Gaining Foothold

HOW TO GAIN A FOOTHOLD- Part 1

The only thing that puts marketing apart is its inexact nature. It’s neither a science nor an art. The process of ideation has undergone a sea change over the years. Laureates even quantify it as 50% science & 50% art. I would rather say marketing as a perfect blend of perspiration & inspiration.

Now, let us see how?

Suppose, you are the brand manager of a new beverage company, and you are asked to come up with an idea for positioning a new brand of beer, that is to be launched soon. How will you go about it? There are two options for you. 1st and 2nd, which one would you, choose?

1) You gather data about existing brands. You analyze on what people want, then come to a conclusion by finding a gap in the market & try to fill the gap by positioning your

product in that segment. In short, find some key needs that are not being currently met.

2) Go to the nearest pub with some friends. Try out some brands, start thinking something weird, bounce around ideas & try to come up with something new, exciting & funny.

Now, what you think, which of the two ideas will sell? Probably both can. No one can

undermine the power of intellectual solution i.e. 1st one, but can you really restrict yourself to the abstract data. If so, then how will you come across people needs which they have not yet articulated?

Had Sony analyzed only the abstract data, they would have made bigger & better sound

boxes, but they went a step ahead, & looked beyond data & came up with the revolutionary device like walkman. No doubt, why Steve Jobs says, I don’t know what marketing research is.

Today Apple doesn’t serve markets, it rather creates markets. In short, the take home point is keeping one self open to inspiration.

Having decided the positioning, you will launch your product but how will you tackle

your competitor? Can you survive the onslaught of Big Brother? The gut reaction of a marketer working on a large, established brand, when faced with a frontal attack by a small competitor, is to crush it before it becomes a bigger threat. The trick is not to try to “out shout” it, but rather find a segment of customers with a higher appeal for you, or to find some benefits that you can offer that it does not, and then focus all of your marketing on this segment. The crux is, ruthless focus is the best way to stay alive against a much larger competitor. Take the gaming console wars where Sony PlayStation and Xbox are gathering much of the headlines. However, this open battle by Sony has some other angles too. What is not known is that Sony has very successfully launched PSP handheld gaming device. The PSP device taps into a niche segment, where Microsoft doesn’t address a very basic need – mobile gaming. So, now after doing all the hard work of identifying your target customers & positioning, how do you ensure that people come and buy your product? Just because you know whom you want to sell and what you want to sell does not actually mean that they will buy. This is when you need to understand and anticipate barriers that may prevent your targeted customers from trying your brand, and develop a plan to crack those barriers. Barriers differ from category to category and market to market. Barriers may be physical, emotional or monetary.

Increasing number of Teaser ads these days address these concerns. Remember the teaser

of Reliagre Insurance few days back “kya aap KILB ke shikar hain” somehow induce you to break the shackles. A great example of the brand busting barriers is Dove. In beauty care, a common barrier is consumer cynicism (“everybody looks beautiful in advertising, but how do I know this product really works). In its advertisements Dove used successful combinations of “women like you” testimonial campaign and showing before your eyes proof by using simple techniques like litmus test.

Though increasing number of people, have lot of complaints with cable TV, yet they live

with it & don’t switch to DTH. Apart from some other factors, researches show that a normal inertial resistance exists which prevents people from switching & they postpone it every day. Now, say if you are the brand manager of a DTH company how will you overcome this barrier. You might improve your distribution, reduce the subscription fee & bundle all the charges (set top box & subscription) in one & give them one good bargain thus reducing the monetary barrier.

Great. Things must be going well & fine now. You are well positioned & have fought it

out with your competitors & your product is selling well. But, how can you grow continuously? Among some of the tricks, the other trick to continue growing is to define success as finding new users. Geographical expansion is a ploy, but what if I have to operate in only one market. Means, I have to find a new set of people who are not using my brand today, to which I could expand my appeal. One of the most successful examples of this in recent times has been the expansion of a shaving brand into the female segment. No, it’s not Nivea or Fa which have very recently launched the men version now, but it is Gillete. Gillete identified a potential growth opportunity among females. Gillete found out that while the functional need was similar (hair removal), the

basic emotional need was very different among men & women. For men, shaving is one of the integral parts of their grooming routine & a key part of feeling masculine. For women, shaving is the removal of something unwanted that comes in the way of their femininity. So, Gillete came up with a revolutionary design to appeal to this new target customer. And guess, what was the name of the brand? No, it was not Gillete for women, but they came out with an entirely new brand named “Venus”, unlike other companies say Nivea, Fa etc. They successfully expanded their territory without hurting the parent brand. So, the take home point is a brand has to continuously seek new horizons.

To be contd... In next part

Tushar Anand