In the last decade if there was one phrase that was used, or I should rather say abused, it was “middle class”. Marketers, planners, strategists et all have talked about the middle class. Some claim it to be around 250million, some say 400million and some go as far as 600million.
However I am not talking about the marketers, planners and the strategists that have abused the word. In fact most of them have a theory to which their numbers fit. The people that have abused the term are people like you and me. My neighbor who drives a Honda claims to be coming from a middle class household. My senior colleagues at work and otherwise claim to be middle class. My friends who send their children to international schools have called themselves middle class. And recently my wife and I were cribbing cauliflower at 60 rupees a kg and how could a middle class family like ours afford it.
You see, we have this amazing habit to downplay our happiness and overplay our sorrows. Ask someone you know well and it is more likely that he or she will talk more about their problematic issues rather than their happiness. We would talk about the maids not coming or doing poor work, the unfair boss, the low pay, the demanding client, the poor infrastructure, the sad sex life, the aging parents and the ailing health. Not to mention rising prices of vegetables and houses. We love to talk about these things to get some words of sympathy from our near and dear ones. And we love to call ourselves “middle class”. Middle class is a joke for us. People will never acknowledge that they are the premium class or the lower premium class. We would always say that we are upper middle class. We find a lot of comfort in the phrase. We do not want to let it go. If you are still not convinced, please take this test.
Let’s say there are 100 households in India.
• How many do you think own a car?
• How many took a vacation abroad?
• How many earn more than Rs.10lakh a year?
• How many can afford to spend Rs1000 on a dinner for 2-4 people?
• How many own a big LCD TV at home?
Chances are high that you qualify to most of the above, if not all. If that is true, then I have a real bad news for you. You are rich! You are not middle class. Less than 4-5 homes out of 100 can enjoy these luxuries. We are one of them. We are not even upper middle class.
Still don’t believe me? Chew on this. Different estimates put 300 to 450 million Indians below poverty line. Lets call them poor. Another 200 million or so can afford two square meals a day but few comforts and no luxuries. Another 200 million or so can afford more comforts, live in livable conditions (drivers and maids may come from this group). Another 200 million or so enjoy a vacation once in a while, live in better homes, send their children to English medium schools. Clerks, small time salesmen, petty traders may come here. These last two groups are middle class – upper middle, lower middle, middle middle what have you.
That leaves less than a hundred million people. We are among them. By any stretch of imagination you cannot be middle class. Middle class comes with the word middle – you are at one end of the extreme.
The problem is that we believe what we see and what we see is prosperity all around. A lot of people with Blackberry, a lot of people with premium cars (I see so many Hondas these days, it reminds me I am a middle class!), a lot of people with premium watches, a lot of people that travel abroad on holidays. That is our circle of vision and we conveniently don’t want to look beyond the circle. We assume that since so many of them have a Blackberry, a Honda car, an apartment in an up-market neighborhood and since we don’t have all or some of these things we may be middle class. What we don’t see is what are the things we have that others don’t. This article is not aimed at being philosophical. Far from it actually. This article argues us to be realistic.
If you are among those 4-5 households that has a car, a LCD TV, a couple of ACs and you fly most of the times you travel, you are not middle class. You are rich. Expenses on vegetables are less than a couple of percent of our monthly income so please let’s not crib about cauliflower at Rs.60 a kg. Reality is we don’t care. However we love to crib. It hurts the real middle class and of course the poor but to us it makes no difference in reality. It’s just that we do not want to be seen as rich that we conveniently want to snuggle inside the “middle class” cushion. Let’s please stop abusing the term. Let’s be real.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Inspired
Last Saturday was an interesting day for me. When I set off from home, I was not sure what to expect. I get skeptical when I hear of NGOs these days. Most have their own political agenda and the others are into making a lot of money thru foreign remits. So when I accepted the offer of visiting this one at Mankhurd, I was in a mixed state of mind.
Upon visiting the place I saw Atul squatting on the floor along with a senior gentleman and chopping vegetables. I joined him immediately. On menu was sambhar for the 350 or so kids of the Bal Kalyan Nigam(BKN). Volunteers like us were supposed to help cook sambhar for kids. This was a regular Saturday affair wherein the idea was to give them nutritious food, at least once a week. This cost, as I later learnt, just Rs. 1500, something that we spend, at times, on one dinner. With too many volunteers, we chopped all the vegetables in no time. Later Atul was telling me about the several activities Vinimay, an institution for children and youth welfare, undertakes for their development. That really is not the focus of this piece. What is more interesting is the meeting that I attended later on at Dr. Das's apartment at the BARC campus.
There were 16 of us in the meeting ranging from people in their mid twenties like Anusha, who introduced me to this group, to Dr. Das probably in his early sixties. What was striking about this group of people was that they would otherwise appear to be normal human beings like you and me, but were committed to teaching economically challenged kids a few days a week, absolutely free. Today’s meeting was to decide who was going to take which class and which subjects on which day for the next academic year. On agenda were two schools, Class 6 to 10 and boys and girls separate batch. Dr. Das was able to allocate responsibilities so smoothly with the help of a couple of other senior people, that all these permutations and combinations were sorted out in less than an hour. I was recalling other high level meetings that I have attended where people squabble and shout to make their point. Most of the time is squandered in playing politics and serving one’s own agendas. How this group of men and women, young and old coming from different backgrounds were doing this thankless job along with their other responsibilities of a wife, mother, husband, father and not to mention, their jobs, smoothly.
The thing that struck me about this group was that they were very practical and wise. So for example someone asked if we had to buy notebooks. To this, another participant responded saying that the kids don’t get the notebooks we give them and get some other note book each time so let’s not spend on notebooks. Then Dr. Das checked if Mrs. Ganguly was good for Class 10 English. To this someone responded that Mrs. Ganguly was very popular. Dr. Das said, “Popularity is OK but this is Class 10. Will she be able to get them pass Class 10?” How practical! Getting the kids to pass class 10 is important and hence that was the focus, not popularity of the teacher. Saurav, another guy who I got friendly with, had an interesting question. He asked if he could gift a boy a chocolate or something like that if the boy answered a question right or did well in a class test. The response was no. The idea was that other kids should not feel ‘left out’ which is what they feel all the time when they see other children. If one wants to praise the boy, move away from materialistic things so that they don’t start comparing their own teachers as opposed to the volunteers. Further, the primary idea is to improve the average and not groom excellence. This last phrase struck me. Improve the average.
Marathi manoos promoters should know that a significant majority of this group were not Maharashtrians but were doing whatever they could for these kids who were mostly from Maharashtra. Once again, there was no personal agenda.
I have often thought of joining such institution. A place that is practical and works with the system to change it overtime. I am not sure whether I will be able to travel to Mankhurd each Saturday from Andheri but what I am sure about is that sooner or later, I will join some such group, closer from home. Sometimes, ordinary people inspire us. Saturday was one such day for me.
Upon visiting the place I saw Atul squatting on the floor along with a senior gentleman and chopping vegetables. I joined him immediately. On menu was sambhar for the 350 or so kids of the Bal Kalyan Nigam(BKN). Volunteers like us were supposed to help cook sambhar for kids. This was a regular Saturday affair wherein the idea was to give them nutritious food, at least once a week. This cost, as I later learnt, just Rs. 1500, something that we spend, at times, on one dinner. With too many volunteers, we chopped all the vegetables in no time. Later Atul was telling me about the several activities Vinimay, an institution for children and youth welfare, undertakes for their development. That really is not the focus of this piece. What is more interesting is the meeting that I attended later on at Dr. Das's apartment at the BARC campus.
There were 16 of us in the meeting ranging from people in their mid twenties like Anusha, who introduced me to this group, to Dr. Das probably in his early sixties. What was striking about this group of people was that they would otherwise appear to be normal human beings like you and me, but were committed to teaching economically challenged kids a few days a week, absolutely free. Today’s meeting was to decide who was going to take which class and which subjects on which day for the next academic year. On agenda were two schools, Class 6 to 10 and boys and girls separate batch. Dr. Das was able to allocate responsibilities so smoothly with the help of a couple of other senior people, that all these permutations and combinations were sorted out in less than an hour. I was recalling other high level meetings that I have attended where people squabble and shout to make their point. Most of the time is squandered in playing politics and serving one’s own agendas. How this group of men and women, young and old coming from different backgrounds were doing this thankless job along with their other responsibilities of a wife, mother, husband, father and not to mention, their jobs, smoothly.
The thing that struck me about this group was that they were very practical and wise. So for example someone asked if we had to buy notebooks. To this, another participant responded saying that the kids don’t get the notebooks we give them and get some other note book each time so let’s not spend on notebooks. Then Dr. Das checked if Mrs. Ganguly was good for Class 10 English. To this someone responded that Mrs. Ganguly was very popular. Dr. Das said, “Popularity is OK but this is Class 10. Will she be able to get them pass Class 10?” How practical! Getting the kids to pass class 10 is important and hence that was the focus, not popularity of the teacher. Saurav, another guy who I got friendly with, had an interesting question. He asked if he could gift a boy a chocolate or something like that if the boy answered a question right or did well in a class test. The response was no. The idea was that other kids should not feel ‘left out’ which is what they feel all the time when they see other children. If one wants to praise the boy, move away from materialistic things so that they don’t start comparing their own teachers as opposed to the volunteers. Further, the primary idea is to improve the average and not groom excellence. This last phrase struck me. Improve the average.
Marathi manoos promoters should know that a significant majority of this group were not Maharashtrians but were doing whatever they could for these kids who were mostly from Maharashtra. Once again, there was no personal agenda.
I have often thought of joining such institution. A place that is practical and works with the system to change it overtime. I am not sure whether I will be able to travel to Mankhurd each Saturday from Andheri but what I am sure about is that sooner or later, I will join some such group, closer from home. Sometimes, ordinary people inspire us. Saturday was one such day for me.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Erstwhile researchers, be fair.
I was recently in a meeting with the insights manager of a leading telecom player. During this meeting, I was trying to sell a recent offering in which among other things, there are 25 image parameters on which respondents associate celebrities. During the presentation, the insight manager said, ‘25 is not enough; I need 150 image traits’. After the presentation was over, she repeated her need for 150 traits complaining that 25 were not deep enough. I was speechless wondering how can an ex researcher talk of 150 image traits being in a questionnaire? I do not mind conceding that 25 may not be enough for some clients so one may ask adding a few more. But 150? Does she not know what an interviewer goes thru in the data collection process? Do we all not know how difficult is it to get an interview? After all, how many of us would give one to a market research company? And of those who said yes, how many would go through a list of 150 image traits, among other things in a questionnaire? Did she never, at one point in time in her career when she was on the other side of the table as a research seller, defend the merits of keeping questionnaires short? Coming from someone who spent a few years in a leading market research company, left me wondering if she was really doing justice to her new employer. The meeting may have triggered this blog, but I have met many ex-researchers like her in client organizations.
Research or insights managers in client organizations are hired with the assumption that they know the market research process well and are therefore in an advisory capacity protecting client interests. Their job is to understand the requirements from the brand teams, convert them to research briefs, liaison and negotiate with the market research agencies and deliver back what was required. They are also supposed to educate the brand teams on what makes good research, what type of questions make sense and what makes respondents irritable. However we continue to see poor demands of deliverables (power point being used as excel sheets with 200 slides) or 40 page questionnaires with 80 psychographic statements or 150 image traits by the same ex market researchers. Whereas most of them are doing a good job, I hope, they are doing little to educate the clients, now their employers, on the best practices of the market research process. In turn, clients continue to be oblivious of the information in spite of having them on the payroll.
For instance, a true researcher knows (but would never admit) that if the questionnaire length exceeds 15-20 minutes, the quality of response suffers. I still am surprised at how little the questionnaire length plays a role in negotiating contracts. They all talk about reducing sample size to save costs but I have yet to meet a researcher who asks me to reduce costs by reducing the length of the questionnaire. A high proportion of interviews stop midway leading to productivity loss but who cares? How many of these ex researchers visit the field once in a while to get a feel of data collection? And how often? If they did, they would know how difficult it is to get an interview, let alone administer a long questionnaire. Rather than only negotiating the price of the survey, they should question how much are the market research agencies paying their interviewers for each completed survey? Or for that matter what is the value of the gift given to the respondent?
If you are a client and if your market research agency or your insights manager says OK to a questionnaire which in your opinion takes 40 minutes to administer, then you are being fooled. Period. If there is no provision for gifts, then half of the data is diluted. Ask yourself, why would someone oblige otherwise? Would you?
So here are 3 rules, as a benchmark if you really want to improve the quality of your market research data:
1. Try really hard not to exceed 20 minutes of interview time. Approve a questionnaire that you will yourself answer if approached by an interviewer.
2. Except for opinion polls, always keep a budget for gifts to respondents. This is customary in rest of the world. The quality of data will more than justify the increased cost.
3. If you are breaking rule number 1, then compensate it by increasing the value of your gift, from rule number 2.
And ex-researchers, please take efforts to educate clients at the risk of being unpopular. That is, if you really want this profession to have a long life.
Research or insights managers in client organizations are hired with the assumption that they know the market research process well and are therefore in an advisory capacity protecting client interests. Their job is to understand the requirements from the brand teams, convert them to research briefs, liaison and negotiate with the market research agencies and deliver back what was required. They are also supposed to educate the brand teams on what makes good research, what type of questions make sense and what makes respondents irritable. However we continue to see poor demands of deliverables (power point being used as excel sheets with 200 slides) or 40 page questionnaires with 80 psychographic statements or 150 image traits by the same ex market researchers. Whereas most of them are doing a good job, I hope, they are doing little to educate the clients, now their employers, on the best practices of the market research process. In turn, clients continue to be oblivious of the information in spite of having them on the payroll.
For instance, a true researcher knows (but would never admit) that if the questionnaire length exceeds 15-20 minutes, the quality of response suffers. I still am surprised at how little the questionnaire length plays a role in negotiating contracts. They all talk about reducing sample size to save costs but I have yet to meet a researcher who asks me to reduce costs by reducing the length of the questionnaire. A high proportion of interviews stop midway leading to productivity loss but who cares? How many of these ex researchers visit the field once in a while to get a feel of data collection? And how often? If they did, they would know how difficult it is to get an interview, let alone administer a long questionnaire. Rather than only negotiating the price of the survey, they should question how much are the market research agencies paying their interviewers for each completed survey? Or for that matter what is the value of the gift given to the respondent?
If you are a client and if your market research agency or your insights manager says OK to a questionnaire which in your opinion takes 40 minutes to administer, then you are being fooled. Period. If there is no provision for gifts, then half of the data is diluted. Ask yourself, why would someone oblige otherwise? Would you?
So here are 3 rules, as a benchmark if you really want to improve the quality of your market research data:
1. Try really hard not to exceed 20 minutes of interview time. Approve a questionnaire that you will yourself answer if approached by an interviewer.
2. Except for opinion polls, always keep a budget for gifts to respondents. This is customary in rest of the world. The quality of data will more than justify the increased cost.
3. If you are breaking rule number 1, then compensate it by increasing the value of your gift, from rule number 2.
And ex-researchers, please take efforts to educate clients at the risk of being unpopular. That is, if you really want this profession to have a long life.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
What’s wrong with admen these days?
‘HUL losing market share as rivals gain’ is what Mint reported on its cover page on 7th May’2009. Why was I not surprised?
Like most of you, I have been watching the IPL matches and the ads that come with it. My favorite is the Max New York life pension plan ad in which an old gentleman returns late at night and gets lambasted from his wife. The punch line is so well written, “Na jeb mein paison ki kami ho na samay ki…” Why I like this one is because the humorous creative delivers the message crisply. Zoozoos are good too but not all of them. For example the crocodile one on ‘set a busy message’ goes overboard to my mind. Also the one on voice message could have been thought better. However zoozoos, in totality, are very creatively done. But this article is not about the good ads. It’s actually about the bad ones…
Take the HUL’s commercials during IPL. They make me wonder how the creatives are thought and executed. Remember the Rin ad in which a boy playing cricket hits two sixes in which the ball lands on the score board displaying 50? Message: Rin now sold at Rs.50 with double power. The problem with the ad is given that it uses cricket to hammer the Rs.50 price point message, why did they not sponsor all half-century scorers on IPL? Linking real cricket to the brand. Somewhat like Parle did years ago with 50:50 when the decision goes to the third umpire. Execution could have been more like each time a 50 was scored, you see a message with that Rin lightning “Rin kadakedaar, damakedaar pachas”. During the extraa innings highlights, the 50 is shown like the super sixes or wickets as sponsored by Rin.
Next look at the recent Priyanka Chopra Lux commercial. Lux has always used film stars but those were the days when few brands used celebrities and Lux was a premium soap hence a top female actor endorsing made sense on aspirational grounds. How does the scheme fit if Priyanka, generally known to be very sophisticated and classy*, says Lux sirf 10 rupaye meni!, Not very well I guess. To top that in the next commercial break you see the same Priyanka endorsing Nokia’s 7610 and 3600 series or theHero Honda ad with Hrithik, brands that are clearly not of the popular type but more on the premium side. Is Priyanka the right celeb to promote a Rs.10 pack?
Check the Ponds Skin Cream painter ad. Seems like the painter on day one of the painting had the model’s face done and on day 7 when he realized that she does not have pimples, paints the area white where there were pimples initially. Does a painter complete the face on day one and even if he is good enough for that, does he then correct his painting by painting those areas white? Ad men?
HUL is not alone. Take the Airtel’s Madhavan, Vidya camping ad. These people are supposed to be camping in a cold remote place (search lights, quilts, tons of ropes etc in the setting). And the next thing you see is Madhavan getting a newspaper! A newspaper early in the morning in a camp? Certainly not impossible but does it not seem odd to use it to show the service offer?
Then you have these Godrej eon AC commercials. A series of settings where AC is not used due to high power consumption. The fact that Godrej ACs in fact consume less power is shown in such a dull way, it takes a lot of relooking and intent listening to the voiceover to get that message. That they have a five star rating is conveyed in a passing reference which should ideally be the central theme of the ad given the message.
Not all ads are great. We know. But given that the event is IPL and one is paying more than the deserved rates# with multiple reruns the investment is quite high. It therefore seems odd that these big companies and their ad men are paying little attention to the detail.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
* Priyanka Chopra is rated as the 4th most sophisticated/classy female celebrity by CelebTrack, India’s largest celebrity study done jointly by Percept Talent Management and Hansa Research.
# “MSM plans to hike IPL ad rates”, 2nd May Economic Times. According to TAM Media Research data, the average viewership rating for IPL matches so far this year is 15-20% less than last year. Media planners say they will oppose any move to jack up ad rates. Advertisers are already paying almost double of Rs 2-2.5 lakh they paid for a 10-second spot in last year’s edition of IPL, even though TV ratings have slipped this year, they say.
Like most of you, I have been watching the IPL matches and the ads that come with it. My favorite is the Max New York life pension plan ad in which an old gentleman returns late at night and gets lambasted from his wife. The punch line is so well written, “Na jeb mein paison ki kami ho na samay ki…” Why I like this one is because the humorous creative delivers the message crisply. Zoozoos are good too but not all of them. For example the crocodile one on ‘set a busy message’ goes overboard to my mind. Also the one on voice message could have been thought better. However zoozoos, in totality, are very creatively done. But this article is not about the good ads. It’s actually about the bad ones…
Take the HUL’s commercials during IPL. They make me wonder how the creatives are thought and executed. Remember the Rin ad in which a boy playing cricket hits two sixes in which the ball lands on the score board displaying 50? Message: Rin now sold at Rs.50 with double power. The problem with the ad is given that it uses cricket to hammer the Rs.50 price point message, why did they not sponsor all half-century scorers on IPL? Linking real cricket to the brand. Somewhat like Parle did years ago with 50:50 when the decision goes to the third umpire. Execution could have been more like each time a 50 was scored, you see a message with that Rin lightning “Rin kadakedaar, damakedaar pachas”. During the extraa innings highlights, the 50 is shown like the super sixes or wickets as sponsored by Rin.
Next look at the recent Priyanka Chopra Lux commercial. Lux has always used film stars but those were the days when few brands used celebrities and Lux was a premium soap hence a top female actor endorsing made sense on aspirational grounds. How does the scheme fit if Priyanka, generally known to be very sophisticated and classy*, says Lux sirf 10 rupaye meni!, Not very well I guess. To top that in the next commercial break you see the same Priyanka endorsing Nokia’s 7610 and 3600 series or theHero Honda ad with Hrithik, brands that are clearly not of the popular type but more on the premium side. Is Priyanka the right celeb to promote a Rs.10 pack?
Check the Ponds Skin Cream painter ad. Seems like the painter on day one of the painting had the model’s face done and on day 7 when he realized that she does not have pimples, paints the area white where there were pimples initially. Does a painter complete the face on day one and even if he is good enough for that, does he then correct his painting by painting those areas white? Ad men?
HUL is not alone. Take the Airtel’s Madhavan, Vidya camping ad. These people are supposed to be camping in a cold remote place (search lights, quilts, tons of ropes etc in the setting). And the next thing you see is Madhavan getting a newspaper! A newspaper early in the morning in a camp? Certainly not impossible but does it not seem odd to use it to show the service offer?
Then you have these Godrej eon AC commercials. A series of settings where AC is not used due to high power consumption. The fact that Godrej ACs in fact consume less power is shown in such a dull way, it takes a lot of relooking and intent listening to the voiceover to get that message. That they have a five star rating is conveyed in a passing reference which should ideally be the central theme of the ad given the message.
Not all ads are great. We know. But given that the event is IPL and one is paying more than the deserved rates# with multiple reruns the investment is quite high. It therefore seems odd that these big companies and their ad men are paying little attention to the detail.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
* Priyanka Chopra is rated as the 4th most sophisticated/classy female celebrity by CelebTrack, India’s largest celebrity study done jointly by Percept Talent Management and Hansa Research.
# “MSM plans to hike IPL ad rates”, 2nd May Economic Times. According to TAM Media Research data, the average viewership rating for IPL matches so far this year is 15-20% less than last year. Media planners say they will oppose any move to jack up ad rates. Advertisers are already paying almost double of Rs 2-2.5 lakh they paid for a 10-second spot in last year’s edition of IPL, even though TV ratings have slipped this year, they say.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Break the clutter
Ever wondered why you see the same celebrities endorsing multiple brands? When we were last counting1 national brands spanning categories as diverse as infrastructure to cosmetics, we came across the following piece of statistic:
• Around 60%of these brands were endorsed by just 12 (25%) celebrities.
• On an average, each of these celebrities was endorsing more than 7 brands.
Studies have revealed that using celebrity helps the brand break the clutter; reach out to more audience, build aspiration, help increase ad recall and so on. So what is wrong here?
Well nothing except that, and this is true for most brands that use the top celebrities, the primary purpose of mass reach and breaking clutter is defeated when you use an over-used2 celebrity. This is because, and we will see with a few examples, they hardly have any information on the other traits of a celebrity to match brand values. How can you otherwise explain a Dish TV being endorsed by Shah Rukh Khan and a Tata Sky by Aamir Khan. What led to the choice of these two celebrities? Not celeb-brand image match for sure. With hardly any difference in their positioning and offering, they are using two popular celebrities, who incidentally have inverse images3. So whereas SRK is considered family oriented, Aamir is not. Aamir is considered innovative, SRK fares poorly there. SRK scores well on ‘self-made’ whereas Aamir does far better on ‘trustworthy’. One would guess, and this may sound preposterous, that Aamir was chosen since he endorses other TATA brand, Titan? Bulk deal? Or was he chosen as an answer to Dish TV’s choice of taking SRK, an arch rival of Aamir?
Few more examples:
• How can you have Amitab Bachchan endorse Navratna Hair Oil as well as Reid and Taylor? Aren’t the brand values and image starkly different?
• How is Diya Mirza adding to Sun Feast biscuits ad with SRK? As far as I know, they don’t have any real life affair. (Kareena and Saif may make sense on that account). Nor do they have any reel life chemistry? (Google and I don’t remember if they ever worked opposite each other in a movie. Akshay and Kartina may make sense there). Was it then for reach or likability? Can Diya add to SRK’s reach or likability? I doubt. The only thing she probably adds to is cost. A decent looking model coming at a fraction of the cost would probably have been good enough.
• What is Katrina Kaif doing in a Fevicol commercial? If one needed a sexy lass to show those never ending legs, Malaika would have done the job in probably half the cost? How is Katrina helping the brand?
Why then do brands repeatedly take top celebrities irrespective of the category they fall in? Perhaps because they think that these popular celebs will add to appeal. Let’s check whether this hypothesis is true.
According to the latest reports by CelebTrack, a study conducted jointly by Percept Talent Management and Hansa Research, there is marginal difference in recognition and likability among the top 30 celebrities.
The top 10 celebrities (as per recognition) had an average recognition of 96%. Next 10 were at 91% and the 10 after were at 88%. In other words if you were to take a celebrity ranked 4th as opposed to someone who was ranked 22nd, in all probability you may lose out on around 8% of recognition. How much do you save on cost? A lot I suppose. Further chances are high that the brand recall will be higher for a brand using a celebrity who appears in fewer ads as opposed to several.
Next, take a look at likability. Here there is hardly any difference. The difference among the top 10 celebrities on likability to the next 10 is zilch and to the 10 after is a mere 2%. So whereas you may lose a few percentage points on recognition, you lose almost nothing on likability. A 25th ranked celebrity is almost as liked as a 5th ranked one.
Brands may argue that these 8% and 2% are huge differences and one may ignore them to their own peril. My argument is that what you think you are gaining by taking a well known celeb, you are more than losing owing to the celebrity’s clutter since he is endorsing multiple brands and audience mixes up on which ad they saw the celebrity for. Spend wisely.
1 We analyzed 138 brands. These are endorsed by 49 celebrities. Though this is a loosely derived list, it is reasonably representative. Sources have been TV commercials, print ads, company websites etc. Hence the list is not full-proof since sources such as websites are not always updated by all companies.
2 What is over-used is quite relative. In this case the average brand endorsement per celeb comes to 2.8. So one might argue that anything above this is over-used however this may be incorrect since a few celebrities can easily skew this average.
3According to the CelebTrack data, SRK and Aamir have contrary images. What one does well on, the other performs poorly and vice-versa
• Around 60%of these brands were endorsed by just 12 (25%) celebrities.
• On an average, each of these celebrities was endorsing more than 7 brands.
Studies have revealed that using celebrity helps the brand break the clutter; reach out to more audience, build aspiration, help increase ad recall and so on. So what is wrong here?
Well nothing except that, and this is true for most brands that use the top celebrities, the primary purpose of mass reach and breaking clutter is defeated when you use an over-used2 celebrity. This is because, and we will see with a few examples, they hardly have any information on the other traits of a celebrity to match brand values. How can you otherwise explain a Dish TV being endorsed by Shah Rukh Khan and a Tata Sky by Aamir Khan. What led to the choice of these two celebrities? Not celeb-brand image match for sure. With hardly any difference in their positioning and offering, they are using two popular celebrities, who incidentally have inverse images3. So whereas SRK is considered family oriented, Aamir is not. Aamir is considered innovative, SRK fares poorly there. SRK scores well on ‘self-made’ whereas Aamir does far better on ‘trustworthy’. One would guess, and this may sound preposterous, that Aamir was chosen since he endorses other TATA brand, Titan? Bulk deal? Or was he chosen as an answer to Dish TV’s choice of taking SRK, an arch rival of Aamir?
Few more examples:
• How can you have Amitab Bachchan endorse Navratna Hair Oil as well as Reid and Taylor? Aren’t the brand values and image starkly different?
• How is Diya Mirza adding to Sun Feast biscuits ad with SRK? As far as I know, they don’t have any real life affair. (Kareena and Saif may make sense on that account). Nor do they have any reel life chemistry? (Google and I don’t remember if they ever worked opposite each other in a movie. Akshay and Kartina may make sense there). Was it then for reach or likability? Can Diya add to SRK’s reach or likability? I doubt. The only thing she probably adds to is cost. A decent looking model coming at a fraction of the cost would probably have been good enough.
• What is Katrina Kaif doing in a Fevicol commercial? If one needed a sexy lass to show those never ending legs, Malaika would have done the job in probably half the cost? How is Katrina helping the brand?
Why then do brands repeatedly take top celebrities irrespective of the category they fall in? Perhaps because they think that these popular celebs will add to appeal. Let’s check whether this hypothesis is true.
According to the latest reports by CelebTrack, a study conducted jointly by Percept Talent Management and Hansa Research, there is marginal difference in recognition and likability among the top 30 celebrities.
The top 10 celebrities (as per recognition) had an average recognition of 96%. Next 10 were at 91% and the 10 after were at 88%. In other words if you were to take a celebrity ranked 4th as opposed to someone who was ranked 22nd, in all probability you may lose out on around 8% of recognition. How much do you save on cost? A lot I suppose. Further chances are high that the brand recall will be higher for a brand using a celebrity who appears in fewer ads as opposed to several.
Next, take a look at likability. Here there is hardly any difference. The difference among the top 10 celebrities on likability to the next 10 is zilch and to the 10 after is a mere 2%. So whereas you may lose a few percentage points on recognition, you lose almost nothing on likability. A 25th ranked celebrity is almost as liked as a 5th ranked one.
Brands may argue that these 8% and 2% are huge differences and one may ignore them to their own peril. My argument is that what you think you are gaining by taking a well known celeb, you are more than losing owing to the celebrity’s clutter since he is endorsing multiple brands and audience mixes up on which ad they saw the celebrity for. Spend wisely.
1 We analyzed 138 brands. These are endorsed by 49 celebrities. Though this is a loosely derived list, it is reasonably representative. Sources have been TV commercials, print ads, company websites etc. Hence the list is not full-proof since sources such as websites are not always updated by all companies.
2 What is over-used is quite relative. In this case the average brand endorsement per celeb comes to 2.8. So one might argue that anything above this is over-used however this may be incorrect since a few celebrities can easily skew this average.
3According to the CelebTrack data, SRK and Aamir have contrary images. What one does well on, the other performs poorly and vice-versa
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Brand Celeb Misfit
One brand’s meat could be another brand’s poison. Well we all know it does not really go that way but you will perhaps see the point by the end of this piece.
Endorsement by celebrities may help a brand in several ways - enhancing attention, increasing recall, induce positive attitude change and portray bigness to small brands thus making them relevant alternatives and so on. In India, however, it is largely been a gut driven industry, at least until now. Marketing managers have some objectives, they think a celeb can help them achieve those objectives and so they hire one. Who to choose is largely based on board room debates, and at times, some form of quick dip-stick studies or questions added to ongoing tracks. Rarely is it a concentrated effort.
Celebrities on the other hand, charge fees based on how much time they spend on the brand and the media involved rather than how relevant they are to a brand. In other words, it is largely a flat fee irrespective of whether one is endorsing a shampoo or a health food drink.
A recent study CelebTrack, done jointly by Percept Talent Management and Hansa Research, aims to get some form of science to this thousand crore industry. Most of the top line findings are not surprising. Big B and Sachin, both at the fag end of their careers, still reign supreme among the consumers of India. Katrina considered the most sexy celeb, Aishwarya most beautiful, Aamir edges past Shahrukh, thanks to the Ghajani effect and the inconsequential recent releases by the later. Once we take a detour from this crowded ‘nice to know’ maze, we come across some interesting insights such as which celebrity is relevant for which type of brand.
Let’s start with a typical celeb choosing process. A typical brand manager, let us say from the cosmetic/beauty industry would perhaps think it commonsensical to pick up a sexy or a glamorous celeb for one of its product categories, let’s say shampoos. Similarly, as a marketing manager from a financial services firm, let’s say an insurance company, you would not need any research to tell you that the celeb you chose should be a successful person in real life and not a struggler. He/She should be considered trustworthy and financially savvy among the junta since we are talking about financial investments and not household cleaners. If you notice, the focus is on what a celebrity should be and not so much on what he should not be. No wonder then that we keep seeing the same faces endorsing brands across a myriad of categories. How can you explain Mr. Bachchan endorsing Navratna hair oil and Reid and Taylor? Perhaps he can pull it off given his rounded personality. But how many others could do this?
CelebTrack data reveals that consumers make brand choices based on two broad appeals from celebrities– physical appeal (sexy, stylish, beautiful, macho etc) and character appeal (trustworthy, intelligent, family oriented etc). Hence they classify, unknowingly, most celebrities on either of the two. So if you were to pick up a celebrity randomly, chances are he will do very well on one and not so well in the other.
Brands, therefore, should start thinking like the consumer and pick up traits that they think are most relevant for them – physical or character.
Coming back to the example of shampoo brand manager and the insurance marketing manager. The later should know that he should concentrate on character traits rather than physical as the consumers disassociate physical traits when thinking about finance. Therefore, his celebrity should preferably not be glamorous and sexy. This quote perhaps summarizes it best from a consumer point of view “I consider these glamour and hot celebrities good for products such as deodorants or shampoos. If you ask me to take a home loan because a good looking celebrity is asking me to, I would tell you that when it comes to finance I would go with brains rather than beauty”.
If we look at the CelebTrack data for the cosmetic and the finance category (refer chart 1), character traits go well (high correlation) with financial category whereas the inverse is true for cosmetic category where they have a poor faring. Now notice Chart 2, and see how the red line (Cosmetics) starts rising up on physical traits and the blue line for Finance dropping. This is because traits for financial category and that of the cosmetic category are negatively correlated. In other words, what goes well for a financial brand does not go well for the cosmetic brand and vice-e-versa.
As quoted by the marketing head of one of the leading financial brands of the country, “Owing to the nature of our business, what we were looking for is someone who is matured and successful and not necessarily physically appealing. CelebTrack findings are in tune with our thinking”.
Now reflect upon a few ads that you have seen recently. Can you see a few anomalies? For example a very popular male celebrity is being used by the biggies from both the financial and the cosmetic industry. At least one of them is making a mistake.
Indeed, one brand’s meat could be another brand’s poison.
Endorsement by celebrities may help a brand in several ways - enhancing attention, increasing recall, induce positive attitude change and portray bigness to small brands thus making them relevant alternatives and so on. In India, however, it is largely been a gut driven industry, at least until now. Marketing managers have some objectives, they think a celeb can help them achieve those objectives and so they hire one. Who to choose is largely based on board room debates, and at times, some form of quick dip-stick studies or questions added to ongoing tracks. Rarely is it a concentrated effort.
Celebrities on the other hand, charge fees based on how much time they spend on the brand and the media involved rather than how relevant they are to a brand. In other words, it is largely a flat fee irrespective of whether one is endorsing a shampoo or a health food drink.
A recent study CelebTrack, done jointly by Percept Talent Management and Hansa Research, aims to get some form of science to this thousand crore industry. Most of the top line findings are not surprising. Big B and Sachin, both at the fag end of their careers, still reign supreme among the consumers of India. Katrina considered the most sexy celeb, Aishwarya most beautiful, Aamir edges past Shahrukh, thanks to the Ghajani effect and the inconsequential recent releases by the later. Once we take a detour from this crowded ‘nice to know’ maze, we come across some interesting insights such as which celebrity is relevant for which type of brand.
Let’s start with a typical celeb choosing process. A typical brand manager, let us say from the cosmetic/beauty industry would perhaps think it commonsensical to pick up a sexy or a glamorous celeb for one of its product categories, let’s say shampoos. Similarly, as a marketing manager from a financial services firm, let’s say an insurance company, you would not need any research to tell you that the celeb you chose should be a successful person in real life and not a struggler. He/She should be considered trustworthy and financially savvy among the junta since we are talking about financial investments and not household cleaners. If you notice, the focus is on what a celebrity should be and not so much on what he should not be. No wonder then that we keep seeing the same faces endorsing brands across a myriad of categories. How can you explain Mr. Bachchan endorsing Navratna hair oil and Reid and Taylor? Perhaps he can pull it off given his rounded personality. But how many others could do this?
CelebTrack data reveals that consumers make brand choices based on two broad appeals from celebrities– physical appeal (sexy, stylish, beautiful, macho etc) and character appeal (trustworthy, intelligent, family oriented etc). Hence they classify, unknowingly, most celebrities on either of the two. So if you were to pick up a celebrity randomly, chances are he will do very well on one and not so well in the other.
Brands, therefore, should start thinking like the consumer and pick up traits that they think are most relevant for them – physical or character.
Coming back to the example of shampoo brand manager and the insurance marketing manager. The later should know that he should concentrate on character traits rather than physical as the consumers disassociate physical traits when thinking about finance. Therefore, his celebrity should preferably not be glamorous and sexy. This quote perhaps summarizes it best from a consumer point of view “I consider these glamour and hot celebrities good for products such as deodorants or shampoos. If you ask me to take a home loan because a good looking celebrity is asking me to, I would tell you that when it comes to finance I would go with brains rather than beauty”.
If we look at the CelebTrack data for the cosmetic and the finance category (refer chart 1), character traits go well (high correlation) with financial category whereas the inverse is true for cosmetic category where they have a poor faring. Now notice Chart 2, and see how the red line (Cosmetics) starts rising up on physical traits and the blue line for Finance dropping. This is because traits for financial category and that of the cosmetic category are negatively correlated. In other words, what goes well for a financial brand does not go well for the cosmetic brand and vice-e-versa.
As quoted by the marketing head of one of the leading financial brands of the country, “Owing to the nature of our business, what we were looking for is someone who is matured and successful and not necessarily physically appealing. CelebTrack findings are in tune with our thinking”.
Now reflect upon a few ads that you have seen recently. Can you see a few anomalies? For example a very popular male celebrity is being used by the biggies from both the financial and the cosmetic industry. At least one of them is making a mistake.
Indeed, one brand’s meat could be another brand’s poison.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Criticizing India
There are a lot of us, Indians, who love to criticize India. We often talk about how bad the roads are, the corrupt politicians, how is it so difficult to get everything done from getting a ration card to a passport and the list is endless. These criticisms are particularly stronger with people who stay abroad. I was a critic when I was in India and continue to be when I moved to US.
Recently a very close friend couple came over to our place for dinner. It so happens that the husband is an avert critic of India, more so than me. And the wife is more of a placid kind. A debate got heated up and the wife asked her husband what had he done to correct the situation? Husband replied, “What can I do? And why do you all become so defensive when someone criticizes, especially when what I am saying is in fact true?” Wife said, “Well if you can’t do anything, you have no right to criticize. I know I can’t change it so at least I am not criticizing” This let me thinking. Both had a point. After mulling over for a few days I came to the conclusion that both were wrong.
Imagine the critic and the placid witnessing a murder. Later on the critic talks to his friends and tells them how very cruel and nasty the murderer was. He goes on an on about how he hates the murderer. The placid on the other hand accepts that she saw the murder but says nothing more. Who is better off? Aren’t they both in the same boat? Just by not criticizing the murderer do you absolve yourself from the responsibility? And by just being a critic, you are hardly helping the society by getting rid of the murderer. So what does one do given that we are all to be blamed one way or the other since we are educated and aware of the situation in India and still not doing anything about it, critic or placid?
I think the solution is to do something. However before attempting it, the first thing to realize is not expect to change the situation all together. Start with doing something small or little to make a difference in someone’s life, not the society. Here are some ideas:
• How about telling your maid that you will sponsor her child’s education and help her move to a better school?
• How about telling your watchman that you would love to teach his 9 year old son computers at your home every weekend?
• How about going to a nearby zhopad-patti and reading stories every Sunday to small kids?
• If you are in the US and cannot be physically present, how about donating a used computer to someone unrelated to you who is not economically well off?
• If you are a techie from Boston, how about offering to set up a website for an orphanage in Bhopal that cannot afford to hire someone?
• How about sponsoring a slide or a see-saw to a park nearby your parent’s home?
• How about donating new/used story books to a small school?
• How about making a wooden prototype of the solar system with sun and the nine planets and donating it to a public school?
I am sure you all are very smart and will think of ways to improve someone’s life. One may ask as to how will these improve roads or remove corruption? Well in the short run it may not. (I will write a separate blog on how will this improve roads and reduce corruption in the long run) But have these not improved life of a person or bunch of people? Is it not enough to know that at this time one small effort from you can make a change in someone’s life, if not the whole society? If all of us do something small that affects people's life positievely, we are collectively changing the society. Think small!
Caution. You are not doing anything to prove to anybody but to yourself. So do not expect help or appreciation. Some people may rather laugh at your ignorance but do you think these efforts are too difficult to achieve, critic or placid?
Recently a very close friend couple came over to our place for dinner. It so happens that the husband is an avert critic of India, more so than me. And the wife is more of a placid kind. A debate got heated up and the wife asked her husband what had he done to correct the situation? Husband replied, “What can I do? And why do you all become so defensive when someone criticizes, especially when what I am saying is in fact true?” Wife said, “Well if you can’t do anything, you have no right to criticize. I know I can’t change it so at least I am not criticizing” This let me thinking. Both had a point. After mulling over for a few days I came to the conclusion that both were wrong.
Imagine the critic and the placid witnessing a murder. Later on the critic talks to his friends and tells them how very cruel and nasty the murderer was. He goes on an on about how he hates the murderer. The placid on the other hand accepts that she saw the murder but says nothing more. Who is better off? Aren’t they both in the same boat? Just by not criticizing the murderer do you absolve yourself from the responsibility? And by just being a critic, you are hardly helping the society by getting rid of the murderer. So what does one do given that we are all to be blamed one way or the other since we are educated and aware of the situation in India and still not doing anything about it, critic or placid?
I think the solution is to do something. However before attempting it, the first thing to realize is not expect to change the situation all together. Start with doing something small or little to make a difference in someone’s life, not the society. Here are some ideas:
• How about telling your maid that you will sponsor her child’s education and help her move to a better school?
• How about telling your watchman that you would love to teach his 9 year old son computers at your home every weekend?
• How about going to a nearby zhopad-patti and reading stories every Sunday to small kids?
• If you are in the US and cannot be physically present, how about donating a used computer to someone unrelated to you who is not economically well off?
• If you are a techie from Boston, how about offering to set up a website for an orphanage in Bhopal that cannot afford to hire someone?
• How about sponsoring a slide or a see-saw to a park nearby your parent’s home?
• How about donating new/used story books to a small school?
• How about making a wooden prototype of the solar system with sun and the nine planets and donating it to a public school?
I am sure you all are very smart and will think of ways to improve someone’s life. One may ask as to how will these improve roads or remove corruption? Well in the short run it may not. (I will write a separate blog on how will this improve roads and reduce corruption in the long run) But have these not improved life of a person or bunch of people? Is it not enough to know that at this time one small effort from you can make a change in someone’s life, if not the whole society? If all of us do something small that affects people's life positievely, we are collectively changing the society. Think small!
Caution. You are not doing anything to prove to anybody but to yourself. So do not expect help or appreciation. Some people may rather laugh at your ignorance but do you think these efforts are too difficult to achieve, critic or placid?
Monday, January 5, 2009
Foot Massage at the Vatican
This one may sound funny.
The Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel are one of the most visited tourist destinations of the world. This museum does not accept reservations and you must stand, sometimes for two hours, in a long queue to enter it. And after that, it is such a huge museum (many museums are huge, but this one is the mother of all, I swear!) you keep walking and walking and it never ends. When you come out, your legs ache and you want to just sit down and relax. Imagine if a sign close by says, “Leg Massage € 5 for 10 minutes”.
That is the idea.
Each and everybody is tired when they have finished seeing the Vatican museum and the Sistine Chapel. However when you come out of the exit, you see restaurants and other shops and no such shop that talks about foot massage. I imagine this would work. But first some number crunching:
Close to 4.5m people visited the Vatican Museum in 2007. That is 16,000 a day if you ignore the holidays and 2000 per hour, varying greatly by time of day and seasons of the year. If 20% use the foot/body massage service, annual revenue is € 4.5m at the above prices, at 10% it is € 2,250,000 and at 5% it is € 1,125,000. Let’s go with the worst case scenario here, revenue of € 1,125,000.
To earn this revenue, you should be able to service 750 customers per day. (750 x 300 days x € 5). If you are using those typical massage chairs, and they are running on 75% occupancy (4.5 consumers served per hour), then each chair is servicing 36 customers per day. You may need close to 25 such chairs to service your clientele, working 8 hours a day. Let’s look at the investment.
One such chair may cost you close to at $4000 (http://sitincomfort.com/masloun.html). Rental space of 2000 square feet may be close to $100,000 per month (this one is a guess). Annual running cost including salaries and other overheads could be close to € 1m. (Salaries 10K/month, OH 10K/month, writing off two chairs every month and the 100K rent, all converted to Euros)
Does 750 customers per day seem high? With 16,000 visitors per day, it may not be. You need to attract just 5% of that. The trick though is that consumers will vary as per season and hours of the day but your costs will not. And the math above suggests that there is not enough room for profitability. So what could be the other way to go?
Well, if you look at it, rent is killing the idea. So if you already have a shop, restaurant, space around there, just buy a chair or two and you will be doing very well for yourself. The chair can potentially pay for itself in a month! (€ 5 per customer, 4 customers per hour for 8 hours for 25 days)
Alternatively if someone could comment on the rent bit, we could be more sure-footed on this one and explore further.
Buyers, anyone?
The Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel are one of the most visited tourist destinations of the world. This museum does not accept reservations and you must stand, sometimes for two hours, in a long queue to enter it. And after that, it is such a huge museum (many museums are huge, but this one is the mother of all, I swear!) you keep walking and walking and it never ends. When you come out, your legs ache and you want to just sit down and relax. Imagine if a sign close by says, “Leg Massage € 5 for 10 minutes”.
That is the idea.
Each and everybody is tired when they have finished seeing the Vatican museum and the Sistine Chapel. However when you come out of the exit, you see restaurants and other shops and no such shop that talks about foot massage. I imagine this would work. But first some number crunching:
Close to 4.5m people visited the Vatican Museum in 2007. That is 16,000 a day if you ignore the holidays and 2000 per hour, varying greatly by time of day and seasons of the year. If 20% use the foot/body massage service, annual revenue is € 4.5m at the above prices, at 10% it is € 2,250,000 and at 5% it is € 1,125,000. Let’s go with the worst case scenario here, revenue of € 1,125,000.
To earn this revenue, you should be able to service 750 customers per day. (750 x 300 days x € 5). If you are using those typical massage chairs, and they are running on 75% occupancy (4.5 consumers served per hour), then each chair is servicing 36 customers per day. You may need close to 25 such chairs to service your clientele, working 8 hours a day. Let’s look at the investment.
One such chair may cost you close to at $4000 (http://sitincomfort.com/masloun.html). Rental space of 2000 square feet may be close to $100,000 per month (this one is a guess). Annual running cost including salaries and other overheads could be close to € 1m. (Salaries 10K/month, OH 10K/month, writing off two chairs every month and the 100K rent, all converted to Euros)
Does 750 customers per day seem high? With 16,000 visitors per day, it may not be. You need to attract just 5% of that. The trick though is that consumers will vary as per season and hours of the day but your costs will not. And the math above suggests that there is not enough room for profitability. So what could be the other way to go?
Well, if you look at it, rent is killing the idea. So if you already have a shop, restaurant, space around there, just buy a chair or two and you will be doing very well for yourself. The chair can potentially pay for itself in a month! (€ 5 per customer, 4 customers per hour for 8 hours for 25 days)
Alternatively if someone could comment on the rent bit, we could be more sure-footed on this one and explore further.
Buyers, anyone?
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