Marketing Idea No. 79 – How to be like Bond, James Bond

The man with the golden gun, lots of gizmos, an eye for charming ladies – who is also known as “Bond, James Bond” – may be one of the greatest examples of how consistency builds brands.

Lets face it. He is the king of the shallow male ego, the ultimate in male fantasy with fast cars, fast gizmos and fast women. But when you add a multi-million dollar movie, book and merchandizing franchise to it – suddenly we just go quiet and admire him. And he built his empire, not by doing different attractive things everytime he hits the silver screen, but by doing the same thing over and over and over….again.

Here’s how

1. Start with the title theme. Every Bond movie opens with a title theme of a singer (Almost always female) / band who is the hottest band of that era. The singers galore include – Madonna, Garbage, Sheryl Crowe, Tina Turner and many more.

2. The name of the song is always the name of the movie

3. The title theme always has a mystique quality showing women in shadowy sequences.

4. The gadgets and gizmos of course. Every bond movie has tons of them.

5. The car. Bond was the pioneer in brand placement in movies. And it was either BMW or Aston Martin

6. The ladies. In the beginning the bond girls were all decorative blonds. But as women started to have more controlling roles, the role of bond girls also changed. They started appearing as fellow spies or in more demanding roles in general

7. The Villain. Every bond villain has to be very cosmopolitan (Starting from Morocco to Russia) and must have a grand scheme of destroying the world

8. The Vodka martini. The drink was made world famous by those lines, “I prefer it shaken, not stirred.”

9. The dialogues. Among all the movie dialogues that are made immortal, AFI (American Film Institute) has listed “The name is Bond, James Bond” as the most popular of them all. Interestingly, this dialogue appeared in almost all bond movies and it still makes us weak in the knees.

Such fantastic crafting and attention to details is what made Bond such a global brand. This can be a great lesson for all brands. You don’t have to do different things everytime to be trendy or attract attention.

Rather

A. Find out what makes you truly unique and popular

B. And do it over and over again.

C. Simple

Marketing Idea No. 78 – Great brand rituals at Tk. 299 only

If good times begin with great pizza, when you can eat as much Pizza as you can at Tk. 299, that’s when real good time begins.   And its good time alright, not only for the hundreds of youth who gather in Pizza Hut everyday, but also for the savvy marketers in Transcom food. They are experiencing a full house everyday for the past 4 years by giving this offer. A room full off hungry young people lining up to have a go at the pizza galore. As a marketer, what more can you expect?  Well, us marketers have a lot to learn from this. 

1. The pizza hut offer works like magic because it gives the youth to have some fun in groups. When you can come in flocks and hang around, its always a good incentive for youth to drop by.
2. In fact, it has become a sort of a competition regarding who can eat more Pizza. If one can gulp down a sizeable number of pizza, it gives him the bragging rights. And this alone has created a sort of an urban legend. Some says that the highest number of pizza was eaten by a guy who ate 21 slices. Some say its more than that – in fact, its almost 30. Whatever the number is, such enthusiasm and mythical number crunching must be music to the ears of any marketers.

So when you combine community fun, with good food, great competition and some good old fashioned hype and urban myths – you have nailed a winning formula for years. What Pizza Hut has created has little to do with good food. Its all about the grand experience. That’s the power of branded ritual for you.   If you can find a ritual like that for your brand, that’s going to go a long way to establish and integrate your brand into your target audience lifestyle. Just do an audit and find out how you can create a ritual that your customers can adopt which will not only be a fun experience for the customers but also be great for your cash register.

Marketing Idea No. 77 – Be the best transporter!

This idea is contributed by Mohammad Jobaed Adnan

 

Frank Martin (Jason Statham) is the best transporter. People can hire him out as a mercenary “transporter” who moves goods. Frank is the best in the business and he has never broken the rules. One of his rules is to transport things in due time and safely, without asking questions. That’s why he is known as the best in the business. Well it’s all about movie stuffs. But you can also be the transporter in real life – be the best in moving among the maze we call Dhaka. All we need is a little thing called “membership system”.

In our country, to move from one city to another city bus service is one of the major transports. What we do is just purchase the tickets and ride on the bus. But when occasions/holidays come, we see the real rush. People even don’t get a single ticket sometimes, not to mention the problem of standing in long cues and not getting tickets. What if we change this process to make the thing easier?

Introducing membership system in transport business. Each member will get an ID number. So that people can book their tickets over the net or through SMS. People even have to come to the office and stay in line to book tickets. This idea will help the company to implement the power of technology to satisfy the customers. Another thing that can be done for is to add a “mileage” option. If it can be done 50000 miles up in the air, it can be done in the road and highways as well. Regular travelers can be offered an extra ride without paying for the trip. This offer will motivate the travelers to get this advantage. Thus the company will get more loyal customers.

So why won’t you take this chance and be the very first one to evaluate such services to be the best transporter?

Marketing Idea No. 76 – Your recruitment should re-inforce your brand positioning

The problem with brand positioning is many perceive market communication as the only way of building it. But that is nowhere near what the truth is! In fact, mass media advertising plays probably 25% role in forming or solidifying brand positioning. The rest comes through brand experience.  And brand experience is almost entirely dependent on how your employees behave or react.   That’s why a radical way of creating, reinforcing or changing brand position is looking at all aspects of your HR issues. Hire, develop and fire your employees according to your brand values and desired positioning. More emphasis on recruiting.   The general criteria of recruiting is quality of the candidate. But very seldom ( in fact, almost never) we really cross-check if the candidate is fit enough to uphold your brand values. And that’s mistake no. 1.  So next time, hire properly. Understand what your brand means and understand how your brand experience is shaped by employee behavior. Then find out what is the desired employee behavior that is necessary for your brand’s desired positioning. Then, and only then, find out candidates that can project that desired behavior.

Marketing Idea No. 74 – If your cause marketing is not “Hip”, its destined to die

Non-profit marketing now has a for-profit makeover. People finally understood that be it breast cancer or child labor, if you cant market your message properly by using the rules of the marketing game and not glamorize your cause somehow, you will never get the momentum that your cause deserves.

Global Warming was a household name for decades without much hype and hoopla around it. Add a charismatic ex-vice president called Al Gore, a best selling book, an award winning documentary called “An Inconvenient Truth”, a globe-trotting concert called Live Earth on 7-7-07 (7^th July 2007) and thousands of workshops around the world – and suddenly Global Warming is more “hip” than Michael Jackson. And that’s the power of media and branding for you.   

Similarly American Heart Association also followed suit. On February 3 Empire State Building glowed red. Niagara Falls was red for one day. All this to create hype and consciousness around the risk of heart diseases.  So for the crusader who was dreaming to change the world through better causes, the only way to move it forward is to embrace modern marketing practices. It is only through proper marketing can we create necessary awareness for our genuine causes.

Marketing Idea No. 73 – Don’t brag your weaknesses

Hutch has gone around the full color spectrum. From Orange to Pink to vibrant Red, it may have gone the distance in terms of color, fantastic advertising (Thanks to O&M) and mindshare, but definitely not in terms of revenue or market share.

At the end of the day they have the cute dog and some fantastic visual images with cute music and great ads, but it didnt break for Hutch. Why? Because their claim may have been “Wherever you go our network follows”, network was the main thing that Hutch didnt follow up. While they bragged about their network coverage, their’s was the worst network of the Indian telco players.

Lesson to be learned – It may be the industry standard, but dont sell your weakness and brag about it. People will like your ads but buy your competitors products. 

Marketing Idea No. 70 – Silky Kumar and the scent of desire

For those who thought traditional advertising is the only way forward, Axe and MTV has shown a masterclass execution.

For a few weeks, people were intrigued by this “Silky Kumar” character. Here is this whacky looking singer, who is a self-proclaimed superstar, appearing in MTV singing catchy tunes and giving interviews. Media was a-buzz with intrigue, who is this Silky Kumar?

As it turned out, Silky Kumar is a fictitous singer / character created by Hindustan lever and Mtv, to create hype around their brand Axe. As we all so fondly know, Axe is all about turning the heads and hearts of the opposite sex. That is what their brand promise has been consistently for some time now. This great campaign just took that concept to a next level by creating a fictitious character and song, based on the same concept – creating appeal to the fairer sex.

For all those who want to study the effect of “branded content” and how its done – check out the music video of Silky Kumar called “Scent of desire” in Youtube.

Marketing Idea No. 69 – Connect your brand personality with your audience personality

Your brand must connect to the audience and your audience must identify with the brand. And that is where your brand personality can play a big role.

 

On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is brand personality?

Lets see an example of our favorite local super heroes and in terms of their box value. In recent times all 3 major super heroes – Batman, Spiderman and Superman had a movie released. But not all of their box office fate was the same. While Spiderman 1,2 and 3 all three of them have written and re-written box office records – Batman Begins and Superman returns have not reached the height Superman has set. Although there are many reasons behind it ( fantastic marketing super distribution of Sony pictures) – one stand out reason was how much the audience can identify with the characters.

 Superman is an alien from outer space and have problems with kryptonite. Batman is filthy rich and is trying to come in terms with his dark side. Both these brand characters have personality traits that mass people can never identify with. But think of your friendly neighborhood hero Spiderman. He is an average guy whose problems include conflict between work and social responsibility and frequently have girl troubles. Plus, he seems more like a naïve person who is trying to do good for himself and people he loves in his own way – rather than an infallible super hero. Now that, many people can identify with.

If your audience can identify and empathize with your brand through its personality – it only assures great success. That’s why its not a co-incidence that the success of these 3 movies are related to the brand appeal of each of these characters. They are very much related.

 

So now, on a scale of 1 to 10, how important do you think your brand personality is?

                        

Marketing Idea No. 68- Use technology well

Are you using technology well?

If the answer to this question is an indecisive yes or a blatant no, then you should pay attention.While its often said that the rules of the branding game has changed over the past decade, few has gone on and pin-point the exact reason for that phenomenon. While the usual suspect is the growing reduction of customer time span and increase in the number of product and category choices – these are mere effects of a much greater cause. And that cause can be simplified in two words – technological impact.

If you are sitting in your ivory tower and plan that technology is for technical company only, then you are about to be condemned with “dinosaur” syndrome. Not only do brands, regardless of category or country, need technology – but they need to be on top of it.

Check out the movers or shakers in the global branding arena. Which names stand out? Apple, Google, Nike, Walmart to name some. And what do they have in common? A keen understanding and mastery of technology. What are the buzzwords of modern era branding? Customer Relationship Management, Ambient media, Web 2.0 etc. At the heart of all these revolution is technology.

What used to take 20 years to do, now it happens in 2. And that’s all due to technology. Take the example of personal computer category. We used to believe that a category leader can stay a category leader for a long period of time and its almost impossible to topple the leader from the number 1 position. But in our lifetime we have seen Dell passing HP for number 1 position in PC and then HP hitting back and tacking the number 1 position from Dell after a few years.

What we used to think is impossible, can now be made possible – thanks to technology. Think product customization catering to individual tastes. Levi’s is making jeans for individuals, customizing it according to their preference.So the lesson is, if you are late at the game  u need to push the accelerator because this is one game that is played at break-neck speed. Use technology, the latest ones; to understand, design and meet the demands of your customers. That’s a need to have, no longer a good to have. 

Marketing Idea No. 67 – What is the role of CSR?

CSR or Corporate Social responsibility is the “in” thing now in marketing. With everyone more or less going the same direction and thanks to awesome development in technology, product offerings are becoming similar day by day. With that in perspective, the company that stands out with great CSR activities scores big in peoples minds and pockets.

The trick to effectively use CSR as a brand building or a brand building support tool is

1. Focus on one initiative. Dont associate with 3-4 causes, because that will mean you are spreading your resources in 3-4 areas and not making maximum impact

2. Pick a cause that is closely associated with the business objective and brand strategy. For example – BodyShop is in the business of selling cosmetics made of natural ingredients. Therefore it makes a world of sense for them to associate with anything that’s related to nurturing of nature.

3. Pick a cause that does not already have a solid footprint in people’s mind with an association with another brand. When someone starts to fight BodyShop with ownership of nature protection CSR initiatives, its a losing cause. It would have made for sense for that brand to pick a cause that is still unoccupied by brands.

Dutch-Bangla bank showed how by consistently focusing on CSR, one can build a solid brand. Many should learn from such a great example.