Marketing comes full circle

The brands are now looking for enhanced visibility, and 360 degree marketing is one such tool that can make it possible effectively across the consumers. It’s the multi-point visibility tool allowing a brand to explore all sorts of medium, from mobile, social networking sites to e-book and location-based services.

 An example, Shake Shake fries and Chatpata Alloo tikkie campaign by McDonald’s. These were specially designed activations where limited time period products were offered, products which are catering to the consumers’ mindset and taste. The communication was done through mass media, reminders on radio, creating impulse through presence marketing (in the immediate vicinity of the restaurants), also reached through personal media vehicles like mobiles, and other in-store activities like creating a food festival environment around these products. “Our objective is to make McDonalds relevant to consumers’ daily life. Therefore, we celebrate IPL, Valentine’s Day and Independence Day, which are important to our consumers and help us in bonding further - again via mass media, outdoor, presence marketing and mobile. And within the store, apart from the merchandising, the crew generates a lot of excitement by holding impromptu contests and small events”, comments Mr Rajdeep Chatterjee, GM - Marketing, McDonald’s India (North & East) while explaining how 360 degree marketing works for the brand.  “If one were to do a perceptual mapping of the mind of a consumer of Informal eating out, one would find that McDonald’s is strongly entrenched as a ‘daily affordable’ QSR brand in all its constituencies.  And this has been possible because of the integrated marketing / 360 marketing approach that we take. It starts from the product, the price, the communication, the points of communication, and results in restaurant experience”, he quips.

ITC Lifestyle Retail employs 360 degree marketing for both Wills Lifestyle and John Players and consists of Above-the-Line communications through TV, Print & Outdoor and a host of other activities such as Consumer Promotions, a CRM program (Club Wills), Shopper Analytics, Direct & Micro Marketing, PR, Sponsorships and Endorsements, Digital & Social Media engagement, Collaborations with Fashion Designers and Visual Merchandising.  “With increasing media clutter and competition, we are constantly exploring more effective means to engage with our consumers in a manner that is relevant, personalised and result in store visits, trials and feedback. For example, customers appreciate getting timely information about our store launches, new season merchandise and offers, and technology (SMS, email, Social Media) that enable us to communicate in a cost effective manner. If the information is relevant, then customers respond immediately leading to higher footfalls and sales”, informs Mr Atul Chand, Divisional Chief Executive, Lifestyle Retail Business Division, ITC Ltd, underlining the effectiveness of 360 degree marketing. 

The content-wise 360 degree marketing has to be an integrated marketing process where every unit of the brand message has to be conveyed and should be aptly weaved into the next unit.  Mr Subhinder Singh Prem, Managing Director of Reebok India, calls the marketing policy of Reebok as integrated marketing which is not only about advertisements. “Our facebook fans count more than 1 lakh. Yes, we do on print, internet and outdoor; we’ll be launching big campaign on television with Dhoni and Yuvraj soon.  Reebok is primarily a sportswear brand so we coordinate with lots of sports events at the grass root, like running in the park, inspiring folks to work out.  We do lots of BTL marketing. The whole gamut of our marketing is presented in a complete package which we call integrated marketing and you call 360 degree marketing. It allows a brand to make better touch points.”

How’s it different from other marketing strategy?

Pointing out the difference, Mr Chand says, “While our advertising enhances brand salience during the season, CRM, Direct Marketing & Digital Marketing, the essential parts of 360 degree marketing, enable engagement with customers in a more personalised manner, thus giving a persuasive reason to visit our stores, try out our products and build loyalty. Activities such as sponsorships and collaborations enhance brand stature and create buzz and excitement around the brand by enhancing word of mouth.”

“The alternate norm would be to latch on to an insight and communicate about a given product through various media. But in 360 degree or integrated marketing we surround the consumer with an insight led customised offering, using media to inform and excite the consumer and then engage the consumer in the restaurant and complete his experience”, explains Mr Chatterjee

The risks involved

According to Mr Prem, lots of planning is involved before floating any such activity. “In fact the integrated marketing is more focused. When we were promoting on facebook our “easytone” range of footwear for women, which enables women to tone their butt, we didn’t allow men folks to join the community initially, so that women freely participate in the conversation. But eventually we built up the hyperlink to let them come in”, he informs.

Is their any chance to miss the target audience or lose the mission in the clutter of activities? Mr Chatterjee opines, “Any marketing activity is fraught with the similar risks - the offering is not relevant to the consumer, the communication is not understandable, the action expected from the consumer is ambiguous, in the rush to offer a 360 degree approach, brands start doing things that are not in sync with its core positioning and thus erode the brand. To be able to join the bandwagon of integrated marketing, the brand starts spending money in areas which do not deliver any results. In fact scarce resources get diverted from result oriented activity to a non productive yet feel good initiative.”

So essential parameters that should be considered before launching such programme is:

• Product/service/offer relevance to the consumer
• Profitability to the brand arising from meeting this need of the consumer
• Efficiency of each medium used in this
• Focused communication as per the medium

Obviously, alertness is required when you’re going for massive campaign. “We choose our media partners and vendors carefully such that the right TG is targeted. Our internal customer databases have been built over time through the Club Wills Loyalty program and serve as a valuable repository of loyal customers”, divulges Mr Chand.  “Marketing investments across activities are calibrated at a store or market level so that our brand and sales objectives are both met. We ensure that each activity is of a certain minimum scale in order to create an impact. Otherwise, we do not do it”, he further adds.

Not in this bandwagon

Who are going for 360 deegre marketing? Nowadays, brands of every stature across every product category go or aspire to go for 360 degree marketing except that super premium, luxury brands. It’s a total no no for these brands that thrive on exclusivity. Dilip Kapur, President of Hidesign, refutes the concept rejecting it as mass where even electronic media is a prohibition. For a luxury watch brand, Harry Winston, print medium and outdoor in the selected places are the only channel for advertising, divulges Marc Antoine Abadie, Regional Director of Harry Winston.  Interestingly, these luxury brands are effectively capitalising on the power of digital media. Social networking sites are now playing a crucial role to build up the fan community.   These sites enable more personalised interaction and act as a forum that helps brand to understand its consumers better.