Digital L&K Saatchi & Saatchi created India’s first digitally crowd-sourced Biscuit Ganesha for Parle Products, one of India’s pioneers in the biscuit and confectionary-manufacturing segment.

Participants were invited to contribute a Parle biscuit in the form of a tweet to the making of India’s first crowdsourced Biscuit Ganesha with the hashtag #BiscuitGanesha. For each tweet Parle received, users got a customised response that showcased a dedicated Parle biscuit being put up in their name on the idol, thus building the #BiscuitGanesha at Mumbai’s most popular Pandal at Lalbaug, Mumbai. #BiscuitGanesha started trending within an hour of the commencement of the activity and it continued to trend across India for 5 hours. An overwhelming response helped complete the making of the #BiscuitGanesha in just 3 days. The total number of biscuits used in the making of the Biscuit Ganesha has been kept under wraps as Parle will be announcing a contest – Guess the Number of Biscuits on #BiscuitGanesha on the 24th of September.  The steady progression of the making of #BiscuitGanesha was updated on the official website – www.biscuitganesha.com every 15 minutes in the form of a time-lapse video.

Mr. Anil k Nair, CEO and Managing Partner, Digital L&K | Saatchi & Saatchi said, “When the beloved Lord of new beginnings meets the King of Hunger, then magic has to happen. We wanted to spread participation to places in India that do not celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi by using digital effectively.”

Mr. Pravin Kulkarni, GM – Marketing, Parle Products said, “For the last 2 years we have had a Ganapati made of biscuits at Lalbaug Cha Raja given that crores of devotees throng the pandal. We had engaged with a lot of devotees on ground last year. This year we decided to scale up the activity by going digital and connecting with the online & on-ground audiences. The challenge was to bring alive, engage & involve people at large, both online & on-ground. People were invited to digitally offer their personalized biscuit via Twitter to #BiscuitGanesha and the team responded with a customized video depicting their offering to Lord Ganesha. It was a unique idea. The response on Social Media has been good.”

The Ganesha fervour did not end there.  Alongside the digital Biscuit Ganesha, Digital L&K | Saatchi & Saatchi also went on further with its innovation to create The Decibel Ganesha. The insight behind this idea was that the devotees at Lalbaug wait in serpentine queues for hours together and continuously chant ‘Ganpati Bappa Morya’ to keep up their energy and enthusiasm. The activity taps into this very behaviour, wherein all that the devotees have to do is shout out ‘Morya’ as loud as they can. And their decibel levels will help invoke the #BiscuitGanesha digitally on the TV screens alongside. The enthusiasm of the devotees and their energy was replenished with Parle-G biscuits.

Mr. Nitin Singh, Sr. Vice President, Digital L&K | Saatchi & Saatchi said, “While the youth & Twitterati in the digital space gravitated to the crowd-sourced initiative, the mass appeal for the decibel Ganesha at the ground level has been humbling. The brand straddled both worlds beautifully.”

Raju Sarin has joined as head of Mogae Plus, the sales division of Mogae Media that handles monetization for FoodFood TV, Gaon Connection newspaper, and Reliance Retail activations. He will be based at the company’s Gurgaon HQ.

Raju is a media industry marketing and sales veteran with over two and a half decades of successful track record of product launches, revenue expansions and new business development. He has worked as Publishing Director with Living Media, The India Today Group for the business division magazines like Business Today, Harvard Business Review, Men’s Health etc., Publisher for Mail Today, CEO with Media Transasia, managing over twenty magazines in India and Bangkok, Business Head of HT Media Magazine division, and Regional Head of MTV.

Raju is a Chartered Accountant and an MBA from FMS, Delhi University.

“We are building a young and competent team at Mogae Plus to help a larger number of third party brands reach the market more effectively,” says Raju Sarin.

“Raju is a seasoned professional. He brings both width and depth to Mogae Plus. We are constantly being approached by third party brands to lend the strength of our sales force to them. Raju is being charged to do just that,” adds Tanya Goyal, Executive Director of Mogae Media.

Joining Raju as Head of West & South operations of Mogae Plus is Sonali Ayyer. Sonali has 24 years plus of varied experience holding leadership positions in TV & Print media. After a longish stint at Zee TV, she has represented TV Asia & Sun Network (US Beam) and Imagine Movies (UAE beam) to brands in the past.

Mogae Media, promoted by former Dentsu India JV partners, Sandeep & Tanya Goyal is a market leader in mobile solutioning and advertising. Mogae raised Rs. 100 crores from Renuka Ramnath’s Multiples PE.

Tenet, through its CoreBrand Index (CBI), has been measuring the strength and value of corporate brands since 1990. Providing prescriptive insights on brand performance, it is based on two critical dimensions that contribute to a company’s ability to drive long-term growth: Familiarity (brand awareness) and Favorability (measuring corporate reputation, perception of management, and investment potential). Turning to Tenet’s CBI data, what trends or general movement is revealed when looking at the Volkswagen brand before and after this event?

Volkswagen has had a very strong and relatively stable brand when compared to the 1,000 companies that we track. The company’s Familiarity score is around 90 out of 100 making them one of the most highly recognized brands in the world. Their Favorability has been hovering in the mid-70’s out of 100, indicating that they have been fairly well perceived.

With Familiarity that high, it means that Volkswagen will not be able to hide from this event. In a crisis, typically we see Familiarity increase as media attention grows and Favorability plummet as the perception is damaged. It remains to be seen how the three attributes we measure (Overall Reputation, Perception of Management and Investment Potential) will be impacted. Because there was condoned lying and cheating by management, Perception of Management will likely be driving the expected downward spiral. However, the company has also given away a significant portion of its market cap so the damage to Investment Potential may be significant as well. Investment Potential can recover relatively quickly if the company’s stock performance improves soon. The damage to Perception of Management is likely going to suffer in the long-term since they were knowledgeable about this and complicit beforehand.

The company said it would set aside $7.3 billion to cover the cost of repairing nearly 11 million vehicles impacted by the scandal, in addition to other efforts to win back the trust of customers. In your view, what steps should the company take to undo the damage it has done?

First of all, they need complete transparency and cannot try to cover their tracks or deflect blame. They have been caught red handed and now must fully commit themselves to do right. Any further lies or attempts to cover the truth will have a disastrous impact on the company’s already declining credibility.

They have to put their customers above all else. They need to quickly implement the recalls and fix any deficiencies in these vehicles. The customers don’t want to hear about it, they want action. A recall is an inconvenience to their customers and they have to act to minimize this inconvenience.

The problem that Volkswagen faces in restoring trust is that this was not an accident – it was intentional fraudulent activity meant to fool regulatory bodies. The knowingly installed so-called “defeat devices” to make their cars pass federal emissions tests. They will likely need the help and expertise of crisis communication consultants to help them convey appropriate messages moving forward, but even that may not be enough. We live in a society that will forgive accidental missteps. However, in this case, they devised a methodology to defeat the regulators. That is a tough, if not impossible fix.

In today’s data-driven business landscape, companies want greater transparency and a clear line of sight into what’s driving the value of their brand equity. Could you describe Tenet’s approach to Brand Equity Valuation? Is it possible that VW has already incurred a loss of brand value following this event?

Our valuation approach uses an explicit measure of the strength of the brand, BrandPower (Familiarity and Favorability), which has been consistently tracked across 1,000 companies since 1990 and is available quarterly. BrandPower is then one variable in a statistical model that identifies the brand’s contribution to market cap and the dollar value of the brand.

We have examined what this crisis has already meant to the brand and it is not good. In terms of brand valuation, the company’s brand was at its peak for 2015 in March at $11.2Bil. It was already headed downward and on September 18th was at $8.8Bil. By the close of the market on September 21st the brands’ value was down to $7.3Bil, and as mid-morning trading on the 22nd brand value continued to drop and was at $5.9Bil,a drop of $2.9Bil from Friday afternoon until mid-morning on Tuesday. This represents a loss of nearly 1/3 of the brands total value in just a day and a half. The financial damage already has been horrific.

When looking at other global brands that have faced a similar, large-scale crisis, both BP and Toyota come to mind. In what ways is this situation to Volkswagen unique and lessons can brands learn from their response and efforts to engage audiences?

Toyota followed this similar crisis pattern where Familiarity briefly was elevated by increased media attention and then returned to previous levels. Favorability though was damaged and continues to decay. The company once had exemplary brand scores with Familiarity above 90 and Favorability around 85, they were well known and highly regarded. Today, they are still widely known, but their sterling reputation has been tarnished. Favorability is just above 70, and continuing to decline across all three attributes. The best news for Toyota is that the rate of decline has slowed considerably so they might be nearing bottom. For them, the focus needs to be on rehabilitating their brand.

Similarly, BP followed the same crisis pattern as Toyota. Interestingly, BP retained its Familiarity gains which were modest, about 6-points. And while Favorability dropped even more than Toyota, from 83 to 67, BP has restored some of its lost Favorability and now resides just above 75. BP’s Favorability bottomed out at the end of 2011. Therefore indicating that their rapid response, community outreach and efforts to rehabilitate their image and be seen as doing right have kept this crisis somewhat contained and lessened what could have turned into an even bigger financial disaster for the company.

This is just the beginning of the crisis for VW. The company’s CEO, Martin Winterkorn, just announced that he would be stepping down, and I expect other management shuffles to take place as a result. While only days into this scandal, the $7.3Bil that they have set aside is about 11% of what the BP crisis cost the company. I believe by the time VW is hit with fines, penalties, lawsuits and who knows what next, this crisis will have caused more damage to the brand and will be even more expensive for them.

Written by Brad Puckey Partner,CoreBrand Analytics

Source:Tenet Partners

How can B-to-B ​marketers build brands that can effectively encourage a decision-maker to buy?

Over the past two decades, more and more B-to-B marketers have seen ​their products and/or services commoditized, or worse yet, made irrelevant. Many marketers face one or more of these brand-related challenges:

1. Their brand is organic—not driven by their organization’s vision or business strategy and developed without structure or rules.

2. Their messages are ad hoc or their value proposition is inconsistent.

3. There’s no cohesion in how they present their brand externally.

4. While some may have effective methods of quantifiably measuring the impact of campaigns, they have no process in place to track the strength of their brand.

Over time, the practice of B-to-B branding has continually grown. Today, the brand is almost as important as the efforts of sales teams in encouraging a decision-maker to make a buy. But how do you build a brand that can do this effectively?

Inseparable from building a brand that makes a decision-maker want to buy is gaining insights through data that allows marketers to inform, track and continually optimize the brand. Here’s what it looks like in action.

Top T​ools

“Data has been critical in helping us continually track and optimize our brand on a global basis, said Brian Krause, vice president of global marketing for Molex, a global electronics solutions provider. “Through various data sources and dashboards we are able to measure our success in regions around the world, by vertical markets and company size.”

Today’s top B-to-B brands rely on digital tools and platforms to quantify and model the data they collect. While many of these tools are leveraged to build and evolve brands—qualitative and quantitative research, leadership input, competitive analysis, category trends, etc.—today’s brand leaders have many more sources of data to consider.

Why? A strong brand today is more than just native advertising, online copy and print ads. Instead, B-to-B brands include social media, a Web presence and online media. In order to keep track of these, marketers need to expand their tools to measure Web analytics, marketing automation, their CRM and social media.

​Data-Driven Strategy

In addition to the sources mentioned above, a strong B-to-B brand relies on a strategy based on analytics. Not only should data inform marketing tactics, but it must also help marketers measure the current strength of their brand and provide insights into how to develop it.

Social Currency is one tool useful for measuring the strength and value of a brand. Social Currency, as defined by Vivaldi Partners Group is, “the degree to which customers share a brand or information about a brand with others.” Movéo’s Kevin Randall, vice president of strategy and planning, consulted with Vivaldi and MIT Sloan statisticians in creating the methodology for measuring a brand’s Social Currency.

Another key performance indicator developed by Movéo to inform marketing strategy is what we refer to as a “holistic score”: a formula designed to measure engagement with the brand by monitoring key actions in relation to marketing goals. The scoring is determined by a formula that applies weight to each action based on importance and relevance. The score aggregates multiple marketing achievements to one comparable number and provides a holistic view of brand performance.

Internal Brand Perfor​mance

While it’s important to track your brand with external audiences, understanding the strength of your internal brand can be equally, if not more, critical.

The most common method here is an employee survey fielded twice each year. The employee survey is particularly important when building a new brand strategy. This survey is different from those fielded by the human resources department in that it is completely focused on the brand.

The objective is to clearly understand the “views and wants” of leadership, customers and employees. Also referred to as a three-gap analysis, this data enables marketers to understand the wants and needs of each audience and then identify gaps that may exist.

Financial Stren​gth

Finally, there’s the metric many would say is the most important when considering the strength of a brand—financial. The ability to draw correlations between the brand and business growth is what many marketers struggle with. The key is to align messages, tactics and the experiences of a brand with ultimate business outcomes and evaluate its efficiency and effectiveness to generate leads, orders and revenue.

What works for one company may not work for others. However, there is one certainty: brands must be built using data, rather than educated assumptions. This same approach must be leveraged to support the ongoing management and growth of the brand.

Authored by Bob Murphy,Managing partner at Chicago-based Movéo.​

Source: ama.org

Times Card has  wrapped up the Mumbai Metro in its own colours. It recently launched a  “Do More ofWhat You Love” campaign. Times Card, since its launch in February 2012 has been leading the entertainment co branded card segment with amazing offers in the dining and movies space across 9 key markets in India. The card offers 25% discount on movies booked via the card as well as over 20% discount across a 1000 dining outlets.

With nearly 3 lac customers on boarded, it is fast expanding its breadth across markets and gaining significant traction in the young professionals, 25-34 year segment. The Times Card audience belongs to an urban landscape and hence the card showcases offers that they aspire for. The first leg of the OOH campaign has been initiated in Mumbai  in the Andheri to Ghatkopar metro where there will be multiple voice messages about the brand attributes and offers along with a train wrap and outdoor communication at the stations. The creative idea was to remind the audience about the great savings on entertainment that they could avail through the card thereby allowing them to do more of what they love.

Speaking about the campaign, Archana Vohra,Vice President and Business Head, Times Internet, said that the campaign is derived from customer feedback that while they enjoy all the fun things like eating out, movies and shopping they often land up over spending on these.

“Times Card is a Young Turk card that offers great dining and movie deals. Its aimed at giving discerning customers a bang for their buck by allowing them to do more or spend more on what they love without feeling guilty. The card is built around entertainment privileges in the city and aims at making a whole lot of places in the city accessible via best in class deals,” she adds.

"Speaking on the campaign Mr. Parag Rao, Business Head - Card Payment Products, Merchant Acquiring  & Marketing, HDFC Bank, said that "At HDFC Bank, enhancing customer experience is at the core of all our products, services, initiatives and partnerships. Times card is a result of the Bank's partnership with The Times Group and is targeted at meeting the changing needs and desires of the urban youth customer segment. They can use this card to make purchases while availing great value in the form of discounts and rewards. This campaign revalidates the proposition effectively.”

TimesCard was launched in association with HDFC with two variants – Platinum and Titanium. The cards have concentrated on the entertainment space and more specifically movies and dining across top cities (Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Pune, Bangalore, Calcutta, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Chandigarh).

The cards have done exceedingly well notching a high rate of adoption in the HDFC card portfolio, and with the campaign, the partners are hoping to achieve even larger engagement. The platinum variant of the card also offers lounge benefits across cities.