An Encounter with Product Concepts !

Workshop by Mr.Visvanathan, GM- Marketing Services, Cavinkare Pvt. Ltd.

Real life experiences help us understand things better. They provide us the first person view of the matter so that we relate to such things from close quarters. One such fascinating experience was the workshop on Concept development conducted by Mr Visvanathan, General Manager - Marketing Services, Cavin Kare.

The theme of the workshop was to give a first hand view on how a 'good' concept for marketing any product is developed. The various insights that get into making a concept and finally testing it. The effectiveness of the concept can also be tested , thereby giving us means to understand the life cycle of the processes involved in this.

Practically, how brand managers do this exercise is what Mr.Visvanathan took us through during the sunday guest sessions at CBS and it was an exciting journey right from the beginning. As it is a capsule course specially made for Chennai Business school, Mr.Vishy set the stage initially by asking a plethora of questions both at abstract as well as application levels. Then came the seam-less inputs from him, which made is to think differently in conceiving, analysing and finalising about any product concept. It’s always important to understand what goes through the mind of a customer before he buys a particular product. This is the key point for any marketer, using this the product concept for selling it to the customer is developed.

In a nutshell, if one could answer the following questions, one can peep into the mind of a brand manager when he is working on a concept development:

What is the accepted customer belief pertaining to the product in contention?

What are the benefits provided by the product to customer?

What are the reasons to believe this?

Think u can crack them!!!:)...

Another important aspect is the differentiating factor among products and their relevance to their target group. This point was constantly reiterated by him, as he said that most marketers get this wrong. They always concentrate on the differentiating factor and miss out on its relevance. We could actually understand the concept of developing a concept(now that’s called playing with words!!;)) by working on the idea ourselves for brands like Sunsilk shampoo, Meera Herbal Oil and a few more.

But the icing on the cake was when he finally made us to correctly crack those questions mentioned above for various products, putting us in the shoes of a brand manager . Now that’s what you call a really rewarding experience. It never seemed to be just another sunday as we got one more arrow in our marketing quiver. Sharp.

By Pradeep , Marcom Varsity ,CBS

See thro this Lens - Making of a TV Commercial

Session @ CBS by Mr. Jayendra Panchapakesan, Director, Real Image Media Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

At first glance, he looked like Mr Mani Ratnam with that typical smile and trademark French beard. I wasn't very far from my guess, he belongs to the same fraternity of creative geniuses. It was wonderful to have an afternoon session with Mr Jayendra ,Director- Real Image Media Technologies Ltd.

Coming with loads and loads of experience from the Advertising background, he gave us a lot to learn when it came to understanding the intricacies involved in making an ad film.

The session started with his explanation on how an Idea gets transformed into a script. Then it takes the form of a storyboard before coming out as an Ad film .

The processes can be split as pre production , production and post production tasks.

There were a lot of interesting details that one has to look into while making an ad. He shared his experiences while making the ad film for TATA Coorg. The idea was simple. It just had to convey the freshness of the beans that went into making the coffee powder. But the ad had to show this through a multitude of other shots which drive home this point. The problems that they faced while canning those shots were really jaw dropping, but as they say, every problem has a solution. The means they adopted to successfully tackle those issues and come out with a beautiful ad was something to write home about.The way his shots were canned at different locations and when all of them were edited to form the final ad that we saw on screen, the effect was out of the world.

It was very pleasing to hear from him the fact that any form of stereotype involved while conceiving and executing a shot , should be trashed. After all Creativity is the food for such film makers, and Mr Jayendra seemed to have enough of it in his diet.:)

There was another instance where he discussed the importance of an Ad in conveying a thought taking a different route. He believed that there had to be a surprise element attached to the story being told on screen and that was very evident from the Pepsodent Ad he had shot . The story had to convey the strong teeth one gets by using Pepsodent toothpaste. The analogy used to explain this was a Ghatam* player, where the Ghatam player ended up breaking the instrument at the end of the jugalbandi he had with the kid who continued winning playing music on his teeth. Fantastic, yet simple. Kudos Sir.

Through the session he also gave us insights into the different types of cameras used for canning different style of ad films. A thorough supporter of technology, he threw light on the fact on how the quality of making ad films has evolved over a period of time. No wonder it comes from some one who revolutionised the film industry with cutting-edge technology like Avid, Qube etc.

Yet another dose of input from real-world experience. As we always say, its learning for the real world at Chennai Business School......

* The ghatam is a percussion instrument, used in the Carnatic music of South India. It is an earthenware pot; the artist uses the fingers, thumbs, palms, and heels of the hands to strike the outer surface of the ghatam

By Pradeep , Marcom Varsity ,CBS

Let’s Crack this Interview!!!

How will you feel if you knew what the interviewer thinks exactly when you are answering his queries during an interview?..Hmmm...doesn’t this sound exciting!!!!We always wish , we had the power to crack that one....

Well, I may not exactly be able to find an answer to that question, but I am sure to get closer to the thought process of an interviewer during an interview after this experience with Mr Shyam C.Raman , Senior VP-HR, Murugappa Group.

Mr Shyam addressed us about the pros and cons involved while attending an interview. Hang on,But there is a twist in the tale. This was not a linear narrative as you are thinking now, but a little hatke. He asked us to become the interviewer and attack him with all possible questions from our side. Hence the entire session was from his point of view of attending an interview. This way it was interesting to know what experience does to a man, he almost hit the nail on all questions and cleared all our doubts as far as an interview goes.

It was wonderful to see how the mind of an interviewer works while he listens to the answers from a candidate. In fact he broke all myths regarding interviews including the ones that say “ an interview is over in the first 5 mins of its start”.

He also emphasised on the importance of ethics and values , as he gave instances of fraud and malpractices involved in the informations available on people’s resume these days.

Apart from this there was a lot of information shared from his side regarding what could be the roles offered by companies as far as Human resource department is concerned.

The best part of the chat was when he spoke about the economy being good and there was no need to panic, everyone could be assured of a job. Thanks for the optimism sir!!!Mera number aayega...:)

By Pradeep , Marcom Varsity ,CBS

Chennai says ‘Hi’ to Cannes!!!

Fridays have always been a day that I ve looked forward to since the day i joined CBS..Initially it was for the reason that it was signified the end of a week...but of late it has been for the Guest lectures that I get to attend ..The kind of knowledge and information that one gets by listening and interacting with them is worth cherishing..

One such instance was the rendezvous with Ms.Saroja Kannan..an entrepreneur, who runs an organisation that serves online tutors helping students in their academic challenges.

Her Company, TutorVista , provides online support through tutors who attend children calling from across the world to help them resolve their queries regarding academics.

Saroja Kannan possesses a wonderful portfolio when it comes to managing her career. After having worked in the marketing Stream for 5.5 years ,she started her own firm that was a pioneer in applying the concept of direct marketing .Her first clients were Standard Chartered Bank and American Express, for whom they started providing information from the customer feedback about their Banks. This helped them profile their customers on a longer period of time and create a database from which they could target customers according to their services provided.

It was quite an experience to know what direct marketing meant from the person who successfully applied it. But the best part of the lecture was yet to come....I was waiting to hear from the horse’s mouth about her experience in Cannes ,where she won the award for a pathbreaking Ad .

Without testing your patience I ll get into it right away. This was during her stint with Ogilvy, where she was handed over the responsibility of the Chennai Office. It was also the time when RPG mobile was at its peak in providing mobile connections to chennaites. Airtel had already established itself as a big market player by then. Hutch was entering the Chennai market and it had these challenges to encounter.

So the stage was set...The way she went ahead promoting Hutch through the creative Ad that targeted the crème da la creme of the city is awe inspiring. With a time span of 48hrs to convince the Head of Hutch, Chennai region with an interesting Ad concept was not a joke by any means. Having done all this , the real challenge was in getting the idea executed without leaving any loose end was just out of the world.

The idea of targeting the cream of the society formed the crux of the promotion. With a list of nearly 2000 top personalities of Chennai, it was made sure that every person received a personalised Economic Times paper. This came as a pleasant surprise to each of these personalities and made an impact right away across the fraternity..

Her way of saying ‘Hi’ to the city was acknowledged by the jury at Cannes, which awarded her “The Golden Lion” trophy .This apparently was also the first time any Ad agency from this part of the country had won anything like this.

Never knew addressing in English had so much value in life...jokes apart,It was quite an interesting insight into one’s career ,which has been an exciting one from the word Go....

These wonderful people and their experiences are the ones that make Life really interesting and exciting at CBS....Looking forward to some more of them....After all, Dil Maange More.....

By Pradeep ,Marcom Varsity ,CBS

Art of Selling in India- -Mr. Narayanan

We had a lively, interactive session on the 8th of November, with Mr. Narayanan, a strategic marketing consultant and a veteran marketing specialist who provided us with an interesting as well as factual insight in the area of sales and distribution, mainly within our Indian subcontinent.

The guest lecture got off to an interesting start with the students interacting freely with the speaker. Mr. Narayanan touched upon various key concepts that were crucial to the field of sales and distribution. He made the lecture very easy to understand by quoting several situations he had been part of, and used these real-life examples to relate to the underlying principles of sales and distribution. Even dry topics like excise duty, tax issues etc. became very interesting with the way in which it was delivered. For people who normally see the glamour of advertising and branding, the ‘real world’ issues of duties and tax and the way it affects the pricing and the brand buttressed the importance of a 360degree understanding of market issues.

Mr. Narayanan also discussed the basic roles performed by the clearing and forwarding agents (CNFA), who played a key factor in the distribution system.

Next, the evolution of modern trade, and it’s impact on sales & distribution was discussed and this led to a brainstorming session where students pitched in with their thoughts on the changes that are unfolding in the present market situation.

A very interesting case in point during the discussion on retail supply-chain was Mr.Narayanan’s experiences with potato procurement for his business and the fluctuating supply levels of potatoes in the market. This was a very interesting anecdote and helped the students analyze the situation from the perspectives of the farmer, the buyer, the transporter, the distributor and the cold storage infrastructure provider.

He also dealt in detail about the advent of private labels and also discussed the specific channel issues and power shifts in sectors like Education, Book publishing, Restaurant & Retail and Franchising.

Finally, we established a clear understanding of push and pull strategies and learnt that a manufacturer cannot survive entirely depending on pushing his products. An example quoted was about a famous toothpaste brand and its push strategy on other items such as toothbrushes, after-shave, etc.

Mr.Narayanan provided the students with a deep insight in the field of sales and distribution, far beyond the reach of textbooks, by using real-life situations and examples to help strengthen the key concepts. To sum it up …decades of experience was transferred in a capsule and that too in a very interesting fashion.
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Mr. Narayanan is a veteran marketing specialist with decades of experience in handling brands of Cocacola, Nestle and also popular for his Bigfun brand of chewing gum and the Dosa King concept.

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By Swaminathan , Marcom Varsity ,CBS

Drilling through the Mind

Session on positioning by Mr. Prakash Idnani, Trout & Partners


You can always find any marketing practitioner familiar with atleast three big names in Marketing. One is Philip Kotler and the other two will certainly be Al Ries and Jack Trout. The duo brought a new perspective to the marketing practice. No marketers would have missed their books , "Positioning " and " 22 immutable laws of marketing "

One of our first book review assignments in CBS was to review these books and from then onwards we were quite excited about Ries & Trout and their marketing point of view. It was all the more exciting to listen to Mr.Prakash Idnani from Trout & Partners.

His session was on the whole very interesting and vivacious. He gave an entirely different perspective of branding and marketing. He was more passionate throughout his class and he kindled all our thought processes his questions.
He talked in detail about the various marketing laws and more importantly linked them to the Indian business environment. He also spoke a lot about "Principles of Marketing Warfare ." He had lot of good examples. He also shared the whole story of " Southwest Airlines" in an interesting fashion and also with lot of business truths.

The whole crux of the session was on how to tackle the Mind of the Consumer and How a consumer's Mind work. He took us through business examples on how Minds are limited, Minds hate Confusion, Minds are Insecure, etc. The session ended with a case study on promotion of " Grenada " as a tourist hot spot.

By Swaminathan ,Marcom Varsity ,CBS

Media – the other creative !!!

Session by Mr. Naresh Alambara , General Manager & Head, Starcom Worldwide, Chennai

Media , doesn’t this term cause a flutter in everyone’s life these days?...Looks like anything you do, anything you say, in fact,anything you think ..is also out there in the tabloids making headlines ...Don’t believe me???...Well, then let’s see what Mr Naresh Alambara , General Manager, Starcom Worldwide has to say on this ...

This was one amazing session we had that gave us insights on the role of media and how does all the planning to use media take place in advertising world.

He started with explaining the role of media with respect to the agency and the marketing team of the client for any product or event. The place where media fits in here is where it has to ensure a particular communication reaching the consumer. This helps the consumer come in contact with the message by various channels including TV, Radio, Hoardings, Internet and Print to say...

When the discussion slowly shifted towards movies being a major channel for advertising in today’s era, he gave us instances of the experiences he had with “Western Union Money Transfer” being placed in various movies as in-spot ads. This was interesting to note as he said that in order to satisfy these in-spot advertisements, scenes used to be written in movies solely for this purpose. No wonder we end up passively watching more ads in movies.

The importance of reach and the frequency of reach was taught to us by the example of Tamil Daily Dinakaran's stupendous growth in Chennai market.

Apart from the media nuggets, we understood that today we are being watched by someone constantly .So don’t be surprised to see yourself in the newspaper or on TV , the next morning. It doesn’t take much to be there....:)

By Pradeep , Marcom Varsity ,CBS

It’s All About Ads

Ads have always fascinated me..I have always wondered about the thought process that goes into conceiving an ad..Every day there is a new ad that one comes across through print ,audio, visual medium....So the one thing that is in abundance in the world is CREATIVITY, which these people are able to exploit.....

Interesting isn’t it...No points for guessing ,.Yes, this is about the Mad Ad world..

Meeting a person from this world can never be short of anything incredible..Yes, we at CBS were able to experience this incredibility...

Mr Kevin D’Souza, VP & Branch Head ,Lowe Advertising Agency was responsible for that experience. Its always exciting to find out the way an ad agency works. After all ,the wonderful ads that we get to see and hear everyday is a brainchild of various parents.:)It was interesting and enlightening to know the various departments that exist in an ad agency. It’s amazing to see how these teams work in tandem to churn out creative ideas day in and day out.

The various stages that are involved in making an ad, right from the time of the idea that gets generated to the last stage of getting it executed in the same way as it was conceived on paper were a few topics that he introduced us to. Apart from this ,he also gave us an insight on the various roles that we could play on joining an Ad agency. This was the best part of the chat for me personally, After all you are reading through the words of a future Ad man...

Thanks a lot Kevin. This was just a tip of the iceberg, in your words. We are looking forward to many more of such chats in the future ...After all we have just stepped into the Mad Ad world!!!

High on Emotions!!!!

The best part about studying in CBS is the kind of surprises that one gets to encounter every day, the even better part is that they all end up being pleasant ones. This is one of those pleasant surprises , a tete-a tete with Mr Ashok Mirza,Chairman, Apcom Systems India.

I had never been exposed to this perspective on Entrepreneurship the way I was until that day. This was one amazing experience as it helped me look at the concept of entrepreneurship from a different level.

Well, whats that perspective I am talking about?..Whats that thing that nobody else has dealt with while discussing about entrepreneurship?..Let me end the suspense.....

EMOTIONS...This word when used in context with entrepreneurship ,changes the entire persona of the entrepreneurs. And that was the impact of Mr Mirza’s thoughts on me.

The point of view that one has to become a successful entrepreneur is always the oft repeated clichéd –have good money ,good business model,good team and you have the perfect recipe.

But this view is only for the weak hearted.To be an entrepreneur,one must be a rebel.A rebel against fear, a rebel against failure.It’s the big heart ,apart from a big pocket,that helps you sustain a business in today’s world.When such a point of view comes from the person who quits IBM to start his own business,we cannot ignore but sit up and take notice of it.

Its interesting to know who such people appreciate among their peers.Mr.Mirza had high regards for Azeem Premji from Wipro,whom he had met on quite a few occasions. The reason behind mentioning him was quite an interesting thought in itself.

He said its usual to admire people from who have made it big without any backing, but Mr.Premji was unique as coming from a business family and making it big was nothing unusual,but remaining humble and unassuming having come from such a background is something that stands out in him...Point noted Sir!!!

“Why are you trying to kill somebody,who is already committing suicide.....”

Hang on , hang on...Stop wondering about why the above statement has found a place in this document..Well, You have to be Crazy to be a successful entrepreneur...And this is how it all begins...............:)....

By Pradeep , Marcom Varsity, CBS

A creative tour through the ad world !!

We come across so many ads in our day to day life.some are extremely good, some are really humorous...some make us think..while the rest make us cry(for the sole reason that we are made to go through such pathetic stuffs in our lifetime)..So who are these people who make us come across such ads? What goes into making such ideas and getting them on to the public eye?...

We entered this exciting world of ads with Ms. Indu Balachandran, Former Exec. Director, JWT.

It was one an eye opening experience to all of us who are aspiring to chart a career path in the field of advertising.She started of with her explanation of what the word ‘Idea’ means in the field of advertising.It’s extremely important for people who wanna make mark in advertising to understand the relevance and importance of generating ideas.

This world is only for people who can think insanely to get a sane idea.If the previous line made any sense then you would be able to get a perspective of what I am trying to say.:)

Indu was at her best during the session when she helped us understand the difference between writing a good , interesting creative brief from a lousy , lazy one.Her inputs on how to think differently and grasp the important points while essaying a creative brief helped us understand how it can help in eventually creating an interesting Ad.

She shared some of her best moments and campaigns during her stint with JWT .

During the course of her session, we even got a chance to create our own versions of a few TVC’s and present it our way before her. This was the high point of the session.

This rendezvous would always remain on the top of my favourites list and I hope it would get revamped and refurbished yet again . We are eagerly waiting for yet another journey with this creative Globetrotter ! Quite literally !

By Pradeep ,Marcom Varsity ,CBS