Stockholm syndrome & Ramdev Patanjali Ayurveda marketing

Ramdev can’t hope to win in fmcg space dominated by women power. Yogis who consider women as bad influence thus refusing to respect them as wife or a life partner must not hope to have a bright future. I appeal Ramev to come clean on this and clarify why he refuses to love women as life partner. To those women who suffer from Stockholm syndrome my humble appeal would be to stand up and fight for equality. Don’t by products sold by celibate religious people of any religion because they stand for misogyny that makes life of women difficult on earth.

Agreed India remained under foreign rule for centuries. Accepted the Indians didn’t get independence as result of war against the occupying power, like USA or Vietnam get.  Despite 70 years of independence Indians fail to become globally competitive society as reflected in dismal performance in Olympics, FIFA world cup, Oscars or Nobel prize to name a few. Therefore many scholars tend to conclude that Indians in general are not ready to shoulder the leadership responsibility thus preferring the follower role.

Countries in Indian subcontinent, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India have already seen women head of states as PM & President, unlike the USA, despite the fact that women in the USA enjoy far better socio-religious freedom as compared to their pitiable plight in India. How could women rise to the top political jobs in countries that are notorious for subjugating women? It’s no brainer. All the women who occupied top political posts in Indian subcontinent came from political families who succeeded their male relations. Ms Mamta Bnnerjee, CM of west Bengal perhaps the only top political leader in Indian subcontinent who rose to top on her own merit sans any male patronage. Don’t you think Hillary Clinton would have won against Trump if she had not been seen as an ex-Presidents wife? All right thinking people must strive for an equal world, a culture where when women have same freedom to commit mistakes and still get accepted as equal as men have enjoyed for centuries. Women and men are made equal by Gods and no decent man can find an exception to the rule.

If you wonder how the above enumeration relates to rapid rise of a controversial uneducated religious bigot popular as Swamy Ramdev in the business world? Well Ramdev have entered low technology FMCG trade to sell commodities and packaged products which were already available in the market. Ramdev has used religious Hindu fundamental appeal to sell commodities and low technology semi processed items. His rise can be seen as ripple effect of rise of Hindu fundamentalism in all spheres of life in India from politics to education. Although rapid rise of Patanjali products of Ramdev looks logical in charged atmosphere of Hindutva fundamentalism in India but its future remains surrounded in mystery.

Will Ramdev be able to sustain his trade in the low tech and low margin trade of commodities with highly substitutable product categories sans differentiation if the wave of Hindu fundamentalism wanes in next 2-3 years? Serious business managers would seriously doubt the future prospects of Patanjali trade empire. Why would a customer buy Patanjali products sold by a religious Hindu fundamentalist Swamy when there are many normal Hindus are already marketing such products of equal quality? What will happen to Hindu fundamentalist appeal if India has to go to war against China or Pakistan? In my opinion a war with China is almost round the corner. Secondly I would like to draw attention to more fundamental and pervasive contraction threatening the future of Patanjali products.

Ramdev is riding a tiger in the low technology fmcg world. Ramdev a celibate won popularity as a religious man who didn’t marry because yogis consider women as distraction in achievement of higher goals of life. Unfortunately for all Hindu fundamentalist yogi and Swamys like Ramdev it’s the women who decide the fate of fmcg class of products. Will the women continue to buy products endorsed by a guy like Ramdev who considers women as distraction and refuses to give them equal status as life partner? In my opinion no self respecting educated women would by products from those who insult and disparage women. Ramdev can’t fool all the women for all the time. Let’s wait for the moment when women launch a campaign to boycott Patanjali products in their fight for dignity and equality in India. I am sure Ramdev has not hired a professional advertising agency or discussed the branding with an expert. No one can sell products/services to those who the seller don’t respects.

Marketing in times of Robust Demand

Indian economy has been experiencing robust demand across board for fmcg goods, particularly fmcg food category. Consequently most companies have begun to ignore their marketing function for the sake of focusing more on procurement & production. Almost double digit inflation in food segment growing demand has confused the producers. You have a situation now that some major established companies may have to face the prospect of substitution by new competition.  It is important for a professional company to invest more in marketing during periods of robust growth to consolidate their position to ward off potential threats.

Outages due to supply constraints are best period for new players to enter market for immediate product trails. You must have noticed that during the cycles of sufficient demand most producers tend to focus away from marketing to focus more on production etc. Such situation leads to a state when not only wasteful leakages of resources in production go unnoticed but more seriously the marketing gets completely ignored. I have noticed such situation facing many food companies in North India. Most companies are in danger of getting seriously hit by new entrants. Therefore such companies must wake up and invest in marketing immediately to have top of mind recall. 

Aadhaar- A letter to Nandan Nilekani

Dear Mr Nandan Nilekani

Greetings, i respect your contribution to Infy and now to India in form of UID initiative. But being a marketing professor, i have some views on the nomenclature of the UID card.

A name must be easily pronounceable & convey the intended purpose, 'adhar' has elongated vowel sounds in two places once in the beginning & the penultimate syllable. Which is very odd for a mass brand. Generally its is the consonants which constitute a great brand name. UID may have been created by govt for their planning purpose but govt must see what would it do for us the citizens. It may govt's base (adhar) for identifying a citizen but it do not convey the benefits to the users. You are well aware of the nomenclatures of such identification systems present in the developed world.

Please get a survey about how many people, even in Hindi heartland, can speak the name correctly & you would be disappointed with findings.

(2)Secondly transcribing a Hindi name in English makes it look inferior. Either you have a Hindi name written in Hindi or English name written in same language and so on. It sounds & feels like a ration card name rather than a national identifier.

(3)Thirdly a national identity card must incorporate the three colors of our flag to give it a national character. Red & yellow have traditionally been colors of food packaging. 

Kindly look into it. Please don't be offended as i have genuine respect for you. Thank you

Best regards

Gurinder S. Ahluwalia MBA, MJMC
Marketing Consultant & Professor
Chandigarh, India 

www.anahadmc.com
M:  +91  09417723313   T/F: +91-0172 2682523
Blog: http://anahadmc.blogspot.com

PS: Let us save trees, Please do not  print unless unavoidable.

Election issues in India

Which would be the most important issues that people would vote for in the upcoming parliament poll in India? Well the election date would soon be known after the vote in parliament scheduled for July 22. The political parties in India generally depend upon and go by the ‘wisdom & judgment ’ of their in-house political pundits and those so-called senior journalists, who spin doctor as a fulltime profession for the parties they are working for without ever bothering for the professional ethics. Simultaneously the political parties also commission some market research to find out about the mood of the electorate. And the findings of these research agencies are generally ignored because the political leaders generally like to believe that they know the masses well enough at all times.

The masses, beyond the party workers, do not claim to know their leaders at all the times. That’s why they keep changing their opinion about electing them to power periodically. Political parties would benefit a lot if they could get some professional organization to research into the mood of the electorate so that they could make ‘promises’ on the correct lines at least. Let us try to list the most talked about election issues in the media.

Nuclear deal between US-INDIA has become a prominent issue. The Congress would go to people projecting it as a deal in the national interest and of the ‘AAM ADMI’, (Children in India believe that they only could be the ‘aam admi’ as mango is their favorite fruit). Though rural India suffers more from power cuts than the urban but its influence on voting may be more in the urban areas. BJP lead NDA would find it difficult to convince the people about their opposition to the deal.

I do not find anything wrong with getting close to the most powerful nation on earth. US have close relations with Europe, Japan, and Malaysia etc too. Would the opponents of the pact like India get close to poorer and least developed countries? India needs to feed its scary population. India needs to grow faster to be able to find jobs for its people. India needs energy. One could grow by being in the company of the developed. How could you keep company of the underdeveloped and expect to grow fast? Nations, like Men, are known by their company.

Let us shed that hollow & false pride to concentrate on working with international community to develop India into a place where everyone can find food, clothing and shelter. How can India be great when half the population goes empty stomach? Get real if you love India. India is its people. Have pity on the Indians, cut that jingoistic rhetoric away for sometime and let India develops economically. If you want India to strong and proud let us all work hard and find food, shelter and normal living conditions for most of us. Healthy body has healthy mind. Let us make India healthy first.

Inflation would be NDA’s most potent weapon. Recent price escalation that’s threatening to touch 12 percent on July 18, 2008 could work wonders in the urban areas for BJP. Other NDA constituents may not benefit much from this phenomenon because they do not much following in the urban India. Well the Congress would like to project that the rise in crude price is beyond their control and blame the inflation on the foreign hand. But masses in India have shown repeatedly that price increase is not forgiven. Congress would have to work hard to convince the masses to control the damage.

Governance has remained a pretty prominent election issue for a long time. Congress used to project itself as the only party that could rule India and offer stable government. It has been proven wrong. Several non-congress governments have ruled India. NDA government lasted full 6 years at the helm. This issues now figures prominently in speeches of LK Advani. BJP has very smartly marketed this issue in its modified version as good-governance. Well done. India needs good governance more than the stability. We need corruption free governance. Effectiveness of government could improve only when corruption is taken out of the system.

No political party promises a corruption free government. If any one of the Congress and BJP could promise a corruption free government it can sweep the elections on this one issue alone. Indians are fed up with corruption. There can be no really good or stable governance when nothing moves without greasing some palms.

Hindutva would remain a major election issue for BJP led alliance. BJP would be using it in some form like Amarnath, Death sentence to Muslim accused in parliament attack, Sonia gandhi’s origins etc. Hindutva has become necessity of the BJP to keep its flock of party workers together. The issue has lost appeal for the average educated Indian.

Unprecedented economic growth in India in last 4-5 years would become the major plank to convince voters to side with the party. It would also project the clean image of Manmohan Singh. Lallu’s great innings with railways is another powerful issue. Overall UPA & Congress would do well to project their achievements. NDA/BJP would counter it by projecting the inflation.

UPA and Congress have to be careful about their media plan to convey the message of great governance. I would recommend that they should take best media planners on board in its war-room to strategise to formulate a media plan and fine tune its targeting of the various sections of electorate. NDA last-time had a great campaign in Shining India, but they completely failed in crafting a media plan.

There have been constant complain campaign by BJP about many power centers in UPA, dilution of the prestige of the office of PM, and the charge that Manmohan is a weak PM. Well Congress may counter them with record of its government. I have reservations about demand for a strong PM. Does India need a PM like Modi? A parliamentary democracy would do well to have a PM who is more of a Coordinator than a typical one-man show. Half of the India is poor, uneducated, religious, ethnic and caste conscious, and densely populated, its possible to arouse their sentiments and push them into unfortunate battles over trivial issues. A dictator like PM is not required in India. We have rejected the emergency last time too. India needs a consensus seeking, soft spoken, educated person like Manmohan, Nrayanmurthy, Rattan Tata, APJ, Sachin Pilot, Arun Jaitley etc to lead us into better times.

There may be several other important issues that could be found out through research. I hope political parties go beyond using marketing tools & concepts and give a market orientation to the party itself. A real democracy should ask people what they want and give them what they really need. All political parties have to develop a new market orientation to get the trust of the people they claim to represent.

Meta Marketing for the B2B SMEs

When I proposed to a capital goods manufacturer of packaging machines to go beyond functional, quality & price matrix to market the machines, they could not understand how would it lead to a fat order book. Subsequently when it was recommended to improve aesthetics of the damn machine, they laughed loud. Gentlemen! Why can’t we have sexy machines that dance equally well?

Finding new customers remains one single most important challenge facing SME sector in India. More so in B2B sector the problem is terrible. You would come across number of manufacturers who have created a product or have the knowledge to produce but do not have the way to get it across to the buyers in time. You may also meet entrepreneurs who boldly tell you that they have got a million dollar product, market plan but don't have the execution muscles. Simply put they lack trained motivated professionals. 

Recently i got to advise a wrapping machine manufacturer who is in business for almost twenty years. This particular company faced a major crisis when one of their key people walked out to set up a parallel company. And this person approached the existing customers of his employer. He offered a similar product ‘an equally good machine’ at a lower price. Some customers diverted their new orders to him. What can you do in such a scenario besides taking legal steps to handle such challenges?

First if you are a B2B organization with almost finite demand over small to medium term go for CRM immediately. Identify & segment your customers on various criteria and appoint dedicated Relationship Managers. To organize this function in a better way you may employ some CRM tool from a wide range of applications available in the market. The relationship managers would do well by meeting the customer end teams at a suitable frequency backed by more intense offsite contacts. The aim of this exercise is to build top of mind recall so that every time the customer may include your name in their buying plans.

Secondly service teams should be encouraged to communicate through RMs. Since service teams are not fully trained in Sales activity they may not be able to influence the sale beyond discussing ‘quality’ aspects of the product. I have noticed in many companies services engineers tend to assume the role of generating sales. Though there could be some exceptional individuals in service, who could influence the customer but the in normal circumstances, the sales job should be delegated to the crack sales team only.

Since most machine tools and intermediaries are closely linked to the sale of other equipment also it would be necessary for the manufacturers to carefully leverage the meta marketing variables. A wrapping machine buyer would be buying other machines to complete production line therefore it would be appropriate for the manufacturers to tie up with other suppliers. Packaging machine suppliers need to sell their machines to the manufacturer of plant machinery and the project consultants before marketing the same to the actual buyers.

Generally major trade fairs remain the mainstay of promotion for the B2B segment. It would be appropriate if you take services of some marketing Adviser to package & present your products at such shows. You may have noticed that smart presentation at the trade show could multiply the possibility of generating orders and satisfy existing and potential customers. Try doing something unique next time during your trade show presentation.

Some engineers & manufacturers in B2B segment find it difficult to adopt sophisticated marketing techniques. Because marketing is treated as a post-production function rather an orientation of the business. How often have you come across sellers comfortable with maintaining their price in negotiations? Why can’t they learn from the success of leading true blue engineering companies that embraced marketing to become world best like Microsoft, GE and the old IBM.

Strategic Marketing communications separate a successful SME from the rest. How do you identify, engage, persuade, delight your customers would determine your topline. Why do some SME owners forget to leverage media & technology surprises me? If you have not used Direct Marketing and CRM, you are taking a risk in the medium to long term.

Come on shed that old mindset of treating marketing as a post-production function and give a total market orientation to your business. Focus on the customer, not what you want to sell you shall succeed

Monte Carlo to Sportking-Ludhiana Hosiery Brands

Ludhiana in Punjab comes second to Tripur, Tamilnadu in hosiery industry. India being an emerging economy has the problem of scaling up of business organisations. Most Indian entrepreneurs prefer a 'minimal' risk route by manufacuring goods for other brands rather than going directly into the market with their own brand.

In fact most businessmen do not plan a budget for marketing more than salaries of sales staff and a few rupees for an odd advert in the print media or a tvc. Marketing is treated as an additional post production activity. How could one compete in market without a name and reputation?

We all have heard of Lifebuoy, Lux, Dettol, Dove, Pears etc. But how many have heard of VVF? My humble suggestion to our decades old established business houses would be to go in for branding and secure thier long term position.

Some years ago india did not had the 300 million middle class then it was okay to manufacture for european and US brands. But now when Indian consumers have demonstrated their natural preference for strong brands, it is time for us to have a relook at our branding abd positioning to keep the customer happy. It is not that ludhiana industry has not tried their branding but their experience does not seem to be very happy.

I remember OWM casablanca people tying up with pringle decade ago. You would surely recognise Montecarlo as a wollen brand. Some other business houses from ludhiana also roped in national level advertising agencies but the result has not been great. Why? Firstly Ludhiana businesses suffer from chronic deficit of talented marketing pros. Though the leaders are open to innovation. I remember having sold a 'cartoon contest' feature to leading most cycle manufacturer while working for a english daily. It was a completely new exercise.

Secondly most business leaders control thier businesses very tightly killing any possibilities for a talent to flourish. Let us have look at some of the brand issues from Ludhiana. Monte Carlo has been stretched to cover non wollen items, When montcarlo launched a new premium brand to compete with Pringle of casablanca, the packing carried the mention of from the house of montecarlo. A junior brand should not be used to endorse the premium segement.

'Sportking' does not have much market in the sports segment. If it is a fashion brand then why call it 'Sport' at all? Its selling good? Try position it properly and see the hidden treasures in terms of marketing dollars. 'Duke' has the potential to become the aspirational wear for Indian youth but then is soemone listening to strategise to put it before the world's youthful nation?

I beleive time has come for business leaders to understand the potential of branding. Since most punjabis travel worldwide we all have seen that WAL-Mart is not a fancy looking store but a greatly strategised retaling business. If we continue to depend on producing for others we may loose our chance to add greater value and may also loose the manufacturing race to China, Africa etc. Let us get up and put our name under the arc lights! Ludhiana listening..?