‘Marketing’ is the buzz word in today’s world and anything and everything is marketed to reach general public. In the year 2008, I took appa and amma to Coca Cola factory in Atlanta as it was a custom for anyone living in Atlanta to take it to Coca cola factory, CNN when parents visit their kids. It costed 15$ per person for the visit which includes a short synopsis on the company, short film on coca cola brand, taste 50 or 60 types of Coca cola served all around the world and I felt it was worth the visit. Appa came to me and said in order to market their brand why should we pay money as he was promoting his brand big time? I had absolutely no answer to his question and I remember his words though 12 years passed by. I would like to share some interesting marketing techniques I have observed which were quite effective too.
Brand new Car in a cricket stadium: I am sure all of us must have witnessed this scene – a brand new glossy red colour luxury car sitting in the stands attracting lot of eyeballs and the sponsor would gift that to the man of the series. The car would travel throughout the series to various grounds and the game maybe broadcasted to many different countries through satellite. Every time batsman goes for a lofty shot aiming into the stands in the direction of the car, commentators would go gaga over the car and as audience we feel OMG ..what would happen if ball falls straight into the car either causing a dent or breaks its glass. Just imagine if people like Chris Gayle, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma, Shahid Afridi who are all big hitters of the ball go after the full toss and ball goes straight into the stands where car is located, everytime ball goes into that direction it creates a panic and all this translates into wonderful marketing for the sponsor. Even if balls does damage to the car the cost to fix the damage is far less compared the publicity it draws from viewers both in person and international audience gloomed to the television. In a series which consists of few matches the number of times car gets highlighted and the mileage it draws makes it an effective Marketing strategy for the sponsor.
Celebrity to open jewellery showroom: In tier 2 cities like Trichy, Madurai, Salem, Tanjore etc., opening of a jewellery showroom is conducted with so much fanfare where posters are splashed all across the city broadcasting of a top actress opening the showroom. Just to let you know some of the ambassadors for leading brands are as follows: Nayantara endorses Tanishq (Tata brand), Kajal/Tamannah endorses Malabar Gold & Diamonds, Manju warrier for Kalyan jewellery, Kajol/Amala Paul for Joy alukkas, Radhika for Pranav Jewellers, Jothika for Saravana stores Thanga maligai etc., Nayantara is too big a ambassador who may bring city to a standstill so she does not come for showroom openings. There is so much buzz in the city on the actress visit and news travel across all sections of people; Local radios, televisions, social media, Facebook groups all create so much hype and start updating people on arrival time, route the actress may take from airport to shop etc., A section of the group also talks about what attire would the actress come in and encourages viewers to participate on the discussions regarding Actress visit. Then comes the D day and actress once she has opened the shop and given poses to the shutterbugs says following words “Vanakkam Trichy ..epadi irukeenga ..nalla irukeengala” which is good enough for the people to pronounce letter ‘O’ for few minutes; I seriously guess actress must memorize what they want to say in public during their flight trip since the expressions on the face looks like a CBSE student wanting to reproduce whatever they have memorized. Next day actress opening the showroom gets highlighted in all the daily’s in prime locations pushing some important news regarding Healthcare, Military, Education to nonprime areas like 5th page corner. So end of the day shop has got all the attention it expected and can consider the promotion to bring an actress is a huge success.
Mersal movie: Movie promotion has become just an inevitable task that every movie had to come up with a motion poster, trailer, grand audio launch, media interviews, preview shows etc., These days every harry and dick has a Youtube channel and looks like people who have channel exceed compared to people who don’t have one. Everyone who owns a channel is a critique and people review it in piecemeal basis. Filmmakers has to do something out of ordinary in order to grab people’s attention since most of the movie promotions are mundane stuff with people uttering that their movie is ‘Vidiyasam’ (different) from others. Mersal movie came and Thanks to two BJP politicians who made a single dialogue about GST a huge national topic and created huge curiosity amongst film buffs and so many people wanted to watch the movie just for Vijay’s talk about GST. Actually if you were to buy popcorn or quickly go for a restroom that dialogue would be over since it lasted very few seconds. Makers of the movie did not open their mouth as media and public were doing all the promotion on their behalf and every single conversation translated into making the movie a huge commercial success. So in a way I think this is also a marketing tactic that worked wonders. On a sidenote as long as Tamil nadu youngsters keep brawling about Thala vs Thalapathy, Thalaivar vs Ulaganayagan state will always be at the mercy of Centre, politicians and actors fight (pretend like fighting) only to gain more mileage in their respective career.
You can come up with a good
product but to take it to public you need to rely on marketing techniques which
has to be creative as well as unique. Coming up with a controversial content to
attract people (negative publicity) may work once or twice but end of the day
content speaks and good marketing techniques always has a positive impact.
People make fun of Legend Saravana Stores owner and meme guys work overtime to
create memes but the guy is making all this translate to advertisement for his
business. Just take two fruits – Apple and Guava and Apple may sound a
healthier choice than Guava but if you do more research then you will get to
know Guava is a better fruit in terms of nutrients. So long story short whether
it is the U.S presidential election or Nandu brand Lungi (seriously need to
know the rationale behind their brand name) anything and everything needs a
marketing push.
