Why marketing is not a one-night stand

Yes, it is easy if you are Brad Pitt. You stand in a place where there are gorgeous women. They approach you. One adword click later, you are done.

But in most scenarios, it is much more complicated than that.

For most of them, we need to play the game… the game of Interest, Consideration, managing Aggregation, Nurturing and ending in marriage, if you are lucky. It is a game one needs to play very cautiously, taking from one step to the other progressively.

Marketing has evolved from ‘Shout marketing’ to ‘Tango Marketing’. We need to play the tango with the customer. It is turning out to be a fine art of dance and whisper and not a monologue.

Amazingly, the steps that are taken to woo a girl or a customer are quite similar.

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Actions	How to get the girl	How to sell your product	Comments
Attract her	Stand out from the sea of sameness. An unusual and impactful intro.	In bound marketing, stand out creative	Getting the attention is a tough job, since there are a lot of good looking men and features parity.
Impress her	Physical characteristics Lifestyle Values Personality	Product characteristics Company values Brand personality	Values is the differentiator. Having a gleaming Thunderbird or nifty packaging is one thing. The core should be deep enough. Values stand out in this regard.
Leverage the contemplation time or period of passive interest	Engage her during this period of no commitment. Keep in touch. Form a whatsapp group, talk about random things that are of common interest, movies, Ubuntu philosophy… anything.	The customers are mostly not interested to buy now. Keeping them warmed up or engaged is a tough thing to do, but it has to be done. for eg. Newsletters about things that matter to them. If you are selling t shirts, you can talk about the cool trends that are shaping the fashion scene	Aggregation is the most critical response you can throw at the customer uncertainty.
Show her the opportunity – what she gains with you, or what she loses without you	Freedom to be oneself is an opportunity for some. Getting settled in the US for others. Understand her deep needs. And pitch for it.	Get insights into the customers’ latent needs. Show her how your product transforms her.	The same as functional or emotional benefits. Say or even better display it convincingly.
Concerns are  natural – address those	Concerns are inevitable.. “Will he salute me even after I expire my pilot’s license?”, “Will my parents approve this joker?”	Is there a cash on delivery option? Easy exchange option?	Everyone’s sub conscious mind is working overtime on the hidden dangers that one might face. Need to tackle this one.
Show clear call to action	Clearly state the intent. Ask her out for coffee	Download the case study	You have to do this however tough or make or break this action may be. Rejection may happen, but this is the easy way to gauge the direction in which the game is progressing.
Critical is the context and timing	When she has had a fight with her best friend or after a romantic movie	T shirt banner display alongside an article of ‘the role of clothes in your sex appeal’	Strike when the iron is hot. Contextual marketing gets a fillip with the latest advancements in technology.
How do I get close to her	Make opportunities for something that you can do together – a dirt bike ride or star gazing, for eg.	Brand engagement. If you are t shirt you can conduct a ‘start up ideas’ day.	Get personal, Get endearing.
Credibility	Her friends should tell her what a great person you are. A word from someone she trusts goes a long way.	Customer Testimonials	What you say doesn’t matter. If a picture says 1000 words, a testimonial says 10,000.
Eliminating the competition	Be available for Piku, why take a risk?	Cover the touch points diligently.	Don’t give her an opportunity to think about alternatives.
Inviting her for a visit home	Ringing the bell	Website visit, landing page	This is the first sign of serious interest in us. The hard work starts now. Please be aware that she might visit another one or two houses  or websites as well
Eliciting the genuine interest	The first kiss	Form-fill	This is a genuine lead now. She is solidly behind you, please be careful not to spoil it. Some are easy to convert from this stage, but many still need hand holding to reach the stage of purchase or marriage as the case may be.
Hand-holding phase	High time to find out her likes and dislikes and adapt your behavior accordingly. Little gifts work. Big gifts work even better.	Drip communication helps you decide the behavior pattern and then customize your next move accordingly. Small gifts like free usage for a fixed time period, sampling are the stuff that you can use	This is the Lead nurturing phase. This naturally must lead to the end point which is the marriage or purchase. People might move out of the funnel even now.

Wishing you many years of togetherness :)

The personalization trap

Like everything in life, personalization has 2 sides. There is a good side and there is an ugly side. Now again, the good and ugly are subjective. A KFC chicken is food for some, but undiluted cruelty for the chicken's friends. 

The compartmentalization of our lives has begun some time back. Tape Recorders made music and radio for collective enjoyment. Walkman made it individualistic. The talk time with family reduced like the tapering wail of a new born.

Newspapers were read with people kneeling down around the paper. Curated news on mobiles made it strictly for your eyes only.

Microwave Oven made sure members of the family ate at the time convenient for them. TV actually was a savior of family bonding, now large screen mobiles and ubiquitous hands free separated sports from soaps. The you in youtube is singular, make no mistake about it.

Myntra has shut down its website and made it only available on mobile making it personal. 

4 family members sitting in the same room turning to different directions and looking at the 5 inch devices that they have for hours together is very common. Mr. Narcissus must have felt miserable that he was not born now? Or is it the progress of unstoppable evolution?

Yes, in communication, only 2 things matter.

Yes, in communication, only 2 things matter.. We have all been dealing with 7Ss and 4Ps etc. but the notion of a higher numerical value before an esoteric terms and making it look ‘consultingish’ complicated if not passé. Yes, only 2 things matter in communication – you have to present to the customer set something valuable. Some bit of knowledge that can he/she can use in his job the next day onwards. This is true especially when it comes to content management in a concept selling context. Give it so that he can shine. He will think about your company later. Values based communication is in. It will never go out. Why? Fundamentally we all like people with good values. The ones who stand for something. So communicate your organizational values in a heart rending manner. Doesn’t matter your product is not cutting edge. It will cut through. Get idea?

What is it really? ?

It is not with revulsion that I read and watched all the hype about the rape and death of the victim. It is with all engrossing pity ... towards the society myself included.What we have seen is not just rape, though rape is the most visible aspect of the entire process of value degradation. We should condemn not the act but the value or valuelessness behind it. Rape is a transactional manifestation of the psychological rut we fell into. Rape, child abuse, disrespect to the elderly, humiliating the downtrodden etc are just symptoms. One can create laws to protect each of these segments but it is tantamount to dishing out remedy to the symptom rather than the cause of the disease. It is not blasphemic to state that the act is not reprehensible but the thought is. How many of us can claim that we are not corrupt thoughtwise. Men and women both confide in their hangout friends about their fascination with species of the other gender. So is the thought right and the act wrong? Act is a result of the context and other influences. So is the context the villain and the person innocent? Gandhiji lambasted himself while sitting in a whorehouse for the thought of approaching a whore though he unashamedly refused sex and cursed himself for long.</p>
<p dir=ltr>The only concern upto this point is not about avoiding the context or circumstances or catalysts to do the wrong thing. Anyway what is wrong.. any act of unkindness is a result of lack of empathy. A serial rapist has comprehended the undiluted fear and revulsion of his minor victim as one of tacit invitation to have sex.
One needs soul,  the primary device for the fundamental appreciation of empathy. The heart to understand another mind that overpowers one's own cravings... the eye to see the feelings... the eye to see beyond self.
It is time to bring on empathy.... there is a crying need to re discover humanity, time to see the soul of things..

Marketing that deserves a hug

As a follower of marketing one has this compulsive desire to watch ads.. I was watching it one day and felt very happy.. ask why? So many ads talk about happiness, be happy, open happiness, happy with Honda, believe in a happier tomorrow to name a few. Oh God, even the once uninspiring Godrej is talking about being happy. What has the world come to?

Everyone knows it. People want to see others happy, now brands too try to spread the elusive happiness to its customers.. just like spirituality – the joy of living, the transcendental happiness.

Now let us do a bit of comparison.

Whether it is the evolution of human race or tracing the habits of a single simple human being as he grows from a child to middle age, it depicts these stages. Mind, heart and soul.

Us – stage 1:
Initially he wants this and that. ‘I have 5 chocolates and you have only 3’ is dictated by the sensorial body influenced by ‘monkey’ mind.

Us – stage 2:
Emotional heart causes your love, break up and zindagi and it feels elated and broken, both avoidable.

Us – stage 3:
The third state of a man or woman is the awareness of ‘collective consciousness’ or the ‘one soul’ existence.

Now, marketing has reached this stage and am I happy about it?

Marketing stage 1:
Yes, marketing used to be product centric, transactional and appealed to the mind some 10 years ago. It was marked by rational product characteristics and hard features sell. for eg., only whirlpool has RO system for better quality – no one believes it anyway.

Marketing stage 2:
Then it was the era of emotional selling to the heart – emotional, aspirational benefits that sparks desire… ha ha ha .. the Red Tape ‘Live your Fantasy’ campaign wherein the guy can pick up any girl from the vending machine is an example. (the foolish looking guy with crooked legs can win anorexic girls is at least not unimaginable).

Marketing stage 3:
Then dawns the era of marketing that caters to the spirit or the collective human kind. It is not about product or benefits, but the vision of the organization and what does the organization stand for – tell you want to make a difference to the world. Who can forget the Nissan’s Polar bear ad that warns people of global warming?
I would hug the bear…. And of course anyone who supports the cause of social marketing.

Mom’s Financial muscle

On the occasion of the birthday, I was transported back to memories.. of my childhood.
My mom has this tremendous capacity to squeeze paste out of the empty toothpaste tube day after day after day. As a boy, to prove my strength, I always took the first attempt. But failed. I am confident the tube cannot get flatter, there is no paste left. But she effortlessly squeezes paste out of the tube. And the next day, to prove I have learnt how to squeeze the tube intelligently, I would try it first. But I would fail again. Again she would do that with the least effort. This continued day after day. As more paste came out of the tube, my depression levels too increased.

But now thinking back about this, I realize it was not the Mom’s strength at work. It was the acute shortage of money to buy a new tooth paste tube. Penury has made her realize that the tooth paste has to go longer if her kids have to brush their teeth every day. The strength came from an unknown source.
Now, when I hear jargons like ‘squeezing the best out your investment’ or ‘financial muscle’, I know exactly what it means.

How I learnt life from marketing?

It is actually funny… you ought to learn marketing from life. But you can learn life from marketing too.

Just a humble request... the key point in the journey is 'be unegoistic'.

1) Understand the customer – his pain points and desires, motivations. This, believe me, works in all circumstances in life and marketing. Emotional intelligence underlines the effect of empathy in human interactions and incidentally contributes to making a person successful.
2) Be respectful – You need to respect your customer, you need to respect any human being – be it your boss, your spouse, your colleague or your milk man. They will give you more than you have asked for.
3) Never say they are wrong – It works perhaps only in schools, though the revolution against autocratic teaching methods is brewing. Not to your customers, not even to your kids. Positivise your message
4) Humor – It pays to create a happy humorous atmosphere be it in your ads, or in your personal life or your professional life. Many of the most acclaimed advertisements are humorous. Create fun, excitement in your life too…Be a rockstar.
5) Be simple – It has been said before many times, but I have no shame to repeat it. In communications, be simple. In corporate environment, be simple. In personal life, be simple. No BS.