Changing face of B2B Marketing & Content Marketing in the Digital Era | Haroon Bijli at SIMClairvoyance 2011

As part of the on-going SIMClairvoyance 2011, Mr Haroon Bijli, head of the digital marketing function at Tata Consultancy Services, gave a talk on the changing face of B2B marketing and content marketing in the digital era.

Mr Bijli, who has been with TCS for over ten years now, has handled a variety of roles in Corporate Communications, Internal Communications and Marketing. Prior to joining TCS, he managed his own business in advertising, graphic design and printing. He holds a Masters in Communications and Journalism and has completed an Executive MBA from S. P. Jain.

Mr Bijli was off the blocks in a flash, and hit the ground running by highlighting the key difference between B2B and B2C marketing. While B2C marketing answers the question “how many people do we chase?” B2B answers, “who do we chase?” So, for TCS, it doesn’t matter how many people know that it is behind the Indian Railways ticketing as long as someone like London Metro knows about it.

While talking about digital B2B marketing, he repeatedly stressed on the importance of good content. Calling content ‘king’, he stressed on the maxim that in today’s day and age, the audience is so well informed that it really cannot be fooled.

He also pointed out that it is always important to remember who you are talking to. While the digital marketer might be dialoguing with a Fortune 500 company, it pays to remember that there is an actual living and breathing person who is being talked to. This should be kept in mind, and the target’s profile should be visualized to dialogue well.

He rounded off by stressing on the importance of the brand name, and how possessive one must be about the same in the digital space. Domains, twitter handles, Facebook group names, all, he said, should be branded properly and with care. Big companies face a tough battle against squatters today, and so should earmark and reserve each digital property at the earliest. Perhaps this explains Mr Bijli’s amazingly anointed @bijli twitter handle and his über cool http://bij.li URL.

Oil Kahaadi Paan Vs. Gel Denim Wrigley | Omar Qureshi at SIMClairvoyance 2011

A boy in jeans, with gelled hair, chewing wrigleys entered a world of khaadi, paan and oil to write about new actors, actresses and films! A south Bombay boy with good marks in English, Omar Qureshi (Managing Director, Omar Qureshi Entertainment Networks, Editor in Chief, Zoom TV) went to work at Stardust and interviewed Sunjay Dutt in his first week there. At the onset he underscores that in this industry whatever you do, most importantly, BE DIFFERENT!

 His session was focused on the 3Cs of television programming – Content, Context and Creativity. Mr Qureshi, refuting his own claims of being a shy public speaker, took on the subject with a zest only one with boundless passion could. He captivated the entire audience of media aspirants with mantras that have sustained him through years in the media industry, first as a film journalist and then a television anchor. “Believe you are the best!” commanded Mr. Qureshi while urging the youngsters to identify their strengths and dared then to dream.  Dedication, humility and ethics, he recommended should be the basis of your approach to achieving your dream. He cited several examples from his own life like his move to the online space and then television and his project with Amir Khan; to emphasize that re-invention, originality and keeping in time with technology was essential for any media professional. Reminding us about the human element of glamour he insisted that avoiding bias is extremely essential.

 When the focus shifted firmly to the visual medium, Omar Qureshi rationalized it as the strongest and the most popular medium by saying, “I was a by-line, a name. Then I got a voice. Now look Ma! I have a face.” The film journalist in him then burst out as he spoke enthusiastically of Bollywood and recounting incidents with many film personalities who are now his friends. In his opinion “Bollywood God’s stay strong…From Pariah’s to a religion and from Madhuri to Katrina! It transforms our loves, gives us style and bonds us as Indians!” He shared a few tips on movie reviews with the aspiring film journalists. Omar Qureshi concluded the session with a quote that puts any and every industry in context, “Creativity is a magic wand… You can be a magician too!”

(with inputs from Sneha Padmanabhan, MBA 2013)

Idea Dribbling | Deepali Nair at SIMClairvoyance 2011

Ms Deepali Nair, Country Head- Brand & Communications L&T Insurance was the last speaker of the day, ended Clairvoyance on an enlightening insight to creative ideas. She started off by interacting with the students about their expectations from the session and how she could formulate those points and queries into her discussion.

She began by speaking about the three keys to creative insights, namely:

• Deep knowledge of consumer
• Deep knowledge of Brand
• Openness towards innovation/disruption

Next, she discussed the answers to three important questions:

1. What is a creative idea?
2. Where to get a creative idea?
3. How to evaluate a creative idea?

According to Ms Nair, a creative idea is the heart of a good campaign. It is also the creative advertising concept before storyboard. For e.g. - Key message of Rolls Royce – any obsession with quality appreciated by discerning customers. “Creative idea for creativity sake alone has no place in my book.” – Ms Nair says, it builds emotional connection between consumer and the brand. Along with that, she emphasizes that yet a business needs to grow and make money. But the biggest challenge is to keep a campaign alive and sustain it.

Talking about the emergence of creative ideas, she mentioned three important points:

1. Consumer Insights:

a. Cultural/life: e.g. – Tanishq, Jaago re, Fair and Lovely. Difficult to define aggressive vs assertive

b. Category: e.g. – Saint Gobain ads, Maruti 800

c. Brand: e.g. – Oreo

By showing a number of videos for the different brands, it became easier for the students to relate
to the emergence of the creative ideas and concepts.

2. Product Attributes:

There is a shift in the media world. The way we communicate with each other is changing. Far more time is spent on digital space and there is a rapid shift from traditional to digital media. Creative ideas can emerge from a product or its shape, packaging labels, manufacturing process, and where the product cannot be used.
E.g. - Heinz, Volkswagen

3. Disruption/Innovation:

Means breaking convention, a quantum shift is a change in the area of campaign development.

The session with Ms Deepali was very interactive and it made the students think and understand the changing role of communication in advertising much more clearly. She left us with one question to ponder about:

“Can you juggle it all??”

(with inputs from Divya Gupta, MBA 2013)

Executing flawless Cover(age) Drive | Venkat Ananth at SIMClairvoyance 2011

Venkat Ananth was the last speaker to address the students and staff in SIMClairvoyance ’11 on 21st August, 2011. Mr. Ananth is a freelance cricket columnist based in Mumbai. He is an avid cricket lover and currently writes articles on Yahoo! Cricket. Prior to this, he was a Cricket Correspondent at HT Media Ltd. He is also a Journalism Lecturer at the R. D. National College, Mumbai.

Mr Ananth started the session by questioning why the students would like to take up sports journalism, and how people approach sports journalism as an industry. According to him, sports media in India is very emotional, very fickle. He believes that sports journalists should not be biased to their own country while reporting.

There is no coverage about a cricketer’s form and ability as sports person. In the industry there is a mass patriotism that doesn’t allow journalists to criticize sports people. A lot of the time, journalists are caught in a trap of being unable to criticize sportsmen because their newspapers are dependent on revenue they receive from the ads featuring these sports stars.

There is a tendency to deify these people. So when the journalist does the same, it is guaranteed that there is going to be an element of bias. Technical deficiencies are not written about, also because journalists have no understanding of the game, which should be considered a minimum requirement. Mr Ananth raises the point that a lot of us look at sports journalism as fans of the game, but how many people understand the game. Do journalists have the ability to analyze the game, do they have any tactical knowledge of the game?

He brings up the restrictions sports journalisms face for bringing up tough questions, like the lash back and flak from the BCCI. They cannot question the system; see where things are going wrong. Journalists get tangled up in the web of conflict of interest and sometimes the journalists are participants in this conflict of interest. Journalists get into a symbiotic relationship with the sportsman which includes him glorifying the sportsman. According to Mr. Ananth, the relationship should be distant and only as long as the sportsman is doing well. He advises the students from getting too closely involved with the sportsman.

The journalist, agent and player nexus is a reality that controls how discourses are offered. Agents have tie ups with news papers. These are evils in the field that need to be removed. This is the source of the conflict of interest.

Journalists should write about the sport. Their focus and objective should be about capturing the sport and less about the people involved in the game. There is a lack of perspective. As individuals and as journalists we have preferences and biases to individual players, which are inevitable, but Mr Ananth closes his session advising us to remember that a journalist’s job is to cover the facts. That ideally it would be better to not be a fan at all, but if that is not possible, to not let it affect your perspective and reporting of the game.

(with inputs from Leah George, MMC 2013)

Promotion Proms | Abhijit Deolekar at SIMClairvoyance 2011

“ When you get a chance to shoot , make sure you give it your best shot , when you cannot actually shoot , work on the edit and come up with a good promo .’ is the crux of the session conducted by Mr. Abhijit Deolkar , creative head , Zoom TV . Speaking with context to on air promotions and the ingredients that go into whipping up a good visual treat he reinforced the concept of detailing and giving attention to the tiniest detail possible. ‘Never consider your audience as fools. God lies in the details’. Mr.Deolekar said in the context of knowing your audience and giving attention to detail. He threw in the ingredients that went into an on air promotion mix , from the idea , a script that supports it , the production that goes into mindless details , good editing that uplifts the idea , music and background score that raises its stakes further and the final voice that adds life to the promo.

He went on to speak about the three elements that are required to gauge promotional material – inspiration, instruction and creative freedom. These three elements coupled with the right attitude of ‘never say never’ is the essence to being a good ad/promo film maker . According to Mr Deolekar shooting an online promo is very similar to shooting a mini ad film . The only difference lies in the budget which is far less in the case of an on air promo.

Mr Abhijeet went on to screening promos shot by him for Zoom television. Some of them included Ms India 2011 promo inviting participants, promo for the documentary ‘Bollywood revealed’, Tentalize, sex appeal, glamour and gloss , Zoom silver screen independence day special and so on.

He wrapped up the session highlighting the importance of hard work and being true to yourself in the Audio visual industry. ‘its not going to be a 9-5 job. It’s all about hard work. It’s all about willingness to work and being open to new ideas and concepts. Only if you know how to cut bread would we know how to make a sandwich’ was the closing note of Abhijit’s session.

(with inputs from  Niranjana H, MMC Batch 2013)

The Television Transition | Rohit Raj at SIMClairvoyance 2011

Rohit Raj, Founder, Glitch and a Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication alumnus. Mr Rohit Raj took the students through the topic of Transition from Stay at home TV to interactive. He first primarily gave a brief background as to how television as a medium evolved in India. Well going back in the 1980’s, Television was a luxury to have at home. As a kid Mr Rohit Raj remembers only having 4 hour of broadcasting on TV and comparing to the present age he is astonished as to how can all the networks combined present 800 hrs of content in a 24hrs time frame!

The 80’s was an era of loyal audiences as it had only 4 channels running on the TV, then in the 90’s came the surge of Channels creating the era of ‘Fight for the remote’. Thus with the opening of the economy came the globalization stage along with slow growing internet. In the present scenario getting consumer mind space is increasingly becoming difficult as the audience is moving on to the internet. This shift is attributed to India’s booming economy, due to which the traditional job structure has changed from 9-5 to no specific time for working hours and shifts for various call centers. Thus people have no time to sit and engage themselves with TV instead they moved on to downloading whatever content they want from the internet.

Social media is increasingly become the medium to communicate and the marketers are in a panic attack phase as they spend huge amounts on advertising more so on the Television. The shift is making them jittery about using the television medium for reaching out to their target audience. There is a constant fight among various brands to capture the right audience and promote their brands on Television. However, the TV watching audience has moved from the SEC A section to SEC B and Rural audience. TV content has become more reality based and shows have become less as the audiences wants voyeurism.

The only silver lining is that India is a Cricket crazy country and  it gets the maximum TRP's. However now the challenge lies in the hands of the TV networks as they have to produce content that would not only get the city audiences hooked but also the Sec B and the Rural areas.

(with inputs from Gauri Gupte, MBA 2013)