Are you compelling?

You need to earn the right to get your consumers out of lurker mode.

That was what Mitch Joel, president for Canadian-based digital marketing agency, Twist Image wrote in his blog which if you haven’t read yet – you should – because he’s one marketer who has a real understanding of the digital space and how to use it.

He describes ‘Lurker’ mode as someone who is on your website, but has not identified themselves, be it through leaving an email address or a comment. So what irked him enough to post a blog about marketers needing to earn the right to get consumers out of lurker mode?

Well I had the pleasure to meet Mitch once at an event in Singapore and after you’ve listened to him give a talk about digital marketing, social media etc, you’ll see how passionate he is about the subject. So when he stumbled upon more examples of traditional media asking consumers for “their stories”, he “shook his head in disbelief” and started typing.

He reckons, and rightly so I might add, that User Generated Content needs to be something so compelling that the people creating the piece of content are compelled to do it.

His advice to marketers:

It's also important to, sometimes, take a step back (and a deep breathe) and ask the toughest question of all: “does anybody care about us that much that they'll take time out of their busy schedule to tell us why?” And the next (logical) follow-up question, “If they do... what will do with it, and how do we honour their efforts?”

Well it isn't rocket science to figure out that there are a lot of lurkers on The Pitch and I can admit that our inability to update the blog regularly has also driven many users away as well. I’ve been trying to update the blog as much as I can, of late, but I think it’s going to take a bit more than that to get the ‘comments’ coming in again. Watch this space, one day soon we’ll start becoming more interactive, adding podcasts and videos and of that.

Marketers beware

When an idea seems so good that you’d be crazy not to do it, please take a moment and consider the following: Does this ad tactic really fit your brand?



If your answer is, “maybe not but I still want to give away a new car to every member of the studio audience”, then have a read of what Steve McKee, president of McKee Wallwork Cleveland Advertising, writes in a BusinessWeek article.

In ‘When Your Ad Tactics Don’t Fit Your Brand’, McKee cites numerous examples of how marketers fell in love with an idea without thinking about whether it created long-term value for the brand.

He wrote that when marketers are faced with a new tactical opportunity, no matter how exciting it appears, you should run it through the filter of your overall brand strategy. If it's consistent, it may be a good opportunity to generate additional, relevant exposure. If not, you can find better uses for your money.

In other words, don’t assume that creating a ‘most watched’ viral video on YouTube means positive things for your brand. We just don’t know what the real value of the messages put on YouTube are…yet.

The King of Good Times spills beans

Kingfisher CEO, Dr Vijay Mallya on day 1 of the World Effie Festival made everyone wait almost two hours to hear him speak about creating a brand personality, truth is, it was worth the wait.

While The King of Good Times declined to be interviewed by the press after his presentation, Mallya shared the story of Kingfisher's successfull branding in India - the genius behind it, the luck involved - and why branding is sacred to him.

I have to admit I came into this Thought Catalyst session not knowing too much about Kingfisher and Mallya (except that he has been dubbed "the Indian Richard Branson" by the media) so forgive any factual inaccuracies that may appear in this post which I am doing for the benefit of our readers who didn't get to go...

"Selling alcohol or an airline seat is no different from selling consumer goods," Mallya said at the WEF. "You need to understand your consumers". With that in mind, Mallya set about on his task to make Kingfisher beer a success. Before he launched the brand, Mallya had to define who his target audience was and what got them excited - what are their expectations? Hanging around colleges and pubs in Bangalore, he did his own market research by talking to consumers and found out that they thought beer was refreshing, and a summer drink, but not exciting.

"There was no draw, no consumer pull...I looked at the brands out there and none were appealing," he said. So he started building a brand with personality and pushed the idea of selling a lifestyle - The King of Good Times was born.

He did admit that there was a fair bit of luck involved as well, unknown to him at the time was the fact that India had a young demographic and every year millions of Indians reached a drinking age.

To support his idea of selling the Kingfisher lifestyle, the beer became, and still is, a force supporting the local fashion industry. From there, Mallya moved the brand into the direction of sports sponsorships. In India, cricket is a religion but Mallya hardly had the money nor burning desire to sponsor the Indian national team. Instead he went with the West Indian cricket team which according to him was "a better brand fit". The West Indians are known to 'have a good time' on and off the pitch it seems. At the 1995 World Cup, going against his team of marketers who told him that sponsoring the West Indian cricket team (who are more than decent side on the pitch) was a bad idea especially if India were drawn as opponents, Kingfisher sponsored the West Indians. In that same year, Kingfisher became internationally known when the brand sponsored the Benetton F1 team.

Then when Kingfisher asked consumers to choose the name for its new airlines, the vote overwhelmingly swang for Kingfisher to be the name of the airlines. The brand that was born as a beer but pushed as a lifestyle was deemed good enough by consumers for it to seamlessly become an airline brand.

"You won't see consumers naming a plane Heineken," he said.

To make this long story short, the Kingfisher airline brand lived up to the brand promises the lager version was built on - experiencing the good times. The airlines became the first in India to offer personal video screen entertainment to all passengers because "Indians love entertainment". When the competition jumped on the bandwagon, Mallya upped the services to offer 'live' entertainment on the flights - meaning passengers could keep track of the stock market while watching CNBC live or watch the criket live as well.

Anyways this is part of the story on how Mallya became known as The King of Good Times, something he has grown fonder of over the years.

"There's no harm in being a cheap and cheerful brand ambassador rather than paying some Bollywood star to be one," he said.

Mallya went on to talk about more of the brands under his company's umbrella but before i wrap up, let me leave you with some more quotes from him which give an insight into his definition about branding.

"We must talk to the brand. The brand must talk back. There has to be a debate. It can't be a one way traffic where the marketer or creative director decides, no this is the colour for this and this is the something for that. I've seen many make this mistake. Branding is sacred. We brand every brand in our umbrella. We know that in India consumers in the North-East are different from the North or the South for example. We have to tweak our message to fit each market," he said.

New Post: "Because you're worth it"

“Once upon a time a little-set-up was bought over by the Big Daddy .The owners of the little-set-up retired in comfort and lived happily ever after. The End.”

That’s a fairy tale many little companies wish to hear and it’ll most definitely happen - during bed time, that is, in your dreams. And we know also of many well established ad agencies, little ones in the talks with conglomerates Big Daddies, hoping to get taken up picked up.

Last year we held a marketing peer briefing where we invited Jane Hoban from the Body Shop to speak. One of the topics that was brought forth during the Q&A was the acquisition of the UK company by French cosmetics giant L’Oreal.

Hogan gamely replied that it has not affected the values of the company and in fact Body Shop has been trying hard to influence L’Oreal’s policies internally and that its delay in hitting the booming China market was due to - the non-conformity of the motherland’s policies with its own on not testing with animals.

Say no to animal cruelty

Fair enough. Good try.

A few days later I met up with a lady that was familiar with the Mag’s peer briefings because she had been to a couple previously. I asked her about her non-attendance this time and she replied, “After the acquisition, I don’t think I can stand alongside their values any longer.”

So herein lies the question do mergers and acquisitions necessarily work for brands? For any company you wish to create a connect with your target audience. But what if you do well and agree to a merger or nod your heads at being acquired?

Like Lonely Planet to BBC, Hallmark to CNBC, You-Tube to Google, Reebok to Adidas.. and now possibly Yahoo with “the-highest-bidder-wins”.

Have they or will they fare well?

Some are too premature and will need a longer incubation period to see the effects but its seems to be that if you’re the one being eaten, you will insist that nothing will change and it will be for the better. However slowly but surely, intrinsically you’ll start to lose your identity till perfect merger occurs and you’ll be remembered only with a wistful smile and a wave of the hand as your past-fans wax lyrical about your glorified past.

Well I suppose if Body Shop did ask L’Oreal for a comment on a merger they’d probably answer,

"Because you're worth it"

652 million pounds that is.

But as a marketer or even as a consumer… how do you feel when your pal seems to have sold out and moved on to the darker side? Share with us your thoughts.

Mamma Mia!

Some might call this clever, others might call this distasteful – whatever you call it, it certainly gets the eyeballs, practically grabbing them out of their sockets in disbelief as you scream OMG! and point at the pizza box that once contained a yummy tasting Italian treat.

Adrants turned me on to this, shall we say, unique pizza box advertisement. As you can see from the following images, the ad for an extermination company is placed under the pizza so the consumer doesn’t see it until he’s finished with the meal. I think i've seen something similar to this before though but it's still worth a look..









Mamma Mia indeed!