BRAND PERIODIC TABLE

Hello friends,

There is very common perception that marketing is for nothing. Whenever you ask anyone who is not from marketing background, his simple answer will be nothing new in it, “simple jargons”, no learning and most common answer will be “NO VALUE ADDITION”.

In schooling we have learnt Periodic table of elements in chemistry. On the basis of that table we can find out the characteristics of all elements.

Have you ever think of branding periodic table?
Hopefully not.

Branding is about emotion & rational perception about any thing. This branding periodic table will explain each attribute in most simplest way.

Take a look and now a time to appreciate the creativity, learning and value addition from marketing.

Built by Kolbrener, corporate branding experts






Thanks for visiting..........

PASSIONATE MANAGER

Corporate Blogging: A TRUTH

In last article we have seen what is corporate blogging & how its spreading among companies.

According to Technorati report, in one year corporate blogging increased by 330% which itself shows a huge upthrust is there in it. Today, in every company almost 20% of its marketing budget spend on new ways of promotion like blogs etc. With the increasing demand of blogs as Public Relation, there are number of ways adopted by companies to promote its unique image, products, queries & suggestions etc.

According to Marketing Profs analyst David Felfoldi, six types of blogs prevails in corporate blogging, each one has its own importance.

1. Corporate Newsroom

2. Product blog

3. Developer/channel partner Blog

4. Event/promotional blog

5. CEO/ thought- leader blog (Jason Calacanis of Sequoia Capital)

6. Company evangelist (Matt Cutts, a well-known blogger who works at Google)

7. Internal blogs

Answer of last post are:

Code of conduct: actually its not well defined some of blog experts said that it should be formal but what I thought that if you are initiating something for PR & sifting traffic from your web portal to your blog then code of conduct should be informal and interactive because if the users who posted comments will not be satisfied, they will not come back & share anything with you.

Handling of blogs: as above mentioned there are six major type of corporate blogs and each blog is handle by one senior manager of the deptt. i.e.

· product blog- it will be handled by product development deptt.

· Company evangelist: these blogs are handled by senior level mangers who have lot of experience in particular field because the visitors on this blogs are also well known experts in particular field, so expect quality answer of their queries.

· CEO blog: these blogs are directly taken care by CEOs himself.There is a list of few international & national CEOs

International CEOs

Indian CEOs

Rajesh Jain, CEO of Netcore

Dr. Vivekanand P Kochikar Associate Vice President and Principal Consultant - KM, Infosys Technologies Ltd.

George Eby Mathew Principal & Head of IT management Research, at Infosys

Dina Mehta, Explore Research & Consultancy

Most amazing fact I have seen was government departments of various countries also have their blogs.

Indonesia: Juwono Sudarsono, Minister of Defense

Iran: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President

United Kingdom: David Miliband, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Andrew Wadge, Chief Scientist, Food Standards Agency

United States: Department of Defense

Few days back, I was shocked by seeing India blog& india blogs which contains the database of best Indian blogs with various categories i.e. CEO’s blog, marketing blogs, personal blogs etc. It has database of few thousand of Indian blogs which shows that there is huge growth in Indian blogging sector too.But on the other side if we see Indian comscore report which shows that Internet penetration in India is meagre 3% , around 2.2 crore people out of 1,129,866,154 population (till july 2007).

Benefits of corporate blogging:

1. quickly giving consumers company updates,

2. allowing for open feedback with consumers, and

3. inclusion in search engine indexes, and thus possible increased traffic.

4. Online newsletter with community feedback i.e. ICFAI stockyard (it has no blog but have its forum), google press centre.

5. Information sharing

Have you ever think about the negatives of blogging?

Thanks for visiting..........

PASSIONATE MANAGER

Corporate Blogging: New PR tool?

Today personal writing become professional, initially when this blogging introduced it was for passionate writers but now this blogging takes new turn and become Public Relation (PR) tool.

According to Susane M healthfield (HR expert@ about.com): “What sets blogs apart from other online writing … is their dynamic nature (as opposed to static Web pages) and their voice (style).” The voice of the writer (or writers) of the blog, in a successful blog, is unique to that blog.

In her article, she mentioned seven reasons for starting corporate blogs in detaled manners. Today companies are so much customer centric they are trying to involve lot of customer intraction in product development to meet customer demands. So, companies conduct no. of pilot tests, focus groups, brain storming session etc to know about customers demand, perception, requirements etc… Now blogging help companies in similar & in more refined way. When any new product launch or customer faced any problem retaled to company product he/she can directly communicate to the company professional through the corporate blogs & another most important feature of corporate blogging is company time to time updates about its usage, features & new changes in varity of products.

There are no. of companies in European union which are using “ corporate blogging” as PR tools because it’s a informal communication between customers & companies just like communities & forums. There is partial of companies which are using corporate blogging as PR tool in EU.

According to wiki corporate blog research only 8% (40) of the fortune 500 companies were blogging till (may/2006). In one year, corporate blogs increased to 132 (till june/2007).

Check out the list:

In india when pulsar was launched there was dedicated community of “BAJAJ PULSAR” owners and there in the community they discuss about the features, market response, individuals’ reaction for new pulsar. The interesting thing in that community was that it was started by company employee itself to know about the views & reaction of “BAJAJ PULSAR” owners. Same experiment is done by HONDA motors when it launched “ UNICORN” in India, in the initial phase of launch Indian customers were worrying about the mono-suspension in the bike, so company used community as PR tool to promote its utility & benefits from UNICORN users(innovators).

In India, there are some companies which are using blog as PR tool for its PR & promotions: Some of them are given below:

Tata Interactive Systems

ebay India

Tekriti Software

Score India

Now in india majority of population thought that it’s a boring, non effective & cumbersome medium to promote yourself(company).But Sun microsystem promoting blogging among all its employee than any other company in the world, according to the company 3000/32000 emplyees have their own blog and company CEO have corporate blog there are no. of vistors, third party developers visit company blog.

ISSUES:

Code of conduct , what should be the mode of communication (formal or informal)?

Who will look after these corporate blog i.e. entry level managers, middle level managers or Senior mangers?

THANK YOU

PASSIONATE MANAGER

Blog Sphere & its achievers

Blogging become a passion for writers, techies, editors, students etc. Here on blog one can explain his/her love, passion even anxiety against anyone. Its your personal web page and you have full right to write whatever you want to write.

World Blogsphere:

There are number of bloggers who do blogging but if you ask him that that who is world most famous blogger, he will get stuck----“ Unfortunatelly I was that person who don’t know about such important facts”. It’s a bad impression because if you are doing some very passionately then you should know about its evolution, achievers etc. To avoid such setback for you & me once again I am giving you a glimpse of veterans of BLOGSPHERE.

Lets look at world TOP 10 Bloggers and their job descriptions:

Start from bottom:

No. 10: Mr. Brain Lam – (Technology blog)- popular gadget blog Gizmodo - . 40-50 posts daily.

N0. 09: Mrs. Gina Tarapani- (technology blog)- Gina’s blog

No. 08: Ariana Huffington- (political blog)-The Huffington Post

No. 07: Mark Frauenfelder- (writer’s blog)Boing Boing

No.06: Pete Rojas- (gadget blog) - Engadget

No.05: Joi Ito- (techie blog)- just look at the profile of such personality…Joi’s blog

No.04:Jason Calacanis- (popular personality of Internet)-direct publicly attacking on founder of dig.com Mr. Kevin Rose -Jason’s blog

No. 03: David Sifry- (Founder of technorati.com)-Icon of blogging world- David’s blog

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Waiting for NEXT !!!

No.2: Kevin Rose (founder of dig.com)- Kevin’s blog

Now WORLD’s most famous blogger, god father of blogging……….

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NICK DENTON- Denton is the founder and proprietor of Gawker Media, perhaps the most successful blog network. It includes 14 high-traffic blogs, the largest of them being gadget blog Gizmodo, productivity blog Lifehacker, gaming blog Kotaku and porn blog Fleshbot. He was previously a journalist with the Financial Times.

Denton owns 8 blogs in the Technorati Top 100 list, and has created the most powerful blog empire. His estimated wealth is about $280 million according to the Sunday Times Rich List 2007. While he has downplayed the viability of a blog as a business, many believe that that’s just his way of discouraging competition. With very low costs (including modest wages for staff writers), Denton’s blogging income is guessed to be pretty high. And in total, his blogs have the most links pointing at them. NICK DENTON'S BLOG

Don’t be disheartened that all are foreigners, we Indians are very good in making bypass to achieve success. Lets look at few Indian Bloggers

Trak in – blog on current business movements, if you missed to know about something. You can get full stuff.

Digital Inspiration-1.2 million hits per month, most visited in blog in India. It was started by Mr. Anil Agarwal in year 2004.

Now India’s top bloggers in World TOP 50 BLOGGERS

Neil Patel- Ranked 50 among world top 50 bloggers- Patel has successfully branded himself as one of the top experts on SEO and Internet marketing, including linkbaiting and social media such as Digg or Netscape. This is not only because he finds ways to exploit loopholes in the system to get on the Digg homepage or a high ranking on Google, but because he’s willing to talk about it and share his secrets with others. In addition, he’s done some high-profile publicity, such as publicly challenging Weblogs Inc. owner Jason Calacanis when Calacanis implied that SEO techniques don’t really work — and the high-profile publicity has made Patel one of the top names in the industry.

QuickSprout , Pronet Advertising

Om Malik- ranked 35 among world top 50 bloggers- Malik is a former senior writer for Forbes magazine, one of the original team for Forbes.com, and a former senior writer Business 2.0 magazine. In 2001, he started technology blog GigaOM, which is now in the Top 40 in Technorati. He’s still the editor and chief writer for GigaOM, but he has expanded to form GigaOmniMedia Inc.. Om’s personal blog

It’s a snapshot of world & Indian best bloggers, today when we talked about our blog there was very common reaction from public that Its outdated but I believe If you have creavity, enthusiasm and ability to change with changing market secenario nothing can be outdated…

Blogging is like a business if you have marketing myopia then business will be no more If you have vision, proper strategy and above traits then success will be your next target..

S-Commerce

An innovative concept introduced in India to give dimensions to the service industry & money value to the customers. It’s anew category & brand genre of business model to provide every possible service to the consumer at one place on a single platform called “SUVIDHAA”.

This initiative is developed by Shapoorji Pallonji Group and called as Suvidhaa Infoserve Private Limited.

According to company, IT revolution helped them to develop this concept and but due unavailability of internet across the country, company will introduce “CLICK & MORTAR MODEL”. The SUVIDHAA service will be launce in September, 2007 (in the month of my birth) in 25 cities (tier-1 & tier-2). According to company projections, in next two years this will be available in 75 cities of our country & generate 300000 lacs direct jobs.

An advanced version or prototype of bank’s “single window system” & Andhra government’s unified bill payment model- “e seva” & “mobile shop” joint venture of ESSAR & Virgin mobile . Under one roof, consumers will get the service related to travel (roadways, airways etc), telecommunication, education, telemedicine, entertainment, utilities, finance, sales, job opportunity, e-governance, life style, bill payment etc which are prime & basic requirement of ours.

SUVIDHAA will have three tier distribution network:

1. SUVIDHAA flagship stores (company owned)
2. SUVIDHAA points (neighbor convenience store)
3. Shop-in-Corporate model.

Shop-in-Corporate model is really an interesting model in which company will generates & maintains key Corporate Accounts for companies and their employees.

The issue is does this concept is viable in Indian context where less than 10% people access internet & have huge set of demands and vast geography.

LETS WAIT & WATCH……………..

Brands Become generic or genericized trademark

Its very common in India when one person speaks true pubic called him “Raja Harishchand”, When one become very humble or down to the earth, public like us called him “Gandhi ji” & when one donote something without any interest to someone public start calling him “Karna”.

Now here individual having such characteristics called as product name and these personalities are called as Brand name which symbolize these traits and when each of the trait replaced with following personalities in day to day life become generic brand name or genericized trademark.

It’s a achievement to be an innovator and serve the society with new invention but when this innovation or invention become generic brand name, it’s a biggest setback for brand and company too.

Genericized Trademark: When a brand name become colloquial or generic description for or synonomus with a particular class of product or service is called genericized trademark. list of genericized trademarks

Why It happened?

When a brand name is become so popular, huge market share & no competitor in market, then the product or service replaced with the name of that particular brand.

Lets look at Examples:

Xerox: Xerox launched its first photo copy machine it become huge success and slowly due to viral marketing or buzz, the name of photo state or copy was replaced with Xerox.

Band-aid: In 1921, J&J manufactured first bandage for normal cuts, to wrap burns etc named as band-aid but in later time this become bandage(genericized name) . Every one called up storekepper for band-aid no matters which company it is?

Kleenex: The word Kleenex is now commonly used to describe any soft facial tissue. However, Kleenex is the trademarked name of the soft facial tissue manufactured and sold by the Kimberly-Clark Corporation.

In India context:

Godrej Wardrobes: In Indian homes, marriages etc godrej wardrobes replaced the product name, in Indian families “godrej ke bina ladki ka dahej(dowry) in complete. Its very common in most of Indian families.

Sintex Plastic Tank: People in our country used this brand as generic product name in place of Plastic water tanks.

Amul Butter: Same genericized trademark happened with this brand also.

In Rural India:

Colgate: In our villages common people used to say “jara colgete le ana” means bring toothpaste where he replaced product name with brand name.

Limca : In india, whenever you asked old member of your family for cold drinks he/she come up with name of LIMCA; a generic brand name in elders mind. Its not similar to Xerox,Band-aid or Kleenex but Limca was on the same track.