Unusual is ok as long as it is an Offer

While in Chengdu for the recent National Day holidays I thought of checking out the departmental near my hotel. I had not walked for more than two minutes inside the electronics section of the store, when I reached an island display announcing a Bag of Rice or a Bottle of Cooking oil as a free gift with every purchase worth more than RMB 500. This was in the middle of names like Nikon, JVC, Panasonic, Philips, Sony, Apple etc.
A very pragmatic promotional offer I should say. Despite the fact that the department store was not necessarily a value destination – the promotions were very down to earth



This unique offer reminded me of something that I witnessed almost six months back while I was in a similar departmental store in a smaller town close to Kaifeng in Northern China. There I was greeted by something even more unusual – I saw a colorful starburst announcing Tide Detergent Powder being given out free with second hand DVD Players.



If I were to speculate a few inferences from these two separate observations, I would say that just like the Indian shopper – the Chinese shopper loves offers. As long as there is a promotional freebie attached to a product being sold – no matter how unrelated it might be to the product– the shopper will pay attention. This also reminds me of what my ex-colleague and good friend - R Narayanan once told me about China- “China can be a market for the most unusual of products.” I would now add by saying – “China can be a market for the most unusual promotional offers.”

This also makes me think about looking at promotional offers through a wider lens. Instead of getting stuck in the more conventional- brand or category related paradigms, we can actually open ourselves to ideas that are pragmatic or simply unusual.

Allen Adamson of Landor Associates on the Future of Branding in the Information Age

Recently I asked Allen about what he saw as the future of branding in a society where almost all the information would be easily findable and the concept of “myth” fades away?
His response is focused, here is what he believes -
Every smart organization knows that the “myth” of a brand fades as soon as a consumer realizes that the promise of the brand is not being delivered as expected. Easily findable information merely speeds up the process by which brands are outed as frauds. Strong, successful brands are not built on myths, but on clearly communicating and demonstrating what makes them relevantly different - and better - than the competition. Contrary to your premise, the more information consumers have access to, the more important branding becomes. Brands are short cuts. They help consumers make personally meaningful choices. In a world of information overload, consumers are looking for ways to simplify and speed up the process of deciding which brand is better suited to their needs. If you’re in the market for a digital camera, for example, you now have access to tons of information; which cameras have the highest mega-pixel rating, the largest zoom, the most memory, the longest battery life, the fastest downloading speed. If a brand organization is doing its job well, the branding, no matter what form or format it takes, will help you determine which brand is best for your needs. “I’m going to buy a Nikon because the company designs products for people who are really into their pictures, or I’m going to buy a Sony because it will better integrate with my laptop.”The functionality and service components of the camera, which are also considered important aspects of the branding, will validate your choice. While some brands may start out mythic in nature, myth has never sustained a brand long term. A strong brand is based on a simple, well-defined promise of relevant differentiation and a history of delivering on this promise as expected.
For those who are provoked or thought provoked, they can comment here and they might find more to mull over and debate in his new book Brand Digital:Simple Ways Top Brands Succeed in the Digital World.

Eco is Luxe

Environment consciousness is at best a luxury in a developing country like India.

We might shrug this off by calling it a shortsighted view but there is truth in what I just said. It is a luxury because
·We have a country where we need to reach food for living to a LARGE number of people and we can’t depend on flimsy paper bags to carry it, we need poly-film to help us reach it intact and reach it cost effectively.

·We have billions who need to be kept warm thus we need to burn fossil fuel & firewood

·We have millions who want to celebrate their festivals with all the fanfare and we can’t ban all the firecrackers

·We have innumerable thirsty throats that need clean and bottled water and we can’t deny it for there is a dip in the water table

We are a country that has an over-grown population & an over-developed democracy but an under-developed economy and stilted governance & public administration. This disequilibrium is that is at the root of many of the challenges that we are facing as a nation and an ecosystem!

Like the ecosystem maintains a dynamic equilibrium with itself so is needed an equilibrium between Democracy, Economy and Ecology. Today, none of these is in harmony with the other.

The challenge is not limited to a developing nation like India. Even developed nations are facing it though in different ways. Let’s talk about the much talked about Organic Wave. Why is there a backlash to Organic food with questions being raised as to what is the real organic?
Is milk and meat from cattle that roams and feeds on ‘live’ grass (that is not grown with pesticides) and comes back to the cattle-shed in the evening to be milked, more organic than the cattle that does not have to leave the shed and feeds on similar pesticide free grass which is pre cut? Perhaps yes perhaps we do not know.
A more fundamental question to ask is that why can’t we afford to send the cow out in the fields? The answer usually would be “we do not have the luxury of time to do that because demand waits for no one” (not even till cows come home!). And what does this overbearing demand represent? This demand represents the large population that needs to have their morning cup of milk every day regularly and in good quantities. The large population (a species called humans) has grown ‘inorganically’ and has an inorganic agenda for survival, but it wants to live healthy – organically. It is perhaps a huge paradox of our times because a species that ‘lives’ inorganically (medicines/ vaccines/ surgeries/ implants/ augmentations etc.) cannot realistically have a ‘lifestyle’ that is organic (food etc.).

When these challenges are rampant in developed nations (US) with small population base (density 31/sqkm) how can we be surprised to see the adverse impact of this rampant population growth and the subsequent degradation of environment in over populated (density 329/sq km) & under developed countries like India.

Challenges facing a developing country go far and wide beyond over-population. We have problems to address as as rampant migration, lack of education and sometimes-even lack of regulations . Together all of them pose a much bigger challenge than what brands can realistically handle.

Eco friendliness is a luxury that brands in developing countries cannot afford, not at least in the short term!

The way to approach this challenge is to not just look at the responsibilities of brands and marketers but to look at what role does government have to play in solving these fundamental challenges.

For brands and marketers a more realistic target would be to create perceptions of eco-friendliness for themselves based on their activities, no matter how micro they are, and hope that this also leads to a larger set of people becoming conscious of their responsibilities towards environment in one way or the other.
No wonder we have public and private initiatives like the DTC Bus service in Delhi, which is the largest CNG, bus service network in the world. There are brands like Allen Solly and many others that promote only recycled paper bags. We even have hospitality chains like Ecotel Hotels that have been certified as completely environment friendly. British Petroleum has launched Oorja - a smoke free chulha for rural markets in India. The chulha burns the fuel optimally and reduces the smoke dramatically.

It is interesting to note that while eco conscious brands, products and marketing seems to connote luxury at the top-end, which in turn triggers adoption; at the bottom-end eco friendliness has to stand for efficiency and value to attract trials and adoption.
Though all of these might look like small steps but they are all in the right direction.

The long march to eco responsibility has just begun and we have a long way to go. The good news is that we at least know the direction we need to take.