Shahrukh Khan and Saif Khan in PC Ads!

Yesterday we were having an intersting discussion within our group, about how the technology (B2C) marketing/advertising is changing in India.

So the discussion started with the observation that increasingly the PC companies are hiring celebrities (mostly from Bollywood) to promote their products, and if we see the statitics, both the brands that hired Shahrukh Khan and Saif Khan, are among the top 3 brands of the country!

This stems out from the fact that , firstly PCs have become a commodity and hence one of the ways to do the differentiation is to attach a specific personality to the brand.

Secondly: at the end of the day it's a technical product and a layman would buy your product based on the applications rather than the technology-which he doesn't understand anyways!

Hence a celebrity can illustrate the applications in Bollywood style, and to add to it will attract a lot of eyeballs.

So both : attraction/visibility and involvement or signifying a USP are attained through celebrity endorsement

This indeed takes from where I left in my last blog (see below, "Lack of innovations ...").

and reiterating the fact that a large volume of the PCs sold in India are sold to Home segment. The major drivers of buying a PC in home are:

1. GAMING

2. Multimedia ( listening to songs, designing a greeting card, watching the digital photographs etc.)

3. Entertainment (mediacentre like capabilities)

4. EDUCATION of Children and

5. Internet (chat, email, search, blog)

So, the moot question still is infront of us: What are the PC companies doing to use the above traits/attributes to sell their PCs?

The answer is: They have hired bollywood celebrities, and that's how far they have gone!

I think that's a good start but we need to go far, and faster.

The problem in India is; We do not think big! We are fearful of visualising a BIG market! We are happy the way things are!

What happens if we take each of the above 5 points , and weave a strategy to achieve the goals (quantitaive: how many PCs sold through each of the above 5, as well as qualitative: mindshare, feedback, leads, brand involvement etc.)

Thinking abruptly: Can we have specialised PCs for professionals:

Can we have PCs for Doctors: Even before that can we have a workshop for Doctors; BUT NOT TO SELL PCs, but to explain them how they can really turn super-imapctful with the use of technology

Can we organsie a workshop for Doctors, and explain them how they can use technology to be more efficient:

1. tell them about how a database management system can help them keep a record of patients' history; trends and help them forecast specific ailments in advance.

2. How they can collaborate and be a part of the worldwide health forums

etc.

Similarly can we have workshops for Architects, Designers, CAs, etc.

If we can help them in meeting their needs more efficiently ; these clusters will prefer buying our brands and more than anything else they will bite into the product category sooner than we think.

The market in India is big! Our thoughts are not! The demand of the time is to allign with similar or different product categories, create customised packages and sell innovatively AND INDIRECTLY: through meeting the needs of core TAs.

The Caveat: It may be slightly more expensive to convert the peripheral customers, and the total cost of acquisition will be higher than one is used to. But that's an investment to secure a future market and building a brand. And in long run: one will be able to run a lower than market acquisition costs.

Source of Pitures of Shahrukh and Saif: http://www.funmunch.com

Holiday in Goa

AIR TICKETS FROM 699 onwards; Stay in Goa from 999 onwards... The ads were screaming fiercely on a website; to get my undivided attention.

And attention they did get! I decided that moment that I should spend my Christmas Holidays in Goa. Not necessarily because the fares were damn cheap; but also because it seemed to me that that there are enough flights and hotels available in Goa even in this peak season! And I haven't been to Goa in a while now! Hence I thought to myself: "Saurabh this is a good place to spend your holidays in peace"

Now that's another story; if I tell you that when I went online to book Hotels; there seemed to be a shortage, but anyhow; I managed to get me and my family booked into Taj Holiday Village and also booked my Air tickets- all this in less than half a day. And thanks to the Travel search engines and the airline portals, I was able to get a good deal on all fronts.

I reached Goa after 3 years; the last time I was there I stayed at the International Centre near Cida de Goa, and I spent a large part of my stay in a training program. In fact to think of it I have been to Goa about 3-4 times till now and have always been on some official training stuff!!

So, this time was different; and I was sure to have a good time.

Goa was hot (31 degrees c) as compared to Delhi (about 15-18 degrees c on that day), but the evenings were very pleasant.

Taj Holiday Village is about 1 hour away from Airport, in a place called BARDEZ. Slightly away from the heart of the city (about 30 mins from Panjim), but the resort is awesome.


We had a deluxe sea facing cottage, with private garden, beach beds, and a personal Hammock!

Things that I would advise you to do :

1. If you have a kid, stay in Taj Holiday Village. Why?

Couples with very Young kids (say 1.5 years to 3.5 years) often complain about not being able to have a peaceful dinner or lunch....one of the parents will always be with the kid, trying to stop him from running away, or throwing spoons here and there...

So at this place there are huge open gardens and parks, and the kids can play without any problem, while the couples can have their meal/coffee/tea sitting by the sea in one of the most amazing restaurant with a breathtaking view of the sea and the Sunset/Sunrise.

2. As soon as you come out of the hotel, you can see a auto rental shop, you can hire a bike, scooty or even a self driven car. And that's the thing to do in Goa. So, try and find a shop like this and rent out a vehicle. They would charge you from 350 INR (24 hours) for a bike to about 1000INR (for a self driven car, 24 hours) in peak season, I am sure the rates reduce to 50% in non-peak seasons.

3. Do not take your blackberry with you !

In my case not only did I carry my blackberry , but also my laptop, and you can imagine what happened to my holidays!


But all said and done; the resort with it's scenic beauty, beach sports, photofinish landscape, and amazing dining by the sea and live music...makes up for everything.

I had a ball of time in Goa this year, and have now returned back to work, re-charged!

Lack of Innovations - Indian PC Marketers?

So, We sold about 5m PCs this year, and total base of PCs in India would be about 20-25m.
If you go deeper into the statistics, half of this installed base has come in within the last 4 years.

What does that tell us about the market: that the rest half is ready for replacing or upgrading their PCs! And that the market for new buyers is of course growing by leaps.

So, while there is a need for customised marketing program for existing PC users, there is a huge and critical need for growing our overall market.

What are the marketers doing in India to tap and grow the market?

So, essentially the marketers segmentise the market into various clusters, each segmented by volume, profitability, demographics, compeitition etc. attributes.

One of the most upcoming and dominant clusters is the Home segment. The segment where people buy PCs for their children, and largely the PCs are used for, gaming, a bit of digital photography, playing education CD ROMs, surfing internet for mails, and using office apps a bit.

Now, I feel there's not enough being done in this market. You may appreciate that the Office segment is laregly a bulk buying division where price, performance and global agreements, integration etc. play a major role.

But it's the home segment where one has the flexibility of innovating...and there's a lot more that we can do!

So, in the home segment, one can be very innovative and sell the products at varying degree of premiumness: I think we are not being very innovative in this segment.

We all know (through popular Intel ads) that a PC can improve educational productivity in a child. Can anyone of us illustrate HOW?

On a similar note how many PC companies have told us/educated us (through their print ads, TV ads or roadshows) exactly how can PCs improve the child's knowledge or educational perfromance?

How many PC companies have tied up with schools to educate children on PCs and applications that can help them research better or understand a topic better.

How many PC companies have a specific customised PC for children (between the age group 11-18 years)?

Leave that, how many PC companies have taken up a program to teach the compute teachers in schools?

There is a unique portal for school children developed by Oracle Corporation, which enables school children to collaborate on their home-works and projects and build a knowledge community. (http://www.think.com)

To the best of my knowledge about 900 Kendriya Vidyalayas are already a part of this collaboration website.

Imagine the awe of a student (and in our country even teachers to a large extent), when they find that they can share knowledge, teach someone a new language all with a click of a button.

Imagine the brand equity that can be built (as also the volumes of hard licesnses, or PCs that can be sold -though at a subsidised rate) amongst the influencer group.

There is a Unique program by Times of India for Schools wherein they distributed free copies of newspaper (alongwith a special education supplement) to hundreds/thousands of schools across the country; Can a PC/Printer vendor tie-up and create a platform where it enables the school children to create and print their own School Supplement through the use of a PC and Printer

Imagine the kind of brand involvement one can create, and the potential market share dominance that can be created through these small, yet segmented and targeted innovations

So, this is just one aspect of the entire segmentation exercise, when you delve on other segments, we can create similar innovation opportunities for each one of them and create dominance .

Instead what we are doing now: is copying US/Europe created ads, adapting them to include Indian faces and currency and publishing them in India.

Come-on India needs specific customised marketing programs, we don't have dearth of money, it seems we have a dearth of ideas and enthusiasm.

So, here's hoping that it will change. Amen!

Online Travel: Way to Go

I was recently attending the Eye For TRAVEL SEMINAR-INDIA, which was held in New Delhi.

The content was indeed rich; and if you want to know where the online Travel Inductry is heading...one thing that clearly came out was META SEARCH for Travel is gaining speed

While Meta Search has been in existance since the last 2-3 years, and while it is true that most of them (except maybe become.com) have not really made it big...the experience that they have gained over the last few years and the gradually growing communities around them is indeed a testimony to the fact that this area is going to grwo dominant soon.

According to Wikipedia(http:wikipedia.com)

"Meta (Greek: μετά = "after", "beyond"), is a common English prefix, used to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to analyze the latter. For example "metaphysics" refers to things beyond physics, and "meta language" refers to a type of language or system which describes language."

Now if you notice there is suddenly a flurry of activity around TRAVEL META SEARCH ENGINES or Travel Search Engines (TSEs)

Mobissimo.com; farechase, kayak, zoomtra (an indian site) etc. are good attempts at the same.

Now why do you need a Meta Travel Search engine: especially when you already have sites like: Makemytrip, yatra,travelocity, travelguru, cleartrip, etc.

The reason is simple: Consumers need the best prices and eventually most of the travel sites (like Yatra or Make my trip) may have different packages, different inventories and different prices.

The fact remains that no single site is sufficient as a one stop destination; hence consumers not only surf Online Travel sites but also Travel Search engines (or Travel-Meta-Search sites.)

So, for sure this is one of the things that will be talked about in 2007 in India.

What are the bottlenecks for a Meta Search site:

Before that; Meta searh sites normally do not need to be bound by a specific database or reservation system: That's 1 point in their favour.

However if a Meta search engine cannot cull data from the entire universe of Online travel aggregators, hotels and airlines; then they defy their very purpose. (Now I accept that this is Herculean task, but on a general note being vast makes sense here)

That's one of the most agonising problems that I guess Meta Search engines are facing worldwide. And if Someone in India needs to be succesful the following has to be considered religeously:


1. Tie up with as many OTAs and airlines, hotels etc. as possible

2. The platform should be such that the engine should not be biased (or potentially biased) for or against any specific type of reservation system or OTA site.

3. The interface should be such that it should give a very clean yet smart look. If possible make your interface shine with cutting edge technology, and try to be better than even an OTA site.

4. For God's sake invest in Customer care


I will conclude with an intersting quote in an article in The Wall Street Journal, by Michelle
Peluso, the CEO of Travelocity,: “We continue to evaluate them all [TSEs], but we’re still not convinced that any of them are good for consumers, suppliers,or us. We see these engines as commoditizing travel at a time when we’re working hard with suppliers to go in the opposite direction.”

So, there's gonna be a lot of action in 2007 in this vertical; let's watch and discuss.