Social Media has been around for long

When i was a kid i used to wonder why my grand mom used to be so curious about the postman coming to the house, be it a special occasion from her side or senders. She used to be very quick in terms of responding to her friend/relatives, no matter her friend was in next street or different city. She used to enjoy every bit of 'Catch-up' part in the message and used to discuss it with everyone in the house. Now if you take this time further back you will find the same incidences. Human being has been social animal for ages, call it AD or BC. It is just the mode of communication which is evolving.

It is interesting to see that marketing has pitched in with these evolving modes of communication. Social Media marketing has been quite effective in terms of spreading the word about a new product or getting the end result of a marketing campaign. It has been effective and one of the best way of marketing. The pace at which it is growing makes one feel that there is no tomorrow. Also, with the technology and innovation there seems to be no end to this. So when a few generations back it was word to mouth marketing, it is now wall to wall & tweet to tweet.

Jack Trout on the stories behind good market

FDI in Airlines Industry!!

FDI in Airlines is pending for quiet sometime and it should be taken into consideration. Air carriers will get a breather from the cut throat competition and spiraling oil prices. China did it long back. Government should take steps to relax regulations.

Airlines will be able to come out of debt and will think to provide good bare minimum services. Also as this industry will get lot of investment, our tier 2 airports will develop and new technologies will come with it. It will create jobs and revenues will multiply. Indian air services will compete at global level to take it all together to newer heights.

Thinking from consumers perspective, it will be easier to travel across borders, improved services, benefits and cheaper, better quality control, safety measures will improve, better connectivity and what not.

Things that can concern are air pollution due to increased air traffic, though not to an alarming extent. Also Foreign investors can make it a money making model if a lot of leverage is given in terms of regulation, of which chances are less because their brand will also be at stakes.

Teaser Campaign: Better way for Marketing??

Guess it depends mostly on the expectations met based on the hype set. This hype set can prove to be best or worst depending on what you have in store for consumers. Teaser thinking has been a very bad experience for Ford Edsel, which was named after Henry Ford's son "Edsel". It was launched with the teaser slogan: 'The Edsel is coming'.

Teaser campaign which Ford thought will give it the best marketing by generating enough curiosity among the consumers actually backfired them. It was a car designed from a manufacturer's perspective and not from consumer's perspective. Its name was compared with weasel, grille was said to look like Vagina with teeth, Design was criticized, nothing much special about it and overpriced. Now this happens when consumer's expectations are very high and one can't blame consumers. After the dazzling Thunderbird, consumers had lot of expectations from Edsel(credits to hype for teaser slogan). It was not supposed to be revolutionary car but an evolutionary car. Blame it to research for not finding what people wanted or expectation(hype)

which was not met.

I wonder what would have happened if the expectation set were not that high?? Here is a perspective which i think would have helped in promoting the launch of Edsel. If the teaser had restricted the consumer's expectation, Edsel would have secured a different place in the market. Teaser plays the most important part here because once you give a flash of thought mind rambles in thousands of directions, which builds expectations and hence the comparison starts when actually it is in front of you. It never meets the expectation. Just imagine if someone gives you a thought that there is a James bond sci-fi movie just round the corner, looking at his past movies one can imagine whether his/her thoughts will have any limitations and when such movie comes it might miss to strike a chord, which is what happens a lot many times with a multi-starer-hyped our very own Bollywood movies. In a way teaser should be focused and should not carry with it any idea about the product which the product actually doesn't have in it.

PS: Edsel was denigrated as "The car with the toilet seat grill".

Process matters not the Final Product

Today's "consumer" driven world doesn't accept that. Customer Relation can put an enterprise on top or can bring down at the same time, also customer feedback can get you one of the best inputs on the product. Consumer is the one who gets the final product and so it is the final product that matters.

With the choices of products hitting the market frequently, consumers have gone way smarter over the past few decades. A client or a consumer expect the best service no matter how or what is the procedure it has followed. If the service is not worth his spending, enterprise should be ready to loose the competition, its process won't be able to save it from the brand damage and losses.

Now this can happen with any industry. Lets say a Business strategy implementation firm is approached by a famous client. Now the ball is in client's(consumer) court. Based on what he wants(final product) he will recommend(to other clients) or will come back with better hopes. Here final product will benefit both client and enterprise in acheiving their respective goals.

But lets say if the process is followed. It might happen that it will not lead to final product what is required or it may have other consequences like will take time, more money, will exceed the deadline, which will have negetive effect on enterprise's reputation.

Its only the final Product which goes to the consumer and consumers are active Social Media users, which is the future. Which puts enterprise's future at stakes if they don't go for final product.