Neha Likes - Everything Digital

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Experienced both sides of the coin – Agency & Client, and therefore this blog is for all the Account Managers, Account Directors, Creative Team, Head of Agencies, Marketing Teams and last but not the least Chief Marketing Officer. Some of the key findings are from Adtech 2013, New Delhi!

Questions (Agency) – Why does the client always reject my idea? Why they never like our creative? Why do they prefer offline agency over digital agency? Why so many changes in the creative?

Questions (Client) – Why don’t they understand? Why can’t they get a viral idea? Why they always bring ideas which are expensive? Why can’t they think 360 degrees?

A small background dipstick to understand the agency – An agency hires an account executive or Manager who caters to an average of 3-4 clients. They work from 10 am to 7:30 pm at-least and sometimes on Saturdays. They do brainstorm but that is limited to that account and the brief received.

Now let us understand the Brands – All the Marketing Heads are offline guys who very well execute ATL and BTL activities, they understand the potential of Digital and thus hire either a Digital Marketing Manager or a team for building Digital Strategies. But offline is priority to them.

One thing and the most important thing which I believe the difference is, that the agency people are 24/7 engaged in doing routine tasks. The priority for Agency Head is BD (Business Development) and not learning & evolving the employees. There is no brainstorming and absolutely no reference to case studies of what is happening beyond the existing clients and outside India. They are extremely irritated of the daily routine & BD and therefore there is no freshness in ideas that they bring to the clients.

One point which I would like to make to the agency people is “Invest in yourself”. One day in at-least two weeks you all should see the case studies and discuss within the team of what can be pitched to the client. Also, agency heads should take their employees for such seminars or bring new ideas to them so that the same ‘Tab’/ ‘Contest’ is not pitched to all the brands.

On the other hand, even the brands are also at fault. If considered that the agency works only on the brief and does not give external references or broad ideas then it is the brand also to be blamed. How?? Let me explain – I recently visited Ad-tech New Delhi 2013 where there was a wonderful session called “Marketing Master”. It was back to back case studies based on what they have done on Digital platform. Learning was many but a point which has stayed in my mind was from Manisha Lath of Axis Bank. She said for the recent brief for Viral Videos of ProgressTogether.in, we called our creative and Digital teams together. This insisted that whatever idea that comes out is executable on both offline & online. It also meant that the entire brief was equally shared between the agencies and they together brainstormed over the idea.

Most of the brands follow the other route – They brief the creative, they wait for the idea and after the idea is perceived, they call the digital guys and tell them the brief. There is no going back for the client even if it is not possible to execute it on Digital medium. And then who is blamed – Digital guy obviously!

Marketing teams should also analyse that there is a huge potential in Digital Marketing. And fresh ideas gonna be expensive. If Domino’s Pizza does 10% of delivery sales through mobile app(data from adtech presentation), then it was possible only because they acted timely on building the app and off-course the invested in the app. However, sometimes agency should also consider the budgets of the companies and accordingly mould the current ideas. Rather than scrapping the idea which client cannot afford, present with a twist which he can afford.

Again sharing an example from Adtech, Citi Bank did a campaign Dil V/s Bill. It was sky-vertising integrated with a Twitter Campaign. Check Google for details of the campaign but it was one the most thoughtful campaign for the TG. And unlike brands which prefer FB over Twitter, this was a different ball game all together.

Ending it with a piece of advice – “Blaming each other will continue and will not benefit either. It is the time for co-creation of content. Integrated campaigns performs best only if all the agencies along with the Brand’s Marketing Team sit together, ideate, debate and conclude together”.

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Facebook was initially developed for connecting people on a social platform. Long time ago the CEO had said that they will not make it too commercial for businesses and appear like other portals. But that seems like a history now. I feel Facebook has started monetizing its every branch. Not that I am anti-Fb (I very much like the way it has evolved over the years and built its own nation), but purely from a digital specialist of a brand point of view I have written my observations. Let us look how:

Earlier fan count meant that your brand is followed by those many people. So brands thought it was sensible to spend on Stamp ads to raise fan count. //Stamp ads was Monetization #1
Now since almost every Tom-Dick-Harry brand has a Facebook page and some good number of followers, Facebook revealed out that your post reaches out to only 16% of your total fans. What should the brands do now? Facebook then came out with three solutions:

Target your posts – Organic method to reach out to fans by targeting them either by age or location or hobbies.
Continue Stamp ads – More the fans, more the reach #Monetization #2
Promote – Have you noticed this word on all the posts these days. It guarantees that your post will reach more people either amongst fans or friends of fans. Monetization #3

Suggested Page – One more feature which has been doing rounds is ‘Suggested Page’. Suddenly a Brand’s page is thrown to me as a suggestion to like it. There has been targeting done by Facebook and I am the Brand’s TG. Brand is paying them to capture the TG. Monetization #4
Sponsored Story – My friend has liked the page and that is the reason I am given a suggestion thrown by Facebook to like the page. Monetization #5
App creation will be monetized too. Reason 1 – App developers have taken too many advantages while building brand specific apps which Facebook wants to control now. Reason 2 – Apps will have to be promoted like posts or page to achieve higher reach. Monetization #6. Reason 3 – Other brands will be free to advertise on Apps on impression basis. And it would be like advertising on Farmville or Criminal Case. Monetization #7.
Page Take Over Ads – Whenever I log-out of Facebook, I come across this huge banner ad. It is by a brand and the ad can either land on FB page or outside FB. But it gives lot of impressions/Likes to the brand #Monetization #8

While all these mechanics are pressurizing brands to do more and more FB advertising – to connect with more & ore people – to be social friendly brand – to engage the audience, in a way it is also beneficial for people. They get to participate in different contests, apps and win loads of goodies and have fun! Happy Facebook-ing.

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As the name suggests, it is a sale time. Not just the regular sale but most of the brands are offering heaving discounts like Flat 40% off, buy two get one free, Buy a product and get a shopping voucher for the next time. Wonder why are the brands pushing their products at throw away prices? And I am not just talking about the regular ones like Arrow, Louis Philippe or Levi’s but also the luxury ones like Aldo, Steve Maddens, Tommy Hilfiger, Zara. These brands are considered a luxury and not everybody looks at them not for buying but eyeing. But this season I saw Aldo & Steve Madden selling footwear at Rs. 1400* and Zara winter jackets for Rs. 3500*.

Is it pushing the products to Masses? I don’t see that as a strong point. Not everybody is their target audience. Their TG is niche and selected. Let us explore possible connections:

Market is very dull – Across all the segments be it Consumer Electronics, FMCG, Lifestyle products, there seems to be a slowdown which is impacting every possible brand.
Adopting the trend from other countries – The stuff which does not sell up- to 5 or more months is considered for selling at lower price along with other fresh stock. This experience is given by stores like Ross and Macy’s in U.S. So even premium brands like CK, Ralph Lauren, and Banana Republic have fresh stock and old stock (which is available at dirt cheap prices). Similarly it is being adopted in India
Creating a customer experience – Giving a middle class family an experience of luxury brand with a price their pockets can afford. Loyalty points associated with these shopping brings back the customer to shop again and redeem. And sometime or the other if you get an experience, you stick to it for longer time until the pocket absolutely cannot afford.
“Sale-u” people – Still lot of people in India have that sale mentality. So if they are in the mall for dinner they will definitely peek-a-boo in the showroom which says “FLAT Discount”. And they contribute a lot by their impulsive shopping.

I am one of those analyzers of the brands and their discount period and trust me it is a big saving to do with a good brand in the hand. Happy Shopping & saving J

*On selected but good products. This article is only for current Sale period of Dec-Jan-Feb 2013

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Virgin Ocean at Maldives

The combination of white sand beach, mesmerizing sunset and sunrise, silent lagoons, vast corals and romantic over-water bungalows can be found at the heavenly place on earth known as ‘Maldives’.

I wish to travel maximum during my life and till now I am done with few places however Maldives is one country, I can vouch. As soon as I landed, I felt the place was pampering with it bouquet of services.

The country is divided into two parts: On road and Islands. While the on-road part is the capital Male (total of 4 km, I guess) and the rest is all islands. And over those islands, the beautiful resorts and hotels have come up. I found Maldives extremely expensive which I believe is the reason that it is maintained in hygiene and facilities.

White Sand Beach

The resort ferry's you from airport to the island. Hospitality of the staff is great.These resorts usually have 2-3 islands and to add a feather in their cap, one resort would only be a stay area for guests, one would be dining & lounge and another would be for sports activity. The fact that for every meal I had an option to go to another island really fancied me. The ocean was as clear as it could get with visibility of jelly fish or star fish upto 100%.

Sting Ray (fish) inside the clear ocean

Even the stay had two options – Room on the white sand and room over water. Imagining that I could use a staircase and get into the ocean from my room had hijacked my mind and therefore I decided to go for over-water bungalow. The bungalow was beautiful and well maintained with basic hygiene and even modern facilities. The best part was the balcony; you could sit there for hours and stare at the vast ocean right below you with the view of flora and fauna. And since those rooms were built on lagoons, the water was shallow and allowed even the non-swimmers to enter.

View from the room

The food is just awesome. Since Maldives has no industry of its own except fishery and tourism, they import everything from water to fruits to food items. And that was the reason that exotic, non seasonal fruits were easily available on the breakfast menu. You name the dish and you had it on your table and getting vegetarian meal is not a problem at all. It is just that even the basic margarita pizza was 47 dollars, which means even gulping down the food would burn a hole in the pocket. And of-course, sea food is the specialty.

Next turn was water-sports. Maldives has been the best location for scuba dive because it rich, vast and untouched corals on the sea bed. And I was all game for it. One hour of training, small test and we were ready for going 11mtrs below the seal level. And to our luck, we found a big sea turtle just passing by us. We had taken an underwater camera from Kodak and it leaked, though we managed taking few pictures. We also saw loads of species of fishes, there houses in the corals – It was a completely different world underwater. And remembering it after two years still brings the same line which I said at that time “There exists a different life here altogether which one cannot feel unless seen”

Para-sailing

Submarine taking us to the seabed

Maldives has vast offerings under water sports – Water scooter, parasailing, snorkelling, dolphin sightseeing, surfing, Banana riding and Glass Bottom Boats. Well each of the sports were pinching as it could get because one has to shell at-least 250 dollars for scuba dive alone and 70 dollars at-least for other activities each. Sad but it is the best one could get!

Islands in Maldives

Sun setting in the sea

I stayed for four days in Anantara Resorts and it was an awesome experience. There are many other resorts which my friends have stayed in such as Taj, W retreat and Hyatt.

Fifth day was in the city for souvenir shopping. Male is very cheap compared to the resorts. Two roads and you will have all the shops on it and even the city is all on it. One can cover the city in 3 hours which includes dining also, haha. You can shop for red coral beads and showpieces of the fauna. In-fact coconut wind-chimes are also popular.

So that wraps up my experience in Maldives. I had guts to do the adventure sports and I wish that readers of this blog will try their hands with Scuba.

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