT’S A MAN: MARUTI SX4”

On entering the mall, he finds hanging advertisements of Samsung mobile phones from the ceiling of the mall. It gains his immediate attention and he appreciates the new designs of latest models.

On the other wall of the mall is a huge TV screen, that too by Samsung. In the centre area of the mall is a display of the Plasma TV by Samsung with Microsoft XBOX being connected to it for demonstration. His son, Raju is fascinated by the game and pursues his father to get him one. Mr Bhosle commits to present it if he comes first in his class.

The next thing Mr Bhosle watches is the Pizza Hut. Within an instance, the whole day’s advertisement messages refreshed his memory. It cut through the entire clutter of advertisements and ad campaigns he had witnessed. And indeed, he had a dinner in Pizza Hut.

They enter the movie hall. In the movie, they come across various brands like Coke, Pennzoil, Pepe, Sony, Disney channel, Sugar Free, McDonald’s, Speed, Suzuki Zeus which have been placed in the movie in a subtle, seamless and coordinated manner.

During the intermission, he finds advertisements of Air Deccan, Hyundai and the Lead India campaign.

Day Over

Indeed, someone has rightly put it “The Ad Mad World”.

As you might have noticed, Mr Bhosle had a rendezvous with many brands during his entire day. All possible promotional tools (direct marketing, tele-marketing, internet marketing, advertisement, posters, hoardings, in-film product placements, TV, print, radio, press releases) were used by companies independently. With so many brands trying to get into the mind of the customer; to register your brand, it is required to have an integrated and coordinated use of different media channels that a person comes across throughout his day. The point is to bombard consumer with the brand’s message from as many media sources as possible and all at the same time.

However, a strategic fit of the channels and the brand’s image is very important. Accordingly, above the line activities and below the line activities are designed.

In Mr Bhosle’s case, it was Pizza Hut and Maruti SX4 which used an optimum marketing mix for making a desirable impact amidst such high competition and busy schedule of the customer.

For Pizza Hut, a pamphlet is a much better option due to the home delivery option. However, in case of SX4, distributing pamphlets would have caused serious loss to its brand equity. So, it preferred the use of big-size posters.

It is this use of a ‘mix of all appropriate marketing communication disciplines, media and vehicles in a well coordinated campaign to achieve a unified objective or set of objectives’ which is called a INTEGRATED MARKETING CAMPAIGN. It produces a clear, unified, consistent and compelling customer-focused message about the brand.

Consumer’s perception of a company and its various brands is a synthesis of the bundle of messages they receive through media advertisements, price, package design, direct marketing efforts, publicity, sales promotions, websites, point of purchase displays, and even the type of store where a product or service is sold.

The IMC approach seeks to have the company’s entire marketing and promotional activities project a consistent, unified image to the market place. It calls for a centralized messaging function so that everything a company says and does communicates a common theme and positioning.

Consumer’s awareness, knowledge and image of the brand is the sum of all points of encounter or contact that consumers have with the brand, and it extends beyond the experience or outcome of using it. These contacts can also result from various forms of integrated marketing communications activities used by a company, including mass-media advertising, sales promotion offers, sponsorship activities at sporting or entertainment events, websites, on the Internet, and direct-mail pieces such as letters, brochures, catalogs, or videos.

Consumers can also have a contact with or receive information about a brand in stores at the point of sale; through articles or stories they see, hear, or read in the media.

CONCLUSION

With the increasing competition and fast paced life of modern consumer, Integrated Marketing Campaign becomes an effective tool where the synergies obtained from various channels can not only help a company in reinforcing their brands for a top of the mind recall but also can be instrumental in improving the bottom line.

THE COMPETETIVE ADVANTAGE IN THE RETAIL INDUSTRY

“Rewrite Rules, Retain values” is the mantra of Mr. Kishore Biyani, founder of the most successful retail chain of the country. The ‘Rajah of Indian Retail, as he is fondly called, has weaved magic into the organized Indian retail over the past few decades by following his afore mentioned philosophy. Pantaloon Retail (India) limited, the flagship company of Future group (owned by Mr. Biyani) operating through its various formats across the country has written and rewritten retail rules relentlessly while maintaining Indian-ness as its core value. Pantaloon Retail has continuously earned national and international accolades for its phenomenal success and there seems to be no stopping for this well established retail giant

With a turnover of 3263.73 cr in FY 06-07, Pantaloon Retail, India’s very own Wal-Mart, is the largest retail company in the country. While the success of an organization depends on a wide range of policies and practices adopted by it, two major beliefs have spelled the unprecedented success story of Pantaloon Retail. These are ‘customer-centricity’ and ‘Indianness’. These two have provided the competitive advantage to the company to ride on to its first mover advantage and are carefully imbibed in the strategy formulation and implementation at various organization levels. The first section of this paper elaborates on these sources of competitive advantage for Pantaloon Retail (India) Limited and then illustrates how they are implemented in a typical big bazaar store.

CUSTOMER CENTRICITY

INDIANNESS

INDIAN RETAIL INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

Retailing in India is emerging as one of the largest industry, accounting for over 10 percent of the country’s GDP, growing at a healthy CAGR of 5 percent and providing 8 percent of the employment. India has been ranked as the most attractive market for global retailers to enter, according to A.T. Kearney’s Global Retail Development Index[1] (GRDI) for 2006. The total size of the retail industry is Rs13,50,000 crores

A stable democracy, decent economic growth driving increasing prosperity and consumerism have lent credibility to the retail story. Comparing India to the trends across the globe, it is seen that our retail industry is still in its nascent stage as shown below:

A PARADIGM SHIFT

• Evolving Organized Sector

Traditionally, the Indian landscape has been dominated by the unorganized retailers, mainly by the local kirana stores. Till date, unorganized retail enjoys an over 96 per cent share of the overall pie. However, with time, there has been a major paradigm shift towards the organized sector. Maximum contribution towards organized retail is by apparels followed by food and groceries as is shown in figure1.

Another significant factor in retail is its penetration. Although food and groceries form a significant chunk of retail in India as shown in figure2, the organized retail penetration is mere 1%.

• Changing market trends

Urbanisation – It has lead to population moving towards towns and cities and hence a change in consumption patterns.

Growing incomes – The rise of disposable incomes of the Indian consumer has lead to increased demand, higher spending and a striving to buy higher value and better quality items

Increase in education and awareness levels: As a result, the customer has become quality conscious and demands better value for money

Changing family structures and lifestyles: This has given rise to convenience led shopping and product experience. In fact, the 21^st century has seen the rise of consumerism with highly demanding customers, especially earmarked by the wealthier and stronger middle class.

• Entry of organized retail players

Retail has emerged as one of the most dynamic and fast paced industries with several players entering the market. Recently, many players with substantial financial muscle have forayed into the organized retail bandwagon to unleash the opportunity lying there. As a result, the retail landscape has become all the more competitive with numerous players and a lot more formats in which they have entered. Table2 captures some of the major retail formats and Table3 shows the major retail players and their formats in India.

ISSUES & CHALLENGES IN INDIAN RETAIL

“Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani”: The Diverse Indian Consumer

The Indian consumer is “discerning different”. As some say, there are many India’s within India. India has been often called as the “land of diversity” and as we move across various geographies; the cultures, preferences, choices, behaviors,likes and dislikes of people change significantly. So, for a retailer, it becomes tougher to design a product/service offering for different regions.

Economic aspect: A volumes game

In the retail industry, margins are generally quiet low and hence, it calls for high volume for sustainability of the business. Hence, retailers seldom look for economies of scale to sustain their businesses.

Infrastructural Issues: Supply Chain (Major Bottleneck)

Looking from the lifecycle concept; being in the nascent stage, the supply chain practices for the retail industry have not been properly established so far. In a setup like that of retail, where there is no buffer between warehouse and store, the risk for stock out is very high. And being a comparatively new development, there is an element of unpredictability involved in it which makes it very difficult to manage.

Hence, supply chain for a retail setup demands high levels of responsiveness and flexibility which comes at a cost. As a result, outsourcing in retail has been a challenge since the Third Party Logistics (3PL’) are not competent enough to handle the high costs and flexibility at a reasonable cost.

Moreover, to minimize costs, even the best companies are not utilizing the benefits of IT (like RFID, GPS, bar coding etc) in their supply chains (warehouse/transportation/goods).

Social Dynamics:

Being a society dominated by unorganized retail, where the shop is the only source of livelihood for the people, a high volume retail format poses formidable threat to the small local retailers. It is, in fact, a threat to the social setup as a whole since there is a fear of the bargaining power getting in the hands of the strong retail players.

The “middle man” problem

However, the class of professionals which is worst hit by the retail industry is the “middlemen”. The basic model of retail bypasses the middleman and directly tie-up with the end supplier for gaining the required cost advantage. As a result, the middlemen are eradicated out of the loop and thus, his source of income gets snatched.

Political Aspect

With the people at the lower segments of the society getting affected, the issue becomes of political relevance within no time. And, the government has to take steps to safeguard the interests of the common man. The case of Reliance Fresh in UP is an instance of the same.

Apart from this, there has been strong retaliation against Walmart and according to grapewine, this is the reason why 100 percent FDI in retail is not getting allowed.

Legal Aspects

The taxes in case of inter-state transfer of goods pose another hurdle in this regard. The Central Sales Tax (CST) causes cost inefficiencies in the entire system. Although it is going to be phased out completely by 2010, but presently (3 percent) it poses a lot of economic inefficiency.

Burgeoning Real Estate Cost

To reach out to the customer, locating a store near customer is appropriate but the high real estate cost becomes a hurdle in this regard. Also, it makes the warehousing/ storage expensive as well.

THE FUTURE

The Indian retailing sector is at an inflexion point where the growth of organized retailing and growth in the consumption by the Indian population is going to take a higher growth trajectory. The Indian population is witnessing a significant change in its demographics. A large young working population with median age of 24 years, nuclear families in urban areas, along with increasing working-women population and emerging opportunities in the services sector are going to be the key growth drivers of the organized retail sector in India.

BOLLYWOOD CALLING

Brand association, brand endorsement, product placements, buzz marketing, viral marketing, brand identity, below the line activity, strategic fits.

Seems like another list of marketing jargons!

Well, these are the buzzwords which are gradually gaining currency in our very own desi tinsel town, “Bollywood”. In the recent blockbuster movie “Ta Ra Rum Pum”, the hero Saif Ali Khan (a NASCAR driver) drives a Chevrolet Aveo, uses Castrol GTX oil and Goodyear tyres for his car.

Result: The sales of Chevrolet cars in India have been on the rise since then!

Was it purely coincidental, huh? As a matter of fact, the Chevrolet Aveo that Saif Ali Khan drove in the movie was part of an endorsement-cum-marketing package estimated at Rs2.5 crore.

Welcome to the world of ‘in-film advertising’. It is the use of a product's name, package, signage or other trademarks in movies. In India, the phenomenon kick-started in 1973 when Rishi Kapoor rode a yellow Rajdoot bike in Raj Kapoor’s Bobby. In the recent Shah Rukh Khan’s blockbuster hit, ‘Chak De India’, brands such as McDonalds, Puma, Bisleri and UltraTech Cement were involved in in-film brand placement. To add to the list are recent movies such as Don (which promoted Tag Heuer watches, Motorola, Garnier, Citibank, Oakley sunglasses, Louis Philippe outfits), Dhoom: 2 (which promoted Coke, Pennzoil, Pepe, Sony, Disney channel, Sugar Free, McDonald’s, Speed, Suzuki Zeus) and Lage Raho Munnabhai (featuring Worldspace, IOCL, Go Air, MSN, Good Day, Kurkure, Bright Outdoor, Reliance Communications) to name a few.

Such engagements between films and brands are a trend these days. On one hand, it helps film producers, who are always hard-pressed for cash, raise some extra dough. In fact, the sponsoring brand also takes care of the marketing and advertising needs of their films. In case of Ta Ra Rum Pum, the sponsoring brands launched a series of TV commercials, radio jingles, print advertisements, contests and quizzes around the film, its cast and NASCAR on the Internet and extensive on-ground events to generate amazing hype for the movie. On the other hand, for the brands, it is an opportunity to cash in on the popularity of big film actors, who would have charged high fees if they were to engage them individually. Apart from this, companies feel that their brands connect on an emotional level with the audience if placed in a film. Essentially, it presents a win-win situation for both the parties.

If a brand misses out the opportunity for in film placements, it can still leverage upon the movie’s equity by means of ‘below the line activities’. In a recent publicity campaign called the “Jhoom Barabar - Slice Uthakar” contest conducted by the movie Jhoom Barabar Jhoom and beverage brand Slice, viewers had to make their own video dancing to the tune of the title song of the movie and the best entries got the chance to meet Abhishek Bachhan and Preity Zinta. Similarly, Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna tied up with Hewlett Packard and offered buyers of Compaq Presario laptops a chance to win a range of Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna merchandise and Shah Rukh Khan’s posters. Mauj Telecom, a leading wireless solution launched its mPremier service (which offered exclusive content of Karan Johar’s film Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna). The service was launched a day before the movie was released in theatres.

In addition to this, a brand can also use the ‘celebrity endorsements’ route. In a country which has always idolized the stars of the celluloid world, it makes tremendous sense for a brand to procure a celebrity for its endorsement. Perhaps endorsements work because the majority of people seek recognition. Buying a product that a famous person wears or uses connects a person to their fame and status. Celebrity endorsement transfers the personality and status of the celebrity directly to the brand.

India is considered a collectivist culture, so individuals operate as part of one or more collectives (e.g., family, co-workers, and peers) and are 'primarily motivated by the norms of, and duties imposed by, those collectives. However, given their desire to stand out from others and the hierarchical nature of the caste system, Indians may be considered vertical collectivists Related to vertical collectivism is the cultural dimension- power distance, on which India scores high, demonstrating that status and knowing one's place in the hierarchy are important.

The ramifications for verticality and power distance include the propensity to look up to successful people in the hierarchy, such as celebrities as role models. India conforms to this pattern.

Asian Paints, one of the leading paint brands in the Asian market, used Saif Ali Khan to endorse their product and their growth increased by 29% in value terms.

Titan Watches chose Aamir Khan to portray their brand more as a lifestyle product than as a commodity. The campaign helped Titan achieve a growth of 45% in volume sales and 52% in value.

Celebrities are no doubt good at generating attention, recall and positive attitudes towards advertising and also impart credibility and aspirational values to a brand, but the celebrity needs to match the product. Grant McCracken has proposed the Meaning Transfer Theory which explains that a celebrity encodes a unique set of meanings which if well used can be transferred to the endorsed product. Such a transfer takes place in three stages– encoding meanings, meaning transfer, meaning capture:

I. Encoding Meanings: Each celebrity has a unique set of meanings, which can be listed by age, gender, race, wealth, personality or lifestyle. In this way, the celebrities encode a set of meanings in their image. For example Preity Zinta can be seen as a lively, charming, bubbly, witty and enthusiastic.

II. Meaning Transfer: This stage transfers those meanings to the product. When skillfully portrayed, celebrities can communicate this image more powerfully than lay endorsers.

III. Meaning Capture: This assumes that consumers purchase products not merely for their functional value but also for their cultural and symbolic value. The theory says that consumers buy the endorsed product with the intention of capturing some of the desirable meanings which celebrities have passed on to the product. This is more eminent in lifestyle products like clothes, perfumes, cell phones etc.

Thus, it is of prime importance to select the celebrity with the right set of attributes for a particular product or what we call as the strategic fit. The Bollywood actor, John Abraham, is the face of Titan’s Fast Track sunglasses. The ad campaign reflects the brand- stylish and contemporary, which fits well with John Abraham’s image. Rani Mukerji, the evergreen girl-next-door, sells Munch, Slice and Aveo as well. Such actors/actresses stand for certain specific values and hence, they cater only to products of specific niches.

Imagine John Abraham selling Dabur Chyawanprash!

However, there are certain celebrities like Amitabh Bachhan and Shahrukh Khan who stand for aspirational values (like class, social image) and their high appeal cuts across gender, age and socio-economic groups.

Some filmmakers also use intensive “buzz marketing” before the release of a movie. They use means like rumors relating the star casts, showing some goof-ups on the sets on TV, “making of the movie”, online games and contests, free tickets for a few selected people, movie previews, glamorous pre-release parties and scandals, at times, to create a widespread word of mouth publicity amongst the audience. Well planned marketing tactics like shock publicity (e.g. the high budget of the movie, telling that the movie is a real story, showcasing some accident on the sets), viral marketing (e.g. fake stories of the movie are circulated online, prior to its release) are carefully executed to get the desired attention of the audience.

Apart from all the above, film merchandising has also emerged as another field of interest amongst filmmakers. After the release of the movie Krrish, an intensive campaign for merchandising of Krrish masks, lunch boxes and water bottles was launched. It takes the movie’s publicity campaign to the next level!

Indeed, the film business in India or the so called Bollywood has come of age. It has become more serious, techno savvy and brand conscious as well. Movies essentially carry out dedicated marketing and advertisement campaigns to stand out from the clutter and get some part of the consumer’s mind space. Brands have also identified the opportunity and are partnering with preferred film makers and actors/actresses to make leverage their brand equity.

All you marketing enthusiasts out there,

“BOLLYWOOD CALLING”.

Anyone listening?