Soft pitch, hard sell

DIRECT MARKETING: Undaunted by slow growth, Amway unleashes a TVC and a slew of new products.

The direct selling industry in India has seen sporadic growth over the last few years. A number of players have entered and exited, while some have made their base even stronger.

Amway, one of the first entrants in the market, is looking to consolidate its position and enter more product categories. Also on the agenda is its first television campaign, going on air this July.

According to William Pinckney, managing director and CEO, Amway India, the idea of the campaign is to tell buyers about the superior Amway products and create more awareness about the brand. So far, the company has been advertising in the print media alone.

“We have seen that a lot of people have misconceptions about buying Amway products. We want to address that problem and there is no better way than to go on TV and reach out to the maximum number of people.” The company will spend around Rs 12-14 crore on promotional activities in this financial year.

It has been almost eight years since Amway came into India. The Rs 700-crore company has gradually diversed into a slew of product categories, but now wants to focus on its health and beauty products.

Pinckney claims that health and nutritional products contribute close to 50 per cent of product sales. There are plans to launch six to eight products by the end of this year.

The direct-selling industry in India is currently pegged at around Rs 3,500 crore. However, Pinckney feels that this is just the tip of the iceberg and that the industry has the potential to grow far larger.

“The biggest factor in the slow growth has been the lack of awareness about how the industry functions.”

Amway plans to open more training centres and conduct more sessions for its existing and potential business owners. As of now, Amway has about 4.5 lakh business owners and, while the company is looking to add more of these, it’s not too worried about the somewhat negative impact that some might create.

“It might look easy from the outside but direct selling is a lot of hard work and, just like in any other business, you have got to earn your bucks!”

Applying a visual edge

A job portal scores a first by introducing video resumes on its site. How far will it help streamline the recruitment process?

Hyderabad-based online job search company Monster India has introduced a new facility through which job seekers can upload their ‘video résumés’.

How it works
Video résumés can be uploaded by registered users at www.monsterindia.com in the same way as text résumés. The search mechanism for employers, too, remains the same. “Multiple video formats generated through mobile cameras, handycams or webcams can be viewed on any Web browser.” says Vikas Agarwal, vice-president, product & technology, Monster India. A visual representation lends personality to text résumés and gives candidates a competitive advantage.
For instance, a text résumé may not be able to provide details about a person’s communications skills. Video résumés could also help speed up the recruitment process and cut down costs by reducing the number of screening rounds.
“Recruiters can evaluate how candidates present their skills without preliminary interviews,” says Agarwal.

The target
The e-recruitment space is getting busier as more traditional sectors such as manufacturing, fast moving consumer goods and shipping are joining IT and BPO companies in recruiting through online job portals.
Companies which use these services include telecom company Reliance Communications Ltd, hospitality major The Oberoi Group, drug company Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd, consumer durables company Samsung India Electronics Pvt. Ltd, ITES entities such as HCL Technologies Ltd and Wipro Ltd. The new service is expected to draw in a new set of customers as well.

Critics’ view
It is an innovation that adds value to the recruitment process, and the novelty factor—job portals, both in India and abroad, are yet to latch on to video résumés—is likely to give Monster India a clear edge. But some senior executives foresee certain limitations. This service will be more useful for entry-level recruitments. “This can only help in lateral hiring and not for jobs in senior positions or specialist roles,” says Dilip Kumar Shrivastava, head, corporate HR, HCL Technologies Ltd. Even for positions in sales and marketing, the usefulness of video résumés is doubtful. Says Sumeet Yadav, head, retail, VF Arvind Brands Pvt Ltd: “You can’t gauge a candidate’s intelligence and data crunching abilities by viewing a video.”
Also, there’s the question of logistics.
“Their success will depend on searchability. A lot will depend on the usage and distribution of video,” says Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder and CEO, Info Edge India Ltd, parent company of job portal naukri.com.
Bikhchandani says he has been looking at video résumés for a while, but “we are not getting into this immediately”.

Positive proof
Video résumés, however, have the advantage of credibility. Says Subhash Rao, director, human resources, Cisco Systems India Pvt. Ltd: “Puffed-up résumés are the bane of today’s recruitment managers. A video resume lowers that risk considerably.”
Visual samples of work, observe retailers, give a far more accurate picture of the abilities of visual merchandisers, store managers and designers. “This service would greatly help outstation candidates and hiring managers who are at remote sites,” K.K. Swamy, deputy managing director, Toyota Kirloskar Motors Ltd.
Every little cog in the management wheel is critical, and new ones even more so. In this space, we will look at events that impact strategy and management.

Source: Mint

Top of the mind

A survey of the best commercials on television in May 2007


There’s no formula for an advertisement’s success. It could be the star factor or just a good idea. Whether it is De Beer’s Nakshatra flick, starring actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, or a play on an old Bollywood number in the Fiat Palio Stile’s promo, the success of a campaign depends on how effectively it captures the attention of the consumer.
To measure this, Mint’s monthly survey evalutes advertisements on brand recall and awareness, besides parameters of credibility. Responses are then collated on all these criteria to arrive at the top rankings. Conducted by Synovate, a global market research agency, supported by TV Ad Indx, an ad monitoring firm, the survey covered 750 respondents in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, in the 18-40 age group.

Brand:Mentos Candy Agency: Ogilvy & Mather/WPP Group Another in the ‘Dimaag ki batti jala de’ series, it shows a boy walking in late at a concert with squelching shoes and drawing public ire. In the Mentos replay, he decides to walk next to another guest, thus deflecting the audience’s disapproval.

Brand:Fiat Palio Stile
Agency: Orchard Advertising/Leo Burnett/BCOM3
The ad plays on the popularity of an old Bollywood number, Mere sapno ki rani, which had been set in a scene where a car runs parallel to a train. The new twist is that the girl listens to the song on an iPod. The catchline: Fun time reloaded.
Brand:Nokia N95
Agency: Bates India/Cordiant Communications/WPP Group
To highlight the plethora of features of these handsets, the promo shows the odds and ends that come out of pockets, including a pin, rings, a paper bird and a stone. The tagline: There’s a thing in my pocket. But it’s not one thing, it’s many.
Brand:Sony Ericsson Walkman Phone
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi
The ad showcases the dancing skills of actor Hrithik Roshan. Spun around its catchy line, “I love the thump”, the advertisement shows Roshan dancing with people from across the world, to music played on the Walkman phone.

Brand:Logan
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi
A slick action flick shows a female agent drop from a helicopter onto a trailer carrying a Logan, to spy on the features that make India’s first wide body car so special. Her work done, the Logan proves irresistible, and she decides to drive the car away.
Brand:ABN AmroOne
Agency: Publicis India
This ad takes the brand’s catchline, “Cashback for a lifetime”, a step further. Dacoits, finding only a brand’s credit card on a train passenger, decide to give him some money instead. The tagline: Cash back everywhere, every time.

Brand:Dabur Real/Orange
Agency: Lowe Lintas/Interpublic Group/IPG
Shot at a fort, the ad film shows various people plying a child with orange juice in an attempt to keep him occupied and out of their hair. “Want more, slurp more,” says the ad. It plays on the exotic locale and strikes a chord in the tourist season.
Brand:Mother Dairy Chillz
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi
The ad shows a basketball game between physically challenged and able-bodied players. After the match, two men in wheelchairs enjoy ice cream cones. One of them then gets up and walks alongside the other. It’s the goodness inside, says the voice-over.

Brand:Mentos Candy
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather/WPP Group
Another in the ‘Dimaag ki batti jala de’ series, it shows a boy walking in late at a concert with squelching shoes and drawing public ire. In the Mentos replay, he decides to walk next to another guest, thus deflecting the audience’s disapproval.
Brand:MRF Zapper
Agency: Lowe Lintas/Interpublic Group/IPG
A man at a road repair site watches horrified as a couple on a bike speed towards a crumbling patch on the road. The bike, however, manages to negotiate the cracks with inches to spare. A nice play on the tyre’s grip with the line, “Get a grip”.
Brand:Titan Fastrack Eye Gear
Agency: Lowe Lintas/Interpublic Group /IPG
The ad works on the idea that the product turns the wearer into a hero. Actor John Abraham walks into a market and puts on his sunshades. Girls cling to him, screaming for help, but stop and walk away when he removes his eyewear.

Source: Mint

Maruti hikes discounts on select models

Competition from Renault Logan, Tata Indigo

Maruti Udyog has substantially increased discounts on models such as the 800, Alto, Zen Estilo and the Esteem.
The move comes even as the company has apologised to customers for the long delay in deliveries of the Swift and the newly launched SX4.
The company has advertised in leading dailies last week about the discount offer open till June 15 on the four models named above.
While it has increased discounts on Esteem to Rs 35,000 from Rs 25,000 last month, that on the Zen Estilo has been hiked from Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 this month.
The discount on the popular Alto, with sales of nearly 20,000 units per month, has been doubled to Rs 10,000.
Senior Maruti officials could not be reached for comment.Market sources said that there has been a demand for new models like the Zen Estilo, Wagon-R and Swift Diesel, even as demand for older models such as the Esteem and the 800 is waning.
Customer preference for the Alto over the 800 in the entry-level segment and new competition from the Renault Logan and Tata Indigo in the sedan segment could also be possible reasons behind Maruti increasing discounts on its own models.
The company is also possibly offering discounts to try and ease pressure on its models from recent launches such as the Chevrolet Spark and the Hyundai Getz Prime, the sources added.
"The doubling of discount on the Zen Estilo this month, as compared to April and May, could be related to the launch of Spark," said a dealer.
Two months ago, the Managing Director, Mr Jagdish Khattar, had said that Maruti would be changing over to the latest M-series engine for all models, but did not mention a timeframe.
The Suzuki SX4 has been launched with the M-series engine, which is supposed to be more refined and helps Maruti vehicles meet Euro IV emission norms, which will come into force in 2008.
Over the last couple of days, the company has issued advertisements in the form of a letter from Mr Khattar, apologising for the delay in deliveries of the Swift and the SX4.
"It is possible that the delay has been worsened by a mix of unanticipated demand and a possible changeover to the new engine," said an analyst.
Meanwhile, the company is understood to be gearing up for the launch of the Suzuki Grand Vitara next month.

Source: The Hindu Business Line

Cricket loses out: Ford says no, LG decides to back golf instead

Cricket in the country is passing through a bad phase following the national team’s disastrous showing at the recent World Cup

LG Electronics India Pvt. Ltd formally severed its decade-old backing of cricket, saying the sport had lost relevance in its marketing strategy, and announced that it would support four niche sports—starting with golf.
The announcement came on a day when Graham Ford, coach of the English county side Kent, turned down a formal offer to coach the Indian cricket team, and as the European Tour unveiled a controversial plan to stage a $2.5 million (Rs10.25 crore) tournament in 2008 in India, dubbed the Indian Masters, a move the company said would herald a new era for golf in the world’s second most-populous country.
Cricket in the country is passing through a bad phase following the national team’s disastrous showing at the recent World Cup, rapidly losing both fans and sponsors over the past few months.
“Cricket has always been a game of the masses; golf is a game of the classes,” said LG India’s head of marketing Sandeep Tiwari, explaining why his company opted for golf as a strategy to market its new range of high-end products that include LCD television sets, laptops and cellular phone handsets, all aimed at high-spending consumers. “Our target audience will be found on the golf courses.”
Tiwari said LG was little known in India when it started off 10 years ago and cricket was the ideal vehicle to create brand awareness.
The company has new objectives now: this includes sponsoring golf and three other niche sports, which would be announced later, to reach LG’s target group among the more affluent.
The golf link, through the 13-leg LG Indian Amateur Golf Tour that kicks off in Bangalore on 12 June, is the company’s maiden association with the sport at a competitive level. Its one-off association with golf a few years ago was a corporate event solely for clients.
The golf tour is also the first financial commitment the company has made to any sport since March after the expiry of its eight-year contract with the International Cricket Council (ICC), the game’s apex administrative body, for all ICC-organized tournaments, including the World Cup.
LG India’s entire marketing strategy over the last decade revolved round cricket. It had several cricketers as brand ambassadors, and in 1999, it had paid ICC between $25-30 million for securing the official ICC sponsor contract along with Hero Honda Motors Ltd, Samsung Electronics Ltd and Philips.
Tiwari emphasized that LG had not completely cut off from cricket, and would sponsor series and tournaments if these coincided with festivals such as Diwali, when consumer spending traditionally rises. On the other hand, support to golf reflected its wish to “pick up an early trend”—the sport’s growing popularity.
The LG Indian Amateur Golf Tour, organized under the aegis of the Indian Golf Union, will be played across 12 venues and includes 2006 Asian Games silver medallists Anirban Lahiri and Joseph Chakola, British Open 2006 (Junior) winner Amanjyot Singh and India Junior number one Rahul Bakshi.
Meanwhile, the inaugural Indian Masters has been scheduled for 7-10 February at a still-to-be-confirmed venue. It will be promoted and organized by golf in DUBAI, the company behind the Dubai Desert Classic.
Gen. J.J. Singh, the president of the Indian Golf Union, described the announcement as a “historic” milestone in the development of the sport in India. But it immediately sparked a row with organizers of the Asian tour, who are furious at not being consulted over the new tournament.
In a statement, the Asian tour’s executive chairman, Kyi Hla Han, accused his European counterparts of “unethical” conduct.
He said: “The Asian Tour disagrees with the unethical actions of the European Tour, which has avoided contact with the Asian Tour whilst announcing this new event in India. This action reflects on the European Tour’s aggressive direction without any concern for the protocol of the International Federation of PGA Tours and highlights an invasion position on Asia.”

Source: Anik Basu, Mint

For advertisers, happy days are here again and again...

Several ads in print and television are using the word ’happy’ to pitch their wares

Indian advertisers and their agencies are in a happy state of mind and the feeling is spilling into their work.
Several ads in print and television are using the word “happy” to pitch their wares. And more ads, even products, are being built around the H-word.
The happy brigade includes telco Bharti Airtel Ltd, job site Clickjobs.com (promoted by Bharatmatrimony.com Pvt. Ltd), fast food chain McDonald’s India Pvt. Ltd, household products firm Godrej Sara Lee Ltd, and pen maker Luxor Writing Instruments Pvt. Ltd. “It’s not a new phenomenon,” says Ravi Kiran, chief executive of Starcom Worldwide, a media buying firm, “but the word is making a comeback”.
The Bharti Airtel commercial has a group of shoppers and the shopkeeper himself singing “Happy recharge to you” to a man who is recharging or topping up his prepaid card at the outlet. Almost 90% of India’s 175 million mobile-phone subscriber base uses prepaid cards where people pay money upfront in return for a fixed amount of talktime.
Clickjobs.com has given its state of mind a persona, creating a character called Happy Kumar. Godrej Sara Lee’s new tagline for the firm’s Good Knight brand of mosquito repellant suggests that consumers use the product to “protect happy moments” with their families. And Luxor Writing Instruments will soon launch an entire stationery line called Planet Happy, and is planning a commercial to advertise the range, according to Pooja Jain, executive director, Luxor Writing Instruments.
There are other ads that use the proposition of happiness, but these have used them for some time. The new ad for Mahindra Holidays & Resorts Ltd (the company offers its services under the brand Club Mahindra), which has employed the word happy in its ads for the past two years, mentions it several times and, just to make sure no one missed it, sports a tagline that says “Happy family holidays”. Luggage maker VIP Industries Ltd has had a tagline that says “VIP happy journey” for a few years now. But the word is more commonly seen in ads today, says Pranesh Mishra, president and chief operating officer, Lowe India, the agency that handles the VIP account. “It is a reflection of the times we are going through; the optimism in the market and India’s overall (economic) performance are contributing to the happiness,” he adds.
Clearly, there is a lot to feel happy about.
According to data released last week by the government, India’s economy grew at 9.4% in 2006-07, the fastest in two decades. And data from human resources consulting firm Hewitt shows that salaries in the country grew the fastest in the world, by 14.4% in 2006, and are set to grow by a further 14.5% in 2007. The advertising industry, whose performance is related to the overall economy’s, grew by 23% in 2006, to Rs16,300 crore in size by capitalized billings (the size of the industry isn’t calculated on the basis of how much income it earns, but the total value of the advertisements it places).
If you are an advertiser, you can’t go wrong with happy, says a language expert.
“The word happy has a lot of positive emotions attached to it. When advertisers use the word happy, it easily and naturally makes consumers feel good about them and their products,” says Meena Sodhi, a linguist and English professor at Banaras Hindu University. Bharti Airtel’s spokesperson says the theme for the company’s advertising this year is connecting people to their families and friends, which, “in the end, is a happy feeling”.
Ramesh Srivath, executive vice-president, Rediffusion DY&R Pvt. Ltd, the agency that handles the Bharti Airtel account, says that the focus of the brand’s communication efforts has moved from “innovative advertising to emotional advertising”.
Hindustan Lever Ltd’s Bru coffee was an early convert to the merits of happy advertising. Four years ago, it started using the word in its advertisements. Last year, its ad used the tagline “Happy moments with Bru”. This year, its ad uses the tagline “Treasure of happiness”. Bru is also running a contest around the word by asking consumers to send in their happy stories to the company. The best stories win small prizes.
The happy formula works, says Mishra. “It is a simple word. It is easy to connect with. Added to the overall positive environment, any message (that uses the word) can work wonders for the brand,” adds Mishra.

Source: Priyanka Mehra, Mint

Dissatisfaction guaranteed

The sales associate shifts her gaze off to the side just as the customer approaches. Suddenly she is intent on restocking merchandise or discussing when she will take her next break, anything to avoid actual contact with a shopper. It’s the type of behavior that galls customers and dominates the list of complaints cited in the second annual Retail Customer Dissatisfaction Study conducted by Wharton’s Jay H Baker Retail Initiative with the Verde Group, a Canadian consulting firm. The study found that disinterested, ill-prepared and unwelcoming salespeople lead to more lost business and bad word-of-mouth than any other management challenge in retailing. “There are a variety of different triggers for having a bad shopping experience, including things like parking or how well the store is organised. Some of those things retailers can do something about and some of them they can’t. But frankly, a very important part of the retail experience is the interaction with the sales associate,” says Wharton marketing professor Stephen J Hoch, director of the Baker Initiative. In a telephone survey of 1,000 shoppers who were asked about their most recent retail experience, 33% reported they had been unable to find a salesperson to help them. Many of these shoppers were so annoyed by this one problem that they said they would not return to the store. According to the Wharton analysis, sales associates who are missing in action cost American retailers 6% of their customers. Add to that the 25% of consumers reporting they were ignored outright by sales associates — no greeting, no smile, not even eye contact. This lack of engagement turned off 3% of customers to the point where they said they would permanently stay way from the store in which they encountered this behaviour. Hoch remains puzzled by sales associates who retreat from potential customers. “You would think that if these sales associates are spending the whole day interacting with people, they would be a lot happier in their own life if they were friendly. Instead, they pull into their shell. What’s wrong with saying, ‘Hi, how are you doing?’” According to Paula Courtney, president of the Verde Group, survey respondents were not frustrated by sales associates who seemed overworked or outmanned by shoppers. It’s the “conscious ignoring” that irritates them, she says. “Customers would walk into a store and the store representative would see them and continue to put items on the shelf or watch the cash register or do administrative work — absolutely ignoring the fact that an actual person was in the store.”
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