In marketing today, there’s a huge misconception between virality and value in what I’m calling the “Powerball Paradox.” On one hand, there’s the ever-present need to spread your messaging far and wide- while on the other, there’s the realization that shares and likes don’t pay the bills.
Simply put, virality doesn’t breed value, whereas the reverse is possible. By understanding the difference, you will begin to shape your efforts around the customers and create a stable foundation for the future. Instead of living on a prayer or duping the desperate, consider giving the customers what they really want and not playing into the Powerball Paradox.
For the power of virality, you needn’t look any further than the recent events surrounding the nearly $600 million dollar Powerball Jackpot. Whether you were on Twitter, in the office or reading a newspaper, you just couldn’t escape it. The country was sensationalized by the prospect of instant riches. Even after the drawing, the focus turned towards identifying the winners and the return to everyday life for those who already spent the windfall in their dreams. Capitalizing on the attention, along came a genius and somewhat sinister photograph that become the most viral event in the history of Facebook.
With the help of Photoshop, programmer Nolan Daniels crafted an image of him holding what appeared to be the “golden ticket.” In a spat of creative genius, the simple image bore the caption, “Looks like I won’t be going to work EVER!!!! Share this photo and I will give a random person 1 million dollars!” In conjunction, the photo and the caption were enough to warrant over 100 likes and shares per second- over 200 million in total. While he may not have hit actual gold, he surely struck social media gold in a way we are unlikely to see ever again.
Dubbed a “master troll,” Mr. Daniels’ case is an extreme example of the willingness of the crowd to get involved with social media promotions. Because it’s so simple to share and like content through social media, it’s practically harmless for individuals to do so. Everyone likes the idea of winning something and with this hoax the stakes seemed huge. It was like Powerball inception- everyone who participated was collaborating, dreaming and waited, and eventually, they were all let down.
As marketers, it’s important not to do the same for your customers. While promotions may be a great way to blast the masses, to keep them coming back, you’ll have to give them more than hope. People will only wait around for so long. Unless you’re marketing for a casino in Vegas, it’s foolish to bank of the compulsions of customers to engage with unlikely odds. It’s like trying to trick a horse with an imaginary box of carrots, instead of offering up a few along the way. Like a horse and buggy, customers are what pull your business forward and they want a return on their investment, not a gimmick. Value on their end will drive value on yours. Your endgame is their satisfaction.

Since he had no endgame, Mr. Daniels is basking in the sunlight of a job well done and reaping the benefits of his 60 seconds of fame. His only value was a glimmer a hope that dissipated as quickly as it came. He’ll be soon forgotten into social media lore and realize the meaning of “easy come, easy go.” His lie was the epitome of the Powerball Paradox and it left disappointment in the hands of the participants.
For marketers, true sweepstakes promotions are a valid way to build brand awareness- but it’s not as easy as raffling something away. Assuming there’s a real winning chance, if you’re planning on using a gimmick to get people’s attention, make sure to have a follow-up strategy in place. A properly orchestrated promotion can be a real launch pad for success by sorting out the prospects from the crowd and giving them a reason to come back for more. While virality can be a great thing, I’d take value any day.


ABDUL WAHEED
PGDM 1st 

he Marketing Relevance Imperative By Peter DeLegge NIGEL: You're on ten on your guitar...where can you go from there? Where? MARTY: I don't know.... NIGEL: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is if we need that extra...push over the cliff...you know what we do? MARTY: Put it up to eleven. NIGEL: Eleven. Exactly. One louder. -Conversation between filmmaker Marty DiBergi and guitarist Nigel Tufnel, This Is Spinal Tap In study after study, consumers have stressed that, regardless of the channel, they’d rather not see ads.     - A 2004 study by Forrester found that when people watch pre-recorded television shows, they skip an average of 92 percent of the commercials    - Most Internet users block pop-up ads, screen for adware, and safeguard against spam. Confronting an ad-averse audience, how have major advertisers and ad agencies responded?  With more unwelcome, and in some cases underhanded, tactics – pandering ads, manipulative word-of-mouth campaigns, contracts that require a publisher to pull their ads if the publication prints a negative editorial about them...  As marketers, we’re all in the same boat: how do you get heard above the din? Where do you go, what do you do, when the volume’s already at 10? Well, if you have the clout – and believe “He who succeeds shouts the loudest” – you:      - Run something shocking at a moment of maximum exposure    - Try to control (i.e., threaten) the presumably impartial media    - Claim it’s in all the service of branding One naturally wonders: “This is how you gain trust?” These advertisers and agencies – what we’ll call legacy marketers – are resorting to tactics that not only ooze desperation but are ethically suspect. Let’s give legacy marketers their due. They’re struggling to survive as media budgets get butchered. John Wanamaker’s oft-quoted adage about 50 percent of advertising being wasted pales in comparison to what they’re facing. A recent study found that most of these advertisers don’t measure the impact of their television media budget; instead, they relegate it to a black box called “branding.” CEOs and CFOs aren’t fooled – to them, it’s a rationalization for inadequate measurement (branding as a “get out of jail free” card). To add to the irony, these marketers aren’t fooling – let alone engaging – the public. You can spend millions on monologues that swamp your target market, only to be muted by a single consumer voice on the Net. Many marketers fail to realize that they aren’t moving closer to dialoguing with consumers or learning how to thrive in a world where consumers are savvy and empowered, where information can be shared in seconds. Just visit Amazon.com. Who do you think the consumer’s going to believe? The carefully selected expert on the dust jacket or opinions posted by peers?  Google away – third-party, consumer, and consumer group reviews are a breeze to find. When brand messages are Tivo’ed, pop-up ads and irrelevant email marketing is tuned out, how do you justify your legacy budget? How does a marketer become more relevant? Well, first, you don’t make a spectacle of yourself. The kid throwing a tantrum in the grocery store knows this is a way to garner attention. The problem is, it isn’t positive attention. The more shrill advertisers and agencies become, the more they employ aggressive/intrusive/obnoxious techniques, the more they distance consumers. Under a constant onslaught of advertising, consumers have adapted, evolved. In order to process information, they’ve learned to be more vigilant, more adept in tuning out predatory messages. In short, consumers see a shark fin and steer clear. They have unprecedented access to information and are less likely to swallow what they hear from marketers.  But marketers can take heart. Consumers and business-to-business targets have shown they will listen – and be receptive – to a truly relevant message delivered at the right place and time. It's a simple, but true statement, that it's time to really get to know who you're talking to. Stop messaging that screams “Notice me”; choose messaging that means something to your targets. Start connecting with them. Allocating media budgets based more on old habits and silos than information is part of the problem. As the internet becomes an increasingly popular media choice and televisions soon get IP addresses, the potential and expectations for marketing relevancy will only increase. .  There are marketing innovators to look to as models who don’t treat consumers like a cage of white mice. Google's approach to advertising is an excellent  example. Google methodically creates systems based on relevance. Google knows that, in an age where consumers and business buyers have information so readily at hand, compelling marketing is pertinent marketing. Through being relevant to users searches, page editorial content or personal email content. Few media outlets and brands have the trust to scan a user’s email for keywords and phrases and deliver back related advertising, but Google does. It speaks louder than words that consumers allow Google to look at their personal emails in order to get more relevant advertising. It is a testimony to that the fact that targets will listen if marketers will only take the time to be relevant. Few marketers have made strides towards relevancy as assertively as Amazon.com and, to date, it has paid off dearly. Marketing relevancy takes a lot more effort, but the rewards are in the results. Peter DeLegge is the publisher of Marketing Today. He has nearly twenty years experience in marketing, advertising and e-business strategy experience, holding marketing management positions at both Fortune 100, 200 and medium size firms. To contact Mr. DeLegge regarding speaking engagements, licensing his writing or media interviews, please email <peterdl@hotmail.com>.  Name Md. shane haider PGDM 1st maketing

marketing

ndulekha Aravind / Bangalore/ Mumbai Nov 17, 2012, 00:21 IST

How have Vijay Mallya's troubles with Kingfisher Airlines affected his lifestyle and myriad non-business interests? Indulekha Aravind, Malini Bhupta and Probal Basak ask his friends and business associates
Vijay Mallya has a close friend in Delhi. Let’s call him G. He holds Mallya in high esteem and the two businessmen talk to each other frequently. But in the last 10 days, ever since news broke out that Diageo would acquire Mallya’s United Spirits, G has held back from calling his old friend. “I don’t know if I should congratulate him,” says G. “After Kingfisher Airlines [was grounded], he seems to have lost the Midas touch.” The loss of business and the bad press Mallya has got on Kingfisher Airline, G fears, will crimp his friend’s flamboyant lifestyle. Mallya, it hurts G to admit, will have to lie low for a while.

Even if he doesn’t, it will be a long wait before the media warms up to him once again. The famous tag of “king of good times”, used equally for Mallya and his Kingfisher beer, has been punned mercilessly in newspaper headlines to highlight the trouble in his airline. Mallya’s recent comments, and tweets, reveal his angst. On January 10, almost nine months before Kingfisher Airlines’ licence was suspended, he had tweeted: “Looks like certain media houses are on a paid and highly motivated mission to discredit Kingfisher (Airlines) and encourage shift of traffic (to other carriers).” On October 28, when he came for the Formula One Grand Prix at Greater Noida in his private Airbus (there was speculation that he wouldn’t do so, as the jet may be impounded by his cash-strapped airline’s creditors), he let out another broadside: “You believe Indian papers have any credibility?” G insists Mallya is upset, not bitter. Then how does he explain the digs at rivals? On August 26, he retweeted twice journalist Barkha Dutt’s outbursts at delays on IndiGo flights. On March 14, Mallya had taken a potshot at Captain G R Gopinath, from whom he had bought Air Deccan, a primary cause of his airline’s woes: “Ask [the] media — why no expert reaction fr[o]m Capt Gopinath on [the] railway budget. He has great surface transport experience [for] both passengers and cargo.” Mallya's office did not respond to a request for an interview for this article.
In a way, the low profile that G fears his friend will now have to keep has already begun to take effect. In late October, Forbes removed the billionaire tag from Mallya’s name as his net worth had fallen from $1.1 billion to $800 million, thanks to his troubled airline. Mallya reacted on Twitter on October 25: “Thanks to the Almighty that Forbes has removed me from the so-called billionaires’ list.” It would cause, he hoped, less “jealousy, frenzy and wrongful attacks”. For over six months now, his tweets have abstained from highlighting the good life he is so fond of. On February 6, Mallya had tweeted about his stay at the luxurious Taj Falaknuma Palace hotel in Hyderabad. On May 4, his Twitter followers learnt that he was dining at Atmosphere on the 123rd floor of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. “Magnificent view,” he had tweeted. “[I have] never been so high up in my life.” There were no such tweets after that. “There was a need to scale down his lifestyle engagements after the [Kingfisher Airlines] crisis,” says adman Suhel Seth. “He was seen as clinical about the young men and women he employed.”
But there is no stopping his son Siddhartha, 25. In April, he had hired celebrity-management firm KWAN to find him brands to endorse. Mid-September, as Kingfisher Airlines was gasping for breath and its employees demanding their dues, saw him walking the ramp for designers Shantanu and Nikhil Mehra, arriving in Goa for the shoot of “The hunt for the Kingfisher calendar girl 2013”, playing volleyball on the beach with 12 bikini-clad women and requesting all to vote for him for the “GQ most stylish man of the year crown” — it went to John Abraham. Earlier this month, he was busy asking all fellow US citizens to vote in the presidential elections. Seth says he has told Mallya “to tell Siddhartha to stop tweeting and hosting calendar launch events”.
Beyond the headlines and hubris, Kingfisher Airline’s spiral seems to have accentuated Mallya’s spiritual side. He was always known to have a strong religious streak — admitted to considering Tuesdays and Saturdays inauspicious, had his new aircraft circle the Tirupati Balaji temple and made the annual pilgrimage to the shrine at Sabarimala. But ever since the crisis began, Mallya has increased the frequency of his visits, earlier confined to festivals and special occasions, to the shrine at Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh and the Kollur Mookambika and Kukke Subrahmanya temples in Karnataka, says a source. Earlier this year, he made an offering of a gold-plated door that cost around Rs 80 lakh to the Kukke Subramanya temple and has promised to donate another. He also had a tantric pooja conducted at his residence in Mumbai a few months ago by a team of priests specially flown in from Kerala. This had been preceded by a yajna to ward off evil at his residence in Bangalore, says the source.

* * *

Mallya was the toast of Bangalore till the 1990s. There was none bigger than him in the world of business. Then the information technology revolution began to happen in the city. Mallya was eclipsed by IT czars like Azim Premji and N R Narayana Murthy. Mallya was never one to give up without a fight. “Only a handful of people have heard of Infosys. But ask any man on the streets and he will have heard of United Breweries,” he had told Business Standard in the summer of 2003. Things have changed since then. “In the last 10 years, Vijay Mallya had deracinated himself from his Bangalore identity. So the turmoil barely caused a ripple here,” says Prakash Belawadi, Bangalore-based theatre personality and keen observer of life in the city. “This was also because he was shabbily treated by successive state governments. He had kind of given up on the city.”
In Bangalore, Mallya had come to be seen less and less on the party circuit over the years. “He was one of the first to host pre-launch parties, which were legendary, and he was definitely one of the biggest celebrities in the 1990s. But the action has shifted to Mumbai and Goa, and these days he seems to be mostly abroad,” says fashion designer Prasad Bidappa, a close friend. In keeping with his interest in fashion, Mallya had also launched the Kingfisher Fashion Awards in 2000, significant at that time because there were not many awards for the fashion fraternity, says Bidappa. But all of that took a backseat after the launch of the airline. Another Bangalore-based fashion designer and close friend, Manoviraj Khosla, who still designs Kingfisher merchandise and does work for the Kingfisher calendar, says, “I’m sure the crisis has taken a toll on him but it is difficult to say to what extent.”
Mallya’s parties, a Mumbai socialite insists, have now moved abroad, to his vineyards in South Africa and his yacht (the Indian Empress) in Monte Carlo. His yacht party in May was attended by, amongst others, Antonio Banderas and Bernie Ecclestone. “Despite the crisis,” Seth insists, “Mallya hasn’t changed one bit. He enjoys his life and is unapologetic about it.” His friends in Mumbai swear by him. “Mallya is terrific with his friends in terms of time, commitment and affection,” says socialite and entrepreneur Queenie Singh. “He remembers your birthday and comes to meet if he is in town. He knows your children, what they do and he asks about them when you meet him.” When Singh was opening her jewellery outlet at The Dorchester in London, she asked Mallya to be there. “He took an earlier flight and came straight from the airport,” she says. “He never minimises his friends.” Shobhaa De, the author, calls Mallya the most intelligent individual she has ever met (Shahrukh Khan comes a close second). “He can never become an untouchable,” she says. “He is way too charismatic, even with his back to the wall.”

* * *

Despite all the turmoil at his airline, Mallya seems to be trying to insulate some of his other interests as much as he can. At the Vittal Mallya Scientific Research Foundation in Bangalore, set up in 1987 and named in memory of his father, it is business as usual, says a senior research scientist, requesting not to be named. “Mallya has taken personal interest to ensure that our funding is not affected. Even during the height of the crisis, he ensured he made time to talk to our director,” he says. “Because of his efforts, morale at the institute has remained high and there has been no attrition.”
But G, Mallya’s friend, says that many activities funded until now by United Spirits may get affected as Diageo will focus on ramping up profits. This is perhaps what makes Kolkata’s football lovers jittery. McDowell’s Mohun Bagan is sponsored by United Spirits, while arch rival Kingfisher East Bengal is supported by United Breweries. Anjan Mitra, the secretary general of Mohun Bagan, feels the sponsorship gives tremendous coverage to United Spirits’ McDowell’s whiskey, so there is no reason for Diageo to snap the ties. Diageo, it is expected, will not tamper with United Spirits’ IPL team, the Royal Challengers.
There is no evidence so far that the trouble with Kingfisher Airline, and the sale of United Spirits, has dampened Mallya’s enthusiasm for motorsport. He is the chairman of the Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of India, which oversees motorsport in India. “Vijay has always participated very actively in the principal decisions of FMSCI and continues to do so, and his airline business has in no way affected this. In fact, he has just confirmed his presence at our next annual general body meeting next month,” says FMSCI President Vicky Chandhok. Sahara Force India, the Formula One team he owns 42.5 per cent, too is unlikely to be affected.
Another passion has been horse racing, with Mallya owning a stud farm at Kunigal in Karnataka. There has been some belt-tightening here but not at the behest of Mallya — the farm, says a source, has not imported any thoroughbred, the cost of which can run into crores, for the past couple of years, though it’s otherwise business as usual. The two principal derbies in the Indian racing calendar, held in Mumbai and Bangalore, are both sponsored by Mallya, with the prize money at this year’s Mumbai derby going up to over Rs 2 crore. At the Karnataka State Cricket Association, though, he's a largely absent member.
It will now be decided if Mallya is really the king of good times.

ARUSHI

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s: Ratan Tata | Indian Hotels | Cyrus Mistry | BSE

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Cyrus Mistry (left) is slated to succeed Ratan Tata as the chairman of Tata Group in December. PHOTO: AP

Tata Sons Deputy Chairman Cyrus Mistry has been appointed as the chairman designate of Indian Hotels Company.

He will take over as the chairman of the hotel chain from Ratan Tata on his retirement next month, Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL) said in a filing to the BSE today.

This decision was taken at a meeting of the board of the company.

"...Mistry was appointed as an Additional Director designated as the Non-Executive Chairman of the company," the filing said.

On Tata's retirement in December, 2012, Mistry will take the charge of IHCL, whose "unsolicited" $1.86 billion buyout offer for luxury hotels chain Orient Express was recently rejected by the New York Stock Exchange-listed firm.

This was the second takeover attempt by Indian Hotels, which holds about 7 per cent in Orient Express.

Mistry has been a director of Tata Sons since 2006 and was appointed Deputy Chairman last November.

Earlier this month, he was appointed as the Deputy Chairman of Tata Steel and Tata Chemicals.

Tata Motors and Tata Consultancy Services had also inducted Mistry as Deputy Chairman.

IHCL and its subsidiaries are collectively known as Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces.

WAHAB KHAN
PGDM-1

Coca-Cola: Mobile integral to 360-degree marketing strategy

The Coca-Cola Co. has launched an application to promote its Sprite brand, emphasizing that mobile has become an integral part of its 360-degree marketing strategy.Sprite has teamed with Zooz Mobile Inc., developers of a mobile music studio application, to launch Zoozbeat Sprite, the first iPhone application to be offered through Sprite’s ongoing Under the Cap promotion. When consumers enter Sprite cap codes via text message, they receive mobile rewards, including the new Sprite-branded, music-focused Zoozbeat application.“If you’re a smart marketer today, you have to be looking at all the different ways you can communicate with people—traditional, in-store, out-of-home, online and mobile,” said Susan Stribling, Atlanta-based spokeswoman for Coca-Cola North America. “You have to be tapping into all of the resources you have available.

Since the Sprite brand is focused on youth, we want to focus on mobile in particular, and this is the first big Under the Cap program we’ve launched in the U.S., which we’re looking to grow moving forward,” she said.

Zooz Mobile is the developer ofZoozbeat, a music recreation and remix studio. Zoozbeat has been downloaded more than 1 million times since launching in the Apple App Store in November 2008.

Zoozbeat Sprite works by shaking, tilting or tapping the iPhone screen to create and combine rhythmic and melodic tracks that can be uploaded to the Web for listening and sharing in mp3 format with friends.

Users can unlock additional beats within the application by twisting the cap off any Sprite or Sprite Zero bottle and texting in the keyword ZOOZ followed by the code under the cap.

Sprite will then provide consumers with a Zoozbeat Sprite code that can use be used to unlock more beats.

Additional artists being featured on the Zoozbeat Sprite application include hip-hop producer Khayree, Alex Christie, SY Scott, Novel, Sheed, Laron Brant and Spree Wilson.

The target demographic for the iPhone application is the same as overall target demographic for Sprite—multicultural youth ages 13-24.

“First and foremost it’s music, and music is something that’s very appealing to young people,” Ms. Stribling said. “This is something that’s completely on the go and accessible via their mobile phone, and young people have their iPhones attached to their wrist, so an app was a natural fit for that consumer.”

Coca-Cola will run mobile advertising across the mobile Web sites and within other iPhone applications to promote Zoozbeat Sprite.

For this campaign, Coca-Cola is primarily working with mobile ad network Millennial Media.

Coca-Cola launched the iPhone application as an enhancement to the larger Under the Cap program Sprite has been running.

Consumers participating in the program can opt in to receive SMS alerts and other messages from Sprite.

The Under the Cap program is promoted on packaging for the Sprite brand, encouraging consumers to text in to receive various rewards.

“We offer incentives to people who participate in the campaign using mobile technology,” Ms. Stribling said. “We didn’t have anything along the lines of what Zooz offers, an app focused on music and interactivity.

“We’re using the app to keep people engaged,” she said. “We will continue to add rewards to the pool, and this app is something new and fresh that people participating in the under-the-cap initiative can download.”

Manoranjan kumar

PGDM 3^RD SEM

Cipla Marketing Strategy

Cipla follows an excellent marketing strategy.

•

Strategic Tie-UpsCipla has set up a wholly owned subsidiary, Cipla FZE situated at Jebel Ai Free Zone inDubai, United Arab Emirates. This is the part of strategy to explore the growing markets inMiddle East countries through exports.

Cipla entered agreement with

Pentech Pharma of USA

for marketing a range of generic products for American market. Pentech is involved indeveloping therapies for lifestyle and quality of life conditions. This will further boost itsexport performance.

•

Low-risk business model :Robust partnership model – CIPLA has entered into global tie-ups with various generic players (like Watson, Mylan, Barr and Ivax) for supplying its generic products. This strategyenables Cipla to leverage local market knowledge of its partners and utilize its own R&D, product development, and manufacturing skills. Cipla's offer to sell anti- aids drugs at one-third the price to developing countries like South Africa or any other country. The questionswere raised against the strategy the company follows but Cipla is not committing any illegalor unethical act as it is entitled to sell anti- aids drugs in any country that does not have therequisite patent protection. Cipla is not using pirated technology since India does not have a product patent regime. Therefore, Cipla has the right to develop and reverse engineer any pharmaceutical product not protected by the country's laws. Therefore, the issue is whether Cipla is selling its products below its costs or is it able to sell cheaply because it has notincurred any research and development (R&D) expenses like multinationals incur indeveloping drugs.

                       Deepak kumar

                       PGDM 3^rd sem