Comparing Brand ‘A’ and Brand ‘B’

EARLIER MINDSET

‘You get what you pay for’

Consumers were largely dependent on information

provided by manufacturers in the form of marketing

EARLIER MINDSET

PRESENT MINDSET

User Generated Reviews and people’s tendency to consult social media friends

Such reviews are more rational and have less bias

Genuine product/ service experiences help in analyzing trade-offs and drawbacks of the product better

It leads to 2-way communication

Since user reviews are an external market force, such publicity is beyond the control of organisations

Rise of social media has made opinions of many individuals more relevant

There has been an increase in number of review portals

There are review portals for electronics, food & hospitality, automobile, films, etc.

Creating such forums lead to online community development, further improving traffic and engagement on the website

There has been a tremendous rise in the number of freelance and amateur bloggers, critics and testers.

Websites like Mouthshut.com is an exclusive website for reviews

and lures users to give and share reviews through giveaways and

promotional incentives

Mostly reviews are referred just before the purchase decision is made

Negative reviews may turn a potential customer hostile

Reviews give honest & brutal feedback about the product

Each individual is empowered todaywith the weapon on SOCIAL MEDIA,which allows to amplify smallest ofissues, which may adversely affect otherbrand users

PRODUCT MIX is the key. If your product is not great, no promotion or pricing strategy would work. Product Mix is the base of marketing mix.

If the product is of good quality, reviews will be positive

Good quality products generate good publicity through positive word-of-mouth and will gradually transform the customer to a LOYALIST

• Its OK to make mistakes as long as brands admit them and make efforts to rectify them

Be Responsive

• Prior preferences, experiences and beliefs [P]

• Information from marketers [M]

• Input from other people and from information services [O]

Customers’ purchase decisions are typically affected by a combination of 3 things:

INFLUENCE MIX

*The greater the reliance on one source, the lower

the need for the others

In the recent

years,

‘O’ has taken on

increasing

weight in many

categories

• Salman Khan’s movies don’t get affected by negative reviews

• Irrespective the reviews, people still go and watch his films

• [Here P is dominant over O]

• Sales of YepMe.com tripled immediately after signing up Shah

Rukh Khan as their ambassador

• Here, M is dominant over O

• The power of other people’s views vary from one product category to another.

• The closer your product is to the O-dependent end, the greater the shift in how consumers

gather and evaluate information about it.

In domains where customers depend mainly on ‘O’, branding and level of competition have lesser importance.

In such situations, new comers find relatively low barriers of entry

Film ‘Ankhon Dekhi’ worked because of high word of mouth publicity.

[High relevance of ‘O’].

With very minimal marketing, the film did well at the box office and was acclaimed by critics as well as masses. The film also won the Filmfare award for Best Film (Critics).

Small budgeted/ parallel/ art films mostly depend on ‘O’

Apart from this movie, 3 other movies, RaginiMMS 2, Lakshmi and Gang of Ghosts released on the same day

In India, many people rely on Zomato for food reviews

This helps new independent restaurant owners who’re able to market themselves through ‘O’ and without much promotional spends

Technical products like mobile phones, cameras, etc are ‘O’ dependent

Many buyers refer to ratings and reviews as their main source of information

This means that celebrity endorsements are less effective than they once were

Companies like Nikon and Canon should focus on generating user interest in particular products promotion of authentic content

Nikon has an online community for photographers which conducts workshops and competitions. This helps them in creating user generated positive content

In 2007, before the release of the first iPhone, a research in the US concluded that consumers would not be interested in a ‘convergent’ device that combined the functionality of cell phone, MP3 player and a camera

The study was primarily based on ‘P’

But as soon as iPhone hit the market and early adopters began gushing over it, people became influenced by ‘O’

Shoppers in brick-and-mortar stores are most susceptible to M than online shoppers

This is because in store advertising in the form of posters, POPs, etc lead to impulsive buying

Brick-and-Morter stores give lesser exposure to negative feedback/ reviews

FMCG products are picked up more from offline stores than online, making role of M more relevant than of O

Marketers should also bear in mind that the degree to which a particular customer relies on O might vary with situational factors.

Many people who rely on O for electronics shopping may come under M’s influence during end of season sales.

Many organsisations conduct flash sales, which invite a lot of traffic. Here M is more dominant over O.

Flipkart sold over 40,000 Xiomi Mi4 phones in 15 seconds during its recent flash sale

Some marketers believe that consumer reliance on O will decline as more shoppers become wary of deceptive reviews.

Yelp, TripAdvisor, and others are becoming increasingly sophisticated at weeding out fake reviews, and consumers are developing a better sense of which sites (and which individual reviewers) they can trust.

Consumers who’re used to the richness of online reviews will ever return to relying on traditional M.

30% of U.S. consumers say they begin their online purchase research by going to Amazon for product information.

Studies commissioned by Google have found that shoppers consult 10.4 sources of information, on average, before making a purchase.

Voracious information-seeking has become deeply ingrained in many consumers

As the influence mix evolves, success will come to

companies that can closely track the sources of

information their customers turn to and find the

combination of marketing channels and tools best

suited to the ways those consumers decide.

yashoganeriwala@gmail.com

+91-7303695656

+91-9039039093