(News collection for Management studies)
Volume: 02 Issue: 118 29-October, 2010 – Friday Pages: 12
Focus : Brand Line - Advertising
Getting inside the Indian entrepreneur's brain - Cognitive neurology has some answers to why the owners of Nirma and Jyothy Labs ignored convention in their advertising..
Getting inside the Indian entrepreneur's brain - Cognitive neurology has some answers to why the owners of Nirma and Jyothy Labs ignored convention in their advertising..
The repetition of stimuli is key to strengthening any memory. This has been understood very well by organised religion and political parties, the real masters of mass persuasion.
The Indian entrepreneur brings a large dose of intuitive wisdom to his business decisions. His decisions look very different from those discussed in business schools, but deliver tremendous results in the market place.
Business school educated professionals rarely grasp the greatness of those decisions at the outset. Nor are they able to unravel the science behind those intuitive decisions. So they are incapable of effectively countering those decisions.
When Karsanbhai Patel launched Nirma washing powder in the Seventies, the launch television commercial was seen as bizarre. Even today, an unwritten norm of the advertising industry is that the brand name should appear just once, that too during the last few frames of the TVC.
In the Nirma launch commercial pack shots, brand usage shots and brand benefit shots and the brand name “Nirma” were repeated many times. The whiz kids of the advertising industry thought the commercial would be the first fall of a small-time Indian entrepreneur who was just learning the tricks of the trade.
When M. P. Ramachandran of Jyothy Laboratories launched Ujala liquid whitener to take on a large established MNC brand, he did not splurge on glitzy television commercials. The launch ad of Ujala in local magazines asked people to send in a short poem using the words ‘Ujala', ‘clothes' and ‘whiteness'. Instead of using the best copywriters from the best advertising agencies to write eulogies about the brand, ideally in English, here was an Indian entrepreneur who was asking the consumers to write something about the brand and its benefits, that too in their mother tongue.
While the innovative business ideas of Nirma and Ujala have been replicated, the communication ideas during the launch of these two brands have never been fully understood.
With the emergence of Cognitive Neurology as a fundamental science to explain all aspects of human behaviour, we are in a better position to decipher the science behind even the most intuitive decisions of the Indian entrepreneur.
A memory is formed in our brain thanks to connections between millions of neurons and the electrochemical stimuli that pass between them. Any memory in turn is connected to several other associated memories. The strength of a memory depends on the strength of its neural connections. All marketing activities aim to strengthen the neural connections between a particular brand and the benefit it caters to.
How do we strengthen the brain's neural connections? If electrochemical stimuli pass between a set of neural connections repeatedly, the neural connections become stronger and stronger. So the repetition of stimuli is key to strengthening any memory. This has been understood very well by organised religion and political parties, the real masters of mass persuasion. Repetition of prayers, chants and slogans are an integral part of their daily rituals. So when Karsanbhai Patel repeated the brand name and brand images multiple times in Nirma's launch commercial, he was intuitively following a memory strengthening exercise that has been happening in the churches, temples and the streets of this country for centuries.
After the Korean War, many of the American soldiers who were captured as prisoners of war came back from Chinese prisons as strong believers in communist philosophy. American psychologists who wanted to find out how this brainwashing happened were surprised to find that no violent methods were inflicted on these prisoners to alter their belief systems. Chinese authorities just got these American prisoners to write down what they wanted them to believe in.
Yes, getting your consumers to write down their liking for your brand dramatically increases their loyalty towards your brand. Jyothy Laboratories received thousands of poems written by the consumers. There would have been ten thousand others who wrote a few lines on a sheet of paper or at least thought of a few lines of a poem in their brains. In the brains of all these amateur poets, millions of neurons related to ‘clothes' and ‘whiteness' would have formed a very strong connection with brand Ujala.
There are many great marketing ideas that are lying unused because no one has discovered their true worth. To know their true worth we need to polish them using the science of cognitive neurology. So the next time you need to insert the line ‘I love XYZ brand because …' at the end of the brand contest form, would you consider it a legal requirement or as one of the most powerful ways to build strong loyalty for your brand?
(The writer is CEO, FinalMile Consulting, Mumbai.)
Think similarities, not differences - Focussing on what is common helps one work through the differences..
I'm writing this column sitting in transit at Frankfurt airport's tower lounge. All around me I see business class travellers. I etch the scene in my mind so as to share it with my readers in my next column. There are a few differences among the people around me.
Same differences
Skin tones — white, brown, black, yellow; hair colours — brunette, blond, platinum, jet black, auburn, red and, of course, grey; dress — a man in a baseball cap and tennis shoes with a Polo neck T-shirt is pouring himself an orange juice. A woman in jeans and shirt carrying a backpack is choosing brown bread and cream cheese.
And a set of similarities
A babe in arms is crying and the mother is rocking her quiet, glancing apologetically at people around her. A family of African kids with braided hair and the sweetest faces has had too much Movenpick ice-cream, are whirling around in glee and then, barf — out comes the ice-cream!
Now this could be any place in the world. The scene is not so different from one that we might encounter in India
Just that the scene, so different, yet so familiar, lead to the realisation that though there will always be differences, it's the similarities that we should focus on for a harmonious work life in the global business village.
The realisation itself prompted a memory — during the course of a certain class, one of our senior participants wanted to know how she could stay stress-free while juggling her personal and professional responsibilities and taking on roles that involved bridging differences in language, culture, time, work ethics, you name it.
The answer lies in another question — Do you focus on the similarities or the differences?
If you focus on the similarities, or, shall we say commonalities, it becomes easy to be objective about differences and see them in the right perspective.
Multiple demands
For the New Manager, particularly women who dovetail careers with home, coping with multiple demands is a given, but stress needn't always follow. When your superior dumps yet another project onto your already overloaded plate, you automatically think, “What does he know about the problems I'm facing? He's different, he doesn't understand.”
You instinctively shut your mind to cooperation. The trick here is to not think differences, think similarities. Focus on a common goal, material and emotional, and take it from there. The good of the organisation is a good place to start.
Ask yourself what the new project will achieve — a feather in the department's cap? Won't that make both you and your boss feel good?
Next, ask yourself how much pressure you can safely take — for this, you need to know yourself pretty well, your strengths, your weaknesses.
Then get down to practical aspects. Work out where you are with your original workload and the time you have left. Present hard facts to your boss, and find a creative way to include his needs while not sacrificing yours. Be assertive, show why an idea won't work, or you think it won't. That doesn't mean raising your voice or being rude. It means being factual and polite.
Say, for instance, your boss has asked you to help Steven on the Canada
You know Steven's project is high-profile, and success would mean both more revenue and prestige for the company. Completing it well is in everyone's interest. That's the commonality to be kept in sight.
So here's a better way of handling the situation: “I don't think I can spare the time this week to share Steven's workload. But if we could have till next Wednesday, I can help him for some time on Monday. He can count on me for help on Tuesday as well. I can't spend too long though, as my own projects X and Y for clients A and B (be specific) are at a crucial stage, and I also need to make sure I'm home by 7 pm .”
This way, you're passing a message that the company is important to you, and that you're ready to pull your weight as a team player, while at the same time being realistic about your workload and personal commitments.
As a general rule: See the common good of a company goal, Give solution-oriented ways to achieve it
Don't take things personally, instead, focus on how similar we all are and find common ground.
At the end of the day, know yourself, wear the same lens as the person you are interacting with. You will find that even the few differences can be tolerated as the similarities take precedence.
(Ranjini Manian - The author is CEO of www.globaladjustments.com. She can be reached at info@globaladjustments.com)
SPECIAL FOCUS – Who told India
( Contributed by K.Mounika- 09D61E0030)
This is so shocking…. ….If black money deposits was an Olympics event…. India Russia U.S. India
Recently, due to international pressure, the Swiss government agreed to disclose the names of the accountholders only if the respective governments formally asked for it.. Indian government is not asking for the details…No marks for guessing why?
We need to start a movement to pressurize the government to do so! This is perhaps the only way, and agolden opportunity, to expose the high and mighty and weed out corruption!
Please read on……and forward to all the honest Indians to…..like somebody is forwarding to you…….and build a ground-swell of support for action ! Is India India
DISHONEST INDUSTRIALISTS, scandalous politicians and corrupt IAS, IRS, IPS officers have deposited in foreign banks in their illegal personal accounts a sum of about $1500 billion, which have been misappropriated by them. This amount is about 13 times larger than the country’s foreign debt. With this amount 45 crore poor people can get Rs 1,00,000 each.
This huge amount has been appropriated from the people of India India
Some 80,000 people travel to Switzerland Geneva
Just read the following details and note how these dishonest industrialists, scandalous politicians, corrupt officers, cricketers, film actors, and protected wildlife operators, to name just a few, sucked this country’s wealth and prosperity. This may be the picture of deposits in Swiss banks only. What about other international banks ?
Black money in Swiss banks — Swiss Banking Association report, 2006 details bank deposits in the territory of Switzerland
TOP FIVE
TOP FIVE
Now do the math’s – India
Can we bring back our money ? It is one of the biggest loots witnessed by mankind — the loot of the Aam Aadmi (common man) since 1947, by his brethren occupying public office. It has been orchestrated by politicians, bureaucrats and some businessmen.
The list is almost all-encompassing. No wonder, everyone in India
In fact, some finance experts and economists believe tax havens to be a conspiracy of the western world against the poor countries. By allowing the proliferation of tax havens in the twentieth century, the western world explicitly encourages the movement of scarce capital from the developing countries to the rich. In March 2005, the Tax Justice Network (TJN) published a research finding demonstrating that $11.5 trillion of personal wealth was held offshore by rich individuals across the globe.
The findings estimated that a large proportion of this wealth was managed from some 70 tax havens. Further, augmenting these studies of TJN, Raymond Baker — in his widely celebrated book titled ‘Capitalism’ s Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free Market System’ — estimates that at least $5 trillion have been shifted out of poorer countries to the West since the mid-1970.
It is further estimated by experts that one per cent of the world’s population holds more than 57 per cent of total global wealth, routing it invariably through these tax havens.
How much of this is from India
Indian Hotels to raise Rs 850 cr thru pref allotment to Tata Sons
The entire capital raised will be used for the retirement of debt. The company's standalone debt as on
“We have repaid Rs 300 crore already in the current year,” a Taj spokesperson told Business Line in a written response.
A part of the Rs 850 crore will be raised in the current financial year and the balance will be raised not before
Rs 6-cr loss -IHCL posted a net loss of Rs 6 crore for the second quarter ended
The total income of the company, (including other income) grew by 4 per cent to Rs 344 crore, as compared to Rs 330 crore in the same period last year. The company's total expenditure for the period rose by 12.8 per cent to Rs 317 crore in the period under review, as against Rs 281 crore, last year.
IHCL had reported other operating income of Rs 21.27 crore in the year-ago-period – an amount received from insurance company as compensation for business interruption following the terrorist attack at its flagship property
“The second quarter, which is typically the weakest of the four quarters in
DAY FOCUS: (Focused by K.Mounika- 09D61E0030)
Foreign Institutional Investors -Money & Banking - RBI & Other Central Banks- Financial Markets
RBI chief warns of speculative capital flows - Biggest issue is currency appreciation: Subbarao.
RBI chief warns of speculative capital flows - Biggest issue is currency appreciation: Subbarao.
Besides the problem of appreciating currency, speculative capital flows could lead to asset price build-up in emerging market economies like India
Highlighting the impact of the ‘ultra loose' monetary policy of advanced countries on the emerging economies, he said: “Speculative flows on the lookout for quick returns can potentially lead to asset price build-up.”
According to analysts, given the increased inflow of portfolio capital and the rise in asset prices in India
Since August, FIIs have invested $15 billion into the Indian equity markets.
In an interview to Business Line a few months ago, the RBI Deputy Governor, Dr Subir Gokarn, had indicated that the bank may look at prudential regulations in the monetary policy review in November if asset price pressures build up.
In his inaugural address at an international conference here, Dr Subbarao said that the biggest problem thrown up by capital flows is currency appreciation, which erodes export competitiveness.
He said the challenge for the emerging economies will be to minimise the costs of the forex intervention. “Managing currency rates in the face of volatile flows entails costs no matter what you do. The challenge is to minimise this cost.”
Explaining the dilemma of the central bank while deciding whether to intervene or not in the forex market, the Governor said: “Intervention in the forex market to prevent appreciation entails costs. If the resultant liquidity is left unsterilised, it fuels inflationary pressures. If the resultant liquidity is sterilised, it puts upward pressure on interest rates which, apart from hurting competitiveness, also encourages further flows.”
He said that though emerging and developing economies need capital flows to augment their investible resources; such flows should be stable and be roughly equal to the economy's absorptive capacity. He said the cyclical component of the inflows causes all the adjustment problems for emerging market economies (EMEs).
Dr Subbarao pointed out that as capital flows are a spill over from the policy choices of advanced economies and is not an exclusive problem of EMEs, the burden of adjustment has to be shared.
The assurance of advanced economies to keep interest rates ‘exceptionally low' for ‘an extended period' has also possibly triggered financialization of commodities leading to a paradoxical situation of hardening of commodity prices even as advanced economies continue to face demand recession. Hardening of commodity prices has affected those EMEs which are net importers of commodities, he said.
Dr Subbarao said that surplus economies will need to let their currency appreciate and only intervene in the currency market to manage disruptions rather than to maintain their competitiveness.
“Managing currency tensions will require a shared understanding on keeping exchange rates aligned to economic fundamentals, and an agreement that currency interventions should be resorted to not as an instrument of trade policy but only to manage disruptions to macroeconomic stability,” he said.
Macro Economy -Food inflation dips to 13.75% on improved supplies
Food inflation declined sharply to 13.75 per cent for the week ended October 16, on improved kharif supplies and fall in prices of certain vegetables, especially potatoes and onions.
According to Government data, the food inflation fell by 1.78 percentage points to 13.75 per cent during the week from 15.53 per cent during the week ended October 9. This is the second consecutive week when the food inflation has declined.
On an annual basis, potato prices eased by 49.69 per cent and onions became cheaper by 6.93 per cent. Overall, prices of vegetables went down marginally by 0.77 per cent during the week on a year-on-year basis. However, other essential items like cereals , milk and fruits continued to remain costly.
Experts said the impact of a good monsoon was slowly becoming visible on the prices of essential items, as the supply side pressure was easing after a good kharif harvest.
On a yearly basis, cereals prices have risen by 4.97 per cent. While pulses became costlier by 4.16 per cent on a yearly basis, wheat and rice increased by 6.56 per cent and 3.49 per cent, respectively.
Among other food items, milk prices soared by 21.65 per cent during the week compared to the same period last year, while fruit rates rose 16.06 per cent. Egg, meat and fish became dearer by 28.12 per cent.
After some moderation in July, the food inflation remained high during August and September due to supply disruptions caused by heavy monsoon
ONGC Q2 net rises 6% to Rs 5,388.77 cr
State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp reported a 6 per cent rise in its net profit to Rs 5,388.77 crore in the quarter ended September 30.
ONGC had posted a net profit of Rs 5,089.64 crore in July-September quarter of 2009-10 fiscal, the company said in a statement. Sales rose to Rs 18,238.98 crore in Q2 of current fiscal from Rs 15,134.04 crore a year ago.
ONGC said it paid Rs 3,019 crore towards fuel subsidy in the quarter under review, as against Rs 2,630 crore in the Q2 of last fiscal.
The company’s net realisation on crude sales was $62.75 a barrel after giving refiners IOC, BPCL and HPCL a discount to make up for one-third of their loss on sale of fuel below cost. Its net realisation in the Q2 of last year was $56.41 a barrel.
ONGC’s gross realisation (pre-subsidy discount) was $79.21 a barrel as opposed to $70.50 a barrel in the July-September quarter a year ago.
Banking & Finance- RBI may raise key rates to rein in inflation: FICCI
The RBI may go for another round of hiking the short term lending and borrowing rates by 25 basis points each, next week on concerns of high inflation, a Ficci survey said. The RBI move to raise short term policy rates is likely to reduce demand for consumer durables, it said. The Reserve Bank is scheduled to announce its second quarterly monetary policy review on November 2.
“Majority of the participating economists expect RBI to further hike both the repo and the reverse repo rate on
Repo is a short-term lending rate of RBI to banks, while reverse repo is short-term borrowing rate. Most economists however feel that given the tight liquidity situation, the central bank would refrain from raising Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR), which is a po rtion of deposits that banks keep with RBI in cash.
The RBI has raised interest rates five times this year, taking the repo rate to 6 per cent and the reverse repo rate to 5 per cent, to control inflation, which was in double— digits for six months since July.
“Inflation, particularly food inflation, continues to remain a major concern. What is perhaps more important is the steady rise in inflation expectations as revealed by the RBI’s latest survey released in June 2010,” it said.
However, food inflation declined sharply to 13.75 per cent for the week ended October 16, on improved supplies and fall in prices of certain vegetables, especially potatoes and onions. On the GDP growth, the economists agree with the government’s projection of 8.5 per cent growth this fiscal
MANAGEMENT TIPS: MANAGING FINANCES AND RESOURCES
Whether you're a business owner or a manager, staying on top of tangible items is vital to success. These tips can help you keep track.
Set up a realistic budget. While it's good to be optimistic, don't plan for more spending than you know you can afford. Make sure you plan for emergencies and contingencies as well.
Save costs where they matter the most. Don't just pinch pennies for the present. Make sure your savings will pay off in the long run. Compromising on quality might cost you later on in repairs and replacements.
Spend only when it's necessary. Don't spend if you don't need to. Every bit you save goes toward your profit.
Find alternative sources of finance. Sometimes even successful businesses need a little help. Business loans and investors can help you through leaner times.
Stay true to your contracts. Not only will you gain the respect of your clients, you'll also avoid legal battles that can be a serious financial drain.
Make sure employees are well compensated. Employees deserve to be rewarded for hard work. Make sure yours are well compensated for their time and they'll be more productive and happier to come to work.
Learn to do more with less. Quality is much more important than quantity, so make what you have count.
Assign equipment wisely. While it might be nice for every employee to have a PDA, budgets often don't allow for such conveniences. Make sure the employees that need tools the most have access to them.
Invest in solid technology. This doesn't always mean the latest technology, but what your office needs to do work effectively.
Update when necessary. Using obsolete equipment and programs can really slow you down. Update when it makes sense so you won't get left behind by competitors.
Don't be wasteful. Every sheet of paper, paper clip and pen is a cost on your budget. Use materials wisely and don't waste them out of haste or carelessness.
Don't be wasteful. Every sheet of paper, paper clip and pen is a cost on your budget. Use materials wisely and don't waste them out of haste or carelessness.
RESEARCH DESIGN - Practice
The Indian ice-cream market can be broadly divided into teens market and youngs market. There has been a major change in the attitudes of the people towards ice-cream. It is no more a children refreshment product, but a product of all ages and occasions. The giants in this market are Kwality, Lazza, Uncle John, Dairy Day and Arun. Besides these many are entering into Indian market leading to increased competition among themselves. The marketer of a new ice cream brand who wants to enter Indian market wants to understand consumer behaviour interms of awareness, preferences, attitudes and motives.
You are required to sketch a research design that suits this study.
Focus – Day Tip The real sign of an educated person is his attitude of sameness towards all. |
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