Staid versus boring.

Glamour versus intelligence.

Staying with the times versus staying ahead of the times.

The battle lines are drawn and the salvos have been fired. The Times Of India versus The Hindu battle has begun.

Corporate history has seen many a battle of the brands. Remember the Mac versus PC series? (Adweek has listed them all out here) Or the Coke versus Pepsi series (Brand New has kindly documented them here) There was the Avis versus Hertz battle too, legendary stuff in the US advertising history.

Unlike in traditional battles, where there are clear winners and losers, in corporate brand wars, results are measured by market shares and audience perceptions. Tricky stuff these, to measure and read. And when the product is a habit-sensitive one, like a newspaper, getting a piece of the pie from your rival is more difficult.

What then, can rival brands hope to gain from a confrontational campaign? It’s a piece of the conversation, mind share more than market share. At least in the short term.

Most people love watching a fight. And if it’s got the biggest names involved, the excitement only increases. The Times Of India versus The Hindu campaign may have begun in Chennai, but it has resonated across the country. The Hindu’s campaign has made many people sit up and take notice of the brand, shaking off its conventional and boring image. The Times Of India seems to have lost round one to the rival, but it’s managed to get people talking about it too.

The real loss is perhaps for the other newspaper brands that have got left out of the conversation. What are they doing to get noticed?

In 2006, BMW ran an ad passing a jibe at Audi. Audi answered. Subaru jumped into the fray too, increasing the competition and fun. If only the other Indian newspapers would add their two bits to this bout.

What would a bunch of corporate executives be doing at a happy gathering of writers, novelists, and readers? Brushing up their story-telling skills. According to a recent Economic Times report, Wipro sent some its executives to learn the art of story telling at the Jaipur Lit Fest. The company even plans to use the story format for its client pitches instead of PPTs.

Wipro has perhaps recognised the power a story holds over most people. Young or old, at work or at home, with friends or with strangers, we all like listening to stories. It breaks the ice, makes interaction easier, and lets us visualise what is being described – a great way to stay involved in the communication.

Using a story as part of corporate communication or marketing communication is not entirely new. Think case studies. Without the impressive statistics and quantified results, they are essentially stories.

Think ads. They are short narratives about a product solving a problem, of a person finding what he was looking for, of how lives changed after using a product or service. They have colour, action, emotion, and even elements of mystery, fantasy, and glamour. Compare them with corporate PPTs, filled with dry, verbose vision and mission statements!

Posters, ads, brochures, have all been used as story-tellers. It’s now the corporate presentation’s turn to share a story and engage viewers, making business meetings more lively. On a hot afternoon, in the middle of a hectic day, it’s easier to warm up to stories than to seven-digit numbers and corporate data. (Also read our earlier post – What’s in a story)

From slide decks to story boards – should be a welcome transition.

Many years ago, a thin, bespectacled old man wrapped in a piece of Khadi, led the campaign to free India from British rule. A few months ago, it was the turn of another bespectacled old man, walking in the former’s footsteps, to lead India against corruption.

We look at brand Anna Hazare and what it can teach us.

Anna’s popularity soared as he became the symbol for a cause the entire country identified with.

Lesson: let your brand stand for a simple value/ ideal/ notion, which makes it easier for people to relate to it.

During the peak of his campaign, his team used various media channels to connect with the public. It gave the campaign and the brand ample mind-space.

Lesson: use the right media channel for better brand recall.

Things became a shade less rosy, when members of the Anna team began to express different views on the same topics.

Lesson: ensure your brand speaks the same language consistently; confusing or contradictory statements hurt credibility.

Multiple statements on multiple issues – from a minister being slapped to campaigns during elections – kept team Anna in focus, but began to subtract from the overall impact the brand had earlier created.

Lesson: communicate with stakeholders but don’t create a communication clutter.

The recent second fast didn’t create as much of a stir as the first one did. The crowd response was weaker too.

Lesson: don’t take your audience for granted. The same strategy may not work twice.

According to media reports about the event (fast in Mumbai), it was a case of Anna retiring hurt, thanks to the lukewarm response. But brand Hazare is still potent enough to grab the headlines. Let’s wait and watch to see if it takes a stronger hue – after all, the Lokpal Bill is yet to be passed.

Gone are the days when posters across the town and advertisements in the Friday newsheets were sufficient to market a movie. Today’s Bollywood marketing managers are finding new ways of making sure their to-be-released movie is a household name much before it hits the theatres.

From launches and promos to merchandise and interviews and even well-timed controversies, the publicity managers have never been this active before.

Take the case of The Dirty Picture, which has just hit the theatres. If it turns out to be a hit, its marketing machinery deserves as much credit as its ‘bold’ story. Consider the innovative strokes it used:

• Its marketing wasn’t restricted to the big cities and metros. It focused on India’s smaller cities with a much-hyped act: Vidya Balan, the heroine, wore a saree picked from the local market, on her visit to the city. A local tailor got to stitch a blouse for it. Talk about creating a buzz locally.
• The movie poster was used as the cover of a Hindi magazine known for its steamy content.
• Vidya Balan made an appearance on a Hindi soap – Bade Achhe Lagte Hai, and also on a Kaun Banega Crorepati episode, which are high TRP earners. So more viewers got to hear the movie’s hit song – oo la la.

All these helped it connect with a Hindi-speaking audience across India’s smaller cities.

Other movies aren’t far behind. Imran Khan, the lead actor of Ek Main Aur Ek Tu, uploaded video-blogs (on YouTube) showcasing behind-the-screen moments from the movies making. The movie is slated to release in early 2012. Don 2 is going to get a comic book based on the movie to add to the hype.

Clearly, Bollywood is looking as much at marketing strategy as it is at a good script, today!

What Kolaveri di taught me about language and communication.

I remember saying “come in ya” during my school-days. My teacher would cringe and admonish me to drop the ‘ya’ as it had no place in English. Wonder what she’d say about ‘distance-la moonu moonu’.

On a more serious note, Kolaveri di’s success makes me re-think all those rules we learn about language and communication. Whoever said great vocabulary and precise grammar were an absolute-must for successful communication, hadn’t sampled something like this.

Here are a few takeaways from one of the most popular songs of the season.

Theme matters.

Find a universally-appealing theme and people will understand. Language no bar. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what Kolaveri di is about because it’s a ‘soup song’. For many of us, it’s ‘been there-seen that’ stuff.

Mixed-lingo is in.

Who cares if its Tanglish, Hinglish, or Kanglish? As long as you get the message, it’s fine. Really, moonu colour white is as good as ‘the moon is white’.

Create a picture.

Yes, this is a clincher. ‘Hand-la glass, glass-la scotch-u, eyes-u full-aa tear-u’… can’t you see the broken-hearted Devdaas nursing his scotch? Build a picture for your audience, and mission achieved!

A broken-English/ Tamil song can become a pan-India/global super-hit. Makes me wonder, why we insist on learning pure grammar and flawless language when in every-day contexts, what matters is how good your communication is, not how great your English is. So, why this insistence, insistence, insistence, di?

If you’ve been watching this space, you may remember an earlier post about Indigo Airline’s cut-through-the-clutter in-flight magazine. Now, they’re getting another mention – for their cut-through-the-clutter, distinct ad.

Styled like a Broadway musical, this ad is certainly an attention grabber. It touches on the Indigo brand mantras – on-time performance and a hassle-free flying experience – but delivers it differently.

Thumbs up for:

• It’s different. It’s not the staid-but-feel-good stuff that other airline ads are made of. It has glamour, peppy music, and lots of action.
• It retains the Indigo brand identity clearly. Getting the uniformed stewards and air-hostesses on the show is a great way of making sure you remember the blue uniform.
• It’s very international. And rightly so. It was released to celebrate the launch of Indigo’s international operations.

P.S: if the song leaves you hazy about the lyrics…try this and sing along.

We’re here to be the model of a modern global airline
An ambitious mission we remind ourselves of all the time
Flying more than ever with a flock of new planes in our fleet
You’ll be greeted once you’re seated by many captains just like me

Called the ground force for a reason, we’re machine-like in the way we work
Queueless check in, engineering, traffic handling, baggage clerks
Passengers with preferences, their fragile items itemised
(They’re an operations army that keeps every aspect synchronised)

On your journey there up in the air, we’ll handle every hassle
Great with kids and seniors too, tourists, and multinationals
Our service is so popular, we’re flying international
Our service is so popular, we’re flying international

We’ll remind ourselves now one more time with each and every single flight
We’re here to be the model of a modern global airline
and every time we fly we will ensure that you will land on time

So the Lawnmower Man was after all right. The different application of augmented reality is making us believe that’s where we are headed in the future.

Wikipedia defines it as;

“Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality. By contrast, virtual reality replaces the real world with a simulated one.”

In short it’s the overlaying of digital data on the real world.

From virtual business cards to reading restaurant reviews to finding real directions in a street (Layar, is simply outstanding), AR is changing the way we live.

While different forms of AR have been around for years, it’s the arrival of powerful smartphones with built-in video capabilities that are making it easy for interesting usage of AR. The iPhone, and phones using Google’s Android operating system, both of which are capable of overlaying information on top of a picture or video have a whole lot of apps using AR.

Here’s another great application of AR by National Geographic, which we came across recently.

The family crowded in the living room; we were making plans for a holiday. No surprises what the big question was: where do we go?

Someone wanted to go to a hill station, someone wanted to go to Kenya, someone said Kerala… someone said, “Hey, let’s go that happy country – Bhutan!”

That did it. We were curious: why is it a happy country? Travel plans were pushed aside and we began talking about Bhutan. Soon, we were busy googling details for a holiday in the Himalayan kingdom. So, from Africa and South India, our arrows zoomed in on to this country, thanks to its USP: happiness.

Bhutan talks Gross National Happiness, instead of Gross National Product. Across the world, countries are scrambling to market themselves as holiday destinations. Their differentiators: a complete family destination, rich in history, culturally alive, blessed by nature… in this cacophony of oft-heard themes and ideas, ‘happiness’ is so fresh and different.

Marketers too need to look at their products and services to find this ‘fresh-feel’ USP. Consumer-centricity, quality, prompt service, aren’t differentiators anymore. Every business stakes claim to them. So, if you need to make your audience remember your brand, you need to find what makes it really different. Marketing the USP, then, will be a lot easier.

In our last post, we spoke of why people empowerment and CSR (corporate social responsibility) activities make for excellent stories. Now, we describe a few ways in which you can use them for some eye-catching marketing and brand communication campaigns.

As themes for brochures and posters. Build a people-centric theme for your communication collateral. Make people prominent, not products. Put people pictures to build an emotional connect with your audience.

As annual report themes. Use annual reports well and they become a great way of communicating with stakeholders. Create a distinct image for yourself with a theme that talks people and values rather than just numbers. Intersperse the data sheets with testimonials and real-life case studies. It enhances your brand image.

As catchy packaging material. Let your packaging material and paper bags talk to your customers. Add your CSR facts on them. Splash quotes from your craftspeople; get them to talk about how they make products that help ancient skills survive. Generate extra brand recall and extra goodwill too.

As store décor and wall illustrations. Create a sense of warmth and friendliness at your work place with stories of hope and positivity. Illustrate the stories on the wall, put them up as posters, add them on tent cards that carry product details. Transform the space from an impersonal, business-like zone into a friendly, welcoming space.

CSR stories can turn into feel-good virals and scripts for corporate movies. Use them as conversation pieces to add a personal touch to corporate gifts and stationary. Print them on business cards to create an impact.

Weave them into different aspects of your communication and watch run-of-the-mill communication material turn into eloquent spokespersons for your brand.