Indian industries behave differently in all aspects sans one: Mobile. Quite like a coalition Government that does nothing much but think, stalwarts of Indian industries have soberly put their thinking caps on but refuse to actively plunge into the new digitization wave. There is no denying that the Mobile hurricane has hit the Indian shores yet Indian giants seem wary of the untested waters.
The Mobile Digitization wave is no phenomenon in silos rather it’s the convergence of everything that encompasses personal computing, mobile, social and local. Trends that have shut all skepticism around procrastination of India’s mobile strategy reveal:
i. Multi-screen Eco-system: Media consumption is now evenly spread across multiple screens –television (both mundane and smart), notebooks, smart phones and tablets – more often than not, all of which are connected. As much does inter-device operability/ compatibility evade my understanding, the marketing alarm does ring a bell: your customer continuously navigates across multiple devices, keep up buddy else your closest foe will accompany his multi-device journey and win him over.
ii. Location: The marriage of modern networking architecture and ever-evolving smart phones has led to a progeny of always-on-the-go customer blessed with the power of filtering relevant information amidst data overload. A byte of irrelevant media being pushed down their screens will be turned a blind eye to. Impertinent for the marketeers now is to localize and communicate with their customers (more mobile than ever) in street-view customization; hand-picked offers as they pass by your store or brutal still pop-up offers when they are in your competitor store.
iii. Video: Faster than the transition from 2G to 3G has been the shift from audio to video consumption. With more of handhelds contributing to India’s internet usage, video views (often owing to the big chunk of entertainment) and consequent peer to peer video sharing expedite the switch to video-based data consumption, or if I may say so video interaction (possibly aided by rich media eventually). Power packed video content has the potential to be viral when made engaging and entertaining and has started playing pivotal in both luring and retaining customers.
iv. Applications: When the time spent on Apps environment is greater than that spent on internet based environment for most smart phone users of the day, it’s definitely -an app-world after all! On-demand service, popularity and convenience dominate the Appo-sphere but the key to survival is proportionate blend of entertainment and utility. The digital customer welcomes a brand as he steps into the brand specific App, but, contrary to the ancestral habits of loyal-customer, is never shy to switch to another brand.
Indian marketeers are now conversant with these trends and no more convincing is required as to ‘why mobile’. Customer centricity has been the life-blood of Marketing’s and its founding principle evolve each time a tidal wave like the mobile hits. Omni-presence across all devices a customer could switch between is the first step on the mobile ladder. For the next rungs of the mobile ladder, watch this space..
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Thoda hai thode ki zarurat hai.. marketing phir bhi yahaan mobile hain!
Ya I know it doesn’t sound as melodious as the original song, but you know what I don’t care. None of us do, right? We are more vocal, more careless (in overlooking all the fine prints) than ever before! Texting on the go, sharing on WhatsApp, talking (fukaat, if I may say so) on Viber; we see, we share. Rather we share whatever we see. We now want people to know what which trending article we read, we are busy flooding others’ wall with Farmville scores; often unaware that our updates fall on deaf ears, oops, unsubscribed ears :0
However, not all ears are deaf; and certainly not those of marketeers lightning-struck with the ‘m’ word. Ubiquity of the hand-helds, proliferation of Smart devices and (as if we haven’t had enough pointers already) GOI’s proposal to dole out freebie cell phones has given a wake-up call to the most traditional of marketers, now clamoring for a small bite of the mobile pie. M-engagement seems to be the hardest nut to crack.
And what makes all brand managers fret over mobile marketing? Especially when there is no denying that mobile has arrived and is here to stay. Is reach an issue? You must be kidding. The grape vine says India has more cellular connections than toilets! There is neither dearth of subscribers nor lack of affordable technology (at least till the new spectrum auction 
). In fact, there is abundance of data; with people tweeting, sharing, and rather embracing multi-device connectivity, opulence of customer data spins a marketeer’s head. The early believers of m-world have nailed it precisely: m-engagement is the way forward i.e. engagement which is pull-based, conversation-oriented, and perpetual. Campaign based brand activations are a passé now, for mobile marketeers have awakened to the fresh funda of Customer Conversation Continuum.
All this is interesting courtesy the ever-blurring lines between social, mobile and app worlds. Evangelists proclaim m-engagement is all but customer acquisition; it’s a dialogue that begins post acquiring the customer. Since donkey’s years, alluring a customer post the purchase revolves around gratification and the ever powerful FREE word. Mobile has made this instant. Claim a voucher now! Like to get freebies!
While brand managers bite the bullet and realize that a million fans on Facebook or a thousand voucher claims will never make the customers loyal or brand ambassadors, customers will switch and switch rampantly from one brand to the other, wherever there is more on offer. Instant gratification doesn’t produce a sticky customer, on the contrary, it empowers them to churn, to the latest and biggest offer.
To win a share of tab, like on Facebook is EASY, more like 500 friends in our networks but engagement is as restricted as the best friends group we create. A customer doesn’t expect her favorite brands to revolutionize overnight, she just wants her favs to walk alongside and adopt technology her way – To be there at her beck and call, only when she extends her arm, respecting her privacy, convenience and whims. It’s high time for marketeers to let go of the perennial habit of feeding all available channels with promotions, inundating the latest found touch-point with intrusive one-way communication. Alike the communication evolution, customers have evolved too. Nothing stops them to put their foot down and unsubscribe from your monotonous monologues.
All the big buzzwords of Augmented Reality, NFC, Hyper Localization need to be very carefully balanced and the dosage optimized. Probably then brand managers will successfully convert mobile customers to their Brand Evangelists alike HOGs of the world.
“Tum ko dekha toh yeh design aaya!”
Onida’s campaign marks the shift to customer-led era. When the brand let go of the iconic “Neighbour’s envy, owner’s pride” tagline to embrace customer supremacy, the marketing world was awakening to a new sunrise. The march towards absolute customer intimacy had begun – with corporate research teams practically living in with the consumers to understand their implicit needs and incorporating customer voice in their value proposition. Onida understood Indians’ need to switch on their ACs before reaching home by coming closer to the customer. Godrej’s attempt to co-create innovative furniture to suit multiple needs through their ‘U&Us’ prove that even traditional firms do not want to lose out on this trend.
Co-creation is not new to Indian customers. It existed right from the day you went to the nukkad chai shop and asked for a ‘special adrak-wali kadak chai’ (strong tea with ginger). It had deeper roots with Indian consumer right from the time you asked your local tailor to custom-make Amitabh-like bell bottoms to instances when you requested special songs in Chhayalok’s ‘Aap ki farmaaish’! Value – creation in partnership with customer is not new to India, especially when unorganized retail has been the king of Indian market. In your visits to your closest restaurant, the waiter knows you don’t want garlic in any of the dishes because there is no standardized protocol like a Mc Donald’s burger. Personalized service taking in customer preferences has been the norm, mind you, not exception in Indian mom-and-pop stores.
I call this nascent co-creation as in all the stated examples the focus is to improve the product offering, suit it to the customers’ palate and increase the customer satisfaction level. The interference by the customer in the initial stages reduced the probability of dissonance between customer expectation and product’s value offering.
In today’s era of WoW (word of web), co-creation has seen umpteen variants. It ranges from customer’s sheer nod to a new concept in a focus group study to developing the product (as in Facebook’s translation to vernaculars). Recent case in point, Google+ limited edition test run in its dire chase to challenge arch rival FB, manifests the change in authorities in the marketing scenario. The has been a tsunami of upheavals from Henry Ford’s “Any colour – so long as it’s black” to “Mera wala blue”. Initiatives like crowdsourcing done by Maggi and Lays to design new flavours are risk-minimizing techniques. Instead of doing the entire R&D and applying permutations to gauze customer preferences, you directly ask them the same. There is not only lower risk of failure but also higher levels of customer engagement, harnessing the brand association. Marketers acknowledge this transition from production-led to customer-led market and encourage their buyers to demand more/ altered value offering.
Co-creation is another tool to involve the customer with your Brand. This age of technology does not let a PoD be a differentiating factor for long. Our brightest innovation loses out to the consumer in days’ time and our competitive advantage becomes more vulnerable to replication with every passing second. My Maggi Story featuring on the packaging strengthens my bonds with the Brand and suddenly I become a part of the Brand. The union of the Brand and the customer definitely meets the condition of ‘whole greater than sum of parts’. This is validated by the loud voice of customers defending their favorite Brands in online forums. They are the spokesperson of their favourite Brand.
Co-creation of Brand equity is also happening the customer way, especially in today’s interconnected world. Today a Brand as is only as strong as its twublic- image (public- image on Twitter) and only as popular as its FB page’s fans! Reviews on public forums make or break a product/ Brand. WoW decides the fate of a company and this fact has led to Brands investing billions to save their face on social networks. The customer today is empowered and is led by the ‘haq se maango’ theme. Gap logo change and the consequent hoopla made it to the boardrooms of many corporate and came as a punch in the face to those who denied this supreme customers’ arrival to the world.
Corporate are taking the crowdsourcing route even for designing their strategies! Latest competition Nissan Student Brand Manger not only forced contestants to rake their brains for marketing innovations for Nissan but the winners also are acting as Nissan’s flag bearers to promote the Brand and strengthen its connection with the youth. Various venture capitalists are now floating B-plan competition with a vow to finance the best innovation. Besides nurturing talent, corporate are resorting to off-the-grid concept generation as these are the voice of the customers they choose to please.
‘Co-creation’ as a noun is often making to news headlines with corporate giants to start-ups walking the same road. On its fifth anniversary, Radio One allowed its audience to select the songs to be played; it did what Chhayalok used to do a decade back! I fear this word may soon be over-used with every marketing initiative to be coined as co-creation. Sheer customer understanding and tweaking one’s offering cannot be called co-creation. Though the line may appear very thin, it’s different. I am sure you are reminded of Maggi Tomato Ketchup! This recall is the premise of co-creation where customer intimacy is the key.
Coming back to the future, scope of co-creation dazzles me. With blurring differentiation between products and increasing empowerment of customers, co-creation in future will create newer milestones and break its own records. It may lead to a geek designing a new car and asking Merc to make it, who knows? But one thing that I would want to foresee in near future is co-creation bridging the urban-rural divide in India. It will complete the lap that Godrej ChotuKool had started. Imagine a farmer voicing his requirements of technology where his tractor can be run on solar power. Or a rural household elaborating that it needs a large fridge that stores all the produce of a season before they find good prices to sell; the condition being it runs on cow dung!
The rural market of India is untapped and waiting for another revolution as sachetization. The rural junta’s growing aspiration buoyed by their buying power will lead to change of focus on Indian corporate world. Certain FMCG giants are already experimenting with formats suited to rural India. Involvement of the rural customer in generating these concepts eases out the bewilderment of the marketing department. Microtization of services is a research topic now but pretty soon, it would be reality when an Indian IT giant would maintain the automated irrigation facilities of a village or Pizza Hut would be catering to a rural wedding! :-0
In this ‘small world’ innovation will now on be driven by aam-junta (common man). They know what they need and are bold enough to demand it. It’s the time of customer churn but co-creation is the light at the end of the tunnel. A company that pauses to listen to its customer, bridges the distance between its research centre and the end-consumer, walks that extra mile to incorporate customer’s voice stands tall amidst all Tom, Dick and Harrys simply by getting closer to the customer. Engaging the consumer with your Brand is the key success mantra because ‘yeh jo public hai yeh sab jaanti hai!’ (the crowd knows it all)
‘For men may come and men may go but I stay on forever’
Amidst the ever ephemeral “marketing trends” certain philosophy stands eternal! 4 Ps, STP, 5 forces to name a few. This relatively inconspicuous breed of marketing that I prefer calling ‘Affect-ive Marketing’ belongs to the same genre of perennial marketing principles. It is only ‘not-so-obvious’!
It wears no mask, has no charade but is too humble to boast its presence in the rings since donkey’s years. What heart is to human beings, Affective marketing is to marketing! Human heart is not only the most vital organ but is also the most irrational fraction of human whole. To target human ‘affection’ or to effectively ‘affect’ prospects has always been a marketing ploy. Affection and effective together form the semantic ‘Affective’.
A Brand endures the test of time only when it finds a place in the hearts of consumers and evokes affectionate customer relationships. Campaigns like ‘Humara Bajaj’,'Amul-the taste of India’,'Suddh Dhara’ were affective and thereby, successful in surpassing time horizon. Even today marketeers try the same formula and ‘this old wine in new bottle’ has repeatedly paid dividend as evident in ‘Bleed Blue’ or ‘KKR tension mat le yaar’ targeting crazy Indian cricketing spirit.
To achieve a continual share of wallet, a brand has to do it the ‘affective’ way. Customer interactions alone bear little returns in this multi-channel age. Customer engagement is the order of the day and ‘affective’ marketing the key to generate/sustain audience interest. This lead to the unison of the brand and the customer where they start speaking for one another. The brand taking toil to incorporate customer voice into its product mix and the customer vehemently defending its favourite brand on public forums.
Affective Marketing
Super brands like Facebook have taken customer engagement to the event of translating their page through crowd sourcing! The social graph becomes a very conducive space if your brand has some affectionate patrons (read, properly engaged customers) as often they take angelic avatars to negate negative buzz around. Collaboration between the brand and its customers is quintessential in manifesting the social footprint.
While AT&T proudly can boast of a wonderful customer service on the net that has altered its company’s twitter trend from Thumbs Down to Thumbs Up, recent Vodafone incident marks a horrendous Social Media failure. Companies have now boarded the Social Media flight but often forget to put on seatbelts. They fail to estimate the damage that an ignored ‘dislike’ can entail or the customer confidence that a prompt response can instill. Tackling customer affection is no more the cherry on top the cake but the dough itself; if you aren’t cooking it the affective way, well, you aren’t cooking at all!
Do I sound obsessed with the words ‘customer’ and ‘me’? None but my mentor is to blame! In one of our conversation about social media he brought up ‘CustoMEr’…No, it’s not a typo but customer with a capital ME. Sounds geeky, does it? As you proceed reading this blog, I am sure you would find out there’s no differentio-integral calculus or any rocket-science here. It’s all about realizing that ‘There’s a little bit of ME in every customer’s life.‘
Let’s get back to where this discussion started- the Social Media. The entire web-space is all about ME! And Social media is so potent because that’s a platform where the ME of every individual gets a dice to voice opinion, to share ideas, caution others of one’s mistake and learn from others’; where an individual is a user-id, a status message, a face behind that ‘green light’; anything but an anonymous member of a herd. Social networks thrive because they give a voice to an id, humane opinion to a silent profile; an identity to an Internet page. Each of this individually and/or combined form the ME I have been referring time and again. My friend-list, my communities, my tweets; it’s all about ME honey!
Age of custoMErs
Social Media is the boldest manifestation of customerization however seeds of custoMErization were planted the day mass production was burnt on a pyre; when a generic and bland black led to a rainbow of customer choice/options. Even Sachetization is a milestone in the journey of custoMErization when manufacturers had to do away with ‘one-size fits all’ approach and break their offerings quantified to varied requirements. Convergence or bundling of products/services as per consumer’s requirement is another illustration of ME taking market dynamics by storm. It has arrived and arrived with a thunder. Now the size of the cake has to be modified as per individual’s bite!
Marketing constitution now draws from major political constitutions in terms of ‘freedom of expression’. A company’s success is determined not only by sales figure but its ability to engage its customers. It depends on well is a corporate listening to its customers; how well is it catering to the ME of each custoMEr. This ME factor is now embedded intricately with any customer. In short you can take the customer out of ME but you cannot take the ME out of custoMEr. So Happy CustoMErization people! 
In a fervent mood to get back home, my last-minute plan could onl
y ac
commodate an Ac-2 tier ticket for an ‘only’ 30hours journey. Besides the two movies and a book, what kept me amused was the uninterrupted stream of hawkers. And mind you, it’s not merely about the red-attired pantry-car staff trying to sell cold samosas yelling ”garam samose”; neither about the jhalmuri-wala you patiently wait for. This blog is about the myriad moving, rather, rolling marketplace called Railways.
Since my childhood, I have been tempted to trains- there has always been something more to its inherent charisma of drawing naive eyeballs. It represented a cadre of illegal offerings that my sane and hygiene-conscious parents would never succumb to and
I would never tire demanding (in vain undoubtedly): the cholera-endowed (so vouched many ‘wise’ people around me) aam-panna, the unhygienic yet seductively alluring kulfi (which was always made of undrinkable water); the cheap and multi-coloured katthi-meethi lozenge; the list goes on and on. A little independence and just enough pocket-money opened the gates to this heaven and now in reminiscence I realize ”aspiration needn’t necessarily arise out of positive publicity” or ”aspirational brands could well be unbranded”.
Even years later, a rail journey is equally entertaining and (if you pause to notice,) illuminating even today! National and regional sentiments run parallelly as two railway tracks- each city brings its own share of variety to the shaking table.
At each state border occurs a transition to the local taste. Come Bihar-Bengal border and enters peppy Jhalmuri, cross Tamil-Andhra border and welcome the cashew-vendors. No rocket science in this, right? Then why am I reinventing the wheel?
Because this 365-day circus called Indian Railways depict the organized modus operandi of the so-called Unorganized Retail. Be it local or express train, some form of retail in all possible permutation and combination of product and communication mix is omnipresent. Each station has its fleet of hawkers: the chaiwalas, the samosa and puri vendors; and amazing is the co-ordination among them: each of them operate in mutually agreed-upon zones and do not tread into each other’s territory. (I have so often seen them changing compartments to avoid any sort of tussle.) Live and let live, rather sell and let sell is their mantra. Awesome is the synchronization they have with the ever-delayed schedules of Indian Railways. Even at 2am, you could be woken up by a “chai chai” somewhere! How many times did you actually find a station devoid of hawkers??
Strange is the game and equally strange are its rules. KYC doesn’t play too important a role here. Rather focus is on generalizing the requirements of this diverse population and matching the resources at hand. No customization yet the products sell, from tea to tooth-brushing daatun, from coffee to cold-drinks, from books to bindi, from pens to puri; the list continues! I believe this has happened with many of us: we boarded a local train empty-handed and ended up buying ‘three bagsful’ of something or the other:
ü ‘one for my master’: here master being the regular household requirements
ü ‘One for my dame’: the churis, bindis, and similar paisa-wasool stuff that earns the lion’s share in ladies compartment in particular
ü ‘And one for the little boy who lives down the lane’: it comprises all the forbidden childhood temptations that I have mentioned earlier that satisfies the child in me, you or every adult.
Well….. to come back to my story past all the gyan, I must tell 30 hours, (rather 33 hours courtesy Railway Standard Time ) did fly in a jiffy for you can never be alone or get bored in a train. It’s the only place where you have uninterrupted entertainment and company (whether you like it or not) and in case you have no better work you can also make some business sense out of it as I did.
India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters but the Men in Blue are my Demigods and Cricket is my only Religion!!
The school pledge needs to be revised immediately, especially after the historical World Cup 2011 win by India. It was an epic in Indian cricket history re-sung for the Devata of Indian Cricket to award him the “proudest moment” of his life: to win the World Cup and to initiate the biggest Celebration in the galaxy. The BCCI declared a prize of one crore rupees to each Indian cricketer the moment the team laid hands on the Cup coveted by a more than a billion people and no one raised an eye-brow.
And as Dhoni rightly said a loss in the final would have raised a number of questions- why Srishant and not Ashwin? Why Dhoni not Yuvi at three down? But the biggest question was left unsaid – what would have happened to the market value of these eleven demigods who then would have had to bear the wrath of the agitated Indian junta and turn incognito. Mind you I am not equating them to commodities to talk of their market value but exposing the true colours of India!
Ours is a hero-worshipping nation. This huge Indian population needs an idol to garland, to worship, to pamper in his success only to throw him to Satan in his hard days! This cricket junta sighs with each dot balls, shrieks with each dropped catch and cries with each fallen wicket; for them their idol is only as good as his last match’s score and when the tournament is as huge as World Cup, Indians are merciless. This has been repeated more often than not in Cricket history and marketers have been forced to re-plan their advertising plans simply because their brand endorser ‘gave away’ a critical match!
The Coveted CUP!
This time Team India has been real lucky and has ended a dry run of 28 years to hit on a fortune of glory, a historical win to atone all their sins and most importantly to rake in moolah. The World Cup trophy shown above has been the center of attraction of the entire globe but what demands attention is the dashboard behind it with a plethora of brands sponsoring it. For these brands the World Cup is probably of more importance than that to the teams- their bread and butter is at stake here.
Riding on the popular wave of this cricket-frenzied nation, the marketers find it difficult to plan their move as so much depends on the unpredictability of the game- a single delivery can not only turn a match but can also alter the fate of all the brands associated with that team. Cricket, thus, is a gamble played by the marketing giants, by advertiser to lure the two billion eye-balls as there is nothing more Unifying in India than cricket, nothing more emotional than cricket and possibly nothing more entertaining as cricket. In India, the entire nation actually eats drinks and breathes Cricket.
The effect of any India-Pak match
This sentiment is so explicit that marketers pour in unprecedented amounts for their promotional campaigns, rope in cricketers for promoting shampoo, eggs, anything under the sun: when even a modest and conservative insurance firm launches catchy slogans in cricketing lingo, when the country runs wild. So fierce are the campaigns that the entire nation roars to a company’s slogan that pledges to uphold the spirit of Indian cricket. It’s a nation where overnight each Indian ‘Bleeds Blue’ on Facebook, thousands of whom are ignorant that it’s a mere promotional slogan and has nothing to do with Team India otherwise. They identify more with the ‘swoosh’ than poor Stumpy, the mascot of the World Cup 2011.
Nike's Bleed Blue campaign
The Forgotten mascot, Stumpy
And the story does not end here. It is not only mega cricketing events like World Cup that is paid undue respect and importance in India, but also the regular matches. The newest entrant T20 even in its domestic club avatar has already lot of attention of the marketing world; so much so that Volkswagen actually released an IPL version of their Vento car!
It’s a weird pitch for the marketers to bat on and each lost opportunity to talk to the masses equates to a full toss misjudged and missed that could otherwise have been a boundary! You need to guard your stumps from the competitor’s advertising doosra yet maintain a successful eyeballs-vs-dollar-spent strike rate. The wave of cricket in India surges higher than a Tsunami and more often than not there is no rhyme or reason for the extremism displayed by the crowd. To the marketing world Cricket is the only platform where the entire Indian market with all its segments intact is available as the audience; where the tension involved, if efficiently wrapped in your communication, earns you a space in the heart of the Dillogical nation; where Team India members currently are Gods personified. Needless to say, it happens only in (Cricketable) India!
And marketers continue to target masses through Cricket..
That is how I began this week as well, anticipating for the Weekend and owe (like you of course ) a small note of appreciation having survived another Monday! At least by Tuesday all of us have had the hang of it; we have entered the Weekly Warzone if not, already faced some music as well. Adding more tantrums to your Tuesday- they have the scantiest regard for your post-Monday- drowsy syndrome and won’t give you a microsecond more to settle or let your hair down- comes Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday. As you dig into the piles of folders on your uncluttered desktop or possibly search for the last saved version of your project document, Microsoft releases Advance Security Bulletin on the SECOND Tuesday of every month (the notification is released on the previous Thursday) that is available to registered users. The aim was to collate all the dispersed security patches and important non-security updates published sporadically over time into periodic organized monthly updates. Alike all customer-friendly companies Microsoft too propagated the Patch Tuesday updates mandating ease of users yet this phenomenon has counter-intuitively increased complexities at the user-end. :0
The huge number of simultaneous updates confounds the user. Keeping track of all these system-related issues – most of whom are not at all bothered by such technical details – is a Herculean task and anything but necessary. After all one should devote time to do what they are supposed to do and not waste time following system notification.
And as most of us believe Marketing people are a breed of smart people who exploit every opportunity that they can lay hands on. Patch Tuesday is no exception- an entire business model has evolved around it.
“Every Patch Tuesday sets off a race where companies try to get their computers patched before they accidentally hit a website with hacker code,” says Brian Livingston, editor of Windows Secrets newsletter. Patch Tuesday is a race between the business houses to protect their data mountains and the hackers to dig creepers in it. The winner is inconsequential as long as the ‘show’ goes on! Some offer an update, others simplify it and guide the user, others try to impregnate it with viruses such that another set of updates get ready by next Patch Tuesday. An Invisible Hand operates here too though I am not very sure whose is it? Microsoft’s? Hackers’? Or simply that of the week’s?? Does it make any sense?? If not, I will patch it the next Tuesday…
Patch for Patches
Mutilated by Monday!! 
Every Sunday evening most of us curse poor Monday, wishing for the weekend to last a little longer. Probably Monday also curses its stars that make it bear the entire world’s hatred! Probably it is also jealous of neighbor Sunday which rules as the king of week in terms of fun and frolic. Today I aim to cheer up poor Monday a bit by reminding it of the importance Marketing gives to it and how Monday has been rechristened.
CYBER MONDAY
Shop till your mouse drops!
If you have let your imagination run wild, hold your horses as Cyber Monday has nothing to do with your cyber workspace or report deadlines. Relax. Cyber Monday, the first weekday after Thanksgiving, is considered the busiest online shopping day of the year. This acts as a close twin to Black Friday the day immediately following Thanksgiving that, for retailers and many shoppers, is the kickoff for the Christmas season. Coined by Shop.org Cyber Monday, however, has emerged as the Christmas kickoff for online retailers and shoppers.
The modern junta buys Christmas present online and Cyber Monday is just another excuse to dole out offers to cyber customers to execute their purchases. Various forms of discounts and other incentives act as bait to allure the early-birds and the number of purchases made online purchases made this day is steadily on the rise.
A Cyber Monday promotional
GREEN MONDAY
Ebay christened the second Monday of December as Green Monday as a marketing campaign for late-season shopping. It marks the online shoppers’ last chance to order items without having to pay for expedited shipping (which usually means the end of free shipping offers).
Statistics of recent years (graph given below http://blog.compete.com/2009/01/05/green-monday-holiday-shopping/) show the increasing popularity of Green Monday as it gives the tech-savvy online customers an add-on incentive to execute the last minute festive purchases without high shipping costs with a click of a mouse.
Purchase trends on Special Mondays
This nomenclature reveals an interesting aspect of marketing- of bottling the same old wine in a new bottle! Traditional practices too include many such variations to spur festive demands or to incentivize the customer to execute the buy right away. The dot com merely takes the same formula and nicely wraps it up in an online avatar added with the punch of a new term. Cyber, Green or Pink- Mondays now have a range of new adjectives to choose from and strangely enough none of these are demeaning! Interestingly and almost out of nowhere, Mondays have shed the bland and unglamorous ‘boring first weekday’ image to a new make-over milestone on the Marketing calendar.
I hope the readers found this story of boring Monday somewhat interesting and that poor Monday doesn’t consider itself mundane any more.
It is late Sunday evening and I am already having Monday Morning Blues! The ‘week’ is a periodic phenomenon that runs perpetually without a comma or a semi-colon. And in this seven-day schedule we swing and sway as days go by.
Monday morning syndrome to Friday evening’s party- the week to has its quota of stories. Watch this space for more.
Story of the WEEK
