The art of social media

I’m not going to make a decision in the dispute whether marketing is an art or science. But I‘d like to state something very clearly that social media is an art. It is again my personal view as in my every blog.  Anyone is welcome to dispute. I’ll be simply telling you why I think social media is an art.

Lets think reverse. That’ll be easier in this scenario.

Art is something that entertains and amuses people. It has the ability to capture people’s mind and eyes. It tells us not to leave the chair until the shoe is over. It is the same happening with social media. We are entertained with the content in it. We awes, wonders and yells when we see the amazing stuff that are shared each day. It compels us to keep on flowing through the net hours and hours until our bosses come and scold us. 

Art is an inspiration. Without inspiring people, art will be a failure. It is this particular ability of our art forms that helped it to be handed over from generation to generation and from gurus to shishyas. Remember about the moments in Middle East or Wall Street. Think about zeitgeist or Anna Hazare. These incidents and the power we witnessed has surely inspires us and we are looking forward to use it in the same way to fight the injustices.

The above examples again bring to our mind about power of art to create revolutions. We have seen enough social media lead revolutions in a matter of days and hours.

Ultimately art is about creativity and innovation. Or keeping people behold it without giving moments of boredom. When we think of this point, please remember that even in art there are people who rape the art forms and test our patience. When it comes to social media, it has glimpse of creativity in it. It brings new designs, new content, new thoughts, innovative ideas and a lot more.

So in total social media is an art. Now if you want to counter do it. Or think about what i have shared with closed eyes. You will be amazed, inspired and become a revolutionist.

Community development & Relevant audience

There was a funny instance in my social media life. I happened to came across a page handled by a high profile social media agency in India. The page is flooded with posts, links, conversations and all the stuff that one can imagine. The fan numbers are at the peak too. But there was this funny post caught my attention. The guy handling the page asked a question quiet relevant t o the brand and the answer from the audience blow my mind away!!! The great list of answers had nothing to do with the brand or question. It was completely out of scope and irrelevant.

This incident took me to my pages and made me think for one moment. Is your audience relevant to your brand or the people in there are just a bunch of people accidentally liked your page because they saw a very attractive ad.

It’s a damn serious question. You may counter my point by saying, more the people more the brand image or more the people more is the WOM. But what is the point of a 13 year old boy when we are talking about sanitary pad. Or what will a 50 year old lady say when we ask about gaming?

So in my perspective (strictly mine and not someone else’s) when we build a community in social web and start talking about our brand, we should be careful enough to make sure that our listeners are the correct ones. They should either know about our brand or at least they are our future prospects.  Otherwise the things can really worse. Our brand communication will be like a grapevine. People will take whatever we say in a different perspective and will then mould it in a different shape and will sell it. And who lose there? None but we and our brand.

So it is very important to develop a community that knows our pulse and our positioning. We want the people out there to talk about us. But only good, or it is hell at the end. 

Campaign of the Month: Vedanta ‘Creating Happiness’

Agency: Ogilvy & Mather

The Vedanta Group, after its various scams and controversies, has unveiled its first ever corporate campaign under the platform of ‘Creating Happiness’. It is good to see another giant corporate coming up with a CSR initiative. The campaign includes a 90 second TVC along with 38 other three minute films. The commercial is created by O&M and the short films are crowd sources from student film makers across India.

The campaign portrays a Rajsthani girl Binno, who was chosen from the Vedanta community initiative. The TVC takes a real slice out of Binno’s life, with her parents, friends, doctors and school teachers playing the part. It shows how her life is different from that of her earlier generations, in the process highlighting the many changes that have come about over the years in her village.

Commenting on the TVC, Piyush Pandey, executive chairman, Ogilvy & Mather said, “The Vedanta ‘Creating Happiness’ campaign is extremely close to my heart for it's all about enabling India. I have worked on this campaign along with my team as an excited young copywriter and I look forward to the people of India not just appreciating the Vedanta efforts, but getting inspired to do something on their own to make India a happier place.”

The film is shot by Shivendra Dungarpur of Dungarpur Films and the music has been composed by Rajat Dholakia.

On the campaign and the film competition, Senjam Raj Sekhar, director, communications and brand, Vedanta group said, “Vedanta has several compelling stories to tell about the work that is being done in community and sustainability. Our aim is to tell the world the Vedanta story under the platform of ‘Creating Happiness’. With the film competition, we opened up all our projects and locations to budding independent film makers. The idea was to enable them to experience it first hand and make films on impact that the projects were having on the community. The results are tremendous – we have got 38 heartwarming stories capturing hope, change and empowerment in rural India”

The students participants in the short film competition including students from IIFT, travelled to the interiors of Rajasthan, Goa, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Orissa and Chhattisgarh to meet with an India that is full of inspiring stories, and they came back with their own experiences and films. The films are open for public voting on YouTube till 20 March 2012. The films will also be judged by the jury that includes Piyush Pandey, Shyam Benegal and Gul Panag.

The video is available in this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWOwat5FO00

A thought worth thinking: Marketing 3.0:

From product to customers to human spirit*

Markeitng 3.0 is the new thougth among marketers and brand mavens. It seems like a good concept. It brings me the smell that companies even while its profiteering, will bring some good to peole who used to make their purchase decisions on the needs that were created by the companies.

According to Philip Kotler;

My colleagues and I believe that Mktg 1.0 represented an effort to establish the superior performance of a product ("Tide cleans better," "Volvo is safety,")  In Mktg 2.0, marketing added an emotional dimension to strengthen its appeal to prospective customers.  We are entering Mktg 3.0 where marketers are adding a human spirit dimension.  Mktg 1.0 and 2.0 is how about a product or offering will serve you.  Mktg 3.0 is how a product and its company are sensitive to social and economic issues that are a concern to everyone.  Companies that conduct themselves ecologically and create real value that aligns with the social good will be competitively favored.  The new media will increasingly carry more favorable statements about "caring" companies" and this will influence the buying choices of more consumers.

 Kotler tries to explain the concept in the following picture: 

Marketing is always subject to changes and make over as people are getting more conscious about brand and its characters. As a process, marketing has gone through various phases. In marketing 1.0 we saw a product based claims. Then with marketing 2.0, organisations added the emotional trait of brands that can capture people’s mind. Now it’s time for Marketing 3.0. Here brands are becoming more human. They are trying to tell the world that we are part of your life and we help you to achieve a better life (not just standard of living). It basically talks about the social concerns and commitments that a brand has for its pertaining society and community.

In 2010. Marc Pritchard, global marketing officer at Procter & Gamble mentioned about marketing 3.0 at the canes festival. “The world is heading towards Marketing 3.0 and that means marketing as a function needs to overhaul itself. We are not there yet, but we are moving towards an inflection point. We are shifting to purpose inspired brand building, a shift from marketing to serving,” He adds that consumers today want to know that beyond the product attribute, why is this brand good for me?.

In this scenario marketers will be compelled to think about the human spirit and values of their brand and come up with plan that can benefit the mankind. It will more concentrate on conversations with people. This will lead to the increased usage of social media and other new media platforms where people and brands are available real time.

* title of the book by Philip Kotler, Hermawan Kartajaya & Iwan Setiawan

The billboard days are back.

The thought for this blog came when I saw the bill board of 7up. It was created very beautifully and attractively. It even gave me the impression that there is something new in 7up. One thing about the design of the board was that it was not fully used. Still the design was amazing. It was the 7up character and a bottle at the middle of the board as projections and fully decorated with attractive lighting. I even felt like it is kind of interactive. It has some kind of conversation value.

Not just that one, take any of the new bill boards, it all create better impressions than the old ones. Basically it is the innovative design that attracts us. We saw so many innovations on bill boards in last Christmas and New Year season. Crackers, Christmas trees, some revolving stuffs and so many other things that we have never expected to see on a bill board. We have also seen some very creative design like the one in the picture here.

These kinds of designs will surely catch our eye balls and make us think about the brand for a second. As we all know bill boards are one very effective way to create brand recall, if used well. The new trends and designs are paving way to make all the brand managers and advertisement mavens to once again think about bill boards as one of the major tool for brand creation. One reason being people are spending a lot of their time outside their home. All the time spent outside, they need something to look at, for killing time, be it inside a bus or at a bus stop.

Recently read this comment in an article. “Traveling, dining, shopping – people are spending more time out of home than ever before. Brands are looking to connect and engage with consumers more and more and to be on top of the mind of consumers. Modern airports like the ones in Hyderabad, Bangalore and Delhi and Metro rail as transit mediums are gaining prominence as the audience gets uninterrupted time. Hence, the relevance of the medium is becoming stronger – malls-multiplexes provide scope for large-format visibility while consumers are shopping and on the move. Road mediums, too, are looking better than ever before with the introduction of international standard bus queues, billboards and street furniture.” (Nabendu Bhattacharya, Founder, Milestone Brandcomm)

Maruthua Pharma- a brand revitalized

A brand that had an impact in the minds of Malayalees long ago through its ads; that’s Maruthua pharma for me till some months ago. But it has totally changed my attitude towards the, once almost forgotten brand through its complete re branding exercises. It’s a nice thing to see a pure Kerala brand resurrecting like a phoenix and placing in a better way.

The new logo is really good that it will provide a refreshing look. They have come up with new products like Maruthua for Men and Insta Cappi.  

But more importantly it’s about the new venture they have come up with, that I should be talking about- the Ayurvedic clinic named Maruthua For Better life. The company website says, ‘Maruthua For Better Life aims to provide quality service to those in need of revitalization of the body through full body hot oil massages and steam baths. It also offers therapeutic services for beauty care’.

many Ayurvedic clinics are coming up in Kerala with different USPs and so much blabbering about their characteristics. I want to see how Maruthua For a Better life is going to stand out from the clutter.

Occupy Wall Street movement and India

When the movement against corporate greed marked one month I was thinking about the Indian scenario. On October 15^th 82 countries showed their anger to the corporate tyranny and supported the movement; but none in India. Is it because we don’t have too much of greedy corporate or we are not yet under their octopus hands?

I think the reason why Indians didn’t have to worry about the Occupy Wall Street movement is the following things.

1.    Banking is not a fully privatised sector- one of the main reason of the ongoing protest is the anger towards the banks in America and Europe which loot people. Indian government is still keen on keeping banking to public sector and thus protecting the public interest. It was also one of the main reasons that kept banks safe from recession.

2.    Tata and Birla or the angel corporates- you may wonder why I put a point like this. But just take a moment and think about the two companies. As we all know these are the two Indian corporates that’s been there for years. They always kept their tradition and the Indian heritage of Charity which compelled the other corporate who emerged in the 80’s and 90’s.

3.    Indian government policies- India has always been a country of values. Still in some ways or other we try to keep it with us and hand it over to our coming generations. Our government has recently brought an idea of making CSR compulsory of all corporate companies. Such an initiative will surely persuade the companies to look at the society from which took all it resources. Giving that society something back will certainly make the common man happy and it will cater the poor with his basic amenities.