Innovative methods of marketing - Live-in Marketing (LIM), Wait marketing, Ambient marketing

Live-in Marketing (LIM) is a term used to describe a variant of marketing and advertising in which the target consumer is allowed to sample or use a brands product in a relaxed atmosphere over a longer period of time. Much like product placement in film and television LIM was developed as a means to reach select target demographics in a non-evasive and much less garish manner than traditional advertising.

Unlike traditional event marketing, LIM suggests that end-users will sample the product or service in a comfortable and relaxed atmosphere. The idea behind this technique is that the end-user will have as positive as possible an interaction with the given brand thereby leading to word-of-mouth communication and potential future purchase.

Wait marketing: On public transport, in the doctors’ waiting room, while downloading a video from the Internet, consumers have proved 2 to 3 times more receptive to advertising than when sitting in front of their television. Wait marketing helps companies turn consumers waiting time into the perfect opportunity to communicate in an innovative and effective way.

When elevator pitch turns transforms itself into a plane pitch. Richard Branson has launched a  Wait Marketing initiative called Pitch TV. Entrepreneurs and marketing managers can promote their business in a 2-minute pitch that will be broadcasted on Virgin Atlantic Airlines flights!

Ambient marketing: may be defined as an activity of the business of creating brand recognition without necessarily pushing its product. The campaign is very often carried out by finding a thing that can be clearly connected with the business and by communicating the thing instead of the business itself.

Examples are messages on the backs of bus tickets, on hanging straps in railway carriages and on the handles of supermarket trolleys. It also includes such techniques as projecting huge images on the sides of buildings, or slogans on the gas bags of hot air balloons.

The marketers have turned a traditional and boring luggage claim belt into a giant roulette wheel at Venice Marco Polo Airport.

Ambient marketing on Internet may be performed in form of placing relevant thing (an image of a stylish shoe in case of shoe retailer) as an avatar published with blog postings, commentaries or on social networks.

Innovative methods of marketing - Experiential marketing, Tissue-pack marketing

Experiential marketing — interaction with product – also called Relationship Marketing was first defined as a form of marketing developed from direct response marketing campaigns which emphasizes customer retention and satisfaction, rather than a dominant focus on sales transactions. As a practice, Relationship Marketing differs from other forms of marketing in that it recognizes the long term value of customer relationships and extends communication beyond intrusive advertising and sales promotional messages. With the growth of the internet and mobile platforms, Relationship Marketing has continued to evolve and move forward as technology opens more collaborative and social communication channels. This includes tools for managing relationships with customers that goes beyond simple demographic and customer service data. Relationship Marketing extends to include Inbound Marketing efforts, (a combination of search optimization and Strategic Content), PR, Social Media and Application Development. Brands are now also being driven by the customer themselves, through experiential elements like Converse's co-creation marketing or Nike's iD system, design your own shoes. Nike came up with an innovative idea to gauge customers by giving them an experience of being themselves. Customers can design their shoes according to their likes and dislikes, material, colour, shape etc… which was definitely creating an identity for themselves. In India many companies have tried out the experiential marketing successfully. One Indian company tried out a concept called Create your Own paint. Many paint buyers find it very difficult to decide on the shades provided by the company. To give the customers more choice the company designed paint mixers. In these specially designed shops the customers can decide on a shade or a color by themselves using a computer. Once the shade or color is decided all that the customer has to decide the quantity and the exact shade desired. The paint would be delivered to the customer within a few minutes.

Tissue-pack marketing: Companies use small, portable tissue packages to move advertising copy directly into consumers' hands. About 4 billion of these packages of tissues are distributed on the streets annually in Japan—largely outside of subway stations.

The concept of tissue-pack marketing was first developed in Japan. Its origins date back to the late 1960s when Hiroshi Mori, the founder of a paper-goods manufacturer in Kōchi Prefecture called Meisei Industrial Co., was looking for ways to expand demand for paper products. At the time, the most common marketing freebies in Japan was boxes of matches. These were often given away at banks and then used by women in the kitchen.

Mori figured tissues would have even wider appeal than the matches, and as a result he developed the machinery to fold and package tissues into easy-to-carry, pocket-size packs. The new product was marketed only as a form of advertising and was not sold to consumers.

Innovative methods of marketing - Wild Posting Campaigns, Alternative marketing, Undercover marketing, Astroturfing

Wild Posting Campaigns: Posters are put up at construction site barricades, building facades, in alleyways. In short any place that is available at construction sites. Although cost is relatively low when compared to other out of home advertising forms, wild posting is largely ineffective because the ad size is small and placement is only available on temporary construction site. Sites are not location specific and message is very hard to view unless the consumer is only feet away from poster. 

  

Alternative marketing: The Street Marketing is one of the oldest ways to advertise. Street marketing is handing out flyers when the prospect walking in the street.

It is a always better to be closer of the customer to launch a new product/service. To make it successful, the companies have to choose the best places, and have support material like stickers, free goodies etc. The low price of this type of advertising is an advantage. 

Undercover marketing also called stealth marketing:  An undercover campaign aims to generate buzz, is economical, and once sufficient buzz has been generated, is almost free, as consumers "market" the product to others, through a network of referrals which grows and grows.

An ideal consumer will not only begin using that product themselves, but will also tell their friends about it. Financial risk here is relatively small because such marketing approach requires fewer expenses and is usually more cost-effective as well. Undercover marketing is used when traditional marketing techniques have been exhausted.

It is the consumer's sense that this recommendation was spontaneous and unsolicited, and the resulting feeling that "one good turn deserves another", that drives the buzz. So, the "bought and paid for" aspect of the transaction must remain hidden.

Overall, the person doing the undercover marketing must look and sound like a peer of their target audience without any ulterior motive for endorsing the product—employees of the company cannot do undercover marketing, nor can celebrities (except possibly to other celebrities).

Sony Ericsson used stealth marketing when they hired 60 actors in 10 major cities, and had them walk up to total strangers and ask them: “Would you mind taking my picture?" The actor then handed the stranger a brand new picture cell phone while talking about how cool the new device was.

Astroturfing — disguising company messaging as an authentic grassroots mass movement. Astroturfing is a form of advocacy for a corporate agenda designed to give the appearance of a "grassroots" movement.. The term is a taken from AstroTurf a brand of synthetic carpeting designed to look like natural grass.

Astroturfers attempt to orchestrate the actions of apparently diverse and geographically distributed individuals. Astroturfing may be undertaken by an individual promoting a personal agenda, or highly organized professional groups with money from large corporations, unions, non-profits, or activist organizations.

Innovative methods of marketing - Reverse Graffiti, Presence marketing and Grassroot marketing

 Reverse Graffiti — clean pavement advertisements. Reverse graffiti, also known as clean tagging, dust tagging, grime writing, green graffiti or clean advertising, is a method of creating temporary images on walls or other surfaces by removing dirt from the surface. It is often done by removing dirt or dust with the fingertips from windows or other dirty surfaces, such as writing 'wash me' on a dirty vehicle. 

Reverse Graffiti also explored commercially as an original way of out-of-home advertising to reach consumers in an unconventional new way. Microsoft, the BBC and Smirnoff have advertised their products using reverse Graffiti.  

Presence marketing — marketing to the consumer who is at the point of Purchase (Marketing - for being there). Presence Marketing hinges on two fundamental in-store concepts: Presence Identification identifies a customer upon entry to retail establishment and session Metrics captures the duration of a customer’s shopping visit, departments visited, time spent in the various departments. It provides key insights such as lost sales -- when a shopper spends time in a department/store and does not purchase.

Consider the following example to illustrate the difference between Shopper Marketing and Presence Marketing. If P&G wants to provide a discount on Tide detergent it could use shelf talkers mounted near the shelves which carry the Tide product. The shelf-talker would present a coupon to every shopper who walks past the aisle. It has been reported that 60% of these types of promos actually cannibalize a brands own sales! So someone who was going to buy Tide and was willing to pay full price now gets it at a discount. This is shopper marketing.

In contrast “Presence Marketing” would take into consideration the shopper’s transaction history. So if the customer was buying a different brand’s detergent then a coupon could be sent to the customer’s mobile phone based on Presence Identification.

Grassroots marketing — tapping into the collective efforts of brand enthusiasts. Grass roots marketing is to market the company, organization, products or services on a local and on a personal level. Grass roots marketing is a best way to reach the customers on the basis where they get to know the company and the company gets to know them. Grass root marketing can b tried out using

Direct Phone Calls: This is the method where the company directly calls the potential customer. Better known as telemarketing, it really has garnered a negative stigma to it over the years. However, when direct phone calls are done properly, they are a great way to get to promote the company and its products or service.

Speaking Engagements: This method takes some inner talents to get in front of small and large groups to get the word across about whatever is being marketed. Public speaking may not be possible for everyone but if there is someone in the company that can do it effectively its is better to use that person.

Canvassing: This is the art form of going around in the neighborhood, speaking to people directly, placing flyers on their doors, putting up posters and so on.

There are so many ways more ways the company can implement a grass roots marketing campaign. Whatever the method the company should make sure that is reaching the potential customers on a personal level.

Sharpening the axe

      

       

       Sharpening the axe: If you have 24 hours to cut a tree, spend 23 hours and 30 minutes sharpening the axe. What it means is one needs to practice his trade. A circus performer always practices in the morning before he performs in the evening. For the first mistake that he makes will be his last. Take the example of Sachin Tendulkar.

Sachin Tendulkar once was playing a club level match. Club level matches are played only for fun and the run scored are not taken into consideration for records. Sachin came out in full gear including his helmet that had the Indian flag. There was lot of fooling all around Sachin. His team mates had their wife and children with them. But Sachin was in the zone. He was concentrating hard. He went to bat. He scored a few runs and was adjusted LBW (leg Before Wicket). As he was walking back a cricket reporter happened to see the expression on Sachin’s face. Sachin was extremely upset with himself. This happened in the year 1991. By that time Sachin was already a super star. He has nothing to lose but showed seriousness.

Sachin has a super killer instinct. He is so ultra competitive that he hates to lose in any game. It is said that he does not like to lose in any sport even in table tennis. His wife Anjali told Sachin to lose at least to his son. When asked how many times he lost to his son Arjun, Sachin innocently replied “well I lost may be 3 or 4 times when playing with Arjun. But mind you that was when he was small”

Ramnath Archekar the cricket coach of Sachin and Vinod Kambli believed that Kambli was more talented than Sachin. See where Sachin has ended up and where Vinod Kambli ended up. Vinod Kambli scored the fastest 1000 runs among all Indian cricket players but ended with another 84 runs more only. The total runs scored in Kambli’s entire career are surpassed by Sachin in a single year! Not once but many times over.

It is not enough to be supremely talented. That talent has to be translated into results. Sachin has played test cricket since 1989 that is for a mind boggling 22 years. To break Sachin’s records the next cricket prodigy has to start at the age of 16 and has to continue playing for the next 25 years.

Americans, Britishers and Indians: When a Indian sees another Indian, the first thing that one would ask the other is “what is your salary?” In India the salary drawn is very important and the pecking order in the society is decided by the salary. The higher the salary more is the respect that he receives in the society.

When a Britisher sees another Britisher he would ask “what is your designation?” In aristocratic Britain titles are very important and fancier the title more is the Britisher impressed.

When an American sees another American he would ask “what is that you do in the organization?” Americans are very practical people and get turned on by the type of work that one does in the organization. That is the precise reason why Americans do not find great charm in doing the mundane and iterative jobs that are plentifully available in the IT and the ITES sector.