MICHAEL MAYER, DIRECTOR,VOLKSWAGEN PASSENGER CARS INDIA P3

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CULTURE AND RECRUITMENT: AN EXTRACT FROM SERVICE-ABILITY: CREATE A CUSTOMER CENTRIC CULTURE... P2

AFTER-SALES IS A SURE-SHOT WAY TO ENGAGEWITH THE CUSTOMER

Q&A

> MONDAY 25 AUGUST 2014 www.business-standard.com

Interpersonal relationships at workcan contribute in subtle yet visibleways to career and job success. Thereis a direct correlation betweenhappiness, motivation andproductivity and having friends atwork, according to the LinkedInRelationships @ Work study. Forty-six per cent of professionalsworldwide believe that work friendsare important to their overallhappiness. In fact, 67 per cent ofmillennials are likely to sharepersonal details including salary,relationships and family issues withco-workers, compared to only aboutone third of baby boomers.

In India, millennials said thatfriendships at workplace impactthem in a positive way, makingthem feel happy (62 per cent),motivated (56 per cent) andproductive (44 per cent) while 28 per cent in the age group of 55-65 said friendships withcolleagues have no bearing on theirwork performance. Interestingly, 19 per cent of millennials in India would sacrifice friendshipwith a colleague for a promotion,compared to 15 per cent of baby boomers.

Relationships atthe workplace

Vantagepoint

THIN

KSTOCK

has become a snacks box for viewers.Dwell time is as low as 30 minutes perday or even lower.

Not everyone approves of the trend.Jayant Singh, executive vice-president atGlaxoSmithKline Consumer Health-care (GSKCH), says, The life cycle of a TVcampaign is shortening. Multiple cre-atives wont do much to build a brand.

Since its launch in 2011, GSKCHs oral-care brand Sensodyne has stuck to show-casing testimonials from dentists. As partof its research, the company saw that theawareness level regarding teeth sensitiv-ity in India was low at 17 per cent.Instead of relying only on television, thecompany decided to focus on below-the-line initiatives to build awareness aboutdental problems.

Integrated approachDigital and radio are similar, especiallyin terms of their consumption patterns.Both the mediums can be consumed on-the-go, their appeal is personal and thecontent can be localised to a large extent.That is exactly what Hindustan Unilever(HUL) achieved with its Kan KhajuraTesan (KKT) campaign. KKT or The

Earworm Channel is HULs very ownstructured, branded media channel onthe mobile platform that offers jokes,music and Bollywood content. This con-tent is interspersed with advertisementsfor HULs mass consumer brands. Thiswas done through a missed call campaign.

Now look at what Philips did recentlyduring Jamai Shashti, a festival celebrat-ed in West Bengal and dedicated to sons-in-law. Philips decided to push the shaversfrom its personal grooming range as agifting option during this festival. As partof this pilot, two local radio stations wereroped in. RJs spoke to the viewers aboutthe festival and recommended Philipsshavers as one of the gifting options.

Says Singh of Mindtree, I think a mixof strategy is what works. A company maycreate awareness using mass media, butmay leave a hook for targeted messaging.Simple missed call campaigns have farwider reach than apps or websites.

So there you have it: no point in think-ing TV, print, digital. The best way to dealwith the customer who jumps in and outof different mediums is to follow themaround like the Vodafone pug. In sum,use all the mediums seamlessly.

RETHINKING THE MEDIAPLAN

ROHIT NAUTIYAL

In another era, every marketer worthhis salt would work relentlessly tocrack that great creative insight that

could then be amplified across mediastarting with a burst on television. Thenhe would drive his agency to integratethe creative thought across above-the-line and below-the-line media in a force-ful way. That was more or less the stan-dard approach to media planning half adecade ago, before the grand arrival ofdigital and social media into the main-stream. Post the Lehman collapse, as theworld began to turn upside down andadvertising dollars became hard to comeby, corporations and their agenciesbegan looking at the digital media inright earnest.

In the following years, almost everymajor event in the media and advertisingworld had at least one panel discussion ondigital media. As a result, the sig-nificance of digital went up sever-al notches in the media plans ofdifferent product and service cat-egories. Despite the interest, thisarea remains troubled as a largemajority of marketers in the coun-try are still hesitant in allocatingsizeable portion of their mediabudgets to digital. One reason whydigital advertising is still at 10 percent of the overall ad pie in thecountry, which stands at ~31,877crore (according to the PitchMadison Media AdvertisingOutlook 2014, which expects themarket to grow strongly at 16.8 percent in 2014 to reach ~37,000crore). By the end of this year,companies would have spentaround ~14,300 crore in buyingairtime on television, and ~15,405crore in print. Radio will seespends in the region of ~1,097crore by some estimates.

This is in sharp contrast to what ishappening globally. In 2013, for the firsttime ever, interactive advertising rev-enues in the US touched $42.8 billion,exceeding broadcast television advertis-ing revenues of $40.1 billion (according tothe IAB Internet Advertising RevenueReport, prepared by PwC US).

Despite all the talk, the digital orinteractive medium remains thor-oughly under-utilised. Barring few trulyremarkable digital spots, as an advertis-ing medium, the internet and the mobilehave been in some sort of a time warp,with television and print taking prece-dence, both at the agency and theclients end. Much of the time, digitalhas simply been used as a remindermedium a fate FM radio was relegat-ed to in its early days.

Anshuman Singh, head, digital busi-ness & consulting group, MindtreeEurope, says the problem is that digital isoften mixed up with below-the-line com-munication. He says, It is like mixing

the means with the end. The question toask is if the media used is targeted or not.A lot of digital media is still treated likeabove-the-line. For example, just becauseI am visiting Business-standard.comfrom the UK, doesnt mean that I aminterested in enrolling for Barnet College(Barnet and Southgate College is a fur-ther education college in North London).This ad is no different from what mightappear in the education section of yournewspaper. That is because the space is bought in bulk. Even today, most socialmedia campaigns rely on extrapolationof reach. You can leverage custom URLs in TV and print campaigns to cal-culate the same.

To an extent the problem with digitalis not just about focus; it is also a factor ofreach. Of the total population of 1.27 bil-lion in India, only 243 million people areinternet users. (Source: Internet andMobile Association of India)

Beyond ATL and BTLA lot has changed in the last 10 yearsthough. Earlier, as part of a pan-India plan,a media planner would cover 20-30 mar-kets in a year. Usually television was thelead medium and print followed with longcopy ads; radio and outdoor were slappedwith similar creatives without much inno-vation. Today, plans are more fluid andmay change several times in a given yearand are designed according to the profileof the consumer targeted.

Take Germany-based Lufthansa,which has been running operations inIndia for 55 years now. It is an example ofa brand which has relied on short-dura-tion media plans to deliver results. Overthe years, the brand has learnt a key les-son in media planning: a solid media planvaries from one set of its target group tothe other. For instance, a first class cus-tomer can be targeted more effectivelywith direct mailers and below-the-lineinitiatives. In fact, the engagement levelof its direct mailers is 28 per cent. Says

Sangeeta Sharma, manager, marketingand communications, Lufthansa, Whenlines between ATL and BTL blur, the con-cept of 360 degree falls flat. So today ouragency partner does not make a presen-tation saying that we will start a cam-paign with television. She adds that thetiming was perfect for Lufthansas firstmajor TV campaign launched recently,More Indian than You Think. While mar-ket research pointed out that the Germanairline is already known among the fre-quent flyers for its punctuality andstraightforwardness, it failed to portrayits emotional side. By addressing this inthe latest campaign, the brand has beenable to reach the flyer-population joiningthe ranks from tier-II cities.

Televisions dominance in an averagemedia plan is undisputed in this country.Consider e-commerce companies asexamples. When they started appearingon media channels like television and

print, many eyebrows wereraised. Why advertise on a pas-sive medium? Arent theymass and therefore imperson-al, the anti-thesis of the inter-net as a medium? Yet, after thesuccess of Flipkarts adult-likechildren campaign in 2011,almost every e-commercecompany with a sizeablemedia budget has hitched itsfortune to television.

Says Raghu Bhat, co-founder of ScarecrowCommunications, whichhandles creative duties foronline classifieds companyQuikr, If one players TV com-mercial hits the bulls eye, oth-er players in the category jumpat the first opportunity ofachieving something similar.

Bhat has a point, especiallyin the context of e-commerce

companies. Instead of focusing on prof-itability, which is still a couple of yearsaway for these companies, owners ofthese businesses are keen on drivingmaximum user traffic.

Since internet penetration is still lowin India, the challenge for shopping por-tals is to be the first destination for some-one who has never shopped online. Thatexplains why this online battle is beingfought on television, and to some extentprint. The likes of Flipkart, Snapdeal andJabong are learning fast by observingleading players in FMCG, retail and tele-com. They are launching quick follow-ups and myriad edits of a campaign inthe same year.

Short-term sales pressure is visible ina lot of these commercials that harp onlimited-period sales and deep discounts.This also marks a major shift in TV adver-tising as players from across categoriesare moving from brand building on TV tomore tactical pieces of communication.Says Amit Tiwari, director & countryhead, media, Philips India, Television

In todays medialandscape, the lines between ATLand BTL haveblurred

SANGEETA SHARMA

MANAGER, MARKETING &COMMUNICATION,LUFTHANSA

Instead of thinking in silos, marketers should try to create immersive storyscapes

ILLUSTRATION: AJAY MOHANTY

The life cycle of a TVcampaign isshortening. Multiplecreatives wont domuch to build a brand

JAYANT SINGH

EXECUTIVE VICE-PRESIDENT,GLAXOSMITHKLINECONSUMER HEALTHCARE