Social Media and New Markets

Though they are pretty average in China, they have some other key geographies an segments with Audi rating 1 million cars for its 2010 target, in the US..China however, sells 1 million cars a month and they are probably ahead on hybrids also.

That brings the next moot point. Why would anyone forego his small budget and pay a high premium for a hybrid? Prius is a good story, so is the small car revolution be it BYD or Nano or Maruti. Also distribution is important.

VW chairman making his point clear in front of the Touareg hybrid..Touareg area sub saharan tribe that brave the Sahara..

However , VW launch budgets in India seem fine for a small aspiration, not a large footprint of a Suzuki. Is that just the test phase?

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This #AlanMulallyHigh seminar was tweeted by @boutblack to catch up on Cars as US Sales grow with 17% share for Ford and while China has introduced budget trims to keep customers happy, India is glowing with 180000 cars twice in a row in 2010..

We take pride of place as the undisputed #1 in all Marketing , Social Media and.. WordPress, anyone? | Advantage social http://ow.ly/1evrx
about 1 hours ago via HootSuite

The Chinese banks look comfortable as tools of state policy http://ow.ly/1gmES
about 2 hours ago via HootSuite

ADVANTAGES.US serves india stock interests & global stock analysis! #1 in #India #China #Investing #Business #Finance & #marketing #postrank
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The Retail Banking coalition | Advantage Lifestyle, HDFC Kotak raise rates http://ow.ly/1e4Wv
about 4 hours ago via HootSuite

Daimler got out of its holdings in Tata Motors with TaMo rolling out its own Aria, Nano The baton passes to Citi for $450 m #AlanMulallyHigh
44 minutes ago via HootSuite

Please track the automakers’ #AlanMulallyHigh seminars @boutblack as car sales rebound in February – posting auto industry updates
42 minutes ago via HootSuite

Geneva continued the green theme with Porsche Cayenne S, 911 GT3 R Hybrid, and the high-end 918 Spyder prototype #AlanMulallyHigh
40 minutes ago via HootSuite

Lotus and Lexus also ended up showing hybrids, Chinese manufacturers taking advantage of the same to sell simple cars #AlanMulallyHigh
36 minutes ago via HootSuite

Ford is in the meantime using Twenty somethings to soup up its Voice activated SYNC to add Facebook and Twitter to the dash #AlanMulallyHigh
34 minutes ago via HootSuite

Chinese BYD is the first in the market with the E6 Electric battery/Car. Don’t drink the battery fluid but kids may love it #AlanMulallyHigh
30 minutes ago via HootSuite

Audi’s A1 eTron Mega City Vehicle was unveiled at the auto show, while VW brought the non eectri VW Polo to the show #AlanMulallyhigh
23 minutes ago via HootSuite

The new small cars end up in the deluxe B segment rather than compete with Suzuki’s 50% market share as was always expected #AlanMulallyHigh
18 minutes ago via HootSuite

GM’s Chevy Beat has to immediately fend off competition from VW Polo as well..priced at an even $10K #AlanMulallyHigh
17 minutes ago via HootSuite

The IPL season brings all the soaps and the suds with new ads http://ow.ly/1gqhs
about 1 hours ago via HootSuite

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the sports extravaganza is here, and already we can see the social streams fighting each other in media..India’s prim and proper but poor middle class inherently prefer the non PC non You Tube video TV Ads and Media Contests as social collaboration,! Someone participating in this Nokia TVC for example could very well shut down use of Facebook and Twitter during the game.

Another tired lame and infuriatingly logical trouble maker is the fact that while You tube has made its circulation on highly objectionable material and ads that may lead brand marketers to give their social strategy to young anti social Twenty somethings, The PPP value of the Rupee fails to encourage global corporations unifying their processes for Copenhagen to even think of planning for a $5 bn Dollar IPL when making their friendly social strategy virals and plans. Witness Coke, Ford and any of the global banks in Asia..A simple fracture right in the collarbone, before you pick up the virtual bat

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We take pride of place as the undisputed #1 in all Marketing , Social Media and Advertising subjects courtesy the in-depth analytic engagement measurement criteria of postrank. It has given us great satisfaction to follow each of our instincts as Advantages.us brands spread themselves as #1 in Business, Finance, Banking and all things TWITTERONE for it was a job well done and the world was going some place better.

Even as we speak, the IPL juggernaut rolls on, NFL Combine gets candidates ready for the draft and Reebok just tries a XXX campaign as Coke puts over on all the radioactive social viral brands like P&G, Pepsi and more. They are all here. And it was all enabled by that Content Marketing System, the gem which is undoubtedly getting a rough deal in the market as a blogging platform.

What WordPress gives you, some times unknowingly, goes far beyond simple blogging and journo licences for day-bloggers. This piece of software and the linked Web partners are one up on the best in Online, digital media and offline conventional marketing engines. Also, WordPress is literally 10^6 ( A million times ) better in saving you from spam, digital advertising pots and the myriad scams that give the internet a bad name and make it a scammy, spammy non-live game..To be in tune with the social web must have been a constant race for that which started as a blogging engine, but they have done it and we must all make use of that to grow the web’s own franchise. It’s not just Facebook, It’s not just Facebook and Twitter but it ’s definitely Facebook, Twitter and WordPress and these are all tools you need to carry your trade, whatever that may be.

Here we are and here you are, we will be with wp.com for a while just because it’s so cosy here. I hope they give me a call to discuss growing their business somewhere. That would be something to talk about…

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India’s Investment rate is a piggish 36% . People seem to have an innate strength from having put their money in a FD. While HSBC Canara’s new dimpled cheeks shone in the baby showers on OOH Media, ( new ad speak /for bored upwardl y mobile salaried Twenty-somethings and senior bystanders watching Flat panel screens across Cafes, theaters and Super Malls ) Religare also launched a $25 million ad budget , covering its own brands at Religare Enterprises, Religare Life, Religare AMC and lately its Macquaries run Wealth Management venture

Religare Macquarie Pvt Wealth

The education whim is likely to continue to be the winning motif in all such publicity campaigns, leavin room to defend marketing expenses for insurance fund administration or advisor fees on your portfolio and looping all possible positioning and targeting ambitions into an endless market development broadcast rather like a new age Aldous Huxley or George Orwell government tellng its citizens about good governance.

Religare already has 452 towns in its umbrella, even the $1 million budget Macquarie getting nine offices in cities like Coimbatore and Guwahati. Will we have enough cash currency to fill the airtime for such dollops of marketing thru educative print and cost of retirement ads?

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Or , The good campaign

The ‘other’ campaign is at TWITTERONE.COM

One Car at a time..

This campaign does not need anything else. Add direct projects at dealerships and nothing to it. The Punch Buggy.

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Don’t get me wrong. And let me clarify I never even added myself to any Indian Media list. Just a clarion call against sloppy joes with a pen. You see the world is online, and I can see a need to refresh and reload before witting on that aching keypad. Even I have been making more spelling errors with all the furious writing, and doing more and more critiques of writing now. Actually there is a psychological reason for that. My teenage daughter is also getting prizes in English. For understanding a language and expressing in writing. Wow!

So Marketing in IT services has not been the in-thing. After all, it is the promoter and CXO team’s imagination and (lack of ) fanciful leaps has created (€ literally) reality for them. But I know more than a couple of Amols in the industry and worse at CXO level, and not in the client company. The Clients could converse every time. It is that environment, and the public front is about cost cutting. So you can’t blame the world if you churn out this stuff for the WSJ. You have to blame WSJ.. and Amol. What your presentation deck should do, as a mission and vision statement.. That trap, Amol taking that download from a David Scott at a NASSCOM and making up basis on the road. You need some experience behind it. I have had a wonderful team and a great production at IBM for the marketing decks we produced. By jove, were they concise and impactful. And they carried the senior management and the thought leaders, except for the cousins of nepot and the sweet nowhere looking cult of Amol, which was lying in diususe in the organization adding years to their label. And it is because of Infosys and Wipro that we treat marketing as an afterthought. Because of lag leaders as a cult. And no they don’t take it as a strategic function, but then you are just getting fanciful dreamy and not watching the road you are driving after that. But maybe each function is just crowd-sourcing and the right intensity of ‘pathetic’ I can’t live with either. Or the cult of Amol.

Sorry Amol, but maybe some other marketing guys in the industry we are making will get courage from this. You missed that lesson. Corporate Marketing is not that fluffy deck. It is creating that attitude, and when we create a brand we create an industry for it.

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The Chicago Auto show opens tomorrow. That’s where all the new electric hybrids are there too..(see below)
The handsome Prius and the handsomer logo from Toyota. Will they come back next month?

More from the Chicago Auto Show

This one is the GM comeback vehicle, the Stingray and is going to be Chevy’s car in Transformers sequel, Revenge of the Fallen. The show opens tomorrow. In a couple of years, they’ll sign up with Livestream.com or ustream.tv just like the Davos guys. Suzuki debuts the Kizashi there tomorrow, while Kia brings Sorento and a Forte Koup among production cars

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Should they be at the Electronics Show? Or the Chicago Auto show?

Everyone’s pushing electric hybrids now, even as Prius gets brakes out and Volt isn’t ready. Kia has the Kia Ray which came out at the Chicago Auto Show. If! got it before us, the designers that they are..But Cars still belong to an auto show.

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From highly woven storylines for Max New York Life Insurance, to the overarching philosophical muse in ING’s ‘paisa sirf paisa nahin hai’, Indian Financial Services customers have seen a highly variable range of service delivery and brand communications for Indian Banking. In that the suddenly functional campaigns of HDFC Bank that advertise the one button withdrawal, is a disruptive change of the desi variety. The other extreme is the HSBC OBC Canara Bank JV without a single advert because of pre launch post launch issues, and even they are doing more than 2000 Crores in Premium

This disruptive change may not redefine much for the market but may not turn away obdurate customers from the banks’ new business offerings. While ICICI Bank keeps losing one mini mandate each day after its last innovations in I-Direct and Direct Insurance and Mutual Funds, HDFC Bank has timed the innovation well to take up that space at the front of the bus reserved for the innovator we will follow.

The campaign lacks finesse and even the sadly monotonous Traderacer campaign from ICICI bank may win one or two face-offs with HDFC Bank. If the ING Vysya campaign comes back, Aditya Puri and Keki Mitstry are in fact as good as lost. But then, this ATM advert is not the only one HDFC Bank is doing. Their reputation is safe and even vibrant among shopkeepers and small business as they try ingenious ways to remain in local touch.

This campaign could do with some good WOM. Esp, as Cashcow.in tells us, we are also sitting on new Cashbacks at retailers, millions of new POS machines and online micropayments need a leg up. Mobile Banking is coming with RBI approval soon, and among Indian owned banks, ( not the other 75% FDI, the soul is Indian ;lol) with a rural reach to boot (small towns with money)  HDFC Bank just has to pip ICICI Bank. Standard Life Insurance venture is also doing well in the market place, presumably cost control cutting out any flashy advertiing. But having messed up the Credit Cards dream with false lists and unseen craters of human depth, they better man that counter and the call center desk responsibly.

As the local MF market also showed us, there is a lot of money out there that can come through and go back with a single good idea. India’s GDP could well nigh triple with the amounts we have in the shadow economy. In parity terms we do double the size of US economy, but we don’t advertise that either.

However, HDFC Bank/HDFC as a brand are mroe wedded to the idea of Projects and POP promotions esp with pricing offers and tie-ins. That part may earn them first look customers, but the marketplace is competitive with other private sector players and they may need to move the focus to more brand facing advertising campaigns and even participation in Sport

Also, it is time HDFC adopts a regional strategy as is the wont of the teens ( 2010-19) .  Also apart from JPM that is likely on top of such trend making innovation, any functional campaign would have to reach the high levels of the Citi and HSBC WOM , e.g. the contactless payments exercise floated by Citi India which has ten times the word of mouth and really good scaling up for the bank despite its global troubles.

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