Entertainment high on demand in India – TV, Online and Mobile
Television is a star when it comes to entertainment with 18,000 cr in ad and pay revenue. In terms of Share of viewership, GEC leads the pack.
Share of viewership for GEC is 48.7% in 2008 as compared to News which is 8.5% and Sports which is just 3.2% in 2008. Though we all would agree that now a days even News channels can quality as “Entertainment channels” with very basic serious news and more of sensational, trivial and tabloid news.
Source: Afaqs.com
In India, as per Nelson the top five mobile site categories in India are games (visited by 38 per cent of mobile Internet users), email (33 per cent), entertainment (21 per cent), music (18 per cent) and sports (15 per cent) as against US and European markets, where mobile Internet is used mostly for information and news, BRIC markets are driven to entertainment content.
In India, mobile Internet fills an important gap in homes and schools where PCs are not easily accessible.
Internet: Entertainment rules
Networking and Entertainment activities are the biggest gainers in popularity. Communication, networking and entertainment activities stand out as the more popular online activities, with the biggest gains in usage accumulated by social networking, matrimonial search and dating and friendship activities.
Facebook and other online networking communities have changed the way we interact and keep in touch. Not only have they been successful in helping build new friends, their “Search parameters” have helped many people “get back in touch”. No wonder 41% of internet audience are a member of some or the other social networking community.
Source: Juxtconsult.com
Brands and memorable jingle!
Even today, with multiple interactive avenues in advertising, role of jingle is unquestionable.. Though jingles started for radio advertising, they still form an important part of marketing mix even in age of online gaming.
Jingle of Parachute oil – “Pyaar mein… Gorgeous Hamesha’” was not just aired on TV and radio, was hosted on their website, on portals, on YouTube and hosted as ringtones across many sites. On Reliance Mobile World, this jingle was deployed under the Romantic Hits category. I have heard my friends listen to this time an again on their laptop!
As a country, we not only love pleasant and soothing tunes, but even voices of our actors and actresses, and any brand that uses a famous celebrity voice to promote its products has met with success. Amitabh Bachhan, Naseeruddhin Shah and others have been famous not only for acting, but even for amazing voice quality!
Jingles which were melody based, with the brand name mentioned multiple times increased brand recall and became a synonym for the industry. Am linking some amazing, old and new jingles with their Brands…do add links for others incase you find them. These brands are best remembered for their music! Enjoy!!!
· Parachute : Georgeous Hamesha
· Hamara Bajaj
· Nirma
· Airtel
· Titan watches
· Vicco Tumeric cream
· Frooti
Personal PR – Blog or Networking sites?
When, out of sheer selfish motive, I search for may name on Google, I was surprised to see “Rediff connexions” appear even before my own blog posts.. and to add to it my Rediff connexions is an empty profile. I had deleted contents from this almost an year back..
Google organic results
I fail to understand this ranking metrics. What is more important? Personal Blog? Or just being present on a networking site? How it is that blog posts are less valued than an empty profile on social networking site?
The blog which I write (though the frequency is low), is still more populated and relatively recently updated comes below Rediff connexions. Though I agree SEM does the magic, but I always thought that Google crawlers focuses on Content as well.. but that doesn’t look like it, atleast not in this case.
CEAT Makeover – Change is here
Why do brands go in for makeover? The market need is to be more youthful? Or to compete with global brands they feel the need to embrace a brand change?
In case of CEAT, probably its both of the above and more. The fact that Youth is a lucrative segment, all brands are trying to be and look like them! Energized and Youthful!
Source: Businessworld issue 20-26 May 2008
It’s a good change and at a good time. The infrastructure is improving and probably 25-year-old Ceat Rhino was not a lucrative option for youngsters who focus on performance and agility which a Rhino was not capable to depicting.
The thought is great but not executed in a perfect way. Their website for example, doesn’t carry the logo anywhere. The site, which could have been a great tool to interact with users and provide them with commuters club /drive getaways, is currently far from interaction. Its just a static website.
Their commercials and online campaign focus on “Change” and not “Energy” factor. If implemented well, this Energy and youth focus could have taken them places with high scalability options.It looks like a job half done - thought well, implemented poorly!
And I stumbled upon… Social bookmarking sites which couldn’t make it big
As big as del.icio.us, dig.com or reddit.com
Sites like Indiapad.com, Putvote.com, Indiagram.com and more. Why is it that these sites couldn’t make it big despite providing the same utility with localised flavour. Is it because they are just “Me too” sites or changing user preference is difficult. When I get same features on del.icio.us, what would or can make me shift/create another list of other site?
Having 2/3/4 email address is different from having to access 2/3 social bookmaking sites.
|
Number of email accounts and average per capita email Ids |
All Internet Users |
Mid/Sr. executives Above 35+ yrs |
|
Projected Base |
25,167,869 |
2,854,725 |
|
Sample Base |
25,060 |
2,929 |
|
1 email id |
14.60% |
14.20% |
|
2 email ids |
27.90% |
30.20% |
|
3 email ids |
27.20% |
27.10% |
|
4 email ids |
16.60% |
16.30% |
|
5 or more email ids |
13.70% |
12.20% |
|
Average email ids |
3 |
2.9 |
Source: Survey by JuxtConsult. Thanks for the information Mrutyunjay.
So what all products succeed despite being “Me too”? Simple guess - Those who have some great value proposition and are able to show value to the end user. Email providers competed wit each other of storage space, easy search features etc.
Am waiting to see what unique offering can sites like Indiapad.com, Putvote.com or Indiagram.com can provide to woo people off other established bookmarking sites. As said, my belief is that users wouldn’t prefer to maintain track of 2/3 pure utility sites.. as this defeats the very purpose of not having to remember “where did I bookmark it”
Social Media: A footloose media world
Social Media represents people power..moving decisions from editors to the masses.. Collapsing the line between publishers and public.
In this age and era of millions of blogs, networking sites, syndication and distribution, strength lies in being able to target and engage the right target audience.
In my previous post, had mentioned that it is getting increasingly difficult for marketers to get in touch with prospects. So what is the solution? Move away from social media and focus again Traditional Media? And no marks for guessing, the answer is NO.
What needs to be done is to involve the existing medium and platforms judiciously so as to co-create and ensure that the combined sum is more that individual.
A great strategy has been adopted by Nanhi Kali, a non-profit project managed jointly by the KC Mahindra Education Trust and the Naandi Foundation to help underprivileged girls in India complete their primary education. They have created a gateway to various social media in form of www.GirlSmiles.org.
The site opens on a Wikipedia page, which carries information about the project and a virtual cloud navigator with links to their communities across various social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, Flickr etc including link for donations, directing individuals to www.ChangeThePresent.org, where users can donate money.
An impressive concept!!
Social Media.. where do I connect with my target audience?
“So.. Where is the pulp”!!
It’s a similar scenario in Internet marketing now.. the usual places where target audience were expected to be, have changed. Media consumers have now taken the shape of media creaters.
They are using various digital media platforms to create, publish and share images, videos and opinions! A new generation of “user generated content” is creating both problems and opportunities for marketers.
So if I want to showcase a car commercial (video), where do I do that? On Automobile page of Media publications? Or on Youtube? Or on a community website? I definitely can’t be present everywhere…but I know my target audience are indeed everywhere!
So, though yes the media has become targetable, but it’s become far too fragmented for a media plan. To win in this scenario, one needs “creativity” more than “logical planning”
Brand websites: An online tool to reckon with!
Remember the days when each page “HAD” to have a BIG logo to be able to suffice the branding norms set by brand managers? Times have really changed with marketer spending money behind Campaign centric brand websites, which at times, do not even carry the product name in the url. Take for instance sites by 
Clinic All Clear : www.makeyourmoves.com
Ponds: www.iblushed.com
Cadbury: www.meethamoments.com
Lux: www.xappeal.in
Kwality Walls : www.spillurdill.com
Lays: www.whatstheprogram.com
HSBC: www.yoursolutions.co.in There are few other marketers who wish to experiment, but with limited risks, like:
Sunsilk : www.sunsilkgangofgirls.com
Mentos: www.mentoshelpline.com
Maxfresh: www.maxfreshclub.com
Interestingly, all the above-mentioned sites cover brand and more. Besides talking about their won products, the websites provide a whole host of activities for the visitors. Slipping in to the genres of Social networking, these sites try to combine brand with every-day activity. They seem to have understood the rules of the game: “Activity and loyalty are key to SMM success”.
“Footloose”… a new way to explore the brand
Brands have a new way to interact with the consumers. Bacardi and Blackville have discovered ways to associate themselves with “adventure and travel”. Though the ways in which they have done it is different. For Bacardi, its more an all paid travel of four groups of friends across Europe to reach Murmansk, Russia. The project is called Bacardi Murmansk Route.
They have more than 6.000 km to go across with limited money and and a locked case with worthy and mysterious content, which they would come to know only if they finish their trip. As per Bacardi, it’s not a race, it’s not a competition, a homage to the travelers’ spirit of freedom. To add to this, each group has its own blog, where they post videos, comments and photos (Can view http://uno.murmanskroutebacardi.com)
Similar experiment was done by Toyota, about which had mentioned in my earlier post of Bloggers help sell high value products (http://pallavibhardwaj.wordpress.com/2007/06/05/bloggers-help-sell-high-value-products/) where they had asked bloggers to test-drive and post their experiences. Their finding from respective blogs were collected into a central blog, at http://www.aurisblog.gr/. That project was a success as it gave freedom to the bloggers to write and share their experiences, without reinforcing the brand.
Bacardi Murmansk Route is an interesting concept to highlight the aspirational side of the Bacardi brand. Am sure it would generate quite some PR buzz, atleast in Spain.
Growing phenomenon of Timeshifting and Placeshifting
As “Experience” becomes portable and time-independent, consumers have better options to interact with the brand.
Consumers have become time and place independent with content being available across all media platforms – Interactive TV, Internet, Mobile and in all media formats – rich media, video, only text, audio and at a time when they need it – VoD, WAP etc.
With consumers deciding time and place of interaction, the challenge this situation puts forward is to check the relevancy of “right message, right time” in this changing ecosystem.
Going forward, even traditional media will become less defined; provide choice, control and interactivity to the end user to gain a higher mindshare
