Is Service a Luxury?

In India, we're used to the concept of 'influence' for things like school admissions, college seats, jobs and board positions.  So we've just adapted it to new-fangled concepts like customer-care.

But isn't customer care a misnomer if you have to use influence to get it? Clearly the company does NOT care about customers! 

In a growth economy (yes, despite the best efforts of our politicians we're still growing) most companies are focused on meeting demand rather than nurturing existing customers.  A desire to keep costs low also means that after-market is never factored into the product design.  So good service is in most cases a luxury. 

Read the third piece on the subject on the series of 'Luxury' here....

5 Keys To Building A Business That Doesn't Bury The Humans At Its Core

As business leaders speak of the "Human Age" and claim that capitalism is being replaced by "talentism" -- defined as access to talent as a key resource and differentiator -- many companies have embarked on initiatives to "unleash their human potential." 

Those are big words and noble ambitions, and naturally they seem worth striving for. But I have been wondering: What is a "human" business, anyway?

You might argue that the notion of a human business is a category error. Organizations are bureaucracies at their core, and it is hard to think of any formalized collective human endeavor, and especially any business, as being free of rules, structures, and processes. After all, these factors are what ultimately makes corporations (and nonprofits alike) reliable and trustworthy, and grants them their authority. Consequently, there appears to be a fundamental chasm between individual human behavior -- which is expansive and multifaceted, ranging from the rational to the wildly irrational, sentimental, and unpredictable -- and the design of organizations: rational, practical, results oriented, and engineered to perform consistently.

Get the complete article here... 

Incredible Facebook Fan Demographic Insights 

Here is some very interesting demographic data for popular brands in India. 

A Study of 12 popular brands in India, some aspirational, some that you would think only appeal to older people with money and others that overwhelmingly appeal to females in the west. The study reveals that male dominance is clear and based on the data one can draw a conclusion that Indian men like finance, talking, traveling, driving and of course drinking. Surprisingly, given their dominance across all other brands, men leave Surf Excel to the ladies. Shoppers Stop is another brand that has a much higher percentage of female fans than other Indian focused Facebook pages. 

Get more here...

Using Thought Leadership to Address the 3 Top Solutions Marketing Challenges  

In a February 2012 survey that was conducted by Solutions Insights and ITSMA on Anatomy of Solutions Marketer only 6% of solutions marketers listed as one of their top three challenges "Creating thought leadership to support solutions approaches." Either they've got this problem solved, or they regard it as being relatively unimportant compared to the top three issues they identified:

1. Enabling the sales force to sell solutions;
2. Working across organizational silos; and
3. Identifying market opportunities and targeting the appropriate audience. 

The good news is that a properly executed thought leadership program helps address all of these issues.   And incidentally, items 4 and 5 - Communicating the solutions value proposition and Differentiating from competitors and creating brand awareness - are also addressed by a well planned and executed  Thought Leadership program.

So, let's take each of the top three challenges we initially identified and see how thought leadership can help address them.

Get the article here...

Are We Just Playing Around with Gamification?

As marketers we all inherently understand the basic premise of positioning and naming. Get it right and success will surely (ideally, hopefully) follow. The brand graveyard is certainly littered with folks who didn't.

So to my mind, gamification is the most torrid descriptor I can think of for a pretty insightful business strategy. Especially a business strategy that is gaining such huge traction, as evidenced by Badgeville's recent infusion of $25 million or the sheer number of returns on Google - 6.4 million results.

But is there substance behind the hype?

Face Slams: Event Marketing Takes Off   

A few weeks ago, the National Football League filled the southern tip of Times Square with NFL players to sport the new NFL jersey designs. A few days later and a few blocks north, Russian models were mobbing the 45th Street island between Broadway and Seventh Avenue and using it as a fashion runway for Maybelline. Across the Atlantic, hundreds of Norwegians were gathered to watch cliff divers at a Red Bull event.

What's happening?

Experience marketing is taking hold not just across the country, but around the world. What started as pretty girls (and boys) passing out samples of shampoo, candy bars, snacks, deodorant and other products (in Amsterdam, they handed out morning shots of Absolut Limon...oh, Amsterdam!) today includes far-flung extravaganzas at Spring Break, NASCAR, and in everyday life. As one expert says, experiential marketing has gone from the edge of the marketing media plate, to becoming the nexus.

Read more here...

Job Listings on Paulwriter.com 

Watch this space for new job listings on Paulwriter.com every week for mid to senior level marketers. Or post a job here...  

VP Sales & Marketing - Pepper Square - Bangalore, Karnataka, India

Job profile is to develop new business & market opportunities. Conduct market research to identify opportunities for existing as well as future service lines and implement sales and marketing plans. Manage, monitor and report on all sales and marketing activities and outcome. Manage the Sales and marketing team

Target markets are India, USA, UK and the middle east. 5-7 yrs experience in sales and business development from the services industry preferably Digital media industry

The Bhartiya Group is diversified with a global footprint in fashion, design and real-estate.Reporting to the Group CEO you will program manage the marketing activities for the Bhartiya Group ( 

http://www.bhartiya.com/). This includes controlling the marketing budget, managing the external communications of the senior executives, and ensuring that the multiple creative partners executing the marketing program adhere to predetermined timelines, guidelines, and deliverables.  

Paul Writer is advising the Bhartiya Group on marketing and is assisting with the search process in this capacity. 

Owner for all technology activities (People, research, strategy, ideation, development, quality, implementation) Resourcing, mentoring and training

Project management. Improving performance by implementing measurements and standards. Monitoring and Assessing performance. Client communication: Regular liaison with the clients, Partner communication, Creating new service line & practices. Set up Center of Excellence for technological services

Software Developer - Gaglers - Bangalore, Karnataka, India

Gaglers powers the messaging backend for online marketplaces. We connect the sellers and buyers in marketplaces via chat and email. Sellers in the marketplace can interact with anyone looking at their product, right from their cellphone.

You'll report directly to the Founder. You'll also be working with the web user interface designer and developer to implement new features of the product. You'll be working out of Bangalore, India

Apply Now...