Competitions

Humans are built with a competitive mind. We are jealous of people who are doing better than us. We want to win. Giving the opportunity to compete in simple things is a way to engage with customers. Being part of a competition will stay in the customers mind.

When your brand runs a competition your audience try to be a part of it. And they wait for the results. They check back in with you every once in a while, to get an update on the results. What did we achieve here? We achieved Brand Recall.

If you are a restaurant you can have food photography contest, Guess as many ingredients as possible contest. Or even better, an eating competition. If you are a musical instrument brand you can have a performance music competition. If you are fitness brand you can have fitness test contest on social media. Challenges.

In all of these cases your participants become a marketing engine for you on their social media. You force them to create user generated content, which is whole new tactic by itself. We will talk about that in another episode.

Now let us look at some examples. Mahindra thar. The automobile giants conducts thar fest every year. Part of the fest is an Offroad competition. Crazy offroaders from all parts of the country travel 1000’s of kilometres with their custom built vehicle to participate. And their fan following awaits the results. Even I am part of an offroad club and I have travelled with my club to participate in these events. I haven’t raced myself but, being part of it was exhilarating. The point is, as a result of these competitions, Mahindra is branded as a bad-ass sturdy automobile that can cross any obstacles. The crazy mods on these vehicles makes regular customers wanna buy more accessories for their thar boosting another segment sales for them.

Another example is Redbull. Redbull is a marketing machine. They run competitions all over the world on all different segments. If its crazy Redbull funds it. Their brand name resonates with energy. It’s a drink with a lot of caffeine in it. But they never talk about their product. They just associate themselves with energy. I personally don’t think there is any secret sauce in their drink. But the secret sauce is in their marketing. They are one of the best marketing companies in the world.

You want more examples. Lets go for it. I will educate. That is my purpose in life. Let me think. Yes. The beauty product brand Dove. I get chills when I think about their contest. Real beauty should be shared. They ran a fill in the blanks contest with photos. Participants were supposed to share two things that makes their friend beautiful with a photo attached and share it on social media. And the grand prize, not TV’s or Ipads or product coupons. Winners will become part of their Instore branding. The result, they get real genuine beauties to represent their brand and associated themselves with real beauty sharing. Spot-On right. They hit the branding bulls-eye.

While the first two examples are pricey and needs sizable budgets, the third one doesn’t. You just have think creative. Or hire someone who can be creative.

As a business who is your biggest advocate, Of course its your most satisfied customers. Oh they are the best. They love you. I have witnessed few of my clients taking an hour out of their time to really push my services. And I love them for it.

When you are looking to buy something new, who do you talk to. People who have already bought the product. If you don’t know anyone personally you search the internet for them. And what is their opinion called? Yes its called a Testimonial.

Hello this is Harry, and you are listening to Branding Tactics.

So you have heard about Testimonials right. Of course you have.  And you know its importance too. Let me ask you a few questions? The answer to that will teach you the importance of Testimonials.

Have you ever bought anything from amazon without looking at the ratings.

Have you ever bought any electronics items without checking out YouTube reviews.

Have you ever selected a restaurant on Zomato with out looking at customer reviews.

When you are driving, you wanna find a place to eat. Don’t you look at the ratings even though you are extremely hungry.

Don’t you research for at least 3 months before buying a car.

To be specific, You spend a lot of time, researching about the quality of the product or service you wanna buy.

But, have you filled your brands digital platforms with customer testimonials? Do you ask your customers to leave a review? Almost never right? Why the hell not. Cos you feel shy. You think you are above all that. No you are not.

Let me telling you some thing, your satisfied customers will be more than happy to leave a review for you. If you have to ask a customer to leave a review, you have to give them good service. So it is mutually beneficial.

So where do you ask them to post these testimonials or reviews.

There are lot of platforms.

No 1 Google. Are you B2B linked is a good platform. Are you restaurant, Facebook and Instagram will do wonders for you. Ask your customers to post pictures and tag you.

So basically where ever your customers spend time online you should have an account there. Lets say, you are consultant and a subject matter expert, you must have a LinkedIn account where you post opinions regularly and recommendations from your customers.

So I will list down the platforms where you should have reviews.

1) Google

2) Facebook ratings and testimonials

3) Instagram testimonials

4) LinkedIn recommendations and endorsements

5) Which ever ecommerce platforms you are available on, Own website, Amazon Flipkart, Nyka

6) Blogs

7) Your own website

8) YouTube video testimonials

9) Business listing websites like Indiamart, Just dial etc.

Before you become lazy to ask for reviews, ask yourselves this. Have you ever bought product rated below 4 stars, unless that’s the only piece available in the market and there is no other way. Answer is no.

It has more value than a celebrities endorsement. Why because celebrities are doing it for money. But if a customer has to same something good about you it is because they are happy.

When we are Kids we learn everything through stories. Right? And what are some of the things what we learn through stories? I will tell you. Values and beliefs, eg how to treat your elderly. We also learn simple things like animal names, things etc. A story teller uses the power of human imagination to take you through different elements of the story such as Visuals, Emotions, Feelings, Challenges etc. In this episode I will explain how stories can build brands and how it is so powerful, and the psychological aspect of how it connects with a consumer. Once I was walking through the streets of Dubai looking for a good place to eat. Now I have given you very limited information. But you have already imagined a lot of things right, Tall buildings, fancy cars, Busy or calm street, type of restaurants, what I am wearing, am I happy or depressed. if you don’t know me. based on the tone of my voice you must have imagined Tall Built fella. Well I am 6.2 So I am tall. But do you see the power of your mind. Within a fraction of a second, you imagined all these things. I never gave you any of these details. Pretty powerful mind you have. But what happened there. You and I are on the same page right. I am in Dubai. We connected, you believed me within a second. And that’s the power of story telling. Now the million dollar question. How can we use this in marketing. George Clooney selling his tequila company for billion dollars is great example of this. Casamigos brand took off majorly because of the story behind it. Story of two friends creating the best tequila for themselves took all of the media by storm. Although they say its an accident when you read the story we can see a lot planning elements underneath. Here is how the story goes, George Clooney and his friend was in Mexico on a vacation. You have already imagined a house on a beach right. Having fun. Even on his vacation did you imagine Mr Clooney in his signature suit. I did. They got this idea for creating an amazing tequila so that they can party with their friends. See where your imaginations took you. Anyways they tested around 700 samples and combinations. Finally they struck gold. And it was a hit among their friends. They started ordering more and more of the combination. Finally they had to take a liquor licence to place kind of larger party orders. That’s what they did and this story became popular. A massive number of news organization in the US spoke about this story. And it became a hit. Not over night but it was sudden. Long story short, the brand was sold for a billion dollars. Look at most popular billionre stories you know. You all connect with the human element of it all. Apple and google, Started in garage. Bill gates and Zuckerberg, College dropouts. Elon musk, made his office his bedroom and took showers at the YMCA. Jeff Bezos, Didn’t have a bloody table to pack the orders. They were doing it on the floor in 1997. Now they have the biggest Inhouse logistics segment in the world with 100+ aircrafts. Just imagine about all the news that came out of your region regarding the new products and how innovative they are. All of them may not have succeeded because they are not business savvy but they got the publicity because of a story. They got a fighting chance. You have one too. Tell your story. I keep telling my story where I lost everything in my previous business and how me and my partner started Kreative clan with zero investment and how our hard work and perseverance gave us a fighting chance even while I was bleeding money from previous losses. We stuck it out. We believed in each other and with an amazing team we are a reputable firm now. And most of the credit goes to my team who sticks with us no matter what the situation is. We are not building the smartest team. We are building a team that can push through anything. And they are smart too. Ofcourse. You come at us with Knife, we go back with a sword.

Why is melody so chocolaty! Sometimes, solutions are right in front of us and yet we fail to see them. Why? Because we do not understand the solution. Now that is a problem you don’t need. Have you heard about the brand “I cannot believe it is not butter” Don’t get confused : I cant believe its not butter is the brands name. It’s a spread used for flavoring baking and cooking. They practically defined the solution in the name itself. The only butter we know is Amul. Right I can believe its not butter is a Brand under Unilever. Sorry they used to be under Unilvere. Now owned by Upfield. This product was popular in the European market. Especially France. So the moment you read the name you understand that it’s a butter replacement. Right. That quick connect & understanding within seconds is the key factor that will drive the customer to your store. Unilever has 400 brands under them. 2.5 billion customers around the globe. Very successful around the globe. But no ads for detergents beat washing powder nirma Ad right. For my audience outside india, Nirma is a detergent brand. Nirma founder started out mixing detergents in his backyard and selling them door-to-door on his bicycle. Eventually the low priced detergent gave giants like Unilever and Procter and Gamble a run for their money. A lot of that is due to the ad campaign. Washing powder Nirma. It was so successful that even a decade after it stopped running, we still remember the tune. If you say washing powder you have to add Nirma at the end. It feels weird otherwise. So what did Nirma do there. They defined the solution very clearly. In the early 90s and 2000s Indians didn’t call it detergent. We called it washing powder. Nirma. Now we call it Surf. All thanks to relentless marketing from Unilever. Do you want another example. I will give you. Melody chocolate. Melody itni choclaty kyu. Translation: Why is Melody so chocolaty. Why the heck is melody so chocolaty Man. Honestly I don’t know. But it sure did sound mouth watering when I was a kid. The messaging was spot on. So what am I getting at here. Yes the success of the ad campaign depends on how quickly customer understands the solution. Use right keywords. No matter how small a business you are you can give billion dollar companies a run for their money. Now more than ever. You just need the right tools. Define Attract, Converse

Christiano Ronaldo wiped off 4 billion dollars of off Coca Colas Valuation. Is that permanent? May be only time will tell. Healthier drink choices like Bai and Vitamin water supported by Rohan Oza an ex coke marketing executive is eating away at cokes market share in USA. Coke is going to try and bounce back. But with this incident I would like to talk to you about another branding tactic all the brands have been using for decades. That is using celebrities to market your products. You all must be thinking this is a common tactic and you do not need me to tell you about it. Well sure you know about this tactic, but have you ever thought why it works, probably not. So, I would like to tell you why it works and how CR7s little action wiped off 4 billion off Coke’s valuation.

Have you ever heard of any prominent celebrity getting a brand name tattooed on his/her body? Well that happened, American basket ball player J R smith got the supreme logo tattoed on his entire calf muscle. A big ass logo tattooed on your leg. Can you imagine that. And Supreme didn’t even pay him to do that. He did it cos he wanted to. Because he related to the brand and its culture.

Take a jab at each other. What do I mean by that. Its become a trend for brands to troll each other on social media. But before the age of social media brands used to imagine big marketing campaigns to troll each other on all the advertising platforms.

Use the right keywords. Define Attract Converse

What is the result of creating a product or a service? You are solving a Problem! A problem creates a lot of drama. Emphasize that drama in your Ad series. In the digital age you don’t have to depend on 1 piece of ad. You need to have a series of creative content show casing the problem in a dramatic way that will connect with a customer emotionally. When Cadbury rebranded diary milk everyone was focused on the cost of 1 million dollars to make tiny change in the logo. But in actuality there was series of changes 1 most important being the introduction of 100% Sustainably sourced cocoa branding element on every packaging which was ignored by everyone. Sustainably sourced means they are supporting the farmers and the environment. This effort was overlooked. All they got a lot of eyeballs on their brand they got it for the wrong reasons. Make your series act like a funnel by bringing people to you instead of you actively seeking them. Have intriguing conversation when you find your biggest “admirer” it could increase your sales. Connect Engage and Convert