Electronics and Convergence
The consumer electronics space is ridden with attempts at convergence. All companies are building more features into existing products and hope to charge more. There are 2 schools of thought, one which favours convergence and the other which says that marketing has always been about segmentation, products will always be more divergent than convergent.
The iPod is a divergent device, while the iPhone is convergent. Is it reasonable to assume that there will be a time when the iPod will be completely subsituted by the iPhone or devices similar to the iPhone?
The consumer loves convergence. Just ask a jogger and he would tell you how sunglasses with an mp3 player are god's gift to mankind.
Marketer has no clue
The marketer is clearly confused. He has designed a great convergence device, with a 100 functions, but the laws of marketing force him to convey just one USP (Unique Selling Proposition).
What happens when the ideal convergence product is created? How will it be communicated. Nokia has attempted to communicate that the Nokia N95 is "Not one thing, but many". Does that statement create trust in the product, does anyone realize what the product can do?
Convergent devices mean different things to different people, and choosing just one route to sell the product could prove sub optimal.
Companies and Online Marketing - Is it about Adwords alone
It brings me to the issue of how these companies market online. The reason this question begs to be answered is that the online medium is where you can engage the consumer and interact with them. It is also the only medium where the consumer actively seeks information and it can be delivered to him. In other words, this is the only medium, where more than one USP can be communicated with ease.
Currently companies are stuck with buying adwords, creating banner ads and hope to redirect consumers onto their site or partner sites to buy. Most of the adwords work only when the consumer has made a decision to buy and is searching for where to buy. It does not influence his buying decision, it only aids his buying process by simplifying it.
How can the marketer move beyond unidimensional communication to creating a group of followers of the brand, who speak and influence fellow buyers more than the marketer himself. It is possible on the internet, and there are brands who have achieved it. But the effort involved in building brands online is much more than just creating an ad and uploading it on youtube (which is probably what a number of companies call innovation on the internet).
Marketing Online and managing People on the Web
Is marketing becoming more about managing people, than managing a brand? Manage people online, who will sell the brand in more ways than you can, who derive greater meaning from your brand than what the marketer projects.
It might mean a techtonic shift in how resources are deployed by companies. There could be huge teams dedicated to just the internet, who actively participate in various forums to educate consumers about the product and influence word of mouth for the brand. The age of unidimensional communication might just become history, and with it all rules of conventional marketing
February 04, 2008
The Irony of a USP
January 03, 2008
Can New Year Resolutions be used as a Marketing tool?
Well Happy New Year to all of you. I have been a little busy holidaying the past couple of weeks. On New Years, I was contemplating the conventional "Happy New Year to all my readers" but stayed away because I wanted to start this year by doing something different (Not wishing my readers seemed logical :)).
I couldn't ultimately think of anything different because I had a hard time waking up and staying in my senses, but what I do have this year is an innovative marketing attempt from a Recruitment Consultancy below.
These guys have used New Year Resolutions as an innovative way to advertise their offer. They shot an email which was eventually forwarded to me. The mail has been appended below - go through it and subscribe to their email groups if you are in India. I will be doing so.Hi,
Wishing everyone a very happy new year. May god bless you with a great personal life. As goes good professional life and career, Green Rootz would surely like to make some contribution.
For all those who have made any of the following resolutions, we are always there to support you:
1. I will not work till late hours
2. I will maintain work life balance
3. I will not succumb to unnecessary pressures of management
4. I will no more accept that "Boss is always right"
5. I will look for jobs with better designation
6. I will look for designations that really mean something and aren't just fancy ones
7. I will look for profiles that justify the designation
8. I will look for companies that put me on high trajectory growth
9. I will no more do monotonous mundane boring work
10. I will move from sales to marketing
11. I will move from marketing to content acquisition
12. I will move from content acquisition agency side to client side
13. I will move from content acquisition client side to movie production house
14. I will look for more strategic oriented profiles
15. I will look for assignments that provides international exposure
16. I will double my salary in the next 12 months
17. I will look for responsibilities that aren't restricted by geographical boundaries
18. I will look for assignments that requires understanding of multiple functions
19. I will not make more than one presentation or pitch in a week
20. I will no more waste time checking and approving artworks
21. I will work for companies with enough cash reserves to support ambitious business plans
22. I will invest more time reading and updating myself with the happenings around the world so that I can explore better opportunities
23. I will not work for companies that don't have employee friendly culture
24. I will not work for boss who is less intelligent than I am
25. I will not work in the company wherein I have already learnt what I could learn.
Go on and make more such resolutions. We will try our best to make sure you keep them.
To keep yourself updated of vacancies in Media, Entertainment & Telecom sector, register with Mediajobs Googlegroup created by Green Rootz. It takes 30 seconds to register if you have gmail id. Click on the link below for the same:
http://groups.google.com/group/mediajobs
Thanks & Regards,
Harish Jain
Green Rootz Manpower Consulting
2nd Floor, C Wing, R.R. House, Mathuradas Mill Compound,
Opposite Kamla Mills, Near ICICI Bank,
Senapati Bapat Marg, Lower Parel
Mumbai 400 013
Email: harish.jain@greenrootz.com
Phone: 022 32465007
Mobile: +91 9819 511 007
http://www.linkedin.com/in/harishjain
"We call ourselves Green Rootz because Green is the color of life and Roots are the reason for growth. Thus, all the endeavors of our company are focussed on Growth of Life. 'Z' at the end of Rootz signifies 'new-age; with the time' attitude of the company. Thus, relevancy is at the core of our beliefs"
December 05, 2007
Is there hope for the imperfect domain name
Continuing from this post, The web visitor is undergoing change in the way (s)he visits and revisits websites. The consumers on the web have taken to the various forms of bookmarking, rss feeds etc in such a huge way that the trend suggests that the domain name is being typed less often than before, and moving forward could reduce even more.
Take Netvibes for example, it adds to the options by allowing you to personalize the web. It is about having the web where you want it, the way you want it. It lets individuals assemble all in one place their favorite websites, blogs, email accounts, social networks, search engines, instant messengers, photos, videos, podcasts, widgets, and everything else you enjoy on the Web.
Whats more, they allow you to rename feeds, which means you might just end up naming a blog/website in a manner that the creator did not intend.
So websites are being customized, does this mean that domain names will be customized?
Let me draw a parallel with telephone numbers. There was a time when landline numbers had to be written in a diary or etched in memory. There were no fancy mobile phones with unlimited storage memory.
You had to remember the phone number of a person if you had to chat with him/her. The phone number was the only way you could be reached. If you had an easy number, people could remember it and hence reach you when they needed you. Hence everyone wanted a number which went 12345678.
The website is similar to the telephone number. Most of the type in traffic needs to remember the portal name in its actual form, if they want to visit a website. The domain name is similar to the erstwhile telephone number. If you don't know it, you won't be able to reach the portal (the portal is similar to the person).
Now I store the number of people I would like to stay in touch with, in a format and name I choose. His phone number could be complicated but it does not affect me. I have names of companies stored in a way I can understand and access easily. The names are typically related to a benefit I associate with them. So I need a bill register for my startup cafe, I call the person "Bill register Andy" - His company is called Total Retail Solutions but I couldn't care less.
Websites are increasingly being stored in a customized manner using one of the many forms already described above. Going forward, is there a possibility that the importance of a domain name will be reduced to inducing the first few visits. Once the visitor is convinced of the websites utility, he might just choose to save it with a name he is comfortable with.
To give you an example, I visit a page with a long and convoluted name (many /'s and .net attached to it) everyday at work to get past Websense, and I don't think it would have made a huge difference to my visiting pattern if it were called http://www.circumventor.com.
The site is just too useful, and I will visit it irrespective of what its called. All I do is type the first 2 letters and this is one of the first few sites suggested by my browser navigation bar. I have also saved it as a bookmark on my browser and on delicious as, yup you guessed right "Circumventor".
Now I am sure it would make life easier if its domain name were easy too, but the lack of it does not affect my visiting pattern as I have already custom saved it.
So How does this affect my site?
Coming back to what you should do to get your website up and running. The fundamental principles of marketing any other product or service are as important for a website. Awareness, Interest, Aiding the decision to try/buy, Product trial and Satisfaction are the mantras of any brand building exercise.
A good domain name will certainly ease traffic building, but with the web visitor becoming increasingly more powerful do not assume that your website will be remembered by the name rather than the benefit associated with your content.
Let ego stand aside for a moment, don't force your visitor to remember your website by its name. Let them customize it. Make it easy for the consumer to revisit your site by giving opportunities to bookmark your site, get RSS feeds and adopt other mechanisms in future which will enable the consumer to custom save and custom view your site.
Can there be more changes expected?
The future for browsers could well be to introduce a feature which allows you to custom save your website in the browser navigation bar. This will allow you to type "Innovative Marketing" and not my actual domain name to get on to my blog.
We might even have an online browser (like virtual desktops are in place), so that you can easily access your frequently used websites, from any location, with a name that you choose to associate with them and a navigation tool bar that allows you to brand the websites and not depend on their domain name.
Hence what your domain name is called can progressively become irrelevant to the all powerful web user. He might just choose to brand you more than you can brand yourself.
I have updated this post, thanks to the feedback that I have received (Thanks to everyone for stopping by). Your thoughts are invited...
November 20, 2007
Does marketing feed into strategy? Or is it the other way around?
I was on Seth Godin's blog and noticed his post on Thinking about
Domains and just one line in an otherwise perfect, struck a discordant note.
"One last bit of backward thinking: if you're looking to start an online business, consider finding a great domain and build the business around it, not the other way around."
The key thought behind the post was to emphasize the importance of domain names. Though I don't dispute their importance, it is a stretch to suggest that online businesses should revolve around available domain names ie. search for available domain names and then build businesses around them.
How can one decide business strategy on the basis of marketing elements? Conventional theory suggests that Strategy feeds into Marketing and not the other way around. So I might decide to be in the online auction space and decide to call myself ebay, but will I decide to be an online auction just on the availability of a domain name?
Just assuming businesses are a little more complicated than that.
Nonetheless it is acceptable that entrepreneurs who are exploring opportunities at starting up in the online space, book domain names prior to finalizing their plan (or even start working on it). But booking domain names in the absence of a thought seems like shooting in the dark.
A website needs a lot of ingredients to be successful and the domain name is just one of them.
Let me reiterate, I am not undermining the importance of the domain name. It is equivalent to the brand name of a product in the offline space. Unlike brands in the offline space where the "first moment of truth" could be through packaging, ambience or even tasting the product, an online portal depends on its domain name (it has to be typed or clicked before the portal can be experienced in any way).
The question that begs to be answered is a larger one actually and I thank Seth for instigating this thought. According to this report, more than 47 million .com domain names have been booked already. Hence its highly probable that you are unable to find your ideal domain name.
So, Is the absence of a great domain name the end of the road for your business? Or do trends suggest that there is hope still.
Give me some time to research some trends before I answer that one, the last time I tried to answer it with insufficient research, I faced some serious flak from the blogger community. I apologise to every one of them. In my overenthusiastic attempt to try and see if imperfect domain names will work, and initial research suggesting that it was indeed possible, I wrongly concluded that domain names could be becoming irrelevant. I couldn't have been more wrong and I am thankful to everyone who pointed it out. The domain name is one of the many ingredients for success. A good name always aids success.
I have since taken that post off this blog since I don't believe in it anymore. I am hoping that the next few posts will correct some of the wrong.
So please hold on until my next post. I hope to throw larger clarity on this issue.
August 28, 2007
Google Monetizes YouTube - Not User Generated Content
Google paid YouTube over a billion dollars and has revealed how it plans on monetizing the site. An Adage article states that instead of running across the site's consumer-generated content, Google's in-video ads will run on 3,000 professional content partners and 70 independent partner channels. Google's new YouTube ad formats will be graphic overlays that cover the bottom 20% of the screen and go away if not clicked after 10 seconds (a method pioneered by Videoegg)
Ads on professional content partners is not a model which monetizes the core concept of User Generated Content. It could well have been achieved without acquiring YouTube in the first place, and by just uploading good professional content (with ads) on YouTube pages. Obviously there are constraints to monetizing YouTube, otherwise Google wouldn't have a chosen such a fundamentally deviant method.
Constraints to Monetizing YouTube
- User Generated Content is that its difficult to verify all uploaded content and advertisers would hate for ads to appear in "inappropriate" or copyrighted content.
- What about ads in the same page as the content? We are all familiar with adsense right? Well the problem is that the tags used to define these videos are diverse and is meant to drive traffic towards the video from every possible source. Automatically adsense based on tags and content becomes that much more non targeted.
What should the Monetization Model be for YouTube? (How I wish I were paid for thinking about this stuff)
Well one of the models that can be followed to use UGC to generate money goes like this...
User uploads Video in a specific category with specific keywords/tags => Video hits it big => Reaches a threshold viewership, rating and is shared amongst viewers in a defined period of time => Achieves a threshold rating => Reviewed by the YouTube team for content and keyword authenticity =>
Advertisers bid on keywords/categories and provide ad content to be placed in a format specified by YouTube => Advertisers choose number of videos they would like ad placed on and whether they would like 1 video a day/week etc => They can also define threshold viewership, rating etc => Highest bidders get the best videos to advertise on => Once the number of videos for highest bidder is exhausted, second highest bidder gets ads in the next most popular videos and so on => Ad is auto inserted as graphic overlays that cover bottom 20% of the screen for first 5 seconds and last 5 seconds of the video, followed by a full screen still for 1 second
Since only a limited number of videos will cross threshold viewership - monitoring and reviewing these videos is much simpler and solves some of the constraints we were discussing earlier. What remains a question is how will viewership be affected with ads on erstwhile free content?
