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Pan IIM Marketing Digest

THE LOOKING

GLASS

Editorial Dear Readers It gives us immense pleasure to bring out the first ever PAN-IIM marketing digest, with a joint effort by the marketing clubs of IIMs A, B, C and L. If you take time to look around, you would observe the importance of marketing in every sphere of your life. Starting from the time you get up in the morning, the brush, toothpaste you use, right up to the time you crash on your bed at night, just think of those countless brands that shape your daily lifestyle. It‟s a continuous tussle between those myriad brands laid across the horizon of consumer observation span. In a season where marketers are leaving no stone unturned trying to grab consumer attention, marketing automatically assumes utmost impor-tance. The world is brutal. It‟s no longer about marketing your product right. It‟s basically a requisite for sur-vival. If you don‟t do it, your competitors will. And the consumers have plenty of options. So, basically if you don‟t sell, your competitors will. We decided to come up with a collection of choicest articles contributed by students and industry personnel, which would highlight the trends of contemporary marketing. And for the same reason we decided to call the digest, „The Looking Glass‟, because we feel it will give a true reflection of marketing, and the direction it is taking in today‟s scenario. The articles touch a wide array of topics which have assumed importance in the recent past. How has humour been used effectively by marketers? How do you sell educational institutes? What exactly did the Fake IPL Player do for KKR? How do advertisers resort to surrogate advertising? What are the trends in online mar-keting? These, and many more articles inside would keep you engrossed as you go through the pages, we hope. There are those who envision, and then there are those who work to make the vision a reality. We are proud to say that we had a team which did both. We would like to thank all those who were involved taking the digest to the completion stage. There was a tremendous amount of co-ordination and synchronization put in by the market-ing clubs of the 4 IIMs. At every stage of development we also received immense support from the faculty in the form of guidance and encouragement. Also, a very special thanks to Mr. Prakash Bagri, Director of Marketing, Intel South Asia, for sharing his insights on the evolution and future of marketing, in the digest. In future we plan to evolve by bringing in greater participation from the industry and experts and initiating wider distribution. Please do send us your feedback at looking_glass.mag@gmail.com.

Yours Truly Mayank Jain, Prasad Gopal , Robin Joseph , Garima Mamgain

In this edition

Team

Measuring the Effectiveness of the Humour Quotient in Indian Advetising ……3

Influencer Marketing ..…..6

Implicit Positioning and Surrogate Advertising .........9

Fake IPL Player: Redefining Marketing ..…..11

Effective Multi-tiered Promotions: Lessons From Santoor ..…..13

4P's of Indian Theatre Marketing ..…...17

Neo-Political Marketing ...….21

Strategic Marketing for Educational Institutions…..25

Welcome to Marketing, the third epoch! ........28

Sidestepping the Commoditization of Disruptive Innovations …...30

Sales Role in Fixed Income Securities Market ……32

Valuation of TV Advertising …….34

Ogilvy and Mather Trivia …….36

Is Recession the time to tighten Ad Budget? …….37

Low Cost Customer Acquisition Strategies for E-businesses …….39

State of the Market -A Comparative Study …….42

Does Green Marketing Sell? ……..44

Men's Cosmetics ……..48

Editors Design Pan IIM Team

Mayank Jain (IIMC) Yatish Misra (IIMC) Piyush Mehta (IIMC) Chayan Mukhopadhyay (IIMB)

Prasad Gopal (IIMB) Prativa Lama (IIMB) Brijesh Unithan (IIMC) Gautam Attravan (IIMB)

Robin Joseph (IIMA) Rajkul Fulzele (IIMA) Mafla Mudgal (IIMC) Shreshth Sharma (IIMB)

Garima Mamgain (IIML) Rishi Varshney (IIML) Nikhil Joshi (IIMC) Meenakshi Prasad (IIML)

Pratik Prakash (IIMC) Saikat Mondal (IIML)

Sanglap Bannerjee (IIMC) Ganesh PR (IIML)

Abhishek Mohan (IIMB) Manoj Kumar Kamble (IIML)

mailto:looking_glass.mag@gmail.com

T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S

P A G E 3

In this article, we explore the hu-

mour quotient in Indian advertis-ing through the lens of certain

television ad campaigns that have

tickled the consumer funny bone

in order to evaluate the effective-

ness of such campaigns. We di-verge from the traditionalist body

of literature that brackets hu-

mour in advertising as risky and

at best, as effective as other ads.

Our contention is that an ad

campaign based on humour stands out from the crowd and

captures the consumer mind-

share.

INTRODUCTION

When using humour to advertise

a product, the main challenge for

marketers is to link the advertise-

ment to the underlying brand so

as to translate consumer enjoy-

ment to consumer purchase. This linkage is questioned by numer-

ous researchers with the distrac-

tion of the consumer from the

brand quoted as the chief flaw of

such a strategy. We diverge from

this view – our contention is that the industry context and basis of

competition is also critical to the

nature of advertisements used.

Our frame of analysis would be

campaigns that are recognized for their innovative use of humour

including Fevicol and Fewikwik,

Happydent White, Vodafone Zoo-

zoos, Idea Cellular, Frooti, Tata

Sky, Sprite.

TYPES OF HUMOUR

Back in the 1960‟s, a golden rule

in advertising, propagated by the

founder of Prentice-Hall, was to

never mix humour and advertis-ing. Today, with the proliferation

of product offerings, humour is

increasingly being looked upon

not as a distraction that trivial-

izes the product, but as an effec-

tive means of distinguishing the product from the crowd and

drawing the attention of con-

sumer.

Measuring the Effectiveness of the Humour

Quotient in Indian Advertising

Humour can come in many forms

and the choice of the appropriate type is highly dependent on the

target audience, the cultural bias,

the choice of advertising medium

and the product itself. Some of

the more popularly used forms are:

Personification: This is where inanimate objects assume

human characteristics and the inherent humour in observing

such behaviour is used to high-

light some quality or the desir-

ability of the brand. One such

example is Pepsi‟s „Oye Bubbly‟

campaign in which various ob-jects such as the car stereo and

the garage are shown coveting the

Pepsi bottle.

Exaggeration: Here certain attributes of the product are

magnified out of proportion like

the Fevikwik ads where the fish-

erman uses Fevikwik on a stick

to catch fish, trumping the so-phisticated fishing gear of the

person next to him.

Slapstick: This particular

brand of humour deals with the

ludicrous/exaggerated and pre-

sents situations where the hu-

morous aspect of the ad, far from

being subtle, strikes the viewer in

the face, the Chlormint ads being

a prime example of this.

Other forms include sarcasm,

comparison, pun, understate-

ment and irony. However, there is

a strong cultural context for such

advertisements. Individualistic

cultures like the US and UK typi-

cally feature advertisements hav-

ing one or two dominant charac-

ters while in more collectivistic

cultures like Thailand, ads re-

volve around groups. Similarly,

the degree of uncertainty avoid-

ance and the amount of mascu-

line dominance in the culture of a

country are key factors in influ-

Our contention is that

an ad campaign based

on humour stands out

from the crowd and

captures the consumer

mindshare.

Indian advertisements,

in the past, have

mostly derived their

humour from the in-

terplay between multi-

ple characters.

P A G E 4

T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S

spectrum – be it the group oriented Fevicol

truck ad showing people stuffed into a truck,

or the more individual oriented Fevikwik fish-erman ad, from the slapstick Akai TV ads of

old to the more subtle Camlin Marker ads, to

the extent that even potentially controversial

ads like the Axe series have found acceptance

in India, which is viewed to be conservative.

Case Studies: We examine the following ad-

vertising campaigns with a view towards illus-

trating the different types of humour that

works in the Indian context and also to meas-

ure the effectiveness of these campaigns along multiple dimensions: Amaron, Frooti,

Axe and Max New York Life Insurance. Our

choice is driven by the different types of hu-

mour used in each of these campaigns.

Amaron (Amara Raja) batteries: The iconic claymation advertisements with the catchy

slogan of „Lasts Long Really Long...Ting Tong‟

captured the imagination of the public and

acted as clutter busters in 2002. The „Hare

and Tortoise‟ ad and the „Kumbhakarna ad‟ were aired on Doordarshan and other satellite

channels and brought in tremendous brand

awareness for Amaron batteries – a new en-

trant into the automotives battery space in

2000.

Interestingly however, the expected spurt in

sales did not materialize. The product was a

low involvement one with incumbent advertis-

ing focussing on the toughness and macho

image of the car battery. The dominant player at that time, Exide, was well entrenched and

Amaron did not manage to make a dent in

their sales. The ad agency – O&M went back

to the same claymation studio in 2004 to

come up with a follow up, the „Pandu Mangal‟

ad. The uniqueness of this ad was the univer-sal nature of the humour – the bumbling cop

in pursuit of a wily thief was instantly recog-

nized and appreciated across all segments of

people. We also theorize that the humour was

well received as it relied on simple age-old themes and had powerful visual imagery. This

ad consolidated Amaron as a powerful brand

and was a platform for their explosive growth

post-2006. In 2006 Amaron reverted to a

stereotypical performance based campaign

using racing stars like Karun Chandok and Narain Karthikeyan. Our take is that the hu-

mour based advertising helped establish the

brand awareness but did not add to the top-

line due to the low involvement of the car

owners in the buying decision and the lack of

product differentiation as the „Lasts Long‟ promise held true de-facto in the business.

influencing the type of humour that can be

successfully used in advertisements, with countries high on these two parameters tend-

ing to prefer slapstick or direct humour to

subtle nuances and double entendres.

Analyzing the Indian advertising scenario keeping this cultural context in mind, certain

key trends can be identified. Given the tradi-

tional family oriented culture of India, Indian

advertisements, in the past, have mostly de-

rived their humour from the interplay between

multiple characters. Also, in the past, humour has tended to be largely slapstick, based on

filmy spoofs and ridiculous situations. This is

part, can be attributed to the diversity of cul-

tures and languages found in India. Humor-

ous ads, therefore, must tread the thin line between keeping the cultural idioms of their

target audience in mind and taking care not to

offend the cultural sensibilities of any group.

Slapstick offers an easy way out with situ-

ational humour having a broader reach while

also ensuring that the punch line is not lost on the audience.

EVOLUTION OF HUMOUR IN INDIAN ADS

Over the years, there has been a gradual evo-

lution in the use of humour in Indian adver-

tisements. The most obvious change has been

the increasing use of humour with advertising

agencies increasingly trying to grab the atten-

tion of consumers through their funny bone.

In 1993, only 28% of commercials were hu-

mour-based. By 2001, at least 46% tried to

incorporate some form of humour. And while

in most countries, funny ads have largely

been associated with low-involvement prod-

ucts, in India, even high-involvement products

like televisions and insurance have tried their

hands at humour.

A more subtle change that has been taking place is in the type of humour employed.

From pure slapstick, ads are moving towards

more intelligent comedy, with a more individu-

alistic bent, be it the Vodafone Zoozoos, which

cleverly depicted a variety situations, each

with some link to a feature offered by Voda-fone, or the Fasttrack „Move on‟ commercials,

which perfectly capture the changing nature

of Indian society today. India today is at a

crossroads, between its traditional past and a

more modern future, which perhaps explains the success of ads across the entire cultural

P A G E 5

T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S

Frooti: The Digen Verma ad blitz that lasted

for 15 days in February 2001 catapulted the

brand into public imagination and generated a tremendous buzz across the country. The cam-

paign was centred on a faceless college going

guy called Digen Verma worshipped by his

friends, girls and even peons – in general eve-

ryone who knew him except for the stodgy old

college professor. The teaser campaign com-bined with the new caption for Frooti – „Just

Like That‟ was aimed at repositioning Frooti

from a kids drink to one for the youth. Hence,

a rebellious theme was adopted in the cam-

paign.

The last series of ads in this campaign show

Digen ordering Frooti (of course Digen himself

is not shown on screen) – this causes pande-

monium across the country and everyone switches to Frooti immediately! This campaign

was unique in the effective use of suspense

(watch this space approach) and humour in

engaging consumer attention through various

innovative forms of media (messages telling

Digen to remove his car from the parking lot were flashed in theatres, bus stops had posters

asking if Digen would be on the next bus and

so forth).

A look at the sales figures show a marginal in-

crease in the year the campaign was aired fol-lowed by steady increase in sales – the market

share decline was halted by this campaign

though. Sceptics however claimed that the Di-

gen Verma persona had become more famous

and had marginalized the brand. Later, Frooti

switched to their old theme of „Fresh and Juicy‟ which did worse than the Digen Verma

campaign – hence in comparison the use of a

unique style of humour proved to be more ef-

fective for Frooti.

Axe: Our inclusion of Axe is a little controver-

sial as its ads have straddled a thin line be-

tween sexism and naughtiness in terms of the

humour. We study it due to the unique nature

of the advertising – the same campaigns are

aired worldwide and there has been no attempt to tone down the humour or modify it in any

way for India.

This dispels the notion that Indians are con-

servative in their humour – of course the mar-

keting for Axe was backed up by a great prod-

uct too. The Axe effect in terms of sales and

market share has been spectacular to say the

least. HUL (the parent company)replaced their

old deodorant brand Denim with Axe due to its

spectacular success.

Axe is by far the naughtiest brand in India

and is targeted at the male aged 16-25. The ads highlight various situations where the

guy, usually an ordinary next door

neighbour kind of chap rather than a

hunk, gets pursued by different women.

Seduction is the dominant motif here, with the women making the first move – a bold

idea for Indian audiences. Yet, it has cap-

tured the pulse of its target audience per-

fectly.

Max New York Life: When Max New York came out with their advertisement featur-

ing an overzealous dad with his young child

as he exhorts the child to repeat words of

increasing complexity, consumers sat up

and took notice. The advertisement poked fun at Indians who have a propensity to

push their children into various activities

at a young age. Interestingly, the humour

in the ad was well received – wry humour

had worked on Indian screens after a long

while! The ad demonstrated two things – one that Indians were willing to laugh at

themselves and two, high involvement

products could be advertised using hu-

mour.

The sales of new policies shot up from the

slowdown in October – further the weighted new received premiums too shot up. The ad

had worked its magic. Max New York fol-

lowed it up with another humorous ad in

Apr-2009, this time poking fun at the re-

tired Indian male.

CONCLUSION

Thus, the use of humour, in products

where consumer preferences play a vital

role in selection, not only helps bring the

brand into the consumer‟s consideration

set through increased brand awareness

and recall, but also appears to translate

directly to an increase in sales.

Kaushik Sriram is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Banga-

lore. He holds a Bachelors degree in Electronics and Communi-

cation Engineering from National Institute of Technology (NIT)

Trichy and can be reached at kaushiksr08@iimb.ernet.in.

Rohini Ramachandran is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM

Bangalore. She holds a Bachelors degree in Electronics and Com-

munication Engineering from National Institute of Technology

(NIT) Trichy and can be reached at rohinira08@iimb.ernet.in.

P A G E 6

Imagine your next visit to your optician. After the regular eye check-up, he advises you to switch to contact lenses, informing you of the pros and cons. You wonder what this is

leading to - is your optician working as an agent to some contact lens manufacturer?

Well, the answer to this question can be both yes or no. He is just exercising his influence on your decision making. The motivation for such an action could have

come from a manufacturer, in the form of incentives,

such as higher margins. On the other hand, he might

just be using his judgment and trying to help you out.

Influencer Marketing

T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S

Welcome to the age of influencer

marketing. You might have wit-nessed and experienced it in the

past – it‟s just that the term has

become more visible. Youtube,

blogs, twitter – the tools can be

many, the message is the same - “you are being influenced.”

Compared to traditional marketing

practices, influencer marketing fo-

cuses on key types of individuals. It

aims to take advantage of the influ-ence these individuals have over

the target segment, with these in-

fluencers becoming the centre of all

marketing activities.

According to Duncan and Nick,

these influencers may be potential

buyers themselves, or they may be

third parties. These third parties

exist either in the supply chain

(retailers, manufacturers, etc.) or may be so-called value-added influ-

encers (such as journalists, aca-

demics, industry analysts, profes-

sional advisers, and so on) - Fig 1.

Using Influencer Marketing

The first and most important activ-

ity in influencer marketing is iden-

tification of influencers and evalu-

ating their potential to serve the

marketing objective. WOMMA

(Word of mouth marketing associa-tion) provides a handy classifica-

tion of influencers based on how

they derive their power of influ-

ence.

Once the target influencer has been identified, the next step is to

market the product to the influen-

cer, to help increase the awareness

among the influencer community.

They then become well equipped to

use their influence in favour of the firm.

The third and final set of activities

involves the use of these influen-

cers to advocate to the target seg-ment. Influencers can play a direct

or indirect role in this process.

What we see in case of contact

lenses is an indirect approach

where the influencer (optician) is

raising awareness about the cate-gory and not the brand. To comple-

ment the strategy, the manufac-

turer might put some point of sale

merchandising to promote its prod-

uct. The third and final set of ac-

tivities involves the use of these influencers to advocate to the tar-

get segment. Influencers can play a

direct or indirect role in this proc-

ess. What we see in case of contact

lenses is an indirect approach

Figure 1: Type of Influencers (source: WOMMA)

P A G E 7

T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S

where the influencer (optician) is raising

awareness about the category and not the brand. To complement the strategy, the

manufacturer might put some point of sale

merchandising to promote its product.

Industry Practices

One of the most common applications of

influencer marketing is in medicines and

pharmaceutical products. In many cases,

the active ingredient is common across

companies, and the medicines are substi-

tutable. Since the law prohibits any adver-tisements of prescription drugs, compa-

nies rely on prescriptions from doctors to

drive sales. Hence, they send their repre-

sentatives to disseminate information to

doctors and give them free samples (you might have seen „Physician‟s sample, not

for sale‟ printed on mini packs in your

doctor‟s clinic). Sometimes, the represen-

tatives even check up with local chemists

whether the medicines being promoted are

selling, before they make a visit.

Even in categories where advertising of the

product is permitted, like oral care, com-

panies don‟t miss out on opportunities to

promote their products to dentists. This is

because an advertisement can rarely have the credibility, and hence the influence on

the purchase decision, as compared to a

suggestion from the consumer‟s dentist.

Another avenue that companies use to

market themselves to influencers like den-tists is sponsoring lectures on recent

trends in oral care. Use of various dental

associations to certify one brand of tooth-

paste or toothbrush is another example of

influencer marketing. Colgate has done

well in this regard in India.

On a related note, Marico Ltd. has suc-

cessfully used influencer marketing

through cardiologists to promote its prod-

ucts, especially Saffola Oil. Saffola is a saf-flower based refined edible oil that prom-

ises to help control cholesterol for cardiac

patients. When Marico launched this

product in market, the biggest challenge it

faced was that most of the customers were

unaware about cholesterol. Cardiac pa-tients relied completely on their cardiolo-

gists and family doctors for information (in

WOMMA classification, these belong to

Category/Subject Matter Expert group).

These doctors commanded a great amount of influence on their patients and most of

the times their prescriptions acted as a

command for the patients. Marico identi-

fied these doctors and dieticians as its

influencers.

Marketing to these influencers is done

through various activities. Here we list

some of them:

1. Product detailing and sampling to the

doctors. Marico promoters visit these doctors and brief them about the

product. They use product detailers

and other research documents to

backup their claim. Sampling helps in

generating some trials if the doctors find the product claims appropriate.

Essentially, it‟s the same route that

pharmaceutical companies take for

their product.

2. Involvement with various medical as-

sociations and other such platforms. The visibility on such forums provides

reach to a large section of influencer

community.

3. Involving various key influencers to

help improve the product offering and future product development.

Figure 2: Saffola's use of influencer

marketing

P A G E 8

T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S

Top 10 Most Brilliant Marketing Screw Ups

Coors put its slogan, "Turn it loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer from diarrhoea."

Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."

Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick", a curling iron, into Ger-man only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the "manure stick."

When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the U.S., with the beautiful Cau-casian baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the label of what's in-side, since most people can't read.

Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.

An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of "I saw the Pope" (el Papa), the shirts read "I saw the po-tato" (la papa).

Pepsi's "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" translated into "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave", in Chinese.

Frank Perdue's chicken slogan, "it takes a strong man to make a tender chicken" was translated into Spanish as "it takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate."

The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Ke-kou-ke-la", meaning "Bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax", depending on the dialect. Coke then re-searched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent "ko-kou-ko-le", translating into "happiness in the mouth."

When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its

ads were supposed to have read, "It won't leak in your

pocket and embarrass you". Instead, the company thought

that the word "embarazar" (to impregnate) meant to em-

barrass, so the ad read: "It won't leak in your pocket and

make you pregnant."

Once these influencers become aware of the

product and accept the effectiveness of the product, they do not hesitate in giving infor-

mation about the same to their patients.

Saffola today is part of many a diet charts

and diet-guides because of such activities. It

is most probably the only edible oil that is recommended by doctors during consulta-

tion.

Another, most common use of influencer

marketing in modern times is engaging tech-

nology experts during launch of new prod-ucts. Most of the cell-phone manufacturers

as well manufacturers of new age software

provide their product to these experts before

the product is formally launched. The ex-

perts are encouraged to write about the product. The influence these experts com-

mand over the tech savvy target segment

helps in convincing early-buyers of the prod-

uct and thus generating the initial thrust

required for the success of the product.

Influencer marketing gives a marketer an

opportunity to utilize resources beyond what

is owned by the organization. This necessi-

tates establishing professional and ethical

norms on the marketer‟s part. The power of

influence also comes with great responsibil-ity of using this influence in the right man-

ner. It is not uncommon to hear of compa-

nies providing excessive incentives to influ-

encers, to ensure that they promote only

their products. The onus is on the marketer to define the ethical and professional

boundaries and stay within them.

So, in case you are looking to visit your opti-

cian anytime soon, at least now you know

that he might be influenced by Bausch and Lomb to „influence‟ you into buying contact

lenses.

Ammar Tambawal is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Ah-medabad. He holds a Bachelors degree in Electronics Engineering f r om VESIT, Bombay and can b e r each ed at 8ammary@iimahd.ernet.in

Pritesh Jain is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Ahmedabad. He holds a Bachelors degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from RV College of Engineering, Bangalore and can be reached at 8priteshj@iimahd.ernet.in

mailto:8ammary@iimahd.ernet.inmailto:8priteshj@iimahd.ernet.in

P A G E 9

Implicit positioning and surrogate advertising

T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S

The ban on advertising of tobacco and liquor introduced by the

Government of India during the early 2000s has spawned a generation of

surrogate marketing initiatives as corporations

leant to sell without communicating to the consumer. Many in the

industry have since started to diversify into areas

where they can leverage their brands’ aspirational value; such as aviation,

clothing and apparel and sports. However the

surrogacy in advertising continues in the absence of a strong code by the

ASCI and the government flip flops on the issue.

The need of the hour is to come clean on the subject

and develop an unambiguous plan of

action

Advertising is widely accepted to be

the most potent tool in the hand of a marketer. Whether it is to launch a

new product, entrench an existing

one, educate on the new salient fea-

tures or create a new market, most

consumer products manufacturers orient a considerable amount of

time, energy and money to reaching

out to existing and potential con-

sumers though various media such

as television, radio etc. as also new

age media like the Internet and Out of Home (OOH) media.

Origins

In this context, one can imagine the

predicament of a producer who is

mandated to legally produce and

stock and then has his hands tied by

being denied the right to market the produce. This is a ditch that many

liquor and cigarette companies have

found themselves in after the Gov-

ernment of India passed a blanket

ban on all advertising of „intoxicants

and harmful substances‟ in mid 2002. Most of the large players

adapted quickly to introducing what

are termed as complimentary prod-

ucts which fell outside the ambit of

the Government‟s regulation. The significant ones include 8PM Whisky

(apple juice), Aristocrat Whisky

(apple juice), Bagpiper (club soda),

Hayward‟s 5000 Beer (kit of darts

which was the centrepiece of the ad-

vertising campaign) and Gilbey's Green Label Whisky (mineral water);

and in this process was born a new

trend of surrogacy in advertising

which is commonly defined as

„advertising one product with the view of selling another‟

Trends in surrogate advertising

After the ban imposed on the 12 ad-

vertisements identified as surrogates

by the Government of India, and the

show-cause notices issued to Star

TV, Zee TV and Aaj Tak in 2002 un-

der the provisions of the Cable Tele-vision Regulation Act of 2002, the

whirlwind of surrogate ads hitting

the telly calmed down to a large ex-

tent. Advertisers started diversifying

and shifted their focus to other ad-

vertising avenues which often

stretched the concept of brand ex-tension to previously unheard-of lev-

els. These include the mundane such

as sponsoring events (without ex-

plicit advertising) and Internet adver-

tising; the unconventional such as ITC‟s diversification into clothing and

apparel as well as the far-fetched

such as the Red and White Bravery

Awards and other lifetime achieve-

ment awards instituted mainly to

perpetuate brand recall among the target audience. One interesting

trend which was observed in the mid

2000s was the “socially responsible

advertising” taken up by many liquor

companies. Several advertisements exhorting viewers to be responsible

citizens and refrain from driving after

drinking were seen by media ana-

lysts as a form of surrogacy.

Media analysts have also often won-

dered aloud that the ambitious for-

ays made by Dr Vijay Mallya in avia-

tion, Formula 1 and related „glamorous‟ industries have as much

to do with his desire to perpetuate

his strong brand portfolio as the

prospect of de-risking his business

by diversifying.

For the best part of this decade, the

tobacco and liquor manufacturing

lobby has been trying to persuade

the government to relax the restric-

tions on advertising what are per-ceived as surrogate products. Fi-

nally, as late as March 2009, the

Government of India decided to the

hand a long rope under the stipula-

tion that the surrogates have no product linkages to intoxicants.

However on June 10th this year, the

government tabled a bill to amend

the Cable Television Network Act of

1994, which is likely to tighten the

screws on surrogate advertising even further.

Advertising Ethics

The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) issued clarifications at

various points of time that in accor-

dance with the code laid for guiding

P A G E 1 0

T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S

ethical behaviour in advertising, the mere use

of a brand name or company name which may

be the same or related to a product put under advertising restriction may not be construed as

reason enough to find the advertisement objec-

tionable. An exception may however be made

in case the product which is advertised is not

freely available or is produced and distributed

in minuscule quantities, which may not be suf-ficient to warrant advertising costs. Also adver-

tisements must not contain direct or indirect

cues for the product under advertising restric-

tion.

However many advertisers must still grapple

with ethical dilemmas as the existing code

leaves a lot of scope for interpretation.

Voluntary abstinence

A notable exception to the clamoring by the

tobacco and liquor lobby and circumventing of

stipulations to maintain sales is the conduct of

ITC Ltd after the ban announced by the gov-

ernment. In 2001, ITC voluntarily opted out of the sponsorship deal that it had signed with

the BCCI to sponsor the Indian cricket team

and has since been de-emphasizing its ciga-

rette brands in favor of other lines of business

which are considerably more sustainable. It

has also taken up large scale Corporate Social Initiatives in rural India, the crown jewel being

the e-Choupal initiative, to enable the agricul-

tural community to adopt a direct selling ap-

proach.

Two sides of the same coin: Ambiguity of

law

Many in the industry question the practice of

banning advertisements which effectively

erodes the ability to sell while at the same time allowing production to continue.

In an article published by The Hindu in March

2008 Ramesh Narayan, a communication con-

sultant writes, “The advertiser‟s perspective is fairly straight-forward. If it is legal to manufacture, distribute and sell a product, why should it be illegal to promote the sale of that product? I don‟t think anyone can answer that question convincingly.

If it has been established conclusively that ciga-rette smoking kills, why is it that it is available to anyone, irrespective of his or her age, at every street corner?” "It's difficult to digest that an industry which is allowed to sell its products, is banned from ad-vertising the same products, despite the fact that the commercials carry health warning, ad-

vising the customers to use the product in tem-perance.", says Prof. Atul Tandan, Director, Mudra Institute of Communications in an arti-

cle released in July 2002.

While such questions make intuitive sense, the

practicality of banning production of tobacco

and liquor is unpalatable for the simple reason

that these are very heavy contributors to In-

dia‟s tax kitty and the revenue loss due to a ban on production will most likely be catastro-

phic. Also the increasing pressure exerted by

the WHO as well as NGOs and health activists

have forced the government to be seen doing

something. As a result of this duality of pur-pose, the tug-of-war continues without resolu-

tion.

The need of the hour

The following measure will go a long way in easing the deadlock seen here:

The ASCI should have an unambiguous guide-

line for differentiating acceptable and unac-

ceptable forms of advertising with respect to surrogate products. Also the ASCI should be

empowered to implement the guidelines and

issue penalties for non-conformance.

The government needs to take a stand on the

issue. It must look beyond having the cake

(the advertising ban) and eating (tax revenues) it. Advertising companies must take pains to

understand the nature of the products and

market that they are dealing with and must

refrain from designing and propagating surro-

gate brands.

Nikhil Joshi is a 1st year PGDM student at IIM Calcutta. He holds a Bachelor‟s degree in Electronics and Telecommunication Engi-neering from University of Mumbai and has worked as a Software Testing Consultant with L&T Infotech. He can be reached at joshin2011@email.iimcal.as.in

mailto:joshin2011@email.iimcal.as.in

P A G E 1 1

T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S

Fake IPL Player: Redefining Marketing

“Lord Almighty along with the Ca-lypso King decided to take the attack on to the Bubblies. The Phoren babas were happy when they saw Appam being slaughtered. Prince Charles of Patiala was all tensed up but Bhookha Nan and Kaan Moolu were

having a very good time with Sandy

Baddy Babe.”

This may sound gibberish to many.

But those who have ever come

across the Fake IPL Player‟s blog at

any point of time would be laughing their hearts out. This blog has be-

came a sensation in the cricketing

world. But at the same time it also

made several great traditional mar-

keters sit up and take notice.

What is this hype all about?

Just a couple of days before the start of the IPL 2nd season in South Af-

rica, a blog was launched by an

anonymous person, who claimed to

be a member of the Kolkata Knight

Riders Squad. Throughout the IPL he kept sensationalizing the intra-

team conflicts. Humor and Suspense

- his two weapons- made the follow-

ers want more of it.

The result

Although Kolkata Knight Riders

(KKR) kept up their dismal perform-ance, they have emerged as the

strongest IPL brand. According to

the IPL Brand Value Scoreboard

2009 published by UK‟s Intangible

Business in collaboration with MTI Consulting, KKR tops the board with

an estimated brand value of $22.3

million. As Richard Yoxon, the Inter-

national Director of Intangible Busi-

ness puts it – “Winning games is not

enough to build a successful sports brand. Teams need to engage the

local community, attract star players

who inspire a wide audience and de-

velop a strong marketing communi-

cation program.”

Further, according to a report pub-

lished by Business Standard, the peak ratings of KKR matches on SET

MAX channel were among the high-

est; at around 6 per cent of the total

cable viewers above the age of 15

years.

A source representing one of the

sponsors summed it as “From an

advertiser‟s point of view, we have

got a lot of mileage and media space

for the right and wrong reasons. The fact that it has managed to attract

television viewership and on-ground

support from spectators speaks a lot

about the brand KKR”.

This may be a coincidence. But surely Fake IPL Player has popular-

ized the two relatively new strategies

of marketing – Anti-Marketing and

Buzz Marketing.

Anti Marketing

After studying marketing campaigns and trends for several years, Indrajit

“Jay” Sinha, an associate marketing

professor at the Fox School of Busi-

ness and Austrian marketing profes-

sor Thomas Foscht, discovered that

effective campaigns go against what traditional marketing preaches. They

have together published a book

“Reverse Psychology Marketing: The

Death of Traditional Marketing and

the Rise of the New Pull Game”, which identifies and analyzes the

new marketing trends.

According to the book -- “Traditional

marketing campaigns are focused

around customer orientation. They offer too much choice, confusion and

sales pressure, resulting in custom-

ers‟ boredom, cynicism and irrita-

tion. Less is more with present-day

marketing. Customers now crave simplicity, authenticity and exclusiv-

ity”.

Fake IPL Player, a blog released by an anonymous blogger during the Indian Premier League (Season-2), created a lot of furor in the cricketing world. But at the same time it

stood out as an excellent marketing campaign for

the Kolkata Knight Riders Team. Using the unorthodox marketing

techniques of Anti-marketing and Buzz

Marketing, it could help KKR build up a strong brand value as well as

generate enough TRPs on television. This article

analyses the different new-age marketing techniques with reference to the case

of the aforementioned blog.

“Fake IPL Player” blog did exactly the same

thing. Instead of blowing its own horn, the

author tactically cooked up stories about in-fighting within the team. This created a sen-

sation for the cricket crazy masses which in

turn strengthened the KKR brand. As market-

ers put it “Any publicity is good publicity”.

There have been a few examples of successful anti-marketing in the past. One such signifi-

cant example is that of Steven Singer Jewel-

lers. It has successfully executed a marketing

campaign – “I hate Steven Singer”. As a result

it has become a landmark jeweler in the Philadelphia region.

Buzz marketing

Viral marketing describes any strategy that

encourages individuals to pass on a market-

ing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's expo-

sure and influence.

Buzz marketing is a viral marketing technique

that attempts to make each encounter with a consumer appear to be a unique, spontane-

ous personal exchange of information; instead

of a calculated marketing pitch choreo-

graphed by a professional advertiser. Al-

though the concept of Buzz marketing is not

new, but the way Web 2.0 is used these days, it has opened up several avenues for the new

age marketers. Like viruses, such strategies

take advantage of rapid multiplication to ex-

plode the message to thousands, and mil-

lions.

This was the case with the Fake IPL Player.

The Fake IPL Player didn‟t spend a single

penny. But he reached thousands. Overnight

the blog became the talk of the town. He used

a simple and free user friendly web resource, blogs, and spread through word-of-mouth

communication. He realized the fact that get-

ting one interested user (or customer) will

eventually result in several others getting in-

terested in the product. More than 8000 fol-

lowers of the blog stand testimony to this fact.

Uncontrolled Conversation: the mantra of

new-age advertisements

Traditionally brands discouraged uncontrolled

conversation on social media and read too

much into the controlled conversations in a

simulated environment e.g. FGDs, In-depth

Interviews etc. But simulation and controlled

conversations twist the facts to a certain ex-

tent thereby affecting the outcome of the data analysis as done by market research agen-

cies.

Uncontrolled conversation would let people

vent out their emotions without any con-

straints. This would in turn give marketers better insights into consumer behaviors.

Fake IPL player‟s blog generated a greater

buzz for Team KKR by encouraging uncon-

trolled conversation. Thousands of comments

were posted in response to each blog post. This added flavor to the blog and generated

further interest in the blog as well as in the

KKR team. This in turn resulted in the soar-

ing TRPs of the KKR matches.

The lesson

Some claimed the Fake IPL player was a real

life cricketer while others, at the same time, considered it a marketing gimmick of KKR,

Shahrukh Khan et al. Though he did reveal

his identity in his own cryptic way, the Fake

IPL Player remains anonymous as ever. What-

ever it may be, it has surely taught all estab-lished and budding marketers a lesson. It‟s

not about the big bucks spent on advertising

and promotion, but about innovative market-

ing channels and creative strategies. Analyz-

ing the right media channel and the right

creative message is far more fruitful than some elaborate but outdated marketing and

promotion practices.

Welcome to the new „fake‟ world!

Praneet Gourav Mishra is a 2nd Year student at IIM Lucknow specializing in Marketing and Finance. He is a “Mechanical Engineer” from NIT Rourkela and can be reached at mishra.praneet@gmail.com

P A G E 1 2

T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S

P A G E 1 3

for promotions across different

Population groups (POP groups)

and outlet types (Retailer or Whole-

salers). Then we will describe Multi-

tiered promotions followed by its

application by Santoor brand. In

the end we will consolidate the

learning of the study.

Trade Preferences for Promo-

tions: Primary survey

A structured questionnaire was de-signed and was pre tested on a

sample of 7 retailers at Hyderabad

city. Out of 101 outlets visited, 9

said they are not interested in pro-

motional offers so no further ques-

tions were asked about the promo-tions. The survey findings are sum-

marized below:

Deal Proneness: It was found

that 91.08% of the traders were

deal prone. Similar trend was

observed across outlet types

and POP groups.

Deal Preference: It was found

that 64.13% of traders prefer

price-cut promotions while rest

preferred gift based promotions

like gift articles etc. Considering

outlet type, 60.66% of retail out-lets prefer price cut while

70.97% of wholesaler preferred

price cut promotions. Across

POP groups, FLP retailers were

more inclined towards price cut

(76.19%) as compare to lower POP groups (OLP – 60%, 20K-

50K – 41.16%). In order words

lower POP group retailers were

interested in gift based promo-

tions.

Time of Incentive: 56.52% of

trade prefers instant gratifica-tion while rest prefers long term

benefit. It can be concluded that there is a mix response in the market. Considering the outlet type, 67.21% of retailers prefer instant gratification because of

Trade promotions refer to any activ-

ity aimed at providing an incentive to the channel members for their

support in marketing and distribu-

tion of the product. There are a

number of tools available to the

marketer for the same such as price-off, allowances, free goods, trade

shows, sales contests, specialty ad-

vertising, etc.

The importance of such measures

stems from the fact that the retailer

is willing to sell only those products which have a demand in the market

and thus allow him to earn a profit.

These measures incentivize the ef-

forts that a channel member puts in

for increasing the sales of a product and create a „push‟ in the channel

which may lead to a higher sales

turnover. The push effect is of spe-

cial significance in product catego-

ries where the differentiation be-

tween products is not very high. One such category is the FMCG.

Within the FMCG sector, the adver-

tisement campaigns that are run

bring the customer to the retail

store, yet at the point of sale there

are numerous options available. At this juncture the retailer can have

an impact on the purchase decision.

Incentives offered to the retailer, by

the company or the wholesaler, mo-

tivate the retailer to push the brand and affect the purchase decision

favorably.

Through our study we intend to find

the relevance of multi-tiered promo-

tions for such categories. We chose

soap category (INR 6500 Cr) as it is the biggest category in FMCG seg-

ment. Within Soaps, Santoor is the

2nd largest brand in India in the

popular segment, and also the larg-

est brand in Andhra Pradesh with a market share of 37.07% of the total

3,374 tons per month. One reason

for the leadership position attained

is the multi-tiered promotion policy

of the company. In this article we

will present the primary survey con-ducted to identify trade preferences

Effective Multi-tiered Promotions: Lesson from Santoor

Sales promotion is an essen-

tial part of any marketer’s

activities. It can be classified

as Trade promotion and

Consumer Promotion The

authors conducted a survey

about trade promotion ac-

tivities in the soap industry

and found out that different

types of traders prefer dif-

ferent kinds of promotions.

Every company must offer

promotional schemes which

cater to the needs of all

types of retailers. One ap-

proach of integrating varied

promotional efforts is multi-

tiered promotion. To show

the effectiveness of this

approach, we have shown

the promotion efforts of

Santoor soap in a particular

quarter.

T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S

P A G E 1 4

wholesaler having considerate stocking

capability and pushing power tends to opt more(64.52%) for long term plans

due to extra margins involved. The

same trends follow in various POP

groups.

Type of Incentive: It was found that

48.91% of trade prefers assured prizes

while 51.09% of trade prefers to try some luck. The similar response was

from retailers and wholesalers. Looking

at the POP groups, the retailers from

lower POP groups (20K-50K) were more

interested (64.70%) in lucky draw. The wholesalers from Metro (62%) and OLP

(71.42%) were more interested in lucky

draw and bumper prizes.

Leanings from the survey –

Preferences of traders for different promo-

tions changes across outlet type and POP

groups

Customization of promotion schemes nec-

essary for effectiveness of the same – a mix of

price based and gift based promotions to cater

to the different needs of different traders

Promotion schemes with different time-

lines are preferred by different traders due to

their inherent nature (outlet type, planning

horizon, etc)

Multi-Tiered Promotion

Multi tiered promotion refers to promotional

schemes running simultaneously at the same time and complementing each other towards

meeting the sales targets of the company. The

different schemes may be price based or gift

based, follow different timelines individually

and complement each other. The offering of

the different schemes is based on the discre-tion of the Sales Manager – who may focus

more on a particular kind of scheme for differ-

ent traders keeping in mind their preferences.

For example – there is a weekly scheme (price

or gift based) running which motivates retail-ers to buy higher stocks every week. At the

same time, there is a monthly scheme wherein

the retailer can win a gift on purchases of a

specified number of units or earn a special

discount. Now even though initially the re-

tailer may think that the monthly target is be-yond his reach and may focus on just the

weekly scheme, by the last week of the month

the weekly target achievement would have

brought him within sight of the monthly tar-

get. This position may motivate him to achieve the monthly target as well, leading to higher

sales for the company. If there is an appro-

priate multi tiered promotion mix, the com-pany can effectively achieve its sales targets.

To substantiate our proposal, we provide em-

pirical data on the multi tiered promotion

used by Santoor soaps during Jan-March

2009, in the Andhra Pradesh market

The Santoor Way

Santoor uses multi-tiered trade promotions

with different time duration and promotion

mix. We will measure the effectiveness by observing the impact of sales. The promotion

schemes run by Santoor can be classified as

in Table 2.

Secondary Scheme

Adding to the regular margins and “primary

schemes” each sales officer has been allotted

budget of Rs 15 per CFC for the “secondary

schemes”. The Sales Officer can tailor

schemes on the basis of it. These schemes are tactical in nature which is used by Sales

officer to meet the sales target. The schemes

are QPS (quantity purchased scheme) to give

extra margins and offers for bulk purchase.

The trade schemes used during Jan-May

2009 were:

Specific trade plan

Wipro regularly announced long duration (2-

3 months) trade plan to motivate trade for

bulk purchase. We will discuss Tambola scheme (Jan-Mar 2009) for this article, which

involved a lucky draw for the prizes (Spark

Car, Bajaj Motorcycle, Air Conditioner etc).

The unique feature, early bird prizes to kick

start the program was valid for a period of first 21 days. One Early bird Ticket for a

zonal lucky draw was given if the trader ob-

tains 50 Tambola tickets. The prizes were

worth Rs 300 to Rs 6000.

Effectiveness of the Multi-tiered promotion

mix was reflected in the increased sales dur-ing the scheme period of as shown in Table

4.

During the Tambola scheme, the company

also ran consumer promotions summarized in Table 5.

Table 2: Multi-tiered Promotion by Santoor (Source – Personal Communication)

Table 3: Tactical Weekly Scheme "Secondary Scheme" (Source – Personal Communication)

Table 4: Effect of Multi-tiered Promotional mix on Sales (Source – Personal Communication)

Table 1: Parameters for Primary Survey

P A G E 1 5

T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S

erences. They also were seeing higher

customer purchases due to the rejuve-nated customer promotion campaign.

Thus we see that each of the schemes was

complementing the others, with the choice

of offering price or gift based incentives lying

with the sales manager, the schemes. We see that the multi-tiered approach for pro-

motional mix was followed leading to higher

sales and success in the market.

Conclusion

The conclusion of the study is that the

trader preferences for promotion schemes

vary, between price based and gift based

incentives. The preference for the scheme

horizon also varies with the size, type and

nature of the trader. Some traders prefer short term incentives which provide instant

gratification while some prefer long term

benefits. To be effective, a promotion mix

needs to consider all kinds of traders. Multi

tiered promotion is an approach for the same, which can provide different types of

incentives to different traders, vary the in-

centive horizon, and integrate every simulta-

neous scheme towards the achievement of

the overall sales target of the company. The

approach has been used in the market by Santoor, and effective execution can lead to

better results.

Abhishek Sood is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Bangalore. He holds a Bachelors degree in Commerce (Honours) from Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi and can be reached at abhishekso08@iimb.ernet.in.

Akhil Kumar Meshram is a 2nd year PGP student at IIM Bangalore. He holds a dual degree, Bachelors and Masters in Information Technology from Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management (IIITM) Gwalior and can be reached at akhilkm08@iimb.ernet.in.

Flash Start – This phase saw the launch of

the Tambola Scheme, along with the weekly

schemes (price and gift based) and con-sumer promotion. The long term schemes

generally fail to motivate traders during ini-

tial period. In order to kick start the plan,

Wipro introduced early bird prizes to give

traders dual incentive to participate in the

plan. The short term incentive though brought buzz in the market it was amply

supported by tactical weekly schemes suit-

ing both the preference, gift and price pro-

motion of traders. The weekly schemes in

the first two weeks brought them close to the target for early bird prizes leading to

higher purchases in the third week. At the

same time, higher push in the channel was

complemented by a consumer promotion.

So the traders were purchasing more to be

eligible for weekly and/or early bird scheme while the customers were also demanding

more of the soap. Thus, Multi-tiered promo-

tion mix (weekly and early bird scheme)

helped Wipro to motivate traders to pur-

chase more so as to be eligible for another tier of incentive i.e. Tambola scheme in its

first phase.

Mid slump – During this phase, the weekly

schemes ran as before, the customer pro-

motion also ran without change. The overall

Tambola Scheme was also present, without

the early bird scheme. The benefit of such a strategy was that traders who had built

high stocks in the first phase were able to

clear them out. The consistency of con-

sumer promotion was a deliberate attempt

to help trader in finishing their accumu-lated stock as superior change in consumer

promotion would shift the consumer de-

mand towards the freshly offered stock The

weekly benefits were for those traders who

were either not covered by the early bird

scheme, or were not interested in the long term benefits. They benefitted immensely

with the continuing weekly offers.

Late Push – In this phase, the weekly

schemes continued as before, the customer

promotion was changed so as to motivate

trader to purchase more and at the same

time, there was an increased focus on the Tambola scheme. The traders, who had

been utilizing the weekly schemes, and

early bird scheme were close to the targets

for the Tambola scheme – and in their effort

to achieve this target, they could utilize the weekly schemes which were mix of price

and gift based promotion as per their pref-

P A G E 1 7

Theatre needs mass

marketization to

make it commercially

viable.

4P’s of Indian Theatre Marketing

Theatre has been the soul of Indian entertainment since Vedic times.

The different forms of theatre acts

in India have given an incredible

and unparalleled versatility to In-

dian art and culture. The father of Indian theatre Bharat Muni who

wrote Natya Shastra laid the foun-

dation of structured training in

field of theatre and dramatics be-

tween 200 BC and 200 AD. Theatre

as an art form in India has its roots during the Vedic period. But

in spite of such a long period of

existence , theater groups are still

fighting to make theater commer-

cially viable. This paper discusses some aspects of Indian theatre ,

categorization of art , process of

theatrical productions , 4P‟s of

theatre marketing mix , the needs

of today‟s culture consumers , the

difference between the high art and popular art , competitors to theatre

and challenges faced by Indian

theatre groups. Based on the com-

prehensive discussions with nu-

merous theatre artists and theatre activists, the paper lays down stra-

tegic outline for a theatre market-

ing plan in India.

INTRODUCTION

Theatre is an ancient aesthetic

practice in India. Surviving play

texts and treatises suggest that theatre existed in the Indian sub-

continent from the dawn of civiliza-

tion. According to the Natyashastra

of Bharata, an exhaustive treatise

on the art of performance, drama

was a gift from the gods to the hu-mans.

Theatre has travelled many centu-

ries in India. The different active

forms of theatre in India which are

still mesmerizing the art lovers are

Bhavai in Gujarat , Yakshagana in

Karnataka , Nautanki in Uttar

Pradesh and Bihar , Swang in

Haryana , Jatra in Bengal and

Mohan Rakesh, Girish Karnad,

Mahesh Dattani,Badal Sircar,

Dharamveer Bharati and B.M Shah

Kutiyattam in Kerala. Noted con-

temporary playwrights like Habib

Tanvir, Vijay Tendulkar, and Mohan

Rakesh, Girish Karnad, Mahesh

Dattani, Badal Sircar, Dharamveer

Bharati and B.M Shah revolution-

ized the art of story telling and mod-

ern theater. We must acknowledge

the contribution of stalwarts like

Prithivi Raj Kapoor, Sohrab Modi,

Ebrahim Alkazi , Amal Allana, Om

Puri, Naseerudin Shah , ShahRukh

Khan, Manoj Bajpai , Atul Kulkarni,

Yashpal Sharma and Sima Biswas,

who popularized Indian theatre and

then moved to the film industry.

THEATRE: PRODUCTIONS & CHALLENGES

McCarthy (2001), categorized arts in

four broad sections i.e. Performing

arts, Media arts, Visual arts and

literary arts. The second figure

shows the categorization of arts.

Performing arts is further subdi-

vided in to theatre, dance, music

and opera. Media related arts are

subdivided in to installation art,

film production and the recent addi-

tion of computer/digital arts. Visual

arts have been categorized into

painting, sculpture and crafts. The

last section, literary art is classified

into fictions and poetry.

Any theatre production involves a

series of rigorous steps. The second

figure shows the steps involved in

making a theatrical production and

bringing it to the people. Theatrical

scripts are conventionally sourced

from historical writings or adapted

or written right from scratch. Once

the script is ready then it is sub-

jected to production. Support and

inputs from musicians, choreogra-

phers, actors, costumes. Lighting

and direction result in a presentable

form of a theatre product.

T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S

Digital marketing strategy coupled with

accessible locations for staging live

performances will help in attracting large

number of audience in a timely manner and thus make Indian theatre a commercially viable

business.

P A G E 1 8

T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S

The second figure shows the marketing effort

to reach culture consumers. The figure shows two triangles with a small and big base. The

smaller base shows the existing marketing

effort and the bigger base shows the intended

marketing effort.

The various new challenges in cultural con-sumption are: decrease in consumer time for

leisure, expansion of consumer options for

entertainment, expanded exposure to world‟s

cultural products, blurring the distinction be-

tween high and popular culture and changing

patterns in public funding. These challenges in cultural consumption have created a tough

competition for the consumption of theatrical

products.

4 P’S OF THEATRE MARKETING

PRODUCT

High art Vs Popular art: The principal problem with the consumption of theatre products is

the distinction between high art and popular

art. The prominent and “talent rich” houses of

theatrical productions like National school of

drama , Naya theatre and Rangshankara fail

to distinguish between the consumption of high art and popular art. In fact the artists

with prime talent in these organizations be-

come so self obsessed that they never care

about the consumption of their art for the end

consumer. They keep on producing high art for which there is a limited audience and

eventually no body is able to produce popular

art. There are two prime reasons for this:

-Those who can produce popular art in a com-

mercially viable way indulge in producing self

fulfilling high art, which is seen by a handful and eventually making it non consumable for

the masses.

-As there is less and limited consumption of

available high art, therefore popularity of art is

limited and this results in a decrease in audi-

ence. As a result , those who want to produce

popular art do not get sufficient funds to pro-duce commercially viable popular art.

PROMOTION

The promotional strategies used by theatre

production houses are very limited. Recently

few corporate houses have started funding the

theatre production houses e.g. Matrix cellular, Vodafone, Religare, and Mahindra and Mahin-

dra. These corporate houses use extensive

publicity and advertisements for popular art

but it has not resulted in creating an enduring

audience. The traditional form of publicity techniques used by theatre production houses

are as follows:

Occasional advertisements in leading news

papers which occupy very small column

width and do not create any lasting im-

pression on potential audience.

Small printed pamphlets are manually dis-

tributed outside the auditoriums. This only helps to inform the existing theatre audi-

ence. This localized and captive distribu-

tion does not create awareness to potential

audience.

Few theatre production houses have

started using cultural websites to promote

their new productions on cost free basis. But the irony is that due to lack of funding

and advertisements such cultural websites

are struggling.

The other means of promotion is through

word of mouth. But word of mouth promo-

tions by existing audiences are not able to

generate enduring audiences.

Due to lack of funding, theatre production

houses use the cheapest means to promote

their new products. And mostly the auditori-

ums which are used for such theatrical per-

formances are situated in a few specific areas which are inaccessible to masses. Therefore

minimal promotional efforts are nullified by

limited access to theatrical arenas.

PRICE

Theatre in India has struggled to reach break even point. Theatre production houses who

hire or have fulltime / part time performers

in it incur the expenses as shown in table 1.

On an average, a theatrical performance in-

volves 3 to 4 lead actors and 4-6 support ac-tors. Lighting personnel play a key role in

designing the lights for the stage show and

are generally hired by theatre groups exter-

nally for specific periods. In general the thea-

tre production houses keep single show on

Saturday and double shows on Sunday. This format is repeated for two weeks. This means

that in general six shows are performed for

each production. The capacity of the audito-

rium is approximately 350.

The total expense of Rs 425000 is averaged for six performances in a span of two weeks.

Therefore the average charge for each per-

formance comes to about Rs 70000. And the

average seating capacity of an auditorium is

350 , which means that in order to break

even each ticket shall be priced Rs 200.It is difficult to ensure a full house in these per-

formances and if the performance turns out

to be a high art performance then the audi-

ence drops drastically and the production

becomes commercially unviable. Therefore it

is quite evident from the basic calculations that it is not profitable to run the theatre

business with a specific and captive audi-

ence. Theatre needs mass marketing to make

it commercially viable.

PLACE

The places where the theatre products are

distributed need good acoustic arrange-

ments, lighting facilities and pleasant ambi-

ence. Therefore‟ theatre production houses

rely heavily on a few select auditoriums.

These auditoriums are generally run by gov-ernment or small charitable trusts or some

private hospitality organizations. Access to

these places is limited to high end audiences

who have taste for cultural products. The en-

during audience for these places is mostly constituted by those who consume high art

products and therefore theatre production

houses that produce popular art products ,

stage them in available select places are not

able to attract mass audience. High art audi-

ence does not attend such performances and thus creating a losing proposition for theatre

production houses.

Product Place matrix

The above shows the product place matrix for theatre productions. Following inferences can

be deducted from product place matrix:

High Art consumers are less and they reach

accessible as well as inaccessible places for

art consumption.

Popular art consumers do not try to reach

to inaccessible locations but will reach in

high numbers to accessible locations.

STRATEGIES FOR THEATRE MARKETING

It is a well accepted fact in marketing that if

you have problems in more than 2 P‟s of mar-

keting mix then it surely means that the mar-

keter does not understand the segment of con-sumers. In theatre marketing mix, it is evident

that theatre production houses have serious

problems with product, price, and promotion

and place as well. The key strategies for effec-

tive theatre marketing are as follows:

Correct segmentation of culture consumer

for consumption of different forms of art. Based on the segmentation, the different

sections of consumers should be targeted

with specific theatre products and posi-

tioned in accessible locations.

Cultural organizations such as theatre pro-

duction houses or Government funded

theatre schools should diffuse the bound-ary between high art and popular art. And

theatre artist should produce theatre prod-

ucts related to popular art.

Based on the cost of theatrical productions

it is quite evident that it will be difficult to

break even with existing high art audience, therefore theatre production houses shall

make their products available at accessible

places such as cinema complexes, shop-

T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S

P A G E 1 9

T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S

P A G E 2 0

ping malls and other community places.

Popular art lovers and high art lovers spend their time in public places such as mall and

cinema complexes. The cultural organiza-

tions should partner with cinema complexes

to stage the live performances in such

places. The cinema complex owners like Fun cinemas, PVR, INOX etc should be con-

tracted to spare at least one screen for live

performance and promote theatrical prod-

ucts in such spaces.

Theatre can become commercially viable by

integrating mass marketing and mass con-

sumption through low cost positioning, wide communication and deep distribution. India

is home to various forms of theatre in differ-

ent languages therefore a correct segmenta-

tion can help theatre become viable.

Catch them young: All of us become a rou-

tine audience to film entertainment because

we are exposed to it through television from childhood days and thus we become cultur-

ally habitual to it. Therefore a theatre cul-

ture needs to be cultivated in Indian society

and this can be achieved by partnering with

educational institutes. In western world, Theatre in education constitutes an integral

part of educational curriculum, which helps

in cultivating a strong theatre culture in the

society. Theatre production houses, non

profit organizations and Government shall

introduce Theatre in education (T.I.E) as a compulsory subject in middle and senior

school education. This will help in creating

art awareness and art consumers in our so-

ciety.

Digital marketing: Theatrical products are

plagued from poor distribution and access problems. One of the crucial issues related

to theatre marketing is the booking of tick-

ets. Recently in few select cities some thea-

tre production houses have tied up with

digital marketers to allow web based book-

ings but a large part of Indian theatre is un-touched to digital marketing concept. There-

fore a unified effort shall be raised to help

theatre production houses to market their

products digitally to art consumers.

CONCLUSION

Finally, it can be concluded that Indian thea-

tre which exists in various forms in India has huge potential. It can be marketed to a mass

audience if proper segmentation of high art

consumers and popular art consumers is

done. Digital marketing strategy coupled

with accessible locations for staging live per-formances will help in attracting large num-

ber of audience in timely manner and thus

make Indian theatre a commercially viable

business.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The author is thankful to the theater actors, directors and writers from Delhi‟s National

School of Drama, theatre production house

ASMITA, Delhi, Rangashankara, Bangalore

and Prithvi theatre, Mumbai, for the inputs

provided.

Mukesh Sharma is currently pursuing his one year full time MBA (EPGP) from IIM Bangalore. He has spent more than 10 years in automotive industry. He runs a non profit theatre group, Performer Group, in Delhi. He has acted, directed and produced various plays of social relevance in Delhi.

Marketing Jokes!!!

Two women were shopping. When they started to discuss their lives, one said, "Seems like all John and I do anymore is fight. I've been so upset I've lost 20 pounds." "Why don't you just leave him then?" asked her friend. "Oh! Not yet." the first replied, "I'd like to lose at least an-other fifteen pounds first." Marketing moral: Ya gotta have a goal! A retailer was dismayed when a competitor selling the same type of product opened next-door to him, displaying a large sign proclaiming "Best Deals." Not long after that, he was horrified to find yet another competitor move in next door, on the other side if his store. It's large sign was even more disturbing—"Lowest Prices." After his initial panic, and concern that he would be driven out of business, he looked for a way to turn the situation to his marketing advantage. Finally, an idea came to him. Next day, he proudly unveiled a new and huge sign over his front door. It read, "Main Entrance!" The Difference Between Optimism, Pessimism & Marketing The Optimist says, "The glass is half full." The Pessimist says, "The glass is half empty." The Marketing Consultant says, "Your glass needs re-sizing."

P A G E 2 1

Obama’s landslide victory in

the recent US elections has

brought forth the

effectiveness of strategic, well

-designed political marketing.

Starting from the usage of an

effectively delivered,

consistent message across the

different phases of the

campaign, to leveraging the

reach of modern technology

in raising funds from millions

of common people, Obama

has perfectly demonstrated

the art of implementing a

successful marketing

strategy. Though the Indian

socio-political scenario is not

exactly the same as the US,

our politicians could surely

benefit by taking a leaf or two

out of Obama’s book.

Neo-Political Marketing

T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S

Political marketing, simply put, is mar-

keting designed to induce people to vote for a particular individual or a po-

litical party. It attempts to accomplish

this by influencing citizens‟ thoughts

on various issues. Although political

marketing uses many of the same con-cepts used in traditional marketing, it

is different in the sense that ideas and

concepts are sold in political market-

ing, rather than products and services.

What is interesting to observe is the

evolution of political marketing through the embrace of new technolo-

gies and distribution possibilities. In

this article, we attempt to provide a

sense of these changes. Different as-

pects of political marketing in the US are studied with emphasis on Barack

Obama‟s widely lauded campaign. The

corresponding aspects are analyzed in

the Indian scenario as well, while at-

tempting to understand the reasons

for the differences observed. We also provide certain observations on

whether the Indian politicians can take

a leaf out of Obama‟s book.

INTERNET & OTHER MEDIA USAGE

Emerging media and social networks

are changing the rules of marketing.

Marketers across industries are slowly

beginning to understand the impor-

tance of this new media. However, one needs to realize that social media is

not changing the face of business mar-

keting alone, but that of marketing it-

self! Its effects can be felt far and wide,

and one of its most acclaimed applica-

tions was its use in Barack Obama‟s 2008 presidential campaign.

Some reasons for Obama‟s success

were his willingness to experiment

with new communication tools and his

understanding of the need for an evolving communication strategy. If

President John F. Kennedy pioneered

the use of speech writers and a shift to

television, and President Ronald

Reagan harnessed the power of televi-

sion to communicate his messages, Barack Obama‟s team can be credited

with pioneering the use of internet,

social networking sites and mobile

phones in a political campaign.

There are numerous examples to il-

lustrate that Obama‟s campaign team understood the power of the

new media, such as the citizen jour-

nalists. When one blogger asked to

go to the media section at a Hillary

Clinton rally in Boston he was turned away (because he was "not a

real journalist") and had to cover it

from the back of the crowd. In con-

trast, Obama‟s campaign brought

him up to the media section where

he was placed with print reporters from the major dailies and TV crews

from the networks.

President Obama leveraged his web-

site, user generated content, blo-

gosphere and video games to engage not just the donors and volunteers

but all the citizens. A trademark of

Obama‟s campaign was his appeal to

the undecided voters and uncommit-

ted supporters through the Join Now

campaign in his website. The use of social networking sites, especially

„MyBarackObama.com‟ during the

campaign as a message board for

local rallies, a virtual phone bank

where Obama supporters could call

undecided voters in Pennsylvania and a place to raise money. With

more than 2.6 million friends in

Orkut and Facebook, the Obama

campaign also capitalized on the well

known social networking sites. Such efforts were rewarded by the positive

buzz that Obama received in the blo-

gosphere. For his efforts, Advertising

Age recently named Barack Obama

“Marketer of the year”, outperforming

brands such as Nike and Apple.

However, Indian politicians too have

not been far behind in their efforts.

It was just 5 years back, in the 2004

general elections, that the internet

was used for the first time in Indian politics. It started with the India

Shining campaign of the BJP. Nearly 5% of the BJP‟s campaign budget

was allocated to the e-campaign, for

revamping its campaign website,

pushing out text messages, pre-

recorded voice clips and emails to its database of 20 million email users

P A G E 2 2

T H E L O O K I N G G L A S S

and 20 million phone users, and offering cam-

paign-related mobile ringtones for download. Though BJP lost the 2004 elections, the ef-

forts can be considered to be successful as it

set the stage for the use of advanced technolo-

gies in an election campaign. Since then, the

demographic profile of India‟s electoral base has changed and the usage of technology for

attracting voters is increasingly being ac-

cepted by the masses.

This time around, a number of politicians

have launched their own websites. The list

includes prominent politicians such as L K Advani (lkadvani.in) to lesser known names

such as Vijay Kumar Malhotra (http://

vkmalhotra.in/) and Mr. Ananth Kumar

(http://ananth.org/). According to the BJP,

LK Advani‟s website has become very popular and receives over 250,000 hits per day. Ad-

vani is also on Facebook, Orkut and YouTube,

while his colleague and Gujarat chief minister

Narendra Modi, uses tools such as podcasts,

Twitter, Google SMS and widgets. Indian Na-

tional Congress‟ youth wing leader, Rahul Gandhi, has over 3,000 supporters on Face-

book. The Advani@Campus initiative seeks to build a grassroots volunteer campaign “to con-

tact and mobilize young voters in thousands

of college campuses across the country”

The leftist Communist Party of India (Marxist) is not too far behind either. Though the politi-

cal party does not favor digital technologies

(since it replaces human labor), it has shown

a clear preference for cyberspace-enabled

propaganda (vote.cpim.org) for their election strategy of 2009. The CPI(M) has even admit-

ted that since 54% of the Indian voters are

youngsters, the internet may be the best me-

dium for reaching out to them. Parties have

even gone to the extent of wooing those not

residing in India, such as the website created by the Telugu Desam Party (http://

www.tdpuk.com) for U.K. based non-resident

Indians.

Indian National Congress has taken a step

ahead of just promoting the party and has

chosen to project India as one of the most

technologically advanced nations. Through its

Jai Ho video campaign, based on a song taken

from the much acclaimed film “Slumdog Mil-

lionaire”, Congress has shown the way to go

for election campaigns in India. In terms of

using technology as a means of garnering vol-

unteer support in India, the Congress party,

during the most recent election, had set up 50

internet kiosks in the State of Gujarat, to kick

start the campaign and to register youth

party members through the party website.

The advantage of these campaigns lies in its

cost-effectiveness. Traditionally, the urban youth have been known to shy aw