Dopaminers-Group B1-Source Pitch

 

Source:       PITCH

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New LinkedIn country manager

·         Professional network, LinkedIn, has appointed Nishant K Rao as the Country Manager for India.

·         His appointment follows the promotion of former country manager, Hari V Krishnan into a larger role as the Managing Director of Asia- Pacific and Japan.

·         In his new role, Rao will focus on scaling up operations and staying committed to LinkedIn’s value proposition of connecting India’s professionals to make them more successful and productive and helping enterprises hire, market and sell effectively.

·         Rao stated that with a member base of 18 million professionals, India is one of the largest growing markets other than US.

 

“ Feel” factor important in packaging.

·         According to PIAI (Packaging Industry Association of India) , the global packaging industry is currently valued at $433 billion and is expected to grow to $820 billion by 2016.

·         PIAI claims that the consumer market dominates the global packaging industry and accounts for an estimated 70 per cent of the sales, while industrial application accounting for remaining 30 per cent of it.

·         There are stages involved when a customer goes for a product, first they would want to get attracted, then they enroll for a product and know about it, they look at the packaging and understand it and then go ahead and buy it.

·         “There is a need of understanding what the consumer is going through while making a purchase and in lieu of that one needs to bring in the factor of emotion.

·         Another report by PIAI claims that Indian packaging industry is currently valued at US $13 billion and ranks 11th in the world. The industry, as PIAI claims is expected to grow at an 18-20 per cent per year rate from its current 15 per cent and is expected to grow to US $16.5 billion by 2015.

·         Comparing Branding and packaging, packaging is very important that can influence and attract the customers to make the buy.

 

 

1.      Shopping: Sony top search; Flipkart rising

Sony is the highest brand which has been searched in ‘Google’ for when it comes to electronics in digital media for year 2012.Meanwhile, Flipkart is the brand to look forward to, which is rising on Google Search as a ‘shopping’ category and has seen a 250 per cent rise over the previous period.Meanwhile, homeshop18 has seen a 90 per cent rise. Samsung Galaxy is another brand that has seen a 50 per cent rise. ‘Online shopping’ as a search term comes close behind Samsung at 70 and is a notification of a trend that more and more people are getting comfortable shopping online.

2.      Indian marketing is gut-centric and not knowledge driven: AG Krishnamurthy

·         The Chairman of AGK Brand Consult, AG Krishnamurthy feels that marketing in India is far more gut-centric and owner driven while developing products and innovations than relying on consumer insights.

In FMCG, continued engagement may not be critical. In several other product categories like durables, mobile phones, travel, transport and a host of other services, consumer interaction and engagement is as important as the product/service on offer. In this country, unfortunately, marketers still haven’t realized that purchase of a product or service is just the beginning of a long relationship, and if nurtured well, it could be hugely profitable for the marketing organizations. In this world of high competition, I am sure that someday marketers would realize that ‘customer is truly the king’.

·         Product is no more the star, it is the consumer.

·         How important is a marketer’s gut feeling or instinct when it comes to strategic business decisions?

It is very important to have a gut feel. To the extent that based on the gut feel which to me is ‘accumulated wisdom’, we develop hypothesis for developing products/marketing communications, which are then tested out in the market place through exhaustive professional market research. The results then would guide the next steps. In fact, several brands and marketing communication packages are developed on gut feel, tested extensively through market research, and launched to become iconic success stories. Gut feels need to be researched and validated in the market place. Here are a few examples. Symphony air coolers: Many years back, a young AchalBakeri walks into my office with Rs. 1,00,000MarComm budget and a dream to change the world of air coolers.

·         What is it that marketers don’t adhere to in India that sometimes results in mediocre brand building efforts?

Marketers lack of respect for their ad agency. An ad agency is not a supplier; it’s a brand partner. And more importantly, it’s marketer’s and ad agency’s gut feel, just gut feel, not validated gut feel that results in disastrous consequences for brands.I strongly believe that the more a marketer knows about his consumers, the better he is able to build his brands. Indepth understanding of his consumers is very crucial and lack of it is the major source of all marketing problems today.

·         There are some of the most commonly held misconceptions about effective marketing that Indian companies and marketers have.

·         There are certain trends and dynamics that will reshape and change the way marketing is done in the country.

More and more micro segmentations and consumer insights will shape future marketing strategies and communications. Today, in the same family, you have different world-views and needs. No longer are we making family films or TV content. It is segmented and so are the products, services and marketing communications. Reaching them effectively will be the challenge and this will change the way marketing is done in this country.