There is No Bad Publicity 

I saw an ad for Frette bedsheets.  The 150 year-old luxury linen firm is trying to get a foothold in India and has cited its claim to fame as being used on the Titanic and Orient Express.  The Titanic? Is that really a positive thing to talk about?  But then I realize that at least I remember the ad and the name of the brand!  In today's cluttered market that itself is an achievement and if they'd just listed a bunch of upmarket hotels the ad would have passed like, well, a ship in the night.

We're bombarded with information and it takes a lot to cut through the clutter.  Playing safe equals being ignored. 

CMO Hall of Fame: One can see true democratization of information and knowledge - Sanjay Jain, CMO, Reliance Capital

Sanjay Jain is the Chief Marketing Officer of Reliance Capital. He works very closely with all Reliance Capital companies in defining their marketing and brand strategies. Sanjay has been with Reliance Capital since August 2008. He brings eighteen years of strong and diverse experience with leading companies. like The Coca-Cola Co., Allianz, Bajaj Allianz, Ogilvy & Times of India Group with extensive experience in marketing, product and brand development, new launches, strategic planning, developing new business opportunities and project management. 

Sanjay Jain joins Paul Writer's CMO Hall of Fame program that recognizes senior marketers who are developing and enhancing the marketing eco-system in India. The program is by invitation only and individuals are selected for this honour based on their career track record and peer reviews. 

Read his interview on marketing initiatives and Futurist Marketing...

How Customer Experience Maps can Lead to Better Revenue Generation

It is widely acknowledged that providing your customers with a great experience can lead to better revenue generation. EBay even claimed in its 2012 Spring Seller Update that a higher level of service increased active buyers to more than 100 million. So if you aren't getting the results you expected from your organization, you need to ask yourself if your company is doing enough to derive more insights and deliver a better customer experience.

Jan Carlzon, the former president of the Scandinavian Airlines System, has said in his 1987 book "Moments of Truth", that "Anytime a customer comes into contact with any aspect of a business, however remote, there is an opportunity to form an impression." 

Businesses have begun to capitalize on two integral ideas are based on this - Value Constellations and Customer Experience Maps (CEMs).

CEMs do exactly what the name suggests. According to Forrester Research, they are documents that visually illustrate customers' processes, needs, and perceptions throughout their relationships with a company. Put in simple words, a CEM follows the journey your customer takes as it engages with your company. This gives your company an opportunity to look at the various ways in which a customer is coming into contact with your company, and what you can do to turn a negative experience into a positive one.

Get more on CEMs here...

How to Make Branded Content More Credible

Branded content. When done poorly in the movies and traditional media, it's the source of ridicule. Think of obnoxious product placement, inspired Morgan Spurlock's The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. Done really poorly, branded content can backfire. Look at how infomercials have become infamous for misleading people. 

Done well, branded content is at least not annoying, as in the tolerable 25 brand mentions in 21 Jump Street. (Wouldn't 21 mentions be more clever? But I'm getting off track...) 

That's traditional media. Is digital doomed to the same fate? Will digital brands keep making mistakes like PepsiGate? Can digital branded content ever be taken seriously, even as seriously as journalism?

I've watched the interactive marketing and media industries debate this question for a while. The debate is interesting, but sooner or later we need answers. Wait, let me amend that. With 80 percent of American adults going online to find digital information, we need answers NOW. To get some, my firm conducted an in-depth study of digital content credibility. Note that our research didn't focus on digital branded entertainment, which acts similarly to advertising.)  

We found Americans are quite open to brands being credible sources of web content. For example, when we asked study participants to rank financial content sources in order of credibility, a company or brand ranked second, beating out big media and other source types.

Read more...

Communication for Successful Integration

An event of acquiring another company is momentous for all the stakeholders of the merging entities. It evokes many different emotions and questions. It takes up significant amount of management time in both the organizations. 

There is a sort of frenzy around trying to address all the concerns. 

I discovered that one key positive enabler in such times is communication. 

An acquisition is primarily driven by the financial objectives- does it help increase the market size, does it bring new clients, does it help increase the geographic reach, add a product into the portfolio etc. The entire process is largely driven by the CFO and the Legal team along with the CEOs office.  The process is very closely held by a few people, owing to the sensitive nature of such decisions. Aspects related to the operating culture or organisation processes while evaluated, are usually secondary to the financial goals. However in reality, the many aspects related to people and various non financial dimensions have a great impact on the success of integration.

During any acquisition, the marketing and communications team comes into the picture towards the end when the two parties are ready to make the announcement. This means, they have to quickly figure out the how, what, why, when and where and be able to answer all the possible questions. Usually the time available to put the strategy and execution in place before the entire plan can be set in motion can vary from a couple of days to a mere couple of hours. So what should one do?  

There are three primary dynamics to the communication: the Story, the Process and the Symbols.

Read on for more...

Entrepreneurship. Difficult to Spell. Harder to Live

Marketing Events

Paul Writer has speaking engagements and association with a few upcoming marketing events and afcourse we are organising our flagship event The Futurist CMO 2012 in August this year. Get all the information about these events in our event section on paulwriter.com

Futurist CMO 2012, August, New Delhi 

Are you a forward-thinker? Youʼre intrigued by how digitization is changing marketing. Youʼre not a geek, but have a technology roadmap for your team. Youʼre thrilled by the changing role of the CMO. Then you should join us, and a hundred other senior, forward-thinking global marketers for the second edition of

The Digiratti Awards drew a lot of great entries we will announce the list shortly. 

Registrations are open and there are great offers if you are 2 or more colleagues joining the event.  Register now! 

This Summit 2012 brings together the leaders and the brilliant minds of the Marketing industry at Bangalore (August 21, 2012). CMO's can learn advanced Marketing strategies, Digital Marketing & Social Media techniques from these industry leaders.

The Keynote speaker for the event is Jeffrey Hayzlett - a global business celebrity and former Fortune 100 c-suite executive

More details are available here

Think Glocal Conference 2012, September, Mumbai 

Think Glocal Conferences is a banner started by Attitude Events Pvt Ltd in the year 2011, to conduct knowledge based business conferences in India. 

The second edition of Think Glocal is on a larger and grander scale with the theme of "Building Brands", a Journey towards building a strong Brand.

Get all the details 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...  

CMO - IFB  - Panaji / Bangalore, Goa/ Karnataka, India

IFB seeks to appoint a senior marketer to head their marketing efforts. You will define and execute the company's marketing activities to achieve the financial and strategic objectives of the organization. You will manage marketing budgets, set up required business processes and track return on investment. We are in an aggressive growth mode and need a go-getter who combines thought leadership with execution skills.

A visual and graphics designer who can create compelling design for Print (Posters, Cards etc,) Web (Intranet and external website, webpage and rich media) and the Presentations (in PPT and Flash) for various communication programs.

PR Manager - All Cargo Logistics, Mumbai, India

The PR manager will be responsible for establishing and raising awareness for Allcargo Logistics as a leading Indian MNC in the Integrated logistics space among the Media community which will ultimately help raise the visibility and drive new business for the company. 

This role will also be responsible for building strong relationships with key industry bodies and leveraging them for building awareness.

This role will be responsible for strategic planning and supervision of all public relations programs across business and trade media for Allcargo Logistics

Apply Now...