Unit 4
Key Marketing Dimensions
Case study (Case study of LG India – Winning in Rural India)
It was back in 2002, the consumer electronics was well established in the urban part of India, so much so that the Urban growth was capped at 5%. However, consumer electronic manufacturers started to see a new trend. They saw that the growth was higher in the rural markets and so was the revenue and profits. A survey conducted in 2002 by Francis Kanoi, a market research firm, indicated that nearly 63.1% came from cities and rural areas having a population of less than 1 million. The growth rate of these areas was about 25%. This was possibly due to higher disposable income and good agricultural output in those areas. So, it became imperative for the electronics manufacturers during that time to focus on the rural markets and LG India was one of them. LGEIL (LG electronics India limited) adopted a few strategies that proved instrumental for them to enter the rural markets. Firstly, they made changes in their offerings for the rural market. For example, they offered coloured televisions for INR 8000 in these rural markets and, focused on removing any unappealing features to match the needs of rural customers. Furthermore, they reduced the number of TV channels for rural customers to lower theirs and the customer’s costs. LG India also made changes in its marketing and distribution structure for their rural customers and adopted a unique structure best suited for these customers. It designed a pyramidal sales structure by decentralizing its distribution structure. Earlier the rural dealers were serviced through LG India’s branch offices, this is not working well in the rural markets. And so, the company further fragmented its current structure. These strategies helped LG India to penetrate deep into the rural markets and improve sales. Their market share for refrigerators in the rural markets jumped to 24% in 2004 from 16% in 2003. In some areas, LG India made sales 40-45% higher in 2004 than in the previous year. It helped them develop relations with the rural dealers who were earlier not a part of their network.
Concept Marketing ethics is an area of applied ethics which deals with the moral principles behind the operation and regulation of marketing. It seeks to market honesty, fairness, and responsibility altogether advertising. Standards for marketing ethics guide companies in their efforts to try to "the right thing." These standards help identify acceptable practices, foster control, and deal honestly and fairly with customers. They also ensure businesses suit the law. Sometimes companies develop and publish their own ethical standards; other times they suit the regulations or guidelines of their professional or industry associations. Marketing ethics sets out a framework permanently practice in marketing, no matter the product or market sector. Ethical marketing describes an approach to marketing during which companies set high ethical standards and communicate those positively. A tobacco company that avoided advertising would be complying with marketing ethics. An organization that sourced environmentally friendly products from a country or company that practiced excellent employee relations would be practicing ethical marketing. The principles of marketing ethics are- • All marketing communications share the common standard of truth. • Marketing professionals abide by the very best standard of personal ethics. • Advertising is clearly distinguished from news and entertainment content. • Marketers should be transparent about who they pay to endorse their products. • Consumers should be treated fairly based on the character of the product and therefore the nature of the buyer (e.g. Marketing to children). • The privacy of the buyer should never be compromised. • Marketers must go with regulations and standards established by governmental and professional organizations. • Ethics should be discussed openly and honestly during all marketing decisions. For example, The Hindu: Parliamentary Behavior
This is a good addon to the examples of ethical advertisements in India. A class opens to a debate with the teacher’s instruction to maintain strict parliamentary behavior by the groups involved. What follows is both funny and sad— the students create a ruckus within the classroom— from pulling at each other’s hair to throwing books. The background score of Indian classical music does a cathartic job of driving home the point, and the tagline follows:
Nestle: Good Food, Good Life Being a global trade association, Nestle places a high value on its public relations by catering to the demography and homogenous customer base.  Unethical practices in marketing Avoiding unethical marketing practices can also help a business avoid other consequences, like losing the great faith and loyalty of consumers, and jeopardizing profitability. The worst practices of the bunch are:
Misleading statements can land a business in legal trouble. The law expects advertising claims to be supported by evidence, which proved to be a tricky standard for a number of cigarette manufacturers once they originally promoted their products as being “healthy.” actually, not all claims are provable, and this is often where some marketers deliberately plan to blur the road with exaggerated claims and puffery, which are other kinds of unethical marketing. Consumers may turn a deaf ear to a product that claims to be “the best,” and that they are known to disdain marketing that promises to “transform their life” or “make them the envy of all their friends.” Distorting facts to intentionally confuse or mislead consumers. A classic example: stamping a product as sugar- or calorie-free when it does actually contain some sugar and calories, or touting a product as “healthy” when it's loaded with carbohydrates and sodium. 2. Making false or deceptive comparisons: A number of rival products much more prevalent 20 years ago among general consumer products, you still might see this happen within the tech sector. (Think smartphones.) Competition tends to be fierce when rivals resort to side-by-side comparisons. And consumers may find such how helpful, as long because the information is accurate and truthful. 3. Inciting fear or applying unnecessary pressure: “Limited time offers” are notorious for the latter, which is ok if a deadline really exists and thus the tone doesn't sound threatening. 4. Exploiting emotions or a news event: Such instances happen every once during a short time, then make a quick exit when consumers complain about feeling manipulated. 5. Stereotyping Stereotyping or depicting women as sex symbols merely to draw attention to a product. "While it would be intuitive to use models in adverts for beauty products and cosmetics, having half-naked models in adverts for generators, heavy machinery, smartphones and other products not strongly associated with women are both nonsensical and unethical,” says Profitable Venture. 6. Disparaging references Disappearing references to age, gender, race or religion. Many professional comics have learned the hard way that the road between humour and bad taste are often painfully thin it would be easier to determine if the humour packs an insult or a put-down that produces you grimace. 7. Doctoring photos or using photos that are not authentic representations: Most of the people expect professional photographers and videographers to make the most of lighting and close-ups. But the finished products should be accurate depictions that are free of touch-ups and other enhancement techniques that are designed to mislead. 8. Plagiarizing a competitor: For a small-business owner discovering that a competitor has copied or impinged on a tagline, blog post or promotion are often painful – or infuriating. The reality is, plagiarism probably happens more often than most businesspeople will ever know, because of the online. 9. Spamming or sending unsolicited emails to potential customers: The FTC allows a business one such opportunity then, a business violates the CAN-SPAM act. In effect since 1993, the act also prohibits false or misleading header information and deceptive subject lines. 10. Distortion of facts to mislead or confuse potential buyers This is another common unethical marketing practice. A typical example is when a food processing company claims that its products are sugar-free or calorie-free when indeed they contain sugar or calories. Such a company is only trying to mislead potential buyers, since they are unlikely to buy the products if it is made known that they contain sugar or calories. 11. Bad-mouthing rival products Emphasizing the dark sides of your rival’s products in a bid to turn potential customers towards your own products is another common but unethical marketing practice. Rather than resort to this bad strategy, you should emphasize on those aspects that make your offer stand out from the rest of the pack. That’s professional and ethical. 12. Concealing dark sides or side effects of products or services This unethical marketing practice is rife in the natural remedies industry, where most manufacturers deceive potential buyers that their products have no side effects because they are “made from natural products”.
General role of consumer organizations Functions performed by consumer organizations and non-government organizations are as follows:  Figure 1: Role of consumer associations (1) Accelerating Consumer Awareness/Educating Consumers: The first priority of a consumer organization is to accelerate consumer awareness towards their rights. To accomplish this task following efforts are made: (i) To publish brochures, journals and monographs. (ii) To rearrange conferences, seminars and workshops. (iii) To teach consumers to assist themselves. (iv) To supply education to women about consumerism. (v) To encourage to follow desirable consumption standards. (2) Collecting Data on Different Products and testing them: These organisations collect samples of various products from time to time and test them. Then the results of the tests are declared to public. During this way, these organisations provide prior information to consumers about the authenticity of product and protect them aside from this; these organisations also add conducting investigation/ research on consumer’s problems. (3) Filing Suit on Behalf of Consumers: Whenever a consumer fails to boost his voice of protest regarding his complaints, these consumers’ organisations come to his rescue and file a case within the court. By rendering this service to the consumers, the consumers get a way that they are not alone in their struggle. They also run voluntary complaint centres for the guidance of consumers. (4) Organising Protests against Adulteration etc.: The consumers’ organisations play an enormous role in eliminating the evils of adulteration, hoarding, black- marketing, and under-weight selling. Whenever there's an unnecessary rise within the costs of certain things, the consumers’ organization raise a voice of protest against it. Consumer organisations prepare films and cassettes associated with adulteration in food products, ill effects of medicines and Acts related to consumer protection. Many a times exhibitions are arranged to bring awareness among the consumers against spurious and adulterated products. Nowadays consumer organisations are playing a significant role in encouraging consumers to spice up their voice against faulty and inferior products. (5) Helping Educational Institutions: These organisations tell the tutorial institutions the way to prepare courses of study keeping in sight the interests of the consumers. They stress the very fact that a special article on consumers’ interest should be added to the courses on general study. (6) Promoting Network of Consumer Associations: Consumer organisations attempt to grow their numbers they need to hide all the regions of the country so as those buyers of all the regions are benefited by their services. Their effort is to form a federation at the apex level then through the medium of the federation reach state and district level. (7) Extending Support to Government: Consumer organisations by informing the govt. Agencies about adulteration, artificial scarcity, inferior quality products and other such evils help the govt. This successively helps the govt.to conduct proceedings in time.
Competitive Strategies for Market Leader The leader firm might become weaker or old-fashioned against new entrants also as existing rival firms. It firm can use one or a mix of three strategies to retain its leadership. Market leader strategies are discussed below-  Figure 2: Market leader strategies 1. Expand the entire market: Market leader firms can normally gain the utmost when the entire market expands the main target of expanding the entire market depends on where the product is in its life cycle. This strategy is usually used when a product is within the maturity stage. As an example, the Japanese increased their car production to enter new countries. Market leaders can look for new users, new uses, and more usage of its products when the product is within the maturity stage of the product life cycle. ICICI Bank, as an example, entered into rural banking and agriculture business financing when it felt the heat of competition within the overcrowded and super-saturated urban market. Maruti Udyog started True Value car division—used cars certified by Maruti engineers—to expand their market within the rural and concrete markets well. 2. Defending market share: When the leader tries to expand the entire market size, it must also continuously defend its current business against enemy attacks as an example, Coca-Cola must constantly maintain its guard against Pepsi-Cola. Similarly, Hero Honda should constantly maintain its guard against Bajaj, Honda, Suzuki and TVS within the two-wheeler market during this strategy, the leader firm must keep its costs down, and its price must be according to the worth that customers see within the product. There are six ways during which a market might use to guard its market position: (i) Position defense: This strategy involves allocating maximum resources into the present successful brands. To beat a foothold defense an attacker therefore typically adopts an indirect approach rather than the head-on attack that the defender expects. As an example, HUL increased its ad-spend on Clinic Plus and Sun silk shampoos and gave heavy promotions through discount. (ii) Flanking defense: This strategy both guards the market position of leading brands and develops some flank market niches to function a defensive corner either to protect a weak front or to determine an invasion base for counterattack, if necessary. a perfect example is how HUL successfully nourished its first Rs.100 crore Indian-made brand Vim during a competitive dish wash market. It had been able to check the attack of competitors through product innovation, attractive public campaigns, road shows and PR . (iii) Pre-emptive defense: This defense strategy man oeuvre involves the launching of an offence against an enemy before it starts an offence. As an example, Titan launched more brands and sub-brands to corner the market share of HMT watches within the first 1990s. (iv) Counter offensive defense: This is a technique of identifying a weakness in an attacker and aggressively going then market niche so on cause the competitor to drag back its efforts to defend its own territory .When a leader is attacked, he may base his counterattack within the attacker’s territory. The attacker has to deploy resources to the present territory for defense. When CEAT tyres attacked TVS Srichakra in Tamil Nadu markets, TVS decided to expand its coverage to Ceat tyre’s hub within the north and west of India through innovative campaigns like road rallies, road shows and attractive public campaigns. (v) Mobile defense: This strategy involves the leader broadening and expanding its territories to new market areas by diversifying. The leader takes innovation works in both these directions. As an example, a five-star hotel can become a distant exchange dealer, inbound and outbound tour operator, flouriest then on. Such diversification into related areas comes under mobile defense strategies. (vi)Contraction defense: This strategy involves retrenching into areas of strength and is typically utilized in later stages of a product life cycle or when the firm has been under considerable attack. As an example, HUL decided to consider its core business areas, that is, soaps and detergents, and has emerged because the clear leader within the rest room industry. 3. Expanding the market share: Market leaders can improve their profitability by increasing their market shares, like HUL, Procter and Gamble, McDonald’s and Titan. Last, market leaders who stay top have learned the art of expanding the entire market, defending their current territory, and increasing their market share and profitability. Competing with highly aggressive market leaders presents a formidable challenge to all or any or any newcomers. Take the case of the tea or coffee industry. No newcomers dare enter in to the market because the top brands of Tata, HUL, and Nestle guard their share so successfully. Market Challenger A market challenger is a firm that has a market share below that of the market leader, but enough of a presence that it can exert upward pressure in its effort to gain more control.  The strategies of market challenger are-
 Figure 3: strategies of market challenger 1) Use a frontal attack Observed most prominently within the smartphone market today, or more commonly within the Pepsi vs Coca Cola war since ages, a frontal attack is seen when a competitor attacks another based on the strengths of the competitor. Example – Pepsi introduces Diet Pepsi when Coke introduces Diet coke. Both have strength of product expansion and a various product portfolio. So during an immediate frontal attack, Pepsi also launches a product in response to its market challenger. 2) Flank attack The above example of Pepsi and coke contains 2 brands which are very strong within the FMCG market and have no other competitor. Thus, they use frontal attacks but what if a little player has to combat a mammoth. Then the player uses a flank attack and attacks the competition supported its weaknesses. Example – Many technology firms like AMD vs Intel, Apple vs Microsoft, et al. Operate the idea of Flank attack. 3) Encirclement attack This form of market challenger strategy is employed when the competitor attacks another on the thought of strengths also as weaknesses and doesn't leave any stone unturned to overthrow the competition. The current E-commerce scenario is that the simplest example of the encirclement attack where the E-commerce companies are ready to go negative in their margins to beat a competitor on turnover basis. They have to return on top and gain maximum customers by hook or crook. 4) Bypass attack It just by passed it. There's often no simpler example of the Bypass attack kind of market challenger strategy this kind of strategy is found during a firm which has the brains to innovate. And when it innovates, it bypasses the entire competition and creates a segment of its own off course, other competitors soon follow. But the attack is extremely useful within the future to form brand reputation and gain customers. For example, Sumsung bypass Nokia etc. 5) Guerrilla marketing Making small but useful changes, which repeatedly puts your brand within the forefront, and slowly but surely makes it an enormous name within the market, is that the crux of Guerrilla marketing. A little brand, which wants to require on huge competitors, which first become famous during an area market, then will introduce price discounts and trade discounts. Slowly but surely, the name of the tiny player will spread and it will then use branding activities and ATL and BTL marketing activities. Over a period of your time, the tiny player has become a successful large player and should be a thorn within the side for all major players within the market. Take the AJE group as an example. They launched their flagship product “Big cola” several years back within the sell was slowly so successful, that the brand is now present in multiple countries. Market Follower A market follower is a company that follows what the leader in its sector does. A market follower does not like taking risks, i.e., it is the opposite of a maverick. Instead, it waits and observes what its competitors do, especially the market leader. It then only adopts the leader’s successful strategies. The rule of business is that when you're a market leader, there are definitely getting to be market followers. Many companies begin with a market follower strategy. In fact, in today’s world, the competency of all companies is so high that innovation is quickly copied or imitated in several formats. For example, Apple came out with the multi touch smart phones, but today Samsung is leading that market in terms of total turnover. Thus there are several market follower strategies in effect in today’s business environment. Market followers are sure to exist during a mature market. The market followers are wider just in case of online marketing because online marketing has lower entry barriers and better returns. Thus, in online commerce itself, you will see that companies like Snapdeal, flipkart, amazon, jabongg have all started one after the opposite. Off course, the market leaders were Ebay and Amazon. But they're facing stiff competition nowadays. The market follower strategies are-  Figure 4: Strategies of market follower 1) Adapter Adapter is white collared market follower strategy. Automobiles use the difference sort of market follower strategy. Cars like Maruti 800, Alto, Zen, brio, etc are all adapters which they adapt the only qualities from each other by changing the design of the car. Similarly, there are technology adapters a bit like the Dell laptop and Sony Vaio laptop. These market followers have similar products but they struggle to adapt from their closest competition. Adapters can soon become leaders also because they're going to adapt, learn and make a much better product than the higher competition. 2) Imitation Imitation is that the simplest kind of flattery. But such a flattery can cause a large dent in your profit margins if you are a product manufacturer. Imitators make use of your hard-earned brand equity and provide a product which has similar characteristics as yours, albeit at a lower cost. The difference might be that the new product is made from poor material or that it doesn't have the service or promise that your brand offers. Nonetheless, there is a huge marketplace for imitators where people want to shop for products at lower cost as they can’t afford the upper one. For example are often the imitation of Tata sky, where Tata sky is that the market leader and brought digital TV revolution to India but was soon imitated by Videocon, Airtel, Reliance et al. . 3) Cloner There is a bright side between an imitator and a cloner. An imitator might copy variety of your product qualities, but it maintains its own product qualities also as an example – timesjobs.com is an imitator of naukri.com, on the opposite hand times jobs has its own unique product characteristics also. The next time you're in Bangkok, plan to get the clones of Samsung phones. 4) Counterfeiter The best example of counterfeiting is selling the originals via piracy. Where cloning involves manufacturing of slightly altered products, counterfeiting involves thieving and should be a black market follower strategy. The simplest example is pirated DVDs and CDs of flicks and music. If you notice, time and time again the film industry wakes up against piracy. This is often actually because piracy and counterfeiting steals their work. Similarly, you will find shoes from Reebok and Adidas also as numerous other products within the market which are counterfeited.
Key takeaways-
|
Concept
Rural marketing is a process of developing, pricing, promoting, and distributing rural specific goods and services leading to desired exchange with rural customers to satisfy their needs and wants, and also to achieve organizational objectives. The concept of Rural Marketing in India Economy has always played an influential role within the lives of individuals. In India, leaving out a number of metropolitan cities, all the districts and industrial townships are connected with rural markets. The concept of rural marketing in India is typically been found to forms ambiguity within the mind of individuals who think rural marketing is all about agricultural marketing. However, rural marketing determines the completing of business activities bringing within the flow of goods from urban sectors to the rural regions of the country also because the marketing of various products manufactured by the non-agricultural workers from rural to urban areas. Rural marketing in Indian economy are often classified under two broad categories-
i. The market for trade goods that comprise of both durable and non-durable goods.
Ii. The market for agricultural inputs that include fertilizers, pesticides, seeds, and so on.
In rural marketing, a firm possesses to undergo marketing efforts to satisfy rural segments, which notably differ from urban segments in some aspects. At the same time, we must note that increasing literacy rate, improved sources of income, awareness because of improved and increased means of communication and transportation, high rate of mobility within and between countries because of liberalization and globalization, and lots of other such reasons, some customers are likely to be identical.
Examples of Rural Marketing-
1. HDFC Bank’s “Festive Treats” and “Har Gaon Hamara” Rural Campaigns.
2. “Experience Hyundai” Campaign by Hyundai.
3. “Khushion Ki Doli” by Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL).
4. “Accessibility” Campaign by Coca-Cola.
5. “UTSAV” Campaign by Asian Paints.
6. Dabur’s “Nauchandi Mela” and “700 Se 7 Kadam” Campaigns.
The following images shows rural marketing campaigns-
Features of Indian Rural Market
The main reason why the companies are that specialize in rural market and developing effective strategies is to tap the market potential which can be identified as follows:
1. Large and scattered population:
Consistent with the 2001 census, 740 million Indians forming 70 per cent of India’s population live in rural areas. The speed of increase in rural population is additionally greater than that of urban population. The agricultural population is scattered in over 6 lakhs villages. The rural population is extremely scattered, but holds an enormous promise for the marketers.
2. Higher purchasing capacity:
Purchasing power of the rural people is on rise. Marketers have realized the potential of rural markets, and thus are expanding their operations in rural India. In recent years, rural markets have acquired significance in countries like China and India, because the general growth of the economy has resulted into substantial increase in purchasing power of rural communities.
3. Market growth:
The rural market is growing steadily over the years. Demand for traditional products like bicycles, mopeds and agricultural inputs; branded products like toothpaste, tea, soaps and other FMCGs; and durables like refrigerators, TV and washing machines has also grown over the years.
4. Development of infrastructure:
There is development of infrastructure facilities like construction of roads and transportation, communication network, rural electrification and public service projects in rural India, which has increased the scope of rural marketing.
5. Low standard of living:
The standard of living of rural areas is low and rural consumers have diverse socio-economic backwardness. This is often different in several parts of the country. A consumer during a village area features a low standard of living because of low literacy, low per capita income, social backwardness and low savings.
6. Traditional outlook:
The rural consumer values old customs and traditions. They're doing not prefer changes. Gradually, the rural population is changing its demand pattern, and there is demand for branded products in villages.
7. Marketing mix:
The urban products cannot be dumped on rural population; separate sets of products are designed for rural consumers to suit the rural demands. The marketing mix elements are to be adjusted consistent with the requirements of the rural consumers.
Strategies for Effective Rural Marketing
An appropriate segmentation of the highly heterogeneous rural market and identification of the requirements and works of varied segments will form the very basis for rural market strategies. For rural market, it'll be ideal to think about strategies from the marketing mix point of view main strategies are associated with product, price, place and promotion. The strategies of effective rural marketing are-
Figure 5: Strategies for rural marketing
A. Product Strategies
Meaningful product strategies for rural market and rural consumers are discussed here.
1. Small unit and low priced packing
Larger pack sizes are out of reach for rural consumers thanks to their price and usage habits. This method has been tested by other products like shampoos, biscuits, pickles, vicks five gram tins, etc. In the strategy of keeping the low priced packed the target is to stay the value low in order that the entire rural community can do this won't be possible altogether kinds of products, but wherever this may be resorted to, the market is certain to expand.
2. New product designs
A close observation of rural household items indicates the importance of redesigning or modifying the products. The manufacturing and marketing men can think in terms of latest product designs specially meant for rural areas keeping their lifestyles in sight.
3. Sturdy products
Sturdiness of a product either in terms of weight or appearance is a vital fact for rural consumers. The product meant for rural areas should be sturdy enough to face rough handling and storage. People in rural areas like bright flashy colors like red, blue, green etc., and feel that products with such colors are sturdy but they're more concerned with the utility of the item also.
4. Brand name
The rural consumers are more concerned with the utility of the products. The brand name awareness within the rural areas is fairly high. A brand name and/or logo is extremely essential for rural consumers for it are often easily remembered.
B. Pricing strategies
Pricing strategies are considerably linked to product strategies. A number of these strategies are mentioned here.
1. Low cost/cheap products
This is a common strategy being adopted widely by many manufacturing and marketing men. Price is usually kept low by small unit packings.
2. Avoid sophisticated packing
Simple package are often adopted which can bring down the value because it is presently being done in the case of biscuits. Some innovation in packing technology is extremely necessary for rural markets.
3. Refill packs/reusable packaging
Such measures have an enormous impact on the rural market. By such technology also the price are often reduced. Additionally the packaging material used should preferably lend itself for reuse in rural areas. a perfect example during this direction are often the packing of fertilizers. Now companies have started packing fertilizers in LDPE or HDPE sacks, which are not only tamper proof but also reusable.
4. Application useful engineering
This is how which can be tried to evolve cheaper products by substituting the costly raw material with the cheaper one, without sacrificing the standard or functional efficiency of the product, as an example in food industry, ‘soya protein is getting used rather than milk protein. Milk protein is dear while soya protein is cheaper but the nutrition value is same. This method yields itself for application in many engineering or product designed areas so as that the value is often kept at a reasonable level. These areas got to be explored by manufacturing and marketing men within the context of rural markets. The pricing strategy for rural market will depend upon the scope for reducing the worth of the product to suit the rural incomes and at an equivalent time not compromising with the utility and sturdiness of the market.
C. Distribution strategies
Most manufacturers and marketing men do have a distribution arrangement for village with a population of a minimum of 5000 people. While it's -essential to formulate specific strategies for distribution in rural areas, the characteristics of the product, its period of time and other factors got to be kept in mind. The distribution strategies that are specifically designed for rural areas are: through co-operative societies, public distribution system, multi-purpose distribution centres, distribution up to feeder markets/mandi town’s shanties/hat/jathras/melas, agricultural input dealers etc. Experience has shown that the cooperatives have played a useful role in improving the marketing services within the regulated markets. The fact, however, remains that these societies command only a touch share of the entire markets and do not present any challenge to the private trade at in most places. The Gujarat Cotton Cooperative Marketing Societies set a good example of vertically integrated markets. The cooperative marketing institutions got to introduce scale economies in their marketing operation and provide efficient and comparable services to the purchasers in competition with the private trade. Cooperative institutions would do better if the state level marketing federations enter into multilevel activities to reinforce the turnover of their business. The non-governmental organizations can anchor a key role in awakening the rural people to form into cooperatives highlighting the possible benefits without being exploited.
D. Promotion strategies
Mass media could also be a strong medium of communication. It'd be television, cinema, medium, radio then on the opposite means of mass media available are hoardings/wall paintings, shanties/hats/melas, non-price competition, special campaigns etc. Besides these, other mass media like hand bills and booklets, posters, stickers, banners of the schemes etc. For disseminating the data, associated with agricultural and other rural industries products, the govt. Should circulate pamphlets either to panchayati raj office or to schools where it are often documented for the reference. While making efforts to reinforce the marketing system within rural areas and thus the marketing of rural produce to other areas, we should always foresee the forces of globalization affecting the market forces.
Digital Marketing-Concept
Digital marketing is that the utilization of the web, mobile devices, social media, search engines, and other channels to succeed in consumers. Some marketing experts consider digital marketing to be a completely new endeavour that needs a replacement way of approaching customers and new ways of understanding how customers behave compared to traditional marketing. Digital marketing targets a selected segment of the customer base and is interactive. Digital marketing is on the increase and includes search result ads, email ads, and promoted tweets – anything that comes with marketing with customer feedback or a two-way interaction between the company and customer. Internet marketing differs from digital marketing. Internet marketing is advertising that's solely on the web, whereas digital marketing can happen through mobile devices, on a subway platform, during a video game, or via a smartphone app. In the parlance of digital marketing, advertisers are commonly mentioned as sources, while members of the targeted ads are commonly called receivers. Sources frequently target highly specific, well-defined receivers. It targeted shift workers and travellers with digital ads because the company knew that these people made up an outsized segment of its late-night business. McDonald's encouraged them to download a replacement Restaurant Finder app, targeting them with ads placed at ATMs and gas stations, also as on websites that it knew its customers frequented at night.
For example, Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Email Marketing.
Marketing Automation.
Digital Advertising.
Content Marketing.
Trends in Digital Marketing
Some of the current trends in digital marketing are-
1. Going LIVE and interesting through videos:
They dominated Facebook, instagram and YouTube. Even a social media video app tik tok took the youth segment of tier 2 & 3 cities by its fascination.
All a testimony to how our audience loves consuming content on video. Seeing this, brands are increasing their share on digital marketing spends too. Because videos also increase 53X likelihood of getting your website on the first age of search results. And as an improvement on them, the Facebook live and instagram live are where these visitors are spending more of their time. These live videos are watched 3X longer than the videos on the feed because they provide the audience an option to invite information and feedback in real time.
2. Strong on social media
Majority of the marketers think that social media goes to be big as compared to apps or web. It's especially going to be vital for the sake of brand awareness and brand connectivity. And to help the brands achieve these goals, social media channels keep undergoing evolution. New features are constantly added to instagram, youtube etc. One such trend is of shopable posts, which is becoming a huge a part of the instagram audience says that they are discovering products of latest brands on instagram something to tap within the upcoming year.
3. Catching them on the go
As the audience gets busier and their attention span decreases, more content would be consumed in transit. The Omni channel approach across video sites, social media, OTT players and digital OOH placements in transit – OLA Play etc. will increases. This also spells rapid growth in hyper –locally relevant digital OOH like at restaurants, malls, railway stations and bus stands.
4. Amazon the marketing channel
Owing to its being the product search start line and rich customer data, amazon is merely estimated to grow further as a marketing channel of its own. It’s estimated that Google are getting to be putting huge efforts into servicing and increasing the share of its product searches.
5. AI everywhere:
Several Al features already add the background of social media platforms. From, auto recommendation to image recognition, Al will only work on empowering these social media platforms further. Whereas on websites, Al and machine learning – powered chatbots are found making it easier for the visitors to communicate with them. In upcoming years smoothening customer service through Al would become a priority.
Green Marketing- concept
Green marketing is that the marketing of environmentally friendly products and services. It's becoming more popular as more people become concerned with environmental issues and chooses that they need to spend their money during how that's kinder to the earth. Green marketing can involve variety of various things, like creating an eco-friendly product, using eco-friendly packaging, adopting sustainable business practices, or focusing marketing efforts on messages that communicate a product’s green benefits. This type of selling are often costlier, but it can also be profitable because of the increasing demand. As an example , products made locally in North America tend to be costlier than those made overseas using cheap labour, but they have how smaller carbon footprint because they don’t got to fly across the planet to urge here for a couple of consumers and business owners, the environmental benefit outweighs the price difference. Everything you'd prefer to realize green marketing. The term green marketing came into prominence within the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Importance of green marketing
Importance of green marketing are highlighted below-
Figure 6: Importance of advertising
1. Environmental Advantages:
Going green is an environmentally responsible choice. It's estimated that 40 per cent of all greenhouse gases within us comes from energy production that businesses use to heat, cool and light workplaces. Reducing these energy needs reduces CO2 output, helping to regulate heating. As businesses use more natural resources than individual consumers, recycling business materials and conserving water contribute to conservation on a bigger scale.
2. Economic Advantages:
The reduction in waste equals lower operating costs and more savings. Eco-friendly business equipment and practices like – low-wattage or LED lights, use of natural lighting, water conservation policies, mandatory recycling and hybrid company vehicles economize on utilities, fuel and office supplies. This generates instant income. Further going green puts a business during a positive light within the eyes of customers, potential investors, distributors, activists, watchdog groups, communities and prospective employees.
3. Sustainability:
Going green is about sustainability; this sustainability translates to sustainable profits in green sectors with secure futures. The future-safe markets include biomaterials, green buildings, personal transportation, smart grids, mobile applications and water filtration.
4. Efficient Use of Resources:
Today, human demands and desires are unlimited but resources are short enough that can't fulfill the human needs. Markets need to facilitate the consumers by utilizing resources efficiently.
5. Planned Techniques:
It must develop strategically techniques and innovative policies to understand the organizational goals effectively with none wastage of some time and other resources. Green marketing examples of different products and services develops a growing interest among customers throughout the world.
6. Consumer Attraction:
Green marketing samples of various products attracts the consumers regarding environment protection. People are such a lot conscious about their environment and variations in behavior. Green marketing is taken into account as growing marketing that helps to style socially and sustainable products.
7. Innovation:
Green marketing helps to style such kinds of products that are economically affordable and satisfy the human needs efficiently. It produces innovative green products that consume less resource.
8. Competitive Advantage:
Companies enjoy competitive advantage over other companies within the market through green marketing examples. Today, companies which adopt green marketing techniques gain more competitive advantage over other companies which are not conscious about such techniques and environment. Companies which develop innovative products and services with innovative qualities at affordable rates are successful within the market. Green marketing could also be a gaggle of activities that are designed to satisfy the consumer’s demands.
Key takeaways-
1) Rural marketing is a process of developing, pricing, promoting, and distributing rural specific goods and services leading to desired exchange with rural customers to satisfy their needs and wants, and also to achieve organizational objectives.
2) An appropriate segmentation of the highly heterogeneous rural market and identification of the requirements and works of varied segments will form the very basis for rural market strategies.
Every marketer faces different challenges. Although we typically share similar goals, some teams are stuck on hiring top talent, while others are having trouble finding the proper technology for his or her needs. Whatever the case could even be, there’s always a minimum of 1 area that you simply can stand to enhance. In other words, there’s always room to optimize the varied components of your strategy and switch your marketing into a good simpler revenue generator. Throughout the past few years, we've maintained with variety of selling challenge trends. We've also polled thousands of marketers on the challenges they face, also because the tactics they’ve won’t to satisfy those challenges head-on.
• Generating Traffic and Leads,
• Providing ROI for Your Marketing Activities,
• Securing Enough Budget,
• Identifying the proper Technologies for Your Needs,
• Managing Your Website,
• Targeting Content for a world Audience,
• Training Your Team,
• Hiring Top Talent.
1. Generating Traffic and Leads
Generating enough traffic and leads was the highest marketing challenge, consistent with the 2017 and 2018 State of Inbound reports. Another survey from Vital, which shows that quite 35% of marketers face challenges associated with leads and/or traffic, shows that this trend still continues. Clearly, marketers are battling producing enough demand for his or her content and since the year’s progress and competition stiffens, this might only become truer. With numerous options of platforms for marketers to publish their content and even more ways to market it, it's hard to know where to focus your efforts.
2. Providing the ROI of Your Marketing Activities
Measuring the ROI (return on investment) of your marketing activities has remained a top marketing challenge year-over-year. But, it also continues to be a crucial way for marketers to understand the effectiveness of each particular marketing campaign, piece of content, etc. Plus, proving ROI often goes hand-in-hand with making an argument to extend budget: No ROI tracking, no demonstrable ROI. No ROI, no budget. Although return on investment could also be an important stat that shows your campaigns success or progress, tracking the ROI of every single marketing activity isn't easy, especially if you are doing not have two-way communication between your marketing activities and sales reports.
3. Securing Enough Budget
How are you able to create a winning marketing campaign without a budget? The reality is, it's pretty hard. But, even once you've got a great, revenue-generating idea, you continue to usually need to get your budget approved by a higher-up. Securing more budgets could also be a pressing challenge for marketing globally. And often, getting more budgets is easier said than done -- especially for smaller organizations that aren't working with sizable nor flexible marketing spend. But the key to securing extra money for your team won't be that complex. Here's what you'll do.
4. Identifying the right Technologies for Your Needs
This challenge is one that grows more and more common to marketers annually and it's sensible. Each year, emerging technology industries get bigger and larger while software companies still experiment with tech like AI within the tools they sell to marketers. Between 2017 and 2018, finding the proper technologies was rose from the fifth to fourth biggest concern for marketers. In 2019, this trend continued with over 43% of companies reporting that they were spending quite 5% of their budgets on emerging technology. Oftentimes, this is often actually because feedback on technology is scattered. Marketers might address colleagues, friends within the industry, and/or analyst reports to figure out which technologies best fit their needs -- only to seek out that feedback is spread across emails, social media, then on from people of varied reputability.
5. Managing Your Website
Although managing an online site is consistently a challenge to marketers, it seems to be growing less threatening. Throughout the past few years, less and fewer marketers are worrying about it as compared to other challenges like "identifying the right technologies," which rose from the fifth to fourth biggest challenge in 2018's State of Inbound Report. Managing an online site was the fourth biggest challenge for marketers in 2017. And chances are, your website's performance is high on your list of priorities. It's an asset that works around the clock to attract visitors, convert them, and assist you hit your goals, after all. Issues with website management include a spread of various factors, from writing and optimizing the content to designing beautiful webpages. Here are a number of things marketers can do to affect this challenge.
6. Targeting Content for an international Audience
Targeting could also be a key component of all aspects of selling. To be simpler at targeting, one of the first things any marketer needs do is identify their buyer personas to figure out who it's they need to be marketing to. If you're expanding internationally, it are often an enormous challenge not only to figure out the best ways to plug to an international audience but also to arrange and optimize your site for various countries. HubSpot Research recently analyzed the difference in content preferences across the world.
7. Training Your Team
As companies scale and technologies still evolve, training your team will become a greater challenge for marketers. Whether it's training them on the concepts and tools they'll be using a day or ensuring they're achieving their full potential, the struggle is real across the board. To combat this, I’ll share some tips I’ve used during my trainings to form sure the concepts and tool tips stick and have a lasting effect on your team and your marketing.
8. Hiring Top Talent
Hiring top talent is another challenge marketers commonly report experiencing. Many companies are shifting more resources to inbound marketing, which suggests higher and better demand for top marketing talent. But supply simply isn't maintaining. From sourcing the right candidates to evaluating for the right skills, finding the proper person could take months or more. What's more, the kind of selling talent companies are trying to find is changing, too. Consistent with a 2020 report from LinkedIn, employers are seeking marketers with soft creative skill sets also as hard technical skills. And thus the fast rate at which the demand for these jobs are rising has caused a marketing skills gap, "making it difficult to seek out candidates with the technical, creative, and business proficiencies needed to achieve digital marketing."
Careers in Marketing – Skill sets required for effective marketing
A career in marketing can include variety of various roles. These jobs in marketing can include internet marketing positions to more traditional marketing jobs like televisions, radio or billboard marking. The gamut of varied choices almost feels limitless. Depending on the role, marketing careers can require specific industry knowledge like consumer behavior, sales, marketing research, competitor analysis, and artistic among others. Experience is vital during this field but some employers won't hire people without degrees. Types of marketing careers for digital markers are
a) Marketing Specialist,
b) Social Media Manager,
c) Search engine Optimization Specialist,
d) Email Marketing Manager,
e) Web page Writer,
f) Web Producer,
g) Product Manager,
h) Marketing Analyst,
i) Advertising Coordinator,
j) Advertising Manager,
k) PR Manager,
l) Brand Manager,
m) Media Buyer,
n) Chief Marketing Officer,
o) Digital Marketing Manager,
p) Digital Marketing Director,
q) Ecommerce Manager.
Factors contributing to Success of brands in India with suitable examples
Branding is complex. However, for your company to experience success, the branding strategy that you simply adopt must be carefully planned, tested, and ultimately optimized. But, if you've never done it before, it is often harsh within the beginning. We have collected several key factors that a lot of big-level brands actively seek through their branding strategies. Success leaves clues – if we’re smart, we’ll pay close attention and adapt. If we’re not, we’re got to spend some longer failing at what others have already failed before, which equals lesser productivity for us and our businesses.
1. Audience knowledge
Considering that branding success is simply possible thanks to the existence of consumers and fans, one of the primary aims of a company should be to identify and understand its audience. To be more exact, great brands understand who their potential customers are, how they think, what they have, and really importantly, where they spend their time at. In order to plug your products and services well, your brand strategy should be strictly aimed towards your audience only. This way, you'll save time, money, and energy by not wasting your resources within the decide to reach consumers who don’t find your value relevant to their lives. The more knowledge you've about your audience the more possibilities you get to optimize your products. Moreover, studying your prospects for months and even years – while still providing consistent value to the marketplace – will turn you into a “big and experienced dog” in your niche.
2. Strong unique value proposition
Strong brands have strong unique value propositions. Once you make a transparent statement that lets the customer see the extra benefit in your products, you’re likely to win his attention. Let’s take Walmart as an example; their motto is “Save Money, Live Better”. This statement summarizes their cheap prices that have taken the planet by storm. Skype is yet another example of powerful unique value propositions throughout big brands. Skype “keeps the planet talking for free”. Establish the most important benefit that your brand’s bringing to the marketplace. Then, take a touch of paper and state that benefit through one sentence. Make it simple, concise, catchy, and powerful at an equivalent time!
3. Passion is observable
If you'd wish to bring hype around your brand, you've to make your fans and buyers enthusiastic to your culture. Involve the maximum amount passion as possible, and you’ll get passion in return. Disney knew that children needed a neighborhood where they're going to live magical moments. Moreover, adults are extremely targeted too, as Disneyland takes you back in time and causes you to desire a toddler another time.
There are many fun parks around the world, yet none are often compared to the good palaces that Disney has built albeit you spell “Disneyland” in your head, you’re likely to experience a positive visual representation of magic. The eagerness involved during this brand is certainly observable by both brand owners and straightforward fans and clients.
4. Out-of-the-box thinking
Out-of-the-box thinking could also be a rare quality nowadays. As an entrepreneur or marketer, you always need to assess different angles. Angles of promotion, angles of branding, angles of everything. You’re often tempted to look at what others do because that’s the straightforward path. However, to make an excellent brand, you would like to capture plenty of attention. You do that by making your products stand out. You adopt out-of-the-box marketing strategies that no-one has ever used before, you create your product extremely unique, and you keep it all simple within the meanwhile.
5. Consistency
Brands that fail to be consistent also will fail to possess a uniform performance within the marketplace and within the sport of business. You can’t expect your customers to remain around if you’re not always sticking around. They’ll come once, see that you’re not available or not what you used to be and represent, and boom, a bit like that, your brand’s beginning to fall under pieces. When you attend McDonald's, you always know that you simply are becoming to be satisfied. They even made a franchise rule that makes every McDonald's restaurant comply and make hamburgers in only the same way.
6. The brand's objective comes first
To take your brand to subsequent level, you'd sort of a significant mission and objective. The brand’s mission is usually something that signifies contribution to a cause as an example; Nike wants to urge people up and running. Dove wants to make every woman feel beautiful in her skin. The brand that states a transparent mission then follows through with the promise is perhaps getting to overstep any kind of competition. Therefore, define your company’s objectives and direct all of your actions towards achieving that goal. The workers of the company must understand and preferably align with the company’s objective too, as they often represent the running engine that makes your organization work.
7. Exceptional brand slogans (or taglines)
Brand slogans, or taglines, are the primary elements and words that pop into most people’s minds. Here are a number of examples of the most popular taglines in history:
Nike -“Just Do It”
Apple - “Think Different”
L’Oreal – “Because you’re Worth It”
BMW – “The Ultimate Driving Machine”
Lay’s – “Betcha Can’t Eat Just One”
These are great taglines that big corporations used throughout time to enhance their brand’s awareness, generate word-of-mouth marketing, and basically to bring huge developments in their brand’s performance.
But what makes a slogan great? There are certain belongings you want to lookout of while crafting your brand’s tagline:
• Make it very memorable and straightforward to recognize.
• Include a key benefit instead of selling a feature. Make it clear and concise.
• Make it so as that it makes your brand stand out.
• Spread positive energy through your words.
8. The brand always provides value
This shouldn’t be even mentioned, together rules of business is that value comes first and thus the payment after. Every big and successful brand continues to provide value to its customers. If the worth decreases or becomes inexistent, the business -no matter its previous or present popularity- will miserably fail. The competition will come from behind, exploiting your weak moments and stealing your audience away. Many companies tend to fail because they want to improve their profits.
9. Great exposure
Let’s not ditch the importance of exposure you will have the simplest product within the planet. If you can’t properly sell, you’ll fail to sell it. This eventually leads to a brand’s collapse, so ensuring that you simply have great marketing strategies in situ could also be a key to winning the battle over a distinct segment market. Rolex’s current marketing strategy revolves around sharing beautiful images of their products on social media channels. Here are some marketing channels that you simply can leverage to create a far better exposure for your brand:
• Content marketing,
• Social media marketing,
• Traditional advertising,
• search engine optimization (SEO),
• TV, Radio, Media Buy,
• Forum marketing,
• CPA Advertising,
• Video Marketing.
EXAMPLES
1) Peter England
Peter England could also be a Top Indian Brand. Here we see a textbook example of how brands attend lengths to make themselves sound foreign so as that customers can synchronize them better with their status symbols. Owned by the Madura Fashion and Lifestyle, a division of the Aditya Birla Group, the brand has its presence in additional than 300 cities around the globe. Peter England is one of the most important brands within the menswear category within the country with a consignment movement of quite 5 million garments a year. The brand is popularly known for its premium range of shirts and formals.
2) Tata Group
Tata is one among the foremost well known Indian brands within the world. The brand finds its presence in multiple industries including chemicals, consumer products, energy, engineering, IT Systems, Services like TIS, telecommunications and consultancy, industry, etc. Tata features a stronghold within the minds of the Indian consumers and is additionally recognized globally now as a well known brand. It finds its offices in additional than 80 countries round the world.
4) Titan
We all are familiar with the prowess of Titan within the watchmaking space. What you'll not know is depicted through these awe-inspiring numbers. Titan Company manufactures roughly 15 million watches once a year for a userbase of over 100 million customers around the world. There are 4 brands existing under the purview of the company, namely Titan, Fastrack, Sonata, and Xylys. There are also dozens of sub-brands under each main brand. Titan boasts a 60% domestic market share and is present in around 32 countries, mainly within the regions of Middle-East, Asia Pacific, and Africa. Moreover, the whole brand value of the Titan Group stands at quite $15 billion!
Reasons for failure of brands in India with suitable examples
Some of the common reasons for failure of brand in India are-
1) Poor product
One of the predominant reasons why brands fail is once they launch very poor products, which wasn't expected by their customers. The simplest example here would be celebrity brands. Celebrities are known to travel out of vogue if they supply 4-5 flops one after the other. Their brand value drops completely and their brand fails, albeit for a limited time.
2) Brand recall drops
Here actually the marketing department is to be blamed. A company has got to put in efforts to form sure that it's high brand recall value which the brand is repeatedly bombarded to the customer to increase brand recall and to avoid brand failure. The positioning of the brand must be up to mark also. However, when brand recall drops, customers slowly move to a different brand. This might cause brand failure because the recall is simply too low for the brand to continue.
3) An excessive amount of expansion with few resources
Some companies aim to expand in no time as compared to the resources they have or their brands potential to carry numerous products. If you check out Samsung as an organization , their mobile phones, refrigerators and televisions are in demand but their cameras and air conditioners have failed. Thus, expanding too fast or an excessive amount of will leave with few resources to take care of your brand equity across the segments.
4) False marketing
A brand could also be a promise. And if that promise breaks, you don’t have a brand. As an example , when Harley Davidson introduced perfumes, the brand was severely affected. Because Harley Davidsons promise to its followers is for the ride that they are going to get on their bikes. However, when Harley came with a commercial product like a perfume, it had been received negatively by the HOG group because Harley broke its promise.
5) Over marketing
Over marketing causes the brand to become too common and thereby the brand might lose value thanks to Brand fatigue. An excessive amount of exposure makes the brand become undesirable.
6) Irrelevancy
The brand might become irrelevant because of many reasons. One of the foremost common reason is technology. As an example – Nokia as a brand lost its market share because it didn't give the most recent technology to its customers. Android was the craze at that point of some time and Nokia engaged with Microsoft instead of Android which caused redundancy within the brand because the software didn't develop as fast as that of competition. Thus Nokia was redundant and Apple and Samsung were the new players within the game.
7) Increase in competition
Increasing competition has caused the brands value to be diluted. As an example – In soaps and shampoos, there are a lot of brands which came and went or couldn’t conquer this is often because already there's such high competition that a brand isn't able to stick and even brands which prevent in their pace, risk being thrown out of the market. Similar is that the case within the Cola market where Gold spot bombed because it had been unable to stay up with the competition.
8) Service isn't upto mark
Bad service was one of the explanations that Air India dropped as a brand. If your service isn't upto mark, then the users post sales experience is extremely bad which eventually affects the brand and might cause a brand to fail.
EXAMPLES
1. Timberland
The US based brand for trekking and outdoor shoes failed within the Indian market.
2. Abibas
The Indian copy venture of Adidas failed miserably within the market for obvious reasons of being a fake brand of the internationally renowned brand.
3. Chevrolet
General Motors announced their exit from the India market within the year 2017 following the tough market competition and poor market share.
4. Kingfisher
The premium and world-class airline group founded by Vijay Mallya was based in Bangalore and boasted of 400 flights per day once. But it mired in some controversies and had in touch the brunt of customer complaints like lack of delegation, misbehavior, unnecessary burning of fuel and lack of attention from the owner who was busy handling another business. It had to pack up completely hence.
5. Danone Dairy Business
With little-to-no positive response from the Indian buyers, Danone dairy business close up because of the poor market share.
Key takeaways-
1) A career in marketing can include variety of various roles. These jobs in marketing can include internet marketing positions to more traditional marketing jobs like televisions, radio or billboard marking.
References-
1. Philip Kotler (1987) Marketing: An Introduction. Prentice-Hall; International Editions.
2. Ramaswamy, V.S., 2002, Marketing Management, Macmilan India, New Delhi.
3. Kotler P, Armstrong G,2008, Principles of Marketing, 9th Edition, Prentice Hall, New Delhi.
4. Https://g8m6s4b5.rocketcdn.
