IIPM: December 2011

Friday, December 23, 2011

INTERNET GROWTH: 2011

Globally, internet audiences are rapidly proliferating – 87% of the internet population now belongs to regions excluding the united state. Many Emerging Regions are likely to bypass the old modes – skipping dial-up and moving straight to broadband. Moreover, E-commerce growth is now being driven primarily by existing online shoppers, a trend which was at a nascent stage few years back

Asia taking over?

According to the recent report released by comScore, Asia Pacific with 41.2% now represents the region with the largest internet population in the world. From 2000 to 2011, world internet usage has grown by a mind boggling 480%.As a measure of engagement, comScore also analyzed that internet users outside the US account for 13% of the world’s online population in 2011 as compare to 66% in 1996. Many emerging regions, with social networking and mobile internet, are expected to gain momentum over the next few years. That has strong implications for marketers fancying their online edge.

Coupons on the money
A few specific categories have secured top slots in terms of driving web growth. As far as web growth in US is concerned, those are the coupons & retail-movies categories that have driven the growth. Humour was ranked the top gaining category last year with a growth of 88% in Unique Visitors (UVs), but has now dropped to the least growing category with only 8% growth (maybe they need them only in economic downturns!). With already a strong visitor base, unique visitors to the gaming information category grew by 13% since July 2010 and kids sites grew by 16%.

Socially & musically sold

While conversational media sites such as Tumblr & LinkedIn with 223% & 52% yoy growth in UVs respectively are known to be popular among the younger generations, properties such as Vevo & entertainment sites other than social media are fast catching up too. Vevo had 18.6 million more visitors in July 2011 than in July 2010. Even advertisers & marketers are looking for opportunities to advertise on social networking sites as traffic on these sites is comparatively very high. However, the music & entertainment category is fast gaining favour among the youth who are getting attracted to sites like Vevo and Pandora.

India on a searching spree

The global search market continues to grow at an extraordinary pace, with both highly developed and emerging markets contributing to strong growth worldwide. With the recent facts & figures revealed by comScore, it can be seen that 27.4 billion searches were performed in July 2011, which marked an 8% growth rate over the July 2010. India is ranked 8th in the global list of number of searches conducted but it has grown at a rate of 19%, which is the fastest after Turkey & Brazil when we compare the other countries in the top 10 list.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Nation Branding: What Works?

David Aaker, author of the all-time best selling branding textbook – Managing Brand Equity, attempts to identify the most effective nation branding tools

During August, I spoke at the inaugural conference on nation branding, a project the President of Korea initiated in 2009 to create a nation branding programme for Korea. In preparing my talk, I attempted to identify the most effective nation branding tools. I came down to four.

The first is the hosting of global events such as the Olympics, the World Cup, the British Open, The Australian Open, or the G20. Such events get enormous visibility through media coverage, they provide all sorts of positive associations, and they generate visits from influential people and others who will talk about their experiences. The second are events created and owned by the country. They can be within a country, such as the annual Korean Knowledge Forum that attracts luminaries and thought leaders around the world, or the Singapore Film Festival. These events also provide visibility, association involvement and visitors. The events can also be hosted outside the country, such as Korean Day in New York with a K-Pop contest where the winner received round-trip tickets to Korea. Such events provide a culture story, a country experience for those who have not visited, and a chance to allow people to relive a prior trip.

The third is the identification and leverage of country symbols. Symbols can take many forms, such as the Guggenheim at Bilbao, the Edinburgh Castle, a visual of trekking in Nepal, Queen Noor of Jordan, or prominent athletes such as Rafael Nadel of Spain. Such symbols make vivid some aspects, perhaps the central aspect, of the country. A symbol, unlike a verbal description, is easy to remember especially over many exposures.

The fourth is to encourage and leverage corporate brands. Think of the impact Singapore Airlines has on Singapore, or Mercedes has on Germany. These corporate brands control many of the salient country image factors such as cultural values or perceived innovativeness. Further, the sheer budget makes a difference. Samsung plus Hyundai/Kia will spend well over $1.5 billion in media advertising in just the US, a budget that will dwarf the promotion budget of any nation. The impact of Samsung product leadership in the 90s and Hyundai’s ability to get 5% of the US car market with quality and upscale cars has had an enormous impact on the Korean brand.

There are a host of other approaches including advertising (which works mainly to attract tourists) and social media. But, in my view, these four, properly managed, generate the most impact.

In my talk directed at the Council for Nation Branding established by the President of Korea I discussed the importance of creating a strategy that would include objectives, target marketing and brand vision. With a strategy in place, I identified four effective nation branding tools: hosting a global event such as the World Cup, creating events such as the Korean Knowledge Forum, identifying symbols such as the Guggenheim at Bilbao, and supporting the work of corporate brands such as Samsung and Hyundai. My theme was that, in my view, efforts of the council to build the Korean brand should focus on opportunism, support and leverage. I suggested the council should not sponsor or direct brand building programmes, especially local ones, nor expect an ongoing budget to create communication programmes.