Premium Cars needs advertising on TV, Print and Radio – Tushar Pandey

There is an aura of exclusivity, desirability, and opulence around premium cars. Earlier what used to be a lavish indulgence of a numbered few, comprising cosmopolitan elite, corporate czars and wealthy businessmen. Now even more people are jumping on to the luxury bandwagon with NRI dominated Punjab and other rural customers, coming to the forefront in premium cars market. Hence, marketing high end premium cars does requires a different marketing approach than any other car. More than anything, the emphasis of advertising is on quality and person buying it. Selecting the right communication channels becomes highly critical.

TV, Print and radio have been traditionally used to communicate the message due to its wide reach. Mass media advertising serves twin purpose of promoting the cars to the target group and building admiration and desirability to those who cannot afford it. This distinction makes the cars more exclusive and enhances its equity. Selection of the right TV channels supplemented by selecting right spots, non mainstream print medium and select radio channels can increase effectiveness. Radio looks challenging because luxury is more visual. But importantly coherence in the message among all three channels is a key factor.

Purchasing a premium car is a multistep process. While TV has a role to create awareness, knowledge, Radio is to remind and reinforce, supplemented by print to help the buyer in imagining themselves in particular vehicles and what those vehicles and brands say about them as a person.

FMCG brands need to use social media to engage housewives - Ankit Prasad

Philip Kotler pointed out sixty years ago that the ultimate aim of marketing is to create a product so accurately matched with the consumer needs that it should not require any promotion at all. The functional benefits of the product will sell it themselves. However, if hundreds of companies do a great job with the functionality of the product, ‘who will sell’ becomes an interesting question to ask. Brands, over the decades, have tried to overcome this challenge by attempting to satisfy the needs very few consciously know they have, their latent or unstated needs. Marketing has tried to dive deeper and deeper into the consumers’ psyche and has tried to appeal to the most elementary of human needs, those of affection and connection. It has also tried to be as big a part of the consumers’ daily life as it can. Hence, what helps the product sell is not a monologue of the functional benefits of the product, but the conversation between the brand and consumer.

Thanks to social media, there has never been an easier way to have this conversation. Never has it been easier to listen to the customer, promote your brand, measure the results and modify your strategy in real time. The WOM and earned media generated by an effective social media campaign can do wonders for the brand.

With more and more housewives moving on to social networks, it is a great opportunity for marketers to empower them through their campaigns. What Ariel did with ‘My Story, My Ariel’, in my opinion, will remain etched in the consumers’ minds for a significant period of time.

To increase popularity of F1, media needs to play a key role - Nirav Shah

Media is not an essential entity. It’s just a spoke in the wheel like many other. What we need are axles. First of all, let’s be very clear about what we mean by popularity here. The stance that I’ll discuss is that although many of us are passionate about the sport, it doesn’t culminate into active participation.

Formula 1 has always been an expensive sport. Without being from a wealthy family or without sponsorship backing, there are no avenues to showcase talent. Youths like us are already mesmerized by the sport but is that enough? There are hardly any go karting tracks in the metropolitan areas. The Sahara Force India team has over 3 lakhs likes on facebook. The Buddh international circuit witness good turnouts but poor revenue due to rupee depreciation and the fact that revenues from TV rights and track sponsorships go to the F1 management directly. Also, India is a resource and land scarce country. Setting up training locations is an expensive deal.

The Football business is slowly gaining traction because it can be played anywhere with negligible expenses. Formula 1 is heavily reliant on machinery, space, labour which indirectly translates to a huge burden on the pocket. Starsports has already been showing the sport on their channel as well as the digital world so there is wide coverage. Also media channels have provided good coverage and build up until now. Celebrity endorsements, training centres by major corporations and government support via lower taxes are the need of the hour.

Premium cars need Advertising on TV, Print, and Radio - Ish Kumar

As per KPMG report on Premium cars in India, the market size is estimated at 23,000 units which is about 1 percent of passenger vehicle market of India. This market is going to increase by CAGR of 25 %  for next 8 years  , in contrast to overall passenger vehicles are expected to grow by 10-12 percent , to touch 1,50,000 units by 2020 .  The marketing spend of major companies are as follows:-

Brand	Marketing Expenditure
BMW	50 Crores
Mercedes	45 Crores
Audi	35 Crores
Jaguar	15-20 Crores

Instead of focusing on ATL (Above the line), the locus of marketing lies in BTL (Below the line) activities for above mentioned companies. For instance, German luxury carmaker PORSHE provides free car services to small town crorepatis to high value purchases in Ahemdabad. As there is positive correlation between global economic scenario & the sale figures of premium car companies, such approach is adept way of marketing. BTL activities not only give the best way of interaction with client but it also helps to sell them the experience of driving premium brands. This is not viable in case of advertising on TV, Radio & Print. The other advantage of BTL activities above ATL is that one can tangiblize the ROI of such activities. But BTL activities are not one time affair; they should be an annual event for companies. They require sincere involvement of management & ground staff to make it successful. In my view, Radio, Television & Print can be used for driving brand awareness & recognition, while BTL activities should be used for driving the sales. Companies should allocate marketing expenses to these mediums proportionately  as per their short & medium term goals.

FMCG Brands need to use Social Media to engage housewives - Ankita Bapna

India is at the cusp of internet revolution. By 2014 India will have 243 million internet users edging out USA. Women will be a major chunk of this. The above chart stands testimony to this. 90% of "Non-working women" are still embracing social media at good speed. Hence, conquering them over in this medium is essential since they are major influencers for most FMCG purchases.

Women generally have more time at their disposal and are said to view brand pages with greater intensity than men. Many of them are opening small businesses at home and are active on social media to promote. Their awareness level has increased with TVCs and easier availability of information. Husbands are working more, children and family are relatively busier; compelling women to connect over Facebook.

Asian Paints EzyColour Home Solutions already engages women for their painting services by showing innumerable paint designs. Tupperware engages women with vouchers and coupons. E-commerce websites like Jabong, Flipkart, etc show advertisements of women’s clothes and accessories.

With TVCs becoming expensive and ad space of only 12 minutes for every 1 hour as mandated by the Ministry of Broadcasting, ATL advertisement is very expensive these days. Also, the retail outlets are cluttered with several brands and SKUs. With increasing awareness and options women are free to choose as per their whims and fancies. Social media is a great tool to build emotional engagement and to connect to the relevant TG.

Premium cars need advertising on TV, Print, Radio - Siddharth Sudharsan

I suppose a premium car is on the wish list of every person who aspires to be successful in life including me. For some the dream car could be a Mercedes, for others an Audi, some would love to get their hands on a BMW...to each his own. Whatever your choice maybe, the choice of brands is limited to five or maybe six brands depending on the type of car. The customer who has decided to buy say a luxury saloon knows the names of all these brands. Competition is limited in number, awareness and top-of-mind recall for all brands is good and it goes without saying that quality is top notch. When everyone knows about these brands, one could argue why they need to advertise at all. Well the thing is, those customers aren’t just buying a premium car; they are also buying the image that comes associated with it. For these customers, it is not just important that the premium car they are driving satisfies them with every comfort possible but what is possibly more important to these customers is that everyone else should know about it. For example, if a person told you he owned a BMW 7-series or an Audi A6, you would ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ about how excellent the BMW or Audi is since you have seen it, heard it and read about it in the various media that you have been exposed to. Now, what if that same person told you that he drove a Saab or a Pagani or a Koeniggsegg...how would you respond? You might probably ask the person to elaborate or quickly lookup the brand on the internet before you form a mental image of this person. Therefore, when it comes to premium cars, advertising does not intend to inform the potential owners about the car but rather inform everyone else how phenomenal and luxurious the car really is. That is why it is extremely necessary for premium car brands to advertise on television, newspapers, radio and other existing forms of media to continue selling in high numbers

New movies should be premiered online for mass reach - Mohnish Bhatia

When looking at the Indian market, I disagree strongly that online can even serve as a mass reach media. Let me tell you why. India may be the 3rd largest internet market, but its internet density is a mere 17%.  Compare that to the teledensity of television at 47%, and telephones at 63% and you will surely agree that the online medium in India is nowhere close to being mass reach.

MODE	Density in India
Internet	~17%
Television	~47%
Telephones/Mobiles	~63%
Movie screens	~12000 screens  across India

Further, IAMAI's optimistic numbers suggest there are ~200mn Indian internet users in Oct 2013, of these 165 mn are active users, and only 10% of these users participate in online transactions. So that makes our addressable market size 16mn, hardly qualifying as mass reach. Add to that the effect of piracy on the Indian movie business and you will see why I feel premiering movies online in India will not work. 

There are ~12000 screens in India which provide a much better distribution channel, and 'Chennai Express' was able to reach 3500 of them and grossed more than Rs 300cr. Can anybody truly suggest that releasing it online would have brought in even a fraction of those kinds of numbers for the Indian market ?

Premiering new movies on the online medium might work in the following cases:

1) Countries where internet density is high, and % of users who engage in online transactions is high

2) Niche movies in India who are targeting a limited Tier 1 Urban audience

The online distribution medium will grow and may even become viable in the future, but in 2013 and 2014, movies should continue increasing distribution via movie screens and would do better to look at alternately  premiering on TV in India, if mass reach is their final objective.

(Data from: IAMAI, Comscore, India Houselisting and housing Census 2011, KPMG-FICCI report)