MARKE”TOURING” INDIA

Power of ad campaigns

On one of our short trips to Agra, we happened to visit the Taj Mahal for the third time and to our utter disgust we found the walls of probably the biggest embodiment of love scribbled with meaningless comments and symbols. We immediately recalled our first visit when we were mesmerised with the beauty and purity of the structure. Just when we were discussing about the prevalent vandalism in India, we came across a small child who was trying to rub off the scribbling. 

Out of curiosity and amazement we went near the child and praised him for the initiative he was taking. The child casually remarked, “Aamir ne bola”. Like a flash came the Incredible India ads in front of our eyes. It was one of the ads in the campaign which showed Aamir Khan raising voice against defacement of shrines and monuments which bear testimony to our rich cultural heritage and legacy.

The first marketing initiative of its kind in India–Incredible India was a branding exercise to create a distinctive and improved image for the country by the Tourism Ministry of India. This iconic Incredible India logo with the exclamation mark forming the “I” of India was used to great effect across all communications. Its creators acknowledged the fact that it takes a special bond with a country and its people to give up everything they know and setup roots in a country which is not their homeland. These are the people who have truly embraced our culture and assimilated it into their being as opposed to those who have simply been “bitten by the India bug”. Establishing roots is a huge decision and not a mere whim or adventure.

The earlier ads were successfully able to position India as a lucrative destination in the mind of its target population, the foreign tourists. India was positioned as “premier holiday destination for high-yield tourists”. The campaign successfully established India as a high end tourist destination generating a 16% increase in tourist traffic in the first year of its inception. While the awareness ads of “Athiti Devo Bhava”, created to complement the “Incredible India” ad series, targeted the local Indians which included sections of people interacting frequently with visitors (taxi drivers, guides, immigration officers) urging them to preserve the open-hearted and hospitable image of the country.

Not only the theme but the choice of Aamir Khan as the brand ambassador for the campaign was a tactical and thoughtful strategy aimed at captivating the masses. Aamir Khan is perceived as a thinking and intelligent actor with a strong intellect. A message conveyed by him could not go unnoticed and that is exactly what happened.

The campaign is a typical instance of societal marketing wherein the tourism industry reaped substantial benefits, keeping in mind the long term interests of the society at large. The campaign not only had a telling effect on the country’s GDP but also effectively managed to render a much needed facelift to our global image.

The once Unique selling proposition (USP) of the country (culture, heritage, religion, spirituality etc.) no longer seemed unique. It was time to provide something more. The tourism industry was quick to realise the fact and came up with this campaign with an added hospitality value thus providing an Extra Value Proposition (EVP) for travellers from abroad.

Besides finding new EVPs the new campaign is aiming at a new target market. The earlier ads were made to attract foreign tourists, but the new 2012 ad which showcased the logo in the national language Hindi aims at domestic tourism too. The international campaign has the tagline of “Find what you seek” while “Go Ahead” is clear at addressing the domestic tourists to search their own country to discover themselves. This step by the ministry can be well understood by the fact that the domestic tourism industry accounts for the three-fourth of the total tourism revenue and thus acts as the backbone of the tourism industry in India.

As of today, the promotion has been majorly done through television ads, ads in magazines and video sites like Youtube and Metacafe. It needs to increase its visibility and reach through new media tools such as social media sites, matrimonial sites, blogs and direct mailers.

Social networks provide a one stop platform where audience of all age groups are available and one can cater to all of them at once. Social media are the fastest growing communication channels and messages conveyed through them would reach the target audience faster and even cheaper. Websites which could be used for this purpose include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Indyarocks, Hi5 and Myspace. Travel and tourism websites like Makemytrip, Yatra, Cleartrip, SOTC Holidays and Thomas Cook have become daily companions of many and this could be leveraged to promote the campaign effectively.

We can go for augmenting a product only when the core and expected benefits of a product are visible. In lieu of this we should not ignore the changes and the developments which need to bring about in our tourism industry. Proper transportation facilities, proper accommodation arrangements, food and entertainment and educational importance of heritage sites are the key motivators to success of any tourism industry. The government of India has provided a fund of Rs.1210 crores aside of the marketing, which needs to be utilised in this direction. The child brought fond memories of the campaign in front of us. However we must not forget that campaigns are merely awareness and promotion tools .Until and unless we have a proper ground work in place, these campaigns would be superficial and ineffective.

-Written along with Shauvik Ghosh for the contest "Samvad" by Welingkar Institute of Management, date 26 Sept' 2012

References:

IITTM-ICC Report, Travel and Tourism Industry in India: Looking East, viewed 26 November 2012, http://www.iittm.org/doc/IITTM_ITC_Report-2011-rev.pdf

Business Standard, 16 November, Viewed 26 November 2012, http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/incredible-india-goes-forkillindustry-wants-action/492680/

 http://www.youtube.com/

 http://www.squidoo.com/the-incredible-india-campaign

Coca-Cola: Content Management

Strategies

1) Liquid and Linked

Liquid- Liquid means freely flowing, thus plan consistently on creating such contents which go viral and wanders freely around the web. They push out their best content which generates high levels of interest across social networks and other online platforms.

Linked- Whatever they write are linked to their very goals. Simply putting, if it does not add any value to the company by generating revenue or strengthening the brand image, it is useless!

2) The 70/20/10 Plan

70%- 70% of their contents are of low risk. By this they mean content that has consistently
worked well and achieved results in the past. It does not ether mean boring or low quality.

20%- 20% of the content they produce are spin off from what has worked earlier. It means an in depth, detailed and better quality version of the content created earlier for the 70%.

10%- The rest 10% of content are of extremely high risk. Innovative ideas and concepts which often end up by working fantastically well or failing terribly.

Few of the Online-Marketing done by Coke

1) Global toolkit for the London 2012 Olympic Games Move to the Beat campaign:
 activated in more than 110 countries.
 included 60 different types of content.
 60-minute documentary on the making of global anthem with Mark Ronson that were cut into shareable webisodes and mobisodes, to Beat Maker app, which let consumers create their own beats as ringtones and upload them to the Global Beat on Facebook.

2) To re-present the corporate Web site as an online magazine, called Coca-Cola Journey
 The reorganized Web site will offer articles on subjects like entertainment, the environment, health and sports, including longer pieces given prominence in the same way that magazines play up cover pieces.
 Interviews, opinion columns, video and audio clips, photo galleries and blogs also will be featured.

3) Extensive presence for the company and its brands in social media like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.
 Advertising on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter is becoming more used.
 features a site for customers to blog.

4) The Coca-Cola Company will promote the new version of the corporate Web site with
 search engine marketing on Google, Searching a word for example typing in Coca-Cola, a bunch of links would show up related.

5) Engaging customer on Facebook 
Targeting the youth segment
 In Australia, they launched bottle’s with common names. Later the promotion shifted to FB, where the most voted names were to be printed on bottle next.
 Coca-cola company apps on FB.

6) Digital display ads
 Web banner.

7) On mobile 
Targeting the teenagers hooked to their mobiles
 AdMob (Google Advertising) features Coca-Cola advertisements in videos and text format.
 Coca-Cola launched a promotion in Great Britain to give away 50p free mobile credit with every purchase of a Fanta, Dr Pepper and Sprite drink (other brands of Coke). Bottles and cans will carry a code, which entered at www.gimmecredit.co.uk.
 My Coke Rewards: On the caps of bottles carries a code where then consumers go online to enter the code to gain points. With over 500 ways to spend the points like new screen savers for the phone, songs, pictures, ringtones, cheat codes and emotions.

8) “What makes people happy?” 
The whole family as the target segment
This campaign located online at Expedition206.com for viewers to follow and blog, blog posts seen on Tweets, YouTube or on Flickr.

9) Online games
 Polar bear games.
 Coca-cola zero facial App.

Bottomline: They use all the media in an integrated manner to create the fizz!!

Sources:
http://paige1228.angelfire.com/Powerpoint.pdf
http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/social-media-matter-marketing-coca-cola/240444/