9 Es of Advertising

Ernest Vincent Wright might have written the novel Gadsby: A Story of Over 50,000 words without Using the Letter “E”, but it is not possible to advertise without considering the Es. Having worked and being heavily involved in the advertising industry, I could not keep myself mum when I went through an article in an Indian magazine 4P which dealt with 5 Es of Advertising (Engage, Empower, Educate, Entertain and Enrich). I have added few more Es to the list and poured in my views on each of the Es. I hope you would find them interesting.

If you have experienced more Es in advertising, you are welcome to add to the list. Here goes my list of Es.

Engage
Engaging with the consumers should be the prime focus of the advertisement. If you don’t engage with your prospective and current consumers, then you are losing their insights, suggestions, inputs and feedback to you and your product.

You must have seen the message in the bottles and packs of consumer items with the toll-free number and email ID for consumer feedback and suggestions. It was the only way to interact in the past with the consumers.

Now you have got Facebook – create a fan page of the product and interact with your consumers. A Twitter account will help you get your message regarding the product to your consumers who follow you and your product. The Pinterest boards are also gaining popularity where you can display your products and their attributes.

However, just being in the social media platform is not enough, make sure that you are there to interact with the consumers, reply to their queries in real time.

Educate
There’s more than engaging with the consumers. Educate them, but make sure not to be a teacher. A blog about the product, its features, and its benefits will attract more of your consumers to your product, provided you are offering what you are preaching.

If you are launching your product that is ahead of time, you need to make sure that the consumers are educated about the product. It’s a must. I remember eating dumplings in a Delhi restaurant “Belle Momos” a long time ago. At that time, the proper Delhites were not used to eating dumplings. So, to educate them they had hung framed advertisements teaching “how to eat momos”. It was hilarious for dumpling fans like me but was an eye opener for the starters.

Empower
Make the consumers feel that they have a stake in their favourite product. Listen carefully to what they say, what they suggest and don’t even leave behind any crazy suggestion that comes your way. Some of them might lead you and your product to innovation which your competitors might not even think of.

Many fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) are coming up with innovative advertising campaigns empowering their consumers, in the process building brand loyalty. Earlier this was restricted to the FMCGs asking for recipes from the consumers and putting the snaps of consumers on the packages (Remember the Kurkure and Maggi campaigns?).

Now crowdsourcing has gained momentum, not only in raising money and for a cause, but also for collecting individual opinions and advices on a subject. Summarising the opinions and views and picking up the best can lead to innovative ideas to reckon with.

The Times of India’s Lead India campaign was highly successful in motivating the youth to becoming leaders to change the fate of the country.

Enrich
Enrich the customer experience. Make them walk along with you while you are advertising and building the brand. It all depends on how you communicate the experience behind the product you are offering.

There’s a famous Nepali bottled water brand “Aqua Hundred”. In its advertisements it asks the customers to visit the factory premises and observe how the water is purified. This gives not only a sense of security to the consumers but eager ones can see on their own how the water is made safe for drinking.

Entertain
Make your advertisement interesting and make sure it entertains the audience. P S Mann, the Creative Director at RR Swamy BBDO in an interview to 4P says, “If an advertisement is just an advertisement, the consumer will develop a defence mechanism and not watch it.” “So it’s extremely important to deliver entertainment. Engagement comes from entertainment and from entertainment comes attention.”

To entertain the consumers you should create advertisements which are original, interesting, creative and of course entertaining. Just have a look at the Fevicol advertisements created by Piyush Pandey and you will get an idea of what entertaining is.

Evolve
Evolve with time. Change is the name of the game. Be aware of the ambience and what your competitors are doing and offering. You must be able to change yourself accordingly. Creating an advertisement with old setting won’t work (It might work sometimes but only for a short duration).

Use the modern techniques, tools and medium to reach the audience. Rise above the above the line and below the line advertising. Target cloud advertising – get online and attract the online customers.

Empathise
Have you ever wondered why the guy in the television advertisement resembles you? Because the advertisers are targeting the customers like you! Study the demographics, psychographics and lifestyle of your target audience and create your advertisements according to their tastes, interests and aspirations. They will like your product if a character of their class is shown preaching about the product.

Evaluate
Evaluate your efforts and redo the campaigns and advertisements to suit the customer preferences. Do the cost-benefit analysis and pour in more money sensibly if your efforts are not generating customers.

There is no dearth of crazy people with ideas these days. With decent spend you can get a good team of creative people who can come up with compelling campaigns.

Entice
Last but not the least, don’t leave any stones unturned to entice your customers. This doesn’t mean that you should splash skin all the time like all the deodorants do. Sex obviously sells but it should not be made the main means to attract the customers all the time.

Leave no stone unturned to entice your customers.

You must have heard that a poor guy sued the deodorant “Axe” after he wasn’t able to attract any girl after spraying it all over himself. However, the help of sensuousness can be taken to advertise your product like the “Aamsutra” campaign which shows a Bollywood actress (Katrina Kaif) devouring a mango enticingly while advertising a mango drink Slice.

Now it’s your turn to add to the list of Es!

Advertise, advocate and sell your ideas

“Bolne ko pitho bikchha, nabolne ko chamal pani bikdaina” (One who advocates can sell even a lowly rated commodity like flour, but one who doesn’t speak can not sell even a highly rated commodity like rice) – the Nepali proverb says you should advertise – tell others about your product to sell it. The age old proverb simply asks to preach about the product and advocate to the prospective buyers.

Spread your idea like fire.


With the advent of advertising, the “talking to the prospective consumers” has leapfrogged and every day the advertisers are coming up with innovative ideas to attract and arouse interest among the consumers.

Rather than going for the “saying on the face” trend, the advertisers are resorting for subliminal forms of selling. Product placement is one among them. Now the advertisers won’t tell you to drink a fizzy drink. However, you will notice your favourite actor drinking it on screen in one of your best movies. Consumers are enticed to purchase the products after seeing their idols using them.

Besides, stealth endorsement is catching up where the celebrities are asked to wear merchandise or talk about the product in public forum. This indirect form of endorsement keeps audiences guessing whether the celebrities are endorsing the products.

Likewise, through cross-merchandising the advertisers market different merchandise prior to the release of a film. Many Hollywood and Bollywood movies utilise this technique to create interest about the forthcoming films among the audiences.

Another form of advertising which is quite popular is ambient advertising. Marketers these days put the advertisements everywhere from shopping mall floor to metro and public vehicle bodies. The moving vehicles carrying the advertisements reach thousands of consumers. The old tradition of putting hoarding boards at crossroads (still in practice these days) is being taken over by innovations like 3-D hoarding boards, rotating boards, display changing boards etc. As I mentioned in my previous article this form of advertisement is gaining popularity.

Organising events is another big hit these days. Won’t you be enthralled to know that your favourite beer is bringing Snoop Dogg to your city? Obviously, lot many consumers get to know the brand sponsoring such mega events.

So, next time you plan to advocate your cause, remember the above forms of advertisements that will sell your idea to a larger audience.

Revitalising the media multiplier effect

A decade ago, it was the buzzword and everybody used to talk about the multi-benefits of media multiplier effect. It is pounding the consumers with the same marketing message through all channels at the same time – so that a consumer sees a brand displayed on a hoarding while passing through a major junction, hears the product jingle in FM radio, reads the message in daily newspaper and watches the product commercial in television. However, with the onset of the 21st century and the advent of social media, the concept is being sidelined. With the evergrowing Web 2.0 and the fascination for the social networks, the marketing and advertising concepts have completely changed and so has the media multiplier concept.


The three famous buttons
You must have noticed the three famous buttons splashed everywhere at the end of any online article – share this through Twitter, Facebook or Google Plus. More buttons are being added to the list, LinkedIn and Pinterest being the most prominent ones. In a way these buttons are replacing the traditional media multiplier effect efforts. It’s quite easy to click these buttons and share the news, advertising or any other piece of writing to your followers and acquaintances. If the stuff is interesting, they further share the same with their followers and acquaintances, thus, spreading the word much faster than expected.

BTL versus online marketing
Below the line (BTL) refers to non-classical ways of communication and promotion in opposition to classical advertising through mass media. The hoarding boards at prime junctions and promotion materials at the point of sales still do the trick of promoting your brand. However, the consumer has to walk the extra mile to see your brand. Suppose they don’t get to see your message – it means they will be unaware of your brand and its benefits.

To bridge the time gap, the internet has come to the rescue of marketers. Media and specifically online advertising can be powerful in creating consumer awareness and attracting them to the product websites. Social networking sites as well as specific product-related blogs, open forums, online guides, wikis and consumer communities are fast emerging and provide opportunities to initiate positive word-of-mouth publicity and strengthen brand recognition and loyalty.

Consumer marketing versus cooperative marketing
Consumer marketing includes activities that are directly aimed at reaching end-consumers and stimulating interest and ultimately demand.

Cooperative marketing includes joint advertising, joint media and press relation activities, cooperative publication of promotional leaflets, sponsoring of client events and distribution of promotional materials, and developing joint budget allocation to share costs for activities among partners.

Cooperation makes work easier.

Joint marketing provides a clear financial advantage, as costs for marketing activities can be shared among marketing partners. Moreover, joint marketing may have the advantage of increased consumer awareness through brand alignment and mutual brand endorsement.

Collaborating with strong brands help to build trust and brand credibility for the upcoming brand, among consumers.

You can develop ideas for creative, innovative and fun campaign concepts (i.e. including a consumer competition component) that initiate participation, high involvement and viral distribution through word-of-mouth, social media and online channels. Establish strategic marketing partnerships with industry partners, interest groups, associations and brand companies and develop joint/cooperative marketing activities.

Media versus public relations
Journalistic media coverage including features on TV programmes, print magazines and newspaper articles can be influential in creating awareness and inspiring consumers in their purchase decision. Strategic and targeted media relations and PR are therefore important.

Develop and implement a media release programme with quarterly media newsletters. Pitch stories around the product to media representatives through one-on-one media calls (face-to-face, email, phone). Use networking events to initiate media contacts and organise specialised media events such as press conferences and press events. Develop a press pack with background information including a fact sheet. Initiate media cooperation and media promotion activities such as reader competitions.

Celebrity endorsements versus events
It still bears a question mark – whether celebrity endorsements work or consumer targeted events work better. However, there is no harm to appoint a celebrity who matches your brand persona. S/he will at least pull her/his followers to your brand. Plan interactive events involving your celebrity and you will see the hordes of increasing consumers.

Now put together all mentioned above, squeeze out the best ones and remember to place your message everywhere, in each media, targeting all your consumers – and you will see your media multiplier effect bearing results!

5 proverbs, 4 animals and marketing lessons

You must have noticed that adding proverbs while discussing makes the discussion not only lively but also adds spice to the language. It helps you clarify your views, makes your opinion more specific and adds impetus to what you are saying. I prefer to say that proverbs are chutneys, the hot and spicy mixture which adds spice to your otherwise plain food.

Many proverbs originated from different animal behaviours and their relationship with humans. While all animal related proverbs guide us to better living, quite few of them teach us important marketing lessons.

There is more than one way to skin a cat
The proverb means there is more than one way of achieving an aim. You can employ different approaches to market a product and eventually build a brand. As Philip Kotler suggests, depending on your market plans you can either go for entrepreneurial marketing based on direct selling and grassroots public relations, formulated marketing with a marketing department and salespeople or intrepreneurial marketing adopted by large companies where brand and product managers study consumer behaviour and visualise new ways to add value to customers’ lives.

Don’t put the cart before the horse
It means don’t reverse the accepted order of things. First create a world class product, then market it and advertise in full swing. If you do it the other way round, you will not only lose money but also the faith of the consumers.

Don't change horses in midstream if you want to succeed.

Don’t change horses in midstream
The proverb means don't change your basic position when part-way through a campaign or a project. Once you start building a brand, don’t lose your patience in the mid-way. If you start marketing apples, don’t leave it owing to losses and start selling oranges.

A leopard cannot change its spots
The proverb means things cannot change their innate nature. As in the case of leopard, a brand too can’t change its true form. A brand should stick to its origins. You can’t imagine of a Mercedes ice-cream or a KFC car. However, a McTikki as a sub-brand of McDonald’s can attract consumers.

Every dog has its day
It means every dog, and by implication every person, has a period of power or influence. It tells us to wait and persevere because brand is not built in a day. It requires continuous dedicated effort to create a brand in the hearts of consumers. People will get to know your brand if you keep on delivering consistency and adding value to your product gradually.

7 tips for an effective press release

Image by Pexels user Markus Winkler.

Press releases are windows to getting your story in the media. If your news is “newsworthy” and you are able to get it to the right media at right time, your news will get a decent coverage.

However, don’t consider sending press releases for trivial issues, it will hamper your credibility. Send press releases only when you have got something containing real news and important for the general public. While crafting a press release consider the steps below to make it effective.

1. Start with a bang
The headline should be interesting. Choose the right words that tell your story and keep in mind to keep the headline short and crisp. The first paragraph should tell the summary of your story. The following paragraphs can tell the details.

Remember to mention the 5Ws and 1H (what, why, where, when, who and how) of the story in the first paragraph, in short simple sentences.

Organise the information in an inverted pyramid form – with the most important information at the top. The reporters and editors generally lose interest in your press release after going though few paragraphs. So, if you put the major crucial content in the first few paragraphs, you will most probably get the bulk of your story in the next day’s publication.

2. Present the facts
Always tell the truth – never exaggerate your content. It might help you for the time being, but in the long run you will lose your credibility. If you have nothing exciting to share, don’t write a press release. Keep it aside till you have an interesting story.

3. Ensure your news is timely
Make sure that your press release is timely and has a good news hook. Tie your news to current events or social issues if possible.

4. Use active voice
Verbs in active voice make your press release lively. Rather than writing “entered into collaboration” use “collaborated”.

5. Avoid jargons and flowery language
Remember only you and your colleagues will understand the jargons within your organisation. Nobody outside your organisation will be interested or understand the jargons. Avoid the jargons. Also never use flowery languages and unnecessary adjectives.

6. Use quotes
Wherever possible, try to put quotes from concerned people to make your press release lively. Ensure that you have written permission before including information or quotes from the concerned people of other organisations.

7. About your organisation
At the end of the press release you must mention the name and full contact address of the person who is responsible for answering the queries related to the press release. Following it, as “Notes to the editor”, don’t forget to mention a paragraph about your organisation. If it is a joint press release, mention about both the organisations.

Besides the above points, on occasions, media outlets, especially online media, will pick up your press release and run it in their publications with little or no modification. Journalists, in most cases, will use your press release for a larger feature story. So, try to develop a story as you would like to have it told. Even if your news is not printed exactly as in the press release, a substantial amount of information will be picked up by the journalists.

Leave aside USPs, interact with consumers

Gone are the days when the consumers had no choice than to clinging to daily newspapers, listening to radio stations or watching television. Now the choices are abundant – you will find newspapers and magazines of all sorts ranging from sports to economics; name any field and you will find loads of glossy papers rolled out with flashy pictures and heavy content. Talking about television – as in case of newspapers – the channels cater to all genres of interests. In case of radios, there are hordes of stations, playing per request. While the traditional media have grown by leaps and bounds, the new age media – microblogging and social networking have spread their tentacles in the hearts and minds of consumers.

 

USP versus contextualisation
Once it ruled the integrated marketing communication (IMC) plans. Each product was uniquely positioned in the market to win the hearts of consumers. The unique selling proposition (USP) of a product depended on the public persona of the targeted consumers.

However, the tables have turned with time. The product marketers are reading and analysing consumer behaviour to design their products accordingly. “If the USP ruled earlier, brands now need to create movements, experiences and engagement with consumer,” says Bindu Sethi, the Chief Strategy Office of JWT India, in Brand Equity, the special edition of The Economic Times. “The world is more interactive and we need to respond.”

Dhiraj Sinha, Regional Planning Director, Asia for Bates says, “In today’s world, brands need to provoke debates and engage people, and this needs a very sharp understanding of what’s changing in the culture and how people are behaving differently.”

Your brand needs to highlight the aspect of interaction with locals and develop new slogans reflecting the different product features. You now need to adapt your brands to target the major source markets.

Go online, interact with consumers
The internet has become a common platform for both the marketers and consumers. It is considered as the most important source of information by consumers. Official product websites are important point of information for consumers. Media and specifically online advertising can be powerful in creating consumer awareness and attracting them to the product websites. Social networking sites as well as specific product-related blogs, open forums, online guides, wikis and consumer communities are fast emerging and provide opportunities to initiate positive word-of-mouth publicity and strengthen brand recognition and loyalty.

Follow the below steps to start interacting and engaging with your consumers online.

 

• Assess and review your current website regarding usability, graphic user interface, content, structure and marketing message and implement changes where necessary.
• Develop website content for special-interest groups.
• Develop an online communication plan to promote your product website and implement search engine optimisation (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM) and backlinking activities to secure better ranking and promotion of the product website online.
• Constantly update content to keep the website appealing to users; match any content with the marketing messages.
• Prepare a list of potential online advertising platforms and invest on them wisely.
• Identify relevant social media networks and communities, blogs and forums and develop a social media plan.
• Analyse popular networks and work on enlarging the Facebook community through constant updates as well as fun and participatory elements such as competitions, pictures, videos, feedback loops on posts, etc.

 The constant touch with your consumers will give you clear idea of steering your marketing strategy accordingly, rather than sticking to a stubborn USP for a certain period. Go ahead and indulge in the online world and know your consumers better!

 

 *The social media logos have been downloaded and adapted.

 

Stick to roots, comply with changes, build a brand

There are logos and there are brands. Logos are simply brand elements and sometimes these are so widely recognised that other brand elements like name, character, slogan, packaging, jingles etc. are overshadowed. Many brands have changed with time, changing all elements including their logos. However, many brands have stuck to their origins and haven’t changed a bit from their day of genesis. Taking the mid-path has always been beneficial to brands. The brand should upgrade its elements with the changing time, but must stick to its origins.

Al Ries and Laura Ries in their famous book The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding say that whether the market conditions change, the brands should stick to its consistency in the chapter The Law of Consistency. However, in the next chapter The Law of Change, they advocate that brands can be changed, but only infrequently and only very carefully. The same has been followed by the world famous conservation brand WWF, the World Wide Fund for Nature. The beautiful panda representing the world conservation organisation has changed with time to revitalise its image in the minds of millions of its followers.

There’s an interesting story attached to the history of WWF logo. When the group of conservationists who found WWF was looking for a logo to represent it, there was a giant panda named Chi Chi at the London Zoo. Naturalist Gerald Watterson drew preliminary sketches in admiration of Chi Chi. Sir Peter Scott then designed the world famous black and white logo of the giant panda which later became the symbol of the conservation movement.

In 1961, the WWF logo just had a giant panda and the panda was not looking straight at you. In 1978, the panda symbol was copyrighted and a © was added to the logo. In 1986, the logo was upgraded with the panda looking straight at the viewer. It helped the brand interact and create relationship with its followers more easily. Remember you interact more easily with a person who faces you from the front and looks into your eyes. Another brand element, the name of WWF in a trademarked serif font was also added. With the popularity of san serif fonts, the name WWF was replaced by WWF in a trademarked san serif font in 2000. The copyright symbol was shifted to the hind legs of the panda to balance the brand elements evenly. The same logo is being used till date with no changes. During its journey from 1961 till date, the brand has stuck to its origins with little tweaks and additions to revitalise its image among its followers. And it has been highly successful in creating the top of the mind recall among its audiences.

Apple is another famous brand which has stuck to its origins. Like WWF, its logo has displaced all other elements and has been the sole brand driver till date. The first Apple logo was designed in 1976 by Ronald Wayne, sometimes referred to as the third co-founder of Apple. The logo shows Sir Isaac Newton sitting under a tree and an apple dangling above his head. It was dedicated to the historic moment of the falling apple and discovery of the theory of gravity. The phrase on the outside border read, “Newton… A Mind Forever Voyaging Through Strange Seas of Thought … Alone.” The first logo lasted only for a year.

Steve Jobs, the man who looked into details of brand building commissioned graphic designer Rob Janoff to modernise the logo which looked archaic. He was asked to stick to the origins and change just a little bit. Eventually he came with one of the most iconic and recognisable corporate logos in history. Janoff put a “bite” in the Apple logo to represent an apple, and not a tomato. Steve Jobs is rumoured to have insisted on using a colourful logo as a means to “humanise” the company. So Janoff added a rainbow stripe to the apple. Janoff arranged the colours without following any pattern as he wanted to add the green leaf at the top.

The multi-coloured Apple logo was in use for 22 years before Steve Jobs once again commissioned to modernise the logo. The colourful stripes were replaced with a more modern monochromatic look that has taken on a variety of sizes and colours over the past few years. The overall shape of the logo, however, remains unchanged from its original inception 33 years ago.

As the company started to innovate and produce sleek and cutting edge products, it needed a logo providing more flexibility in branding the products. The sleek and suave design of the monochromatic logo added to the brand value of the products.

The brands WWF and Apple stuck to their roots but upgraded their brand elements with the changing market trends. The wide recognition, customer loyalty and top of the mind recall were results of keeping the brand elements intact, with just little bit of tinkering from time to time following the market trends. Not only WWF and Apple but many brands have followed this trick to stay atop in the fierce competition, in the hearts of their loyal customers.

- WWF and Apple logos have been downloaded and adapted.