How millennials are influencing the marketing norms

Ever thought why there is suddenly so much craze for chatbots and Artificial Intelligence? 

Why did facebook come up with facebook live?

Why are all the companies in the world spending so much money on analytics and digital marketing?

The new age companies are now more focused than ever before to reach out to the social animals, chat junkies and the gadget gizmos who are more popularly known as the Millennials.

The Millennial generation is also transforming the way in which companies market their products both online and offline in order to stay relevant.The generation of people now 18-34 years old engage with brands far more extensively and personally than older generations. They expect the brands to behave the same way as they do.

They are driving a transformation of consumer marketing across four elements:

reach, relevance, relation and referral:

§  Reach -- Millennials engage much more extensively with brands through social media and mobile devices than older generations. Millennials check prices, look up product information or search for promotions on their mobile devices while in a store.

§  Relevance -- Millennials say they are most influenced by family, friends, and strangers. They are also twice as likely as Gen-Xers (ages 35-49) to say that they are influenced by celebrities and four times more likely than boomers.

§  Relation -- Nearly twice as many Millennials as boomers cite "availability 24-7" as the most important thing that brands can do to engage them.

§  Referral – Millennials believe in the concept of referrals and influencers play a big role in their decisions to purchase any product.

Bourbon, India’s first premium chocolate biscuit from Britannia had lost its charm, in the sixty years of its existence. The brand wanted to bring back the lost charm and connect with today’s millennial generation.

It announced the launch of a new smartphone called the Bon. The smartphone reportedly ran on Chocolatey 2.0 and had features like power pack, friend finder, auto charge, etc. User participation was boosted with the help of fun contests where the new Bon6 phone was up for grabs.

When the buzz was at its peak during the unboxing, the duo revealed it as the new Bourbon biscuit. Each of the features was also explained: Chocolaty 2.0 because the new Bourbon was ‘thoda aur chocolaty’, Friend Finder because sharing a Bourbon helps you find new friends instantly, Power Pack because it Is available in Hangout pack as well as in a Pocket pack, and more.

Hence going forward brands need to represent the voice of the millennials, speak in their language and also respond in the same manner.

Virtual shall become reality and reality will become virtual.

Indian Car Market:Foreign Brain Vs Desi Dimaag

It started with Hindustan motors in Kolkata, West Bengal, then Premiar, Mahindra & Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland and now India has the manufacturing facility of world’s biggest names in passenger vehicle industry. It has a very feel good effect in the common people of India on the street because they can test the experience the brands like Hyundai, Toyota, Volkswagen, Nissan, Renault, GM, Ford and many more. But the people who are waiting inside the showroom for the customers to selling their ‘Desi’ cars or people in the manufacturing unit whose working days have been reduced from six to four, three or two or have been given VRS to adjust with the low demand of market have lots of reason for feeling not good.

IIM Raipur's Equinox'13 - Day 2

Case study competitions in Finance, Marketing and B-Plan competition set the day 2 for the Equinox ’13, IIM Raipur’s Annual Fest. Finalists from prominent B-Schools all over the country matched their wits against one another in this fest. The teams were evaluated based on their innovative solutions to the cases and their ability to convince the panel on the feasibility of the solution.

First event of the day was “Vardhushik” a pitch book competition to test the participants’ prowess in devising strategies on finance with respect to mergers and acquisitions. The judges of the event were Mr.Amit Shrivastava of Caps academy commerce and Venkat Vijay, faculty of IIM Raipur. The judges gave a deep insight into various methods of valuation and necessary precautions to be taken in due course. The runner up of the event was a team comprising Ellina, Swaminathan from NMIMS whose proposal dealt with the financial scenario in the television sector. The winners was team “Birbulz” comprising Akhil and Sanket from IIFT who focused on the financial scenario in the FMCG sector.

Winners of the B-Plan event

winners of viriddhi
 (event by Consultancy and entrepreneurship club of IIM RP)

The B-Plan event “Udyam” and an on the field event “VRIDDHI” were organized by the consultancy and entrepreneurship club. The B-Plans were from various domains such as telecommunications, health care, food services and online trading. The judges were Mr.Pratik Singhi, CEO, Lakshya Consultancy and an angle investor, Mr. Manjusha Pariyal from ANM consultancy and Mr.Manoj Agarwal, Founder and CEO of Fast Clean. The runner up of the event was Team “Ozone” from NIITE. Then winner of the event was team “Prana” from BIM Tirichy. In on the field event “Viriddhi”, the participants were given an initial amount of Rs.500 and given a day time to multiply their money in the city. A team from SIBM Pune “The Aces” amassed a whopping sum of Rs.6620 in a single day and emerged as a clear winner of the event.

Winners of Case files
Event by the Manthra (Marketing club)

Participants presenting their case study

The marketing event “Case files” was about identifying the means to revive the spirits of the nation’s youth to join “Indian Army”. The Judges of the event were Mr.Amitabh Pande, Vice-President of Marketing, Chhatishgarh region, Ultratech Cement and LLt.Colonel Jagdish Singh Virdhi. The event saw immense display of patriotism and vibrant emotions amongst participants. The runners up was team “WwW” from IIM Raipur and the Winners was team “Birbulz” from IIFT.

The day gave us lots of learnings and exposure just as it promised, and we are looking forward for the more action packed day 3 of Equinox, tomorrow.

Marketing – straight from the horse’s mouth!

On 6^th September, 2012, the students of IIM Raipur had a rare opportunity to interact with a veteran in the marketing domain, Mr. Kartik Raina. He is currently a Senior Advisor with YFactor, a firm which provides Management Advisory Services to FMCG Companies. Mr Raina completed his MBA from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management, Mumbai and has extensive experience in sales and marketing with various MNCs such as P&G, Dabur and Glaxo Smith Kline Consumer Healthcare.

Mr Raina enthralled the students with anecdotes from his days with Dabur, P&G, and Glaxo Smith Kline. He emphasized the importance of understanding consumer behavior, as it has a direct influence on the marketing strategy of the company. He recalled how, in his early days as a sales manager, he was required to observe customers buying Vicks cough drops at chemist shops. His observations made him realize that people bought Vicks drops not only to treat a sore throat but also to consume it as a lemon juice due to oral fixation. This realization led to the positioning of Vicks as a general lozenge, and not as a niche product with medicinal value alone, thereby closing the gap between the stated and secret needs of the consumers.

Mr. Raina then explained how the marketing concepts that we read about in Kotler can be implemented in real life scenario. He showed the flip side too-how some products fail despite having great expectations and stated that 70% of the marketing campaigns end in failure.

The students learnt a lot from this interaction, they clarified their doubts regarding developing brands, using controversies to sensitize masses, and various other concepts in marketing such as Self-referencing conceptual context etc., They were inspired to apply their theoretical knowledge in practical situations once they don the role of marketing managers.

Contributed By : Neha Khapre, PGP 2012-14, she can be reached at pgp12084.neha@iimraipur.ac.in