Blue Ocean Strategy for Hinduism

                                                                 
As a part of his idea of promoting Hinduism as a successful brand the author attempts to apply blue ocean strategy on Hinduism. For those who do not know what Blue Ocean strategy stands for, it should be made clear that it is a very revolutionary and innovative business strategy plan that attempts to capture the non customer segment of a brand by providing them value innovation. For further idea one can refer to the blog articles written by the author. Here goes the link:- http://themanagmentguru.blogspot.com/search/label/BLUE%20OCEAN%20STRATEGY


Three kinds of non customers for Hinduism1:-

a) 1st tier: - Hindus themselves who have some idea of Hinduism and also need of spirituality. They do follow some rituals but often due to busy schedule and lack of interest their own understanding is very stereotyped and superficial2.

b) 2nd tier: - A large chunk of agnostics, atheists, scientologists, religious humanists and people from other religions with very feeble religious inclinations. These people too have some spiritual inclination but find the current schools of religion as illogical, dogmatic and impractical.

c) 3rd Tier: - This includes religious zealots and fundamentalist from various religious faiths and hardcore atheists.



Value Innovation: - Hinduism the oldest religion of the world is also the most complex one. This complexity arises from the fact that there is not a single set of beliefs that is supposed to be followed rather there are end no. of different schools of thoughts that constitute the religion as a whole. It consists of thousands and thousands of gods, scriptures, chants, mantras, rituals, meditation techniques etc. Understanding Hinduism as a whole is not only tough but quite impractical. Hence in order to market it to its non customer base it is quite essential that rather than selling it as a whole only specific parts be promoted. Specific ideas those are relevant to the modern people. Hence an ERRC3 frame work will be applied:-

Eliminate:-

a) All types of social practices that promote social evils such as cast based discriminations, exploitation of women in the name of religion, sacrifices etc. Also scriptures directly supporting such ideas should be discarded.

Reduce:-

a) Priesthood: - though priesthood is important for religious conservation but too much reliance on priesthood can be detrimental. Many a times it had been seen that inspired by personal benefits they communicate wrong signals to devotees which leads to misconception. Also they are not hesitant of molding the meaning of scriptures for personal gain.

b) Rituals: - Hinduism is a highly ritualistic religion and many times there abundance eclipses the real knowledge and enlightening practices. Too much of rituals give it a paganic shape. Hence it also needs to be curtailed to some extent.

c) Things that raise superstition in the name of religion.

d) Emphasis on Hindu mythologies.

Raise:-

a) Stand alone practices like Yoga, chanting meditations, dynamic meditations etc.

b) Emphasis on higher levels of philosophies embedded in Hinduism.

c) Alliance with other related religious faiths such as Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism4 etc.

d) Emphasis on classical and logical ideas like classical advaita, Karmic theories etc.

e) Promotion of Hindu art crafts and symbols. Use of logos and symbols on apparels, desktops etc5.


Create:-

a) Professionally designed spiritual cum religious tour packages that will not only include touring religious places but also lot of yoga sessions, spiritual discourses, debates etc.

b) Hindu religion is a very symbolic religion where everything has a strong symbolic meaning but unfortunately over the period of time the symbols have taken the front stage and the real meaning have lost. For the marketing of religion to the intellectual circles it’s essential that the real meaning must be communicated. Exp: - Krishna is a mythological character but in reality it defines a kind of consciousness, a perfectly enlightened and pure consciousness but over the period of time the mythological dimension has completely surpassed the true meaning. Hence a large amount of discourses, lectures along with written documents should be produced to communicate the real meaning of symbols.

c) Strong emphaisis on liberal sides of hinduism which believes in individual liberty, freedom and openness.



(Note:-

1:- Initial focus should be to capture tier1 and tier 2 non customers.

2:- There knowledge lacks the intellectual dimension of Hinduism and is often restricted to visiting temple and following rituals.

3:- eliminate, reduce, raise and create framework. A blue ocean strategy framework used for giving new innovative values to the non customers.

4:- Emphasis should be only in showing similarity. This should not result in any controversy.

5:- Stuffs that can hurt religious sentiments should be avoided.

)

Crisis in Mass marketing and the advent of Interactive Branding

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
 The term “Marketing” might be coined in the dawn of 20th century but the idea was prevalent since thousands of years. Similarly customers are also not a recent phenomenon; they would have been active since the first transaction was made. In the past century the realm of marketing had undergone constant evolution as a discipline. In the initial days marketing was a push concept where there was a constant tendency on the parts of the firms to push their products/services to the customers. In 1953 with “Neil Borden” coining the term “Marketing Mix” (4ps of marketing that is product, price, people & promotion) marketing took a leap as a discipline. In 60’s Theodore Levitt came up with the theory of “Marketing Myopia” that for the first time attempted to consider seriously the customer factor in marketing. In the coming years the significance of customers kept on increasing in formulation of marketing strategy by individual firms, 4Ps of marketing got transformed to the 4Cs (Consumer, Cost, Convenience, Communication).In the 21st century with computers and internets penetrating to individual households coupled with a plethora of popular Websites, Social networking sites, E-portals, Online communities etc the realm of marketing is undergoing a new paradigm shift. Now the customer is not only the central focus of the marketing strategy but is also the most active player of the branding exercise conducted by individual firms.


The new age customer

The new age customer is very different from his/her previous counterparts. He is much more intelligent, confident and has much more understanding of various kinds of products & brands. A stereotypical new age customer 1can be assumed to be exposed to end number of media channels, is much more tech savvy and internet friendly. It can be assumed that the new age customer has a high sense of individuality and in this age consumerism buying for him/her is a very high involvement, fun driven process. There are across 1.96 Billion internet users 2 across the world. 90% of the internet users know at least one social media and every social media user is connected to 195 friends on an average.There are 133 million blogs enlisted in the blog directory “Techorati”.These facts explain the power and influence of the new age consumers. The probabilities are always high that a new age consumer is also an author with his own blog he uses to reflect his view points. He might also be a thought leader with his own friend circle in the social media sphere he can influence, a critic using these media platforms to criticize a product he doesn’t like and a brand ambassador using positive word of mouth in such social media platforms for something he likes. The strengths and skills that have been acquired by the new age customers cannot be discounted by marketers. These customers need to be involved actively in the branding processes.

Interactive Branding

American Marketing association(AMA) defines a brand as a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers. In reality brand is much beyond that, brand resides within the hearts and minds of customers, clients, and prospects. It is the sum total of their experiences and perceptions, some of which you can influence, and some that you cannot. These days with the help of Websites, E-manuals, E-brochures, Multimedia presentations, Clickable add banners interactivity between the customers and the firm increases many fold. While the customer gets a better brand experience the firm understands the behavior, interest and tastes of the customer in a better way. These interactive tools can also provide a good insight into the customer’s geographic location as well as demographic profiles.



Crisis in Mass Marketing

Given below are some of the statistics that describes the crisis in mass marketing:-

• Only 18% of TV advertisements create positive ROI.

• Average return on every one dollar spent advertising on mass media.

• TV advertising cost has increased by 256% in the past one decade.

• 90% of people who can skip TV ads do skip it.

• 65% of people believe that they are constantly bombarded by TV ads

• Only 14% of people trust TV advertisements.

• 56% of people avoid buying products from company who they think

Advantages of Interactive branding


With the help of better music, videos, texts and pictures it engages the customers more effectively.

• With the help of web2.0 platform there can be a direct communication between the firm and its customers. Customers can communicate their requirements, expectations, responses and of course judgment to firms.

• Web 2.0 platforms provide effective platforms for the customers & consumers all around the world to come together and collaborate.

• Clicks on web pages can be traced back to get insights about the profile, location, choices and behavior of customers.

• With the help of tools like “Google Analytics” large amount of data collected over a period of time can be analyzed and processed to derive consumer behavior pattern.

• These tools help in figuring out the degree of involvement of individual customers. Stuffs like time spent on web pages, comments posted, the no. of revisits made give a very clear cut understanding of individual customer’s involvement with a brand. This can help firms in profiling their customers.

• In comparison to regular mass media channels such as news papers, magazine, television commercials these web based applications and platforms are much more economical.

• In the time of economic downturns when the regular advertisement budget gets cut down, Interactive branding can provide economical and effective alternative.

Social Media

                                                                 
Social media websites like Facebook, Orkut, BlogSpot, LinkedIn, play a very important role in Interactive branding. Social media is cost effective, has a wide range and reach and can boost immediate sales by engaging the customers. Social media provides platforms for likeminded people to interact with each other irrespective of the geographical boundaries. One of the biggest advantages of social media is that it helps in communicating the right message to the right audience. Given here is a table that describes the influence some of the most popular social media websites with the help of latest statistics.

Facebook:-

• The average Facebook user has 130 friends.
• More than 25 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) is shared each month.
• People spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook.
• The average Facebook user is connected to 60 pages, groups and events.
• There are more than 1 million entrepreneurs and developers from 180 countries on Facebook

Twitter

• There are currently 110 million users of Twitter’s services.
•  Twitter receives 180 million unique visits each month.
•  There are more than 600 million searches on Twitter every day.
• Twitter gets more than 300,000 new users every day.

Over 60% of Twitter use is outside the U.S.

Linkedin

• There are more than 70 million users worldwide
• Members of LinkedIn come from more than 200 countries from every continent.
• 80% of companies use LinkedIn as a recruitment tool.
• LinkedIn receives almost 12 million unique visitors per day.
• A new member joins LinkedIn every second.

You Tube

• The first video was uploaded in you Tube on 23rd April,2005.By 2006 more than 65000 videos were uploaded every day.
• . YouTube receives more than 2 billion viewers per day.
• Every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.
• Music videos account for 20% of uploads.

Implementation of Interactive branding

Interactive branding is relatively new concept and there is dearth of strategic models to implement it. One of the models that explain it is the “COCHA” model.

                                                             

• Concept: Any online material needs to have an appropriate concept. A concept that communicates the brand essence, tells the brand story well.
• Content: It should have a very engaging content with a right mix of text, images, videos, music, software, etc that can help users interact with it.
• Chanel: Rather than being a monologue medium (click ads) it should facilitate communication between the website and the users. This can be implemented with the help of social media, chat gadgets, e mail etc.
• Context: Should target the right customer at the right time and right place. Should fit their interest and use their language.
• Consumer: It should facilitate firms to extend and tighten the communication link with the target consumer base. Consumer bases can be defined with the help of profiles, communities, tastes, needs, motivations etc.

Conclusion

The new century heralds a new paradigm shift in branding. In the current economic crisis where advertising budgets are getting cut down drastically and mass media channels are losing its effectiveness day by day firms need innovative ways to promote its brand. Innovative ways that can engage and capture target customers in cost effective ways. Another important benefit of “Interactive Branding” is that it helps the new age customer to interact directly and collectively with the firms. The new age customers who are equipped with the best of media tools and gadgets and have much more knowledge in contrast to their previous counterparts just don’t want to have a passive role. They want active involvement in the brand building process. This further signifies the importance of “Interactive Branding”. Having said this it does not mean that regular mass media channels are not important, they are surely going to exist but the time has come where firms need to have a right mix of regular branding tools as well as innovative tools like “Interactive branding”

(Reference :-
1. Online media gazette.


2. WWW.slideshare.com

3. http://www.internetstats.com/

4. State of the Blogosphere 2009.

5. )

http://www.internetworldstats.com/

Evolution of marketing : from 4ps to Interactive Branding

                                                                       
The term “Marketing” might be coined in the dawn of 20th century but the idea was prevalent since thousands of years. Similarly customers are also not a recent phenomenon; they would have been active since the first transaction was made. In the past century the realm of marketing had undergone constant evolution as a discipline. In the initial days marketing was a push concept where there was a constant tendency on the parts of the firms to push their products/services to the customers. In 1953 with “Neil Borden” coining the term “Marketing Mix” (4ps of marketing that is product, price, people & promotion) marketing took a leap as a discipline. In 60’s Theodore Levitt came up with the theory of “Marketing Myopia” that for the first time attempted to consider seriously the customer factor in marketing. In the coming years the significance of customers kept on increasing in formulation of marketing strategy by individual firms, 4Ps of marketing got transformed to the 4Cs (Consumer, Cost, Convenience, Communication).In the 21st century with computers and internets penetrating to individual households coupled with a plethora of popular Websites, Social networking sites, E-portals, Online communities etc the realm of marketing is undergoing a new paradigm shift. Now the customer is not only the central focus of the marketing strategy but is also the most active player of the branding exercise conducted by individual firms.

The new age customer¹

 The new age customer is very different from his/her previous counterparts. He is much more intelligent, confident and has much more understanding of various kinds of products & brands. A stereotypical new age customer 1can be assumed to be exposed to end number of media channels, is much more tech savvy and internet friendly. It can be assumed that the new age customer has a high sense of individuality and in this age consumerism buying for him/her is a very high involvement, fun driven process. There are across 1.96 Billion internet users 2 across the world. 90% of the internet users know at least one social media and every social media user is connected to 195 friends on an average3.There are 133 million blogs enlisted in the blog directory “Techorati”4.These facts explain the power and influence of the new age consumers. The probabilities are always high that a new age consumer is also an author with his own blog he uses to reflect his view points. He might also be a thought leader with his own friend circle in the social media sphere he can influence, a critic using these media platforms to criticize a product he doesn’t like and a brand ambassador using positive word of mouth in such social media platforms for something he likes. The strengths and skills that have been acquired by the new age customers cannot be discounted by marketers. These customers need to be involved actively in the branding processes.

Interactive Branding

American Marketing association(AMA) defines a brand as a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers. In reality brand is much beyond that, brand resides within the hearts and minds of customers, clients, and prospects. It is the sum total of their experiences and perceptions, some of which you can influence, and some that you cannot. These days with the help of Websites, E-manuals, E-brochures, Multimedia presentations, Clickable add banners interactivity between the customers and the firm increases many fold. While the customer gets a better brand experience the firm understands the behavior, interest and tastes of the customer in a better way. These interactive tools can also provide a good insight into the customer’s geographic location as well as demographic profiles.

Note:- ( New age customer means well off customers from the developed and developing nation.


2. Source: www.internetworldstats.com

3. Source: Online Media Gazette.
)

The Arab community: what they have and whta they dont have

Well the author has reached united kingdom for his student exchange program and beside enjoying the English autumn one very important purpose he is having is to interact with the international community and to have a first hand experience of their culture, beliefs and their strengths and weakness with respect to the global business framework. Today the author is going to write on the Arab community:-

Strengths
1> Relationship based business: In the Arab world relationships matters the most. In contrast to their European or American counterparts where two negotiation parties have the tendency to shoot directly to the main agendas, the Arabs give a lot of emphasis to relationships. Business is never discussed initially. Initial time is always devoted to relationship building and once the relationship is built business follows. In the Arab world gestures have a great importance, customs and tradition play a very important role. And it is these gestures that do help a lot in building relationships.

2> Good negotiators: Arabs have always been traders. Trade had been the life line of Arab economy, as a result of which it had been seen that they are not only good sales man but have great knack for negotiations too.

Weakness
1> Continuous hardworking ability is missing in them: in contrast to their other counterparts they do not have the ability put continuous effort. They do put a lot of effort when needed, but cannot continue it for a longer period of time and this is something that really kills there prospect as strong professionals. In the modern world of business sustained effort is really needed if one wants to succeed. For this flaw of there even the Arabs can't be blamed completely. lot of credit goes to the environmental factors of the Arab world also. The weather had always been hostile in the arab land.So it had been some how tough for them to continue putting hard work. More over economies of countries like Bahrain have relied on stuffs like Pearl, fish etc. For these things one does not need to put continuous effort. One needs to work hard only when needed and then after the harvest can rest for large time.

2> Lack of awareness in brand building activities: Though the Arab world is really growing very fast but still when it seems as if they are not yet very well versed with modern business practices. One of them is there disinterest towards long term brand building practices. When ever the Arab invests in some brand building activity they want a very quick result. But practically this is not the possible. Modern brand building takes a large amount of time. It's not something that can be done in a very small time.

(Views here are based on the authors own understanding of the Arab people, his readings on the Arab world and his interaction with people who have worked in the Arab world.)

Branding: the 360 degree edge

Today author intends to write on a very important field of marketing and branding known as 360 degree of branding. It should be known that between any brand and its target audience there happens to be many touch points, there are many media channels through which a target audience can get to know a particular brand. It can be the regular once print media, TV, radio, hoardings, live shows and demonstrations, emerging once like web medium or even something unconventional as theatre or street plays. Often it had been seen that just one or two medium is used to promote a brand but when a company decides to use each and every one of the available medium, when it tries to communicate at each and every one of the touch points then this approach is known as 360 degree of branding.
It is quite evident that 360 degree of branding is an expensive as well as time consuming approach and cannot be used too often, but it becomes extremely essential when a brand has to be launched in the market. Whenever a brand is launched it needs a very high degree of recognition. If all the existing media channels are not used then the chances are very high that the nascent brand might not get the amount of exposure it should have got to be successful. One must understand that whenever a brand is launched the very first thing which it needs to be successful is awareness among the general public. Once the awareness sets in and people began to start making perceptions for the product then only the final selling can happen. If the general awareness itself cannot happen at the first go , perception for the brand let alone final sales is never going to be realized. So it’s very essential that whenever a product or a brand is getting launched companies rather than choosing one or two media channels must go for a 360 degree kind of approach where the newly evolving brand can be communicated through end no of media channels. A point that has to be considered over here is that often 360 degree branding does not end up in huge sales figure ,the reason being that communication efforts get diluted over a large no. of channels but it does provide a huge amount of brand awareness that can be capitalized over a period of time in making sales.
One reason the author intends to write this blog is that often start ups are not willing to spend much on brand promotion. Rather than going through the 360 degree frame work, now day’s entrepreneurs prefer just one two media channels in which the web medium predominates. Given the rate at which web penetration is increasing day by day the importance of the web medium along with the social networking sites cannot be discounted but at the same time it will be fool hardy to neglect other regular channels like the TV, radio, newspaper, magazines ,hoardings etc. Every medium has its own importance; every medium has its own takers. So it is in the interest of startups that they should try utilizing whatever touch points they can in order to create brand awareness for their newly launched product. One must understand that for a newly launched product branding should be wide spared covering as much audience it can cover.

1st Step of Building a Brand: Be Audacious

                                                                            
After writing extensively on Blue Ocean Strategy the author will like to keep it off for a while and will like to delve once again into his favorite domain that is Brand building.
Brand building and its management is definitely a very complex phenomenon which takes care of various dimensions into account such as product design, product management, media channels, logos, symbols, distribution networks, ambassadors, mascots and above all commitment of individual employees towards their respective duties but the very first thing which has to be taken into account is the audacious acceptance of the superiority of your product. All the employees and concerned individuals of a product must admit the fact that they are associated with one of the best brand, no matter that might be the reality or not.
The logic for this is very simple; marketing is fundamentally a psychological warfare, a battle of mind where a marketer always attempts to promote his product in a bombastic way, with some degree of exaggeration attached with it. (one must know that all marketers are liar and all customers are irrational), so it becomes very important that before hitting your customers with your exaggerated tag line, the general belief of superiority of one’s product must be shared by its own employees. As long as one himself is not convinced with the superiority of his/her product how the hell is he going to position it to the customer. It is very essential that one must believe in the superiority of his product even that calls for becoming audacious.
But again one must understand that there has to be a fine line drawn, no doubt there will remain a fine gap between what your product actually is and what you want to make other believe by your audacious acceptance of your product as something extremely fantabulous, but this touch of audacity should not become so strong that rather than promoting your product in the right spirit it is making you as well as your product a laughing stock. The line is delicate one and one has to draw it himself, Few examples that might explain it better could be :-

1>Lets say your B-school belongs to the higher ladders of the 2-tier B-school, then rather than proclaiming that you belong to a 2-tier B-school and getting yourself mixed with a lot of B-schools which are inferior to your B-school the wisdom lies in the idea that you must exaggerate and say that your B-school is among the top tier B-schools (of course in the lower ladders)

2> Let’s say you have a business which is facing fierce competition from an emerging competitor and in the recent quarter the competitor had done fairly better business than you. Under such circumstance rather than patting the back of your competitor the best strategy should be not to accept your competitor's victory and keep on persisting on the fact that you are still the best. Like the Romans you must have the conviction of not accepting your defeat at any cost. (Though in the next quarter you must be in a position to beat your competitor to prove it.)

Having said all this the author will again like to reiterate that branding is a very long term phenomenon that considers a lot of stuff into account but anyone who is seriously thinking to build the brand of his product first needs to be audacious enough in accepting the superiority of his product even that calls for moving a few steps on the line of exaggeration.

the UN COLA advertisement campaign by 7up:a master stroke to change the competitive space itself

One of the very intelligently designed as well as simple advertisement campaign that had always fascinated me is the uncola campaign by the 7 up. The campaign signifies the importance of changing the competitive space itself when you are dealing with well established players in the market.There is absolutely no intelligence in fighting with a well established competitor neck to neck. That will simply prove fatal ,the best way would be to fight them on an absolutely different plane,and this strategy was exemplified by 7up in 1967 when it came up with its very famous uncola campaign.

Back in 1967 both coca cola and pepsi were leading cola brands and the word cola was synonymous with the word beverages .Both Coca-cola and Pepsi were having strong dominance in the psyche of cold drink lovers,at that stage according to conventional thinking 7 up which was or in fact is basically a lemon drink could have been done two things either it could have introduced a cola brand of itself or it could have positioned itself as a lemon drink thus highlighting some of its salient features as lemon drink.Following the first would have been suicidal because with two leading brands already in the market it would have been really tough for 7 up to invest its resources and to come up with a 3rd brand that could  change the status quo,had they followed this course of action 7up would have definitely made huge losses. The second course of action though could have been better from the first one but solely emphasizing on the type of drink it produces would have never helped it to to configure itself accurately among the psyche of customers with respect to its competition.

An intelligent ad design is one where you position yourself with respect to competition ,the competitive space where you are waging the war should be clear to your customers,and thats what 7up did,it came up with its famous campaign “7 up the uncola” thereby at one end waging a war also with there competitors which were basically cola brands and at the same time not waging it since it is not a cola.The uncola campaign positioned 7up in a very tactful way,it made its message clear to the public "here is a drink that is not a cola,it is different and it is very proud on its difference ."It clearly gave an alternative to try for the prospective customers of that time, and this paid off.With in a very short interval of time the sales of 7 up skyrocketed. It enjoyed huge market share in the coming few years.
The campaign was really successful in changing the competitive space itself for 7up which gave 7up in getting a clean sweep for first few years.

REFERENCE: a) POSITIONING:JACK TROUT AND AL RIES.
                       b) http://www.drpeppersnapplegroup.com/.

How to manage your brand when you are dealing with commodities???

Well what do you really understand by commodities,according to wikipedia A commodity is some good for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market. It is a product that is the same no matter who produces it, such as petroleum, notebook paper, or milk.

As i have explained branding in the previous section branding  can be regarded as some aspect of your product or service with which a customer relate himself,in other word it is some thing which helps you to differentaite your product from rest of the competitors.definately as per the defination of commodity it becomes a very tough job to brand your product in case its a commodity,though tough its not completely impossible to brand your product.Here are some of the ways in which you can brand even a commodity-

• by providing products which are much more reliable than your existing competitors.exp-the case of acme bricks,while most of the bricks on an average gurantee a relaiblity  of some 5 years acme gurantee a relaiblity  period of 100 years.As a result of which it commands a very strong brand loyality by its customer.Such sort of branding can be done in steels,bricks,cement etc.
• after sales service,this is another aspect where one can differentaite from its customer,after sale service will ensure strong customer company relationship which will finaly lead into more business with the same customers in the near by future.
• providing some additional services at the same price,exp: suppose you are dealing in the business of milk,you might give your customers pasturized milk at the same price where your competitors are providing normal milk,one another case could be providing free home delivery to your customers in case you are dealing with steels,bricks,farm products or metals,
• by establishing the image of your company as some thing which is very ethical and which is very active in discharging its obligation towards society,though this is some thing which doesnt have a direct relationship with your product but the basic root of this idea lies in the emotional aspect of costomers,one must always believe that emotions play a vital role in making desicions,every customer will keep an ethical organization in high esteem and will always be emotionally inclined in striking a deal with such organization.