Barketing is not the right Marketing

Here I am once again with a typical title for my posting – “Barketing is not the right Marketing”. What do I mean by this? What is Barketing? How this term is related to Marketing? And many such questions are the goals for this post to answer today.

Barketing according to me: is a relationship between a dog’s barking and the subject of Marketing.

Today’s marketing strategies have become more of a Barketing one’s which are annoying, irritating and one sided message. The customers are bombarded with so many not so interesting messages about the product and the service of a brand through advertisements (indoor and outdoor). Like a dog which continuously goes on barking for seeking attention of its prospects (the guardians), many companies are following the same process in which they are continuously talking all those goodie goodie things about their products and services to the customers by means of advertisements and promotional activities.

For example: the recently launched advertisements of Vodafone wherein a dog is used to portray the non-stop connectivity, is lame and not to interesting. The school children’s love being shown is not being accepted by the Indian culture which is irritating in nature. Even then this advertisement is continuously being BARKETED to the customers. Vodafone is not the only one; all most all others are continuously throwing the same old stories in their advertisements. People have got bored with Cadbury’s kuch meetha hojaye, because a chocolate can never replace sweets in Indian Tradition (of course it did changed the gifting custom on the festival of Rakhi) but it still cannot be accepted for festivals like Deepavali and Holi.

Therefore there has to be a proper balance between the advertisements and culture and the frequency of such advertisements. That’s where I say “Barketing is not the right Marketing”. Therefore as a marketer should think – “Are we marketing or we just barketing?”.

If the Competition is Barketing you opt for a meow approach. When all the other dogs in the pound are barking, trying to bark louder will only get you noticed for the wrong things. When everyone else is barking you need to do something other than bark. Perhaps you should "meow".

Notice the differences between the TV ads that you don't skip and the ones that bore or annoy you. Make note of those differences and apply those techniques to your own marketing. Do the same thing as you are flipping through a magazine or perusing your mail.

Remember that Marketing is practical, it cannot be learnt from books.

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

Business and Fish Market

The Title for this post may sound little awkward and it may not appeal to majority of you, but as a title has to be provided so I have given it a name like "Business and Fish Market". What do I mean by this? its quite simple, I mean a clear understanding of the relationship between the business firms (brands, products, service etc) and the ultimate consumer. Is that relationship like a Water in a river and a fish type or it is something like Fish and the Fisherman one?

The answer can be both. Let me explain what I mean by these two relations mentioned above.

When I say "a water in a river and the Fish relation", I mean that the water represents the company/brand/product/service etc and the fish represents the customer. And when I say "Fish and the Fisherman Relation", the Fisherman represents the company/brand/product/service and the Fish still represents the customer.

Let us elaborate on these relationship and understand which one matters the most in the today's world of new age wave technology.

There are many companies who loose their fortunes because they adopt a relationship like "Fish and the Fisherman" wherein the company hunts for its prospective customers and take them for granted once the deal is closed. These type of companies don't care for the after sales services and the consumer satisfaction. As a result of which the consumer switches to another brand next time he/she wants to buy the same product or avail the service.

On the other hand the companies which follows the relationship like "Water and the Fish", enjoys the frequent footfalls of its customer and also enjoy the word of mouth advantage. Here like the river provides a sustainable environment for the fish to live in, the companies provide a great service and experience for its customer and the customer feels proud of being associated with the product. If the river in this relation gets spoil, it may loose the fish, likely if the companies don't provide a good service, the customer may look at other alternatives and spread a wrong word about your company.

Therefore in the modern era of marketing, the marketers should always try to provide the customers with the best of the service they can and be like a river water which the fish (customer) would never like to leave.

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

The Epic Ramayana and the new age Marketing

Ramayana - a hugely followed and worshiped Hindu epic. I have been bought up listening to the story of Ramayana from my grand parents and also I have encountered myself watching it on the television several times.

The story of Ramayana is simple. Rama is the manifestation of God Vishnu and is married to Seeta ( the manifestation of Goddess Laxmi) ; Rama along with his wife and younger brother leaves the worldly pleasures of being a king and opts for a 14 years of loneliness (sanyas) to fullfill the promise of his father. After a while Ravana the king of evils kidnaps Seeta and Rama goes in search of her with the help of the monkey tribe known as "Vanar sena". Finally a war takes place and Ravana is defeated. This is just a summary of the whole Epic, but the story is more interesting than what I have just mentioned.

If I try to connect this story with something that happens in the business world then I can successfully connect this to the Marketing concepts and Competition. Let me put it this way; the company in a market place can treat its product as "Rama" which is striving hard against the competitors product which can be referred as "Ravana" and this Ravana (competitor) is trying to hijack your market (here the market can be compared with Seeta) and the various strategies both these team has are the supporters or the army ( Vaanar sena and Ravan's troop).

If I compare it this way, a question arises in my mind : "if this has to be adopted then both the team company and competitor will always try to think themselves as the Rama (the Hero)". And the answer is "Yes they both can".

But let us not forget that the customers are more wise than the highly educated guys the companies appoint. The customer will definitely find the true Rama and that company will be treated as Rama by the customers which is value based, human oriented, society oriented and last but not the least "welfare oriented".

If your company can be as good as Rama was and is in people's belief then no Ravana(competitor) can eat away your market share and stop you from going heights.

Therefore a company should be Value driven not greed driven. In todays world the companies should deliver to the customer and benefit to the society.

Gone are the days when marketers used to think "Whatever is good for business is good for society". Today the thinking should be "Whatever is good for society is good for business". So try to make your company Rama and be value based.

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

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"Product Utility Optimization"(PUO) - Do you know what your products can do?

I have been hearing about the term "optimization" fixed up as a tail with many Business words like Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Optimization (SMO), Product Design Optimization (PDO). I feel all this terms like SEO, SMO, PDO etc have been taught to me as a student from a companies or a business point of view. Many of the great texts books which are referred as Bibles, Geetas and Quarans projects the concept from the business point of view but they fail to convey it to students from the eyes of the customers. And that according to me has to be addressed; any business management student has to be taught to see the world from the customers point of view so as to get a great career prospect ahead.

Every time I buy or use a heavy, durable and costly product for myself I buy it on the basis of the design it have, the kind of social image it gives me, the kind of style it adds to my look and so on; but never I thought about - "am I gonna utilize this product completely". For instance many of us want to buy i-Phones every time a new model from Apple inc is launched but do we use all those application and features it provides to us?. The answer is a straight "NO" (not atleast in my case). I have been a user of Samsung Galaxy to a Blackberry Curve but I don't find my self using something very different because I don't utilize the huge ocean of apps available in both of this world famous brands.

That is where I thought of saying to myself that a term tailed with "optimization" as the last word should be there which talks about product features being utilized to an optimum level.

I define "Product Utility Optimization"(PUO) as the optimum utilization of all those qualitative and quantitative features of a product so as to get the maximum benefit out of the money you spent on buying that particular product.

For an instance, whenever we buy a packaged drinking water bottle, the PUO(product utility optimization) doesn't just talks about the water but it also refers to the utility one can get by selling the empty plastic bottle in scrap. It thus talks about the qualitative (thirst satisfying) aspect as well as quantitative (money oriented) aspect of the product.

This is what I have tried to design as a new concept for myself. There are several such different concepts which we our self can design as individuals and I hope you will also try to create your own one's soon.

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

"Employee Brand" in the Highly Competitive B-School world..

The Best thing about marketing I personally like and appreciate is that it is one of those subjects which do not have a fixed formula to arrive at a solution. The Scope and Limits of Marketing as a subject is not yet defined and will not be.

Most of us are brought up through our Marketing courses talking about Consumer Brands and Consumer patterns. A Consumer brand can be defined as "Brands of products which a consumer prefer to buy at a given point in time". It talks about the favorite brand to which the consumer is loyal. For instance : in the portable music world Apple's I Pod is favorite brand for many music freaks, these freaks are loyal to this brand when it comes to music.

If a Consumer's preference for his/her favorite product can be analysed as a Consumer Brand then there has to be something termed as Employee Brand which talks about the favorite company a person wants to work for. This is what I was thinking about today after a day long of skimming and scanning through texts on "Consumer Behavior".

As I am a restless guy who is just about to complete my Post Graduation in Management, I could try and connect the term "Employee Brand" to my own classmates and myself who are on the edge of getting into a corporate world. Every student has a predefined goals about his/her career, they have their dream companies where they want to work. But what are those factors which influences or drive this attraction towards these companies to call them as dream companies?

Are they family generated?

Are they generated as a result of the individual's immediate environment?

Does the Market drives this attractions?

Does the Education system creates this? and so on.

These were the questions popping into my brain. I tried to understand it by connecting it to Consumer and stimuli concept. Like advertisements, family background, economic position, social status, lifestyle etc influences the consumers preference for a given set of products; likewise many such factors like family background, friends reference, experts opinion, market condition etc influences an individual to select a company as his dream company.

This culture of "Employee Brand" has become a culture in B-schools scenario. A fraction of students when they join the program know exactly where they want to work in future or what they want to do, the other students just get influence by them and follow. Due to this kind of following few companies have become a target of many which are best in their industry. But in this following system, the students loose connection from what is actually having in the business world around, which industries are booming and which are the best companies in these booming industries. I personally think the students should be provided proper guidance about this kind of career opportunity which could help them in selecting the best suitable "Employee Brand" for them.

I find myself lucky enough to have been guided by Dr.Ravi Paturi and Prof. Ajay Kumar in this context at Aurora's.

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

In India - The Customer is a Queen......

Ever since I heard the term Marketing, I have been said that in any Business "Customer is a King", but I feel in developing countries and Under developed countries it would be more appropriate if we use the concept in a little different way stating that "Customer is not King, actually the Customer is QUEEN". That is what I am going to talk through out this post today as to why I think the customer is Queen irrespective of customers being both male and female.

I request you to kindly note that I am writing this post with respect to the Developing and Under developed Nations.

Let us consider a country like India, If we carefully observe here most of the buying activities are done by the feminine gender majority of whom being house wives or who are learning home science. There may be majority of you who would not agree to this fact on the basis that if we consider the hard or capital goods, the purchasing is done by the male gender or the man of the family, but there is a little addition to it. Yes, the purchase in terms of capital and expensive goods is done by the man of the house but in developing countries this decision is made by the women sitting at home, the man just executes the process of buying.

I still remember that when my Grand Father or Grand Uncles used to buy Gold, Vehicles or houses they used to consult their wife, mother and sisters about which brand to buy and all. Till date many of my home decisions on buying is taken by my mother and that's the same case with majority of friends.

Just go around and see how women buy at a vegetable market or a Clothes Bazaar in your city or locality and you will find that it is really a tiresome task to influence women to buy. They want to have even the minute bargain as possible, which if not provided at their comfort will result in product switching. Therefore it becomes really tough for the marketers to design and execute strategies in such kind of environment.

Let me quote something really very funny and important for all of you who might be thinking that lets us now develop strategies to influence women to buy :

The quote goes like this : "God Created Earth and slept well, then God created Man and slept well, finally God created Women, there after neither he slept well nor the man"

Therefore see the market from the point of view of "Customer is Queen", I have starting seeing , I hope you do.

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

Is Democracy a Weeping Boy ?

The Title of this post today may sound lil awkward because it sounds like an incomplete sentence and to many it doesn't sound as a sentence. I heard this sentence when I was watching the discussion on one of my favorite masterpiece of work by Raghav Bahl (Founder TV 18 CNN IBN) titled "SUPER POWER" - A Race Between Chinese Hare and Indian Tortoise.

This sentence at first was really tough for me to understand, but as I investigated deep into that discussion, I came out with many thoughts of mine with relation to Democracy and how people from different walks of life use it to hide their inefficiency. We find a lot of influencing personalities saying that in a democratic country like India this cannot be done, that cannot be achieved and we cannot do this etc. This is referred to as Democracy being a Weeping Boy here in this post today.

India is considered to be the worlds largest democracy. It is also referred to as the spiritual hub of the world. All this good tags which tag along the brand named India are actually is being used in contrast as a excuse for things not being proper or not being done in Indian Sub-Continent.

Where ever you go and ask for a change, people say the same thing that in India it cannot be done. If we just keep weeping about it and starts protecting ourselves by this shield of Democracy, I guess we are making fool of our selves not others. Democracy is the biggest weapon and the biggest blessing India has ever got. Let us utilise it and try bring a great change in the way we function.

Finally I leave it onto you: Is Democracy a Weeping Boy or a Divine Gift?

You Choose Yourself !!!

There is one great dialogue which fascinated me alot from the movie "READY" starring Salman Khan where the actor says "Never Underestimate 3 things - I, ME, MYSELF". The dialogue have been quite popular among the youngsters since the movie was released. But today I relate this dialogue to something that is happening and would continue to happen and change the whole corporate scenario. Gone are the days when a below average employee was payed more than average for the job executed. In today's era of cut throat competition, if you are below average then the employer may find some one working for him equally like you at a cheaper salary than you were paid. Today only one things works out "I, ME and MYSELF is responsible for my living and also my Job, if am Performing I will be on Job or else I am perished". The corporate scenario is changing very drastically, the only thing appreciated and preserved in corporate is PERFORMANCE more than the PAY you get. There for if you are below average worker and want to get above average salary, then you must better be sleeping and watching a dream.

Moreover as a cherry in the cream, Recession is on our head and according to Mr.Seth Godin, renowned Marketing Guru, "Recession is Recession, its the end of industrial age and the end of average worker/performer". If you're different somehow and have made yourself unique, people will find you and pay you more, Godin says.

Therefore you choose yourself, be the best of you can and the world will be yours.

Don't forget that the cheerleaders are not going to win it for you

The title I gave to my writing today may sound insane to few and probably very funny to the other few. But I feel this is what I have learnt through my experiences through out the day. My day started as regular one like waking up, getting ready, moving to college to attend few sessions which were important to attend and so on. But today something different was there unplanned on my plate. Evening when I got back home after the whole some parade of tiring work at the college, I was frustrated to hear my mom instructing me to attend a social gathering kind of function organised by one of my relative for which my family was invited.

I had no other option than to attend that function as it was organised by one of very close relative of ours. Initially I was not feeling happy to attend the function but a great experience was awaiting its door open for me in the mean time. In the function I encountered and interacted with one of very old person who was debating with his friends of his age about the superiority of Mahatma Gandhi. I poked my nose in between and joined their discussion. He said - You all happen to know very little about Gandhiji, but there are lot more many things to learn from what he did. Remember Churchill and his comment on Gandhi - "It is insane to see Mr.Gandhi striding half naked up to the steps of viceregal palace, to talk on equal terms with the representative of the king emperor". The old wise man said that Mr. Churchill called Mahatma as a half naked man. He added what ever Churchill said the Mahatma never bothered and he only focused on his work and we all know that how the story ended. The story ended with Britishers Leaving India just because of the courage and focus of the Half Naked Man.

This story made me think and analyse what could be the learning out come out of this. And finally while returning back to home, I realized that many of us start our life's journey (personal, professional, spiritual etc) but we loose our focus because of small petite issues. And most of us loose our focus and eye upon our goal just because we are demotivated by few others who doesnot believe in our vision and dream. If you achieve single-minded focus, then not only you will achieve your dream but all those demotivating factors gets inspired by you and starts following you.

As the Americans put it "keeping your eyes on the ball is the only way to win the game. Don't forget that the cheerleaders are not going to win it for you". From now I have decided to focus on my dream, my career, my life and would not bother about who demotivates me. Will you?

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

Ethical and Extra-Ethical, there is nothing called Unethical

The two words “Ethical” and “Unethical” are the most commonly bombarded words in the corporate world today. There is no universal definition or the scope to these two words. If strategy “A” for accomplishing some work means ethical to someone the same becomes unethical in other persons point of view. The absolute difference between these two distinct words remains impossible to define.

My debate today remains is there anything called as unethical in business scenario today? Is there anything which is completely ethical in the business world today? Are we a part of a business environment wherein everyone follows ethics?

The answer or conclusion to this debate is nowhere. No one in this world I guess can conclude this debate even after using our infinite capacity hard disk located in the top section of the human body. And this remains impossible because if something is unethical for someone, the same becomes ethical for someone and this leads us to nowhere.

I was baffling around several books and web browsing on understanding what could be the major difference between ethical and unethical, but I could not find something that made me 100% confident about the difference. Then I came across something in the writings of Mr.CK Prahlad, where he says there is mile and extra mile in removing poverty and I compared the same to ethics.

I have got one of the best answers to this dilemma of ethics and non ethics. I correlated the same with what I read in the writings of Mr. CK Prahlad and processed this. According to me there is nothing like being Unethical, there remains ethics and extra ethics. I believed this to be opt because, if one company opt for something against the policy in order to be in competition, it would not be termed as unethical because the company did it to sustain competition, therefore according to me that is not unethical that actually can be termed as Ethical and if the company would not have opted for such strategy and still worked on it own then that according to me should be termed as Extra-Ethical.

So in my context, I have changed the word Unethical to Ethical and Ethical to Extra Ethical.

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari