marketing chickpeas

Boredom and low-rise jeans

Am bored of low-rise jeans. Partly the boredom is due to the inconvenience of handling the low-rise style.

Picture courtesy: Flickr

But I like the tapered bottoms of low-rise jeans. So now I wear mid-rise slim fit.

We always used to wear mid-rise; in fact, the default is mid-rise. Since it is the default we almost ignored the significance of that style. But only till low-rise was hyped up and made a rather popular style.

Mid-rise gets its classic status, greater importance and greater acceptance as a style only because of the fad of low-rise.

I like predicting. More so speculating. So here's the thing. How about a jeans which is low-rise in the front but ass-covering in the back? Or is it already there? 

Machine Music

When I keep the door wind shields of my car pulled down, I experience nothing but a cacophony. Jarring obnoxious noises everywhere. Amidst all this, every once in a while, a thumper (Bullet Motorcycle) passes by and gladdens my heart, sorry my ears.

Yes ears! It's the thumping sound that endears Bullets to owners and non-owners alike. The thump is almost music to motorcycle lovers. So the nickname. And I feel, so the brand and so the cult.

Indeed for quite a few people it might not be music. It might be another machine making noise. But isn't that the case with many a form of music? For some, rock is still nothing more than head banging rubbish.

I am gonna make a couple of shackle-raising points here.

We are surrounded by so many machines and invariably all these machines make some or the other kind of sound. It's often claimed and proved that music is the ultimate form of aesthetics and experiencing beauty, and is instrumental in changing our moods. If we are surrounded by cacophony all over, it might be that the noise would result in unpleasant effects (and sometimes serious ill-effects) on people in general.

Now, world over product designers are so concerned about noise that increasingly we find machines which do not give out much sound. Is that good? Two points here:

1. Sounds can be turned into music. That's not news, I know. However, in the context of designing machines it might just be. The thump of Bullet is music to motorcycle lovers. I feel the same when I drive my Chevrolet UVA (though of course the sound's audible only to the driver). In case of Bullet, guess the music was an inadvertent result of the engineering that went into building the machine. Can product designers and engineers deliberately consider aesthetics of music as well while designing products instead of nurturing a single minded obsession of suppressing all sorts of sound? One might say, what's the need for machine sounds at all! That brings me to the second point.
2. Sounds are indicators. When a piano-player mistimes or puts even a finger wrong, as a listener you know how it disturbs the flow and kills the pleasure. Smooth functioning machines give out a certain rythm. You hear the sound and you get the rythm. Any deviation or disturbance and you know something's wrong. Why not make good use of these indicators? Why not enjoy the rhythm and the music?

Yeats to Salesmen

"Tread softly because you tread on my dreams." 

- William Butler Yeats

Aggression is such a sought-after attribute among salesmen and among recruiters of salesmen. I can't prove in general if aggressive salesmen are effective or ineffective. But I can count numerous instances wherein I encountered an aggressive salesman and bought what he was trying to sell and then regretted what I bought and spent a lot of time pursuing and arguing with the salesmen or the customer service.

Every product or service sold is a dream or a significant part of that dream. What aggression often does - as seen from a sales point-of-view, I feel, is it disturbs the balance, the equilibrium and forces an outcome. Forced outcomes very often lead to unpleasant feelings and not-so-fulfilling feelings. Dreams simply become unpleasant illusions. So much for brand building and craving for brand loyalty...

Why feel guilty?

My last post was about feedback. I mentioned something to the effect that "building database could be the ulterior motive" of designing certain kinds of feedback forms.

Ulterior? Yes, doesn't it look like that in the marketplace? So many brands doing so many activities, running competitions, collecting feedback and most of them with a motive that these activities will help them get contacts of the people whom they can bombard with marketing communication in future.

The question is, why is database building an ulterior motive?

Don't people shop for their needs? Don't people wanna wear good clothes, good accessories? Don't they wanna do up their houses? Don't they wanna give good gifts to near and dear ones? Don't they wanna stay abreast with the latest trends? And besides, doesn't everyone wanna save money?

So why can't database collection be done upfront, explicitly and honestly?

How do you design a feedback form?

I was at Pantaloons yesterday evening. Was standing at the payment counter when I noticed a feedback collection box. There were just two filled forms in the box. I was intrigued. In the whole day, a big store like Pantaloons just got two shoppers to write feedback! This being a festive season, the number of shoppers is definitely higher. I was intrigued. Wanted to see the feedback form.

I couldn't find the blank feedback forms, so I asked the executive at the counter. He handed me one. Have a look:

Would one be motivated to fill out this feedback (a voluntary unpaid-for activity) form standing at the cash counter? Isn't it important for Pantaloons to get customer feedback? Or is it that they are doing so well and they are so confident about everything that feedback form is just a show of politeness? Or is it that Pantaloons wants to collect database?

Here are three important points to remember when designing a feedback form:

1. Voluntary acts require really strong motivation.
2. To evoke strong motivation, the act should be simple enough for the customer to not feel any 'pain'. This particular form looks scary; it asks for so many details that the first look itself discourages the onlooker to pick it up, leave aside writing.
3. Getting the customer to give his feedback is as good as knowing him. Act upon his feedback and you might win his trust and his business. His name and address and other such details might build your database and help you to send him junk mails but not help you to understand him and win his business.

Name - connects or creates a hurdle?

Any business faces and overcomes many hurdles to reach the consumers. Given a choice what would a businessman prefer? Create and overcome more and more hurdles or minimize and remove the existing hurdles.

Brand names are words which have meanings or are imbued with meanings by the marketer. Four cases (a few more if we go in greater detailing) emerge out of this statement in the context of marketing.

1. An already existing word which has a certain meaning in people's minds and when adopted as a brand name, matches the product/service offered. (Infosys for a software company)
2. An already existing word which has a certain meaning in people's minds but when adopted as a brand name, marketer tries to attach a new or a different meaning to that word. (Pantaloons for a fashion retail outlet trying to lure women)
3. An already existing word which has certain meaning in people's minds but is applied to a product which doesn't have any apparent relation with the word. (Cherry Blossoms as a brand name for shoe polish, Blackberry for a mobile phone)
4. A brand new word (so of course it doesn't have any meaning in people's minds) is coined and used as a brand name for the product/service. (Accenture for a software company)

In the first case the name assists the people to understand the offering. In the third, since there's no apparent relation (there could be a metonymical or a metaphorical relation) marketer has a blank slate and can take the opportunity to create that relationship between the name and the offering. Fourth case is similar to third one; again a blank slate, an opportunity to imbue the new word with meaning and create a relationship between the name and the offering.

I didn't talk about the second case. Unlike the other three cases, the second creates a hurdle. Why? Coz there is a meaning already established in people's minds. So to get the name related to a new different meaning, the first task is to weaken the established meaning and then try to imbue it with the new different meaning. Marketers would know (or don't they?) this phenomenon is next to impossible.

Someone might say, well, that's the challenge. Alright, I say, in the list of hurdles to overcome to make your business a success, don't you have enough already? And an existing and well-accepted perception is a tough hurdle to overcome. Go ahead and take the challenge!

Do names mean anything?

And if they do, then do marketing professionals understand naming really? Alright have a look at the image below:

What does Pantaloons mean? Not talking about the dictionary meaning. Talking about the meaning that people have in mind...

Anyway, the dictionary says:

a man's close-fitting garment for the hips and legs, worn esp. in the 19th century, but varying in form from period to period; trousers.

And, culturally as well, the word has the same meaning. I wonder what is the brand doing with Femina Miss India. I wonder then why do budgets don't yield results... Guess Mr. Biyani knows better.

Will you tell a long story? Or will you cut it short?

I was taken to Africa. Not quite really but quite effectively. Am talking about OUT OF AFRICA - a 1984 Meryl Streep and Robert Redford movie. Quite a long movie for an English movie. Some would say, "It's slow." But I would say if it weren't said in the manner that it was, it wouldn't have made me feel like, "I've been to Africa!"

Ashutosh Gowariker also makes long-duration movies, even going by Bollywood standards. But you enjoy these movies; you can't deny that.

Contrast this with the observation that attention-spans are decreasing. May be they are but if you have a great long story to tell, what do you do? Tell your story nonetheless. For once ignore the attention-spans. Make sure though that it's something that people are really concerned about.

Swami Vivekananda on Business, Brands & Marketing

Al Ries talks about Focus. Seth Godin talks about Purple Cow. Jack Trout says Differentiate or Die. Geoffrey Miller says Fitness Indicator. And W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne frame it as Blue Ocean Strategy.

And before all these discovered and popularized the mantra, the great man summarized it in a quote:

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.

"No Conditions Apply" by Reliance Mobile

Precisely 12 days back, I shared my views on *Conditions Apply in an eponymously titled post. And here comes a service from Reliance Mobile with no conditions whatsoever. That's the way to go. Have a look. You might want to switch :).