Transcription The Marketing Process

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Like my tee shirt, your mindset needs to change, to change from actually developing something of

a research mindset into a marketing process or marketing solution mindset. In research, what we

were looking for is understanding the customer, understanding the opportunity, understanding

the problem. Now we go into the solution.

In solution mode, what we are trying to figure out is what the marketing strategy should be like.

And what is the process of marketing that we need to actually undertake? Now, if I h ave to look at

the way in which marketing process and marketing strategy is understood, first we have to

understand marketing once more.

So, marketing is probably the science, the art, the discipline of actually creating some value for

customers, creating some value and receiving some value in return. So, you're creating value,

which is based out of whatever your product service or brand is offering, you're communicating it.

And if you are able to manage it, in such a way that you're also creating some va lue back for your

company, well nothing like it.

Transcription

The Marketing Process


So, it has two parts. You create value for the customer in a way that creates value for your

company. So, marketing is that process. Now, once we understand these two parts, let's look at

how do you create value for your customer.

So, if you look at how you create value for your customer, well, typically the marketing process has

four components. The first part to it is essentially understanding the consumer, which we did in

the last module. So, we do research and the rest of it.

The second part is actually something which focuses on segmentation, targeting and positioning,

which is nothing but developing the strategy, how are you going to actually do this marketing, for

which customer, etc. And we will get into the details for it.

The third part is to actually look at the marketing mix. Once you develop the strategy, you do the

marketing mix which means what is your product strategy, what is your distribution strategy?

What is your promotional strategy? What is your pricing strategy?

And the fourth part is, once you have sold, what is the relationship building activity that you are

going to do? So, it is all about building a relationship and loyalty, which goes beyond the initial sale

of your product, service or brand.

So, marketing process is a four-step process, which starts off by understanding the consumer and

ends off building loyalty. In this entire process, you're also creating value as we said. Now, what we

must understand is how you create value for the customer, by the way, you create value by

meeting an unmet need. And you create value for the company by making sure that you solve that

unmet need in a way that creates top line and perhaps profitability for your company.


So, if you remember, we talked about marketing objectives. So, any marketing strategy and the

marketing mix that follows has to build towards acquisition, retention, usage and loyalty. In this

module, we'll start off by understanding how to actually target your ideal customer, understand

segmentation, understand the way in which you position your product or service or brand to this

customer.

So, the segmentation, targeting, positioning is something we will cover first. After that, we will

look into the marketing mix, which is nothing but all the strategies for product, pricing, promotion,

and essentially the four Ps.

So, let's go about it and let me talk to you a little more in detail about this marketing strategy. So,

first of all, you have to understand segmentation, targeting and positioning. Once you figured out

the segmentation, targeting and positioning, what does that mean? It means identifying a bunch of

customers and targeting them very narrowly and then positioning your product or service in order

for you to reach out in the best possible way to these customers.

Then you look at the marketing, which is nothing but making decisions on what should the price of

your offering be, what should the product strategy be like, individual goods, you know, place also

which means nothing but packaging and distribution, and also the promotion, which includes

advertising and restaurants. So, a lot of decisions that you have to take. So, that's the marketing

mix.

And then you figure out, okay, so once you've done the segmentation targeting positioning, as well

as the marketing mix, then how do I make sure that this relationship is continued, so therefore you

fulfil all the marketing objectives from acquisition, loyalty, retention, usage, all of them are

covered through the marketing mix. So, we shall be covering it step by step and figuring out,

starting with the segmentation, targeting and positioning.


Segmentation, let's take Maggie as an example, Maggie was introduced in 82 as the original 2-

minute masala, you know, that flavour that all of us are familiar with. But over a period of time, it

has moved from its original flavour to a lot of variants.

So, these variants include nutri-licious Maggi which is for health, then you have Asia oriented

different variants, which are based on different cities, you know, this style, that style. You also

have super masala, this masala, that masala, so you have a lot of variants.

So, if Maggie was successful, why wasn't Maggie just saying, hey, I will produce one type of taste

and it can appeal to everybody. Why do you need to do so many variants to make sure that, you

know, what are you serving? Let's figure it out.

This is because Maggie figured out that there is no one type of customer. There are different types

of customers. So, there are those, you know, moms were creating foods for their kids or there are

hostelers or there are working professionals.

So, all of them will have different requirements. Some of them have health as a priority. Some of

them have taste as a priority, some of them have convenience as a priority. So, if Maggie produced

the same product for all of them, its not going to attract all of them equally well.

Do you remember the last time you went over with a bunch of friends to a restaurant, right? When

you were sitting down to order, my god, do remember the chaos that happened, the confusion that

happened, everyone wanted something else. Now that is typically the problem that any marketer

will have.

Now let's take a look at this restaurant example in a little more detail. What kind of cuisine should

the restaurant actually focus on in order for them to actually do better okay? What kind of

expectations they should expect from the customer? What kind of cuisine should it go for based

upon the kind of customers that actually frequently visit its shop?

So therefore, restaurants diversify. So, you have Chinese food, Indian food and the rest also you

have. One type of restaurant, you know, they are catering to one kind of customer. And also, if you

look at food-based companies like rebel foods, Faasos that you have got, they only do roles.

So, each and every sort of a restaurant is focused on a particular cuisine in order to practice

certain kind of customer to choose, my god, all this talk Behrouz Biryani and Mandarin Oak and

Faasos is making me hungry.

So, let's not waste any time and figure out what we need to understand about how does a

marketer actually understand which segment to go for? How do you know which segment to go for

and which segment to not?


So, in Maggie's case for instance, how did the marketer know that this was about teenagers or kids

and younger adults as segments. Let's understand the thinking process. Once you think about it a

little more, you understand that there is no one single way segmenting market. You can segment a

market by different means. Understand on what basis did Maggie do what it did, or what basis

does the restaurant do what it does?

So, if you look at segmentation slightly in a deeper way, you have four different kinds of

segmentation. The first is geographic. So, maybe I'm just looking at a specific city or a specific

country as the segment that I'm targeting. The second one can be demographic. Now demographic

might mean that I'm looking at not just age, but gender and education level.

So, those are things that will help me understand, I'm feeling to a certain type of customer. The

third could be psychographic, which means the way in which my lifestyle is, t he way in which my

hobbies and interests are. And sometimes, that is a very close and deep indicator of how things will

go with that particular customer. So, I might look at segmenting customers Psychographically.

And the fourth would be behavioural. How does a person actually behave in certain context? So, if

I give you a stimulus, what is the response behavioural that this customer is going to give me? So, if

you look at it, segmentation has these four types.

Now you can actually segment your customer by saying that, hey, I want to only look at a certain

city or metros or mini metros. I only want to look at women, I want to look at women and men. I

want to look at people who have graduated, people who have not graduated. You see what I'm


doing here. People who only play golf or cricket, people who will take out their umbrella during

monsoon, they will wear a raincoat behaviour.

So, now the thing is that if you look at all these variables, you will see how it makes an impact.

Segmentation is all about understanding this customer from various lenses, from various

perspectives and choose what makes sense for you as a marketer, the most.

What's happening here is see, Amazon is not trying to sell itself as a convenient reading device. It

is actually communicating something different for the consumer. So, what is it communicating? Its

saying that it is the device that is for readers. It recognizes that not everybody is a reader. There

are some people who love reading and Amazon Kindle is meant for readers.

Now after psychographic, let's understand behavioural segmentation. Now there are some of us

who would be heavy users of a mobile phone. Maybe we still like talking to each other while the

rest of the word is texting. Now, this kind of behavioural segmentation, if I kind of divide the

people who are utilizing the voice way of talking, and I look at heavy users of voice, then that is

called behavioural segmentation. And I can then devise certain marketing ways in which I can

actually make sure that their usage remains the same or even increases.

Remember the marketing objective of usage, or make sure that they ’re loyal with me and not go

off the customers. Or make sure that, you know, the behaviour that they're exhibiting is rewarded

through some different, low pricing or promoted differently. There are so many decisions a

marketer can take.

So, there are four key variables of markets segmentation. Now if I look at a Hindustan Unilever,

HUL, it has a lot of soap brands in the Indian market. You can have Breeze, you have Lifebuoy, you

have Lux and the rest of it, Dove, okay.

Now the fact is that if you look at all of these soap brands, the first thing you'll understand is, okay,

maybe the pricing is different for all these brands, so maybe it's a pricing decision. So, it is actually

based upon income, so demographics, so this must be demographic segmentation.

But is that really so? Now if I look closely, there is one brand like, you know, maybe Breeze talks of

fragrance, or Lifebuoy talks of hygiene or some other brand. So, then actually it is more than

demographics, it then goes into maybe psychographics, which is your lifestyle. Or maybe it can

also look into so many other factors.

So, the fact or the matter is that it's not only just one thing that you take when you're segmenting

market. You can look at the same product and say, okay, so demographically how am I segmenting?

Psychographically, how am I segmenting? Behaviourally, how am I going to segment?

Geographically, how am I going to segment?


Now that we've understood segmentation to some detail, now let's try to figure out how to target

customers. Now there's a difference between segmentation and targeting. You might identify a lot

of segments that can have promise for your product, but then you need to target maybe one or

two of them, because what happens is that if you target all the segments, you might go wrong.

So, let's look at this whole aspect of targeting a little closely. Shall we? So, targeting involves two

steps. The first is evaluation all of these segments and which we'll get into how do you evaluate a

little later, just a little later. And after evaluating, basically then selecting the most appropriate

segment or segments, so these are two steps that we need to take.

Now let's look at how do I evaluate. So, there are many basis of evaluation. So, the first is what you

have to do is, is this segment size attractive enough? Is this going to grow, or am I just looking at

something that is not going to grow?

So, if I look at the reason why a lot of brands are looking at the large middle-class segment, there's

a very good reason. Because it is large enough to be attractive. But within that, if you look at a

certain segment, let's say urban male grooming, then that's why a company like Ustra or Beardo is

actually focused on something like this because they expect, maybe it's small right now, but it will

grow later.

So, the first step, out of all, what you have to do in order to target is to look at whether a market is

large enough or does it have the potential to grow larger?


The second is that you have to look at whether the segment might be large enough, but is it

structurally attractive?

Now what do we mean by structurally attractive? It means that essentially, so how is competition

or alternatives? How are people actually reacting to the competition? Are people already happy

with the alternatives that they've got? And by alternatives, I mean more than competition. It just

means that if a person is just used to a certain way of doing things and as an inertia, then may not

be too many competitors in the market, but you still may not succeed because people don't see

any enough motivation to actually make the switch to your product.

But let's look at a place where, you know, it looks like a large market, but it turned out to be a

bloodbath. Now, if you look at the e-commerce market, you have Flipkart, then there was

Snapdeal, then there was Myntra, then Amazon came. Now, do you think that actually trying to

become an eCommerce player, just to get to the Indian middle class actually makes sense for a

new e-commerce player in the market. I really don't think that might be a very wise move.

Now, if I look at even the, let's say the cab aggregator market, now you had your taxi for sure, then

you have Ola, and Uber and so many things. So, the fact is that, how your competitors are, how the

alternatives are, how aggressive your competitors are, will determine whether it is structurally

attractive for you to enter that market or not enter that market.


The third thing that we must understand is, sure, you know, the market might be big or might be

poised to be big. Sure, the competitive scenario may not be that difficult for you to kind of

overcome, but is launching this product actually going to be useful from an internal perspective,

from a company's perspective. Are my resources best served to do this or something else? So, that

is a very internal perspective. And that is a choice that every company must make.

So, that is the third big thing that a marketer must consider. So, it's not just all about externalities.

It's also about, see the same resources can be used somewhere else. I can either produce a

toothpaste or soap as a fast-moving consumer goods company. But what makes sense at a

company level? Should I be creating another toothpaste just because one and two are satisfied, or

should I be looking at soaps because I'm doing badly in soaps as a company?

Another example could be Apple. Apple has so much money in the world, it can start a smartphon e

in the midsize segment, but it's not doing that. Why? Because if it does that, it might not go with

the company's objective of making sure that they attract a certain kind of customer and have a

certain kind of image. And the rest of it, even to its investors.

If you look at Xiaomi, the same thing. They are not going to do something for the premium market.

So, there's a very good internal reason why these companies are choosing to make the decisions

that they are. It's not necessarily that just because, you know, objective number one and two are

met that you need to just enter that market. There is an internal thing that also needs to be

considered.


The market is divided into three segments essentially. Let us understand this by way of a diagram,

which is the pyramid.

The bottom part of the pyramid is the mass segment, the middle part of the pyramid is the popular

segment, and the top of the pyramid is essentially the premium segment. Ideally, in every product

portfolio, we would have products panning across the entire pyramid.

So you would essentially have something at the mass end, at the popular end, and at the premium

end. Every product at different segments of the pyramid would have a unique benefit. Product

formulations would also be different at different levels. Pricing would also vary at different

segments of the pyramid. What kicks in here really is the definition called the relative price index

or the RPI as we call it. The RPI is nothing, but which tells you how much the competition costs. Let

us understand this better by taking an example from Unilever soap, category. So, let us say at the

mass end of the pyramid would be brands like Breeze and Lifebuoy, at the popular would be Lux,

and at the premium end would be brands like Pears and Dove.

Product formulations of all these brands would differ, as you know that they would be priced

differently also. Availability of these would also differ. If we speak about availability, mass brands

like Breeze and Lifebuoy would be available across kirana stores, because for them the main aim

really is about availability and the fact that they need to be seen. Regarding popular and premium


brands, they are available mostly in modern trade stores, such as Big Bazaar and more outlets by

the Aditya Birla Retail Group, and lastly, every brand at different segments of the pyramid would

also be driving a unique benefit.

Let’s further understand market segmentation by way of an example from the tea category. So

when it comes to tea, there is a huge geographical segmentation that takes place in the market.

Tea is available in two kinds, the dust tea and the leaf tea. The dust tea is a strong dark cup of tea,

which is known to give energy and a quick perk-up. Whereas the latter is a flavourful light cup of

tea.

There is a behavioural segmentation also taking place. Brooke Bond in its portfolio actually has an

offering for every pilot of the Indian consumer. So long before the philosophy of Winning was

introduced within Unilever, which really is winning in many India and having a customized product

possibly for different regions in the country. Brooke Bond was long living this philosophy.

If you look at the map, Southern India and parts of the West prefer a strong cup of tea, whereas

when you move North towards and towards the East, consumers prefer a light tea and hence the

lead tea.

Let us understand the tea portfolio across the pyramid. So at the bottom of the pyramid or the

mass segment, we have three brands, which are essentially the dust brands, namely the Taaza

dust, Super dust, and Ruby dust, which are in the price range of 60 to 80 rupees. Then we move on

to the popular segment, which essentially is the belly of the market and really the largest segment

where you have iconic brands like Red Label and Taaza Leaf occupying the space. Here, these teas

are in the range of 110 to 130 rupees. And finally at the top end or at the premium segment, we

have three iconic brands again Taj Mahal tea, 3 Roses, and the recently introduced Lipton Green

tea, which are again priced at approximately 140 upwards.

You'll all be aware of Bata. Bata is a really old, established footwear brand. The funny thing about

this brand is that over a period of time, it started getting particularly associated with fuddy duddy,

purana maal, sort of thing. So, it got associated with older people.

Now Bata in order to stay relevant to people to buy more shoes, which is the younger population

essentially, started looking at trying to change a few things. So, what did it do?


• The first thing it did was it got some new brand ambassadors, Kriti Sa non and Sushant Singh

Rajput. So, that was interesting.

• The second was that it changed its messaging toward say the younger female audience, that

they've got completely changed, the messaging for its female product line.

• The third thing which Bata did essentially was also distribution channels different. So, what it did

was that it looked at distributing Hush Puppies which was a well-established and good brand. It

started going online, Myntra and the rest of it, because that is where the younger audience shops.

So, over a period of time with all of these changes to various things in the marketing process, Bata

achieved what it had set out to achieve, which was move from being perceived as an old, fuddy -

duddy brand, to something which was young, hot and happening.

Thus, Bata changed its image, and it also changed its result as you can see. Now the fact is that

Bata did a change in the positioning. Now, what do I mean by positioning? It means that when you

look at any product, you don't look at it in isolation, the product's image, the brands image, or what

we call brand image is always in comparison to other things that are available in the market.

So, Bata did change its positioning about its brand image. If you understand all those words that I

just said, into something which was working for them, rather than the brand image, and therefore

their earlier positioning.

So, Bata went from old and fuddy-duddy to something that was hot and happening, which involved

a change of its brand image, which means a change in position. So, how do you actually look at

positioning and why is positioning so important?


So, if you look at how much information is being sent to consumers nowadays, if you look at fruit

juices, there are pressed fruit juices, natural fruit juices, sugar free fruit juices, mixed fruit juice,

this and that. When you look at face wash, there is charcoal face wash, there is oil control face

wash, there is creamy face wash, so many different types of face washes.

So, if you look at any category, take snacks for instance, snacks is like, you know, namkeen and

savory and low card, and high protein snacks and so many different things. So, all of these ensure

that any new thing or any kind of communication that's happening is already competing with so

much of information in the consumer's mind.

So, if we look at the core consumer decision making process that we had kind of studied earlier, it

starts with, let's say need recognition, then goes to information search, then goes to the evaluation

of alternatives, then goes to selection and trial, then you can look at purchasing and then post

purchase behaviour.

So, if I look at the way in which a consumer's mind works, do you think that he is going to go

through the first few steps of need recognition and information search and all of that, all the time,

it's not going to. The consumer is going to try and make life simpler for themselves. The fact is that

the reason why the first few steps are already taken into account is to find that informat ion

overload that we were talking of earlier.

Now, the fact is therefore, they are positioning your product, your brand in their minds so that

they have simplified their decision-making process. In fact, Kotler defines the product's position as

that complex set of feelings, associations, impressions that you have about a particular product

when it is compared to some other products in the same category in the consumers mind.


Now let's take a few strange examples. So, tomorrow if Apple was going to launch a pair of running

shoes, what do you think they will look like.

If you look at Nike and Nike was suddenly going to launch fruit juice, what do you think that would

be like.

And if you look at Coca Cola launching suddenly launching a smartwatch, what do you think that

smartwatch will be like, what will be the experience like.

Now Apple clearly isn't shoe maker, and the rest of it. These brands have worked really hard to

form certain perceptions in your mind about themselves. This works for them and also against

them if they want to go into some other category, remember that.

So, how much of an influence can marketer have? Because a lot of these positionings once done

seem to be second stone. Is there something that the marketer can do to create original

positioning and then look at, how do you change something which is not working? You do

something else which is called re-positioning. So, let's look at positioning first and let's look at how

to understand it as a process.

So, positioning is essentially a three-step process. The first step is to find out how your

competition is and how your product is perceived as compared to competitive products in the

same area. The next would be to actually create a strategy which will differentiate you from the


competition, you know, sort of differentiated positioning strategy. And the third obviously will be

to communicate that strategy through the right media and through the right messaging.

So, what's a good tool to actually look at positioning. A perceptual map is a very good visual tool to

understand how your consumers are thinking about your product or your brand in comparison to

other brands in the same space. This will allow you to understand and associate a lot of perceived

feelings, perceived thoughts about your brand, and you can see all of it as a big picture.

So, how do you create a perceptual map? The first thing that you do is to list out all of your product

attributes. So, those are the features that your product has and you can put them out there. The

next thing you have to do after identifying this is to perhaps look at the perceptual map and put all


the competitors’ products and their attributes so that you can understand where the gaps are, if

there are any gaps, if there are remover lap and the rest of it.

Then once you understand the position that your brand occupies, what you need to probably

figure out in the next thing is to kind of convert that whole understanding into something more

tangible. So, what do I mean by that? What I mean is that your competitive strategy has to be

coming out of this understanding, of this big picture. So, what you do is you understand points of

parity, where your brand is exactly similar to other brands.

Then you understand points of difference where your brand can stand out. Then you have to make

a really close observation and crucial decision, which is, are you going to fight in the same space?

Are you going to actually look at how to differentiate yourself with a unique value proposition? Or

are you going to go into a gap in the market, which nobody else has actually observed or taken

advantage of? Both are valid and you need to take that call very quickly.

Now let's take an example so that this process becomes clearer because it is a little subtle and it

has a lot of nuances. So, let's take an example of a beer brand and figure out how to do this whole

exercise. So, let's look at the first step of the process, let's take a beer brand, pick any brand in your

mind. Let's try to figure out what the product attributes of that brand are.

Then you've got to figure out what are the most two important product attributes. So, in beer, it is

the strength of the beer. And the second is the price of the beer. So, the strength of the beer is, you

know, whether it is strong beer or light beer, it leaves you with a heavy feeling or its strong and its


alcohol content and the rest of it. So, that's one attribute. You got to figure out where your beer is

in that sort of arena.

The second is price. Is it competitively priced? Is it cheaper than everybody else? Is it more

expensive, is it premium, etc. So, then you've got these two important attributes and you have kind

of written out where your beer figures out.

Now step two is to do the same exercise for the close competitors or all the competitors, it

depends on you. So, if you take all the competition for your beer, and if you kind of map it out

based upon the two attributes that we spoke of, which is the strength of the beer and the price of

the beer.

You will soon figure out how crowded that space is or how vacant that space is, so that's step two.

So, your beers can be strong and premium priced, strong and easy on the pocket, light and easy on

the pocket or light and premium price. You got to figure out where your beer is and where the

competition's beers are.

Now let's ask a few beer consumers where they think their favourite brand lies. And let's see how

it goes. Let's go to this mapping exercise.

Now, as you can see, there are two crowded spots. The first crowded spot is the project strong

beer. The second crowded spot is the light beer, which is premium. Now there are empty spots as

well, please note this as well.

So, now the marketer knows the picture. Now, the marketer comes to the differentiated

positioning strategy, that's step number two. That's the most difficult step because that's where

we have to use our imagination and make crucial decisions. So, how do you do this? Let's figure it

out. Tell me. If I say a few things, just tell me which brands come to mind, let's play a little ga me.

So, the first one is like a computer, but unlike any computer. Isse sasta or kuch bh nahi, is the

second sentence, isse sasta or kuch bhi nahi ho sakta. Or lightning fast delivery, let's take the third

one. Which brands come to your mind, when I said those three sentences?

So, when you look at Apple's differentiated positioning, iPad comes to mind. So, the iPad was quite

unlike any other computer. It was quite different in the way in which it was convenient. And it was

as powerful as a laptop, but very convenient to use and uncomplicated. So, it carved out its own

niche in this entire positioning that it had.

Big Bazaar did something really interesting, very similar to Apple, but in a different category. So, if

you look at the experience that you have of shopping and the value that you get, normally those

are opposing each other. But Big Bazaar tried to figure out how can I deliver a really good


shopping experience, but also deliver great value for the shopping. So, it occupied a very different

niche spot, just like what Apple did, with it's performance and convenience for the iPad.

So, if you look at food aggregators, they are basically focusing on three things, right? Then you

compete, if you are a food aggregator on either speed of delivery, the discounts, and the number of

restaurants that are there on your app.

Now, because it was such a crowded marketplace and everyone was trying to go for everything,

what Swiggy did was it said no, I as a company, we are going to focus on the speed of delivery and

just make sure that it's very, very good in the speed of delivery. Thus, ensuring that it stood out

from competition.

So, what differentiates a good differentiation strategy from a bad differentiation strategy? Well, a

good differentiation strategy has to have certain properties to it. The first one would be that it has

to be important for the customer. You can't just keep differentiating something which is

unimportant. It has to be valuable for the customer.

The second thing is that it has to be distinctive from competition. So, which means that, you know,

you've got to stand out from your competition. You can't keep saying the same things that your

competitors do.

That third is that, you know, it has to be easily communicable or communicative. So, the fact is that

unless and until you can communicate it really effectively, all the differentiation will remain in your

mind. It won't come out and reach the customer or touch the customer.


Now, one more thing is that it should not be very easily copiable, it should be inimitable as much as

possible, so that, you know, a competitor cannot come in and say what you're saying tomorrow,

that will just destroy everything that you've worked for.

And the final thing is that it has to be profitable. See you can do a lot of work, but at the end of the

day, if it is losing your company money, it's a bad strategy. So, good differentiation strategy will

have all of these points, sorted.

Now let's understand how do we communicate and deliver this positioning, right. So, for that, let's

take a step back and understand, or remember our marketing process. The first step of the

marketing process is to understand the consumer and his or her needs. You need to know them

absolutely bang on.

Then you have to design a marketing strategy that allows you to reach out to your target segment

and communicate what you're trying to communicate with your value proposition. Then once you

do that, you will have to look at a marketing mix that delivers whatever this value proposition is to

your customer. And then finally, you have to make sure that even after purchase, you build a

strong relationship with the customer that creates more and more loyalty.

So, this was the marketing process that we learned a few segments back. Now, what we are trying

to figure out is how do we utilise that for actually communicating and delivering the positioning.

Actually, we're done with the first two steps, because we now have a positioning strategy for the

brand. So, the first two steps are understanding needs of the consumer and actually developing a

marketing strategy. You have that in place.

Now we have something that is also highly differentiated. Let's assume this. What we need to do is

we need to figure out how to communicate this from the head or the marketer, to the mind of the


target consumer. Now you do this, you communicate and deliver the positioning ba sed on the

marketing mix, which is nothing but four 4 Ps.

So, what are the four Ps? Product, price, placement and promotion. So, what you have to do is you

have to make sure that you focus on these four Ps in order to deliver whatever you're trying to

deliver about your positioning as a marketer to the end customer.

While a brand may have a holistic approach towards its target segment and target audience. Of

course, that's how a brand probably launches or thinks about creating a strategy is identifyin g who

my target group is which can be defined by, you know, demographics or age or some elements of

like psychographics.


But, in my view, I think the brands need to have a more dynamic approach. It really cannot be

targeting everyone from the age of 15 to 30 or I want to target everyone who lives in a certain city.

That doesn't really work.

You need to have a very different approach, and that will obviously then let you formulate your

communication strategy as well because while you identify who you want to sell to, who do you

want to provide your services to, how and what are the touch points will automatically kind of

force you to create sub-targets if you're looking at effective communication and effective sales

strategy.

So, it's important to be very dynamic in your approach. And also, one of the learnings that I've had

is that your target group can actually keep changing. It is not something that was there 15 years

ago, it’s something that's going to stay with you for the next 15 years and it's going to stay for the

following 15 years. It also keeps changing.

Everything is dynamic, right. I mean the people are getting exposed to so many things and you

know, the customer understands everything these days. They know what is being marketed to

them. They know what is it that they're probably seeing and what are they actually experiencing. I

mean the customer is supersmart. So, we need to be a little smarter than them and try to create a

more dynamic approach to the segmentation.


I will quote a few examples, like with M&S, we knew the age group that we are targeting. We

always thought that we are a brand that is going to go 25 to 30+ and go up to the age of 55. Now,

this was our target group for India. Whereas in UK, it was always a 50+ brand, 45+ brand other

than certain sub-brands that were existing within M&S that would be targeted to a younger

audience, but that was a niche.

Now that is the difference between UK and India. But even within India, we had a different target

group and different target segments in different cities. So, people that we were targeting in Delhi,

Bombay were very different from who we were targeting in cities like you know Hyderabad or

Raipur or Pune. So, that’s very different.

Like Bombay and Pune, absolutely close, very similar, but we had completely different target

groups and we had like a different touch points as well. We knew who to reach where. There was a


different product offering. There was a different approach in communication. There was a

completely different approach in advertising.

So, whereas in certain cities, like tier-2 cities where we were talking about, you know, what the

sale is on and let's just buy a pack of three T-shirt, it’s for 799 or it’s for 899. We knew that our

target group is cost-conscious. We need to talk to them about value.

But whereas if we are talking about someone in Delhi or Bombay indenting, we need to talk about

fast fashion. We need to tell them we are fashionable. We need to have something that is

absolutely on trend.

So, it's very, very important to have a different approach, a very dynamic approach for all the

offerings that you have and how are you present geographically. What is also now happening is it's

not really only about demographics or about psychographics. We also need to understand the

affinity of the consumer. What are they relating themselves to? And now with social media, we

know that what are the interests of people.

So, while in M&S we had an approach which was, okay, this is my target group because this is a

certain age bracket or this is a certain economic section or this is a certain city or geography.

Whereas in Madame Tussauds, we had a completely different approach. We were not worried

about the age, we were not worried about where the customer is coming from. We were really,

really worried about what the customer is relating to.

So, you know what, let's go jump and deep dive into social media and see. Anybody who's liking

#Bollywood, anybody who's liking #Madame Tussauds is traveling to London frequently, is aware

of these things. Is dancing on the latest songs, is very, very intrigued by personal interviews of

celebrities, is very intrigued or very interactive on social media or Twitter or somewhere with a

particular celebrity that is my target group.

That is the audience I'm going to, you know, I'm in cater to because I could be 15 and yo ung, but

may not be interested in an attraction, but I could be 40, but very interested in what the celebrities

around the world are doing. And like I’m an ardent traveller. I want to see what I want.

So, I think it's a need of the business, you need to identify that are you selling an interest, are you

selling a product, are you selling an experience. So, based on what your product is, what you're

offering is, you really need to segment the market.


I think what is also very important here is to see how you reach them. So, for example, in Madame

Tussauds, I'm trying to get the child to come into Madame Tussauds because it's for the child that

the family is going to come, but who do I need to target for that. Is it the mom because is she the

decision maker or is it the dad that is the decision-maker? Or maybe I can just speak to the schools

that can bring me groups of kids.

So, there are various, various deeper understandings that we need to know. While my target

audience is the child, how do I speak to the child?

I will quote an example, what we did here was, like, I needed to speak to these women that were

maybe not globally travelled, had an aspiration value attached to Madame Tussauds, were

probably mothers that were very concerned about where the child is being entertained, what are

they playing, are very, very religious homemakers that are probably investing a lot of time into

their child.

Not travelled, probably has not taken an international vacation, has only heard of Madame

Tussauds or maybe has not even heard of Madame Tussauds. And we thought, you know what, we

always think we are an international brand, let’s advertise in the best newspapers, let's go to the

radio channels and let’s, you know, try to target the primetime.

What we did was, we did not advertise in the primetime. We advertised during the afternoon

when the women are listening to the radio and we advertised in Hindi newspapers with a discount

coupon. And guess what, it was a crazy turnout, because, yes we know the women were listening.

They were influencing the dads, they were influencing the child that we need to show this to our

children.


So, in certain brands and certain strategies, the primetime, the front-page kind of fails. You have to

understand that what is your consumer, what is their touch point, who are they interacting with. I

mean the mother is not possibly able to listen to primetime radio. So, when do I speak to her. Yeah,

she’s probably home alone when she is between 12 to 2. This is the right time to speak to her.

So, like this, I mean, you have to be very open to your approach. It totally depends on what your

business is. It totally depends what you're selling. Is it a service, is it a product, is it a one-time buy,

is it a repetitive purchase? And you got to be dynamic to your approach. And be aware that the

segmentation can change from time to time.

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