5 tips for Rahul to stop his image degradation

While India celebrates the rise of Narendra Modi, it is time for the losing team to come up and make an appearance. Instead of shielding Rahul, Congress should put him up on pedestal and let him handle the loss. A good leader is one who stands up and own the defeat. Here are some 5 tips for image saving for Rahul Gandhi.

5 tips for Rahul Gandhi to stop his image degradation.

1. Stand up and own the defeat
2. Offer to resign from vice president's role in Congress
3. Accept people's verdict and say you will continue to work
4. Address the nation - Make a good speech.. don't be ambiguous...
5. Move beyond your existing advisors and see what people actually want

Do them today, do them now and do it well. Kanna don't keep calm!

Image is from Indian Express.

Everyone has an audience

Modern life is ruled by social media or social justice. Everyone has an opinion and has an audience. Any act is not gone unnoticed or forgiven. The chance to make news is up for grabs and guess what no one is missing it.

 There are eyes everywhere watching you and your every move. No one would believe what you said as they can now verify. If you know some place where cameras aren't there now, wait and ye shall be seen soon.

It is important for us to behave properly. Though the justice system/delivery is a bit slow, it catches up to you. There are no exemptions. The more famous you are the higher the chances of you to be picked up. That is what the Ecuadoran envoy, Rodrigo Riofrio, forgot when he got into a fight with two women in a supermarket checkout line. It almost triggered a fight between the Ecuador and Peru. Good that diplomacy is going on but it also makes us wonder if we are alone anymore.

So next time you are angry or someone eggs you out, watch out, you may end up as Youtube's next sensation.

The smell of desperation

Don't throw away that hard earned trust by sounding desperate. It won't do any good for you or your brand. Desperation makes you feel down, makes me, the consumer, re-evaluate your brand value, your worth and question your intentions, may be even loathe you! Let me explain.

Watching India's got talent Khoj 2, I almost fell off my couch laughing at Tata Docomo's effort. After Diwakar and Sonia performed their act (they were good enough to win the competition), they were given a chance to make a call which was sponsored by Docomo. The whole effort looked forced and the name of the sponsors was mentioned on the call. I have had a really good opinion about Tata Docomo till now due to their innovative plans ranging from the one paisa per sms to the ISD calls at the same price. I also loved the way their ads were. In fact Docomo ads appeal to me more than Vodafone's Zoo Zoo's do. But this particular effort was pointless. It defies the cardinal logic of marketing in many ways. Let's see what went wrong.

1. It interrupted the whole proceeding: the act and my train of thought.
2. It was unsolicited, disturbing. Your loyal customers don't need you reminding their brand name. Your critics don't just care. So if you are looking at doing the new choose your target when you do it.
3. Sounded out of place. Could have been orchestrated in a better way. Sonia (the caller) was too excited about making it to the final. Sonia's mother, who was on the other end of the call, didn't seem to have a clue about Docomo facilitating the call. The whole message was lost on both the players and the audience.
4. It was completely unnecessary, so I not only chose to ignore but got -ve feeling about the brand.
5. Nothing new or usage point (which would've made more sense). I don't need to be reminded of the brand name. My utility in the game, yes.

Guess what, this act by Docomo put a dent in my idea and perception on what I feel. I smell desperation.When a customer smells desperation, that isn't good for your brand. Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

We are the Blackberry Boys

Just after staging a stand out with the Government about the messenger, Blackberry manages to be on the positive side when it tries to gather huge support from the untapped prepaid segment. I think this is a brilliant move for two reasons.

One, there is a huge potential in the prepaid segment that is usually out of reach. This should get enough people to move in to the otherwise office stable. This also means that the superior product aimed at a niche audience will move to the masses. Would that change my attitude and make me look at the product as anything lesser? I don't think so. I am more interested in what my mobile would give me more to make things easier. Translated retaining the existing crowd while tapping the masses.

Two would be the huge profits from the masses you capture plus better applications and more involvement and lots of excitement. When you have a huge following, with more vibrant crowd that demands more from you, you tend to make more to your team. This is also the reason why you got to challenge yourself. This is what makes life better. A bold step by Blackberry.

On the con side, the perception associated with the brand might change. The exclusivity and niche you want to project might wear off. I would look for something else to move on.

Interesting move, but is it smart enough? I doubt. Good PR move? I say, yes.

Valentine's day: Love and loyalty

Love is one such wonderful feeling that is easy to fall into but hard to survive. The initial sheen wears off in sometime and you are left with the kernel, the hard fact that tells you what you bought. It is very important to be as lovable or at least try to be as much and win over once the sheen is off. Especially as the case here is something not to be changed. Rants come up, behaviour and responses change, patience is thinner and understanding is more complex and it is here that the actual kernel is out. If a person or couple succeeds in remaining as faithful and lovable even in this stage, then there is a chance of being together for the rest of their life. To set these thoughts to a brand, being able to please me after I wear off all your pre-purchase promises and advertising is critical for my satisfaction and loyalty.

Brands should try and tell me( read the consumer) what is real and what is not, what they promise and what they can't and set realistic assumptions. You can fool me once to buy, may be a second time but my loyalty in buying your product would have nothing to do with the initial appeal(which happens pre-purchase) and everything to do with how I feel post-purchase. Reassuring the consumer that the decision taken was wise and that is the best is very important. Brands that take note of this are the ones that have repeat purchases and loyal customers, most importantly happy ones.

You know how to build and sustain a good relationship? Then you go to be good at this. Happy Valentine's day!

Leave Tiger Alone!

To satisfy the public’s insatiable curiosity for dirt? To pull one of our greats down into the gutter? On what grounds exactly? Because The National Enquirer and Us Weekly have sniffed out possible affairs? Because CNBC's Larry Kudlow is telling Tiger to “fess up” because of the lesson learned from Governor Sanford’s stonewalling?

Well, Tiger Woods isn’t a politician who might have used the people’s money in the course of having an affair, getting into an argument with his wife and crashing into a fire hydrant.

And, you know what, maybe he’s showing that the almighty dollar isn’t the only thing that counts for the most highly compensated athlete in the world? Once you give away your privacy, you can’t buy it back for any price. Maybe he’s willing to lose a few sponsors over this.

Ronald Reagan once said that freedom means the freedom to be stupid sometimes.

What if being stupid is all Tiger Woods did?

What if instead of the worst guesses and rumors of marital infidelity and a spousal golf-club beating, Tiger was simply stupid in a very innocent -- and dare I say it -- normal married way. He got into a spat with his wife, tore out of the driveway at a crazy time of night, hit a hydrant, hurt himself and felt like an idiot when his wife -- now both of them very sorry for their spat -- had to pull him out of the car?

Read what John Tantillo, The Marketing Doc has to say.

Hitting the right note

I have been to crossword and have always felt that their music was apt and conducive to sit down relax and flip through pages of books and may be I will pick up one. Most of the times I do pick some up. Nidhi writes about her experience at the same store at Calcutta but had a different experience. The music is so disconnected with the ambiance that she starts to grow averse to it thus destroying the whole purpose.

When brands try to communicate to the consumer it is very important to hit the right note. Consumer acceptance is never granted outright. The need to connect and contain is very important. This makes seek and reach out to the brand. What makes brands acceptable or otherwise is all about connecting to the consumer at a subliminal level and binding him/her to the theme.

There should also be no disconnect between your communication media as that would confuse the consumer and ruin the mission. Stay focused and get your note right.

Wave's brand disruption

Many people think Google breaks the brand model with no advertising on its homepage, no advertising directly but both these measures are merely symbolic. Google may have inspired what many see as a form of brand disruption, is game changing and is somehow Schumpeterian, it is a behemoth brand utilising both the common architecture associated with a monolithic brand as well as exhibiting a traditional set of values not unlike Apple and Virgin.

Similarly, you could argue that Google has unlimited potential as a brand and its brand extensions merely reflect this. However, while Google is a highly successful company but with 97% of its revenues coming from web advertising and 68% of that from advertising on its own websites, it is still very much a single proposition company.

Look at the performance and what I see as the eventual fate of Yahoo. Like Google, nearly all of Yahoo’s revenue comes from search and display advertising. Since Google’s 2004 float Yahoo has been losing share in search and though Yahoo is still the second most popular search engine, its searches are inferior. While Yahoo’s content continues to attract users for the moment, its search traffic is secondary to choice of Yahoo as a portal. The problem is that while content from the portal generally helps generate search traffic, yet without either distinctive content (everyone accepts that content is no longer a competitive advantage) and superior search, Yahoo is going to decline. What is best described, as Yahoo’s kitchensink approach to both content and feature development, is not dissimilar to that of Google’s. In this market, 'innovation' is a very tired word. Yahoo has Flickr. Google Picasa. Yahoo has Finance. Google Finance. Yahoo has Mail. Google Gmail and now Wave. Yahoo has Groups. Google Groups. Now just think of Google’s failures with News, Lively, Orkut and Knol and then apply that to a similar Yahoo’s list of failures or better still AOL, its hard not to draw the conclusion that the direction for both brands is anywhere but down.

--- Marketing Mag