Vjbreathes

The brand ambassador Quagmire: With niche marketing getting more focus than ever before, the puzzle of hiring, managing, changing and associating brand ambassadors is a major ponder point for companies. Brand consultant Harish Bijoor is of the opinion that brand effectiveness differs with different stages of the product life cycle and is subjective to the segment and company goodwill. Further, Prof.C.K.Prahlad has given out his opinion that companies need to ensure n=1, and R=G. That’s mass customization and individual focus to ensure higher satisfaction amongst customers and promote loyalty. It’s further stated in a few cases that brand ambassadors involvement for product/service promotion is very much necessary. But then, I sincerely feel that this kind of phenomena is noticed in a mere 2-3% of products (FMCG, clothing etc) and high involvement goods, luxury goods are absolutely independent of celebrity endorsement (Jewellery, housing, furniture, automobile etc). Further, increased p...

It’s so strange and so obvious that attitude matters so much. With protests happening in New York protesting against the Chinese policy of Tibet when the Olympic flame entered NY or models protesting naked for PETA or people in Carolina protesting against pollution people in that part of the world seem to be doing a great job compared to our people who have only been fighting each other over Hoggenkal, over language over caste and so on. The attitude side of life becomes very important and we need to realize that burning buses, breaking street lights, burning vehicles is not at all the solution to any of our problems. On an estimate the Govt of India has lost about 65 crores due to rioting and damage to govt property in the year 2003.(Data for succeeding years is not available).That again translates to the fact that we pay taxes, they get buses or street lights, we burn them and govt collects the booty again! It pains me, time and again to say “MERA BHARAT MAHAN”. It is simply an emb...

Appearances do matter they say, but it’s not all about appearances. It is also about the content. The more evolved the better. Ok…… Wondering why all this gyaan? Yesterday I overheard two housewives (Who are usually louder) speaking to each other on branded tea. This happened when I went to buy some household items at a kirana store nearby. For our convenience let’s assume their names to ‘Ratnamma’ and ‘Nagamma’ ie; Rats n Nags for short. Here goes: Rats: I wonder why we have to buy branded tea like “Taj Mahal” and “Red Label”. Nags: That’s extremely simple. It’s because they’re branded and that means quality assured. Rats: But then there are local brands like “X” that are equally good in terms of quality and you can literally get twice the quantity for the same price. Howzzat? Nags: But still by buying a local product you could be giving scope for error. Rats: Well, the fact that a brand did well last time and the fact that it’s a well known “brand” does not ensure it’s performance ev...