The writing on the wall
OR A COMPANY out to create mass awareness about a product that’s mostly invisible, you’d think Intel would have put on quite a song and dance in print and on television. Instead, it created a Facebook game. The ‘Gateway 2 India’ app, a marketing device for the Centrino 2 chip, was downloaded by more than 25,000 social media regulars from Intel’s Facebook page. And so in 2008, Intel became one of the first tech companies in India to tap the power of social media.
The Intel page also carried a survey which got 2,267 responses, something Prakash Bagri, Intel’s director of marketing, South Asia, considers “much more impactful than having fans who like your page but do not engage in any activity or communication on it”. Surveys soon after the launch also showed that 85% of those who used Facebook heavily had a more positive opinion of Intel after the launch than before.
Online enthusiasts believe that social marketing will shake up advertising in India. And advertisers concur. “One of the biggest threats facing us is social media,” says Nirvik Singh, chairman and CEO (Asia Pacific) of global advertising agency Grey Group. Many advertisers recommend that clients go beyond print and television to spend at least part of their budgets on social media.
In 2008, when General Motors (GM) launched the Chevrolet Captiva, a car targeted at high net worth individuals, it was completely on the digital platform. Gaurav Gupta, director-marketing, GM India, quotes stats which showed that leads on the web convert into a greater number of buyers—Internet conversions were at 25% compared with 10% for showroom walk-ins. “We had to field questions from dealers who were concerned that there were no ads in print or television,” he says.
It’s also becoming clear that real-time market feedback available through social media is radically different from focus group discussions or market research led by questionnaires. That’s why traditional advertising and research will have to find new ways to capture reality, says Shripad Nadkarni, director, MarketGate, a strategic business and marketing consulting company, and former head of marketing at Coca-Cola India.
Social media is a many-to-many medium, unlike advertising, which is generally a one-to-many model. “By definition, it is about community. It suits the youth who want to belong and desire to be significant,” says Shumone Chatterjee, country manager, Levi’s India. “Levi’s is fighting for attention against Coke, the iPhone, gaming or even the IPL. Social media, where youth is so critical, has allowed us to be more meaningful to a new generation.”
But social media is not just about marketing to geeks or kids; “What stands out in India is how social networking is catching on across age groups,” says Sriram Bharatam, CEO and Founder, iridiumInteractive, an agency that provides online business solutions. Facebook data show that one in 50 of its new users is above 65 years. Marketers are also eyeing the number of professionals using mobile phones to access the Internet, especially now that 3G services are ready. “We anticipate a surge in mobile marketing as more mobile content is made available,” says Singh. India boasts more than 500 million mobile phone users. Google India MD Shailesh Rao says 100 million users access the Internet through traditional means as well as via mobile phones. That’s a large market waiting to be tapped.
The ability to share images and comments in real time, courtesy 3G, could revolutionise customer profiling. This is a far cry from the classical marketing model of market segmentation. It is a mechanism that allows marketers to reach out to a user of their choice at the click of a button.
SOCIAL MEDIA SITES are happily blurring the lines between countries, demographics, and other demarcations that marketers so love. Today, if a company wants to market its products effectively, it needs to have a presence online and at a place where its target audience spends a significant amount of time.
When Ford India launched its hatchback Figo in March 2010, it knew it was entering uncharted territory; it was known in India for sedans, not for small cars. The company decided to go where its customers hung out the most—Facebook. “We gained a lot of resonance with Facebook and plenty of information about the product was exchanged on social media,” says Nigel Wark, executive director at Ford India.
Another reason for advertisers to use social media—global reach. “When we made the announcement (in early 2010) that we would offer our worldwide navigation service for free to Nokia smartphone users, we chose the place where social conversations take place to ensure we would quickly reach a maximum audience across the globe,” says Mads Winblad, Nokia’s vice president of marketing, in an advertising case study put together by Facebook’s marketing team.
Social media has made a definite impact on large sections of the Indian population. “Facebook allows people to interact with ads the same way they would with their friends,” says Meenal Balar, international growth marketing manager, Facebook. Viral Oza, head, activation and online marketing, Nokia India, concurs. “Earlier, people would see an ad, visit the store to check out the product and sound out friends, associates and retailers before deciding what to buy. Now when consumers see ads, they go online and talk to the universe.”
One of the main reasons for social media’s popularity is that people get advice from trusted sources, their friends, and not just from ads, which are generally seen as over-hyped and biased communication. “The biggest change is where consumers receive their trusted information today,” says Jeff Swystun, chief communications officer at ad agency DDB Worldwide, New York. With social media, then, the consumer is both salesman and buyer. “Consumers are also influencers, and companies will have to know who these people are,” says Grey Group’s Singh.
In mid-May, Tata Motors aired its new TV commercial for the Indica Vista. It showed a customer who could not stop smiling because he was so thrilled with his car. The commercial itself might have gone the way of a thousand others—except that Amitabh Bachchan tweeted about it. One of his posts was about how he loved the ad about “the Tata car with the round-faced guy and the fixed smile on his face”. Coming from a huge celebrity, and one not associated with the brand, this was a major boost. Bachchan’s line was retweeted by more than 100 people.
“It kind of developed a life of its own. I’m not sure what the exact impact on the brand will be but the buzz helped,” says M.G. Parameswaran, CEO, Draftfcb+Ulka, the agency that created the commercial. Tata Motors, meanwhile, is delighted with the feedback it’s been getting. “This will help us create better products and aid our communication strategy,” says S. Krishnan, senior vice president (commercial and passenger car business unit), Tata Motors.
Marketers are now trying to figure out the most popular social media and tap those. “Gaming is the largest application on social media today. We think it is a great option for brands to have fun and innovate,” says Arun Mehra, COO, Zapak Digital Entertainment, an Anil Ambani company and a significant player in the gaming business. Zapak created properties like AxeGames.in for Hindustan Unilever’s Axe deodorant, where the objective was to engage with users through social media. Importantly, gaming is among the few social media applications where a business model can be monetised. “The more progressive brand managers realise social media is not a tactic but a strategy,” says Mehra.
“It’s about talking to an individual as an individual, and very different from writing a headline for an ad,” says Salman Noorani, MD, Zodiac Clothing. ZOD, one of its brands, uses social media to reach its target—the trendy young male. “Brands that will be successful are those that evolve into social brands. These are the ones with social voices, with real people talking on behalf of brands to consumers in a conversational manner,” says Singh.
Santosh Desai, MD and CEO, Future Brands, has a different take. “Companies hate consumers. Their rawness is often unsettling. Companies today need to figure out ways of being interesting to consumers,” he says. Social media’s attention-creating ability could pave the way for a new way of communication: It’s 30 words up against 30 seconds.
On the flip side, bad news also has to be tackled smartly. As Ravi Kiran, CEO (South Asia), Starcom MediaVest Group, a media communications agency, says, “Good news is conveyed to three people. Bad news will reach 33 people.” That’s something Adidas found out when its Jabulani ball faced a storm of criticism about its supposed wobbliness during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Andreas Gellner, MD of Adidas India, says the company’s global spokespersons used social media forums to explain that the ball was made to exacting specifications, but external conditions such as weather and altitude affected its movement. “You need to be vigilant in the online world because it is difficult to track all that is being said. You need to recognise a snowball and stop it from triggering an avalanche,” he adds.
Despite all these perceived advantages, digital media (which includes social media) accounts for barely Rs 800 crore of the total advertising spend of more than Rs 15,000 crore. Gellner reckons most companies put in 7% to 10% of their annual marketing budget in digital marketing; a fraction of this is spent on social media marketing. “Adidas’s digital spending is much larger than average,” says Gellner, but is reticent about exactly how much larger it is. “It’s more than what we spend on print, but does not compare with TV,” is as far as he goes. Levi’s India is similarly coy. “Significant investments are made in social engagement—the highest we’ve ever undertaken,” says its marketing director, Shyam Sukhramani. Hewlett-Packard (HP) India’s marketing head, Shubhodip Pal, says HP’s Asia Pacific digital spend is about 32% of its marketing budget; in India, the share drops to 6% to 7%.
THE PROBLEM FOR MOST companies is that social marketing is a relatively untested phenomenon, especially in India. “I know social media is moving the mind. The question is: Will it move sales?” asks Srinandan Sundaram, general manager (oral care and deo) at Hindustan Unilever, India’s largest FMCG company. Pal, for one, believes it can; he says 45% of HP India’s sales are driven by word-of-mouth and that social media has a big role to play in it. After all, “social media is only word-of-mouth magnified a thousand times,” says Parameswaran. In late 2010, Nielsen the launch of its online ratings, similar to television ratings, to help companies track the effectiveness of their online campaigns. If this, or something similar, comes to India, Sundaram’s question might be answered.
Obviously, no communication on social media can be ignored. Marketers need to be able to make that communication work in their favour. Aircel, a relatively new entrant in India’s cut-throat telecom industry, managed to do just this. Its ‘Save The Tiger’ campaign, launched across social media sites in 2009, has more than 219,000 followers on Facebook alone, and is synonymous with Aircel.
“Social media can and should be used for getting instant and continuous market feedback on the brand, product or category. But using it in place of formal methods of market research is still premature,” warns Srividhya Ramakrishnan, an independent Internet marketing specialist. Nonetheless, the writing is on the wall. As Arvind Sharma, chairman (India) of advertising agency Leo Burnett says, the rulebook will have to be rewritten.