Mohit Sewak - CSCP (by APICS), Lean- SixSigma (by KPMG), MBA (from Great Lakes). Mobile- +91-95 85 64 65 33. e-mail: mohit@sewak.in

Mobile Marketing: The Adidas Case Study

Posted by Mohit Sewak     Category: Branding, Marketing, Research Review, Strategic Marketing
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Mobile Marketing: The Adidas Case Study

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As Adidas cannot spend as much as Nike on marketing communications (Adidas’ annual advertising and  promotional spending is $900 million only, compared with $1.4 billion for Nike), it has adopted more innovative, yet cost-effective, ways of reaching consumers, such as through mobile marketing.

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Between June and November 2004, some researchers held more than 20 hours of interviews with five senior managers at Adidas in Europe to discuss their efforts to incorporate new technologies and media (mobile marketing) within the company’s overall branding and marketing communications strategy.
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The Objectives were:

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1. Exploiting the Capabilities of Mobile Marketing:
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Taking advantage of mobile marketing’s unique capabilities can require substantial resources, but one solution is to partner with a content provider to develop a “personal mobile gateway,” somewhat similar to Apeoplee Computer Inc.’s iTunes, through which iPod users can purchase music recordings over the Web and manage those digital files in their personal libraries.

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2. Using Universal Appeals to Tap Into Global Markets:
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In its efforts to expand its brand across markets, MTV has managed to mix universal appeals with local tastes — a tactic that could be apeopleied to mobile marketing. The prospective purchaser of a luxury car, for example, might also be interested in an exotic vacation getaway, high-end sporting equipment and financial-investment vehicles.

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3. Addressing Privacy Concerns:
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Wireless communications are typically less secure than transmissions over fixed lines, and this raises a number of privacy concerns. In addition, the capability to connect with people continually throughout the day could result in intrusions into people’s private and public spaces.

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4. Aligning Value-Chain Partners:
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In mobile marketing, the value chain can consist of numerous stakeholders. For a company like Adidas, that chain might include back-end hardware supeopleiers (Nokia) and wireless carriers (Vodafone Group of the United Kingdom in Europe and New Jersey-based Verizon Wireless in the United States), specialized interactive and mobile communications firms, content providers (ESPN), traditional advertising agencies, and perhaps even partner brands (MTV). Who, for example, should manage strategy development and execution: the brand itself or one of its upstream value-chain partners?

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5. Integrating the Mobile Platform With Other Media:
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Companies should not treat the mobile platform as a stand-alone medium but rather as one component in an overall marketing strategy that must be integrated with others.

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6. Developing Mobile-Specific Metrics:
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One way to assess the effectiveness of a mobile-marketing campaign is to use traditional Internet measures, such as click-stream activity and the number of registrations, downloads and “pass-alongs.” But additional metrics that are specific to the mobile platform must be developed to fully determine the effectiveness and efficiency of mobile-marketing practices.

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Role of Mobile Marketing in Branding

Posted by Mohit Sewak     Category: Branding, Marketing, Research Review, Strategic Marketing
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The Role of Mobile Marketing in Branding

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Mobile marketing enable brands to achieve three objectives:

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1. Foster top-of-mind awareness and attitude formation: -
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In the music industry, recording labels and artists are employing mobile marketing to launch new albums. For example, the band New Order, which is attempting a comeback after several hit songs in the 1980s, is promoting its new compact disc through digital posters, song clips, ring tones and photos of the band members that can be sent directly to fans’ cell phones via infrared and Bluetooth technologies.
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2. Increase Consumer Involvement and Interaction: -
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Adidas, for example, enables consumers to download photos of its popular athletes, such as soccer star David Beckham, and digitally superimpose their own photographs on those images.
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3. Influence Consumer Response and Activation: -
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Currently, commuters in Japan can scan bus schedules with their phones and receive coupons from stores along their route. Those retailers can then track the redemption rate of those coupons. In the future, cell phones will likely be able to read the radio-frequency identification tags on items in stores, including clothes, shoes and sporting equipment.
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The Future of Mobile Marketing:

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The biggest question is whether consumers will be willing to accept (or opt in for) marketing communications on their cell phones or other hand-held devices. Key challenge in mobile marketing is to interact with individuals in a meaningful manner that adds value to the brand-consumer relationship without being intrusive. Most likely, mobile marketing will complement — and not replace — the traditional forms of advertising media, including TV and print, that allow brands significant reach and efficiency in terms of cost per thousand viewers.

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The Coming Era of Brand in the Hand Marketing

Posted by Mohit Sewak     Category: Branding, Research Review, Strategic Marketing
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The Coming Era of Brand in the Hand Marketing

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The combination of the Internet and hand-held mobile devices is making possible a whole new array of marketing apeopleications and offerings. This is called  “brand in the hand”.

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The potential for branding and marketing communications to be delivered to people in their hands while they are shopping, watching a sporting event, commuting, working or doing chores at home.Today the cell phone, PDA or other hand-held device has become virtually a necessity of everyday life.

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Young consumers, who tend to be technology-savvy multitaskers, have quickly adopted mobile devices to socialize, play online games and download content, including music, ring tones and wallpaper backgrounds. Within this market segment, cell phones have become a status symbol and a means for individuals to express themselves.

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Global brands such as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, MTV, Volvo, Sony Pictures, Nike and Adidas have already begun to explore brand-in-the-hand concepts.

Eg: MTV Networks Co. recently partnered with Virgin Mobile Telecoms Ltd. to promote special ring tones that were featured in MTV’s 2005 Video Music Awards show and were available exclusively on Virgin Mobile phones.

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Mobile marketing can be interactive, but it offers the possibility of a closer brand connection because of the personal nature of hand-held electronic devices.
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Brand-in-the-hand strategies do not include laptops accessing WiFi wireless networks because of the limited mobility of such computers.

This is because individuals can be, and often are, connected anytime and anywhere, mobile marketing can be used to collect data through the wireless Internet to determine not only the exact location of a consumer at a given time (at Wrigley Field, for example) but also the context of why that individual might be there (to cheer a favorite team, the Chicago Cubs).

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With this information, more meaningful or relevant advertising messages or promotions can be delivered to the consumer (a 30% discount coupon for select Cubs merchandise) on his mobile phone or other hand-held devices.

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Traditional media are typically “lean-back,” involving little interactivity. Television viewing, for instance, is a relatively passive activity. In contrast, some newer types of media are “lean-forward,” requiring a greater degree of interactivity. Web surfing, for instance, requires a person to make conscious decisions about what sites to access next. The unique value of mobile marketing is that it enables both brand-consumer interactivity and location specificity that cannot be achieved with other approaches.

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Blogging: A New Play In Your Marketing Game Plan

Posted by Mohit Sewak     Category: Marketing, Strategic Marketing

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Blogging: A New Play In Your Marketing Game Plan

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Today marketing has gone from marketing a product to marketing a brand/ feeling and getting the customer’s experience. E.g. Master Card’s “Priceless Campaign”. Hence companies are looking at new opportunities like blogs to differentiate.

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60% US’ customers find marketing irrelevant and 70% interested in products to block marketing attempts.

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Today customers are armed with IPods, TiVo, search engines, spam filters etc. which pose challenges for marketers due to media fragmentation, clutter and resistance to commercial messages.

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So, what should be the new Marketing Game Plan to attract customer’s attraction? It is BLOGGING!!!

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Blogging is the new buzzword in the marketing arena after the invent and popularization of Web 2.0 standard. This was not so previously, because of the limitations of technology offered by Web 1.0 standards. Some of these differences are:

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Difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0:

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Web 2.0 is more customer centric, user generated, builds on collective community intelligence.

E.g.: – Google Ad Sense, Wikipedia(Web 2.0) compared to Britannica Online(Web 1.0), Companies like IBM, HP, GM, GE, Honda use blogs effectively.

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Blogs began in late 90s as web based Project management tools. Pyra launched blogger in 99 and was taken over by Google in 2003. Today there are more than 63.2 million blogs – 90% in US.

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6 ways in which blogs contribute to community’s success: -

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1. Provides new way to stay relevant to customers. E.g.97 year old GM stays culturally relevant using blogs

2. Blogs provide differentiation

3. Bridge the generation gap

4. Used by thought leaders to share expertise and experiences E.g.: Guy Kawasaki

5. Provide global platform to reach world audience

6. Opportunity for ordinary people to voice opinions

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Companies like Honda use blogs to specifically drive traffic to their site – Tactical Marketing.

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Used as a true interactive vehicle –E.g.GM, Boeing, Microsoft – Strategic Marketing.

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less than 5% of fortune 1000 companies use blogs strategically.

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Advantages of Using Blogs for Marketing:

  1. . Help identify market trends
  2. . Ability to get competitive intelligence
  3. . Helps build relations and brand loyalty
  4. . Feedback on products

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Limitations of Using Blogs for Marketing:

  1. . Lack of control and boundaries in blogs
  2. . Commitment and continuity – not managing blog properly defeats the purpose

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