Tuesday in India: Will You Go "Ah My God!" with New Sedan from Mercedes Benz?

What a feeling!

Mercedes-Benz is trying to make you speechless.

How does it work?

I'm still waiting for #ThatAMGFeeling!


 

P.S. When you’re done reading, I’d love for you to share your favourite campaign this year? Leave a comment or Tweet me, let's chat!

Friday Research: Trick Of Letting Customer Get All Lovey-Dovey With Your Product

When Will You Use This?  

Planning product launches and promotional campaigns.

What’s The Red-Letter Bite Today? 

Theodore: I've never loved anyone the way I loved you. 
Samantha: Me too. Now we know how. 

This quote from the movie Her (2013) wouldn't sound odd until we knew that this dialogue actually happens between a real man and his operating system Samantha. And maybe even then it's not so weird afterall, in today's lonely world people start bonding with various products on deeper and deeper levels.

Current research* suggests an idea that people might be “bonding” with products without even realizing it, and examines whether physically interacting with products in an affectionate manner (e.g. hugging, stroking) might lead people to grow attached to those products.

This research finds that when people performed the affectionate gestures, they grew more attached to the products, and accordingly liked the products more and were more willing to buy them. Authors note that "this was only the case when the designated product had some visual human-like traits (e.g. a human face on the packaging). That’s because affectionate gestures like hugs are usually reserved for human-to-human interactions, and thus the products must be somewhat humanlike for the gesture to result in affectionate feelings." Also, lonely people were even more likely to get attached to a specific product in consequence of performing an affectionate gesture towards it.

Am I So Fond of You Because I Can't Stop Hugging You?

*Hadi, Rhonda and Valenzuela, Ana,"A Meaningful Embrace: Contingent Effects of Embodied Cues of Affection". Journal of Consumer Psychology: 2014. {Thanks for the material}

P.S. When you’re done reading, I’d love for you to share your experience with nurturing customer's attachment? Leave a comment or Tweet me, let's chat!

P.P.S. Need some help on crafting your marketing message? Let's do this together.

Tuesday in India: What Could Make Chopping Trees More Backbreaking? Camlin Knows...

Can't see the wood for the trees?

Can't see the tree for the individual living thing?

Focused on that, Indian stationery company Camlin with a bunch of ever-energetic kids planned a great initiative to make cutting down a living tree tougher.

You'll be surprised.

 

P.S. When you’re done reading, I’d love for you to share your favourite campaign this year? Leave a comment or Tweet me, let's chat!

Friday Research: Don't Let Your Good Will Back The Wrong Horse

When Will You Use This?  

Planning and developing your cause-related marketing (CRM) campaign.

What’s The Red-Letter Bite Today? 

Cause-related marketing does a world of good.

In a cause-related marketing campaign, a company funds specific charity through donations of money (or products) which are linked to consumer participation and product sales. Earlier it was noted that consumers respond more favorably to CRM campaigns when there is a conceptual “fit” between the activities and goals of a company and sponsored charity. Think of Starbucks, for example, "which donates a percentage of their profits to develop social welfare programs in the farming communities that produce their supply of coffee beans."

Current research* investigated the impact of perceptual fit on CRM campaigns and found that perceptual fit has an overall positive effect on consumer responses, independent of how consumers feel about the sponsored charity. For example, the results of the study no.1 suggested that perceptual fit between the lemonade color (pink) and charity (breast cancer) positively impacted consumer response.

Red Color of Nike’s Shoelaces Fit Perceptually With AIDS Red Color Ribbon.

Addition To Your Bag of Tricks    

This research shares a few insights to help you in planning your CRM campaigns. As authors suggest, "firms interested in exploring CRM as a promotional tool can reap the benefits of CRM without constraining their sponsorships to conceptually related charities. Rather, firms can partner with conceptually unrelated charities by finding creative ways of generating perceptual fit. For example, a baked goods company passionate about conservation efforts could introduce panda-shaped cookies to sponsor the World Wildlife Fund. Although baked goods and wildlife conservation are not conceptually related, this research suggests that the perceptual fit created by panda-shaped cookies will lead to a positive bump in consumer response. The caveat, however, is that this strategy will be most effective in situations where consumers are unlikely to focus extensively on the overall fit. Such contexts may include billboard, online banner, and point-of-display advertisements."

  

*Kuo A., Rice D.H., "The impact of perceptual congruence on the effectiveness of cause-related marketing campaigns", Journal of Consumer Psychology: July, 2014. {Thanks for the material}

P.S. When you’re done reading, I’d love for you to share your experience with cause-related marketing? Leave a comment or Tweet me, let's chat!

P.P.S. Need some help on crafting your marketing message? Let's do this together.

Tuesday in India: This Dog Will Move You In Plain and Simple Way

Every dog has his day.

Eye Bank Association of India put this Labrador's day to the spotlight.

Casual, free and easy but packed with a very special message.

Warning: it might actually warm the cockles of your heart!

  

P.S. When you’re done reading, I’d love for you to share your favourite campaign this year? Leave a comment or Tweet me, let's chat!

Friday Research: Don't Underestimate the power of GREEN consumers

When Will You Use This?  

Planning campaigns and promotions for your environmentally friendly products.

What’s The Red-Letter Bite Today? 

More and more companies start producing products targeting environmentally friendly consumers and the shelves of  “green” products are expanding daily. However, are most consumers willing to buy environmentally friendly products? Does the perception of green product's reduced efficacy or higher cost still exist?


Current research* found that consumers with stronger green consumption values (i.e., “green” consumers) tend to be more concerned with financial savings, are more likely to consider product reuse, and are less likely to dispose of products. Moreover, this study revealed the fact that green consumers tend to evaluate an array of product attributes, such as effectiveness, style, and aesthetic appeal, of environmentally-friendly products more favorably than do less green consumers in order to overcome possible financial and physical resource concerns associated with environmentally-friendly products.

Riding on the waves of green: Eco Friendly - the new black?

Addition To Your Bag of Tricks    

This research shares a few insights to help you in planning your environmentally-based marketing actions. As authors suggest, "consumers with stronger green consumption values may need less convincing to purchase environmentally-friendly products as they appear to evaluate the non-environmental attributes of these products more favorably without prompting. Given this, we suggest that marketers of environmentally-friendly products may benefit from focusing their marketing efforts on consumers with weaker green consumption values since those with stronger green consumption values are motivated to purchase these products on their own.<..> We believe the identification of the relationship between green consumption values and conservation of financial and personal resources will be of great use in further understanding how to increase environmentally-friendly consumption."

Finally, the authors of this research developed a scale of green consumption values - GREEN scale - which predicts consumer preference for environmentally friendly products. If you're interested in assessing green consumption values, the six items of the GREEN scale are as follows:

- It is important to me that the products I use do not harm the environment
- I consider the potential environmental impact of my actions when making many of my decisions
- My purchase habits are affected by my concern for our environment
- I am concerned about wasting the resources of our planet
- I would describe myself as environmentally responsible
- I am willing to be inconvenienced in order to take actions that are more environmentally friendly. 

  

*Haws, Kelly L., Karen Page Winterich, and Rebecca Walker Naylor,"Seeing the world through GREEN-tinted glasses: Green consumption values and responses to environmentally friendly products". Journal of Consumer Psychology: 2014. {Thanks for the material}

P.S. When you’re done reading, I’d love for you to share your experience with environmentally freindly consumers? Leave a comment or Tweet me, let's chat!

P.P.S. Need some help on crafting your marketing message? Let's do this together.

Tuesday in India: No Headache, What You See Is What You Get

Keep it short and simple.

Tata Docomo's new campaign is based on KISS principle and it hits exactly where it's supposed to.

Clarity at its best.

 

P.S. When you’re done reading, I’d love for you to share your favourite campaign this year? Leave a comment or Tweet me, let's chat!

Friday Research: Dilemma of Sharing With Mom But Not With Facebook Buddies

When Will You Use This?  

Planning electronic and traditional word-of-mouth campaigns and promotions.

What’s The Red-Letter Bite Today? 

Word of mouth has always been a powerful marketing method and now, social media platforms enabled people to share their opinions and views in a flash. But are your customers really willing to make those awaited recommendations? Is there any difference between online and face to face word-of-mouth refferals?


Current research* found that consumers are generally less likely to offer electronic word-of-mouth on online social sites (sWOM) than traditional word-of-mouth (WOM). This study also revealed the fact that individual’s need for self-enhancement reduces the difference between consumers’ willingness to provide sWOM versus WOM.

sWOM refferals increase social risk?

Addition To Your Bag of Tricks    

This research shares a few insights to help you in planning your word-of-mouth promotions. As authors suggest, "first, heightening consumers’ need to self-enhance can encourage word of mouth referral. Some have suggested that pre-announcing the arrival of a new product achieves this; future products are inherently less certain but more interesting than existing products and allow consumers to self-enhance by talking about them. Second, marketers could take steps to ensure that consumers do not feel threatened by social judgments and sanctions as a result of sWOM. Perhaps providing opportunities for consumers to selectively share their opinions with members of their social network might help achieve this. Google appears to have recognized this with their “Google Circles” feature in their social media platform."

  

*Eisingericha A. B., Chunb H.H., Liuc Y., Jiad H., Bell S.J. Why recommend a brand face-to-face but not on Facebook? How word-of-mouth on online social sites differs from traditional word-of-mouth. Journal of Consumer Psychology: July, 2014. {Thanks for the material}

P.S. When you’re done reading, I’d love for you to share your experience with word-of-mouth? Leave a comment or Tweet me, let's chat!

P.P.S. Need some help on crafting your marketing message? Let's do this together.

Tuesday in India: Holy Mackerel, Are We All Living For Likes?

Self-love has never been more promoted than nowadays.

We click selfies with every blink, we hunt for 'Likes' with every post...Louis XIV, the Sun King, you would have loved this century!

Following the trends of current culture, Myntra, India's online fashion retailer, has launched a new ad which promotes the idea of "Get the looks, get the likes". Beautifully executed but I have troubles with liking the idea behind it, you?

P.S. When you’re done reading, I’d love for you to share your favourite campaign this year? Leave a comment or Tweet me, let's chat!