I have been transferred back to Operations and now shall be heading the Mall Operations of Phoenix Market City Pune. Is it exciting? Yes!
Now, as I meet retailers and am abl to suss out their true leanings in terms of their spread in Pune Retail, their understanding of the city sociography, the catchments that they would like to deal with, their mindsets and their store physicalities, I find disorder.
The challenge is to convert this disorder into order. We need to capture their mindspace, get them to make great stores, perform out of their skins in the oncoming months for attaining great sales during operations.
Does this remind me of Hotel Operations? Yes and No. Yes, because Malls do need the order that Hotel Operations have to attain the Facility upkeep, Financial and Community building goals. No, because it is a lot more inclusive with B2B and B2C affairs taking place simultaneously. Sometimes, we may have to overlook the partners for the end consumers or the vice versa.
But, interesting times ahead!
Showing posts with label Marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marketing. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Delhi 6, Billu, Dev D - a study in Strategy
Let me draw your attention to a very prudent Marketing principle:
“THE MOST SUCCESSFUL MARKETERS NURTURE THE STRONGEST RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEIR MOST PROFITABLE CUSTOMERS”
Delhi 6 is releasing this Friday. The net is agog with good news out of New York about the movie. Good to hear. UTV, again, as usual has done a tremendous job of getting the film to its required junta. The songs and the music are doing wonderfully well and are able to lend to the movie’s marketing a whole lot.
In fact, this brings me to the above principle. Delhi 6 was announced to the world some two years ago and R O Mehra took some time to get together his principal cast. But, he had done his script and had taken pains to give A R Rahman a complete narration of the screenplay. Rahman , on his part, started with his homework and it then took a painstaking process of much over a year before he got all the tunes in place. Tunes that were from all over the place, various types of music, even a devotional number that he had safeguarded for about nine years!
ARR knew Rakeysh’s story. He also could get the spirit of creativity. He nurtured it. So, look at the product we have at hand. ARR strove to provide us through Delhi 6 music the strongest relationship – love and honesty. These were tunes that were not hatched up in a Rum and guitar session. These were not ditties that were composed at 6 am in the morning because Shreya Ghoshal was not going to be available for another 3 months as she was going away on a Live tour! This was not poetry that was hatched up with stock words such as “Soniye”, “Munda”, “Mar Jaawan”! This is lyrics, as we know it from the “Aaa chalke tujhe main leke chaloon” days. Prasoon Joshi may not write another single line at all but shall be remembered for “Arziyan” forever. This is what I mean when I say “Strongest Relationship”.
When this kind of a relationship is created at the outset, the rest of the movie is created with the same fervour and devotion. I can very well imagine the cast, high value ensemble that it already is, would feel when confronted with such writing and such music. Top your best, shall have been the cry in unison. I can definitely say with complete confidence, even without getting a minute peek into the film, that Vijay Raaz, Dipak Dobriyal, Divya Dutta, Rishi Kapoor, Supriya Pathak, Waheedaji, Om Puri, Pavan Malhotra, Sheeba and the others would have just been driven by some unseen power to deliver acting standards that they themselves had not touched before. Such is the power of sturdy, hard, painstaking, honest work and craft!
The Marketing principle also stated “Profitable customers”. Fortunately, Indian cinema, the unique Entertainment juggernaut does have the entire country’s population as its “profitable customer”. Movies made with utmost honesty with true regard to story, plotting, music, language, idiom and communication shall always be able to reach out all the customers.
Billu – a moderate movie with a simple cast except Shahrukh Khan has not seen hysteria at the Box Office. Why? For me and many other people, it is that entry of Shahrukh and his dalliances with three heroines, promoted as they were. So, what happened?
a) It became a mass movie that converted into a multiplex movie
b) It was a multiplex movie all along but had tried to break into other markets too
I really have no problems with either marketing premise, but was the story or marketing true to its form. No!
Ideally, the movie was to have 3 – 4 nice songs from the heartland, like the location of the movie, based on new sounds, but heartland, with good and clear lyrics, not the Urdu symbolisms that fail to enthuse the normal paying people and that good cast to do some even more pithy lines of dark humour right through the movie.
But what we got is a Shahukh Khan starrer where he has pontificated about the goodness of our film industry. C’mon, people can see through all of this! So, Monday onwards the movie is taking a huge dip. At best, it will scrape through somehow and a thundering performance by Irrfan shall be consigned to the back pages of tabloids.
On the other hand, Dev D, a movie, that had an entirely different form, style, content and visual appeal has managed to stick through the last ten days quite merrily. The reason is very apparent. Kashyap and UTV focused on getting their customer right with the right story, the right pitch, the right music, hummable lyrics, easy to understand dialogues, everyday pronunciations and generally kept the vim and vigour flowing. Kashyap has gone on record saying that he bounced it off his mother too.
This is the hallmark of a good Producer, manufacturer or service provider. They keep it simple to make it easy for the customer to see some value in it. Thereby, a Brand is created and generates mindspace and heartspace.
Delhi 6 is on its way to become a huge trendsetting blockbuster.
Dev D has shown what a good small film can do.
Billu is where it is!!
The Best Startegy is still the best product, a great movie shall still result from a well told story and its accompaniments, other gimmicks can be kept back in the garage!
“THE MOST SUCCESSFUL MARKETERS NURTURE THE STRONGEST RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEIR MOST PROFITABLE CUSTOMERS”
Delhi 6 is releasing this Friday. The net is agog with good news out of New York about the movie. Good to hear. UTV, again, as usual has done a tremendous job of getting the film to its required junta. The songs and the music are doing wonderfully well and are able to lend to the movie’s marketing a whole lot.
In fact, this brings me to the above principle. Delhi 6 was announced to the world some two years ago and R O Mehra took some time to get together his principal cast. But, he had done his script and had taken pains to give A R Rahman a complete narration of the screenplay. Rahman , on his part, started with his homework and it then took a painstaking process of much over a year before he got all the tunes in place. Tunes that were from all over the place, various types of music, even a devotional number that he had safeguarded for about nine years!
ARR knew Rakeysh’s story. He also could get the spirit of creativity. He nurtured it. So, look at the product we have at hand. ARR strove to provide us through Delhi 6 music the strongest relationship – love and honesty. These were tunes that were not hatched up in a Rum and guitar session. These were not ditties that were composed at 6 am in the morning because Shreya Ghoshal was not going to be available for another 3 months as she was going away on a Live tour! This was not poetry that was hatched up with stock words such as “Soniye”, “Munda”, “Mar Jaawan”! This is lyrics, as we know it from the “Aaa chalke tujhe main leke chaloon” days. Prasoon Joshi may not write another single line at all but shall be remembered for “Arziyan” forever. This is what I mean when I say “Strongest Relationship”.
When this kind of a relationship is created at the outset, the rest of the movie is created with the same fervour and devotion. I can very well imagine the cast, high value ensemble that it already is, would feel when confronted with such writing and such music. Top your best, shall have been the cry in unison. I can definitely say with complete confidence, even without getting a minute peek into the film, that Vijay Raaz, Dipak Dobriyal, Divya Dutta, Rishi Kapoor, Supriya Pathak, Waheedaji, Om Puri, Pavan Malhotra, Sheeba and the others would have just been driven by some unseen power to deliver acting standards that they themselves had not touched before. Such is the power of sturdy, hard, painstaking, honest work and craft!
The Marketing principle also stated “Profitable customers”. Fortunately, Indian cinema, the unique Entertainment juggernaut does have the entire country’s population as its “profitable customer”. Movies made with utmost honesty with true regard to story, plotting, music, language, idiom and communication shall always be able to reach out all the customers.
Billu – a moderate movie with a simple cast except Shahrukh Khan has not seen hysteria at the Box Office. Why? For me and many other people, it is that entry of Shahrukh and his dalliances with three heroines, promoted as they were. So, what happened?
a) It became a mass movie that converted into a multiplex movie
b) It was a multiplex movie all along but had tried to break into other markets too
I really have no problems with either marketing premise, but was the story or marketing true to its form. No!
Ideally, the movie was to have 3 – 4 nice songs from the heartland, like the location of the movie, based on new sounds, but heartland, with good and clear lyrics, not the Urdu symbolisms that fail to enthuse the normal paying people and that good cast to do some even more pithy lines of dark humour right through the movie.
But what we got is a Shahukh Khan starrer where he has pontificated about the goodness of our film industry. C’mon, people can see through all of this! So, Monday onwards the movie is taking a huge dip. At best, it will scrape through somehow and a thundering performance by Irrfan shall be consigned to the back pages of tabloids.
On the other hand, Dev D, a movie, that had an entirely different form, style, content and visual appeal has managed to stick through the last ten days quite merrily. The reason is very apparent. Kashyap and UTV focused on getting their customer right with the right story, the right pitch, the right music, hummable lyrics, easy to understand dialogues, everyday pronunciations and generally kept the vim and vigour flowing. Kashyap has gone on record saying that he bounced it off his mother too.
This is the hallmark of a good Producer, manufacturer or service provider. They keep it simple to make it easy for the customer to see some value in it. Thereby, a Brand is created and generates mindspace and heartspace.
Delhi 6 is on its way to become a huge trendsetting blockbuster.
Dev D has shown what a good small film can do.
Billu is where it is!!
The Best Startegy is still the best product, a great movie shall still result from a well told story and its accompaniments, other gimmicks can be kept back in the garage!
Friday, January 04, 2008
Low Cost Marketing - Go for it!
1. Narrow the market focus. Create a picture of the ideal client: what they look like, how they think, what they value, and where you can find them. Start saying no to non-ideal clients.
2. Differentiate. Strip everything you know about your product or service down to the simplest core idea. Make sure that the core idea allows you stand out.
3. Think about strategy first. Take everything you’ve done in steps one and two and create a strategy to own a word or two in the mind of your ideal client and prospect.
4. Create information that educates. You are in the information business, so think of your marketing materials, web sites, white papers, marketing kits as information products, not "sales" propaganda.
5. Package the experience. Put visual elements around every aspect of the marketing strategy that you adopt. Use design to evoke the appropriate emotional response from your ideal prospect.
6. Generate leads from many points. People learn in different ways. Your lead generation efforts must allow your prospects to experience your firm from many different angles and views.
7. Nurture leads along the logical buying path. There’s a natural way for your prospects to come to the conclusion that you have what they need. Build the lead conversion system for before, during, and after the sale.
8. Measure everything that matters. Certain things always matter. The secret sauce is in finding and measuring the intangibles – those things down on the shop floor that eventually add up to profit.
9. Automate for leverage. Embrace the Internet or else. Create access, stimulate community, capture innovation, and build knowledge to automate the basic delivery elements of your information business.
10. Commit. Resist the temptation of the marketing idea of the week. Create daily, weekly, monthly, and annual marketing calendars, make marketing your new habit, and find the money to stick with the plan.
The rest as they say is just “lage raho”!!
2. Differentiate. Strip everything you know about your product or service down to the simplest core idea. Make sure that the core idea allows you stand out.
3. Think about strategy first. Take everything you’ve done in steps one and two and create a strategy to own a word or two in the mind of your ideal client and prospect.
4. Create information that educates. You are in the information business, so think of your marketing materials, web sites, white papers, marketing kits as information products, not "sales" propaganda.
5. Package the experience. Put visual elements around every aspect of the marketing strategy that you adopt. Use design to evoke the appropriate emotional response from your ideal prospect.
6. Generate leads from many points. People learn in different ways. Your lead generation efforts must allow your prospects to experience your firm from many different angles and views.
7. Nurture leads along the logical buying path. There’s a natural way for your prospects to come to the conclusion that you have what they need. Build the lead conversion system for before, during, and after the sale.
8. Measure everything that matters. Certain things always matter. The secret sauce is in finding and measuring the intangibles – those things down on the shop floor that eventually add up to profit.
9. Automate for leverage. Embrace the Internet or else. Create access, stimulate community, capture innovation, and build knowledge to automate the basic delivery elements of your information business.
10. Commit. Resist the temptation of the marketing idea of the week. Create daily, weekly, monthly, and annual marketing calendars, make marketing your new habit, and find the money to stick with the plan.
The rest as they say is just “lage raho”!!
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