Valspar paints TV commercials

Here are a couple of my favorite TV commercials by Valspar paints. A perfect example of innovative and emotional advertising blended into one. What I like the most about the concept is that Valspar successfully cut through the clutter existent in the category where other paint brands would show people with their rollers painting their houses - so much so that you could not tell one brand from the other by just looking at their advertising. Valspar, on the other hand realized that painting is an emotional process for its target consumers - the DIYers and they successfully played an emotional chord by staying consistent with their brand promise "Bring the colors of nature home with you" across all key consumer touch points: Print, Television, Outdoor and Social media.

Social marketing - A primer

There is a lot of buzz right now about social media and the right way to carry out its implementation. Quick, When you think about social media what comes to your mind? No prizes for guessing - Facebook? Twitter? Linkedin? Youtube?

All of the above are only tools that are to be used to support your entire social marketing strategy. Social marketing is a far bigger strategy which is a crucial part of the core marketing strategy of any organization. So why is it necessary for a company to invest in social marketing? Because social marketing has revolutionized the way we do business. Social marketing is about conversations. Our customers are out there talking about our brands, what they did and did not like and how it made them feel. There are valuable consumer insights out there which a company can leverage to pave its path towards success.

So how do we get started? Here is the process that I took in coming up with a social marketing framework which has been particularly effective in my experience:

1) Listen:

Firstly, define your goals - It is essential for a company to determine measurable goals which would potentially lead to increased market share, growth and profits.

Secondly,a sincere attempt has to be made to listen to your customers.



This involves primarily 2 steps:

- Determining the persona segments of your audiences and high value communities

The right way to determining persona segments is to conduct an indepth research on the triggers, motivations, behaviors and needs of your target consumers. By doing this you will be able to tailor your outgoing messages to suit the unique needs and requirements of your consumers on a one-on-one basis which is far more relevant and engaging to them.

- Identifying what conversations are taking place online and where

Tools that can be used for this step are numerous.If you are under a budget and you want to get a whiff of the industry, free tools like Google Alerts and Social mention will do. There also exist paid tools like Radian6 and Lexalytics which tells you the sentiment of the conversations that are occuring online. You would get deep insights on whether your customers are speaking favorably or unfavorably about your brand.

- Identify your influencers

I believe that this is one of the key points to consider before even thinking of creating a social platform. Whether they are the mavens - "a trusted expert in a particular field, who seeks to pass knowledge to others" or the connectors - "people who have a wide network of casual acquaintances by whom they are trusted", it is extremely important to find out who your influencers may be. This may not be apparent on first notice but by making use of services like Klout and Technorati, you will be able to take the first step in identifying who your core influencers may be.

2) Create:

Based on the results from the conversations online, you can now create a platform or invest in an existing platform, depending on where your target audience interact with each other the most. It is crucial that all your social media tools are considered as secondary touch points in the process. These in turn need to be integrated with your central touch point - that is, your website. The social media tools may include but not limited to the following:
Social networks - facebook, linkedin
micro-blogging - twitter
community building - ning, kickapps, telligent
thought leadership - squidoo, yahoo answers, wikipedia
media sharing - flickr, gather, youtube etc

3) Engage:

Based on the unique features of the platforms you choose to create, you need to come up with a content strategy for each tool you plan to use within your platform. For example: The kind of content you may have on facebook will vary widely from the ones you have on twitter. Blogs may be totally different from communities created by the company online. The key thing to remember is to converse with consumers as opposed to having a one way monologue. Erik Qualman put it very effectively when he said that "it is a people-driven economy". With all the existing clutter in the market, consumers have learnt to turn a deaf ear to marketers that market irrelevant products to them. It is only when marketers find their own unique "purple cow" can they stand out in their consumers' eyes. After testing numerous engagement approaches a company would be able to find out that which works best with its target market.

4) Measure:

As no marketing strategy is complete without making an attempt to prove ROI (Return on Investment) or ROCI (Return on customer investment) the last step is to measure the success of your social marketing strategy. This requires asking questions like -

- Did our social marketing efforts have a viral effect? That is, did others pass along our message to external communities?
- Did we learn something new about our organization and customers based on the customer database we are continually building up?
- Finally and most importantly, is our social media presence strengthening over time, leading to greater market share and leading us towards our overall business goals?

Ultimately, companies need to prime their system continually in order to keep their consumers engaged. The most important factor is to ensure that you are continually and gradually moving towards your end goals in the most effective and efficient manner.

Source: http://msinetwork.com/

Color: Influence on branding

I have been playing with the color schemes in my blog the past few hours, being influenced by a course I took at the Kellogg school of management here at Northwestern, as a part of my IMC program. The course was about the influence that image, style and design has on products and services today. After reading through the book "Color:messages and meanings" by Leatrice Eiseman I was truly inspired. I have never thought of myself as a person who found inspiration in colors but this book changed my entire viewpoint.

I realized that color has a deep, subconscious influence on the decisions consumers make on a daily basis. Let's take the example of Google. The inspiring graphic designer, Ruth Kedar came up with the Google logo which is shown to embody the primary colors today and the Catull typeface (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catull) that give Google its unique brand identity. By playing with different colors and bringing a two-dimensionality to the O's, Ruth succeeded in Google attaining its distinctive playful, cheerful and helpful image in the eyes of its consumers.



According to a recent research, about 95% of product assessment and consequent purchase is based purely on color. Color enables brand recognition, whether it is the bright red of Coca-Cola's logo or the vibrant blue of IBM. Color plays a role in tapping into the emotional instincts of consumers often ignored by most marketers today. For example: Red is looked at as a color that invokes passion and is exciting. Using red for a product thus, makes a bold statement due to which marketers use it for products for their consumers who like to stand out.







Blue on the other hand is associated with serenity, peace and calm. Take the tiffany blue color for example which is also available as a paint color.In addition, blue also communicates a feeling of assurance to the consumer which explains the use of blue in Intel's logo - assuring consumers that they can go ahead and purchase the laptop due to the fact that there's an "intel inside."

Take the final example of the colors that embody Northwestern University - Purple. It has been very cleverly designed to communicate the message of inspiration, creativity and ambition found in the students of Northwestern. Purple is also seen as a color that is strikingly different from the other colors which gives it an aura of exclusivity.

Thus, companies need to perform in depth research to understand the unique attributes of their brand they want to communicate to their core consumers. The expression of a brand's core personality can be done through its color. It's not about asking "what is your favorite color?" It's about asking "What are the attributes of your brand and what color best expresses it effectively?"

An example of Innovative technology

Introduced about 2 years ago and still going strong is a form of innovative technology in the website - http://www.wefeelfine.org describing itself as "an exploration of human emotion, in six movements." This technology continually harvests sentences from the broad field of social media that contain the phrase "I feel" or "I am feeling". This information is collected from Internet blog entries, twitter, facebook and other social networking websites and is displayed in an interactive java applet, that runs in any web browser.

The color of each dot represents how a user is feeling. For example: Bright dots are happy and dark dots are sad. In addition, demographic information like age,gender and location are also provided for the user to play with.

What are the implications for marketers? 2 words - Consumer Insights! Due to the depth of information provided through this one website marketers can gain an insight into the needs and wants of their core audiences and target relevant messages accordingly.

On the flip side, this technology does raise privacy concerns. For example: I have signed up only for having my profile on facebook - I would not want my updates and other demographic information broadcasted on an external website.

Nevertheless, this is a revolutionary technology and will be extremely helpful in the current digital economy. Watch Jonathan Harris - the creator of the website in this video
http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_harris_tells_the_web_s_secret_stories.html

KitKat goes "Glocal"

Think global, act local. The “glocal” approach to marketing is an effective way for brands to stay focused on the consumer in worldwide markets.

KitKat, one of the world’s best-selling chocolate brands, launched several varieties of its famous crème-filled wafer bars in Japan, providing an excellent example of the glocal approach. Among them are KitKat Soybean, Wasabi and Iced Tea. KitKatlaunched 19 other flavors to connect with its Japanese audience. The company has also collaborated with the Japanese mail system to create packages of the chocolatesthat can be sent as postcards for special occasions. This caters to Japan’s gift-giving culture, called “Omiage,” where people are expected to bring back something unique for their friends and family when they travel.

How did KitKat effectively use the IMC approach to become a successful brand in the Japanese market?

First, KitKat conducted extensive consumer research to come up with flavors that satisfied the palate of Japanese consumers. With this valuable data in place, KitKat was able to uncover the needs of Japanese consumers and build relationships with them.

Second, these chocolate flavors are marketed only in the Japanese market. By practicing the IMC concept of sub-segmentation, KitKat was able to create contacts that allowed for specific sub-segments to connect with the brand in a more individualistic and idiosyncratic way.

However, many of the varieties sell only for a limited time in specific seasons. For example, the flavor Cherry Blossom is available only in spring. While this is a good strategy of manufacturing chocolates unique to a particular season, will it be successful in the long term? Only time will tell.

Passion for Marketing

Being an ardent fan of professor Philip Kotler, I am passionate about marketing which has further deepened because of the IMC program that I am pursuing at Northwestern University.

For those who are not familiar with the program, IMC or Integrated Marketing Communications takes a consumer centric approach towards building brands. Our program focuses on deriving consumer insights by delving deep into the vast ocean of valuable data. IMC students take an outside-in approach to marketing, where we put customers in the forefront of the marketing process and create powerful communication strategies that resonate with them.

Marketers today have to accept the fact that they no longer own their brands. It is their customers who are in control. It is their customer who own the company's brands. In the current economy, if every company keeps this in mind, they are bound to be successful.

For more information on our program visit - http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/imc/