Brand or Brandish!!

Well, scrolling over the business statistics, I was stunned to see that out of the 20 fastest-growing fast-moving consumer goods companies, the top five posted a huge growth in value against registered by the bottom five.  AC Nielsen study lists key factors — distribution, volume-price mix, innovation and employing modern trade channels — that differentiate high performers from the rest. The top five were more willing to experiment with new offerings in existing & new categories. They outperformed the bottom five in terms of the share contributed by new launches in preceding years. Advertisements always play a key role in having a clear cut edge with your peers in this segment. The days of no-holds-barred advertising wars between major brands are not at all gone. They are consistently in war, with their advertisement counterattacking another inline product.

For example: Hyundai Vs Maruti Suzuki - This rivalry came to the lime light when Korea's Hyundai Motor went bombastic with its marketing campaign 'Trendsetter V/s Follower' on claims of a much better smaller car EON over the newly launched Alto 800 from Maruti Suzuki. Micromax Vs Samsung - Micromax took a dig at Samsung, with its penultimate ad launch styled as a 'sequel' to Samsung's Galaxy Y teasing their product. And going back in 2009: Nestle Vs Cadbury - Nestle launched a spoof on a Cadbury ad with tag line, "Khao bina tareekh dekhe" directly challenging their counterpart who came up with a tagline "Meetha hai khana aaj pehli tareekh hai". In 2012 it was none other than TOI rivalry with The Hindu - TOI launched 'The Wake Up!' campaign last year, showing readers being put to sleep by a newspaper full of boring news. In a process to hit back hard, Hindu told its readers to 'Stay Ahead of the Times' by reading news that was relevant to current affairs instead of Bollywood and celebrity gossip. Television commercials as well as print ads kept the battle between the two publications going. The number kept growing more with Pepsi-Coke, Colgate-Pepsodent, HUL-P&G and BMW-Audi etc engaging in the war of advertisement with one another to boost their sales and in that process often ending up harming each other’s brand value. This rivalry has shaped into new dimension and now it’s on new platform as well – Social Media!

Welcome to the fast-paced, edgy world of digital media where brands are now making huge money from Social Media like Face book, Twitter, Google+, and YouTube. Especially sporting events like IPL seems to be striking gold on social media with corporate advertisers this season. From PepsiCo who sponsored the title to others like Garnier, Vodafone, Muthoot Group, most of the big companies are relying on social media for surging their sales. They are putting front their incremental budget for this most hyped platform. They had extensively used the social media for promoting their product. While Pepsi has tied up with Twitter to allow viewers to play cricket, Google+ is doing special Hangout sessions which will generate post match conversations. Google has improved the experience of watching live matches on YouTube by integrating Google+ Hangout with it. Vodafone, too, is running its new ZooZoos campaign online. Vodafone which has already over 10 million fans on Facebook, predicts to add many more with this new campaign. “Social media has become the neighbourhood cafe, where people come together to discuss and share ideas and opinions on topical events”, says Sidharth Rao, Chief executive officer and co-founder of Webchutney. 

One of the latest entrants in advertisement platform is Crowd sourcing. A few months ago, the country's largest multiplex chain PVR cinemas launched its ECX (Enhanced Cinema Experience) format in suburban Mumbai.  For many, this new experience is a welcome change from the earlier versions. Even brands are starting to realize the power of the crowd and they have started scorching their brains on how it can be harnessed to their advantage from it. Globally big companies like Pepsi, Heinz, General Motors, Starbucks and Harley Davidson are using crowd sourcing as a part of their marketing mix. Well it is in no man’s doubt that this has long way to go with new innovation coming in. We may can think that advertisements is only one off thing in surging up sales but none can decline from the fact that it has potential to be the major. It is surely the advertisements which make them-a brand or brandish!