Branded city

City, as a brand! Am I hearing that right? This will be reaction of many of us, have we ever thought of our city as a brand? ofcourse we did, though we did we never realise that we did. Confusing? OK, let me make things clear for you. I hail from a city that made its mark quite recently, 'Bangalore' now that name has been in the news for quite some time. People say "my job got bangalored" For those who did not understand. It means they lost their job to a Bangalorean. That makes me feel proud of bangalore. For me its a great thing about bangalore, but for the one who lost his job, its a bad bad thing. My perception of the name bangalore in positive, but in the latters case it is negetive. Are we really talking about any tangibe part of bangalore. No we are not, we are talking about brand bangalore.
Lets first understand, what a brand is? Brand is an amorphous entity. Infact any proper noun can be a brand. It's a thought. A thought that lives in peoples mind.To understand what a branded city is, lets first understand what a city's brand image is.A city's brand image is, the collective set of thoughts that a city enjoys in the mind of people.These minds include those of people who live in the city and equaly the minds of people who do not live in it.The brand image of a city has therefore an intrinsic aspect, which is the image within the city, and an extrinsic aspect aspect which is the image outside the city. It is created by a whole set of disparate elements altogether. It is about the weather, culture, politics, society, people, religion, language, altitude, tolerance and a whole set of other factors.To that extent, the brand image of a city is really not a engineered one.It is an accident!. A literal small part of the chaos theory that abounds in much of our life altogether.
In a technical manner of speaking, brand engineering is a new science, art and philosophy on its own.Creating a brand image of a city is not about creating it from scratch on a drawing board. Instead it is about, using its positives, history and heritage to its advantage as one builds on the basic foundations that abound.

        
In 1985 Coca Cola decided to terminate their flagship brand Coca Cola and launch a formula sweeter than it.To understand why, lets go back a few years.
       

                    In the 60s Pepsi repositioned itself as a youth brand, even though it was loosing out its elderly customers to Coke. This move brought them enormous success, it perfectly complimented the rivals 'old and classic' look. With a narrowed focus, it came to be seen as a 'drink of the youth'.

     In the 70s Cokes rival started the Pepsi challenge which was a blind test between its own product and the Coke. To the companies terror most of the participants preferred Pepsi to Coke.

     In the 80s Pepsi launched the challenge globally, it promoted the arrival of the 'Pepsi generation'. It also signed up celebrities like MJ and Britney Spears.Now Cokes numero uno position seemed to be vulnerable. It lost the market share not only to Pepsi, but to its own brand Diet Coke.In 1983 Cokes market share came down to a new low of 24%.

          1n 1984 coke launched a marketing campaign praising itself for being less sweet than Pepsi. They roped in Billy as the brand ambassador. These efforts were fruit less. They could survive only because of their effective distribution chain.

     Coke perceived  that the problem was with the product. So, they started working on a new sweeter formula. They finally came up with a formula which they taste tested it, the results were satisfying. It fared better than Pepsi. But having both the formulae in the market was not logical as it would make the numero uno position vulnerable.

      
It had badly underestimated the power of its brand. After hearing the news, a large part of US decided to boycott the product.On 23, April 1985 New Coke was launched and few days later Coke was stopped. New Cokes sales were low, public was agitated by the fact that Coke was no longer available.

                      Things were very clear, Coca Cola had to bring back the real thing.

  

  Take away :

-Brand value can never be underestimated.

-Research should have a 360 degree approach.

-Never follow the competitor.

eMarketing Basics

eMarketing, commonly known as an Internet marketing tool, refers to 'how' businesses market their services or products online. In this new age of technology, an Internet presence directly affects the success of a business. From an ecommerce site to an informational site, eMarketing begins at your homepage.

Utilize a Website

Every website has one goal and that is to heighten the interest of the reader. For the homepage to be an effective eMarketing tool, web content needs to follow the search engine optimized (SEO) techniques outlined by search engine domains like Google and Yahoo. Once landing on your site, the content will act as a sales letter.

Whether you operate a service or sell products, eMarketing is more affordable than the traditional means of marketing. Over 130,000,000 people surf the Internet daily. It would take a hefty investment to reach this number of people in the more traditional means of marketing.

Producing a website that ranks well in the search engines, will assist you in obtaining more visitors and visitors easily convert into customers at a rather amazing rate.

Cost Comparison

Printing promotional material can be quite costly. With a website, this cost is significantly lower because your site eliminates the need for brochures or an abundance of business cards. Instead of sending a new prospective literature in the mail, re-direct them to your website. It will guide potential customers through the basics of your business.

Studies show that the per-reader response rates of newspaper advertisements are low. This is due to the number of readers that scan over your add that really have not interest in your services or products. Online readers, however, are a direct result of search engines. These people want to know more about your services or products. The likelihood of turning visitors into customers is higher.

Advertising Campaign

With eMarketing, the cost of an advertising campaign is drastically lower. The same rules apply but with less effort. You'll need to locate your target market, address their interest, and show how they can benefit.

Typical, ezines or announcements serve as an eMarketing campaign medium. Utilizing these mediums will improve your online business. Here's how you can get started:

Ezines: Ezines are nothing more than an electronic newsletter. There are several services online that will assist you in writing an ezine. But use caution! It's bad business to send an ezine to someone who hasn't subscribed.

Announcements: Announcements are similar to a press release. Using the electronic transfer of news to an email box, you can announce new events, new services, and new products a lot faster.

Hottest eMarketing Tool

Today, e-books are the hottest marketing tool of the Twentieth Century. Once Internet Gurus grasp the concept of selling their services or products with an e-book, the market jumped. Adding an e-book to your tools of eMarketing is a smart move.

E-books consist of hidden links (as in, not apparent) that the inexperienced e-book reader can't see. These links help promote affiliate programs and sell your services or products. The readers click through the e-book and find themselves at your site.

E-books are an eMarketing medium that needs careful planning. It makes no sense to develop an e-book on dogs if you sell household appliances. To be successful at eMarketing with e-books, you need to write content related to your business. For instance:

· Home Improvement - How to Design a Kitchen

· Accountant - How Small Businesses can Benefit From a CPA

· Web Developer - How a Website Can Help

Bottom Line

eMarketing has saved businesses thousands of advertising dollars. It's an effective marketing tool that every business should take advantage of. With a better understanding of how eMarketing can help improve your business, you can prepare for an eMarketing campaign that will exceed all of your expectations.

by: Matt Bacak

Marketing Campaign Disaster

Marketing campaign is considered a very important aspect of marketing a product. But when the same marketing campaign backfires? Yes, this is exactly what happened with one of the automakers. They launched a aggressive marketing campaign to promote the car. They decided that they will not show the car until the launch date. They named their product edsel. They described their product to be from the future in their markeing campaign. They priced it rocket high. They had made inadequate research, before their marketing campaign, and designing. In-fact the final design was way different from the original.

Take Away:

Hyping a untested product is a mistake.

Naming the product properly is very crucial.

Looks of the product matter a lot.

Pricing is very crucial, and high pricing simply because the product is futuristic is sense less.

Marketing campaign and Hyping should be done only after proper research.

This article can be re-use under the condition that the content will not be changed.