What do you think makes great brands so powerful, long lasting and unique even when they’re not selling products and services that are radically different from one another? Have they really got their fundamentals strong or are they simply relying on smart advertising? Let’s check out what great brands really do and how they make that bang-on impression in customers’ psyche.

A great brand makes a long lasting emotional connect

Many experts say that customers purchase emotionally, which is largely true, especially in India, where advertising and branding is so emotionally driven. Do you remember the "Kuch Meetha Ho Jaaye" campaign by Cadbury, the Vodafone campaign with the pug or the Zoozoos and the Surf Excel campaign with "Dho Daala"? Why do these brands use an emotional pitch? Because they know that two washing powders or bars of chocolate can’t be much different from each other after a certain point. In the Indian context, substituting "meetha" with chocolate and "thanda" with Coca-Cola means going straight into the heart of the average local consumer.

A great brand is backed by great products and services

Great Indian brands like Raymonds, Asian Paints, ICIC Bank, Bajaj, Tata, Dabur, Naukri.com, Infosys etc. didn’t become great overnight. There are thousands of product and service providers who come into the market every single day but are unable to float their brand. That’s because great brands need time, patience and constant re-invention. The biggest mistake that most brands make is to be purely aspirational and cool, without maintaining substance, innovation and quality in their products and services.

A great brand elevates just about anything

If you thought that just because you manufacture bolts sold only to industries, you don’t need to have a great brand, then you are completely wrong. Whether you produce shoes, tea, pliers or travel services, you must give priority to branding opportunities and strategies, no matter how small your business is. Great branding can make just about any product or service so powerful that customers may recommend it without even realizing that they are actually doing so.

A great brand always has a story to tell

Every brand works on an association and a story. For instance, people associate innovation with Apple, Reliance with growth, Pantaloons with family shopping, Hindustan Unilever with quality, ICICI Bank with reliability and more recently speed with Flipkart.com etc. Over a few years, great brands build up stories around their existence to increase their connect with customers. This mythological build up can exponentially increase the recall value of a brand in the customer’s mind.

Great Brands are consistent

Apart from maintaining consistency in providing good products and service, great brands also try to keep the same color palette, design rules and visual appeal wherever they go. It’s orange for Barista coffee chains, red for Vodafone, the distinctly recognizable ‘Oooh la la la’ jingle for Kingfisher and the Amul butter girl as Amul’s mascot form decades. Whatever the visual representation may be, a great brand can be recognized without uttering a single word about it.

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I visited Yahoo Mail probably after a few months as my amazon account is attached to it and mails come to that email ID. However, I was taken by surprise when the page loaded – I was a bit confused for couple of seconds wondering if I landed on “Yahoo typo” homepage. But that was not true….

Here is the Yahoo Mail Homepage which was presented to me!

Yahoo Mail had a full homepage advertisement of Indian brand - Fastrack . The ad diverted me to their Facebook page. I am assuming that this ad will be shown only to users from Indian sub-continent and even then Fastrack is guaranteed of hundreds of thousands if not millions of Facebook Fans.

Fastrack being a youth brand, seems to be on a big ad-spending spree just before the Valentines day and this Yahoo homepage mail campaign is a great way of capturing huge number of fans.

However, I am surprised that Yahoo is accepting full homepage ads on probably one of its most popular pages in India – Yahoo Mail.

For me it comes across as a serious sign of desperation – what do you think?

[Note: As I mentioned earlier, I visit Yahoo mail homepage very rarely and I am not sure if it is a regular thing for Yahoo. For me it was a first and hence decided to write on it]

Related posts:

1. New Yahoo Mail – will it make any difference?
2. Google Chrome Full Page Ad in ToI – But why ?
3. India Buzzing News : World Cup, Census 2011, Yahoo search engine, Fastrack & Indian kids!

The below “The Hindu” Advertisement is creative at so many levels, I can’t describe. Whoever, has made it, has punched ToI in the face, all keeping themselves within the legal boundaries of what is allowed. The advertisement indirectly takes a jab at low quality of news covered by Times of India and how their readers severely lack important knowledge.

Check out this video and I am sure you will love it (of course, if you are not a very big fan of Times of India)

Stay Ahead with Hindu

Many are calling it a response to a ad released by Times of India for its Chennai Edition couple of months back, where the ad directly takes a jab at “The Hindu” and calls it a very boring newspaper. It is a Tamil Advertisement, but I am sure you will understand the gist of it!

The Times of India Chennai ad TVC Wake up to the TOI

There is no question that Hindu Ad is far more punchy and creative – We will have to wait and see how and if Times of India responds to this!

What’s your take on these newspaper wars – It makes for an interesting viewing, isn’t it!

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After last week’s article on ‘Why some starts up survive while most fail’, some of you had written to me to elaborate on point number 5, i.e:- Innovative promotional strategies used.

Well it is difficult to capture all this in an article as this topic would require an entire book, but still it got me thinking and I have made a list of three such instances that I feel really stood out.

Using College girls as demand generators - Karsan Bhai Patel is a tough competitor. Not only did he launch an Indian brand, Nirma to take on the likes of Hindustan Uni Lever (HUL) but he briefly overtook them. So much that HUL started a project called STING (Strategy to inhibit Nirma growth). Now in the early days the demand for Nirma was good but the retailers were wary to stock them which was partly because of the pressure applied by HUL sales mechanism.

Karsan Bhai started this novel scheme of asking college going girls to walk into retailers and ask for Nirma. If Nirma was not there they simplify left the shop without buying anything. If Nirma was present they bought it and then were refunded for their effort. This dramatically changed the situation with retailers as they started stocking Nirma due to the demand. Soon Nirma was a national brand and pushing HUL and Procter & Gamble into a three way fight.

Non Animal testing and the environment- Bodyshop may be a premium brand today, but when it started Anita Roddick the founder was really pushed all the way by mainstream cosmetic chains in the UK. She then decided to come up with a very daring promotional scheme where she openly declared that none of her products were tested on animals. To push it further she also gave a 30 % discount to all those who brought back empty bottles of BodyShop products in order to get a refill. Now this was long before the environment became a very hot topic and Al Gore became the first carbon billionaire. But the strategy worked and soon she had a set of loyal customers who became evangelists. The rest is history. Though BodyShop today is part of L’oreal they still continue to promote non animal testing and environment friendly practices.

You meet the nicest people on a Honda- Honda motors was an established name in Japan but hardly anyone knew them in the US. The Japanese ministry for Manufacturing had advised Honda to look at Indonesia but they had ambitions in the US. Knowing that GM and Ford would shut them down in they entered the US with cars, Honda entered the country with a moped called the ‘Super Cub’. It was supposed to be sports moped, which people could take to a golf course or to tennis club. The launch state was California, which normally has good weather throughout the year. The tag line was that ‘you would meet the nicest people on a Honda’.

The moped was sold through sports shops like SEARS. Honda gifted a Moped to all its employees and they were encouraged to drive to work in their mopeds. This soon created a buzz with many of the younger more sporty Californians wanting to buy one for themselves. The strategy worked and Honda soon became a familiar brand on the Californian roads. This paved the way in the 1980’s for the Honda invasion through their cars. Though Honda was not a start-up they used the start up mentality to get better of bigger rivals like Ford.

But again this is no way an exhaustive list there have been so many other innovative ideas for promotion. I would like to hear your views on the same.

If you have started a company and used very innovative strategies or have heard of someone doing so, please do leave a comment and that would really enhance the discussion.

Related posts:

1. Cost cutting : Different companies different methods
2. Where do Indian Start-ups stand in high flying 50 Tech Start-ups of the world?
3. Top Innovative Companies List [World & India]

Apart from all the 3G launch campaigns were the talk of the town in 2011, there were also some great print and TVC campaigns that India saw in 2011. Let’s take a look at the top 10 campaigns that were well recalled, liked, watched and commercially successful – in no particular order. 

Cadbury’s ‘I love You’

Agency: Ogilvy India

The bitter-sweet background score of all ads of this campaign have been crucial to bring out the punch of the storyboard. The best ad of the campaign has been the one in which a wife asks the husband about when was the last time he expressed his love for her. He gives her a Dairy Milk and subtly conveys that he actually expresses his love for her every day without saying it.

Airtel’s ‘Har ek friend zaroori hota hai‘

Agency: Taproot India

Airtel’s print and the TVC campaign has once again hit the right spot with the audiences. The campaign tries to focus on how every friend is important in his or her own small or big way for their specific abilities. This youth friendship campaign aims to reinforce the unique importance of each relationship in life.

Vodafone Zoozoo superman 3G

Agency: Ogilvy India

The lovely Zoozoo Ads can never fail to tickle your ribs at the right places, can they? Back to launch Vodafone’s 3G services in India, a series of very likeable ads were released. The Zoozoo turned superman and performed unearthly tasks to denote the speed of Vodafone’s 3G internet. The campaign’s main aim was to tell audiences that Vodafone’s 3G is smarter, better and faster.

Tanishq ‘True Diamond’ campaign

Agency: Lowe Lintas

Cashing in on the magic that Jaya and Amitabh Bachchan can potentially weave over an audience in the range of 6 to 60 years, Tanishq’s ads emphasize on the quality of the jewellery and diamonds they offer along with exquisite designs. The best of this campaign is that the beautiful light hearted story about how Big B gifts his wife a set of diamond bangles from Tanishq that she already has.

Idea’s ‘No idea….Get idea’ campaign

Agency: Lowe Worldwide

Whether Abhishek Bachchan has managed to strike a chord with his audiences through his films or not is a debatable question, but his ‘Get Idea’ campaign has surely hit gold. The recall value of the entire string of TVCs for this campaign have been high – from the lady waiting for her boyfriend in the restaurant, to a girl discussing her sms bill to Junior B asking a lady of her plans on January 20. This campaign also won the ‘Best Brand Campaign’ at the World Communication Awards 2011.

Tata Docomo

Agency: DRAFT FCB + ULKA

Tata Docomo’s melody has already become very hummable and popular from the day it launched its service in India. This 2011 campaign remained popular amongst audiences and drove home the point that is makes in the tagline ‘No getting away. The network that always connects. Everywhere’. Whether it is an office executive waking up from his noon reverie with the Docomo tune ringing on his phone or the groom picking up his call during his wedding ceremony, the short but sweet ads have been successful in generating a smirk on the face.

Tata Sky ‘Poochne mein kya Jaata hai’ campaign

Agency: Ogilvy India

In a series of TVC’s that Tata Sky released without its brand ambassador Aamir Khan, the theme of the ads was to link an episode in which one friend is always hesitant to ask questions and the other friend unabashedly asks and benefits. Every ad links such an episode to the two friends asking for a Tata Sky retail feature at the shop and getting it. And hence the tagline "Pooch dala, toh life jhingalala".

Volkswagen Jetta Flyboy campaign

Agency: DDB Mudra

Apart from the large front page print campaign that was run for Jetta in the Times of India in its four main editions, the TVC of the boy with wings also remained popular throughout 2011. In the automobile category of the CNBC TV 18 Overdrive Awards 2012, this commercial received the Storyboard Auto Commercial of the Year Award.

TVS Wego Body Balance campaign

Agency: BBH India

Released in February 2011, this ad portrayed Wego to be the first two wheeler in India to have the unique Body Balance technology. The ad ran repeatedly during the IPL season this year and showed two young couples outdoing each other using ‘body balance’ by doing acrobatics on their Wego scooters. In the bike category of the CNBC TV 18 Overdrive Awards 2012, this commercial received the Storyboard of the Year Award.

Lay’s World Cup Flavours campaign

Agency: JWT Delhi

This campaign was launched in with the aim of cashing in on the tremendous audience of the ICC cricket World Cup 2011. Six new flavours of the chips were introduced keeping in mind the top 6 international teams that were participating. The campaign also continued with the Dhoni and Saif Ali Khan ads. PepsiCo aimed for 360 degree communication with this campaign being launched on social and digital media simultaneously.

Source: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

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3. Impact Person of the Year Award 2011 goes to Agnello Dias of TapRoot – Advertising finally gets its due![Event]

Before we start, here is a disclaimer – This article is for people who are just getting started online. Internet veterans may find it too interesting.

Internet is growing in India quite rapidly – Thousands of businesses are coming online on daily basis. However, many of them come online with very high hopes of getting constant stream of traffic to their website. However, most of them get discouraged seeing that no one visits their sites other than their family and friends. I regularly get asked from internet newbies that “How do I drive traffic to my website” or “how do I market my business online”. Like offline, even in online world you have to market & advertise your website / online business.

Again, many perceive Internet advertising to be an overnight tool to get big. But Internet marketing is no genie. Choosing the right online promotion tools to get your business noticed is a herculean task which can involve a long gestation period. Depending on various factors such as your marketing budget, time restraints, finding your target audience, benchmarking against your competitor’s promotional strategies and so on, you will need to carefully pick your internet marketing tools and options. Let’s get an overview!

Search Engine Optimization

Don’t simply rely on the fact that your business will get noticed online by potential customers who accidently bump into your brand name in ads when they are browsing. Majority of users use search engines to directly find what they’re looking for. According to one estimate, over 90% of visits to most websites is through search engines.

In such cases, you are competing with millions of other websites and webpages offering similar services or products. Increase the chances of your website to appear on the first few pages of Google by optimizing & building excellent content around your product niche. Spent time reading online the basics of Search Engine Optimization.

Experts say that if your link appears beyond the second page of Google, you’ve potentially lost your customer. Warning: This is a feat that requires unparalleled persistence. Don’t expect your business to get noticed with SEO overnight. It takes loads on patience & effort to rank well in search engines.

Online display Ads

When we’re in the shoes of a lay person browsing the internet, we don’t bother to really observe the various kinds of ads that we are consciously or subconsciously consuming. But go to the opposite side of the fence as a marketer and you’ll see the world of online ads come alive.

There are thousands of niche segments within banner ads, direct targeting in gadget and mobile ads, location targeted and generated ads, back linking, social media ads, contextual ads, printable coupon ads, video ads, in-content placement ads etc. that you can choose depending on your business requirements. Don’t fall for the pay-per-click model lure straight away. First decide which medium of paid advertising suits your product and services. Again, spend time reading on Internet about various kinds of advertising!

Affiliate Advertising

Just about every internet savvy person is jumping onto the bandwagon of being involved in Affiliate marketing with the likes of Ebay, Amazon, Clickbank, Commission Junction and thousands of other popular affiliate programs. Affiliate marketing essentially involves a business / merchant paying or rewarding one or more affiliates (website or publishing platforms) that bring in visitors and eventual buyers for them by promoting, reviewing or placing their products and services on their platforms.

In return, the affiliates get a percentage of the advertising revenue depending on the number of visitors and converted buyers for their merchants. Affiliate marketing has become a great way for small business owners and individuals to earn money and a great medium for advertisers and marketers to get a vast amount of low cost exposure. To get your business noticed online, take advantage of millions of Internet users waiting to promote your product or service.

Social media and Forums

Using social media as an internet advertising tool to get your business noticed online will involve creative and engaging content generation. Get more user following for your brand name by updating interesting feeds about a new launch, a product trivia or new offers on your services.

You can even choose to create a buzz around your business by publishing content related to your product – not something that necessarily sells your product each time. For example, if your business is a restaurant, you may want to invite users to upload innovative recipes and award the best recipe with a free meal coupon. Niche forums too are a great way of subtle marketing in the guise of expert advice, guest articles, stubs and link placements.

Metric Tools

Metric tools may not be direct marketing platforms, but they will give you guidance and direction on your promotional and internet marketing strategy. Metric tools will also tell you if your business is getting noticed or not. You can use Google’s Adword Conversion tracking tool to get insights on the conversion rates of your visitors, track leads, new sign ups, page views, measure the success of a particular campaign and much more.

Use Google’s Keyword tool to use optimized keywords, match keyword type, search competition on that keyword and so on. To test the effectiveness of your website, get comprehensive reports on the quality of content and images you have used, the conversion rate your website is enabling etc. through Google’s website optimizer. These are standard Google products. You can choose from a million other similar products available online.

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3. It’s Time to transform your marketing!

In last few years, Online advertising has been growing at much better pace than any other traditional advertising medium – According to recent report put together by Magna Global, online advertising spends will touch 71 Billion dollars this year globally.

In India, online advertising is picking up pace as well, thanks to growth of Internet users in India, which has now crossed 100 million user mark. Currently, advertising spends in India are pegged at 200 Million USD, less than 0.5 percent of global market share. But over next 3 years, it is expected that Indian online advertising will touch close to USD 1 Billion.

While doing a comparison on average advertising rates in India, I came across an interesting chart published by Social Bakers giving average global advertising rates for Facebook. Although India is now one of the top 5 countries in the world in terms of internet users, average advertising rates (Cost per thousand impressions – CPM & Cost per Click -CPC) are abysmally low.

Average Online Advertising Rates Globally [Facebook Ads]

#	Country	avg. CPC	avg. CPM
1	Cayman Islands	$1.15	$0.49
2	Russia	$0.99	$0.43
3	Japan	$0.73	$0.31
4	Australia	$0.68	$0.29
5	Isle of Man	$0.65	$0.28
6	United Kingdom	$0.60	$0.26
7	South Africa	$0.59	$0.26
8	Sweden	$0.56	$0.24
9	Norway	$0.53	$0.23
10	Ireland	$0.51	$0.22
11	United States	$0.47	$0.20
12	Denmark	$0.46	$0.20
13	Netherlands	$0.46	$0.20
14	Canada	$0.44	$0.19
15	Nigeria	$0.44	$0.19
16	Jersey	$0.44	$0.19
17	New Zealand	$0.43	$0.19
18	Ukraine	$0.42	$0.18
19	Bermuda	$0.42	$0.18
20	Switzerland	$0.41	$0.18
21	South Korea	$0.41	$0.17
22	Germany	$0.40	$0.17
23	Spain	$0.38	$0.17
24	Italy	$0.38	$0.16
25	Luxembourg	$0.37	$0.16
26	US Virgin Islands	$0.37	$0.16
27	Uzbekistan	$0.36	$0.16
28	France	$0.35	$0.15
29	Guernsey	$0.35	$0.15
30	Kenya	$0.35	$0.15
31	Kazakhstan	$0.35	$0.15
32	Belgium	$0.33	$0.14
33	Netherlands Antilles	$0.33	$0.14
34	Belarus	$0.33	$0.14
35	Finland	$0.32	$0.14
36	Austria	$0.30	$0.13
37	Swaziland	$0.28	$0.12
38	Liechtenstein	$0.28	$0.12
39	Lesotho	$0.27	$0.12
40	Turks and Caicos Islands	$0.27	$0.12
41	Papua New Guinea	$0.27	$0.12
42	Saudi Arabia	$0.26	$0.11
43	Israel	$0.26	$0.11
44	Qatar	$0.26	$0.11
45	Bahrain	$0.25	$0.11
46	Vanuatu	$0.25	$0.11
47	Angola	$0.25	$0.11
48	Oman	$0.25	$0.11
49	Puerto Rico	$0.25	$0.11
50	Singapore	$0.25	$0.11
51	Malawi	$0.24	$0.10
52	Brazil	$0.24	$0.10
53	Réunion	$0.24	$0.10
54	Lebanon	$0.24	$0.10
55	United Arab Emirates	$0.24	$0.10
56	Zambia	$0.23	$0.10
57	Hong Kong	$0.23	$0.10
58	Faroe Islands	$0.23	$0.10
59	Greenland	$0.23	$0.10
60	Iceland	$0.23	$0.10
61	Kuwait	$0.23	$0.10
62	Czech Republic	$0.23	$0.10
63	Martinique	$0.22	$0.09
64	Guadeloupe	$0.22	$0.09
65	Vatican City	$0.21	$0.09
66	India	$0.21	$0.09
67	Nauru	$0.21	$0.09
68	American Samoa	$0.21	$0.09
69	Malta	$0.21	$0.09
70	Namibia	$0.21	$0.09
71	Aland Islands	$0.21	$0.09
72	Slovakia	$0.20	$0.09
73	Portugal	$0.20	$0.09
74	Mozambique	$0.20	$0.09
75	Kyrgyzstan	$0.20	$0.09
76	Poland	$0.20	$0.09
77	Latvia	$0.20	$0.09
78	French Guiana	$0.20	$0.08
79	Haiti	$0.20	$0.08
80	Moldova	$0.19	$0.08
81	French Polynesia	$0.19	$0.08
82	Monaco	$0.19	$0.08
83	The Gambia	$0.19	$0.08
84	Botswana	$0.19	$0.08
85	Macau	$0.19	$0.08
86	Aruba	$0.19	$0.08
87	Andorra	$0.18	$0.08
88	Gabon	$0.18	$0.08
89	Slovenia	$0.18	$0.08
90	Hungary	$0.18	$0.08
91	Costa Rica	$0.18	$0.08
92	British Virgin Islands	$0.18	$0.08
93	Tanzania	$0.18	$0.08
94	Romania	$0.18	$0.08
95	Estonia	$0.18	$0.08
96	Antigua and Barbuda	$0.18	$0.08
97	Uganda	$0.18	$0.08
98	Gibraltar	$0.18	$0.08
99	The Bahamas	$0.18	$0.08
100	Jordan	$0.18	$0.08
101	China	$0.17	$0.08

[Source]

Although, these rates are for Facebook Ads only, it gives you a general idea about the prevalent advertising rates across the globe. We use Google AdSense network on trak.in and we see very similar trend. Ad Clicks received from countries like US, UK and Japan fetch nearly 3 to 4 times as compared to Indian clicks.

However, with individual online spends increasing and ecommerce market in India growing fiercely, these CPM & CPC rates are bound to go north. Infact, just about 12 to 18 months back, average CPC rates in India were in the range of 10 cents, which have now gone up to around 20 cents!

What is your take on growth of online advertising in India?

Related posts:

1. Indian Online Advertising market to grow at 26.5% – BFSI Leads…
2. 10 Indian online advertising networks
3. Online Display Advertising in 2015 : Google Predictions

Advertisers are gradually notching up their budgets for mobile in-app advertising, considering the phenomenal number of apps being downloaded each year – an estimated 10 billion. Even if advertisers get a slim percentage of response though in-app ads, their profits and brand presence would increase manifold.

Mobile in-app advertising is changing the rules of the advertising game because of the differences and the advantages inherent in the mobile platform.

So, what are the 5 things you should keep in mind while designing your next app-vertisements? Read on to find out.

Tailor ads to the medium

One advertising rule that’s here to stay is that any kind of advertising must be specifically suited to the medium that it will be released on. We’ve seen enough generic advertisements released simultaneously for print and TV going seriously wrong.

With in-app advertising, you have the chance to make your ad more interactive and coerce the user to play with your ad. Virgin Media for instance, has introduced their iPad initiative called PROJECT through which American Express, amongst many other companies, has built in-app ad campaigns that allow users to control some of the features of their ad through a game.

Don’t make the user wait to see your ad

How many times has it happened that you type in the URL of a website and hit SKIP on the small pop up that appears on the screen even before it loads? The same will apply to your app-vertisements. You may have designed the best of mobile ads with high quality audio and visuals, but they will be of no use if the user hits SKIP before it loads.

Make sure you test your loading times across all mobile platforms before releasing the mobile ad. You can also choose to put the user in control of loading only that part of the content of the app-ad that he / she is interested in reading.

Target in-game/in-content advertising

Experts of the app world say that paid apps are gradually going to see the doom of the day. This means that monetization for all the apps will be dependent on in-app advertising alone.

Did you know that the company that created Angry Birds estimates their freely downloadable product to make about a million US dollars monthly through the in-app ads on the Android platform by the end of 2011?

Now, that’s an indicator significant enough to tell you that you should start designing app-vertisements in a way that they are naturally be a part of the flow or character of game or the content of an app, without particularly looking like an advertisement. Maybe similar to a product placement. This will allow your mobile app-vertisements to not become redundant later on.

Let your users call the shots

Have you seen those horribly stupid ads (whether in-app or otherwise) that ask the user to enter personal and geographic details before letting the ad load? That’s undoubtedly the biggest faux pas you can make in designing your in-app advertising, instead of using GPS censors to identify the user’s location.

The BMW iAd is a famous example that allows the users to get a feel of the interiors of the car and even change the textures to see how it would look.

The Nissan Leaf iAd too, is a similar example where the user is automatically engaged in the ad and is further led to play around with it – whether it is changing the color of the Nissan by shaking the phone or knowing how many miles the Nissan will give per gallon, just with a tap.

Check the point at which your users exit

This is an interesting way to test the functionality and the usability of an in-app ad. By knowing the point in your ad at which a user exits, will give you perfect insights on what is going wrong with that section of the ad.

Whether you have automatically swiping screens in your ad or you let your users tap and zoom into your ad, your main aim is to check whether your users are reaching the point when they have to hit your call to action button ‘Contact Us’, ‘Buy Now’ or ‘Tap here for more details’.

There you have it – some tips on creating a great mobile in-app advertisement that will work effectively for your product.

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1. Top 5 tips to develop your business through mobile platforms!
2. Android App inventor – Now even a novice can create apps for mobile !
3. Mobile Advertising witnesses tremendous growth – Gen Y dominate usage!

Market leaders are always in a peculiar position. Always faced with the daunting task of keeping their position, Often than not, they lose track of what got them to the top and end up as laggards in the Industry they once dominated. In other words they become victims of Brand Arrogance.

Take Hindustan Motors (HM) the makers of the iconic ‘Ambassador’ for example today they are a shadow of their former self. But up until the mid- 80’s the only challenge for Hindustan Motors was coming from Premier Motors and a substitute competition from Bajaj scooters.

But then the arrogance steeped in and HM never thought of providing what customers wanted and slowly but surely slipped into oblivion.

Twenty years later, another auto company is going down the same route and this is actually a surprise. When Honda entered India, it was with a bang. They had brought in a popular car that was in many ways built for Indian roads, the Honda City. In the early 2000’s it used to be a matter of pride to own and drive a Honda City. City ruled the roads in its segment for many years but soon the Customers were looking for a change and Honda was not listening.

They released a Civic as a logical upgrade but that did not have many takers. Honda Accord was too expensive for most. The Honda Jazz though a very good car was definitely over priced for its segment.

And after losing much of the market share Honda finally launches the Brio one of the cheapest cars in its segment. But in my opinion it is a little too late.

The Brio comes in at a time when the market is flooded with cars, and also with petrol only variant when the Petrol prices are at an all-time high. Further Honda cuts the prices on the Jazz and City, an act that it has never done.

It is not difficult to figure out what the result would be.

So how can a market leader avoid brand arrogance?

I believe there are three simple steps in which a good brand can keep its ears open and be cognizant of what the customers are saying.

Listen to the customer

Often brands go into a ‘speak only’ mode and even use their communication channels to only broadcast. They often stop listening and taking in any feedback from customers and prospects. I once recently overheard a Honda official calling the City a luxury car. I was really amazed at that analogy, it could have been 10 years ago but now with every second car being a sedan, the concept of luxury in India had become an Audi or Bentley.

Effectively Leverage Social Media

A quick check on the Honda India Twitter account shows just 240 odd followers and 740 odd tweets. In a piece earlier I had discussed what lessons Marketers can learn from Volkswagen.

Currently Volkswagen India has about 5000 followers and has been present in India only in the last two years. Also Volkswagen is running a contest which is in sync with its marketing campaign for Jetta called ‘anything4jetta’.

Brands should always strive to build a community and engage the same to bolster themselves. A good example to this effect is Apple which over the years has built a strong community of Apple fanatics who would not hesitate from paying the price for an Apple product.

Play to your strengths

Honda has traditionally been strong at R & D. Hence it should continue doing the same rather than trying to reduce the price and get into a very dangerous price war which its competitors like Suzuki and Hyundai. I feel what Honda should have done earlier was to dazzle existing customers and prospects with its technology by bringing out cars with advanced features that the Consumers are seeking. Volkswagen did introduce many new features on the Vento and stole the march over Honda.

In conclusion I feel that most brands, when they get into leadership position, forget about the very attributes that got them there. This situation is not endemic to Auto but can be seen across Industries.

It is the role of the marketing managers to ensure that Brand Arrogance is kept away and customers are always the focus of a brand whether it is a leader, challenger or niche player.

Your thoughts welcome!

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