Creating the Longest Marketing Idea Chain in the World

The sun always shines in Bangladesh

Everyone knows we are emotional people. That’s nothing new. Simply blindly being emotional about your advertising will not make your brand stand out. Moreover, all the countries in Indian sub-continent are emotional. What emotion is uniquely Bangladeshi? Its called – unjustified, relentless optimism.

Have you ever wondered why we are always in a hurry? Point in note – traffic jam. Countries all over the world have traffic jam, but only in Bangladesh would you see the kind of “cant-wait-for-nobody-for-a-second” kind of attitude. Be it in roads, be it cinema ticket lines.

That’s the searching nature of us. In the immortal words of Bono we “still haven’t found what we are looking for”. We are unbelievably pissed about our present and tremendously optimistic about our future. So whatever that can get us away from here, from right now is what we are looking for all the time. Hence the rush, hence the hurry all the time.

What brand marketing implications does that have? It means your brand must paint a positive picture about future. It means you should refrain from functionality and negativity – at times even when it is proving a point. It means fantasy has a bigger role to play in advertising. It means brands that will make it more aspirational rather than being relevant and realistic will succeed in the long run.

Whats common between black cats, stepping on a crack in the floor, number 4 in china, walking under a ladder and wearing a lucky shorts in all games?

Superstitions. Love it or hate it, but you can never deny it.

Superstitious or not, we can never deny the power of such ridiculous notions in our lives. In fact, scientists claim that superstitions are nothing but our desire for control in an increasingly turbulent and unpredictable world. Here’s an interesting fact. During the Gulf War, the areas that were attacked by Scud missiles, there was a rise in superstitious belief.

Superstitions are slowly but heavily creeping into business world. There is no 13th row in Air France, KLM and Continental. In far east, “Kit Kat” as a brand exploded in popularity because it rhymes with the word “Kitto-Katsu”, which means win without fail. After two 191 numbered flights crashed, Delta and American Airlines both retired that flight number permanently. Michael Jordan always weared his favorite Carolina Tar Heels shorts under his Bulls jersey in match days.  

The best way to deal with superstition is not react to it, but making strategies about how to exploit it for your business purpose. Its all about making your customers feel safe and secured. Its about making them feel that even in these unpredictable world, your brand will help them control their life and everything surrounding the way they want it.

So are you ready to tackle the superstition challenge? Sure?

Ok. Its raining outside in a wedding day, which is supposed to be bad luck for groom and bride. How would your brand deal with it?

Go figure.

In his groundbreaking book “Whatever you think, think the opposite”, Paul Arden made a convincing case about doing unpredictable things and getting stupendous results. If for example, the whole world is going ga-ga about pop songs, invest in rock songs. If pink is the color of the season, choose red as the theme color of your bash. If everybody is keen on buying bank stocks, buy service industry stocks. If everybody is targetting the youth segment, target the old.

The key is to do things outside your comfort zone, to reject conventional wisdom and take risks that seem unreasonable but attainable.

It makes a lot of sense. And here are a few pointers from both Tom Peters and Paul Arden to chew upon.

1. TRAPPED. It’s not because you are making the wrong decisions. It’s because you are making the right ones. We try to make sensible decisions based on the facts in front of us. The problem with making sensible decisions is that so is everybody else

2. Making the safe decision is dull, predictable and leads nowhere new. The unsafe decision causes you to think and respond in a way you hadn’t thought of. And that thought will lead to other thoughts which will help you achieve what you want. Start taking bad decisions and it will take you to a place where others only dream of being

3. ARE YOU BEING REASONABLE? Most people are reasonable; that’s why they only do reasonably well

We all had a thing for “me-too” ideas. Its simple. Someone’s gone through the trouble of doing all the thinking and putting the budget to launch something new, and the next thing you know your competition has done the exact same thing a few days later. Frustrating? Well you cant even think…..unless you’ve been there and done it.

Here’s the newsflash – Me-too works. But you just have to follow these simple rules

1. Make it me-three, rather than me-two(too). What i meant is make, when you copy your competition, copy the whole thing thats fine, but add a small upgrade.

2.  Copy fast. If you copy something that has been launched 3-4 months ago, does not matter. Because that product has not gotten into the mind of the customers. Therefore after a few years, none will remember that your product actually came 3-4 months later. On the other hand if you want to copy Microsoft now after 20 odd years…..lets just say….none should go that way.

3. Spend upfront to occupy the attribute. It means even if your product is an exact copy of another product, if you spend more money to create more awareness, people might seem that you actually are the inventor of that product / attribute!!!

Dont believe Me-too works? Even if the world’s new number 1 car maker Toyota says it…even then?

Toyota analyzed the engineering works of other cars,  but they added their own version to it..small, effiicient car, rather than the big cars of american automobiles.  

That is why even though they came into the picture some 30-40 years later, they have surpassed their much more illustrius competitors.

Celebrity endorsement is one of the biggest misused marketing tool.

Here is the normal formula. Create a brand, sign up a larger than life celebrity to endorse your product and viola – people flock to shops to buy your brand.

 Well not necessarily. And here are the reasons

1. Too many celebrities do too many endorsements. Can you honestly answer how many products Tendulker and Shahrukh khan endorse?

2. Celebrity and the Brand must be a close match. In recent years two of the most successful brand endorsements are – Amir Khan endorsing Coke and Abhishek Bacchan endorsing Motorola. Reason? Amir khan’s versatile acting created “fun” around the concept ”thanda” . And Abhisheks’ boyish charm created “self-deprecating humor”, a very rare thing among celebrities who usually guard their image like anything, around the brand Motorola.

Whats your take on this?