Review : cottonworld Print Ad, Website and Social Media

Love the new Cottonworld ad which features Ashish Hemrajani, the guy who runs Bookmyshow.com

Why I like th ad?

• No celebrity.  Real success story. I never really like or believe celebrities are good for brand building unless it for a cause.

• Check the ad. Look at the tag “comfort zone”. Check out the cop – “Comfort is about being yourself…” The tag line, the copy is in complete sync with a simple ad about the guy wearing a very stylish and yet simple dress.

• Then you have couple of lines on his success story. You immediately associate the brand with being casual, entrepreneurship, and success and yet are simple and down to earth.

Big Iea : You can be simple and look great and be successful at that .

Simple ad. Great execution.

Big Thought : Makes me want to buy cottonworld dress

My next stop: www.cottonworld.net

Love the website. It is clean white, has great content and again syncs completely with the brand core message (or the latest campaign theme): Casual, celebrating entrepreneurship and success and yet simple and down to earth.

The website features some great success stories of people who follow their heart in did what they wanted to do.

Great ad shots as well!

Kick Ass thought: Someday I would love to be featured in their website

My criticism:

The “club cottonworld” page has very little info on what it is all about. 5% off on any purchase? Conditions apply (as always ) ? Dint really get the idea of it. I wish the website had more info on the loyalty program.

I then moved on to their Facebook fanpage.

As far as I can see, they have a good fanpage running. You have customer testimonials and some good interactivity. But I thought , more can be done to increase the interaction between the brand and the customers.  Maybe they just started the fanpage.

The twitter page is nothing much to write home about.  I see 5 tweets  as I type this post.

Conclusion:

• Great Print Ad

• Clean website but wish it had more info on the kind of clother available, price range etc .. ( suggest dell website which has a similar theme on entrepreneurs )

• Nice fb fanpage

• But I felt that there is no clear Social Media Strategy in place. It is good to have a fanpage but bad to have it just for the sake of having one without a clear strategy. In the long run things will get blurred. So , they need to have a vision for social media .

If you like the post or the brand, may I request the reader to share it with others? You can share it it twitter , facebook or delicious

Co Creating Value with your customer. How a Saloon can use social media to build its brand reputation

I was waiting for my turn for a haircut at the regular saloon shop when I started talking to the guy in charge also who happened to be the brother of the owner. We were discussing latest mobile phones, laptops, fitness etc,When I asked him – “Is that computer connected to net?” He replied with an affirmative.  I asked him if his saloon had a website or a facebook fanpage or an orkut community group.  No, his saloon did not have any online presence.

So I ask him – “How many branches you have in this city”.

Reply: 12 branches in Chennai. 3 in Coimbatore.

“What kind of customers do you get here? Age group? “, I ask.

Reply:  Customers come in all age groups.Male and female.

I understand from the cost of basic haircut that the shop reaches out to middle and upper class.

I tell him – Guess what? I can help you expand your business. Grow your customer base, improve sales and more importantly build brand loyalty which will generate word of mouth.  And you don’t have to spend tons of money. Are you interested?

Reply: Absolutely…

I became a Social Media Consultant for him.

Here are the points I discussed with branch head. Maybe you can use it too…

Website:

Start with a simple website. Simple content should suffice. Don’t worry about SEO and SEM. You don’t need that here. First, cover the basics:

About the company, who owns the company, History of the company, what are the services you are offering, prices for each of your services, meet the barber

Let us focus on 2 features:  Services offered and Meet the Barber page

Services offered will have different hairstyles with pictures for the customer to identify each hairstyle. Also, why not a video testimonial of a satisfied customer? Host the video testimonials to a youtube page which will have other similar customers giving you 3 min testi of your services.

Meet Ur Barber Page: Will have the name and profile of the barbers you employ with ratings section. Your customers can rate the barber in an open transparent system. Every month the barber who gets the maximum ratings gets incentive. Thus, you also build morale and a healthy competition which in turn will improve productivity.

The website can also have a page dedicated to latest hairstyle in vogue. Your customers can chose the hairstyle, get the name and when they visit you next time, then can mention the name and get it done.

Let your website also have a space for your customers to submit ideas. This is your UGC (user generated content). This is important. UGC has power. Give your customers power and give them platform to share. That is why you need…

Facebook  Fanpage :

Your facebook fanpage should be integrated to your website so that your customers can connect and collaborate with each other online. Here are the things you can do:

–      Post pics of latest bollywood, Hollywood heros and heroines with their latest haircut. Ask questions and generate interactivity with fans.

Eg: Post in your fanpage wall – Check out Brad Pitt’s latest hairstyle ( post the pic). Kool huh? Who wants this hairstyle? The first 10 people, who wanna have this haircut, comment here and get 10% off.

Or,

Eg : kareena latest haircut ( post the pic) . You can get it done at any of our branches. Just drop a mail with your details to fix an appointment.

Or,

Eg : Our new facial for summer is out. It’s a blend of (this and that). The first 10 who post a comment here get 30% off on this new natural facial.

–      Post videos of your customers in youtube and pull it to fanpage

–      Offer tips on grooming

–      Offer sneak peak and special discounts exclusive to online customers

–      Ask your customers to directly post pics or videos of their fav good/bad hair moment

–      Invite your customers/fans to post ideas, seek advice on hairstyles, good hair maintainance tips etc…

All this will go in building a good brand name and generate word of mouth buzz.

Twitter:

Twitter should be next in agenda. Use the content which you have and post it to twitter. Today, loads of Indians have twitter handle, why not connect with them?

Twitter is important because Search Engines now give importance to social media feeds.

Use blogs: Start a corporate blog. Comment on other blogs which has content on grooming, facials, hairstyles etc…

Write to online local/citi portals to feature you.

There are huge load of things you can do with social media.

( if the reader of this post wants to discuss more ideas, get in touch)

The branch Head then had a big question for me:

“Vikas, how to bring fans or bring customers to facebook fanpage?”

Answer:

Simple! From now, every time you give a bill to a customer, ask him for his name and number, mail id, and ask if he has a facebook, twitter or a blog presence .

Then tell him, this – Sir, we have a facebook fanpage and we have plans to have a website, may I invite you there? Is it ok if I send you an email invitation? You can also give us your ideas on what and how the website should be

If the customer agrees, then later send him a mail. This is Permission Marketing. You are not blasting spam; you are asking the customer his permission.

This is social media at its best and the customer will appreciate it.

Crowd sourcing:

The saloon has all sorts of customers who use their services. Why not run a contest inviting web designs? The best web design will become the official web design and the guy/gal who wins get 3 haircuts free with the name featured in the website.

Some of you who read this may argue , why is that I am going to such lengths in discussing social media for a saloon.

You are obviously missing the point.

The point is – Social Media is not confined to big brands. Social Media is sometime best suited and most effective for small business owners who wanna build big brands.

I am always open to crtizism or better ideas.

You can tweet me @spartanvikas

If you like my post, may I request you to share it in twitter, facebook or Delicious?

Dedication :

I would like to dedicate this post to C.K Prahalad, the pioneer behind the idea of Co Creating Value with the customer. He inspires me to give the best I can give to my customers.

1:9:90 Theory of Online Brand Marketing

I was reading a newspaper today when I came across the idea on the 1:9:90 Theory. Not sure who was saying this in the newspaper but I am definitely not going to claim that this theory is mine. I am only going look at it a bit deeper.

The 1:9:90 Theory is simple to understand, profound in thought and difficult to implement. But thou shall reap immense rewards if you execute it.

The Theory says:  Among your consumer group (or target audience if you will):

• 1 % should create content
• The content created by the 1 % should engage 9% of your audience and convert them to Brand Evangelist or to use the Facebook phraseology – Fans.
• This 9% of brand evangelist should then take the content, connect and collaborate with 90% of your target group. Of course, the 90% who will absorb the content is important but marketers in the online space would do great by focusing on finding the 1 % content creators.

These content creators are what, if I may borrow Seth Godin’s terminology –  Tribes.

Find the Tribe:

Seth Godin in his remarkable book Tribes talks about how it is important to find and engage the members of a  Tribe. The Tribe are your diehard fans. He/she is the one who will do what it takes to get and use your product/service ignoring all others in the market. All you ought to do is make space for your fans/core consumers to create content. Democratize your company. Give them the tools. Let them create content. All you have to do is channelize the tribe by being the Leader.

Let the fans create the content, find and touch base with the 9% of the brand evangelists who in turn will share the content with 90% of your target audience.

Your job is to basically find the content creators.

And it isn’t an easy job. But it is definitely better and more effective than creating million dollar advertisements targeting everyone out there and praying to Almighty that someone watches the ads and respond to it.

Finding loyal fans and content creators is tough but it is long lasting, just like true love. Finding true love is not an easy job. But when you find it, engage with that person, nourish the relationship; it becomes bliss and long lasting.

It was exactly this point Geoffrey Moore was trying to tell us in his seminal book Crossing The Chasm.  The book is all about the importance of Early Adopters of technology.

Find the Early Adopters.  Give them the importance they deserve. Give them the tools through which they can play with your product/service. Show them how you value their passion for your products. Then politely ask them to create content for you. Ask them nice and be honest about it and guess what? They will give you the content. And since they are doing it out of passion and love for the product and not you, you will get great viral content.

The word Viral is important. It is word of mouth. It is something you will get by Co-creating value with your customers as C.K Prahald articulate in his books.

Building Brands Online:

Today it is far easier and better to build brands online than using traditional media. It is easier because online activities can help you engage with your audience. It is measurable and accountable.

More importantly it can be used to target the your real serious customers than every tom,dick and harry ( no pun intended of course). When you launch focused advertisements or campaigns the reach is better, ads can be tweaked, mistakes can be made so that old rules are broken and new lessons learnt.

Simply put: The status quo can be challenged.

When you do that, you somehow will manage to create The Purple Cow (I love Seth for what he stands for  … you ought to read his blog). From then on use innovation to sustain and feed the Purple Cow

Digital Marketing Agencies:

The agencies of tomorrow should not be stand alone Advertising and Public Relations companies. Instead they should become an Integrated Digital Solutions companies which should have core team of people who can come with digital strategies and how to use such tools (like me … lol) and people who can create engaging content ( not necessarily award winning creative’s) and solid tech cum web team who can implement your communication ideas in the most optimized way.

Read this awesome blog by Seth Godin on Viral Growth to understand on how important it is to connect with core fans and creating great content

An open letter to HBR team

To,

India Today Group and the HBR team

Extremely sad and shocked at the increase of the price of HBR from Rs.500 to Rs.750! Not sure why this suddenly increase in price. Is it cos of the new design or because it is a double issue or it is New Year?

What is the point in making the new design more accessible to reading when you are making the magazine less accessible for people to buy?

As long as the price was at Rs.500 I used to eagerly wait for the magazine to come out. Cos Rs.500 for me was an opportunity cost in financial planning. Rs.500 was a sacrifice I made for a movie outing with my finance. I used to think – even if I missed a movie with her, that’s fine! I get to read HBR management stuff. She understood.

Now, I can’t give her that reason. I can’t tell her that I sacrificed my time with her for a book which cost Rs.750.

What about the rest of us? What about new managers climbing the corporate ladder who may not have big salary but have big dreams and want to learn management ideas and thoughts from icons of HBR but cant because of the increase in price. Others may get access to HBR cos their HR would be good enough to buy it for them in office. Student’s studying MBA may get access to it from the coll library.

My HBR copy Jan 2010

jan2010 and Dec 2009

Entrepreneur Dec 2009

So what happens to the rest of us? Are we to be denied the pleasure of reading HBR?

The Entrepreneur (India edition) is Rs.100. that makes sense. That makes big sense to buy. And the content is good. Not as classy as HBR but good nonetheless.

So here is my big question: Why on earth did you guys raise the price back to Rs. 750?

If you are charging HBR print edition so much, why not give free online access to your articles and archives?

You know what is even more sad? Me not buying HBR won’t make any difference to you. It won’t cause a dent in your brand, sales or the policy you follow.

But hopefully there ought to be more ppl like me out there who will read this blog, nod their head and voice out their concerns as well… That may probably be a wake up call for you guys to rethink your pricing strategy in India.

A Dejetced Big Fan!

Sri Vikas

the accidental Brand Manager

This part of my life was never planned . This part of life of becoming the Brand Manager for BODYFUELZ was as serendipitous as it can come. Becoming a Brand Manager was always part of the plan. Just then I became one a bit too early.

So here I am , Brand Manager of BODYFUELZ. What we do , you ask ? We help some of India’s top sports players, endurance athletes , serious bodybuilders and fitness freaks to reach their fitness goals via performance nutrition.

So we have someone like Sushil Kumar using our highly advanced , bio engineered Aminonutriton products to build lean muscle mass, strength and stamina to reach his peak performance for his game.

We have the Indian Hockey Team use our products like FASTCHARGE and PWRSPORTS to  in their game to build endurance and stamina and prevent fatigue while playing.

We have been helping people develop lean , ripped muscles using our product called MUSCLEMAX .

We enable people in the weight loss program in the most safest , effective manner possible.

And those who connect and buy from us directly either through mail (pmt@bodyfuelz.com), call ( 044-42014141/9884592632) or via facebook community , we give free diet/fitness and nutritional guidance.

Our in-house nutritionist will guide them all round the year.

My Role :

As the Brand Manager I connect with users to help them understand concept of next generation sports nutrition both Online and Offline.

Online –  You can find us here in facebook community –  BODYFUELZ Facebook Community

I believe in the future of social media marrying PR and Viral Marketing .  That is also one of the reasons why i exited from an advertising in industry.

Future  connect :

Starting from now my blog will mirror all that we do in the social media sphere . It would include very precise and practical ideas on building a brand using websites, blogs, rss, social networking, widgets and how to connect that with online PR.

Social Media Chennai Chapter :

I also aim to start a social media group based out of Chennai. A bar-camp – unconference style where i would like to invite brand manager, marketing managers, web designers , chief marketing officers, advertising and public relation executives and the likes.

The agenda would be simple . We will meet to connect and share ideas, best practises, discuss case studies, new trends in the social media sphere and how we can help our clients improve  their reach to their customers.

The only criteria would be that you should be passionate and believer of digital/social media marketing.

Drop in a mail – spartanvikas1983@gmail.com,

call me   – 9884592632

or drop in your comments here and spread the good word.

Look forward to some dynamic response from you guys ..

Social Media platform from Oglivy PR – Great Stuff !

I had to pick and put this news here .

Oglivy Public Relations Worldwide has joined hands with Netvibes to launch one of its kind Social Media dash board and I love it !

It is aimed at Marketeers , Brand Managers, Communication Professionals to keep track of Social Media news and ideas from across the globe.

The Daily Influence is a great initiative from the company because the future of advertising, marketing and PR is gonna be played in the corridors of Social Web.

Check out the link above to know more …

Right now reading : The New Rules of Marketing and PR

Went to Landmark book store, Spencer Plaze, yesterday and picked up The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott.

With this , the total number of books in my library collection goes up to 1753. Quite an impressive number huh ? 🙂

Well 3 reasons why i had to lay my hands on this book :

• I am Social Media Marketing evangelist. I got infected with  Social Media bug and quiet sure it aint gonna leave my system for a long , long time to come.

• This book comes highly recommended . The gurus of PR, Marketing and Social Media swear by it . It stands next only to Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by by Charlene Li, Josh Bernoff ( Authors are from Forrester Research body).

• I seem to have lost interest in Advertising for reasons i cant share it here . But after much reading and analysis of the trends in new age media and marketing , i believe Integrated PR and Corporate Communications coupled with social media tools helps in building brands and deals with image and crisis management in a much ethical and effective way. And no, this is not a crib out of bookish knowledge . I have seen my friends ( i will have to name them here : Anu, Shraddha, Nikhila …from a very reputed PR firm ) work so well with brands using PR as a very effective tool. I am not belittling advertising at all. I think advertising is great but not if it just about writing greats ads which at the end of the day dont sell the product.

I love the concept of building brands . There is something awe-inspiring in the process of brand building that cant be explained here  and it is something you have to experience it yourself. I just decided that advertising is not the way i would like to explore the concept of branding.  PR with effective marketing strategies will unleash the potential brand in a much better way.

If you are into social media or believe in the concept of digital branding – social media, Integrated PR, corporate blogging etc , then here are few recommendations you may want to read :

The Anatomy of buzz by Emanuel Rosen

Buzz Marketing by Mark Hughes

Connected Marketing by Justin Kirby

The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Purpule Cow by Seth Godin

The Fall of Advertising and the rise of PR by Al Rise and Laura Rise

Corporate Blogging by Debbie Weil

Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anathony D Williams

(ps: this is not an all inclusive list .. i will update as and when i write more posts on social media, PR , Marketing and Branding)

You guys are most welcome to drop in with your book reading suggestions, criticism … anything ..

Stop belittling indian companies

Check out this article in Advertising Age. Notice the way the author tags Indian companies? I am quoting the author here – “…Ford confirms it is in talks to sell the Jaguar and Land Rover brands to an Indian automaker you never heard of”. Can you believe that?

When did the100 year old TATA Company and TATA motors (slated to launch world’s first 1ac rupees car) become an unknown brand?

I guess, the author never bothered to check who the automaker is, or if she did, then she clearly has no clue what a behemoth of a company it is. Does she know that TATA steel is the third largest steel making company in the world after Arcelor-Mittal and Nippon?

I don’t get this biased attitude of American and other western countries when it comes to India and Indian companies. Haven’t they still realized that our companies are no longer thinking small and growth plans not confined to Indian shores?

I sent her mail, asking her (very humbly, mind you) not to belittle an Indian company again and get her facts straight before she writes her reports like this again.

Let me know what you think, folks