Corporate Blog

The first wave of the internet saw business houses establishing their own websites, and now the latest buzz is to have their own corporate blogs. In last few years we have seen increasing impact of blogs on modern society. The developed nations have moved to the web.2 platform and have corporate blogs of their organizations. The corporate blog can be part of the conventional corporate website or it can be an independent blog site. There can be various forms of the corporate blogs – internal, external, CEO, product, brand etc.

In my discussion with various corporate communications and marketing managers of various corporate I could discover that corporate in India did not start their business blog because: there is strong shortage of the trained staff, the proposition of the corporate blog is under consideration, sometimes they feel that the efforts are not worthy, India is not ready, the blogging does not fit with the overall corporate strategy, the blog medium is not effective for reaching their target audience. (for them a reason to ignore; for me just a crappy story of their inefficiency) However, there is group of corporate communications and marketing managers who are now convinced that there are many advantages for encompassing their individual corporate blog and they will also get into corporate blogging. It is matter of time.

They see advantage in having a corporate blog and suggest the benefits:

The biggest advantage of corporate blog is that this medium is a strong tool of direct interaction with the consumers and customers – internal and external. It is a medium to connect the corporate directly with the customers, consumers, and prospects.

The basic nature of the blog – two-way communication which makes customers consumers, or prospects feel that they are heard helps develop the confidence in the customers about the product, brand, or company. The corporate blog serves the medium of customer-generated marketing which can comfortably involve the customers into the marketing process. The information about the product, brand, company, or any other strategic or tactical moves to the customer, consumers, or prospects followed by the interactive dialogs on the information help develop a good PR on web. The blog is fast emerging as an additional communication medium and is a tool of enhancing brand visibility.

The blog also helps in finding the product evangelists who help in previewing the products, auditing and reviewing various marketing activities. The blog in addition to strengthening the product launch can also be used as an additional distribution channel. One of the biggest advantages of corporate blog is that a small export house, travel agency can become a global brand and get business without sending its executives abroad.

The corporate blog also helps corporate in talent hunts. It inspires experienced talent to take up employment with corporations. The corporate blog not only helps in the talent hunt but also help develop good relation with the prospective employees, and employees. It is perceived as the face of the corporate, which enhances its image.

Globally (read developed nations) the corporate blog is seen as one of the revolutionary tools for the marketing community. Many corporations have their external blog and others are planning to have their internal and external blogs. The days are not far when in India the corporate will join the revolution.

Learning for Brand Slaves

A brand behaves like human. It has personality, identity, emotion, and life cycle. A brand manager who manages the brand (In my views company and brand manager can’t own the brand; they just own product) is responsible to bring back life into the dying brands.

The customer who owns the brand has become increasingly sensitive towards their brands. If the brand is not behaving the way they want them to behave they simply dump it. The customers want brand to add value to their lifestyle. They want brand to be their lifestyle statement. (Not to forget that gone are the days when consumers had limited choices; today she can choose from competing brands.)

Pepsi and Coca-Cola recognized the turmoil in the Indian carbonated soft drink market that followed the environmentalists protesting against the cola companies, claiming it to be harmful for health. The companies were quick enough to respond through its brand ambassadors. The quick response of the Coca companies help them projecting that they are safe and healthy brand. The cola companies managed to retain the brand health, and brand identity.

The brand slaves – the brand managers and the company – have to work harder to find the ways to retain the brand in the minds of the audience. They can position, reposition brands to match the customers need and requirements.

As the brand traverses through different stages of its life cycle, brand slaves need to transform the brand just not make some aesthetic changes. The Pepsi has positioned itself as a the product for youngistan with disassociated association from cricket and movie, on the other hand the rival camp Coca-Cola seems to have taken the movie and cricket positioning. In both the cases it is complete new brand positioning. In my views the brands stop to capture the minds of the consumer when the brand slaves starts to concentrate on the competition and bring about cosmetic changes in the brand and ignore the brand identity. The Pepsi and Coca-Cola both the companies play intelligently on the reinventing the message and counterattacking the competition on the message.

The cola companies – Pepsi and Coca-Cola – in India have not changed the brand’s core value, which has helped them retain the brand owners’ faith on them. The classic coke case scary result always comes to the rescue of the current generation brand slaves at Pepsi and Coca-Cola and help them not take brand owners casually and playing around with the brand owners emotions.

Social media marketing is gaining grounds

social media is an pervasive medium for interacting with friends and family. The evidenced  that Facebook and MySpace are the eighth and tenth most visited sites on the entire web proves it even more.

in recent past social media has emerged as the effective marketing channel and it is fast gaining importance. It also has success stories to sahre:
•    Increasing the revenue: Dell made US$ 1 million using Twitter.
•    Multiplying sales: MASI bicycles doubled sales in two years using blogging and podcasting to reach out.
•    Building up the relevant community: American Express multiplied its user base 80 times in 11 months using Social Network.
•    Customer service: How a COMCAST executive contacted a customer who tweeted about a bad experience in 20 minutes sitting in different corners of the globe.

We have to accept that the social media marketing is gaining grounds and it has been quite successful in capturing the attention of consumers online.

I think business model is important.

Twitter is the magic word. I have seen all social media enthusiasts talking about Twitter. I asked one of my friends what is Twitter’s business model. He had no answer; probably it does not have any business model.

I think business model is important.

A closure review of the product made me feel that while a business model is important, Twitter is a company that can afford to take its time in finding the one and even if it fails to discover one it will survive. It will survive because other businesses are building on top of the micro-messaging service and using it for their own services.

Some businesses have discovered that Twitter is an effective way of communicating with consumers. Dell made US$ 1 million using Twitter. People who sign up to follow Dell on Twitter receive messages when discounted products are available the company’s Home Outlet Store. They can click over to purchase the product or forward the information to others. When Dell can make money why not others? The corporate success story can motivate Twitter to creating corporate accounts.

I realize Twitter has created such a valuable platform which is beyond the debate of business model.

farzaap.com

Deepika Padukone new BSNL brand ambassador

Deepika Padukone who is brand ambassador of Kingfisher Airlines, Levi Strauss, Parachute hair oil, and Tissot SA has been signed by State-run BSNL as its new brand ambassador. She has replaced the squeaky, bubbly girl, Preity Zinta.

BSNL, country’s largest telecom operator with 74 million customers, has not renewed Zinta’s contract of Preity Zinta which ended last week as it was eager to associate the brand with a younger face.

Among the handset companies, BSNL’s rival Airtel has cine stars like Vidya Balan and Madhavan as ambassadors. Spice has hired Katrina Kaif, Nokia has Shah Rukh Khan, Idea has Abhishek Bachchan, and Amir Khan endorses Samsung Mobile phones.

BSNL has off late been very aggressive in its marketing exercise in order to shed the typical PSU image and be seen as a lively brand for all categories of users.

The company is learnt to have a Rs 100 crore ad and marketing budget.

Aamir Khan is the brand ambassador of ‘Incredible India’

The ‘Incredible India’ campaign launched in 2002, showcasing the country’s unique heritage and cultural aspects, has been a major hit and made considerable impact on its tourism sector.

Now, the Bollywood hero has been roped in by the tourism ministry to be the face of its brand campaign ‘Incredible India’ to showcase the country’s rich heritage and culture and the message, Athithi Devo Bhava.

The ministry is yet to finalise the type of campaign it wants to do for the coming year. However the tourism ministry will be coming out with an ad campaign and a road show to promote India’s tourism.

Aamir Khan is the new brand ambassador of the ‘Incredible India’ campaign. Aamir Khan has accepted the invitation to be part of the ‘Incredible India’ campaign and he is very happy to be part of ‘Incredible India’.

Factiva – search engine

Factiva, a Dow Jones and Reuters company provided global content, including newswires from Dow Jones & Reuters and The Wall Street Journal. Factiva has unrivaled collection of more than 14,000 authoritative sources includes the exclusive combination of The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times™, Dow Jones and Reuters newswires and the Associated Press, as well as Reuters Fundamentals, and D&B company profiles. It offered a personalized single content solution with multiple language interfaces from archives of 9000 news sources. Thus, an engineering team got highly technical results while a marketing outfit got consumer friendly documents.

Factiva boosts of an innovative, XML-based and Web services-enabled technology platform provides access to this rich content collection via role-specific products or through customized enterprise, group or personal solutions

Amazon: Earth’s Biggest Selection TM

Early 1994, Internet usage was growing at a phenomenal rate of 2300 percent per month. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, recalls that he felt need of doing something immediately. When something is growing that fast, every second counts.
Bezos quit his lucrative job at DE Shaw to start an online venture. His initial plan was to sell a low priced product, which customer would not hesitate to purchase online. After weighting several factors, he decided to concentrate on books.
“unless you could create something with huge value proposition for customer, it would be easier for the customer to do it old way.” Books, with low price and more than three million titles worldwide, seems to be an ideal product for selling online. Mail order book catalogs were not feasible, as they would have to carry thousands of titles, making them very bulky and expensive to mail. On the other hand, the Internet could provide such information economically and efficiently.
In June 1995, Amazon.com Books Inc. commenced its operations. The name Amazon drew inspiration from largest river in the world, signals Bezos’ clear intention to develop the biggest bookstore in the world. The name Amazon is short to remember, it captures the spirit of the site, and conveys its vast size and offering. Infact, Bezos had chosen the name Amazon also because it short, simple and easy to remember. Moreover it also captures the spirit of the site. He also wanted the same to start with letter A so that it appear at top of the search engine list.
Brand building initiatives
Online, the balance of power shifts away from company and goes towards the customer. Our strength is that we have not been competitor obsessed.
–Jeff Bezos, CEO Amazon.com
Bezos identified it very early that customer is the king. He proposed customer value proposition for the Amazon which is evident from the initiatives at Amazon. Amazon provide value added features to increase the ease of shopping viz. product search, gift click, wish lists, gift reminders, and ‘Amazon.com Anywhere’ which support access from wireless device. Amazon has successfully created one-to-one relationships with its customers by customizing features and service based on customer purchase history. It has also added community feeling among customers by soliciting and posting readers’ comments on book displays. Amazon also introduced Amazon.com discussion board to further enhance the community feeling. It allows customer to share information on their topic of interest. Amazon Associate program is help develop better customer interaction. The customer interaction is reinforced with the personalized communication model. Customer centricity is evident from all online and offline activities of the Amazon.
Amazon’s promotion program can be divided into three distinct phase. It started with word-of-mouth publicity among online communities. Second phase was beginning of advertising in online, print media and outdoors. Third phase of promotional program started with inauguration of Associates Program in 1996. The associate program offers other website to display the Amazon.com hot-link and offer specific books of interest to their visitors. Amazon has developed alliance and partnerships with high traffic web portals and sites viz. America Online, Yahoo!, Geocity, Alta Vista, Excite, Prodigy etc. The associates program has been phenomenally successful, attracting member sites of all size. Amazon has also used viral marketing technique through customer reviews, free e-Cards, and gift certificates.
Changing Focus
Amazon is an early mover on the internet and the first mover on the online bookselling. This has helped it build a strong brand at relatively low cost. Thanks to extensive hype and coverage across media.
The online book company received strong criticism when it started expanding its product line. Marketers and academicians across geography said that Amazon is diluting the value of its association with books. A report in time magazine mentioned: “it’s incredibly risky. How elastic is the Amazon brand name? how much can you stretch it until it simply explodes and become meaningless to consumer? And how long can the money hold out? Bezos has alreadt burned through a bank’s worth of ash with no sign of slowing down. If any thing he is upping the ante – according to estimate, the company’s net loss could be $350 million in this year (2000) alone.” Bezos, however felt otherwise: “No, see we are not book company. We are not Music Company. We are not Vedio Company. We are not Auction Company. We are customer company.” He started line extension with some other valid logic – brand to certain degree is quick-drying cement. When they are young, they’re stretchable and plaint, but over time they become more and more associated with a particular thing and hart to stretch. His views were absolutely right which was evident from Amazon music store initiative. June 1998, Amazon unveiled a music store, which within six month propelled Amazon to one of the leading online music retailer.
Conclusion
Amazon has successfully built a strong brand and loyal customer base.

CDNOW (Amazon.com – buy an old story)

Jason Olin Knew there had to be better way to buy music– phill Carpenter

Leading music store CDNOW was one of the most popular shopping store sites since 1994. It had mammoth selection of music-related products. It boosted of excellent coverage of music reviews, cover art, daily music news, features, guide to music genres, and exclusive interviews. It also involved in digital distribution of music. CDNOW was the first site to offer the sale of music downloads. Armed with successful implementation of innovative ideas, CDNOW aims to make every visit to the site a valuable and rewarding experience.The CDNOW was very easy to navigate and quick to load. Strong content alliances, music reviews, cover art, daily music news etc. had made the content of the site attractive and useful. It had made the process easier for customers to explore new music and make informed purchase decision. It also offered customer to customize site as well as music CD as per user performance. At CDNOW, customer had option to maintain and Address book online making it easier to send music to friends and family this innovative technique of viral marketing helped strengthen loyalty and deepen customers’ commitment with brand. It developed strong community feeling among the users through Jazz club or classic club. It reaches out to its customers with personalized e-mails from Jason Olim and e-mail newsletters informing customers of news and releases relevant to the preference.
CDNOW was able to maintain its first mover advantage. It constantly added new functionality to the site and was very innovative in its offering. It ensured that its activity reinforces customer commitment and promises offered to customers. it was one of the first website to develop multifaceted, integrated communication strategy. It used online advertising, word-of-mouth communication and public relation to attract customers. Founders of CDNOW strongly believed that word-of-mouth powerfully influence online purchase decision.
The company began its marketing effort focusing on the web admirers in the early days of the business. It did not use any traditional marketing tools in the beginning of the venture but viewed online advertising as the way of both generating sales and building awareness it also appoint i-traffic as its online ad agency. On the one hand it had banner ads on the major internet content and service providers including, CNN interactive, AOL and on the other hand it had banners place on the more specific music-related sites like Billboard. It also stuck exclusive alliance with high traffic companies like AOL Yahoo!, Excite. It helped CDNOW generate both traffic and visibility.
CDNOW since inception had made public relation one of the highest priority tool in the brand building exercise. Mario Zoda, the public relation manager designed most of the public relation programs at CDNOW. They also realized very early that in the high-tech business, word-of-mouth is in particular is very important tool as it influences the purchase decision. Public relation helped generate word-of-mouth communication and influenced sales. They banked on the story how CDNOW was founded in the basement by two twin brothers with little money reflected the ‘American Dream’. The story helped them as Americans started associated themselves with the CDNOW venture which helped increase business.
CDNOW with development of the internet venture and competition realized that to build brand and grab share, it has to invest substantially on the traditional tools of marketing. It first turned to tool such as TV and radio. It also examined with print advertising in publication like Rolling Stone, spin, and variety.
Conclusion
CDNOW exploited its early-mover advantage and keeps ahead of competition. They developed a detailed understanding of its customers’ need that has enabled the company to create better product and effective market campaigns. CDNOW had personalized its product offering which was managed by the capable service team. The team was instrumental in building a reputation of excellence that is core factor of a successful Internet brand. CDNOW was one of the first website which understood the economics of online business. it reflected in its business model and media communication strategy.
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Once a leading music store, CDNOW was one of the most popular shopping stores since 1994. It was founded in February 1994 by twin brothers Jason Olim and Matthew Olim of Ambler, Pennsylvania. In the early days CDNOW was a telnet (text-only) service which was re launched in September 1994. In 2000, CDNOW was bought by Bertelsmann. In late 2002 Amazon.com purchased the rights to CDNOW from Bertelsmann and began operating the CDNOW web site. Although the CDNOW brand is still visible by accessing the web site at www.cdnow.com, it immediately redirects to www.amazon.com.