Adspeak- BOGOF..!!!

"Buy one, get one free", or "Buy one, get one" is probably one of the most common forms of sales promotion… If out of 10 ads, today 7 are of sales promotion type( three of the brand building type), atleast 5 would be of the buy one get one type… Customers may not know this acronym but every where and in every shoping situation, they come across this format of sales promotion….. It is regarded as one of the most effective forms of special offers for goods but only as long as your competetors don’t copy you ( which they often do) ...

It would have started off as an abrupt end of the season stock clearance method used by shops and merchants who were still with a large quantity of stock that they were looking to sell quicklyfor want of stocking space and changing season… But as in various practices in Marketing, later on it become a popular, planned and considered marketing method...

I think the pioneers had been the gramaphone record companies right from the older days to the DVD/CD guys of today. Last day I was buying a DVD and it said free DVD inside.. When I asked the shop sales man can I know which is that INSIDE DVD , he stared at me as if I had asked him something quite strange..

Why should you know.. It is anyway free.. You are buying one and you are getting one free…

The success of this promotion lies in the fact that for the price of one, two items are being sold. The price of "one" is somewhat nominal and is typically raised when used as part of a buy one get one free deal. Whilst the cost per item is proportionately cheaper than if bought on its own, it is not actually half price…. But who cares.. I guess people fall easily into the trap… My friend who is a Market research analyst was telling me that most people buy things that they don’t want just because they think they are getting it free….

Buy one get one free is neverthless a popular sales technique because it can be used legally at any time, unlike many other offers…. It is a great tool to attract new users but to retain them , this may not be enough ….

Tail piece: BOGOF sounds so very similar to BOGUS as in fake… Now , is that just a coincidence?

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A salesman was demonstrating unbreakable comb combo sets in a department store. He was impressing the people who stopped by to look by putting the comb through all sorts of torture and stress.... HE held both (BOGOF) combs and did all the tricks... Some protested and said when two combs are held together, it will not break in any case.. so to impress the skeptics in the crowd, he took one comb out, bent the comb completely in half, and it snapped with a loud crack. Without missing a beat, he bravely held up both halves of the 'unbreakable' comb for everyone to see and said, "And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what an unbreakable comb looks like on the inside."

Crouching audiences, hidden products - Part III

My article as appeared in the Advertising express magazine of February 2010...... continued from part II

The Audience Intolerance Threshold Quadrangle

The above discussion sufficiently makes it clear that when over used, Product placements in TV and Cinema can backfire and be counter productive. In this angle the concept of Audience Intolerance Threshold Quadrangle needs to be visited.

The Audience Intolerance Threshold Quadrangle is an after effect of four elements....

Prominence

Too much of importance to one or two products in a programme

Parade

Clumsy lining up of many products, with no editorial justification

Patter

Long-winded sales talk done by hero & heroine of TV programme, as if it is part of the story..

Partnership

The unholy relation between the media, advertiser, his agencies and the producer of the programme ignoring the TG


These four elements of the Audience intolerance threshold quadrangle need to be analyzed in the changed conditions and the better audiences that watch TV and cinema as compared to the past. Marketers need to understand the reason why not all communication (ads and product placements including) do not work with the market place.

Marketers have to get more realistic about the common sense of the average TV viewer /movie-goer and analyze the four factors before finalizing on a product placement deal next. The audience who grabs the remote on a commercial break cannot be made intolerant by showing long advertisements that pretend to be part of the show/movie which in any case will compromise the artistic quality of the show/movie.

Marketers have to bear the Separation principle, where it is a must to maintain appropriate separation between the programme and the advertising content. How appropriate is appropriate, is a question that marketers have to ask themselves before adventuring with a parade of products and brands, to glare from the story with prominence, to bore the people with patter and to reveal the unholy partnership to the angry target audience. People in countries like ours will not understand that this is a method of revenue generation for the producer of the film and hence tolerate it.

Greedy marketers will have to take care of the prominence part, the brand staying on in the show/movie and irritating the viewer. It is better to pass off and be remembered than remain there and not to be seen at all. Greedy channels will have to avoid parading, (the naked display of brands in an easy route to make money) to avoid people switching off the show and going to other channels. Greedy script writers will have to rethink, next time they pen dialogues that starts and ends with brand names, an easy recipe to disaster. And the greedy who is who in the marketing world- the advertiser, the ad agency, the product placement agency, the TV channel/cinema producer-director-script writer, the sponsors- each one will have to think how fair it is to over do this?

How long will this last?

How much over cooking can you do?

When TV programmes go abroad this ends up in even bigger troubles. For instance the UK media regulation authority Ofcom came heavily on Sony TV and its Indian Idol programme for blatant use of “LG KP199 mobile phone” and its virtues which violated the rules there.(This was when the programme was shown in UK for the people of Indian origin who lives there)

Guidelines for making it better

1. Distinguish between serious involvement and low involvement, whether in TV or in cinema and treat them suitably. Avoid serious programmes.

2. Product integration should be the aim, not some how product insertion which will look artificial.

3. Do not treat product placements as an opportunity to advertise alcohol and cigarettes in surrogate.

4. Use it only when editorially justifiable and to enhance practicality.

5. Try being in the back ground-Remember, passive placements with a trigger, scores more than others.

6. Bring in regulation- self is better, and ASCI can also form guidelines, at the earliest.

7. Measuring the effectiveness of product placements should be more seriously dealt with and care should be taken to make it believable.

8. Be innovative- Like Maruthi Swift which introduced the car for the first time in the film “Bunty aur Bubbly”

9. Be target specific… If you are selling women’s wear ,insert your brand and its message in a “Balika badhu” and not in “the buck stops here”.

10. Look for noticeability . It doesn’t help you being in the parade.


Summary

Product placements are a wonderful opportunity to reach the target audience, who are captive, without transferring to them a feeling of ‘being sold’. Since it is a best tool for passive learning, it can work wonders as seen in this article. It requires co ordination of all the parties involved, proper planning, and a realistic and long term approach to reap the benefits without throwing the audience into intolerance. The rule is simple- reaching more eyeballs and /or staying more time in those eyeballs need not mean more sales.

It is the proverbial golden goose, this whole business of product placements in the content, but greed should not kill it like the one in fables.

Crouching audiences, hidden products - Part II

My article as appeared in the Advertising express magazine of February 2010......

Why YES and why NO to product placements?

Belch and Belch identifies the following advantages and disadvantages of product placements in TV and Cinema 4 which in Indian circumstances will be applicable as under.

Why yes?

1). The number of TV and Cinema viewing populace is ever on the increase (in1999 the Indian spend on movies and theatre was just 1 % whereas by 2003 it rose to 4.6% of the total spend) and this results in more exposure for the products thus placed. Combined with this, the ratings of individual programmes if high also makes sure that, the so placed product falls in more eyeballs. If the programme is a popular serial, more people see it again and again and thus the opportunity to see (frequency) also goes up.

2). Products that become part of the silver screen or the TV screen acts as a supportive media in promotion. If the in programme product placement is followed by an Ad of the same product in the next commercial break, the possibilities of a brand recall is quite a high than in a simple ‘commercial break advertising’.

3). Source association is one prominent advantage of product placements. The star or the programme and its appeal will automatically transfer to the product placed with the star in the programme. The tales of Tom cruise wearing the Rayban Aviator and the Oakleys in Top gun and MI –2, and the effect it created in the sales of the brand are oft discussed and celebrated.

4). Recall and acceptance among the target audience have been proven to be high in case of product placements. Media planners note that brand recall in case of a normal advertising scene is 18 per cent, but it is three times more – 53 per cent – through product placements in films. Studies indicate that the acceptance of such product placements on western audiences of Cinema is high when the placement is prominent and not hidden (Gupta & Gould 1997).

5) Product placements (if done with common sense) can achieve the best of passive learning and that is proven to be the best to sink in with a brand name into the Target Audience’s mind. People go to cinema to see cinema and watch TV to see the programmes in it and not the commercial breaks. They may tolerate the commercial breaks but not the Commercials that are squeezed into the programme in whatever garb and pretence. In films since there are no commercial breaks the problem is even acute. Slight attention like the way SBI atm’s and its availability in every corner , in the film “Jab we met” and Fevicryl being used by every one in the film “Tare Zameen Par” are beautiful examples.


Why no?

Prohibitively high costs that the production houses charges, without much justification whatsoever is one basic disadvantage in this field. Of course the one main selling point is the CPM rates due to the high exposures, but many times the high cost isn’t valid simply because there is no proof of cost effectiveness. This however doesn’t mean that people are reluctant to be part of such marketing activity but on the contrary are too very happy to be part of it.

The time of exposure is another disadvantage, in product placements. Long drawn scenes, just to make sure that the product on scene is shown long enough, will be precarious. Even otherwise, long exposure is not a guarantee for strong recall. Some times prominence plays a key role and the time of exposure doesn’t matter at all. Media planners are yet to derive a solution for this perplexity.

The advertiser should have a control over when and where his message is placed in a media vehicle. Unfortunately in product placements, it is not possible and lack of control is evident. The producer of the programme, because he has accepted money, from the product owner, will place it ‘somewhere’ but that may not be effective. For instance, no soft drink major would like their products (after having spend a lot of money) placed in the villains den, where the ‘bad guys’ are planning next round of activities, accompanied with liquor or some times even inspired from liquor.

Competition and clutter had made this advertiser breach into the editorial space necessary, but now the ghost follows it there as well. The combine of voracious Programme Producers, insatiable Product placement agencies and naive Marketers has made it all clumsy and clutter is visible here as well. A serial where the hero uses particular denim and a specific brand of hair gel and sufficient care taken to ensure repetition of the brand name, and even a discussion of the virtues of the said brands will cause a chain reaction. Audience apathy will not be that far as the producer and director thinks.

5). Lack of professionalism in the circle is very clear the way things are being taken for a ride now. The more the product is placed, the more prominence for the brand(s) is thrusted upon the programme; the better is the assumption which may turn to be disastrous.

6) Lack of measurement indices is one thing that should make the marketer think twice as to how effective all that throwing in of money will help the marketer to achieve his ROI and that too in testing times like this. Measuring product placements in TV is almost next to impossible. In cinema the results can be judged more, as reported by the western media that when Tom Cruise wore a Ray ban aviator the sales went up by 40 % and with his Oakleys in MI 2 the sales shot up by 80% (Time, January 1998). This is because, cinema gets audiences who are there having made a voluntary choice of exposure, and having spent money for entertainment, unlike television audiences whose involvement and degree of attention is questionable. Moreover, research suggests that people in a cinema hall, no matter what their age and movie going frequency is, actively participated in viewing experience and actively interpreted brands that they encounter there (Delorme et al 1999). But a time tested, believable mechanism to measure the effects in quantitative terms is yet to evolve....

To be continued.... >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>