In past few months there have been at least 3 to 4 ads featuring SRK.In all past ads Dish basically banked on the same tagline and positioning,”Dish TV is the biggest DTH service in India,No 1″ .SRK was used to deliver this line in some manner.

But these 2 ads are totally different.The ads are a bit like Airtel Ads.A bit emotional and in upper league.Dish TV ads were never in the that league as were TATA Skys and Airtels but these ads are different.

There is a new tagline too,”Ghar Aayi Zindagi !”

The two ads are portraying two entirely different customers.First Ad shows an old couple romancing through a song on Dish TV and the second ad shows a little girl laughing on seeing Tom and Jerry on Dish TV.

The Ads
OLD SRK

Little Girl

The new tagline is infact very good.DTH means direct to home.Ghar Aayi Zindagi also highlights the word Ghar(Home).The meaning is quite clear ,enjoy small moments of life at your home through Dish TV.The ads also perfectly highlight the fact where Dish becomes a medium for family’s happy moments.the execution involving SRK is good.Overall the ad,positioning,product all are in proper sync.

With DTH becoming a powerhouse segment like telecom,stakes are high and customer needs to be acquired now.The switching is not gonna be that easy in this sector as is in telecom.

New Ads,tagline,positioning many a times have turned tables for the companies lets see what Dish TV gains or loses ?

What Say ?

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Vodafone and Shopper Stop have launched the all new ZooZoo merchandise.We were not seeing much of ZooZoos ads from some time but this is a new campaign involving them.

The price of the merchandise has been kept very nominal.E.g.The price of a ZooZoo T-shirt is Rs 299.A discount of 10% is also offered to existing Vodafone customers.

This is an excellent way to connect to the customers and increase brand loyalty.The campaign is also highly innovative and fresh.People were tired of Telecom wars on TV and radio.The character merchandise concept is new in India and should do well.
Vodafone has gone for a flank attack on other players.Instead of frontal attacks on TV and other common media,they have launched this new concept in a new way least expected by others. There are many non -Vodafone customers who love ZooZoos a lot.By giving them an option to get more closer to it,Vodafone also increases the probability of converting non vodafone customers to vodafone customers.
A Non-Vodafone customer who would buy a ZooZoo merchandize might just switch from an Airtel or a TATA to a Vodafone to further enhance his connect with ZooZoo.The switching costs are minimum these days.The only issue is change in number.With number portability around the corner,it just might be the case.

Vodafone has started a new trend in the market.Lets see how well it picks up with the Customer and how the competitors respond to it.

What Say ?

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The T Series currently has 3 movies in queue music of which would would be available in pen drives and memory cards.’Blue’,'All the Best’and ‘Main aur Mrs Khanna’ are the 3 movies whose USB’s are available in market.

A Pen Drive containing the music of the movie is priced at Rs 525.The capacity of the USB is 2 GB and it not only consists the songs of the movie but also many bonus tracks,movie themes,screen savers,mobile application etc.

The data is limited to 1 Gb and extra 1 GB space is empty for the customer.So after copying all the data,customer is left with a 2 GB pen drive.

The brand of pen drive is Transcend.The normal cost of a Transcend 2 GB pen drive is approx about Rs 350.For more details please visit the Blue pen drive details page.

The music is also available in a micro SD card at Rs 475.

Now this seems to be a very good prospect as far as music industry is concerned.People these days use pen drives and memory cards in abundance so it may give them a good reason to buy music USB.But how many times would people do that ? This is big question.

The format of the songs is 192 kbps MP3.The word Mp3 reminds me of a whole world of piracy which is lurking out in the open.Why would a person pay Rs 525 in lure of a pen drive when he can download the songs free from internet in the same or better formats e.g. 320 kbps MP3 ?

As far as an average music loving indian is concerned Rs 525 for music is a quite an amount even if it means he gets a pen drive worth Rs 350 with loads of data.He might buy it once if he needs a pen drive but not again and again.

The customers of original music would remain the same even if the mode of sale changes.These are the people who support original music and are against piracy.These are the same people who actually use to buy CDs and DVDs of the soundtracks.

The change was obvious.After audio cassettes, Cds came,then came DVDs then blu ray then Mp3 etc etc.But due to advent in technology,Piracy got a lot simpler and spread more easily.

With this new concept of chips and USB,no doubt companies are trying to adapt to rapidly changing customer tastes.I don’t remember when last i used a cassette to listen to a song.The customer has evolved and so have companies.

But how effective is this new concept ?

I will definitely not buy a pen drive every time i need to buy music.I will buy a DVD or a CD worth Rs 150 instead.

What T series could have tried was not to lure customer with

1)  Bonus Tracks and Data

2) A free pen drive space

They could have kept the price to lowest possible.

8 Mp3 songs dont require much space.They could have done with 512 MB or even 256 MB chip in a use and throw format.They could have priced it at about Rs 100 odd.This could have given a lot of reasons to people to buy a USB for listening music.

Or they can start a USB service,A person can buy an authorized and digitally signed USB from T series and then can get it refilled with new songs whenever he wants to buy paying a nominal price.

But whatever the results,this is a welcome step in the world of music.I hope it stays.

What Say ?

UPDATE : Comment from T-Series

The concept is new and every new concept needs time to get consumer acceptance. As far as the price is concerned, the cost of the content is not more than Rs.1/song which is dirt cheap for original good quality music. The high cost is promarily due to high cost of micro SD &USB Flash drives which is in the range of Rs.280 – Rs.350. When CD came or even DVD came, people were not very comfortable with prices because they were use to cassette and VCD prices but with time, the raw materail cost came down and acceptability rose higher. Similarly when the market forces will bring down the price of technology, the retail prices will also come down. The Concept of Personalisedmusic in mobile phones is really a great idea.

© 2009 – 2010, TMSBee. All rights reserved.

Something similar has been done by HCL with their latest laptops ‘ME’.The commercial highlishts the same fact of personalization through the laptop.My Music,My Way etc.

Wipro also had launched their Ego laptops sometime back.

All three laptop brands have one thing in common i.e.You,me,us.

In the morning i found my TOI with a yellow Front page.It was actually a Yahoo! ad which said ‘The Internet is under new management.Yours.Its Y!ou.’

Why are all these companies giving so much stress on personalization ?

Why all of these are technology companies ?

The answer to second question is a bit obvious.The products made by such companies give us the power to bring about a new change. A writer can share his views on his blog,a musician can make music on his laptop.A small time movie buff can make a movie and share it with the whole world.So these companies are banking on that and are marketing these product with a touch of You and Me in their products.

I always heard that famous line ‘Customer is the King’,but now i feel that the time has come to make him feel as one.
Currently its fresh,its helping build a nice brand image for the companies.I just wish that this concept should not become repetitive and redundant.I don’t wish to see a soap or an undergarment company using a similar concept to sell their products
After having said this,I think why not?
What Say ?

© 2009 – 2010, TMSBee. All rights reserved.

Now my friend Pappu who is doing a Marketing Research project is suffering from side effects of it.
SIDE EFFECTS !!!

Just imagine a set up of a project.Pappu is very brilliant did MBA from a reputed institute in India.Now he is doing a research project for a company for a business segment.
He very enthusiastically gets excited on listening that he will do a MR project.He gears up and starts analysing what he needs to do.He applies all his MBA knowledge and starts thining about fundu methods of MR.
He prepares a questionnaire to take responses and makes a plan.
day 1 : call to customers and emails
day 2 : response recieved from 40 50 % customers
day 3 : follow up calls
day 4 : 90% responses done
day 5 : back up in case
day 6,7,8 : analysis starts
day 9,10,11 : report formation
day 12: Presentation

He thought it was that simple but ooops it was not

day 1 soon became week 1
He called many customers.Half of them thought he was some call centre guy who was just trying to get their details to bother them again(trust me it happens).Pappu had to explain who he was for whom he works.Chalo Many customer agreed to that and even talked well gave him his emails and promised that they will fill the questionnaire.
Next day comes no response.Waits and calls again,similar story again hopeful now comes the first side effect

SIDE EFFECT 1: Pappu after every 5 minutes presses refresh button on his mail client.(customer mail jaise fass gaya hai kahin )This is a very serious effect.It can further develop into other matters of life.

SIDE EFFECT 2:Pappu keeps checking his mobile phone whether its working or not.(koi customer phone kar raha ho)

SIDE EFFECT 3: For online questionnaire users (Google Forms,Zoomerang etc): Keep inserting dummy rows to check kahin customer submit kar raha ho aur reponse idhar aa hi na raha ho jaise Internet ko aur koi nahin mila pappu banane ke liye.

SIDE EFFECT 4: ANGER MANAGEMENT  Pappu is too angry on people not keeping their promises.Some customer after days of yes yes suddenly say hum to aapka use nahin karte to i cant fill.SORRY(arey what do u mean by sorry pehle nahin bol sakte the!!!what the %&$^@&#)But Customer is the king you cant show ur anger to him u say,”"no problem sir !!its fine Sir !!ok sir !! nice talking to yo sir!!!” (Sirdard)

SIDE EFECT 5: “Customer Customer everywhere not a form to fill!” Pappu seems to see everyone as potentail customer and talks also accordingly.once Pappu called his dad and got lost”Sir I am calling from XYZ company ,We have a small survey for reseach can you please fill it???”His dad understands it and says ,”ok beta send it atleast i will fill it.”

After Days of struggling with the side efects Pappu manages few responses and thinks he is the king of the world.

Till now all his plan has been twisted and turned upside down,Still he completes his MR and submits the report.

The boss says,”Good Work PAPPU,But i just forgot to inform you that we no longer are planning to launch this new product in the market ! Anyways thanks for the report and research !! I assume its not much of an issue”

Pappu suffers again from SIDE EFFECT 4 severly.

P.S. I request all potential customers,Please help Pappus as they really want to work for you .

Comments Please!!!

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