The-New-Media Byte - 11/15/11

1. StanChart to use social media to improve customer services: 


The bank's technology group based out of Chennai will launch a pilot project to use social media networks to ‘listen' to what customers are saying about the bank. “It could be good or bad we need to react immediately,” said Ms Jaya Vaidhyanathan, Executive Vice-President and Head of Technology and Strategic Transformation at Scope International Pvt Ltd. 


On why the bank has to take a serious note on Web sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Ms Vaidhyanathan said any adverse comment by a customer can affect the bank's brand badly, as the message could go viral.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/banking/article2627489.ece?homepage=true&ref=wl_home

2. Social Media 'flogging' and 'flying blind': 

The first is “flying blind” — failing to listen across every platform available.


Don’t dodge the issue by posting bogus positive remarks from a fake blog (known as “flogging”), and don’t dangle free gifts to consumers willing to post nice things about your company (known as “pay for play”).


http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2011/11/flogging-and-flying-blind.html




3. Companies to sign up for in-house networking:


InfyBubble at Infosys, @TCS at Tata Consultancy Services, My Wipro World at Wipro are the in-house social networking platforms of these companies. These social networking platforms are going beyond the need to merely increase connectivity among employees and are allowing a much wider room for communication and feedback between senior management (even the CEO) and employees.


@TCS’ – launched a few months ago – looks like a Facebook page, and shows the softer side of the $8.2-billion firm. “The idea to connect the huge base of employee in a casual way gels with our overall theme of ‘realising your potential’. The thought behind it is to bring forth the talent, be it music, writing, dancing, trekking anything and want others to follow,” says Pradipta Bagchi, VP and Head global communications, TCS.


... aim to integrate both Twitter and Facebook with My Wipro World, with some content filters to ensure security.
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/companies-signfor-in-house-networking/455391/

4. Google+ and Facebook:
Google plus business pages vs. Facebook business pages
http://gigjets.com/11/facebook-pages-and-google-plus-the-battle-for-business-brands/

Winner's Article: Re-branding of Hero Moto Corp by SK Lodha

I am no marketing guru, neither do I have any experience of building brands except for the little promotion I did for my startup Printbooth.in, but here, I would like to make a point. Maybe the argument I am about to present is technically flawed or maybe it has a very narrow scope, nonetheless I feel that it is a strong one and that I should put it forward to the aam janta. The brand under consideration here is Hero Honda, which is now Hero MotoCorp Ltd after it decided to exit its hugely successful JV with the giant from Japan (read HONDA).


Hero Honda has been an iconic Indian brand with a huge presence through the length and breadth of the country, and more importantly it owns a big pie of the two-wheeler market. Hero has a market share of 57% and it sells more bike than the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th players combined together. Hero from India and Honda from Japan have together created something very unique in terms of delivering what the middle class Indians wanted and aspired for. In this coalition that lasted 26 years (1984-2010), Honda was seen as the one with the technical geniuses while it was almost unanimously believed that strength Hero was that it exactly knew what its customers expected from it. Together, they were a force that the competitors dreaded.

As soon as people got to know about this separation with Hero deciding to go on its separate way, the initial reactions from the larger section of the “technically-sound” class were not very encouraging. They feared that somehow without the support of Honda, Hero will not be able to ramp up its R&D and thus will subsequently loose its market share to cut-throat competition. Though it’ll be very immature of me to comment on this issue, I feel that still Hero can be a strong force in the Indian market and can continue to do so as the association with Honda for such a long period of time must have surely modified the DNA of Hero, for good. Mr Pawan Munjal, MD & CEO ofHero Motocorp, himself is seen as one of the best corporate leaders of our time and we can trust him to make no mistakes that could negatively affect this brand in a big way.

The brand makeover task after the exit of Honda is no small task by any measures, and the creative agency (in this case, the famed Wolff Olins from London) that was handed over the contract for re-branding accept that their major challenge was to convince people that Hero still has got the technical expertise and the know-how to take the company higher. If you observe their new logo, you’ll see that it’s a 3D logo with sharp edges. The creative agency argues that that sharpness was essential to portray that Hero still has the engineering capabilities that is by no means any less advanced or inferior to what they initially had. When quizzed about the choice of colour for the logo, that is red and black, they were quick to state that this combination expresses the continuity with good old Hero Honda, since the old logo was also done in red and black.

A major part of this revamping/re-branding exercise is undoubtedly the song composed by the Mozhart, A.R.Rahman, “hum mein hai heroooo.......” This song has got a very nice feel to it and people picked it up quickly, humming it, singing it and enjoying it. This is exactly the part I would like to discuss here. Hero Motocorp gave this song enough airtime, ran it on all primetime TV shows & thus making it impossible for anybody to ignore it. The more they showed, the more we wanted because we genuinely liked the tune of it. It’s the same thing that Airtel is doing now with their youth connect song, “har ek friend zaroori hai yaar”. This too is a hugely popular and hugely successful campaign to come out of Airtel stable since long. These songs have only helped these brands create a very high recall value and thus underlining the popularity amongst Creative agencies to use jingles to draw consumer’s attention.

All izzzz well, you’d say. But now, let’s discuss the financial implication of running such blanket marketing campaigns, encompassing all possible channels of communication. Hero Motocorp reportedly spent close to INR 100 crores on this major overhaul, and according to me, that’s a huge price and more importantly a huge bet on advertisement, even for a company in the league of Hero Honda and Airtel. Ok, they spent 100 crores and achieved what they wanted to. Let’s take a moment here to analyze, what if Hero had developed some kind of campaign which would have rewarded their loyal customers along with creating a lot of buzz and educating people about the changes in the company that Hero wanted to portray. I like this idea a lot, and this has been running through my mind for the past one month. If I was in Mr Pawan Munjal’s shoes, I would have done something else, something different. “I would have spent only around 30% of what he spent on blanket marketing, just enough to let people know that things have changed a bit at our end. You need to recognize us through a newly designed logo and remember us by a fancier name-Hero Motocorp.” The bigger part of my message would have been that, “See, boss, our logo has changed and it’s no longer your old Hero Honda, aur to aur humara naam bhi badal chuka he. Toh mein yeh karta hu, mein aapko ek option deta hu ki aap apni bike ko humare service centre me le aao aur free me thoda denting-painting karwo lo. Aapka purana bike to chaka-chak ho hi jayega, uske saath saath mera bhi thoda publicity ho jayega. Aapka toh isme fayda hi fayda he, turant karwa lo.” And, then what I would have done is, I would have used this opportunity to repaint my brand identity (new logo and name) on millions of Hero motorcycles on the streets, running across the country. It would have been a viral marketing of its own kind, with sure shot positive results.

According to me, this would have had much higher impact on the consumers, maybe at the same cost of INR 100 crores, but also while making their loyal customers happier and merrier. This would fit very well into the loyalty program that they have already been running, called Hero Honda passport program. And I don’t think it would have been much of a task for Hero Motocorp with their huge network of more than 3000 dealers and service points across the country.

This was the simple argument that I wanted to convey through this post. If you think, there is some basic/serious flaw in my argument, or if I have missed something critical, do comment. Also write if you consider this to be valid argument that can be given a try the next time some brand plans a major overhaul. I would love to see reactions to this post, positive or negative.

The Rise Of The Empowered Consumer

The consumers have changed their interaction with the media world. They are not passive listeners but have become active participants. They are creating content and broadcasting whatever they want. Below, the video depicts all aspects of consumer reaction to a particular brand. After viewing this you would be clear on how a consumer discovers a brand, the importance of word of mouth, role of traditional (TV, radio, outdoor) media, how a prospect consumer becomes a conversion, users becoming brand advocates and the important role social media plays in every aspect.

Calling Budding Writers

Here's calling all the Budding writers!
The New Media is giving all the college students, freshers and budding writers an excellent opportunity for a real time experience. We are holding a contest on article writing on the topics given below. 

• Empowered Consumer
• The Rise Of A Democratic Media
• Media and I (Your personal account on media, views, ideas etc.)

The article of the winners will be published on our blog. Your article will get exceptional readership and feedback. Looking forward to working with enthusiastic and passionate people. Last date to submit your articles is November 12, 2011.

If interested, please write to us on mesmerizing_ridz@yahoo.com. 

Thank you all for your entries. The contest is the over. The winner blog is posted on our blog under Winner's Article.

Social By Design!

The new power with people is 'to share.' Sharing is another form of word of mouth. It has a personal nature of communication between individuals with an added layer of credibility. The fundamental of social web is the strength of sharing. The social technology is focusing on giving people a reason to share. It is about connections. The web is being rebuilt around people. The internet was only about browsing in the 90's, about search in 00's and is about discovering in 10's. This era is to speak with people and not to people.  It has made the world more open and connected.

We will discuss major online social media products here. Lets begin with talking about the social media giant. Facebook has 850 million people on it. 500 million users log in everyday. 250 million photos are daily updated on it. One has to create a profile to connect and add their friends. The latest feature of 'subscribe', lets the users subscribe to people whom they want to hear about irrespective of the fact, if they know them or not e.g. celebrities. 

Micro-sites or brand pages are a great way to communicate online. This system is so well integrated that when a person becomes a fan or likes a page, it reflects on the pages of their friends. This small gesture gives brands great coverage. 100 million 'likes' happen everyday on Facebook. Fan base gives companies a good opportunity to engage with customers. This connection based system helps in reaching people who are interested in a particular brand.There are paid forms of marketing like sponsored stories and ads on Facebook. The whole system is based on recommendations and connecting with friends and friends of friends and so on. Facebook is about to launch Timeline feature which will make each one's profile look like the story of their life. 

Google has started social search to personalize its users experience. Whenever users search on Google, it gives the most relevant results, along with the updates posted on YouTube, Flickr, blog and other websites related to their search by people in their social circle. Let's take an example. You are planning a trip to Paris and you do a Google search on it. Google will pull out results from your friend's blog who wrote about his trip to Paris and show in your search results.

Google is able to define the social circle through Google+, Gmail contacts, Gmail chat and other linked accounts like Twitter. Google + is a social networking site whose major tool is +1. Every time someone likes a link they just need to +1. The more the number of +1's, the better will be the quality score of the web page. This will define their position in the Google search results. Google has rolled out this system for ads also. 

Twitter is a micro-blogging website where people send and receive text based posts called a 'tweet' with a character limit of 140. One has to get registered on Twitter and start 'following' people of their choice. One can subscribe to newspapers like TOI etc., celebrities e.g. Shahrukh Khan and much more interesting stuff . Twitter has this unique technology of understanding the preferences of the users and sending promoted tweets, suggesting promoted accounts in the 'who to follow' section and showing promoted trends which fit their location. They also show political ads in the US. 

Twitter messages or tweets have also been incorporated with Google search. Users can connect their Facebook and Google accounts with Twitter. The shared public links on Twitter show in the relevant search results on Google. To take an example, if you search for a video on Formula 1 race on Google and one of your contacts had sent this video link as a tweet, it will show in your search results.

YouTube is a video-sharing website where users can sign up and upload any videos. Users and viewers can share these videos with their friends. 800 million people are registered on YouTube. 3 billion videos are viewed daily with increase of 5% over 2010. YouTube provides a unique feature to its users where they can start their own channel free of cost. Its amazing how this media can turn an ordinary person in a broadcaster. You can engage with your subscribers and measure results via YouTube insights. There are paid services for brands where they can start their brand channels for promotion. Advertisers can use True View  in which the users can opt to see their ad along with other advertising methods. Users can also promote their videos which are highlighted when a user searches on similar subject.

Apart from these products, there are many other websites using social technology to catch up with this new online stage. LinkedIn, Yelp, Four Square  are a few more examples of online social media. Apart from these, other websites are including or making changes to make their products and services more social. Every company or advertiser should create their marketing and creative strategy by keeping in mind, if the user would share their idea. It has to be 'social by design.'