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Thursday, February 16, 2012

This one isn’t for Adrenaline Addicts. This is seriously social.

In a country where even the most basic of awareness on health-related matters is extremely low, campaigns like saathi bachpan ke are important

I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life ~ Abraham Lincoln

It is easy to understand why TV viewers don’t usually rate an ad that promotes any social cause under the Sun a “5-on-5”. Non-exciting frames, pre-imagined set locations, conclusions which are no different that what can be forecasted by a toddler et al, suck the excitement out of every TVC that comes with a message to make society cleaner and healthier. True. But it is the bundle of emotions that make these ads worth the efforts. And many-a-time, winners. The effort this time comes from the national alliance christened ‘Saathi Bachpan Ke’ (‘Friends of Childhood’ in Hindi; the outfit shares its name with the title of the ad-campaign and was formally launched on March 22, 2010 – World Water Day – by Timothy J. Roemer, the US Ambassador to India), established by the US AID/India-funded Market-Based Partnerships for Health (MBPH) Project, that has diverse partners from both the public and private spheres (including NGOs, research and media agencies and other public health organisations) working to help improve child health by reducing incidences of diarrhoeal diseases in children under five by promoting simple and effective practices of washing hands with soap, consumption of clean drinking water and oral rehydration salts (ORS) therapy. Says Ajay Sharma, Director, McCann Momentum (one of the agencies which is helping to promote the campaign in India) to 4Ps B&M, “Saathi Bachpan Ke is a diarrhoea management programme, focused on children below the age of five and caregivers.”

The importance of the social TVC to the Indian masses cannot be denied. According to the ‘Safe Water, Better Health’ report by WHO (2008), India is the country where maximum count of deaths by diarrhoeal diseases is recorded (close to 400,000 deaths per year – 26.67% of the global count – of which 90% occur amongst those below the age of five). Surprisingly, a majority of these deaths are easily preventable through proper precaution and cure, one of which (ORS therapy) is promoted by the TVC.

The creative idea used in the making of the ad is based on the simple concept of a mother never giving up when it comes to taking care of her child. The TVC – created by Thompson Social-JWT – is indirectly also a tribute to the untiring spirit of a mother. The ad conveys a message that saving a child’s life through the ORS therapy demands just the patience that mothers display when they watch their child grow up – from teaching them to walk and talk, to waking up at midnight to attend to them and running behind them et al. “Thoda thoda ORS, baar baar” is the message of this ad. The background music – which is a typical melodious lullaby – runs throughout the 40 second-long duration of the TVC, strengthening the emotional appeal of the ad. “The film is based on the insight that caregivers are not persistent in giving ORS repeatedly to a child suffering from diarrhoea since the child often refuses to take the solution. It urges the mother to be as consistent in ORS usage,” explains Kavita Ayyagari, Programme Director of the Saathi Bachpan Ke alliance.

Shot at Madh Island, Mumbai and directed by Pushpendra Misra of JWT, the TVC was released on November 5, 2011. Television is indeed one of the best mediums to communicate with population clusters that are branded either rural or the uneducated class. For India, where education and awareness on health-related issues is a big concern, such efforts must be applauded. Our verdict: in this world of profit-making, such TVCs with relevant social messages are as unique as they are perhaps non-exciting. They appear easy-to-make, but are far more difficult than going on a vacation.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

IIPM Best B School India
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
IIPM's Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
IIPM in the league of best management institutes of India.....
IIPM Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri on Internet Hooliganism
Arindam Chaudhuri: We need Hazare's leadership
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM RANKED NO.1 in MAIL TODAY B-SCHOOL RANKINGS
Planman Technologies
IIPM Contact Info
IIPM History
IIPM Think Tank
IIPM Infrastructure
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IIPM MBA Institute India

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

TAKE A STAND: SOMETIMES LEADERS NEED TO SAY ‘NO’

Corporations, across the globe, must serve the communities in which they do business, as well as their customers and shareholders.

4Ps Business & Marketing, in a strategic alliance with the new york times service, presents a column by howard Schultz, Chairman, President and CEO of Starbucks corporation

There are times when business leaders are so bound by their responsibilities to shareholders that we can forget we have free will.

I am not implying that we should shirk the obligations we have to deliver a return on investment to the people and institutions helping our companies to grow. What I mean is that we as leaders should not become so beholden to Wall Street and short-term performance goals that we stop doing what we believe to be right – inside and outside our organisations.

I recognise this trap because Starbucks and I got caught in it.

Several years ago, while I was serving as the company’s chairman, Starbucks went through a dangerous period of hyperexpansion. This behaviour was fed by a need to meet Wall Street’s high-growth expectations, which analysts had adopted, in part, because our company had fueled them. Starbucks had a rich history of annual revenue and profit increases of 20%, which became tougher to maintain as the company got bigger and the economy began to slide.

Every day, with every decision, my colleagues and I felt more pressure to meet that bar, fearing the stock would tank if we did not. I got so caught up in our monthly sales performance that I often forgot I had the ability – and sometimes an obligation – to say “no.”

“No” to opening new stores rapidly instead of thoughtfully. “No” to selling products in our stores that had nothing to do with coffee, such as board games. In short, we were chasing a pace of growth with quick fixes rather than with more sustainable activities.

One of the reasons I agreed to return as Starbucks’ CEO in 2008, after eight years as chairman, was to reverse this trend. After retaking the reins on day-to-day operations, I began the painful but necessary process of weaning the company from the yoke of short-term expectations.
We began to say “no” to growth for growth’s sake and “yes” to more investments that might not deliver an immediate ROI but would strengthen the company in the long term. We said “yes” to risky but potentially game-changing research and development projects, to closing underperforming stores, to investing in our information-technology infrastructure and in creative marketing campaigns. Many of these decisions involved short-term costs that ultimately paid off.

Perhaps the biggest “yes” was insisting we keep health-care coverage for Starbucks’ part-time workers, despite pressure from Wall Street to drop it. The potential savings would have dramatically boosted our bottomline. But eliminating health coverage for some of our workers who had come to value it would have been unethical, in my eyes, and would have forever drained the reservoir of trust we had established with tens of thousands of people.

Saying “yes” to these types of long-term investments were, in large part, how we reversed the company’s downward spiral.

More recently, I have said “yes” to something else that, while providing no measurable impact on shareholder value, should deliver an equally important return.

In August I wrote a memo to Starbucks partners (our term for employees) to air my personal frustrations with the failure of America’s politicians to work together to effectively address the country’s complex economic problems, including high unemployment. I followed that with open letters to other CEOs and to concerned American citizens, asking them to join me in withholding campaign contributions to any political party until our elected leaders could do what they were put in office to do: cooperate and compromise.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

IIPM Best B School India
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
IIPM's Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
IIPM in the league of best management institutes of India.....
IIPM Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri on Internet Hooliganism
Arindam Chaudhuri: We need Hazare's leadership
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM RANKED NO.1 in MAIL TODAY B-SCHOOL RANKINGS
Planman Technologies

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.

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.