This is Part One of the IMC Journal that Prof Rahul Mirchandani (RM) has asked us to write... had started blog during my summers at Castrol, one thanda day at work and didn't know what to do with it subsequently. As RM talked about the journal that we need to maintain to take forward the class learnings, I quietly scribbled 'blog' on the side of my notes - I had found what to do with my voice in cyberspace... another matter though that it took me a good week to get started on it! But IMC is one subject that has really caught our fancy - atleast mine - especially the neat assignments...
I think it is very cool that we can choose any product / service for our "Campaign Dissection" - Sachin & I had a long chat regarding what campaign to choose: All we wanted was to do something different... Sachin is a 'machines man' - he loves them and has a special interest in anything that's metal and mean - so we thought of the Humvee (that's some mean metal) and the legendary Harley Davidson campaigns... finally settled on doing it on a doing our campaign dissection on a movie - and what better movie than Rang De Basanti? It was a movie that captured the imagination of an entire nation and the marketing science behind the art caught ours...
Also, the "Brand Launch Simulation" has sparked off quite a debate... must really thank Saurabh to rid me of my inertia and get me to put in my two bits on the choice of the product category. Saurabh and I decided:
(i) to put up a poll so that it would be a democratic choice of the class, by the class, for the class...
(ii) try and persuade the junta to choose a category away from FMCG or Consumer
Durables
My personal preference would be to choose Films or Music or Sport but polling is still on... exit poll results do not look very good my preference though....
In the first class of IMC we started off by understanding what is a market? The definition that the class agreed upon makes sense... "A market is a platform for exchange of goods, services, ideas, solutions, relationships (for instance: co branded credit cards) and knowledge / information between buyers (and potential buyers - for instance: window shoppers) and sellers (there was some debate as to whether a potenial seller is a part of the market - a potential seller is someone who is on the periphery of the market with the intent to sell; the moment such a person enters the market, he becomes a seller - thus in a market, there cannot be a potential seller...) for cash, kind or otherwise."
Wrt to communication in the market, the elements in the market can be seen as:
(i) The Corporation
(ii) The Customers
(iii) The Competition
Thus the market contains the elements who "put the money on the table"... Money hai to Honey hai,eh?
Next we moved on to the decide upon the hypothesis based on which a communication is to be made: should we believe that the customer is the king or is he an idiot i.e. does a customer know what he wants or not? Well, a customer knows what he needs and these needs are a function of his habits. Thus based on the need gaps (or 'white spaces'), one can identify market niches and address the needs that can be serviced.
The needs of the customers are based upon a 3d structure where the 3 dimensions are:
(i) Habits or Psychographics
(ii) Demographis
(iii) Geographics
Based on the combination of these 3 dimensions of the Rubix Cube of the customer profile, we can develop effective communication.
Next we moved on to the Elements of a Campaign - the 6 M model: Mission - Message - Media - Money - Measurement
Will continue with the journal soon... right now need some shuteye. Like they say it in the Looney Tunes world - that's all folks! (for now)
I think it is very cool that we can choose any product / service for our "Campaign Dissection" - Sachin & I had a long chat regarding what campaign to choose: All we wanted was to do something different... Sachin is a 'machines man' - he loves them and has a special interest in anything that's metal and mean - so we thought of the Humvee (that's some mean metal) and the legendary Harley Davidson campaigns... finally settled on doing it on a doing our campaign dissection on a movie - and what better movie than Rang De Basanti? It was a movie that captured the imagination of an entire nation and the marketing science behind the art caught ours...
Also, the "Brand Launch Simulation" has sparked off quite a debate... must really thank Saurabh to rid me of my inertia and get me to put in my two bits on the choice of the product category. Saurabh and I decided:(i) to put up a poll so that it would be a democratic choice of the class, by the class, for the class...
(ii) try and persuade the junta to choose a category away from FMCG or Consumer
Durables
My personal preference would be to choose Films or Music or Sport but polling is still on... exit poll results do not look very good my preference though....
In the first class of IMC we started off by understanding what is a market? The definition that the class agreed upon makes sense... "A market is a platform for exchange of goods, services, ideas, solutions, relationships (for instance: co branded credit cards) and knowledge / information between buyers (and potential buyers - for instance: window shoppers) and sellers (there was some debate as to whether a potenial seller is a part of the market - a potential seller is someone who is on the periphery of the market with the intent to sell; the moment such a person enters the market, he becomes a seller - thus in a market, there cannot be a potential seller...) for cash, kind or otherwise."
Wrt to communication in the market, the elements in the market can be seen as:
(i) The Corporation
(ii) The Customers
(iii) The Competition
Thus the market contains the elements who "put the money on the table"... Money hai to Honey hai,eh?
Next we moved on to the decide upon the hypothesis based on which a communication is to be made: should we believe that the customer is the king or is he an idiot i.e. does a customer know what he wants or not? Well, a customer knows what he needs and these needs are a function of his habits. Thus based on the need gaps (or 'white spaces'), one can identify market niches and address the needs that can be serviced.
The needs of the customers are based upon a 3d structure where the 3 dimensions are:
(i) Habits or Psychographics
(ii) Demographis
(iii) Geographics
Based on the combination of these 3 dimensions of the Rubix Cube of the customer profile, we can develop effective communication.
Next we moved on to the Elements of a Campaign - the 6 M model: Mission - Message - Media - Money - Measurement
Will continue with the journal soon... right now need some shuteye. Like they say it in the Looney Tunes world - that's all folks! (for now)